Green Jay and Crow

by D. J. Daniels

  Tal approaches us, stretches up to his full stick-insect height and then splits himself almost in two, so that he surrounds us. We’re inside a freaky robot cage, which gives me the giggles. I hold up my hand to Mac. I should have said goodbye. I should have said something, because already I can feel that familiar Time Locked nausea. Dampened this time, although perhaps I’m just a jaded traveller. The world flickers in and out, and then, before the urge to throw up makes itself fully known, we’re back. Back on the High Track proper, in my reality. Where I fucking well should be.

  And if I throw myself down and kiss the ground, well, who could blame me?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Crow

  TAL HAS THROWN himself around my leg like a brace. Which, I have to say, is a cunning plan. He’s injected something into me, too, which I’m grateful for, because the leg did not appreciate the journey. As warned, as predicted. But hell, I’m home.

  Mac and Tal did well. We’re just outside the doors of Guerra’s admin. How I would love to have him come out and see us. But, no, our arrival is pretty much without fanfare.

  I turn to the fake Eva. “We could go,” I say. “Say that we tried, but no-one was home.”

  She smiles, squeezes my hand. “No, Brom. Let’s go in.” I wonder if they’ve somehow programmed her. And yes, I definitely do like her better.

  We go into the building. The foyer is deserted, but not for long. Carine shows up, gives me a look and a nod. “Brom,” is all she says. And, belatedly, more security. They’re following Carine’s lead, for which I’m grateful.

  I spread my hands. “No box. Time Lock stuffed it. But Eva’s back. And she’d like to speak with Guerra.”

  Carine gives me a look which I interpret as you sure about this? Luckily I don’t have to answer because, hell, I’m not sure at all. “Stay here,” she says at last. She gives a nod to the remaining security, which they interpret as stay here too, and then disappears into internal Guerra realms.

  I expect him to materialise, but no, Carine’s back and we’re following her inside. Naturally, as I have never been this far in before, I’m having a bit of a stickybeak. The Eva with me, for whom this is also new, is showing a surprising lack of interest. Which works in our favour.

  Guerra is sitting in a room that looks something like a gentleman’s library. Any minute you’d expect cigars and brandy. I’m not holding my breath. He’s sitting in a luxury black chair and so is someone else; someone who makes fake Eva gasp. Someone who I can’t help but stare at. There’s no prizes for guessing this must be Olwin Duilis. And if I thought the real Eva was the worse for wear, Olwin Duilis is well beyond that. Even sitting down, you can’t help but notice the strain and illness. Oh, yes, and a metal tracery around her arms.

  Guerra smiles the smile of someone who knows they’re about to provide you with unwelcome, but possibly liberating, news. “Take a seat,” he says. There are two, slightly lesser quality, but still perfectly serviceable black chairs just in front of us.

  We sit—what choice do we have? Fake Eva chooses the seat opposite Guerra, as far from Olwin Duilis as she can get. Which is, admittedly, not that far. In turn, Olwin Duilis has eyes only for fake Eva.

  Guerra makes some introductions. He knows they’re unnecessary, he’s been ironically polite, or at least that’s the way I read it. The only surprise, he calls fake Eva ‘Aleris,’ which is a name to be getting on with, at least. It makes me suspicious at first, but it turns out to be the name Olwin Duilis has given her in absentia, and that Guerra, businessman that he is, has adopted without question. Fine with me. Keeps things in order.

  And then there’s an awkward pause after which Olwin Duilis tears her eyes away from Aleris and looks at me.

  “You’ve hurt your leg,” she says. Her voice is faint and more nasal than Eva’s, but—and perhaps I’m kidding myself—friendly. Before I can answer, she stretches out a hand and lifts up the edge of her long skirt. Her legs are both laced with metal, from the ankle and up as far as I can see. She grins and it occurs to me that Olwin Duilis is not old. I’d always imagined her as middle-aged, at the very least, but she’s not.

  But she’s tired, and obviously damaged in some irreparable way.

