Time Heist

by Anthony Vicino

  These were the men and women Unity had forgotten. They knew it, and that made them dangerous.

  The man studied me with pupils that contracted and expanded with the beating of his heart. A splash of crusted blood covered his chin.

  The poor soul didn't understand basic nanobiology. Thought he could get his own upgrades by drinking the blood of another. Doesn't work like that. Nanites merge with their host, become an extension of their unique genetic pattern.

  Can't steal that. Not without consequences, at least.

  The guy in front of me was living with those consequences. Those mutations.

  He cradled an armful of clothes that stood in stark contrast to the flimsy gauze covering his shoulders. He'd come across fresh bounty and now the man faced a rare decision. For once, he had something to lose. Engaging with me might cost him his newfound treasure.

  I saw his malnourished mind running the cost-benefit analysis. After a three-breath pause he smartly decided the risk wasn't worth the payout and hobbled into a darkened alleyway formed by two housing units.

  Usually I made a point of ignoring the dead. They'd been stripped of their lives; who was I to steal their final privacy? And yet, I couldn't stop myself. Maybe it was the fact that I'd be joining the poor bastard on the ground soon. Maybe it was curiosity. Either way, my legs carried me towards the vagrant's loot.

  I wished they hadn't.

  Even without his clothes I recognized the guy immediately. Georgie.

  His dull gray eyes stared through me. Lips pulled back, frozen with panic.

  You work Time Vice as long as me and you get used to seeing dead bodies. But it never gets easier seeing the ones you knew. You can't write them off so easily. Can't dehumanize them. Can't cope.

  Georgie's body lacked signs of trauma. Whatever had happened to him hadn't left a mark. Looked like Jack Dunn had got him after all. So much for Bo's babysitting fees. Guess I shouldn't have broken the guy's wrist.

  I squatted next to the body and closed his eyelids. I couldn't do much else.

  Dumb kid probably lived his entire life in the Uppers, bored numb by the comfort and safety. The predictability of everyday life. He'd come looking for something to prove life wasn't an endless parade of copycat days. He didn't deserve this.

  Yet there he was. Dead before his time.

  And I thought I was having a bad day.

  ***

  Between cracked ribs, a sucker punch to the face, the Quick walking my frayed nerves in stilettos, and Georgie's dead body, I had no clue how I hiked the remaining floors home.

  The Quick waited until I stood at the entrance to my apartment before it hit me. Hard. The Quick hates being ignored. It makes her a bitchy mistress.

  The nanobots I'd injected so many times before, the ones I'd relied on to send my mind to alternate dimensions of pleasure where I could escape the harsh reality of life otherwise not worth living, were now turning on my body, stimulating nerve endings with pain instead of pleasure.

  But that's okay. I'd turned to the Quick for a reason, and it had more to do with pain than pleasure anyhow. Feeling something beat the numbed existence I'd grown accustomed to after Diana.

  I reminded myself of this, but that sort of reasoning sounded like a silver lining load of shit as my teeth clacked together. Nerves sparked, filling my mouth with the acidic aftertaste of sucking on batteries.

  The world tilted, along with my fragile equilibrium, and I tumbled forward. Both arms did the blind man grope, trying to come up with anything to stop my fall. My face found something: the door.

  My head pinged off the smart-metal frame. A second later the door begrudgingly scanned my nanocomp. It pissed and moaned as it dilated open. It desperately needed love, or oil—something beyond my ability to give at that moment.

  The apartment, the unblinking eye of an abyss, stared back at me. A black void which suited me fine; some things are better left in the dark. The life I'd built for myself fell somewhere in that category.

  I stumbled through the darkness, doing pretty good, too, until my foot caught the edge of something solid. I fell.

  On the floor, I cursed my Judas of a foot for its betrayal. I would've stayed put, but the Quick tugged me forward, coaxing me towards the couch, where one last vial hid.

  I did the single hardest sit-up a man has ever been asked to do, paused at the apex to let the world spin by, and then fondled the darkness until I found the cushioned back of the couch.

