Decoherence (17 page)

He could picture her, eyes widening with fear and confusion as she realized the portal location had changed. She hadn't known about the second jump or the new calculations. He'd planned to have Senturi take her out here, leave her corpse to rot in the woods while this iteration imploded, but this was better. More satisfying.

She moved, starting to walk into view as the portal dimmed.

Donovan stood there for a moment, waiting for the light of the portal to turn navy. At the last possible moment, he called her name, “Rose!”

She turned. The look of horror on her face was everything he'd ever wanted. The stupid, witch. She was the means to her own downfall. She had brought MacKenzie to her world, replaced herself, and made all of this possible.

Donovan stepped through the portal and watched it snap shut on her betrayed and anguished face.

 

CHAPTER 27

Day 200/365

Year 5 of Progress

(July 19, 2069)

Central Command

Third Continent

Prime Reality

M
ac watched Emir pace the floor. He'd counted the returning assassins twice with a look of frustration. Now they both watched as the portal darkened to an abyssal blue and faded into black.

“Everyone out!” Emir roared.

The soldiers and techs fled as Emir glared at their retreat.

Mac stood his ground. If he'd understood half of Jane's notes, they were going to his iteration. Back to July of 2069, which was a long way from home in many ways, but he could make it work. The guards had kept him locked in the observation room when the portal was open. They'd been polite about it, of course. Offered him a meal that made his stomach clench in disgust and tepid water that tasted of poor filtration. Now they were gone. He opened the door and walked into the jump room.

Emir glowered. “I told everyone to leave.”

“They did,” Mac said. “But it's obvious even to an outsider that something went wrong. You're missing three ­people.”

“Yes. Commander Rose, Captain Donovan, and Mr. Senturi. I can live without Senturi, but the other two I need back.” Emir crossed his arms and regarded the closed portal. “This is unfortunate timing.”

“Yeah,” Mac said. “Everyone likes the battle cry, ‘Today is a good day to die.' But the truth is there's never a good day to die.” He tapped the top of one of the computers. “I could get them back for you.”

Emir turned to him. “What?”

“You want your ­people back. I was trained to extract soldiers from behind enemy lines. It seems to me that we could help each other out.”

Emir snorted in dismissal. “I'm to trust you? You must be intelligent enough to realize how unlikely that is.”

“Your ­people are in July 2069 in Alabama. I want to go back to December 2069 in Australia. You may not realize how far a walk that is, but I do. So I figure we can make a trade. Let me retrieve Jane and Donovan for you, then you can send me back to the moment after your commander abducted me. We all walk away happy.”

“That would be suicide.”

“For me or you?” Mac asked.

Emir's face was frustratingly placid. “The decoherence is coming. You would return only to die.”

“We only have your word for this,” Mac said. “It seems to me you can't even pinpoint how to pick the arrival date in an iteration. If you can't do that, how could you possibly calculate decoherence?”

“No one can calculate an exact timetable like that.” Emir waved his hand, dismissing the problem. “I've worked on the problem for years with no success.”

“No success
here
you mean.” Mac twisted the knife into Emir's ego. “The Emir in the Federated States of Mexico figured it out. I didn't meet him, but I met some killers who used his machine. They had interesting things to say. In their timeline, the portal is used for vacations. You can jump back to watch your own wedding. Or go watch your parents meet. Sappy things like that.”

“Impossible!” Emir turned, eyes blazing with fury. “That sort of thing isn't possible. If it were, I would be the first to know. This iteration is the base for all others. The bedrock of humanity.”

Mac shook his head. “And you base that on what? Your ability to kill other ­people better than someone else?”

“That is the basis of evolution.” Emir lifted his chin with pride.

Mac shrugged. “Survival of the fittest. ­People always get that concept wrong. It's not survival of the strongest, it's survival of those who pass on the most genes. If an animal doesn't reproduce, it isn't genetically fit according to biologists. Same thing happens to cultures. If you don't create, if there's no art, music, or architecture, the culture doesn't just go extinct, it is forgotten entirely. I imagine it's the same thing with iterations. Except you've been busy killing every seedling.” He rapped the computer with his knuckles once more for emphasis. “What happens when there are no more branches of history spawned by your iteration, Emir? Do you think that's what causes decoherence? Because I do.”

