“Yeah, well, if it’s all the same to you, everyone under the age of two hundred is a kid to me. Ain’t nothing personal.”
“Just sayin’, I ain’t a kid. Anyway, you couldn’t’ve been much older than me when you – ”
“When I died? Yeah, I reckon I was around that age. Sounds right.”
“You don’t remember?” Matthew asks, and there’s a hint of something in his voice. If Gabe was looking for it, he’d find it to be pity.
Gabe shakes his head.
“A lot of things – what they did, messed up my head. I don’t remember things, from before. I mean, I know enough, but sometimes someone’ll mention something and I’ll look the fool. We ain’t much for reminiscing, but sometimes someone’ll say ‘hey, remember that?’ and it’s hard being the only one who don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Matthew says, voice soft.
“Don’t be. Nothing you can do.”
“That work for you? Just knockin’ people back every time they get close? Every hint of human contact?”
“That what you’re callin’ it?” Gabe asks, intrigued.
Matthew doesn’t look at him for a moment when he replies.
“I’m just – I know what it’s like to be alone. Reckon you know it better than most. Just wanted, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to someone in so long.”
“So you unburden yourself onto a dead man,” Gabe says, wry.
“You shouldn’t call yourself that.”
“It’s what I am. Feel.”
Gabe stops, and Matthew steps towards him. Gabe takes Matthew’s hand in his and holds it to his chest, where his heart is still. Matthew’s warmth leeches through, and Gabe leans into the touch slightly.
“I felt you breathe,” Matthew says.
“Reflex. I don’t have to. My body – it’s sorta like, some parts got the memo and some parts didn’t. I’m a real dead man walking.”
Matthew’s hand is still on his chest. It’s an anchor, something alive in a world Gabe has accepted as dead.
“Matty – ”
“When you talk, it’s almost like it’s there. Almost like you’re – ”
“Alive. Yeah. Welcome to uncanny valley.”
Gabe takes a step back. Matthew moves with him, his fingers wrapping in the fabric of Gabe’s shirt.
“Hey,” Matthew says and looks up at Gabe.
“Matthew,” Gabe murmurs. “Whatever you’re thinkin’ of doin’, it’s dumb as fuck.”
“Maybe,” Matthew agrees and tugs at Gabe’s shirt, pulling Gabe’s face down towards his own.
“Mask, Matty,” Gabe points out. “Dumb punk.”
Matthew lets go and stomps off for a few steps, before looking back and flipping Gabe off.
“I wasn’t gonna do anything,” Matthew shouts across the distance.
“Sure,” Gabe smirks back.
“I hate you,” Matthew shakes his head, and walks back towards Gabe. Gabe grins, wide and toothy.
“I used to hear that a lot, once upon a time. And ya know something?”
Matthew shakes his head.
“Hate ain’t the only thing they ended up feelin’,” Gabe quirks an eyebrow and Matthew closes his eyes and groans.
“I really hate you.”
“Heard that too.”
“Thought you said you didn’t remember.”
Gabe tilts his head and bites his lip.
“Like I said, some parts of me got the memo and some didn’t. I’m still – fully functional.”
“Gross,” Matthew says and Gabe can imagine him pulling a face behind the mask.
“Not so gross two minutes ago when you were gonna kiss me.”
“Fuck you,” Matthew strides off again.
“Yeah, you wish,” Gabe mutters and follows the kid.
*
“Gabe-y Gabe!” A voice calls out and then a small girl with the same white hair and bruised eyes as Gabe, barely more than a toddler, launches herself at Gabe as he crests the hill hiding the base.
“Babydoll!” He grins and hugs her tightly. “You been behavin’?”
“Uh huh!” She nestles herself closer to him. “I missed you!”
“I was barely gone a day.”
“I know, but still,” Gabe can hear her pouting. He ruffles her hair.
“Sofia, I’d like you to meet someone,” he says and she pulls away and looks up at Matthew. “This is Matthew.”
“You made a friend!” She exclaims and runs towards Matthew, giving him the same bear hug she gave Gabe and nearly knocking him off his feet.
