I hold my ground and adjust my grip on the rail. ‘I’ll be fine, Mason.’
He doesn’t seem sure, but by now the train has slowed and the doors are opening. I step off the carriage and swivel back. ‘See you next week.’
The doors meet between us and I’m left with the final image of Mason, his chin lowered and eyes locked on mine.
* * *
As soon as Mum leaves for work the next morning, I’m up and ready. Feet apart, standing beside the bed, I wipe my palms against my pyjama pants.
A twinge from my wrist makes me cup it with the other hand, checking the bandage for signs of blood. The wound split at the edge yesterday but it seems to be holding now.
Yesterday. It’s only the briefest glint but before I can hold it back the memory expands and takes hold. That steady fog; the way it felt to forget. A mug left beside the sink catches my eye. Maybe I’ll brew some tea first.
I settle into the routine of boiling water and stirring concentrate, checking out the news sites at the same time. Not yet ready for jumping again, I settle in front of the comscreen with the mug in one hand. This is how my life used to be, before the chip and before time skipping.
Before I changed the course of Jaclyn’s life.
How is it fair that I have to carry this guilt?
Then again, how is it fair that she won’t get the chances she could have?
I can’t face the news at the moment, so I end up scrolling through online programming tutorials. I know most of them already, of course, but I haven’t come here to learn. I’m here because these tutes are familiar and safe, like curling up in bed after a hard day. Just for a while I relive a time when my dreams were simple and clean.
For something to do I bring up a coding program and start tweaking some lines of script I’ve been playing with. I used to spend days trying out all sorts of weird program patches. Except, instead of little programs that made it easier living illegal in the city like I used to write, this one is a masking code to hide me from the grid.
It takes a few weird workarounds, but by mid-morning I get to the point when I run the program and my dot disappears from the grid.
For a while I just sit here, invisible and safe. This is the way life used to be. Except as soon as I move, the chip re-triggers and the dot re-appears. The script needs more work, but it’s still good to know that it’s there.
When I check the clock, I realise I’ve messed around for nearly two hours. Long enough. I switch off the comscreen and stand. My throat is dry but I swallow it away. Just let go.
I drop into the tunnel.
I’m away only a few seconds, the quickest of letting go before grabbing reality again. I make it back without any trouble, landing solid on two feet, my confidence returning with the rush of coming back.
Again.
This time I’m away a whole minute. Still no problem. It’s good to be back in familiar territory. With each successful return, I feel more sure about staying away a full five minutes by next weekend. So I position my feet and drop into the tunnel again. Three clear minutes.
Then five. I’ve been here before, deep in the tunnel.
It’s nearly midday by the time I break. Not much point in dressing, no-one to see me in here. I’m eating marmalade on toast when a possibility comes to me. There’s still six hours at least before Mum comes home. And although five minutes is the minimum for next week’s training, I’m sure Boc will be aiming for longer.
Draining a full glass of water, I finish and make a decision. The longer I leave it, the harder it will become. I’ve been there before, and made it out the other side.
I don’t let myself fall in so quickly this time, don’t plunge into nothing. This time I drop in neatly, carefully drifting from the anchor of now. I’m sure I can even sense my progress through time. One minute, now five, travelling ever further into an endless ocean, infinity domed above me.
So this is where the fear comes from, this sense of disappearing, becoming nothing. Or perhaps becoming one with everything.
The difference right now is that I still have a sense of where I’m from, a shoreline for return if I need. Already I can feel the pull of the evening, the promise of Mum returning home. I’m even clear enough to imagine resisting, continuing further past my curfew, but I don’t. Not today.
It’s nearly six when I pull up to the surface, gasping with the rush of the return and fresh with confidence. Knowing I could go further if I needed.
I’m finally pulling on clothes when I hear a message beep.
Saw you on the grid. Kudos. See you on Sat. M.
ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON I ride out to the rock climbing centre north of the city and somehow end up taking the wrong path. I have to cut across town once I realise, so I’m nearly twenty minutes late by the time I reach the blue door at one side of the main climbing area.
Boc already warned me that it would be locked, so I send him a message and wait. It’s hot but that’s not why my palms are damp. Hope I’m ready for this. I’ve been jumping through the long hours while Mum’s at work, finding my way back every time. But I know better than anyone how easy it is to get lost.
‘Hey,’ Boc whispers as the door edges open. ‘We’re warming up.’
As he pulls the door, I slip through into a huge space and immediately I’m hit with the focus in here, a calm concentration. Mason is standing at the other end of the room, a whiteboard set up beside him. Directly across from him is a guy I recognise from the news story about Mason and Boc climbing the Macquarie Bank building, and beyond him a girl of about eleven or twelve who has the same jet black hair and pale skin as the guy.
Along the length of the back area is a climbing wall covered in lumps and holes for supporting hands and feet. Three or four safety harnesses lie unused at the base.
‘Scout. Amon. Echo.’ That’s the extent of the introductions from Boc.
