A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  Markriss paused, unsure how to tell her he didn’t know, deciding to speak truth. He was surprised when she gave a shrug, clearing the last scraps of pasta from her plate.

  ‘Are they still together?’

  ‘No . . . uh . . . well, my dad’s dead.’

  She tensed for a millisecond, relaxing when she saw he wasn’t distraught.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Head down, eyes on her empty plate.

  ‘It’s OK. It happened when I was really young. I suppose it ties in to why I’m here too when I think about it. My mum was the opposite of your parents. I mean, she knew Inner City was supposed to be bad and all, but she still felt it was better than living outside in a place like Regent’s. The Excellence Train used to go past the bottom of my house until people stopped coming and they closed the smaller Ark stations. While it was running, she used to watch with my dad and me too; this was just before my brother was born. I used to be out there with the two of them, resting my head against Mum’s stomach so I could feel when the baby kicked.’

  He managed a grin. Keshni didn’t crack a smile. She took his words in with what looked like every ounce of concentration.

  ‘Mum used to go on at Dad about the train. “It’s our only way out,” she’d say. “You’re the only one capable of going. You’ve gotta get in there and send money back.” Dad tried his best. He wanted to do right by his family. He took supplementary night classes so he’d be ready for the exams and worked nights at a 24-hour service station whenever he could.’ Markriss sighed. ‘He never passed. Took those exams three times, never passed once. Mum was encouraging though. She kept saying, “You can do it, I know you can, you just have to study hard and believe.”

  ‘After the last results came and he’d failed again, Dad got up and told Mum he wasn’t worried. He’d try again next time. He gave me a big kiss and went off to work. A couple of hours later, Mum gets a call from the station. Dad put a hose in his exhaust. Two months later, my brother was born.’

  He stopped, unwilling to talk about Ninka. He stared at the remainder of his meal, appetite a faint memory. Warm fingers wrapped around his.

  ‘Markriss, that’s terrible. I wish I’d never brought it up.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I told you, it happened ages ago. I’m over it. That’s just another reminder of what I’m doing in here.’

  She caught sight of her watch.

  ‘Oh . . . We should go—if you’ve finished eating that is. I don’t fancy catching the L from your side of town too late. No offence.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, sure . . .’

  The break of mood was disappointing more than an insult. He hoped it didn’t show in his tone. Insomnia was far from his concerns; he wanted to stay with her tiny hand in his until the Ark walls crumbled and the sky became visible once more.

  ‘Do you live far?’

  ‘A few blocks from here . . .’ she said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin, left hand raised as the waiter returned. She pulled a face, realising she was being rude. ‘The Wiltshire Buildings? Sorry, but we really should get going.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He knew the Wiltshire Buildings. Some of the richest on L1 lived in that neighbourhood. South Marvey dwellers in the main, alongside other well-to-do Outer City regions. Writers, doctors, lawyers and accountants rumoured to grasp social mobility on occasion, moving up a level or two by various attainments, so office talk said. He and many of the others had never known anyone who lived there, and so never learned whether the stories were true. Markriss ingested the information, standing, putting on his jacket. No need to worry about leaving mid-conversation. Time stretched before them, constant as air.

  9

  Traffic was pretty good despite the time of day. They took the P to the corner of Reinhart Square, trying not to be distracted by screaming kids at the water fountains, then hopped on a Y to Prospect. The tram was jammed full of returning menials. Watching Keshni rush on through the queue to grab a double seat, Markriss could tell she rarely travelled by tram, if ever.

  He settled down in the seat, trying not to notice how different passengers were on the Y. The P had been full of suited men and women watching the news on slides fished from their pockets, listening through wireless earpieces. Here, a hulking man in greased fatigues held the hand of a girl Markriss presumed was his daughter; he was possibly a minus-level temp worker, one of the unlucky few assigned to take care of the Ark sewage system, or run maintenance on the Gateway. A shaking old man dressed in dark, flowing garments read the paper with difficulty as his head and hands shuddered in opposite directions. A large woman with tiny glasses squeezed herself onto a double seat, near enough drowning a red-haired skater dude beside her, the youth all skin and bones draped in black clothing.