  I clung to that piece of furniture as the planet continued its crazy ballerina twirl around the sun.

  The couch hugged me with an embrace that would never judge. I plunged a hand into its cleavage; my fingers brushed something small and sharp.

  I retrieved the item in question and breathed a sigh of triumph that caused the acid in my stomach to bubble up and into my throat. I kept it down and studied the Quick Sliver vaporizer in my hand. The formerly translucent sides were dented and smudged (an effect I tend to have on the things in my life) but otherwise intact. Would've preferred to inject the poison—a stronger kick—but inhaling the nanites would do for now.

  The microscopic machines would rush to my cerebral cortex where they'd poke and prod all the right places. For a couple hours the god of pleasure would party on my Hippocampus.

  That is, until the Quick Sliver withdrew her gift and replaced it with pain in a desperate attempt to drive me towards a repeat performance.

  Quick Sliver is a fickle lover, but she's mine.

  I pressed the vaporizer to my lips and inhaled. The puff of air swarming with nanites tickled like a million spiders skittering down my throat and into my lungs. A flash of white light forked across the darkened ceiling. I closed my eyes; the light blossomed.

  It scalded, then it soothed.

  A familiar feeling. The embrace of a loved one.

  The nanobots tinkered with my nanocomp, switched their charge, and lit me up. Small controlled seizures flooded my neural receptors with more dopamine than prudent.

  Didn't matter; I became one with the universe. I evolved past my simple senses. Could see and taste emotion.

  The room, rich with despair, tasted of caramel-slathered soap.

  My organs went for a carousel ride, twirling around one another to the driving cadence offered by my thumping heartbeat. The hair along my scalp gave a standing ovation.

  I shivered with distinct pleasure and closed my eyes, counting the afterimages of spots juking and jiving across the darkened canvas of my eyelids.

  I made it to five before my brain gave up and switched off. I passed out. Gone to the world and its sordid problems, victim to the synaptic firings of a brain seeking revenge.

  I dreamed all the normal dreams.

  And then I dreamed all the not-normal ones.

  One after another my brain shot episodic barbs at my unconscious mind until a voice called out of the nothingness. A computer speaking into a tin-can with its mechanical enunciations. My skin crawled. I covered my ears. The sound rattled like shackles from the past until nothing remained but to scream.

  "What!?"

  A light overhead offered enough of itself to see the faint beginnings of a narrow corridor ahead. The darkness dwelling there turned my blood to ice. I turned away, ran in the opposite direction. It didn't matter; the corridor followed me every which way, beckoning me to explore its forbidden halls.

  The entrance sighed, a cold breath that nipped the tender flesh of my nose and ears. A shiver ran through me, triggering a second, which multiplied into a third. An endless cascade of quivering muscles until I stood in deaf paralysis, my body no longer my own.

  "You said you'd come back." Somebody spoke, no longer the metallic rasp of a machine. It rose up out of the tunnel. I couldn't follow it. I'd be lost to the labyrinth if I moved. For an eternity I would wander those ever-narrowing halls until I couldn't even find myself.

  The fear gnawed at my entrails, chewing its way north, leaving me void of hope.

  Then it tw
isted; the hall retracted, shrank, spun, and expanded. It felt like being in the Stream and changing the environment at will. The earth wobbled beneath me. I reached out into the darkness to steady myself, and found something.

  Cold. Dead.

  When I looked back, I stood at the precipice of a great divide. A chasm that devours worlds. My feet skirted the edge, kicking loose rocks and dirt down the ever-deepening hole.

  The breeze wrapped an icy palm around my neck, and pulled me forward. I dug my heels in. The ground, covered in sharp gravel, tore at the flesh. Tiny stones chewed their way through my soles and into my soul.

  I couldn't resist.

  "I'm still waiting, Tom," the voice sang. This time it wasn't a plea for help, but a statement, a command. I recognized the voice. "You said you'd come back."

  "Diana?" I said, no longer resisting the wind pulling me towards oblivion.

  I took a step, shattering the prison of fear holding me immobile.

