Timecaster (30 page)

I squeezed, trying to rip out his trachea. Sata made a wonderful gagging sound, his whole body shaking, and I concentrated on putting all of my effort into strangling the son of a bitch.

Then I noticed the rhythmic motion to his shakes, and how his gagging sounded, in fact, like something else.

Sata was laughing.

I brought back my hand, ready to pound his nose again. Sata jackknifed his body and the next thing I knew I was pinned under one of his feet, the tip of his
shinai
jammed into my mouth and pressing against my very terrified tongue.

“That was it?” Sata asked, still giggling. “That was all? Such a disappointment you’ve been, Talon-
kun
. All your years of training and experience, all leading up to this very moment, and that was your best effort?” He wiped a sleeve across his nose. “It was like being hit by a child.”

“Mmmph mmnmgm,” I said. That was
fuck you
with a sword in my mouth.

I braced myself for the zap, but instead he withdrew the
shinai
and punted me in the ribs. As I floated away, Sata touched the sword tip to the jelly rope, zapping and severing it.

“Enjoy watching Chicago disappear,” he said.

Then Sata walked into the air lock and closed the doors behind him as I drifted off, unable to do anything but watch.

I cursed myself for taking out the Nife too early. Now was when I needed it most. Instead, it was floating around in the lift somewhere, and the lift was fifty yards down the hallway, which might as well have been a thousand miles away. I flailed my arms, trying to swim through the air, with predictably pathetic results.

Momentum was taking me toward the large picture window, but too slowly. At this rate, Chicago’s entire population would be eaten by dinosaurs before I even got halfway there. I looked out the reinforced glass, at the hotels and casinos tethered to the space station, their flashing neon out of place in this environment. Once Chicago disappeared, the tether would, too. Thirty thousand more people I wouldn’t be able to save. If there were an award for the world’s biggest loser, I wouldn’t win that, either.

I’d blown it. Big-time. If I only had some antigrav shoes, or a jet pack.

A flashing billboard on the Hyatt showed an advertisement for a synthetic heroin, with ipecac nanobots in case of accidental overdose. Then it switched to an ad for FDS, now in key-lime-pie scent.

FDS. Feminine deodorant spray.

I quickly pulled the aerosol can from my shirt and gave it a shake. Still a little left. I sprayed the remaining contents behind me. There was enough accelerant left to boost my speed and change my direction. I held the button down until the can was empty, sailing through the air, toward the elevator.

Paranoia kicked in once I entered the lift car. I didn’t see the Nife. If I flew into it, I could easily cut off a limb. Or worse; I could bump the Nife, and it could stick into the wall and breach the hull, which would cause the car, and possibly the space station, to lose pressure and get crushed.

I opened my eyes wide as they could stretch, looking this way and that way, trying to spot the Nife handle. Scanning the rows of seats, I noticed something floating near the floor. I kicked the ceiling, giving myself a tiny bit of push to get a closer look.

The object was the headrest Sata had knocked off. I pushed myself off a chair, reached the rear of the car, and twisted around, wondering if I should go left or right.

Where was it? Where was the little bastard? Why did I have to pull it out? Why couldn’t I have—

Then I felt it. A tiny tickling at my throat.

My whole body went rigid. Holding my breath, I glanced down my right cheek and saw the Nife handle, floating alongside my neck.

Had the blade already severed my throat? Was I already dead and didn’t feel it yet?

I watched, waiting for the blood to come spurting out.

No blood came. But that was hardly reassuring. The Nife could be jammed in so deep it was plugging up the blood.

Carefully—oh, so carefully—I raised my left hand and touched the end of the handle with my thumb and index finger, careful not to nudge it any closer to my skin. I waited a moment, making sure my hand was steady, and then slowly pulled it away, like I was playing HyperJenga and the tower was ready to fall. When I got a safe distance I slapped my other hand up to my throat, expecting to feel the inside of my trachea.

I had a small scratch, nothing more.

