The Infinite

by Patience Agbabi

  ‘What are YOU doing here?’

  ‘You named me, Elle. Remember? Second Year. Nickname stuck for a decade. You never liked anything I posted on Facebook. Other people’s, never mine. Called me Pete LMS behind my back. But eventually I got used to it, as one does. Liked it, even. Letters after my name gave me a certain . . . gravitas. Even teachers used it eventually. But what I really wanted, Elle,’ he taps into his Chronophone, ‘was for you to like ME.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘You may find this hard to believe, my dear, but it’s true.’

  ‘Then why did you humiliate me all the time?’

  ‘I liked you but I was jealous. You were clever and sporty and Big Ben was a maths genius. The whole class had lessons I wasn’t allowed into. I never fitted in. I was a nobody.’

  ‘You were a bully!’

  ‘Terribly sorry. Misspent youth and all that. But you can’t change the past.’

  ‘You’re lying. You could send your 2020 self a message on your Chronophone. STOP BULLYING NOW.’

  ‘I COULD,’ he says, ‘but I don’t think that’s necessary, Elle. You can stand up for yourself now, without my help.’

  He taps into his phone again. He hasn’t changed at all. Still obsessed with technology. Still bad.

  ‘What have you done with Kwesi and Noon?’

  ‘Not guilty. You Leapers excel at disappearing acts. First one I saw was outside a certain geography classroom . . .’

  My mouth forms a capital O. ‘You saw me—’

  ‘Excellent, Elle. Yes. It was supposed to be a punishment. Stand outside the classroom, repent. Instead, a veritable treat. I saw you disappear into the ether. Took me a decade to find out about The Gift. Of course, I told no one. Knowledge is power. Very few of us know.’ He gestures to one of the armchairs. ‘Do take a seat, you’re making me nervous.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Kwesi, yes. Very bright, nonverbal, good at the long jump if I remember correctly. And his paintwork, marvellous, just marvellous.’

  ‘His PB was 5 metres 90, which is an 89.49% age grade. But he specialised in the triple jump.’

  ‘Indeed. And Moon, yes. Not so bright but more sparkly. Leaps like lightning!’

  ‘Her name’s Noon, not Moon. It’s a palindrome. What do you mean, sparkly?’

  ‘Never realised she had a twin. Threw me for a second. Two stupid names rather than one.’

  ‘That’s not true. You don’t even know them. They’re worth four of you!’

  I look at the door. Why didn’t I just run away before he guided me in? Why don’t I leap to safety now? Because I’d never find out what SOS L means. The clue must be somewhere in this office.

  ‘Elle, how would you like to go to the Music, Maths and Movement School? They have the best athletics facilities in the country.’

  ‘I can’t. I already go to Intercalary International.’

  ‘The Triple M would suit you. But the Double M would reward you.’

  ‘The Double M?’

  ‘My boss, Millennia. Known in our circle as MM. The mastermind. She gives the orders. You could go to school in the week and have a weekend job here.’

  ‘In 2048?’

  ‘No. In 2100. I’ve established a business in the future.’

  ‘2100?’ I narrow my eyes.

  ‘Seriously, Elle. I see your talent. Come and work for me.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘I make more money than you could ever imagine. You wouldn’t have to live in a pokey little flat. You could live in a mansion, have your own training facilities.’ He’s still tapping his phone. I look around the office, at the whiteboard covered in letters and dates.

  ‘Have you been to our flat?’

  ‘No. But I can imagine it.’ He gives me the bull’s-eye. I look away. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘What’s the job?’

  ‘Assisting my undertaking?’

  ‘Funerals?’ I don’t want to work with dead bodies. They would rot and smell and make me sick.

  ‘Not exactly. Freudian slip. Shall we say, I supply the demand.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Meat.’ He gets up from his chair and turns on the computer. It makes a whirring sound as the screen lights up. ‘Since the Rations, I’ve made millions.’

  ‘You’re a smuggler?’

  ‘No, no. My Old Leapers do all that. They can leap. I can’t. They luggaged me to set it all up but now I leave it to the ancients and the robots.’

  ‘That’s an Anachronism and it’s illegal and you should all go to prison.’

  ‘It’s a bit naughty, yes. But people will always eat meat. Mange-Tout coined the slogan MAN=BEAST. The Vegetables still quote it. Equal rights for animals and people, they say.’

