by Liana Brooks
Mac rested his elbows on the table. “You think we’re missing a bigger crime?”
“Not a crime, a threat. This is a threat,” Sam said, gesturing to the paintings. “There’s something here. Bits and pieces, and I put the puzzle together wrong.”
She stared at the paintings of Alabama. “There was this book when I was a kid with this fuzzy blue guy scared of the monster on the last page. You turned the pages, and at the end, the guy is standing alone.”
“Is this a ‘you have nothing to fear but fear itself’ thing?” Mac asked
“More of an existential thing. Only you can destroy you. You are the real monster.” Sam walked toward the gray landscape.
“And you bring this up because?”
“Because this was a story. Emir was trying to tell a story with his painting. We know how this story ends.” She stopped in front of the first gray portrait of Iteration 1. “It’s the story of Sam, and, spoiler alert! Sam dies.”
“A Sam dies,” Mac said. “One possible you.”
“Jane died. I died. Then I died again. In, what? Three years? Two? A car crash is better than torture, but I’m still dead. Can you hear the clock going ticktock? I’m going to die, sooner rather than later. I know how. I know where. I’ve got a good guess as to why, but I’m missing the who.”
“Spoiler alert, Sam: everyone dies! That’s what ‘THE END’ means. Life isn’t Happily Ever After and riding off into the sunset. Life is death. You die. I die. We all die. Doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you die knowing you did something.”
“What I want to do is find my killer and put him in the ground. I feel like raging against the dying light.”
“Well. Good. Juanita Doe is a homicide, let’s solve it. It’s one more death in the ten thousand.”
“The what?”
“Every life is ten thousand deaths. You’ve never heard it before?” Mac asked. Sam shook her head. “You exist because of death. People who lived and died and in between had children who lived and died as your ancestors. All the plants and animals you consume. They die so you can live. Ten thousand deaths, and the goal is to make your death one of the ten thousand that brings a new and better life to the world. ”
Sam frowned. “Ten thousand? That sounds low. If we’re talking about every lettuce leaf or grain of rice, ten thousand barely covers a week.”
“It’s a poem. It’s meant to be metaphorical.”
“Terrible poem. That’s going to bother me, you know. Instead of wondering about sodium content of my dinner, I’m going to wonder how many trees I’ve killed before they could grow because I’m eating almond slices. Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
“We have a problem,” Edwin said as he slammed the door open.
“No donuts?” Mac asked.
“There’s a guy who sent a thing to the news saying he killed you, ma’am,” Edwin said as he gulped in air.
“A guy sent a thing?” Sam raised an eyebrow.
Edwin waved his hand. “A video thingy? It’s playing on the channels downstairs, and the office phone keeps ringing. There’s a news crews outside!”
Sam shut her eyes. “Of course there is.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Edwin asked.
“I’m going to go down and hold a press conference. I’ll tell everyone I’m not dead. And then I’m going to schedule a meeting with the regional director and explain this.”
“Does the regional director have the security clearance for this?” Mac asked.
“He’s going to have to get that expedited.”
There was quite the crowd outside when Sam arrived. Traditional camera people and reporters were vying for spots with the automated media bots, all creating a ruckus that would put a rowdy preschool to shame. The head of the WIC office glared at Sam and told her the CBI was not invited to this year’s Christmas party. Sam just adjusted her blazer and painted on a sardonic smile.
She stepped out into the sunshine, briefly wishing she were home in Toronto, and raised her hand. “Quiet down please. Thank you. Thank you for responding so promptly. Our field office had just received the news of the death threat when the junior agent noticed you gathering.” She didn’t add that a flock of vultures had more decorum. Saints and angels knew she’d gotten an earful after snapping at a reporter during the trial last summer in Alabama. “Now, if we can do this in an orderly fashion, I’d like to answer your questions and get back to work. Let’s not waste the taxpayer’s time. First question?”
A woman in a red blouse raised her hand at a fraction of the speed of light. “Mandy Martin, Channel 9 news. Is it true that your car was in an accident this morning?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “My vehicle was taken from the repair shop by an unidentified woman. She was subsequently in a fatal hit-and-run accident. The police are working with the CBI to identify the driver of the other vehicle.”
A man crowding his way to the front jumped in as she took a breath. “Agent Rose, is it true that you are a clone?”
She raised both her eyebrows. “No. Are you from Channel 2?”
“Stach Christel, Channel two evening news, in-depth reports on everything you need to know,” the reporter rattled off in a single breath. “You were accused of being a clone a few months ago. Do you still deny it?”
“I do. My blood work was made public and tested by independent labs,” Sam said, teeth grinding together as she smiled.
Another hand. “Richone Lawley. Agent Rose, was the woman killed in the hit-and-run this morning your shadow?”
“No,” Sam said. “I don’t own a shadow. I don’t support cloning though I do continue to openly support clone rights and equality. The victim of this morning’s accident has yet to be identified, but we will be doing genetic testing.”
“What about the man who claims to have killed you?” another reporter shouted. “Do you know who he is?”
