The Split Second

by John Hulme

  The prudent thing would have been to return to the falls and wait for help to arrive, or at least try to find a way to climb back to the top. But Shan Mei-Lin had been moving forward for as long as she could remember . . . ever since she was a child, when she had scored so high on her placement tests she’d been taken from her hometown of Dunhuang and sent to live with the other “gifted students” in Beijing. Moving forward (not to mention upward) had led her to become the top-ranked student at every school she’d ever attended, and after she’d been recruited by Human Resources, she had done the same at the IFR. Moving forward was all she knew how to do.

  So she raised her last Flash in the Pan, and headed into the black.

  Hours later (or was it days?) Shan continued through the darkness, but gradually that word had come to lose its meaning. The Flash had flickered and gone out and when the Teflon-coated Pan slipped from the Briefer’s fingers, she didn’t bother to pick it up. Her Night Shades™ didn’t help her see anything (because there was nothing to see) and even her coveted 7th Sense—the beacon that every Fixer and Briefer follows—was faltering as well. Not one hair stood, not one goose bump raised, not one twinge in her stomach told Shan the news that she was on the right track.

  In The Compendium of Malfunction & Repair (aka the Manual), there is an appendix known as “Places You Don’t Want To Go,” and Shan had studied it all too well. In these pages, there is talk of the Jaws of Defeat, the Point of No Return, and of course, the village of Who Knows Where. But tucked amid the maps and warning signs is the small account of a place where Time does not exist. A prison, with no obvious entrance and no known way out, whose walls shape around the mind of the unfortunate soul who somehow finds their way inside. Briefer Shan felt a cold weakness descending over her body, and for the first time she was forced to face the real possibility that she had stumbled into Meanwhile.

  “Central Command, come in!” Shan called out desperately. “Briefer down. Repeat, Briefer down! Requesting immediate backup, please respond, over!” Even the static that Shan had once hated would have been music to her ears, as opposed to the mind-numbing silence.

  “Never be afraid to be afraid,” Shan chanted to herself. “Never be afraid to be—” But she was afraid to be afraid, and never in her life had she been as afraid as she was right now. Not even the time she had wandered into the Magao caves as a child and couldn’t remember which corridor would lead her back to the light. She’d begun to cry and run through other passageways, but they just led her deeper into the maze. Rescue only came through the ingenuity of her older brother, whose rhythmic knocks on the cave wall drew her from both panic and the damp corner in which she crouched. But today, Bohai would not be coming to rescue her. Nobody would.

  “Help!” she screamed as loud as she could, because someone had put those footsteps in the sand. But for all Shan knew, they’d been put there years ago and that someone was just as lost in the infinite darkness as she. “Help!”

  It was at this moment that she at last grasped the importance of the ancient axiom that she’d always mocked as a pointless exercise in self-trickery. For if she only had a Mission Inside the Mission right now, she would have something small to wrap her heart around—something to help her transcend the fear. But in the place of that small gem, all that was left was the fear itself.

  Her heart began to pound, and her mouth felt like it was filling up with sand. Shan curled up in a ball and closed her eyes and did her best to block out the memory of the final entry in the Manual regarding this bleak and terrible place. But the words kept writing themselves across the back of her eyelids . . .

  “Those who enter Meanwhile are never seen again.”

  8

  The Keeper of the Records

  Hall of Records, Department of History, The Seems

  “Someone’s coming! Someone’s coming!”

  Daniel J. Sullivan—or “Sully,” as he was known to the few friends who still checked in on him from time to time— removed his stereophonic headphones and put down his paper and pen.

  “I’m sorry, Linus. Did you say something?”

  “Someone’s coming!” A voice that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard echoed through the room. “Someone’s coming!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We haven’t had a visitor since the Revisionist stopped by and that was eons ago.”

  Sully was speaking not to an assistant or a co-worker, but to the Gray-Headed Lovebird (Agapornis canus Seemsius) who was his only company in this desolate corner of The Seems. The brightly feathered parrot (only the head of a Grayhead is gray) was presently in a highly agitated state, shaking the bars of its cage like a rioting prisoner.

