Darwin’s dream.
The dream was so ponderous and so vivid in its nature, it rendered me speechless on awakening. A cavernous dread has taken hold of me and I feel compelled to write this down, for posterity.
In my dream I was still asleep when a gloomy shadow passes over me. The air feels heavier, an atmospheric weight descending like a heavy mist on a barren land and from the darkness of the night I hear my name being whispered in a deep baritone forcing me to wake up from my slumber.
It felt so real. I was in my bed, in my room, with my dear wife sleeping soundly by my side. The window was ajar, and I could feel the soft cool of night air on my skin. A fly had snuck through the lace curtains and I
could even hear the background hum of its buzz.
Yet the dream was also absurd, as a strange young man sat on the end of bed.
His eyes were piercingly alert, his face was framed with an oddly shaped moustache. He wore a soldier’s uniform with insignia I had never seen before but the thing that struck me most was his striking persona. He was redoubtable, self-possessed, confident to the point of arrogance with a glint in his eye that unnerved me even in my dreamlike state. His back was straight, he sat rigid, his jaw firm. His whole demeanour radiated a nefarious intent and I had a strong sense that this man was real. Instinctively, I knew he was dangerous but of what and why I couldn’t say- it was, after all, only a dream.
“Doctor Charles,” He said as I roused from slumber. His voice was faint yet distinct. Though barely a whisper I could still detect a heavy Germanic accent.
“Doctor Charles Darwin?”
“That is I.” I croaked, pulling myself upright. My dear wife Emma stirred but her sleep remained heavy. “And may I ask your name?”
I was aware these circumstances were extraordinary, otherwise I would have screamed out at the intruder in my home, as it was, I embraced the abstract nature of proceedings and allowed my curiosity to take reign over fear.
“You don’t know me,” He replied, with half a smile. “But I know you. In fact, I am a great admirer of your work. I like to think we are comrades. United in belief.”
“You are a scientist?” I asked hopeful, yet nothing about this man’s character indicated a man of science.
“No. I am a leader. I have great scientists work for me.” He was very economical and precise in his speech, enunciating each word carefully. “In fact, I told my scientists that I am a follower of your work. My yearning fantasy is to speak with you- the greatest scientist of our time Charles Darwin- and my scientists in their zeal to please me, find a way. This is how we can meet. Only through dreams.”
“I see.” I say (although I don’t see at all). It’s apparent I was speaking to a madman but as I scientist I was intrigued.
“You see I belong to a different time and in my time- I continue your work. The Natural selection of mankind.”
“You have read my book- The origin of Species?”
“Oh yes. You are a freethinker as I am. I too believe in survival of the fittest, and racial hygiene. In my time, we call it eugenics and social Darwinism- we named it after you.”
“How intruiging.”
“My country has also embraced our ideologies. We are cleansing our race as we speak.”
“Cleansing?”
“Yes. The dissidents, the feeble-minded, the degenerates , the deaf, the blind, the Jews and homosexuals- all will be wiped out from our land. Exterminated. We will breed a superior race and soon the world will evolve at a rate previously unknown.”
A deep and morbid fear overtakes me.
I am speechless. I am sickened to the core. I am horrified at the mere thought and the casual fashion in which he mentioned of such atrocities; disgusted that a human being could think this way and speak to me as if I too share these perversions. My thoughts mimic the panic-stricken fly in the room: darting around in a haphazard manner, desperate to comprehend its predicament. Is it possible that someone could conceive these ideas from my theories?
“But..but my work focuses on plant life and animals,” I eventually stutter, unable to get my words out fast enough. “Humans are more evolved. We operate with an expanded law of nature. Love. Compassion. Don’t you believe that?”
The man doesn’t answer. He tightens his jaw. His eyes narrow like dark pits and peer into my own. A flick of his eyebrows and a slight pursing of the lips tells me he is disappointed with my response.
