The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Blake! Wait up!"

  I turned, saw Mara. "Figured you'd stick around to soak up the adoration."

  "You kidding? That place gives me the creeps." She walked with me down to the tube. We climbed into the zipcar. As it accelerated from the station, she swept it for bugs, then gave me a sheepish look. "Guess you're not the only one who's paranoid. What happened in there?"

  "Everyday, run-of-the-mill fear of public assassination."

  "I told you. This was their way of making us think it's over."

  "I know."

  She gazed at the tunnel walls flashing past the car. "Do you need a break?"

  "In the case, sure. Not from it."

  "You've been stuck on Sept a while, haven't you? What do you do when the street you're traveling hits a brick wall?"

  I smiled with half my mouth. "Try another one instead."

  "Why don't you circle back to Davies?" She stretched her legs, glared at her feet. "Carefully, of course. But he's the one man we know is involved. Maybe he's left tracks."

  I nodded, mulling. I hated to back away from the Sept lead—I still thought there was something to it—but there was no point bashing my head against the wall.

  "I'm going to make a quick trip out west. Then I'll start in on Davies."

  "Good." She smiled. Reached over to touch my knee. "Don't push so hard, man. I know—the fate of worlds hangs in the balance. Tough shit for them. If this takes three months, it takes three months. If it takes ten years, then I guess they have to wait."

  "Gotcha." I suddenly felt very tired. A few minutes later, the car swung to a stop. The door hissed open. Mara climbed out, waved, and disappeared.

  I slept late the next morning, but the cross-country zipline had me in Sonoma by the afternoon. Just before six PM, with the soft coastal light washing over the streets, I stepped up to Donald Ruth's bungalow and knocked on the door.

  He didn't answer. I tried again. Pressed my ear to the door. Heard nothing. Feeling eyes, I glanced down the street. An old man stood in the next yard watering the bed of succulents which comprised his lawn.

  "You looking for Donald?" he said.

  I shaded my eyes. "Sure am."

  "And who might you be?"

  "Former colleague. Just following up on some old business. Know when he'll be back?"

  The old man sniffed. "Oh, right around never, I expect. He moved out three days ago. Funny thing. I didn't figure on Donald leaving that house in anything but a bag."

  He laughed crazily, hose jiggling, spraying water into Donald's overgrown lawn. I thanked him, pretended to leave, then circled around for a quick look in the back yard. The back door was unlocked. Much of the furniture was still inside. The garage was a mess of old boxes thick with dust. I looked around for any notes he may have left, but was unsurprised to find none.

  The ride home gave me more than enough time to think. Donald Ruth had left in a hurry just a few days after my first visit. Wasn't hard to connect the dots. He was scared. Didn't want to be anywhere near if this ghost came wailing out of the past.

  I got out my link and reread the Mercer case, along with my notes, which at this point were many times longer than the file itself. Nothing new stood out.

  Back home, I went to bed to sleep off the day of travel. I woke early and dug into Davies. His basic history was a matter of public record: came up through Central. Field agent for 18 years. Transitioned to management, quickly made Assistant Commander, then Acting, then named the permanent head. Had held the position for over a decade.

  I didn't believe he was running G&A's off-world time travel unit alone. The question was whether it was being operated through Central, or a shadow group elsewhere in Primetime. I started pulling his connections. His friends. Business relations. Former agents who might have gone into business for themselves. It was a long list, and most of them didn't have much in the way of public records.

  I set my link trolling for leads and manually checked everything it spat out. Following all the connections would be the work of months, but it was like Mara said. It would take as long as it took.

  A couple weeks went by. I wondered what G&A was up to in the other world. They were already running missions of their own. Davies and Silas Hockery/Rupert Joachim had discussed targets. Assassinations. Joachim had made it sound like they intended to set up proxy empires. Who knew how much of that was already underway.

  Then Vette called me up to the hill in the park.

  "How's it going?" she said, dressed sharply in the frost blue of Central; unlike us, most of them got uniforms.

  I looked around, but couldn't find the tree with the rainbow bark. "I don't know."

