Quantum Break

by Cam Rogers

  Hatch cleared his throat.

  Paul glanced at him. “Yes, Martin.”

  “We need to debrief.”

  Paul gently touched Sofia’s face, kissed her forehead. “Be rested for the gala tonight. Seduce the world for me, Sofia. I want you and Martin to leave them gasping. I’ll be watching from my quarters.”

  “And afterward?”

  “Just you and me.” Then: “Martin, this way.”

  Paul directed his CEO into a free medical bay. Sofia’s lab was secure on the top floor, close to Martin’s office and away from the eyes of the rest of the Tower. Paul’s association with Monarch, despite being its unofficial founder, was strictly off the record. He’d never even walked the mezzanines.

  “You said you’ve assigned Chronon-1 to bring in Jack,” Paul said.

  “That’s right.”

  Paul dragged one palm down his sweating face, worked the ache out of his jaw. “Chronon-1 had him once.”

  “Randall Gibson had him once. I’ve demoted him and placed Donny in charge.”

  Paul was surprised. “Gibson’s your boy, Martin. You’ve cleaned a lot of dirt from his kennel over the years. I expected rationales from you, not a spanking.”

  “In his defense, Randall was underequipped. Jack is chronon-active. That was unexpected.” Martin let that hang for a moment, perhaps pointedly. “He informs me that Joyce woke and gave him the slip.”

  “You doubt the report.”

  “Randall’s instinct for self-preservation is a primary trait.”

  “As is his unpredictability.”

  “It’s the cost of an adaptable operative who possesses wide-spectrum moral flexibility, zero hesitation, and the mental fortitude for stutter operations. His success rate remains in the second percentile. In terms of cost-benefit the man remains an asset.”

  “So. Now that the university is done, what’s the temperature outside?”

  Hatch shifted his weight a touch, straightened his shoulders. “Almost everything went exactly as you said it would.”

  Paul took a second and slowed his subjective relationship to the moment. Focusing on Martin, he watched potential futures radiate off the man four-dimensionally. He isolated his awareness of these potential causality streams and focused instead on streams already expiring. Paul’s awareness scanned through this fading back-catalog, located the inbound path that had led to the particular moment they now inhabited, and traced it backward.

  This backward path was already weak and fading, becoming fainter as each passing second took Paul farther away from the present. Paul seized upon it, allowed his perception to inhabit that now-extinct possible past, and looked around as quickly as he could.

  Martin, in his office, eighty-seven minutes prior. The black-glass surface of his smart desk channeled the voice of Talon Squad’s senior operative.

  “Stage One’s complete, sir. All witnesses detained.”

  “How many?”

  “Thirteen. They’ve seen what we needed them to see.”

  Martin digested this. “Thirteen is manageable.”

  “Sir?”

  Martin Hatch radiated a sudden density of potential, a daisy-head of deeply consequential paths streaming from him. What he said next would determine the shape of the future—the success or failure, potentially, of everything Paul had worked for.

  “Release three, then exercise the hard-line option immediately. Civilians and law enforcement are contained, but not for much longer. You have sixty seconds.”

  “Yes, sir. Talon out.”

  Hatch heard gunfire before the line had even cut.

  The daisy-head withered, untaken paths already dusting out and being left behind as Martin Hatch walked Monarch into a future where they murdered ten college students, on campus. The flow of time dragged Paul away from other futures. Looking forward, Paul saw how the path Martin had taken them down would require cover-ups, raise questions, spawn suspicion, and require a retasking of manpower to smooth things over. Why had Monarch personnel cordoned the university? How could a private security outfit mandate to the Riverport Police Department who may and may not enter an active crime scene? Why was Monarch dealing with the shooters?

  But it was all covered in their contract with the city, and events would progress fast enough that it would never go to court.

  He saw the media explode with speculation about “Peace”: who were they and why had they targeted the quantum physics building? He caught glimpses of Monarch revealing what had been inside that lab, the perfect way to prime the public for what Martin would reveal at tomorrow night’s gala.

