Slice Time
Author: Ralph Sir Edward
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 1

I was standing on a crowded downtown street corner, waiting for the light to change. The sun was warm and I was minding my own business when a finger tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, and the man attached to the finger said,

"A bit out of your time, aren't you?"

Words designed to scare the amateur. But subtle enough to keep the actors blissfully unaware. And nobody, not even the Reality Controllers, wanted to disturb the actors. The resulting ripples could dislocate even the strongest tracking beacon, leaving Home a long, long way away.

How may? Five? Twenty? I'd never know.

But back to slice time...

I looked at my watch, most actors wore them in this slice time.

"It's just a cheap Timex. It doesn't keep time that good. What time do you have?"

This startled the RC. Was I really the Dodger they were trying to collar, or an actor? Risk suddenly popped up in his mind. He had to answer.

"4:17 PM."

"Stupid watch. It's at 4:24. Let me reset it."

I pulled out the stem and reset the watch. Then I pushed in the stem. A simple act an actor would normally do when his watch's time was off. My watch, however, started a chain reaction that no RC was ever going to be able to tell his Home about, mainly because he wasn't going to see his Home again. Fortunes of War, buddy.

My watch started to buzz. Some of the old Timexes had an alarm you could set. it wasn't too uncommon. On my watch, it signaled mission accomplished.

"Damn, I triggered its alarm. Let me shut the stupid thing off." I twisted the stem three times and pushed it in. The buzzing stopped, and the base of the watch started feeling sandpapery.

"Buddy, this is a nice burg. I like it a lot. I hope you do, too."

The politeness seemed to melt away. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you were right. I'm the Dodger you've been tracking, and it's too late for you. Try pinging your Homer signal."

He made that gesture I'd become so used to over the durations. The horror hit him.

"Tell your boys the women are friendly, and jobs are plentiful, even if the tech is middling. It's not a bad slice time to live in. I should know." I winked at him, then I punched the stem one more time and disappeared....

I did my 5 step bounce. Flip the deadman switch to on, stick an appendage through a loop in the Homer, and hit the panic button, leaving behind a 6 hour bundle of nastiness behind a locked and barred room. Strictly for any RC who was tracking the Homer beam when I bugged out. It would defuse after the six hours, but it was sudden death for anybody in the room in those six hours. Since you can't track the Homer traces after 2 hours local at the most, nobody was going to follow my trail. Over and over until I had an arm and a leg in a loop of a different Homer and my gas mask on tight. The last ditch was the cyanide lollypops in each Homer, deadmanned by my appendages, disarmed by voice command. Nobody had tracked me Home so far.

Of course I had to change my Home every time the RC's got a whiff of me, but that suited me. I have the traveling bone, and a Dodger is the ultimate traveler.

How many Dodgers are out there? Who knows? The Multiverse is a big place, and always changing. Which is why the Reality Controllers are always busy, looking for free spirits like me, to keep us from mixing the brew. I chuckled. They have to catch us first!

So where do you want to go this lovely day in Paradise? Close to your Zero or far away? Past or future, or even no place special? Actually I've been to no place special. Too boring. Maybe a tech safari?

I decided against a tech safari. Too much work, and far too much danger. When you dive into a slicetime where you don’t understand the tech, it risks you being tripped up by any little thing you don’t know about. It may be worth it to get certain pieces of tech for your lifestyle, or to save your life, but you only do it with lots of planning and a lot of guts. After a fresh bailout was the worst possible time.

Hawaii sounded good. Fun, sun, and pineapple, with a few months of surfing just to keep in shape. Maybe a 1934 analogue, where Germany had won World War I…

And with a soft <Bamf>, I knew all my plans had changed.

She materialized in my line of vision. She was 6’3” and trained down fine. The type who could clear out a bar, singlehandedly. Unfortunately, I was the only one in this bar.

I put on my best polite manner. “Welcome, ma’am, to my humble abode.”

“This is all you’ve got?”

“It is adequate for my needs, ma’am. Perhaps we could share introductions?”

“I’m Morta Miguire, bounty hunter.”

“Am I the bounty?”

“You are.” She said, matter-of-factly.

“May I inquire who’s paying you, and how much?”

“What do you care? You’re dead meat now.”

“Now, Morta, how can I make you a better offer if I don’t know how much you are getting paid?”

She looked around the room. “You make me a better offer? Next joke.”

I guessed the time for being polite was over. “You think I’ve been a Dodger as long as I have just by living in a hole? Name your price.”

Morta retorted, “From the looks of things, you couldn’t buy a blue plate special.”

“Would you settle for an end to ageing, and a scar-free self-healing body?”

She burst out laughing. When she got herself under control, she said, “That was a pretty good next joke.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

That stopped her. She started to say something, stopped, and an unintelligible croak came out. Finally, a carefully enunciated, “Are you serious?” came out.

“Serious as a heart attack, of which I no longer have to worry about. How long have you been a Jumper?”

She was hooked, and I knew it. “You’d give me immortality just for your freedom?”

“Now let’s keep our terms straight. I said I could provide you with an end of ageing and a self-healing body. That is not immortality. If you step in front of a truck, you’d still end up seriously and quite permanently dead. I’ll trade that for my freedom. It’s a good deal compared to being hauled back to those nasty, Calvinist, Reality Controllers. They have no vision.”

“Stop badmouthing my employers.”

“That’s why I asked you how long you had been a Jumper. The Reality Controllers go through a strong indoctrination course before they make their first jump. That’s why they can’t catch a good Dodger. Since you’re the first Bounty Hunter I’ve ever heard of, I’m curious what sort of training you were given, and how you got your jump equipment. You seem to be pretty green, to me.”

“I was experienced enough to catch you, Dodger. By the way, what is your name?”

“The name’s Robert F. Garfield, at your service.” I gave a short bow.

Her eyes bugged out. “I caught Robert The French?”

“I would say the one and only, but this is the multiverse, after all. Who knows how many of me exist…”

Suddenly a hand grabbed me and I was in a classic antiseptic, overly lit room. We were standing on a huge Homer.

“They must be offering you a bunch of phony money to make you jump like that.”

A voice over the intercom spoke, “I see you were successful, Morta. This is one less Dodger we have to worry about.”

I started turning around, gawking like a tourist. Of course, while I scratched my wrist, I slipped in three turns of the stem of my wristwatch. The sandpapery feel returned. I had gathered the Homers together, but I hadn’t turned them off, merely disarmed the deadmans.

I said, “All this just for little ol’ me?”

“We’ve got an even more impressive hotel room for you to stay in, while we debrief you. Complete with the latest in locks. And after we debrief you, we’ll start patching those holes in reality you’ve been causing.”

“You sure you’ve got enough manpower?”

“Boastful Dodger, aren’t you? You couldn’t have done anything we can’t fix.”

“Well, seeing as you’ve got me, what is this “Bounty Hunter” thing? I thought you Controllers kept everything under tight control. How did this Morta lady fit into the big picture?”

“Why should we tell you?”

“You might want to boast to your captive, showing how puny his skills were. Most winners do, you know.”

I heard a chuckle. “Why not? It won’t do you any good. Our teams have been taking major hits going after a group of the really incorrigible Dodgers, of which you are one. So we figured that we’d send a team, with a tracker that had our Homer preset, but didn’t turn on until its external sensor registered a break in a Homer path. Risky, but not even a Dodger wants to stir up the actors. So the path should still be in a tight enough locus. Then we sent a Bounty Hunter back along the string, with her own Homer, to track anybody Jumping to another time line. And she caught you.”

“You still didn’t answer about what a bounty hunter was?”

“A Bounty Hunter is an operative given minimal training to prevent Reality Failures, and a real incentive to return, at all costs. As you can see, it worked.”

