TRANSFER OF “YOU RAT YOU BURN” FILE IS 35% COMPLETE.
The Invictus’s memories were much closer, loading through Vera’s interface onto the chip Eliot carried in/on/outside her wrist, joining her own observations of her crew. Could she say that? Her crew? Eliot had brought them together, through chess piece disasters and Gramogen nudges, but the phrase felt true for a different reason.
There’s a place for you. Maybe it wouldn’t last long, but Far’s offer, spoken through the smoke of a laser she’d aimed to end him with, was enough. Gram, Priya, Imogen—they all knew Eliot as much as she could be known—nothing bigger to add up to, the sum of her shrinking, blank slate, too full. They’d welcomed her. They… trusted her.
We’re all about to take a fall.
Could Eliot catch them? She hadn’t even considered the possibility, until Priya knocked on her door. The Medic was determined to move mountains, jaw set and hand steady as she’d held out the chip. “Can you save us in it?”
“Yes,” Eliot had answered. That part was easy.
The chip, like Vera’s and most of Eliot’s tools, was standard-issue Bureau equipment. All of them had been manufactured in Agent Ackerman’s universe MB+251418881HTP8, outside of the affected string. The Fade wouldn’t touch the tech, as long as it passed through the pivot point, into a countersignature-free universe. This last detail made Eliot an imperfect messenger: echoes of Far’s wrong existence continued to cling to her, would as long as he lived. How could they transport the chip into the new future?
“If we could find a way to get this on the Ab Aeterno. Maybe pass it to Empra. Please, Eliot. I want to find Far, in this next life….” Priya’s words had ended with a limp. The silence that followed had made Eliot flex her bandaged fingers and take the chip. Debt without interest; promise without words. Here was a girl who made a way, bloodshot eyes lined with silver sunshine, thank you melting into a smile. Eliot understood why Far loved her, why the chip meant more than memories.
But, just as she’d told Imogen, she didn’t want to get hopes up. Even if the chip could be transferred, there was no guarantee Far would watch the memories inside, or feel compelled to act on them if he did…. Love was kin to time and infinity, too vast to be contained by men’s machines.
“Twelve! Gotcha!” Imogen’s shout broke into real time, catching the number etched into the end of the row before Eliot did. “Rack A should be right in front of you.”
It was. Eliot opened the frosted-glass door, scarlet glow dimming enough to see server 11B. Next she fished the networking cable from her pocket universe. In accordance with the Law of Strings, the cable had tangled itself into three giant knots since being packed. Red light crowded the edges of Eliot’s vision as she wrestled the cord into a functional line.
“The pointy end goes in the hole,” Imogen said, simply to say something.
Tempted as she was to point out the phrase’s double entendre, seconds were too precious to spend on banter. Eliot bit her lip and stuck the pointy end into the hole. The not-pointy end connected to a wireless transmitter, which in turn, linked to Vera.
TRANSFER RECORDINGS FROM THE CTM AB AETERNO ’S 95 AD MISSION, DEPOSITED BY BURGSTROM HAMMOND ON APRIL EIGHTEENTH, 2354 AD? Y/N?
Eliot’s throat swelled when she saw the name. Burg in this universe, Strom in hers, both burly men with silver crew cuts. How alike had they been? She knew more about Far’s Burg: father figure, smuggler of sweets. He’d be the same in the pivot-point world, if Eliot could make it.
“Y,” she answered. Definitely Y.
THIS TRANSFER REQUIRES PLATINUM-BLACK CLEARANCE. PLEASE SUBMIT CENTRAL ID NUMBER AND PASSCODE FOR VERIFICATION.
Eliot sighed. Security protocols. Predicted, but no less annoying. Hacking this would take minutes they might not afford. While she typed, the Fade fed.
CLEARANCE ACCEPTED. DATASTREAM IS NOW TRANSFERRING.
Juggling downloads from two different systems only slowed Vera’s transfer times, so Eliot opted to pause “You Rat You Burn.” The sooner she teleported back to the Invictus, the faster they jumped back into the Grid, the better. Eliot shifted from one foot to the other, watching the Ab Aeterno’s recording percentages climb. Imogen hummed an off-key tune into the comm. The server room’s air-conditioning kicked on with an icy wumph. Though Eliot was wearing long sleeves, the draft made her shiver.
“Cadet McCarthy.”
The shiver became a bristle—no hairs needed.
Eliot turned.
“Whyyyy are these missions always getting interrupted?” Imogen’s song became a wail. “Whyyyy him?”
Him being a porkpie-hat-wearing arse, and a very good reason to curse. Eliot chose a Norwegian one: “Dra meg baklengs inn i fuglekassa!”
Agent Ackerman was different outside the hologram footage—he wore his third dimension heavily. Jutting shoulders, knuckles clenched. He’d materialized not a meter from Eliot, yet the only alarms going off were the ones in her head. Rack A’s open glass door was interfering with the security camera. Nothing was ruined.
Yet.
A lift of the coat, a flash of badge. “I’m Agent August Ackerman. From branch MB+251418881HTP8 of the Multiverse Bureau.”
“I know who you are,” Eliot said, stiff. This wasn’t their first meeting, or even their fourth, though the Fade had left neither party with in-person memories of the other. For the best, judging by what she’d watched. “You’re my handler for this mission.”
“So you have been reviewing your footage, which leaves you no excuse whatsoever for creating unauthorized pivot points! I’d have responded to your beacon hours ago if I didn’t have to wade through two half-eaten bastard universes—”
“What beacon?” Eliot asked.
“What beacon?” Imogen repeated.
“What beacon?” It was a wonder Agent Ackerman’s eyes didn’t roll right on out of his head and under the servers. “This is what the Bureau gets for sending a history hopper to do an interdimensional’s job. Though it seems, by some farce of fortune, that you’ve done it. Sloppily. Your interface alerted the Bureau branches that you found the catalyst.”
“Vera?”
YES, ELIOT?
The Bureau agent’s face twisted. “Are you one of those girls who names everything?”
“One of those girls?” Imogen seethed. “Crux, this guy really is a total jacktail.”
Eliot was in agreement. “Are you one of those perpetually bitter men who uses his anger as an excuse to shazm on everyone else?”
“Listen, sweetheart, I’m just here for the cleanup. I already neutralized the catalysts in your pivot-point worlds.” He said this so casually Eliot almost didn’t catch the spatter of blood on his sleeve. Red as the feather in his hat, bright as the light around them. “Take me to Farway McCarthy’s body and we can be done with each other.”
“Oh Crux…” Imogen noticed the color, too. “He killed them. He killed the other two Farways!”
And now he was here for the third.