Breathing again, I carefully sheathed the Nife, and then sighted down the hallway. Coiling my legs under me, I kicked off the wall and headed for the air lock. My trajectory was slightly off, so I made a slight correction by throwing the empty can to my left.

I was almost halfway there when more security guards showed up.

There’s no feeling of vulnerability that quite compares to floating in zero-G. There’s a sense of detachment when you leave solid ground, making you feel helpless. I can testify this emotion intensifies when four guys point Tasers at you. I covered my face with my forearms and they had at me, firing round after round, Tesla lightning attacking the entire right side of my body.

While my armor and food preservative wrap protected me from the volts, the impact of the bullets was significant enough to knock me off course, and I eventually butted up against the picture window, glancing at an ad for McDonald’s extra-value meals, now only $79.95.

“Our Tasers have no effect!” one of the cops yelled.

No shit, Einstein.

“The man you’re after is in the air lock!” I yelled above the crackling of electricity.

Instead of answering, they fired more bullets at me. I kept covered up, staring out of the corner of my eye at the earth two hundred miles below me, wondering how long Chicago had left.

I wondered if I could just wait for them to run out of ammo. How much could they have, anyway?

The billboard changed.
Tired of faking orgasms? Get the LLVV package now at the Chicago Sexual Center.

“Thank you,” I said to the billboard.

I began to convulse, faking being hit. They stopped firing and watched me. Eventually they turned off the power. I remained limp, my mouth hanging open, hoping they didn’t take the opportunity to shoot me in my exposed skin.

“Is he dead?”

“I dunno. Go check.”

“You go check.”

“No, you.”

“You assholes. I’ll check.”

Mr. Tough Guy walked over. When he reached to take my pulse, I decided to give the groin shot one last try, and lashed out with a vicious punch to his manly man bits. He squealed, bringing up the Taser. I used him as a human shield, putting my finger over his on the trigger, shooting his three buddies and turning the final bullet on his leg. I let all four do the lightning dance for a few seconds, then cut the power on his utility belt.

It took me a minute to tug off my own shoes and put on his magnetic soles. By the time I made it to the air lock, I looked through the glass in the door and saw Sata had already suited up into his skydiving outfit. The TEV had been bonded to a window overlooking the earth. The digital display read 14:45 and was ticking down the seconds.

Sata saw me standing there and walked up to the door. He hit the comm-link button.

“I thought you’d run off. You have about fourteen and a half minutes left. After I jump out of the air lock, the outside door will automatically close. I have a suit for you in the locker there. If I were you, I’d put it on and follow me. The controls are on the wristband. Or you’re welcome to stay up here and watch Chicago disappear. But when the TEV goes off, the wormhole will also transport the window it’s attached to, and you’ll be sucked into space. And don’t bother trying to remove the TEV. I mollybonded it to the reinforced glass.” He smiled at me. “Good-bye, Talon. See you in Milwaukee, if you survive the jump.”

He stuck his helmet onto his head, flipped down his visor, and then hit the hatch button. The outer door opened up, and Sata was shot out into open space, waving to me as he left.

Thirty seconds later the hatch closed, and I entered the same door code he’d used earlier. I raced right up to the TEV, drawing out my Nife. This was the reason I hadn’t used the blade earlier—I needed it to destroy the TEV.

I slashed out.

The Nife bounced off.

I tried again, applying more pressure.

The blade wouldn’t penetrate the TEV at all.

“Shit. The cover is made of nanotubes.”

Naturally, the only thing a nanotube knife couldn’t cut was something made out of the same material. Carbon nanotubes were created in factory labs, put together one molecule at a time. They couldn’t be cut. They were made to order in whatever shape the buyer desired. I wouldn’t be able to damage the TEV with anything less than a nuclear explosion.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t move it.

If I cut the TEV away from the window, I could turn it toward empty space. Then Chicago wouldn’t implode.

With less than thirteen minutes left, I ran to the locker and took out the space suit Sata had left for me. The material was stiff, hard to put on, and the side zipper was the thickest I’d ever seen. The boots were part of the suit, and they fit perfectly—Sata must have been anticipating this for quite some time. Once I made sure all the flaps were sealed, I popped on the helmet and fixed it to the collar.

