Decoherence

by Liana Brooks

  In the Prime, Counselor Mesar had not survived.

  She took the stairs, not the lifts, down three flights, and opened a door with a broken lock that she’d neglected to mention to maintenance.

  After the councillor’s death, she’d started paying better attention to what was happening. The budget cuts that didn’t look quite right. Little things like mortality rates and population counts not adding up kept her up at night. She noticed the changes between worlds, and a madness in Emir’s eyes that she prayed was a reflection of her own paranoia. When Emir had announced they were within two years of a decoherence event six months ago, the changes had moved from large to reckless.

  It was noticeable when she walked into the nearly empty lab. In a huge space that easily could have housed over a hundred ­people, there were only two research teams of six. Stations sat dark and vacant. There should have been programs running to extrapolate data collected from the other iterations to improve life here in Prime. Emir had ordered them all shut off six weeks ago. She took a deep breath when she realized her hand was shaking.

  “Commander Rose?” A man with wispy black hair and gold, wire-­rimmed glasses stood, hands fiddling with something is his lab-­coat pocket.

  “It’s Dr. Basch, isn’t it?” She smiled because she knew it would make him more likely to help her, and she hated herself for knowing that. She hated herself for choosing to manipulate someone. But it had to be done. Needs must.

  The man nodded, his bangs falling over his glasses. “Yes, Commander. Thank you for remembering me.”

  “I read your work on the new species of edible algae,” she said, not adding that she’d read it less than an hour ago as she researched her own ­people to prep for this mission in the same way she prepped to destroy a timeline. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

  “Of course, Commander!” Basch practically glowed. The poor fool thought being noticed by her was a good thing.

  If he only knew that everyone she focused on died, he’d know he should run in fear. But there really was nowhere safe for him to run. The towers where the civilians lived were actively decaying. The air outside was unbreathable. There was no safe place on Earth but here, at the right hand of the devil.

  Basch’s smile wilted under her examination, unaware of her inner thoughts. “Do you want to discuss this later, Commander?”

  Rose shook off her melancholy. “No, now is good. I have a sample I need tested.” She took the evidence vial with the swab of blood from Locker 666 from her pocket. “It’s probably nothing, which is why I didn’t put a security alert out, but I found blood during a routine sweep of the command tower. I need to know who it belongs to so I can check the medical log and make sure they received the appropriate attention.”

  Basch lifted the sample to eye level with a little frown. “Was this all you found?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it was by the gyms, it was probably just a nosebleed, those have been common since the new training regime started. I’m told the thirty-­seventh form is very tricky to learn.”

  “It is,” Rose said. So far only she and Donovan had mastered it.

  Basch nodded. “I can have this for you by my next shift tomorrow.”

  “Are you working on something more important?”

  “Only the samples Captain Donovan brought in. They were on the training floor, too. I think he’s trying to find out who didn’t clean up after their session.”

  Her smile was calculated and flawlessly warm. “Great minds think alike. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who noticed this. But, please, don’t share the results. I’ll let Captain Donovan handle the soldiers in his own way. There’s no reason to give him another target if I can pull them to the side and give them a quick reminder.”

  “You’re so much nicer than he is,” Basch said with the openness of someone who wanted to be eliminated by Central Command’s Internal Intelligence Division. The IID frowned on ­people’s having favorites. Anyone with a power base was a threat to Emir, and IID was Emir’s guard dog.

  “Thank you for your ser­vice,” Rose said, stepping back. “I’ll come by tomorrow to collect the results.”

  “I look forward to it. Sleep well, Commander.”

  “Good evening, Doctor.” Her smile never wavered, but her hands were shaking when she reached the stairwell. Her walk was nearly a run by the time she reached the floor where her room was tucked in a corner away from everyone else. The door closed behind her with a silent, solemn click before the panic attack swallowed her whole. She let the dread run over her, consume her. Felt the tears heat her cheeks and burn the cuts on her dry lips.

  I am a force for good in humanity, a guiding light to the lost, a voice of hope for the hopeless. I believe in humanity and the greatness of the individual. I am the Paladin. That had been her pledge. When she’d left the UN intelligence to work for Central Command, she’d come because she knew with a rock-­solid certainty that she was the Paladin, that she could change the future for the better.

  The MIA was meant to be the answer to everything. The end of wars, famines, destruction, and senseless hate. Every tragedy could be averted by simply removing the iteration where it happened.

  And she had failed humanity. Everyone who looked to her as their guiding light was stumbling into darkness because her blind faith in Emir meant she hadn’t seen this coming. She hadn’t seen his madness. Hadn’t understood until it was far, far too late.

  The dead girl in the locker had been a wakeup call.

  Tomorrow, she would go and drag the future back into place. She would be the Paladin and make things right.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Everyone wants to believe they’re special, that their choices matter and that they are truly unique. We tried applying that human fallacy to time and failed, spectacularly, to understand the truth.”

