Murder in the Multiverse

by R E McLean

  Mike leaned on the bar and cradled his beer. He was tired from the effort of working with a new partner. Keeping her from getting herself killed, making him look stupid in front of the MOO team, or causing the multiverse to implode.

  He wanted to get home to his quiet studio apartment. He would kick back with a bucket of ribs and watch a game. Shave his beard. It always grew back by morning, in the same random shape the Spinner had imprinted on it. But still he tried.

  “Hey.”

  She pulled out the stool beside him and motioned to the bartender.

  “Hey,” he replied.

  “How was today?” she asked.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “I have to. It’s my job.”

  Mike had never warmed to Sarita. A materials scientist claiming to be from the University of the Back of Beyond in Michigan, something about her didn’t quite add up. She knew too much about Silicon City for a start. Except when it came to picking out clothes for them. Which was supposed to be her job.

  He took a swig. “Go on then. What d’you need to know this time?”

  “Tell me what she did. How she reacted to being over there.”

  “What d’you expect?”

  “Mike. Just tell me. Please.”

  He put his bottle down with more force than was strictly necessary and eyed her. “Alright. She smelt something off, you know about that. Then, on the way back, she kept asking questions. Wanted to know if she could look herself up. I explained how it was.”

  “Did she accept that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. She was like a kid at Disneyworld. Just like I was with Sally, first time around.”

  “How you getting on?”

  He shrugged. “I miss her. She knew what she was doing.”

  “She’ll mellow. Give her a chance.”

  “I damn well hope so. I don’t have the energy.”

  “Yeah, well. You stick with it. Keep an eye on her for me, huh?”

  “If you say.”

  “Good. Let me know if she does anything out of the ordinary.”

  26

  Broomsticks

  San Francisco

  27 March, 6:00am

  The next morning was cold and damp, like a freshly caught kipper bathing in a tub of Jell-O. Alex arrived at the Hall at 6am sharp, feeling energized like she hadn’t in months.

  Nemesis had given her a code for the service doors. She punched it in, feeling like a kid on her way to Narnia. The doors shuddered under her weight as she pushed them open. Revealing the same anonymous parking lot as yesterday.

  Today, she knew the routine. She walked past the squad cars, keeping her distance from the handful of officers standing around them talking, and headed around a back fence towards the van. Today it was red and yellow, with a Peace symbol on the side. Hiding in plain sight.

  She mounted the metal steps and knocked on the door.

  “It’s open!”

  Nemesis sat at a purple-topped section of the central console. He glanced up and leaned towards her as she approached, toppling off of his chair and spilling coffee all over the parquet floor.

  ”Morning,” she said. This job was like all her birthdays at once. Even her twenty-third, when Schrödinger had brought her a mouse and laid it on her forehead while she slept.

  She just had to prove her worth. Rik was working on that now, despite not knowing what he was looking for.

  “A very good morning to you too,” he replied, pulling himself back onto the chair. “Get a good night’s sleep?”

  “Yes,” she lied.

  Schrödinger had chosen to sleep next to her on the pillow. When a normal cat does this it’s a pleasant, cozy experience. But for Alex, it meant waking up to find her cat dead next to her at least three times in the night. She’d close her eyes again and open them to find him yawning and stretching, or simply sleeping quietly, his body rising and falling with each breath. In the moment between sleeping and waking, even the most jaded physicist gets a bit of a shock at seeing their quantum cat dead.

  “Excellent,” he said. “I trust you kept away from the chowder?”

  “Absolutely. Cauliflower and bread. Plain. Monochrome.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I hear that potatoes can be good.”

  “Oh. OK.”

  “But don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. Maybe no puke today, eh?”

  She nodded. Her stomach, which was currently attempting to win the Olympic medal for the butterfly stroke, didn’t agree. She swallowed and tried not to think about the taste of boiled cauliflower.

  “What’s the score today?” she asked. “Same as yesterday?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “You need to get kitted out first. Sarita’s waiting for you.”

  Alex surveyed the room to get her bearings, trying to remember exactly which of the sets of doors had led to Sarita's space. She headed for the one that looked the most familiar and pushed it open.

  Sarita was in her office, busying herself with supplies and clothing, pulling things from shelves, tutting at them and putting them back. Alex allowed herself a few moments to watch. Sarita moved like the kind of cat she sometimes wished Schrödinger was, all sinews and grace. If Sarita found herself walking along a mantelpiece full of ornaments and photo frames, Alex would be happy to bet she'd make it to the other end without knocking anything off. Unlike her poor Shrew, who found that kind of experience so stressful he would sometimes drop dead and fall to the floor halfway along.

  After a few moments, she started to feel like a peeping Tom. She cleared her throat and Sarita looked up.

  ”How long you been there?” Sarita's accent was sharper today, with a crunchiness to it.

  ”Not long.”

  “Good. Let’s get you ready.”

  27

  Chaplin

  MIU

  27 March, 9:05am

  Alex headed for the Spinner. She was disappointed Sarita didn’t come with her this time.

  Nemesis was still alone at the console, watching YouTube on the largest of the screens. He sat sideways in a chair, draped over the arms like a languorous teenager.