“It did indeed.” Blackmail. A lover or a child, held hostage to the orders of the RCs. I always knew they were nasty. They just seemed to keep getting worse.

“Well, Morta, do you want to do the honors? Maybe you’ll get a bonus for your old age.”

I grinned at her. She didn’t grin back.

The voice on the wall said, “What honors, Morta?”

She decided to take credit. “I didn’t just get an incorrigible Dodger. This is Robert The French.”

A low whistle came out of the speaker. “We didn’t think you’d get the biggest target of them all on the first shot. Well done.”

I said, “Nice to know I’m held in such esteem. Now, as to my hotel room…” and pushed in the stem.

This was getting to be one hell of a dance. I was running out of backtrail protection, and I didn’t want to take the Big Dive, or at least not yet. First things first. First, find a place to hide. Preferably a place that I couldn’t be tracked to…

I was back at my current Home. I pulled out then pushed in the watch stem 3 times. Part of one of the walls opened. I grabbed a 20 kilo backpack off the exposed shelf and strapped it on. I might as well take my worldly wealth with me.

I then got on the main Homer and started talking to it. Voice control is real handy.

‘Code unlock Flat Frog.”

“Confirmed.”

“Target eye, narrow dark path, outside, 100 meters or more from last recall Jump.”

“Target eye locked.”

“Give displacement. Distance, then angle.”

“207.3 Meters, 293 degrees from magnetic north.”

“Execute on standard signal.”

“Confirmed.”

“Upon completion, issue code execute Ultimate Scram for all connected Homer units.”

“Confirmed.”

I pushed in my watch. It had taken 23 seconds. And I was now standing on an alleyway on Morta’s homewhen…

After 10 seconds, I relaxed. If they could sort this one out, I might as well give up. All of My Homers had taken wild branches in Probability, with no way for me to know where they went. I’d have to build new ones. And this slicetime, of course, had all the parts I’d need. And with 3 Jumps along the same within 3 minutes, from multiple Homers, all any tracker I knew of would be able to measure is just a spread out blob. No way to see that one of them went a few 100 meters of the end spatial target. If they could, they’d be hauling me away right now. Besides, they didn’t know whether I had taken the Big Dive with one of the Homers. So they’d have to check them. By the time they finished that, I would be untrackable.

The best place to hide is always where your opponent was certain you couldn’t be.

At least I knew this slicetime. What was worth money, and what wasn’t. Now to a public display to find this slicetime’s equivalent of a hockshop, and find the local time displacement from the last time I had infected these haunts.

30 minutes and two stops got me the info and the pocket change I needed to get myself set up for a bigger score.

I called a number, and answered the number with another number. I was in luck, it was still valid.

“Old Fart! Haven’t heard from you in years.”

“Haven’t had any business for you. I’ve got a real bargain for you. I need the cash.”

“The Man squeezing you?”

“Now, now, Gasper, you know better than to ask that question to anybody.”

“At ease, soldier. What do you have and how much?”

“How about two, count ‘em, two 1 carat micro faidons? Not hot, but no papers. Don’t tell me the market’s fallen out on them, I know better.”

“Sweet. How much will it cost me? You never let anything go cheap.”

“Special deal, just for you. 50K for the pair.”

“50K? For 2 million in cold rocks? Just how hot are you?”

“There’s not a wanted sign out for me on this whole planet. I just need quiet cash and no question asked. I’m giving you a fat enough profit margin to get it, right?”

“You got that right. I’ll be where? Solo, of course.”

I gave him an address on a street corner.

“Do you need papers?”

“Could you throw in some to let me book a hotel for a couple of weeks? I’d save me some bother, and it won’t nick the profit margin much.”

“No holo on you, right?”

“How’d you guess?”

“For an old friend, I’ll do even better. I know a guy who’ll be across the planet for three months. He has a suite at the Athena Imperial. The head manager is a client of mine. No registering.”

“Sweet, Gasper. Swap in the room? No prying eyes.”

“Perfect. See ya.”

Gasper wasn’t really a fence. He was a connections man. But connections often need lubricating with items not easily obtained, so he kept one foot in the darker regions. He was a good man to know if you had…ahem…exotic requests. I’d be using him a lot when I started building my next set of Homers.

Right now I just need a place to stay and eating money. 50k would cover it for a year.

CHAPTER 2

The Owner’s Suite at the Athena Imperial was only a little smaller than Buckingham Palace. I was certain that it wasn’t quite what the voice in the wall had in mind for my future. A night’s sleep had put me in fine fettle.

I never could figure out why the RC types couldn’t understand that you can’t change a past or a future. Which are the same thing, just a matter of which way you’re looking at it. All you can do is make a new one. And once you made one, you can’t unmake it. The fun of life is making new ones. Or so I say.

Still, they kept insisting on sticking their oars in my fun. (Fun? Business? As a Mafioso once said, “There’s a difference?”)

That left me with the problem, what do you do with a mosquito you can’t kill? The RC’s existed, as they always had, and always would, worlds without end…Just as I would exist, now and forever. In some place, at some time, for some reality. Having found a key (among the infinity of keys) to the multiverse, I had to follow its rules, such as they were. It didn’t matter whether or not I liked them.

One rule is, if you make a mistake, nobody’ll bail you out. So like a good programmer, your safety is in your backups. So step one was building more Homers.

This was something I wouldn’t farm out. Control of knowledge is a source of power. I’d assemble them here in the suite, and test the circuitry elsewhere. Hopefully elsewhen, but that depended on a lot of other things falling into place.

I broke out the mentalmitter from the backpack. It was the most important functional piece of tech I had. I got it from a slicetime way out on the fictional border where I got the faidons. My first tech safari, and it scared the whey out of me. The original was made with such old-school clunky tech it’d make you cry. When I got the first one, I got a clear mindprint of how they were made and the theory behind them. Every once in a while, I refresh my mind with an overlay of the print, just in case I forgot how to make ‘em. Made with this slicetime’s tech, they were the size of a credit card. The prints were little bitty chips, I had multiple copies of every one of them.

Right now I refreshed myself with the one on making Homers. I could make them quite small if I used specialized parts, but specialized parts were too easy to track. I liked mine big, clunky and untraceable.

Another call to Gasper (and another swap), and the parts would be available for pickup in multiple locations in the morning. He remembered the parts list and asked what they were for. I told him amnesia inducers, and did he want to try one. That seemed to cure his curiosity.

A week went by, and I built twenty Homers, loaded the control software in all of them and hid them in various places. Time to start doing things…

When a Roman Legion marched, it did 20 milum, built a fortification, and put out guards. Those old Roman ancestors of mine weren’t dummies. They ruled most of Europe, not with superior tech, but with superior organization. They might have still been at the old stand, if they hadn’t kept fighting each other instead of the barbarians. A habit I hadn’t acquired.

Now if I tried to Jump right now, I’d leave a trail any chump, even an RC, could follow. Not habit forming. I needed information. Besides, I was curious to see just what voice in the speaker had accomplished, with his bounty hunters. It might provide me another way to pitch a spanner in the works.

This slicetime hadn’t figured out that Homers made a good teleport system inside the slicetime, not just a portal to the multiverse. Or maybe their bright boys had figured it out, but didn’t want to risk the possibility of user reconfiguration, especially since the local RC’s controlled the tech.

That wasn’t my grief. My grief was figuring out the way to the egress.

All of these questions led to a single answer source, Ms. Morta Miguire. Which led to the next question, how to make the approach? Gumshoeing was out. They had enough telemetry on me to pick me out if I loitered around the headquarters. Like the Gray Lensman, I had to do it all tracelessly. (No, I never met Kimball Kinnison. That’s one probability loci I stay far away from. Too damned dangerous, and too many smart people. You take on Mentor of Arisia.)

