BACKTRACKER by Milo Fowler (books to read in your 30s TXT) 📗

own? Maybe. But it seemed to him thiswhole time travel thing was a power no mere mortal should possess unless it wasused for good. Call it fate or karma; either one might not smile kindly on suchpower being used otherwise. Could be that he was just superstitious, but herefused to seek personal gain without helping people in the process. Making adifference for the better, and getting paid for it. All for the greater good.

That's what he told himself, anyway.

Could he travel into the past and assassinate fascist dictators?Rescue revered historical figures who'd expired too soon? Keep half the world'spopulation from being obliterated? Sure. But there were limits. He couldn't go back to adate earlier than the inception of his time travel device. If the technologydidn't exist, he couldn't go there. Then. Whatever. It just wouldn'twork.

So that gave him only twenty years or so to move around. Plenty oftime to change the world, but he wasn't at that level yet. Maybe someday. Fornow, he'd stick with changes on a smaller scale, work his way up. Temporaltechnology was illegal, after all, and he didn't want to ruffle anyBlackshirts' feathers. They liked the status quo; totalitarian regimes tendedto enjoy their power structures. If he started fiddling with the scaffolding,and if they caught him, then it would be Goodbye, world for Harry Muldoon.

Had he ever thought about changing his own past? Undoing mistakes?Eliminating regrets? Spend more time with his mother before the Plague tookher. Get his father the help he needed before he succumbed to depression andended it all. Find a good doctor for his childhood best friend, get that heartcondition diagnosed early on. He hadn't been able to help any of them. He'dnever been able to shake that overwhelming sense of failure.

Depression ran in the family. The suffocating darkness alwayslurked nearby, waiting to pounce. Muldoon had spent most of his life trying tooutrun it. Keep busy, too busy for life to get him down. Don't dwell on thepast. Don't think too much about yourself. Your failures. Shortcomings. If heslowed down long enough, the catatonic despair overwhelmed him. Better toremain in motion, do what he could to help others instead.

Messing with his past could mess up his present, damaging thedelicate equilibrium he'd painstakingly constructed over the years. Therapy andworkaholism were fine bedfellows, and he'd managed to find some peace inmedias res. No way he'd risk losing that, as much as he longed to see hisloved ones again during those better days he'd always taken for granted.

Could he travel into the future? Sure, but what would be thepoint—other than satisfying his own curiosity? Potential futures collapsed assoon as you returned to your own time. They were What if? scenarios andnothing more, vapors on the winds of constant change. Better to mix concrete inthe recent past and watch it harden in the present.

Muldoon was no superhero. Just a guy with an incredible ability.More often than not, he helped people.

But sometimes he had to use their past against them.

The Link entry portal was a virtual expanse of white fog. Muldoonset his pass-image protocols to random shuffle to keep prying eyes off hisonline activities and spoke to the disembodied face of the operator floating infront of him.

"Send call," he said. His voice never echoed in thisboundless space. Somehow, he felt like it should. "Elizabeth Lewiston.West Side Terrace."

"Connecting," said the virtual operator, wearing anoutdated headset and smiling artificial white teeth. "Visual or audioonly?"

"Visual." If Mrs. Lewiston didn't like Muldoon's looks,she'd stick to audio.

A few seconds passed. The operator continued to smile. Muldoonthought about returning the gesture. He was almost sure the AI wouldn't care,either way. Tough to hurt a computer's feelings.

"Who are you?" A true-to-life projection of ElizabethLewiston stood before him, three meters away. Arms folded, wearing a fancywhite gown. A gorgeous young woman. Too much for most men to handle, and shesure as hell knew it. "Do you work for my husband?"

"He hired me." Muldoon took a step forward and stopped.He wore a white suit, white shoes. All very afterlife-ish. Truly hideous. Oneof these days, he'd have to submit a letter of complaint to the LinkCombigwigs. "To follow you."

"How do you think that will go?" She smiled broadly,amused. "Really, Mr..."

"Muldoon."

"You are not the first. You will not be the last. My husbandis a jealous man. He thinks I should devote myself to him alone."

"You married him."

"Yes, I did." Her gaze was cold. "Before I knewwhat he was."

"Hermaphrodite?"

She laughed out loud. "Close enough. We did not consummateour relationship until after the wedding, you see. He insisted upon it. Iassumed it had something to do with his religious upbringing." She leanedtoward him as she said with distaste, "Wayists."

Muldoon feigned a shudder.

"I found out too late that he had been in a nasty accident asa boy. The AI in the family car went berserk and drove them right into a tree.A real one. The tree, I mean. My husband survived, inheriting the familyfortune the same day he lost his parents. But that was not all. Due to theinjuries he suffered, he is now more machine than man from the waist down. Thedoctors did what they could, giving him a synthetic...member.But he cannot control the thing worth a damn, and—"

"Would you like to see the recording, Mrs. Lewiston?"Muldoon said. "Or shall we skip that part?"

"Recording? What on earth do you mean?"

"I told you. Your husband had me follow you. He wanted me torecord what I saw." Muldoon cleared his throat. "I saw a little toomuch, if you catch my meaning."

"I am hanging up now, Mr. Muldoon." Her virtual imageflickered and faded.

"He'd like you to sign this." Muldoon held out his hand,and a holo-image of the divorce papers rotated above his palm. "Somethingabout an infidelity clause in your prenup? He'd rather not go to court, if it's all the same."

Her virtual self returned to its former glory. She narrowed hergaze at the documents.

"You are bluffing. You have nothing recorded."

"I'll let you be the judge of that. I'm sending you copies ofeverything. View and sign at your leisure." He tipped his invisible hat toher