  This had been the right move. Behind him Paul watched a dozen lesser causality-paths die.

  Paul disengaged and rubber banded back into the present.

  “We made an impression,” Hatch was saying. “The correct witnesses escaped, the remainder were neutralized on-site. The narrative in the media is that it’s an act of domestic terrorism. There’s good footage of our helicopter airlifting the time core free of the Quantum Physics Building.”

  “Great. That primes the audience for our second-act involvement. We’re in good shape.”

  “Your decision to prematurely demolish the library, however—”

  “—was accounted for in pre-planning. It conforms to the narrative of an extremist attack on the Physics Building.”

  As an individual, Martin Hatch possessed minimal need for expression. The flex of thumb atop his clasped hands and his level gaze exuded tolerance. “Is it possible that you simply could not bring yourself to shoot a family friend?”

  Martin knew him better than anyone, but even so … Paul found the thought of having lost a moment of control over his own transparency unsettling.

  “Seventeen years and here we are, on the eve of our work coming to fruition, and you’re questioning my capacity to place our mission first?”

  “I never supported the elimination of William Joyce. Our best have striven for years to understand the Regulator. Dr. Joyce could have enlightened us in an afternoon.”

  “He resided on the correct side of your cost-benefit analysis, yes, I understand.”

  “Six years. That’s how long I’ve debated Dr. Joyce with you. We could have brought him in, interrogated him, and learned. You and I will never know how far it could have taken this company.”

  “I helmed Project Promenade for three years before I finally went through the machine. In that time William was a consultant and troubleshooter only. He was never hauled off for questioning. It never happened, so it could never happen. Time is a closed loop. Nothing changes. I know. I’ve tried.”

  “The Regulator could have been our Rosetta Stone. It may have saved us, come the end.” Hatch composed himself. This kind of outburst was out of character for him. “There is nothing more to be said. Kim is gone, and now so is Joyce.”

  These bullet points were recited, verbatim, from the last time they’d had a similar conversation. “Will had the knowledge and power to interfere. We’re too close to zero hour. The risk he presented was unacceptable.”

  Hatch maintained his usual countenance. “Convince me that sentimentality will not play a role in your handling of Jack Joyce.”

  “We’ve tried and failed for years to replicate my abilities. Jack survived where we failed. He is valuable.”

  “That is irrelevant this late in the game.”

  “Replicating the powers Jack and I share, sans my … ailment … would lessen Lifeboat’s dependence on chronon storage and rescue rigs, thereby increasing the viability of end-of-time survival.”

  “William’s interferences would have been inconvenient. By contrast the actions of a chronon-active insurgent, such as Jack, in pursuit of a vendetta could derail—”

  “Martin.” Paul looked his friend in the eye. “You are Monarch. The blood of ten people is on your hands. Mine are plunged into an ocean of it. No single life is worth the life of all that has been, all that is, and all that might one day be. When it comes to Jack
I won’t hesitate, but for now he resides on the correct side of my own cost-benefit analysis.” Martin held his gaze. That was enough. “I chose you to be the man to safeguard humanity through its most terrible hour. Your diligence now only reaffirms my confidence.”

  Martin inclined his head, an acceptance and leave-taking. He did not accept the rationale, or the flattery. Without another word he exited, the conversation over.

  Paul’s hand went to the talisman that hung around his neck on a thin, woven chain. Orrie “Trigger” Aberfoyle’s bullet: a reminder that time cannot be taken for granted, and that eventually it runs out. For everyone.

  8

  Will was whistling while he worked, sitting at his wooden bench in the barn, an articulated lamp isolating him in a pool of warm light. Jack was outside the barn door, playing with action figures before bed. Will looked over, smiled, and kept on whistling tunelessly.

  Jack looked up, saw the bomb drop. It punched through the barn’s frail roof, scattering tiles, splintering wood. Then the flame: a wall of fire, bright and cold and …

  It was dark. He was cold. He was in a car, moving, his head resting against the passenger-side window. Wind whistled off-key through two sharp-edged breaks in the glass. Bullet holes.

