Second Paradigm (9 page)

Lucy sighed, “How much of a dent is this going to put in the day, Sergeant? We have a lot of work to get done here and we don’t really have time to mess about with bomb threats in a high security government building.” She put a heavy emphasis on the high security.

The sergeant looked put upon and took a moment before he replied. “Well Director Frost, since there was a break in last night, and your ‘high security’ building was already having issues with its ‘security’ we felt that it might actually be credible that someone got by your systems and left a little gift for you last night. Especially since the perpetrator was not apprehended. As I understand it, our department’s attempts to contact you about this matter last night were unanswered. Have a little too much fun last night, Director Frost? I know I didn’t. I was up all night trying to contact you.”

Lucy went red with a combination of rage and embarrassment at the sergeant’s comments. She also remembered that her cell phone was on vibrate in the glove compartment of her car. “Point taken. And as eloquently as you put me in my place, you have still failed to answer my question. How long will this take?”

The sergeant sighed. “I concede.” He threw up his hands in a placating gesture and continued, “The sweep team should take about an hour, ninety minutes tops. That is only if they don’t find anything. If there is a bomb in that building, I have no idea how long this will take to get done.”

He thought for a moment, then decided to give some ground to the frustrated woman standing in front of him. “Containment and disposal are about thirty minutes each. Diffusing a bomb though … it could take five minutes, it could take five hours. But even with the break-in, I’d say that the odds are low of anyone having planted a bomb in your building, Director Frost.”

And then the building exploded.

It came with no warning, no moment of dread foreshadowing the explosion. One moment the building was intact, the next fire was ripping it apart in a deafening roar. The explosion started on the top floor, in the corner closest to Lucy’s office, and it seemed to hit a chain of detonations throughout the top floors, exploding in series.

Pebbles of concrete and tiny shards of glass flew outwards from the building, showering down into the parking lot and injuring people indiscriminately. Lucy felt shards tearing at her cheeks and leaving bloody trails as she stared in awed surprise. Then the bulk of the sergeant’s weight hit her as he tackled her to the ground and held himself over her.

Lucy looked up in a daze at the man over her. Blood trailed down his chin and he collapsed onto her. A giant shard of glass, fully half a window, stuck out of his back.

1997 A.D.: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Alex sat on the motel bed, shirt off. Even with the air conditioning blowing, sweat poured down his face and chest. He studied the pictures spread across the foot of the bed. A Time Corp agent had been spotted by his drones breaking into the building Frost and the scientist worked in while he had been talking to her in the garage. He pulled out his computer and started running through the agent database that he had painstakingly assembled.

Alex preferred to work with a late twenty-first century laptop. Anachronistic compared to the technology available to him, but still pleasing to him because of the symmetry and stylized lines of the time period. It might not be the fastest, but it was the sleekest looking machine he had seen in any time period. The most durable as well.

The computer chimed and pulled up a match on the agent, Yuri Yakavich. Alex was somewhat familiar with the man, as he was usually the brain behind the agents that managed to catch up with him. With an already sweat-dampened towel, Alex wiped his brow. This job was getting thick. He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, lining up his thoughts.

Two of the top three agents in the Time Corp were pitted against him. He had to assume they had pieced together his involvement in this situation, because of who they were. The worst of the top three was also aware of him and perhaps marginally on his side. But that margin could vanish in a heartbeat. The two most brilliant scientists history had ever seen were also involved, though one was unaware of the whole situation and the other a random factor, seeming to be working against the actions of everyone.

Throw in one Alexander Zarth and a shadowy figure from the fortieth century and what do you get? Alex pondered that for a long while before setting the thought aside for later review and going back to the question he needed an answer to first.

Why did the number two agent in the Time Corp make an attempt on the life of the number three agent, as well as the scientist who invented time travel? Could he be a rogue agent attempting to shatter history? His gut feeling said no. It was a specific attempt on Lucy, not on Chris Nost. Back to the basic question then, why the hell would one agent be attempting to kill another?

A musical chime sounded from the computer to indicate it was done with the temporal annexing portion of the profile on Yuri. Alex leaned forward and studied the screen with interest. Revision to the basic question—why would an agent from ten years upstream come back and try to wipe out Lucy? If he was upstream, he had to know it would fail.

