by Liana Brooks
Agent Rose nodded. “All right. That’s a start, I guess. So are we still in a convergence event? Does that mean Mr. Gant from the TV crossed over with her? And, should we be expecting more intrusions from the other iteration?”
Ivy shook her head. “I can’t say for certain. It’s possible.”
“How possible?” Agent MacKenzie asked.
Ivy shrugged and looked at Edwin. “Better than seventy percent? Maybe?”
“The convergence points are, according to the notebook, very narrow windows in time. Sometimes the overlap lasts a few hours, sometimes only for minutes.”
“How long was the convergence that brought Juanita over?” Agent MacKenzie asked.
“Dr. Troom didn’t leave the calculations in his notebook. His notes say that every convergence is followed by either further expansion or destructive decoherence. There a formula for calculating the events, and he was predicting a catastrophic decoherence. The loss of multiple iterations.”
“That made him have bad dreams?” Agent Rose took a seat at the table.
“More like a redundant memory,” Edwin said. “The dreams were real events of other iterations that had failed. Troom was tracking them.”
Agent MacKenzie sat down across from Agent Rose. “Is there a patron saint of nightmares?”
“Saint Raphael,” Agent Rose said without looking up, “but I don’t think he’s going to help us. If every dream for every person is a failed iteration . . .”
“No,” Ivy said, shaking her head, “that’s the thing: It’s only for certain people. There are notes on einselected nodes: individuals or events that exist in every iteration. They’re kind of like glue, or the bond between iterations. I don’t know if Dr. Troom even understood the concept fully. But he considered himself to be einselected.”
“Was that ego talking?” Agent Rose asked.
“Possibly,” Ivy conceded, “but it doesn’t really matter in the end. The theory Agent Edwin and I came up with is a lot simpler than that.”
Edwin bounced in his seat a little. “You’re going to like this.”
She smiled, too. “All the equations require a location code to operate from. So I started breaking down all the numbers the way I did with the phone numbers, and I found a pattern.”
Agent Rose didn’t look like she appreciated any of this, but she motioned for Ivy to continue.
“The machine only operates predictably at a certain geographic location. You need starting longitude and latitude to calculate a destination. For Dr. Troom to calculate the precise arrival in another iteration during a convergence, he had to know his exact starting location.”
Agent Rose’s face lit up with a fierce smile. “Tell me you have those coordinates.”
Ivy held up the strip of paper she scribbled her calculations on. “Longitude and latitude of where Dr. Troom operated his first machine. It’s somewhere in the swamps.” Not her favorite place in Florida, but it made sense in a way. People didn’t go out to the swamps for fun anymore. Hunting wasn’t allowed, and the touristy airboat tours were restricted to set stretches of waterway. If someone wanted to get up to less-than-legal shenanigans, the deep swamp was the place to go.
“Which is how Nealie and Connor got involved,” Edwin said. “They must have bumped into Troom at some point.”
Ivy held up a hand. “There was also a second set of coordinates that match the longitude and latitude of the lab. We think Juanita Doe crossed iterations, possibly with Mr. Gant, possibly following him. She wanted to go back,” Ivy said. “She worked with Dr. Troom to rebuild the machine. There was one in the swamp, then a second he used at the lab.”
Agent Rose frowned. “Why two machines?”
Ivy and Edwin both shook their heads.
“We don’t know yet,” Edwin admitted. “Although there are a couple of notes about a stabilizing mechanism. Something that could control the energy of the machine.”
“Let me guess,” Agent Rose said, rubbing her temples. “No control, and the machine explodes?”
“That’s possible,” Edwin said. “Though Troom hypothesized that a stabilizing mechanism wouldn’t be needed under certain circumstances.”
Agent Rose quirked her lips into a bitter smile. “I think it’s safe to say he proved that hypothesis wrong. Mac, can you and Edwin check out the swamp location?”
“You don’t want to come get dirty with us?” Agent MacKenzie teased.
“Not particularly, no. Officer Clemens, thank you for your help.”
Ivy hesitated. “There is one more thing.”
Agent Rose quirked an eyebrow up in question. “Yes?”
“I tracked down Sheriff Gardner since he wasn’t returning your calls. He’s staying at home. I drove by and knocked on his door, but he yelled at me. He’s very, very drunk.”
“I would be too if my kid had just died,” Agent MacKenzie said.
Agent Rose wrinkled her nose. “I think it might be more than that. Ivy and I will go over and talk with him. Call me when you get back from the swamps.” Rose gave her a calculating look. “Do you have a tac vest?”
“A . . . a bulletproof one?” Ivy shook her head. “Why would I need one?”
“Standard-issue for bureau interactions like this. You never know when someone will get violent.” Her lips pressed into a thin frown.
“And because I think we’ll need it.”
It had never occurred to Sam that she hated being the passenger in the car. As Ivy took another left-hand turn faster than Sam felt was safe, she had ample time to reflect on why she was always behind the wheel. Being the driver gave her control. And the clone’s driving gave her more near-death experiences in fifteen minutes than she’d had in her entire life . . . and she’d already died twice.
Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the seat belt, and Ivy slammed on the brakes. “When did you learn to drive?”
“When I became a city drone,” Ivy said calmly. “They gave us cars and a training video, and we worked it out on a dirt lot.”
Sam quickly reviewed her saints, trying to remember who the patron saint of drivers was. St. Frances of Rome, wasn’t it? Or was there another one for race-car drivers?
“Are you okay, Agent Rose?” the officer asked, maybe catching on that Sam was nervous.
“Have you ever considered professional race-car driving?”
“No, ma’am,” she said as she took another turn at qualifying speeds.
Sam closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. “You missed your calling in life.” She snapped her fingers.
“What?”
“St. Richard,” Sam said. “He’s the patron saint of NASCAR.”
Ivy hit the brakes and slowed to something closer to the speed limit. “My driving isn’t that bad.”
Sam looked over at her.
“Not all of us drive like old ladies!”
With a guffaw of laughter, Sam turned to look out the window. “Some of us are able to see the speed-limit signs as we go past and actually follow the law.”
“What is the point of flashing blue lights and sirens if I don’t get to use them?”
“You aren’t,” Sam pointed out.
Ivy shrugged. “I don’t need to. Everyone is at work or school.” The car slowed some more. “Is that better?” There was a note of beaten uncertainty in her voice that Sam didn’t like.
“Your driving is fine,” Sam lied. “I was teasing.” Ivy’s insecurity was worse than taking a turn on two wheels.
“We’re here,” Ivy said. “The blue house on the left.”
Sam looked at the overgrown, winter-browned grass with a frown. The gutter was sagging, and a weather-beaten flyer for a local pizza place fluttered in the door handle. “Are you sure?”
Ivy nodded. “He forgot his running shoes at work once, and my
commanding officer made me run them over.”
“I didn’t picture him as a runner.”
“He’s not. He wears the same pair of running shoes in every morning, and it’s been the same pair for at least three years. It’s all for show.”
That seemed an apt summary of Sheriff Gardner. More politician than policeman. More sycophant than politician.
Sam walked up to the door and knocked. There was a crash inside, followed by a man’s cursing.
“Sheriff Gardner?” Sam called out. “Sheriff? Are you all right?”
Silence.
“Sheriff, it’s Agent Rose from the bureau.” She knocked again, louder this time. “Do I have permission to enter?”
Ivy closed the distance behind her. “Maybe we should wait.”
“He might have hurt himself. Our first duty is to protect the citizens, no matter what part of the government we work for. We exist to keep people safe.” She reached for the doorknob. As she touched it, the door was wrenched inward with violent force.
Sheriff Gardner stood in front of them, wearing a stained white tank top, wrinkled uniform pants, and reeking of alcohol.
Sam tried not to judge him.
She failed miserably.
“Sheriff? How are you doing?”
“Get off my property,” Gardner said through clenched teeth.
“I will,” Sam promised with a smile. “I just need to ask you a few questions. First, did you see your son, Jamie, at Dolores’s grave on March nineteenth? That would have been last Wednesday.”
The sheriff’s eye twitched. “I know what day it was.” Sam waited. The sheriff looked away. “You saw Jamie.” His body language gave everything away. She’d seen the same hunched shoulders and guilty look on her father’s face when he sobered up and realized what she’d given up to take care of him.
Gardner turned away.
“I need to know what happened,” Sam said. “Did you fight? Did he argue with you?”
Gardner’s shoulders hunched inward. “I gave him a car.”
That . . . was not what she expected.
“I was trying to make things right. Get him a good life.” He shook his head. He turned around, face contorted with anger and sorrow. “I got a bonus last year. Enough to send Jamie to college like Dolores wanted. She always said he was smart.”
“He was very smart,” Sam said. “Got good grades. Won a poetry contest, I think.”
Gardner peered back into the gloom of the house, avoiding eye contact.
Sam scanned the room trying to guess what had Gardner’s attention. The TV was off, the house covered in empty beer bottles and frozen-food containers. There was movement in the far corner, an old electric picture frame playing through a series of dated photos. Sam couldn’t see the faces, but the clothes were a good twenty years out of style: Mango-orange and sunset-pink dresses were visible. She made an educated guess. “You loved your wife, didn’t you, Sheriff Gardner?”
“Of course I did!” His nose scrunched as he tried not to tear up. “Tried to. We were fighting even before Jamie was born. She had moods. Liked to sulk for days. Wouldn’t talk to me sometimes because she was mad. It was worse after he was born. Doctor said it was postpartum depression maybe.”
“And when he was diagnosed, she was worse,” Sam guessed.
Gardner shook his head and sighed. “There was a recession. I couldn’t get a job that paid enough, and she wasn’t ever happy. I thought it’d be better just the two of us. I could keep her happy, and she wouldn’t have to worry about him. Jamie’d be safer. That’s what I told myself.”
Ivy walked up beside Sam, frowning. Sam shook her head.
“Sheriff, what did you and Jamie talk about when you saw him?”
Gardner shrugged. “Math. Physics. He said he thought it was really interesting. He was always like that, getting hyperfocused.”