“What is your name?” I growl, surprising myself as my voice is louder now, like rolling thunder, anger bursting through my genial surface - even in my dream I am incensed that my life’s work can be twisted and misconstrued to this extent . “Tell me your name!” I shout when he ignores the question.
He stands and links hands behind his back. He is calm but his face darkens as he nears me and I detect something akin to murderous intent.
“My people call me “Mein Fuhrer”.”
---
I wake abruptly- thankfully. But the dream has left me alarmed and distressed to say the least.
A sense of foreboding follows me by day and I am reluctant to sleep again at night. I fear for the future. I fear my theories could ignite such a diabolical fire. I must expand upon my work. I must emphasize a moral sensitivity, mutual aid and the noble nature of mankind.
A determination like lightning empowers me, I will not rest. To this end, I have started new research and will compose a new book.
I shall call it “The descent of Man.”
Valley of the Seahorses.
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour “
-William Blake
I took the serum, Nancy. You told me not to, but I did. You know me- ever the rebel.
I couldn’t bear the thought of the answer to all my questions, to my life-long research and years of toil, just stagnating in a vial in a lab, with no-one to test its efficacy. It would be a crime against humanity, a disservice to posterity, I reasoned. So one night, I crept into my own lab, like a thief in the night- even though it was my own lab and I had security clearance- and I injected the formula into my pre-frontal cortex.
I was foolish. I was naïve . I was damned naïve fool.
Needless to say: the serum works. It works too well. The human brain can now perceive different alternate realties that it would usually through a complex process of quantum mechanics, filter out and discard. Every second, every choice we make, every action, even the seemingly insignificant ones, lead to different destinations, like branches forking off from a tree. Now I can follow them and explore them all Nancy. I need not worry about “the road not taken.”
You won’t believe this but so far I have lived in 470 realities and counting. Every time I go to sleep I awaken in another version of myself. Dreams are the entrance way. They open the door to a widened perception and my serum keeps the door open, wide enough for a person to enter through and experience it whole.
Only the door never closes Nancy. It opened out to infinity and I have no idea how to shut it again.
You were right- we could synthesize a chemical compound using the Mandelbrot set equations. You always said, mathematics was the universe’s base code, the underlying pattern and chemistry was about weaving the fabric.
Remember the first night we met? After the conference, stranded in a hotel as the a storm raged outside? We talked for hours. First in the restaurant, then the bar, then my hotel room...
We talked about anything and everything. I still remember the passion in your eyes and the heat in your voice as we argued about Mandelbrot fractals. I loved how you described the awe of infinity , the beauty and elegance of mathematical patterns that could go on forever. Your favourite iteration was the Valley of the Seahorses- I remember that well because I googled the patterns afterwards (math was never my forte) little did I know I would be tumbling through it just a few months later.
You quoted a William Blake poem that night, with tears pooling in your eyes, and I recall taking a breath because I knew I was falling for you. Even though we had only just met and love was a notion so alien to me then -I knew I wanted to spend my life with you. But I was all science wasn’t I? Lived and breathed it, rarely found time for anything else much less a relationship.
I was wrong Nancy. I have lived so many different realities that I have drifted into the realm of madness. I can’t recall which one is which , they all blend together like living Jackson Pollock painting. But there’s one thing that I’m absolutely certain of: I only love the versions of reality with you in it.
And no matter how many choices I make and how many different lives I lead, I can never repeat that night in the hotel.
I have to explain myself. I have to write this down otherwise I will lose my true self completely, but I feel like a ghost, a fraudulent copy, an attenuated version of me . I float from one existence to another, unmoored, with no direction or purpose. Until last week when I heard that William Blake poem again in a podcast and I silently broke into pieces, crying under damp bedsheets like a new-born for two straight hours.
I tried to kill myself that night Nancy. I had hoped it would be some sort of reset switch. But I just awoke in a divergent timeline. I tried several times since then in actual fact. I have drowned myself at sea, I have thrown myself off a skyscraper, even laid down on train tracks only to wake up in a different reality, living as a train driver, desperately trying to hit the brakes before I hit a body on the tracks. It was insanity on a Mandelbrot loop.
