Ethan opened one of the cans of beans from the steel cabinets and sat at the moldy gray-green picnic table eating them. He drank water from a porcelain camp cup. There were rusty flashlights but no batteries. Sulfuric acid from the batteries leached out of the paper boxes. They'd opened one but the battery casing itself fell apart in Ethan's hands.
He'd found an old metal lamp on the bottom shelf and a rusty can of fuel oil. The lamp seemed very bright at first. After a few minutes, their eyes adjusted to it and Leo started to think it was a pretty cool hideout.
Ethan scraped the bottom of the can with a spoon and washed the last of the beans down. He felt bad eating in front of Leo, but he'd started to get shaky as the adrenalin drained off, and he needed to be thinking clearly. He'd asked Leo if he was hungry. After a moment, Leo told him he wasn't. Ethan thought that possibly the suit was feeding him nutrients in some way and obliquely asked if Leo felt anything inside the suit sticking him or poking at him. Leo couldn't feel anything, so Ethan changed the subject, setting the can away from him on the table.
"Ok. I think we need to try getting that helmet off now Leo. We should be safe here. Even if they search the mines, they'll stop at the gate. There's no reason for them to think we'd get past it." Unless their spotlight shows the crawling tracks or newly-chipped rock edges. Hopefully, they won't bring hounds near the mine entrance, either. Too many things to worry about, that we don't have any control over anyway. Right Ray?
That's right. Nothing you can do about that. It was a good idea to hide here. You're smart.
Ethan smiled. He seems to be a good kid.
Ray nodded. He's going to be afraid later. When he starts to remember what happened today and when he realizes he can't go home tonight, or maybe for a long time.
Ethan dragged a heavy wooden box from the wall over to the table and motioned for Leo to sit on it. Leo settled carefully down onto it, expecting it to fall. The suit's bulk made it seem heavy so it was easy to forget how light it was. Ethan sat at the picnic table a couple feet away.
"Obviously, I'm not going to touch it. I hate to think what it might do if I tried to take the helmet off," Ethan said. "It has to be you."
"Yeah. I think so too. I'm pretty nervous about what's going to happen to me if I try to take it off and it won't come off, so I was afraid to try it before."
"It's going to be ok. Don't worry, I think it will let you take it off."
Leo watched Ethan's face in the lamplight. It was easy to believe Ethan. Leo's adult acquaintances were few, his mother and teachers. He'd rarely spoken with an adult about anything other than "How's school?" (fine) or "Are you eager for High School?" (maybe, leave me alone). There wasn't usually any reason to talk with them.
This was the first time that he was trying to do something that an adult also wanted to do. It was strange to be on the same level as a grown up, where they faced a problem and they didn't know what to expect either. Leo thought that it should scare him that Ethan didn't know what was going to happen, but it didn't. Instead, he felt a closeness, a partnership as if Ethan was another kid. A really capable, and patient one. That's another thing that's different about him, Leo realized. He's not in a hurry to get somewhere or do something else. When you say something, he listens to every word, like he's interested in whatever is happening. Leo smiled at Ethan and reached both hands up to the helmet.
As his gloved fingers touched the helmet, they heard a small "thwock". Leo lifted the helmet off, smiling broadly as his eyes adjusted to the unamplified lamplight.
"All right!"
Thank you God, Ethan thought. Thank you. "Yes! Great!"
Leo set the helmet carefully on the table. Ethan was careful not to touch it.
"Do you think it will let me take the rest of it off, now?"
"Give it a try," Ethan suggested.
Leo took hold of the suit's left wrist and pulled. Nothing happened at first, and he felt the first flow of fear. Then a blue phosphor traced a previously invisible seal between the shoulder and the suit's chest. He tugged again, and the sleeve slid off easily. Within minutes, the suit made a shining white pile on the floor.
Leo asked, "What is this place?"