  ‘That’s not true. MAN=BEAST doesn’t mean PEOPLE, it doesn’t mean men. It just means one man. You. You’re an animal!’ I take a slow step back towards the door.

  ‘No, Elle. It’s not about me. The slogan’s a bit old, I give you that. But it gave me the idea. MAN=BEAST. What about a man-beast hybrid? Meat was rotting in transit, the animals’ bodies couldn’t withstand the leap. We needed a magic ingredient to preserve it. I thought human DNA . . .’

  ‘People! You eat people! You’re a . . . a . . . cannibal!’ This is worse than I imagined. It’s not like Le Temps is stuck on a desert island with no other food to eat, and even then he should cut off his own leg and eat himself first before thinking of eating another human.

  He rolls his eyes clockwise. ‘I would put it a little more elegantly, if you let me finish. Annual and most Leapling DNA didn’t work. But GIFTED Leapers . . . it worked like magic. Simple gene editing. We did a cut-and-paste with the sheep gene and the Leap gene and came up with a winner. What do you think we called it, Elle?’

  I shrug my shoulders. ‘Sheepling?’

  Le Temps smiles, moves his finger like he’s writing the word in the air.

  I try again. ‘Shleep?’

  ‘Close. You’re a natural.’ He pauses a few seconds. ‘We called it sheap. With an “e” and an “a”.’

  He raises his eyebrows, like he expects me to speak. I stare back at him until he taps something into his computer and faces me again.

  ‘Thought you might appreciate the wordplay, Elle. It’s our bestselling product on the Black Market. It’s eaten by people all over the world. Those who can afford it.’

  ‘I only eat white food, so I’d never eat it.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to EAT it. But you’d make us a fortune in marketing. Or you could run the factory. Your choice. Of course, sheap’s the code, not the brand name. The public never need know.’

  And it’s then I remember the leap day barbecue, the guessing game. We couldn’t guess the mystery meat because it was a new invention. That explains why Le Temps gave Big Ben the bull’s-eye when he guessed sheep.

  ‘The barbecue . . .’

  ‘Clever girl. Ben nearly guessed on the night. There’s only a subtle difference in taste. We use DNA from young truants, if you’re wondering. Leap criminals. I treat them better than they deserve. Give them work, food, clothing.’

  ‘Criminals? YOU’RE the criminal. You’re a monster!’

  Kwesi. Noon. Too many Leaps gone missing.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

  ‘The devil incarnate.’

  ‘I prefer Carnivore.’ He sits down at the computer, logs in and swivels his office chair around. ‘Work for me, Elle. You’d have a top salary, all the white meat and fish you could eat.’

  ‘I’d rather projectile vomit,’ I say and move towards the door.

  Le Temps clicks his phone. The door won’t open. He makes a sad face.

  ‘Elle Bíbi-Imbelé, you’re so clever, you’re stupid. Do you know what’s REALLY clever? Surviving when you haven’t got The Gift. Having to work till your hands bleed. Making money. That’s life, Elle! And you, with The Gift and the brains, refuse the chance of a better life.’ />
  ‘Better for you, not for me. Let me out!’

  ‘To tell everyone my business? I don’t think so. But I’m enjoying our little chat. Very much.’

  I must leap out of here. But I have to close my eyes to concentrate and he’ll know what I’m doing and stop me. And I need to message Eve, so she knows Le Temps is a criminal. I must get help. I must find a way to distract him.

  ‘Are you still on Facebook?’ I say.

  ‘No. It died a death. I set up my own website to recruit staff. Modelled on Facebook.’ He swivels his chair and starts tapping. His page comes up and he logs in. As I unzip my bag, he swivels back to face me.

  ‘I use a different name, of course. And no photo. I’m too well-known.’

  I remember Millennia saying he’s won awards.

  ‘Do you have conversations with people?’

  ‘All the time. Look!’

  He’s facing the screen. I quietly take the phone out of my bag.

  ‘That’s lots of conversations,’ I say. I tap on the messages icon. I know what I must do.

  ‘Yes. I have hundreds of Friends . . .’ He’s scrolling down his Friends list.

  I tap the caps lock on the phone . . .

  ‘3,274, to be exact.’

  . . . and I do what I must do. I type:

  ‘SOS L . . .’