Sam took a deep breath and smiled beatifically. “I haven’t had a chance to watch the video sent to the news stations, but this”—she held up a packet of manila folders—“is the current death-threat log for this bureau office for the year. Three months into the year, and this is our seventeenth death threat. All of them are fully investigated. We invite the public to help us. To that end, copies of the death threats will be sent to every media outlet in the district. Citizens are invited to review the files and report their findings to the bureau. Additionally, since this is a hit-and-run accident, the county has offered a five-thousand-dollar cash reward—nontaxable—to anyone with a tip that leads to the arrest and conviction of the other driver.”
There was a buzz in the crowd, and the reporters called in to their station executives.
Mandy Martin’s hand raised again. “Agent Rose, does the bureau have a record of events like this happening before?”
“Hit-and-run accidents or car theft?” Sam asked. She shook her head. “The bureau is aware of similar incidents, but there’s no known record of someone’s targeting and killing bureau agents with vehicular trauma.” At least not to her knowledge. People hunting bureau agents hadn’t ever been something she felt the need to study.
“Agent Rose, why were you targeted?”
“You’d have to ask the man trying to kill me I’m afraid. His motives are a mystery to me. If he’d like to turn himself in so we can discuss his concerns, I am more than willing to sit down and speak with him.” Sam held up her hand. “One last question, please. The rest of your concerns can be directed to the field office and will be responded to in a timely fashion.” Poor Edwin. She probably owed him dinner for putting him on phone duty.
“Agent Rose—Fellis Marr of Channel 7 news. My station can find no record of a felon named Nialls Gant on the public record. Is there a reason his record is not public? Is it true what they’re saying on social media, tha
t Gant is a government agent? Is this the start of a political coup in Florida?”
Sam really wished she’d had the time to watch the blasted video before she’d come to the conference. But, that was politics. You lied and you smiled. She smiled. “To the best of our knowledge, Nialls Gant is an alias. The bureau has no information on him. The bureau welcomes citizens to send us information that they have. If the bureau finds information that the public needs to know, we will make it accessible through the usual media channels.”
She tried not to think of the last time the bureau had updated the regional Web site. Probably not since the last round of budget cuts in ’68. She’d have to pull out the handbook on bureau transparency to see what she was actually allowed to share. Usually, it was just enough information to keep the public asking questions and not enough to let them form vigilante mobs.
With a final smile, she retreated to the air-conditioned bliss of the office building. She didn’t relax until she was in the elevator headed upstairs, but even then, she felt like she’d painted a bull’s-eye on her back. Someone wanted her dead, and now she knew his name.
“That . . . that . . .” Gant struggled to find the proper term for Detective Rose.
“Starts with a B,” Donovan said. “Ends with an ITCH.”
“No, she’s more than a common street cur.” Gant’s lip curled in a sneer. “She’s a disease. A plague. A destroying angel from the pits of hell. How, in the name of rational thought and humanistic endeavor, did that woman survive? How did she get through the machine? I thought if she left at a different point in time, she’d go somewhere else.”
“Maybe she followed straight after and landed somewhere in the city instead of the swamps,” he said as he pulled out a knife and rag.
Gant rolled his eyes. “Impossible. Even if she had, how did she find us?”
Donovan finished wiping down the knife blade he was polishing. “Probably followed the same lead we had. There’s one way back home. Detective Rose can’t want to stay here any more than we do. The window’s closing. We want out. She wants out. We’re all after the same thing. We’re bound to cross paths.”
“We did cross paths,” Gant reminded him. “Violently.” He stalked back to the other end of the motel suite and flicked the TV on. The local news stations had been playing variations of Detective Rose’s interview all morning. The navy blazer was a ghastly dull color on her, but it made her blend in. The reporters nattered on in English. Detective Rose responded in kind. It was a carjacking gone wrong. Someone had stolen her car. She was uninjured. No, they had no leads. They didn’t know who Nialls Gant was.
They didn’t know who he was! Nialls Gant, the man who was the focus of the nation’s largest manhunt. His had been the trial of the century! For weeks, he had dominated the headlines. He’d commanded the attention of everyone from the northern territories to Tapachula. How dare the media act as if they’d never heard of him! As if he’d never been born.
Cold fingers of dread curled around his spine, raising gooseflesh on his arms. “Donovan?”
“Eh?”
“This place, this period of history, were we born here?”
Donovan shuffled, moving his gear around. “Who knows? Probably.”
“Probably isn’t an adequate answer. You said you knew how the machine worked.”
“I do. I got it to turn on, didn’t I?”
Gant closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten. In Greek. Then Swahili. “Understanding how to turn a machine on is not the same as understanding how it works. Turning a doorknob isn’t the same thing as picking a lock!”
“You okay?” Donovan moved in front of the TV with a serious frown. “Why does it matter? We’re leaving here.”
“We left our own time and came here instead of going back to the day before I committed my crimes, which was—if you recall—the original intent of this expedition.”
Donovan shrugged, his shoulder holster sliding as he did. “Who cares? It was a miscalculation. No one’s chasing us.”
“Detective Rose is chasing us.”
