by Rick Hautala
Rice took his old clothes and wrestled Murphy’s stiffening body into them. They didn’t fit him nearly as well, but Rice chuckled to himself, thinking that Murf probably wasn’t going to complain.
Smoothing the shimmering green fabric as he straightened up, Rice toyed with the watch in his hand for a few seconds as he addressed the dead man again. “Well, asshole, it’s too bad you didn’t live long enough to figure out how I got away with all’a them killings.“
Stepping away from the body into the center of the room, Rice pressed the red button on the side of Murphy’s watch to see what would happen. He closed his eyes as the whining sound rose higher and higher, drilling into his ears and making him dizzy.
“So long,“ he said as the hotel room began to stretch and waver all around him. After a few more seconds, the walls began to grow transparent, and Rice thought he could see something else through or behind it.
The sound rose until it was almost painful. A sudden instant of motion made Rice’s stomach flip, and then he was falling forward, tumbling head over heels as he pitched into a pool of throbbing dark, green light.
4
Rice regained consciousness and found that his face was buried beneath a cool, silky fabric. It appeared to be the same fabric as Murphy’s shirt, but this was colored light blue, like the sky on a summer day. He struggled up closer to awareness, feeling like a swimmer who had gone too far under and was straining to reach the surface to get another lungful of air.
Voices, he realized, were buzzing softly around him. As he came to, the voices—he wasn’t sure exactly how many—grew more intelligible. Rice realized that he was lying face down in a bed, so he rolled over onto his back and tried to open his eyes. The sting of bright lights above him convinced him to keep them closed for a little while longer. He took a breath, feeling his chest expand, and he knew he was alive. The question burning in his mind was—Where the hell am I?
He opened his eyes again to narrow slits and saw someone—not much more than a dark blur—leaning over him. The person breathed a cool wash of air onto his face. Rice forced his eyes open a bit wider in spite of the stinging pain. A shock raced through him when he realized he was looking up at Murphy.
“What the—?“ was all he managed to say. He tried to sit up, but a bolt of electric pain shot through him.
“Please. Just relax, Mr. Ricci,“ a voice that sounded exactly like Murphy said. It even still had that same mocking edge to it. “You were unprepared for the temporal shift, and you’ve suffered extensive nerve damage. Nothing permanent, I assure you, but it can be quite painful.“
“How in the hell did I—“
It hurt to talk; it hurt even to keep his eyes open, so he let them slide shut and laid back down.
“I will answer all of your questions in due time, Mr. Ricci, but first, I must insist that you calm yourself. Our monitors aren’t calibrated for your biology, so we can’t be sure of the readings.“
“Murf... For Christ’s sake, Murf. You’re dead. I shot your head off in the hotel.
“No, Mr. Ricci, you—“
“And stop calling me Ricci. You know the name’s Rice.“
Each word sent a flaming spike of pain along his nerve endings, making his entire body feel like it was on fire. The surprise of not being dead was shock enough, but seeing Murphy alive was just too much. Rice thought he must be dreaming or imagining all of this.
“A-ha,“ said another voice from the other side of the room. “I see the patient’s finally coming around.“
Footsteps approached the bed. Opening his eyes wide and looking to the side, Rice saw another man. As his vision cleared, he was shocked to see this man looked exactly like Murphy. He smiled as he leaned over the bed and stared down at Rice with a cool, green gaze.
“Jumped-up Jesus H. Christ!“ Rice shouted in spite of the pain. The muscles in his arms and legs jerked violently, sending jolting bolts of pain through him.
“Please, Mr. Ricci... Rice,“ Murphy said. “Try to control your reactions. The nerve damage, as I said, is temporary, but any movement will only delay the healing process. You may feel a bit light-headed due to the lesser gravity. Also, we’ve giving you a mild neural stimulation to relax you and prevent any—shall we call them ’primitive’ outbursts?“
“We’re not entirely familiar with your nervous system, Mr. Ricci,“ the man who looked like Murphy said, “so we may have stimulated the cerebral cortex a bit too much. We can adjust it.“
Rice groaned and settled his head into the cool well of the pillow. “Hey... Murf,“ he said. “The least you could do is call me Rice. After all...“ His voice trailed away to a thin whisper.