That’s when I came to an epiphany. Well, more like an educated guess , but it was my anchor, something I could grab hold of ,something to guide me back to dry land and back to you.
Hopefully.
You see my serum opened up the brain’s perception to space: multiple realities, multiple locations, divergent points in the universe etc. But what if it could be applied to Time?
If I could alter the equation and chemical compound to include the recursion of time- there may be a possibility I could experience a different past.
A past where, or more accurately, when- I didn’t take the serum. When I stayed at home, enjoyed dinner, snuggled on the sofa and watched you sleep instead.
So calculated and I developed and on another stormy night, which I saw as a benevolent omen, I injected the modified serum into my brain. Now that’s when Alice careered down the rabbit hole and disappeared forever.
All paths, past and present became like an open map to me. I could see it all. I could see where each branch splintered ,where each fork in the path led. I could choose my destination like ordering from a menu and appear there- alive and present- but just outside of my own body. I was in the ether. The astral field. Nirvana.
I felt God-like, superhuman, existing in a heightened, spiritual form and once again you were right- you always said “spirituality was just science we couldn’t understand yet.”
Well, I understand it now.
And thanks be to God , I found the version of me that led to you.
I saw myself six months ago, sleeping sweetly in that same hotel, after the first day of the conference. Unaware in blissful ignorance that not only would I meet the love of my life, of all my lives, the very next day, that I would also lose her a few months later, purely due to my own hubris. I wanted to shake him awake, to explain everything, to slap him in his arrogant face and scream don’t do it!
However, my theory included more drastic, more violent, measures.
I had to chop down the tree, as it were, before the branches splintered off , to cut if off right at the stem. Ergo, I would have to kill that version of me in order to reset completely. I didn’t know if this would work, it was all theoretical , all complete guesswork but the scientist in me reigned supreme and I knew I had to see it through.
The problem was, just as I was about to execute my plan, the curtain twitched. A dark silhouette formed at the window. The frame creaked and windowpane slowly rose- revealing a murky human form, which quietly climbed its way through into the room. I belatedly realised not only was it was a person but it was someone familiar to me, as I recognised the minutiae of movement.
With burgeoning clarity, I realised that person was me.
Another version of me.
He turned and looked directly at my “out of body” self. His eyes crazed, hair matted, lips cracked. He was an emaciated, shrunken, shell of a man and I knew that version of me had been to the nine circles of Dante’s hell and somehow back again, just to get here.
I mercifully hadn’t experienced his reality….yet… and just as I was about to attempt shouting, he swiftly lifted an axe, swung it with all his might and chopped down the tree trunk- killing the original version of me in my sleep.
It worked Nancy.
All versions of me coalesced! Right there and then in that hotel room. A gigantic wave of memories, experiences, emotions from hundreds of timelines engulfed me and I was so overcome, so overwhelmed and euphoric that I danced with the bloodied axe.
The serum worked and I had come back from the depths of infinity. It was a scientific marvel, a paradigm-shifting creation, I could chemically change the course of human history!
Unfortunately the police didn’t see it that way. They didn’t accept my explanation.
So, now I sit in this high-security institution ,imprisoned in a padded cell, staring at four white walls and I’m begging for your help Nancy. Please visit me. Please bring all my work from my lab.Help me tell my story Nancy.
Tell them about our night in the hotel waiting out a storm. Tell them all about the Mandelbrot set and the Valley of the Seahorses. Show them my serum. Only you hold the key.
Please come quickly. I need you Nancy.
Yours
eternally.
Two-faced
I'm not sure if this is real, I just heard it somewhere. A parent was walking along with his young son and happened to bump into a neighbour. The little boy kept staring at the neighbour and tried to look at the back of the neighbour's head. The neighbour was perplexed and asked the young boy "Are you OK little one?Is something wrong?"