Matthew looks down at her. She widens her eyes and looks back up at him. Her eyes are a bright, vivid blue. Human eyes.
“Her eyes – ” Matthew starts.
“I know. We don’t know,” Gabe shrugs.
“She’s like you though?” Matthew asks.
Gabe nods.
“I’m super special just like Gabe-y Gabe is!” Sofia announces. “You’re not. You’re all human and smelly.”
“Sofia, that’s rude,” Gabe grins.
“Not bad smelly!” Sofia protests.
“It’s okay babydoll, I know what you mean. He doesn’t smell like us.”
Sofia squeezes Matthew’s middle once more before letting go and grabbing his hand and swinging from it.
“Matthew are you going to come live with us? ‘Aubrey said you would.”
“Aubrey,” Gabe explains. “Sofia, what else did Aubrey say?”
“She went all frowny and said she had a headache. And not to go outside to come find you but I did anyway because I missed you!”
“Aubrey doesn’t get headaches,” Gabe mutters, mostly to himself. His face does a scrunchy thing, before clearing and grinning down at Sofia. “You’re right though, you shouldn’t be outside, what if someone saw you?”
“I’d run away, silly!” Sofia sticks out her tongue.
“You gotta be careful, darlin’. There are bad people out here.”
“But Matthew’s not a bad person.”
“No, I don’t think he is,” Gabe says, hiding a grin.
“I’m not,” Matthew says, for what it’s worth. Sofia squeezes his hand again.
“I know, Matthew, ‘Aubrey said.”
“I think I need to talk to Aubrey,” Gabe says, and grabs Sofia’s other hand, and the three of them start walking down the hill towards the base. It glimmers the same way the domes do, a barely there fluorescent blue signifying that it is protected from the time energy swirling in the air around them.
Sofia giggles, and lets all her weight fall into the slack of Gabe and Matthew’s hands.
“Lift me up!” She demands. Gabe and Matthew share a glance, and sweep her off the ground, her toes pointed straight downwards. “Yay!” She giggles again, and wriggles until Gabe starts swinging her back and forth as he walks. Matthew picks up the motion and does the same.
“I like Matthew,” Sofia says, as they approach the door of the base and they let her down to the ground.
“He’s all right,” Gabe shrugs. Behind that mask, he’s betting Matthew is smiling.
*
Gabe shoulders open the heavy concrete door, and looks behind him and catches Matthew’s gaze. Matthew is still holding Sofia’s hand, and she’s grinning up at him. Gabe hates to admit it, but Sofia is usually a pretty good judge of character, for an immortal four year old.
“So, the base is time protected, but not in the same way the domes are. Humans can come through, but it’ll feel – I’m told it feels fizzy,” Gabe says to Matthew.
“Fizzy,” Matthew says flatly.
“Look, I’m dead, I don’t know,” Gabe shrugs.
“Come on Matthew, I want you to come play Legos with me,” Sofia tugs at Matthew’s hand. Gabe steps inside and Matthew follows Sofia through the open doorway. Gabe watches as Matthew shivers as he steps across the time barrier.
“That was really weird,” Matthew says. “What’s Legos?”
“Oh wow, man, you�
��re in for a treat,” Gabe grins.
Matthew narrows his eyes.
“I’m not sure I trust you,” he says.
“No, no, it’s totally cool, every moment of your deprived childhood inside the dome is about to be righted is all,” Gabe grins wide.
“Sure. Okay. Can I take my mask off?”
“Lemme just get the door,” Gabe says, and hefts the door closed. Matthew lets go of Sofia’s hand to reach back and unclasp his mask, lifting it over his head to reveal a fluff of blond hair and a jawline which Gabe is pretty sure could cut glass. He’s not a kid. Short, but his features show his age, and a delicate beauty that Gabe’s hindbrain picks up on immediately.
“Matty – ” Gabe says before thinking, and Matthew’s mouth quirks up, almost sinful.
“See somethin’ you like?” Matthew raises an eyebrow.
“Your hair’s a mess,” Gabe plays nonchalant. It fails.
“You like it,” Matthew says, voice low.
