Decoherence (26 page)

“And her husband's.” Sam grimaced. “That's just weird.”

Mac nodded in agreement. “But that's why. Probably. Maybe. This could also be a trap.”

Sam gave him a frustrated look. “We should leave. We can go hide out somewhere. Come back another day.”

The building shook under them.

“We'll have to fight our way out,” Mac said, hefting the handgun for reassurance. He checked the magazine for ammunition.

Sam rolled her eyes. “It's loaded, but the safety is on.”

“Carrying a loaded gun? I've corrupted you.”

“Focus, MacKenzie, give me exits,” Sam ordered as she pressed her hand against the lock.

“There's a ser­vice lift, two stairwells, and the main lift that they're coming from.”

“Stairs, then. The lift will be a kill box in a few minutes.”

He could have kissed her for that. “What would I do without you?”

“Probably get yourself killed.” She pushed him. “Move, MacKenzie. I am not dying in this iteration.” She clicked her tongue to grab Bosco's attention, and they ran for the stairs.

D
onovan stepped into chaos. Sirens were blaring, ­people were running, and a medical team was swarming Emir's office. He went to the jump room, following the soldiers in riot gear. Someone had tried to break in.

How MacKenzie had gotten through the locks, he didn't know, but it didn't matter. The machines here had what he wanted.

His computer terminal still accepted his access codes. Emir was so fragging arrogant, he hadn't even considered what would happen if a node led a coup. Even if he'd used small words, it wasn't likely that Emir would have understood.

A machine angrily spat out papers with a wildly oscillating sine wave. Expansion and decoherence chasing each other. If this measured the heartbeat of the universe, the universe was having a heart attack.

Donovan tossed the synthpaper to the side.

Right now, he needed to open a gate to the red-­haired woman.

He'd knew where she was. His wife. The perfect woman. With cinnamon freckles and red hair that curled in the humidity . . .

It was going to be a complicated relationship. He could see that. Most relationships fell short of the literary ideal, but that didn't matter. He could explain why his other self had attacked her. There would be questions, but in the end, all she would remember is that he had saved her.

In a few years, they'd be laughing about how they met. Because she loved him.

She had to.

Working quickly, he pulled up the necessary programs to calculate the exit coordinates. Arranging for a portal to open near the Council was difficult. It would require opening multiple portals, with numerous anomalies. The results would be catastrophic in some areas. Already, the computer was warning him of tsunami risks and earthquakes.

Shock waves would obliterate Central Command.

The idea made him smile.

With a quick, light touch, he dismissed the warnings. And then he smiled.

The doors to the control room cracked open, glass spilled in with the sounds of heavy fighting.

“Donovan!” Emir stormed into the room. “What are you doing?”

“I'm doing what nodes are meant to do. Making a choice. Opening the portal.”

The machines screamed a warning as the portal turned white.

“Decoherence is here,” Emir screeched. “You must stay!”

Decoherence was here. Which was exactly why he had to leave.

The worlds were collapsing. Darkness was closing in, and Donovan stepped into the light, leaving the chaos of destruction behind him.

 

CHAPTER 40

“EXPANSION (n): a period of time when new iterations form and new realities begin to solidify”

~ excerpt from
Definitions of Time
by Emmanuela Pine, I1

Tuesday April 1, 2070

Florida District 8

Commonwealth of North America

Iteration 2

D
irector Alexander Loren, head of the CBI in Florida, closed his office door on the lunchtime silence, head filled with the dire predictions of Agent Rose. There was pressure from above to keep a lid on things. To make sure—­

The click of his swivel chair turning at the desk made him turn around.

A woman with black hair peppered with white was waiting for him. At his desk. In
his
chair.

“Who are you?”

“The Ghost of Christmas Future,” she said. “A future that won't happen unless you listen very closely.” She stood, and the sunlight angling through the plastic blind caught her profile in just the right way.

“Agent Rose?”

Her smile was cryptic. “A number of years ago, yes. I was a CBI agent. Not the best or the brightest, but I daresay no one ever questioned my drive. I don't know when to stop. It's one of my defining features.”

“You were?” Loren looked at the door. “I saw you leave twenty minutes ago.”

“And twenty years ago. Yes. A younger me. A . . . hmm . . . what would be the best way to describe that young Sam? She's a seed, a glorious vessel of potential and drive. You, on the other hand, are something of a dam. A big, fat rock in the road.” She moved toward him with the sinuous grace of a snake. “You're a problem, Director Loren.”

“Get out of my office this minute, or I will have security arrest you.”

