Timecaster: Supersymmetry

by Konrath, J. A.

  I brushed the remaining chickulas out of my hair, wiped the dead ones from my clothing, and then took in my surroundings.ed tachyon emission visualizered to THE RIGHT TO REMAIN…G

  I’d recently been in Sata’s home on my earth, and it looked a lot like this home, save for one huge difference: this house was a pigsty. The furniture was ripped up, dirty, ruined. There was garbage and filth covering everything. All the foliage had died, or was in the brown near-death stage.

  “Your hands aren’t bleeding.”

  I spun, noticing Sata had snuck up behind me. But rather than the formidable bodybuilder I had expected, this Sata looked like a shell of his former self. He was still short, and Asian, but the Japanese kimono he wore was stained and torn, and it hung on a bony, pale body. His hair, like his features, was limp. The Sata I knew would never let himself go like this. It was as if he’d become a dissy.

  He took a step toward me and stumbled, falling to one knee.

  “Are you the Talon-kun I knew from the parallel earth?” he croaked. “The one I trained?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not from here.”

  “Neither am I. I was taken here, locked away, while my doppelgänger committed crimes against humanity in another dimension. He worked with an alternate version of Talon to send Boise, Idaho to a dinosaur planet.”

  “That sounds a lot like what I’ve been dealing with.”

  “If you are he, maybe there is hope.”

  He began to cough, and I heard the rattle in his lungs.

  “Sata-san, you… I mean that alternate version of you… gave me a nanopoison.”

  He nodded, slowly. “I know the poison you speak of. I was threatened with it. There is an antidote in my doppelgänger’s laboratory.”

  I remembered where the lab was, and headed for it.

  “Wait!” Sata commanded.

  I halted.

  “That’s where its lair is,” he said.

  “Whose lair?”

  I didn’t think it possible, but Sata’s face got even paler. “The byter.”

  Chapter 5

  Alter-Sata (who thought of himself as the original Sata because on his earth he was the original Sata, even though this wasn’t his earth) lead Talon’s ex-partner Teague through the streets to his rental apartment, where earlier that day he had sent a dissy to the dinosaur planet. Half an hour ago they’d gone to Alter-Sata’s favorite tea stand for two cups of oolong. The tea had been excellent. The conversation, not so much. Like the Teague Alter-Sata had known, this Teague was also one of the dullest knives in the drawer. Repeating the same points, over and over, was giving Alter-Sata a headache. surrounding sci?” I asked“Yes.”

  “So you aren’t the Sata who trained me?” Teague asked, for the fifth time.

  “No.”

  “But you trained an alternate version of me?”

  Alter-Sata rubbed his temples. “Yes.”

  “Does this alternate version have both of his hands?” Teague raised his stump.

  “I believe he does.”

  “So I could find the other me, and take his hand.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to part with it?”

  Teague smiled. “Then I kill myself.”

  Alter-Sata almost wished he would do that right now just to stop this inane conversation, which had been going in circles since they’d left the tea stand.

  “Can you explain the whole dark version thing to me again? If you don’t mind.”

  I do mind, Alter-Sata thought. But this idiot might be useful, so I need to humor him.

  “There are infinite alternate universes with infinite versions of you—”

  “Including a Dino Teague on the Dino Earth.”

  “Yes. Please don’t interrupt. There is—”

  “Sorry.”

  “You just interrupted again.”

  Teague opened his mouth, but blessedly stopped himself from speaking.

  “There is also,” Alter-Sata continued, “dark matter in each of these infinite universes, and using the TEV, I’ve been able to make that dark matter visible. Through my genius I’ve managed to illuminate, and exist alongside, that dark matter, and discovered another hidden universe within each universe that directly corresponds with ours.”

  “Sort of like an opposite land.”

  “More like a superpartner land, where ever particle has an exact counterpart which directly corresponds to ours. Oddly enough, this dark matter universe is several hours ahead of us. What happens there eventually happens here.”