  Keshni asked something. He shook himself from his reverie, replaying words he’d heard and not taken in.

  ‘Uh . . . what?’

  ‘I asked if there was anywhere on the outside you wonder about. You’ve been here a lot longer than me.’

  He thought it over. ‘What happened to Burbank Park?’

  Keshni winced as though pinched. ‘That shithole? That’s the most memorable place you’d like to know about, in all of Dinium?’

  Slighted, he couldn’t keep emotion from his reply.

  ‘Yeah, why not? I liked the zoo animals when I was a kid, you know . . . the lions and ray birds . . .’

  Studying his ridged and lined palms, feeling stupid.

  ‘Yeah . . . well, they’ve closed it since you’ve been inside. People kept breaking in and it cost too much to replace the animals so they sent them back to Bulan, so they say. I reckon they shot them. More humane in the long run. Never would have acclimatised to being in the wild.’

  He looked up. Keshni peered out of her window at the wall of glass-fronted buildings running beside them, smiling, perhaps at the view.

  ‘I liked Summerdale myself . . .’ she said. ‘Dad took me there as a kid. The animals ran free until they enforced Climate Control . . .’

  ‘I went there with my school once, when I was really young.’

  ‘Did you like it?’ Her expression was controlled, forced neutrality that made him feel odd, and wary.

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘I think it’s better to let the animals roam. It makes them happy. No use seeing them mope in a cage, right?’

  ‘Completely,’ he said, staring hard. Keshni turned back to the window. He couldn’t stop watching her.

  They stepped off the tram outside his building and he led her inside. Mannesh snapped to attention, eyebrows quivering in question. He walked Keshni straight past, on towards the lifts. Upwards, silent. In the corridor, still nothing. When he let her into the flat there was a moment where he wasn’t sure what she might say; although plush by Regent’s Town standards, he guessed it was pretty bottom rung compared to where she lived. He switched on the Lites so they were bathed in blue and the shadow of clouds. Keshni went straight to the living-room window, the panorama of cleaned-up chaos.

  ‘Nice view.’

  He joined her. Debris and human bodies had been moved from the street so trams could pass and packs of dogs would forage somewhere else. Now glass was swept, all that remained were the darkened holes of burnt-out shops dotted amongst the stores that had escaped, missing teeth in an otherwise clean mouth. Temple lights turned paving slabs blood red. Fires, small and fitful, danced in the Poor Quarter.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  Her eyes were cracked jade. She smiled again.

  ‘Thanks, that would be lovely.’

  After the kettle boiled and he filled two cups, they went into his podroom. Like most inside and out, Markriss used his pod for sleeping, although he’d long pushed an unused single bed into a corner of the room. Keshni approached the grey cocoon, running hands along the smooth surface, peering through the frosted lid. Uncomfortable, he stood back.

  ‘A 12-series.’ Keshni hunkered down, knees cracking. ‘Did it come with the
flat?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then it must have been brand new.’

  ‘I think so.’

  He crossed the room, sat on a chair. It squeaked reluctant acceptance. With her back to him, he imagined her frowning at the pod read-out in confusion, wondering why it wouldn’t do what she wanted. She emitted a soft grunt. Shifted on her feet to improve balance.

  ‘These were top of the line a few years ago. Best design ever, or so E-Lul claimed. Enhanced visual clarity, greater feed comfort, faster crossover . . . the sports car of the range . . .’

  ‘What do you have?’

  ‘A 16-series. Easy to use, nowhere near as smooth. Do you know how much you can get for a second-hand 12?’

  ‘No,’ he shrugged. She was too busy flipping panels and checking read-outs to see him.

  ‘I wouldn’t sell though, not for anything. You keep this in good condition and it’s like an antique clock. Work for years and bring in tics if you ever need them.’