  "That bad?"

  "I've been burrowing into Davies' life and friends for so long I sometimes forget why I'm doing it."

  She got out her link. "Maybe this will help."

  "This?"

  "The Mercer file."

  I sighed. "Been over it. A hundred times. Maybe more."

  Vette gave me a funny smile. "No you haven't. Because you're missing part of it."

  "Which part?"

  "The end." She tapped her link. A file appeared on mine.

  I pulled it open. "What happens?"

  She shrugged. "Nothing that I can see. But I thought you might want it. Funny thing—the file was flagged. I had to do some fancy stepping to thieve it from the virtual shelf without tripping alerts."

  This was highly interesting in its own right, but I only had eyes for the updated file. "Anything else?"

  "Thank you would be nice."

  I looked up from my link and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, Vette."

  She blinked. "Yeah, I'm not sure that's going to encourage me to do you more favors."

  I didn't care. I took my new file back to the zipcar tunnels and started reading. I had memorized my version of the report, and although the new one appeared identical, I read through it anyway, eyes sharp for discrepancies. There were none until after Sept's return to Primetime.

  That's where my version ended. Vette's continued. Siri Mercer's school records were eye-popping. Graduated near the top of her high school class with a partial ride to the top science department on the East Coast. She was all set to graduate in physics, but at age twenty, flying home from school, she died in a plane crash.

  My mouth went dry. I set down my link and stared out the window at the most splendid city the multiverse had ever seen.

  I didn't tell Vette or Mara. There was a good chance I was wrong. But if I was right, the words were too dangerous to speak out loud.

  I headed to the backup facility, did some quick prep, dialed up the Pod, and jumped back to the late 20th century in a middling town in the Northwest desert.

  I arrived a few days early. I didn't want to get there after the suspected intrusion. And I needed to get to know the eighteen-year-old Stephen Jaso's routine.

  It was high summer and I had stupidly jumped into the remote hills a couple hours before dawn. The sun came up while I was still climbing the ridge separating me from the cities. The heat was instant. Stifling and rash-like. I intended to keep a low profile—officially, CR was the one keeping passive tabs on this place, but it wouldn't surprise me if Central had a more active eye on the world—but by the time the dusty blacktop spilled into town, I'd sweated through my shirt. I called a cab and got a ride to the airport, which was hardly any bigger than the one at Skald. I rented a car, found a room in a different motel than the one I'd stayed in twelve years earlier in the timeline, and checked the phonebook.

  Stephen and his family had moved to the hills across town to a development that hadn't existed during my first visit. Nice place. Two-story house, front door flanked by pillars, tidy green lawn. Four days from now, eighteen-year-old Stephen Jaso would die in a car crash.

  And I was certain it was no accident.

  I wasn't concerned with protocol anymore. I'd brought a few toys with me. Including four drone cameras in the shape of houseflies. I sent one
through a vent in the side of his house to take up residence in his closet. A second attached itself to the base of his car antenna. A third set up in the branches of a tree three houses down the block. The fourth I kept in reserve.

  With my job rendered infinitely easier, I retired to my motel room to watch. It was August and Stephen had graduated high school two months earlier. He slept through the mornings, woke at noon, then went swimming with his friends at the local pool under the dazzling blue skies clamping down the city with hundred-degree heat. On the days he didn't head to the pool, he didn't leave his house until seven or eight at night, when the sun was thinking of bedding down and the heat calmed to reasonable levels. Then he left to hang out at his friends' houses, watching movies or playing video games in their basements.

  Once, they drove up into the hills. They parked in the darkness beside a road to nowhere. Lighters flicked from the interior. The fly-cam crawled to the open window, tasted the air, and confirmed it was marijuana.

  The day before the accident would end his life, the fly in his closet heard him call up a girl, giggling and awkward, and arrange to meet her at a place called Wendy's. He left twenty minutes later, driving faster than normal, grinning over the wheel, beating it in time to the rock music thumping from his tape deck.