The little boy frowned and replied: "My dad said you have two faces but I can't see the other one."
Snowflakes ?
When you swap security for expediency, and there’s no such thing as ‘a job for life’...
When you swap strong families for quick pleasure, to go cheating around on your wife...
When you pursue money at the harm of nature, and the climate starts to change...
When you swap greed for integrity, then moral codes start to misarrange...
When you swap stability for convenience, bedrocks for community start to disband...
It’s no wonder our young ones are fragile, it’s a shaky foundation for them to stand.
They arrived suddenly.
They appeared overnight. They say evolution progresses in cycles and macroevolution can make great, paradigm- shifting leaps when powered by the energy cycles of the sun and the alignment of Saturn. That’s why it seemed so sudden to us on land, but beneath the dark depths of the world’s oceans, giant octopuses had been silently growing ,mutating and evolving for thousands of years, veiled by the murky microcosms of the seas.
Until one day, they surfaced.
It was a Tuesday, I remember, and I was leaving the house early to head off to work. It was a rainy, dull and dreary day but the sun had just peaked over the horizon of the Bristol harbour casting a warm orange glow and I started the car in its dim light.
I drove along the main road which ran parallel along the shore, enjoying the early morning view.
But then I saw them and I just stopped the car dead, right there in the left-hand lane.
I couldn’t process what I was seeing at first. I sat frozen in the driver’s seat, with the windscreen wipers squeaking back and forth, believing I must still be sleeping and any minute now I’d wake up with the startling realization that it was all a dream.
But it wasn’t. Instead a new, weird reality played out and I got out of the car enraptured in awe.
A giant octopus had risen out of the inky waters and started to walk , eerily up to the beach. It was upright. It was roughly ten feet tall. Its eight, long, jelly-like legs, supported its huge dome-like body and it looked more like a monolithic alien creature from the outer rims of space than anything from earth. It moved silently. Floating almost, as its tentacles gracefully stepped along the sand, in a crab-like motion.
More followed, one by one they inched out of the sea.
Their eyes were black, their skin a translucent grey, and the suckers on each leg were the size of plates. The sight was both horrifying and beautiful. I was mesmerized. I was witnessing the genesis of a new species; the result of millions of years of unfolding nature, a terrifying demonstration of the power of change.
Passing cars slowed and pulled up, some crashing in shock. People came out of their homes, mouths agape, to watch- many filming on their phones as hundreds of huge walking octopuses filled the Bristol shoreline.
Then, a rustling sound. The waters got more and more agitated as something even larger emerged from the murky depths: The Queen.
She was double the size. Gigantic in proportions. Her grey and pink body glistened in the morning light. Her legs stretched out , as her stature towered against the gloomy seascape.
Suddenly, a watery high-pitched roar filled the cold morning air and they all joined in unison.
I had never heard a sound like it before:
a cacophony of piercing aquatic cries.
That’s when they started to run...
Just one thing.
All you need is
one ray of light
to help you see
more clearly.
All you need is
one smile from a stranger
to help you walk
more lightly.
All you need
is the laugh from one baby
to put a smile
on your face.
All you need
is one cheer from a friend
to help you
finish the race.
All you need is
one cup of coffee
to help you
through your day.
So look out for that thing,
that one small thing
and you’ll always be okay.
The anomaly.
I’m dreaming about a one-armed man when the call comes through. I suffer with night terrors now and then, so in my panicked and dreamlike state I lash out, punching my pillow with force. It’s a good job I sleep alone. The ringing, direct in my eardrum, finally coaxes me out of my REM cycle and wakes me from my much-needed sleep. I hate it when they override my ear implant like that. It’s only for emergencies they say but what exactly constitutes an emergency? The fine print in my employment contract doesn’t say. Being awake is jarring and takes me a while to adjust to the state of forced consciousness. Not for the first time, I regret having the biotech upgrades in my body.
