Without hesitating, I poured it down my throat.
It tasted awful, like some kind of antique medicine, and burned my throat going down. I’d never tried real liquor before, and couldn’t understand why anyone would do so willingly. Yuck. And people used to drink so much of this stuff it destroyed their livers? What the heck was wrong with them?
I spat into the sink, then turned to Neil.
“I need to sleep,” I said. “But I don’t trust you not to murder me. So I need you to take some pills.”
“I don’t want to take any pills.”
I unsheathed my Nife. “These are getting in your stomach, one way or another. Which way do you want to go?”
“Actually, some pills would hit the spot right about now.”
I handed them over, and he poured a glass of water and obediently swallowed the whole bunch. I made him open his mouth to show he wasn’t cheeking them, and sent him to go sleep on the sofa.
Then I sat down at the kitchen table and called my wife.
She didn’t answer her headphone, and I had an overwhelming feeling something was very wrong.
THIRTY-EIGHT
There were many good reasons why Vicki wouldn’t answer, but I would have thought with me on the run she’d make an extra effort to be available. I disconnected and called Sata. He picked up on the first ring.
“Is Vicki okay?”
“She’s in the guest room, sleeping. She went to bed an hour ago, Talon-kun. She’s pretty wiped out. Would you like me to wake her?”
“Yes. Wait. No. Could you just… check on her? See if she’s okay?”
“Sure, Talon.”
After a moment I heard a soft knock, and then a door opening.
“She’s asleep?” I asked.
“Yes. I can disturb her, if you wish. But she’s had a hard day. Spent the last few hours crying.”
That’s just what I needed. Guilt on top of everything else.
“Let her sleep, Sata-san. I’ll call her later.” I got my mind back in the game. “Have you found out anything about the technology used to timecast in the multiverse?”
“I’ve been doing some research. It’s theoretically possible to change the frequency of a timecast transmission, which would force a Van Damme to tune to a parallel universe on another ’brane. But there would have to be some sort of jamming device that overrode this ’brane.”
“I found one of those. Two of them, actually.”
I ran down the events of the past few hours for Sata, ending with my current location.
“Can you bring me one of these prism spheres to study?”
I yawned. Everything seemed a bit warmer, calmer. I recognized the alcohol buzz, which had a similar effect to alcohol pills. But this was fuzzier, and actually more pleasant. I stood up and poured myself another glass of rum, sipping it this time.
“I can do that tomorrow. But I can send you a scan now.”
“Please.”
I took pictures from various angles, both the exterior and a computed tomography scan of the interior, using my DT.
“Fascinating,” Sata said when he received the pics. “This technology is quite extraordinary. It’s both a jammer and a broadcaster. There also appears to be a tuning mechanism on it, similar to the ones used on tachyon emission visualizers.”
“Yeah. Fascinating,” I said, yawning again. I took another sip of rum. The liquid still burned, but the taste was growing on me.
“When can you deliver this to me, Talon?”
“Tomorrow morning. First I have to follow the SMF who killed Aunt Zelda. Have you ever heard of chip- blocking tech?”
“No. But I haven’t heard of timecast-jamming tech, either.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“If that black round disk on the killer’s arm uses the same tech as your prism spheres, perhaps it also jams reception somehow. You’re aware that infinite parallel universes exist less than one millimeter away from us. They’re closer to us than the clothes we’re wearing. If some hypergenius was able to tune in to a different ’brane, he’d be able to mask our ’brane by…”
I tuned Sata out. Even if I’d been completely lucid, I would have had trouble following him. Call it a ’brane deficit on my part. After thirty seconds of technobabble, I cut him off.
“Sata-san, I have to get some rest. I’ll bring you the sphere in the morning.”
“Yes. Of course, Talon. See you soon. Good night.”
He hung up. I noticed my glass was empty again, and I filled it once more. The rum not only improved my mood, but it mellowed me in a way I’d never quite felt before. It was quite superior to the synth pills. I wondered what other natural products were better than their synthetic counterparts. Maybe I’d have to give Harry McGlade a call, buy some denim jeans from him. Or more liquor. I was pretty sure he dealt in alcohol as well as paper and cotton clothing.
I checked Aunt Zelda’s cabinets, found a bag of genetically modified potatoes. They were bacon-and- cheeseflavored. I preferred the roast beef variety, but these weren’t bad. I ate two raw. I followed them up with a genmod apple, which tasted like pie a la mode. Delicious, and nutritious, fortified with every essential micronutrient.
Sadly, the rum bottle was almost empty. I took it with me to the living room, where I checked on Neil. He was snoring on the couch, and his breasts had already doubled in size. By morning, he’d be a D-cup. Served the little bastard right.
Then I weaved into Aunt Zelda’s bedroom, collapsing on her bed, feeling it form-fit to the contours of my body.
I was tired. Too tired to even take off Teague’s boots. I drained the rest of the rum in one gulp, then shut my eyes, spinning into sleep.
A noise woke me up.
I looked around, unsure of where I was. Light was peeking in through the bedroom blinds, so it was morning. Aunt Zelda, and Neil, and the fix I was in all came rushing back to me. I sat up, listened for whatever had awoken me. I heard the air-conditioning hum. Neil’s footsteps, creaking outside my doorway. Snoring, from the living room.
My adrenal glands kicked into overdrive. If Neil was snoring, how could he be walking outside my door?
I went on the offensive, leaping out of bed, ducking through the door, running into “Teague. Son of a bitch. How’d you get in?”
“Smart magnet.”
Teague trained his Glock on my chest, but made no immediate effort to shoot. He had a neck brace on, the healing disk humming. Other than that, he looked the picture of health.
“You track me?” I asked, noting he had a new TEV unit on his shoulder.
He set it down and shook his head. “When you mentioned the name Neil, I remembered the wimpy guy who came to the office, talking about his aunt being murdered. She the one on TV?”
“She’s in the fridge.”
“That’s cold, bro.”
“About forty-five degrees.”
We stared at each other.
“I didn’t kill her, Teague. I didn’t destroy Boise, either.”
“Maybe you did; maybe you didn’t. Frankly, I don’t care.”