  “All right, already!” The man with the frizzy hair and bleary eyes put his headphones back on and turned up the volume. “Don’t get your feathers in a bunch.”

  Of all the positions in The Seems, few are less coveted than an assignment to the Hall of Records. This crumbling stone depot was officially defunded by the Powers That Be several years ago and claims but a single employee—a position manned over the years by Seemsberian ex-cons, a ne’er-do-well son-in-law of a Power That Be, and a disgruntled nature buff whose insubordination had angered one too many higher-ups. But of all the people who’ve held this lonely, dead-end post, it is safe to say that only one of them truly loved it.

  “By the Plan, you’re right!” Sully’s headphones were connected to an enormous Gramophone, on which a vinyl disc six feet in diameter was slowly spinning around. Whatever he was listening to, it seemed to have something to do with what was about to happen. “If I know History—and I do know History—he’ll be here in less than five minutes!”

  The hall’s lone staff member jumped to his feet and scrambled into action. A chalkboard was flipped over and the other side erased of all its equations. Handwritten pieces of paper were gathered off the floor and stuffed into desk drawers. Even the two remaining buttons of a collared white shirt were hastily secured, which only served to emphasize the disheveled nature of the pin-striped tie that hung loosely around Sully’s neck.

  “Time for the gnomes!” screeched Linus from inside his cage, “Time for the gnomes!”

  “Quiet, you stupid pigeon!” Sully wheeled and flicked an eraser in the general vicinity of the cage. “No one knows what I’ve been working on and I wanna keep it that way!”

  “Time for the gnomes! Time for the gnomes!”

  “Fine!” Sully made his way over to the small black-and-white TV that was plugged into the outlet above his work station. “But don’t complain if it’s a rerun!”

  As Sully returned to his frantic cleanup, Linus focused his attention on the fuzzy monitor, where another episode of The Jinx Gnomes had just gotten underway. Based on the popular comic strip of the same name, this half-hour animated series depicted the adventures of the crack unit dispatched to The World whenever a person overcelebrated a bit of good fortune. It was now the top-rated show in The Seems, and counted among its many devoted followers a certain ornery bird.

  “Rerun! Rerun!”

  “Send a letter to the network!” Sully scanned the hall to make sure that all the evidence of his life’s work was concealed, then snuck a peek at the monitor himself. “Is it ‘I’m Just Glad There’s No Traffic’?”

  “ ‘Perfect Day for a Wedding.’ ‘Perfect Day for a Wedding.’ ”

  But Linus’s joy at watching the blushing bride get her comeuppance was rudely interrupted when the locked and dusty door that Sully had always assumed to be an old janitor’s closet suddenly burst open. Blue light and wind spilled out, followed shortly by a thirteen-year-old boy, with a borrowed peacoat and fraying bandages all over his hands.

  “Where am I?” shouted the strangely dressed kid, staggering to his feet. “Am I back in The Seems?”

  “Of course you’re in The Seems.” Despite the fact that Sully was rarely in the presence of other humans or Seemsians, he hadn’t forgotten his manners. “Welcome to the Hall of Records.”
<
br />   Becker Drane pulled the frost-covered Transport Goggles off his face and took in the sight of his new surroundings. It looked very much like the reading room of an old library, with stained-glass windows and shelves stretching from parquet floor all the way up to domed ceiling. What was contained in these stacks didn’t appear to be books, however, but record albums—like the kind his father kept in the “Do Not Touch” corner of their basement—except a whole lot bigger. To make matters weirder, the only two inhabitants of this place seemed to be a frizzy-haired lunatic dressed in rags and a parrot watching TV.

  “The Hall of Records?” Becker was still frazzled from the craziest trip through the In-Between he’d ever taken. “I didn’t even know there was a Hall of Records.”

  “It’s actually a division of a sub-department of the Department of History, if you want to get technical.” Sully offered the boy a stool. “I’m pretty busy right now, but if you don’t mind waiting, I’d be happy to give you the grand—”

  BLINK! BLINK! BLINK! BLINK! BLINK!