  . . . and in the same moment, Le Temps swivels his chair back.

  ‘What are you doing, Elle?’

  I press send and the phone makes a whooshing noise and SOS L is sent to my TwentyTwenty and I’m shaking. I wanted to type ‘SOS LE TEMPS LOCKED ME IN HIS OFFICE. DEFINITELY A CRIMINAL’ so Eve could get help but there wasn’t time. I should have sent it to 2000 so the Time Squad could come and arrest Le Temps. I can’t do that now.

  The phone says 23:00.

  Predictives don’t lie.

  Le Temps leaps out of his chair, snatches the phone from my hand.

  ‘SOS L,’ he says, in his voice. ‘A message to your Leaper boyfriend?’

  He throws my phone across the room. It crashes on the floor and the back comes off. I have to concentrate to pick it up, my hand is shaking so much.

  ‘He’s my BEST friend.’

  I must keep talking to distract Le Temps. But if I’m talking I can’t concentrate to leap. To be safe, I must leap forward in time AND place. The only time I can think of is Leap 2100. MC2 and GMT must be there. They can help me. I must keep talking. If I talk about something I know well, it will keep me calm. Then I might be able to concentrate at the same time.

  ‘My favourite Olympics is 1968 when Bob Beamon made a world record in the long jump of 8.90 metres. Robert Beamon jumps and makes sports history. The makers of the measuring instrument never foresaw a jump so staggering. Mr Branch says it was the most political of Olympics since 1936, when Jesse Owens got four gold medals and made Hitler leave the stadium. In 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos did the Black Power salute wearing black gloves on the medal podium and got suspended from the US team. Dick Fosbury raised his fist during his medal ceremony in solidarity with Black Power. Dick Fosbury was white and he invented a new way of doing the high jump called the Fosbury Flop,’ I say.

  ‘You really HAVE found your voice, Elle. Some speech. Pity I have to silence you.’

  When he emphasises the word silence, I lose my concentration. He takes one step towards me. He holds up his Chronophone like his gun when he shot the rabbit that was a hare. And I know what he wants to do.

  He’s going to shoot me.

  Concentrate.

  ‘Someone will hear the shot.’

  ‘I have a silencer. And I’m going to silence you. When you wake up, you’ll see sense.’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see it. A flicker, a split-second outline of a body, a boy, a boy with clumps of hair coming out of his head like antennae, pointing a Chronophone at Le Temps. Before the outline is filled in, it says, in the voice of MC2:

  ‘Le Temps. Drop the phone. You’re under arrest.’

  MC2 is pointing his Chronophone at Le Temps.

  Millennia and Season appear from thin air.

  Le Temps drops his phone onto the floor.

  ‘What in the name of Time is going on?’ says Millennia.

  Her hair looks less spiky, like she’s just got out of bed. But she’s not wearing pyjamas or even a dressing-gown. She’s wearing her usual purple hooded cloak. Season looks like she’s still IN bed. Her hair’s all over the place, she’s wearing pyjamas with cars on them and her face is pale. MC2 blinks his whole body to the other side of the room, still holding his Chronophone.

  ‘Season, rest up. I can handle this. Text GMT.’

  ‘You will do nothing of the sort,’ says Millennia, ‘until someone explains this SOS.’

  ‘He tried to kill me because I wouldn’t work in his factory in 2100 where he mixes Leaplings with sheep to make sheap and sells the meat to people all over the world.’

  ‘Who tried to kill you? Mr E?’

  ‘NO. Le Temps. I mean, Mr T. With his Chronophone!’

  ‘Nonsense, Elle. Chronophones are not guns. Your imagination is quite remarkable. Mr E tells me you have a unique talent for storytelling. Do not confuse fact with fiction.’

  I want to tell her it’s not a story, it’s all true, and I’m remembering she’s the Double M big boss pretending to be a centre director and I’m wondering, if Chronophones aren’t guns, why is MC2 still pointing his Chronophone at Le Temps, and appearing, disappearing, appearing all over the room like there’s ten of him? There are so many thoughts in my head I want to say all at once, and I feel angry and sad at the same time so I don’t say anything at all. Millennia turns to MC2.

  ‘Mr E, please refrain from your body-popping, lower your Chronophone and explain yourself.’