I tap my inner ear and answer the call uttering a groaned “Sir?” by way of greeting, my voice still husky from slumber.
“Mike. We need you in. Now.”
“What’s happened?”
“Internal Affairs.”
It’s a struggle to leave the warm cocoon of my bed but I emerge victorious, aching and yawning, and get changed. My whole body screams go back to bed, not only because my sleep was rudely interrupted but also my recent case has been so physically taxing. I need a break, a nice long vacation to somewhere warm with beaches and alcohol. I’m 32 and I’m honestly getting too old for this.
But, thankfully I don’t have to commute; work meetings are usually conducted virtually from a secure server set up at home, so on sleep-deprived auto-pilot I log in to my work terminal , open up my work database and enter a video conference with my boss within 10 minutes, wielding a strong cup of coffee at my side like a firearm. It’s 4am and the sun is just starting to rise over the hilly landscape of Northern California, casting an eerie amber tinge to my apartment. The ominous golden glow sets the tone for the virtual meeting, where there are two other government officials waiting. Internal Affairs, I assume although I’ve never seen these guys before. They both don dull grey suits and serious authoritative expressions. The mood is sombre and I know my usual wisecracks about dragging me out of bed wouldn’t be well received right now.
“Morning Mr Knokes,” One of the government officials begins by introducing himself in a monotone voice and immediately takes charge of proceedings. My boss is nowhere to be seen; his camera is turned off, so it appears I’m left fending for myself. “We are the Internal Affairs Committee of Behaviours and Affairs to the Precrime Department. My name is Officer Carlo.”
It’s a mouthful of a job title which I didn’t really listen to, but I know it indicates that they mean business. Officer Carlo, is dark-haired, possibly of Italian descent but in our video meeting his features appear even darker, the screen emits a strange grey-coloured miasma and his shadowy eyes peer into the screen like inky pits. Intimidation tactics still working well in a virtual setting, I note.
“How can I help you Officer Carlo?” I offer. In my nervous state ,my tone is smug and slightly unctuous, so I take a deep breath and silently tell myself to act normal.
“We are opening an investigation into your current time-centric assignment in California.” Officer Carlo replies, reading from a script verbatim. “And it would be in your best interests to answer a few questions pertinent to our investigation. In accord with your departmental policies you can request a union representative to sit in with you during this discussion.”
He has the cold, rigid, emotionally detached manner of an interrogator down to a tee. The condescending, somewhat nasal tone of voice; the passive-aggressive nuances where he says one thing but means another, the pen poised to write notes just to unnerve me. It’s all part of the dance. I know full well I have the right for my union rep, but we both know he’d be making a black mark in my file somewhere if I use one.
“It’s okay, I’m fine.” I say confidently which is a lie. I’m not fine and I’m not okay. This case has been the bane of my life for the last few months; an operational nightmare and sooner or later it was going to come back and bite me. Well today’s the day.
“Let the record reflect, union representation was declined. Can you confirm your name and job title, for the record?”
“My name is Mike Knokes ,Time Protection Officer of the 24th Precrime Division based in California.”
“And could you briefly summarize the nature of your work as Time Protection Officer?.”
“Of course.” I speak clearly and concisely.
“ As a Time Protection Officer , we use Precrime databases to look for and detect possible serious and major crimes . Using newly-developed Time Travel technologies we can eliminate these threats before they occur, by eliminating the potential suspect. Our division currently operate on a 99% efficiency rating.”
I know, through video capture tools I’m also being analyzed in real time for facial tics, speech patterns, anything that could give away liars and cheaters of the system. I am neither but is still disarming to be under the microscope like this; especially first thing in the morning and without breakfast.
Officer Carlo pauses to take notes. “Thank you. Now moving on to your current case. The Precrime suspect is a potential serial killer, is that correct?”
