Maybe that was the way he justified it in his mind, telling himself that I’m weak, unworthy. Dangerous.
It’s not even a conscious decision. My hands move automatically to the compad and bring up the grid in 2085. Back to the days just after I’d jumped. If Boc hadn’t turned me in, I would have been with Mum through the days I’m watching now.
For the rest of the afternoon I stay inside the grid, watching Mum’s history map as she moves through her days, heading to work and back again, cooking her meal before sitting in front of the comscreen each evening.
It’s just a dot on a screen, of course, but it makes me feel connected to her. They were her actual movements being recorded, and watching that dot gives me a pang in the chest, not just with worry about her but also because of the time I’ve missed, all the days she lived through that I wasn’t there.
To make myself feel better, I try to imagine the day Boc returns from his ten-year skip to find me here, safe and free: Thought you had me sorted, did you Boc?
Think again.
The light outside the cave has dimmed and deepened to a sunset red. I’ve been so focused on inching my way through Mum’s days that I didn’t realise it was so late.
When I glance up and yawn, Mason looks over. ‘Can I show you this? I’ve been working on something.’
I tilt my neck to once side until it clicks. ‘Sure. What is it?’
Mason shuffles close and finds a place next to me. He rests his compad on my knees and brings up a page showing a series of times. ‘So, smartcars are all programmed to travel at set speeds, and they all get slotted into batches that are kept a distance from each other. Right?’
My brain is still foggy from staring at the grid this long. ‘Okay …’
‘And traffic lights are all on the set schedules too,’ Mason’s still going, barely pauses for breath. ‘So I’ve done a few calculations to work out safe times for return if we need to time skip on the back road to get away.’
He’s lost me now. I shake my head.
Mason shuffles around so that he’s facing me. ‘We were already training for quick jumps in front of moving trains, right?’
‘Yeah.’ Don’t want to think about that. It’s how Amon died.
‘But this time, we do it in front of a smartcar and time a precise return. They travel too fast on the highroads, but their speed always drops on the back roads right? I’ve worked out the safe times you can return so that you’ll be able to escape.’
‘Okay …’ Think I’m catching up now. If I end up being chased, he’s telling me to run onto the back road where the Feds can’t follow and jump before I’m hit by a car. No problem. ‘But what’s stopping me from returning inside a car or something?’ This sounds way dangerous to me. ‘How will I know when it’s safe?’
‘Maths.’ He lifts a shoulder. ‘You’ll already be in the space between a batch of cars when you jump, right? So, from that starting point, I can work out the times you need to return in another gap. We’ve already trained for a precise return, so just match your return with the options I give you, and you’ll be safe.’
I think this through. ‘So when I come back, there could be a car coming straight at me …’
‘Yes. You need to be ready to respond as soon as you return. You could jump again. Fast. Or keep running, if you have time, and escape.’
He pauses, and peers at the times he’s typed on the compad. ‘Just one more use for our secret weapon.’
It’s a clever idea I guess, but after coming back early from our ten-year attempt, I’m not so sure about Mason’s latest idea. Messing up in front of a smartcar would be ugly in the extreme.
But I don’t say any of that. I place a hand on his knee. ‘Mason, this is great, thanks.’ Here’s hoping we don’t need to use it.
Once the park closes, we venture out from the cave to practise sharp returns. It’s a still evening, cool without being cold. The colours have faded to grey.
We’ve already planned how it’s going to work so I’m sort of ready. We’re walking along the path when, a few paces away from me, Mason claps without warning.
I pin-drop into the tunnel, savouring the calm of being inside infinity. No ripples in time down here. Thirteen, fourteen, fif-
With a rush I’m back, my heart beating and skin tingling. I needed that.
‘Great,’ Mason calls. ‘Fifteen bang on.’
But I knew that already. Now that I’ve done it with real focus, I can see that short jumps are way different territory from the longer ones, maybe because there’s no stress about leaving anyone behind. Fifteen seconds is such a familiar span of time, short enough to hold onto when I’m in the tunnel.
