Timecaster: Supersymmetry

by Konrath, J. A.

  A scuba tank.

  She beckoned me forward with her finger, and I swam behind her, over to the porthole, following her inside the bowels of the ship. It was pitch black, so I tapped my eyelid again, going to night vision. We were in a hallway, upside-down and leaning to the right. Everything was an eerie, night-glow green, and as we swam we kicked up sediment in great, billowing clouds. If my mouth were free, I would have commented how this was a really shitty place for a hideout. But then we were through a doorway, swimming upward, into a room flooded with light.

  Our heads broke the surface, and I tapped my AVCL back to normal and looked around.

  Once again, Alter-Talon impressed me with his ingenuity. He’d somehow managed to turn a compartment in a shipwreck into a furnished mini-apartment, complete with a bed, refrigerator, microwave, breakfast bar, and a dining set for two. Tastefully done, I might add. Everything Rick Schieve.”

  ed to like my wifeG in a faux woodgrain with mauve accents.

  Alter-Vicki pulled out her mouthpiece, proving the hideout also came with air. Nice.

  I pulled myself out of the water, onto the tile floor, and Alter-Vicki offered me a towel.

  “Thanks,” I said. “For a second there, I thought you were trying to kill me.”

  I took the towel, and saw she had a gun beneath it.

  A gun she was pointing right at me.

  Chapter 7

  Michio Sata blotted his polyester napkin against his lips, patting off a dab of spaghetti sauce. The meal, while filling, was on the low end of mediocre. The chef apparently thought plenty of garlic could cover up his shortcomings.

  The multiverse won’t miss this place when I destroy it.

  Sata checked his watch. He’d originally planned on annihilating all life on the planet eighty-seven minutes from now, giving him a chance to get home and watch one final Murder, She Wrote rerun on satellite TV. The show was archaic and woefully predictable, but he liked Angela Lansbury’s portrayal of the plucky, determined Jessica Fletcher. How much fun it would have been to go up against her. She would have made such a better adversary than Talon. So smart and ahead of the curve.

  Of course, she probably wasn’t much in the fighting department. Perhaps Magnum, P.I. would be a better adversarial choice.

  Sata wondered if alternate earths had a Jessica Fletcher that was a martial arts expert.

  Of course they do. In an infinite multiverse, there are infinite earths. Everything that can exist, will exist.

  That much possibility had made searching for a suitable universe harder than Sata had anticipated. Before he destroyed this earth, he needed to find a new one to live on. But the overwhelming variety of earths that existed, coupled with his ever-expanding list of criteria, was taking a while. The search engine would winnow it down to a few million possibilities, then he’d add more demands, and the process would have to restart.

  Finding the perfect world was a real pain in the ass.

  He activated the touch screen on his TEV and added “Jessica Fletcher Martial Artist” to his already extensive list of requirements for a home planet. Some of his recent entries included:

  Temperate climate without too much humidity.

  No fossil fuel dependence.

  Libertarian government.

  No giant scorpions.

  A comparable level of scientific advancement to the current earth.

  No fat chicks.

  talking about sci scienceI puApples that screamed when you ate them.

  The list went on for several virtual pages, with hundreds of other criteria. Sata chewed his lower lip, thinking. He really liked the apple idea. Something deep within him loved the idea of sentient fruit, though Sata couldn’t pinpoint why. He erased a few other criteria, such as people randomly turn themselves inside out, because even though it would be pleasant to watch, he didn’t want to be one of those random people. He’d also crossed out man-eating yogurt. Sata disliked yogurt, but he worried he might accidentally ingest some. Bloody bowels bursting from the bellies of unsuspecting innocents was a delightful concept, but not if he had to watch his own intestines take leave of his body. That was a tad hypocritical, perhaps, but he was the timecaster with the doomsday device, so he could be a hypocrite if he wanted to.

  Anxious as he was to kill everyone on this planet—especially the chef at this restaurant for creating such a thin and garlic-heavy marina sauce—Sata knew he’d have to put more thought into where he wanted to move before he destroyed humanity.

