left him one final thought, delivering it as a smug warning: “Beware the Universe. She be one capricious bitch.”
Perry threw back the ’juice with a motion he usually reserved for a finger of scotch, quick and hard. He thought there might be a delay — that he’d need to wait until it reached his stomach, or that the present time would change slowly as his body absorbed it, like a vid fadeout. But he was wrong on both counts. The moment the timejuice hit his tongue, the entire world shifted. Bright daylight suddenly replaced the nighttime darkness; Jake vanished, taking his self-satisfied smirk with him; a handful of daytime passersby blinked into existence in various directions around him.
“Fuck!” one yelled, quickly joined by a similar chorus from the others. A startled woman dropped her package, producing a sound of shattering glass and causing wine to leak like blood from a wound. A long-haired youth dressed in the unsashed black regalia of a ’ganger initiate dropped to a low, defensive posture, a knife swiftly appearing in his hand. Of course they all assumed Perry was a chronganger himself — and when one ’ganger popped back, it was only a matter of carefully measured seconds before his mates or foes blinked in.
Flailing his arms up in the universal sign of surrender, Perry scanned defensively, intent on ensuring they saw he wore no sash. Plainly as bewildered as the others, he too obviously lacked the famous chronganger agility that would have propelled him quickly into an expectant position.
“When is it?” Perry yelled to the nearest, squinting into the bright sun before his eyes had a chance to adjust.
No one replied, although the crouching youth glared with defiant envy. The rest sidled backwards, increasing their distance, ensuring no cop or scanner inferred a mistaken association.
Tossing the empty vial into the street, Perry dashed off. He knew his limits. Ari had made sure of that, warning him of the need to avoid the scanners. One identification that he’d been duped in this time and all bets were off.
The coffee shop — a dive if he ever saw one — provided a needed spot to warm up and call Marta. Conspicuously on the edge of ’ganger territory, it stayed well-patrolled by cops keeping a close eye on sashed youths stopping in for a quick infusion of sugar and caffeine. They knew to be careful, maintaining a cautious — if not exactly respectful — distance, in both their manner and expression. Strangely, the uneasy truce helped Perry feel safer than he would almost anywhere else. The presence of the cops ensured he wouldn’t be targeted by ’gangers evaluating unsashed patrons. And the presence of the chrongangers ensured the cops had their attention fixed elsewhere. Chances were slim his duping would be discovered. The scanner outside the door hung limp and dead, its electronic entrails drooping in obvious surrender to repeated episodes of vandalism.
Perry paid for his espresso and danish in cash. Almost anywhere else, he’d have raised eyebrows, curious why he didn’t pay with a thumbscan. But here — things remained edgy enough that no one thought twice.
Sitting in a corner with his back to two walls and a clear view of the doorway, he pulled out Dorrie’s letter. Spreading it out on the coffee-splattered table was out of the question, so he held it in trembling hands, swallowing hard. He’d read the familiar words a thousand times or more, but still needed to read the words of despair yet again before making his call. Marta was the only one he could both trust and who could deliver the news to Dorrie in the right way. It had to be done the right way. Second chances didn’t come often — and they were damn costly.
“Out of the question, Perry,” Marta protested after hearing where he wanted to meet. “Way too dangerous. You know that.”
Perry ran his tongue over his lips, his hand sweaty on the mobile. Ari had gotten it for him somehow, claiming it was untraceable. Perry had his doubts, and even Ari admitted he shouldn’t use it more than a couple of times — and that he’d be wise to choose his words carefully. While talking with Marta, he watched one of the cops striding through the shop — heavyset, probably new to the region, judging by his hauty look of arrogance. He brandished his electrobilly obviously, just to make a point, insisting on meeting the eyes of everyone in the shop.
“I don’t have a choice,” Perry said. “It’s important, and best to avoid to many ’anners.” He took a risk saying as much as he did, trying to obscure the last word by saying it only partially. But what choice did he have? He had to convey the point while staying vague enough to avoid twigging the listenbots.
Marta’s silence answered more than any words, but she knew as well as he did that her gap in the conversation couldn’t be too long. That’d be suspicious in itself.
