The details were clear now. No symptoms of time travelpsychosis here to cloud his mind. Insteadthere was hindsight. Clarity. Regret. Hope?
Irena was alive in this world. She wouldn't know him, that muchwas certain. They would never have met before. But he had to see her. He had toknow she was okay. Seeing her alive and well would be enough.
His alternate had been murdered. Stabbed and beheaded, accordingto Jeannie. Twenty years ago. How old would he have been? Twenty-three.
Muldoon stopped in his tracks.
"What's wrong?" Horton whispered, the folds of his facein bas relief beneath a white sliver of moonlight. The two of them stood in afilthy back alley adjacent to the main street.
It couldn't just be a coincidence. "Since you seem to knowso much about me," Muldoon began in a low tone. "How old was myalternate when he died?"
"Uh, young—from what I recall. In his twenties, I'd have tosay."
"Twenty-three, maybe?"
Horton nodded dismissively. "Maybe. Why?" His arms roseand fell. "Do I have to remind you that we're—"
"When I brought the BackTracker into the past and left it atthe train station, my younger self was twenty-three."
"In your reality?"
Muldoon nodded. "I thought he'd be able to do more good withit than I had. After..." Overwhelmed by regret, he clenched his jaw andstayed the course. His eyes focused. "Coincidence?"
"Not sure what you're getting at." Horton frowned."How do you mean?"
Thoughts and possibilities whirled through Muldoon's mind,springing up faster than he could shoot them down. He fought to maintain theclarity of thought he'd enjoyed earlier, when he first crossed over into thisreality. "The timeline—that cord you mentioned before. You saidthere were fewer realities now, that you somehow managed to collapse the restof them. Right?"
Horton grinned. "You were listening! I couldn't be sure. Butyes, that's right. Only two divergent strands remain, and as long as Gavin Lennoxis able to pass between the two with impunity—"
"When did they split?" Muldoon didn't care about Lennox.He paused, noting the old man's puzzled expression. "The strands orwhatever that diverged, when did that happen?"
Horton nodded with a doleful look in his eyes. "Do you reallywant to know, Harry?"
"Yeah."I'm pretty sure I already do. "Because I think it was my fault."
Horton shook his head. "Blaming yourself won't get usanywhere. Believe me, I've been rightwhere you are. What we need to do now is look forsolutions to the problem, and then do our damnedest to make it happen!"
"So it was me."
The old man shrugged. "In a way, yes, I guess. But you couldjust as easily blame the person who left you that device in the first place! Atthe police station, I mean—not the train station. Let's not confuseourselves." He cleared his throat. "Was it my alternate, the one yousaw murdered earlier this evening? Is that who left you the package?"
"It was from Cyrus Horton."
Horton glanced away, then tugged at Muldoon's coat. "Walk andtalk now. We're close. The subway is just around the corner."
Muldoon frowned. "We're taking a train?"
"No, no," the old man chuckled. "They haven't runin years. The nearest Underground portal used to be an entrance to the railsystem. You'll need to brace yourself. It's not exactly pleasantdown there."
Muldoon followed, his limbs moving without conscious commands fromhis brain. Meanwhile, another piece of the puzzle fell into place: "Youhad him killed." It made sense now. "My younger self."
"Yes." Horton coughed into his hand. "But you mustremember, it was my younger self who gave the order—the version of me inthis reality. Which is why it's probably best that we avoid him. He-uh, hasyet to learn the error of his ways." He glanced back with a derisivechuckle.
"That's how you collapsed the rest of them. The otherrealities." Muldoon's voice sounded hollow. His pulse surged, his mindraced. Why was he going anywhere with this guy?
Horton nodded but didn't look back. They came to the end of thealley. Across a vacant boulevard ahead of them, a dilapidated entrance to thesubway tunnels waited. The portal yawned upward, splashed in white light bythree streetlamps, each with a surveillance camera mounted in plain sight.
"You were the BackTracker, Harry. A superhero of sorts intimes that were...a lot more super than they are now. There was stuff all overthe Link on you—not by name, of course. The BackTracker, an otherwise namelessand faceless temporal vigilante, traveling back and forth through time,righting wrongs and fighting injustice. A figure of great intrigue, that's whatyou were." His boney shoulders rose and fell. "You just didn'trealize you were fraying our timeline in the process—sending divergent strandsin every direction and stretching the fabric of reality between them all."He shook his head and chuckled, half-turning toward Muldoon."But I'm the last person on the planet to judge you, boy. I did the samething, and it took me years to mend the damage I'd done. It's a wonder I'mstill sane!"
Debatable.
Muldoon fingered the broken pieces of the BackTracker device inhis left pocket. "So you sent someone back to get rid of me, the younger me, before Icould..." He trailed off, remembering thatholo-image Jeannie had projected.
"Before you could do any real damage. That's right. I know itsounds harsh, but my younger self wasn't really thinking things through, and hethought it was the best solution. At the time, if presented with the sameoptions, I may have done something similar."
"You did," Muldoon muttered icily.
"Ah. Touché." Horton cleared his throat. "Crossingrealities and traveling through time can really make you lose touch withyourself, that's for damn sure. But you're right, of course. It was my doing.Like I said before, I killed the wrong man. I realize that now. But there's alife lesson in all this, and I'm sure it's one you can appreciate. Just becauseyou're the cause of a problem doesn't mean you can't also be itssolution!" He beamed at his own little gem of wisdom, but his grinfaltered under Muldoon's steely gaze.
"The man you sent back to kill me. Describe him."
"Well-uh, he was about medium height, average weight, inpretty good shape—"
"Bald?"
"Yes."
"White as an albino?"
Horton blinked. "Cade exists in your reality, too?"
Muldoon withdrew his left hand from the pocket and extended hispalm. In it lay the crushed