“Nah, we’re chasing her. The bimbo on the TV doesn’t have a dime on us. She doesn’t know us from God Himself.” He kicked the TV so sparks flew as the glass cracked. “Enough of this. We’re getting the machine, and we’re leaving. You’re still with me, aren’t you, Gant?”
Gant looked coldly at his erstwhile partner. “Naturally.”
“Then gear up. I’m tired of listening to people speak English all the time.”
Sam tossed Henry Troom’s day planner on her desk. There were still several notebooks retrieved from his apartment to read over, plus the reams of paper found in boxes at the storage unit. Edwin had given up on the notebook and passed it off to Mac.
Crossing her arms, she laid her head on the desk. Poor Henry. It must have seemed like such a clever idea. He already knew how the machine worked. Controlling it was a matter of math. With the right formula, he was able to calculate when and where he needed to turn on a machine to connect to the morning of July 4, 2069, behind the lab. Going back to save Dr. Emir probably made perfect sense. Troom controlled every variable.
Except the gun.
The real shame was that if Troom had used the stupid machine the way Emir intended, he wouldn’t have been at risk at all. He would have sent a paper airplane through to his past self and warned him. Told him to call Dr. Emir or the police.
No, that wouldn’t have worked . . . because she’d ignored those messages.
The guilt still ate at her.
Emir had called in the wee hours of the morning. He’d been on the phone minutes before he died, and she’d done nothing. Fear had kept her locked in place. She liked to think it was a sensible fear.
Chances were good that if she had driven out to the lab before dawn that day, she would have been just as a dead as Emir. Marrins was a senior agent who was both racist and sexist. He wouldn’t have let her walk away. But the choice still haunted her. Maybe it had haunted Henry, too. Only he’d had the guts to try.
Sam poked her computer. Theoretically, the calculations could be done backward. She knew when and where Henry had gone, so she should be able to calculate where he’d started the journey, but the math wasn’t adding up.
The door to her office swung open as someone knocked.
“You’re supposed to knock, then enter, Mac.” She put her head down.
“Funny you knew it was me,” he said. There was the sound of one of the cheap metal chairs from the front office being dragged across the floor.
“Everyone else knocks and waits for a response.”
He snorted in amusement. “That’s great for them. I have a question for you, purely bureau business. Have you ever taken advanced physics?”
“No.” She lifted her head. “Why?”
Mac tossed the journal on her desk. “Agent Edwin gave up before he got to the good parts. Does that handwriting look familiar?”
Sam turned the journal around and read over the notes made in purple pen. “That’s . . . my handwriting? What in the name of the saints is going on?” She flipped the pages. “How much is there?”
“Quite a few pages.”
“But . . . how? Why? Why would anyone mimic my handwriting?”
The look he gave her suggested sarcasm without saying anything.
Sam blinked. “You think this is my writing?”
“It probably belongs to the Jane Doe with the purple shirt,” Mac said. “She’s a variation of you. An iteration of you, I guess.”
She read over the notes again. “What is a stabilizing core?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Iterations . . . half of this is gibberish.”
Mac’s smile was one of fatigue but not quite defeat.
“Tell me you have good news.”
“Come on up to the co
nference room. Edwin and Clemens have cooked up a plausible theory.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Is it going to lead to the end of this madness?”
“It’s sort of like a road map on how to get there.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, where X marks the apocalypse.”
“You need to work on your pep talks, MacKenzie.”
Ivy looked up as laughter echoed through the hall. Agent Rose and Agent MacKenzie walked in, joking about something, their eyes never leaving each other. She sighed. One day someone’s eyes would light up when they saw her. And not with greed as they realized what she was and mentally priced out her body parts at a chop shop.
“So,” Agent Rose said, “I hear you two have solved the Grand Unification Theory? Ready to share?”
“It’s not quite particle physics,” Edwin said. “But Officer Clemens has linked almost everything together.”
All eyes were on her. “I’m not sure how much of this will hold up in court,” Ivy said hesitantly. Agent Rose didn’t move to stop her, so she went on. “Dr. Troom’s journal shows two set periods of time.”
“Arguably three,” Edwin said.
“You wouldn’t win that argument,” Ivy said. At least he wouldn’t win it with her. “The journal starts with very basic notes about how the machine could work, what might be needed to contact other iterations, and a detailed list of his dreams. Dr. Troom seemed to believe that he wasn’t dreaming so much as witnessing the end of an iteration.” She nodded to Edwin, hoping he’d help.
He nodded. “Troom made notes of three major kinds of events: expansion, decoherence, and convergence. During expansion, the iterations break apart. During decoherence, they collapse into each other. During convergence, the iterations run parallel . . . struggling for dominance.”
Agent Rose and Agent MacKenzie both looked perplexed.
Officer Clemens tried to think of an analogy that would work. “Think of a hundred particles of light racing in a sine wave, up and down, up and down. Each color of light travels at a different speed or wavelength. Some particles reach higher or dip lower along the wave pattern. But at some point, they overlap. That’s what we think timelines are doing. Each iteration is traveling at its own pace, but sometimes they run parallel, and we have a convergence. The woman who died in the car wreck had to cross over during a convergence event,” Ivy said.