Retroactivity Read online

  “Schlep!” admonished Keystone, as Golden blushed furiously and reached for her mask.

  “What? I was just agreeing with her!”

  “Stop being creepy!”

  “That seems unfair to the restaurant, is all.” Golden drew eyes as she walked down the street in her full golden regalia. Mimic, despite not currently making use of his augment, might as well have been invisible to the crowds around them.

  “Well, consider it this way. What if we didn’t see the carjacking? We’d be going to dinner then, right? So we need a reservation.”

  “But we know we’re not going to make it. So why are we bothering the restaurant with a reservation we know we won’t keep?”

  Mimic shrugged. “In most futures, I suppose we do keep the reservation. Anyway, little things can have big effects. Maybe somehow if we don’t make the reservation, we don’t see the carjacking.”

  Golden snorted. “How could that possibly be the case?”

  “Ne znayu! I’m just hypothesizing.”

  “What’s with the Russian, anyway? You don’t look Russian.”

  Mimic’s features shifted, instantly becoming more Slavic. “Better, kalinka?”

  Golden laughed, and Mimic relaxed back into his standard form. “I pick up scattered bits of other languages. It helps me with my accents. I’m just on a Russian kick today, I suppose. It’ll change! All things change.”

  “Very poetic,” said Golden. She stopped, looking around. “We’re at the restaurant. Where’s Foresight?”

  Mimic shrugged again. “Where he needs to be, I suppose. As are we. Players in a game.”

  An incoming wave signaled in Mimic’s vision. He accepted it, and registered Golden doing the same. An image of Foresight appeared in front of them.

  “Evening. Start walking forward. There’s a narrow road one block past the restaurant with cars parked along it. That’s where you need to be.”

  “Which—” Golden started to ask, but Mimic was already walking and motioning for her to follow. She changed her question. “Where are you?”

  “Parking. Or I will be. You’re going to need to be ready to jump into the car.”

  “He means that literally,” added Mimic.

  Foresight nodded. “I do. We’ll have the doors open. It works out flawlessly, so don’t worry.”

  “What about my spear?” asked Golden, casting a doubtful glance at the large metal object. “That’ll never fit.”

  “It all works out,” said Foresight. “You’ll have it when you need it. Do what comes naturally. Ready to shine?”

  “Ready,” said Golden. Her body relaxed, her stride lengthening into a predatory prowl.

  Mimic nodded approvingly. “Yeah, you are. Let’s go ruin this guy’s night.”

  They rounded the corner into the unlit side street just as a scream rang out. A short, muscular man was dragging an older woman out of the driver’s seat of her car by her hair. In his left hand, he held a gun, using it to motion her along. He dumped her roughly onto the sidewalk and jumped into the car, kicking her legs clear so that he could slam the door shut.

  “Hey!” yelled Golden, breaking into a run. “Stop!”

  The carjacker looked up, saw the golden-clad Augment running toward him like an avenging angel, and panicked. He slammed the car into reverse, running it heavily into the car parked behind him in his haste. That car was jolted backwards, and its alarm began to sound.

  The thief then threw the car into drive and hit the gas, swerving away from the curb and accelerating down the street at Golden. She raised her spear as if to throw it, but with nowhere else to go, the thief simply ducked behind the wheel and floored the pedal.

  With the car mere feet away, Golden took a two-handed grip on the spear and leapt. She touched one foot to the hood, which altered her momentum and spun her forward. Jabbing downward with the spear, she pierced the roof of the car and released her grip, flipping her head over heels and leaving the spear protruding from the roof like a flagpole.

  Golden landed on her feet, rolled twice and came up in a crouch. Tires squealed and a horn sounded as the thief whipped the car off of the side street, nearly colliding with traffic in his haste to get away.

  Mimic, meanwhile, had run to the woman on the ground and helped her to her feet. “You’re all right,” he told her. “Call the police. We’re going to get your car back.”

  He sprinted toward the main street, with Golden hot on his heels. Foresight pulled to a stop in front of them as they arrived, both passenger doors to his car swinging open.