‘Hey,’ says Amon with a jerk of his chin. ‘You made six hours?’ He seems so compact and strong, he reminds me of Japanese gymnast.
Small shake of the head. ‘Just a fluke.’
‘Don’t sell yourself short.’
Echo has been staring this whole time, so I lift my eyebrows and try a ‘hi’. She responds by pursing her lips and turning the other way. It makes me wonder how much Boc has already told them about me. Six hours time skipping. But what else? I can’t help wondering how much I can trust them; more importantly, how much I can trust Boc.
‘Okay. Let’s do this.’ Boc looks serious, but there’s an undercurrent of excitement in his manner.
At his words, Amon lifts a yellow plastic gun and aims directly at Mason. His focus is along the length of the barrel, hands fisted and arms straight. It’s only a toy, I think. But the way he’s holding it makes me step back.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Training,’ Boc says, deadpan.
‘On three,’ from Amon, a statue.
Mason repositions his feet and breathes out. His shoulders relax.
The last time I saw him prepare was on the roof of his house, so long ago. There’s a noticeable change about him. His eyes are steady, a clear confidence about them.
‘One, two,’ calls Echo, ‘… three.’
With a shot from Amon, the bullet tears through the space towards Mason. Only of course Mason’s not there: he time skipped to avoid being hit. The bullet hits the opposite wall and falls harmlessly to the floor.
The silence is followed by a sucking gasp as Mason returns. I exhale, not because of the toy bullet, but because one day it could be real.
Mason grabs a shawl that was tangled on the floor and wraps it around his waist. ‘Don’t think we need the count in anymore. Maybe we ca
n just say one?’
‘Okay,’ says Amon.
‘Can I go?’ from Echo. She steps forwards, hands behind her back.
There’s a pause as Boc turns to consider her. ‘Why don’t you work with Scout?’ he says.
There’s no movement from Echo, but she has her back to me so I guess she said something I couldn’t hear.
‘No. What’s the problem?’ asks Boc.
‘All right.’ Her shoulders slump only slightly as she slinks away from Boc. Something gives me the feeling that I’m not the favourite training buddy.
Echo finds a second gun, glancing over at me here and there. She holds her mouth tight as we make our way to the other side of the whiteboard screen.
I take a cream knitted shawl out of my bag and set it up around where I’m standing so it’ll be easy to pull around me when I return.
‘Want to jump first, or shoot?’ Echo asks once we’re all set.
‘You choose.’
Her eyebrows go up. ‘I’ll jump first?’
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘Start with a count of three,’ calls Amon.
It feels way wrong to start shooting someone I only just met. Haven’t even seen her time skip, so I shoot at a nearby wall to test the bullets; they’re just foam with a rubber tip. Even if I do hit her, she won’t be badly hurt. But I know that even rubber bullets can bruise nastily, so there’s definitely incentive to get out of their way.
Echo takes a few seconds to prepare, circling her shoulders, shifting her feet. Can’t help glancing sideways as I wait. Mason’s holding the other gun now. When he sees me watching he responds with a slight jerk of his chin.
‘Okay,’ Echo calls. ‘Call go, and then shoot. Don’t bother with a count of three.’
The others have been training on the other side of the whiteboard until now, but I feel them pause as I take aim. Echo shakes her head and shoulders, clearing the last of the cobwebs away.
I reposition my feet, and then call,‘Go.’
My shot travels left. I wouldn’t have hit her, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Echo isn’t there anymore. Her clothes lie in a pile where she stood.
Silence.
Amon has stepped forwards to see around the screen. I’m sure he’s been through this many times but even so, you still can’t help that pause, the sense of anticipation. Everything on hold until you see that truth of a return.
It’s been longer than the few seconds that Mason stayed away. I’m about to ask how many times she’s done this when Echo’s form takes shape above her clothes. She launches straight into a jump, her fist punching the air, her pale torso curving into a c-shape.
It’s the strangest thing, nakedness. You can be standing here with no clothes and not feel exposed one bit. Not if you’re focused on other things. Echo might have nothing on, but she’s so comfortable that you almost don’t notice.
Other times, you might have your clothes on but feel more naked than you ever have before.
‘Yeehaa! That is brilliant, that is.’ Echo takes a few steps towards me, grinning before she spins back for her clothes. She pulls them on frenetically, then bounces over to where the rest of us are standing. Time skipping seems to make that girl need to move.
‘All right, let’s do this for real,’ says Boc.
Everyone else responds to that, packing stuff away and carrying the harnesses into a store room. An air of calm focus still hangs about them, people with a job to do. I help with a harness when Amon asks but otherwise keep out of the way. Guess my turn’s later, but I don’t ask what’s going on. Best to stay quiet until I know what we’re doing.
Once everything’s packed away we head out of the rock climbing centre and cut across to the back of the industrial estate. The sun’s harsh by now, so we track a zigzag path between patches of shade.
Boc’s been walking with Mason, leading the way, but when we reach an old fence he holds open a broken section for everyone to climb through, and ends up near the back.
