The Split Second

by John Hulme

  “Huh.” For the first time, Briefer Shan was beginning to gain a little respect for Mr. Chiappa. “That’s pretty genius.”

  “Hardly. By cracking the Second, we put the entire Seems at risk. It was only by the grace of the Plan that we didn’t blow up the whole kit and kaboodle.”

  Chiappa winked at Briefer Shan, who was beginning to feel like so many of his kids at Sartene High. He may have seemed over the hill, but his combination of humility and old-world charm made it hard not to smile in his presence.

  “There’s one thing I can’t figure out, though . . .” Chiappa had a perplexed look on his face as he studied the inner workings of the Bomb. “Where’s the Containment Field?”

  “Containment Field, sir?”

  Chiappa pointed her attention to the black cylinder that he had referred to as the Second Splitter.

  “When Permin and I built ours, we made sure to make only a tiny incision in the Second. But just in case it split in two, we surrounded the whole thing in a Time-resistant glass enclosure so the Essence couldn’t escape.”

  “It’s The Tide we’re talking about, sir. Maybe they want it to escape.”

  At that moment it all started to get very real for both Fixer and Briefer. Immediately, their minds raced to friends and family and all the things they would never see again if they were unable to successfully deactivate the Bomb.

  “What’s your Mission Inside the Mission, Briefer Shan?” Chiappa was referring to something small in The World that Fixers and Briefers were trained to wrap their hearts around when fear threatened to overwhelm them. He knew this was a personal question, but when would be a better time to ask?

  “I’m not much of a believer in the MIM,” Shan confessed without much hesitation. “I rely upon my skills and hard work at all times.”

  Chiappa wasn’t surprised. Young Briefers were often seduced by the illusion of pride.

  “What about you, sir?”

  “It’s always the same for me, regardless of the Mission,” Chiappa smiled and pulled a photo out of his wallet. “And she’ll kill me if I don’t make it home for dinner.”

  Briefer Shan felt a flash of shame at the purity of the Fixer’s love for his wife, but she quickly had to snap back on beam, because Chiappa had turned his attention back to the Time Bomb. There were now only fourteen minutes left on the alarm clock.

  “The way I see it, all we have to do is disconnect the Second Splitter from the rest of the components.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Look for any Booby Traps™.”

  Shan scanned the entire face of the machine, but found no evidence of the snares, snags, or sniggles invented by John Booby.11

  “All clear, sir.”

  “Good. Then let’s do this thing.”

  Chiappa returned Those Things, then requested a pair of Oven Mitts™. Donning the protective gloves, he placed both hands under the black cylinder.

  “I need you to cut that wire . . . that wire . . . and that wire.” He was pointing to the ones that connected the alarm clock to the Splitter, and the Splitter to the freezer and the fertilizer. “And I need you to do it at the exact same time.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Now?” Shan was flabbergasted. “I thought there would be more time to prepare.”

  “Well, we could wait till it gets down to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . but by then my lasagna will be cold.” Chiappa winked again, then rolled up his sleeves to prepare for the operation. “Seriously, Shan—don’t think too much about it. Just cut when I say so and this will all be over.”

  The calmness in Chiappa’s voice relaxed the Briefer, but the ticking of the alarm clock seemed to get louder and louder. It was the same kind of alarm clock Shan had by her bedside in Beijing, which was always set to four a.m. But when it went off it only meant another day at university . . .

  Briefer #375 took a deep breath to steady her nerves, then bundled the three crucial wires in her hand.

  “Ready when you are, sir.”

  Chiappa bent his back to give him more leverage to lift the Splitter, then gave her the nod.

  “May you live in interesting times,” she whispered, then squeezed the handle of Those Things That Look a Lot Like Tweezers That You Cut Wires With and snipped the final three.

  The clock stopped.

  The wires fell to the floor.

  And that was it.

  Nothing else happened.

  Briefer and Fixer looked at each other like, “It couldn’t really be that easy, could it?” But apparently it was. Chiappa wiped the sweat from his eyes and waited for his heart to return to its normal speed.