Nonlocal tech was out, also. It might work, but if it got detected, there went the whole game, because who was going to import nonlocal but me, or somebody like me. Bang, and the manhunt would be on.

So I needed to reconfigure the existing tech in the area. Luckily electrons were cheap. I just had to worry about their memories. Gasper time – this was turning to an expensive escape plan. I sold him a dozen Beatles songs that had never been heard (because they weren’t created in this reality set) in this slicetime, for a way to tap the street cameras around the city I was in. Led Zepplin VIII and IX snagged me a phonetic search program from this slicetime’s spy network that would let me track everything known about Ms. Morta Miguire.

Which turned out to be very interesting.

Everything seemed valid for this slicetime, but none of it fitted together right. Her background was boringly middle class, completely dead average. You don’t make adventuresses out of that. No Jubilant Delinquency, no parent problems, no nothing. And nothing to show the hold the voice in the wall had on her.

Obviously a fake dossier for an actor or an amateur to read. My opinion of the wall voice went up a notch. He was protecting against a pro. Hmm…

This was going to make the approach harder. Anybody who goes to the point of fabricating a backstory wasn’t going to leave the agent untracked. Jumping was out, too. Hmm...again.

This was getting to be a multi-pipe problem. (Yes, I’ve met Sherlock and Watson. 1890’s England is a nice place to slicetime, as long as you have your shots up-to-date. I’m in one of his unsolved cases files. I told him the truth, and made him believe it by his own logic, but he considered it bad for the image to let the truth leak out. I left him an uncut 2,000 carat blue-white diamond as a paperweight. Watson never did realize it wasn’t the lump of quartz that Holmes said it was.)

Anyway, back to the problem of the Amazon Adventurer. If active scanning was out, that left only passive scanning. So I used the tracking software to give me every 3 second stills from all the cameras in a fifty kilometer radius from a bank that was offset a ways from Reality Controller headquarters, but just happened to overlap Morta’s flat and the most likely path from the Reality Controller’s headquarters. One of my computers peeled out the relevant images. Sound was trickier, and it’s a trade secret. Sorry.

After a few days, I found the best place to contact Morta. Not totally safe, but the best that could be done.

The hash house was loud with a décor to match. Lots of people eating cheap lunches, with one eye on the clock and one ear on the local gossip. It was a scene you would find across the multiverse in every slicetime. The only things that were different were the stomach settling concoctions.

I had spotted my quarry over in a corner, chowing down. I got something that looked like it didn’t move much, and approached her from the rear. No mirrors were in her line of sight.

I whipped around her and was parked in the chair across from her in a flash. My tray was on the table, and my right hand was next to it , clenched.

Her response was basically what I expected. “Get lost, Bo-“ She stopped, because she saws the little barrel sticking out of the clenched hand between the second and third finger.

I smiled, “Hi, Morta. Don’t even think about it. You’d take a needle before you ever got the table over.”

“Curare?”

“Hydrazine. You wouldn’t get a second chance. So relax, I just want to chat with you.”

“Where’s the trigger?”

“No trigger. It’s a deadman’s release. I’d have to disarm it.”

“I’d talk a lot better with it disarmed.”

“Now Morta, the last time we chatted, you got real twitchy and caused all sort of problems. What can you offer to make me think you won’t get twitchy again?”

She mulled that one over. She was an old enough hand to realize that if I had wanted her dead, she’d already be dead. Of course, what she didn’t know was that it wasn’t even armed. I didn’t go to all this effort just to have a joggled elbow ruin the conversation.

She said, “Pick a topic.”

“Morta, what sort of hold does that voice on the wall have on you?”

“Home.” She said despondently.

“Could you be a little more specific?”

“I worked for an….organization. They trained me very well. It’s not something I can talk about. My hubby to be was in the same…organization. He did the same …work… I did. He got pretty badly chewed up the last time he did an…assignment… So he was being medically retired, and I asked to resign to marry him and help care for him. The …organization… thought it was a good idea and approved it.

“Suddenly I was here. The voice in the wall told me that I would never see home again, unless I performed the tasks the voice assigned. The voice told me that my …organization… no longer even existed here. I was given money and told to find out for myself. The voice was right.

“So they trained me about alternate realities and the people like you who destroyed realities. My job was to catch a list of people and bring them back to justice. Then I would be returned to my home.”

Her eyes glittered a bit. “And then I blew my first assignment.”

“Now, now, it wasn’t your fault, you got sent after lions with a BB gun.”

“I was given another chance, and I got two more of you Dodgers. The voice in the wall is still hot and bothered about your getting away.”

“Just a sore loser.” Except that I knew better.

“Robert,” Morta asked, “why do you destroy these realities?”

“Morta, you’ve been fed some truths and a bunch of lies. That’s what this whole song and dance is about. Some people who have the power to make their lies the truth, being downright nasty about doing it.”

“And only you have the truth?”

“More than the voice on the wall has.”

To say she looked skeptical would be an understatement.

“Ok, Morta, let’s use you as an example. Where you came from is not where you are. Right? No “organization”, no hubbie-to-be?”

She nodded.

“Did they just disappear? If they did, how are you going to go back to them? Or are they still out there, waiting for your return. Return? Return to where?”

Morta looked confused.

“That’s where they lied to you. If there is only one reality, and I’m screwing it up, how and where did the voice get you from? You can’t exist, because you’re not part of this reality. You’re just an oversize particle that popped into reality and will pop back out when he is done with you.”

“But…But I’m real.”

“You certainly are. The world you came from is real. That’s the point. There isn’t one reality. There is an infinity of realities. They don’t pop into existence and then pop back out. They exist, realities without end. And they split, and sometimes merge, and drift apart. These Reality Controllers don’t want to believe that. They have this mindset that there is only one reality, and that all the others are phantoms. They’re not phantoms, just as you and I aren’t. But if you believe there is only one reality, every split means that your “reality” is being threatened. It isn’t, it can’t be. Every split is actually creating a new slicetime, with a common past and an uncommon future.”

“Morta, when people won’t accept the reality around them, they become fanatics, striving to deny reality and make certain nobody else admits to reality. These fanatics are trying to force every split timeline from their past to merge back into this timeline, in the name of One Reality. And, by the way, burn us heretics at the stake for daring to deny their beliefs and making more timeline splits.”

“And you’ve been caught up in the game.”

“Why me?”

“Because you have the skills the voice in the wall needs. He’s actually breaking his own beliefs by importing you, but that’s not too uncommon for a fanatic caught in a box by his own beliefs.”

“Why shouldn’t I catch you and turn you in?”

“One, my hand might relax. Two, this conversation just split this time line into more than one slicetimes. You won’t make the same decision on all the timelines. I might try to do my own “merging” to rescue myself. It’s been known to occur. And three, the offer I made to you I could make for your hubbie-to-be, as well, if you decide to help me find out where your home slicetime is. I think you’d want to think that over, before doing something rash.”

Which way would the frog hop?

She flicked a finger towards the door. I took the hint and left.

Chapter 3

The question sometimes arises, what is reality to a Dodger? You’re everywhere and yet nowhere. All the slicetimes are deterministic, so how do you have free will?

You must free yourself from the lure of the leaf, Caterpillar, to become the butterfly.

Or in Western terms, there is no Reality, only an infinite maze of twisty little realities, all different. The path that your decisions lead you through only hold true for the you that followed that path, not the infinite other yous, who followed other paths. The you at the end of a particular path is only the you that resulted from the choices that made that path. All paths are deterministic, but your choices aren’t.