He looked at the portal. “If you want your ­people back, let me know. I'm willing to trade their futures for mine. Better hurry, though. You leave Jane and Donovan out there together too long, and you're not going to get anything back but corpses.”

 

CHAPTER 28

“Do you value Humanity as a whole, or simply your own humanity? To put the whole above the one requires a sacrifice of individual humanity. If that is the requirement, can your course of action truly be for the betterment of all?”

~ excerpt from the
Oneness of Being
by Oaza Moun I1—­2072

Saturday January 11, 2070

Florida District 8

Commonwealth of North America

Iteration 2

I
vy's phone started ringing way earlier than it should have on a Saturday when she wasn't scheduled to work. Glaring at it, she rolled over, pulling her pillow over her head. The phone kept ringing. After ten minutes, she gave in and picked up. “I am not on duty!”

“Sorry, were you still sleeping?” Miss MacKenzie sounded worried but excited.

Ivy propped herself up on an elbow and looked at the poster of Agent Rose on her wall, mentally willing her idol to give her strength to deal with the crazed Californian. “Do you know what time it is?”

“A little after six. Maribel woke me up for dawn yoga.”

Ivy sighed. “I'm a clone. I can't arrest anyone. Even for inflicting yoga on you at dawn.” Which sounded like it contravened a few international torture agreements.

Miss MacKenzie laughed. “I don't need you to arrest anyone, probably. I was just calling to see if you wanted to come grill a suspect with me.”

“Grill a suspect?”

“Would you feel better if I said I was going to talk to a nice bomb maker?”

Ivy sat up. “What?”

“She makes seed bombs. Her name is Krystal. And she was with Henry Troom the night Lexie was murdered.” Even across the phone, Ivy could hear the smug smile. “Can I pick you up at eight?”

“Sure,” Ivy said. That gave her another a hundred and twelve minutes to sleep. Five to shower. Two to gulp down a breakfast smoothie. By the time Miss MacKenzie arrived, she was as cheerful as she was legally obligated to be on a Saturday morning.

A
sense of dread drove Sam to go slightly above the speed limit. In her own car, back when she'd had a car in the Commonwealth, she'd paid for a fast-­lane pass that let her drive ten to fifteen miles above the posted limit. Now, every time she went three miles over the limit, the car blared a warning and slowed down of its own accord. It was a health hazard. Especially if she ever had five minutes alone with the engineer to express her opinion.

Ivy sat beside her reviewing the notes from the interview with Henry. “Why didn't he just admit he left with someone else?”

“One, because he drove after drinking. And, two, because Krystal isn't the kind of person a nice scientist with a government grant is supposed to spend time with. Technically, the Commonwealth can't forbid this kind of contact, but rumors are enough to ruin careers.”

“Wouldn't murder be worse?”

“Only if someone could find evidence that he didn't commit the murder, and let's face it, no one is looking for that evidence.”

“The CBI is.”

“Yeah? Which agent?” It hadn't rolled across Sam's desk. She'd checked her younger self's files. Agent Petrilli didn't have it. In fact, as far as she could tell, no one was handling the case. She took a left off the highway and headed inland, looking for a side road Henry swore would lead to Krystal's current residence.

Ivy made a little confused noise.

Sam glanced over at her. “What?”

“Nothing.” Ivy shook her head and reshuffled the paperwork.

“That didn't sound like nothing. Did you recognize someone?”

Ivy slumped. “This is going to sound ridiculous.”

“I did yoga at five
A.M.
with the sound of mosquitoes buzzing in my ears. Trust me. I can handle whatever you've got.”

Ivy pulled out a picture of a pretty Latina woman wearing a bright, canary-­yellow party top. “This is Lexie Muñoz.”

“Taken at the party before Henry showed up,” Sam said. “It's a good color on her.”

“I've seen her before.”

“What, at the police station, around town? Were you friends?” She'd prefer having Ivy along as an expert witness, but investigating the death of a friend was always hard. “Why didn't you say something when you heard her name? I wouldn't have dragged you into this if I knew.”

