"I don't know what you're talking about," Hortonmuttered. "But even if I did what you say, I probably had a good reasonfor it."
"You did." Muldoon said it before knowing why. Both ofthem fixed their eyes on him. "It was my fault. The whole divergingrealities thing."
"See?" Younger Horton returned to the console. "Heagrees with me. Maybe I should kill him again. Make the whole world a realpeachy place."
The older man shook his head. "Ignore him. He's an ignorantson-of-a-bitch." He almost chuckled. "Back to you. Why'd you do it?Go back and give the device to yourself twenty years earlier? What was thepoint?"
Muldoon glanced at the younger Horton's pocket again. Then hisgaze turned to the white SYN on the table.
As soon as Dr. Frankenstein brings you backto life...Until then, Muldoon had to wait this out."I thought he—I could do more good with it backthen."
"Poppycock!" crowed the old man.
"What?" Muldoon frowned.
"I've got a highly sensitive hooey detector, mister. I knowyou're not telling the whole story."
Muldoon shook his head.
"Don't try to deny it," Elder Horton said. "I knowfor a fact your time travel psychosis isn't interfering with your memory inthis reality. The same thing happened to me the first time I crossed over. Andhere's the kicker: it's permanent! That's right, my boy, you'll be able tosolve Sudoku's up the wazoo from here on out! So tell it to me straight. Why'dyou give the BackTracker to yourself at that stage in the game? What was thelogic behind it?"
Muldoon's jaw muscle twitched as he clenched his jaw. The old manwas right about one thing: there was no more time travel psychosismucking up his mind. He could remember everything, whether he wanted to or not.
"I made a mistake."
The older man nodded, listening.
"Now this one," younger Horton interrupted, returning tothe table. "Help me move him."
Ittook both Muldoon and Horton to carry the albino's body to the chamber and set him inside.
"How long before...?" Muldoon didn't know what to ask."When will it be operational?"
Younger Horton's eyes were trained on the console as the glassdoor sealed itself shut. "We should know in the next ten minutes or so ifthe remains are viable. Until then, we wait."
"Stop avoiding my question." Elder Horton raised aneyebrow. "So you made a mistake. We all do. Hell, he's made quite afew doozies."
"We," Younger Horton corrected without lookingup.
"The difference is that I've learned from them." Theolder man ignored his younger version's muttered obscenity. "Go on, Harry.I need to hear this."
Muldoon continuedreluctantly, "I thought I was doing theright thing. Going back in time, solving cases. Just watching at first. Being atthe scene of the crime, not interfering. But I could only do that for so longbefore I wanted to start fixing things. Not just solving a missing personscase. Finding out what happened to the kid. Keeping that kid from gettingsnatched in the first place."
The older man nodded. The younger one came over to listen,crossing his arms and scowling.
Muldoon narrowed his gaze. "Somehow, I knew I was changingthings. Fraying that cord you told me about."
Elder Horton smiled at that.
"But it never really affected me until I came home one nightand—" Muldoon's eyes stung suddenly, but he maintained a death grip on hiscomposure. "My wife was gone."
"She left you, huh?" Younger Horton smirked. "Don'tblame her. You've got a real psycho vibe about you."
"No." Muldoon faced him. "She disappeared. All ofher things—her clothes, her stuff—all the gifts we'd gotten from ourwedding. My ring." He held up his left hand with the bare ring finger."Everything was gone. Not a trace of her remained. It was like...she neverexisted."
"Must have been a real shock," said the older man.
"I Linked up the police. I knew a sergeant at the nineteenthprecinct pretty well back then. But they had no record of a—" He stoppedhimself.
"Irena Horton."
Muldoon looked away. "I erased her from existence."
"How'd you do it?" asked the younger Horton.
Muldoon held up his hands. "That's the thing. I have no ideawhat I did. But I kept going back, trying to undo everything I'd done. Nothingworked. She was gone for good."
Why am I sharing this? He clenched his jaw.
"So I decided to take the BackTracker to my younger self,years before I'd ever met Irena. That way, I knew she'd still be alive, somewhere outthere. I hoped she'd stay that way."
"Why did your younger self want it?"
"Ever since the raid on Alpha Geminorum, when the Blackshirtsfound everything but the missing prototype, it had been all over the Link. Thefinder's fee was substantial." Muldoon shrugged. "I needed themoney."
"But you kept the device for yourself."
Muldoon nodded.
"That's how the twin realities diverged." Younger Hortonsaid with a slow nod. "You went back to his time and stayed there, but hetook the BackTracker and went further back and changed the past. When hereturned to his present: voila! A whole different reality was waiting tokick him in the balls." He laughed out loud. "So he's the one Ikilled, is that right?"
ElderHorton nodded without humor.
"Then why didn't it collapse the alternatereality? Kaput? End of story?"
"Because that one—" Elder Horton jerked a thumb backtoward the darkness outside and what was left of Gavin Lennox. "—got hishands on the Translator prototype and found his way into this reality, where hekilled himself." Quick correction: "His alternate."
"And that did what, exactly?"
"Who knows? Something weird, metaphysically. That's all I canfigure. And if that wasn't bad enough, the breaches startedmultiplying, with access points all over the place. The membrane betweenrealities is freakin' Swiss cheese right now,and it's only getting worse. Hence the future messed-up world I hail from,where the populace is seriously losing their minds."
"Metaphysics?" Younger Horton sneered. "You're notfollowing the Way now, are you?"
Elder Horton grinned. "Let's just say I'm open to otherpossibilities."
"Sure it's not your fault, by traveling back in time?Or maybe it's him." Younger Horton glared at Muldoon. "You said it yourself.He doesn't belong here."
Elder Horton shrugged. "Plenty of blame to go around, Isuppose."
Younger Horton cursed under his breath and faced Muldoon."You want to know what I think?"
Not really. Muldoon glanced toward the chamber where thealbino lay, dead to the world.
"I think you returned the favor." He laughed atMuldoon's