So assessment one had to be that Lucy was not the target. Why then would Yuri plant the bomb if assessment one was correct? Assessment two followed: that Lucy was the target and Yuri was trying to create a paradox. And assessment three: no one was the target and that it was a warning. But a warning about what, and to whom?

Rewinding the video file, Alex watched it again in slow motion, hoping to catch something that he had missed on the first time. As he started, he lit up a dented cigarette and poured himself a glass of scotch. Twenty minutes later, the scotch was untouched and five cigarette butts were smashed into the ashtray.

He grinned like a maniac and laughed to himself. “Oh, Yuri. You sly, sly dog. I see your game now. You are far too clever for your own good.” The video frame froze on a shot of Alex, hidden in the shadows, accepting a package from Yuri after his break in.

***

Relativity Synchronization:
The Sixth Cause

2044: The Past Unfolds

“Did you get lost, bub?”

Chris walked into the hotel to find Charlie eying him with amusement, like he was a tourist who got scared of the dark and came running back to the perceived safety of the Hotel Rangely.

“What do you mean?”

“Well you’ve only been gone ten minutes and shit, it takes longer than that to get down to 38th from here. Can’t you read a map?” Charlie folded his ever-present newspaper and put it down on the counter between them.

“I … my head … I’ve got a headache like you wouldn’t believe. I decided to wait until tomorrow.” Chris put his hand up to throbbing left temple and winced at the pain there. “I feel like someone smashed in my temple with a crowbar.”

“You need somethin’? I got some painkillers here. How about …” Charlie started rummaging around in a drawer beneath the counter and Chris heard the plastic clinking of pill bottles being moved around.

“No. No thanks. I … I need to lie down. I think getting some decent rest should do the trick. I’ve been stressed out all day.” Tiredness pervaded his bones, leaving him feeling washed up and disjointed.

Chris walked up to his room, trying not to jar his throbbing head.
Ten minutes? That’s not possible.
He was sure it must have been at least a half-hour between when he left the hotel and whatever happened with the cops in front of Jones Drugs & Merchandise. How had he been gone only ten minutes? The clerk must have been mistaken.

He wasn’t mistaken, and Chris knew it. He could
feel
it. He was aware of every moment, every second in time, and he knew as well as the greasy hotel manager he had only been gone ten minutes—but that somehow he had also been gone for thirty.
Maybe I actually am crazy, locked up in some white padded room. It would be a relief to know this is all going on in my imagination.
But he knew that wasn’t the case—as much as anyone can know whether or not they’re crazy. Everyone he had met was too real, too here, to be a figment of his imagination.
Now
was real, and there were things going on in him that he had absolutely no comprehension of.

Chris locked his door and lay down on the bed without taking off his shoes or wet coat.
Why didn’t I run?
he thought.
Why did I need to kill him?
He remembered the rage he had felt during the second freeze. It had the same strange edge as the paranoia he had felt with Rat—something foreign, yet a part of him. Some external self, acting through him to preserve him. Or itself.

Memory replayed itself in his head. Everything had
stopped.
The hammer on the pistol, frozen in mid fall; then he had reached up and touched the man. That touch had instantly killed him—an old man’s body falling to the ground. Emaciated and brittle, the impact of the fall had broken several of his bones. And then the blackness took over and he found himself walking into the hotel lobby, twenty minutes before his encounter with the cops. Once again he had to question his sanity, for he had just lived out the impossible.

Once you have ruled out the impossible, the remaining answer is correct, no matter how improbable.
As the thought streaked through his mind, Chris wondered where it had come from. But he did know why he killed him, and it wasn’t because of the rage—that had only helped him do it. He killed Chuck because he knew without a doubt that if he hadn’t, the two guards would have reported him, and PolCorp Securities would have hunted him down and killed him before he had the chance to find out who he was or what was going on.

Now all they had to go on was the video footage from their head cameras. It was still bad, but at least the testimony of the guard who killed Chuck was unlikely to be taken too seriously. Or so he hoped. What he had done seemed to him like magic—which no one would take seriously.
Unless they know what I can do
, Chris thought to himself. But no, they didn’t know. If they did, he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have allowed him to leave the hospital.
Am I a magician? Do I have some undiscovered technology in me? Or am I … something else?

Answers would come with his meeting with Dr. Jameson, the day after tomorrow. He considered not going, the now-familiar paranoia chiming in the back of his head.
He’s one of them. He works for them. It’s all a setup.