One dark eyebrow rose as her lips twitched into the faintest of smiles. “Director, how do you think you can stop me? You don't know where I'm from or when. You are playing with the biggest weapon since the atom bomb, and you're treating it like a Frisbee.”

“Ma'am, all this information is classified.”

“Sir,” she said mockingly, “I wrote the book on that ticking time bomb you're about to detonate. I'm the one who keeps you from going up in a pile of smoke and stupidity.”

Loren frowned at her.

“You're not a dumb man, Alex. You didn't become director by playing Yes Man. So, go sit at your desk. The files are there. If you make the right choice, we all live past Thursday. Make the wrong one, and . . .” She shrugged. “I'm here. According to the theory of decoherence and expansion, that means you will make the right choice. Doesn't that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling of accomplishment?”

“I'm calling security.”

“Great, tell them to stand here for a decade or two and wait for me.” The woman touched something on her wrist and contracted, winking away in a sliver of white light.

For several minutes, Director Loren stood there, watching the empty space with a skeptical frown as he debated going down to the medical section for a quick physical. It sounded like a stress-­induced hallucination. But he'd seen the files.

He knew about Emir's machine. And he could smell the faint traces of a floral perfume mixing with the stale-­coffee smell of the office.

Lips curving into a snarl, he stalked toward his desk. After a quick sweep for bugs or explosives, he sat gingerly in the chair and reached for his phone.

“Agent Edwin, how may I help you today?”

“Agent Edwin, this is Director Loren. Is Agent Rose in her office?”

“No, sir, she called to say she was driving back about forty minutes ago. Do you want me to patch you through to her car?”

“That won't be necessary. Thank you.” Loren hung up the phone.

On his desk, amid the clutter of this latest debacle, was a fresh manila folder with a datpad code and honest-­to-­goodness wood-­pulped paper. He flipped it open with one finger and skimmed the opening paragraph. The words dragged him onward, down the page, and to the end of the thirty-­page document.

He closed the folder and pushed it away, not yet ready to make the choices he was being asked to make.

 

CHAPTER 41

“There is only life you should take: your own. Take it forward. Take control. Choose your path and follow your passion until your heart is full.”

~ from the teaching of Soyala Méihuâ I4—­2067

Sunday May 19, 2069

Alabama District 3

Commonwealth of North America

Rogue Iteration

I
n front of Donovan, the beauties of paradise unfolded. Trees, insects singing in the bushes, flowers, and summer. He opened his arms wide and turned his head up to take in the breathtaking vista of the million stars.

It was a shame Senturi had never lived to see this, but, then again, Senturi wouldn't have fitted into this new world he was creating.

He'd pieced it together slowly, the whole reason the other iteration wasn't collapsing. It hadn't made sense until he realized he was the reason the other iteration survived everything. He was here before Emir, or Rose, or MacKenzie even. He was here at the beginning of the decoherence and the end.

For a moment, he luxuriated in being the center of the universe. If this was how Emir felt all the time, he understood the man's obsession with control. But it wasn't done yet. There were still a few things to do.

If he'd calculated the temporal cyclone correctly, there was a road nearby, and on it, an old man in a truck.

It took a few minutes to find the road, neatly paved with tidy reflective squares sticking up every meter to help drivers navigate the darkness. Donovan stood on the side and waited.

On schedule, the truck appeared as a set of lights on the horizon.

Donovan waved his hand, and the truck slowed to a stop.

The window rolled down. “Hey there, you lost?”

“A little,” Donovan lied.

“Where's your car? I can give it a jump.”

“Actually, Mr. Robbins, I was hoping I could give you something.”

The bushy gray eyebrows on his dark face jumped up in surprise. “You know me?”

“Through a friend of a friend. Someone who said you weren't a fan of the way the country was being run. Someone who said that, for a price, you wouldn't mind taking the night off.”

His face wrinkled in a deeply creased frown. “I'm no terrorist, Mr. . . .”

“Call me Donovan. And I'm not a terrorist. I'm an opportunist. Call in sick, give me your phone, and I will give you this.” He pulled the money he'd stolen on one of his trips to this iteration out of his pocket. Several of the Rose look-­alikes he'd found had been carrying significant amounts of cash. Tips, usually, but cashed-­out wages weren't uncommon, either.

He'd been saving them, not sure why, until now. He was going to buy the future.

Mordicai Robbins's eyebrows moved so far up his head, they threatened to encroach on the few wisps still clinging to his balding dome. “Where'd you get that?”

“Donations from concerned citizens. You aren't alone, Mr. Robbins. You aren't the only one who thinks this”—­he caught himself from saying iteration—­“that this country needs to change. Let me help you be a hero, Mr. Robbins.”