The night air feels cool against my skin, somehow soothing. It’s too dark to see much, but he can see my outline, I’m pretty sure. I don’t bother to reach for my shirt, it’ll only drop again the next time I skip. Besides, there’s no-one else in the park.
‘Your turn?’ I call.
When Mason nods I wait a few seconds, and then clap my hands. In the dim light his outline becomes empty space and shadows.
I check his progress on the compad stopwatch. After thirty seconds, he’s back, his shape silhouetted against the light from a three-quarter moon.
‘Okay?’ he pants.
‘Thirty seconds,’ I say with my eyebrows raised. ‘No problem.’ Maybe Mason’s onto something after all. This might just work.
We keep practising deep into the evening, partly for the thrill of the return, disappearing in a flash then popping back, clear and sharp. It’s a relief to focus on something we can control, a buzz to keep training and growing in confidence.
We’re good at this, both of us. And I even begin to think that I might just use this trick if I ever need to. It’s not a risk if you know what you’re doing.
We stay a distance apart, both aware that we’re naked, aware of each other. Every now and then I glimpse his bare skin in the moonlight, the smooth curves of his chest muscles, outlines of thighs. Somehow I sense that he’s noticed me the same way, but not even once does it feel like we’re checking each other out. It’s more than that. Like we’re sharing something. Respect, perhaps. And trust.
Close to midnight we stop practising. By now we’ve made it down to the canal, gradually wandering the length and width of the park as we’ve been time skipping. Our clothes are still back where we first jumped, so we gather a few items and, for now, leave the rest. For tonight we have a place all our own.
Mason flops onto a patch of polyturf overlooking the canal and settles back on his elbows. He’s wearing jean shorts and nothing else. I’m in a T-shirt that reaches mid-thigh.
Our short time snaps have kept us bright, glowing, somehow satisfied, even though we’ve had nothing to eat since the porridge. I lie down next to Mason and he sinks back so that he’s lying flat next to me. We’re shoulder to shoulder, staring into pinpricks of light against a night sky.
I get a flash of the last time we were together like this, alone on the roof of his house during a blackout, watching lightning break across the city skyline. Thinking about that night feels like listening to the first notes of my favourite song. It’s the night we connected on so many levels that I lost sense of the rest of the world.
But that was also before he found out I was illegal. Before everything changed.
‘Remember the blackout?’ Mason asks quietly.
My heart beats quicker. ‘Of course.’
It seems only a few months ago. Not years. For us, I guess it is. That was the night Mason told me about his brother being sent to war, and about his hopes to travel back in time to save him.
No wonder he found it so hard to leave his parents behind in a ten-year jump. They’d already lost one son, and Mason would have seen the impact that had on them. Maybe that’s the reason he didn’t manage the full distance.
‘Do you still think about it?’ I ask gently. ‘Travelling back?’
A pause. ‘Sometimes.’
&n
bsp; ‘And … you still think it might be possible?’
Silence. But he’s thinking, I can tell from the stillness about him. I turn my head to check his expression, but it’s mostly in shadow.
‘Well, I have to face the evidence in front of me.’ Mason sighs. ‘We’ve never met a version of ourselves from the future, so that probably means we never work out how. People are born, they live, and then they die. Plants grow. It doesn’t happen in reverse. Things that have happened can’t be undone.’
He’s not saying it outright but I can hear his pain within each word. It can’t be undone.
‘Anyway. The way it feels when I’m on a really long jump inside the sinkhole, the sense of losing hold of who I am …’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s not about trying to find a way back in time anymore. Truth is, I’m still not sure I’ll always find my way out.’
The back of my neck tingles at what he’s saying. It terrifies me too, that sense of being lost in there. Frozen forever, outside time.
My eyes search his expression in the dim light. ‘Maybe you’ll find a way to go backwards one day,’ I say. ‘Just not the way you expect.’
