She had to be another player on the scene, like the white samurai.Only instead of a frontal assault, Madame Mystery was trying a distinctlydifferent approach. Muldoon hoped he wouldn't have to shoot her too. He neverplayed rough with women. Blame it on his antiquated notions of chivalry.
"Someone in your line of work might find this device to bequite an asset."
"My line of work," he echoed. "What do you knowabout me?"
"You're a detective. Private sector. You solve casesinvolving missing persons, crimes of passion, and the like. People pay you tohelp them sort their lives out. I assume you thought the BackTracker would help—"
"It's not for me," he said. He glanced at her as thelight changed and the car lurched forward with a tap of the accelerator."I'm just the middle man."
Lying through my teeth.
Her slim shoulders lifted and fell. "But you have it now.What will you do with it?"
"You never know, the Link might be off by a millisecond ortwo. Good to have a backup timepiece." He winked at her. "Punctualityhappens to be one of my pet peeves."
She remained silent.
"How'd you get in, by the way?" He gave her a sidelong glance."You make a habit of hacking into people's cars?"
"Oscar and I go way back."
He frowned. "Oscar?"
"Your car. Didn't you know it has a name?"
"He-uh...never told me." Muldoon's gaze wandered down thedashboard console.
"You're changing the subject. We were discussing your newwatch."
"Old, by the looks of it. Can't believe it stillworks."
"If you keep deflecting me, we'll be here all morning."Her tone was patient, as if she had all the time in the world.
"Sorry, that won't work for me. Like you said, I've got a dayjob." He winked again. "So, where should I let you off?"
"Who is the Peddler?"
That threw him. The Peddler—the one who'd gotten him into thismess in the first place. Highly recommended, my ass!
"Who?"
"You like to play games," she said.
"Tiddlywinks, mostly. Up for a round?"
She shook her head, weighing her words. "I found you toolate." Her voice was barely audible.
"You didn't have to find me at all, you know."
She seemed to be reconsidering her intrusion into his life. Can'tsay I blame her. As a rule, he wasn't the most hospitable to unexpectedguests.
"Oscar—pull to the curb," she said sharply.
The instant those words left her lips, the steering grips rebelledin his hands, jerking to the right and cutting off three lanes of traffic. Iratehorns blared outside. Muldoon cursed, his useless hands in the air.
"Idling," said the computer as the passenger doorlifted.
"What the hell was that?" Muldoon managed, wide-eyed.
"A universal override command. My father invented these autoAI systems. If you're very unlucky, you might meet him someday."
Without another word, Madame Mystery unbuckled her harness andgathered her handbag, gloves and veiled hat. Then she stepped out.
"Hey-uh—" He didn't know what else to say. His mindreeled. Lack of sleep, combined with just a few too many bizarre experiences,had left him a little off his game.
She stopped, turning back toward him. "Good day, Mr.Muldoon."
He leaned across the passenger seat and glanced at her shapelycalves. Couldn't help himself."How do you know my name?"
Her eyes, dark and gorgeous, locked onto him as she said, "Iwas your wife, Harry. In another life."
With that, she was gone.
He stared straight ahead without seeing much of anything,listening to the steady rhythm of the mystery woman's heels as they faded away.He didn't know what to make of what she'd said. So he stuck with what cameeasy: Wacko.
"Destination?" droned the computer as the passenger doordropped into place and locked.
He turned vacant eyes to the console before him. The woman hadcompletely overridden manual control of the vehicle. How was that possible?
"So..." he mused aloud. "Oscar, huh?"
No response.
Nobody talked to their cars—besides the standardlist of voice commands. Never on a first name basis, for crying out loud.
"Is that your name?" He waited. "Oscar?"
"Destination?" it droned, the monotone as lifeless asever.
He dropped his head back against the support cushion. The sun wasjust starting to peek over the eastern skyline, lighting up the grey clouds andchasing the shadows off the streets. He glanced at the watch. Strange. Hehadn't worn one in years, not since he was a kid, yet it still seemed naturalto check time the old-fashioned way.
"Office," he exhaled, rubbing between his eyes. It wasgoing to be a long day. He could already tell. And being up for most of thenight hadn't helped matters. "Automatic drive."
"Confirmed. Estimated time of arrival: five minutes."
He glanced at the watch again. Five minutes from now, he'd pull upout front of the immaculate steel and glass Hancock Building, tell Oscarto beat it and find a place to park. He'd take the stairs to the twelfth floor,eighth office down. Home away from home.
His mind wandered to the item as the steering grips jiggled left and right ontheir own, propelling him along the streets at over a hundred kilometers perhour. From all accounts, there was an old inventor, an eccentric, who liveddeep underground. No images of him were available on the Link. When thegovernment outlawed his line of research and raided his labs, he went intohiding, and nobody ever heard from him again.
Then a few years ago, buzz started circulating online about one ofhis inventions, a temporal displacement device called the BackTracker,the only one of its kind the government hadn't managed to get their hands onand destroy. A secret auction had raised its already substantial value bymillions, week by week. Everybody wanted a shot at it.
But there was a problem. Nobody knew what it looked like. And evenif some lucky devil managed to track it down, no one would have a clue how itworked. Time travel had always been science fiction—and not very good sci-fi atthat. So what if you were able to transport yourself into the past. What goodwould it do? Wasn't everything set in stone?
There were entire sites on the Link dedicated to educatedspeculation. A temporal displacement device would have to function according topreconceived notions of space-time and quantum physics and the like. All mumbojumbo to Harry Muldoon.
He just knew that such a device, as
