Paul smiles, big and goofy. “Nope. And it’ll give you superpowers.”
* * *
• • •
Back in the exam room, I sit down on the bed. “How does this all work?”
“All what?” Richard sounds relieved that I’m back to business.
I don’t want to say everything. “Witnessing, I guess.”
Richard smiles like he’s truly glad I asked. “Like I mentioned yesterday, once something’s done and past, it’s locked in, it can’t ever be changed, right?”
Even hearing it reminds me of the whole letter thing and makes my stomach hurt. “Okay.”
“Well, the same thing happens if we see something that, by our way of experiencing time, hasn’t happened yet.” He gestures at Paul, who’s standing above his shoulder. “Normally the future’s wide open—picture an infinite field of bubble wrap stretching out in front of us. Every single bubble on that field is a possibility—what could happen—depending on decisions that conscious beings make and on the semi-random events of the physical universe—earthquakes, tornadoes, asteroids, that sort of thing.” He looks at me.
I nod so he knows I get it.
“But remember, the present fixes time, we experience it and it becomes unmovable and unchangeable, right? So let’s say you get to see a future—one bubble, way over here”—he points at a space between us—“that has some particular event in it. What would that mean?”
I keep thinking I get it, but as soon as I try to close my mind around the ideas, they squirt out the side. “That it’s going to happen . . .”
Richard nods. “Yes! Exactly! Seeing that small part of the future ensures that it will happen and all the future bubbles that don’t include the events in the bubble you saw are suddenly popped—we say they’re collapsed—they’re no longer possible. Do you know why?”
I don’t. But I don’t want to sit there with my mouth open, so I say something even though it’s dumb. “Because I saw it?”
“That’s it exactly!” He pats me on the knee. “Observation makes reality, Alex. The present is defined by those of us who see and think and remember. “We”— he points at me and Paul, himself too—“we are what changes time from the unformed infinite future to the locked-in, immutable past. When we witness the present, we lock things in, and when we witness a piece of future, we lock it in just the same—it’s like it becomes part of the fixed past even though it hasn’t happened yet as we stubbornly see the illusion of time. No matter what anybody does, as long as you remember it, it can’t be changed, not by Locusts or anybody else.” He smiles like he’s seen a wonder of the world. “Your knowledge of what will happen absolutely makes sure that it does—you’re going to make sure that Live-Tech spreads, that President Castle doesn’t get a chance to have it regulated, that people trust Jeff enough about Incursions that he can get Live-Tech everywhere it needs to go.”
I can’t think of anything to say, so I say, “Okay.” Then: “How do we know what futures to see?”
Richard looks pleased with my question. “The Gentry’s Oracle device I told you about yesterday? It selects the desired possibilities and it’s the thing that guides you on your witness journeys.” He points to Paul’s arm. “The patch you’re going to get is Live-Tech—it’s going to act as a bridge between you and the Oracle device, except this time instead of reading your thoughts and telling the machine, it’s going to be reading the machine and translating it into thought for you.” He waits for me to catch up. I nod, but I don’t really get it.
He must see my confusion because he keeps explaining. “The patch is going to take its guidance from the Oracle device and it’s going to connect to your mind while also making some slight alterations to your DNA—the end result is that you’ll not only be able to glide into the future, but you’ll only witness the futures the Oracle chooses for you.”
The door opens, making me jump. A woman I haven’t seen before comes in. She says hi to Richard and Paul and then tells me her name is Christina and that she’s the one who maintains the witness-patches.
She steps over to the wall where a panel slides back. When she turns back around, she’s got a square of Live-Tech pod material clutched at the end of a pair of tongs. Just like the Live-Tech pod was before I activated it, this one’s streetlight green with the Live-Tech logo etched into it in black line, clutched in the end of a pair of tongs. “You ready, Alex?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
She smiles and approaches, but stops when she sees my wrist. “You’re gonna have to remove the pod first.”
I tell her I forgot the deactivation code. She tells me to repeat after her and then recites a long string of letters and numbers. When I’m done, the pod vibrates twice and falls out of my ear onto the floor. I watch as it turns red, indicating that it’s no longer in use.
“Great,” she says as Richard bends down to pick it up. “Now we can attach it, and it will connect you to the Oracle and give you the ability to witness.”
I look at the patch. It’s just a flat square flap of bright green leather. “How . . .” I want to ask the big questions about how all of this is possible, but I don’t even know how to put it, so I end up just waving my hand at the patch and looking lost.
“How does this”— she wiggles the patch with the tongs—“make it possible for you to see the future?”
I nod. Richard just told me, but as long as people are talking I don’t have to actually put the patch on. It makes me nervous.
“Well, you’ve got those genetic markers—one hundred and fifty-three of them, right?”
I shrug, nod.
“Well, think of those as being like a keyhole to a door inside you. This patch? It’s the key. It’s genetically encoded to pair with your specific markers to unlock that door and let you witness.”
“What’s behind the door?”
