Chapter 9 chapter eight

"Initially, what bothered me was a few fragments of memory, like Dejavu that everyone goes through - I suspected it was just my hallucination, I went to a psychiatrist, and my psychiatrist advised me to call these so-called ' "Future Memories" was recorded, but the recording did not improve my condition, but had the opposite effect. The "replay" began to become clearer and was verified again and again. So, I no longer doubted that my mentality was the problem —Something wonderful is happening to me, it's not a hallucination... "It's been a year since I started documenting this, and I've come to a greater awareness that what's happening to me is not that I can see the future, but that time has indeed gone backwards - a phenomenon I call Call it 'timequakes.' I'll have to document it all in more and more detail, and that might win me back a Nobel Prize - no, not the literature prize that I'll never get...

"Six months ago, I started to learn some physics knowledge by myself. I am convinced that some small problems in the space-time continuum of the universe caused the 'time shock' - the universe that has always been in the process of expansion suddenly 'contracted', for example , it was as if the universe had a chill, and time went backwards - interestingly, the word 'timequake', which I came up with on a whim, seems so apt now. Due to the shrinking process It is instantaneous and uniform, so there is no detectable blue shift (note: the maximum absorption wavelength is toward the short wavelength direction), this mysterious phenomenon is hidden by God. As for why and when the 'time shock' occurs, that is It is a question that only the universe itself can answer. As an observer, it is enough for me to record all this...

"Although the 'timequake' is mysterious, it still has its rules. So far, the 'timequake' I have recorded has the longest time backward time of 151 days, and the shortest is six minutes. The longest interval is two years, one month and nine days, and the shortest is one week, but the time for the next 'timequake' to go backwards will never exceed the time point when the previous 'timequake' occurred. And I am sure that 'recording' such The method does help retain memories that should have been erased when the 'time shock' occurred. Through recording exercises, I have now been able to almost completely retain the memory of the period affected by the 'time shock'-and most people "time shock" does not exist, the so-called Dejavu, the so-called "scientific explanation" is temporary hippocampal dysfunction - that is pure nonsense, my colleagues in the natural sciences often use similar nonsense to defraud them of their scientific research funding, I am well aware of this. It is worth mentioning that even without a series of recall and recording exercises, one can easily detect the existence of 'time shocks' - as long as a Observers like me talked about 'time shocks' to him, and proved the existence of 'time shocks' - I once talked to an insurance salesman for three consecutive days After that, in a 'time shock', he won a lottery of 10 million dollars. I saw his name and photo in the newspaper. After that, he never went to that fast food restaurant again. I guess he's moved to San Diego or Santa Fe somewhere - enjoying his life and avoiding me. Looks like I need to be more careful with what I say in the future...

"I'm almost sure that I'm not the only one in this city who has noticed 'timequakes', and this is the first time 'timequakes' have made me feel dangerous. Of the past six 'timequakes', I have three times I have recorded the discrepancies between the news in the newspaper and my memory, all about accidental death-now I can be sure that it is not that I remember wrongly, but that someone is indeed changing what has happened. This time, It was a sixteen-year-old girl named Emilia who went missing - she was supposed to die a day later in an accident while remodeling a store sign. God, someone is murdering people who should have died for other reasons, and he's To exercise his power in place of Death...

"I have been following this killer for seven years. His name is Jack Daniels. Seven years ago he was just a salesman. Now he is the vice president of the Pittsburgh branch of Alemo Car Rental. Chow picks up the newspapers he throws in the bin, and he always tore out the page with the news of the death - so I can predict who he's going to target. Sometimes he picks his newspapers on the TV news and online too Victim. During the last 'timequake', I sneaked into his study and garage while he was away, downloaded two Trojans on his computer, and installed a GPS tracker, but even so, I still can't know how he kills - his method of committing crimes has become more and more proficient, and he has used his 'precognition' ability to maximize his actions. This person is almost the most perfect in history. serial killer with no motive, no 'signature', and no one can guess how he picks his victims, in other words, no one can connect these cases - fortunately, so far, he still has not gone beyond that All his victims were dying, which prevented me from mustering the courage to take further action. Sometimes I can't help but wonder, is it really a crime to murder a doomed person? Those People are always going to die, but he can always escape, maybe this is God's arrangement...