Or to quote from Rev. Smith, founder of the First Unreformed Church of Knowing Martian Ecumenicals, “At Cusp, Choice Is.”

Yes, but from the outside, it’s all deterministic, the free will is an illusion!

Caterpillar, if there is an outside, who controls the outside’s free will? Does not the box open forever? If there is no outside, then how could determinism be perceived? Do not both paths lead to the same answer?

Master, my head hurts!

Caterpillar, it is the pain you must endure to become the butterfly…

At least I had gotten Morta to start thinking. Now it was my turn to think.

In this slicetime, encrypted, digital communications was dirt cheap and readily available. Voice-in-the-wall could be anywhere on the planet. He couldn’t be off-planet because there was no speed-of-light lag.

Another slicetime? I had no communicators that would work between the slicetimes, but then again, I hadn’t needed one. If you had a Homer signal…Hmmm…Yes, you could heterodyne a signal on a Homer trace. Might be a bit tricky, but I could get it to work. So he could be in any slicetime.

Even this one. I realized that since Homers could be used as teleport devices, their Homer signals could also be used as an intra slicetime comm device as well. He could be anywhere/when.

But not without leaving a trace. If he was using a Homer device, it would have to have a continuous trace into this slicetime, most likely to be into the building with the box in the wall.

Unless he was being really tricky. You could take the real Homer comm line and hook it up to an existing tech telephone connection somewhere else in the slicetime. And leave another dummy Homer trace going into the building, with a comm line on it as a trap.

Dammit, he was doing the same thing to me I was doing to him when I scrammed the old Homers. Or maybe I was just doing it to myself. Feints within feints within feints didn’t seem to fit the M.O. of Voice-in-the-wall. But then again, I had only a few moments of contact with him. Arrgh!

Ok, do the part you understand first. I had enough parts to make a dozen Homer tracers. So I built them and the next day, I snuck around and set out a multipoint tracer setup.

I went back to the Athena and dialed them on. The pattern took about 2 seconds to build, and I then turned them off. The main Homer send point stood out like a naked girl at a monastery. I spotted four other Homer paths, all faint. They were just tracer paths to other slicetimes, and they hadn’t been used recently. Unless….Hmmm…Could I do it with my equipment?

Nope. All I could do was turn them on every few minutes for a few milliseconds, and measure the path intensities. If one of them increased, that meant that somebody, probably a Dodger who had been caught, was being sent to voice-in-the-wall’s headbreaking hotel.

I’d done all I could. Time for another lunch out with a pretty girl…

Chapter 4

This time I didn’t try to sneak up on Morta. Never do the same approach. Always keep your opponent off-guard. I walked over to Morta in her direct line of sight, and sat down opposite to her.

“Hi, Morta.” I said cheerfully.

She looked at me sourly and said, “You again.”

“Now is that any way to talk to your benefactor?”

“The only benefit I can see is that I now have to look over both of my shoulders.”

“It keeps them in shape. Did you catch any fish on your last safari, or did they all wriggle off the hook?”

“I’ve caught a lamprey that I can’t get out of the boat.”

“You shouldn’t tell anybody about it, they’re an endangered specie.”

“If I’m lucky, they’ll go extinct.”

“Enough foreplay. Are you interested in the package deal you got offered?”

Her eyes flicked around her. “Maybe.”

“Well, seeing as you are a lady, I’ll take it as a ladylike answer. My first goal is to find ol’ Voice-in-the-wall. My guess is that you’ve never actually seen him.”

“You’re a good guesser. What are you going to do to him when you find him?”

“Now, a gentleman never tells. Can you give me any information about how you get your assignments, and what happens when you get back with a catch?”

“I’m told when to show up at the entrance before I leave after the previous mission. I then go to a robing room. An outfit is laid out for me to put on, and a pack for me to look at and read. It’s supposed to be a fit for the slicetime I’m being sent to. I then go into the main transmission room, the one you were in, and stand while the Voice-in-the-wall asks me if I have any questions. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. When the questions are answered, I stand on the transmitter/receiver and I’m send to the slicetime. I take my tracker and start looking for the target. If they are there, they are usually close by. Sometimes, all I have to follow is the trace of a previous transmit, like yours.”

“How did you follow me? I had some pretty heavy backtrail protection.”

“Apparently, something must have warned the Voice, he was explicit that I tracked you with offset jumps, at least until I was certain you weren’t jumping further. He didn’t explain why.”

You chase me at your own risk. Somebody must have been led to the slaughter by the Voice.

“You must have a real sensitive tracker. I’d like a sample, if you could get me one.”

“I have to turn it in every time I leave.”

“Ok. What do you do with your catch?”

“Since you disappeared, the procedure changed. I step off the transmitter/receiver immediately and the person disappears.”

“I guess that ol’ Voice finally figured out that piranhas aren’t minnows.”

Morta shrugged. “You don’t seem to be out of your own woods, yet.”

“I’m working on it, and getting you back home, both.”

“Any more questions?”

“When’s your next trip into the great crapshoot?”

“Three days from now, 9 AM local.”

“Just keep thinking about your hubbie-to-be, whole and healthy. I’ll get you there, it’ll just take some time. Try not to shoot me in the back as I leave.”

I headed to the exit.

Chapter 5

(Doggeral blues song)

I’d had three days to prepare. Hideouts and 3 levels of backup, Homer trackers and deadman devices. It was all boiling down to Banzai time.

I had the tracers on autotimer, kicking on when Morta was supposed to go to through the door. When the third surge hit, so did my Live Homer, set to follow the trace. Where it went I didn’t know, but I hoped to find out who the Voice had caught. And hopefully get back alive, with a trace on all the Homer traces at that slicetime. Then hopefully I could triangulate where ol’ Voice was.

Meanwhile, I had to hang loose, while waiting for the trigger. I had set the music player in the room to MCC’s Camp Life.

Waiting…

And then – WHAMBO.

Chapter 6

There are days when you wonder why you even bother about anything. I was ready for anything except what I got.

I was suddenly in a forest glade, with no signs of people or civilization around me. A bit chilly, but nothing of importance to me, anyway. At least it wasn’t a debriefing room.

I might as well get the bad news over. I check my Homer tracer. Blank.

Now I didn’t figure that ol’ Voice had sent me on a Big Dive. That just didn’t fit his slimy mind. I figured that I was here, wherever here was, as a softener for later questioning.

I yelled, “HEY, BAKA, WHERE ARE THE DANCING GIRLS?”

A contralto voice in the forest said faintly, “Doesn’t sound like a Black Hat to me.”

Another much deeper voice said, “I’d better go find out.”

A bit of something gun-like poked out from behind a tree. I didn’t flinch. It was just one of the risks I had taken with this jump. Besides if I was relaxed, maybe they would also.

‘That’s a funny looking gun.” I said conversationally. “How does it work?”

Another voice behind me said, “It works by disrupting the atomic attraction between pieces of matter.”

“I think some societies call those blasters.” I didn’t bother to turn. The other guy had shown me the gun to get my attention. Bueno. “Y’all shure don’t seem very friendly.”

“Should we be?” the voice behind me said.

“You can’t tell your targets without a scorecard. Now that you’ve caught me, what do you want me to do? I hope talking is included in the agenda.”

“First, slowly drop your backpack.” The voice said behind me.

I complied.

“Now to make us happy. Take off your clothes.”

I complied again. “Shall I walk a few feet from my clothes?”

“Ten paces, slow and easy.”

I sauntered away from my clothes and backpack. I turned so that I could see both the gun in the woods and the person behind me. He was a freckled redhead, around 190 cm, with a feral grin.

He rooted around my clothes. “They’re clean.”