“The place where time lives.” Richard smiles. “And, Alex, you’re going to be very good at witnessing. Most witnesses—their ability is like a two-lane road—they can get there and they can come back, but there’s a limit to the amount of traffic—information—that the road can handle—they see and hear things, but the things they witness aren’t always clear, which makes them less completely locked in.” He gestures at me. “You, on the other hand, with your one hundred and fifty-three markers, you’re going to have a ten-lane expressway. Things will be crystal clear for you when you see them. You’ll get details that the rest of the team wouldn’t even be able to dream of.”
“Alright.”
“You need to understand.” Richard leans into me. “Once you’ve started witnessing, we have to make sure to keep you safe and protected until the futures you’ve seen have come to pass . . .” He sees my eyes widen, begins to shake his head. “We’re not talking years, Alex, we’re talking months.” He raises an eyebrow to ask if I’m comfortable with that. I don’t say anything, so he continues: “If we know what you saw, that alone won’t keep the future fixed. Only the witness’s own mind can do that. Once you’re done, though, and your patch has been removed, we’ll wipe this compound out of your memory, give you some implanted memories that’ll feel very real to you, and make sure you have the resources to make up for the lost time.” He raises his eyebrows. “Are you still willing?”
“What about . . .” I focus, try to make my voice clear. “I can’t go back, though. They want me for murder.”
Richard smiles at me. “By the time we send you back, Alex, that won’t be an issue, but you just have to trust me, okay?”
The whole idea weirds me out, and even thinking about it makes me anxious, but I’ve got nowhere else to go. I try and think it through, really turn it into a decision, but it’s just for appearances. “Okay. I’m in.”
“Good man,” Richard says and claps me on the leg before leaning back to make room for Christina.
“Here we go. It’ll
feel a bit like when you put in your pod.” She brings the patch close to my skin. I wince as I feel it touch—it’s soft and cool and I get a sensation like an electric shock that vibrates up and down my arm. It sticks to me, pulls at my skin. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels weird, like my skin’s got Velcro on it and something’s being peeled off. I try and keep still but I get an overwhelming urge to shake my arm. I start to think I’m going to explode if I don’t move it.
“Done!” Christina says.
I’m about to say something, but then the patch starts to change. The Live-Tech logo fades away and the bright green fades to white before changing again to match my skin. The area of my arm around the patch feels weird, like the patch is wiggling—tickling me from the inside. I try and shake it off, but it grows worse and worse until I get a full-body shiver that starts at my head and goes all the way down to my feet. It keeps happening and just when I think it’s going to go on forever and that I’m going to shake myself to death, it stops.
When I look up at Christina, she’s smiling. “He won’t come off no matter how much you move now, Alex—he’s your new partner!” She seems to think this is a really good thing, because she’s looking at me—at us—like a priest at a wedding.
Twenty-Two
We step out into the hall. Christina excuses herself and disappears into another doorway.
Richard asks how I’m feeling.
I’m just about to tell him that I feel fine when I realize that that isn’t exactly true.
I don’t feel bad.
As matter of fact I’m feeling good, but I’m also feeling really weird. I turn around to face him because he’s a little behind me, but as I turn, I startle myself because I feel like there’s more of me turning than there is of me. It’s like my body has extra rooms somewhere—little hidden places that I can’t see are taking up space and making me bigger than I’m supposed to be.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “A little weird, honestly.”
Paul grabs me by the arm, starts to pull me down the hall. “Come with me.”
My balance is funny right now, so I stumble a bit as he pulls me. “Where are we going?”
“Glide rooms,” he says. “Gonna show you how it works.”
Richard follows us down the stairs and into the common room, where Paul drags me to a second hallway that leads off to the opposite side of the dorms.
We stop in front of a door. Next to it is a picture of a Ghostbusters-style cartoon Locust holding a knife and fork over the Earth with a big red circle around it and a slash through it. “THE KITCHEN IS CLOSED” is written in block letters underneath.
I gesture at it. “Funny.”
Paul shrugs. “Who ya’ gonna call?” He motions for me to look through the glass. Corina is inside with Damon. They’re both dressed in white bodysuits that have the pentagon and triangle design on the back. Corina seems to be asleep on the bed and Damon’s talking into a thin microphone that rises like a weed off an otherwise empty desk.
“Witness chamber,” Paul tells me. “They act like an amplifier for the signals that the patch transmits, so they’re the only place where we glide—it doesn’t work anywhere else.” He shrugs. “When we glide, we go one at a time. Corina’s under now, and the other person—in this case Damon—dictates what they witnessed while the other person is under.”
I watch for a moment. Corina isn’t moving at all. She looks dead.
I step away from the window. “Isn’t it not okay for others to know what we witness?” I ask him. “How come Damon’s doing that with Corina in the room?”
Paul giggles. “You wouldn’t hear a nuclear bomb going off when you’re under.” He tugs at my shirt. “Corina’s not even in Corina right now. She’s somewhere else as someone else some other time—not home right now, please leave a message.”
“Paul?”
“Morpheus.” He tries to make his voice deep when he says it, but his baby face just makes the whole thing ridiculous.
“Stop that. How does the person who goes second dictate? Isn’t the other person awake then?”
