Timecaster: Supersymmetry (26 page)

“Really? Cool.”

He tried to take a step and nosedived into the floor. “Ow. Right on the banana again.”

“My heart is aching, and so is my face.”

I couldn
’t wait for McGlade. I opened the only door in the room, and saw it led to Sata’s lab. In the corner was a woman in a nanotube net. My heart soared, then sank when I realized it wasn’t Vicki.

I caught movement in my peripheral vision, followed it, and immediately recognized my wife’s red hair.

Then I saw what was next to her.

A byter. Feeding on Vicki’s blood.

I went to full-blown rage in a microsecond, so blinded by anger that I acted without thinking, tugging the Magnum from my hip holster, charging the bug and emptying the cylinder.

The fifty caliber bullets ricocheted off the byter’s thick exoskeleton without doing any apparent damage, but I sure got the son of a bitch’s attention. Its feeding tube retracted and it met me head-on, skittering across the floor with its mandibles wide open, crashing into my legs with the force of a hyperfootball tackle. I flipped over the bug’s back, dropping the empty revolver, landing hard on my broken ribs.

The pain was so sharp I couldn’t breathe. I managed to roll up onto my side, bringing the shotgun to bear, narrowly getting my finger in the trigger guard before the creature was on me.

It climbed onto my legs, its mandibles sinking deep into the fleshy upper part of my right thigh, uncomfortably close to my junk. I screamed, then shoved the shotgun barrel between me and the bug, angling upward, and fired as fast as I could pull the trigger.

The byter continued to bite me, unaffected by the shotgun blasts. I tried to use the antidote for the nanopoisonemI checked the time on my DTut the p the stock as a lever and managed to pry it off my legs, but it wouldn’t give up its grip on my thigh.

I freed the TEC-9 from under my armpit, aimed at the creature’s black, multifaceted eye, and emptied the magazine. But its eye was just as armored as the rest of it. I’d seen the show
Man vs. Byter
, and the only thing that could penetrate a byter’s carapace was a Nife.

A Nife!

I yanked the Nife from the sheath and rammed it in the monster’s head, to the hilt.

It released my leg, scurrying backward, ripping the Nife from my hand. I brought up the bullpup and fired, emptying the clip, forcing it back into a corner.

Then I chucked a grenade at it, and went to Vicki, covering her with my body.

The explosion rocked the house. But I didn’t look to see if it had hurt the bed bug. I was too preoccupied with Vicki.

She was cold. Very cold.

I touched her neck through the net, felt a very faint pulse.

“Vicki!” I yelled over the ringing in my ears. “Answer me, Vicki!”

Her eyelids fluttered, then her pupils rolled up into her head.

Alter-Talon and Dark Alter-Talon
stood outside the hallway door to Sata’s lab, waiting for the gunfire to stop. The plan was to torture Vicki in front of Talon to make him reveal where the other Talon was, but all of the explosions coming from the lab made this unnecessary.

Vicki was in a nanotube net, and the only way to get her out was to press the release button on the weapon that snared her. Either the byter would i
ncapacitate Talon, or he’d eventually go looking for the nanonet gun. When he did, they would capture him. Alter-Talon had one nanonet left. Once they had him, they could move to a safer earth, and Dr. Patel could begin the operations. They would lie to the doctor about kidnapping her family, she’d believe it, do the surgeries, and then Alter-Talon could start fresh. Maybe with Vicki, if she were still alive. Maybe with a whole harem of Vickis, plucked from alternate worlds.

Or why even restrict himself to that? With his abilities, Alter-Talon could become the supreme ruler of an entire planet. He could have any woman he wanted. Heck, he could have
anything
he wanted. The only limit was his imagination.

Alter-Talon checked his TEV. Two minutes until the earth ended. He exchanged a glance with his counterpart, and knew he was thinking the same thing: we’re running out of time.

“I taze him, you net him,” Dark Alter-Talon said.

“It’s like you can read my mind. You go low and left.”

