Split Second Solution

by Denny Taylor

  “You must be Death,” the girl said, as if she had spent her whole life talking to cats. “Et told me you saved me so I am grateful and count myself in your debt.”

  “Et?” X-it asked. “Who’s Et?”

  “I am,” the Old Crone said solemnly. “My friends call me Et.”

  “And you can call me Word,” the girl said to Et. “It is a bit peculiar but that is actually my given name.”

  “I’ve been telling Cat and the old – and Et how we met,” X-it said. “And I stopped at the point when the woman standing behind us in line for the bus gave us pralines with pecans.”

  “First food in three days!” Word said, laughing and rubbing the flat of her hand on her stomach. “It was a good moment.” Her laughter was short lived and she looked troubled. “It was a terrible time. X-it lost his mother and father and his dog. If X-it had been with them he would have died as well.”

  “Your mom died too,” X-it said quietly He pointed at the chair inviting her to sit where he had been sitting but she shook her head.

  Word nodded. “I’d like to sit by the Fire,” she said, sitting on the rug.

  “Should I mooch?” Cat asked padding over to the rug, and tucking her front paws under she settled next to Word.

  Et shook her head.

  “You’re welcome to mooch as you call it,” Word said. “My thoughts are encrypted and I would be surprised if you could decipher them, but there could be an A-I or bio-hacker, or some Super-Recognizer trying to break my encryption.”

  Word looked up at X-it who had sat back down on the chair he’d been occupying. “Do you remember what the woman said about us posing as brother and sister?” she asked him.

  “She said we should tell them we have different fathers to explain our different skin colors.”

  “She said to you ‘remember your mommy’s black and your daddy’s white’,” Word said, “and then to me, ‘same black mommy, not sure about your daddy. Pick a country you know something about.’”

  “I remember,” X-it said. “What was funny is that we both knew the histories of our families but they would have carted us off and killed us if they’d had found out.”

  “And I remember you said, making it up, ‘Our daddies were born in New Orleans and were just different colors of creole – French, Spanish, and African descent.’”

  “‘Good thinking,’ the woman said. ‘Stick to that.’”

  “Tell us what was in your backpack,” Cat said, to the point and without asking roundabout.

  Word looked at X-it and shook her head.

  “There are other parts of the story you need to hear first,” X-it said. “For instance how Word ended up under the bus.”

  “My mother was a world renowned linguist who studied ancient texts,” Word said, finding her own beginning. “She grew up in New York City. Her mother was French, her father Italian. My father was from North Africa. He was an archeologist. He was killed before I was born. That’s all I know.” She looked at Et and then down at Cat stroking her back. “It’s the reason I was hiding under the bus.”

  “Okay,” Cat said. “Mooch time. I’m going in.”

  “I’ll watch your tail,” X-it said, and in response got a Cheshire grin.

  Word put her index finger to her mouth and for a moment everyone was quiet. “There you are,” she said looking at Cat. “You were easier to detect than I expected.” Then she laughed. “Having trouble with my encryption?”

  “Very peculiar,” Cat said. “It’s as if you are in rem sleep experiencing a vivid dream or, or, or –”

  “Having orgasm?” Word asked.

  “Yes!” Cat said, looking at her, “but you are very definitely not!”

  “The pseudo dream state has saved me several times from intruders,” she said, matter of fact. “When A-I report that I am orgasmic, operatives tune in. Sometimes I hear them ejaculating. It’s a bit disconcerting, but I’m never hacked.”

  “T-M-I,” X-it said, looking mortified. “I don’t want to know!”

  “I thought you knew?” Word said.

  “No,” X-it replied. “Not that. I didn’t know.”

  “It doesn’t happen often,” Word said. “Bit tedious really but it does say a lot for my encryption – using pseudo sexual activity as a deterrent. It distracts the intruders and alters their mental state while I remain impenetrable.”

  “When we –” X-it began.