"Jack Daniels died in a car accident on June 30th. I thought God had finally punished those who despised him - but instead, an unexpected 'time shock' brought him back to life. This time the time goes back twenty-six days, he will definitely try to get rid of the fate of death—no, I must not let him succeed, it is time for him to go to hell... "On the 20th of June he bought a new BMW 530i and unreasonably reinforced it - I had to relocate my GPS tracker... "Jack Daniels is still on the 7 freeway as planned, the arrogant guy, he thinks he can challenge God, challenge death, but he must not think that I will be there waiting for him ..."

- That's the end of Kilgore Trout's diaries and recordings, here is the complete version stored on McCarthy's home computer - the version that was handed over to the Inspector was manipulated by him, he put the information about the 'time shock' All those crazy words have been deleted.As the only police officer in charge of that shocking case (Jason Gregg was unlucky to lie in the hospital for half a month, the case was closed when he was discharged from the hospital, and he only got a medal of commendation in the end), he did This is effortless. From the first second he saw these things, he realized that this case would be the ladder for him to rise to the top, and he would become a star with this case.He alone that evening had urgently interrogated Kilgore Trout.During the interrogation process, he used some "own methods", which he had accumulated over fifteen years on the job, and which had been proven to be effective countless times—and the murderer who was locked in the interrogation room, No more than a college teacher—and soon Trout could no longer keep silent.But unlike most criminals, he didn't immediately demand to see his lawyer, but instead began telling him about "timequakes" and the "story" about his "imaginary" serial killer.Four hours into the interrogation, McCarthy was given one of the most detailed and bizarre statements he'd made since his first day as a cop—but he didn't believe a word of it from the son of a bitch sitting over the table. .Removing the "timequake" part of all the evidence might have been the most ludicrous and risky deal he'd ever made—but he was on the right track.At one o'clock in the morning, after all the "what happened," Trout called his attorney, Nicholas Gu, one of Pittsburgh's most famous criminal defense attorneys, who seemed to have expected such a day. .An hour later, Nicholas Gu and Detective McCarthy made this strange deal in the interrogation room. McCarthy would not disclose all parts of the evidence related to "time shocks". In exchange, Trout would inform McCarthy of all the remaining The whereabouts of the body could not be found, and will plead guilty to all charges in court, regardless of the verdict, he will not appeal.It was a suicidal deal, and McCarthy agreed because there was no factual evidence that Trout had committed all of these crimes other than Trout's madness, and the deal was almost Said that Trout was buried up to the neck—maybe only the "time shock" part, which gave the case room to maneuver, and if his defense lawyer was smart enough, he could use this to make a fuss about the criminal's mental state when he committed the crime— It seemed that the serial killer in front of him really believed in the nonsense he had recorded, and it was incredible that an old fox like Nicholas Gu went crazy with him.

Although something went wrong in the end, the judge and jury did not sentence Kilgore Trout to lethal injection, but sentenced him to life in a criminal psychiatric institution without the possibility of parole - the fat, forever twisted The first button of the shirt's Chinese-American lawyer, McCarthy still underestimated him, even with the remaining part of the diary and recordings, he was still so eloquent that Kilgore Trout escaped the lethal injection destiny.Ten days after the sentencing, McCarthy led three police officers, public relations executive Sean Myers, CBS's exclusive follow-up team, and a team of crime scene investigators under the direction of Kilgore Trout. , excavated three burial sites, and found the bodies of the other sixteen murder victims mentioned in the records - CBS is said to have paid the Pittsburgh Police Department $200,000 for the exclusive interview , And for a while, the name Ian McCarthy became a police hero known throughout Pennsylvania, and the position of inspector was already in his pocket.

McCarthy let out a long breath, but the pain in his chest didn't ease in the slightest—God, what the guy said was true—he thought he didn't believe a word of the "timequake" nonsense, but With the facts in mind, the date on the lower right corner of the computer shows "December 4, 2008, 00:01" - the time has gone back three months.He began to feel less sure of his own thoughts, perhaps from the beginning he believed everything Trout said in his heart. What he wants to do most now is to book a plane ticket to Boston early the next morning, to talk to Kilgore Trout at the Ashercliff Criminal Insane Hospital on the isolation island off Boston, but he No - there's a serial killer out there, ready to move.

Ian McCarthy, only you can stop him—he said to himself.