by Liana Brooks
“Don’t you dismiss me!” Gant shrieked, straining away from his captors. “I’m worth ten of him! Ten! Do you even know who I am?”
Emir looked at him. “You are nothing. Donovan is an einselected node.”
Gant gasped in shock. “A pillar?”
“You’ve heard of them?” Emir’s voice couldn’t have been more surprised if a fish rode a unicycle past him. “The beasts are learning, Commander. What do you make of that?”
“They’re still only shadows of things,” Rose said. “When we’re done, this one won’t even be a memory.”
Sam’s phone rang with a piercing wail she’d programmed in for Ivy Clemens. She grabbed it, aware of the hazard lights turning on in her side mirrors. “This is Rose. Give me good news.” She steered the car to the side of the road and left the wipers on.
“We found a body,” Ivy said breathlessly. “He’s not going to make it.”
“Gant?” Please, God, let it be Gant. Let me lock this bastard away forever. Let me put my nightmare behind bars.
Thunder grumbled across the sky. “No,” Ivy said. “He’s been muttering in Spanish, but he’s said Gant’s name a few times.”
“How much longer does he have?”
Ivy took a deep breath. “Ma’am, the ambulance is here, and they don’t even think he’s worth the ride back. The only reason I found him is that I saw lights in the scrub. It’s a restricted area because it’s box tortoise breeding ground, so I followed. I found this guy before I got too far in.”
“They wanted him to be found.” She tried to wrap that around Gant’s sick obsession with her and couldn’t. “Was there anything on him? Marks, other than the beating?”
“Nothing,” Ivy said. “But whoever worked him over knew what they were doing. All the cuts are neatly spaced out.”
“Either a serial killer or an interrogation.” She swore under her breath, then switched to French blasphemies because they sounded better. “Did you write down everything he said?”
“Better than that, I had my recorder on. Want me to send you a transcript?” Ivy sucked in a breath. “Oh. He’s gone, ma’am. Dead. The EMTs are pulling the blanket over his head.” There was a heavy silence. “Why don’t I feel anything?”
Sam knew that one. “Because you’re still on the job. When you get home after this is all over, you’ll cry. You’ll wonder if you could have done something more. You’ll wonder if this was fate, or destiny, or divine intervention. You’ll be able to see his face every time you close your eyes. But we’re still at work, Ivy. We still need to find Gant. I need that transcript.”
Ivy drew in a deep breath and exhaled. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll transmit it right away.”
“To my phone,” Sam ordered. “And send me your GPS coordinates. Call Edwin to meet us.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ivy hung up, and twenty seconds later, Sam’s phone buzzed with an incoming file.
She programmed the coordinates into her car’s GPS first. As it calculated a route, she played the audio file. Broken phrases streamed past in bastard Spanish.
Timemyst Machine. . .
Federated States of Mexico. . .
Escape with Gant. . .
Rose followed. . .
Emir is coming. . .
Emir is here. . .
Emir knows he was a soldier. . .
Einselected.
The words changed to pleas for help as she sped through the rain.
Gant stood in front of the warehouse in the rain. His heart raced as his vision blurred. He swayed on his feet, not certain anymore if he was dying or not.
A car drove cautiously down the muddy road. It stopped, headlights framing him. No bright red sports car. No windows rolling down so the occupant could look at him chained like a dog. But still he knew who was there.
He took his gun out and took the safety off. There was one bullet left. For him or for her, he hadn’t decided yet. “Come out, Detective Rose!”
The dome light turned on, and he saw her, black hair pulled back, tan skin wan from fatigue and stress, pale lips unpainted. She was a ghost of herself.
Gant chuckled. “Come out, Detective. Come out and arrest me.”
She cocked her head to the side, her shoulder shrugged as if she were sighing, then the door of the little gray car opened. The car beeped in protest as she excited with the engine still turned on. “Mr. Gant?”
Gant held up his gun. “Present.”
“I’ve come to help you, Mr. Gant. My name is Agent Rose from the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigation.” Metal flashed in the light from the car; he aimed but realized the shape was wrong for a gun. “This is my badge, Mr. Gant. Do you see it?” She waited, then repeated everything in Spanish.
“I know English, Detective.”
She shook her head. “I’m not a detective,” she said in English. “I’m not with the police. I’m with the bureau, and I want to help you. Can I walk over to you? Can we talk?”
“Talk all you want.” Gant laughed. “Talk ’til you die. You can’t make me go back to prison.”
She took two steps toward him. “Which prison were you in, Mr. Gant?” Her voice was perfectly calm, unruffled, unstressed.
His eye twitched. “Repisa de la Roca Prisión. You put me away for fraud. Tried to get me to hang for murder. Didn’t happen, though.”
“Repisa de la Roca Prisión? Rockledge doesn’t have a prison, Mr. Gant. They have a rehab center. The Hammond Center has always been a rehab, from day one, although I admit it does look a bit like a prison. I checked, but they have no record of you ever being there.”