  Christmas lights. The smell of coffee. Nick’s cab.

  Someone shared the backseat with him, curled into herself, the painted words on the back of her hoodie catching the moonlight: RESPECT EXISTENCE OR EXPECT RESISTANCE. Amy. She was alive.

  Nick glanced at him in the rearview. “So,” he inquired. “How was your evening?”

  The radio was burbling. Some loudmouth Jack remembered from his high school years was still bellowing down the airwaves¸ except this time he sounded more alarmed than brash.

  Nobody was talking about frozen time. Why would they? They had all been frozen right along with it. Nobody would have noticed a thing.

  “How’d you get off campus?” he said.

  “Skin of teeth, friend,” Nick replied. “We in trubbies.”

  “They killed everyone,” Amy mumbled, turning her face toward him. “Like it was no big deal.”

  There were specks of blood on her face. She let him take that in, then turned away, pulling the hood tighter around her head as if she was trying to fall away to some other place.

  “It’s true,” Nick said. “News is saying it looks like an act of domestic terrorism. Some anti-Monarch group.”

  “Those guys were Monarch.”

  Amy sat bolt upright, shot across the seat, and got in Nick’s face. “I fucking told you!” She punched the back of Nick’s seat, hard, then hurled herself back into her own. “We tried to get the others to the car,” Amy added, voice close to breaking. “They didn’t make it.”

  “Found you inside the cab,” Nick said. “I must have left it unlocked.” Then: “Monarch? Really?” Like someone had told him his mom had cancer.

  Zed. Had Jack really seen her?

  The water bottle Nick used to fill his little espresso gadget had taken a round and exploded. The front seat was soaked. “They must have made you as you left.”

  “A couple of goons, probably. We didn’t hit the cordon. Amy had a way out. Blasted through a few hedges, trashed a fence, tore up the football field, and roared into the night.” Nick’s voice wasn’t doing a good job of living up to the bravado of his words. He sounded far away. “Dad’s gonna murder me. You can’t get paint in this shade anymore.”

  “They’ll be looking for this car.”

  “The cops,” Amy said. “They have to be in on this. How can they not be? Was this all for a library?”

  She had curled up again, vulnerable, shaking as the adrenaline wore off, so different from the rough-edged battler who had cornered him a few hours ago.

  “No,” Jack said. “This had nothing to do with you and your friends. Wrong place, wrong time, that’s all.”

  “Sing it with me,” she mumbled.

  Library. Will’s final moments looped for him, endlessly. Despair, farewell, flame, gone.

  Then Paul. Jack wondered what he would have done with that gun, if Zed hadn’t shown. Would he have used it on Paul? Killed the kid he grew up with?

  “Nick? Where are we going?”

  “Out of town, I figure. Wait and see what happens.”

  Amy sat upright. “I have to get home. My parents will be freaking out.”

  “I know, buddy. Jack, your phone work?”

  Jack thumbed his on. Nothing but bars of rainbow scramble. “Nothing.” Monarch comms had been working fine the whole time, though. “Most likely they remote-uploaded something to every cellular in the area. I watched a fifteen-year-old do it in a cafeteria once.”

  Amy was becoming agitated. “Just drop me off in my neighborhood, okay? I gotta get home.”

  “Are you hearing the radio? Everyone’s losing their minds. If they’re looking for us—”

  “Then stop the car. I’m getting out.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Stop the fucking car! Stop it! Stop it!”

  “Hey hey, if you—”

  Amy was already reaching for the door. Jack grabbed her. “Amy!”

  She lashed out for his face, dug in, drew blood. Before she could swing again he locked her in a bear hug and did his best not to move while she screamed every last thing she could think of at the ceiling.

  “Guys, guys, come on, man, we…!”

  “Eyes on the road, Nick. Please.”

