Timecaster: Supersymmetry

by Konrath, J. A.

  Then he remembered the armor was heat resistant.

  Alter-Talon stopped, getting a grip on his fear.

  But the fear didn’t leave. Even though he was safe from the fire, getting scorched in the helmet made it impossible to see. It was like sticking his head in the sun.

  He tried to fan the flames away, but they continued to blind his vision.

  “Hot enough for you?” he heard McGlade yell.

  This was bad. Very bad. There were only a few minutes—heck, just a few seconds—left before the world was destroyed. If this jackass kept spitting fire at them, they wouldn’t have time to grab the Talons and leave this earth.

  Alter-Talon turned, heading for the door. He stepped out into the hallway, frantically wiping at the soot on his visor. It wasn’t working—he couldn’t see a thing. He dropped the nanonet gun and reached for the magnetic release buttons on his helmet, tugging it off and realizing he was standing in front of another familiar face from the past.

  His grandfather.

  “You’ve been a bad, bad boy,” Phin said.

  Then Grandpa punched four of his teeth out.

  Chapter 25

  T-minus 65 seconds

  Talon 2

  I was barely able to turn my head in the nanotube net, but in my peripheral vision I saw Phin knock out several of my alter-ego’s teeth.

  Before I had a chance to cheer, the other doppelgänger was on him—and this one had kept his helmet on.

  Phin sidestepped a shot fired from the Glock and then gave the other evil Talon a hard hit in the stomach.

  I heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone, saw Phin pull his mangled hand away, several knuckle bones peeking through the split skin.

  Then Dark Alter-Talon threw a punch, hitting my surprised grandfather in the chin.

  Phin staggered back, now bleeding from his face as well.

  “Talon!”

  I looked the other way. Alter-Vicki had rushed into the house, flanked by Grandma and Sata. I could assume, by the earlier gunfire and flame antics, that Talon and Harry had also arrived.

  So the gang was all here. But there wasn’t much time left.

  “Get the gun he dropped!” I called.

  Sata saw the nanotube net shotgun, and being a former cop he knew what it was. He pointed it out to Jack. They both assumed boxing stances, feet apart, hands raised, and moved in on armored duo.

  The helmeted Talon fired his Glock, hitting Sata in the chest. As Sata went down in a blaze of Tesla lightning, Grandma went up, launching herself into the air, kicking the gun right out of his gloved hand.

  The other Talon was going after the dropped shotgun, and as he bent over Phin dissuaded him from the action by giving him a vicious muay thai shin to the nose. Then he swatted at the shotgun, sending it sliding across the floor to Vicki.

  “The button on the stock!” I yelled.

  She grabbed the weapon. Pressed the correct button.

  The net went slack.

  I was free.

  That’s when the two evil Satas materialized right next to us.

  One punched Vicki straight in the face.

  The other kicked me in the jaw, sending me spiraling into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 26

  T-minus 33 seconds

  Talon

  I pushed off the nanotube net, no longer taut, and called McGlade, who was spraying flames on the byter.

  “Keep it busy, McGlade.” too much woman for that.”

  “arthere was you knowTel

  “Consider this job well done.”

  From Harry’s pants I heard, “The earth is ‘bout to end, and I don’t even have a drink.”

  Every cell in my body wanted to check on Vicki, but first I had to take care of my evil twins. I plucked the Tesla needle from my chest, then staggered out of the lab, into the hallway.

  Phin was circling one of the armored Talons, the one without the helmet. Sata was on the ground, clutching his smoking chest. And some woman was facing the other Talon, her fists raised, her stance wide, her expression grim.

  Grim, and ripped straight out of my memories.

  “Grandma?”

  My voice distracted her, and that allowed her opponent to hit her with a hard uppercut, the nanotube gloves cutting into her chin.

  The temporary joy of seeing my grandmother again was instantaneously replaced by anger. I rushed the bad Talon, diving at him in a clothesline tackle, getting my elbow around his neck and using momentum to put him in a headlock. Then my free hand sought out the latches for his helmet, two buttons on either side of the collarbone that kept the collar magnetized. I hit one of them, and he judo flipped me. But I managed get my finger under the seam, and I pulled his head down with me as I landed on my back.

  As he rained down punches on my face and upper body, I focused on holding him and finding that other button. I could feel my cheeks getting torn up by the nanontube gloves, one of my ears went completely numb from a direct hit, and one of my eyes filled with blood, but I managed to press the release and yank off his head gear.

  He staggered back.

  Grandma was right there, unleashing a ridiculously fast palm punch, striking him between his nose and upper lip.

  “Not so tough without your helmet on,” she said.

  Then in a move that could only be described as staggeringly beautiful, Grandma jumped and did a spin kick, hitting him in the side of the head with so much force he staggered into the other bad Talon.

  Phin was on them immediately. He grabbed each by an ear and smacked their heads into each other so hard the CLUNK! could be heard from space. They crumpled to the ground, if not concussed then at least compromised.

  I found the dropped Glock, wiped the blood from my eye, and shot each of them in the face three times, letting the Tesla lightning do its thing. It probably blinded them both.