  Alex cleared her throat and he jumped up. The chair clattered over and bumped towards her, coming to rest at her feet.

  She looked down at her outfit. “Maybe we should wear different clothes.”

  “Why? The outfits we give you are the height of Hiver fashion. And they’re made of natural fibers. If you indulged yourself in some nice snug nylon underwear, you’d find yourself landing in Silicon City as naked as the day you were born. We found out the hard way the first time we sent someone through.”

  “Who was that? Mike?”

  “No.”

  Alex wondered if it had been the mysterious Sally.

  Nemesis pressed a button on the console. The YouTube screen, which had been showing pictures of a young man falling out of a window into a pile of dirty snow, switched to a wall of indecipherable equations.

  “Hello.”

  Alex looked round to see Mike and Madge enter together. They didn’t have the air of two colleagues in the world’s strangest police department. Instead there was an easy, quiet familiarity between them.

  Madge wore a green woolen pompom hat that looked like she’d knitted it herself using broom handles. Below that was a sensible coat made of some nasty waterproof material, the kind designed for hiking but more commonly seen walking around golf courses. She bustled to her workstation, hanging her hat and coat on an ornate hat stand.

  ”Good morning my dear, and may I say what a wonderful morning it is. Like all my Holidays at once.”

  Alex grinned back at her. ”Are we all set?”

  Madge stared into her face like a proud grandmother sending a child off to school for the first time. ”If you don't mind me saying, this is a very special day for you. Your first proper trip to Hive Earth. Like a Virgin, you might say.” She snorted and put her hand to her mouth. ”I'm sorr
y. I won't do that again. Promise.”

  Alex smiled, indulging her. Madge looked like the most incongruous Madonna fan she'd ever seen, like Rosanna Arquette had spent the opening scenes of Desperately Seeking Susan shopping at Goodwill.

  Alex looked at Mike. He wore a frown and a slightly less bushy mustache. She wondered how many types of facial hair trimmer he owned.

  “Will we be watching Claire’s apartment?” Alex asked.

  He nodded. “Surveillance.”

  “Can’t we just leave a camera? Surely the Hive has the sort of tech we can access remotely.”

  “You’d be surprised not,” said Nemesis. “When you’re lucky enough to have a virtual world at your fingertips, or indeed in your ear, you don’t really bother with boring things like surveillance cameras.”

  “What about the police in Silicon City? Why aren’t they watching Claire?”

  Mike shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  Alex sighed. “Tell me how it does work then.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “You’re not a cop. You don’t understand the chain of command, working at the appropriate level for your rank. This is like that. You just have to put up with it.”

  She gritted her teeth. She was just beginning to think they might get along. But he didn’t want her here. Then she remembered the reference to Sally, and the look on his face in Monique’s office.

  “I’ll do as I’m told,” she said.

  “It’s for your own safety.”

  “Come on, then. Let’s get you in the Spinner,” said Madge.

  Three minutes later, they were below the central hub of Nemesis’s library again, looking at the smooth gray wall that concealed the Spinner.

  Madge and Nemesis were already at the outer wall, sweeping their hands across its surface and jabbing randomly at what she supposed must be buttons.

  “In you go, my lovelies,” said Madge. Mike gave her a sad smile.

  Alex followed Mike in. She reached out for the wall to steady herself.

  “Don’t touch the walls,” said Mike. “Stand still, in the middle.”

  She swallowed and pulled her hand in to her side. It was worse this time, knowing what was coming. Her stomach was already yelling at her. She folded her arms across her chest and shifted her feet, widening her stance in the same way she did when forced to stand in a moving carriage on the BART.

  Mike snorted. “You don’t need to do all that,” he said. “Just relax. Lean into it. You’ll enjoy it more that way.”

  She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.

  When she opened them again, the walls were spinning and Mike’s head had turned into a giant tomato. She clapped her hand over her mouth, then realized her fingers were now cocktail sausages. She threw them away from her, and they metamorphosed into tiny cucumbers.

  At last the spinning stopped and her fingers turned from dark green to the color of grass, then the color of limes and finally to her own fleshy digits. She tugged at them, checking everything was in working order.

  She looked back at Mike, expecting his head to be working its way back through shades of pink. His head was that of a man in his thirties, as it should be. But the mustache had changed.

  “Oh no,” she said, pointing at it.

  He fingered it and sighed. “I’m Charlie Chaplin again, aren’t I?”

  She opened her mouth to correct him but then thought better of it. “Yes. Charlie Chaplin.”

  The doors opened and the Prof entered, extending his hands to them. He did a brief double take at the sight of Mike’s mustache but said nothing.

  Out on the roof, Madonna stood next to a pink wedge-shaped object that resembled a smaller version of the Hackney. Alex was looking forward to the feel of that seat against her nether regions.

  “Is this our cab?” she asked.

  “Better,” replied Madonna. Her hair wasn’t blonde today but brown and wavy, nearly as unkempt as Alex’s.

  “Nice hair,” Alex said. “Looks just like her in the Like a Prayer video.”

  “Like who?” Madonna looked puzzled.

