Movers

by Meaghan McIsaac

  Gabby, Maggie and I stand together by the sheet curtain as Rani reaches out for the man’s shoulder. ‘Leonard—’

  He jumps, swinging around like he’s expecting a punch. He’s old. His face is thin and long, as if the weight of his jaw is pulling the whole thing down. His skin is like leather, spiked with rough five o’clock shadow, tanned – or maybe just dirty. Down here, I guess it’s more likely he’s dirty. And his hair is slick with grease.

  This is Leonard?

  ‘Thank God you’re back.’ He leaps out of his chair and reaches behind the desk, pulling up a giant duffle bag and throwing it at Rani. ‘I’ve got all your stuff packed—’

  ‘What?’ says Rani.

  ‘I’m just finishing up with the hard drive and then we can go.’ His voice is strange, a funny accent that runs his words together so that the whole thing sounds like one long word.

  ‘Go?’ Rani puts the bag down. ‘Leonard, go where? What are you …?’

  He’s back at his monitors, typing away, the tickety-tick-ticking making my eyes twitch with nerves. ‘We have to get out of the city!’ he says. ‘Soon as we can. We can take the—’

  Maggie coughs, and the man spins round in his chair, realising finally that we’re standing here.

  ‘No,’ he breathes. His mouth hangs open, skewed to his left as he squints. I tug awkwardly at my own jeans leg while he studies the three of us.

  ‘They turned up at the forebrawl,’ says Rani, and Leonard jumps up from his chair, tearing at his hair and pacing around. ‘BMAC has Izzy and they were alone, and I—’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ Leonard goes on. ‘I told you! I told you not to bring them here! Do you know what will happen if we’re seen with her?’

  Gabby looks at me and we realise he must have seen us on the news. We need to do something before Leonard tells us to leave. I step forward, hoping I can convince him to do for us what he’s done for Mom’s Mover friends in the past. ‘Uh, Mr Leonard, my name is Patrick Mermick. I’m Isabelle Randle-Mermick’s son—’

  He throws up an arm to stop me. ‘Yeah, I know who you are. I think the entire city knows who you are at this point.’ He motions at one of the monitors and I see Avin News is on. And there’s my picture, right next to Gabby’s.

  Yup. He’s seen it all right.

  Rani stares at the footage for a moment before her head snaps in my direction. ‘You should have told me about this.’

  I swallow. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but my mom—’

  ‘I’ve been calling your mother all day!’ Leonard says, throwing his hands in the air. ‘I’ve left her a thousand messages telling her not to come here!’ He looks past me, trying to see around the draped sheet. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘BMAC,’ says Rani. ‘Like I said.’

  Leonard stops, taking a minute to process that information. Finally he collapses into his chair, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Uh …’ I say, pulling harder on my jeans leg. ‘She said you could help us …’

  ‘Before!’ he says, leaning forward in his chair. ‘Yeah, sure, I could help before, when the situation was manageable! Before this!’

  He waves at one of the monitors over his shoulder, and there’s the Romsey Institute for Academics, scarred and chewed up, standing in the middle of the city.

  I look over at Gabby, who shrinks a bit into the curtain at her back.

  ‘But now,’ Leonard goes on, jumping to his feet and pacing again, ‘it’s all got out of control and I don’t want to be anywhere near it! Particularly near you.’ One crooked finger points squarely at Gabby and I feel like stepping in front of it.

  ‘Why?’ I say. ‘I know what kind of work you do for my mom. You help wanted Movers all the time. Why not Gabby?’

  Leonard wags his finger at her like I don’t know where she’s standing. ‘Do you know who she is?’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Who am I?’ Gabby rasps.

  Leonard shakes his head, his icy blue eyes staring at her like he’s looking at a bomb. ‘You and that big brain of yours,’ he tells her. ‘You’re Gabriela Vargas, the Commander’s little Mover girl.’

  Gabby and I just stand there, stunned into silence while Leonard goes back to tickety-tapping at his keyboard. Then he pulls up another duffle bag from under the desk, dumping in his meagre belongings that just look like garbage.

  ‘The Commander?’ repeats Rani, staring at Gabby like she’s seeing her for the first time. ‘You mean the guy who starts the war?’

