This is the End 2(73)

“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 transmission 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.