  I’ll annihilate them all tomorrow morning. Maybe after breakfast.

  He sighed, then signaled for his check. The electronic slate came, and he wiped the chip in his wrist over it, adding a ten percent tip. He could have tipped more—his credits wouldn’t transfer to his new earth—but the service was merely adequate and Sata didn’t want to reward such behavior even though the restaurant would be destroyed by nightfall.

  Sata got up and left the establishment, walking out onto Michigan Avenue. The view on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile was predictably green. Ivy lined every building. Hemp and kudzu bloomed on every roof. The green top—both the bio-scooter and the Kermit lanes—was densely compacted clover. The utopeons on the streets and sidewalks were predictably content with their perfect society, their heads no doubt filled with mundane, happy thoughts.

  None of them could possibly recognize the genocidal mas

  termind walking among them. I might as well be invisible.

  “Sata-san!”

  Sata whirled at the familiar voice, taking a defensive stance, legs wide, hands raised.

  Josh Teague VanCamp hurried up to him. Teague was Sata’s best student when Sata had taught timecasting at the Chicago Peace Department. But Teague was also unimaginative and a bit annoying, the very reason why Sata favored Talon and chose him as an adversary.

  Teague stopped a respectful distance away and bowed at Sata. Sata returned it, maintaining eye-contact. Though he hadn’t seen his name on any warrants, Sata knew that there was a slight possibility the CPD would catch on that he was the one behind the disappearance of Boise. But a quick glance around showed Sata he wasn’t being surrounded by peace officers, and a look skyward proved the heliplanes weren’t gunning for him.

  Teague himself looked like he’d been chewed, swallowed, and shat out. His hair was matted, his face dirty, his clothes covered in brown stains that were obviously dried blood. And his hands…

  He only has one. I’m pretty too much woman for that.”

  “you, Sata-san.etsure, when he was my student, he had two.

  “I need your help, Sata-san. I need to find Talon.”

  Sata was about to dismiss the man, but before the words left his lips he paused.

  Teague and Talon, once best friends, were now mortal enemies. Perhaps Teague could come in useful somehow.

  “Let us grab a cup of tea and discuss it,” Sata said. “You may pay.”

  The world might be ending tomorrow, but why spend credits if it wasn’t necessary?

  Chapter 8

  Alter-Talon looked at the drugged and sleeping Vicki, and his thoughts turned to the same thing they always turned to when he saw someone, anyone at all, sleeping.

  Rape.

  Normally a pleasant thought, but Alter-Talon’s procreational equipment was rotting just like his hands and feet, and he was afraid anything he stuck in Vicki would stay in Vicki. Especially if her kegel muscles were as strong as his real wife’s.

  If all was going according to plan, Talon and his wife were now in the SS Wisconsin. He’d give it a bit of time, let the CPD recover the heliplane wreckage, then he’d move on to phase two of the plan.

  Until then, he had to find an appropriate doctor to remove and transplant Talon’s choicer bits. The last doctor had been tough to find. Even with socialized medicine, physicians were well paid, and very few could be tempted by mere credits. That meant locating someone who was both a professional and sufficiently motivated. There were so many double-checks and fai
l-safes built into the healthcare system that malpractice was unheard of, so it wasn’t as if you could search for doctors who had lost their licenses.

  With the previous doctor, Alter-Talon had used Vicki as the motivator. A promised one week no-holds-barred retreat with his prostitute wife was enough to make even the most dedicated surgeon do some rogue moonlighting. But he’d been the only doctor on Vicki’s client list. So instead of bribery, Alter-Talon knew he’d have to try extortion.

  No problem. Alter-Talon enjoyed extortion almost as much as rape.

  He spent some time on UFSE, searching for experienced surgeons who lived nearby and had a lot to lose, like a spouse and kids. He found one only a few blocks away.

  Time to get to work.

  Alter-Talon walked by Vicki—peacefully unconscious on the hotel bed—and gave her breast a squeeze. The real thing was okay, but augmentation was so much better. Perhaps the doctor he brought over could do a cup increase and an LLVV on her before the transplant. It was such a shame to see a beautiful woman with nothing more than what she was born with.