  "I'm coming, Diana."

  And then I fell.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ghosts Don't Sleep In

  I awoke to the desperate chirping of an alarm in my head. It took a handful of groggy seconds to determine the source of the noise. I looked to my forearm, where my Life Tracker flashed its twelve-hour warning—into the homestretch.

  Swaddled in soiled clothes from the night before, I rolled off the couch and hobbled to the bathroom.

  "You look like shit," I said to the man in the mirror reaching for my toothbrush. The bristled brush returned my blank stare. We studied one another and contemplated the futility of the act about to be performed. Teeth-cleaning nanobots are cheaper than water, but some things are meant to be done the hard way. I grabbed the tube of toothpaste and lathered the brush.

  There are worse ways to die than with fresh breath. I think my mother told me that once.

  I considered that the benefit of knowing I'd be dead soon. Not the control, but the escape. I'd lost my purpose along with Diana. I hadn't died with her, but I'd stopped living.

  It's unclear who got the short straw on that deal.

  A bell chimed, rippling through the stale apartment air. Another mystery sound. The doorbell. The first time I'd ever heard that sound since moving to the Lowers.

  I ignored it, but a second later the door grated open of its own accord. I chomped down on my toothbrush and leaned against the bathroom doorframe to see the intruder.

  My jaw slackened. The toothbrush dangled between loose lips.

  "What the hell?" I said. It seemed the appropriate response to seeing a ghost.

  Alaina Raines took two steps into the apartment, hard heels of her boots clicking on the few exposed patches of floor. Her head swiveled like a ball bearing on a well lubricated joint, admiring my contribution to the increased entropy of the universe.

  "Jesus," she said, drawing the word out and adding a third syllable. "How is this even possible? Where are your garbage-nanites?"

  Raines wore a thin black jacket with an open high collar, traced with silver along a hem that hugged her curves, blending seamlessly into black pants. A downright distracting getup if she wanted it to be.

  She looked entirely the same, and entirely different. A hardness in her eye, and a tilt to her chin. A confidence that comes with age and broken hearts.

  "They quit," I said, forgetting the mouthful of toothpaste, which saw its opportunity to escape in a conga line of drool down my chin. "Overworked and underpaid."

  I smirked. She frowned.

  Just like old times.

  "Right." She maneuvered through the debris field with a grace and precision that would've been surprising if I hadn't known the woman so well. Raines stopped shy of the bathroom and eyed it, the toothpaste stains on the floor, and me with equal measures of disapproval. "We gotta talk."

  "Isn't that what we're doing?"

  "Don't be an ass." She held my stare, asserting her dominance. "You have any idea how long it took me to track you down?"

  "Seven years?" I regretted the words the moment they left my lips, but they were gone. Too late to stop them.

  Raines twitched. Something smacked me, as if trying to shove the words back into my mouth. The toothbrush stabbed the inner lining of my cheek. Toothpaste reached escape velocity and flew from my mouth, coating the mirror to my right.

  I think she slapped me. An impressive feat considering she hadn't moved. Either she'd received a couple new upgrades since last we spoke or I'd gotten slow.

  The truth likely lay somewhere between the two.

  I rubbed my cheek, hoping my nanocomp would dull the sting. The nanites coursing through my body had repaired my ribs from the night prior, but they could only do so much for this.

  Half the pain of being slapped is psychological. Nothing the nanobots could do for my pride.

  When I looked up she gave me those you-look-like-shit eyes. In return, I gave her a no-fucking-shit grimace.

  "I told you, don’t be an ass,” Raines said, her face a cool sheet of ice betraying none of the feelings hiding beneath.

  I shrugged. "Sorry."

  I wasn't sure she believed that.

  I wasn't sure I believed that.

  But it was the only way forward, so we pretended we did.

  "I'm dying," I said.

  She blinked twice and swallowed once.

  "You come to send me off?”

  "No; you want to die alone, that's your business. It's bad business, but no worse than living alone."

