THE MOMENT
"You thinking 'bout buying the murder house?" Wilma had just set foot on the dilapidated property, and she was taking in the task before her when a young voice approached from behind. It was a boy on a bike, his gaze flitting between the distant, contained three-story house through the iron bars and the young woman in a white blazer and white skirt with a red tie. It was almost six in the evening, and the boy was young enough to think employees stopped working at five.
"Not if you're going to go around calling it 'the murder house'," Wilma smiled. "Why do you call it that?"
"I dunno," the boy shrugged. "My parents and older brother call it that. They said there was a lot of screaming that I'm too young to remember. As far as I can remember, I've never seen anyone coming or going. There's never a car in the driveway either, no lights on at night."
"It's been abandoned for some time." Wilma nodded. "It's my job to sell it, so I'm just taking a look around to see how I'm going to do that. My name's Wilma. What's yours?"
"Freddy," he replied. "You have to tell the buyers a whole bunch of people were murdered in there, right? I'm gonna tell them...," he nodded. Wilma smiled and shook her head.
"If I can find something definitive," she shrugged. "But there's not even a police report I can point to that I know of. Well, if you'll excuse me, Freddy, I've got to go take a look around inside."
"Can I go!?" Freddy asked.
"You believe people were murdered in there... and you want to go see?" Wilma asked. Freddy nodded with a shrug.
"You're looking for proof, right? Me too."
"I'm not looking for proof, but, c'mon," Wilma nodded as she unlocked the gate and pushed it open.
"So what are you looking for?" Freddy asked as they followed the cement path from the gate to the house. It was lined on both sides with dead bushes that used to be roses, according to older pictures of the property.
"Nothing in particular," she shrugged. It was a lie, but he was a child, and she had corporate secrets to keep. "I inherited this listing from another company, and this is my first walk-through." All of that was entirely true, if somewhat misleading. They reached the door, and she unlocked it with little fanfare. "I'm supposed to notice things like water damage, termite rot..." Freddy had gone in first, eager to look around, and he wasn't listening to Wilma. "... blood stains, corpses, you know; I have to record every detail," she smiled when Freddy was suddenly paying attention again.
"Do you ever find that stuff?" Freddy asked. The interior of the house was dim, with all the windows covered over, and musty. The boy was staying in the light as much as possible and close to the adult as Wilma wandered around the first floor, glancing here and there.
"No," Wilma shook her head. "People are pretty normal." She moved quickly, only giving things a light appraisal for effect. She was stalling and putting on a show because Freddy came along. On a normal day, at a normal house, she would've been done in a couple of minutes.
"You're not writing anything down?" Freddy asked. Wilma didn't even have a clipboard out.
"I've got a great memory," she said. She stopped at the stairs and glanced upward. "Oh wow, I think it's actually darker up there," she said with a worried tone. Freddy subconsciously stepped backward while trying to act normal. Then, Wilma quickly jerked her head to one side, facing the still-open door. "Did you hear that?"
"What?" Freddy took another step toward the door, and he looked a little more pale.
"It sounded like your name? Do you think your mom's calling you?" she asked.
"YES!" Freddy nodded. "I'd better go back. See you around!" he waved and bolted out the door without looking back.
"Ahhh, kids," Wilma giggled to herself as she peeked through the door to make sure he was truly gone. Then, she made a delicate plucking motion in mid-air to collect her node from nothing.
"Earth... state, city... address...," Wilma mumbled to herself as she pressed all the right buttons to lock the current house into the system. "When...," she looked up the stairs just out of idle thought as she remembered the time period it was owned. "1946 - ... 2024, and go." She filled out the last field, and immediately the interior of the home began to glow with soft white light. It seemed to fill the room, highlighting crevices and cracks. The light persisted for about 20 seconds before it died down again.
[Recording complete] Red text appeared on the clear surface of her node, and she nodded. She took one more lap around the downstairs just to fill time in case Freddy was still outside, she didn't want to come out too soon. And the video had time to process. By the time she was headed out, she heard a chime on her node, and she saw several notices relevant to selling the house.
Sharp Development, the company she worked for, was a vast multiversal corporation with supremely advanced technology. They used nanos for a lot of things, and nanos were quantum in nature. The microscopic machines had no problems traveling through time, recording every wall scratch and coat of paint along the way. It was trivial to let them scan reality in a set location over a set period of time to get a full replay of what happened. And the system was programmed to highlight notable issues, of which there were several categories, one of which had over two dozen infractions.
"Huh," Wilma giggled to herself as she tapped the category and it expanded to list dates. She wasn't interested in watching any of the footage, but it was mildly amusing in a grim sort of way. "Murder house it is."