Chris fought the voice and won.
I have to know what he knows about me. Jameson had warned him to avoid the authorities and, anyway, the doctor had him right where they wanted him before he woke up. They had, in fact, had him for forty-one years. Why would anything change now? Had they wanted him enough to engineer this chaotic trip through this world? But for what purpose? They could have spent a lot fewer of their resources by keeping him at the hospital.

No answer came from his consciousness.
How had he … what was it? Stopped time? No. It was altered. Altered,
Chris thought again, and laughed. He had no doubt that he was the one who had done it. He felt himself doing it, but it felt like his heartbeat; he had no control over it.
I did this thing … I manipulated time. But how?
Chris felt his eyes grow heavy and the torpor of deep sleep blinded him to the world as he succumbed to exhaustion. Massive culture shock had mounted all day and it beat him into submission as he collapsed onto his sheets.

Chris woke up feeling energized and refreshed. It surprised him that, according to the clock in his room, he had slept for nearly a full day. He didn’t care, though. A path had revealed itself to him as he slept and burned in his mind as he got dressed. Deciding to go to the library had been a good decision. He now knew what he must do to survive in this world. With a confidence in his step that had been missing the day before, Chris went downstairs to the lobby.

He tapped the newspaper hovering at the front desk. “Is there a library around here?” he asked Charlie.

Shaking his head with a chuckle, Charlie answered “Man, I haven’t seen a library in years. I hear the Omni Institute over on the east coast kept the Library of Congress around as a museum, but travel has been restricted to the Eastern Province since the war back in thirty-nine. Where you been, anyway? Everybody knows this stuff.”

“In a coma, actually. I’ve missed out on a bit of recent history. Look, is there anywhere I can do some research? I’ve got some catching up to do, you know. For the Company.”

“Shit, if the Company wanted you to do research they should have put you up in a better hotel. Most of the ones downtown have Net Termies in every room. I’d let you use the one back here, but it’s ancient—Windows Based from like two thousand and five. Shit, it’s the same system I learned on when I was seven years old; it can’t handle anything but the Rangely’s records, and it can’t do that half the time.

“Here,” the clerk took Chris’s map and marked another spot a few blocks from the hotel. “This here’s the closest Punt. It’s open from seven a.m. to midnight every day. No kinky stuff on the P.N.T.’s, but then, you won’t be wanting that anyway—that is, if you’re on Company business.” He sized Chris up then grinned at him. He didn’t believe for a minute that that was why Chris searched for a terminal.

“What’s a punt?” Chris asked, feeling a brief tinge of yesterday’s culture shock again.

“P-N-T. Public Net Terminal. Jeez, man. Were you really in a coma? They’ve been around for like twenty-five years. Since Microsoft crashed and all their ‘ware became freaking freeware. That’s when the whole thing with ‘free’ public infrastructure and shit happened.” Charlie chuckled, “Turns out all those crackers and net freaks that wanted free code weren’t so happy with the results when they got it. Ha, free costs double.” Charlie snapped out of his rant and looked back to Chris. “So, a coma, eh?”

“Afraid so. Thanks. Oh, and if anyone comes in here looking for me, PolCorp or anyone, I’m not here. OK?” Chris had no idea what Charlie talked about, but refused to let himself be daunted.

“Hey man. I ain’t gonna cover your ass.” A suspicious look crossed into Charlie’s eyes. “Who the hell are you anyway? I don’t need to …” The clerk trailed off as Chris slid five crisp hundred dollar bills across the counter.
It’s all business in this world. I have to hope that PolCorp isn’t offering more than this.
“When I check out, I’ll give you five-hundred more. That is, unless I’m smeared all over my room because you ratted me out. I don’t know, will PolCorp do clean up in a private establishment, or will you be the one scrubbing my guts off the walls? For some reason I don’t think she’ll do it—” Chris nodded toward the permanent fixture of the cleaning woman, dozing in front of the TV behind him, who let out a sharp laugh without opening her eyes before falling silent once more. “I like you Charlie, and I hate the thought of you having to waste your day picking through the bloody mess my guts would leave behind. I know that the next shift won’t do it either, seeing as how it was you that checked me in the first place.”