“I’d recommend you not search my backpack. It wouldn’t be habit-forming.” I said.

The blaster was suddenly leveled at me. “Why?”

I smiled. “The deadmans would kill you. Might take out the whole glade, it you triggered the wrong one.”

“Disarm them.”

I looked him in the eye. “No. I’ve tried to make you relax and be at home. It’s now your turn to be civil, Mr Justice Lennox.”

His famed quick decision-making showed in full force. The gun disappeared and he called out to the woods. “Come on out.”

Four people came out of the woods. A tall athletic man around 30, a shorter guy around 50 with a pot belly, and two ladies, a tall, strawberry blonde and a short, small brunette.

“Where are the twins?” I said conversationally.

“Mr Justice Lennox said, “They were off pirating when you took us.”

“Now Woodie, do I look like a tall, tough, gal?”

The strawberry blonde snickered. Woodie said, “So how do you know about the lady who grabbed us.”

“Because she grabbed me, too. And the people she’s working for are probably listening to our every word.”

“What are their reasons?” said the small brunette.

“I think they want to reform Woodie.”

The strawberry blonde snickered again.

“Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen.” I turned and screamed “LAST CALL FOR ALCOHOL, VOICE! SPEAK NOW OR WE’LL WRITE YOU OFF!”

No answer. Well, I had nothing better to do. “Mind if I get dressed? You can just pitch the clothes over here.”

The tall gent did so. I got dressed, and said, “My name’s Garfield, Robert F. Garfield.”

“His name is Mud, Dirty Slimy Mud.” came a voice from the thin air.

“Why howdy, Voice. Glad you could make your own party. By the way what is your handle?”

“Handle?” the voice sounded puzzled.

“You name, please. I’d tired of calling you Voice. I’ll settle for an alias, if that’s all you want to give.”

Meanwhile my hand was in my pocket, triggering a tracer. The whole purpose of this dido was to get a line on Joe’s location. First things first.

“You may call me Joe.”

“Well Joe, now that you’ve got us in your bottle, what are you going to do with us?”

“We’re going to clean up the mess all of you have made with Reality. You’re the worst, Robert, but your companions, combined, aren’t far behind you.”

“They can’t be all bad, then.”

The short brunette popped off then, “And Who gave you the right to decide our fate?”

“We are chosen to keep constancy in Reality. Our Duty is to keep Chaos from overtaking Reality. You are all clearly Agents of Chaos.”

I stuck my oar in, “Now, now, that’s a different book, right next to Adolf Hitler’s finest S/F work. We’re buddies of Jerry Cornelius.” I winked at the ladies. “He’s a lot more fun.”

All of Woodie’s contingent gave me blank looks, not surprising given their reality branch point. I sighed. Amateurs…

Meanwhile, Joe answered back, “Laugh while you can, Robert. You won’t get out of this one.”

I shook my head. “It’s ‘Laufa whilea you cana, Monkey Boy.’ Get you insults right.”

“We’ll have a rubber room, all for you when you come. Meanwhile, I have other people to deal with. Goodbye.”;

Chapter 7

Woodie spoke up. “Robert, can you explain what this is all about.”

“I’ll second that.” Said the small brunnette.

“Your hubby,” pointing to the tubby gent, “got you all into this mess with his continua device. Black Hats aren’t the only bug and bother in the Multiverse. Y’all just found another fun one. They’re a bit nastier.”

“My name’s Jake,” said the guy with the pot belly, “and could explain from the top?”

Another boring explanation. The only good part of it was that it might end in allies, or at least more targets to confuse the RC’s with…

“It’s like this. Jake built a one-lunged multiverse access machine. It was based on a limited, not-overly-descriptive mathematical model of the multiverse. That’s how you and Woodie hooked up. Sort of like Taxicab Geometry as compared to the total universe of all descriptive geometries, taken as unit set.”

“But my mathematical proof was –“

I waved an arm to get his attention. “Your mathematical proof was a tiny subset of descriptive Reality. The entire set is unexplorable, because it’s not even perceivable to any describable intellect. And, yes, I include the Arisians, although they might argue the point. Or maybe not, they understand the ramifications of Godel’s incompleteness theorem.”

“Can I see you mathematical description?” Jake said with shining eyes.

“You may not. The is arse-saving time, not mathematics-by-the-fire time.”

“Right. “ inserted Woodie.

Jake was about to stick his oar back in but the tall strawberry blonde grabbed his arm and started whispering in his ear.

“Anyway, there is an infinite number of ways to access these sheaves of Universes, or Realities, both in controlled access manners and uncontrolled access manners. However, it is not fixed, as Wheeler’s many-worlds quantum theory is crossed with Calvinistic Determinism, further snarled with perceptual duration measurement, which defines multiple unique reality sets, separate from any Universe sheaf, which are in and of themselves also infinite, but bounded, in fact, if not potential, by limited duration of any perception viewpoint.

“That’s the simple answer.”

Woodie said, “I think I lost you a couple of sentences back.” Jake looked like he was going to have a stroke.

“Ok, Woodie, here’s the ‘Run, Spot, Run’ version. Just don’t get upset when it doesn’t explain everything.

“There’s an infinite number of separate universes that exist. Jake’s continua device lets you access some of them. So far, so good?” Woodie nodded. “According to Wheeler’s ‘many worlds’ theory, every time an unresolvable quantum event occurs, it creates another version of that particular Universe. Until the quantum event is localized, the two Universes overlap, giving the appearance of one universe with one tiny piece unmeasurable. Once measured, the universes become separate, with each one unable to communicate with the other one. Think of your ‘Black Hat’ party, where you almost got Mulrooney, how you defined people’s universes by the split points?” Woodie nodded. “Same thing, only infinitely bigger. Here’s the sticker. When you go into another Universe, or Reality, you become the unmeasured quantum event by your very existence, even if you do nothing. There’s version of that universe with you and without you. Is that any clearer?”

“Hmm.” Said Woodie.

Meanwhile Jake exploded, “I demand that you provide me with your ma-“. The tall gent put his hand over Jake’s mouth. I saw a sap being waved around.

“So how does this affect us?” said Woodie.

“Not everybody believes in this. They think in terms of a singular Universe, Grandfather Paradox and all. They don’t like us tourists. We keep splitting the timelime. So they’re out to shut down into one timeline, the one they believe in. Those are the gents who captured us.”

“I gather you aren’t a fan of this?” said Woodie.

“You guess right. But you can’t just shoot ‘em, there are an infinite number of them, from an infinite number of Universes, even if they don’t believe that. Plus, this Joe fellow is being pretty cagey.”

“So where are we?” Woodie asked.

“Behind the proverbial 8-ball, unless you happen to have one of your continua devices with you.”

“Unfortunately, I left it in my other pants.” Woodie said dryly.

“So we just wait for the executioner. Meanwhile, Woodie, if you’ll strip naked and walk 50 paces from your hardware, I’ll open my backpack, and give Jake a mathematical hushpuppy.”

This did not set well with Woodie. “You aren’t calling the shot.”

“Woodie, you are a liar, a thief, a cheat, and an all-around sociopath. I’m not going to open my backpack while you have the means to rob me. I’m not a Howard and I don’t give a D.R.A. about your standing as The Senior. No tickie, no washie.”

“Lazarus, I hope your author made a lot of money out of you. Your reputation keeps preceding you.” said the tall gent, who I knew was Zeb.

I said, “He did. I used to play croquet with him, before he took up writing. Now Woodie, are you going to co-operate, or do I have to sic Hilda on you?”

Woodie gave in with ill grace, but he gave in.