“As you probably realize,“ Murphy said, “although you may not accept it, you have been transported to what you perceive as the future. According to your old style calculations, I believe this is the year 3049 for you.“
“You’ve got to be shitting me,“ Rice whispered. He kept his eyes closed because it felt so much better even though he didn’t like not being able to see who he was talking to. “How the fuck are you still alive? And who’s this? Your twin brother?“
“In a manner of speaking—yes, he is, but the man you speak of as Murphy is, as you say, dead, Mr.Ri—I mean Rice. It was an unfortunate event, which we hadn’t foreseen. You must understand that, even for us, there are limits to time displacement. We only explore our past, so we had no idea the man you called Murphy would, in fact, be your fifteenth—and final—victim. That particular event was in our future as well, so we had no way of knowing about it or preventing it.“
“If our research into his era had been more through—“ the man who looked like Murphy began, but then he fell silent. Rice sensed that this was an old argument.
“Our records indicate that your fifteenth and final victim was unidentified. Because of the way he was dressed, the news of the time simply reported him as an unknown, probably a street person. But—as I said—we had no way of knowing he was one of us.“
“Actually, I thought he just said it,“ Rice said, feeling confused as he narrowed his eyes to slits and looked at the man who looked like Murphy. “But he... I mean Murphy is really dead?“
“Unfortunately, yes,“ said one of the men who looked like Murphy.
It was a little more comfortable to keep his eyes open, so Rice stared for a moment at the ceiling and considered what was happening. If this was a dream or a hallucination, it was damned convincing.
“So I—uh, I suppose you’re gonna have me arrested for murdering your buddy, huh?“ he asked listlessly. He was feeling much too weak to resist anything and wanted to yield to the muddy cloud that filled his head and was tugging him back down into unconsciousness.
“Oh, no—no. Quite to the contrary, Rice,“ the other man who looked like Murphy said. “You see, the entire world is populated by what in your century was commonly called ’clones.’ The death of any single individual is relatively inconsequential. The man you called Murphy can be replaced—has been already, in fact.“
“Besides,“ the other man who looked like Murphy said, “there’s not much point in prosecuting a murder that occurred close to two thousand years ago, is there?“
“Well, that’s certainly a relief,“ Rice said with a sigh of relief. He rolled his head from side to side so it sank deeper into the pillow. He wanted the sedative or whatever the hell they had given him to take him a little deeper into the “marshmallow zone,“ as he began to think of it. Soft, warm, and comfortable.
“Where am I, anyway?“ he asked, his voice lilting dreamily. “Is this a hospital or something? If I ain’t gonna be prosecuted for killing your buddy, am I gonna be able to leave here once I’m feeling better?“
When the two men who looked like Murphy didn’t reply right away, Rice opened his eyes and looked back and forth between them. It was weird, seeing double like this, but he thought he might be able to accept living in a world where everyone looked alike...except him.
The two m
en who looked like Murphy exchanged meaningful glances, and even though Rice didn’t see their mouths move, he had the distinct impression they were communicating. Finally, one of them said, “I’m sorry, Rice, but we can’t allow that.“
“Huh?“ Rice said, his body jerking spasmodically. He wanted to sound angrier than he did, but whatever they were doing to his brain was making him feel almost helpless. “I have rights, don’t I? Is this still the United States of America, or what?“
“Or what, I suppose,“ one of them said.
“But don’t worry,“ the other one interjected brightly. “You do have rights, and I saw that they were fully represented at your trial.“
“My...trial?“
In spite of the sedation, a chilly sensation crept over Rice. It was like a huge fist had taken hold of him and was starting to squeeze.
“Whadda yah mean, my trial? Christ on a crutch! I don’t remember any trial. You make it sound like it already happened.“
“It has,“ one of the men who looked like Murphy said solemnly.