“All that for my phone?”

“And a phone call to work telling them you're sick.” Donovan held the cash toward the open window. “You take a few days' minivacation, and when you're done, the whole world will be a better place.”

Robbins shut off the car. “Sure thing. I could use a break.” He dialed his phone. “Hey, Melody, it's ol' Mordicai. Look, honey, I hate to do this, but my back's acting up something awful. Can't seem to get this kink out. You mind if I call Kinsley? She can come on in in my place.” He paused, a small smile growing on his face. “Sure thing. Yeah, sweetie. I'll take some aspirin. You be good, you hear? Okay. See you next weekend.”

He turned off the phone and gave Donovan a stern look. “That little girl at the lab, Melody Chimes, you leave her alone. Got it? She's good ­people even though her daddy's got money.”

“I won't touch her,” Donovan promised. “I won't even go to the lab except for recon. No one will know I was there.”

Robbins nodded. “Okay. Toss the cash on the seat. I'll toss you the phone. You sure you don't want a ride?”

“Someone else is picking me up.” Donovan reached in the window and dropped the cash on what he guessed from his limited experience was a very nice leather seat. “This is a nice truck.”

“Vintage,” Robbins said. “I'm a collector.” He picked up the cash and flipped through it. “And this is going to give my '47 Akadeem a nice new fuel injector. Thank you, kindly, Mr. Donovan. You have yourself a blessed day, you hear?”

Donovan caught the phone that was tossed to him and smiled as the old man drove away with music pouring out of the truck's rolled-­down windows. This was going to be a beautiful life.

He dialed the contact number from memory.

“Agent Marrins,” a gruff voice said. “Who's this and why the hell are you calling me this late? There better be a dead body. And not a clone this time.”

Donovan looked up. He could all but see the stars aligning. “Agent Marrins, I'm a friend. I want what you want.”

“Sleep? Good. Than hang the hell up.”

“I want the Commonwealth to end.”

There was a poignant silence on the other end of the line.

“I want you to have everything you deserve.” A smarter man would have questioned that. Con artists made their livings selling ­people dreams that disappeared in the morning light. But he'd met Marrins, and the senior agent was not a smart man. He was a greedy, venal, piece of intertemporal flotsam.

“What exactly are you proposing?” Marrins asked.

“What if I told you there was a way to step back in time? Go back to before the Commonwealth formed and stop the vote for unification from ever happening. I could give you dates, names, a list of the things you would need to change to give yourself a better future.”

Marrins snorted.

“Right now you're being outshone by a scrawny girl with more money than sense.”

“Ain't that the damn truth,” Marrins muttered.

“Your staff is made up of what?”

“A girl and a drunk.
Gez
can't focus for more 'an two minutes straight and probably drinks the pickling juice down in the morgue. Half a wonder he ain't dead yet.”

“You could have more. A better career. A better life. With what I'm offering, you could be king.” He strung the words out like a fishing line with a tiny, silver hook at the end.

Marrins laughed. “For just a bit a money, I'm sure. You want my life savings, son? It's forty dollars and some change. I ain't never had much mind for putting things away for the future. Or you think I have some stocks to cash out?”

Now Donovan remembered why shooting ­people was so much easier. And why he'd never run point as an undercover operative in another iteration. He was better at menacing ­people than talking.

“Agent Marrins—­”

A sudden wind snatched his words away. A light was growing in the trees.

Someone was coming for him.

“Agent Marrins, in a few days you'll receive a very urgent call from a man named Dr. Emir.”

“Who's he?”

“Here, no one of importance. A scientist. But you'll receive a second call, from another Emir, and that one you must listen to. He is going to offer you proof that the device in Novikov-­Veltman Nova Laboratories can change time. When he does, take the offer. And bring your gun. You'll need it.”

The light was growing brighter.

Marrins chuckled again. “You're a funny man. Everyone knows CBI agents don't carry weapons that can use lethal force.”

“You have one stashed in your office,” Donovan said, rushing his words as he grew desperate. “This phone belongs to a guard named Mordicai Robbins. He knows about tonight. About what's happening. He thinks like you, and he'll help you.”

He hung up on Marrins's protests. A two-­person hit team stepped through the portal. He tossed the phone into the long grass by the road and turned south toward the laboratory.

They were not taking the future from him.

“W
here the heck are we?” Sam asked as she looked around. A portal had opened in front of them as they'd run down the stairs, and since an unknown world was better than one with bullets flying and buildings shaking, they'd stepped through.

“
When
is a better question,” Mac said. “We need to find a building. Unless you have a phone on you.”