  He left the bed to stand beside her, looking at his sleeper like an ancient relic unearthed.

  ‘You’re really into these things, aren’t you?’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘I just sleep in the damn thing. Most of the time.’

  ‘Blame my dad.’ Monotone, eyes on what she did. ‘He was always stripping my pod down on a Sunday afternoon, rebuilding the thing. He loved to see what made them go.’

  She took a band from her pocket and tied back her hair, pressed a button that made the glass cover slide to one side, another revealing a panel of more buttons. The second panel was embedded on a corner of the machine, just beyond the space where his head lay. A display flashed. Keshni pressed a button repeatedly, scrolling through various displays.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking at past sleeps. Checking bodily functions, heart rate, respiration, REM time.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  She frowned at the panel, punching buttons hard, display lights flashing on her face.

  ‘Bodily functions are fine. It’s your sleeps that are the problem. This read-out says they’re being aborted.’

  He fell silent, drinking tea while Keshni worked, stabbing at the panel with an impatient finger, muttering. Rubbing her forehead, deepening her continuous frown. Markriss imagined her behind her desk, sweating over an article, juggling words between her lips. He could have watched her work for ever.

  ‘You’ve been offline ages. Did you have any problems with the internal feed when they cut power around here?’

  ‘Uh, no.’ He fidgeted, warmed by shame.

  ‘Then what?’

  A look of uncertain query. Did she suspect he’d been messing with his pod?

  ‘Uh, I dunno. I just don’t connect. Neurally.’

  ‘Ever? So how do you control your allocation?’

  Markriss cleared his throat, anticipating her response. ‘I, uh, I use manual.’ She was staring, so he continued. ‘I press switches. Lights, shower, cooker. Everything.’

  A pause, Keshni thinking. By accessing the astral bodies of their users, pods connected the elemental networks of ethereal bodies to a neural-kinetic system that removed the need for standard, voice-activated tech. This meant any tech in their immediate environment, from the non-descript to the exceptional, was accessed by mere thought. If the user wanted the lights switched on, or a convex heater to fire, they thought it into being and the job was done.

  ‘So that was why the waiter took our verbal order?’

  ‘Uh, yeah. I suppose.’

  An obscure moment of blankness passed across her face. A brief period of disbelief, or awareness he must be a crank, or perhaps was suffering from the beginnings of ITS. She chose to ignore him, lowering her head to read-out level. Soft light bathed her forehead and cheeks.

  ‘You know the story behind these, right?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You never heard how they were made?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Some crazy professor alone in the sticks, a bungalow on Scotland’s western peninsula, I think. He wanted to find a cure for his wife’s cancer . . .’

  Markriss tuned her out. He’d lied again, feeling fine doing so rather than making an attempt to elaborate and build even greater untruths. He’d covered the sleeper pods for a routine article on the latest model, way back when he’d arrived at the Ark. It had been a positive write-up, though some facts were difficult to skirt. Professor Harman Wallace was the country’s greatest scientist and the biggest scandal to hit the academic community in centuries, possibly ever. Hired to co-design the Ark, his most infamous creation had been birthed some years before: the sleeper, a transmutation device used to induce unconscious nambula, said to promote emotional wellbeing through nothing more than the ability to provide pleasant dreams. Wallace originally built the machine for use inside the Ark to counter a proposed side effect of light deprivation, the inability to sleep. It stayed that way until a rich property magnate named Warren Rosenthal ordered a custom-made pod for himself. Since his work on the Ark and his wife’s death, Wallace had turned into a recluse, shunning the scientific community and, if he gave interviews at all, publicly denouncing Inner City for its ethos of capitalist elitism.

  For some reason Wallace made the sleeper for Rosenthal, perhaps because they’d attended university together and had even once been friends. Markriss saw pages of the scientist’s notes on the machine, codenamed ‘Ausares’, as part of his research, and read published extracts from the professor’s diaries. Wallace hired a young scientist to help build his prototype, murdered her and committed suicide in a prototype sleeper. He left behind his entire laboratory of equipment, research, blueprints, notes on that project and others, two sleepers and detailed personal diaries. In a letter found on his laboratory desk, Wallace wrote: ‘I will share the secrets of my machine, how to build, use and maintain it, so that every man, woman and child can own one. Ausares will be my gift to humanity; may you use it wisely.’