  I didn’t care too much.

  “Drop the gun, Talon.”

  I spun, seeing two Satas. Both aimed their TEVs at me.

  “Unless you want to be sent to an earth with no oxygen.”

  I considered my choices, and realized I didn’t have any.

  digital tabletat flamethrower, which pI dropped the Glock.

  Chapter 27

  T-minus 17 seconds

  Alter-Sata and his dark counterpart had just returned from yet another alternate earth where they’d been hiding until events played themselves out on this one.

  Unfortunately, events hadn’t played out at planned. Alter-Talon expected the evil Talons to be in control of the situation, and instead they’d been soundly defeated.

  It was time to abandon this planet before it imploded. Alter-Talon would take the whole house, and its occupants, somewhere less volatile.

  Alter-Talon closed his eyes, syncing his brainwaves the octeract point, his concentration interrupted when someone said:

  “You guys look chilly. Let me heat you up a bit.”

  And then Alter-Talon and Dark Alter-Talon were on fire.

  Being engulfed in flames made it hard to focus, and Alter-Talon couldn’t pet the bunny. He assumed Dark Alter-Talon was having the same problem.

  They both dropped to the floor, rolling around frantically, but as soon as they extinguished the flames the asshole with the flamethrower restarted them.

  He tried to yell for that moron to stop it, that they were all going to die, but whenever Alter-Sata tried to take a breath he sucked in fire, which was no more conducive to speaking as it was to focusing.

  And then, suddenly, the flames stopped and Alter-Sata was no longer blazing.

  “Hold it,” he heard.

  It was a voice he recognized.

  But he’d never heard it in real life. He’d only heard it in his dreams.

  It belonged to the one who taught him how to create the TEV.

  Mu.

  Chapter 28

  T-minus 3 seconds

  Talon

  I was desperately peeling off the nanosuit armor from one
of the unconscious evil Talons, searching for the TEV so we could all get out of here before the earth imploded.

  Then there was a bright flash, and McGlade switched off his flamethrower.

  I wondered if we’d all somehow travelled into another dimension.

  That’s when Amarillo Plantain said, “Hold it.”

  Something compelled me to look. The banana was no longer in McGlade pocket. Instead, he was floatingering pizzas.”

  ow watch and I d at the same time.

  in the middle of the room.

  Couldn’t have seen that one coming.

  “Mu,” Sata said, his eyes wide.

  “That’s one of the names I go by,” Mu, né Amarillo Plantain, said. “I also go by Em. Mu is the letter M in Greek, you know.”

  “You can fly?” McGlade said. “A singing, flying banana! That’s awesome! We’re going to make a fortune. This goes way beyond plush dolls. We’re talking remote control singing banana rockets.” In a falsetto, he said, “Daddy, can I have a remote control signing banana rocket?” Then he answered himself in a low voice, “Of course you can. I’ll buy you three.” McGlade clapped his hands together in obvious glee. “And I get eighty-five percent! I’m going to be rich! I’m going to rent one of those volcano drilling rigs, make my own island in the South Pacific! I love my life!”

  We all ignored Harry.

  “Mu-san,” Sata got to his feet, then bowed deeper than I’d ever seen him bow, even though he was shaking and covered with terrible burns. “I thought you were just a dream.”

  “I appear in dreams sometimes.”

  “You gave me the idea for the TEV. And all of its modifications.”

  “Yep. That was me. Didn’t know I was a banana, did you?”

  Talon 2 walked into the room, rubbing his jaw. Alter-Vicki was at his side. “What the heck is that supposed to be?”

  “They’ve called me many things,” Mu said. “Like Zeus. And Deus. As in deus ex machina.”

  “God from the machine,” Grandma said. “That’s used to describe stories that end abruptly with some silly contrivance that comes out of nowhere.”

  “Exactly,” said Mu. “The TEV is the machine. And I am the god.”

  “Almighty Mu,” Sata said, his head still bowed. “Did you use your powers to stop this earth from imploding? The time for it has passed.”

  “Nope,” Mu said.

  “But we should all be dead based on the theories of quantum enta

  nglement and supersymmetry.”

  “Then apparently those theories aren’t theories, they’re incorrect hypotheses. Science fucks up all the time. Did you know you humans once thought the world was fl

  at? Did so for thousands of years.”

  “This earth wasn’t going to be destroyed?” I asked.

  “Does it look like it was destroyed?” Mu said. “Duh.”

  “So how exactly is dark matter illuminated?” Sata asked.

  The banana sighed. “Look, over, unconscious.

  os. If youG the multiverse is a weird place. I’m an eternal, immortal being who can be everywhere at once, and even I don’t understand it all.”

  Amarillo Plantain was a god? Couldn’t have seen that coming, either.

  And I couldn’t say I liked the direction this was heading in.

  “If you’re God, didn’t you create everything?” Alter-Vicki asked.

  “No. I was created at the same time as the multiverse. The multiverse is entropic, becoming increasingly disordered. I am negentropic. I am here to balance the entropy. I create order out of disorder.”

  “Like life,” Jack said.