"The miners met here to rest so they didn't have to go all the way back out to the surface. When the company left, I kept a copy of the key. I had this silver one made so it wouldn't corrode, because of my…well so it wouldn't corrode." Ethan wasn't ready to talk about the entropy field that he generated yet. Kid's trapped down here with me. Don't want him worrying that I'm some dangerous freak. He'd been tightening and relaxing his newfound control of the field since he'd inadvertently discovered the controlling thought pattern in the clearing. Tighten it down, and he could pull it deep inside him, where it had no effect on anything around him. Release it, and everything aged at an accelerated rate. He'd practiced as he walked from the river, and his control increased. While Leo was in the break area, he'd piled the rat-chewed mattress pieces in a corner and opened up on the pile. The mattress pieces faded to a uniform gray, then into a smaller and smaller pile of dust. When he'd stopped, all that remained was a thin powdery dust. He reined it tightly back inside him when he was near Leo. Out of habit, he constantly checked to see if Leo showed any sign of exposure to the field, but the boy had surprisingly good energy and spirits, in spite of the paces he'd been put through. Resilient kid.
When he'd come back into the break area, Leo was pulling stacks of money from the duffle bag. Without the suit, Leo couldn't move the bag, so he carried the stacks to the table in armloads. He counted off as he stacked them, finishing with "$4 million, 2 hundred and 70 thousand!" Wide-eyed, he looked at Ethan and laughed. "There's four million dollars!"
Ethan asked, "Where did he get all of this?"
"The alien was in his mind for years before he figured it out. All that time he thought he was just really smart and able to tap into other people's brains to get even smarter. He could only do it with people who were nearby, and when they left, he'd lose all of their brain power. That's why he wrote down instructions to himself in," Leo reached over and held up the journal, "this book."
"T. Taylor – Timeshare Checklists," Ethan read from the cover.
"That's what he called it, when he connected to other people's brain, 'Timesharing'." Leo handed the journal to Ethan.
Ethan opened the journal. It was filled with Taylor's notes. Each page had a title with numbered instructions written below. Some of the pages continued from the previous with "Page 3 of 4" in the top right line. The writing was neat and careful with the exception of a few pages where he had, for some reason, written over and over on the same page without flipping to a new sheet. The writing on those pages was so thick on the page that it was impossible to make out most of the words.
The checklist titles ranged from obvious financial plans, "Generate $400k from these investments" to "Get sex from Samantha". Ethan blushed at the instructions on the latter and flipped past without comment. He turned around to sit on the picnic table. Leo shoved some of the stacks over, and sat next to him. There were fifty or more pages that were profit schemes. Ethan had no way to know how many Taylor had already used to earn the money in the duffle. The money itself was proof that his plans worked at least some of the time. Why was the alien helping him? When did it stop working on his goals and change to its own?
Ethan flipped to the end and read from there. He read the instructions for Taylor to drive a stolen artifact to the riverside and wait. He flipped back through the previous pages and wondered how a man who planned everything so meticulously had been convinced to work himself into a corner with no way out. All these plans, so careful, but once he delivered the alien to the suit, nothing. Your plans stop here. The alien was a good partner to you for years, giving you money and women, and it was only at the end that you must have realized that the plans benefitted him and not you. In the end, there was no future for you, and all you'd gathered for yourself was left behind for someone else.
; Ethan set the journal aside. Leo picked it up. "Let's put that away for a bit and get some rest, ok?"
Leo looked concerned at the idea, "Here?"
"I think we need to rest here for a few hours at least. We might try sneaking up to my cabin for some blankets later, but I don't want to get out there yet. They are probably looking everywhere for us."
After a few hours, Leo was shivering with cold. He looked over at Ethan. He seemed to be sleeping just fine on the metal mesh of the bed rack. Leo just couldn't lay there one more minute, he was freezing cold. He slow-rolled out of the rusty metal rack watching Ethan to make sure he didn't wake him. He walked into the break room where Ethan had left the lantern burning so they weren't in complete darkness. He half-considered putting some of the money in a small bucket he'd seen in the cabinet and making an expensive fire, but there'd be no place for the smoke to go. If it did go to the surface, the police and government people might see it.