  “Impressive,” I say.

  She smiles again, lets her skirt drop back down to the floor. As she sits back I notice a flash of metal at the top of her spine.

  “But you’ve brought Aleris back to us,” says Guerra, obviously eager to get back to the business at hand. “You took your time, Kern.”

  I spread my hands. “The technology has its flaws.”

  Guerra gives me a look which is less than encouraging, but is interrupted.

  “How is MacIver? Was he hurt too?”

  It takes me a beat to realise Olwin Duilis is asking after Mac. “Mac’s fine. I did this to myself.” Getting away from the time nets, I remind myself, but there’s no way I’m bringing that up.

  But, of course, Olwin Duilis is not really talking to me. She is looking at Aleris. And there’s something about the tilt of Olwin’s head, that makes me think: she knows. She knows this is not the real Eva. She knows Mac has run off with the real double and left her with this. And if I was to travel even further into fantasy land, I’d say she’s okay with that. But what do I know? The dragonfly spins out of its hiding place in Aleris’ hair and flies across to Olwin. It lands on her open palm and I see a metal filament grow out of Olwin’s exoskeleton and attach itself to the insect.

  “Don’t mind us,” says Olwin. But of course the three remaining people have nothing at all to talk about. We let the dragonfly and Olwin commune in silence.

  “How are you feeling?” Olwin asks Aleris at last. Though I get the impression it’s to break the silence; Aleris is obviously doing just fine. “I am sorry that we do not have the help of the Trocarn,” she continues, and Guerra has the grace to look unsettled. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was approaching the guilt levels of the Barleycorn King. If that’s to come, I don’t see any evidence of it.

  “About that—” I begin. Which is unwise but probably the only chance I’m going to get.

  “This is not the time, Kern,” says Guerra. He gives me a look which makes the early deployment of exit strategies a high priority, if not the only priority.

  “I would like to lie down, please,” says Aleris. Which surprises us all, particularly as she don’t seem physically distressed in any way.

  “I am sorry,” says Olwin. “It must be a shock.” But she makes no move to help her. Guerra stands, holds out his hand, which Aleris takes. He leads her away. And, even though it’s exactly this that I’ve agreed to, it’s deeply creepy.

  “He’s not going to hurt her,” says Olwin.

  He hurt the first one, I think. Pumped her full of drugs and chased her down the stairs when she tried to escape. But I’m not quite ready to lift that cat right out of the bag. “I hope not,” is the best I can offer.

  “I never expected a double to have a mind of her own,” says Olwin.

  I almost snort, thinking of Eva, the most mind-of-her-own, self-obsessed being I have ever encountered. “What did you think?” I ask.

  “I thought I was being clever,” says Olwin.

  I shift about as if to say, well, so do we all, but that’s not really what I was asking. There’s no real need, though; she seems in a confessional mood.

  “I’d heard that the Trocarn who lived here were in charge of the 3D printers. I thought they might help her if asked. And they did. I persuaded Guerra to keep an eye on her. I sent him the package. I knew that if she managed to survive the first few weeks, it would help keep her alive.” Olwin looks down at her hands. “I was naive. I didn’t quite realise who he was or what he does.”

  I leave that unlikely assertion for another time. “How did you ask the Tenties to help?”

  “It was MacIver’s idea,” she says. She looks straight at me and smiles. MacIver, I’m thinking, and I must have looked blank. “He’s t
he one who realised what the Trocarn had to offer. And he was right, of course. I wish I’d known them like he did.”

  “Mac,” I say. Like an idiot. “It was Mac’s idea.”

  “I thought you knew.” Olwin’s head is tilted to the side, trying to assess my stupidity. It’s deeper and wider than she knows.

  “So you and Mac cooked up this idea of keeping a double alive because…” And I can’t bring myself to say what now seems obvious: because he wanted a better version of Olwin. The thought makes me feel sick.

  Olwin looks away. “No,” she says. “It was only me that thought that. MacIver left.”

