The whole city tends to go stir-crazy during a blackout, partly because the water swipers go into lockdown at the same time. But for me they’re not so bad. Most of my life I’ve haven’t had access to rations, so it’s just business as usual. And I can always get water from the cave in the park.
I pull up Boc’s worm on the grid in real time. He made it home about ten minutes after leaving us. I’m pretty sure he went straight to his comscreen, at least he was just sitting in the one spot for another ten minutes, so I hack straight in and find a terminal with co-ordinates on the grid that match Boc’s location.
It’s offline right now, but when I track back to the past few days, I’m able to patch in and see exactly what Boc was doing.
My heart stills when I see. It’s exactly what I feared: he’s been all over my history map, inching his way through each of my visits to Mason’s garage and also while I was at home. Even the tag Boc used makes me wary: ‘CR’. Just my initials, like I’m a science experiment or something.
I’m not sure how close he is to figuring me out, but just the fact that he’s watching makes me feel like a hunted animal. I drop the compad in my lap and look up to the sky, trying to decide what to do. Heat shimmers in the air around the edge of the canopy of the taxi shelter. If he hasn’t worked out yet that I’m illegal, he’s not far off.
That means it’s him or me.
All around me is movement; people hurrying along the footpath, another ambulance screaming past, lights flashing. I check the map, stash the compad and hook my backpack over a shoulder.
There’s no way my set-up is going to work unless Boc knows how to jump. I can’t hang around any longer, waiting for him to learn.
I have to teach him how to skip.
Boc’s house is walking distance from Mason’s so it takes only a few minutes to get there. When I’m a few doors away, I stop riding and put one foot down on the gravel while I check the grid. Boc has moved about a metre sideways away from his comscreen. Probably sitting on his bed and using his compad is my guess. No-one else is home.
Good. I pull into his drive without pausing and stash the bike beside their front deck. Boc’s house is even more flash than Mason’s. An external elevator waits beside the driveway, ready to take people up the next two floors.
I suck in a breath, and push it out hard. The air is warm in my lungs. Wiping my hands on my shorts, I step right up to the front door and swipe the entrypad with the chip pressed between my middle finger and palm.
Silence. Nothing moves. But he must have heard. Right now, he would be checking the screen, trying to understand why I’m here. In my mind I go over the words I’ve been practising.
Without warning, the door slips up soundlessly. It’s one of those mod ones that go up rather than sideways and the novelty of it catches me. Just for a moment. The house must be fitted with its own solar batteries for it still to be working in the blackout.
My focus narrows on Boc’s dark eyes, the broad angles of his face. His forehead creases and he crosses his arms, but I sense doubt about him, confusion. He has no idea why I’m here.
‘Hi. I just had a thought.’ I cross my arms too. Cool air wafts out in waves, still holding back the heat despite the blackout. ‘You still haven’t learnt how to time skip, right? I think I know why you’re having trouble. I’ll help you, if you want.’
I’m careful with the words I use; brushing past the idea that he’s a slow learner. I’m pressing on a sore spot without digging in. I know Boc hates that Mason learnt to skip before him.
His arms loosen, but then his jaw goes hard. He’s interested, I can tell. I’ve hit the right nerve.
‘Okay, I guess …’ His face changes. ‘Where’s Mase?’
A glance over my shoulder, buying time to think. ‘Yeah … the blackout. Don’t think he was keen to come out.’
That’s pretty much true for every citizen, almost a non-answer, but it seems to satisfy him.
‘Yeah. Sucks, eh?’ Boc’s top lip curls up and my heart accelerates. Was that about the blackout, or has he already worked me out?
I take a breath and push it back down. Unless Boc already knows my secret, this might be my last chance to push him off the scent. Acting like I have something to hide is only going to make him more wary.
‘So, what do you think?’ Somehow I find a smile, my eyebrows tight and too high. ‘Do you want to hear my idea?’
Boc steps back and motions me further into the house. ‘Sure. I’ll take all the help I can get.’