Charlie pocketed the money, swallowed hard, and pecked at his computer for a minute before smiling his brown smile at Chris. “Well, whaddya know. According to the hotel records here, you checked out an hour ago because of a problem with your plumbing. You must have been pissed—there was shit all over the room. Needed to close it for a week for cleaning. Ain’t nobody allowed in there now. Heh.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, what can I say? You’re a prudent man with lots of cash. As long as your money holds I’ll be your best fuckin’ friend.” He picked up his paper again and closed the conversation by opening it in front of him.

“That’s quite kind of you, but the room will do for now.” Chris started upstairs when he thought of something, and went back to the desk, refusing to leave Charlie alone till he’d gotten some more answers. “Won’t all of this show up in GeoCorp’s records?”

“Well, I guess it would if the Rangely was owned by GeoCorp.” Charlie smiled as he lowered the paper.

“You mean it’s not?”

“Nope.”

“I thought everything was owned by them.” Chris mulled this over. This significant little tidbit surprised him.

“Well, they own everything important, yeah,” Charlie shrugged. “I guess they figured a shitty hotel in the suburbs wasn’t worth the effort of buying it from my granddaddy, who didn’t want to sell.” The clerk inflated with pride at this and Chris realized that as long as he professed a dislike toward GeoCorp, he would have help.

“I have to be honest with you Charlie, I don’t like GeoCorp. I’m only working with them until I figure out how to strike out as an independent. I have to make sure that my tracks are well covered. So what about the hotel records? Can GeoCorp still get at them through the Net?”

“Heh,” Charlie smiled mischievously. “That’s the only good thing about working on a forty year old terminal. Nothing in the Cybernet uses Windows anymore, so it should be pretty hard to hack. Anyway, I issued you a full refund for the shit-filled room, which I will, of course, keep as a token of your good will,” Charlie gave Chris the first friendly smile he had seen from the mash-faced, bitter little man. “For years those GeoCorp assholes have muscled over the lowers like me and the people who live around here. You ain’t got nothing to worry about.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Chris said, glad to discover a tentative ally.

“Like I said, you got the cash, I’ll be your best fuckin’ friend.” Charlie leaned over the counter towards Chris. “Hey, you’re not even really with the Company, are you? I mean you say you’re using them to go independent, but that don’t smell much like the truth. Smells more like a bathroom after a bulimics’ convention.”

Chris smiled and slid more cash across the counter. “What do you think? Anyway, two thousand up front should be enough to keep you from asking too many questions … Just the business side of our friendship, right Charlie? Secrets are expensive.”

“Alright, alright. Fine, I won’t ask. Keep your money though. I’m serious about helping you. Remember, if you want talk, I’m here every night from—”

“I remember. Nine p.m. till nine a.m., and the rest of the time, besides.” He laughed; saying something like ‘I remember’ made Chris as happy as he’d been for two days. “I’ll see you in a while, Charlie. At least I hope I will.” As he walked towards the main lobby doors, Chris noticed that the clock above the door read eleven fifty-three p.m. The research would have to wait until the morning. Sighing, he turned around and headed back to his room.

Chris lay in the bed, but he didn’t sleep. He wasn’t tired.
After the twenty-one hours of sleep I got, I’ll be awake for a few days at least
¸ he thought to himself.

So instead he lay awake, staring at the water-stained brown ceiling and getting up to look out the window. The night’s fog lifted, and if he looked up while pressing his face against the cold glass, he could see the half-disk of the moon peering through the thin, yellow cloud cover.

The lights from Denver North, now revealed in all their glory, illuminated his room with an ethereal haze of blue, green, red, and yellow, overpowering the little table lamp and casting the illusion that the massive corporate billboards warred on his walls. Finally, Chris moved the room’s little table to a spot in front of the window, pulled out a wrinkled pad of Hotel Rangely stationary, and began to work out formulae.

He worked through everything he could recall about Aerospace Physics in attempts to understand what he had done in front of Jones Drugs. Every time he found a promising lead it required that he be able to do the impossible and personally generate an event horizon. Chris chuckled.
I don’t
feel
like a black hole.
He tried to find a line of reasoning that led in a different direction.

He pushed and pushed until finally it broke. His first line of reasoning was right. If he could generate an event horizon, he could theoretically stretch relativity to the point that he could achieve faster than light travel. And if he could travel faster than the speed of light, then theoretically—if he remained still on the three-dimensional axis and moved on the fourth—then he would be capable of doing what he had experienced.