  “You’re the only one,” Word said, looking lovingly at him. “You’re the only one who has ever been inside me.”

  “Ancient texts,” Et said, getting everyone to refocus. “You were telling us about your mother studying ancient texts.”

  Twelve

  “My mother said I was born reading,” Word said. “Not true of course. I was two when I read Homer. Always a favorite.”

  “The epic poet,” Cat said with her Cheshire grin. “Iliad and Odyssey. You’ve read Herodotus?”

  “The father of history,” Word said, nodding as she spoke. “I read them all in Greek. I know every word. Once I’ve read a text I remember it forever,” she said, and then pulling a face and looking contrite, “Not so keen on some of the English versions. I’m not very tolerant. I hate a bad translation. Can’t stand the modern versions.”

  Cat nodded but not listening. “I liked Herodotus,” she said, remembering him. “He was convinced the purpose of writing is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time.”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Word said, looking at Et and shaking her head. “There are no books. Only digital propaganda, indoctrinating people to believe in the Empire that has obliterated human history to protect the lies of the political masters and the Lunatic Eight who are vicious.” Word’s voice trailed off as she said, “Sometimes I think I’m the only one who remembers them,” and then as if a pleasant thought had replaced an unpleasant one, she smiled and said, “books I mean,” her eyes lighting up as repeated, “books!”

  Word lifted her sweatshirt revealing the writing tattooed on her body – tiny texts in minuscule fonts, squarely Roman, rounded from the Enlightenment, in the Roman alphabet, in Greek, Latin, hieroglyphs, and signs more ancient, oracle bones, logographic, Sinitic, arranged in blocks of text with other signs in between.

  “I am the book,” Word said. “An illuminated manuscript. Vellum. That’s why our political masters and the Lunatic Eight are trying to kill me.”

  “Actually,” Cat said. “As far as they’re concerned you’re already dead.”

  “They’ll keep looking,” Word said. “They’ll want my body. They’ll know if the Truth Protectors find it they will make copies of my tattoos and preserve all the writing.”

  “Do you know if there are any books still in existence?” Et asked.

  Word shook her head, smiling at Et and then without dropping her eyes from Et’s gaze, “You already know the answer. You’re asking to find out if I know,” she said. “I know who you are and I’m not intimidated.”

  “I would be disappointed if you were,” Et said, returning the smile.

  “Who is she?” X-it asked Word in what was supposed to be a whisper but with the sound of his voice filling the room.

  Cat gave a swish of her tail and glared at X-it and the Four Corners drew back no longer at right angles but ready to move in any direction necessary depending on what next occurred.

  “To you, X-it”, Et said, saying his name in a voice he had not heard before, “I am the Old Crone!”

  “But I can’t call you that!” X-it said, as the room became cavernous. And the Fire hunkered down, no longer glowing, becoming just a few grey ash embers.

  “If you speak my name,” she said, “which you should not, you can call me Et –”

  “Thank you,” X-it said, as if he had been bestowed a great honor.

  “But,” Et continued, holding up her hand to silence him, “when you think of me, think of me as the Old Crone.”

  X-it looked at Cat who stared back at him. Her body
was still feline but the fur on her face looked as if it had been painted by Kiss. She had jagged white lines around her eyes and her whiskers were bright red.

  “Can you mooch?” X-it said. “Please” he added. “I need you.”

  “Of course,” said Cat with tears glittering in her yellow eyes.

  “I’m touched,” X-it heard Cat say in his mind. “It’s a rare thing for me to be needed”, and with that she started to cry. “Excuse me,” she mewed, “I’m feeling a little emotional right now.”

  “When you’ve learned to detect intruders in your consciousness in that viaduct you call a mind,” Et said to X-it, wanting to smack Cat, “I’ll tell you who I am.”

  “Let’s get back to the story shall we?” Cat said, speaking out loud, smoothing over the ripples she felt were coming her way if she did not stop crying.

