The Split Second

by John Hulme

  Shan Mei-Lin was presently standing on a small patch of dirt just large enough to fit her left foot. Her right was positioned against the side of her knee in the yoga pose known as “the tree,” for most of the surrounding field was nowhere near secure enough to bear her weight. All around her, pinholes of blue light shone up through the floor, the bellow of the In-Between below growing louder with each passing minute.

  “My apologies.” Big Ben found a stool among the Tide’s remaining equipment and sat his ninety-six-inch frame upon it. “Please continue.”

  For who knows how long, Shan had crouched atop the Containment Field, studying the Split Second through her Hour Glasses. Though it was bouncing off the walls like an invisible superball, Mr. Chiappa’s archaic Tool made it appear to move in slow motion, and she soon detected a symmetry to its path. Not only was it reflecting off the same spots again and again, but there appeared to be a space at the center of its pattern that was large enough to fit a person inside. Maybe even two.

  Lowering herself through the aperture on the roof was by far the most terrifying experience of the Briefer’s life. Her eyes saw a slowly moving projectile through the lenses, but her mind knew the reality of the situation . . . that if any part of her body made contact with that projectile, it would be neatly sliced off. Relying upon a combination of breath control, gymnastics, and Seems Chi, Shan arced her form over, under, and around the Split Second like a contortionist, and against all odds reached the crumbling dirt of the floor in one piece.

  “Can you feel it yet?” Ben’s hand caressed the glass, as if he was trying to answer his own question. “I’m told the Essence is like a splash of warm water, without any of the wetness . . .”

  “That’s an apt description.” The Briefer flashed back to that terrible moment in Time Square when her hands and hair had been aged into that of an old woman’s. “But thankfully, my Sleeve appears to be keeping dry.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, miss. But you should know . . . sooner or later, your clothing will become saturated. After that, it’s just a matter of, well, you know.”

  “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

  With her life hanging by the slightest of threads, Shan found strange comfort in this conversation. The enormous Minuteman had slipped into Meanwhile only moments after she’d slipped into the field, but instead of trying to sabotage her Mission, he seemed quite enthralled by it.

  “As far as I know, the repair of a completely Split Second has never even been attempted.” Big Ben crossed his elongated limbs. “May I inquire as to your strategy?”

  “The key is to keep this thing from getting into the In-Between. Whoever built this Containment Field clearly had no idea what they were doing.”

  This comment seemed to hit Ben where it hurt, because he dropped his head in his hands, and something emerged from the other side of his mask that sounded like weeping.

  “I know you think this is my fault—I know you do! But I swear, I followed his design specifications to a T!”

  Shan’s hand, which had been wriggling toward the flap of her Briefcase, suddenly stopped at her hip. “Whose specifications?”

  “I would never have done this if he hadn’t promised me it would be safe.” Lost in a swirl of emotion, the Minuteman didn’t appear to hear her question. “Keeping Time for The World is my only reason to be!”

  Ben rose to his feet and slapped the glass in a fit of rage, causing the entire Containment Field to shudder. The Briefer knew that if there was even the slightest deviation to the Split Second’s path, her number was up, so she quickly tried to regain his attention.

  “Fortunately, I happen to be in possession of the Second’s better half.” Shan painstakingly removed the empty silver shell from her Case, and held it tight against her chest. “All I have to do is nab the troublemaker.”

  “Have you considered a baseball mitt?” asked the Minuteman.

  “Yes, but my arm would be torn off.” Shan again wriggled a hand inside her Briefcase. “No, I was thinking of using a Catch-All™.”

  “Yes . . . yes . . . that’s brilliant!” Big Ben’s desire to make up for the disaster he had helped to create was more than evident. “But what you’re suggesting is a two-person job.”

  “Don’t be silly, Ben.” Shan’s alarm increased as she watched him place two misshapen hands upon the glass ceiling and effortlessly pull himself up. “Without a Sleeve on, you’ll be killed before you ever get inside!”