“You look dumb, like you’ve just crawled through a hedge or something. Who’d like that?”
“You, apparently.”
“Steeeeve, Legos!” Sofia interrupts, tugging at Matthew’s hand.
“Legos, apparently,” Matthew says.
“Apparently. I gotta find Aubrey anyway. Play nice, okay, Sofia. No arguing with Matty here,” Gabe wags a finger at her playfully. She sticks out her bottom lip.
“Promise,” she says.
“That’s all I ask,” Gabe smiles, and watches as she drags Matthew away to her room. Matthew looks over his shoulder as he leaves, and winks at Gabe. Gabe rolls his eyes and looks away.
He has to find Aubrey.
He heads towards the living area, somewhat ironically named, and finds her lying on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling, one hand rubbing her temple, as though it’s sore. He lifts her head gently, making room so he can scooch in underneath her, and lays her head back down on his lap. He runs his fingers through the red of her hair, and she catches his hand with hers.
“Gabriel,” she sighs, and her face contorts.
“You really do have a headache?” He asks. “Sofia said you did, but you’re, well, you.”
“Something’s wrong with time,” Aubrey says, which is not at all ominous.
“Erm,” says Gabe.
“Things are in motion, and for the first time, I can’t see how they’re going to end. There’s a – a block, something big, it’s stopping me from looking ahead.”
“What would cause that?” Gabe asks, folding his fingers around hers. She nuzzles into his touch.
“The end of time itself. Or, the end of me. I can’t see beyond my own death, I suppose, but then, I didn’t think I could die. Now I’m not so sure.”
“Nothing else? Just, ya know, the end of the world or – ”
“Or the end of me. Maybe. I can’t – it’s like losing a sense, I feel strangely unmoored. Everything feels like it’s on the tip of my tongue. I just can’t grasp it. There’s today, tonight, and every day before this, and then, it all starts to fragment.”
“So it’s going to happen soon, whatever it is.”
“Yes.”
“Aubrey, I can’t lose you,” Gabe bends to press a kiss to her forehead.
“You don’t get to decide,” she says, closing her eyes.
“Yeah I do.”
“You’re just a brat,” Aubrey teases.
“And you’re my best friend. What does that make you?”
“Foolish, I think.”
“Aubrey, Matthew – ” Gabe begins.
“What do you want to hear?” She asks.
“Tell me I’m not going to lose him. Or love him. Tell me that – whatever this pull I feel inside me – that it isn’t what I think it is. That time isn’t fucking me over.”
“If only it were that easy.”
“You’re the oracle.”
“No longer, it seems,” she says wryly.
“It’s just a glitch. A blip. It’s gotta be. You’ll be fine by morning,” Gabe bargains.
“Gabriel,” she says fondly.
“Aubrey,” he says, just as fondly.
“Whatever happens next, it’s meant to happen.”
“But you can’t see it,” Gabe points out.
“That’s the thing with time, with life, Gabriel, it carries on, whether you want it to or not.”
“Aubrey, I’ve been the same person for over two hundred years. I haven’t carried on.”
“Then maybe it’s time you started.”
“Maybe I have too much to lose.”
“Maybe you’re just afraid.”
“Maybe,” Gabe admits.
“But as I said, you don’t get to decide.”
END OF PART ONE
PART TWO
If you asked him, Matthew would never admit to having left the dome with the intention of Splitting himself. It’s just – if it had happened, he wouldn’t have been too cut up about it, ya know? He’d heard rumours that it wasn’t that bad – that it let you go back in time, and wouldn’t that be something? The ache of grief left by the death of his ma was debilitating, and the ache of hunger in his gut even more so.
So, if it happened, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, is all.
He didn’t have a death wish, he just – didn’t really care, one way or the other.
He’d been scouting the abandoned buildings a couple of miles from the dome for a while now, careful not to touch, but aware that, oh, if he wanted to, he could finally, finally see his ma again.
And if that wasn’t how it worked, then – he’d deal. He’d spent his life adapting and surviving. There was nobody left to watch his back.