“That’s correct. Our Precrime database spotted a potential serial killer in serious 1 category, who could potentially go on to kill over 50 innocent people.”
“According to the file your first suspect for this serial killer was one: Michael Renard?”
“Yes. Our data analysis led us to this suspect with a 97% match.”
“And you jumped to his timeline -to the date July 4 2010 to perform the first assassination of the case, as authorized by your superior Jerry West correct?”
“Yes . We wanted to eliminate the suspect before he committed his first crime: a house robbery, from which his crimes would escalate.”
“And he was killed in a drive-by shooting?”
“Those were my parameters. We pinpointed a date and time he would be alone. I used a BTT dated weapon, a 9mm, to ensure the authorities in that timeline would conclude the crime was OTT.”
“For the record. BTT means Before Time Travel and OTT means Of That Timeline.” Officer Carlo turns slightly to the side at this point, speaking to someone off-camera . It’s apparent that other members of the committee are listening in on this call. I’m being interrogated, analyzed and broadcast in one fell swoop as if they’ve already got their guy and I wonder if it’s too late for my union rep, or perhaps even a lawyer. “And if I can ask you Mr Knokes to refrain from using acronyms here on out and be as clear as possible with your terminology.”
“No problem.” I reply taking a sip of coffee that turns into a gulp. I’m starting to perspire and I come to the sobering realization that my job and future career is on the line at this moment. Where the hell was my boss Jerry? Did he just feed me to the proverbial wolves and run?
“Now after that first authorized assassination- that should have been the end to your assignment, isn’t that right?”
“Yes once a potential suspect is eliminated, it’s usually case closed and we then focus on watching potential victims as a precaution.”
“But in this case, could you please explain to the committee what occurred next?”
My throat is dry and my hands are damp. I take another sip of coffee, clear my throat and try to keep my response clear and concise. “Approximately 30 days later we discovered an anomaly with the data sets. Another suspect for the same future crimes was named , a Mr Brian Hart, again with a 90% match. It’s never happened before I believe, so my team and I convened an emergency meeting and formulated a risk assessment.”
“What did that risk assessment show?”
“That if we performed a second assassination we would still be in the positive for the danger -to -life ratio and would still be performing a service to the public. In other words, the collateral damage of the mistaken identity was deemed acceptable against the protection of lives metric. A second assassination would be within our parameters.”
“So the second assassination was authorized. How was this performed Mr Knokes?”
“The assassination occurred on 27 September 2010. My team and I decided we didn’t want any link to the first assassination to be made, so we altered our weapon of choice and used a knife OTT: Of That Timeline.”
“Okay moving on.” Officer Carlo continues taking copious notes. It’s all part of the choreography, the intentionally slow turning of the page, the wielding of the pen- God only knows what he’s writing: the whole conversation is being monitored and recorded and an automatic transcript would be available and printed out on thick-reamed paper two seconds after this call. “ It is also our understanding another anomaly occurred soon after which prompted you to log these issues with the investigative complaints team of Department of Precrime Technology.”
“Yes that’s correct. Another suspect was named, a Mr Peter Steadman, again with a high match percentage of 97%. These anomalies were very unusual and we had to raise the question with the complaints team.”
“ So what did you and your team decide?”
“We performed another risk assessment. As this serial killer was predicted to be highly dangerous and according to psychological profiles and precrime projections, would go on to kill over 50 innocent people, the assassination of another suspect still fell within our positive parameters as the benefits outweighed the risks.”
“Did you store and save these risk assessments?”
“Yes Officer Carlo. I can give you access if required.”
“What happened next?”
“We didn’t have much planning behind this one as it was again time-critical, so we performed another assassination. It wasn’t our best work I admit, but my team and I were under considerable stress at this point and we were showing symptoms of TCS: Time Crossing Syndrome. ”
“What sort of symptoms?”