‘Maybe.’ Mason hitches himself up onto one elbow and rests his head in a hand. ‘Sometimes I imagine that he’s still alive in some parallel world. My brother, I mean. Somewhere out there, he’s in an alternate universe, doing his thing. Maybe he came back from the war, or maybe he never went. So he still gets to experience it all … just not with me, now. Not in this reality.’
‘So you’re saying … there might be a different version of you out there? A different version of me?’
‘An infinite number, perhaps.’ I can hear a smile in his voice, the way he gets when he talks about stuff like this. ‘Or maybe not so many. Some scientists think that an alternate universe is created out of an event, a simple act of observation that splits reality in two. The moment when someone decides to take one path instead of another …’
I’m expecting him to keep talking, because this is the sort of stuff that Mason loves more than anything. He only ever seems truly alive when he’s thinking about these things. But he stays quiet for ages.
I tuck my arm under my head, staring into the infinite sky. Until I’d learnt to time skip, I would have said this was crazy weird. But after spending time in the tunnel, experiencing the place where no time exists … It’s not much of a stretch to imagine there could be another version of me, staring into an alternate universe at this very moment, wondering about these exact same things.
I’m turning my head to check his expression when Mason says, ‘When I think about a world where my brother never went to war, I can’t help wondering: would I still have gone searching for the time-skipping stuff I obsessed over these past years? Would I have noticed the gaps in the woman’s history map?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure I would have been looking. It gives me … a chill,’ Mason says. ‘Trying to imagine a universe where we never work out that time skipping is possible.’
That totally spins me out. I hold back a shiver, trying to imagine a world where I had never felt the flow and shift of time, never once had the full-body jolt of a return …
‘And the bit that gets me the most?’ Mason continues. ‘In this alternate world, where I wasn’t watching the grid as closely as I did?’ He wriggles a bit, and then repositions his head in one hand. ‘What if I never met you?’
I don’t want to think too hard about what he’s saying. Don’t want to imagine a world where we don’t know each other.
‘It’s thinking about stuff like that that’s helped me … accept, I guess,’ Mason keeps going. ‘It’s not about choosing one path over another. But I don’t want to miss out on the present because I keep obsessing about the past.’
We’re still lying side by side, Mason hitched up on one elbow. I shift around so that we’re facing each other. In the dim light I can make out the shapes of his face, only inches from mine: the angles of his high cheeks, the outline of his chin.
I don’t hide the fact I’m staring, drinking him in. We’ve been doing this all evening. There’s a pause, and all of time seems to still around us.
Just slightly Mason shifts closer, and our foreheads touch. Our skin is barely meeting, but it’s as if I can feel all of him. His head tilts, reaching closer, until we’re kissing.
It’s everything I want; and I want it so much that it scares me. Each glance, each word, each smile that we’ve already shared accelerates into now.
Mason presses a hand on the back of my neck and draws back from the kiss slightly. The park crashes into focus around me again and instantly thoughts of tomorrow tug at the edges of my mind. He’s older now and leaving with his folks soon. When will I see him again? Everything here is stretched out and hard to hold.
His head tilts to one side, as if he senses my anxiety. ‘Hey. It’ll be okay.’
‘Yeah. I know.’ Although I’m just saying the words we both want to hear.
I rest my head on his chest as Mason wraps one arm around my back. My thoughts rest inside each heartbeat.
‘You have to jump with your folks, same as planned,’ I say into his warmth. ‘Once I find Mum, it’s going to take a while for her to learn. But you can’t hang around. It’s not safe.’
There’s no sound at first, no movement. He lets out a breath and shifts his arm further around my waist.
‘We’ll see,’ he says.
‘I’ll catch up.’
Again, a pause. ‘Easier said than done.’
Yeah. I know. There’s no saying how long Mum might take to learn to time skip. Right now I don’t even know where she is, but I can’t let that hold Mason here. If he ends up caught because he waited for me, I don’t think I’d be able to keep breathing.
