Chapter Two
Mobius
I close the heavy blinds on my window that faces from Lafayette Square to the Ellipse, switch off my lights, therefore the air conditioner, to silence the office and limit distractions. I carry the disk, still in the bag, to the day bed across the room, lie down upon it and get comfortable. I have to do considerably more than that; I have to clear my mind of all distractions, prepare myself to receive impressions unfiltered by conscious thought. It takes about a minute to do this and, when I feel I'm ready I raise the bag to my forehead, slip the disk out and let it lie there.
I don't try to call an image but allow my mind to drift. Very gradually the blackness lightens; vague shapes and lines of color start to appear, what John Carson is seeing right this second. I just let it come, unfiltered, unhurried, allow the vision to gradually lighten and resolve into images.
I'm in an office, a very large office which encompasses almost an entire floor, broken up into cubicles. There's a wide window several yards away that overlooks Washington, the Capital dome prominent in the distance. A skylight over my head floods the room with enough light that the fluorescents are barely necessary. I know this room; I've been in it so many times that I have to check myself that I'm not remembering two weeks ago, that I'm actually seeing it through Carson's eyes.
My heart skips a beat but I fight it down. He's already in NCIS, though why I don't know, but if he's looking for his targets there he won't find them.
The image pans right, past a desk where a black haired woman sits, her back to me and she doesn't look a bit like Ken Smalley. It's too fast a turn before the image halts at my mother's desk and I expect to see her looking up at me. She's 'Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge', but following the example of her mentor she also stayed in the field, heading up the MCR team that uses the same bullpen she'd originally started in when-
It's not mom! There's a grey haired man seated at mom's desk and I've known him almost since I was born! His face is unlined, younger than I ever knew him, his grey hair still tinged with brown rather than snow white and that face is so wrong my eyes fly open! Gasping, I lose the image, I'm utterly shocked and sit up so fast the disk flies off my forehead to land in my lap. I pant for breath, my chest heaves as I struggle to understand!
I just saw uncle LeeJay! Sitting at mom's desk! Alive. Young. Well, younger than I've ever known him and he's been dead over a year! I was at his funeral!
But these aren't memories. The man whose psychic pattern the disk is linked to is seeing them right now, this very second.
x
I don't try again. My mind has to be clear and calm to get an impression and there is no way I can be called 'calm'. I get off the couch, shove the disk into my dress pocket and try to get my breathing under control. How can a man - today - be looking at Leroy Jethro Gibbs while he's still alive, still young? There is only one way I can think of and it fills me with dread.
I go to the door and stop, restrain myself from yanking it open and bellowing 'Get In Here!' I grasp the knob, turn it slowly and deliberately and pull the door open as though the Earth hasn't just tilted me off.
"Mrs. Carson," I say to the woman seated in the cushioned chair at the far side of Tina's desk, my tone as calm as I can possibly make it, "may I ask if your husband ever mentioned how he plans to get revenge on NCIS?"
"He did say something about 'Mobius' and 'Starstruck', if that will help."
"Thank you, it does."
I close the door, let it click shut, and give myself brownie points for not indulging in slamming it with a shriek of rage. Yes, 'Mobius' and 'Starstruck' would have been very nice to know.
A Mobius Transition. And Starstruck is the only company I know in DC, not that there are many at all, irresponsible enough to offer it to a potential murderer.
I sit down at my desk again and go through three of the ten primary calming exercises in order before I feel I'm in control enough to deal with this. I slide aside the protective cover upon my desktop, the inlaid computer is already active and I insert the receiver unit into my left ear. I want to make sure our conversation won't be heard outside and speak the word that over the years has become the bane of my existence.
x
The cyberspace connection is made in less than a second. "Hello, Starstruck?" I put a smile in my voice rather than the growl I want to use. "This is Su Lin Palmer, Otherworld Investigations. Who's this? Ah, good, Kelly -" the one person I know there with half a brain. She shouldn't be working for those-. The visual connection is turned on at her end; it's standard for people to use voice only unless both parties want to see one another. Kelly is twenty two and far too smart for the job she does.
"Tell me, Kel, have you had a client recently who requested a Mobius transition? Yes? John Carson? Yes. Tell me, do you have the date? Yes, I know it's confidential but his wife is in my offices and she's worried sick about him. No, he didn't. Yes, he should have. Tell you what, just give me the date and duration, I'll reassure her as to how long he'll be gone and from when and we'll keep it to ourselves. No, I won't let there be any trouble. All right. Vacation package, one week. Yes, I have the dates. Thanks, Kel. I won't let it come back to haunt you. Yes, bye."
I touch a button and the screen goes dark. I replace the receiver unit into its slot and slide the cover back over the computer, force my left hand open from clenching so hard it nearly drew blood and mentally shriek 'You brainless, money grubbing Bastards, I'll have your License pulled for this! You sent a potential murderer back more than two decades to kill his victims and screw the Temporal Prime Direc–!'
x
I sharply stop my silent rant. It may feel cleansing but it doesn't help anything. I try to force a lid onto my temper and think. A witch needs control of her mind and especially her emotions and it's time to stop indulging and get to work.
