This is the End 2(68)
I turned on Teague’s TEV and closed my eyes, allowing instinct to take over. My breathing slowed. My mind opened. I both focused and spaced out, quickly locating the eighth dimension. Once I did, it took only a minute to tune in to the octeract point. I mentally pet the bunny, giving the fabric of spacetime a little tickle between the ears, and then stared at the monitor. This time, the colors were correct. I was timecasting in our universe.
I panned around the kitchen, but the room was empty. A close-up of the countertop found it free of bloodstains, so I must have tuned in to before the murder. I began to wander the house, searching for Aunt Zelda. No one was home. I fast-forwarded, keeping the lens on the front door, letting it play normally when it opened.
Aunt Zelda came in, carrying a bag of groceries. She closed the door behind her, then glanced in the hallway mirror and checked her hair. It was such a candid, human gesture that I felt my heart sink. All I knew about this woman was that she used to be the man who invented uffsee, and she had a psychotic dissy nephew. Seeing her as a person was disconcerting, especially since I knew what was coming up.
She brought the bag to the kitchen, and loaded some fruit into the refrigerator. Then she opened the kitchen closet and a man stepped out and grabbed her throat.
The move was so sudden, so unexpected and violent, both Aunt Zelda and I gasped. The man was dressed head to toe in black, including gloves. Medium height, heavy build. His face was hidden behind a celebrity veil. These were a result of the Paparazzi Massacre of 2054, when a cadre of celebrities allegedly hired a hit squad to wipe out forty-seven known photographer-stalkers. The violence ended when an inventor released celebrity veils—one-way fabric that attached to a hat and draped over the face, completely obscuring identity. Celebrity invasion of privacy dwindled to zero, as paparazzi had no way of proving who was in their photos.
The celebrity veil this killer wore had a yellow circle on it, with an emoticon smiley :) printed on the fabric. There was no way to see his face.
I watched as he pulled Aunt Zelda to the sink, easily overpowering her. The rest of the scene played out as it had in the alternate universe. Aunt Zelda’s head was slammed into the sink three times, then twisted around 180 degrees.
I paused the action, noting that Neil was watching over my shoulder.
“I told you I didn’t do it,” I said.
He sniffled. “That’s you in a mask.”
I switched to electromagnetic radiation resolution, and zoomed in on the killer’s arm to read his chip ID.
His chip wasn’t there. Instead, there was a round, black disk.
“WTF?”
He was hiding his chip somehow. Which was impossible. There was no technology able to do that.
But then, there was no technology able to allow time-casting in parallel universes, either.
I fast-forwarded, wincing as he jammed a prism ball down Aunt Zelda’s throat, cut out and nuked her chip, and stuffed her in the fridge. Then he did something odd. He took another celebrity veil out of his pocket and placed it on top of the refrigerator.
I paused the transmission and reached for the veil. It had an emoticon frowny face :( on the front. Why leave it there? I did a quick scan of it with my DT. No fingerprints.
No DNA. It was just a normal mask. I shoved it into my utility belt.
I unpaused the TEV and followed the killer to the front door, where he rigged the lock mechanism, allowing Neil’s chip to open it. Then I tagged along as he walked into the hallway and caught the elevator. This time, he didn’t vanish into thin air. He hopped into the lift and went down.
I rewound, going back two hours, and found him when he arrived, still wearing the celebrity veil. I let it play, watching him walk to Aunt Zelda’s door, open it with a smart magnet, and then hide in the kitchen closet.
I had two courses of action. I could follow him to see where he went next, or I could follow him backward and see where he came from. He’d have to take off the veil eventually.
The problem was, I might have to track him for hours in either direction before he revealed his face.
I yawned, fatigue catching up with me. I needed food, and sleep. Much as I wanted to chase this bastard right now, my body was close to shutting down. I padded back into the apartment, and found my way into the bathroom. I located some sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet. I dumped three onto my hand, plus three Valium, some THC, and, just for fun, three Estrolux pills. The Estrolux temporarily increased breast size.
Neil was still in the kitchen, eyeing me like a cat when a dog came into the room. I walked past him, reaching into the cabinet, taking Aunt Zelda’s bottle of contraband rum.
I located a glass and filled it halfway. It smelled like biodiesel.