It’s Richard who answers. “The second witness waits until their partner leaves the room.”
“Why don’t they just have us go alone?”
Paul smiles. “Because witnessing’s like the Force—it has a light side and a dark side. We’ve got to watch out for each other in there.” He turns to face me. “When we’re under, our mind isn’t in our bodies and if it gets untethered, we’re in trouble.”
I can’t help but be a little irritated that this is the first I’m hearing about this. “What happens if we get untethered?”
Paul looks at Richard and then back through the window at Damon and Corina. “We die.”
“We die? We can die in there?”
“Really not a big concern, Alex.” Richard points at a thing hanging on the wall above Corina. It looks like a slice of Live-Tech. “Gliding is only dangerous to the witness if they’re down too long and the biology gets exhausted, so if somebody’s under for more than thirty minutes, all the glide partner has to do is attach that to the witness’s neck and it brings them back.”
I look at the thing Richard’s pointing at. “That’ll save us?” I turn to Paul. “Have you ever had to use it?”
“Nope.” He turns, smiles, raises his eyebrows at me. “But I’m sure as heck gonna make sure you know how.”
We walk farther down the corridor and stop at the door to another chamber. “What’s with the suits?”
Paul shrugs. “They’re part of the job description.” He wrinkles his nose. “They help regulate our biology while we’re on long glides—that’s why they fit so tight. I keep bugging Richard to change them, but he doesn’t like my designs.” He looks accusingly at Richard, who shrugs. “I’m a pudgy white boy, so these ones make me look like cauliflower.”
Paul opens the door and jerks his head. “C’mon.”
Inside, he points at the couch. “Lie down. Close your eyes.”
I shake my head. “Nah.” Then: “I’m good.”
Paul rolls his eyes. “Don’t be silly.” He points at the couch. “Lie down.”
Richard steps in from behind me. “It’s perfectly safe, Alex, but it’s fine if you’re not ready.” He shrugs, looks pointedly at Paul. “We could do this just as easily tomorrow.”
I look at the couch, then at Paul, then at Richard. They don’t seem worried. I’m being stupid. I sigh, shrug. “Now’s fine.” Then: “Don’t I need a suit?”
Richard looks at me, smiles. “Suits are necessary when you’re down for substantial time. You won’t be down that long—at worst you’ll be a little short of breath when you come up.”
I nod and lie down on the couch, relieved not to have to change into weird clothes for the moment. When I close my eyes, I feel strange again, like I’m bigger on the inside, too, like my mind and my body have extra spaces. It’s disorienting, like I walked through the door to my bedroom and ended up in Walmart. “It’s bigger in here.”
“I know. Now picture yourself in something that moves—I use a mining cart like in Indiana Jones, but it doesn’t have to be that. Calvin uses a horse and Corina pictures a train—it can be anything.”
There’s only one thing that moves that I can imagine using. I picture my board. I can see it in my mind, the grip tape covered in spray stencils that Julio cut for me. “Got it.”
“Now get in it, or on it, or over it, or whatever it is that you do with it, and start going downhill.”
At first I’m confused, but then I figure it out. I just have to picture it. “Got it.”
“Don’t open your eyes.”
I relax into it, sliding down like I did before, searching for my Voice.
But then things get weird.
Instead of the simple guitars I heard before, now it’s like a death metal band with a bill
ion electric guitars playing power chords and noodle solos.
It’s so loud that it hurts and I think I start to whimper or something, because suddenly Paul’s hand is on me.
“Stay on the path,” he says.
I don’t know what he means until I think, Path? Then I see a path and I’m on it. When I’m on the path, it’s like there’s walls up on either side of it and all the guitar noise gets muffled.
“Take the first off-ramp you see.”
Off-ramp? And then there is one. I tell Paul.
“Take it.”
I lean to the right to guide my board onto it. I feel it lock in.
It gets suddenly dark. And then there’s a light ahead. It gets brighter and brighter until suddenly:
It’s all wrong. The couch is gone. Paul. The glide room. I’m not . . . We’re in the Central Hall. It’s glaring, nearly blinding from the yellow carpet, the white furniture. There are books on shelves in front of me, red leather bindings—somehow I know they’re red, but they don’t look red; they look a nearly screaming orange.
There’s a grand piano. I play the piano. I’ve played since I was four. Grandma Bev bought me a keyboard.
I breathe in, but it’s not me breathing. It’s somebody else. The breath is shallower than I expect. I want more air, but I don’t need more. The breath is fine for her.
Us.
I’m not just me right now. I’m mainly someone else. My name is Jordan. I brush hair out of my face. It’s not in my face, I just do it as a habit. It makes me feel like a pop star.
“There’s one more,” my mom says. The sound of her voice is strange, a dream-sound that would scare the shit out of me if I heard it in my life, but to Jordan it’s just the way her mom sounds, like all voices sound. “It’s from Grandma Bev.” She holds out a package to me. It’s wrapped in paper that Jordan knows is blue, but to me it looks gray. The pink balloons that dot it look comfortingly normal to the way I see them when I’m me.
Strange Days Page 11