  Then it was out the door and into the hallway. Like most metropolitan buildings, plants were everywhere. Ivy clung to the walls. Moss hung from the ceiling on organic lighting fixtures. This hotel even applause.

  &Bci became I pu took green to the next level, and the carpeting underfoot was a lush grass lawn, so dense and soft it cushioned every step. Alter-Talon passed a maintenance worker, trimming the floor with a laser mower and collecting the clippings. He gave the man a little bump with his hip, knocking him sideways, glancing backward as the utopeon ran the mower over his own foot and bisected the front of his shoe.

  “The guests have right of way, asshat,” Alter-Talon warned.

  The man bowed a pale, subservient apology. Then he dropped to all fours, whimpering while collecting his severed toes.

  Alter-Talon took the stairs. The overhead grow lights were almost blinding, and louversills lined the stairwell walls. Khat plants grew out of the fertilizerboard at forty-five degree angles, brushing against Alter-Talon’s face. He tore a few leaves from the walls as he trudged past, chewing the bitter green, storing the masticated pulp in his cheek. Once he exited the street, he checked his DT to get his bearings, then headed east toward Prospect Avenue. His shoes had compression insoles, formfitting to his decaying feet and evenly distributing his weight for the least amount of impact. He’d also taken some nerve blockers, to help with the pain. Even so, each step was akin to walking barefoot over sea urchins. A few synthetic heroin pills would hit the spot, but he needed to stay mentally sharp.

  The sun outside was predictably bright, and all the traffic lights blinked UV WARNING, so Alter-Talon put on a tinted face shield and turned on the air conditioning fan. Now darker and cooler, he picked up the pace, weaving past smiling, happy pedestrians, all of whom he wanted to kill.

  He walked through several 3D holographs, projected by many of the building storefronts, showing in slow-motion the disappearance of Boise, Idaho. On the other Talon’s earth, he’d sent Boise to a dinosaur planet and framed him for it. On this one, he’d sent Boise someplace worse. The entire world was panicked, wondering how an entire metropolitan area could simply vanish. Some of the lunatic fringe had even gone the medieval route and brought up long-dead beliefs in God. This amused Alter-Talon. Kill half a million people, and some folks immediately embraced superstition.

  The apartment where Dr. Susan Patel resided was a security building that required chip entry. Unusual to have security measures these days, when timecasting practically eliminated crime. But this wasn’t too far from Milwaukee’s Dissytown, so it was probably a preventative measure to keep the dissys from coming in and swiping hemp. The landlord probably paid a fortune in foliage tax, and didn’t want to waste it on non-taxpayers.

  Alter-Talon approached the door, frowning at the lock because it would require a painful kick. But on closer inspection he

  found the lock to already be broken.

  He smiled at the lucky happenstance, his mood further enhanced by the khat he chewed. Similar to the drug ecstasy, the khat induced a mild feeling of euphoria, as well as a compulsion to dance with complete strangers. Alter-Talon was able to keep on top of the dancing impulse, but he embraced the temporary reprieve from his sour mood.

  Like his hotel, the apartment building was green, with bamboo growing along the walls and kudzu carpeting. The requisite hemp bushes were in cement pots, overflowing with buds, and Alter-Talon wEbooks by J.A. KonrathE" face="ZrnicRg-Regular"> seaved through them and took a green elevator to the fifth floor, listening to an insipid muzak version of some Run-DMC oldie. His mood angered by hip-hop, Alter-Talon stormed down the hallway, pulled out his Glock 1MV taser, and got ready to kick Dr. Patel’s door in.

  Except that it was already kicked in.

  Cop training taking over, Alter-Talon went in fast and low, rushing through the short entryway, raising his weapon as he rounded the corner, and coming face to face with—

  Me. That’s me.

  Alter-Talon faced another version of himself. At first, he thought that Talon had somehow gotten away from Vicki and the SS Wisconsin. But he quickly realized that this man wore the same outfit, the same rubber gloves, the same form-fitting shoes.