Of course, he knew about Shades, knew they prowled around looking for people to eat, or worse, turn. The prospect of immortality terrified Matthew, endless days upon endless days, and that knowledge, the one truth of being a Shade: that you had to kill to survive.
No thanks.
He wasn’t going to touch the books, he was just – thinking about it. They looked old. Old enough. That was all. He wasn’t going to touch them, not really. Probably.
He’d never know, either way.
He’d been told about Shades, and how they were monstrous.
But seeing Gabe for the first time?
Gabe wasn’t a monster, despite the posturing. It was an act, one Matthew briefly fell for, until, the mask fell and Gabe was just Gabe, and Gabe, despite the sallow skin and pointed canines, was human. Sort of.
What’s more, he was beautiful.
And, despite the bravado, lonely.
Matthew had heard a couplet from a poem once – when is a monster not a monster? When you love it. He’d never really understood that, not until he felt the pull in his gut towards Gabe, the desire to unburden Gabe of the guilt he carried with him like a rock tied to his back.
Matthew Vien had never had the luxury of falling in love.
But maybe this is what it felt like.
It’s just – Gabe had saved him. Gabe, who was world-wise and world-weary, had saved a dome kid from Splitting himself, with nothing to gain from it but a bullet to the gut.
And even then, Gabe had forgiven Matthew.
When is a monster not a monster? Perhaps, it was never a monster at all.
Gabe didn’t need protecting, and yet. Something in Matthew compelled him to do so. To sneak underneath Gabe’s skin and to comfort.
What we have established here, is that Matthew Vien, with the best will in the world, does not make the best life choices.
But here we are, and we’re about to rejoin him and Sofia, and fate will have her way, come hell or high water.
Matthew had always been a fighter.
But all fighters age and ail and fade away.
Time will always have the advantage over youth.
Ain’t that a thing?
*
Matthew’s stomach gurgles again. Sofia giggles.
“Your tummy’s talking!
”
Matthew grimaces, pressing a hand to his gut and feeling the bloat of emptiness there.
“Yeah,” he tries to smile for her. She’s been showing him her Legos – brightly coloured plastic moulded bricks that fit together in an infinite array of different ways. She has pointed out the castle Gabe made for her, and the spaceship someone called Nathan built, which seems to hover slightly. Sofia had nodded wisely and said ‘magnets’, as though that explained everything. Matthew could pass his hand underneath the model, and it remained stubbornly four inches above its base.
He looks down at his sad little square house and its flat roof. Sofia has built an aeroplane, and Matthew seems to be the landing strip, tiny rubber wheels coming to a halt on the flat of his forearm.
“Do you want food?” Sofia asks, tilting her head. “I don’t eat food, because I’m special, but we have food. Gabe steals it from trains. He says when I’m bigger I’ll be able to as well. He’s silly, because I don’t think I’ll ever be big. I think that makes him sad,” Sofia pauses, and flies the aeroplane away again, before coming in for another landing. “You won’t make him sad, will you?”
“I don’t really know him, Sofia – ” Matthew starts. She levels him with a gaze which is far too knowing for a girl of her age. He shakes his head.
“I don’t want to make him sad, how about that?”
“Gabe-y Gabe should be happy, but he’s not. He’s frowny. I don’t understand grownups. When I’m sad, I play Legos. I don’t know what grownups do when they’re sad. Sometimes they shout, sometimes they go all grumpy, sometimes they go away for a while. You should tell Gabe-y Gabe that he should play with Legos more. With you!”
“I’ll tell him,” Matthew says, and winces as his stomach gurgles again.
“Food! Food time!” Sofia puts down the aeroplane and grabs Matthew’s hand, hauling him to his feet. She’s strong – much stronger than him, an explosion disguised as a spark. He sways slightly, and she squeezes his hand. “Do you like chocolate?”
*
Matthew has never had chocolate before, and has to suppress the moan that threatens to break free as he bites into it. Dome food was all about where you stood on the social hierarchy, and Matthew, living on the outskirts, in the slums, survived entirely on government hand-outs of weird gloopy protein paste and bottled water.
Chocolate was a revelation.
New Manhattan Page 2