midas: part nine: from a distance

‘Tracking anomaly; anachronistic energy spike – can we dial in on the spacetime segment?’

‘Negative, too much temporal interference from that index.’

‘Can you clean that image up for me? Get rid of some of the background. I thought I spotted a flagged signature in there.’

‘Maybe, but you’re not going to have any joy zeroing in on it through this read.’

‘I’ve never seen so much anomalous data streaming in – what’s generating it?’

‘We don’t know but there appear to be several anchor points for the high activity.’

‘Bodies?’

‘Some hot and some cold, I think.’

‘You can tell me that much but you can’t clean it up?’

‘Hey, look, Verik, some of the filtering tech works better than other parts of it. I’m just an operator – if you have a problem with what we can do have a word with your boys upstairs. You know what they’ll tell you?’

‘Yeah, that unless our success rate improves we can’t expect an increase in budgetary spending. Stupid fuckers don’t understand squat about working in the field.’

‘My heart bleeds for you, my man.’

‘You know what, Klesterman? Cram it up your arse.’

‘Whoah! Motherfucker!’

‘What? What did you see?’

‘That shit just went off the scale. Another anchor point flared up – another dead one; and whatever did it sucked enough energy up in the performing of the act to dim out everything else.’

‘What are you thinking? Some kind of P.S?’

‘Fuck weren’t they declared illegal? Do you remember the last time we dealt with someone carrying a Portable Singularity?’

‘Yeah, a total continuum collapse and we had to send in the Rapid Temporal Repair Squad. You been back there to look at it at all? Paradox Stems, Oxymoron Wells, Logic Bypasses, Dynamic Rewrite Structures – it’s the most unstable quadrant anywhere.’

‘Who did that?’

‘The guy whose signature flashed up?’

‘Yeah, what – Tensing, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, well, it was his mentor, Sephorth.’

‘Perihelion Sephorth?’

‘The very same.’

– * –

It was a mess. It was one godawful mess. Sherin Caldew had been in the first week of her third trimester and here she was opened up like a suitcase and everything that had been packed into her spread around the room. Except the baby, and that was puzzling them. Where was the baby? That one of the supposed victims was missing did not make much sense in light of what had happened at the other crime scenes.

They did a rapid-analysis of the blood and there was only one person they were getting a read for – Sherin. So what in the hell had happened to the baby? What kind of killer kills someone, sets up another version of them to take the fall, and then doesn’t kill the baby? Because the idea that it was someone else killing these people rather than their own alternate selves was winning favour and this situation seriously cast doubt on the idea that Sherin killed her other self. If so, where was the child?

How they had managed to head off trouble with the public thus far was a miracle, but they were sure that it was going to boil over at any point. Word was out there about the crimes and there was also talk about the lack of results – people would start to question whether there was something that they might be able to do to better answer the needs of their city. They were fast running out of options in their struggle to keep a lid on this whole thing – how many Chronotechs out there could dial back something this big? Hent believed that they had the only one with any clue locked up. Carter was getting desperate.

They had been considering lockdown for Midas for a while, but they weren’t sure about being able to enforce it. Getting time travellers to stay put was not an easy task at the best of times; on a normal given day policing them was a nightmare – and this was no normal given day. And what if they let Tensing do what they wanted him to do and word got out? If everything went fine then Carter was sure that people overlook a few irregularities in procedure, but if something went wrong they would want someone to hang for it and that would be the men who had okayed it.

– * –

‘So, Klesterman, any more info on what we were looking at earlier?’

‘Not really, but the fact that there is such a weird level of activity going on out there means you could probably get the go ahead for a look-see.’

‘You think?’

‘Yeah, I’ll back you up on it – I’m kind of curious myself, given what you think you might have seen.’

‘That would be a great find wouldn’t it? Tensing after all these years.’

‘Fuck, finding Tensing is the kind of thing that would get you a promotion.’

‘That’s how I’ll sell it to Gorse – that kind of shit passes up the chain; victory showing that the chain of command works and all that.’

‘Sure – go for the thing that gets all those pencil necks creaming their pants – a desk job away from the front; chance of running for political office.’

‘This could be the biggest operation in the entire history of the organisation.’

‘You ever done any Chronotech fieldwork, Verik?’

‘Some small stuff – mainly jumper re-routes, magic bullet duties, that kind of shit.’

‘Same here – never gone up against a rogue operative before.’

‘There aren’t many who have – most rogues just get tired of the job and disappear off into the ether to grow things and fuck their remaining years away.’

‘But not Tensing, eh?’

‘No, he’s been freelancing, and that just doesn’t sit right with the men upstairs.’

‘What, loss of profit?’

‘Damn right. You ever jumped to a future where money or commerce doesn’t dictate the terms?’

‘What? A greed free land where people live forever and get to do exactly what they want? Yeah, I dropped a few tabs of acid while some kiddies vision-drop was running.’

‘Well, here goes. I’ll let you know how it pans out – whether we get the go ahead.’

‘You’ll ask for me to come with you?’

‘Sure, man – you’re a dick; but better the devil you know, eh?’

‘Sure, man – sure.’