Parallax (William Hawk)

by William Hawk

  “You’ve just made a huge step forward,” he said.

  “Have I reached CA3?”

  A hush from the others as they waited for his response. “Well, let’s not go too far. In the meantime, congratulations.”

  He congratulated William with a handshake. The others breathed out audibly, and William could tell that they’d been concerned about an imbalance on the team. “Proof, there’s something else I’ve been thinking about.”

  “Tell me.”

  William summoned all his courage. He was about to open a Pandora’s box, and once open, it couldn’t be closed. “I’m concerned about Hunter.”

  Across the room, Hunter had been slouching in his seat, picking his fingernail. At the mention of his name, however, he shot up rigid and straight. “What did I do to you?” he spat.

  Proof’s face grew serious. He crossed his arms and backed away from the group a few steps. “Let’s hear your concern.”

  The others fell silent. William felt himself growing nervous, but he’d committed to this confrontation. “You haven’t done anything to me. However, I watched your host try to steal a saddle inside the ger.”

  Hunter grew annoyed. “And I already told you that I couldn’t control him.”

  “But I was reading about Mongolian culture today,” said William, “and that kind of crime is unheard of. To steal something from a home where you’re a guest just doesn’t happen, not at any point in history. These are the most generous people on earth.”

  Hunter shrugged. “So my host was a bad guy.”

  “But he acted oddly. Before the theft, he was normal. Then suddenly he picked up this expensive saddle and tried to walk out of someone’s home with it. And the others had to restrain him. Then afterward, he sat down like nothing had happened.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Jeremy.

  Trina interrupted. “He’s saying that Hunter is influencing his host’s behavior.”

  Hunter’s face had turned into a strange, tortured caricature of pain. His voice came out tight and angry. “I would never influence a host to do anything. I don’t even know how to influence a host.”

  “Are you sure about that?” said William.

  Hunter spread his arms out wide, and his voice nearly broke from the stress. “Of course I’m sure! I’m not hiding anything from you!”

  The others looked to William, who looked to Proof. The leader was stroking his chin thoughtfully. Nobody could read him.

  “It’s true,” said Proof, “that not all the people you tag-along with will be sterling characters. Let’s give Hunter the benefit of the doubt on this one.” Then to Hunter he said, “We’ll talk later.”

  Hunter slumped back in his seat, angry, defensive.

  Proof turned back to the rest of the team. “So what do we know about the Ancient Engineer?”

  In unison, the group said, “He loves us, and he wants us to succeed.”

  Proof reclined in his seat. “Jeremy, it’s your turn tomorrow. Have a good one, everybody.”

  The lights dimmed. Hunter stood up and quickly ran out of the room. By the time the other four team members had reached the corridor, the renegade was already in his room, locking the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 8

  ILLIAM SAW THE STEAM ON THE frosted glass door of the steam room, and he knew full well who was sitting inside.

  Hunter was still in his room, Jeremy and Trina were having a game of cards. It was Grace.

  Taking a deep breath, he ran to his room, changed into his swimsuit, then ran back. He yanked open the door.

  “William!” she said.

  He stepped backward. “Grace? I’m sorry, do you want me to come back?”

  “No, just wait!”

  His heart soared at that. She didn’t want him to leave. He caught sight of her figure vaguely through the mist. She seemed to be fastening something around her torso. “No, it’s okay now, come in.”

  Hesitantly, he stepped into the steam room and closed the door behind him. He sat down on the opposite end of the wooden bench from Grace.

  “There’s a do-not-disturb sign you can hang out there,” he said.

  “I didn’t know that,” she said.

  “Yes. Unless you wanted to be disturbed.”

  “Not necessarily,” she replied. The steam had dissipated slightly, and he could see her crossing her arms over her body. William sat there, breathing in the wet moisture, feeling the beads of water form in the hollow space of his sternum. He puffed up his chest to make himself look bigger, just in case she was watching him through the hot mist.

  Grace finally broke the silence. “So did you really see nimbi around our heads today?”

  “Yep,” said William. “Yours was orange.”

  “Maybe those old religious painters had powers to see nimbi too.”

  William nodded. That thought had occurred to him. Then he felt the anger rising up again. “The thing about Hunter, though, I wasn’t lying, or starting crap. I know he was influencing his host.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That’s the thing, Grace, it was just intuitive. I can’t explain it any better than the fact that I could see him acting through the Mongolian soldier. I mean, I even watched him take a dump off the side of his horse. Without stopping!”

  Grace laughed, then turned her body toward him. “That sounds like something the Mongol horde probably did regularly.”

  “But in the tent, I swear, it was Hunter acting.”

  “I’m not doubting you, William. Did you notice that nobody defended him in the debriefing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If that’s true, then the real problem is that he isn’t telling us everything he knows how to do.”

  William rubbed his forehead. “I know.”

  “And if that’s true, then what happens next? Does he take advantage of us somehow? Either here, or in a snap?”

  Grace shrugged. “I don’t know. Only the Ancient Engineer would be able to tell you that.”

