“Daisy, you are forever,” Quark replies. “You will be forever. That is a fact, that is how it is and how it will always be.”
“Well, that’s true for what I’m made of, but for me, for who I am, for the individual atoms that for this brief span of years make up the being known as Daisy Jacobs, that’s not true.”
“Billions of atoms propelled against one another in a luminous fireball of coincidence.”
“Don’t forget all that begetting,” I add. “Who knows I may do some begetting of my own … ” Inside, I’m blushing.
“Being inside your mind and seeing how you use what is in here,” he taps the side of my head, “that has been … interesting. I like the way you see connections between things that are not necessarily connected.”
“Like what?”
“Like between the people in your life, between cause and effect. Like with the equation your maths teacher put up on screen last week. He was showing the class the connection between what you are studying now, what you might study at A Level, and an equation you might see if you do maths at university.”
“I didn’t think you saw any point in ‘wasting time’ studying at school.”
In the mirror my grin widens as my face becomes more meditative. “I can sense you, Daisy. You stopped exploring, stopped plotting inside there,” he taps my head again, “instead, you focused on that equation. You could see the links, I felt it, you could see how that equation could work and more than that, I think you could see what it meant, what lay behind and beyond it. And I don’t think seeing things like that is normal.”
“No?”
“And there’s a name for it. I think you are a scientist.”
“I am just a girl.”
“‘Just’! Did you just say, ‘just a girl’! I thought that was your superpower?!”
“I know in many ways I’m still a kid. I know I’m fighting you and fighting against the odds. I am a girl, but I want to grow up to be a woman.”
“And how has it felt with me being you?”
“That’s my point, Quark, you’re not me. You’re barely a pale imitation. You’ve taken me over. You’re trying to push me out of existence altogether. You’ve made me less than a passenger in my own body.”
“So?” There’s still a defiant sparkle in my eyes.
“I’ll let ‘so’ pass for the moment — but make no mistake, if we get time, I’ll come back to the ethics of ‘so’.”
My grin widens and I know he’s been teasing me.
I’m not letting him get away with that! But I have a bigger point to make. “What I mean is that you can be the passenger. Instead of being the invader.”
Our connection is so strong and so close that he immediately gets the gist of what I’m saying. “Be a parasite within the host you mean?”
“No, not a parasite — that’s malignant; the intention is negative. I mean an observer, an entirely benign presence. You have the ultimate opportunity; you are unique in the entire universe. You can go wherever you want to for as long as you want to. And this way you can truly live the life of any single being you come across. You can see them as they actually are; not try to kill them or try to manipulate them into being something they are not. There’d be no false images or misunderstandings. You’d be within them, you’d experience their language, their culture, their entire civilisation — for as long as you want. You can literally see both sides of an argument.”
“What, and just leave you here?”
“Of course! After all, I’ve got a life of my own to live.”
“Equations to study.”
“Yeah. And any bare moons you come across, any useless comets or wandering bits of rock —”
“Pound ‘em.”
“Into their constituent atoms. Then no beings will be harmed in the continuance of your role.”
“And who you are, what you are, will still be here, Daisy.”
“Okay, so I’ll see you again then — in what? Almost a billion years?” I see my internal smile echoed in the smile on my face in the mirror. “You know, in a weird kind of way I’d kind of miss you,” I add.
“I’ll miss you too.”
I note with an inward smile that our long chat has brought about the return of Quark’s ability to use contractions.
“I can’t say I’ve enjoyed all aspects of human adolescence. It’s quite a challenge at times. But it’s been a pleasure to get to know you, Daisy Jacobs. I enjoy your company.”
“Well, don’t let me keep you — even though I do have a lot to say.”
“You do!” He looks at me and smiles a wide, deep smile. “You always have a lot to say.”
“And you enjoy it, don’t try to deny it. You may not enjoy ‘life red in tooth and claw’, but you do get a kick out of this living lark.”
He winces at the reminder, but the smile returns swiftly. “I do. I do. I don’t think I will ever tire of listening to you, talking to you, being with you.”
“I don’t think an enduring friendship is possible, Quark.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think a long-term relationship is very much on the cards. I think our friendship will last for a long time. A very long time.”
And I thought I was getting somewhere! I thought I could help Quark to see sense and go off to explore the great outdoors. I thought I’d persuaded him to get a life. But I have a horrible feeling he’s going for the one he’s already got!
Chapter 57
THE STRANGER IN THE MIRROR
Morning again. The mirror again. Quark stares at the stranger in the glass. A sweet face, but once more subdued and serious. The once familiar animation that used to flutter between the bright eyes and the curved, rosy lips is absent. He misses that lively, animated girl. He misses … himself? He looks again, staring deep into ‘his’ own eyes. Looking for himself. Trying to see into the soul. But he doesn’t have a soul. He is atoms and … he thinks of the T-Shirt in Daisy’s drawer with the message — ‘Never trust an atom, they make up everything’.
