BACKTRACKER by Milo Fowler (e book reader txt) 📕

Irrelevant information gathered simultaneously from multitudinousLink sources. The genetic material alone was all that concerned the AI, and itbelonged to Cyrus Horton's daughter. Yet there was very little regarding her onthe Link.

Almost as if she had barely existed.

Perhaps she hadn't, truly. Until now.

Heels clopping across the concrete sidewalk with newfound purpose,Irena Muldoon exited the looming shadow of the steel and glassHancock Building. The morning sun gathered intensity, building its fervor lowin the eastern sky. She tugged down the brim of her hat and dropped the blackveil, shielding her face. Autos with and without drivers swept past in blurs ofgrey, carrying their occupants to and fro without regard for the woman who did notbelong in this time or place.

A much younger version of herself was out there somewhere, afourteen-year-old girl waiting for her father to come home after a long nightat Alpha Geminorum Labs. What would it be like to see yourself from the outsidein, to find your younger self and tell her—?

She bit her lip, forced herself to focus. There was only oneperson she had to find: Harold Muldoon. Not the beheaded younger version lyingupstairs in the building behind her. He hadn't known her, had no reason tolisten when she'd found him lying on that bench in the train station. Instead,she needed to find the Harold Muldoon who had come back to this time as the Peddler.Only he could undo what had been done—by never doing it in the first place. Bynever traveling to this time in the past.

She didn't know how she was going to find him, but she knew shecouldn't do it on foot. The underground parking structure was located aroundthe corner, behind the office park. Harry's Paradox would be parked downthere. OSCAR.

Override secure command... She couldn't remember thecomplete acronym. Authorization response? Something like that. She'dheard it long ago, from her father. The man responsible for inventing the vocalinterface used now in every automobile on the road—as well as the countersignhe'd shared with his daughter just weeks before he'd disappeared from her life,never to be seen again.

If only.

It was like a bad dream: waking up in that concrete room, guardedby that tall, skinny SYN. Seeing CyrusHorton again, how the years spent Underground hadblunted his features—everything but his eyes, sparkling with all the light thatwas both his blessing and his curse. His genius. His madness. Somehow, decadesin the dark Underground had only intensified both aspects of his personality.

The fulgent morning light crept only so far across the thresholdof the parking garage. Beyond, extending past the limit of her vision, glowstrips shone from thick support pillars and offered enough illumination torecognize Harry's set of wheels. There was no guard on duty, not even a stationfor one. Irena was glad of that. She wouldn't have known what to say ifshe'd been stopped.

I'm picking up my husband's car... Only heisn't my husband—not yet. But he will be, in ten years or so.

She could have taken any one of the vehicles; the override commandwould have worked on all of them. But there was only one that interested her.

Would it smell like him? Her heart longed to sit in the driver'sseat where he'd been less than an hour ago, warm and breathing. Would hisessence linger? It only made sense to take his vehicle; therewould be a log of recent trips on the computer console. Perhaps she would findsomething useful, trace it back to his first contact with the Peddler. It was along shot in the dark, but it was all she had.

I'm playing detective.

She almost smiled. She hoped Harry would be proud of her,wherever—whenever—he was.

She opened her hand mid-stride and looked at the wristwatch in herpalm. Was it too set to return to its own time after a set period? Would itstart beeping, then vanish after a digital countdown as the other one had? Orhad that been her father's doing, when he'd programmed Cade's watch and hers?Would she be left stranded here? There was no way to know for sure.

Which future would it take me to?

Harry had disappeared ten years ago. If this device had come backwith him, and if she allowed it to take her back to its point of origin, shewould still find herself in her own past. And there would be another version ofher waiting there—then. Just the thought of it made her head swim.

She was no expert on the subject of time travel. But the more sheallowed herself to consider the possibilities, she realized that her choice notto return with Cade could mean she might never be able to leave the past.Twenty years ago or ten. Either way, she would never return to her own time.

Regardless, there was only one thing that mattered. She had tofind Harry—the man she knew and loved, the husband from her own time, the Harrywho'd vanished from her life ten years ago without a trace. Now she knew how ithad happened: the BackTracker. Somehow, he'd managed to get his hands on herfather's invention and use it. But the how and why still remaineda mystery.

Even so, it was one she felt closer than ever to solving. She'dgotten this far, hadn't she? All she had to do was find him—the Peddler,Harry's assumed identity. Once they were together again, it wouldn't matterthat they were trapped in the past or that she was ten years older than heremembered. They would be together.

But at the same moment that so much hope against hope welled upwithin her, one chilling thought struck her hard: Cade killed Harry here, inthe past. Doesn't that mean Harry's future self...would have died too?

It couldn't be true. Could it?

If so, then there was only one way to save Harry's life—which Cadehad already told her, clearly, in no uncertain terms. She had to go furtherinto the past and kill him. Kill Cade before he could do the same to Harry.There really was no other option.

She stared at her own reflection in the window of the black Paradox,unsure how to proceed. Her left hand drifted toward the