  “Update Central Command that the Time Bomb has been diffused and we will be delivering the Second back to the Minutemen.” As the Briefer pulled her Receiver™ off her belt, Chiappa had one last thing to add. “And well done, Shan.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Briefer Shan was already mentally adding this to her list of successful Missions as the Fixer slowly lifted the cylinder into the air. He had handled many a Second in his time (not to mention Thirds) and despite its natural volatility, he was quite confident in his ability to contain it. As he freed the Splitter from the wires, Chiappa could almost taste the retirement ceremony at Flip’s and the popcorn (with butter and salt) that lay just on the other side of this final task. “Now, if you could just open that doo—”

  Rinnnggg!

  Suddenly, the bell on the top of the alarm clock began to ring—as loud and grating as the sound that jolts unfortunate dreamers from the pleasure of a Good Night’s Sleep. It was also rattling on top of the freezer, and by the way the many wires attached to it danced lifelessly about like tentacles, Chiappa knew that he had made a terrible mistake.

  For all the wires were dummies.

  “What’s happening, sir?” cried Briefer Shan, the coppery taste of panic soaking her tongue. What was once seven minutes was now six, now five, now four, as the arms of the clock whipped wildly toward zero.

  “It’s a wireless detonator!” Chiappa screamed at his Briefer over the shrill ring of the alarm clock. “Look for a transmitter!”

  “What’s it look like?” Shan frantically scoured the Bomb up and down.

  “A small box with a little rubber antenna!” Chiappa wanted to help her look for it but he was stuck holding the Second Splitter, and by the time he put it down it would already be too late.

  “I can’t find it, sir!” shouted the Briefer. “I can’t find it!”

  As the minute hand passed two on its way to one, a strange peace descended over Mr. Chiappa. He knew that wherever the wireless was, it would soon be activating a guillotine-like device inside the cylinder that would cut the Second neatly in two, sending one half hurtling through the trays of Frozen Moments. Where it would go from there was unclear, but the one thing he knew for certain was that anyone trapped inside the blast radius would be exposed to the Essence of Time.

  “Get out of here, Shan!”

  “No way, sir. A Briefer never leaves her Fixer!”

  “That’s a direct order!”

  “But sir—”

  “Go! Now!”

  Briefer Shan hesitated before bolting back through the gears and to the door that led to the spiral staircase. With tears in her eyes, she took one last look at her Fixer—who was gently easing the Second Splitter to the ground—then closed the door behind her.

  Lucien Chiappa released the long black cylinder and took off his Mitts.

  “Four days,” he whispered aloud.

  Some would have spent their final ten seconds lamenting the Plan’s twisted sense of humor, or cursing the Powers That Be for not cutting him a little slack. Yet Fixer #12 only felt blessed that he had been lucky enough to have a job such as this, a wife such as Ombretta, and a World such as the one in which he was privileged to live. The last thing he thought was, “I knew I should have added For Whom the Bell Tolls to the lesson plan.”

  And then the Time Bo
mb exploded.

  Merritt Parkway, Bridgeport, Connecticut

  “Ahhh!”

  Becker Drane didn’t realize he was screaming until his mom shook him by the arm. “Becker! What’s wrong?”

  It took the boy a few more shakes to snap out of it and quiet down. He’d been following along on Mr. Chiappa’s Mission via the “Missions in Progress” function on his Blinker, when he’d been overwhelmed with the physical sensation of a terrible wrongness in The Seems. Not only did it hurt, but he felt as if he was about to ralph all over the car.

  “I think I’m getting carsick.”

  “Can you wait till the next rest stop?” said Professor Drane, pointing to a sign that said, “Service Area, Three Miles.”

  “I don’t think so,” replied his son, turning a deeper shade of green.

  Even Benjamin kept his mouth shut, because he was starting to worry about Becker too. The professor pulled to the side of the Merritt Parkway and up onto the grass. “Go over there by the woods.”