  “No one.” So this world had Hitler but no Madonna. That was just wrong.

  “Yours looks pretty good too.”

  Alex put her hand to her hair to discover that it was sleek and lustrous, so slippery that her hands kept sliding off it. She did a little dance inside, and wondered how Madonna would react if she did some Vogue moves.

  “That’s our squad car,” said Mike.

  The object changed from a uniform pink to black and white, the SFPD seven-pointed star on the side. Alex peered at it to see that the initials were different: SCPD. She smiled. “I like it.”

  “Turn it off,” said Nemesis. He closed his eyes for a moment and the vehicle turned pink again.

  “Are you telepathic?” Alex exclaimed.

  He frowned. “No. I used the Hive.”

  “Ah.” She looked at his earpiece. It looked different today, adorned with a row of jet black feathers. “Do we get one?”

  “Sorry,” said Madonna. Her own earpiece had gold and neon jewels dangling from it, like an earring had eaten its own weight in bling. “They don’t work on Old Earthers. Mess with your metabolism.”

  Alex realized she hadn’t puked this time. Cauliflower and bread every night from now on. “I didn’t throw up after the jump.”

  Madonna gave her a relaxed smile. “Sorry, my dear. Have you sailed on the Vallejo ferry?”

  So they had Vallejo here too. “Just once.”

  “Did you throw up?”

  “I felt a bit wobbly, but I looked at the shore and I was fine.”

  “And have you been to Disneyworld?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Imagine the most vomit-inducing ride you went on. Now think of that ferry.”

  “OK.”

  “The Spinner is the ferry. The Hive is the theme park ride.”

  “Oh.”

  “We can’t let you do it. Sorry, darling.”

  Getting access to the Hive was the only way she’d be able to trace her own doppelgänger. But maybe this was for the best. She was supposed to be focusing on the case, after all. Her place in the MIU depended on it.

  She shrugged. “OK. Shall we get going then?”

  28

  Shag Pile

  Silicon City

  27 March, 10:07am

  The car was smaller inside than the Hackney, but just as comfortable. Alex settled herself into the seat and waited for controls to appear.

  Mike climbed in after her and took his jacket off. A coat hook slid out from the wall. He settled into the seat opposite her, closing his eyes in pleasure as it molded to him.

  “I hope you’re driving,” Alex said. “I don’t have a US license.”

  Mike raised an eyebrow and sat back.

  “Map reference thirty-seven point seven nine by one twenty-two point four three,” he said.

  The vehicle started to drift upwards, turned towards the location of Claire’s home, and glided above the city.

  “Wow.”

  Mike shuffled in his seat. “It’s not always so bad here.”

  “Seems pretty good to me. Self-driving cars, air that’s cleaner than my Auntie Morag’s kitchen counter, and districts that actually make sense. Not to mention that Hive we’re not allowed into.”

  “It’s not all good. Think about the Hive. How did it get there?”

  “What do you mean, get there?” She looked out of the window, more like a translucent section of the wall, and down towards the rooftops. As her gaze dropped, so did the transparent section of wall, following her eyes downwards. She dared herself to look straight down and felt a lurch in her chest as the plastic seat beneath her disappeared, being replaced by the view of the city moving past below. She swallowed then looked up again, the view shifting with her.

  “Well it’s like the Internet, isn’t it?” she said. “Tim Berners-Lee, world wide web, and all that. The Internet didn’t really get ther
e, did it? It just grew.”

  Mike shook his head. “It’s different here. Imagine Facebook is the whole Internet. The only way you can get online—in fact the only way you can interact with the world in any meaningful way—is via the News Feed.”

  Alex shuddered. “Adverts for floor cleaners and funny cat videos all day. No thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean that bit. I mean the privacy bit. The Hive is owned by a conglomerate. Called the Hive, appropriately enough. It’s a private company, set up by some woman called Betsy Woznik. She’s a recluse like our Claire. No-one ever sees her. It’s all fronted by her partner, Mr Jobs.”

  “Steve Jobs? Seriously?”

  “No. Montague Jobs. No relation. Apple was never a thing here.”

  “Oh.” No bad thing, thought Alex. She was more of an Android woman herself. “So is that why we can’t go into the Hive? We don’t have an account?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s more about our biological signature. Our DNA is off. Just by a tiny bit. Not enough for you to see it, but enough for the algorithms.”

  “Shame.”

  “Yup. To get in, you need to be a bona fide biological Hiver. With good credit. Which leaves out the poor, and anyone with a disability that affects their genetic code. Here we are.”

  The car gilded to a halt and the side door slid open with that pleasing swish-thunk sound.

  They were hovering six inches off the ground. Alex was ready for it this time and clambered out with the grace of an It girl having her butt photographed by paparazzi.

  Once they were both out, Mike muttered “Vehicle up.” The vehicle obligingly lifted itself upwards, coming to a rest about two stories up.

  “Couldn’t we use that to watch Claire?” asked Alex. “Will it go up to six stories?”

  “There are laws about that sort of thing. The police would be onto us in no time.”

  “But we are police.”

  “Did you see me bring my badge with me?”

  “No.”