them and be like them, and come see them all the time and help out, and—and feed the goats when they cut their arms or whatever, how would
“Mercy,” Jane says mildly after a minute. “I apologize, Kaylee. I had no idea you felt like that.”
“Well, I do,” she says, sniffling.
“Well, in that case, I guess I might have to think again. No promises, mind, but I won’t decide anything just yet.” She smiles. “You came at me out of left field with that one.”
Kaylee wipes her sleeve across her eyes and smiles back shakily. “We’ll get you a cell phone. Then if something happens, you won’t be out here alone in the middle of nowhere ’cause you can call
Mercies
GREGORY BENFORD
He rang the doorbell and heard its buzz echo in the old wooden house. Footsteps. The worn, scarred door eased open half an inch and a narrowed brown eye peered at him.
“Mr. Hanson?” Warren asked in a bland bureaucratic tone, the accent a carefully rehearsed approximation of the flat Midwestern that would arouse no suspicions here.
“Yeah, so?” The mouth jittered, then straightened.
“I need to speak to you about your neighbour. We’re doing a security background check.”
The eye swept up and down Warren’s three-piece suit, dark tie, polished shoes—traditional styles, or as the advertisements of this era said, “timeless.” Warren was even sporting a gray fedora with a snap band.
“Which neighbour?”
This he hadn’t planned on. Alarm clutched at his throat. Instead of speaking he nodded at the house to his right. Daniel Hanson’s eye slid that way, then back, and narrowed some more. “Lemme see ID.”
This Warren had expected. He showed an FBI ID in a plastic case, up-to-date and accurate. The single eye studied it and Warren wondered what to do if the door slammed shut. Maybe slide around to the window, try to—
The door jerked open. Hanson was a wiry man with shaggy hair—a bony framework, all joints and hinges. His angular face jittered with concern and Warren asked, “You are the Hanson who works at Allied Mechanical?”
The hooded eyes jerked again as Warren stepped into the room.
“Uh, yeah, but hey—whassit matter if you’re askin’ ’bout the neighbour?”
Warren moved to his left to get Hanson away from the windows. “I just need the context in security matters of this sort.”
“You’re wastin’ your time, see, I don’t know ’bout—”
Warren opened his briefcase casually and in one fluid move brought the short automatic pistol out. Hanson froze. He fired straight into Hanson’s chest. The popping sound was no louder than a dropped glass would make as the silencer soaked up the noise.
Hanson staggered back, his mouth gaping, sucking in air. Warren stepped forward, just as he had practiced, and carefully aimed again. The second shot hit Hanson squarely in the forehead and the man went down backward, thumping on the thin rug.
Warren listened. No sound from outside.
It was done. His first, and just about as he had envisioned it. In the sudden silence he heard his heart hammering.
He had read from the old texts that professional hit men of this era used the 0.22 automatic pistol despite its low calibre, and now he saw why. Little noise, especially with the suppressor, and the gun rode easily in his hand. The silencer would have snagged if he had carried it in a coat pocket. In all, his plans had worked. The pistol was light, strong, and—befitting its mission—a brilliant white.
The dark red pool spreading from Hanson’s skull was a clear sign that this man, who would have tortured, hunted, and killed many women, would never get his chance now.
Further, the light 0.22 slug had stayed inside the skull, ricocheting so that it could never be identified as associated with this pistol. This point was also in the old texts, just as had been the detailed blueprints. Making the pistol and ammunition had been simple, using his home replicator machine.
He moved through the old house, floors creaking, and systematically searched Hanson’s belongings. Here again the old texts were useful, leading him to the automatic pistol taped under a dresser drawer. No sign yet of the rifle Hanson had used in the open woods, either.
It was amazing, what twenty-first century journals carried, in their sensual fascination with the romantic aura of crime. He found no signs of victim clothing, of photos or mementos—all mementos Hanson had collected in Warren’s timeline. Daniel Hanson took his victims into the woods near here, where he would let them loose and then hunt and kill them. His first known killing lay three months ahead of this day. The timestream was quite close, in quantum coordinates, so Warren could be sure that this Hanson was very nearly identical to the Hanson of Warren’s timeline. They were adjacent in a sense he did not pretend to understand, beyond the cartoons in popular science books.
Excellent. Warren had averted a dozen deaths. He brimmed with pride.
He needed to get away quickly, back to the transflux cage. With each tick of time the transflux cage’s location became more uncertain.
On the street outside he saw faces looking at him through a passing car window, the glass runny with reflected light. But the car just drove on. He made it into the stand of trees and then a kilometre walk took him to the cage. This was as accurate as the quantum flux process made possible during a jogg back through decades. He paused at the entrance hatch, listening. No police sirens. Wind sighed in the boughs. He sucked in the moist air and flashed a supremely happy grin.
He set the coordinates and readied himself. The complex calculations spread on a screen before him and a high tone sounded