  War. That’s what Gabby said. In the future, between Movers and Non-Movers. ‘You know about the war?’ I ask. ‘How do you know about the war?’

  Leonard doesn’t even look up from what he’s doing when he answers me. ‘Because I was there.’

  ‘Wait,’ I say, suddenly understanding. ‘You’re a Shadow?’

  ‘I’m her Shadow.’ Leonard nods at Rani. ‘Came here from 2343. Me and Oscar Joji.’

  There’s a flutter in my stomach. No. More like a tsunami, a typhoon. At hearing that name a tremor quakes my knees. ‘You knew my dad’s Shadow?’ I say.

  Leonard’s cool eyes look blue as they fix on me, but then I see they aren’t really blue. They’re foggy, like clouds are brewing inside them, swallowing the pupil and whatever colour his eyes used to be.

  He looks away and a curse hisses through his teeth. ‘Your mother still hasn’t told you?’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Your father didn’t Move Oscar Joji here from the future.’ He looks past me and nods over at my little sister who huddles in beside Gabby as if to hide from those cloudy eyes. ‘She did.’

  SEVENTEEN

  A laugh shoves its way from my throat, forced so hard it hurts. But I have to laugh. That’s the only way to respond to something so outrageous. ‘You’re insane. Maggie’s only Phase 1.’ And then I think of Sibichendosh and the letter home. ‘OK, maybe Phase 2, but she’s never Moved anyone.’

  Leonard’s eyes stay narrowed on my sister, not bothered at all by my reaction. ‘She did.’

  ‘Pat?’ says Maggie nervously.

  I step in front of her, hiding her from that gaze of his. ‘Don’t listen to him, Mags. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’

  ‘I do know,’ Leonard insists. ‘Better than anyone. I know.’

  Gabby’s frowning, eyes flicking from Leonard to Maggie. ‘How do you know?’ she says.

  ‘He doesn’t,’ I snap, annoyed that she’d even entertain the idea of something so stupid. ‘He’s a crazy person.’

  She holds a hand up to stop me, steps away from the curtain and stands in front of Leonard. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I know your Shadow, girly,’ he tells her. ‘I was there when he started stealing people’s pungits.’

  That word smacks me in the face.

  Gabby stiffens. ‘You know about pungits?’

  ‘Gabby’s pungits?’ I say.

  ‘Everyone in the future knows about pungits,’ Leonard says. ‘What do you think your mother wanted to run for, huh? She didn’t want BMAC getting a look at the pungits on your sister’s head and knowing what I know.’

  Blood drains from my face. Mom. Why did she want to run? Something scarier than an upgrade. But pungits aren’t a real thing! They’re just Gabby’s crazy project.

  ‘BMAC knows about pungits?’ Gabby’s fists ball at her sides. She looks as if she’d like to shake information out of Leonard, but she stays rooted to her spot, questions pouring out of her mouth one after the other. ‘Does BMAC know how to see them? Can you see them? Do you know how?’

  ‘You know how. They’re your discovery,’ says Leonard.

  Gabby doesn’t say anything. She hasn’t been able to see them. That’s the whole point of all her experiments, to see her pungits.

  I notice the fists at her side start to quake. Leonard’s wrong. Gabby doesn’t know how.

  He watches her for a moment and must realise it too, because he grunts. ‘Well,’ he says
, shrugging, ‘you haven’t figured it out yet. But you will, I know that. When you’re twenty-eight. That’s how we all end up in this whole mess.’ He swings his chair back to his monitor and starts tapping at the keys again, not caring about the questions he’s sent swirling through our heads.

  BMAC knows about pungits? Gabby’s pungits? How? And how did Mom know about pungits? What does any of this have to do with Maggie? I don’t understand. I look at Gabby for help, for some way to make sense of all this.

  Gabby doesn’t notice. She’s staring at Leonard’s back, her forehead crinkling while her mind works.

  ‘Show me.’ It’s like a command, she says it so flatly.

  Leonard ignores her, grabbing the duffle bag at Rani’s feet and slinging it over his shoulder. And I’m suddenly afraid he’ll leave. Afraid he’ll disappear and take the things he knows with him.

  ‘Show her!’ I say, standing at Gabby’s side.