  The room had cooled. Grace went over to the heating stones and dumped more water on them. A cloud of steam rose from the stones, filling the room. William felt the heat flushing his cheeks once more, though it could’ve just as easily come from sitting so close to Grace. She was attractive, both in body and in spirit, and William’s mind was racing through possible romantic scenarios, all ludicrous. She could trip and fall into his pod.

  A passion building in his chest made him decide to go for broke. With no prompting, William reached out his hand and placed it on Grace’s hand. She looked at him, and he looked back at her. He admired the beads of water condensing on the tip of her nose. His eyes glanced down at the soft skin of her modest cleavage between the two triangles of her bikini top.

  “Grace,” he said.

  “Yes, William,” she replied, as though she knew what was coming. But she didn’t remove her hand.

  William leaned in for the kiss, but to his surprise, she lowered her face. He waited patiently. Then, after a moment, she lifted her face again. Her cheeks had grown red, but he couldn’t tell whether they were reddened from the heat or from his boldness.

  “This isn’t the right time,” she said.

  “It could be.”

  Grace shook her head. “We’re trying to achieve CA3 status as a team. Falling in love would ruin what we’re trying to accomplish. You know?”

  He did know. William was aware of the way that cults, for example, prohibited their members from pairing off. Some did so by allowing totally free love among everybody, others by prohibiting sex completely. Either way, the fact remained that a couple was the biggest danger to a group. And Grace was telling him that, though it would be the easiest thing in the world to form a couple with him, she didn’t want to damage the team.

  William scratched his face, disappointed. “What about Jeremy and Trina?”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re almost a couple.”

  “No, I�
�ve talked to her. They kissed once, but both agreed that it was a bad idea. They’re committed to the team, first and foremost.”

  William shifted on the bench, suddenly uncomfortable. She sensed his frustration and raised a hand to his face and touched his cheek gently. “You know I like you too, but the time just isn’t right. We can’t let ourselves fall in love.”

  “When will the time be right, Grace?” he said. “If we succeed in making it to CA3 level, then we’re just going to be split up and assigned new entities. And then I’ll never see you.”

  Grace sighed. It wasn’t condescending, more out of frustration. “I don’t know, William. Maybe it’s our destiny not to be together.” Then she grew animated, took both his hands in her own. “But don’t you think we’ve got a higher calling? We’re going to be CA3s. Not everybody can achieve that.”

  William hung his head. “I don’t know why we can’t have both.”

  Grace leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek, then stood up. “I’m going back to my room. See you in the morning.”

  The door opened, then closed, and she was gone. William dropped his face into his hands. He wanted the team to achieve CA3 status, of course, but he also wanted to have her, Grace, all for himself.

  There had to be a way to make her fall in love with him.

  CHAPTER 9

  EXT MORNING, SITTING IN THE GALLEY with the other members of the team, William stared down at his breakfast. It was his customary start to the day: poached egg, strip of bacon, fried potatoes, and greens. Next to him, Jeremy was eating the same, as usual, and Hunter was sucking the meat off some kind of animal bone.

  Grace was on the other side of the room, chatting happily with Trina at a small side table. William had purposefully taken a seat as far from her as possible, feeling his heart torn in two. It was awful, knowing that his emotions were slaves to the whims of this girl. But his heart couldn’t be pacified. He wondered if she were still thinking about their encounter last night the same way that he was.

  Finally, he dared a glance at her. To his surprise, Grace was actually eating, not just a cup of yogurt, but a plate of food. Her face looked alive, and her skin was even glowing.

  It caused a stab of panic in his heart. Was she feeling better this morning for having rejected him? Was she excited to finally be rid of him, William, this lump of sadness here on the team? Or was he overreacting?

  William set his fork down and buried his face in one hand. There was a word for what he was feeling.

  Love.

  “So who’s on deck today?” asked Jeremy.

  “I am” said Trina.

  “Let’s make a bet about where she chooses,” said Jeremy. “Tahiti? Or maybe somewhere in the Caribbean?”

  “I say she picks a high tea with the queen of England,” said Hunter.

  “Both of you guys, shut up,” she said, putting a napkin over her face. They could hear the smiling in her voice.

  “Don’t be upset because we know you so well,” said Hunter.

  She dropped the napkin, a look of astonishment on her face. “The queen of England? You know we can’t snap into famous people.”

  “Oh yeah, says who?” said Hunter.

  Hunter’s tone had suddenly grown nasty, and everybody looked at him.

  “Says the Ancient Engineer,” replied Jeremy. “Remember the orientation? Leaders and geniuses are often too wrapped up in their own heads for us to get a sense of their lives.”

  Hunter dropped the animal bone on his plate. It made a hollow, clattering sound. “I’m not so sure of that.”

  “What makes you say that?” said Grace.

  “Nothing,” he said, “just a feeling. They could be lying to us.”

  William cleared his throat. “Come on, Hunter.”

  “You guys trust everything they tell us.” He nearly spat the words out. “That’s pathetic. They just make up these rules. Actually, we can do what we want.”

