This is the End 2: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (9 Book Collection)

by J. Thorn

  “Problems with the cops?”

  “They questioned me for a while. I told the truth.”

  “Good. There’s nothing to lie about. Nothing to hide. Was Teague there?”

  “For a little bit. He left when he caught your trail. But there’s something else. The cops…they found something.”

  “What?”

  “Bugs.”

  “You mean listening devices? Could they track them?”

  “I assume they’re trying to.” I wondered who would bug my house, and why. It might not have been related to me at all. For all I knew, one of Vicki’s clients liked to eavesdrop on her.

  “Where were they? Your bedroom?” “There were four. One was in my bedroom. One was in our bedroom. One in the kitchen, and one on the roof.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. “Where are you now?” Vicki asked. I adjusted my footing. “I just caught a train.” “Where?” “I can’t say, Vicki. They could be monitoring our head

  phones. I just wanted to make sure you’re safe, and to tell you I love you.” “I love you, too. How are we going to get out of this, Talon?” “I’m working on it.” “Wait a second. You’re on the TV. Some naked woman with green hair is talking about you.” “Yeah. About her. She’s a BHV, and she helped me out.”

  “Now there’s that disgusting friend of yours. Harry somebody.”

  “McGlade.” I could only imagine what McGlade was telling reporters. Rather than imagine it, I dug out my DT and flipped to CNN.

  “So I’m tied down, vulnerable, and he’s having sex.”

  Thanks a lot, McGlade.

  “You had sex with this woman?” Vicki said.

  “It’s complicated, Vicki.”

  “And then two other women joined in,” McGlade said.

  “You’re on the run and you had time for sex with three women?” Vicki said.

  Her tone put me on the defensive. “Didn’t you say it didn’t matter who I slept with?”

  “It’s not the sex, Talon. It’s that I’ve been worried sick about you—”

  “I’ve been worried about you, too, hon.”

  “—and apparently you took time out for a gangbang.”

  “Technically, they gangbanged me. And it wasn’t consensual.”

  “You’re incredible.” She didn’t say it in a nice way.

  “He was like a fucking stallion,” McGlade said, “going at it for at least an hour.”

  I muted him.

  “An hour?” Vicki asked.

  “What’s the problem here? Are you jealous?”

  “Of course not. Sex is a natural—”

  “Biological function. I know. She said the same thing. Are you guys taught to say that when you test for your licenses?”

  “These women were SLPs?”

  “Yes. And they acted like consummate professionals. No kissing at all.”

  “So you paid for this?”

  “No. I was tied to a table. And I owed them because they saved my ear. And you have no right to be jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous, Talon.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Vicki didn’t answer.

  “Look, Vicki, I need to call Sata and find out if he made—”

  “Talon—”

  “—any headway with…What, Vicki?”

  “Talon…did you do this?”

  “Do what?”

  I looked at the DT. The graphic read, Boise, Idaho, and showed an empty crater that had to be ten miles wide.

  The next graphic read, Death toll estimated at 500,000. It was followed by a video of me—well, the alter-me—standing on a hill overlooking the city, some sort of device in his/my hand.

  “Bye-bye, Boise,” Alter-Talon said.

  Then he pressed a button, and the city—

  Well, it just…imploded.

  Within two seconds, everything that used to be there got sucked into itself, stretching and shrinking and eventually disappearing into a singularity. There wasn’t a trace of anything left. Only a giant crater.

  It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Half a million people, murdered in an instant. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Couldn’t comprehend death on such a huge scale. The number was staggering.

  If someone read a list of the names of the dead, it would take an entire month to finish if the person didn’t stop to sleep or eat. And each of those names represented a life. A person. Mothers. Fathers. Children. Brothers and sisters and cousins and friends and neighbors. Half a million of them, snuffed out of existence.

  It was the biggest tragedy of this century.

  And for what purpose? Why would someone do that? What could the motive possibly be for something so monstrous?

  “Oh, Talon…” Vicki was whispering.

  “I…I didn’t do this, Vicki.”

  “Don’t you remember talking about Boise this morning?”

  “I talked about moving there. Not destroying it.”

  “But…”

  “Vicki, I have to call Sata. That wasn’t me. I’ll call you soon.”

  “Talon, I—”

  I cut her off. “Hang up. Call Michio Sata.”

  A moment later, Sata came on the headphone.

  “Talon?”

  Freaked-out as I was, it was a relief to hear his voice. “What’s going on, sensei?”

  “Where are you now, Talon?”

  “I’m not near Boise, if that’s what you mean. What the fuck happened to it?”

  Sata paused. I could picture him, forehead bunched up in thought. “Watching the video, it looked like it was sucked into a black hole. Do you remember the media backlash when some scientists postulated that timecasting could create micro black holes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, timecasting does create micro black holes. So do Large Hadron Colliders, and, believe it or not, commercial manufacturing of feminine deodorant spray. But there’s no danger. There are already micro black holes all around us, billions of them, left over from the big bang. Their mass is so minute, they’re harmless.”

  I stared at the DT. “This one doesn’t look harmless.”