“What was I charged with if not for killing your buddy?“ Rice asked.
“Temporal tampering, of course,“ one of the men who looked like Murphy said.
“I’m sure the man you called Murphy informed you of the penalty involved with unauthorized chronomatic shifting.“
“No, he...I’m not really sure,“ Rice said, lazily shaking his head. His throat suddenly went dry when he remembered that Murphy had just been starting to say something about that when he’d blown his brains out. The cold numbness was centered in his belly, now, but it was also spreading out along his arms and legs, tingling and burning as it went.
“He said...something...but I didn’t quite catch it all.“
“That’s terribly unfortunate,“ one of the men who looked like Murphy said.
“Unauthorized time travel is a grave offense,“ the other one said.
“Very grave,“ echoed the other, although to Rice’s ears, now, they both sounded exactly alike.
With a smooth motion that Rice could barely follow, much less resist, they leaned forward and slid padded restraints over his arms and legs. Rice tried to find a reserve of strength to resist them, but it was useless. He collapsed back onto the bed as deep, burning pain encased his body.
“So that’s it, huh?“ he said, struggling to speak. “I’m gonna get iced? I’ll get the electric chair or a lethal injection for screwing around with time travel?“
The frantic edge in his voice made both men wince as they worked to secure him to the bed. Rice wanted desperately to fight back but—finally—he had to give up. They waited a few seconds until he remained absolutely motionless before one of them spoke.
“Rest assured, Rice, you will not be exterminated.“
“Exterminated?“ Rice asked thickly, straining to look up at them.
“Yes, executed. Killed. You will not die,“ the other one said.
“You see. We now realize that in any case of temporal tampering, there are graver consequences than we had anticipated. There’s a distinct possibility of generating one—“
“Or several.“
“Yes. Or several time paradoxes. Temporal shifting is relatively new to our culture, and we are still quite inexperienced with all of its ramifications. As what you did to the man you called Murphy demonstrates so clearly, even we are not infallible.“
“It would be far too risky to eliminate any single factor in the equation,“ the other man who looked like Murphy said. “Particularly since you are the first and—hopefully—only individual to travel from the past into the future.“
“All of our temporal transportation has been back to the past, and then our adventurers have returned to our present, as close to the moment they left as is feasible. We have never attempted to travel into the future ourselves—“
“Yet.“
“Yes. Yes,“ the man who looked like Murphy said. “But you must see our predicament.“
The other one nodded. “The problem that has arisen is that, at some point still in our future, you may prove to be the source of a temporal paradox.“
“So rather than eliminate you, we intend to give you a synaptic block so we can hold you in cryogenic suspension.“
Panic and rage flashed through Rice, but there was nothing he could do. All strength and will to resist had seeped out of him like water leaking from a cracked cup. He knew he wouldn’t be able to move even if he weren’t tied to the bed. His throat made a tiny squeaking sound as he gasped for breath, but that was all.
“In a quite literal sense, Rice, you will be ’iced,’ as you so eloquently put it,“ the man who looked like Murphy said.
“And then if, at any time in the future, a temporal paradox occurs as a result of your intrusion into the future—“
“And we recognize it.“
“Yes, we must recognize it, then you can be revived and returned to your past so we can rectify it. Otherwise—“
“I’m as good as dead,“ Rice said weakly.
“Better than dead,“ one of the men who looked like Murphy said before walking over to a cabinet on the far wall. Rice watched as he took something that looked like a flashlight from the top shelf and returned to the bed. But Rice knew this was no flashlight, just like Murphy’s wristwatch hadn’t really been a wristwatch. The man who looked like Murphy pressed one end of the device against Rice’s arm and depressed a button. A cobra-like hiss filled the room for a few seconds, and Rice’s arm went instantly numb as a shockwave of cold spread through it.
“Unfortunately,“ the other man who looked like Murphy said, “we have yet to perfect the synaptic block, and we still are facing many unknowns, using it on such a primitive nervous system as your own.“
“Although it will remove—that is, block most of your senses, we are uncertain as to whether or not it will erase your consciousness, your awareness.“
The numbing cold spread quickly up Rice’s arm until it clasped his chest, squeezing his heart with unbearable pressure and pain.