“You didn’t —?” she started to ask, but cut herself off.
“I need to meet you, Marta. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.” Perry ran a tired hand through sweaty hair, hoping the cop didn’t pick up the signs of his nerves — scanning his eyes nervously, keeping his voice hushed, tapping his feet restlessly under the table. Fortunately, the cop’s attention had been grabbed by a young ’ganger, one whose idea of cooperation didn’t mesh with the cop’s ego. He couldn’t be more than ten years old, but still wore the tell-tale sash over his left shoulder — lime-green, like those sitting with him — and argued with a manufactured contempt surely designed to impress his mates. They encouraged his refusal to provide a localscan of his thumb with threatening eyes directed at the cop. “Please, Marta.”
“Give me half an hour.”
Just setting up the meeting provided a relief Perry didn’t expect, enough to bring a sting to his eyes as he looked at Dorrie’s suicide note for — what, now? — the thousand-and-oneth time. He understood her reasons, but still couldn’t accept them. Killing herself wouldn’t bring Luke back.
He fingered the mobile, tempted. He’d gotten away easily enough calling Marta. Why couldn’t he call Dorrie too? Just something quick — enough to hear her voice and say he loved her. Odds were that his other self was still at work, he rationalized, but he wasn’t sure; too much had happened in ten days.
But then the cop whacked his electrobilly hard on the chrongangers’ table, sending coffee flying and patrons jumping to distance themselves from the altercation. Curses flew, mostly from the ’gangers, but also from the cops now moving in from the doorway with weapons drawn to provide support. Perry knew he had to get out of there — pronto.
“What the hell’s going on, Perry?” Marta asked when she met him at the corner a short while later. She’d taken advantage of the cold weather to select a heavy coat that obscured her thin form, a hat to shade her eyes, and a large scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face. Even Perry didn’t recognize her until she approached from behind, making him jump with her accusatory question. The way she emphasized his name told Perry that she knew. She knew what he’d done.
“I had to,” Perry said, responding to the unanswered question. “It’s about Dorrie.”
They stood at a corner close to the developing rush-hour traffic. Even with the short distance from the border of ’ganger territory — necessary for Marta to feel a hint of safety — Perry already felt exposed. Any scanners around would surely pick up his biosignature, but he hoped the noise from the traffic would at least interfere with any mics that might be nearby.
“Dorrie? What’s happening with Dorrie?”
Perry turned his head, shaking newly formed tears from his eyes, squinting a few times to maintain his composure. “She’s been on Zunzhine for months now, ever since Luke got deployed to The Plain.” He struggled to push out the words.
“Luke’s in Syria?”
Perry either didn’t hear or ignored the question, still too focused on recounting what happened to Dorrie. “It was helping too, at least it seemed to be. Until she got the news.” He pushed himself into the fur of Dorrie’s coat, as though muffling his words would render them less potent, less tragic. “She going to kill herself,” he said. “Sometime after she gets the news, she’s going to take too many of her damn Zunzhine pills and kill herself.”
“S
hit, Perry. Why? Why would she do that?” Marta put an arm around Perry’s shoulder, meaning it to be comforting. “When?”
Perry sniffed into her shoulder, not liking her seeing him cry, but unable to stop either. “In about three days, I think. I’m still not sure when I am.”
“It’s Tuesday, Perry. Tuesday, the 16th. About 4 PM.”
“Friday morning,” Perry said. “She does it Friday morning. Just after I head to work.”
Marta used both hands to grab his head, looking directly into his eyes. “Tell me what I can do.”
Clearing his throat and wanting to shake his head again, Perry instead squinted against his tears. “I don’t know when she got the news, but —”
“What news?”
“Luke. Luke got killed in the fighting in Syria. On The Plain. Or will get killed. I don’t know when. All I know from Dorrie’s letter is that she got the news about Luke … and then did it.”
Marta’s face unveiled a confusion of emotions — Dorrie dead, her only son killed in the timejuice war — too much news to take in at once. So many questions needed to be asked, but she managed to stay focused. “Slow down, Perry, and tell me what I need to know — and what I need to do.”
Gesturing with his head, Perry suggested they walk while talking, do what they could to