CHAPTER 29

  "A whole new world

  A new fantastic point of view

  No one to tell us, "No"

  Or where to go

  Or say we're only dreaming..."

  -Aladdin soundtrack

  ...

  Carl stood silently, looking at Chloe, and she met his gaze without flinching.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” he replied.

  “You’re back.”

  “Temporarily.”

  “For Robbie.”

  “Yeah. For Robbie.”

  “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.”

  “This is…awkward. Carl, I…” She looked down, letting out a quiet sigh.

  “I’m going to get this out of the way now. I’m with 26.”

  “With?”

  “I didn’t think you’d ever be back.”

  Now it was Carl’s turn to look at the floor.

  “I’m with someone else as well,” he admitted, glancing at 26. The younger version of himself was red-faced, but he met Carl’s eyes steadily.

  “I’m not mad,” Carl said softly.

  “I thought I was trapped over there forever too. Stop looking at me like that…seriously. If anyone in all the universes was going to end up with my wife, I’m glad it was you.”

  26 opened his mouth, then paused, realizing he didn’t quite know what to say, and shut it again.

  Chloe looked from him to Carl.

  “Are we all good here?”

  Carl shook his head slightly.

  “Not yet.” He turned to 26.

  “Come here.”

  26 walked over, and Carl pulled him into a hug.

  “I missed you, brother.”

  26’s composure cracked.

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to… it just happened.”

  Carl placed his hands on his shoulders, meeting his eyes.

  “I’m serious. It’s okay. I love you both. If you’re happy together, then I’m happy for you. Besides, at least we know she has a type.”

  26 laughed, sniffling through tears.

  Carl released him and hugged Chloe. “I’m sorry, Chloe.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything. Getting lost, leaving you alone to raise Robbie…moving on. I waited three years, and then…well, something happened.”

  Skeever cleared his throat behind them, a little too loudly.

  “Are we done with the reunions? Robbie is out there alone, depending on us.”

  Carl let go of Chloe.

  Skeever was right. They had no time for lingering nostalgia.

  26 had blown his nose and wiped his eyes, returning to the group. “Basically, we have nothing concrete. I was training him with his armor, Zero, on what should have been a routine bounty hunt for a villain calling himself Gigaplex. The guy manipulates technology, likes to weaponize drones. Robbie caught him, dropped him off, and that’s the last anyone has seen of him. The bounty office cameras show him leaving, then…poof. Gone into a blind spot, nothing.”

  Carl stared at the floor for a long moment, his mind already racing.

  “Nano, can you pick up Zero’s signal?”

  “I do not detect his suit’s signal,” the AI replied evenly.

  Skeever exhaled sharply.

  “Already tried that. We have to think outside the box. No signal on the planet means either he’s somewhere in time, or in another universe.”

  Carl’s jaw tightened.

  “How the hell are we supposed to search for him then? There are billions of universes.”

  Chloe blinked up at him.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Billions?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been jumping through different rifts, searching for a way back here.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Jesus.”

  “Not going to be easy,” Carl admitted, feeling the weight of it pressing against his chest. Every second counted. Robbie was out there somewhere, and it was up to them to find him.

  Skeever took charge almost immediately, slipping into command mode like it was second nature. He sent Chloe and 26 out with a list of locations through time that Robbie had previously visited. The list had been compiled by Seven, who now ran the T.E.A., and it was the closest thing they had to a starting point.

  Carl stayed behind with Skeever in his bunker, ten thousand years in the future.

  The air was cool and sterile, humming faintly with machinery older than most civilizations.

  Carl crossed his arms, staring at the holographic displays scrolling too fast to read.

  “That program you and Sliver were working on,” he said,

  “the anomaly detection system. Can we use that to track him?”

  “I already am,” Skeever replied without looking up.

  “It’s running now, but if he’s anywhere in the timeline it’s going to take time to narrow it down. And that’s assuming he’s still in this universe.”

  Carl let out a slow breath.

  “This feels impossible.”

  Skeever finally turned to him.

  “No,” he said calmly.

  “It isn’t. I imagine you said the same thing about getting back here, and yet here you stand. Nothing is impossible. Just difficult.”

  Carl gave a dry laugh.

  “Yeah, but that only worked because those council buttheads—”

  He froze mid-sentence.

  “Wait. The council.”

  Skeever raised an eyebrow.

  “You run it, right?” Carl continued, his mind already racing.

  “Could we put out an APB or a BOLO across timelines? If anyone’s seen Robbie, they’d know. They could help us.”

  For a split second Skeever stared at him, then his face lit up.

  “That’s an excellent idea. Let’s go.”

  “Go?” Carl blinked.

  “Go where?”