And at that thought, the eyes, now grey-green again, under their thick lashes suddenly fill with tears.
Who is crying? He doesn’t even know anymore. Is this Quark? Or is the reflection in the mirror the true reflection of her? Am I crying? he thinks. Am I doing this?” And suddenly, he knows what he must do.
“Daisy, I am sorry.” It’s her voice, but his voice, deeper, huskier, with a rueful, almost soulful edge to it. “‘Until you are naught but dust!’ I remember that phrase, that threat. But you have to understand, this is how it has always been. I’ve simply existed. The conversations I have had with you are the first I have ever had.”
“The first ever!” She replies, and the vitality, the energy, the life in her voice animates him immediately and he know he’s made the right decision.
“Ever,” he repeats.
“That’s so sad!”
“There has never been the need before.” He curls her lips downward in an exaggerated sad face.
“Aw! A grey existence. An existence without life or colour.”
“I suppose from your perspective it is. It was. But there’s never been the need negotiate, let alone actually talk.”
“So, you’ve never really seen life and that’s why you don’t want to let go.”
“I did not know what I was missing.”
“And now you do.”
“No, I did not know what I was missing until I met you, Daisy Jacobs.”
“Is flattery the latest one of your tricks to try and wheedle me into surrendering?”
He laughs. “No. It’s my way of saying I finally found the spark. I learned what life truly is.”
“In all its technicolour glory!” This time Daisy laughs and he can hear the echo of it tinkling away inside her head.
He clears his throat, “yes, well — some parts of life are more enjoyable than others.”
“That particular part may not seem wond
erful at the time, Quark, but that is the start of life for us. From there we make the life that I’ve fought so hard to retain. From such a small thing — it’s amazing when you think about it.”
“Daisy, you are amazing.”
“No, I —”
“Daisy, listen: you are extraordinary. In a few brief weeks — in just a tiny fraction of the briefest blink of an eye on my timescale, I have learned more from you about what it means to be alive than in all the eons of my previous existence.” He pauses. “Now I hope to experience more.”
“No more grey life?”
“No. Now I have seen what it is to be truly alive. Through your curiosity about everything, your thirst for knowledge, I have truly lived for the first time — briefly and vicariously, but I have seen what life is like. Through you, that grey existence has become full-colour. Thank you.”
Daisy is touched, but Quark can sense her deep anxiety. “And so?”
“So?”
“Yes, what happens now?”
“I must fulfil my destiny. I must do what I came into existence to do.”
Daisy sighs. “So my thanks for showing you what life’s all about is for you to grind me into dust?” Her bitterness is evident. “It’s all been a waste? You’ll just gobble up all life on Earth?”
“I will. Eventually … ”
“Eventually?”
“I have never had to wait this long. Never been forced — as I saw it — to actually live. After the first becoming it is always easy.”
“And dull.”
He continues as though he hasn’t heard her. “Here, there are so many messages, so many stimuli bombarding you at all times: from TV, computers, radios, mobile phones, but also advertisements and news programmes, the barking of dogs, the songs of birds, other peoples’ voices shouting and yelling or just talking incessantly, trains flashing past, cars revving and aeroplanes taking off, vans and trucks, the smell of exhaust from buses passing on the street, the colours everywhere, and every food tastes different — even the same recipe, cooked a second time, tastes different; the scent of soaps and perfumes and shampoos; the smell of people who do not use soap and perfumes and shampoos! The noise of children playing in the park, the leaking of other peoples’ music from headphones and passing cars, the din of crowds at football matches, and people talking … talking and talking and talking — Daisy: space is totally quiet. Can you imagine absolute silence? Can you imagine days and weeks and years of seeing nothing and hearing nothing?”
“No. That must be awful!”
“It is bliss, Daisy. Silence. Nothing to see. No smells —“
“Good or bad.”
“Yes! But every one of those stimuli reacts and interacts with what is going on in your own thoughts, emotions, feelings.” Daisy’s body sighs deeply. “It is overwhelming.”
“And this is just Scuttleford, Quark. Imagine London or Mexico City, Tokyo or Mumbai.”
“I cannot even begin to think about it.”
“And then there’s hormones …”
“Don’t talk to me about hormones!”
“But you’ve changed Quark. And I don’t think it’s just my hormones that did that. I don’t think I need to become for you to get what you want. I’m already changing. So are you. People meet; beings meet. Entities meet — whatever. We change. You think in a different way to how you did when you arrived in me — on Earth, I mean.
“When I came here, I was not thinking at all!”
“Well, now you are. And the way you think has changed too. You make jokes! You use contractions. You kiss boys! You’ve not just been in my head, you’ve been in my shoes, living my life. Living, not becoming. You’ve had the chance to be me. To become more than atoms. More than mere matter. You experienced life.”
“I have not enjoyed it all. Some of it, like when you —”
“Yeah, I get it, I get it! Some things about being human you don’t like. It’s not all a bed of roses, I’ll agree. But lots of it — most of it — is pretty wonderful.”
