“I know, I made her that way. Some plant matter. Helps a lot. Quite strange, really.”
“Humants.”
Olwin laughs and looks at me and I see that this, at least, has pushed her out of her melancholy. “What?”
“Part-people, part-plant. Probably part-Tentie. I met some. They hang around the greenhouse worshipping you.”
“Not me,” says Olwin.
“Well, not exactly.”
“She’s a different person. You know that, Brom. Don’t try to cheer me up by pretending she isn’t.” She turns around, her back to the greenhouse. “The Trocarn?” she reminds me.
We walk further up the High Track, to the place the Tenties should be. Approximately, that is, seeing as how the High Track is all much of a muchness. But we’re past staircase number 1 and this spot looks as good as any.
“Here,” I say, feeling slightly stupid. “In theory, anyway.”
“Was there any indication?”
“A shimmer. If you look close.” If it’s here at all, I think. I mean, maybe the Tenties have given up and gone home. Maybe the dome never cycles into this world. I haven’t asked where the Tentie dome is, in this reality. Not on the High Track, that’s for sure. And that seems like a considerable flaw in my guided tour.
“Where are they here?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m not sure. Not up on the High Track. Close by, I think.” But she’s distracted by something. I see the dragonfly searching for the dome, buzzing around loudly, searching, but never settling. I remember the way Tal lit up the dome for us, realise I could get him to do that now if I was willing to show Olwin who and what he was. Which I’m not, not just yet. Maybe not ever.
“It’s not here,” she says. “Or if it is, I can’t find it.”
I’m tempted to bring out Tal, but no. We’re too close to the spot where I watched Eva and T-Lily jump off the edge to get away from the time nets. We’re too close to the spot I did the same thing.
“Can you manage stairs?” I ask. Because if I know Guerra, I know just where the Tenties are.
“Can you?” she asks, and she grins.
The fact is, stairs are probably not the best option for either of us, but we manage. Slowly, awkwardly and with a fair bit of swearing on Olwin’s part. We sit for a while on the bottom step. At least, I sit; Olwin leans against one of the posts supporting the High Track. There’s another of those big hands there, painted to make it look like it’s holding the whole thing up.
“Okay, Kern, now what?”
“For a start, call me Brom.”
“Okay, Brom, now what?”
“Warehouse. Figure they’re in one of Guerra’s warehouses down here.”
“More walking?”
“Not that much.” Not if I choose the right warehouse. I have a mental sort through the options. Something with space, but something he don’t use all that often. Something he wouldn’t have to clear out. And something reasonably out of the way. Not that anyone much comes down here. There are a couple of choices, one likely option: the warehouse with the old Black Kraken sign on the outside. That’s the kind of thing that would appeal to Guerra’s sense of humour. “I could go on ahead, come back to you?” I suggest.
“Don’t think so, Brom.”
Yeah, I’m on a leash, and don’t I know it. “Okay, then, ready?”
The two of us propel ourselves forward like the mechanical men we’ve become. It might even be funny to the outside observer. It isn’t to me.
“How does it work, then?” I ask. “Tenties in one reality hovering around on the High Track, Tenties in another reality, hovering around down here.”
“You don’t cycle through all the realities, Brom. Just some of them.” And then, as if it’s been playing on her mind, “Did you never meet yourself? Just think of all those versions of you. I doubt if any of you are in exactly the same place.”
I already regret asking, but I persist for something to say. “Yeah, but we’re not flicking back and forth in Time Lock.”
“Even if you were, why would it matter? There’s still the same number of you.”
“And if we were Time Locked in the same place?”
“You’d explode.”
It takes me a moment to realise she’s joking.
“I don’t know, Brom. It seems unlikely.”
We’re near the warehouse. I can see the Black Kraken sign. Much faded, though you can still make out the unfortunates grasped in the tentacles. And as I hoped, there are none of Guerra’s people around. No need, really: it’s not as if the Tenties are high risk. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t security cameras and the like. But what the hell, I’m here with Olwin Duilis, which seems to amount to a get out of jail free card, at least for the time being.