  “To the council, dummy. You literally just...never mind. Come on.”

  Skeever pulled the same device from his pocket that he had used to teleport earlier and tapped rapidly at the screen. A soft chime sounded.

  “If the program flags anything, it’ll send the data straight to this,” he said, holding it up.

  “Now…”

  He tapped again.

  A doorway shimmered into existence along the bunker wall, light folding in on itself like reality was being unzipped.

  Skeever stepped forward without hesitation.

  Carl followed.

  They entered Skeevers massive gun room, the walls lined with weaponry seemed to go on forever.

  "I've got to make my presence known at the council. Nano, give me the gold treatment."

  His armor shimmered and took on a gold appearance.

  "Whats that about?"

  "No other Carl wears gold. This is a clear indicator of who I am when I'm there. What, uh...whats going on there? What's D7?"

  "Thats where I work. Its that universes version of the F.B.I.."

  "You work?"

  "Yes. I went through the academy and everything."

  "Really?!"

  "Yep."

  "Good for you."

  Skeever looked at him with a smile.

  "Oh. Ya know the three guys from the council that found me? They seemed almost scared of me when they found out I was a younger version of you."

  "Thats because I don't fuck around. I've had to take the nanotech away from a couple irresponsible Carls."

  "Holy shit...you have that power?"

  "I do. Now, do you need anything?"

  He motioned towards the weapons on the walls.

  "No. I got a huge upgrade to my superstrength, besides, I have this."

  He tapped the Desert Eagle in its holster."

  "Ok, lets go."

  They stepped through the doorway and into the council’s main building. The structure was enormous, completely enclosed and suspended inside its own pocket dimension. Carl’s mouth actually fell open as he took it in.

  There were Carls everywhere.

  Every one of them had a different take on the suit. Some were chrome, some matte black, a few deep blue. One wore armor patterned in glowing hexagons, another had layered plating reminiscent of old samurai armor, and several looked eerily similar to 26’s sleek, streamlined design.

  “Jeezus fucking Murphy…this is insane.”

  There were hallways, each labeled with things like TRAINING, NANOTECH REPAIR, INFIRMIRY. There was a small kiosk selling Gerber Paraframe pocket knives, another sold nothing but Fun-dip. The place seemed endless. He noticed shops lining one side of the massive interior corridor, each staffed by yet another version of himself. They sold tech and weapons, one storefront had a flashing banner stretched across the top that read:

  NEVER OVERHEAT AGAIN! Upgraded Power Sources Available.

  Carl nudged Skeever with his elbow.

  “He, can I borrow some money?”

  Skeever glanced sideways at him, already smirking.

  “For what?”

  Carl pointed at the sign.

  “A power source that doesn’t overheat.”

  Skeever waved dismissively at the shop. “You forget who you are. I’ll give you a better upgrade than any of that garbage.”

  “Oh…okay.”

  “Follow me to my office.”

  As they moved through the hall, other Carls stepped aside instinctively when they saw Skeever. Some gave subtle nods of respect. A few looked almost nervous.

  Skeever ignored them entirely.

  Carl, on the other hand, couldn’t help himself. He smiled, nodded back, even gave one an awkward half-wave. As far as he could tell, he was the only Carl wearing grey.

  Strange.

  All these versions of himself, and not a single one liked grey?

  “Through here.”

  He blinked and realized he had fallen a few steps behind, distracted by the impossible sight of an entire civilization made of himself. He jogged forward and followed Skeever into a narrower hallway.

  “It’s just at the end.”

  Skeever pointed to a brushed silver metal door labeled in big, bold, black letters:

  PRIME

  Inside, Skeever’s office strongly resembled the bunker setup Carl had seen earlier. Two walls were covered in screens displaying cascading data, while the opposite wall held stacked metal vaults the size of industrial safes.

  Skeever keyed in a code on one of the vaults and swung it open. He reached inside and pulled out a small glowing blue disc, the light pulsing softly in his hand.

  “Give me your old power source.”

  “Nano?”

  The current power core slid free from the nanomaterial along Carl’s leg and extruded into his hand.

  Skeever stared at it in disbelief. “You were still using this version? No wonder you wanted an upgrade. This is ancient.”

  Carl shrugged, examining the new disc before pressing it against the nanomaterial on his forearm. It dissolved smoothly into the surface and disappeared.

  “You good, Nano?”

  “Yes. This power source far exceeds the previous unit.”

  Skeever smiled, clearly pleased with himself.

  “Good. Now, let’s get that BOLO out.”

  He retrieved a microphone from a drawer, plugged it into the console, and tapped a few commands on the keyboard. A small light flicked from red to green.

  He pressed the button.

