down whenever I saw one of Vicki’s clients, but none of them planted any bugs, and thankfully none of them bent her over the stove.
As time raced backward, I was getting close to the two-week cutoff. The TEV couldn’t go more than two weeks into the past. If the listening devices were older than that, this was a dead end.
But then, at thirteen days and seven hours ago, I got lucky. Neil, my old friend who led me to Aunt Zelda’s and started this whole mess, opened up the utensil drawer, but didn’t take anything out. He followed that up by opening the cabinet under the sink, sticking his head inside, and then standing back up, hands empty.
I checked the utensil drawer, finding nothing but sporks and knives. Then I ducked under the sink, tapping my eyelid three times for night vision. Besides the dishwashing detergent, plunger, and various cleaning chemicals, I spotted something round and metallic, roughly the size of a hyperbaseball, under a box of sponges. I brought up my DT and took a picture of it, then ran the picture through uffsee.
I got zero hits.
“Hey, man, don’t hoard all the Jell-O.”
Another cop stumbled over, snagging the bowl. He brought it to his lips and slurped.
I ignored him, studying the object. It obviously wasn’t a listening device, because the cops would have found it when they did their transmitter sweep. A bomb?
I flipped the air sensor on my DT, letting it have a digital sniff. It analyzed the air around the object, finding standard atmospheric gases, traces of cleaning agents, and a decent amount of atomized marijuana. But nothing caustic, flammable, or potentially explosive.
So what was this thing?
Then I scanned it, revealing the interior guts. Circuits and servos, unrecognizable to me.
I threw caution to the wind and picked the ball up. It was smooth, heavy for its size, and in the light of the kitchen it appeared to be many colors all at once, like an oscillating prism. I turned it over in my palm and noticed a panel, along with a button. Next to the button were the engraved words PRESS ME.
That didn’t seem like the wisest idea. Especially after watching Boise implode. This didn’t look like the device Alter-Talon had used, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Cool! Hyperbaseball!”
The cop snatched the ball from my hand. I reached for it, slipping on green Jell-O, falling onto my face.
“Hey! A button!”
Before I could yell, “Don’t press it, you fool-you’ll kill us all!” he pressed the button.
It didn’t kill us all.
In fact, it didn’t do anything. The cop stared at it, puzzled, and then looked at me. “You got any cereal?”
“Last cabinet on the left. Milk’s in the fridge.”
“Thanks. Trippy ball, man.”
He tossed it to me. I caught it. While the ball looked exactly the same, I noticed the prism effect had sped up. There was also a very faint buzzing noise coming from inside. But other than that, it didn’t seem to be doing anything.
I went to my TEV, and saw Vicki boffing somebody on the kitchen table. Where I ate my eggs every morning. I really needed to tell her to keep her clientele in her bedroom.
I got ready to fast-forward to see where Neil had gone, when I noticed Vicki had a black eye and was sobbing uncontrollably. The sex was violent, and hardly looked consensual.
I clenched my jaw, panning left to see the face of the son of a bitch doing this to her.
The son of a bitch turned out to be me.
THIRTY-FOUR
The Mastermind listens as Talon watches the timecast. The incompetent cops hadn’t found all of the bugs. He wishes he could see Talon’s face, wishes he’d used video cameras instead of listening devices.
Watching half a million people disappear with the press of a button was a heady experience. But they weren’t real to him. They were numbers. Statistics. The first hash mark of many.
But Talon…
The mouse is personal. Being able to see him suffer will be a treat for the Mastermind.
Not now. But soon.
The Mastermind is interrupted by a knock at his door. The cops? Did they know?
No. It’s reporters. They want him to comment. He declines with a smile.
Later, when they realize how close they were to the real Butcher of Boise, they’ll want to hang themselves.
If they aren’t already dead by then.
He resumes listening to Talon. It has taken the mouse longer than expected, but he’s followed the trail of crumbs.
Soon the trail will end. And the cat and mouse will meet.
Watching half a million vanish from a distance won’t be nearly as much fun as watching one man die up close.
THIRTY-FIVE
I stared in disbelief as Alter-Talon violated my wife. He had one hand on her throat, squeezing hard, a sick grin on his face as he pumped away. I’d been angry before, many times. But seeing this filled me with such absolute rage I would have killed the guy if he were in the room.
And he had been in the room. Almost two weeks ago, according to the TEV. But how? And why hadn’t Vicki told me?
I tried to remember two weeks back. Had she seemed upset? Had she covered up her black eye with makeup? Why hadn’t she said anything?
I paused the scene and rechecked the date. It couldn’t be right. Two weeks ago, I had the house to myself. Vicki was visiting her mother in New Los Angeles. She wasn’t home when this took place.
So how…?
My eyes drifted to the prism ball, the button still depressed. I thumbed it off.
The TEV monitor went fuzzy, and then showed an empty kitchen.
I pressed the on button.
The monitor showed Vicki being assaulted.
That was when I figured it out. This hadn’t happened to the Vicki I was married to. It had happened to an alter-Vicki, in a parallel universe. Somehow this prism ball made a TEV tune in to past events in an alternate universe.
I flipped the ball off. Had Neil created this thing? Had he been the mastermind all along?
No. This tech seemed way beyond Neil. And he’d passed the voice-stress detector. Neil was involved, but he wasn’t the mastermind. I thought about following him backward, letting him lead me to the person who gave him the prism ball, but the TEV was at its limit and couldn’t go back any further.
Then I realized the obvious. If this prism forced a timecast in a parallel world, then there had to be a prism at Aunt Zelda’s apartment that made me pick up the transmission of Alter-Talon killing her.
I put the prism ball in a pouch on my belt, then tapped my eyelid for infrared. The two cops on the first level were still in the den, lying next to each other on the floor. It looked like they were spooning. I checked the perimeter of the house, and the chatty duo walking the route was passing by the front door.
Time to go.
I snuck downstairs and outside, happy to take the hepafilter off my face and breathe some fresh air. I barely took two steps before I heard a whistle.
