seconds it took for me to get to WikiWorld, I’d been attacked three hundred and seventeen times. That didn’t include the forty-two hijack attempts and eight attempted trojan-bot hacks.
The Internet sucked.
WikiWorld, which had a decent reputation back when I was a kid, was now a cesspool of unsupported and imaginary garbage that any n00b and b00b could edit at will. Most of the time it was useless. But there was a chance Aunt Zelda could be in there somewhere.
I projected a keyboard onto my desktop, preferring typing to voice commands Teague could hear, and punched in Zelda’s name. WikiWorld gave me a hit and a brief definition, but some prankster had replaced every noun in the entry with “hairy weasel dick,” making it pretty much unreadable. I tried to access the edit history, but his hack had encompassed that as well.
I heard bleating, and looked around. Teague had turned up the volume on his pr0n, just to annoy me.
“Check out that flexibility, bro. Vicki ever get freaky with dumb animals? Other than you?”
I pressed the remote on my belt, switching the projector to the Homeschooling Network and putting a jam on the button. Now no matter what Teague tried to watch, it would be stuck on six-year-olds perfecting their recyclable macaroni art.
“WTF?”
As he tried in vain to change the channel, I went from WikiWorld to an old search engine I used to use. All it came up with were ads, pr0n, and ads for pr0n. I tried a pirated version of uffsee, but UFSE didn’t work well on the Internet, and it crashed before the Boolean results could be compiled.
Then my browser did get hijacked, by a 3D ad program that flashed some very fake holographic breasts in my face. I had to kill my connection and start over.
This time, I injected my search parameters into a CPD metaspider and crawled WikiWorld, trying to find an untampered entry in the script. The spider got caught in an adware loop, pop-ups coming faster than my antivirus program could kill them.
I disconnected again, and used a brunt force attack with a hundred metaspiders.
“The projector is fuct. Did you do something to it, ass-munch?”
The pop-ups came again, and I set my DT to open each one in its own browser, trying to slow them down.
Incredibly, it worked, and I got the unaltered Zelda page. I captured the screen before some malware could eat it up, and went from elation to confusion to outright shock when I learned who Aunt Zelda used to be before her gender transformation.
Zelda Peterson was born Franklin Debont, the multibillionaire who invented UFSE.
“Live! Murder in Chicago!”
I looked up at the projector. The macaroni art had been replaced with an emergency news bulletin. Some seriouslooking anchor said, “We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for this late-breaking report. Warning. What you are about to see is shocking.”
It shocked me more than anyone. There, on Teague’s projector screen, was Zelda Peterson in her kitchen, next to the sink, as a man snuck up behind her.
TWELVE
I knew what happened next and fumbled for the remote, changing the channel.
It didn’t matter. Each channel I flipped to was showing the same thing. Poor Aunt Zelda getting her head bashed in, and her neck broken. The image was circular, with telltale red edges. A TEV transmission.
Sata? Had he gone to the authorities?
No. This wasn’t the transmission I’d recorded. This one had a different perspective, different angles, and a tighter zoom. Zelda was dead, and it still hadn’t shown the killer’s face.
But if this wasn’t my recording, whose recording was it?
I stared at Teague. The only other timecaster in Chicago.
Then my DT beeped. It had finished compiling my list of 3,342 known enemies. And the name at the very top was Joshua Teague VanCamp.
“Talon? Shit!”
I looked up. Alter-Talon was on the projector screen, carving up Aunt Zelda’s arm.
Teague stood up and spun around, reaching for his Taser holster.
“Hold it!” I yelled. My hand hovered over my holster as well. But I still had limited sensation in my right hand. I doubted I’d be able to draw, let alone fire.
Teague stared at me, hard. Hate smoldered in his eyes.
“You fucking psycho. You really popped a gasket, didn’t you, bro?”
“Put your hands behind your head, Teague.” I kept my voice steady, hoping it didn’t betray my fear. My heart was beating so fast I could hear it. “You know I can outdraw you.”
“The victim is still as yet unidentified,” the projector droned on, “but the murderer has been positively IDed as Talon Ace Avalon.”
“I knew you were unstable, Talon. But an old bitch? Aren’t you getting enough at home?”
“Hands behind your head!” I yelled.
Time seemed to stand still. If Teague drew, he’d Tase me first. Then it would be a speedy trial and a conviction by dinnertime. I’d spend the rest of my life in a maximumsecurity prison with three thousand guys I helped put there.
Teague seemed to read my mind. “You won’t last ten minutes in jail, Talon. They’ll eat you alive. But don’t worry… I’ll comfort Vicki for you while you’re gone.”
“Why the games, Teague? Why didn’t you arrest me when I walked in?”
“You know me, bro. I love games.”
His hand moved an inch closer to the butt of his Taser.
“Don’t,” I warned. “We’ve gone shooting together. I’ll put a Taser needle right up your nose.”
“And then what? Snap my neck? What the hell happened to you?”
“Hands behind your fucking head.”
For a bad moment I thought he was going to make a try for his weapon. I could see in his eyes he was considering it. But it passed, and he complied, lacing his fingers behind his neck.
“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “You’re in A4 headquarters, for fuck’s sake. How far you think you’re gonna get?”
I used my left hand to shove my DT into my pocket, staring hard at my former friend. He must have been the one to give the footage to the news. But could he have actually set this whole thing up? Framed me somehow?
He had the opportunity. He also had the motive. But did he have the smarts to pull it off?
This wasn’t the time or place for an interrogation. Hundreds of cops, in this very building, had to have seen the broadcast. Because I was a peace officer, required to be located if needed, my chip ID was fully trackable by GPS. They were probably on their way up right now.
“Your hand is shaking, Talon. I bet you’re too scared to draw.”
“Don’t try me.”
Teague made his move, his hand coming down off his neck, reaching for his weapon. I reached across my body, left-handed, and dug out my piece, pulling it from the holster and aiming it upside down, my pinkie finding the trigger, squeezing off a shot just as Teague cleared faux leather.
Not my fastest draw, and my aim was way off, but unfortunately for Teague the bullet still hit him. In the groin.
A Tesla bolt of lightning materialized and zapped him right in the junk. He dropped, shrieking, and I ran past, out of the office and into the hallway.
“There he is!”
Twenty cops in the hall raised their weapons.