  Ben’s oversized body was now lying flat across the top of the glass. “I’ve been working with the Essence ever since I was a child, when my father was a Third Wheel in the Underground Time Zone. It would never hurt me.”

  “The Essence doesn’t care about you, Ben! The Essence just is!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, miss. And I’m going to show you how wrong you are . . .”

  But just as he attempted to lower himself through the membrane, a circle of blue light once again drew itself in the darkness of Meanwhile.

  “Thibadeau?” Ben shielded his eyes until the circle was complete. “Is that you?”

  “Not exactly,” said the voice of a teenaged boy, and Shan felt her heart leap into her throat. Emerging through the Skeleton Key portal were two familiar faces—one from a famous Mission Simulation, and the other she’d last seen at a hospital in a Frozen Moment.

  “Fixer Drane!” The Briefer could barely contain her joy. “Thank the Plan!”

  “Nice to see you too, Shan.” Becker smiled and dropped his Toolkit to the floor. “Sorry it took me so long to find you.”

  “What you doin’ up there, big fella?” The bearded man in the aviator’s helmet stepped into the light of the Containment Field and took a gander up at Big Ben.

  “It’s the only way to make it right,” Ben whispered. “The only way.”

  “He’s lost it, sirs.” Shan cried. “He’s trying to come inside!”

  The two Fixers looked at each other, and one took the lead.

  “Fixer Jackal and I are here now, Ben, and we’ve been trained to handle this.” Becker could sense the big man’s intensity, and tried to keep his voice on an even keel. “So just come on down and let us do our job.”

  “The kid’s right, big guy.” Jackal put his foot upon Ben’s stool and began to tie his bootlace, as if this were anything but a moment fraught with disaster. “You don’t have to do this at all.”

  With a deep sigh, Big Ben finally reached up and took his mask off, revealing a strangely boyish face for someone so large. His eyes were red, his cheeks streaked with tears . . . and the look in his eyes told both Fixers that it was already too late to stop him.

  “Yes, I do.”

  With a sad smile, Ben reached his right foot through. But Shan was screaming before he ever had the chance to use his left . . .

  Time Management, Department of Time, The Seems

  Permin Neverlåethe sat alone in his office, numbly staring at the carpet patterns on the floor. All the other desks and cubicles were empty, and the only sound in what was once the hustle and bustle of Time Management was the clicking of a metronome on his mantel. The ancient wind-up device had been a gift from his predecessor, Joan Tissot, who gave it to the new Administrator as a symbol of everything his department should be. Rhythmic. Punctual. And above all, consistent.

  Yet here he was, piloting the ship of Time on the day of its sinking. And like that proverbial sea captain, the only satisfaction available was that if it all went down, at least he would go down too. But even that was small comfort, for Permin knew that the destruction of everything he believed in and strived for had not been an accident, like engine failure or an iceberg. Someone had been directly responsible.

  Ding!

  The Administrator heard the elevator doors outside his office slide open and footsteps gently pad toward him.

  “Hello?” he asked, amazed at how weak and pathetic his voice sounded.

  “Hello, Permin.”

  A dead man was standi
ng in his doorway.

  “Lu . . . Lucien?” Neverlåethe felt the surge of joy that can only accompany an honest-to-goodness Miracle. “But . . . but . . . how?”

  The Administrator jumped from his desk chair and was about to throw his arms around the best friend he had in The World, but—

  “Don’t, Permin.” The exhaustion in his old friend’s voice was palpable. But more than that, Fixer Chiappa seemed incredibly sad. “I know everything.”

  “About what?”

  “It was you who helped The Tide steal the Frozen Moments and sneak inside the Gears.” Mr. Chiappa sat down on the chair that faced Permin’s desk, then swiveled around so he wouldn’t have to look the Administrator in the eye. “And it was you who built the Time Bomb.”

  Neverlåethe’s mouth went dry, but he still managed to croak, “But that’s . . . that’s . . . I’ve never heard something so crazy!”