  “I know. Apparently, someone has figured out how to make micro black holes bigger.”

  “So why does it look like I’m the one destroying Boise and killing half a million people?”

  “That because,” Sata said, “you’re the one that did it.”

  THIRTY

  I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly.

  “Sata-san, I didn’t destroy Boise. And I didn’t kill Aunt Zelda.”

  “Actually, Talon, you did.”

  “Even if you don’t believe me, I have people that can account for me for the last several hours. Not only that, if you timecast my location all day, you’ll see I never went anywhere near Idaho.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  I let out a deep breath. “No, I didn’t. And you’re starting to piss me off.”

  “Talon, are you aware of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?”

  Crap. Science talk. “You mean parallel universes? Just what I remember from theoretical physics class in grammar school. We’re on a membrane in the eleventh dimension, right?”

  Sata’s voice took on a condescending tone, like he was speaking to a child. “We’re not on a membrane. Our universe, and its associated laws of physics, are part of the brane. But we aren’t the only brane. There are infinite branes in the multiverse, made up of infinite other universes, with infinite other—”

  “Earths,” I interrupted. “I know this. There are other earths where Columbus never discovered America, or where Texas won the second Civil War, or where I had eggs for breakfast this morning instead of oatmeal. Every possible variable that can exist, does exist.”

  “Including a parallel earth where you destroyed Boise, Idaho.”

  Just like in grammar school theoretical physics class, I felt a headache coming on. I rubbed my eyes, the gecko tape sticking to my cheek. I peeled it off carefully so I
didn’t lose any skin.

  “In the transmission of the alter-me killing Aunt Zelda, I had different hair. The color was off.”

  “In that universe, on that parallel world, the spectrum of light is different because the laws of physics are slightly different.”

  “So I really did kill her. And I really did kill half a million people in Idaho. But not in this universe.”

  “Correct.”

  It still didn’t make sense. “But Aunt Zelda is dead in this universe. And Boise is gone on our world, in our brane. Is an alternate version of me committing atrocities in a parallel universe, but the effects are being felt in this one?”

  “I don’t think so. I think someone killed the old lady, and destroyed Boise, in this universe. And then this person blamed you for it by releasing transmissions of you doing it in a parallel universe.”

  “But that’s impossible. We can only timecast in our universe. We don’t have the ability, or the tech, to timecast in the multiverse.”

  “Apparently someone has figured out how.”

  I rested my forehead against the side of the train. I could feel the vibration in my teeth as the engine hummed and we sped over tracks. It was solid. Real.

  Certainly more real than being framed by some sort of multidimensional murderer.

  “This reeks of bullshit,” I decided.

  “Science often starts out as bullshit ideas. But the equations back this up.”

  “So was it actually me that did this?”

  “Think of it as a person similar to you. Same DNA. Perhaps many of the same life experiences. But you aren’t privy to this person’s thoughts, and don’t control his actions. It’s you if you grew up in an alternate universe.”

  “And somehow, I’m getting blamed for his crimes. Terrific.”

  “I know this is tragic for you, Talon-kun, but from a scientific standpoint, this is extraordinary. The unlimited possibilities boggle the mind. If we can communicate with beings in alternate realities, think about what we might be able to learn.”

  Extraordinary wasn’t the word I’d use to describe it. “Can we prove this? Can we prove to the authorities it wasn’t me?”

  “Doubtful. Maybe we could make the numbers support it. But in order to prove your innocence you’ll need to find out who framed you, and how. Showing a judge the mathematical plausibility that you may be innocent isn’t as compelling as the evidence that shows you’re guilty.”

  The headache arrived, full force. Jumping down biorecycle chutes and hoboing moving trains was child’s play compared to understanding this multiverse nonsense. Why not just say it was all the master plan of alien space bats? That made about as much sense.

  “How do I find this person?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But whatever you do, it had better be quick. Right now you’re the most wanted man in America. Possibly the world.”

  Great. “Thanks, Sata. Take care of Vicki for me.”

  “I will.”

  “Hang up.”

  I rubbed my temples, and the gecko tape stuck to my nose. I removed my hand carefully, trying to plot my next move. I figured there were two choices.

  First, I could visit Neil over at Aunt Zelda’s, assuming he was still there. Teague was on my trail, but my hobo act would lose him. He might stake out Zelda’s home as an obvious place to wait for me, knowing I’d come back. It might also be crawling with peace officers, but I doubted it. AFAIK, Zelda’s name hadn’t gone public yet, and no one knew who she was.

  Had Teague deliberately withheld information?

  Teague had shown up solo at Eden. If he was indeed the mastermind behind this plot, he might not want the CPD to know what he was doing.

  I had doubts, though. Teague was a lot of things, but a brilliant physicist wasn’t one of them. I didn’t believe he could orchestrate all of this. At least, not alone.

  My second alternative was to bring a TEV over to my house and see if I could find out who put the bugs there. It was too much of a coincidence that I mentioned Boise earlier today while arguing with Vicki, and then Boise got annihilated nine hours later. But even that stretched credulity. Someone heard me mention a town, then somehow searched an infinite number of galaxies and found a parallel universe where I destroyed the same town?