My skin gets a chill from the cool air as soon as I get inside. I wonder how much juice is left in the batteries.
A massive portrait takes up half the wall in the entrance hall, showing a man in a royal-blue air-force uniform and standing in front of a huge aeroplane propeller. His dad, I guess. I can see where Boc gets his size from.
The place isn’t as grand as I was expecting but you can tell that everything is top spec. It’s as if Boc’s family is so insanely rich they don’t even need to show it off. The living space is wide and open with walls that I’m pretty sure are movable. Judging from the number of swipe pads around, I get the feeling this place is wired to the max.
We end up in a sitting area to one side of the main living space. The comscreen is huge, taking up an entire wall. A joystick sits beside one of the chairs and a weirdly shaped mouse with a ton of buttons and spinners is resting on a table.
I look at Boc. ‘You into gaming?’
‘Yeah. You?’
‘A bit … not really.’ Those kinds of hand controllers are only used for serious gaming and stuff that needs a high level of accuracy, so he must be pretty into it. Most people wouldn’t even know how to use them.
‘Check it out.’ Boc chucks the controller at me as I fumble and just manage to catch it. ‘Bit different from your time, eh? Around the thirties, right?’
It’s the era I would have grown up in, if I were the woman from the cave. ‘Yeah, they were nothing like this.’ But I’m watching him as I answer. Does Boc still believe I was born in 2024?
‘So.’ I flip the controller over in my hand, spinning one of the side wheels. ‘Maybe we can use this for time skipping. Do you know any games where your character can disappear and return again?’
‘Sure. Most of them. When you die you usually revert to an earlier point in the game.’
Like whatever happened to me.
‘Okay …’ Thinking fast, I bring myself back. I was mostly planning to wing it when I taught him to skip, but this could work. ‘And you would use a hand signal to make it happen? Or maybe a button on the controller?’
Boc positions himself on the arm of a chair. ‘I see where this is going,’ he says. ‘Use some sort of cue, like a trigger to make it happen.’
‘Do you want to give it a go? Once you learn there’ll be no stopping you. It’s awesome, it really is.’ I spin a wheel on the controller as I chat. ‘You won’t believe the way it feels.’
I’m trying to get to him. The more he worries about being slow at learning to skip, the less he’ll worry about whatever he was noticing on the grid. At least that’s what I’m hoping.
There’s no sound from Boc and even though I try to stay focused on the controller, after a while I can’t help glancing up at him.
Boc leans forwards and considers me. Nothing about him seems even close to wanting to learn how to skip.
‘There’s one thing I don’t get,’ he says slowly. ‘Last I heard, you didn’t want to skip with other people around. Couldn’t do it, was what Mase told me.’
He crosses his arms, his chest expanding and I fight the urge to step back. How does he do that? Make me feel smaller, somehow, with one glance?
‘You went months without trying, even though we begged you to show us. And now, you do … what, fifty jumps in two weeks?’
I chuck the controller back on the coffee table. ‘After I got to know Mason better, it was easier to skip with someone else around. And it’s been good to train
with someone, learn how to synch our returns.’
I’m back in the role I haven’t played for a while, a mash-up of the woman in the cave combined with the real me. ‘We’re both so much sharper these days,’ I finish. ‘You’ll be able to do it too, once you learn …’
‘You and Mase, eh? No wonder I’ve barely seen him.’ Boc stands and crosses his arms, his chest expanding. ‘Show me.’
I blink, swallow and try to recover. ‘Here?’
Boc cocks one eyebrow. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to check you out. I just want to see that you can really do it.’
Trying not to make it obvious, I scan the room. I can’t see any compads in easy reach, the comscreen is on standby. But I’m not sure anymore who’s setting up who. Is he planning to check the grid while I’m gone? See once and for all that the chip stays here, the worm unbroken?