I undid the deadmans and opened the backpack. I took out the main mentalmitter and a blank chip, along with three of the four headphone sets. What I then recorded had nothing to do with mathematics. It was an escape plan…

Chapter 8

I’ve always been told that God fights on the side with the biggest artillery. Personally, I’ve found that Lady Victory usually favors cunning and confusion over strength and size.

I had three knockout gas vials in the backpack, the original Doc Savage recipe, not the vaporized curare he used later. We were going to do a smash and grab raid, sowing confusion around like confetti at a ticker tape parade.

The bet was that Joe the Voice wasn’t using an intermediary link between his microphone and the Homer commlink. I didn’t have a lot of choice. Staying where we were was a loser’s game.

If so, I had a line in his headquarters.

In any raid, intelligence is paramount. The problem is getting the intelligence without getting caught getting it. I had three advantages. One, I had an ultra-small, turned off, Homer in the backpack. (All my worldly wealth, remember?) Two, I had a tracker eye attached to the Homer. Three, I had two triggered needle guns to go with the deadman gun. I had changed the needle cartridge out from hydrazine to ARM mercy needles. I didn’t want to kill unless I had to.

When the show started, we’d have less than 60 seconds to get ready to dance.

I slipped the tall strawberry blonde (Deety) the second needler and wandered over to the other side.

The pattern would be me at the point, Deety rearguard and eyes behind, Woodie and Zeb as artillery (blasters) on the wings, and the old folks in the middle. Deety and my job was to needle anything that moved, as fast as we could move, and Woodie and Zeb only firing if necessary, because they would destroy too much equipment if they fired.

I got eyechecks and said, “Bingo.”

The Tracker eye disappeared. It did a grid pattern search and picture taking, noting the human being count in each area. It would sort all areas and note the highest human concentrations. 30 seconds later it flashed in front of my eyes, and fed the target co-ordinates into the Homer. I put a knockout vial on the Homer and said “A”. The second vial was loaded and I said “B”, followed by the third vial, and “C”. Then “Show map”. The luck of the sinful was with us, B and C were on a straight line from A, which was at a corner of the building.

The Homer started counting. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and WHAMBO, I was in another room. A couple of people were asleep on the floor. I charged straight for the left hand door and burst through it. People looked at me, but not for long as I fired and moved, fired and moved. I ran on and on, into a room that must have been a cafeteria, apparently we caught them at lunch time. They were all slumped over meals.

On and on I ran, shooting at anything that moved, even a white angora cat, getting winded as I went. I ended up at what seemed to be a command center, where the second knockout was dropped. It took about a minute for everybody to catch up with me.

“Blasted anything?” Woodie and Zeb shook their heads no.

“Good.” Now for the second part. My emergency homer has a few gimmicks that I don’t usually install on my standard Homers. One was a homing return to the tracer eye target. The tracer eye returned, per plan above our heads in the command room. I triggered the return button on the tracer eye it flickered, going there and back, and suddenly there was the Homer on the floor.

“Homer command.”

“Confirmed.”

“Label most recent transmission point Voice Lair.”

“Confirmed.”

“Set target to last back path transmission point.

“Confirmed.”

“Transmit contact item 3 seconds after contact.”

“Confirmed.”

“Offset 3 feet per transmission.” I didn’t want to squish all these people.

“Confirmed.”

“Execute.”

“Confirmed.”

“All right, gang. Let’s start pitching these sleeping beauties. Woodie and Deety, you pair off, head and feet, and Zeb and I will alternate. This gas doesn’t last forever…”

So we started pitch people on my Homer and watching them disappear. Within 10 minutes, they were all sent to the glade.

As soon as the last one was on. I started reprogramming the Homer.

“Clear execute.”

“Confirmed.”

“Set voice command homesearch.”

“Voice command coding opened.”

“Search all existing signal paths from current locus for Homer room target loose equal to preset Homer point prior to signal loss. Confirm code consistency before executing. Execute on voice command.”

“Target search not definable.”

“Addition coding. Search end points for Homer signals multiplicity. Store vertical picture of any end points. Sort by room color, closest to white first. Apply offset to endpoint targets. Offset should loose equal distance and direction from Homer room target to target preset labeled Black Homer. Confirm code consistency.”

“Target search definable.”

“Close voice command.”

“Confirmed.”

“Execute.”

The tracer eye disappeared.

A couple of seconds it reappeared.

“Report target acquisition.”

“One target met search criteria.”

“Lock as target backhome.”

“Target locked.”

“Set voice command smashgrab.”

“Voice command coding opened.”

“Set target backhome. Transmit items on contact with 3 second delay to open floorspace at target. Beep if floorspace not available. Contact point for transmit limited to center spot contact. Confirm code consistency.”

“Transmit definable.”

I picked up the homer by the edges. “Send tracer eye to target backhome.”

The tracer eye disappeared.

“Mount up troops. We’ve done the smashing part, let’s do the grabbing part.”

I reordered the group from a lozenge to an I-beam. Deety and Woodie at the point. Hilda and Zeb at the back. I gave the other needler to Hilda. Jake was behind me in the command positions.

“Ok, quick jog until I yell halt. The cover me while I make things disappear. Needle anything that moves.”

I picked up the Homer by the edges and we started.

I yelled halt quite a few times. The big prize was the storeroom with a dozen homers in it. As W.C. Fields said, “Anything worth having is worth cheating for.” As I approached the last door, the ruckus started. It didn’t last long.

A few people hadn’t been needled. They had gathered around the main Homer. When Woodie stuck his head into the room, a few wild shots hit around him. He ducked back out of the line of fire.

He said, “Alright Robert, how are you going to get us out of this one?”

“Homer command. Clear execute. Everybody grab onto me!” I was suddenly being squished.

“Transmit with homer target Backhome. Execute.”

We were suddenly back in the Hotel Athena Suite, which now looked like a junkyard.

“Let go and sound off!”

A chorus of here’s and a quick eyeball verified that I had gotten everybody. Now to finish the job.

“Set voice command Pickup Voice.”

“Confirmed.”

‘Target eye display image of Voice Lair.”

The eye displayed an overview still of the Joe’s Homer room. “Set sub target crosshairs to finger location.” I stuck my finger on the point on the floor where the room display was, right on top of the Voice’s Homer.

“Sub target set.”

“Transmit target eye to contact point with sub target. Return target eye with contacted device, return point open floor area for Backhome target. Confirm code consistency.”

“Consistency confirmed.”

“Close voice command.”

“Confirmed.”

“Execute.”

Suddenly there was another Homer on the floor.

“Permanently store all acquired tracer paths, mark direction of first one as target 0 for n-dimensional directions.”

“All targets stored. Please define set name.”

“Set name Joe Voice Spiderweb.”

“Targets named.”

“Clear current executes.”

“Confirmed.”

“Return to standby mode.”

“Confirmed.”

I took a deep breath and let it out…

“Ladies, the power room is over there.” I pointed in its general direction.

Chapter 9

The first thing I did, once we were back, was to waive off the hangers-on, and call a nearby Deli I had been using. They had a carry-out feature, so I ordered a big spread, to be sealed in a non-descript box and be delivered to the front desk, and then have them ring up. I suspected everybody would be more functional on a full stomach.

As soon as I got off the phone, Woodie started bending my ear.

“I’ve played along, so far, basically because I didn’t have a choice. Are we safe enough so that we can talk?”

“Should be, but nothing is ever certain in the multiverse. What do you want to know?”

Woodie frowned, “Just what did you accomplish?”

“I put the Bad Guy and some of his best henchmen onto the desert island they had reserved for us. Or at least I think so. We’ll find out in a little while. Then I took away his gangplank off said island. He can’t leave, he can’t find his way home. And his lesser henchmen don’t have a way to get to them any more, either. So they’re both stranded, and I took away their communications, too.