  Accompanied by my fly-cam, he got to the Wendy's twelve minutes ahead of time. It was early evening and real flies swarmed around the tall, bright lights poking from the parking lot. He ordered an ice cream, sat at a booth by himself, watched the door, and occasionally took a bite.

  Twenty minutes later, he spooned up the last of his melted dessert. An hour after that, he got up, drove home, and went up to his room. I thought I'd have to turn the fly-cam off for a few minutes, but he read until he nodded off, paperback drooping to his chest, place lost, lights still shining from the ceiling.

  All the while I'd been watching him, his car, his home, I hadn't seen one sign of a fellow trespasser.

  The day came that Stephen Jaso would die. The newspaper articles would place the crash at just after 11:00 PM. Winding road through the hilly farmland outside town. Remote. On a downslope, he would fail to slow, slide off the road, and crash into a tumbleweed-choked ravine.

  Following him without being spotted was going to be rough. Realistically, I had one shot. A do-over would mean altering my and thus Primetime's past. The kind of thing that gets you executed. Mara wouldn't be able to help me. Central would be on me in minutes. If they put the screws to me before killing me, I'd be forced to expose the entire operation.

  I drove into the hills where Stephen's car would plunge off the road. Heat pounded from the sky. Dust swirled behind my tires. The land rolled away empty, yellow and brown, patchy with cheat grass and sagebrush. Silvery mirages shimmered on the blacktop, evaporating as I drew close. Half a mile before the slope where the boy would die, I passed a gas station. A couple of big rigs idled in the lot. The road went on. It climbed a hill, then declined steeply, banking left. I slowed to see where Stephen would go off the road.

  If all I was concerned about was stopping the crash, I could go see him right now. Tell him to stay home tonight. But I wasn't here to save Stephen Jaso's life.

  I returned to the motel. I didn't dare sleep. I watched the feeds from the fly-cams continuously. Stephen slept late, spent the afternoon watching TV on the couch. The phone rang. He didn't answer. He napped until dinner, ate, then watched more TV. Nothing looked out of the usual. I began to worry I'd arrived in his world too late. That I'd missed something. That I was wrong.

  The sun set reluctantly, photons slashing through the dusty air, rendering the skies startling pink and raw red. Night fell. Crickets chirped outside my window. I got in my car, set my link in my lap so I could keep one eye on the feeds, and drove away from the Jasos'. Distracted by the link feed, I blew through a stop sign. Wheels screeched. Headlights blinded me. I threw my arms over my face and stomped the brake.

  A truck jounced to a stop eighteen inches from my driver-side door. The other man leaned out the window and unleashed a typhoon of curses. I apologized, drove a couple blocks away, and parked, switching my screen to infrared display so it wouldn't light up the car. My eyes adjusted with it. After a while, my heart and breath returned to normal.

  Another hour slid by. I rubbed my eyes. When I opened them, Stephen was grabbing his shoes. His keys. The night was much too warm to need a coat. He inserted himself behind the wheel of his car and flipped on the headlights.

  The police wouldn't have an exact time of death. I couldn't be sure I was making the right move. I pulled from the curb and drove outside of town, swooping up and down the hilly roads. On my link's screen, a fly followed Stephen from above and behind, watching him meander through subdivisions. As I reached the gas station, he exited town and accelerated down the same road I'd just pulled off from.

  Two other cars sat in the parking lot. Still following my gut, I got out of my car and walked off the lot into the weeds. Flies swarmed the hard buzzing lights of the gas station. After a hundred feet, I walked in total darkness. I got down behind a snarl of sweet-smelling sagebrush and gazed at the island of light in the desert.

  Within ten minutes, Stephen approached the gas station, slowed, entered the lot, and parked around the side of the building. His headlights flicked off. The car sat motionless. Light flicked through the driver's window. Again. The third time, the lighter took hold, and Stephen touched it to something held in front of his face. After a long moment, he blew a cloud of smoke out the open window.

  This repeated a couple more times. Then the driver door creaked open and Stephen Jaso walked out of sight around the building. As the front door dinged, headlights appeared on the hill down the road.