  Becker whipped off his heavy peacoat and pulled his flashing Blinker off his belt.

  196 MISSED CALLS

  Uh-oh. Someone had been trying to reach him for quite some time—a lot of someones—and judging by the “911” next to each communication, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what they had to say. In fact, the whole thing was giving him a terrible Déjà Vu of the worst nightmare (beta) he’d ever had.

  “Forget about where I am!” Becker’s eyes darted about for a Time Piece or a clock, but found none. “When am I?”

  “When are you? I’m not sure I under—”

  But the Fixer was already scrambling over to the black-and-white boob tube and spinning the dial through the staticky broadcasting band known as UHF.

  “PARTY FOUL! PARTY FOUL!” squawked Linus, furious that Becker had turned off his favorite program.

  “Linus, if you don’t shut your trap, I’m going to cover up your cage again.” Sully grabbed an old bedsheet and held it up to the Lovebird. “And we all remember what happened last time . . .”

  As Linus quickly settled down (while making a mental note to imitate the smoke alarm as soon as Sully fell asleep that night), Becker found his way to channel 64, better known as the Seemsian News Network. To his profound and lasting relief, the date and time stamp running across the SNN ticker revealed that although he’d spent what seemed like several days falling through the Frozen Moments, only six hours of real Time had passed since his Mission had begun.

  “. . . at present all attempts to contact Fixer Drane have failed,” reported SNN’s continuing coverage of the crisis. “But our sources inside the Big Building confirm that at least for the moment, The World is still on schedule.”

  “Thank the Plan.” Fixer #37 on the Roster felt his heart start beating again. “Thank the Plan.”

  Becker turned down the volume and recounted the strange journey that brought him here. First, he’d opened a Door inside a Frozen Moment. Second, he’d tumbled into a tube that looked like the blue electricity that powered it had gone out decades ago. And third, he’d found himself in an artery that was so narrow that his only choice was to wriggle his way through like a rat in a pipe. In all his trips through this nether region, Becker had never been as happy to see the white pinhole of light that heralded The Seems.

  “Only thing I don’t understand is why I didn’t end up in Customs?”

  “It makes perfect sense,” said Sully, unrolling a map of The Seems that featured the pre–Seemsiana Purchase layout, including defunct departments such as Justice, Mystery, and Ladies’ Shoes. “The Hall of Records used to be the Department of Transportation, till they built that fancy new Terminal. Who knows how many old Doors wind their way back here?”

  As the Fixer studied the scroll, the Keeper of the Records finally started to relax. When he’d confirmed the parrot’s assertion that someone was coming, Sully fretted that this was a random inspection or worse yet, the long-dreaded day when HUD19 would decide to turn this place into “industrial condominiums.” But now that someone was here, he couldn’t help but swell with pride.

  “Personally, I’m glad they made the switch.” He motioned to the stacks of giant LPs. “Here in the Hall of Records, everything that has ever happened in The World or The Seems is recorded in wax and made available to the general pub—”

  “No offense, dude.” Becker didn’t want to be rude, but he didn’t really have time for tea and cookies. “I’m sure this is an awesome department, but I need to make a phone call.”

  Becker tucked himself into an abandoned listening booth and dialed the number for Central Command.

  “Number 37 !” The Dispatcher made no attempt to hide the relief in his voice. “Where in the name of the Plan have you been?”

  “Shan and I got separated in the Frozen Moments.” Becker kept it to himself as to why that had happened. “Any word from her yet?”

  “Negative.”

  Becker stifled a pang of guilt and prayed that Shan was as good as Shan thought she was.

  “She’s a professional. She’ll find a way out.” Becker had to stay focused on the task at hand. “In the meantime, I need you to supervise the immediate construction of a Containment Field—ten-feet square, with a floor made of grass, not dirt. Scatter a handful of Firsts and Thirds inside, and the Split Second will be drawn to it like a magnet.”