“Now they’ll eventually get bailed out by other stations in their organization, when they send somebody from another Homer to find out what happened. Then another Homer will be transmitted in and they’ll get back to functional. Whether or not they’ll still have the contact point to target for Joe and his henchmen, I don’t know. It may be in the equipment littering the room here. I hope so.

“Direct tracing of the paths can be done, but only for a few hours, then the traces dissipate, so to speak, with the continuing quantum fluctuations of any particular slicetime.

“But they’ll still be after us, once they get reorganized.”

Chapter 10

The setup was simple. I would sent the tracer eye to the glade where we had been (and where Joe the Voice, ect. would be waking up), and start transmitting them, one at a time, to the room. If they were conscious, Deety would needle them, and I would put on the mentalmitter headphone and search their minds for all they knew about the details of their Homers. You don’t just start running another person’s computer without knowing the languages it runs with.

This meant that we would be vulnerable to being tracked, because we would be building a really fat trace, but that couldn’t be helped. I needed information, and this was the safest way to get it. I set the slicetime target to ½ second duration gaps at the target slicetime. (And no, it didn’t cause a causality loop. I leave the solution as an exercise for the student…)

My knowledge base grew until I hit the jackpot. I got a senior tech who had come up the hard way, and knew virtually all the equipment, how it worked and how to program it. I carefully stored off the data. I also found out where the tracer backups were stored. He also knew which one was Joe the Voice.

I ordered back the tracer eye once we returned the tech I had just tapped. I reselected Joe the Voice, and had the Homer pull him in.

I had Woodie hogtie him to a chair, after I searched him for anything that looked like a gadget. I ended up with a pile of them. I put them out of sight and waited for the Voice to wake up.

Doc Savage’s formula gives a quick wake up when it wears off. In a few minutes, the Voice started to move. He quickly found out he wasn’t moving very far. He looked at me and glared.

“Howdy, Voice. Set a while.”

“You bit off more than you could chew this time, Dodger.”

“Really? What are you going to do to me this time?”

“My organization will track you to the end of the multiverse to catch you and punish you for this outrage.”

“Isn’t that what you are already doing?”

He just glared at me some more.

“Look, Voice, I’m peaceable man. Can’t we work out some kind of live and let live deal?”

“The only deal I’ll make is to lock you up forever.”

Woodie said, “He’s a real considerate guy.”

“Flexible too. I expect you’ll outlive him, Woodie.”

A voice behind me said, “I wouldn’t make that bet, Robert…”

I said, “Hiya, Morta. Still trying to get your bonus?”

Chapter 11

“It looks like your bet didn’t pay off, Robert.”

“That’s why they call it risk, Woodie.”

The Voice interjected, “I don’t even have to go to the ends of the Multiverse, Dodger. You trapped yourselves.”

“How else could I get a date with Morta, Voice?”

“The only date you’ll get is one with a brainwasher. Morta, spread the men out and have them cuff these Dodgers.”

“I’ll take care of Robert, personally.”, said Morta.

They cuffed Woodie and company, while Morta cuffed me. While her body was blocking any view, she slipped something down the back of my pants. Whatever it was, it was cold.

“Voice, you’re a –“ and let go a long string of what seemed to either be random syllables, or a string of curse words in an unknown language.

I found myself back at the receiving Homer where Morta had first sent me. One of the burly guards dragged me away, eventually pushing me into a small padded room, and locked the door behind me.

A speaker in the wall said, “Try and get out of this one Dodger.”

“It’s nice to know someone is looking out for me. Don’t get bored while I work this out.”

“I’ve got better things to do than talk with a caught Dodger.”

I replied with a few choice words from various languages. I got no response from the speaker…

The problem wasn’t how to get out. The problem was how to stay out. The only way to stay out was to neutralize Joe the Voice. That also meant I had to neutralize Morta. It’s sure hard to bribe some people.

Mulling this over, I came to the conclusion that Morta had to be neutralized first. She had this bad habit of interfering at the least opportune times.

My secret programming language that I was using was a dead language from the slicetime where I got the mentalmiter. Literally dead, as the civilization who spoke it was wiped out from that slicetime. I used it for secure coding when I had to. This was a “had to” time.

So I hunched myself away from the padded wall, forming a cavity behind me, with the sides blocked by my arms. Then I stuck out my tongue and used it to touch my upper lip on the outside. I held this position until I felt a lump behind me. The lump was the target eye, as per instructions.

What instructions? Why, the ones I coded in the language that sounded like cursing, before the Voice had me translated to the local headquarters and moved me to a padded room.

I was using the target eye as a code carrier back to my Homer, as I didn’t have a comm link. At least, not yet. I was going to add it to the rig once I had some spare time.

Meanwhile I had to put kibosh on Morta.

Step one was to find her. Most likely she’d still be in this slicetime. I figured that she had found me when the Homer comm link to the Voice’s slicetime failed. With her background, she must have added 2 + 2 and figured I was behind it. She knew I was in this slicetime, so she must have looked for other Homer tracks in this slicetime, and found me, my Homer tracks showing up like a burqa at a nude beach.

So I unlimbered my tongue and programmed a search pattern to find her. The tracker eye behind me vanished and reappeared. My watch alarm sounded off. I told the Tracker eye to turn it off.

Step two was to send her somewhere, out of the action. Where? Hawaii was a popular place, no big land carnivores, and plenty of fish and birds for lunch. One of the non-populated analogs should do quite nicely. She wouldn’t be there very long, subjective time.

I had my Homer find and store a target Hawaii. It only took a few seconds, subjective time. How long it took along its timeline, I didn’t know or care.

And then…”Execute.” One problem under control.

Now for the fun stuff…

Chapter 12

“Technology giveth,

And technology taketh away,

Blessed be technology…”

Sometimes the answer is in front of you, but you just can’t see it. That was the problem with Joe the Voice. I had all the pieces for the fix, but I didn’t visualize it.

Then the satori hit, and it was all I could do to stop from laughing. It was so easy…

All I needed to do was hack the RC’s Homers. And with the knowledge I had picked up from the senior technician, I knew how!

This was too much fun. I had to do it in clear…

“Homer return to target eye. Offset clear floor 6 feet from Target eye. Execute.”

My Homer showed up on the floor.

“Homer command.”

“Confirmed.”

“Open external file, code name Zonk.”

“File Zonk created.”

“Data insert.” I started spouting what most people would think of a verbal gobblegook. Actually it low level programming code for the RC Homers. It controlled what location the Homer would transmit to. I was coding an override to the Homer to force all the translocations to a New Zealand slicetime, circa 1890.

But the fun didn’t stop there. I added a section to do a comm link to any homer of the same model within communication range in the slicetime, and overlay the Homer programming with this version.

Next, I added code for the Homer to translocate back along the slicetime timeline to the formation of the RCs and randomly branch along the nexus of timelines that branched from that point to this time displacement along the particular slicetime. Then it would overlay all the RC homers (all the ones of this particular design), with the revised code.

Last, but not least, once the code was in place, it put a branch into the comm receive program so that any other attempt to upload code would cause the Homer to start following the branch back to the beginning and bounce forward to overlay more Homers.

The multiverse’s first interdimensional computer virus…

“Close file Zonk.”

“Confirmed.”

Now to trigger it.

“Code unlock Flat Frog.”

“Confirmed.”

I started more gobblegook in a different programming language, defining the communication parameters the RC Homers used.

Finally…”Save code as Christmas Morning.”

“Code saved.”

Now to run the test…

“Execute following command string upon verbal release.”

“Confirmed.”