  “So there’s a Dark Teague.”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I take his hand? Or if I touch him, will I explode?”

  “You’re confusing dark matter with anti-matter.”

  “Is there an Anti-matter Teague as well?”

  “There might be.”

  “You don the antidote for the nanopoisonm ” Phin saidG’t know?”

  Alter-Sata sighed again. “I invented a device that records the past, then tweaked that device to travel to other dimensions within the multiverse, then tweaked it again to discover a dark world within our own universe. I think I can safely leave the discovery of Anti-matter Teague to someone else.” He mentally added, you gigantic moron.

  “So let’s get back to this infinite universes thing again,” Teague said.

  “You don’t grasp it yet?”

  “If there are infinite parallel worlds, with infinite variations, anything I can dream up must exist.”

  “Yes.”

  “So there’s an earth where I’m king of the world, being constantly serviced by SLPs who have four boobs.”

  Alter-Sata shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

  “So how can I go there?”

  “That’s the difficult part. I’ve been trying to tweak UFSE to search appropriate worlds, but it takes a while to search infinity.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “Forever.”

  “Maybe there’s a world where UFSE is able to search infinity faster.”

  And maybe you’re an idiot.

  Alter-Sata forced his voice to remain steady. “Let’s assume the laws of physics are universal, even though they may weigh differently in alternate dimensions. But even if there were a dimension where gravity were stronger than, say, electromagnetic force, I’m pretty sure infinity is infinity no matter where you go.”

  “Is there a world where gravity is stronger than electromagnetic force?”

  “I don’t know.” But there must be a world where you’re not this stupid. Maybe I shall kill you and visit that world. And then possibly search for that planet where women had four boobs. It certainly has possibilities…

  “Sata-san? Did you hear me?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Isn’t that us?”

  Teague pointed with his stump at two men on the greenwalk. And Alter-Sata was surprised to see it was, indeed, another Sata and another Teague, walking at a quick clip toward them.

  “Well, isn’t this interesting,” Alter-Sata said.

  Chapter 6

  A byter. That accounted for Sata’s disheveled appearance.

  Along with the chickulas and the salmonsters, bytersed tachyon emission visualizerow watch for me“Yes.” were the biggest “We Fuct Up” moment in modern genetic science. Decades ago, in an attempt to control the exploding bed bug population, an ingenious solution was devised: accelerate their growth so they would die of old age before being able to reproduce.

  You can guess what happened next; it’s straight out of a cheap science fiction ebook.

  Those microscopic, bloodsucking parasites became giant, armored monsters. Some weighed as much as forty kilos, with carapaces so thick an ax couldn’t penetrate them. But even though they were formidable in battle, as evidenced on one of the top rated TV shows, Man vs. Byter, they retained the habits of their genetic forbearers and struck while people were asleep. Their razor-sharp suckers administered an anesthetic, so they could bleed a few pints from you without
ever waking you up.

  Even worse, there was ample evidence that after human beings, cimicidae giganticus had become the second-most intelligent species on the planet. They could learn. They could communicate. Some byters in captivity could beat people at checkers, though admittedly these people were on the stupid side.

  Sata was a genius. But even geniuses had to sleep. If there was a byter in the house, it only had to stay hidden and wait until Sata was too exhausted to fight back.

  “How long has Alter-Sata kept you here?” I asked.

  “I can only estimate. I’ve been cut off from the outside world. But he stops by randomly, to bring food. Judging by the meals I’ve eaten, and how much w

  eight I’ve lost, I’d say about two weeks.”

  “And the byter hasn’t killed you yet?”

  “This one is particularly clever. It doesn’t take enough of my blood to kill me. So it can continue to feed. Alter-Sata, as you call him, brought it here to keep me weak.”

  Nice. “And it’s in the lab?”

  “Yes.”