“Memory loss, disorientation. It caused some mistakes to be made at the scene; someone else got hurt. But my guys are good, they are the best at what they do.” I say this adamantly cos I’d be damned if any of this blowback goes back on them. It’s a typical field officer reaction, where all our geese are swans but this isn’t my first rodeo, I’ve seen how Internal Affairs operate; I’ve seen their investigations turn savage, or devolve into government-sanctioned witch hunts , where regardless of the mistake someone is to blame and lessons will be learned. Yes, there are moral ambiguities to our work, we work in the ethical grey but that’s why we have processes and calculated assessments- we act on the data and I won’t have them scapegoated for doing their job. Not today.
“And did you make any attempt to jump back and fix these mistakes?” Officer Carlo asks gravely. “or undo the assassinations?”
“The data didn’t allow for that sir. According to the analysis, they were all a match. If we undid the assassinations we’d run the risk of saving the real serial killer- people would have died. It also creates complex ripples in the timelines, I understand.”
There is a pause in proceedings now as Officer Carlo confers with his colleagues. I hear whispers and a low rumble of voices. My eyes narrow and my ears prick up, I raise my head, alert to my surroundings. This meeting is strange but something in the minutiae of their communication signals something more serious is going on; it’s the furrowing of brows, the deepening of tones, even through a screen, seeing nothing but disembodied heads, I can read the room and sense the urgency and stress behind their chatter. It makes me nervous and my eyes flitter subconsciously to my uniform and holster on the other side of the room.
Abruptly and unceremoniously, they leave the meeting. The chat room is empty and I’m left, baffled, facing a blank monitor.
Out of nowhere, my boss Jerry flashes onto screen. His camera is now on and he’s visibly stressed; he’s eyes are shadowed with dark crescents and there’s uncharacteristic stubble smattered on his chin.
“What the hell Jerry!” I bark.
“Don’t worry too much Mike. We played it by the book.” He says in an unconvincing attempt to reassure me. His eyes are darting everywhere and he’s fidgeting with his hair, tell-tale signs of a liar. A bad one at that.
“Cut the bull Jerry, what’s going on?” I ask. “Is there a problem with the tech?”
“Can of worms. No one is admitting anything.” More fidgeting, no eye contact. “But the problem is the assassinations.”
“What do you mean? We followed the risk-assessments- they were authorized.”
Jerry pauses, he takes a deep breath and lowers his head -looking directly into his camera- and adopts a conspiratorial tone. “These IA guys are not from our time line Mike.”
I begin to speak but no words come out.
“I can’t say anymore.” Jerry whispers, he looked stressed before but now he looks fearful. His eyes won’t meet mine and his frown deepens from conflict. He shakes his head.
“Jerry come on, you owe me.” I plead.
“I can’t say on this open line.” He snaps and his camera switches off again.
I stare in disbelief once more at an empty meeting room. I’m trying to work it out, I’m doing the math but I just can’t solve the sums. Internal Affairs from a different time line? In all my years working in Precrime, after jumping to 16 different timelines, working at the apex of modern technology - yet this has never happened before.
I reach for my coffee, but wish for something stronger and not for the first time, my eyes gravitate over to my uniform and firearm.
A faint buzz in my head breaks the hiatus. I tap my inner ear to accept the call coming through my implant and Jerry’s gravelly voice hisses straight into my cochlear. “Mike. Can you hear me? They are Internal Affairs from ten years ahead. Your name has come up on their database as a suspect.”
The sound crackles a little as the interference corrects itself, but Jerry’s voice still transmits in an undertone.
“The people you eliminated were innocent and now they want to clean up the whole thing. This investigative meeting is your risk assessment Mike. Do you hear me? They’re checking the parameters and comparing metrics as we speak.”
The line crackles again and I tap my inner ear furiously trying to keep the fading voice online.
“Mike?”
“Jerry?” I’m talking to the air, as the connection cuts off and all of a sudden the silence of my apartment is deafening.
Until I hear a knock at my door and the unmistakable click of a weapon- Of This Timeline.