‘Thanks,’ I say once I’ve ducked through.
No reply, but he falls into step with me. ‘So one thing is bugging me,’ he says evenly.
‘Just one?’
‘Mason reckons you taught him how to skip. How could you do that? You didn’t even know how to yourself.’
I shrug. It’s not as mysterious as he thinks. ‘I hacked in to see stuff he was reading online, so I knew a bit about Relative Time Theory. That’s all.’
I’m expecting that to be enough, but he slows as I step around a stinging nettle, sticking by my side. It’s because he’s stuck on me being illegal, I think. How could someone like me make any difference to anything?
‘You really didn’t know any more than that?’
‘Well. I knew that it was possible. I learnt some stuff from looking at what happened on the grid. So I just used what I saw to make it seem like I could already time skip.’
‘You would be used that, I guess. Making shit up?’
Anger flares in my stomach, but I push it away. Don’t take the bait. Don’t let him think of us as enemies.
But I have to say something. ‘You know, we’re not as different as you think,’ I say evenly. The only reason he can’t understand what I’ve done is that he’s never had to fight for what he has. His whole life has just been handed to him because of who his parents are.
‘Oh, no. We’re different,’ Boc shoots back straight away. ‘Know why?’
I don’t bother to reply.
‘When that stuff started happening between you and Mase? If it had been me I would have trusted him. I wouldn’t have kept lying about being illegal, I would have told him the truth. And if I couldn’t trust him with the truth, then I wouldn’t have been with him. You’re so used to keeping secrets from everyone that you don’t know when to stop.’
It’s like a slap in the face. I can’t help slowing a little, letting him stride ahead of me, even though it shows he’s won. Maybe he’s right. I’m so used to being illegal that I don’t know how to think any other way.
We’re making our way through open parkland by now, probably another reclaimed tip. Mostly dust, hardly any trees. I keep my eye out for clues about where we might be going. Shooting range, maybe? Public barbeques and picnic tables are dotted around, but judging by the layer of dust I don’t think they’ve ever been touched.
The others have reached a fence at the other end of the park, overlooking three sets of railway tracks. Signs in faded red and black type decorate the length of the fence: WARNING. No admittance. Trespassers will immediately be tagged. DANGER. Super-fast trains.
Boc drops a backpack and frowns down at the tracks. ‘When’s the next one?’
‘12.47.’ Mason is looking down at his compad. ‘The one after that’s at ten past one.’
They must be freight, not passenger trains because I haven’t seen this route on the grid. That means mega security and no drivers, just speeding machines carrying stuff from one side of the city to the other.
‘Want to wait for the next one?’ says Mason. ‘You’ll have time to warm up.’
‘I’ll make it.’
Already Boc’s climbing the fence. I check the time: 12.32.
He makes it over easily, no alarm, no alerts triggered on the grid from what I can tell, and continues down the retaining slope towards the railway tracks, slipping once or twice on loose rocks.
‘So … what?’ I turn to Mason. ‘He’s going to stand on the tracks?’
‘You can hear the train approaching,’ Mason points to one side, ‘about one and a half seconds before it passes.’
By now Boc has made it to the bottom of the slope and starts across scrubland towards the tracks.
‘He has to stay away lo
ng enough for the carriages to pass through,’ says Echo. By now she’s perched on top of a wooden picnic table, as if settled in for some outdoor theatre. ‘Those things go on forever.’
‘Six hundred carriages,’ Amon says. ‘Sometimes more.’
I turn back to see Boc reach the first set of railway tracks and step over. ‘Testing if he can jump under stress?’
‘Yeah. You could say that,’ from Mason. ‘Simulating a danger scenario.’
‘But if he doesn’t jump in time, the safety sensors will trigger,’ I say. ‘And then what? He just has to bolt? Pretend that he was lost or something when they come after him?’
No answer. My eyes track across to Echo, who is busy picking at her fingernails. When I come back to Mason he won’t meet my focus.
‘What? You’ve disabled the safety sensors?’ The accusation is clear in my voice. Boc might be asking for a lesson or ten, but this is insanity.
Mason places his hands on his hips. ‘He asked me to do it. We can’t be caught doing stuff like this.’
‘Mason.’ Head shaking. ‘This is crazy. What if he panics?’
‘He’s ready.’
‘But what if he isn’t?’
‘He’ll be okay.’
‘But –’
‘Scout!’ Mason stands away from the picnic table and strides towards me, stopping so close I can feel his breath on my cheek. ‘His IP means he’s going to military school next year, okay? Once he’s been trained there’s no refusing if he’s called up. For all we know, the experience he gets today might just save his life.’
Echo swivels on the top of the picnic table. ‘And Amon has the same IP.’
Not sure what to say. Amon just sits there, staring at his hands.
‘12.45,’ says Mason. It’s too late for me to talk Boc out of this, even if I could scramble down in time.
Lifespan of Starlight Page 17