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, and Becker briefly considered attributing his plan to Tom Jackal, but he couldn’t deny the thrill of hearing the Dispatcher speechless.

  “I’ll put #26 on it right away.” The Dispatcher shouted for someone to get Tony the Plumber on the line. “Where are you gonna be?”

  Becker swallowed hard because he knew this would be a bombshell.

  “I’ll be looking for the Time Being.”

  “You must be joking.”

  “Somebody has to know where she is. A person of that magnitude doesn’t just vanish into Thin Air.”

  “We’ve already checked Thin Air—several times—and there wasn’t even a trace.”

  Becker knew this to be true, because searching for the woman known as the Time Being in The Seems was kind of like looking for Amelia Earhart in The World. Back in the Day, she had been a leading voice on the design team that built The World from Scratch and was famed for her controversial choice to inject Time into the very Fabric of Reality. The popularity of that decision in The Seems led to her election as the original Second in Command, and she was always well liked even after she tendered her resignation. But she vanished without a trace over fifty years ago, and hadn’t been seen since.

  “Excuse me—,” interrupted Sully, but the Fixer ignored him.

  “Well maybe we can talk to one of the original members of the Powers That Be.” Becker cupped his hand over his ear and spoke louder into the Receiver. “All I know is I have it on good authority that we can’t complete this Mission unless she—”

  “Excuse me!” Sully was now shouting.

  “What?” Becker shouted back, seeing that the Keeper of the Records was now looming over his shoulder.

  “I don’t mean to be a bother, but can I interpret from your conversation that you’re on a quest to find the Time Being?”

  “Uh . . .” Becker didn’t really know what else to say, so he just said, “That’s right.”

  Sully smoothed back his hair and tightened up his tie to near respectability. As far as he was concerned, the Hall of Records had a lot to offer, but it had fallen so far off the Radar that he rarely, if ever, got a chance to make a difference in The World. Now that the opportunity presented itself, he was going to relish it.

  “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”

  Gandan Monastery, Sühbaatar Province, Outer Mongolia

  An entire World away, two figures garbed in traditional red gis sat in the lotus position on a rice paper mat. As a bell tolled, the statues of the great warriors who came before seemed to watch their ever
y move.

  “Devasyaaaa . . . ,” chanted the voices of their fellow monks. But the incomparable Li Po and his new Initiate did not join them.

  Six months earlier, the lanky young Seemsian had come to Gandan to study under Fixer #1, and at Po’s instruction he’d forsaken his name and taken a vow of silence. The Initiate had also shaved his head, blindfolded his eyes, and covered his ears, tongue, and fingertips with beeswax—all in an effort to avoid deception by the five primary senses. For it was mastery of the fabled 7th that he now pursued.

  “Focus!” The Initiate admonished himself with his inner voice. “Reach for that feeling that something is wrong!”

  Those born in The Seems have no 7th Sense, but on a fateful night in the Department of Sleep, the Briefer turned seeker had felt the subtlest of twinges. Now he used the raised neck hairs, goose bumps, and chills down his spine to track the path of the Split Second, and even from this great distance, he could see in his mind’s eye that it had reached the launching point from which it would soon annihilate The World.

  “Do you feel it, master?” asked the Initiate, though not with the help of his vocal cords. Affixed to his belt was a small pouch of tiles, each inscribed with Olde Seemsian characters that allowed one versed in their ways to say much without saying anything at all. But the way his hands shook as he arranged the ivory squares betrayed the fear that welled inside him. “The Essence of Time is loose.”

  “The Powers That Be will determine if and when we are needed,” Li Po responded via his own set of squares. “I strongly suggest you return to your exercises until that moment arrives.”

  “But The World is in grave danger!”

  “The World is always in grave danger, young one. For its very existence depends upon the thinnest thread in the Fabric of Reality, and the simplest Twist of Fate.” Po had raised the act of silent communication to an art form, and his fingers now arranged the tiles with the speed of a World-class pianist. “Only by harnessing the power of our 7th Sense—and by releasing what we cannot control—can we ensure it will remain safe.”