  “So you’re saying that you did influence that Mongol yesterday?” said William.

  A sneer slowly unfurled itself across Hunter’s hawkish face. “What I’m saying is that we can do whatever we want on a snap.”

  The comment landed with a thud in the middle of the room. It lay there stinking like a dead fish.

  “Hunter,” said Trina, “we’re in this together. Either we all advance, or none of us advances.”

  William wasn’t sure how to insert himself into this argument. It seemed that the rest of the team was bringing up all the stresses that he’d been noticing for a very long time. It was probably better if he remained quiet.

  “How do you know that’s true?” said Hunter. “Think about it.”

  Then without waiting for a response, Hunter stood up and left the galley. The other four team members looked at one another.

  “Houston, I think we have a problem,” Jeremy groaned.

  

  William made his way down to the pod tank and discovered that he had arrived first once again. As usual, the room displayed the same soft lighting, the same five pods arranged in a circle. Shana was nearby, moving some data around on the glass board.

  He climbed into his customary pod. Shana heard him, took one of the cuffs, and came over to his pod.

  “How was breakfast this morning?” she asked.

  “Same as always,” he replied, settling back, feeling the polymer beneath his head. “The only thing that really changes here is our experiences in the snaps.”

  “And that’s by design,” she replied, putting the digital cuff around his arm.

  “Shana,” he said, “can I ask a question?”

  “You have a lot of those.”

  William took that as a signal to proceed. “Do we have powers in the snap that we haven’t been told about?”

  Her almond-shaped eyes met his. “Proof already told you in the orientation what your abilities are.”

  “But did he tell us everything?”

  “Just do as we told you,” she said, patting his wrist like a mother. “You’ll never get to CA3 otherwise.” Then she pricked his arm with the small double-tined fork.

  “Ow,” he said. The sensor seemed to hurt more than usual. Maybe she pushed it a little too hard.

  She affixed the digital cuff to his arm, tied it, and turned it on. As the others came into the room, she went to assist them, and William lay in his pod, listening to the others entering the pod tank and thinking about her comment. He noticed that she hadn’t denied his question. She’d just instructed him to do as he was told.

  Then a face appeared over his pod. It was Grace.

  “Hi William,” she said.

  He struggled to sit up. She placed her hand on his chest. “No, don’t. This will only take a second. I just wanted to say thank you for being so honest with me last night.”

  William’s jaw opened and closed as he searched for the words. He didn’t know what to say, exactly. It was as though all circuit processing had stopped inside his head.

  “Okay,” he heard himself say.

  Then she leaned into the pod and kissed him on the cheek. Her eyes were dancing as she pulled back and then disappeared. He heard her climbing into her own pod.

  William clenched and unclenched his hands, feeling the heat raging across his cheek like a brush fire.

  Grace liked him, but she was also playing with him.

  He barely noticed when Shana slid the top shut over his face, encasing him in the pure white polymer once again. He barely saw the soft blue light run around the edges of the pod and then slowly move through the chromatic spectrum.

  Finally the colored lights dimmed, and the various images of the parallax began to flicker overhead. Somewhere in the room, Trina was busy choosing one of them.

  Evidently, she saw one that she liked, because the pod fell away. William was still thinking about Grace, even as he felt himself falling away, down, down, through a long tunnel, bits of light flashing past him.

  CHAPTER 10

&nbs
p; NAP.

  William found himself standing on a low platform before a crowd of people. His arm was in the air, finger pointed to the ceiling.

  Five hundred breaths.

  He was wearing a pair of brown tights with a flouncy-sleeved brocade top. A fancy hat fell down one side of his face, and his beard was trimmed to a point. Hanging from his belt was a small leather holster that held a dagger with a decorative pattern on the handle. The entire effect was foppish, that much was sure.

  As he moved across the platform, he felt a small piece of metal bite into his groin. He looked down and saw a prominent bulge. That was weird.

  Then he heard a strange voice speaking a language with a lot of vowels. It took a moment for him to realize it was his own voice, and that he was speaking to the crowd.

  Before him, an assemblage of what appeared to be nobles and ladies were standing on the floor. Some of them were listening patiently to him, some weren’t. A few of the ladies were whispering behind fans.

  William realized that he was giving a speech, and it was a call for a war against the state of Venezia.

  He listened to himself outlining the reasons for the aggression: the new technology, the new alliance with the papal states of Rome, and the need to bring unity to the peninsula.

  Suddenly he knew when and where he was. Trina had snapped all of them into Italy, and judging from the crowd’s fashion, it was the late-medieval or early Renaissance period, when the Italian peninsula was packed with warring city states. His best guess was that he was in the house of the de Medici, the famous banking family in Florence that later took political control of the city.

  The crowd applauded, and he felt himself make a courtly bow. His host was flooded with relief. He turned to his left, and there sat a regal-looking man on a throne. His face was impassive, and his nose tipped slightly into the air. This was definitely somebody.

  William felt himself bow again to the regent. Then he backed away.