  “Golden in front,” he shouted, and she slid smoothly into the car like it was a practiced maneuver. Mimic jumped into the backseat with less grace but equal speed, and the car sped off in pursuit of the thief.

  “Get off of me, you lump,” said Keystone, pushing at Mimic.

  “I’m working on it! That wasn’t exactly the easiest way to get into a car.”

  “She made it look pretty good,” said Asclepius, pointing to the front seat.

  “Yes, well. We all have different talents.” He shuffled his legs around, getting them situated underneath himself. “Speaking of, that was an impressive move over the car there. How did you do that?”

  “I practice,” said Golden.

  “Wait, you jumped over a car?” asked Asclepius.

  “Used her spear like a pole-vault,” confirmed Mimic. “Left it in the roof of the car, too.”

  “Which is very convenient right now,” said Foresight, making a hard left turn. Up ahead, the street lights winked off of Golden’s spear, still sticking proudly out of the stolen car as it sped down the road. “Makes him much easier to follow.”

  “I thought you said you knew where he was going?” asked Golden.

  Foresight waved his hand dismissively. “Makes it easier to prove that I followed him. Besides, if he legitimately lost me in all possible futures, I really wouldn’t know how to get there.”

  “How many futures is all possible futures?” asked Golden.

  Foresight took another hard turn, speeding to keep the thief in sight. “All of them.”

  He floored it, running a red light. Golden gasped, tensing, and Foresight laughed. “There wasn’t anyone there. There couldn’t have been.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” said Mimic’s voice from the backseat. “You learn to trust that what you’re doing is the right thing around him. If it weren’t, he would have told you.”

  Golden shook her head. Foresight slowed to a complete stop at a stop sign, then made a left down a side street, driving at a more sedate pace.

  “We’re nearly there,” he said. “Four blocks, up ahead on the left. We’ll get there in time to see the garage door closing.”

  “What do we do when we get there?” asked Golden.

  “Wait in the car for my signal,” said Foresight. “I’ll go in first and call for you when it’s time.”

  Up ahead, light shone out of a warehouse, and was mostly cut off as a large roll-up door was quickly pulled shut. Foresight pulled the car up to the curb and stepped out.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he told his team. “Be ready.”

  Concrete steps led up to a windowless metal door protected by a keypad. Foresight punched in a three-digit code and opened the door, sliding inside and closing it behind him.

  He walked through a darkened office area as if it were his own home, not bothering to turn on the lights. He paused only to pick up a short metal pipe sticking out of a trash can in the corner. It was about the length of his forearm, and he held it casually at his side as he opened a door at the rear of the office and stepped through into a spacious auto workshop.

  Two men were arguing in the middle of the floor, next to the recently stolen car. One was the carjacker; the other was a taller, bearded man in a leather jacket. A third man was inside the car, trying to tug the spear free from the seat. The sounds of tools being operated came from around the garage, but Foresight simply strode forward until he was noticed.


  The bearded man was the first to see him.

  “The hell are you?” he snarled, causing the car thief to spin around in surprise. The bearded man punched the thief in the shoulder. “Asshole. You said you got away clean!”

  “Not quite,” said Foresight, still casually walking forward.

  The man in the leather jacket drew a gun. “Well, you’re about—aah!”

  Whatever he was about to say was cut off as Foresight abruptly lashed out with the metal pipe, breaking the man’s wrist and sending the gun spinning away across the floor. Foresight followed up the move with a lunge, bringing the pipe back in a vicious backhand across the man’s neck and jaw. Teeth scattered and the bearded man fell to the floor, gurgling and clutching at his throat.

  “Jesus—” started the thief, but Foresight rose from his lunge and brought the pipe whistling around in a two-handed baseball strike to the side of his right knee. He dropped, screaming, and Foresight brought the pipe down again on his left arm. The bone audibly snapped.

  The man inside the car was scrambling to get out, but Foresight ran and kicked the door shut before he was even halfway out, smashing his head against the doorframe. The window shattered and the man’s body fell forward, limp. Foresight kicked the door twice more. On the second kick, a bloody spray flew up, and Foresight turned away.