  The professor got half of his wish. Within ten years of his death E-Lul purchased the licence to produce Ausares machines, successfully rebranding them and selling the product internationally until every house-hold with a reasonable working income had at least one. The pods worked quite simply. The user entered, attached EEG electrodes, and went to sleep as normal. While they slept, the pod created a program that induced dreams of tranquil locations via crystalline energy: a lonely beach at sunrise, the view from the rim of a volcano, a lush, majestic rainforest cooled by a canopy of leaves. E-Lul called them ‘simulated projections’, and the progams were endorsed by governments and religious leaders alike, no matter their political leanings or denomination. Human rights groups rallied against the pods, saying they were a government-sponsored, corporate-produced cosh. Despite petitions and appeals made by a number of protest groups, sleeper pods swiftly became an everyday part of modern life in a way no one could have predicted.

  He picked up the tail end of her story when Keshni started to ramble about the difference sleepers made to the fabric of society. How they had created peace in the world. It wasn’t much of a topic, sounding like something memorised for rote performance rather than believed, and she soon ran out of steam, murmuring and punching at the panel beneath her breath. The lid closed. She stood, focused on the machine, watching the read-out as though it might perform some trick while her back was turned. She stretched and yawned as Markriss watched.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, I know what’s up.’

  He stood and joined her, looking down on the machine.

  ‘Gonna share the news?’

  ‘Sure.’ Keshni smiled; his nerves fluttered. ‘Nothing. I’ve checked every program I can think of. There’s not a damn thing wrong.’

  Colourless light cast from outside his window, the roof he never saw eliminating tranquillity above. He always thought Ark Lites turned his flat into a football stadium, had cursed them beneath his breath, and now was grateful for the
m as he used the harsh light to read Keshni’s thoughts, betrayed by her expression. They sat in the living room holding fresh mugs of tea, buried in chairs placed directly across from one another as though they’d argued. Keshni untied her hairband. Curled hair fell to her shoulders.

  ‘Why am I not sleeping?’

  She shook her head, sipped tea.

  ‘Who knows? These things, you know, the machines? They rarely go wrong. I heard something years ago, some story about a 4-series that fed the user negative dreams for like a year. Hell on earth, falling into an endless abyss, torture, that kind of thing . . . The paper said it turned the user mad . . .’

  ‘Really?’ Eyes wide in shock. He hadn’t heard.

  ‘That was years ago, and the pod was apparently looked after pretty badly. Mostly they just conk out rather than misfire.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’d hate to be the unlucky user.’

  ‘Yeah. Have you tried transmutation without your sleeper?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did you last transmute?’

  He looked away from her at the bookshelf. It was half empty, stacked with dusty volumes. His last meditation had been taken years ago, the night before he travelled the train into the Ark. To admit that he had used a pod after his brother’s death, even to her, would be to admit it to himself.

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember?’ Disbelief, resolve taking its place. ‘Try.’

  Markriss sighed. ‘I don’t know . . . ten, twenty years?’

  ‘When you were eight?’

  He shrugged, watching steam rise from his tea. ‘No one ever believes me.’

  ‘That’s cos everyone transmutes, Markriss. Everyone.’

  He threw back his head, knowing he looked exasperated, thinking he might cause offence, too late. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Wow.’

  She stared at him with new regard, fighting a smile that made her eyes gleam. Markriss was nervous, wary.

  ‘So, what d’you think we should do now?’

  ‘I think you should try.’

  Groaning, swivelling from her.

  ‘Didn’t your mum ever make you do it, or . . .’ Keshni grimaced, gulping back the thought. ‘I really think you should. It would be good for you, honestly.’