The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller (29 page)

She agreed, but her voice was far from hopeful. That dented my spirits. I had no doubt she knew a good portion of the island's several thousand residents. There were four other proper towns, though, as well as a good deal of individual homesteads scattered around the hills and jungles. I had a lot left to search.

The jet had traveled fast enough that I had actually gained a few hours of daylight, but as I hopped on my bike to ride to the next town, a fast shadow fell over the island. The sun dropped enough to be cut off by the ocean held at bay above our heads. It felt eerie and alien: the sky was bright blue, but the light felt overcast, as if the planet had been pulled twice as far from the sun.

At least the semi-sunset brought a breeze with it. I pedaled up the road, stopping on a lonely hill to get a look at the lay of the land. Toward the island's center, sharp black peaks thrust from the soil, climbing nearly to sea level. The rest of the hills and flatlands lay well beneath it, however, and except for the circle of sky overhead, we were walled in by a disturbing gradient of ocean: clean, minty blue near the top of the dome, but navy and nearly black in the deep waters level with the edge of the land. And the next town, Edge City, was right there in its shadow.

I biked up to it. The dome wall loomed higher and higher, the only thing between me and billions of tons of seawater. If it failed, there would be no surviving. The only thing in doubt would be whether I'd die from being crushed or drowned.

I ignored the blue-black wall as best I could and headed for the first bodega I saw. The structures varied starkly from the tropics-themed homes in the last town. Here, many were built into hillsides, insulated by the earth. Many were pressed flush with the wall of the dome, where they presumably had some kind of heat-exchange running to the water outside.

This was confirmed by the system of canals latticing the landscape. These ran every which way, flowing calmly behind houses, between shops, through expansive public gardens. Arched footbridges crossed them at regular intervals. Crabs rested on the rocks of the shores, waving their claws at each other and the residents, many of whom appeared content to sit in the shade and watch the water go on its way. The air was no less muggy than it had been inland, but it was noticeably cooler.

When it came to my search, however, everything else was the same. No one had seen Jeni Sept or known anyone who went by that name. My spirits darkened further. It could be that everyone on the island had conspired to keep her identity secret, but that made no sense, as she'd been plenty open with Mara about her location. More likely, she was either a hermit, or she wasn't here at all.

The sky dimmed and so did the wall of sea. I had been up for 24 hours and crossed a third of the globe. Time to crash. But when I asked one of the grocers about a hotel, she informed me there wasn't one in town.

"Sweetie, don't cry." She reached for my shoulder. I raised an eyebrow; I was frustrated, but not
that
shaken up by my lack of lodging. She smiled warmly. "I've got a spare room. You can tell me your story over breakfast."

I accepted. She had her cashier show me to her house, which was just a few canal-crossings away and dug into the side of a low hill. The cashier showed me the bathroom, the kitchen, and the spare room, then left. Very trusting. I supposed would-be thieves didn't have many places to run to.

I stayed up thinking about what story I'd tell the owner come morning. It was bizarre how they treated tales as currency, especially when you could mint new coinage on the spot. But then again, my thinking had become very off-world. Primetime was post-scarcity. Even on an island like Skald, no one had to worry about having the material cash for food, housing, trips to the doctor. They didn't have to extract material compensation from every transaction.

And it made sense, in its way. If all the needs of the body are met, that leaves the needs of the soul. The idea dovetails with time itself. There are multiple ways to think about time. One is raw causality. My realm.
If
you chop down a tree,
then
it will fall to the earth. Causality is purely physical. The body.

But understanding why a tree falls isn't satisfying. We want to know the
meaning
of the falling tree. Alongside and overlapping with religion, stories are the major way we understand the world—and our selves. Stories are the soul of time. Meaning's net.

The people of Skald knew that better than anyone. With physical goods devalued by abundance, they traded the currency of the spirit instead.

Back to the physical, I wasn't sure how Skald handled their large, voluntary booter population, but I'd soon pick up that it was a patronage system, where social honor was gained by housing the wandering storytellers. The few who fell through the cracks were fed by the matter printers available in each town, which happily transformed raw material into nutritious edibles.

