by J. Thorn
Teague said, “Ever since we were kids, we’ve always competed with one another.”
“You won most of the time.”
“You won the girl. That beats everything else.”
“She wasn’t a prize to be won, Teague. She made her own choice.”
“WTF?” Neil said. “They’re real!”
Teague put the gun in its holster, and for a brief moment I hoped we were actually going to reconcile. It surprised me how good the idea of it felt.
My elation slipped away when he raised his fists.
“I’m better than you, Talon. And I’m going to prove it.”
I put up my dukes as well. “Like you proved it in the cornfield?”
Teague’s eyes narrowed. “I’m taking you in. No guns. No weapons. I’m going to break your neck, and leave you in front of the Cook County courthouse. And there’s not a thing you can do to—”
I hit him with a jab in the nose, then followed with a right cross to the chin. My right was weak; the arm had gotten number overnight. Teague shrugged off the blows and snap-kicked me in the ribs, sending me stumbling down the hall. I fell onto my back in the living room.
Neil stood over me, his hands up his shirt. “I need some time alone,” he said. “I’ll be in the shower.”
He still appeared groggy from the sleeping pills, so much so that he didn’t even acknowledge Teague when he passed him in the hallway.
Teague advanced casually, rolling his shoulders. Besides my bad arm, I ached in about a hundred places. Unlike Teague, I hadn’t had the luxury of an ER visit. He probably wasn’t feeling any pain at all. Me? It even hurt to blink.
I stared up at my former friend. “You win,” I told him. “You’re better than me.”
He seemed to consider the comment. Then he offered me his hand.
I took it. After Teague helped me up, he punched me in the gut so hard it knocked the wind out of me. I doubled over, unable to suck in any air. Teague yanked my Nife from my utility belt sheath, threw it against the wall, where it stuck, and then followed it up with a kick to the chest. I managed to twist away in time, taking the brunt of it on my bad arm, but it still knocked me onto the couch. I sat there for a moment, trying to get my diaphragm to work.
“Pathetic,” Teague said.
He was right. I’d gone through all of this—all the fighting and running and searching—just to die in prison. The worst part was I’d never find out who set me up. It was like fumbling the hyperfootball on the nine-hundred-and ninety-ninth yard line.
Teague grabbed my shirt and lifted me up off my feet, a power play that served no real purpose other than to make me feel helpless. Which it did.
“You know what, Talon? I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to break your neck and let you die in jail.”
Through my fear, I managed to sputter, “Th-thanks, man.”
Teague brought my face to within inches of his.
“I decided I’m going to kill you myself,” he said.
THIRTY-NINE
His eyes were so cold, and his face was so calm, when he said it. Had he always been this way? Could my lifelong friend somehow be a closet psychopath, and I just never realized it?
Teague’s hands closed around my throat, his fingers digging in. I kicked him between the legs as hard as I could. He’d come prepared this time, wearing a jockstrap. My foot bounced harmlessly off his cup.
His thumbs found my carotid artery. If he blocked the flow, I’d pass out within seconds. Panicked, I scratched him across the eyes, then cupped my hands and clapped him on either side of the head, forcing air into his eardrums.
He howled, releasing me. I found my bearings and staggered to the Nife handle sticking out of the wall. Just as I snagged it, Teague grabbed me by my utility belt and flung me across the room, like I was a toy. I kept my hand extended, the Nife away from my body, but I dropped it on impact. The weapon went skittering into the bathroom.
I scrambled on all fours after it, seeing Neil in my peripheral vision. He was in the shower, a lopsided grin on his face, soaping up his new boobs. In fairness, they were pretty spectacular. And they would have been even more so, if he didn’t have all those curly chest hairs.
Teague grabbed my ankle, and began lifting me up. While his strength wasn’t that of Rocket, it was pretty impressive. He must have been hitting the roids for quite some time.