After a while, I lie back again, watching the wafts of cloud. Mason brushes my hand with the back of his fingers and I hook my fingers around his. We lie that way, shoulder to shoulder on a bed of cool polyturf, soothed by the infinite sky.
Soon I hear a change in Mason’s breathing and I realise he’s asleep. My eyes travel over the dips and curves of his face, the rise and fall of his chest. The sense of peace carries me deep until my eyelids refuse to stay open. I don’t want to let go, don’t want the night to end, but soon I can’t hold it back.
No idea what tomorrow holds, but we’re here now, together.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WE WAKE BEFORE dawn the next morning and gather the rest of our clothes, ducking back into the cave for water and splitting a nutrition bar between us for breakfast.
We don’t say much as we chew. I don’t feel like we need to anyway. Glances and smiles are enough. It’s as if our thoughts keep flitting backwards and forwards, between memories of last night and preparations for the day ahead.
We splash cool water on our faces, then head out on Mason’s bike together.
Before we’re even remotely close to Sunshine Hospital, we hit a mega crowd and have to climb off and walk. We track a path though the groups of vendors shouting out the stuff they’re selling: gel packs, barley sugars, even ice cubes. Every few minutes, sirens rise above the chorus of voices.
There’s a traffic deadlock too, but we’re nearly at the hospital before I see the cause. A group of protesters is holding up signs and chanting about democracy and citizen rights. They keep re-triggering the crossing point, too, so only a single batch of cars makes it through each green. A line of police officers stands at attention to one side, trying not to show any expression as they watch the protesters. They don’t seem to be doing anything about it. So far, at least.
It’s so difficult manoeuvring through the crowd that we decide to stash the bike in a rack across from the hospital. The lock needs a swipe to engage but we just rest the wheel in position and hope that no-one notices.
Mason holds my shoulders. ‘I’ll be watching, okay?’
On tiptoes, I reach around his neck as he pulls me close, holding tight, both
of us holding back the rest of the day.
It doesn’t feel right, leaving him here, but we’ve already agreed that it’s safer if I go in alone. With Mason out here, he might have a chance of helping if anything goes wrong. He’ll be able to hack in and view everything via the CCTV footage throughout the hospital.
I also don’t want to draw Mason in more that I already have. Much as I’m reeling after finding out about Boc, I can’t help feeling like I have him sitting on my shoulder. You’re putting us all in danger.
I pull back, and Mason lifts two fingers. I give him a tiny smile in return. Be careful. Stay safe.
I follow the crowd across the street, sticking close with the flow of the people making their way to the main entrance and out of sight from security cameras. The hospital has a couple of cameras near the double door so I keep my head down, careful not to stand out, using the crowd around me as a screen. People line the edge of the footpath leading to the hospital entrance, some sitting and others leaning against the wall. It’s as if they’ve been here for hours, maybe days, but I’m not sure if this is a queue or the place where people wait for someone they know who’s being treated.
At one point I catch the eye of a girl with sharp cheeks and deep, dark eye sockets. It’s hard to tell how old she is. She looks frail but childlike at the same time. When she opens her mouth I think she’s about to say something but then she shuts it slowly and the muscles in her face tighten.
She glances down and I realise she’s holding a baby, its head showing above a blue knitted blanket and one arm dangling out the side. Mid-stride, I hesitate. The colour of the baby’s skin is wrong, grey-white and lifeless.
The girl holding the bundle lifts her eyes to mine, sort of pained and questioning, but by now the momentum of the crowd has built up behind me. Even as I strain to see over my shoulder, I’m pushed forwards and she disappears from view. I try not to look sideways much after that.
The emergency wing is to the left of the main entrance, obvious from the sirens and shouts, so I turn right into the admittance hall, walking freer as the crowd spreads. I’d planned to use the eastern stairwell, but I change my mind and join the queue for the bank of elevators, finding safety in numbers again. Acid trickles in my nearly-empty stomach as I wait. I’ve lived on low rations before, but this is something else. This is starvation.
Split Infinity Page 5