  “So all this time…”

  “All this time it’s been me, Brom.”

  “But that’s why you sent her here. Because Mac was here.” It wasn’t even a question.

  “Yes.” She’s looking at me now, straight and fierce. An I don’t really give a fuck what you think kind of look. Which may be completely true, given the events of the past few weeks and the company she’s kept.

  “What will you do now?”

  “With Aleris?”

  “Yeah, with Aleris.” But I’m thinking, And with Mac, with the Tenties. With the whole fucked-up mess.

  “Help her stay alive. Give her a life.”

  “With Guerra’s help.”

  “At first, yes. Not for long.”

  I stand up. Because I’ve had enough. And it seems a good time to get out.

  “Show me where she lived,” she asks.

  “She’s not you,” I say. “She doesn’t have a life you can look into and take.”

  Olwin stands now. I hear the soft whir of the metal cage helping her to stand. Once she’s upright, she looks fine, but it reveals just how fragile her body is. “Please, Kern.”

  “No,” I say. “No. I’ve done enough.”

  “I could help with the Trocarn.”

  “And how the fuck would you do that? Make some copies of them and plant them around so that we all feel better about ourselves? You and Mac? They’re aliens, they’re fucking aliens. There’s no way you can help them.”

  “I can get them out of Time Lock.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I think you’ll find she can and she will, and in the meantime it might be best if you did everything Olwin asks.” Guerra is back.

  “They’re not the same,” I say. Because I can’t help myself. “They may not even want to come back.”

  “You’ve seen them?” asks Olwin.

  “Yes.”

  “Then show me that.”

  I shrug. Because I don’t have a choice. And because at least I won’t have to climb all those stairs up to Eva’s greenhouse.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Green Jay

  BLUE JAY AND I are lying naked on the floor of the greenhouse again. It fills me with calm, even with joy, although it is a sad joy that is matched by the broken windows and the dirty floor. His fingers are twined through mine, but he has come no closer to me than that. If I ask him to take me to hospital, he will. A thousand Tals will comfort me, a thousand doctors examine me. They might even be able to keep me alive for a while longer. But I would like to fade away here. Now that I have brought the new Eva into existence, I have done all that I need to. I would like to pretend that Blue Jay and I can fly away together for a while longer. But I can’t. I ask the question I know I shouldn’t.

  “Will you find her?”

  Blue Jay turns to look at me. I can see the tears on his cheeks. He is tired too; dirty and tired and worn. “No,” he says, but I cannot believe him. “Let me tell you about her.”

  I know he wants to talk about Olwin Duilis. I know and I cannot stop him, because he needs to tell me. Things I probably already know, if I allowed myself to look. Things I cannot allow myself to know, because then I will be lost. I will be another her.

  “Yes,” I say. “But let me say goodbye first.”

  I stretch over to kiss him. My lips find his and our tongues meet. He strokes the bare skin of my back and down to my buttocks. We twine ourselves together so that he is me and I am him. My brown-green skin mingles with his cream and pink and the blue twined into him. It is almost the same as floating in the Trocarn tendrils. We have never done this before, Blue Jay and I. I cannot say why. But now is the right time. Now, before I go.

  We lie, dusty and sticky and half asleep. Blue Jay begins the story of Olwin Duilis. At first the story is slow, but then the words come out faster and faster until they pour out of them and they could never be stopped. He tells how he first met her. How her body was broken, but her mind was extraordinary, the smartest person he had even known. Smarter than him? I wonder, but he waves the blue dot on his thumb around as if to show me, his brain has help. He does not explain this, but I understand.

  He tells of the way in which they became friends and I can see that even then, they had fallen in love, though they did not know it. I know they would have lain naked too, somewhere. Olwin barely able to move. Blue Jay with his fingers entwined through hers. He tells me how they invented a way for her to move around. A metal skeleton, but on the outside so that it was a kind of cage. I thought she’d run away, he tells me.