Alter-Talon opened the door and went in with the netgun #amCan you very “Yes.”raised, stepping right, quickly sighting Talon kneeling next to Vicki. Dark Alter-Talon moved the opposite direction in a crouch, firing his Glock, the Tesla bullet hitting Talon in the chest, a splinter of electricity coursing down from the ceiling and holding him rigid. Alter-Talon followed up with the nanotube net, binding him up in a nice, neat package.

The byter was in the corner, swiping its legs at its own head, apparently preoccupied with something.

The doctor was where they’d left her.

Everything had worked out according to plan. Now they just needed to get out of the nanosuits, set their TEVs to an alternate earth, and—

“Bad news, guys.”

Who was that? Alter-Talon turned and saw…

Harry McGlade? Alter-Talon hadn’t seen that guy in years. What was he doing here?

And what was he doing with that…

Was that a flamethrower?

“You’re fired,” Harry said.

A stream of flaming liquid shot from McGlade’s weapon, hosing them down. Alter-Talon raised his arms over his face, quickly backing up. The fire hit him full in the chest, roaring in his ears, enveloping his entire body. For a wild moment Alter-Talon panicked, thinking he was going to burn.

Then he remembered the armor was heat resistant.

Alter-Talon stopped, getting a grip on his fear.

But the fear didn’t leave. Even though he was safe from the fire, getting scorched in the helmet made it impossible to see. It was like sticking his head in the sun.

He tried to fan the flames away, but they continued to blind his vision.

“Hot enough for you?” he heard McGlade yell.

This was bad. Very bad. There were only a few minutes—heck, just a few seconds—left before the world was destroyed. If this jackass kept spitting fire at them, they wouldn’t have time to grab the Talons and leave this earth.

Alter-Talon turned, heading for the door. He stepped out into the hallway, frantically wiping at the soot on his visor. It wasn’t working—he couldn’t see a thing. He dropped the nanonet gun and reached for the magnetic release buttons on his helmet, tugging it off and realizing he was standing in front of another familiar face from the past.

His grandfather.

“You’ve been a bad, bad boy,” Phin said.

Then Grandpa punched four of his teeth out.

I was barely able
to turn my head in the nanotube net, but in my peripheral vision I saw Phin knock out several of my alter-ego’s teeth.

Before I had a chance to cheer, the other doppelgänger was on him—and this one had kept his helmet on.

Phin sidestepped a shot fired from the Glock and then gave the other evil Talon a hard hit in the stomach.

I heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone, saw Phin pull his mangled hand away, several knuckle bones peeking through the split skin.

Then Dark Alter-Talon threw a punch, hitting my surprised grandfather in the chin.

Phin staggered back, now bleeding from his face as well.

“Talon!”

I looked the other way. Alter-Vicki had rushed into the house, flanked by Grandma and Sata. I could assume, by the earlier gunfire and flame antics, that Talon and Harry had also arrived.

So the gang was all here. But there wasn’t much time left.

“Get the gun he dropped!” I called.

Sata saw the nanotube net shotgun, and being a former cop he knew what it was. He pointed it out to Jack. They both assumed boxing stances, feet apart, hands raised, and moved in on armored duo.

The helmeted Talon fired his Glock, hitting Sata in the chest. As Sata went down in a blaze of Tesla lightning, Grandma went up, launching herself into the air, kicking the gun right out of his gloved hand.

The other Talon was going after the dropped shotgun, and as he bent over Phin dissuaded him from the action by giving him a vicious muay thai shin to the nose. Then he swatted at the shotgun, sending it sliding across the floor to Vicki.

“The button on the stock!” I yelled.

She grabbed the weapon. Pressed the correct button.

The net went slack.

I was free.

That’s when the two evil Satas materialized right next to us.

One punched Vicki straight in the face.

The other kicked me in the jaw, sending me spiraling into unconsciousness.

I pushed off
the nanotube net, no longer taut, and called McGlade, who was spraying flames on the byter.

“Keep it busy, McGlade.” too much woman for that.”

“arthere was you knowTel

“Consider this job well done.”