“I didn't bring one. Seemed like a security risk.” The silly things were too easy to track. She wasn't the tech-­savvy one, but even she could pull up most tech's GPS info in under ten minutes. Mac could do it in seconds.

They did not need that kind of surveillance.

She patted her leg. “Bosco.”

He ran obediently to her side, and Sam unclipped his leash. “Bosco,
tìm th
â
y
.”

With one thunderous bark, he plowed ahead through the scrub.

“I guess we go that way,” Mac said.

She looked around at the long, dry grass.

Mac searched the darkness, too. “You get a feeling like this place is familiar?”

“It smells like magnolias and summer,” she said. “Like Alabama.”

“That's what I thought, too. It feels like going home.”

“This is certainly the adventurous route,” Sam said. Despite herself, she was smiling. Exhausted, dehydrated, bruised . . . but they were home. Somewhere near here was a cozy old house with wooden floors and a giant kitchen table worn by loving memories. There was Miss Azalea and her fried chicken, Bri, and Hoss.

“Hoss!”

“What?” Mac looked around in confusion.

“We might be near Hoss!”

“No, Sam.”

“What? Bosco would like a friend.”

“We could easily be in post-­Gant Alabama with Hoss dead and us listed as wanted fugitives.”

“Pessimist,” she grumbled.

“You still love me,” Mac said. “I can see lights up ahead. There's a house or a building.”

“A recharge station would be best. They'd have food, and we could probably borrow a car.”

“Of course, if we landed after we stole the machine, then we'll be on camera and likely to be arrested,” Mac pointed out.

“Hopefully our younger selves were smart enough to head to Australia, making this irrelevant.” A disturbing thought occurred to her. “We can't be stuck in a time loop. Can we? Is that a thing?”

Mac shrugged. “According to what they said in the Prime, none of this is possible. Our iteration should have collapsed when they killed Emir. Or when you left. Or, there were half a dozen other reasons why that Prime was going to survive and the rest of the iterations were doomed. I think this proves Emir was very, very wrong.”

“Fantastic. So we could get stuck in a time loop. Just what I always wanted.” She sighed. “I wonder who the patron saint of time travelers is.”

Mac laughed. “If you're really good, maybe you can claim the title.”

“I'd need to do a miracle.”

“We're alive . . .”

Mac stopped walking. “I know that building.”

Sam had to stand on her tiptoes to see over the crest of the hill and past the scrub to the building. “That's Emir's lab. Makes sense. Every portal needs to open near another portal. At least we know they'll have a phone available. What are the chances we'll not run into anyone we know?”

“Statistically, the odds are in our favor,” Mac said.

But Sam knew with a dark certainty that their luck had run out. She could all but feel the weight of time pushing her forward. Rushing toward her inevitable death.

D
onovan looked the building over. This is where Emir had died, but there was no sign of the police from this iteration. He stepped closer to the glass and peered into the dimly illuminated lobby. A tree planted by the door of the glass atrium shuddered in the breeze of the temperature controls. The room was empty except for a single young woman, black hair twisted up, bent over a book . . . she was no guard.

He smashed his fist into the glass.

The girl looked up. “Hey! This is a private laboratory! You can't be in here.” She approached him with nothing more than a truncheon and a glare on her delicate face.

“You should run. I don't usually kill girls who look like you, but I will.”

“Sir, this is a private facility. The police are on their way. I'm going to need you to sit down and wait until they arrive.”

His first punch knocked her to the floor, cracking her skull on the tile. The truncheon she'd held rolled away under the desk. He listened for alarms or sirens and heard nothing. She'd been bluffing.

Donovan looked down as the girl's eyes opened wide in shock and pain. She looked everywhere, her desperation palpable and intoxicating.

“I told you to run. You should have. I'm a bit shattered. It's seeing yourself die that does it. Nodes are supposed to be stronger,” he confessed, “but I'm not. So I go for walks. Long walks. Sometimes I get lucky and find someone who looks like her.”

The girl's face wrinkled in pain and agonized confusion.

“You don't look like her, but you got in my way. Sorry 'bout that.” He stomped his boot down on her face as hard as he could, crushing her nose into her skull and ending her terror.

The first thing he was going to do when he found his red-­haired woman would be to explain to her how fragile she was. She needed him near her at all times. During the day, she'd stay safe at home while he went to work. He'd make sure she understood. Leaving the house had gotten her husband killed the last time, and she didn't want that.

She wouldn't want that at all. Because she loved him.

He wiped the blood of his boots off on the dead girl's green shirt, then walked over to her desk. A textbook with pictures of paintings lay open. He pushed them aside and pulled up the computer's main screen.