“What...? No... You can’t...“ he heard himself say, but his voice came from a great distance off and sounded like someone else speaking in the next room.
“I’m so sorry,“ the man who looked like Murphy said. “We can—“
“And must.“
“Yes. We must.“
Rice could feel himself sinking down...down...down into a terrible, deep cold. The memory of that day so long ago, when he was twelve and had fallen through the ice and plummeted down into the icy, green depths swept through him and filled him with blinding panic. Powerful, dark fingers closed around his mind and squeezed. The algae-covered bottom of the frozen pond rushed up at him as he floated down into bone-chilling water, but he never struck bottom. Terror as cold and bright as chrome sliced through him and didn’t let go as waving tendrils of crusty, green ooze washed over him. Only this time, he was unable to resist as they coiled around him and crushed him until he was certain his lungs would collapse. With one last remaining shred of sanity, Rice realized that he was trapped in this eternal cold and dark, and that he was still falling. And some part of him that would remain alive knew that it could take a few seconds...a few years...or forever before he reached the bottom.
Toxic Shock
1
The police line could barely hold back the surging crowd as Sheila Dobson climbed out of the police van and started up the paved walkway to the Pro-Choice Clinic. Hot, wind-blown rain misted in shimmering sheets against the orange glare of the sodium arc streetlights. Wooden barricades had been set up along the sidewalk with flashing red warning lights that illuminated the scores of angry faces, seen only dimly through the protective face masks that all of the protesters were wearing. The area looked like a vision of Hell, rather than the quiet side street in downtown Philadelphia it had been...at least until the Pro-Choice Clinic opened two years ago.
Sheila sensed the anger in the eyes that tracked her as she walked quickly up the stairs to
the front door. With each step, her legs threatened to give out underneath her. She kept telling herself to focus straight ahead, but she couldn’t stop from glancing at the crowd. Handmade signs and posters were raised high in clenched fists. They waved and bounced in time with the chanting shouts and jeers.
MURDERER!
KILLER!
PROTECT THE RIGHT TO LIFE!
AB-SOLUTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION!
Sheila couldn’t tell if some of the words on the signs had been drawn purposely to look like splashes of blood, or if the burning rain was washing away the cheap red poster paint the protesters had used. The minister leading the group wore his vestments outside of his protective rubber coat. The homemade cloth was pitted with small burn holes that smoldered as he waved his arms overhead, leading the group in a hymn. The voices of the singers were drowned out by louder, random shouts directed at Sheila and the cordon of police, but all of their voices were muffled by the steady hiss of falling rain and the weatherproof facemasks everyone wore. Sheila caught only fragments of what they were yelling.
“Repent now, sister!“
“Respect the life that’s been given to you!“
“It’s not too late to save yourself!“
“Hell is for sinners—like you, bitch!“
Sheila grew dizzy as she focused on the throng of glistening face masks that ringed her. They looked like some horrible undersea invasion.
“Miss Dobson...?“ a uniformed officer said.
Standing in the shelter of the doorway, he looked up from his plastic-encased clipboard. His voice was distorted by the clear plastic facemask and rainproof hood that covered his head.
Unable to tear her gaze away from the crowd, Sheila simply nodded. The impulse to rush to the policeman for protection was almost overwhelming, but she took a deep, steadying breath and squared her shoulders.
“Yes—“ she said, turning toward him.
“If you’ll step right this way please, Miss Dobson.“ The officer stood to one side and reached for the door handle. He was just about to swing the door open when a fist-sized rock sailed over Sheila’s head and shattered the glass. The crowd roared its approval as broken glass showered the steps like hundreds of diamonds. Sheila ducked behind the officer as he spun around and raised his riot-gun. Hemmed in by the crowd, the line of policemen fell back closer to the building. All of them had their riot-guns poised and ready.