“I know. I know. It’s all image control. The story’s gone national. They reckon we’ll look like humps if we can’t track one of the country’s most famous dwarves.”
Melissa clenched her jaw. She had a grim hunch that Quint, Caudell, and the two Salgados had all been inside the Pelletier building when it was mysteriously reversed. Dead or alive, their bodies would have been erased out of existence. The British referred to the process as “nulling.” The Americans called it “zilching.” In both countries, it had become the cornerstone of waste management, as well as a favored tool for criminal evidence disposal. They’d never find Quint.
“Sir, this is the most perplexing case I’ve ever seen. There’s so much I don’t understand. But one thing I know is that every trail leads back to those six people. We need to find them.”
“I agree with you, hon. But look at the bigger picture. I’m still five signatures away from making you the new me. This isn’t the time to kick sand.”
Twenty minutes later, she received a preliminary autopsy report on Constantin Czerny. He had died of the same subarachnoid hemorrhage as the other victims. But from the unique attributes of his abdominal wound, he’d been stabbed by a projectile made of pure tempis.
Melissa was downright smarmy when she updated Cahill.
“Shame we don’t know anyone who can cause such an injury, sir. Perhaps Dr. Quint will know.”
That was when Cahill told her, with a hopeless sigh, that it was out of his hands. If Melissa wanted to do more digging on the tempic redhead, he wouldn’t stop her. But she had to put in face time on the Quint search. Such was the price of career advancement.
After three hours of pointless legwork, Melissa escaped to the tobacco den, puffing cigarette after cigarette as she scanned through digital mug shots. The red-haired woman was, as Melissa feared, a virgin to the justice system. Odder still, there was nothing in the news archives about a girl named Mia who lost her entire family. Were these people in any systems?
In a desperate last effort, she accessed the Eaglenet bitboards and launched a keyword search through today’s online discussions. There was much talk of tempis and even more talk of redheads, but not a lot of chatter about both. After wading through a number of false double-positives, Melissa found an interesting post in a customer support forum for a popular brand of armored safe:
This incredibly intense redhead came into my store today and slapped her hand on my counter. Suddenly the tempis on my Shellbox started rippling. Has anyone else seen anything like that?
A profile search on the author revealed him as John Curry, a pawnbroker here in South California. His shop was just eight miles from the site of the fugitives’ abandoned vehicle.
Melissa took a final drag of her cigarette, closed her handbook, and hurried outside to the company van. She steered it thirty feet into the air and then shifted to 10×. She could still taste the tobacco on her lips as she shot through the night like a missile, straight toward Ramona.
NINETEEN
Amanda didn’t know how to feel about her latest transformation. She watched her reflection from the desk chair while Hannah brushed inky dye into her tresses. Stroke by stroke, lock by lock, red to black, red to black.
At midnight, the job was finished. Now Amanda stared in wonder at the dark-haired stranger in the mirror. To her surprise, she didn’t hate the new color. And yet she couldn’t help but lament the latest upheaval to her personal status quo. She was a widow now, an alien, a fugitive, a brunette. Mad events were slowly turning her into a parallel-universe version of herself. Bit by bit, piece by piece, she was becoming Altamanda.
Hannah removed the drip-stained towel from Amanda’s shoulders, then studied her reaction. “I did the best I could.”
“What? No, you did great, Hannah. It’s perfect. I’m just upset about the reasons behind it.”
“Well, it’ll work. I doubt anyone who’s looking for you will recognize you now.”
“That’s really all that matters. Everything else is . . . I just need to get used to it.”
Amanda bounced a mirrored gaze at Mia. “So what do you think?”
Mia had peeked up from her journal many times to watch the recoloring in progress, this strikingly cozy endeavor between women. Having grown up in a house full of brothers, it was strange for her to witness the feminine rituals of siblings.
“Looks good,” she listlessly replied. “You two finally look related.”
Hannah tossed her rubber gloves in the sink. She was too tired to color her own hair. Too upset. She plopped herself onto her bed, sending Zack’s drawing fluttering down to the floor. She was sick of thinking about the bothersome man in the picture.