While I noodled on all this, the fans whirred softly. The air smelled like earth and sea salt. I fell asleep before I'd chosen a story. In the morning, woken temporarily by a skylight, then more permanently by the proprietor's knock, I was too tired to come up with something new.

So as she fed me a breakfast of whitefish, toast, kelp salad, and coffee, I told her about my life. Raised by my mom after my father died young. Aptitude for the military, but having no interest in such a ceremonial organization, I'd applied for Central instead. Hadn't made it, but I'd been good enough for the Cutting Room. Been there ever since.

It was disjointed, heavy on summary, and light on resolution, but the woman grinned anyway. Debt paid, I continued my hunt.

I searched high and low. I visited the remaining towns, the handful of visitors. I checked in with the grocers, the storytellers, the island's lone post office, the airport. None of my efforts turned up a single hint of recognition. Four days in, having explored the island from shore to shore, having slept in three different houses and once in the open grass of a warm night, I called Mara through my link.

"I don't think she's here," I said.

Mara looked confused. "'Here' being?"

I held up my link and scanned it across the dome walls and the deep blue waters beyond, then pointed it up at the bowl of sky. "The place I wasn't supposed to be able to get to. I'm here. And our target isn't."

"Don't tell me you've combed the whole island. How can you be sure?"

"Because no one here has ever seen her. Either she changed her face and name, or she's lying to you."

Mara shook her head. "Face is the same. Signs her messages with the same name, too. Let me shoot her a line and see what she has to say."

I nodded and closed the connection. I biked back to see the old woman who'd performed the Greek play, but she hadn't turned up word of Jeni. As I stood outside the cafe eating a pineapple curry and wondering what to do next, Mara's ID came up on my link. I answered.

"She says she's in Edge City," Mara said. "Know it?"

"Canal town," I said. "And unless she never leaves her hole, she isn't in it."

"How about you check again?"

"I will. Then I'm coming home. I don't know what's going on, but this feels like a dead end."

Mara nodded. "Fair enough, but be thorough. She's got no reason to lie to me."

I didn't know about that. They'd worked together for years. Jeni Sept could have a secret resentful agenda. Or it could be a part of old CR politics we weren't privy to. I biked through the gentle hills, sweating, glad to be back in the water-cooled climes and canals of Edge City. This time, I went door to door. Not everyone answered, but if they didn't, their neighbors did. As always, no one knew Sept.

I left messages with storytellers across the island to give me a jangle should she turn up, then biked to the airport to ask if they could let Dido Williams know I was ready to leave. The concierge made a couple calls, then informed me Ms. Williams was engaged, but would be happy to lend me the use of her jet. Where would I like to go?

For just a moment, I was tempted to tell her Asia, the Outback, or that I wouldn't be leaving after all. But I couldn't leave Central to puppeteer an illicit off-world time travel org like G&A. They were thugs. Mobsters. Whatever they were up to, it was bad news for billions of lives on dozens of timelines.

So I flew back to the city. Caught up with Vette, whose transfer to Central was already being processed. It sounded like she'd make it. I congratulated her, then headed to the park on the hills to meet Mara.

"I don't get it," Mara said. "Jeni's been telling me she lives in Skald for years. Why lie?"

I gazed at the sky. It felt good to be away from the sea walls. The darkness of them. The creatures suspended unseen within them. I cocked my head. "How do you talk to her? Voice? Video?"

She shook her head. "Text."

"Have you seen her in person since she left the Cutting Room?"

"This is getting paranoid, Blake. Why would someone
else
pretend to be Jeni?"

"I don't know," I said. "Did she have a partner?"

"Marital? No way. With CR, she teamed with Donald Ruth. He retired a few years back."

"I remember him. Manned logistics." I pulled my gaze away from the sky. "I'm going to pay him a visit."

Mara sighed. "You're supposed to be on vacation."

Fortunately for my cover story, Donald Ruth lived on the opposite coast. State of Sonoma—the sunny south part. In another world, his home was just down the shore from Brownville.