  “I’ve been to Meanwhile, Permin. Seen the blueprints and the Time sheets, which could have only come from one place.” Though Chiappa didn’t raise his voice one iota, Neverlåethe had never heard the Fixer sound so angry. “So please do not dishonor the memory of our friendship by telling me a boldfaced lie!”

  Tears were already running down the Administrator’s face, as at last he could stop running from the shame of his betrayal. “I . . . Lucien, you don’t understand. Triton promised we could slow Time down, let people live longer—”

  “There’ll be time to explain yourself later, when you’ve resigned your post and turned yourself in to the Powers That Be.”

  Permin nodded, trying to make Chiappa see that he would do anything to make this right. But the Fixer wasn’t finished yet.

  “Right now, two Fixers and a Briefer are attempting to repair the Split Second before it destroys The World, and they will probably all lose their lives in the process. If you know of any way—however small—that you can help them on their Mission . . . then now is the time.”

  “There is no way to help, Lucien.” Arguably the most decorated Administrator in all the departments wiped his reddening eyes with a shirtsleeve, then looked again at the metronome above his desk. “Because it can’t be done.”

  Meanwhile, The Seems

  “Stay calm, Shan!” shouted Fixer Drane. “Whatever you do, don’t move!”

  The Briefer stood quivering in place, still in shock from what had just occurred. As soon as Big Ben Lum’s massive leg had slipped inside the Containment Field, the boyish giant’s entire body had been instantly reduced to ash. His remains had fallen upon Shan’s head and accumulated in the fabric of her Sleeve like a terrible gray snow.

  “It’s how he wanted to go,” whispered Becker, and in her heart, Shan knew this to be true. “We should all be so lucky.”

  “What are you doing in there, by the way?” asked Jackal, hands running over the glass as if testing it for defects. “All by your lonesome?”

  “Getting ready to use a Catch-All to nab the Split Second.” Shan’s legs were starting to cramp, so she cautiously switched their position.

  “Good plan. But how were you gonna put the two pieces together?”

  “Um, I hadn’t really gotten that far,” Shan Mei-Lin confessed. “But I was thinking maybe . . . Krazy Glue?”

  “Not strong enough.” Jackal then reached into his Toolmaster 44. “What you need is something with a little more bite.”

  Fixer #7 pulled out a section of white nylon that resembled the lacing of a football—except several feet long and without the football itself.

  “A Stitch?” Briefer Shan was utterly confused. She knew that Stitches were used by the Department of Fun to keep people in The World from cracking up during fits of Laughter, but she’d never heard of one being used for this purpose before. “How will that help us?”

  “It’s the strongest cohesive ever made in The Seems. And you know what they say about Stitches in Time30?”

  The twinkle in Jackal’s eye said that even he didn’t know it would work, but any doubts Becker and Shan might have had were swept aside by the veteran Fixer’s bravado. Not to mention the fact that no one (not even the owner of Rufus the dog) had ever exploded from laughing too hard.

  “Ben was right about one thing, though.” #37 studied the interior of the Containment Field and ran his own Mission Simulator in his head. “This is a two-person job.”

  The Fixers looked at each other, and it was pretty obvious that both were planning on being that second person inside.

  “Ro Sham Bo?” asked the younger of the two.

  “It’s the only way.”

  In Becker’s life experience, the simple hand game also known as “Rock, Paper, Scissors” had been the most effective means of resolving disputes at school or on the playground. Over the years he had developed a strategy—“play the person, not the hand”—and since Jackal was just about the manliest man he’d ever met, he figured there was no way he was throwing anything but rock. So he chose paper.

  “Sorry, Ferdinand.” Jackal’s right hand cut Becker’s paper neatly in two. “I’ve always been a scissors man myself.”

  As Becker kicked himself for making the obvious call (and for revealing his dreaded first name), Fixer #7 quickly scaled the wall of the Containment Field. Once he’d reached the top, he rolled up his own Sleeve—dusty and smelling of mothballs but still eminently protective—and pulled the mask over his head.

  “Don’t you need Hour Glasses, sir?” Shan realized with dismay that tossing hers up to the Fixer would be impossible. “You won’t be able to see the Split Second without them.”