  ‘Leonard.’ Rani grabs hold of his bag and pulls him back down into his seat.

  ‘There’s no time for a time-travel lesson,’ he tells her. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘Just show them,’ she says, fixing him with that forebrawler stare that must make her opponents think twice about stepping into the ring.

  He growls, ‘All right!’ and throws up his hands before he starts rooting through the piles of junk on his desk. He pulls something up from the clutter, a cylinder of some kind.

  ‘Is that a torch?’ asks Maggie.

  ‘No,’ snaps Leonard, a bit shortly. But it sure looks like a torch – an old one, with lots of wires and things hanging from it. ‘Well,’ he checks himself, ‘it used to be. Now it’s a pungit ray.’

  ‘Like X-rays,’ Gabby breathes beside me.

  ‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘Only you don’t need to take a picture with this.’

  I watch Gabby, her mouth pursed in concentration as she stares at the contraption in Leonard’s hand. She’s bouncing slightly, bending her knees. She talked about X-rays the other day in her presentation when no one was listening. And here’s Leonard, repeating it. She’s so excited she looks as if she can barely contain herself.

  ‘Now,’ Leonard explains, ‘when the pungit rays come from the torch and pass over the person, the pungits absorb the rays. Patrick,’ he says, waving an impatient hand at me, ‘go stand over by the sheet.’

  Uncertain, I move away from Gabby and Maggie and do as he asks.

  ‘Hold still,’ Leonard warns as he clicks the flashlight to on. I expect light to explode from it, to blind me, but it doesn’t happen. Nothing happens.

  Maggie shifts on her feet. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Is what it?’ I say. ‘Nothing happened!’

  Gabby’s stepping closer to me, leaning forward with her eyes squinting.

  ‘Voila!’ says Leonard triumphantly.

  There’s a quiet laugh from Gabby, and her eyes have started to water as she stares.

  ‘What?’ I ask her. ‘What do you see?’

  With an annoyed growl, Leonard fishes a mirror from the piles on his desk – the kind the girls have in their lockers at school – and throws it at me. I catch it, and as soon as I hold it up to myself I see them. Tiny black particles, like some kind of sinister fairy dust, fan out from my head as if they are riding invisible conveyor belts to nowhere.

  Gabby places a hand over her gaping mouth and it’s like she’s never seen anything so beautiful in all her life. But they aren’t beautiful to me. The opposite. They are ugly. Dangerous. And I’m afraid of what they mean for my sister.

  ‘Now,’ says Leonard, ‘the minute you were born, those pungits of yours ripped through space and time and latched on to the first person they liked,’ says Leonard.

  ‘So Movers do establish the connection?’ Gabby checks, like a scientist sharing data with a colleague. ‘That’s one of my theories, but without the pungits I didn’t have any way to prove it.’

  ‘They do,’ says Leonard. ‘Same way lightning looks for the path of least resistance to strike the earth, your pungits sniff out the poorest sap they can find and bam! You’re locked together.’

  That’s a weird thought – that I grabbed onto my Shadow. It’s strange to think that our being stuck with each other is my fault.

  ‘So, what you have there are the pungits of the average Phase 1 Mover,’ Leonard goes on. ‘A sparse dose of rigid pungits, pulled tight by the distance through time between you and your Shadow, yes? The pungits are what connects Mover and Shadow. Right?’

  Gabby nods.

  ‘Marigold?’ says Leonard, looking at Maggie. ‘Kindly stand beside your brother for the class, will you?’

  My sister obeys, and hurries to join the experiment, excited to be participating like we’re volunteers in a magic show. There’s nothing I can do and as soon as she’s beside me, the pungit ray is on her and it’s like her head is covered in a swarm of angry bees. They zip around her head in a chaotic mess, and there are ten times as many specks as I have.

  Gabby frowns. ‘So many,’ she says. ‘So many pungits.’ She looks back at Leonard. ‘She is Phase 3.’

  Leonard nods.

  I swallow. ‘What?’

  ‘My theory was,’ says Gabby, ‘that the more powerful the Mover, the more pungits they’d have.’ She bites her lip and looks apologetically at me before turning back to Leonard. ‘Pat only has a few, because he’s Phase 1. Maggie has more because she’s Phase 3, right?’