  ~ Dr. M. Vensula, head of the National Center for Time Fluctuation Studies I4—­2071

  Friday November 29, 2069

  Cannonvale, Queensland

  Australia

  Iteration 2

  Mac rubbed Bosco’s ears in meditative circles as he contemplated the contents of the fridge. Five years married to a woman who could be a gourmet chef—­and was playing one on a dinner cruise tonight—­and he still couldn’t seem to find a meal when he needed one.

  Bosco stepped forward to nudge a block of aged cheddar cheese with his nose.

  “You’re a cheese fiend, Bosco.” At the word “cheese,” Bosco’s rump hit the floor with an echoing thump. “You are not getting cheese.”

  Bosco’s tongue hung out.

  Mac shook his head and reached for a half-­finished hoagie. He wanted a proper dinner, but he’d stayed late up at the single hotel still open on Airlie Beach where he worked as a local guide. It was his stupid fat mouth that got Sam a job helping out on the cruise. He should have kept silent when Wendy asked if anyone could fill in for the other chef who’d gone up to Townsville to be with her sister, who was in labor.

  Never volunteer.

  He was a former US Army Ranger, and he’d volunteered. The sergeant in him was deeply disappointed.

  Sandwich in hand, he wandered back to the dining room, where Sam’s latest case was spread over everything like an encroaching coral. He’d been trying to stay out of it. Someone had told him years ago that spouses needed their own hobbies, but . . .

  He took a bite of his sandwich and sat down to see how Agent Parker was doing.

  Poor guy. Sam hadn’t even had time to train her replacement before she was swept away by the CBI and given a promotion to keep her from telling anyone what they’d found.

  His assignment to Chicago had been more of the same.

  Parker had identified four victims so far: Elissa Morez, Jane Doe, Amanda Leyvas, and Carolina Avalos. And there was an e-­mail from Fl
orida District 20, south of Lake City, Florida: Leigh Locklear, a nineteen-­year-­old massage therapist who had moved to Tampa to work for a cruise line. That made no sense. She fit the phenotype the killer preferred, but Tampa? That was just too far away from anything. And she didn’t have a car.

  So how did she get from Tampa to Lake City?

  Mac was mapping trucking routes when Sam walked in. “Hi.”

  “What are you doing up?” She looked a little frazzled, her usually neat hair escaping from her bun and her white work shirt stained with something yellow. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Not really, no.” He smiled. “How was the trip?”

  “Wendy paid me double when I told her I was never coming back.” She dropped her bag by the table and sat down. “I’m still never going back again. I spent more time trying to keep a drunk tourist from grabbing my butt than I did cooking.”

  Mac raised an eyebrow. He knew better than to storm off and coldcock a tourist, but if Sam wanted it, the man would be in a body bag by sunup.

  “It’s fine, Mac,” Sam said, clearly seeing the murderous look in his eye. “I did the thumb hold you showed me, and told him if he didn’t leave me alone, I’d feed him to the sharks. He spent the rest of the cruise hiding in a guest room.”

  He smiled. “Good.”

  “So, what are you doing?”

  “Digging through the CBI travel database to see if any trucker visited all these areas.”

  “And?” She sat down beside him.

  “Nothing. I don’t think the killer was using the main travel routes.”

  She pillowed her arms on the table and laid her head down. “So . . . what? There’s no connecting the victims. I’ve tried every angle I can think of. There’s no rhyme or reason for why these victims were picked.”

  “Except for the physical similarities,” he said.

  “Yeah. But it’s so superficial!” She sat up, and he saw a familiar look of annoyance. The criminals were doing it WRONG by golly, and his beautiful wife wasn’t having it. She paused. “What? You’re grinning.”

  “I was just thinking of what would happen if you ever turned to a life of crime.” It would be glorious watching her storm across a continent beating henchmen into line.

  “I wouldn’t do that!”

  “You might want to consider it as a future career option. You’d make an amazing crime boss.”

  “I’d tell everyone to follow the law.”

  “Crime boss, politician, they’re so similar. Plus, we’d get henchmen.”

  Sam giggled. “Henchmen? And wait—­we?”

  “I’m your loyal second-­in-­command.”

  She hit his shoulder. “All right. Did you find anything helpful?”

  He turned the map so she could see. “Amanda Leyvas, lived in rural Alabama and worked as a middle school teacher. She didn’t come back to school after spring break. When her coworker went to check on her, they found her body lying next to her car, dead and cold. The police found nothing. There was a speed trap less than a mile from her house in both directions. Leyvas hadn’t left her house since midweek, and no other cars went past in the coroner’s window during the time of death.”

  Sam frowned. “Did they question the person who found her?”

  “A sixty-­two-­year-­old woman with bad hips and a bandaged hand because she burned it baking cookies for her class. Mrs. Amil was not listed as a suspect.”