‘But you’ve been watching the grid, right?’ I try. I’m skating close to a dangerous truth, but what other choice do I have? I need to work out how much Boc already knows. ‘You would have seen me jump already –’
His chest broadens, preparing for a stand-off. ‘Yeah, that’s the thing. There’s something weird going on. I thought maybe one of you was adding the gaps, trying to rub it in that I can’t skip. Make it seem like you were jumping together when you were just watching …’
‘Dude,’ I say, forcing a laugh that starts too high before I tone it down. ‘Paranoid much?’ He’s close to working me out, but the fake gaps seem to have thrown him off track, at least. He’s so focused on the fact that he can’t skip that he’s let it get in the way of thinking clearly.
And I have to keep it that way.
I pull myself tall, scan the room and settle on an armchair with a high back. I’ll do a series of quick jumps, keep him busy watching me disappear and return. That way, he won’t have enough time to check the grid between returns.
‘Okay.’ I slip behind the chair but stay standing on purpose to throw him. ‘I’ll do three in a row. Five seconds each.’
I position my feet, breathe in and close my eyes, but all I can think is that Boc is standing right in front of me. His presence is a spotlight on my mind. The longer I stand here, the hotter my memories burn. You’re under arrest by order of federal law. Anything you say may be used against you …
Mum’s forehead quivering as she realised I was about to jump ten years into the future.
Acting as if this is just part of the process, I shake my head free of the memories and reposition my feet. Can’t help stealing a glance towards Boc while I do.
One corner of his mouth has lifted as if he’s watching a good movie. He’s enjoying this. I force myself to smile back at his smarmy face. Patience.
I have to get it over with, so I do a half-turn and stop so that I’m facing the clean white wall. My back is turned to Boc, shutting him out. I reposition my feet.
I drop into a series of three quick skips.
The white wall in Boc’s gaming room is all I find as the lingering cool hits my skin. It adds a delicious chill to the tingles. The rush lifts me taller, my limbs somehow stronger. I don’t bother to turn, just take my time pulling on clothes and checking that the chip is still there.
I can use the calmness to challenge him too.
Finally, when I’m ready, I step away from the armchair. Boc’s at the other side of the room. It’s as if he was checking from all angles, trying to get his head around all he was seeing.
‘Holy crap. That was full on. Mase has been trying to control the timing of his return within thirty seconds, and hardly managing that. But you just landed three in a row, five seconds each, like exact to the second.’ His whole body has morphed while I was gone. He’s energised now. Excited.
‘Yup.’ I smile, genuinely this time. I’ve got him. ‘So you believe me now?’
‘Frig. Yeah.’
‘I think I’ve realised what you were seeing on the grid,’ I say evenly. The skips have helped me too. They’ve cleared the fear, sharpened my senses.
I lift my arm, presenting the fake make-up scar. ‘My chip is old tech. It’s been causing a heap of problems. Lots of glitchy stuff.’
‘For real?’ Boc’s eyebrows go up, but everything about him is different now. His face has relaxed. The mistrust has evaporated. ‘You should get it updated.’
‘I know. I just don’t want to deal with the authorities, you know? Can’t draw too much attention to myself. They might ask questions I don’t want to answer when they see how old it is.’
‘Right, of course.’ He’s swallowing this down, an explanation for all his question marks. ‘Well, my family might be able to help with that if you need.’
‘Yeah?’ He’s acting all generous, but he doesn’t fool me. There’s no way he’d be offering to help if he knew who I really was. ‘I mean … thanks. That’s great. I’ll have a think about it.’ Whatever. Super casual.
I force another smile. ‘First, let’s teach you to skip.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FORTY MINUTES LATER, I’m sitting in Boc’s gaming room with my legs draped over the arm of a chair, watching a battle to the death. The solar batteries are still going strong, battle to the death. The solar batteries are still going strong, but the air-con is working at a lower level than before, saving juice maybe.
Boc’s gaming set-up is incredible. I can still see the walls, the armchairs, the coffee table in the room, but layered over the top is a light display of an entire forest. Two other players are in a full-on battle with Boc, laser guns in one hand and shields in the other, moving their way around the spaces in the room that also match the shape of the forest clearing. The other players are real, of course, but not physically in the room with us. They’re in their own personal tricked-out gaming rooms, seeing Boc as a moving hologram the way we see them in here.