  This Talon also held a taser, but in his left hand, rather than his right one. They pointed them at one another, so synchronous it was like looking into a mirror.

  “Don’t shoot,” they both said, simultaneously.

  Dr. Patel, a good-looking Indian woman in her mid-forties, stared at both of them and let out a short yelp. She wore a terrified expression, and a supplication collar.

  “Shut up!” said both Talons at the same time.

  Then they shot each other.

  Chapter 9

  I raised up my hands, eyeing the gun Alter-Vicki pointed at me. Guns had been outlawed since Civil War Two, replaced by non-lethal weapons and a sharp increase in name-calling. But Vicki’s weapon was the real deal. From my cop training, I recognized it as a Walther PPK, made famous by that legendary movie spy, Schlomo Leibowitz.

  “Look,” I said, trying to look as meek and honest as possible, “I’m not the Talon you know. He’s a scumbag and a mass-murderer, and he obviously doesn’t treat you nicely. I’m from another earth in a parallel universe. I’m married to a different Vicki.”

  “I know.”

  Shit. She was loyal to the bastard.

  “Lie on the bed,” she ordered. “Keep your hands behind your head.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” I told her, doing as she said. “I’m not your enemy.”

  “Under the pillow are some handcuffs. Put them on.”

  The cuffs were the old-fashioned kind, made of metal. They were soldered to the stainless steel headboard, so I assumed they were used for a purpose other than just keeping me prisoner.

  After I slipped the bracelets on, I learned what that other purpose was.

  Setting the gun onto the nightstand, Anti-Vicki opened up a drawer and took out an envelope. Inside were two flesh-colored obfuscation disks. She placed one over applause.

  &BciI puher chip, then one over mine, making us invisible to GPS tracking. Then she reached back into the drawer and pulled out a black stick. I recognized the object to be a riding crop.

  “My husband enjoys chaining me to the bed and beating me with this,” Alter-Vicki said. “Not enough to cause injury. It would be wrong to damage the merchandise. Clients don’t want an SLP covered in welts. He hits just hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. And I was. The thought of anyone hurting Vicki, even though she wasn’t my Vicki, made me very angry.

  “Don’t be,” she said, flexing the crop in her hands, making it bend. “I like it.”

  She ran the flat part of the crop up my naked thigh, uncomfortably close to my penis.

  “I’m not really into that,” I said. “It doesn’t turn me on.”

  At the word
on, Alter-Vicki let out a yelp and doubled over.

  The LLVV.

  The VV stood for Vibrating Vagina, a procedure where a small yet powerful vibrator was surgically implanted inside a woman’s body, underneath the clitoris. Originally invented to cure hypoactive sexual desire disorder, it quickly caught on in the general population for its recreational uses. State Licensed Prostitutes were among the major buyers, and my own Vicki had considered getting the implant on several different occasions, only demurring because she realized she’d probably leave it on all the time, which would drastically reduce her productivity.

  Alter-Vicki’s eyelids fluttered, and she threw herself onto me, nibbling her way down my stomach.

  “Off,” I said. The buzzing instantly stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to use that word. I forgot there was an auditory switch.”

  “Turn me on again,” she breathed.

  “I don’t cheat on my wife,” I told her. It was absurd, I know, considering my wife was an SLP and slept with scores of men. But I viewed my fidelity as a form of strength. By saving myself for my wife, I underscored our love while also exercising self-control.

  “Do it,” she said, cupping my testicles. “Please, sir. It only works with your voice imprint.”

  “I will if you uncuff me.”

  She didn’t uncuff me. Instead, she used her mouth and lips on me in a way that made me shudder.

  Part of me wanted to go along with it. A big part of me. She was, after all, my wife. Sort of.

  But I was never one to give in to my baser instincts, so I shut my eyes and tried to think of something other than her gently stroking and licking my…

  “On,” I said.

  I did it as a form of self-preservation. Perhaps if she were occupied with that, she’d leave me alon the antidote for the nanopoison to get ,” Phin said.ete.

  Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. She pulled out her false teeth and took me in her mouth, all of me, and I gasped at the overwhelming sensation, straining even harder against my bonds.