I decided to show up unannounced. I didn't know how he felt about Sept, the Cutting Room, or Central. And it would be rude to arrive on his doorstep after being refused permission.

I took the cross-country zipline. Except where it dipped under the major urban areas, the tube ran above-ground, and I was treated to views of humid forests, sprawling plains, proud mountains, and silent deserts. After the claustrophobia of Skald, it was a welcome sight. Four hours later, I de-zipped in Los Dedos and took the local line south, got off in Ruth's hometown of swaying palms and soft Catholic breezes, and walked the remaining two miles to his charming throwback bungalow.

He answered my knock, face stamped with annoyance. He pointed to a "NO SOLICITORS" sign glued to the front door. "Trouble with your vision?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Ruth, but it's Blake Din. Cutting Room."

The creases on his face deepened. "Get tired of your old face?"

"It's a long story," I said. "Relates to why I'm here. It's about Jeni Sept."

The annoyance left his features, replaced by careful blankness. "What about her?"

"I'm trying to track her down. But I've run into certain difficulties. Do you know her present location?"

"Oh, everyone knows that. They retired her to an island. All expenses paid."

"This isn't a joke," I said.

"Sure it is." He laughed bitterly. "And you need to laugh it off and be on your way."

"It's critical I find her."

"You're just like her, aren't you? Gonna get you in trouble."

"Do you know where she is, Mr. Ruth?"

"I know where she isn't. That Skald place." He eyed me, mouth working, then shook his head once. "Can't say more. There's a reason you can't find her and I'm still here in sunny Sonoma."

I clasped my hands. I didn't want to threaten him. He was an old horse. He'd served his time with CR well. "I have reason to believe my current investigation relates to the troubles she ran into herself."

"You want to know more about it? Why don't you go take a look at the Mercer case. That's the one
she
couldn't look away from."

"What's the Mercer case?"

Donald Ruth shook his head. "Say hello to Jeni for me, Mr. Din."

He closed the door. I stood on his stoop with its couch and its empty bottles and I felt very foolish. 2500 miles for a gnomic hint. Worth it, though. He wouldn't have given it to me over the link. I walked back to the tube, rode to the main station, and headed back across the continent, climbing out of the city tunnel just after midnight.

I was supposed to be keeping away from the main facility, but Vette was still technically active CR roster, so I had her check for the Mercer case. It took a couple days before she came back with the results. There were dozens of CR files involving the name "Mercer," but just four that had taken place during Jeni Sept's tenure.

And only one she'd worked on directly.

She transferred the file to my link. I retired to my apartment to read. The Mercer in question was Siri Mercer, age eight, resident of a PT2-class world (two deviations removed from Primetime—quite close to our own history). Her future had been altered early in the 21st century, when a Primetime trespasser had murdered her and deposited her body in a nearby desert canyon.

Until Jeni Sept had been assigned the case. According to her report, it had been a devil of a mission. Early Digital Era, which meant most of her potential suspects' net footprint was too thin to easily rule them out—or condemn them. That meant a lot of shoe leather.

Worst of all, Siri Mercer lived in New Charles—AKA New York, New Amsterdam, etc. The largest city in the country. And each day, she walked nine blocks home from school. Sept's list of potentials was hundreds long. There was no way for her to observe the entire route at once even if she wanted to. That meant sticking close to Mercer. In turn, that meant risking spooking the attacker.

Predictably, the Zero Day arrived and found Sept without a confirmed identity of the trespasser. And she knew Siri Mercer was a dawdler, prone to stopping for a pizza slice or a pack of gum. It was one thing for Sept to follow her down the street. It was quite another to follow the Mercer girl inside a cramped bodega. That would give herself away for sure. The trespasser would back off, strike again once Agent Sept had been returned to Primetime.

But Agent Sept had hit on a brilliant solution: pay one of Mercer's classmates to follow her in and out of the shops while Sept observed from a safe distance. Brilliant. What I should have done in the Jaso case.