  “Attention all Carls. This is a BOLO for Robert Maitland, son of Carl Prime.

  I repeat, be on the lookout for Robert Maitland. As added incentive, any Carl with verified information regarding Robert’s whereabouts will receive a power source upgrade. That is all.”

  He released the button, unplugged the microphone, and dropped it back into the drawer.

  “It’s done.”

  Carl looked around the office again, taking in the vaults, the screens, the impossible weight of it all.

  “So…how did all this come about?”

  Skeever leaned back slightly, folding his arms.

  “Well, Seven and I were in full swing with the T.E.A., but I started noticing something. A lot of the anomalies we were dealing with weren’t random. They were caused by Carls. And if the T.E.A. polices time travelers, then the council polices Carls. We may all be morally good people at our core, but that doesn’t mean some versions of us don’t do stupid shit.”

  Carl gave a small, knowing nod.

  “Trust me, I know. I used to be one of the Carls doing stupid shit.”

  Skeever chuckled.

  “I wasn’t going to say it.”

  “No, it’s true,” Carl said without defensiveness.

  “I was an idiot. I’ve done a lot of growing up in the past four years.”

  Skeever studied him for a moment.

  “I noticed. The old you never would’ve gone through training for a government job.”

  Carl smiled faintly.

  “Yeah. They’re good people. When this is over, and Robbie’s safe, I’m going back.”

  There was no hesitation in his voice.

  Skeever’s expression shifted, not disapproving, just thoughtful.

  “I wish you’d stay here with us. You could do a lot of good. But I won’t stop you. If you found your place, then you found your place. Hold on to it.”

  “I did,” Carl said quietly.

  “And I will.”

  A moment of silence settled between them, heavier now.

  Finally Carl exhaled.

  “So…where do we start?”

  For the first time since they’d entered the council building, Skeever’s brow creased with uncertainty.

  “I really don’t know.”

  "Dammit...there has to be...his suit! Robbie is wearing Zero, doesn't it have like, some kind of energy signature? I know the government has satellites, maybe we could track his energy signature that way?"

  Skeever was scratching his chin.

  "We can't track the suits energy signature...thats not a thing. You might be on to something with the satellites idea though."

  He sat forward and started typing rapidly.

  "A few years ago they sent up a bunch of satellites capable of insane resolution. If I can hack one and view the logs..."

  He was mumbling to himself and Carl couldnt understand him.

  "What are you doing?"

  "So, theres something like sixty satellites up there...this one...look."

  Carl circled around the desk and leaned down. The screen was dated a couple days before, it was zooming in one screen at a time.

  "Let me just look up the latitude and longitude of the bounty office...input that. The screen was above the city of Ironhaven now, the camera moved then zoomed again, Carl could make out the bounty office.

  "Now I need to figure out what time he was taken...I still have the security camera footage, I'll just check the timestamp...uh...2:14pm. Now we just roll the satellite footage back to 2:14...and...there, look!"

  Carl leaned in, the camera was zooming in on two blurry figures. The picture slowly cleared, a man with his arm around Robbies neck, his other hand putting a round device on Robbie's chest.

  "Can we zoom any further? What is he sticking to Robbies armor?"

  Skeever leaned forward, squinting at the screen.

  "Ive seen those devices before, the bounty office uses them to shut down nanotech."

  "Shit. So Zero can't help him."

  "No. This hasn't been completely useless though, his head is tilted back enough, I think I can run his face through the criminal database. We might be able to find out who it is!"

  Skeever started typing again. He screenshotted the mans face and ran it through the system. He tapped his fingers on his desk while he waited.

  He looked up at Carl.

  "This was a good idea, our first real lead."

  Carl just nodded, his eyes glued to the computer screen.

  -NO MATCHES-

  "Dammit."

  Skeever held up his hand.

  "Hold on...We're not done yet. I have an a.i. model that can generate pictures, let me see if it can fill in the blanks. There's also other databases. Just be patient."

  "I'm trying."

  They waited for the a.i. to render a 3d image of the mans face based on available information.

  "Let me try to move the satellite images forward a few frames, see if I can get a better angle."

  Carl walked back around the desk and sat down.

  "I feel useless right now...I should be doing something."

  "You are. You're helping me."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Oh...I've got a render. Plugging it in now."

  He watched the screen closely. His face lit up with a smile, Carl leaned forward.

  "You got a hit?"

  "I've got a name."

  He spun the screen towards Carl. He was looking at the face of a man he didn't recognize. His name was Aaron Westin. He started skimming the details, under known associates the very first name jumped out at him.

  The name of a man he had personally killed.

  The name was Psyche.

  This was a personal vendetta.

  His past had come back to fuck with him.

  This was his fault.