  Becker opened the door and stumbled out of the car.

  “Go with him, Ferdinand!”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll be right back. I’m just—” But before he even got five steps past the shoulder, Becker and his family witnessed what half a turkey and provolone from Highland Pizza looks like after it’s been in a stomach for forty-five minutes. (Note: It don’t look good.)

  “Dude, that’s so gnarly,” Benjamin said admiringly.

  “Thanks . . . a lot . . . nimrod,” answered Becker, before upchucking again.

  “He’s right, son,” their father chimed in. “That is pretty gnarly.”

  Becker rose to his feet and wiped his mouth on the edge of his sleeve. He was starting to feel a little better, though that was small comfort, for never before had his 7th Sense screamed in this way. It told him that the last update he’d received on “Missions in Progress”—“Time Bomb successfully diffused”— had been somewhat premature.

  The Fixer raised a finger to his family as if to say “give me a minute,” then staggered over by the woods. Once he was sure that he was safely out of view, he pulled his Blinker off his belt and was about to check on the status of Mr. Chiappa, when—

  BLINK! BLINK! BLINK! BLINK! BLINK!

  He covertly pressed the yellow Accept button, holding it down an extra second so it wouldn’t go through its transformation to a keyboard with oversized viewscreen.

  “Stand by for transmission.”

  Becker pretended to dry-heave again just in case his family was watching, then turned the volume on the Blinker up just loud enough to hear.

  “Fixer #37, F. Becker Drane. Please report. Over.”

  The Dispatcher usually wore a headset, a uniform, and a perfectly manicured buzz cut. But this time his hair was disheveled and dark bags had formed beneath his eyes.

  “#37 present and accounted for!”

  The Fixer prepared to wait for verification but the Dispatcher uncharacteristically skipped the formalities. He was fraught with emotion in a way that Becker had never seen before.

  “What happened?”

  The Dispatcher pulled his headset off and wiped the cold sweat from his eyes.

  “We need you, kid. We need you real bad.”

  10. Firsts, Seconds, and Thirds are the three naturally occurring geological phenomena from which the Essence of Time is distilled. For more on the science and nature of Time, please consult appendix B: “Time Is of the Essence.”

  11. An ex-employee of the Toolshed who turned his talents toward darker purposes and is rumored to be a founding member of The Tide.

  4

  Fallout

  Customs, Department of Transportation, The Seems

  By the time Becker arrived in Customs, a state of emergency had already been declared by the Powers That Be. All departmental employees were instructed to remain at their posts until further notice and only authorized personnel were allowed to board the monorail. But as Fixer Drane boarded the express and headed toward one of the greatest disasters in Seemsian history, his head was still spinning from the mess he’d left behind.

  Shortly after the haggard Dispatcher had disappeared from his screen, Becker had grabbed his Toolkit from the trunk of his parents’ car and returned to the woods under the guise of walking off a final bout of nausea. From there, it only took a minute to inflate his Me-2, insert his shiny Skeleton Key into the base of a maple tree, and open a portal directly into the In-Between. But just as he was stepping inside—

  “Becker?”

  The ever-present Benjamin rounded the bend to take another whiz. From the horrified look on his face, the seven-year-old must have thought he was carsick too, for standing next to his older brother was . . . his older brother.

  “You’re dreaming, B.” Becker and his Me-2 tried to cover for each other in perfect harmony. “Go back to the car and when you wake up you won’t remember any of this.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Yes, I will. Because I’m not dreaming!”

  The last thing the Fixer needed was another Rule violation, but seeing that the boy was on the verge of hysterics, he had little choice but to kneel down beside him and come clean.

  “I know this is gonna be hard to believe, B,” Becker waited for an eighteen-wheeler to rumble by, “but um . . . everything I told you about The Seems—it’s real.”

  The fact that there was a blue tunnel apparently extending into infinity (as opposed to the inside of a maple tree) backed up Becker’s claim.