  Amy kept screaming, for what seemed like minutes. She kicked the shit out of the back of those original seats, Nick’s head rocking back and forth with each strike. Eventually the steam ran out, leaving her cold and vibrating. Jack loosened his grip; she didn’t push him away. Jack imagined that if she was anything like him, right now she felt like she was falling down a very deep well. A lot of people she cared about were gone. Her entire world, for all he knew, and nobody could know what that was like. She hadn’t even begun to work that out. Neither had he.

  “They killed my brother,” Jack said, quietly. The disclosure dispelled the terrible isolation she felt, the being-alone with friends who would forever be absences. It made their extinguishment all too real, a safety catch flipped, and it all poured out of her. She gripped him hard, joints locked, her frame bucking with each wracking sob.

  Nick fished a box of Kleenex from the glove compartment, eyes on the rearview mirror. “Jack,” he whispered, as discreetly as he could. “You might want one for your face.”

  Jack took the box, which was when Nick noticed that the blood was still there but the cuts were not.

  9

  Saturday, 8 October 2016. 5:55 A.M. Riverport, Massachusetts. Joyce farm.

  They dropped Amy off a block from her house, then Nick drove toward Jack’s old place.

  Jack had known only one home. It was several hectares of what had once been a turn-of-the-century horse farm, torn down, built up, and refurbished in the 1960s to serve as home to Jack and Will’s newlywed parents. Warm old wood and airy rooms repainted every few years, with the exceptions of the kitchen doorframe. That the family kept for the notches carved there, each one bearing Jack or Will’s name, and the date it was made, measuring their growth from children to loudmouthed teens to …

  Jack was nine when the family routine ended. His mom and dad had died. As the eldest, Will had taken over the task of raising Jack, while continuing his scientific work.

  Will had never been well. While their parents were alive a certain order had been maintained, allowing Will to function at high efficiency while focusing on what interested him. Maintained by medication and regular meals, Will did well. His scientific papers were received with interest, even acclaim. His future was bright. But the loss of their parents changed that.

  Will couldn’t look after himself, let alone someone as volatile and needful as a newly orphaned nine-year-old boy. Will replaced the organizational influence of their parents with a series of spreadsheets, allowing him to ensure Jack
was maintained while maximizing the amount of time Will could spend in the barn, working.

  For the first three years not an evening went by that Jack didn’t hear the Dodge crackle up the driveway and feel his entire body leap with “Dad’s home.” This was followed by the immediate reminder that Dad was gone and Will was driving the truck.

  Jack finished high school while working two or three jobs, managing the household, paying bills, and making sure they both ate regularly. Will’s focus was on the world beyond Riverport, the span of history, the greater good. Jack’s had been on the home.

  Dates with girls were missed. Friends were few. Dances came and went. Neither Jack nor Will attended Jack’s high school graduation: Will because he forgot, and Jack because he knew Will would forget. A glance at the kitchen corkboard told him that it hadn’t even rated a mention on the spreadsheet.

  The farm had been a great place for four people, a sad place for two.

  Now, standing at the gate, headlights illuminating the family name on the gate plate, Jack couldn’t bear the idea of returning to it as a family of one.

  The smoke from the burning library was a faint blemish on a horizon turned morning-silver.

  Jack had asked Nick to stop at the gate. He had been standing there for almost ten minutes, eyes on the roof of the old house, past the maple trees, past the barn. Nick wasn’t in a rush, just leaned against the hood and smoked. The cabbie’s eyes were closed, head back, not tired just—not running for his life.

  “You want breakfast?” Jack asked.

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t feel like eating a damn thing, but sure. You think Amy’ll be okay?”

  “Not for a while.”

  “I’m sorry. About your brother. I’m sure he was solid.”

  “He was self-absorbed, unreliable, and way in love with the smell of all his burning bridges.”

  “But.”

  “But toward the end I think he was trying to do some good.”

  “Solid dude. Nobody’s perfect.” Nick closed his lighter, flicked his cigarette onto the asphalt. “What about Thailand? They might be watching the airports.”