I manage to get a side door open without too much of a fuss. It was locked, but not so as to pose much of a barrier. Olwin says nothing, just releases the dragonfly inside. It’s quite dark, but I don’t look around for lights because—and maybe this is my imagination—I reckon I can see the shimmer of the Tentie dome.
“Yes,” says Olwin. The dragonfly’s still buzzing around the dome, further out in the warehouse, so I don’t know how she can be so sure. But then I realise that the dome’s changed. I look down at my leg and Tal’s pretending that he’s just an exoskeleton, but I strongly suspect he’s helped things along. He must be bored as hell down there. Assuming he’s capable of feeling such a thing.
We walk forward, close enough so the Tenties are quite visible. It’s like looking into an alien greenhouse–which, I suppose, it is.
Olwin takes a step forward and before I can even think, No, not again, she’s grabbed my arm and pulled me into the dome.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Green Jay
BLUE JAY HAS taken me to the hospital. I did not want to go; I wanted to fade away before Olwin became too strong. But that hasn’t happened. Not yet, at least. She is there and it is hard to tell the borders of her and me, if there are any. But I am not lost. Not completely. From time to time I touch the tendril around my wrist and remind myself that Olwin Duilis does not have this. That already I have memories that can never belong to her.
Blue Jay sleeps on a chair beside my bed. I am glad of him, so glad, but it is easier to think of myself without him. Without knowing that it was Olwin Duilis he loved first. And he will draw her out of me more than he already has. I must leave him, as soon as I am well enough. I don’t think I can stay.
I lie still so I don’t wake him up. He has a pole beside him; a white pole, quite tall, the kind of thing a tightrope walker might use to balance. That is Olwin Duilis’ thought. I know that. It doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
I watch him and despite myself I want him to come to the bed and kiss me again. Unravel me. He opens his eyes, stretches and then comes and sits beside me. He is too scared to touch me. “How are you feeling?” he asks.
I smile and hold his hand, but only because I can’t answer that. I am a mixture, now, of so many things. Of Olwin Duilis in the beginning, but not truly because of my green skin and other things borrowed from plants. I have offerings from the Trocarn, and now I am also partly held together with the microtechnologies of these future people. I am surprisingly whole.
“Don’t leave me,” he says.
“You should go back to her.”
Blue Jay shakes his head.
“You must.”
“I said goodbye to her before you ever came,” he says.
And that is true. Perhaps even enough. I pull him towards me and we lie in the hospital bed holding each other. I cannot go.
Crow
OLWIN’S COVERED BY tendrils, but I’ve just got the odd one wound around my arms. I’m feeling fine, considering, and by the looks of Olwin she’s okay too. I’ve seen all this before, of course, so the novelty’s pretty much worn off. I’m hoping someone materialises out of the vines pretty soon. It’d be easy to lose yourself in here, but the thought of using an alien species as a typ
e of immersive drug den seems wrong, even to me.
There’s a shape emerging from the tendrils; quite fast, at least as Tenties go. It’s not Kolb or Lona, but it does remind me of the first humant I met, Fay. An androgynous figure, very green. Perhaps this is the new Tentie look.
The figure moves towards me and embraces me, early Tentie style. I don’t object. How can I? I’m in their dome, after all. But then the whole thing becomes awkward. It’s hard to think of a way to convey that I’m only here because someone pulled me in, without sounding rude.
“I’m sorry that you’re still here.” It’s the best I can come up with at short notice.
The Tentie holds its head to the side, a very human gesture, but not all that comforting. “We don’t need saving.”
“You’re telling me you like it here?”
“As much as anywhere. And you visit.”
Was that a joke? “I do my best.” The dragonfly has transferred itself to my leg, to Tal actually; he’s obviously decided that he’s going to hold me together come what may. And I see that Olwin has stirred. The tendrils release her enough so that she can move closer to us. The Tentie embraces her as well. It’s a long, uncomfortable hug, and probably more about DNA exchange than friendship, but you never know.