I stretched for the Nife, then stopped myself. The handle was facing the wrong way, and the only part I could reach was the blade. Grabbing a Nife by the blade was about as safe as sticking your hand in a spinning blender. But it was either that, or let Teague rip me apart.
Once I made my decision, I didn’t hesitate. I aimed carefully, then slipped my left index finger under the blade, clamping my thumb on top, just as Teague jerked me upside down.
He positioned me over the ComfortMax toilet, my head inches from the bowl.
“Here’s a good death for you,” Teague said. “Like the piece of shit you are.”
He dunked me. I held my breath, trying to judge if I still held the Nife. I could feel my fingers touching one another, and I didn’t know if that was because I’d dropped it, or because the blade was microscopically thin. I turned my wrist slightly, and noticed the extra weight.
So I had the Nife. Now what?
Teague lifted me up out of the water. I gasped for air, then choked when the automatic bidet kicked on, spraying warm water in my face. I couldn’t adjust the grip on the Nife using only one hand; plus I couldn’t see. Working by feel was a surefire way to lose a few fingers.
“Round two,” Teague said.
Before I could catch my breath, he dunked me again. I coughed, then couldn’t control my lungs, which sucked in toilet water. It hurt more than just about anything that ever happened to me, burning my nose and throat, causing my diaphragm to rapidly spasm. Even worse than the pain was the panic. The need for oxygen was so primeval, so reptile-brain, that it overrode all other brain functions. I lost all rationale, all personality, and became a starving animal whose sole reason for existence was to breathe again.
Teague lifted me up once more. I vomited water, tried to take in air, gagged, choked, vomited again, and finally got some sweet, sweet O2 into my aching lungs.
“Round three,” Teague said.
Not looking, not even caring, I brought my two hands together, feeling for the handle of the Nife. Miraculously, my right hand found it, and then I was bending at the waist, reaching upward, slashing at Teague with the blade.
I was dropped, suddenly, landing on my back. While in the middle of a coughing fit I managed to get to my knees. I checked my hand. My right held the Nife. My left still had all of its fingers, though the thumb was missing the very tip.
Teague wasn’t so lucky. He stared at his right arm, and the bleeding stump where his hand used to be. Then the toilet automatically flushed. We both looked, and watched his severed hand disappear down the drain.
Teague howled, sticking his left hand into the toilet, trying to rescue his right hand.
I raised the Nife, ready to gut him.
“Little privacy here,” Neil said. He must have been thinking the same thing I’d been thinking earlier, because he was shaving his chest.
Neil’s ridiculous, drug-addled actions brought some measure of humanity back to me, just in time. Rather than kill my old friend, I changed my course of action, sweeping my arm down and cutting off his foot.
Teague toppled. I coughed, spat, and got up on shaky feet.
“Hold still,” I told him, “or you’ll bleed to death.”
He nodded at me, his eyes wide with fear. I carefully sheathed the Nife, then stumbled out of the bathroom, heading for Aunt Zelda’s bedroom closet. I quickly found two belts and brought them back to Teague. The blood pooling around him was extensive. I pressed his earlobe, told him to call 911. As he did, I cinched the tourniquets around his stumps.
“Ambulance coming?” I asked.
Teague nodded, his wh
ole body shivering. “My hand is gone. Flushed.”
“I’m sorry about that.” But I wasn’t sure how sorry I really was. Practically drowning doesn’t make a guy very sympathetic.
“You should kill me,” Teague said.
“Not going to happen.”
His teeth were chattering now. “If you don’t, I’m going to chase you to the ends of the earth.”
“I know.”
I checked the belts, and saw I’d managed to staunch the blood flow. I dragged Teague across the floor and raised his legs, putting them on the toilet. Then I covered him with blankets.
After taping some gauze around my bleeding finger, I grabbed the TEV and kicked Teague’s to pieces in case he recuperated faster than I anticipated.
Time to go.
I caught the killer’s trail on the first floor, as he climbed out of the elevator. He still wore the celebrity veil. I chose to follow him going forward, rather than in reverse, because it was easier to track.
