Former elite
operative Merit Rafi suffered during her imprisonment at the end of a
devastating war, but the ultimate torment is being forced to investigate a
murder she would gladly have committed herself.
The year is
3324. In the region once known as Turkey, the Rasakans have attacked the
technologically superior Oku. The war is a stalemate until the Oku commander,
General Zane, abruptly surrenders.
Merit, a
staunch member of the Oku resistance, fights on, but she and her comrades are
soon captured. An uneasy peace ensues, but the Rasakans work secretly to gain
control of the prized Oku time-travel technology. When Zane is murdered, the
Rasakans exert their control over Merit, the last person on Earth capable of
Forensic Retrospection.
Merit, though
reinstated to her old job by the despised Rasakans, knows she is only a puppet.
If she refuses to travel back in time to identify Zane’s killer, her family and
colleagues will pay the price. But giving in to Rasakan coercion means giving
them unimaginable power. She has only three days to make this morally wrenching
choice; three days to change history.
As the
preliminary investigation progresses, Merit uncovers evidence of a wider plot.
How did the Rasakans defeat the technologically superior Oku? Why did the Oku
surrender prematurely? How did the Rasakans discover her true identity? Merit
realizes she will only find the answers by learning who killed the traitor,
General Zane.
In
Retrospect is a good old-fashioned whodunit set in a compelling
post-apocalyptic future.
Prologue:
Three Days Later
Monday,
17 April 3324, 1:10 PM
A stately room. Black-lacquered
cabinets flank a massive desk. Maps and oil paintings hang on pale green walls.
Burgundy woodwork. Globe, grandfather clock, and fireplace with brass andirons
cast in the shape of lions, teeth bared. A room steeped in the past. Except in
the sunny east bay, where a closet-sized polyhedron floats a handsbreadth above
the carpet.
Three men in sage-green uniforms will
stare at the Vessel. One, a sneering rat of a man, will peer through the open
hatch and see the sole of a boot.
“Is she dead?” he will ask, hopping
closer to get a better look.
“Back off, snitch!” The man with the
sentry’s insignia on sleeve of his beefy arm will step in front of the hatch
and shove him back.
The snitch will stagger against the
clock, but he has seen enough. He will grin as he straightens the curved blue
half-shield that covers his forehead and eyes. “I knew she’d botch it. I told
her—I warned her! Skank. Who’s a heap of dung now?”
A choking sound will escape the throat
of the red-head at the comm. His mouth will work as he looks pleadingly at the
sentry.
The sentry will shake his head and
glance at the thing on the floor of the Vessel. “She’s gone. Torrified.” He
will take a deep breath, hold it, then exhale explosively through clenched
teeth. “Get the Marshall. Now!”
Blinking away his tears, the red-head
will remove his comm-set with shaking hands and stumble away.
“Hey!” the snitch will cry. “That’s my
job! I get to tell the Marshall, not you! Hey!” He will follow the red-head
through the door and down the stairs beyond.
The sentry will wait for the tap of
footsteps to fade, then squeeze through the hatch.
Above the console, the mission
chronometer will show all zeros. The lower panel will be mangled, as if someone
has bashed it in with a heavy object. He will glance at the pilot’s chair,
unclamped and upside down.
He will kneel beside what is left of
the body.
Except for the black pendant on its
silver chain, pillowed in the ash that had been her neck, there will be nothing
there to remind him of the woman he had known. He will ease the plasma gun from
her holster and note that two bolts have been fired. His brow will furrow and
his gaze will dart from the canted walls to the crumpled sage uniform. Then he
will grunt and replace the gun.
“Thanks, Reb,” he will whisper.
The sound of running feet will remind
him he has no business being in the Vessel.
He will clap the ashes from his hands
as he rises. “I guess you got your wish.”
Ellen
Larson’s first story appeared in Yankee Magazine in 1971. She has sold stories
to AHMM (Barry Award finalist) and Big Pulp and is the author of the NJ
Mysteries, The Hatch and Brood of Time and Unfold the Evil, featuring a
sleuthing reporter. Her current book is In Retrospect, a dystopian mystery
(Carefully crafted whodunit -PW starred). Larson lived for seventeen years in
Egypt, where she developed a love of different cultures. She is editor of the
Poisoned Pencil, the YA mystery imprint. These days she lives in an off-grid
cabin in upstate New York, enjoying the solitude.
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