BACKTRACKER by Milo Fowler (e book reader txt) 📕

"It could have been sent by anyone."

He shrugged. "Someone who knows an awful lot about timedisplacement. I pieced the first couple pages of the message together, andthat seems to be what it's all about. Some kind of instruction manual for thisthing, maybe?" He withdrew the wristwatch from the envelope.

"Process complete."

Muldoon pulled up his chair and dropped into it, his fingertipsalready tracing the first page of the message on the deskscreen.

That moment had changed his life forever. His life, as well as thelives of everyone else in NewCity. The people he had rescued from themselves,from each other. Loved ones found, families reunited. The good parts version.

The NewCity of that reality,not this one. Here, Harold Muldoon had been dead foryears. In this reality, he hadn't traveled through time, righting wrongs andsaving lives, causing enough unforeseen collateral damage to fracture a man'smind.

Here, that man's mind was whole. He was free. Even if he wasn'ttechnically the same man.

"Where are we going?" Cyrus Horton panted, struggling tokeep up.

Muldoon nearly ran down the stairwell, his coat flailing behindhim, the soles of his shoes skimming the edges of the steps. His heart pounded,dancing, flooding his system with adrenaline and euphoria, his lungs heaving tosupply all the oxygen he would need. He felt more alive than ever. And for thefirst time in a very long time, hope surged within him, burning like the firstrays of sunshine after a week of storms.

"Harry, wait up! You can't go running out there, it's notsafe."

Muldoon didn't care. He was only a couple flights from the firstfloor, ground level, and he couldn't wait to see the world waiting for himoutside. He'd dreamed of it for so long, that it could somehow exist: a worldleft untouched by his hand, its past never manipulated by the BackTracker.Here, in this reality, the world would be the way things should have been allalong. For better or worse, it would be the way it was meant to be.

Without him. Without his mistakes. It would be right.

"You're like a bat out of hell, for crying out loud!"Horton called after him.

Muldoon chuckled, and the sound echoed against the stained,graffiti-covered walls around him. He felt a smile growing, rusty facialmuscles moving that he hadn't used in a while. He felt good. Better than ever.The best in his life.

He was going to find her.

Irena.

She was alive in this world. He knew it. The Harold Muldoon ofthis reality had died before he'd ever had a chance to meet her. Twenty yearsago.

That's when it all started.

He went back as the Peddler and gave the wristwatch from the manila envelope to his youngerself, figuring he'd be able to do more good with it. After he'd paid the pricefor messing with the timeline. Changing the past forever altered the future,and it had resulted in a certain woman never being born.

But that was another reality. He would never be going back there.Not once he found Irena.

"Does this work here?" He gestured at his subdermalimplant.

"Probably not. You're dead, remember? The other you. Now holdup a second before you go charging out into the unknown."

It wasn't the unknown. Muldoon knew this building like an oldfriend. Sure, it was a little more run-down in this world, abandoned by allappearances. He couldn't tell for sure. The halls and stairwell of hisown building were deserted most of the time. But this was HellTown, and hedoubted it would be renovated anytime soon, regardless of the reality. This wasthe part of town he'd called his home for years, decades. He was no strangerhere.

Grin intact, he shoved the door aside manually at the bottom ofthe stairs and stepped out into the night. He hadn't realized how stuffy it wasinside, how the humidity clung to him like plastic wrap, smothering him. Now heinhaled deeply, closing his eyes in the silent chill.

I'm free. No past to haunt him. No future to sufferthe effects of his actions. No BackTracker. She's alive here. I can feel it.

Horton approached his side and doubled over, catching his breath."We... We can't stay out here like this. There's a curfew ineffect. The..." He coughed into a fist. "They find us like this,they'll round us up. We won't see the light of day for a very long time."

"They?" The first flicker of uncertainty scratched atMuldoon's mind.

"Blackshirts. Reeves' own special Federalpolice-turned-enforcers. Bunch of fascists, really."

"We have them in my world."

"Not like this. Here, they're judge and jury. Executioner, toboot. The local cops are just for show." He sniffed and rubbed at his nosewith the back of his soggy sleeve. We need to find some dry clothes before weboth freeze to death."

Muldoon patted his chest. Still soaked from standing out onthat sidewalk in the pouring rain with a headless mandroid rooted in the middleof the street. Here, there was no rain falling. No clouds in the sky.

"We've got to keep moving, Harry. Stick to the shadows, andif a cruiser drives by, you hit the deck. Got it?"

It would have been the easiest thing for Muldoon just to ask, Whereis your daughter? Where is Irena? But he couldn't bring himself to say the words. He didn't want toshatter the magic of possibility. He had to believe she was out theresomewhere, and he just had to find her.

"We've got to head Underground. I'll tell you all about it onthe way. But no matter what I tell you, you're not going to believe it untilyou see for yourself. It's like a whole other world within a world. And it's aworld they won't cross over into. Blackshirts know better. There's anunspoken truce of sorts. Stuff that happens Underground stays Underground, andthey don't question it."

Muldoon looked across the expanse of gravel, grey beneath thelight of the moon. The street beyond was empty. He knew that street, where itled. He would know his way.

Horton tugged at his sleeve. "C'mon, Harry. We've got to go.Now. If they were to get their hands on you, I don't know how we'd explain ourway out of that." He gave the sleeve another tug. "You're dead,remember?"

"There's something I need to do." He took a step