His breath escaped in a hiss. “I’ve haven’t gone there yet! I will! In 2072, you sent me there. You chased me like a terrier chasing a rat! You hunted me down, and in 2074, I escaped. I killed them all. Killed Wilhite in the parking lot. Killed the guard in the laundry, too.”
“There is no Wilhite,” Rose said as she came close to him. “These people you remember killing do not exist. They never did. Not here.”
“No.” Gant shook his head. “No. I know they exist. I saw ’em. I broke their necks with my bare hands. I felt their pulses stop.” He remembered it like it was yesterday, or like it was a dream. When he slept, the memories were strongest. He dreamt and relived his life breath by breath.
She stopped in front of him, rain streaming down her unadorned face, dark green T-shirt plastered to her skin.
“You wore jeans?”
“Kitten heels and a pencil skirt seemed out of place.” She shrugged. “Where’s your friend, Mr. Gant?”
Gant pointed the gun at swamp. “In there. Dead probably. They took him away still screaming, but now it’s quiet.” Too quiet. His throat tightened with an unwelcome sensation of fear. “We found the machine.”
“Emir’s time machine?”
His eye twitched at the name. “Didn’t know about him until today. The rich use it as a toy. Hop back in time. Go forward, too, I suppose.”
“I don’t think it goes forward.”
“Has to. I’m making it. I’m going to make it take me home.” He realized he was trembling. “I’ve got to go home.”
Rose lifted the gun from his hand. She flipped the safety on. “You are home. This is reality now. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“NO!” His shout echoed across the empty lot, and thunder rumbled in response. “No. This isn’t where I belong. Send me back!” He grabbed fistfuls of her shirt. “Send me back! No one knows me here. No one respects me here.”
She touched his cheek with a cold hand. A ghost. She really was a ghost. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gant. I can’t let you use the machine.”
“I know how to use it. I’ll share with you.” He fumbled in his pant pocket for the notebook he’d grabbed from the dust. Donovan’s blood was splattered across the cover “Here. Emir dropped this. He knew
all about the machine. Said everything was over now. Anything you want, you can have. I’ll go my way. You go yours.” Same deal that had gotten him into this mess could get him out.
She took the notebook from him and slowly turned the first few pages. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about a shorter man? Not much taller than me? Santa beard with a nice tan and looked like he’d been living off diet shakes?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Dr. Abdul Emir.” She closed the notebook. “He’s a narcissistic sociopath with the morals of, well, hmmm . . .” She tilted her head to the side and looked up at the growling clouds. “I’d say with the morals of a parasitic leech, but that’s very unfair to leeches. He’s not a nice man.”
“He tortured Donovan.”
“Yes, that’s something I can see him doing.”
Pain pierced Gant’s head. It felt like someone was twisting a knife behind his eyes. He clutched at his forehead. “Please. Please make it stop.” His knees sagged, and he sank to the ground.
Rose sat down with him.
“I’m being ripped apart. I’m being . . . hurt!”
She pulled his head close so it rested on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. If I understand the notes from Henry and Emir, you’re being cut off. And I’m going to make it worse.”
The pain brought tears to his eyes. “Make it stop. Send me home.”
“There is no home but this. Donovan was a node. If Emir killed him, there is no reality for you to return to.”
He shook, great rolling tremors ripping into his muscles. “I killed people.”
“No,” she said, patting his arm. “Well, you killed the Jane Doe in the purple shirt. She was an iteration of me, but that’s not the sort of thing I can write in my report.” Rose shifted in the mud, settling in as if they were about to have a picnic. “She had a nice funeral. We named her Juanita in the end. Oh, and there was Bradet. We didn’t hit it off, but he was a citizen in my district, and I feel responsible for him. Did you cut him?”
Gant shook his head. “Donovan.”
“Well, then, you probably won’t go to trial ever. It would be a waste of the judge’s time, and the Commonwealth frowns on that sort of thing. Big show trials are a waste of taxpayer money.” She sighed and patted his head again.
“What’s happening to me?”
“The worst possible thing I can imagine. You’re going to the hospital. They’ll give you an IV, patch you up, and in the morning, someone will come to talk to you. The state provides excellent therapy care. You’ll probably tell them everything. You’ll talk about the machine, and Donovan, and the strange man who came through the blue portal to kill you.”
“I’ll tell them his name,” Gant said.
“Yes, and they’ll look it up. Dr. Emir was executed outside his laboratory in Alabama last summer. Murdered by a rogue CBI agent who wanted to go back in time to change the nationhood vote.” Rose put a companionable arm around his shoulder as he shivered. “You see, no matter what you tell them, no one will believe you. You and I will be the only ones who know the whole truth. Others will suspect. My partner will make a very educated guess, but he’ll also keep his mouth shut. When I tell everyone you’re mad, they will believe me.”
Lightning illuminated the dark purple clouds. “Marrins. He was the agent. He didn’t understand you can’t change your past. You can go back and witness the past, but it won’t change what you remember, what you lived. You can’t change your past, only your future. You can only step forward. Even if it means your future tomorrow starts two years ago. You will keep moving forward.”