“Thank you,” says Olwin.
The Tentie bows. “Quickly,” it says. The tendrils draw back from Olwin. She takes a step towards the edge of the dome and Tal does something to my leg so that I move too, and we’re out. Back in the warehouse, the dome just behind us. Olwin’s grimacing, but she’s still upright. Though I don’t suppose she has much choice about that. I look at her wrist, but there’s no tendril there to match mine or Eva’s.
I give her a moment, walk back to the door. There’s no-one in sight, but I’m fairly sure that Guerra knows where we are and that someone will be round fairly shortly.
I hear the sound of her exoskeleton, feel her hand on my shoulder.
“They’re extraordinary,” she says.
“Yep,” I say. “But they shouldn’t really be there.” Despite what I was told. I guess the Tenties can choose their own Time Locked life if they want it that much. Olwin doesn’t contradict me, so I decide to push. “So can you do it, get them out?”
“Can I convince enough people? No. Can I turn off the machines? Sure. They’ll be in here somewhere.”
That takes a moment to process. “They’ll just put them back.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” She’s grinning now. Still looks dreadful—pale, sweaty, almost grey—but also happy. “Technology breaks down all the time. At least this way …”
My mind comes up with a whole lot more excuses, but that’s all they really are. “I’ll take a look around,” I tell her. And before Olwin can say no, I begin my search. As much as she’d probably like to keep me within sight, she’s in no state to follow me around. I’m frankly surprised that I’m in a fit state to move, but that’s me, seasoned interreality traveller.
But not a seasoned technology expert. I turn and call back to her, “What am I looking for?”
The answer I get is the dragonfly. If I’d thought about it for a second longer, I would have thought of Tal. On the other hand, perhaps it’s better that I still have some secrets. It’s not that big a warehouse, and it’s pretty much the one open room, but there’s a mezzanine walkway type thing at one end and that’s where I start. More bloody stairs. The dragonfly loses patience and zips ahead. It buzzes impatiently around one section, barely waits for me to get there. Yep. There’s panels, buttons. Not much in the way of instructions, but I figure, what the hey, I’ll just turn everything I can see to zero. It occurs, possibly too late, that I could be doing the Tenties more harm than good. So I look up, see a sight I had in no way expected: Olwin Duilis surrounded by Hooks.
It figures. The Hooks hate the Tenties with an unreasonable obsession, and they haven’t had the opportunity to focus their hate on anything or anyone else yet. None of them are wearing the T-shirts with red writing, I guess even they had figured out that if the Tenties can’t see red in real life, they’re not going to see it when Time Locked. But a few of them still have fish hooks in their hair, which has got to be one of the more inconvenient forms of protest. The dome is non-existent, at least from up here. I hope to hell I haven’t just released the Tenties into a group of moronic haters. But there’s no sign of the Tenties at all. It’s possible the Hooks are Guerra’s half-arsed security system. If that’s true, I hope he’s alerted them to Olwin’s special status.
“Go,” I say to the dragonfly, because there’s no way I can make it down to Olwin Duilis with any kind of speed. Not that the dragonfly can do much to protect her. For possibly the first time in my life, I actually hope Guerra’s looking. Surely he’s not going to let Olwin Duilis come to harm.
My mind skips ahead to a brief vision of tendrils pulling the Hooks into the dome and disposing of them, but that’s not Tentie style. Co-operation rather than revenge. Of course, they also co-operated with Guerra, which don’t show the best judgment. Eva, for one, might have something to say about the moral compass of some of the Tenties, but still, I don’t think they’d outright kill the Hooks. Which is a pity.
They’ve surrounded Olwin. I should go down and help her, although that’s a course of action I know I’ll regret. There’s a tickle on my hand and there’s the dragonfly, which is proving as courageous as I am. But I see a light blinking annoyingly on the panel. One last button. If the dragonfly thinks it’s okay, it must be, yes? So I press the button which flashes once, red.