“And you were already planning to pay for his schooling, so that was good.” Her suspicion that the sheriff had killed his estranged son was rapidly falling apart. “You bought him a car?”
“A cheap one, to get around town in. A 2060 Alexian Essence. Blue. Dolores’s favorite color was blue, and it was the right price.
Cheap. “What did Jamie say he was going to do after that?”
“Go home, pick up some things, then he had class that afternoon. A fourth-quarter pickup class on intro to college life or something like that. He would have been on campus early. Except, I don’t know if he made it. The cemetery opens at five in the morning. I was there first thing. We talked. We bought that car off the lot at eight. By noon, I was getting a call someone had found him washed up on the beach.”
Sam looked over at Ivy. “Mac said they found tire tracks near the swamp. Did we ever find out what kind of car it was?”
Ivy shook her head.
“Go call it in and see if Mac has an answer.” She watched Ivy walk back to the car before turning to the beleaguered sheriff. “Is there any other information you can give me? Names of friends? Someone else your son might have seen that day?”
“No.” Gardner shook his head. “We weren’t . . . He didn’t talk about his life. We didn’t talk much ever except when I was drunk and yelling. He had the boys out in the woods, but I don’t know who he knew in town. High school friends, I suppose.”
“All right,” Sam said. “We’ll see if we can trace the car.”
His eyes went wide. “Wait. I have . . . I have a picture. The guy who sold us the car . . .” He stumbled into the house and attacked the disaster inside. Empty take-out boxes tumbled off the coffee table in an avalanche. Gardner grabbed a flimsy piece of shiny paper. “Here. The dealer took this.” He shoved the photograph at Sam.
The picture showed Gardner in a dark brown suit two sizes too tight and old enough to be the one he wore to Dolores’s funeral. Jamie stood next to him, hair pulled back in a ponytail, jeans ripped, T-shirt faded and stained. Around Jamie’s neck was a knotted scarf of . . . “Is that plastic?”
“Trash he picked up,” Gardner said. “Plastic bags and whatnot that wound up on the beach. He made scarves out of them. Sold them as ‘upcycle couture’ at the farmer’s market during the summer. I used to patrol there just so I could check on him.”
Mac had said Jamie was garroted, probably with a plastic bag found at the scene. Jamie had been wearing the murder weapon all along. “Can I take a picture of this?”
Gardner nodded. “Will it help?”
“If I can track down where your son’s car was, I can find where he was killed. Once I find that, I’ll have some evidence.” She pulled out her phone and took a picture that she sent to Mac, Edwin, and Ivy. “I’m sorry for your loss, Sheriff. You’ll be the first person I call when I find out who did this.”
CHAPTER 15
Decoherence is the winter of time. All things die until spring returns. In the spring of time, we have Expansion, a million possibilities bloom in front of us, and we are blinded by the brilliance of our future.
~ Dr. M. Vensula head of the National Center for Time-Fluctuation Studies
Thursday March 27, 2070
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
Static filled the radio as the map led Donovan and Gant deeper into the fetid swamps. Gant turned it off with an angry slap. There wasn’t good music here anyway. Something buzzed past his ear. A high-pitched annoying hum that made him want to break things.
Without warning, Donovan slapped his own arm.
Gant looked over at him.
Donovan lifted his hand to show him a splattered bug.
“This place is disgusting.”
Donovan grunted agreement.
It wasn’t enough. Gant could feel himself unraveling. Losing his focus. “Don’t they drain swamps at home?”
/>
“Yup.” The car bucked as they drove over another muddy rut in the road.
“This is like driving through a sewer. I can feel things crawling all over me.”
“Noseeums,” Donovan said. “Read about them in the guidebook. They’re little bugs that crawl on you.”
“How informative,” Gant said dryly, eye twitching. It struck him that Donovan was having fun in this nightmare. In a strange way, it made sense. Even hell had to seem attractive to someone. He pulled Detective Rose’s briefcase onto his lap and snapped it open. With a frown, he checked the GPS clipped to the front dash of the car. “Is that readout entirely right? Another hour to drive ten miles?”
“The roads aren’t good,” Donovan said. “No sense breaking the car trying to get there fast.”
“We could walk faster.” He did the calculations in his head. “Perhaps not. But there must be a better way to navigate this . . . jungle.” No word had ever crossed his lips with such loathing.
Donovan grunted again. “I see dirt bike tracks.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Means the locals probably don’t drive a POS car stolen from an old lady to get out here.”
“She was on a respirator and had cataracts. We did her a favor by recycling this old heap,” Gant said virtuously. “Besides, an old woman who can’t get out of bed won’t report a missing car from her garage. The caretaker was on his phone playing video games. Not the conscientious type.”
Under normal circumstances, Gant would have been just as happy to leave both of them dead. This, however, was not the time to get sloppy. Gant didn’t consider himself a superstitious man. Nor did he spend much time reflecting on the truths of God or the possibility of judgment after this life. Those things were beneath an intelligent man such as himself. But, in the privacy of his own mind during the dark watches of the night, he’d begun hypothesizing his own little theories about Detective Rose. There were certain things about her survival that didn’t quite add up.