“Yes, but I make things more too. Make them bigger than what they were.”
“No, you make beings into less than they were. You take away everything that they were and turn them to dust. Lots and lots of dust, maybe, but dust nonetheless.”
“You are saying my life is pointless?”
“No, I’m saying you haven’t lived at all, until now. Who knows, the theory may be correct and ridding the universe of matter could be vital, but there’s plenty of useless stuff for you to work on, without getting rid of the good stuff, the inhabited planets, the suns that bring life.”
“As I said, Daisy — you see the universe the way a scientist does.”
“I’ve learned a lot about the world, about science, about myself — what I can do and what I’m capable of,” she replies.
“You’re capable of anything. Anything at all.”
“And now you’re learning from me!”
“Yes?”
“‘You’re’ again! See, you’re using a contraction!”
“And what does that say about me?”
“That you’ve become just a little human. That you’ve softened. You’re rounder, less spiky.”
“I’ve also learned about time.”
“But you’re practically as old as time!” Daisy says with a laugh.
“Thank you very much!” He pauses. “I mean, I’ve learned to value it more — to live in the moment rather than to see a great expanse of time.”
“But isn’t that boring? To imagine all those moments, stretching out ahead of you?”
“No. And that’s the greatest thing you have taught me: to live. I will experience so many things in the time to come. I will actually live in those moments, not exist through them.”
“But those moments will be within other beings?”
“Yes.”
He can immediately sense the flare of anger within her. “I really thought we were getting somewhere! But you’ll continue with all this senseless destruction of —”
“No, Daisy, you misunderstand me. I will live through the beings I meet, but you have taught me to share, and that is —” He pauses and her lips smile, “that’s what I’ll do: I will share periods of time with them —”
“So — periods again …”
“No — never again, I hope! But I want to experience life as the beings I meet experience it. I want to live like them; live as them. And pass on just a little of my experience to them. I will enjoy that for a while — before we meet again.”
He knows her so well, that he smiles as he follows her thought process, from relief at her survival, to her own inward smile to — “Wait, what?! ‘Meet again’!”
Chapter 58
DAISY JACOBS SAVES THE WORLD
Humans have many good points.”
“I’m pleased you recognise that.” Obviously, he’ll get to his point in his own sweet time and until then resistance is, as they say, futile.
“Strength, courage, determination — a stubborn inability or unwillingness to give in.” Quark pauses before he continues. “And love is maybe the greatest strength. This is truly your superpower, Daisy Jacobs. You are like a love radiator. You are loved and your loved ones believe in you and fight for you. I admire that.”
“I’m flattered, I think.”
“You generate … positive feelings in others. You make those around you feel better and those who care about you feel very much better.”
I’m touched. “Thank you.”
“I do not think that I have necessarily helped with this.”
I laugh. “No, I don’t think you have.”
“Were you scared?” Quark asks.
“Of course I was — all the time! A constant panic!”
“Yet you continued to fight. And others fight for you, because you are worth fighting for.”
“Quark, are you leaving?”
He continues as though he ha
sn’t heard. “I do not consciously think about where I go. But if I leave Earth, I want to take a little something with me.”
“Oh, Quark, I thought you were going to let us live! I thought you were building up to say you’re freeing us from your nefarious, intergalactic plans.”
“I do have plans to come back this way — remember?”
“Yeah, in a billion or so years, was it?”
“Yes … ” Quark replies.
“Humanity won’t be here then; not as we are now, anyway. But we’ll have had our chance to grow, to maybe spread out to other worlds, to be more than we are now.”
“Okay.”
“What — after all that, you’re just leaving?”
“No, as I said, I need to take something with me; well, two things, actually.”
I mentally grit my teeth for what’s to come. “Okay … tell me.”
“I need you.”
“Oh, Quark! First, you promise to free me, now you’re going to — what? — use my energy to boost yourself away?”
“Something like that.”
“But you’ll leave everyone else alone?”
“I promise I won’t touch a hair on their heads.”
I take maybe one of my last, deep, inward breaths … and I give in. I finally surrender. “Okay then. Do it. Make me become and then go. Take me, but leave my world.” I find the courage to simply end it. Weirdly, my lifelong edginess stills and I’m overcome with a sense of serenity.
“Daisy, I’m grateful for the offer, but I cannot do it. I cannot make you become … you are too —”
I interrupt. “See, I was right! I told you last week you loved me, didn’t I? You can’t make me become, can you?”
“No, I can’t do that to you. I just need a little energy from you to boost me on my way.”
“How are you going to get that?”
“I will tell you in a moment. But, as I said, there are two things I want.”
“Is this the part where you change your mind and kill us all?”
Quark laughs, “no Daisy, there’s no longer a part where that happens. Daisy Jacobs has saved the world.”
Daisy Jacobs Saves the World Page 25