  Two more men, both burly and tattooed, came charging at Foresight from somewhere in the shop. Both were wielding large metal tools, swinging them like truncheons. They split to come at him from two directions, moving so he couldn’t keep them both in view.

  Foresight, unfazed, darted at the closer of the two, pipe raised. The man lifted his own tool to block it, but Foresight dropped the pipe, turned the strike into a grab, and brought the man’s head down hard onto his rising knee. There was another snap of breaking bone, and blood stained the knee of Foresight’s white suit.

  Foresight pulled the man back up by his hair and delivered a surgically precise punch to his throat. There was an unpleasant crunching sound and the man’s eyes bulged wide, the fight going out of him. Foresight met his panicked gaze, grinned, then suddenly seized him by the shirt and spun around, reversing their positions. The other man had swung his lug wrench with deadly force, but the attack that should have split the back of Foresight’s skull instead crashed into his friend’s shoulder, crushing it.

  Foresight shoved the gasping man back into his friend, momentarily entangling him. While the man attempted to push free of his compatriot, Foresight dodged behind him and jammed a thumb into the man’s left eye. The man screamed and brought his hands up, swinging wildly with the lug wrench, but it hit nothing but air. Foresight wrapped his other arm around the man’s neck and kicked his feet out from under him. The man fell, his head jerking backwards with an audible snap.

  The car thief was still screaming on the ground, until Foresight walked over and kicked him once sharply in the head. He looked around the shop. All seemed quiet, but there was a faint sound of music coming from one corner. Foresight strolled over that way to find a pair of legs sticking out from under a car up on a jack. The music was leaking out of headphones. Whoever was under the car appeared completely oblivious to what had just happened.

  Foresight knelt down, grabbed the jack, and pulled. The car fell with a tremendous crash. The legs jerked wildly once and were still. Foresight smiled coldly.

  “What do we do when we get there?” asked Golden.

  “We’ll send Mimic in first,” said Foresight. “There are six men, none paying much attention. Mimic can open the roll-door. You’ll be standing there. Keystone can shield you. Play the rest as it lies.”

  Up ahead, light shone out of a warehouse, and was mostly cut off as a large roll-up door was quickly pulled shut. Foresight pulled the car up to the curb, and the team stepped out. Foresight opened the metal door at the top of the steps, held it for a moment, then disappeared inside. The door closed softly behind him.

  Golden walked to the roll-top door, crossed her arms and waited. Keystone took up a position off to the side, checked her distance to any nearby walls, and extended her arm. Golden reached forward and tapped on the air experimentally.

  “Pretty neat,” she said quietly, putting both palms flat on the invisible barrier. “How far does this go?”

  “Until it hits something,” said Keystone. “It’s mirrored, though. Goes in both directions when I make it, and something on either side stops it on both. Gimme a big open space like a football field, and I can reach all the way down. In other environments, it’s more limited.”

  “Still,” said Golden. “Neat augment.” She re-crossed her arms and waited.

  A minute later, the door in front of her surged to life, rolling upward. As it passed her helmet, Golden took in the scene. Two men—the car thief and another, larger man—stood in the middle of the garage, gawping at her. A third man leaned out of the stolen car, his hands on her spear. Two others stood off to the side. All five were stock-still.

  “Put down your weapons now and no one has to get hurt,” Golden announced. In the back of the shop, unseen by any of the men, Foresight motioned to her, gesturing for her to step inside. Trusting that he knew what he was doing, she strode forward. She heard Keystone hiss something, but the invisible barrier was gone, and she walked boldly into the shop.

  “Oh, someone’s gonna get hurt,” said the bearded man in the leather jacket. He drew a gun and fired. The bullet struck Golden in the left shoulder, a white-hot brand smashing its way inside her skin. She screamed, clutching her shoulder with the opposite hand, while across from her blood spurted from the bearded man’s shoulder as well. He also screamed and dropped the gun, grabbing his own shoulder.