“Search targets Backhome and current target area. Expand current target area to radius of 1000 meters, spiral grid. Upon finding any Homer, execute program Christmas Morning. Upon successful completion of program Christmas Morning, transmit file Zonk. Upon unsuccessful completion of program Christmas Morning, save all data buffers and responses and mark location of found Homer. Then continue search grid. When grid completed return to starting point.”

“Check Code Consistency.”

“Consistency confirmed.”

“Execute.”

Chapter 13

When the Homer reappeared my cell, I breathed a sigh of relief. But the job wasn’t over.

“Homer command. Report list of all program Christmas Moring failures.”

“No failures.”

Better and better. Time to gather the gold bars and the gun…

“Homer command. Upon verbal command, complete a grid scan of all room located 50 meters from current location. Take overhead photo of each found room, and mark target location for each room found. Upon completion, return to starting point.”

“Confirmed.”

“Execute.”

It was tempting to leave Woodie in his cell, and even more tempting to dump him where Morta was, but basic caution reminded me that his family might catch up with me somewhere in the multiverse. As Nobody said, ‘The secret to a long life is not to do anything to shorten it.’ That meant not starting a family feud, no matter how tempting…

The Homer returned.

“Homer command. Execute program Slide Show, using list of overhead photos from previous command.”

Every 5 seconds an overhead picture showed on the floor. On the fourth picture I saw Deety.

“Mark. Label target Deety.”

“Confirmed.”

One by one, I spotted the other four. I could reach the key Morta left but I couldn’t use it. I had to get somebody else to unlock it. Zeb would be the safest choice.

“Homer command. Translate largest object in target Zeb to current location.”

“Confirmed.”

“Execute.”

Zeb appeared in the cell with me. “That’s a neat trick. Where are the rest?”

“First things first, Zeb. I have a key to my cuffs in my hand. Can you take it and unlock my cuffs? Once that’s done, I’ll try to use it to unlock your cuffs, and then we’ll start getting the rest out of here.”

We fumbled around a bit, but didn’t drop the key and Zeb finally got the key into the lock and unlocked one of the cuffs. I quickly got the other off, and then tried to get Zeb’s off. My luck was still riding high, Zeb’s cuffs came off.

“Zeb, hang on to the key. I’m going to start translating everybody back to the hotel, once I check that it’s clear.”

“Homer command. Upon verbal command, target eye thermal search. Locate all targets with temperature range of 35-45 degrees C at target Backhome. Return to current location with number of targets.”

“Confirmed.”

“Execute.”

The target eye flickered.

“Report number of targets.”

“Zero.”

No people, but there was no way to check for boobytraps. Better let Zeb make the call.

“Zeb, there’s nobody in the room. But I have no way to check for boobytraps. Who do you want to send to find out? Me? You? One of the others?”

“How about the lady who shanghaied us? I think that earns her land mine search specialist.”

Why not Morta? Easy to do, but first, I needed to get my worldly wealth back.

Another command set and my backpack was on the floor in the cell.

“Zeb, let me translate you into the other rooms, one at a time and let you uncuff the others. That way everybody will have their hands free when we enter the room with Morta.”

“Good idea, Robert.”

So I sent him, a cell at a time, to unlock Deety and the rest, returning him to his own cell when he was done.

Now for the final deal…

Chapter 14

It was a quick translocation from the Hawaii analog to the hotel room at the Athena Imperial. Morta didn’t seem to be too dislocated.

Everything was still there after 5 minutes, So I figured the room wasn’t too boobytrapped, and sent in Woodie and his crowd. I followed a few seconds later.

Morta didn’t look real happy, but I don’t think she wanted to try to do a bar clearing.

“Hi Morta. How did you like Waikiki? No crowds.”

“You keep dodging the Voice. How?”

“That’s why I’m called a Dodger. I know how to make the Multiverse work for me. Joe the Voice never wanted to learn that trick.”

“He’ll catch up with you.”

“I’ll take that chance. My problem now is you. Do you want me to leave you here, or try and find your home slicetime? It’s your pick.”

Hope creeped into her face. “How about the rest of your deal?”

“No deal. You blew that when you busted in on my conversation with Joe. Actions have consequences.”

The hope went away. “Home,” she said in a small voice.

“Ok. The target eye will go to every target that the Voice had. Each time it will then jump back 5 seconds and take a picture. You will then look at the pictures for one that looks like you. Just say ‘Mark’ and we’ll then explore those further. Woodie,” I looked at him and his crew. “You do the same. Hopefully, we’ll find you home slicetime to return you to. Now let me code the search.”

For safety’s sake I used my secret programming language. It didn’t take long. I said “execute” in clear speech.

The pictures started showing on the floor. It was quite a slideshow….

After about three hours, Woodie said “Mark!”. The slideshow continued. A few minutes later Morta said “Mark!”. I then said “Pause.”

I interrogated the target eye. “What percent of targets have been searched.”

“43% percent.”

“Ok, folks, do you want to break for a meal and/or plumbing, work keep working until we reach the end?”

Woodie said, “We have our home time, why keep working?”

“Well, Woodie. There might be more than one target that matches what you think is your slicetime. If you search every last one, you’ll know, one way or the other. Once I send you, you won’t be able to fix a mistake. But it’s your call.”

The decision was for a 15 minute plumbing break, and back to it.

We got to the end with only one hit for both Morta and Woodie’s crew.

“Ok, folks, let’s go home. Homer command.”

“Confirmed.”

“Name first Mark as target Mortahome.”

“Confirmed.”

“Name second Mark as target Woodiehome.”

“Confirmed.”

“Set voice command Morta return one.”

“Set target Mortahome. Transmit items on contact. Contact point for transmit limited to center spot contact.’

“Confirmed.” I picked up my Homer by the edges.

“Execute Morta return one.”

“Confirmed.”

“Now Morta, just touch the center spot and you’re home.”

Morta reached forth and disappeared.

Now for Woodie and company.

“Set voice command Woodie return one.”

“Set target Woodiehome. Transmit items on contact. Contact point for transmit limited to center spot contact.’

“Confirmed.” I picked up my Homer by the edges.

“Execute Woodie return one.”

“Confirmed.”

“Well, ladies, gentlemen, and Woodie. Are you going to go willingly, or are you going to remain stranded? Choose your poison.”

I placed the Homer on the floor and reached behind me. The deadman needler slid into my hand. “Banzai” I said.

I started backing away. “Woodie, you have one choice. Go home. This needler I have is a deadman. I relax, and you’re dead. You or your friends make a sudden move, and you’re dead. Now walk slow and steady to the Homer and step on the center. Before my hand gets tired.”

Deety said, “You’re not very trusting.”

“Deety, remember your first meeting with Woodie? When he tried to steal the Gay Deceiver from you? I know he already has plans to steal my Homer. Not this time.”

Hilda said, “Go home Woodie. He’s right and I know it too.”

Woodie glanced in their direction and saw two blasters pointed at him. He slowly walked over to the Homer and touched it with his foot and disappeared.

“Hiroshima” I said.

Hilda put down her blaster. “I gather your Homer is boobytrapped.”

“Yep. And I won’t tell you how. Now we’ve all had an adventure, and Jake can work out the mathematics himself. He’s got the skill. So let’s everyone go home, and part peacefully.’

“Come on, everybody”. And Hilda led them to the Homer and stepped on it. One by one they disappeared and I was alone, at last.

Epilogue.

And as for me? I’m writing this in a low probability slicetime along the Neil Armstong/Ronald Reagan/Barack Obama timeline. The air is dirty, and the women are, too. The tech is excellent and getting better.

So now it’s time for another swim in the Mediterranean, followed by a glass of good wine, and then a lie on the beach with the stars slowing rotating overhead…

Life is good….