  “The 5th Sense will deceive you, Briefer Shan.” Behind the goggles of his Sleeve, Jackal closed his eyes up tight. “But your 7th will always tell the truth.”

  When Shan Mei-Lin had descended through the deadly obstacle course presented by the Containment Field, it had taken her over ten painstaking, heart-wrenching minutes to reach the safety of the floor. To her and Becker Drane’s amazement, Fixer Jackal blindly squeezed through the membrane on the ceiling—which had been designed to let things in but not out—then swung himself against one of the walls, kicked back to the opposite side, did a reverse tumble across the dirt of the floor, and rolled to his feet directly in front of the Briefer. All with his eyes closed. And all without a single scratch.

  “Incredible.” Shan’s and Jackal’s faces were now but an inch apart, and she watched him open his crystal blue eyes. “Totally incredible.”

  “Thanks, Brief.” Jackal rotated his right shoulder, as if the tumble had thrown it a little out of whack. “But I’m still a bit rusty.”

  “Stop showing off in there, Tom.” Becker forced his own dumbfounded jaw back into place. “How bad’s the floor?”

  “It’ll hold for another ten minutes, maybe twelve.” Tom gave Shan a wink to let her know that Time was on their side. “But my 7th says we got a problem with the Containment Field itself.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Becker placed his bare hands against the cold glass, then closed his eyes and extended his own formidable awareness. Instead of being intimidated by the clinic Jackal had just administered, he was utterly inspired to reach farther with his 7th Sense than he ever had before.

  “You’re right, Tom.” Becker’s eyes snapped open, and he reached for the flap of his Toolkit. “A big problem.”

  The young Fixer whipped out his Electric Eye™ and pressed it to the spot where he’d detected that something was amiss. Like a jeweler looking for a flaw in a precious stone, he scanned the core of the transparent wall, and it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. Spreading like the filaments of a spiderweb or the branches of an oak tree were thin cracks in the glass, which told Becker exactly what he didn’t want to hear.

  The Containment Field was about to blow.

  “Any day now, Drane,” cracked Fixer Jackal. “We’re not getting any younger in here.”

  “You’re not getting any funnier either,” fired back Fixer Drane, struggling to separa
te the pieces of This, That & The Other Thing.™ The three-part apparatus was designed for jobs involving machines or equipment on the verge of explosion— an unfortunately common occurrence considering the archaic nature of most Seemsian technology—and Becker hurriedly began the installation.

  This he wrapped around the five surfaces of the Containment Field like transparent aluminum foil. That he roped around This as if he were binding up a birthday present with twine. And The Other Thing he clamped to the loose ends of That, so he could pull the entire contraption tightly against the glass and keep it from shattering into a million pieces.

  “I think we’re . . . ,” Becker’s frostbitten hands screamed in agony as he twisted the Tool with everything he had, “. . . all good.”

  Jackal nodded, then threw a look of concern at the young woman whose face was pressed against his. “How long have you been in here, Shan?”

  “I don’t know, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes before you got here.”

  “Then we don’t have any Time to lose.” Jackal reached inside Shan’s Briefcase to put her plan in motion. The Tool they would rely upon to snare the runaway Split Second looked much like the top of a trampoline—a thin black fabric stretched inside a circular rim—except it worked by the exact opposite principal. Objects that made contact with its elastic face didn’t bounce high into the air but had whatever force that propelled them utterly removed. “You do the Catching. I’ll do the Stitching.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shan squeezed the Catch-All tight and focused on the half of the Split Second that ricocheted around them. But since it was moving a whole lot faster than her Hour Glasses suggested, she couldn’t imagine how she would time the moment when she reached the Tool into its path.

  “Just close your eyes, Shan.” The Fixer seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. “Let the 7th Sense do the work for you.”

  The Briefer did as Jackal suggested, removing her Hour Glasses and shutting her eyes tight. She’d practiced this technique constantly at the IFR, in the Mission Simulators and on the final level of the Stumbling Block, but never had the stakes been so high.