BACKTRACKER by Milo Fowler (e book reader txt) 📕

rare book. The crumpled package from CyrusHorton—that old man in the hallway. But it couldn't have been him. It didn'tmake any sense. That was the boy's father in this reality. Not Muldoon'sfather-in-law. They had never known one another.

The letters circled in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland hadtold him everything he needed to know about the device—the BackTracker. A blackplastic watch that ripped a hole through thefabric of time and allowed the person wearing it to travel into the past, to backtrackone's temporal string. And in so doing, to disrupt the passage of time fromthat moment onward, diverting the flow of time's river into a direction itnever would have surged otherwise.

He dropped his hands, clenched his fists. He cleared his head theonly way he knew how: by breaking his train of thought, forcing himself tofocus on the here and now. Only this moment. All he ever had, really.

He turned back to the couch. The boy had never been there. That'swhat the memories told him. When someone vanished, it was because the past hadbeen altered, causing them to cease to exist. The memories told him there wasnothing he could do. They told him to forget about the kid, to go to bed. Itwas late. There would be another day to survive tomorrow, and he'd need hisrest if he was going to make it through in one piece. Without the darknessshattering his tentative grip on reality.

Defying the memories that barraged him, he stretched out his handto touch the cushions where the boy had lain. The faux-leather compressedbeneath the pressure of his palm. Still warm.

Had he really been there?A flurry of unrelated memories threatened to confusehis certainty. They argued with his senses, even as he touched the pillow wherethe boy's head had been. Damp, cool. Yet the laundry lay exactly as it hadbefore Muldoon brought the boy in from therain, cold, wet, and unconscious.

He was here.

Muldoon grit his teeth, willed the memories into silence. He woulddeal with them later, see how relevant they were. For now, he looked across theroom. His gaze rested on the vidscreen at the door.

The files would show the boy leaving the apartment—if he'dever been there. You couldn't argue with that kind of evidence. Unless it hadbeen doctored.

Uncertainty again...

He remembered two faces: dark skin, smiling with large, whiteteeth. Monks of the Way. What would they want with a kid? It was crazyeven to think it, but this one memory overshadowed all the others as he strodetoward the door and tapped his retrieval code into the illuminated pads belowthe screen. He didn't use his voiceprint, didn't want to break the silence. Hedidn't stop to wonder why.

He scanned the white digits on the greyscale image of the hallwayoutside. Scrolled them backward to five minutes ago, seven. Saw himselfre-enter the apartment to find it empty. Ten minutes ago, twelve, twenty-one—

His jaw muscle twitched. His gaze narrowed as he slowed theplayback. There, carried limply over the shoulder of the first monk, he saw theboy. The kid's facial muscles were slack, his disheveled hair clinging to hisforehead in damp strands. The second monk followed, turned for a moment to becertain the door slid shut behind him. In so doing, his face came into view,eyes glancing upward. A direct look—one that belied no fear of being seen, noanxiety at being caught in the act.

There you are, you son-of-a-bitch.

The dissonant chorus of memories fell silent. The BackTracker hadnothing to do with this. It was a clear-cut case of child abduction. Nothingmore. In a way, that came as a relief.

Let's find out who you are, holy man.

He focused on the monk's face, frozen on the small screen, as heactivated the plug behind his ear with a single tap. Instantly, his visionfogged up with the Link interface entry portal. He entered his log-in andpreliminary pass-images, which he set to shuffle randomly among the hundredshe'd stored to keep prying eyes off his trail. Once he was in, he ran the imagecaptured by his ocular implant through a dozen citizen search programs,increasing the odds of finding a correct match.

Scenic images slid past the periphery of his vision, verifying hisident and user privileges, keeping him on the citizen search engine asSCANNING... SEARCHING... scrolled across in tandem.

Then, aftera few seconds: MATCH FOUND: YENG ZHU. The face had aname.

And who's your faithful accomplice, Mr. Zhu?

He skimmed over the monk's profile and found that Kuan Ti was thename of his partner in crime. Both men were currently in NewCity—Imaginethat—at the invitation of none other than Mayor Joseph Reeves. Both monkshailed from some Eastern Province where the governors' best efforts atrebuilding the post-Plague infrastructure had failed miserably despite everygood intention on the part of those involved. No doubt they were here to gleansome wisdom from the brainchildren of The Pearl and SYNCorp: Gavin Lennoxand Ashland Solomon, respectively.

In between swiping kids for perverseextra-curriculars.

His stomach turned over at the thought of it. A frenetic urgencysurged through him, despite every inclination to let things be. This situationdidn't concern him. He was invisible. Had been for years now. But the kid hadbeen stolen right out from under his own roof, and that didn't sit right withhim. Not at all.

UPDATE scrolled across his vision. The two unholy kidnappers werecurrently at The Pearl, being wined and dined by the mayor himself.

The Pearl. Home away from home for every low-life in high places.Owned and managed by the lowest of them all, Gavin Lennox. A man who alwaysgot what he wanted and who wouldn't think twice about cutting through anyonefoolish enough to stand in his way. He'd done a lot for NewCity, but thenagain, he'd earned a lot of credit in the process. Handling the mob with one handand the politicians with the other took a rare talent. Lennox was a giftedmanipulator of humans and synthetics alike. A real people-person, as long as the people served his purpose. When theydidn't...

They find themselves torn apart.

Maybe not like the boy's father, out in that dark alley, but oneway or another, Lennox hada reputation for sticking it to anyone who didn'tplay the game by his rules.

First the father.