From Harry’s pants I heard,
“The earth is ‘bout to end, and I don’t even have a drink.”

Every cell in my body wanted to check on Vicki, but first I had to take care of my evil twins. I plucked the Tesla needle from my chest, then staggered out of the lab, into the hallway.

Phin was circling one of the armored Talons, the one without the helmet. Sata was on the ground, clutching his smoking chest. And some woman was facing the other Talon, her fists raised, her stance wide, her expression grim.

Grim, and ripped straight out of my memories.

“Grandma?”

My voice distracted her, and that allowed her opponent to hit her with a hard uppercut, the nanotube gloves cutting into her chin.

The temporary joy of seeing my grandmother again was instantaneously replaced by anger. I rushed the bad Talon, diving at him in a clothesline tackle, getting my elbow around his neck and using momentum to put him in a headlock. Then my free hand sought out the latches for his helmet, two buttons on either side of the collarbone that kept the collar magnetized. I hit one of them, and he judo flipped me. But I managed get my finger under the seam, and I pulled his head down with me as I landed on my back.

As he rained down punches on my face and upper body, I focused on holding him and finding that other button. I could feel my cheeks getting torn up by the nanontube gloves, one of my ears went completely numb from a direct hit, and one of my eyes filled with blood, but I managed to press the release and yank off his head gear.

He staggered back.

Grandma was right there, unleashing a ridiculously fast palm punch, striking him between his nose and upper lip.

“Not so tough without your helmet on,” she said.

Then in a move that could only be described as staggeringly beautiful, Grandma jumped and did a spin kick, hitting him in the side of the head with so much force he staggered into the other bad Talon.

Phin was on them immediately. He grabbed each by an ear and smacked their heads into each other so hard the
CLUNK!
could be heard from space. They crumpled to the ground, if not concussed then at least compromised.

I found the dropped Glock, wiped the blood from my eye, and shot each of them in the face three times, letting the Tesla lightning do its thing. It probably blinded them both.

I didn’t care too much.

“Drop the gun, Talon.”

I spun, seeing two Satas. Both aimed their TEVs at me.

“Unless you want to be sent to an earth with no oxygen.”

I considered my choices, and realized I didn’t have any.

digital tabletat flamethrower, which pI dropped the Glock.

Alter-Sata and his
dark counterpart had just returned from yet another alternate earth where they’d been hiding until events played themselves out on this one.

Unfortunately, events hadn’t played out at planned. Alter-Talon expected the evil Talons to be in control of the situation, and instead they’d been soundly defeated.

It was time to abandon this planet before it imploded. Alter-Talon would take the whole house, and its occupants, somewhere less volatile.

Alter-Talon closed his eyes, syncing his brainwaves the octeract point, his concentration interrupted when someone said:

“You guys look chilly. Let me heat you up a bit.”

And then Alter-Talon and Dark Alter-Talon were on fire.

Being engulfed in flames made it hard to focus, and Alter-Talon couldn’t pet the bunny. He assumed Dark Alter-Talon was having the same problem.

They both dropped to the floor, rolling around frantically, but as soon as they extinguished the flames the asshole with the flamethrower restarted them.

He tried to yell for that moron to stop it, that they were all going to die, but whenever Alter-Sata tried to take a breath he sucked in fire, which was no more conducive to speaking as it was to focusing.

And then, suddenly, the flames stopped and Alter-Sata was no longer blazing.

“Hold it,” he heard.

It was a voice he recognized.

But he’d never heard it in real life. He’d only heard it in his dreams.

It belonged to the one who taught him how to create the TEV.

Mu.

I was desperately peeling
off the nanosuit armor from one of the unconscious evil Talons, searching for the TEV so we could all get out of here before the earth imploded.

Then there was a bright flash, and McGlade switched off his flamethrower.

I wondered if we’d all somehow travelled into another dimension.

That’s when Amarillo Plantain said, “Hold it.”

Something compelled me to look. The banana was no longer in McGlade pocket. Instead, he was floatingering pizzas.”