  “I have to take off for a little while, so you hang out with Me. But whatever you do, don’t say anything to Mom or Dad or you’re gonna get the worst flying wedgie of your life.”

  As if to punctuate the threat, the inflatable Becker put its hands together and made a violent upward yanking motion.

  “I swear I won’t say anything. I swear.”

  Becker slung his Toolkit over his shoulder and gave his little brother a hug.

  “Take good care of him, okay, Me?”

  “Affirmative,” answered Becker’s alter ego. “Now get going!” “Now arriving, Department of Time, where it’s always Now. Please watch the gap between the train and the platform.”

  Even before the monorail pulled to a stop, Becker had a feeling it was going to be bad. He was the only passenger on a train normally packed with commuters, and the closer he got to the station the more the Fixer could hear the sound of sirens through the plate-glass windows. But he never expected it would be quite as bad as this.

  Scattered across the platform were hundreds of people— employees and visitors alike—laid out on stretchers or huddled on the floor in blankets, crying out for medical attention. Emergency Care Givers from the Department of Health were scrambling to help everyone they could, but the sheer numbers of those who’d been caught in the blast had them overwhelmed.

  “Help me! Somebody help me!” A girl Becker recognized as one of the baristas from Magic Hour was clutching her leg in agony. “My leg . . . it’s getting older!”

  Seeing that no one was answering her cries, Becker ran over to see what he could do.

  “It’s okay! It’s gonna be o—”

  But it wasn’t gonna be okay—for on closer inspection, the skin right below the girl’s knee had rapidly begun to age, wrinkling like Saran Wrap right before Becker’s eyes. Even worse, the bones beneath the skin were gnarling and warping into those of an old woman.

  “Help!” Becker called out at the top of his lungs. “We need a medic over here!”

  “In one second!” cried a sweat-soaked Care Giver. “We have to deal with the most serious cases first!”

  As Becker tried to comfort the anguished girl, he realized that as bad as what was happening to her, what was happening around them was much, much worse. Two paramedics were treating a teller from Daylight Savings, but their Anti-Aging Cream had failed to stop his teeth from falling out of his head. Everywhere Becker looked, blonds and redheads w
ere turning gray and white, spines were hunching, and years of life were rapidly draining away.

  “We need more dustpans over here!” shrieked a nurse to no one in particular. “We need more dustpans stat!”

  True horror, it is said, lies in what remains unseen—but that is only said by those who have never truly seen it. Becker was now witnessing it firsthand, as Seemsians who only a half-hour ago had bright futures ahead of them were following the aging process to its logical conclusion—their lives cut short as they literally crumbled into piles of dust. Weeping Care Givers were delicately sweeping up the remains and pouring them into ceramic urns so friends and family could someday honor their loved ones.

  “Somebody do something!” he shouted, noticing how fear had made his voice sound high pitched and shrill.

  Becker had never seen a dead person before, except for a girl named Amy Lannin. Amy grew up around the corner from Becker and was by far his best friend, but she was stricken with leukemia when she was only ten years old. On the day of her funeral, the sight of her made up and lying in the coffin had been almost too much for Becker to bear. And even after a year of service as a Fixer, to be in the presence of death again shook him to the very core.

  “Fixer Drane! Over here!”

  Becker looked up to see the Dispatcher himself emerging from a makeshift ops center.

  “One second, sir!” Becker was still holding the hand of the terrified barista, who was finally having a tourniquet applied to her leg. “I need to make sure she’s—”

  “That’s an order, Fixer Drane!” Even the Dispatcher’s famously gruff voice got caught inside his throat. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”

  Reluctantly, Becker pulled his hand out of the grasp of the barista.

  “Please . . . don’t leave me!” implored the girl.

  “I have to,” answered Becker. “After I Fix this thing, I promise I’ll come back and make sure you’re all right.”

  But that brought the young woman small comfort as she was lifted onto a stretcher and loaded onto the monorail with the rest of the victims. Becker still hoped that he could find her at the Department of Health when all of this was over, but then he realized . . . he never even had the chance to get her name.