  And then, the part that I did not want to hear. The night that Olwin Duilis made a double of herself. A double, but changed, so that she would be healthy and strong and able to move without the cage. A double for Blue Jay. Except, of course, she called him Mac, called him MacIver. But, of course, the double only lasted a few days. And Blue Jay had been entranced and repulsed and had fled to Barlewin.

  “Why Barlewin?” I ask. Because I don’t want to ask how many doubles he saw die before he ran.

  “I wanted to see the Chemical Conjurers,” he said. I think back to the day the Chemical Conjurers helped me hide. “Did you know I was coming?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “But somehow they did, and once I met you, I knew, and I knew straight away that you were not Olwin, that you were you and that you were running from her, just like me, but that you were enough like her that I couldn’t help but…”

  His fingers are still in mine, but his face is turned away.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  I take my fingers away from his and he turns further from me, but I stretch out my hand and turn his face towards me. “I can’t let myself be her.”

  “I know.” I can’t tell if he means it’s good or bad. But it does not matter. I can only be who I am. And then I feel the parts of Olwin Duilis that Blue Jay has talked about rise up. They can’t help but be part of me now. I hold on to myself for as long as I am able.

  Crow

  GUERRA HAS LEFT Olwin Duilis to my tender care. (There are enough of his people around for him to be secure and certain: Carine, for one, made me tell her exactly where we were going.) All things considered, it’s not a bad outcome. But it’s not one that has me feeling comfortable. We’re walking the High Track and Olwin hasn’t said anything at all. I’m fine with that. At least I was; the silence is weighing in now, making me want to speak. All that I can hear is the whisper of Olwin’s cage, the thing that’s keeping her upright, helping her walk. Keeping her alive, for all I know. It’s creeping me out.

  I stop at the spot where it’s easy to see Eva’s greenhouse. This much I can show her. Though I figure she already knows. There’s a bench, but neither of us use it. And there’s no broken symbol with an eye or any other body part. Instead I tell her about the locks. The way those other-reality people put locks on the railings to protest the Time Locked Tenties.

  “What’s it like, travelling Time Locked?” asks Olwin Duilis.

  “Bloody awful.”

  “But isn’t it worth it, to see other places and other people?”

  “Not really. I mean it’s just more of the same. Saw a mad Guerra. That was… interesting.”

  So she makes me tell her about the Barleycorn King and the prophets with their pollution-sensing garments and the way he drew me to safety with his str
iped cane.

  “You sure that’s Guerra?”

  “Who else could it be?”

  Olwin Duilis smiled. “Doesn’t seem much like the Guerra I know.”

  “He threw me down the stairs.”

  Olwin laughs. “Okay, that’s a bit more like Guerra.”

  “Theory is, he’s been tortured by what he did to the Tenties.” Even as I say it, it seems wrong, but I’m sticking with the theory.

  “Still not convinced.”

  I’m being drawn in. I can see why Mac liked her. She’s smart, but easy to talk to. And she’s beautiful, too, in a drawn and terrible way. But you don’t see that after a while.

  “So you and Mac…?”

  “MacIver and I are friends, but nothing else. I’m not even sure if we’re friends now.”

  Yeah, me too, I think. I can’t get my head around Mac’s life. I guess he hasn’t exactly lied. But he hasn’t exactly been forthcoming either. Seems like a betrayal to me.

  She looks out at the greenhouse so I can’t see her face. “Will he come back, do you think?

  I can see the dragonfly sitting in her hair. “Why don’t you do it?” I ask. “Travel between the realities, see the sights?”

  “Track him down?”

  “No. Just do it for yourself?”

  “Look at me, Kern. I wouldn’t survive.”

  “Not even with all that tech shit you’ve got going on?”

  “Not even with the tech shit.”

  “The Tenties might help.” I stick my wrist out so she can see the raised ring around my wrist. “There’s a part of them in me. It helps, I think.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And Aleris”—I nearly say ‘Eva,’ but I remember in time—“she can travel. Don’t seem to bother her.”