  Raines and Lou were dispensing all sorts of business advice these days. I must have looked like a man with entrepreneurial designs for his future.

  "Then why you here?"

  "As a favor." She shook her head and leaned in. "You're an ass, but you deserve to know."

  "Know what?"

  "It's about Malcolm."

  Those words were a wet towel slap to the face. My heart went from idle to red line in an instant. Sweat formed in the creases of my palms while the hairs lining my neck stood to attention.

  Mention of your wife's murderer is bound to elicit a similar reaction in most warm-blooded creatures.

  "What about him?" No stone could dull the edge in my voice.

  "He's out." Raines didn't waver. Not an inch. She held my stare as if it were the only thing keeping me together.

  Which might be true, 'cause those words didn't make sense. Maybe the nanites had crossed some wires. Maybe I was hallucinating.

  That'd be nice.

  "Not funny, Raines." My heart hammered, trying to pound out the dents of a life lived hard. A discharge of adrenaline ravaged my blood, burning as it commuted through my body.

  "He broke out of Pause last night."

  The man in the mirror turned towards me. He mocked me. His eyes were an accusation, but of what I couldn't say. I clenched my fingers so tight they sent electric shards of pain lancing up my arm and into my shoulder. The walls contracted. The apartment shrank. Everything collapsed in on me. A man-sized black hole.

  I lashed out at my reflection, knuckles biting into the mirror. The glass fractured. I splintered into a thousand distorted versions of myself, each shard a closer representation of the man inside than the unbroken version ever was.

  I denied the scream rising in my throat and said weakly, "That's not possible."

  Raines shook her head and took my hand, her skin soft in a way foreign to the Lowers. Despite the gulf that'd emerged between us, the contact felt good. Reminded me of a different life.

  "I know you're angry. I am too," she said, rubbing her thumb across the exposed skin of my inner forearm where the two bars of my Tracker continued their march towards nothing.

  Her touch brought comfort. A reminder of something I'd found in her arms after Diana. A reminder of the guilt that had gnawed day and night at my weary conscience.

  It made me feel vulnerable, a feeling I'd moved to the Lowers to avoid.

  I jerked my hand free and put a step between us.

  "Thanks f
or telling me." My voice slipped away from me like water through cupped hands. "But you shouldn't have come here."

  Raines' stony expression turned liquid, melting away to reveal the woman I'd known as more than a partner. "I need your help finding him, Tom."

  Just like that, the years that grate our souls and callous our character washed off her, leaving in their place the woman who'd been young and naive enough to put her trust in the person she loved. She had never understood that the people with a key to your heart are the ones that break it.

  She knew now.

  In a different life she'd been my pupil. I'd taught her everything I knew.

  It broke me, but I hadn't skipped that lesson.

  Unfortunately, the heart forgives, even when it shouldn't.

  "I've got a couple hours left, and then I'm done. Out of here. Gone. I can't do this anymore. Can't be here. I want out, Alaina."

  Raines turned away, letting the silence settle. When she spoke, she directed her words to the ground at her feet.

  "You know Malcolm better than anyone. He's going to kill again." Her voice was hard, unforgiving. "Stay here and die alone if you want. Or put your big boy pants on and help me catch the guy that murdered Diana. Your choice."

  The world was conspiring against me. Raines tugged at my heartstrings like a puppet master. It no longer became a matter of if I would help, but why.

  Sometimes we do things for the right reasons; sometimes for the wrong.

  Thinking about Malcolm walking free made me want to do things for the wrong reasons.

  I wanted to find him. I wanted to kill him.

  I'd been too weak to do it the first time around. Afraid I couldn't bear the weight of that decision. Thought it was the honorable thing. Turns out there is no honor in death.

  Only loss.

  "Let me grab my jacket," I said, glancing at the three short bars remaining on my Tracker.

  Raines' cheek twitched; she quashed down the beginning of a smile before it could grow into something more and said, "It's over a hundred degrees up there."

  "Can never be too careful." I grabbed the faded leather jacket from where I'd discarded it the night before. "Wouldn't want to catch a cold."