I squinted at some brown splotches on the stainless steel. It was blood. If I went back to my car for my crime scene kit, I could have analyzed the sample on the spot, compared it to a hair sample from Aunt Zelda’s brush, and instantly matched the DNA, proving this blood was hers.
But why bother with that when I could actually see what happened here instead?
I took the tachyon emission visualizer off my shoulder and set it on the floor. The TEV sort of looked like an antique film projector. It was box-shaped, with a lens on the front, and two large spinning disks on the side. The top contained the control panel, recording software, and input pad. On the other side were the contrast dials. It had a handle on top, and a shoulder strap.
“Do you know your aunt’s Tesla ID number?” I asked. I could have used my own, but preferred to save the credits when I could.
“I have it written down. Hold on.” He dug a digital tablet out of his pocket and powered it on. “B-D-R-five-two-nine.”
I punched the code onto the keypad, and the TEV accessed the airborne electricity and powered on. Just ten years ago, electronic devices still needed to be plugged into wall outlets, fed by generators that used enormous power lines.
Now Tesla generators threw electrons into the atmosphere, which were zone-coded so customers paid for only what they used in their prezoned area, using specific serial ID numbers. It got rid of all the wires, making room for more plants. But the generators ran on biofuel, so I wondered exactly what we gained in the transition.
The TEV hummed. I picked it up by the handle and moved it onto the kitchen table, using the monitor to aim the lens at a wide-angle view of the sink. That was the rudimentary part. The next part was all finesse.
From what I understood, out of everyone who took TEV training, only .001 percent became a timecaster. It wasn’t that the controls were difficult to use. But the average person couldn’t use them well enough. My instructor likened it to playing a musical instrument. A lot of people could play the notes, but only a few could make those notes really come alive.
Tuning a TEV required a fair bit of skill, but a lot of intuition. The basic premise was kid stuff, taught in first grade science tablet texts. Until their actual discovery, tachyons were only theoretical particles. Their claim to fame was they moved faster than light. According to classic Einsteinian physics, anything that moved faster than light could go back in time. Einstein was proven correct, but time machines never materialized. Apparently it’s possible to send particles back in time, but not anything larger.
Some scientists warned against tachyon experiments, saying that they could rip holes in spacetime and create miniature black holes and wormholes. Others insisted that tachyons, if applied at a proper frequency, could travel back through spacetime and record it. The mathematicians still couldn’t figure out how it actually worked, but knew it had to do with the eighth imploded dimension.
The TEV, used properly, allowed a timecaster to set up in a certain vantage point, and then record everything that happened from that vantage point up to two weeks prior.
In layman’s terms, mankind now had a rewind button.
It altered how people behaved, and ultimately changed the world. Pretty much all crime could now be solved. The TEV could record the crime in progress. Even if the perpetrator cut out his chip, it was simply a question of following him backward in time, usually right to his house.
Within two years the jails—previously empty from back when all the drug-related offenders went free—were once again filled.
With the violent element removed, the USA became a much nicer place to live. Especially since the rest of society wised up. If, at any given moment, you knew your actions could be recorded, you tended to not break any laws. And legal drugs meant even crimes of passion were kept to a minimum.
Eighteen years ago, when I became a peace officer, there had been more than thirty timecasters in Chicago. We were now down to two on the payroll.
Virulence wasn’t good for diseases. A highly contagious, highly lethal virus was so efficient that it would rip through a population, killing all the hosts, and then dying itself. The same thing with timecasters. We were so effective, we put ourselves out of business.
“Can I watch?” Neil asked, peering over my shoulder.
“Only if you stay quiet.”
I pressed the emitter start switch, and the generator reels began to turn. As they gathered tachyons, they did a disconcerting thing. For brief flashes, lasting a few microseconds, the rotating wheels would disappear. This made them flicker, like jump cuts in an old movie.
“Whoa,” Neil said.
“Shh.”
I closed my eyes, listening to the room, to the hum of the TEV, and to spacetime itself.