  “Very good, Jack. Infinite life on infinite earths. And of course, there is life on other planets as well. Perhaps you’ve heard of möbiusite? It is a particle that can exist in all dimensions and universes at the same time. I am made of möbiusite. While I’m talking to you right now, I’m also doing an infinite number of other things in an infinite number of other places.”

  McGlade narrowed his eyes. “Does this mean we’re not going into show business together?”

  “I’m the supreme being in the multiverse.”

  “What if we split it 70/30?” Harry said.

  “I’m not some trained monkey who dances for coins.”

  “How about 60/40?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe 60/50?”

  “That’s mathematically impossible.”

  “You can’t ditch me, CB! I discovered you!”

  “You know who this guy reminds me of?” Jack asked Phin.

  “Yeah,” Phin said. “It’s his grandson. Someone keeps letting him back into the gene pool.”

  “That would be me,” Mu said. “McGlade amuses me. So did his father. And his grandfather. That’s why I keep giving him the same personality. I don’t have many indulgences, but he’s one of them.”

  “How about you indulge me by taking forty percent?” Harry said.

  We all ignored him.

  “So you’re responsible for timecasting technology?” I asked Mu. “And for the ability to travel to different dimensions?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Billions of people have died because of that technology,” Talon 2 said.

  “You’re not even close to the actual number,” Mu said. “Try a billion to the billionth billionth billionth billionth p digital tabletat />billionth a billion more times.”

  That number was so staggering it was in comprehensible. “But… why?”

  “Because the multiverse has to be in balance. I maintain the balance.”

  “By letting billions of people die?” Alter-Vicki folded her arms. “You’re not God. You’re the devil.”

  “I’ve been called that, too.”

  I turned my attention back to Alter-Talon, and I reached down his nanosuit for his TEV. Once I found it I located the buckle and pulled it free.

  “Talon 2,” I said, “disarm the Satas.”

  “Way ahead of you.” I noticed he was already walking toward them.

  I went to Dark Alter-Talon and removed his TEV.

  Then I set uffsee with a single boolean search term and focused my concentration on the octeract point. Once I tuned in to the imploded eighth dimension, I activated the beam, sending both evil Talons to another earth. One that was entirely desert.

  I saw a flash, and noted Talon 2 had done the same thing with both Satas.

  “Talon!”

  The byter had scurried out of the lab, the Nife still protruding from its head. I spun like a gunslinger and shot from the hip, zapping it with the TEV. The bug and a small chunk of floor disappeared.

  “You got all the bad guys,” Mu sang, “but you’re still too late.”

  What was he crowing about?

  Then I remembered.

  Vicki.

  I ran back into the lab, saw an Indian woman sitting next to her.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, looking up at me. Her face was kind. “She lost too much blood.”

  I rushed to Vicki, dropping to my knees, cradling her head in my lap.

  So cold. So pale.

  I felt her neck.

  No pulse.

  No—

  No no no no—

  This can’t be happening…

  “Vicki. Don’t die on me. Don’t you die on me.”

  I laid her head down gently, pressed my bleeding lips to her cool ones. Blew in a breath. Began chest compressions.

  One and two and three and four and breathe…

  “Come on, honey. Stay#em?” Alter-Vicki asked.llveryone with me.”

  “CPR won’t work,” the woman said. “I’m a doctor. I know.”

  One and two and three and four and breathe…

  “Don’t listen to her, babe. You can do this.”

  The doctor tried to gently pull me away. “She doesn’t have enough blood in her. There’s nothing to circulate.”

  I shrugged her off.

  One and two and…

  “S
he died of hypovolemic shock. Nothing can be done to start her heart. You have to let her go.”

  …three and four and breathe…

  “Come on, Vicki.”

  “Talon…” Grandma was above me, putting her hand on my shoulder.

  I was crying now. I looked up at my grandmother. “I love her, Grandma. I love her so much. I can’t let her die.”

  “The cosmic scales must balance,” Mu sang, “that’s why we sing the blues.”

  I turned to Mu, saw he’d come in with the others.

  “Fix her,” I demanded, my vision blurry with tears.

  “That’s not my job, Talon.”

  “You said… you said you created life.” I choked back a sob. “You can save her.”

  “Life does what life does. Death is part of life. It’s cyclical. But there are other Vickis, on other earths. You can find another one.”

  “I don’t want another one.” I got to my feet, my legs shaking, the tears stinging my bloody cheeks. “I want this one. This is the one I’ve shared my life with. This is the one I love more than anything in the world.”

  “Sometimes love doesn’t conquer all, Talon.”

  I felt everyone’s eyes on me. Felt the weight of their pity.

  This wasn’t what I’d fought so hard for. It wasn’t the happy ending I’d always managed to keep alive in the back of my mind, even during the worst of the shit I’d gone through.

  She couldn’t be dead. Not my Vicki. Not when there was someone right in front of me who could save her.

  I dropped to my knees. “Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll trade my life for hers. I’m begging you.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of begging in my time,” Mu said. “But I don’t answer prayers.”

  I was going to reach out, squeeze the life out of Mu, but he promptly?” Talon’s wife asked.at />