All right, Carson is in the past so I have to be. How to do it isn't the issue, I've got my own Mobius method. What I'm going to do when I get there - that's the problem.
I return to my desk, reach into the second drawer on the right and pull out my TASER. A gun would be too risky even if I had one. My P.P.I. license doesn't permit me to carry deadly weapons but the TASER, accurate up to thirty yards, is deemed to be defensive, so I have a Carry Permit. I just hope Carson doesn't compel me to wish for more.
From a metal box tucked back well behind the weapon I pull out a leather case. I don't want it, it's not mine, it's outdated, more a souvenir, but I have a distinct feeling I'm going to need it and I always go with my feelings. I open the leather folder to the metallic gold badge.
It's my mother's old badge, which she'd actually managed to talk uncle - I mean Director - Tony into letting me have when she'd gotten her Supervisor's shield. I knew full well they'd stretched regulations far, far beyond the breaking point. If it weren't me it would never have happened, but I now suspect maybe mom knew it would come in handy some day - maybe today? - and she can be pretty darn persuasive. It didn't hurt that the shield had already been in the redesign phase; four months later it was as valid as a Dodge City Sheriff's tin star.
The government had been typically efficient in collecting the old ones from Agents: I heard that over 60 percent had become mementos at transition time.
Anyway, I had discretely tucked the box into the back of the drawer and didn't quite forget it. Good thing.
There's no ID, of course, but I pull my own P.P.I. license from my wallet, put my own shield and folder into the box and lock it. I slip the license into the plastic and hope I'll never have to flash the new combination because the ID is nothing like NCIS'; they didn't even use holograms way back then, they used 2D photographs. Of course, it could look quite a bit like mom's face if you glance quickly enough and don't notice the green eyes - or that it's a 3-D hologram. Turn the card and you're looking at my profile.
The last thing I tuck into a thin pocket of my wide red belt is a set of plastic restraints.
x
Knowing the date and time Carson transitioned, I plan to arrive a bit earlier, to catch him on arrival. But time flows at the same rate on both sides of the temporal barrier so I must be cautious or I could screw up completely. That's one reason I hate Mobius transitioning; I'm messing with my own life here. I touch the intercom set into the right corner of my desk. "Tina, would you come in please?"
It only takes her a few seconds. "I have to go away for a while," I tell her, not looking forward to it. Transition Vertigo is unavoidable and a total bitch. Of course, if I can be on site when Carson transitions, then to stop him will be a piece of cake.
I don't trust the 'easy' jobs. I learned from uncle Leejay his set of rules and my first one is: 'Easy jobs are the ones that really bite you on the ass. Hard.'
x
"I figured that when I heard Mobius," Tina says. She always was quick on the uptake. "How long will you be gone?"
"I hope five minutes, but I can't get that lucky. Collect the fee for Mobius from Mrs. Carson and send her home. If I'm not back by closing, reschedule my appointments and give them the old soft shoe. I'll call you as soon as I'm back."
"Don't make it three in the morning, Harry gets pissed."
"I'll try."
There's a lot of memory in that pseudo-casual exchange, not much of it pleasant. I once Transitioned and barely made it back alive; I returned into Tina's living room because, bleeding half to death, hers was the only room my mind could focus on clearly enough. I live alone so going home was useless. She and Harry had broken most DC laws getting my delirious carcass to the hospital. I can only hope for better this time.
x
There's nothing more to say and I've wasted enough time. I've already decided where I'm going and I'll arrive there at night, well before Carson's time. I remember the Carson Senior case, I'd needed only the reminder. I grew up on stories of NCIS cases; why read mystery novels when you can hear the real thing from the people that lived them? I know where I can have a chance to arrive without being seen. Once I'm there, I can identify Carson Junior's transition point and be waiting.
It's a good plan, and the thing about good plans that I really hate is how often and how easily they screw up! I have never had a case that worked out exactly as I'd envisioned it. Well, I just have to pray, trust in the Goddess, and do the one thing I've been taught to do more than anything else: improvise very quickly.
x
I turn to the mirror and have to force myself to relax. It's more than just relaxing; it's total relaxation of body and mind and focusing on the place I need to go, to get as clear and accurate image of not just where, but this time when. I can see Tina and myself reflected in the glass; I have to focus on what lies beyond.
I close my eyes, the better to concentrate, and when I am ready I step forward.
x
The glass is a sensation that sweeps past my body as I walk and keep my eyes closed to hold my concentration on the spell. I could open them but I've seen the transition before - light and color flash by me in the dark silence in a mind-warping chaos and the first time had scared the willies out of me. Ever since then I skip seeing the show, hold my concentration on where I'm going and assure myself I'm doing it for greater concentration, not because it scares me.
I wait until the lights flashing past my eyes have stopped and the light remains steady. I'm in the real world, gravity and air are back and two people stand on the other side of a silver table. They're wearing nothing but a white sheet they share between them and in that instant it's hard to say which of us three is the most startled.
An instant later the hardest Transition Vertigo I've ever felt slams into me like a sledge hammer to my head.
The last thing I'm aware of, even over the brief thought 'they look familiar', is the floor racing up to hit me.
I never see or feel the collision.