  Hypershit. Like everyone in the world, I’d seen episodes of Man vs. Byter. The gameshow was genius in its simplicity. A human being is locked into an apartment with a bed bug, and if the person can survive for thirty days, they win a hundred million credits. They’re allowed to bring three things with them, anything from flamethrowers to poison to traps to amphetamines to chainsaws—you name it, someone has thought of it. But nothing has ever worked. In the twenty year history of the show, only one man has ever won, and it is universally agreed upon that the guy got really, really, really, REALLY lucky.

  When the government or private sector exterminators were called in to rid an area of byters, they used a protocol called GAS. Grab And Soak. It involved catching the bug in a carbon nanotube net, and dropping it into a large body of water, letting it drown.

  “Do you have a carbon nanotube net?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “How about a large body of water?”

  He shook his pale, gaunt head. “All I applause.

  &en Satellite.

  ut the p have left are three sofa cushions, and half a loaf of bread.”

  Those probably wouldn’t help much. “How bad are these byters? Really?”

  Sata opened up his kimono, displaying his nude body. It was crisscrossed with so many scars, both new and old, there wasn’t more than a small patch of untouched flesh.

  “It has no vulnerabilities, Talon-kun. I have done all I can, and not made more than a scratch on it. It is incredibly strong and resilient.”

  My leg gave out and I fell to one knee. “I don’t have a choice. I need to try. Do you still have your bogu?”

  “I do, but my kendo armor isn’t strong enough to protect you from an attack.”

  “I’m not going to fight it. I’m going to try something else. Is it male or female?”

  “I didn’t check. But it is quite large, and the male of the species is the larger of the two.”

  “The armor. Please, Sata-san.”

  Sata went off to find his gear. I wiped some dead chickula babies off the DT and did a search for the mating habits of byters. I confirmed what I’d suspected, which didn’t make me happy, but at least reassured me that my insane plan could work.

  “When I distract it, get into the lab and find the antidote,” I told Sata when he returned with the bogu.

  “Talon-kun, even if you get the antidote, we can’t get out of here, and there is no way we can stop my doppelgänger.”

  I slipped on my protective chest plate, called a duo and made out of hard, thick faux-leather. “One crisis at a time, Sata-san.”

  Chapter 7

  After ducking into an alley, the new Sata laid it all out for Alter-Sata, while the Teagues just stood there, mute and looking confused.

  “So you’re both from the dark part of this universe, which runs three point four hours ahead from ours, and you came to this earth, your sister earth, because your dark earth was destroyed.”

  It was quite convenient and coincidental, considering he and Teague were just talking about this very thing.

  Dark Alter-Sata nodded. “We’re dark matter superpartners. What happens to us, happens to you roughly three and a half hours later.”

  Alter-Sata nodded as well. “Fascinating. And you invented the method of illuminating dark matter?”

  “No. A Sata on an alternate earth—an alternate dark earth from your perspective—found a way to bind tachyons with möbiusite. It illuminates dark matter, allowing objects to traverse using the TEV as a wormhole.”

  Like a tachyon, möbiusite was a formerly h-Novel-Terror-ebook/dp/B003t glanceem>“Yes.”ypothetical particle, one that defied quantum entanglement and could observably exist in every dimension at the same time. Theoretically, one could walk along the perimeter of a möbiusite particle and appear in all dimensions, including both light and dark matter universes.

  “Is he locked up at your old house, guarded by a byter, like mine is?” Alter-Sata asked.

  “He was. Until our earth imploded. So we came here to make sure it doesn’t happen to your earth.”

  Both Teagues looked at each other and shrugged.

  “This earth?” Alter-Sata asked. “Because I’m ready to blow this one up myself.”

  “No. Your original earth. The one where you hold Sata prisoner.”

  One of the Teagues said, “I’m confused.”

  “Just roll with it,” the other said, “and trust it makes sense.”