  He nods again.

  The swarm of black specks dances above Maggie’s head, swirling and spiralling. There are so many compared to the ordered ones fanning out from my head. Phase 3.

  ‘But … but why are they moving like that?’

  ‘Pungits get like that,’ explains Leonard, ‘after a Move. Imagine the pungits like a string of beads. Stand far away from the person holdin’ the other end of the string, and the string is tight, right? Like Pat’s. But bring that person close and the string goes all loosey-goosey, pungits floatin’ around on floppy spaghetti. After a Move, the pungits are excited, flying around all speedy crazy like.’

  ‘I said that would happen!’ Gabby’s grinning ear to ear, looking at me like she wants me to smile with her. But I can’t. I’m too nervous to smile.

  Leonard nods. ‘That’s just how they looked after she Moved Oscar Joji.’

  After she Moved Oscar Joji. So that’s it. Evidence. Right there above my sister’s head. I want to fight it, to say, No, it isn’t true. But I’m too afraid. ‘BMAC knows how to see these?’

  ‘I would bet that they do,’ Leonard says.

  So this is what Mom was afraid of.

  ‘But how?’ I ask. ‘Gabby hasn’t even discovered how to measure them yet.’

  Rani folds her arms, leaning against Leonard’s desk. ‘You don’t think BMAC Shelves immigrant Shadows before questioning them, do you? Whenever they apprehend a Shadow, they scare that person into telling them everything they can about the future.’

  I have to believe that. I’ve filled out the Sworn Testimony box in enough phase forms to know how much BMAC wants to know everything they can about the future. Nowbies don’t like that they are stuck in one moment in time.

  ‘But,’ I say, ‘if they know about pungits, why haven’t they started testing Movers for them?’

  Leonard sighs. ‘Probably because what they know is pretty useless. They’re sort of stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure pungits out, because any Shadows that do come back either won’t tell them what they want to know, or just don’t have the scientific understanding themselves. You couldn’t explain DNA to a caveman, could you?’

  No. I shake my head. I glance over at Gabby. She might be able to.

  ‘BMAC knows pungits exist,’ Leonard goes on. ‘Maybe can even see them, with a lot of effort. But whatever contraption they got is probably mighty expensive to run, if they’re using the metals I think they’re using. They just don’t have the right technology yet, or the know-how to test for pungits on the
entire population of Avin on a monthly basis.’

  ‘Why doesn’t BMAC in the future just tell BMAC in the past how to do it?’ asks Gabby.

  He smirks. ‘Probably because they’re afraid of messing with history. BMAC in the future is afraid to introduce pungits to our time because that’s not how it’s supposed to happen. They think they have to wait for Gabby to do it.’

  ‘Why?’ says Gabby. ‘What do they think will happen if they don’t wait?’

  ‘The world will explode?’ he laughs. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Will it?’ I ask.

  ‘I just told you about them, and we’re still here, aren’t we?’

  Yeah, I think miserably, here we are.

  Leonard shrugs. ‘It’s just easier not to think about it.’

  I watch the pungits dancing above my sister’s head. So Sibichendosh was right. Maggie did need an upgrade. ‘But’ I say, ‘even if she’s Phase 3 now, no baby is just born Phase 3. They’re too weak.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ huffs Leonard, ‘experiments like the Commander’s don’t adhere to the laws of nature.’

  ‘What sort of experiments?’

  ‘The ones that let him steal your sister’s pungits from Oscar Joji.’

  EIGHTEEN

  The things I’m hearing from this Leonard man are impossible to understand. How can a person steal pungits? What would that do? ‘You’re saying,’ I say slowly, ‘that Gabby’s Shadow stole Maggie’s connection?’

  Gabby walks over to the desk and picks up the pungit ray, turning it over in her hands. ‘Why would my Shadow want to steal pungits?’

  ‘Because not long after Miss Gabriela Vargas 2097 discovers pungits,’ says Leonard. ‘She figures out how to sever her own connection.’

  Gabby drops the pungit ray, but Rani is quick to catch it. ‘I cure myself?’ she squeaks.

  That’s all she’s ever wanted. Everything she’s been working for.

  ‘You’re not sick,’ Leonard says angrily. ‘But yes, you sever your connection.’