Once out in the street I paused and stepped aside as two paramedics ran into the building. They didn’t give me a glance, but I realized that walking around in broad daylight when I was the most wanted man in the world would eventually lead to me getting identified. I remembered the celebrity veil the killer had left on top of the fridge. It was in my utility belt. I put it on over my head, able to see clearly, but unable to be seen.
Then I tailed the killer, going north. He kept a steady pace. No running. No sudden moves. Walking alongside him was an odd experience, sort of like walking with someone in reality. I almost expected to look over my shoulder and see him actually standing there.
After several blocks, he turned left on Adams, heading east. I anticipated him climbing onto a biofuel scooter, or hopping the El, which would complicate things. As I’d expected, we came to a bike carousel. Carousels were miniature pneumatic parking garages. You paid for a predetermined amount of time, placed your bike into the clamps, and the carousel lifted it up and held it for you until you returned. Larger models could hold fifty bikes vertically, saving valuable street space. This model held twenty.
The killer took a plastic parking chit out of his pocket—chits identified to location and row of your bike, which was necessary because Chicago had more than a hundred thousand carousels—and fed it into the meter.
If I had access to the CPD parking records, I could trace him paying for parking and get his ID. Or…
I got a close-up of the chit and read the drop-off time. It was parked here a few hours before Aunt Zelda’s murder. I rewound the transmission, going back to that time, and then paused when I saw a familiar face.
Neil.
He’d parked the bike here. He’d been the killer all along.
FORTY
I sprinted back to Aunt Zelda’s, reaching the front door just as the ambulance was pulling away. Neil had been pretty doped up while he was in the shower, so he could still be inside. But he could have been faking that. Like he’d been faking everything else. If he’d left, I’d track him.
The elevator ride seemed to take forever. I burst through Zelda’s door, Nife drawn, ready for anything.
Except for maybe hearing Neil singing “You Are So Beautiful” in the shower.
This was the criminal supergenius behind this whole plot?
I rushed into the bathroom, the floor slick with Teague’s blood. Neil had finished shaving his boobs, and was soaping them up, again. I liked boobs as much as the next guy, but his behavior bordered on obsessive.
Still, they were pretty spectacular.
“Out of the shower!” I yelled, flinging open the sliding door.
Neil jumped backward, covering up his chest with his hands. “Pervert!”
I grabbed him by his hair and sat him on the toilet.
“Why Boise, Neil? Aunt Zelda was enough to send me to jail. Why kill half a million people?”
He had his palms over his nipples. “WTF are you talking about?”
“I know it was you. I followed the killer to the scooter carousel. It was your bike.”
“What bike?”
If he was faking being stoned, he was doing a damn good job. I held up my TEV, showed him the recording of him at the bike rack.
“That’s me,” Neil said, pointing to the screen and smiling.
I wondered if this would be enough to convict him. The hard part would be getting someone to listen when the entire world had already convicted me of the crime. But maybe, with Neil’s confession…
“He told me to park the bike there.”
“What?”
Neil was looking at his breasts again. “The bike was delivered to my house, with instructions. I had to park it in a carousel on Adams.”
“What did you do with the chit?”
He glanced at me, cockeyed. “I flush it down the toilet. What do you do with it? Build little mushy brown sculptures?”
“The chit, Neil. The bike chit you got, after you parked it.”
“Oh. I came here and put the chit on top of the refrigerator.”
I took the TEV back into the kitchen, and tuned in to when the killer put the celebrity veil on the fridge. This time, I checked the top of the appliance while he did it. The killer had traded the mask for a bike chit, which had already been waiting there for him.
My hopes sank. I was still Public Enemy Number One.
I shuffled past the bathroom, wondering what to do next. Neil was rooting through the medicine cabinet.
“Which pills make them bigger?” he asked. “I want to go up a cup size or two.”