It’s the prelude to a whole shitstorm of happenings:
One, there’s a loud crinkling sound as the dome first appears and then disintegrates.
That reveals the Tenties who are, understandably, in a state of considerable disarray. Some are back to old Tentie state, some are in the new green Humant form, some are still tendrils. I’m surprised they’re this prepared, but I guess they figured I was about to go and do something stupid. They know me disturbingly well.
Some of the Hooks take one look and run. Some of them start laughing and jumping up and down in complete disbelief. Some of them seem to be readying themselves to fight the Tenties. They’ve got knives out, that kind of thing. There’s no action, though. I guess they’ve never seen so many Tenties all in one place at one time.
At least the attention’s not on Olwin. She looks up at me, gives me a thumbs-up and shakes her head. I’m interpreting that as, Don’t come down. I start to move anyway. Why, I don’t know. And then—and this is the least expected thing of all—the Chemical Conjurers make an entrance. Felix and Oscar. They pull themselves up to full height once they’re through the door. Most of the Hooks take the hint and run. A few of them are helped on their way with a robot hand. Once they’re gone, Olwin gets the full attention of Felix, and Oscar comes up to talk to me as I make my slow way back to the centre of the room.
“Well done, Brom,” he says. I’m hoping he means the release of the Tenties and not my complete inaction in the face of danger.
“Thanks,” I say, which he can interpret however he likes. “Will they be okay?” Probably a question I should have asked earlier, but better late than never.
“Will they adapt to this reality after having been caught in Time Lock for several months?”
“Yes.” Although I’m thinking, Several months? Several weeks, maybe, not several months. Though in the future, several years. Shit, I hate this stuff.
“I believe they will be fine,” says Oscar. We both take a look at the Tenties. Just a whole crowd of tentacled beings, some tending towards the unashamedly green humant, some tending towards the original Tentie form. There’s very few tendrils left.
But there’s some of that orange cloud of happiness hovering over them, which is a good thing, because although some of them seem to have found clothes, others appear to have forgotten the need.
“They’re remarkable,” comments Oscar.
“That’s what Olwin s
aid.”
“She is also remarkable.”
“You’ve known about this all along: Olwin, Mac, the whole thing. You just watched me make a fool of myself.”
“No,” says Oscar. “Not a fool. Except for one thing. Olwin will know that Aleris is not the real double, Brom.”
Maybe, maybe not, but I’m not about to get into this discussion. Luckily we’re close enough to the others that a reply isn’t strictly needed. I throw myself into the meet and greet, put up with a lot of Tentie hugging; but the fact remains, releasing the Tenties is nowhere near as satisfying as I thought it would be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Green Jay
BLUE JAY AND I are returning home, back to the greenhouse, my hospital stay over. It is evening, almost dark, but still a touch of blue in the sky. We are walking through the alleyways of the tenements when I feel someone pull at me. A fleeting grab to the arm, then release. I should be scared: it was not always safe here, and perhaps that is still true in the place we are now. I turn, I can’t see who it is, but then I see the lights a little way off. I know those lights. I call to Blue Jay, stop him, and he sees it too. The Crow has failed us again. The time nets should have stopped. Even if my double has not survived, if the Crow did his job, they should think it is me that has died. My arm is grabbed again, more strongly this time, though I still cannot see who is pulling.
“Eva,” whispers a voice I recognise. I take Blue Jay’s hand and we move quickly into the darkness. There is not much space, a few steps then a wall. But the arm pulls at us again and we move to the side, and then up a few steps so that we are standing with our backs to a door. I am caught in a hug. I don’t understand why it is so dark, why I cannot see clearly, but I know that this is Rose-Q. The feel of her, the smell. The memories of being caught with Guerra come back. And she is somehow here, somehow released. I hug her back, but it makes me miss T-Lily and, unfairly, I wish that it was her rather than Rose-Q. Maybe this is just another form of time net, one of Guerra’s people come to get me.
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