Murder in the Multiverse

by R E McLean

  The elevator stopped and the simulation blinked off, replaced with dull pink walls washed with light from above. She pushed her disappointment to one side and stepped out into an empty corridor.

  Maybe she was imagining things; maybe Sean hadn’t been here at all. Surely Claire wouldn’t have let him into her apartment? She was a recluse, and he was her ex. But maybe he had access to somewhere else here, to the apartment she’d visited herself when in the Hive.

  She made her way along the corridor as quietly as she could. The walls here were similar to those in the building opposite, except instead of walking through a poppy field, she was walking through a hay meadow. The ground crunched under her feet.

  The door to Claire’s apartment was blank and featureless. She scanned the walls around it and spotted a tiny camera, directed at her.

  She gave a sheepish wave and knocked on the door. She stepped back to stand away from the camera, which followed her. She tried to ignore it and focus on the door. It didn’t open.

  She stepped forwards and tried again. No response. She frowned and checked her watch. She was running out of time, but something in her gut told her she had to get in there.

  She looked towards the end of the corridor, just one door away. There was a fire exit.

  She hurried towards it and thundered through the door, teetering on a shallow fire escape as she burst out into the cool night. Through the gaps in the pink-hued metal, the street was six stories below, people passing beneath as dim shadows.

  She pulled back and leaned against the door, breathing heavily. To her left, the Bay gleamed in the moonlight. A Hackney glided above it, making a low-pitched whirring sound.

  She stepped forwards again. There was a balcony along the wall from her, about three feet away. Could she make it?

  Of course she could. She gripped the fire escape and leaned out into the night, reaching out for the balcony rail. Closing her eyes so as not to see what was below, she let her weight shift forwards and stepped across to stand at the edge of the balcony. She swung a leg over and was astride the rail before she’d had the chance to stop herself.

  She opened her eyes again, her heart clattering in her ears. Behind her, the empty air between this and the other building gaped ominously. She heaved her other leg up and brought herself onto the balcony, sliding to the floor.

  Light spilled out from the nearest window, which was wide and full-height like those in Claire’s apartment. She edged towards the window frame to see inside. She was looking at a dining room with orange walls and a blobby yellow sideboard. In the center was a circular blue table with green leather chairs surrounding it. In two of these chairs sat a couple, looking down at the table. Each of them had a plate piled high with a gray gelatinous substance that made Alex want to heave. Each had their eyes closed and was wearing an earpiece. Surely they would unplug to do something as visceral as eat?

  She watched as the woman, seated nearest to her, pushed her fork through the mound on her plate, bringing the quivering jelly up to her lips. She ate it and smiled, wiping her lips with a spotted red napkin. Alex felt her nose wrinkle. But inside the Hive, they were probably experiencing this food as something else. Something delicious. A joint of meat, a bowl of caviar, or that grilled cheese Alex had made last week and never managed to replicate.

  She watched them eating. If they were sufficiently engrossed, they wouldn’t spot her on their balcony. But the Hive was augmented reality, and who knew what kind of security they had.

  It was too late to turn back. She dropped to her stomach and wriggled across the balcony, keeping close to the window. Every now and then she would freeze, just in case they were looking. At the other side she pulled herself up against the balcony rail, relieved that there was a sliver of space past the window. The next balcony along belonged to Claire.

  She put her hand over her mouth, willing herself not to look down. Again there was a gap of about three feet. Without the fire escape behind her, it felt further.

  Do it, she told herself. She placed one foot on the railing and brought the other one up. Then quickly, relying on her own momentum, she stepped across. She pushed her weight forwards and tumbled onto Claire’s balcony.

  She flattened herself against the floor and paused to get her breath. The window closest to her was Claire’s bedroom. She had a visual memory of it, its drapes closed. She looked to the building opposite, seeking out the window she and Mike had stood behind, just yesterday. She tried to remember which window she’d seen Sean watching from, but in the darkness they all seemed to melt into each other.

  She looked at Claire’s window. Heaven help her if she ended up having to go back the same way.

  She started to pull herself upright, then heard a sound. She froze.

  The bedroom doors were sliding open.

  She stared at them. Was she about to find herself face to face with Claire? She remembered all Monique’s instructions, her threats. Don’t make contact with the subject of the investigation.

  Claire didn’t emerge. Instead, Sean slipped out, tangling himself in the drapes as he pushed through. Alex felt her forehead break out in sweat. Sean stepped onto the balcony and headed away from Alex, towards the view of the Bay. He leaned against the railing, looking out over the expanse of night.

  Alex watched as he pulled an earpiece out of his back pocket and brought it up to his ear. Her breath was shallow and blood rushed in her ears. She waited for him to move. Did she dare slip inside?

  “It’s ten p.m. Sixty minutes until—”

  “Dolores, stop.”

  Sean span round.

  Alex stared back at him, each of them waiting for the other to say something; to react, to explain what they were doing on Claire’s balcony. She opened her mouth. Could she arrest him?

  She was interrupted by a scream from within.

  He dropped the earpiece. It disappeared behind him, falling to the ground below. He turned back and looked down, grasping at the air.