  “Yes,” X-it said, relieved that the moment had passed. He looked at Word. “Tell us how you came to be under the bus.”

  Thirteen

  “It wasn’t the great storm of 2008 that killed my mother,” Word said, without emotion, matter-of-fact, this is the way it was, this is the way it is, this is the way it will be. “Our –” she said, her voice changing as she spoke bitterly – “Our political masters and the Lunatic Eight killed her and ever since they have been trying to kill me.”

  “I was eight years old,” Word continued quietly, looking at Et, then at Cat, and finally at X-it. Smiling at him, speaking softly, she said, “X-it and I have been together day and night ever since.”

  “In another world, in another time, we might have had a different life,” Word continued, without a trace of the child she once was finding her way back to life. “We might all have. But here in this world, on this planet, it’s the way it is, and the way it will be if we don’t stop our political masters and the Lunatic Eight.”

  “I know the world’s fucked-up,” X-it said, “but being with you –”

  His voice cracked as he tried to finish the sentence. “I can’t imagine –”

  Word reached up from where she was sitting on the rug by the Fire and grasped his hand, and Cat covered up that she was close to an emotional meltdown by stretching one paw after another, left-right, front-back, before padding over to X-it and jumping up on his lap. She licked his other hand, the one that Word was not holding, with her rough tongue before turning several times in precarious circles, balancing on X-it’s bony knees, and making herself comfortable.

  “Are you here to mooch?” X-it asked her, glad of the distraction.

  “That too,” Cat said, “more like a smooch.”

  Word laughed letting go of X-it’s hand and settling back on the rug.

  Et smiled too and then when the moment was past she looked at Word. “Go on,” she said, matter of fact. “Why did the political masters and the Lunatic Eight kill your mother? And, how did an eight year old girl manage to stay alive for another twelve years when they were – are – also trying to kill you?”

  Cat made an excruciating screech similar to the sound she would make if one of the Lunatic Eight had stomped on her tail.

  “Do you have to be so tactless?” she asked, narrowing her yellow eyes to slits and scowling at Et.

  “Quiet!” Et commanded making the Walls wobble.

  “We were inland, closer to Baton Rouge than New Orleans,” Word said, ignoring the interchange. “There was a –” she hesitated “secret research facility there and my mother had flown from New York – she always took me with her – a few days before the storm to attend an urgent meeting, that was held in the closely guarded facility. There were scientists, philosophers, and linguists from around the world. They were all renowned and venerable scholars who studied the nature of the Universe, but they were like aunts and uncles to me. I’d known them since I was a baby and I loved them. They were kind and generous and made up for my not having a dad.”

  Again Word paused, but her voice did not waiver. “The meeting had been hastily arranged and they knew they were in great danger – not from the storm – but from the code breakers who worked for the – Lunatic Eight.”

  “They were the Truth Keepers,” Et said, “guarding ancient texts from corruption. They were – special – they shared a gift – every one of them could trace their ancestry back to the time of the first sign in the Universe – when the first signs were made so that others could read them.”

  “You knew them?” Word asked.

  “Not as well as the Truth Keepers who went before them,” Et said, looking sad. “The world can make you weary and I have not been so vigilant in recent years. I knew they were meeting. I should have been there to protect them.”

  “Could you have saved them?” Word asked.

  “I am an observer,” Et said, “I am not supposed to interfere. But I regret not –” she hesitated. “It was a mistake.”

  “A dilemma,” Word said, looking at Et intently. “My being here, X-it being here – you are interfering now.”

  “I know,” Et said. “It’s why I was angry with Death when she brought you here. And X-it. You know just by being here you’ve – we’ve – changed the future.”

  “You’ve kept me alive,” Word said, nodding. “I’m grateful.”

  “How did your mother die?” Et asked again, and this time Cat jumped down off X-it’s lap and jumped up on Et who stroked her with her claw-like hand, and as she began to imagine the turn the world would take when she listened to Word’s story, her fingers began to straighten.