  Then again, none of what was happening seemed possible. And I was currently without a TEV—mine was back at police headquarters, either still being examined or in the evidence locker. There was no way I’d be able to get it.

  But maybe I didn’t have to. After all, there was another TEV unit in Chicago.

  Teague’s. I could take his.

  Facing Teague would also give me the chance to question him, see how involved he was in all of this.

  Once I reached that decision, I wanted to kick myself for hoboing the train. I’d almost died trying to get away from Teague, and now I needed him to find me.

  Which meant now I had to prepare for him.

  He’d be armed. And he’d be cautious. For all of our differences, Teague was a very good cop when he wanted to be. I respected his abilities, which were on par with mine. So how could I get the drop on someone with a TEV, a Taser, and the training to anticipate anything I might try?

  I took one last look at the crater where Boise used to be, then tucked away my DT and removed the square foot of sheet aluminum I’d bought. A minute with the Nife and the molly glue, and I was ready.

  I pushed through the rubber partition. The wind slapped my face and stung my eyes. My right arm was still numb, my toe hurt from when it hit the viaduct, and the copious amounts of unfulfilled sex I’d had made me feel tender in my masculine parts. The cherry on top would be jumping off a speeding train.

  Luckily, hoboing off a train was easier than hoboing onto one. It took me a little while to climb behind the last train car, and it took a fair bit of guts to drop my aluminum-covered shoes onto the train track and skitch behind the train at eighty miles an hour. It reminded me of my teenage years, grinding railings on my hyperblades. My shoes threw a cascade of sparks that would make any hobo proud, and I let go of the train and skidded to a gradual stop without losing my balance and killing myself.

  Like most of Illinois, and the other fifty-three states of America, the land that wasn’t residential was used for farming. I found myself in the middle of a vast, multitier cornfield that stretched on for miles in either direction. It would work out well for what I had planned.

  I pinched my earlobe and said, “Call Teague.”

  He picked up on the second beep.

  “Boise, Talon? WTF?”

  “We need to talk, Teague. Face-to-face.”

  “Half a million people, you psycho. I can’t believe it.”

  Was he playing me? I checked my coordinates on the DT and read them to Teague. “Come alone, or I’m ghost.”

  “What happened to you, man?”

  I wondered the same thing about him. Instead of answering, I pinched off the call.

  Now for the hard part.

  The sun was close to setting, which would make it easier for me to hide. If Teague called in the cavalry, chances were slim I’d be able to escape. But he’d followed me to Eden alone, and I assumed he’d do the same here.

  The multitier was four stalks high—taller than my house. Instead of using soil, which made crops difficult to irrigate and cultivate, this farm used carbon netting. Seeds were planted in the crisscross of netting material, which was hollow and provided their root system with a steady stream or water, insect repellent, and nutrients, along with a heating element so they could grow during winter. Then they were stacked one on top of another, tethered to mirrored poles that held them up. Other mirrors were also strategically angled, to make sure each plant received adequate sunlight. Harvesting was a snap—the nets were simply reeled in.

  I took a deep breath of the oxygen-rich environment, then walked for a hundred yards, zigzagging the railroad track, giving Teague an easy trail to find. From there, it was into the corn net.
I followed one of the mirrored rows, squinting against the glare. The sun was close to setting, but under all the corn it was bright as a cloudless high noon. It would stay bright all night; the solar panels in the mirrors had absorbed enough energy during the day to power the net’s lighting system.

  Fifty steps down the row I stopped, my foot in midair. I remained perfectly still for eight seconds, then carefully walked backward in my own footsteps. After ten steps back, I ran forward another ten. Then I sat down and waited.

  Teague couldn’t track my chip, because I’d stuffed it down a raccoon’s throat. But I could track Teague’s chip. Even though the cops had suspended my electric account, I was still able to access the CPD GPS system, thanks to the good old Freedom of Information Act. A person’s location wasn’t considered private. Anyone could find anyone, as long as they were chipped.

  I punched in Teague’s ID number, plotting him on the map, and waited for him to come. Then I watched CNN. Relatives of those who died in Boise pleaded for information leading to my capture. The president spoke, calling the massacre the biggest tragedy of our era. He vowed to find me and bring me to justice. Scientists were interviewed, postulating that it must have been a black hole that sucked up the city. The implosion footage, with Alter-Talon pressing the button, was shown over and over and over.

  I gave up wiping the tears off my face and just let them flow. I was numb, devastated, shocked, upset, and confused all at the same time. But most of all, I was angry. Like the rest of the country, I wanted to get that son of a bitch who did this.

  Unlike the rest of the country, I was the only one who truly knew that son of a bitch wasn’t me. Even with Sata and Vicki believing in my innocence, I’d never felt so alone in my life.

  My DT beeped. I checked the GPS.

  Teague had arrived.

  I stood up, gripped my Nife, and hoped this plan was going to work. If it didn’t, I’d get caught. And then I’d die. There were more than a hundred thousand cops after me. And the president wanted to call a special session of Congress, and have them vote to repeal the Twenty-ninth Amendment.