The players’ shields are pretty cool, oval-shaped and worn on your forearm. They cause any laser bullets that hit them to ricochet onto tree trunks before bouncing back to wreak havoc on your opponent. Twice I’ve seen a player get done by a bullet from his own gun this way. And even though I know it’s just a game and the forest is just a light wall, the laser beams keep making me flinch and duck.
Boc’s fast and accurate. Tactical, too. Right now the two opponents are on opposite sides of the room, facing each other with Boc in the middle, lasers going in all directions. He’s in the most dangerous part of the clearing – it’s much smarter to keep your back to a tree trunk – but his position is all part of his plan.
He just has to not get killed before he can make it happen. The way he has for the last four games.
A dodge, a duck, and Boc flicks away a laser beam with his shield. I hold my breath as he disappears, into a time skip as both opponents let fly, their bullets sailing through the empty space where Boc just stood. And into each other. Two lethal hits before they disappear.
It’s a win. Not that Boc’s around to see it. Music plays out as the forest world drops away to a high-scores screen and I’m left alone in the gaming room.
Five seconds later, Boc returns with a cough and a gasp then falls forwards onto hands and knees. He’s at the other side of the room from me, behind a coffee table, but even in the fading light I can still make out the hard angles and curves of his body. Not that I’m looking.
‘Holy shit.’ He’s panting, laughing in between each breath. ‘Did it work?’
‘Two clean hits. You’ll have to check the replay. And act like your system crashed when the other players ask what happened.’
‘Excellent.’ There’s a slick of sweat on his dark skin. He leans back on his heels and sort of stretches his back, expanding his chest. Returning naked doesn’t seem to worry him one bit. ‘You get faster at disappearing, right? With practice?’
‘Yeah, you stop needing to think so much.’ He’s learnt super quick, although I don’t say that. Don’t think he needs me to.
Just like Mason, Boc’s improving faster than he did last time. P
retty much any challenge they face, I’ve been there before, so I’ve been able to offer tips every step of the way.
Boc reaches for his T-shirt, slips it on then pulls on his shorts. I take it as a sign we’re finished, and stash my compad. While he was gone in his first skip, I snuck onto the grid and added three five-second gaps to my timeline, matching the ones he saw. But he’s so busy skipping; I don’t think he even bothered to check.
I’m swinging my bag over a shoulder when Boc turns my way and rubs his palms together. ‘Next week we’ll start training at the climbing centre. I’ll send you the deets.’
I shake my head. No way. Next week, if all goes to plan, Boc’s going to be busy dealing with the Feds. ‘But you already know how to skip.’
‘Sure, but you’re really sharp,’ Boc says. ‘You should train with us. Help me teach a couple of climbing buddies. My mate, and his sister.’
Amon and Echo. Just thinking about them makes me more determined than ever to get Boc locked away. If I don’t do something to stop him, he’ll push them into another risk. Maybe not on the train tracks, Mason’s not going to disable the safety sensors again, but that’s not enough to stop Boc. He’s always going to keep pushing.
‘How about this?’ Boc asks. ‘You taught me to skip, so let me return the favour. I’ll teach you to climb.’
No way. ‘Thanks, but …’ I breathe in. ‘As it turns out, I’m not so great with heights.’
Big mistake. ‘Yeah? No stress. I can help you with that too. Once you can harness the fear you’ll be able to do anything …’
‘I don’t know,’ I mumble. ‘I’m busy.’
‘C’mon. We can help each other.’ Boc swallows so slowly that I find myself watching his Adam’s apple as it slides down then up. ‘Next year, this mate and me, we’ve both been called up for military training.’ He’s almost whispering as he says it. ‘And once that’s done, it’s only a matter of time before we’re conscripted.’
My mouth shuts. Of course. That was the whole reason Boc talked Mason into disabling the safety sensors. The way he justified the risks in his mind.
Split Infinity Page 10