Then I went back to the TEV, examining how it was attached. Sata had mollybonded it to the window. If I carefully sliced along the seam, I should be able to remove the TEV without breaking through the glass and sucking me out into space. It shouldn’t be too hard. The glass used in space stations was reinforced, several inches thick. As long as I didn’t make any colossal screwups, I should be able to get it off in time.

I placed the flat of the blade against the window, just as the air lock door opened up behind me and more cops flooded in.

They opened fire. But Sata’s suit—made to withstand both the heat of reentry and a free fall through the Tesla field—weathered the barrage fine. I concentrated on making my cut slow and even, avoiding too much pressure, following the edge of the TEV.

Two inches away from finishing, some brain donor tackled me, jamming my elbow.

The Nife went right through the window, which then exploded outward, causing me, the TEV, and all the cops in the room to get pulled into the cold black void of space.

FORTY-EIGHT

When I was a kid, staring up at the sky and wishing I could be an astrominer and work on the moon, I always imagined my first spacewalk would instill me with wonder and awe. And I might have felt some wonder and awe as I hurtled away from the space station if I hadn’t been screaming so loud it fogged up my visor.

I managed to get the screaming under control after only forty-seven seconds. That allowed the suit’s internal rebreather to clear my visor and let me see the earth, in all of its enormous blue-green glory, as I hurtled toward it untethered through unforgiving space.

That caused another round of screaming, which I got under control much quicker than the first bout. After my visor cleared, I took some stock of my surroundings and noticed the idiot who tackled me still had his arms around my waist. I tried to pull them off, but they’d frozen solid, two blocks of flesh-colored ice. Incredibly, I’d kept hold of the Nife. I made a cut in each of his elbows—not so deep I went completely through and breached my suit—and then was able to break off his arms and send him off into the void.

I turned and watched him float away. He joined six other cops, each frozen in tragic yet semicomical positions, one guy actually holding his mouth in surprise, another in midrun like he could still get away.

The space station was a hundred yards behind me, and I continued to fly farther away from it. I swallowed, my heart in my throat. The feeling of helplessness that zero-G induced was child’s play to actually being out in space, unattached to anything. It was like being dropped in the middle of the ocean with no hope of rescue.

I looked ahead, and saw the TEV only a few feet away, drifting lazily through the vacuum, its prismatic surface flashing various colors. The clock on the back read 9:42, and was still counting down. I had no idea how Sata focused the wormhole. Was it aimed at Chicago based on line of sight and trajectory, or did he program in specific coordinates? I knew only that the TEV was still pointed at the earth, and that couldn’t be good. If it didn’t implode Chicago, there were plenty of other habitable places it could devastate.

I had to get hold of that device.

Compartmentalizing my fear to deal with it later, I stared at the buttons on my wristband. Sata had mentioned the suit had a propulsion device. There were five buttons total, each large enough to press with my gloved finger, each with printing beneath. I switched the Nife to my bad hand and raised the wrist closer to my face so I could read. It glowed in the dark—helpful, because even with my interior helmet lamp and the light reflecting off the earth, it was dark as night out there. The five numbered words were:

1. THRUST

2. DROGUE

3. ROGALLO

4. IONIZER

5. CRUCIFORM

Of the three, the only word I understood was
thrust
. And since it was numbered “1,” I decided to press it.

Immediately, I heard a hissing sound in my helmet, and my legs shot up and sent me spinning ass over head. As I twirled, I saw a white gas jetting out of the heels of my boots. I brought my knees into my chest and began to spin even faster. While the absence of gravity prevented my inner ear from jostling and causing dizziness, the effect was still very disorienting and more than a little scary. Before I hit a hundred rpm I splayed out my legs, switching from rotation to a single direction. It took a minute to figure out how to move my feet in order to fly straight. I also learned Sata had built speed controls into the soles. Lifting my toes slowed down the jets, and pointing them downward sped them up.