Ivy sighed and stared straight ahead. “I saw her at the morgue.”

“On the day she was murdered?” Sam asked hopefully. “I know they say they didn't have the body, but maybe she's just mislabeled and waiting. Or cremated. I hope she wasn't cremated yet.”

“It was in October,” Ivy said quietly. “I went to do a morgue tour in District 18. There was a woman there, beaten to death, with no identity. Dr. Runiker was in charge of the tour. We talked about why she was dressed up so beautifully. It was a very pretty top. It looked expensive.”

“Oh.” Sam bit her lip and stared at the empty road ahead. Dead before dying. Mac probably had a cute phrase for that, too.

“It gets worse,” Ivy said. “Someone stole the woman's clothes.”

Silently, Sam breathed a sigh of relief. “So, you saw the clothes before but not the woman? That might actually be a good clue. Maybe the killer is in retail. Working one of the shops where the blouse was made, possibly?”

Ivy shook her head, red hair flashing in and out of Sam's peripheral view as she did. “Her face was . . . was only badly beaten on one side. Do you know what this means?”

“Yes,” Sam admitted.

“It means one of them is a clone!” Ivy exploded. “If the first girl is the clone, it's not so bad. But if the one Henry left was a clone? It'll set back clone rights a decade at least. ­People aren't happy about the Caye Law as it is. If this comes out, I might as well hand in my badge and go pick up trash on the roadside. I'll never get to be human!”

“You are human,” Sam argued. Her GPS flashed, and she took the turn to Krystal's house. “There's more than one explanation here.”

“Like what?”

“Genetic drift? Twins? Cousins? You don't need to be a clone to look like someone. Besides, you're basing this assumption on a memory that's three months old and a picture taken at a party with weird lighting. A good makeup artist can make you look like anyone. Maybe Lexie isn't the same person as you found in the morgue. Maybe there's another explanation.”

“Why would anyone dress to look like a dead woman?”

Sam parked the car beside an old trailer with faded purple sheets hanging in the windows as curtains. “That's a very good question,” she said. “After we talk to Krystal, we'll try to answer it.”

 

CHAPTER 29

“­People will fight for many things over the course of their lives. It hardly matters. If you want to know who they really are, ask what they will not live without.”

~ private conversation with Agent 5 of the Ministry of Defense

Day 202/365

(July 21, 2069)

Village of Missingham

Shadow Prime

A
gentle summer breeze ruffled the feathery, gen-­engineered grass of the Shadow Prime. Donovan reached down and ran his hand over it, feeling the difference from the sharp blades in the hellish rogue iteration. This was soft, almost fuzzy, like touching a cloud.

Senturi walked up the hill toward him, smiling. “What do you think?”

“It feels real.” Not quite right, but solid.

“There's no known nodes here,” Senturi said. “They diverged from the Primes when pacifists won the vote, and Emir never came to power. He's here, but working out of a basement lab. Everyone thinks he's mad.”

The corner of Donovan's lip twitched up in a smile. “Have you found a way for us to move the soldiers in?”

“Not all of us. Not yet.” Senturi licked his lips and looked away. Lying. “They have a sort of urban legend about a group of radicals who went underground and started building a secret army years ago.”

“We're that army?” Donovan shook his head. “I don't want more violence. There needs to be an end to it.”

Senturi nodded. “We're escapees. When I first met the locals, I slipped, told them I worked for a military organization. They filled in the rest. It will be so easy!” He smiled. “We'll be the heroes. The coddled, protected lost boys. I have names for all of us.”

“We have names.”

“Now we have the names of the dead. Children who went missing before the world wars ended. They're dead, but we can still have their lives. We can have their families, their place in society. It'll be perfect.”

Donovan ran a hand over his arm. He'd been itching since going to the rogue iteration. Something in the air there made him crazy. “Rose isn't returning to Prime.”

“Good,” Senturi said. “She'd only ruin this.”

“She wouldn't know how,” Donovan said. “There's no one for her to murder. No way for this iteration to collapse.” Which is what made it so perfect. The low population could withstand an influx. There were plenty of resources to go around. “What about the leadership? How do we control things?”