He looked at the flightsuit. It let me take it off. No reason it wouldn't let me take it off again. I can't sleep down here without it. It's freezing. Leo stood over the suit considering his options. It didn't take long to realize there weren't any. He pulled the wooden box over to the suit and sat down to pull on the white boots. They didn't feel warmer at first, but he expected the suit would heat up once he had all of it on. Even if it didn't provide any heat of its own, it would contain his body heat. The suit didn't take over like it had when he'd first worn it, but it was continuing to move on its own. As he slid his arm into the sleeve, the sleeve rim glowed a light blue. He felt it rotate slightly, aligning itself to the shoulder cuff, and as he drew it closer, it closed the gap without his assistance, sealing with the "thwock" sound. Leo craned his head to see around the corner. Ethan was still soundly asleep. He doesn't roll around at all when he sleeps. At least he doesn't snore though. Can't tell that he's breathing at all really. He's a tough guy to sleep down here with no cover and not even curl himself up for warmth.
It was already warmer with the suit on. I can't tell if it's warming up because it's sealed around me or if it has turned some heat on for me. The change was gradual, Leo didn't feel any concentrated areas of heat, but during the time he'd been putting the suit on, he'd begun to feel comfortably warm. He left the helmet on the picnic table and walked quietly into the back room. The suit interpreted his movements and activated its stealth procedures. Without the helmet to outline his body, he couldn't see it himself. It made climbing into the steel bed frame challenging. He'd forgotten that he'd need a pillow. I should have taken my shirt off and rolled it around my shoes. It wasn't worth getting back up he decided and rolled over on his side to lay his head on his invisible arm. Exhaustion took over, and he was asleep within minutes.
He snapped awake. He'd dreamed that he'd fallen asleep by the river. In the dream he'd been shaken awake by the young cop. The cop was friendly and was just lightly shaking him by the shoulders, "Hey Leo wake up buddy. What are you doing asleep out here?"
"I was just tired," he replied. "I'm not in trouble am I?"
"No of course not," the officer smiled back shaking his head a little to show Leo what a funny idea it was that he'd be in trouble for falling asleep outside. He brushed aside hair from Leo's eyes. "Let's get you home buddy," he said. He put his arm across Leo's shoulder and turned him to walk toward home. Leo noticed the older cop sleeping on the sand a few steps from where he'd slept with his back to them. As Leo and the young cop walked around him, Leo saw blood on the sand in front of him. The older cop's hands were gone. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully as if there were nothing wrong, but Leo felt the dream grow suddenly cold and wrong. He watched the older cop as they walked past, trying to step quietly so he wouldn't wake him. He didn't want the cop to wake up.
The younger cop said, "Hey! Steve! Wake up man. We've got to get Leo home." Leo was terrified. The older cop's eyes snapped open, staring directly at him. The older cop started to sit up in the bloody sand, his eyes locked on Leo's, fixing him in place. He wasn't able to move, couldn't run away, what is happening? He needed to run away. He looked at the younger cop for help. The young cop was staring at him now too as if he'd just realized Leo was something awful. Leo saw the arm the cop had around his shoulder had no hand. Bloody pieces of white bone protruded from torn tendon with a flap of skin hanging down. The young cop patted Leo's shoulder with the bloody stump. "It's ok buddy. We'll put you someplace where you won't hurt anyone again. That's the best thing. Steve and I will take care of you."
Leo looked into each corner of the room's rough rock walls to assure himself that the mangled cops weren't hiding in the dark. Ethan still slept peacefully, seemingly in the same position he'd been in last night. Or day, Leo thought. It might be daytime now. There was no way to tell in the mine. He got quietly up from the bed, not as concerned about waking Ethan having seen how stubbornly the man slept.
The suit was warm. Leo sat down on the box and waited for Ethan to wake up. After a few minutes, he grew bored and decided he would put the helmet on and learn more about the suit. He held it overhead and felt the suit take hold of it with whatever force it used to maneuver itself. He tentatively turned the helmet loose. It floated in the air for a second then gradually lowered into place, clicking shut. For a moment there was no sound at all, then the suit began transmitting sounds from the room, and he heard tiny sounds below the range of his own unaided ears. He heard the drip of water falling into the rusted sink, and with the helmet's light amplification, he saw the next drop gathering from the cabinet above it.
He wondered, how much can it understand? Can it read my mind? It can tell when I want to sneak around. The suit disabled the camouflage effect when he left the back room. Are you there? Can you hear me? Nothing happened. Guess not. It must decide what I want to do by my movements, like when it makes a punch super-fast and lets me pick up a can without snatching and crushing it. Wonder if it can hear me?