“I went back in time.” Gant sat up as an idea took hold, a life raft of sanity in the sea of madness. “You don’t know me because I haven’t murdered anyone yet. You’re saying my past is your future. I remember killing those people, but they aren’t dead yet. I still have to kill them.” He looked her in the eye. “I will.”
She raised one eyebrow in mocking question. Then she smiled pityingly. “No, Mr. Gant. You will go to the hospital. You will tell your story, then you will be taken to a care facility for people like you. People who have lost touch with reality.”
“It’s the truth! You know it is! You know I traveled through time!” Fear choked him, strangled his words. “I’m sane.”
“I know it’s the truth. I believe you . . . but no one else will. No one will ever, ever believe your story.” She leaned closer. “Why did you come here, Mr. Gant? What were you trying to gain?”
He took a deep breath. “I came to escape my past. I was going to run away before my crimes were ever committed and live in freedom forever. It would be the perfect crime.”
“Congratulations, Mr. Gant, you succeeded. You got away with murder.”
CHAPTER 18
C–130 rolling down the strip. Airborne Ranger going to take a little trip. Mission unspoken. Destination unknown. Don’t even know if we’re ever coming home.
~ Airborne Ranger running cadence I2–2025
Tuesday April 1, 2070
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
Sam slept on the leather couch of the regional director’s office, ignoring the mud that dried on her pant legs. She woke foggy headed to a still and gray morning. The sounds of everyday office life filtered through the walls like ghosts. Everything felt ever so slightly off, like she was skating on ice that she knew would crack at any moment, but she kept drifting farther from shore.
It was a weightless feeling brought on by closing the case, she told herself. But even that felt like a lie.
Thou Shalt Not Kill. How many times had she repeated the phrase as part of the Ten Commandments? How many times had the nuns repeated the little song, “Shed not life in wanton ways?”
All these needless deaths.
She tried to imagine what Henry had felt when he stepped through the time portal into the muggy predawn hours of July 4, 2069. Had the dew clung to his shoes as he stepped on the grass outside N-V Nova Labs? Had he seen the other Emir? Had he seen Marrins lift the gun to execute Henry’s mentor? Or had he been too far away, hidden in the tree line? The missing bullet they’d assumed lost last summer had certainly been meant for Troom.
But had Marrins known?
Was Marrins surprised when Henry pulled up to the lab the night she was kidnapped?
She sat at an empty desk, chin resting on her folded hands, and stared out the window at the palm trees. That morning in 2069 she’d rushed to the lab, angry at Emir for waking her up. Angry at herself for letting herself be pushed around by everyone else’s agenda.
The morning Henry died, she’d felt confident, certain she could handle it all. She closed her eyes against the threat of tears. Now she felt deflated. Empty. Adrift. Lost in a world of possibilities where each one was worse than the last.
It was all so meaningless.
“Agent Rose?”
She looked up at a young woman she’d never met peering in from the doorway.
“Yes?”
“The director is ready to meet with you. Would you like a coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Sam stood up, brushing the remains of the previous night’s debacle off her pants as best she could. “Where is he?”
Director Loren was waiting in a secondary conference room; nine screens filled one wall, images of men in military fatigues moving soundlessly. “Good morning, Agent Rose. How was my couch?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t tired, but last night it was perfect. What’s this?” She gestured to the screens. Emir’s machine was with the men in uniform. “Are they dismantling it?”
“Testing it,” Director Loren said. “We shipped it up to Fort Benning while you were catching forty winks. The first test was thirty minutes ago. It went well.”
“Went well?” The wor
ds tasted like ash in her mouth. “What did you do?” The ice was beginning to crack under her.
Director Loren frowned at her in confusion. “We tested it. Took all those notes you found and gave it to one of the science teams. This thing’s great.”
“No. No, you can’t,” Sam stuttered. “It’s dangerous.”
“I know. I read the report about the safety circles and crushed bones and everything. We’re being very careful. No one is going to get injured.” His frown deepened. “Rose, are you feeling all right? You’ve gone all pale.”
“The machine needs to be destroyed.”
“That’s an argument, certainly.” Director Loren nodded and picked up his coffee mug from the conference table. “But before we destroy it, we’re studying it. Making sure there are no uses for it.”
“It’s killed people.”
“So have guns. We still have those,” he said, giving her a significant look as he sipped his drink.
She knew that look. It was the one superiors gave to lower-ranking agents to tell them to shut up and get in line. “We know how guns work, sir. This isn’t a new kind of projectile weapon. It’s the new atom bomb. The new radium and mercury. It’s going to kill us if we try to use it.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Rose. I like cautious agents. I like the people who think of the worst-case scenarios and are prepared for them. I like that in you. But in this case, I think you need to remember there are reasons we have radium, and mercury, and the atom bomb. We aren’t Marie Curie leaving the thing out to slowly poison us. It’s controlled.”
“How can you possibly control something you don’t understand?”
“We’ll understand it soon enough.” He sighed. “You think you can hold it together long enough to debrief the rest of the senior agents? There’s a lot of gossip on social media about this. Your car wreck stirred up a tempest in a teapot like I’ve never seen. You should have seen how many demands I’ve had for your resignation.”