  Then there was another scream. Sean came out of the trance and ran into the bedroom.

  54

  Blood

  Silicon City

  28 March, 10:02pm

  Alex ran after him.

  The bedroom was empty, fabric billowing out behind the open doors. She ran through into the hallway and then the kitchen. Under the island in the center of the kitchen was a hunched figure which looked like the body of a woman with the head of a large Labrador.

  Next to it, leaning over, was Sean.

  Claire blinked, trying to make sense of the scene. Even the Hive hadn’t prepared her for this. She took a step sideways and realized that she was looking at a woman hunched over a dog. After a couple of blinks the two figures became clear, like an optical illusion resolving itself into a young woman wearing a fancy hat when just moments earlier it refused to be anything other than an old crone.

  She realized that, apart from the dog, this was the same scene she’d seen in those photos from the crime scene in San Francisco. Claire bundled up on her apartment floor, blood pouring from her side. The dog was next to her, bleeding too.

  Alex dashed towards Claire, yanking off her own jacket and balling it up. She held it against the wound, pushing as hard as she could to stem the bleeding. Next to her, Sean was wailing.

  She looked at him sidelong. That won’t work on me, she thought. She pulled Claire towards her and wrapped her arms around her, using the strength of her grip to secure her jacket against the wound.

  Alex felt the blood seeping through her jacket and onto her clenched fist. It was covering her hand now, heavy and red.

  She swallowed and blew a stray hair out of her eyes. She looked back down at Claire. She couldn’t step away from her, not without letting the bleeding get worse. But she couldn’t stay here forever.

  “Will you help me,” she asked Sean, more of a statement than a question.

  “Of course.” His face was pale, his purple-dyed hair disheveled. “Tell me what to do.”
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  She narrowed her eyes at him. This was the oddest murderer she’d ever met. A murderer who comes running when he hears his victim scream, and then tries to help save her life.

  She had no choice. “Can you contact the emergency services.”

  “Of course. I just need my… damn.”

  “What?” She pulled back from him, wary. Claire’s limp body dragged with her.

  “My earpiece,” he said. “I dropped it. Outside.”

  He dragged his hands through his hair and stared towards the window. Alex had seen it fall out of his hand, spinning toward the ground below. Could an earpiece survive that drop?

  “Don’t you keep a spare?” she asked.

  “No one does.”

  Of course not. She looked around the kitchen, trying to find some sort of communications device, something she could use to call for help. Surely Claire had an earpiece herself.

  She turned Claire over carefully. The woman was muttering under her breath. Her skin was like porcelain.

  In her opposite ear, the one that had been on the floor, was an earpiece. Claire was in no state to use it. Alex would have to extract it.

  She looked at Sean, then back to Claire. Pulling that thing out of her ear might finish her off.

  She pulled Claire back towards her, twisting her jacket into the wound. The blood flow was slowing, but so was Claire’s breathing.

  “Go,” she told Sean. “Run. To the next-door apartment.” She remembered those people, eating their gray blancmange. “There’s people there. Hammer their door down. Get them to call an ambulance. Anything.”

  He nodded and stood up. “Is she going to be OK?”

  She frowned at him. “Course she’s not going to be OK. Why do you suddenly care?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “Your wife?”

  He nodded.

  “She’s your ex-wife. Isn’t she?”

  They both turned at the sound of the bedroom door closing. A man stood in the entrance to the kitchen, a metal object in his hand.

  “He was lying to us all along. They never divorced.”

  55

  Pirouette

  Silicon City

  28 March, 10:11pm

  It was the oddest fight Alex had ever had. Instead of lunging for her, or pulling her away from Claire as Alex had expected him to, the man did what could only be described as a pirouette across the floor towards them. It was a damn fast pirouette, though, and he was on them before Alex had even registered what was going on.

  Sean stood up, his face pale.

  “Philip?” he gasped.

  But the man ignored him, instead dipping his torso down towards Alex, his leg going up behind him for balance. He was wearing trainers, but Alex was sure he had his toes pointed.

  Philip sent his arms out wide and span them round, the back of his hand slamming into her face. He was still bent over, dipping towards her in a way that made her think of yoga classes. She stumbled backwards, feeling Claire fall away from her.

  She yelped and fumbled for Claire, grabbing at her clothes and trying to find her balled-up jacket. It had gone, sent away by her attacker’s other hand as it came round to follow its twin.

  She draped herself over Claire, hoping she could use the weight of her own body to stop the bleeding. But then she felt herself being pulled upwards. Two hands gripped her waist, arranged evenly, symmetrically. As if he was about to—

  She screamed. He ducked and then rose, pushing her up to the ceiling. Was he giving her a ballet lift?

  She sent her arms out wide, brushing the lampshade over the kitchen island and feeling like a kid playing at airplanes. She tried to struggle out of his grip, but his fingers were strong. After a moment’s inertia at the top of the arc, he brought her back down again. Instead of dipping over her and bringing her body beneath his in a dance move, he slammed her into the floor. She cried out, looking around for Sean and trying to work out where Claire was.