  Foresight stepped up behind him and casually clubbed him and the car thief over the head with a metal pipe, dropping them both to the ground.

  “Sorry about that,” he said calmly, seeing Golden’s betrayed look even behind her mask. “I wanted to see if your power would work against bullets. And how you’d take it.”

  “Put down your weapons now and no one has to get hurt,” Golden announced. In the back of the shop, unseen by any of the men, Foresight held up a hand for her to stay where she was. Golden stared each of the men down in turn.

  “Oh, someone’s gonna get hurt,” said the bearded man in the leather jacket. He drew a gun and fired. The bullet ricocheted off of thin air in front of Golden, and although she flinched, none of the men seemed to notice. The bearded man stared wide-eyed, and Foresight took the opportunity of the distraction to step forward and twist the hand without the gun behind his back.

  The man shouted, going up on tiptoe, and the gun fired again, the bullet whining uselessly off into the garage. With a quick turn, Foresight spun the man to the ground, following him down and smashing him nose-first into the cement floor. Without even looking, he lashed out with a backfist and hit the car thief squarely in the groin with an audible, meaty thud. The man doubled up, gasping, and crumpled to his knees. Foresight kicked him in the shoulder and the thief tumbled backwards, knocking the stolen car’s door shut. The man inside scrambled to get out of the way, and screamed as his fingers were smashed in the closing door.

  Foresight knelt on the bearded man’s back and knocked his forehead once sharply against the ground. Prying the gun from loose fingers, he pointed it at the other two men, who were just reaching for tools to use as weapons.

  “I wouldn’t,” he said, leveling the gun at them. They both slowly straightened, raising their hands in the air.

  “On the ground,” he said. “Hands behind you.”

  Plastic cuffs appeared from nowhere and attached themselves to each man’s hands, pinioning them behind their backs. Foresight cuffed the bearded man and the car thief himself, then stood and motioned to the man whimpering in the car.

  “No point in making us drag you out of there,” he said. “Come out.”

  The man slowly opened the door, clutching his injured hand. He grimaced as Foresight t
wisted it behind his back, but said nothing as the cuffs were applied.

  “Now what?” asked Golden.

  “Now we wait for the police and give our statements,” said Foresight. He pulled up a stool and sat down, his unblemished white suit a stark contrast to the grime of the shop.

  Golden did a quick headcount. “I thought you said there were six men?”

  Foresight nodded his head to indicate a car off to the side. Golden looked and saw a pair of legs sticking out from under it.

  “He won’t know anything’s happened until the police get here,” said Foresight, grinning. “You’re really going to want to see his face.”

  VIII

  “Let’s bring our heroes together, shall we?”

  Mat looked around the meeting room once more, satisfying himself that everything was in place. It was a multifunctional space, looking more like a well-kept college common area than a room in a traditional office. There was a wooden table with six chairs over by one wall. On the other side of the room a large television hung on the wall, beneath which a couch and several large armchairs were gathered. A tiny kitchen was set up in one corner, consisting of a sink, a refrigerator and a square of countertop mostly only large enough to hold a microwave. The back wall had several large windows, giving the room excellent lighting and a good view of the professionally-maintained grounds outside.

  Mat had created the room himself. It was designed to boost his augment, to give it opportunities to activate. Although it was impossible to say what would and would not set it off, Mat had discovered that the more chances he had to observe someone making spur-of-the-moment choices, the more likely he was to get a reaction from his augment. It made a sort of sense: if his augment was giving him a gut-level read on whether someone was good or bad, seeing them off-script was bound to help with that.

  The choices presented by the room were simple, but had regularly helped him to get a read when meeting new Augments. Even on a non-augment level, seeing someone’s choices said a lot about them. What was their reaction to the visual openness of the room to the outside? Did they go straight to the conference table, or take a seat in one of the comfortable chairs? Most deferred to Mat, looking to him for a cue, but even that told him something, and sometimes gave an aug-reaction. Some swaggered in like they owned the place. Mat was betting that Foresight would be one of those.