  My heart leapt. I had brought two weapons: a Primetime-era pistol. Very small, very quiet. And a fast-acting sedative. I checked my pockets for both.

  The car's headlights flared as it swerved into the lot. The driver parked to the left of Stephen Jaso's car. The passenger door opened, but whoever emerged kept themselves hidden between the cars. I swore silently and tapped orders through my link. The fly detached from Stephen's antenna and buzzed into the gap between the vehicles. Legs protruded beneath Stephen's engine block. The fly landed on the bumper and crawled under the engine. There, a man wearing gloves and an expression of cold focus reached into the machine's hot guts and clipped something.

  I got up from behind the sage and walked swiftly toward the lot. My link was in my pocket, but the man still hadn't stood up. I got out the sedative and walked to the cars as silently as I knew how.

  I slipped between the machines. Their engines ticked, bleeding heat. I knelt on the blacktop and reached for the man's left leg.

  It swung out of range. The man rolled from under the car. I darted in—all I needed was to skin-pop him and it would all be over—but he was trained. Snakelike, he grabbed my wrist. The world tilted as he threw me over his hip. Asphalt loomed at my face.

  But I was trained, too. Using his arm for leverage, I pulled myself further into my momentum, tucking my chin to my chest. Instead of smashing into the ground with the crown of my head, I took it on my shoulders, rolling through the worst of the impact and coming to rest on my back. The sedative jarred from my hand.

  Still gripping my wrist, the man twisted hard. Pain shot down my arm. He bent his knees and struck at my face. I intercepted with my forearm, fist pointed straight up, then rotated my wrist and slashed my fingernails across his eyes.

  He managed not to scream. I rolled my snared wrist free of his grasp and scooted out from between the two cars. The man lurched forward, blinking hard. I began to stand and he swept out my knee. I hit the pavement again. He went for his pocket. I went for mine, rolling to clear my hip.

  Two shots went off as quiet as gasps.

  The man grunted and stumbled backwards. Without getting up, I fired four more rounds, downing him. Particulate blood sifted down in the yellow light and settled to the sidewalk. I stood, walked b
etween the cars, and gave him a double-tap.

  I glanced across the lot. The lights buzzed. Flies looped around them. I had to act fast. I searched the man's pockets for his keys. No luck. I walked to my car and parked beside his, leaving it running while I popped the trunk. I hopped out, grabbed the dead man under the arms, and dragged him toward my car.

  Stephen Jaso cornered the building, stopped, and stared at me, puffy-eyed, clutching a massive styrofoam fountain soda and five Slim Jims.

  I went very still. "It's not what you think."

  "I know," he said. "It's you."

  "You remember."

  "One maniac shows up at the last second to rescue me from another maniac. I'm gonna forget that?" Stephen gazed at the body in my arms. His face had matured, become angular and acne-spotted, but I could still see the kid within it. "Is that what you're doing now? Rescuing me again?"

  "Afraid so," I said. The kid stepped forward. I held up one hand, the body slumping against me. "Don't touch him."

  "Why?" He laughed huskily. "Will the universe implode?"

  "I don't want the police to pin his murder on you." I hauled the dead weight to my car and muscled it inside the trunk. He'd dropped his pistol. I gathered it and my fallen sedative.

  "Why?" Stephen said. The stoned look had left his face, replaced by sharp-edged confusion and resentment. "What's so fucking special about me?"

  I pocketed the weapons. There was all kinds of blood in the lot, but there wasn't much I could do about that. "That's what I'm here to find out."

  "So what now?"

  "Call for a ride. Do not get in your car."

  "Just like that? You think this is easy for me?" His eyes brightened with sudden tears. "Knowing I'm supposed to be dead? And now they come for me again. Is this what I get to look forward to? Do I spend my whole life looking over my shoulder, hoping the next time they come for me, Super Blake will be there to save the day?"

  "No." I opened the door to my car. "Because I'm going to make sure this is the last time."

  I drove with the body out to the hills. The Pod returned us to Primetime. I ordered it to seal and preserve the body, try to identify him, but if he were one of Joachim's agents, I wouldn't get any results.