He turned away from Ethan in case the suit amplified his voice and said "Can you hear me?"
A soft tone came from the helmet near his ear. Leo jumped up surprised and unnerved by the response. A blue squiggle of light projected inside the helmet. As Leo looked at it, it morphed into other shapes, flashing rapidly from one to the next. Just as he recognized the shape as letters from other languages, the letters faded out and the word "YES" appeared.
Leo's skin felt cold within the suit.
He spent the next hour sitting on the box, facing the dark corner and talking in a whispered voice. Words flashed across the helmet, along with images, maps and checklists.
The suit's logic was a pinnacle achievement of an explorer society, thousands of years more advanced than humans were thousands of years ago. It communicated with humanity's own ultimate achievement, the mind of a fourteen year old, with an equal and otherwise unparalleled hunger for exploration.
They made plans.
65
Leo stood beside Ethan as he slept. He'd asked the suit in a whisper if Ethan was alive. There was no way Leo could tell by just looking at him. If he was breathing, the breath was so shallow or slow that he couldn't see Ethan's chest move. The suit assured him that Ethan was alive. He asked the suit how long Ethan had been asleep. 14 hours. Leo wondered, how long is he going to sleep? He'd spent the last several hours experimenting with the suit, tossing and catching things, trying to move quietly, playing with the stealth settings, listening to Ethan's slow breathing from the other room. He was ready for something else now and growing bored.
He reached out to shake Ethan's shoulder, deactivating the stealth mode as he did. A few shakes were required before Ethan's eyes opened. His dream must have been a lot better than mine, Leo thought. He wakes up like it's a sunny Saturday morning down here in the mines. Leo smiled at the thought. Ethan smiled back at him, sitting up stiffly.
"Good morning," he said, "I guess morning anyway. Any idea how long I was asleep?"
"Good afternoon actually," Leo replied, grinning. "The suit
says you've been asleep for 14 hours. Is that normal?"
Ethan's smile didn't totally leave, but he became more serious. "No. It isn't. Usually, there's no one to wake me up, so I sleep longer." He watched Leo's eyes for a reaction.
"Longer than 14 hours?"
"Yes. It's related to my condition. I call it an "entropy field". That's as good a name as any. It doesn't really matter what I call it, I've never met or heard of anyone else that has it, other than kids like Ray who have it without any ability to control it."
He looked at Leo gauging whether he should tell the boy more. Amazingly resilient kid. I guess they all are probably. He felt Ray snicker and smiled.
"That's why I keep Oscar. He'll eventually lick me awake or tug on my shirt when he gets hungry. I put his food in a weekly feeder before I go to sleep so he'll have food in case he can't wake me up right away."
Leo asked, "How long do you sleep if he doesn't wake you?"
"Weeks, Leo. I might sleep for weeks at a time. Whatever it is, my subconscious has control of it. When I sleep, it pulls the reins in tight, and the field only affects me. Slows me down in time. I wake up weeks later and it feels like a normal night has passed. For my body, at least, that's all that it has experienced. I'm as hungry as you are in the morning, but that's all. Everything just slows down when I sleep, like a bear hibernating, except the bear is passing normally through time asleep, and I'm out of phase with the world when I do."
"What's the longest you've ever slept?"
"I slept for 65 days once and almost as long several times. When you are out for that long, it takes most of the morning to catch up on the news. It makes a lot of problems. I had to get into town for more food and supplies."
"I'm glad you woke me up. Please wake me when you get up from here on out, ok?"
"Yeah, I definitely will."
"It's ok, it's not dangerous to you," Ethan reassured him. Leo hadn't really considered that there could be any danger until Ethan said that. Ethan was watching him and saw the concern creep in. "I wasn't able to control it, but now I can. It's been like an annoying puzzle my whole life, like when you have a tooth that's loose and you just keep wiggling at it with your tongue. Even when I was doing other things, somewhere in the back of my mind, it was trying different things, different feelings, different thoughts, movements of my arms or face, anything to find the control that my subconscious mind already knew, but couldn't share."
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