  Alter-Sata asked, “So have you, or I, destroyed the dark matter counterpart to this earth?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Dark Alter-Sata said. “We’ve been on the alternate dark-earth, which was destroyed by Talon.”

  Alter-Sata had to let that sink in. If the dark matter earth, where things happened several hours ahead, wasn’t destroyed, then he wouldn’t be able to destroy this earth. Or could he? And if he did, would that lead to a dimensional paradox?

  Lost in thought, Alter-Sata barely noticed when both Teagues drew their tasers on each other and fired at the same time.

  But then, it really wasn’t the same time. Technically, the dark matter Teague fired his taser three point four hours before the Teague Alter-Sata had been talking to, even though it happened at the same time.

  However you wanted to describe it, both Teagues got a million volts of Tesla electricity, and each flopped over, unconscious.

  “They’re superpartners,” Dark Alter-Sata said, “so they lost opposite hands. Each must have decided he wanted the other one’s hand.”

  “They won’t be helpful if they keep doing that.” Alter-Sata frowned. “How about we kill one, take his hand, and give it to the other?”

  “Which one?”

  Alter-Sata considered an eenie-meenie-minie-mo, but that seemed like too much work. So he discreetly checked the alley both ways for witnesses and then stomped hard on the nearer Teague’s neck. It took three strikes before the spine cracked.

  Dark Alter-Sata knelt down, using a scalpel to quickly removed the dead Teague’s hand. He also cut out the corpse’s ID chip and snapped it in half. Then they slapped the other Teague until he awoke, and headed for the nearest hospital to have the hand attached.

  Alter-Sata wasn’t sure what would happen next.#m Talon Ace Avalon,G

  But he was the most excited he’d been in years.

  Chapter 8

  The bogu was claustrophobic, making me feel like I was being smothered. The helmet, called a men and constructed of faux-leather and steel mesh, was so warm that my head had begun to sweat, matting down my hair.

  Or perhaps that was from fear rather than heat.

  I opened the lab door cautiously, then entered the room crawling.

  The byter was perched on a countertop, nestled atop broken pieces of equipment, not even bothering to hide. Its black, beady eyes stared dispassionately into mine.

  Shit, that thing was scary. It made the chickulas look like plush t
oys in comparison.

  The bed bug’s shell was a deep brown color, over a meter and a half long from proboscis to tail, and near a meter thick. As it watched me, there was a soft CLICK-CLICK sound of its front claws opening and closing.

  I moved slowly, on all fours, barely able to feel my fingers due to the nanopoison, or the chickula bites, or both.

  When I reached the middle of the room, I stopped. The byter didn’t move. I knew, from watching the TV show, that draining your blood was only one way a cimicidae giganticus could kill you. Those claws could snip right through a rib cage, and have done so many times in the show’s history. I once saw an episode where the bug clung to someone’s chest and jammed its feeding tube—a wicked, pointy proboscis known as the stylet fascicle—down the poor sap’s throat, choking him. And then there was the most famous event in Man vs. Byter history, when the contestant brought a taser as one of his three items and the super intelligent insect took it from him and somehow learned how to work it using its flexible antennae. The bug tazed that poor bastard for days before finally killing him.

  But, AFAIK, no one had ever tried what I was about to try. It had every possibility of ending badly.

  Very badly.

  Forcing my numb hand into a fist, I began to tap on the fauxwood floor. Three quick taps. Five slow ones. Two quick ones. Four slow ones. Repeat.

  After a minute of tapping, sweat stinging my eyes, my breathing getting shallower with every heartbeat, the byter still hadn’t moved.

  I increased the tempo, willing this dumb idea to work. My eyes were getting droopy, and it felt like a noose was tightening around my neck, making it harder and harder to suck in air.

  I kept at it, varying the pattern, until the byter crawled off its perch and slowly approached.

  It stopped within half a meter, giving my face a small tap with its antenna.

  I immediately grabbed the antenna—