  “Yeah, I can see why. The ME reported her being extra cold?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “Not rapid postmortem cooling as far as I can tell.” Mac said. “A late-­season cold front swept through, and her windows and door were still open. I flagged it because it’s the first home invasion although it doesn’t look like it had anything to do with a robbery. But she’s the first one who wasn’t killed or dumped in a public place.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “A change of pattern usually means an outside pressure, or something similar. What was she near? A rest stop maybe? Truck weight station? It would fit the target-­of-­opportunity theory.”

  “There were no tire tracks in her yard, but her house is near public land, so there’s a place to park a few miles away . . .” They both came to the same thought at the same time. “Hiking trails.”

  “Private home on the edge of public land.” Sam’s smile was fierce. She stood and sorted through the file before handing the datpad to Mac. “There it is in the crime scene photos, see? She hung her laundry out to dry, and you can see a footpath in the background. See the dirt trail?”

  “So the killer is walking, sees a woman hanging her laundry . . . and attacks her?”

  “Suggesting the killer picks victims before locations. And, possibly, that this phenotype is triggering uncontrollable rage.”

  “That’s not sane.”

  “Killing usually isn’t,” Sam said, taking the datpad back. “But it’s a lead. Everyone who hikes has to sign in and carry a trail tag. If a trail tag is still missing when the park closes at sundown, the park rangers are alerted and go out to find the missing hiker.”

  It was Mac’s turn to smile. “Tracking means GPS, and a GPS means there is a time and location of the hiker. That would give us a list of suspects, if nothing else.”

  “As long as they checked into the ranger station at the parking lot,” Sam said, trying to temper their expectations.

  “How close is the next parking area?”

  She sat and pulled up the public land files on her computer. “Thirty miles. It’s on the other side of the wood. Still, someone could have parked along the side of the road.”

  “And not have been noticed? Do you know how many poacher cams are lining the public lands these days?”

  She made a face of disgust. “Not enough. I don’t suppose she had a convenient ex in the picture, did she? A lot of serial killers get their start obsessing over one person, either killing them first or killing surrogates as they work up the nerve to kill the person they really hate. If there’s a break in the pattern here, it could mean she was the targeted victim all along, and the killer was practicing on the others.

  “Amanda . . .” Mac pulled the right screen up and shook his head. “No boyfriend, no family in North America. Her parents live in Panama, but she worked her way north by teaching at various schools. According to her profile on PlusWe—­you remember that? The online friend maker site?”

  “I remember not using it,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, well, Amanda posted every few hours, if not more often. She liked hiking, had a tiny organic garden, washed her clothes in a vintage spin machine that came with the house, and she was planning to move to Detroit at the end of the school year.”

  Sam shrugged. “Sounds annoying, and I bet the school wasn’t happy, but that’s not a motive. Did she have any PlusWe friends in town who might have been at her house when she died.”

  “Not a one. That’s why she said she was moving. Most of her online friends live up in the Great Lakes region. But she did post a picture of herself hanging the laundry out, so we have an approximate time of death, which will help once Parker gets the forest rangers to give him the park data.”

  He pulled up a collage of the crime scene photos. “There is something else, though. I was looking over the crime scene photos, and none of the women were found where they died. Some of the investigators noticed, but not all of them. But I looked, and there’s not enough blood at any of the spots they were found. Amanda Leyvas’s house was immaculate. There’s no blood inside or out.”

  “You’d expect blood if she were killed at home.” Sam sat close and leaned over to look at the crime scene photos. “These look almost like movie sets.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Can we—­”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t even—­”

  “You were going to ask if we could go to the Commonwe
alth.”

  She put on her Catholic Schoolgirl Smile. “We could use a vacation.”

  “We could. But that’s not a vacation. That’s trying to enter a foreign country illegally.”

  “But Mac.” She batted her eyes.

  Mac kissed her nose. “No. Find a murder in Australia to solve.”

  She groaned and leaned away.

  “One of us has to be the sane one who puts their foot down. Otherwise, we’d be running all over the world trying to fix all the problems out there.”

  “And that’s would be a bad thing why?”

  “Do you want to own the world?” Mac asked, only half joking.

  She grumbled something about, “Not the worst idea,” under her breath.

  “Let’s get some sleep. The Davis boys are taking a boat out early for dives, and that means the shop will be in complete disarray. It’ll be easier to cope with if you haven’t spent all night awake worrying about this.”

  Sam crossed her arms. “Can’t we do anything? Send someone in? Get some information?” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Mac, how much does a private detective cost?”

  He took her hand and pulled her away from the table. “We’ll look into it. Tomorrow.”

  She wrapped her arms around his torso and snuggled in close. “What would I do without you?”

  Mac looked down at the love of his life and kissed her head. “You’ll never have to find out.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “Nothing changes faster than the future.”

  ~ excerpt from A Brief Summary of Time by Dr. Henry Troom I4—­2065

  Day 187/365

  Year 5 of Progress

  (July 6, 2069)

  Central Command

  Third Continent

  Prime Reality