  She expected him to let go, to leave her bruised and battered on the floor, but instead he brought his hand round behind her shoulder and pulled her upright. He leaned around her and twisted his body, hauling her over his back. Suddenly she was flying through the air again, her back to his and her eyes towards the ceiling, skimming over him as he drew her over his body. She felt herself come down again on the other side.

  Again, instead of pulling her into some sort of dance pose, he shoved her into the floor. Her back hit the oak boards with a crunch. She tried to yell but all that came out was air.

  At last he let go, leaving her twisted on the floor. Claire was next to her and Alex could feel her hair tangled in her own fingertips.

  Sean was running for the door. “I’ll get help!” he cried. Alex could do nothing more than blink. She stared up at the ceiling, feeling cold. Had he broken her back? Would she be forever paralyzed? How would she jump home?

  “The time is ten fifteen. You have one hundred and five minutes— Oh.”

  “Dolores. Get help. Now.”

  “Very well.”

  The man—Philip—looked up, searching for an AI that had never appeared.

  “What was that?”

  “Dolores,” she croaked.

  “Dolores?”

  “You’ll see.”

  She blinked up at him. His face was thin and dark, marked with a day’s worth of stubble. He brought his fists up above her and she closed her eyes, waiting for them to make contact with her face. Why oh why had she disobeyed Monique?

  Suddenly Sean was backing into the room, staring ahead of him towards the door. Alex tried to lift her neck. But there was something cold beneath it, something damp. Her own spinal fluid?

  “Go,” she croaked. “Go, now.”

  He turned to stare at her, shaking his head. “Er, I think help has found us.”

  She looked past him. Barreling through the door, in a tangle of limbs, raised voices and facial hair, was the world’s most bizarre rescue party.

  56

  Wyatt Earp

  Silicon City

  28 March, 10:20pm

  Alex blinked up at them. At the front of the group, looking like someone had taken a large tomato and put an Einstein wig on it, was the Prof. Behind him, gray with nausea and wearing her yellow leather jacket above a red skirt and orange and blue striped tights, was Sarita. And bringing up the rear was Mike, sporting a handlebar mustache worthy of Wyatt Earp.

  Alex stared at them.

  “What the—?” she breathed.

  Sarita bent to her, putting a hand to her forehead. “Don’t move. You’re going to be fine.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Don’t let him get away.”

  “It’s OK. I’ve got him.” Mike was standing behind Sarita, holding Alex’s attacker in something that looked like a pair of electric handcuffs.

  Alex tried to smile. “What are those?”

  The Prof stepped forwards. “Mine.” He blushed even more deeply, turning from a gray-haired tomato to a gray-haired plum, and took a step backwards.

  “Where’s Sean?” Alex asked. “Claire? Where’s Claire? Oh bum, is she OK?”

  Mike tossed Philip onto a chair and bent down next to Sarita to examine Claire. He grabbed Alex’s ruined jacket and balled it up at Claire’s side.

  “Sean has called an ambulance,” he said. “She’ll be OK. Thanks to you.”

  “You have to be joking. I banjaxed it up big time, guys.” She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to cry in front of Sarita. “Don’t tell Monique about this, will you?”

  Mike looked away from Claire and towards Alex. “You’re kidding me, right? You’ll get a commendation.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No, seriously. You got him.”

  “I think he got me.”

  Mike shrugged and turned back to Claire. She was muttering something again. He put his ear to her mouth.

  “She says he was watching her. Stalking her.”

  “But that was Sean.”

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nbsp; “No,” said Sean. “I was protecting her.”

  “Why?” asked Alex.

  “Why do you think?” Philip was slumped against the kitchen island, the handcuffs fizzing at his wrists. “Sean was going to go back to her. I couldn’t let him.”

  “How? You don’t exist here.”

  A shrug. “I followed a cat here. Via a box room in the theater. Found another version of Sean, and Claire. A year ago.”

  “A year ago?” said Sean. “But that was when we…”

  “When we met. I know. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found out there was another one of you. But it turned out you both wanted to leave me.”

  “Both of me?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “But how did you get into Claire’s apartment?” Sean asked. “She’s the most security-conscious person I know.”

  “One of the locks was bust.”

  “She has eight of them. They all work just fine.”

  “One of them is broken in my world. Old Earth, people call it. It gave me a way in, after I jumped.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ll explain later, Sean,” said Alex. “But you’re going to have to make a statement to…” She looked at Mike. “Who does he talk to? Us or SCPD?”

  “Neither. MOO will deal with Sean, we’ll be taking Philip back with us. He’s one of ours.”

  “I had to keep them apart,” Philip said. “It wasn’t fair.”

  “The smell,” said Alex. “It’s you. You jumped. And Sean had been with you.”

  She turned her head towards him but all she could see was the dog.

  “You killed her dog.”

  “There’s a vet on the way,” said Sarita. “He missed the major arteries; the dog will be fine. It’s you we need to worry about.”

  Alex blinked. “I think he’s broken my back. There’s spinal fluid all over the floor beneath me.”