“Antiandrogen,” I said. It was a lie. Estrolux made them bigger. Antiandrogen shrunk the dick.
I left the apartment, plotting my next move. I could follow the killer in reverse, find out where he came from. Or I could follow him on the bike, and see where he went.
I chose the bike, and jogged back to the scooter carousel. As I ran, I thought about the celebrity veil and the bike chit. I also thought about the disk blocking the killer’s chip. This was someone familiar with timecasting protocol, someone who thought he could beat it. But you can’t beat timecasting, No matter where he ran to, I’d be able to follow him. Eventually he’d need his chip to pay for something, and I’d be there to catch him.
Which made me wonder, why all the subterfuge? He knew I’d be following him. What did he hope to accomplish?
I found out right after I picked up his tail again.
Timecasting someone on a biofuel bike wasn’t easy to do solo. The timecaster’s attention constantly switched between watching the perp and watching the road, all while operating the scooter one-handed. I expected the killer would know this, and make it difficult for me to follow him.
My expectations were wrong. Once he fed his chit into the carousel, he took out his DT. I zoomed in to see what he was doing. He brought up a keyboard and typed:
I’m taking 1-90 north to exit 15. You can pick me up again at the biofuel station on the northwest corner. I trust you’re wearing the veil mask I left for you. See you soon, Talon.
I froze. Then I looked around, as if the killer was watching me right now. But he wasn’t. He’d written this more than forty-eight hours ago.
Still, the paranoia was real. Granted, he’d specifically set me up, so he knew I’d be after him. But this had been a rough journey on my end. Why suddenly make it easy for me?
I waited for the next red light, then borrowed a scooter from an unwilling man who complained a lot, but came around to my way of thinking when I showed him my Nife. I strapped the TEV to my back and hit the gas, deciding to believe the killer was telling me the truth. The fact he left me the celebrity veil meant he wanted me to follow. This was part of his plan.
I headed toward the expressway, not liking this one bit. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much this guy had been playing me from the start. He knew I’d be on the run. He knew I’d find the prism sphere. All the time I’d thought Teague was the one who’d leaked the transmissio
n of Zelda’s death. But it was the man in the mask.
I drew the obvious conclusion. The killer had to be a timecaster.
I hopped onto I-90, thinking about all the guys in my old Van Damme squad. There were twelve of us when the program began in Chicago, and four more in other parts of Illinois. Neighboring states also had their own teams. At the height of the program, there were more than a hundred working timecasters in the US, and easily another two hundred worldwide. Any one of them could have gone rogue.
If I narrowed it down to those who had some sort of grudge against me, it didn’t eliminate too many names. Teague and I were the best on our squad, with the best records, which was why we were kept on. There had been a lot of resentment when the program was downsized.
When I exited at 15, I located the gas station and pet the bunny, quickly finding the killer. He was parked next to the air pump, waiting. I fast-forwarded, watching him sit there. Eventually he must have determined I showed up, and he started the bike and headed west. I quickly recognized the neighborhood.
This was Schaumburg. I was here yesterday, visiting Michio Sata.
The killer went the speed limit, but I went on ahead of him, sure of his destination. Even though this had happened in the past, I knew he was going to Sata’s house. Sata, and Vicki, were in danger.
I called Vicki on my headphone.
No answer.
I called Sata on my headphone.
No answer.
I now understood why the killer had sent me on this wild-goose chase. He didn’t want to just frame me. He wanted to destroy me. As I was running around Chicago, searching for answers, his intention all along was to hurt the two people I cared about most. He knew I’d send Vicki to stay with Sata. He just needed some time to get both of them alone.
Sata is smart, competent, and strong, I reminded myself. He wouldn’t let anyone get the better of him.
And yet, he was an old man. An old man on roids, which weren’t known for their positive effects on mental health. The killer who set all of this up would be able to deal with Sata.
I called Sata again, got his voice mail, and left him an urgent message to contact me just as I was pulling up to his house.