  Fourteen

  “Truth Keepers were metaphor makers but also metaphor breakers,” Word said. “If you seek the truth you destroy the metaphors used by the political masters and the Lunatic Eight to imprison people’s minds and make them fearful.”

  “For example, man’s metaphor for Death,” X-it said, looking affectionately at Cat. “I never thought about it before but the idea that Death is a vicious ghoul coming to get us is not true.”

  “Grotesque!” Cat said sounding deeply offended. “Frightens everyone. There’s nothing to fear. I’ve never hurt a living thing!”

  “Shhh,” Et said, stroking Cat’s hat with a beautiful hand that seemed to be translucent and blue.

  X-it could not take his eyes off her. He still thought of Et as an Old Crone, which she no longer was and he realized now had never been.

  “The lives of the Truth Keepers have always been complicated,” Word said, aware that Et’s face was less wrinkled and turning sky blue.

  “Once the first sign was made the Truth Keepers had to protect it.” Et said, “and they did so for millions of years before the ones who became the political masters even found out there were signs in the Universe.”

  “My mother told me it was always difficult for them,” Word said. “They were scholars, learned men and women, including my mother, seeking the truth and finding ways to record it, and guarding ancient texts and passing them from one generation to another.”

  “And the truth they recorded in ancient texts does not fit with the official texts of the illusion mongers who are now our political masters – who lied to gain power and now lie to keep it,” X-it said, joining in the conversation.

  Again Word took his hand. “Without X-it,” she said. “The Lunatic Eight who control the political masters would have killed me long ago. When I was younger I used to joke that X-it gets-it.” She laughed. “Now I’m more respectful of his gifts.”

  “My parents used to call me X-it when I was very young because I would draw something and then cross it out,” he said. “Somehow they turned this negative act into something positive. They’d say something like, ‘Such a great picture! Are you going to put an X on it?’ And the negative became a positive – get it?”

  “They get it,” Word said, squeezing his hand. She was sure Et knew the whole story and was really interested in what she knew. X-it too.

  “What happened to your mother?” Et asked again, returning to the story that was so difficult for Word to tell.

&nbs
p; “We arrived two days before the storm and stayed at the compound – the research facility,” she said. “The Truth Keepers were arriving constantly and there were many hand wringing conversations whispered in the stacks of the great library that filled the entire ground floor of the compound.

  “An ancient sign had surfaced after thousands of years of being hidden and the political masters and the Lunatic Eight were searching for it.

  “The Truth Keepers were used to being watched and if caught interrogated, and in the past, tortured and killed. How any of them stayed alive is beyond me.”

  “No it isn’t,” X-it said smiling. “They stayed alive the way you stay alive because they were vigilant and had people protecting them in the same way that you are vigilant and I protect you.”

  Word nodded.

  “I remember the sound of water flowing,” she said, “and the sound of crickets chirping and every insect imaginable making such a din I couldn’t sleep. I just wanted to listen to them and wait for the every so often croak of the frogs.

  “My mother thought I was sleeping,” Word continued. “There was a knock at the door and my mother opened it. I could hear urgent whispering – something like ‘Is it hidden? Is it safe?’

  “I sat up and watched as she took a package from the wall safe and put it in the old tin in my knapsack where I kept precious things – some stones, a dead flower, the exoskeleton of a beetle, and don’t laugh, some of my baby teeth. The package – wrapped in oiled paper and tied up with an old piece of string – fit right in and looked like a child’s precious thing.

  “‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

  “‘We have to leave quickly,’ she said. ‘Hurry. Put your sneakers on. Turn off the light.’

  “I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and hadn’t undressed so I quickly put on my sneakers and we climbed out the window so quickly I didn’t have time to think about my bear that I’d left behind. Alarms were going off. People were running. Shouting. There were cries of pain. Someone screaming. My mother ran with me tree-to-tree to the high fence that surrounded the compound and told me to climb over.