  MC2 stays in one place but doesn’t lower his phone. ‘Mr T threatened to silence Elle. He was going to stun her.’

  Millennia throws back her head and laughs. It sounds like she’s choking on pepper soup.

  ‘It seems,’ she says, ‘you Leapers have a penchant for fiction. We only have the girl’s word and we all know how creative she is with words.’

  ‘Wrong,’ says MC2. ‘I clocked the word and the deed.’

  I see a brief outline and GMT appears in the room. Season speaks for the first time. ‘We must follow protocol, Miss M. We must call the—’

  ‘Nobody is calling anyone.’ Millennia shakes her head like there’s a fly inside it. ‘There has obviously been a mistake. We all know Mr T has an unusual sense of humour. I’m sure he can explain.’

  ‘Yes. Was hoping I’d be allowed to get a word in,’ says Le Temps in his buttery voice. ‘Sorry for winding you up, Elle. Got a bit carried away with the drama. One porky pie led to another.’

  I find my voice again. ‘That’s not true! You were going to kill me like the rabbit that was a hare and you’re going to prison and all your sheap will leap from their pens so they can’t get made into meat.’

  Season has taken her phone out of her bag and is tapping the screen. Millennia doesn’t notice because she’s staring at Le Temps like he’s her husband. She’s staring so hard it takes her longer than all of us to see the two black hooded figures suddenly appear either side of Le Temps. They must be at least 7 feet tall. I look at them with what-big-eyes but I can’t see their eyes at all. Maybe they don’t have eyes. Maybe they’re robots, like Mange-Tout. MC2 finally lowers his Chronophone and hands Le Temps’s phone to one of the figures.

  ‘Tell ’em the truth, Elle,’ he says.

  I take a deep breath: ‘He threatened to silence me with his Chronophone and disappeared Leaplings to work for him and stole their DNA to edit a sheep into a sheap so he could smuggle it on the Black Market to sell meat to those who can afford it!’

  While I’m speaking, the hooded figures hold hands with Le Temps in the middle. He smiles but looks angry and his voice doesn’t sound buttery any more.

  ‘The perfect sentence,’ he says.

/>   The hooded figures nod and freeze. I know what’s going to happen. They’re going to leap and Le Temps will leap with them like luggage because he’s an Annual. I’ve heard of Annuals being time-travelled before but never seen it. The moment before they leap, Le Temps winks at Millennia.

  ‘Au revoir, old girl!’

  He does it so quickly I almost don’t see it. But I do. You only wink at someone you’re in love with, so Le Temps must be in love with Millennia like she’s in love with him.

  Then the hooded giants face each other and squeeze hands and the three of them disappear into thin air.

  ‘I hope he gets ad infinitum,’ I say.

  Millennia stares at me so long I turn my head to one side.

  ‘Innocent until proven guilty. Many things have changed since 2020 – laws, sentences, prisons – but not the foundations of our legal system.’

  ‘He’s a criminal.’

  ‘He’s a GENIUS!’

  Millennia no longer sounds like Millennia. She’s the Double M, 0 to 10 in one second, her hands are shaking and her face looks about to fracture into a thousand pieces. Le Temps was her specialist subject.

  ‘He was, and IS, a trusted colleague. But YOU and Mrs S,’ she looks at MC2, ‘have betrayed me. You’ll pay for this.’ She pauses and fixes me with her cat’s-eye, then goes into loudspeaker mode.

  ‘Elle Bíbi-Imbelé Ifíè,’ she pronounces my name perfectly, like she can speak Izon, ‘again you have thwarted me. You have destroyed a CENTURY of work. And if it takes me every second of a century, I will destroy YOU.’

  Chapter 21:00

  2100

  I open my eyes. At first, I think I’m in heaven because everything’s shiny and white. Maybe Millennia tracked our leap and killed me when we supercharged or everyone dies when they leap to 2100. But a second later I know I’m alive. We’re still in Le Temps’s office but it’s much, much bigger, the size of our assembly hall at school. And it looks like a chemistry lab with white tables and everything made of glass. There’s nothing on the tables, though; it’s like the scientists cleared everything away and went on holiday. The overhead lights are so dazzling I want to be sick but maybe that’s just the leap. At least they don’t hum like the ones at school. I try not to move my head. MC2 and GMT loosen their grip.