Fake.
High-level work. Nearly every feature is on point, except for the reflective band at the top. On a real New York ID, that band shines in a rainbow when you tilt it a certain way. This strip isn’t as reflective, not as colorful. It’s subtle, and you probably wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t the kind of person whose job it is to obsess over IDs.
But the ID says John Westin.
And he came up in the system as John Westin.
So why would he have a fake ID that matches his name?
He wouldn’t. His name isn’t John Westin.
Okay, another piece.
God, I wish Ruby was here. It’s so much easier when I can talk through this stuff.
I pat him down again, starting with the pants and working my way up. Looking for a weapon, or anything hidden on his body. I consider taking his prints and running them but I feel like I need to come out of this room with a more definitive answer about who and what this guy is, because otherwise Allyn isn’t going to give me a chance. And it’s not exactly like I can wait him out.
When I get to Westin’s leather jacket, I roll him back and forth until I can get it off fully, nearly sending him tumbling off the bed. The jacket is a constellation of tiny zipped pockets, so I check them, one by one, and find they’re all empty—until I get to the inside breast pocket. Inside of which is a smaller pocket. There’s something round and hard inside, and I pull it out.
It’s a watch. The band has been removed and the hands are frozen.
But it tells me who John Westin is.
Well, maybe not who. But at least what.
* * *
—
Allyn comes to a halt outside the storage closet, his face twisted in confusion. Which makes sense because from his perspective I must have stepped inside and then right back out.
“What the hell is going on, January?” he asks.
I hold up the watch. The one in Westin’s pocket. The exact same one I am wearing on my wrist. The one they give TEA agents at graduation.
“So you never forget the importance of time,” I tell him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Westin, or whatever the hell his name is. He’s one of us, isn’t he?”
Allyn turns to the TEA agent and says, “Take a walk.”
The agent offers a look of confusion, and then a resigned shrug, and heads off down the hall. Allyn turns back to me and says, “Where did you get that?”
“From his body,” I say. “The one I told you only I could see. Which, fair, fine, that was weird. But I managed to get to it and examine it and I found this hidden in the pocket. So, you’ve got some truth-telling to do, buddy.”
Allyn looks around nervously, and then nods to the storage closet. I punch in the code—the regular one, the one that takes us to the linens, not some bizarre time-stopped dimension—and bring him inside. We shut the door and we’re plunged into darkness and he sighs, pulls out his phone, and uses the glow to hunt for a light switch.
He clicks on the light and says, “Westin’s real name is Frank Olson. Yes, he’s TEA. Deep undercover. There were signs that someone was trying to game this process, and yes, it’s related to the Jabberwocky.”
“You could have just told me that,” I tell him. “So someone got inside?”
“That’s the problem. We have no evidence of that. But ever since the Aztec incident, we’ve been seeing ripples that have only ever aligned with changes in the past. And now we’re seeing more of them, so whatever it is, it’s getting worse. Something must have changed, and whatever it was, it was big.”
“What does Henderson say?”
“The last I talked to him, he was looking into it,” Allyn says. “Been trying to get him on the phone for a half hour now…”
Henderson.
How is this guy not here?
Why was it so hard for me to remember what he looked like?
Our paths must have crossed, more than a few times. I think of the Christmas card I found on Axon and I can’t even remember the face. I know he was bland, but still. It’s like when I call it up in my memory there’s just a gap where he should be.
No, not a gap.
More like one picture laid over another.
It comes on like a slip. That buzz, except deeper, in my brainstem. There’s an image in my head, stuttering and re-forming, like a bad video conference connection. But the more I focus on it, the more it smooths out.
I’m a rookie agent, sitting in the briefing room, for a rundown on our new comms system, and the man standing at the podium…
“Shit,” I say. “Shit shit shit.”
I grab Allyn by the arm and drag him down to the lobby, my brain knitting pieces together, like a broken pane of glass reassembling.
We reach the security room, where I push him inside and shut the door. Take a breath. The images keep coming. Now that I know the truth, the parts of my memory that got overwritten by the collective unconscious are coming back together.
Osgood Davis, standing at the podium.
Sharing a friendly nod with him as I passed him in the hallway.
Visiting his goddamn office on the third floor of the TEA building to pick up a new tablet after I broke my old one.
That’s why he felt familiar when I met him.
I already knew him.
“It was Davis,” I say. “He was our digital ops guy.”
“January, what…”
“I remember now. I don’t know why. Maybe I can still access the memory because I’m Unstuck. But, the reason we didn’t know someone got into the Jabberwocky is because Davis was the guy in charge of it. He was our digital ops guy. Of course he knew how to manipulate it.”
“But then…but I know Henderson. I know him.”
“Maybe you don’t. Maybe he’s part of it. Someone Osgood slotted into the role as part of his plan. And then that collective unconscious thing just took over.”
Allyn presses his hands to his face. “I figured it was an inside job. Another TEA agent gone rogue. That’s why I was keeping this so close to the vest. Had you been at full capacity, you would have been the one chasing it down. Olson was the second-best choice.”
“Someone got the drop on him.”
“January, explain to me what is going on.”
So I try, and still, his eyes are going a little crossed halfway through, and I’m sure this sounds like the ravings of a lunatic. But the longer I talk the more he listens and then finally he’s nodding along, like, okay, this makes some kind of sense.
“Where is it?” he asks. “This doorway or gateway or whatever?”
“It’s built into the wall around the storage closet. Simms must have developed it without telling anyone, and I guess it was just their little thing. And I’m starting to think it was supposed to stay a little thing.”
“Is it safe?”
I shrug. “It fucked me up good and I had to take a whole bunch of Retronim to handle it. But I’m second-stage Unstuck. I could take you in and you’ll probably be fine.”
He hesitates. Starts to say something and then stops. Looks away.
“Jesus, Allyn,” I say. “When?”