Senturi shrugged. “Everything is done by democratic vote. No one here had real leadership skills. They're all a bit docile, to be honest. Very calm.” The way he said it made it a warning.

“Drugs or genes?”

“Indoctrination, I think. No one gets angry here. When you argue with them, they agree. If you try to provoke them, they ignore you. If someone did take over, they'd make good slaves. Very amenable to whatever you suggest. But it hardly seems worth the effort. Why fight them? They don't resist.”

“They need us,” Donovan said. “Need us to keep them safe.” He wondered if this was how Rose felt every time she was asked to decide humanity's fate. Did she feel like she was soaring? Rushing to the sky with the whole world held in the balance?

He walked over to a tree with white bark and yellow leaves with frosty-­white tips. “Do you have the evacuation list ready?”

“The first wave of soldiers can be here in three hours.” Senturi crouched. “You do realize there is a payment needed.”

Donovan nodded. “What does the Ruling Council want?”

“Power. Always power. They already know what the conditions are like in the Shadow Prime. It will be easy for them to walk in here and take control.”

“They'll make a pet of Emir,” Donovan guessed.

Senturi shrugged. “He needs to be controlled. You know that. This is how things are. The Council gets to control the population, and we get to live here unchallenged. You'll have everything you want.” Senturi patted his arm.

Donovan nodded. “I know.” Lifting a pair of binoculars, he scanned the streets of the nearest village, looking for a woman with bright red hair who walked along the dirt road from her home, where she'd had lunch, to a shop each day. He'd seen her before. Soon, he promised her.

Soon, I
'll spend all day with you.

The villagers hurried from their homes to the shops, but the red-­haired woman was missing.

“She's not there,” Senturi said.

Donovan turned to him with a frown.

Senturi smiled apologetically. “I had to show the Council what was available here. We need weapons, soldiers who will obey us.”

“We had both already.”

“You think you did, but I don't trust anyone who was raised in Emir's shadow. We needed the Council's troops. Soldiers trained to ignore Emir.”

“Where is the woman?”

“In the Prime,” Senturi said with a shrug. “She's a very striking woman. Very agreeable.”

There was something in the way he said that that made Donovan's throat tighten.

“Don't take it personally,” the other man advised. “This is simply politics. Here or in the Prime, there's always going to be someone whose needs are greater than your wants. And the Council needed a sign. Call it a partial payment.”

Donovan pivoted, driving his fist into Senturi's jaw and stunning the other man. Senturi dropped to the ground, dazed. Donovan stomped on his chest, breaking his ribs and piercing his lungs and heart.

Two swift kicks, one to the head and one to the stomach, and Senturi was gone. He'd breathe for a few minutes more, but the internal bleeding and damage would kill him soon enough.

Donovan looked down at his friend. “I'm sorry. It's nothing personal,” he said in case Senturi could still hear him. “I'm a node for the soldiers, not the Council. I'm not here to defend or follow orders. I'm here to conquer. To take. To have. This is my world,” he explained. “I was going to share this with you, but you broke my trust. She was mine.”

Senturi groaned. Blood bubbled from his mouth.

“Your mother on the Council will die quicker,” Donovan promised. “I'll leave her for the decoherence to wash away. She won't feel anything but impending terror, and then there's silence.” He knelt down by Senturi. “You know how I know? Because I have died so many times, death is all I know. The pain followed by the silence. Then I wake up and kill myself again. Every day.”

Senturi's pulse stopped fluttering in his neck.

Donovan checked the man's wrist. “Dead. Welcome to silence.”

He stood back up. There was no need to bury the body. The grass here was aggressive, and no one walked in the hills. They kept to their villages. Four hundred and thirteen buildings in every one. Every person had an assigned job, a designated place. Everyone was happy.

She had been happy here. Would have been happy to welcome him home. Now he needed to raid another iteration to find the red-­haired woman again.

His timer chirped, warning him that the next portal was opening. The anomaly would take him to the tunnels running between Control and the civilian towers. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any industrious techs coming home late from work again.

He'd hate to ruin the afternoon with another murder.