Split Second Solution

by Denny Taylor

  “And my tattoos? My quotes from books?” Word asked.

  “No. Just the ancient sign. That’s all,” Et said. “There could be a disturbance in the spacetime continuum caused by the Cat’s split second.”

  “It’s not my split second,” Cat grumbled.

  “Perhaps when we untie the string on the package we’ll find instructions,” Word said.

  “I still don’t know where the box is!” Cat said.

  “You will,” Et said. “Word, tell Cat.”

  Thirty

  “So we just pick up where we left off?” Word asked. “The Sick-Reapers have caught me and I’ve jumped in the Hudson and X-it has jumped in to save me?”

  “Not quite,” Et said. “Listen carefully. Cat! Are you listening? Remember, once we leave this room – box – X-it will be hacked immediately and the Sick-Reapers will know where he is – and therefore where Word is.”

  “We’d better stay together,” X-it said to Cat. “Do whatever you can to stop them entering my consciousness. Trash me if you have to.”

  “Gotcha,” Cat said. “You know the signal – two alley cats fighting – if that fails I’ll clang some lids of garbage cans.”

  “Be serious!” X-it asked.

  “Seriously,” Cat said.

  “Wait,” Word said. “Back up. Everything will happen so quickly it’s important that we all know what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Gotcha,” Cat said again, wearing night goggles.

  “Cat!” Et said. “Take them off. How can you hack like that?”

  “Oops,” Cat said, and the goggles disappeared. “I’ve thought of something. When we get out of the box, Et you stick close to Word. X-it and I will untie the string. X-it will read what’s written on the paper wrapper and then we’ll – we’ll – what will we do then?”

  “Good thinking Cat,” Word said. “We have to hope there are instructions –”

  “A clue,” Et said. “Not instructions. The most we can hope for is a clue that would have been written long ago.”

  “Problem!” X-it said. “I can’t read ‘long ago’ – English, some Spanish, a little French, math and physics notations, advanced computer programming – no Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, or hieroglyphs –”

  “Stop,” Word said. “You’ve been hanging out with Cat too much. She’s messed with your head.”

  “Have not,” Cat said. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Yes, I’m joking,” Word said. “We’re all nervous so we’re being silly.”

  “Let’s be serious,” Et said. “There’s too much at stake for any more silliness.”

  “Apologies,” Word said. “X-it, Cat, if you can’t read what’s written on the wrapper you’ll have to give it to me or to Et.”

  “Not to Et,” Cat said, immediately shedding.

  “Once out of the box I cannot touch anything and no one can touch me,” Et said.

  “Why not?” Word asked. “What will happen if one of us touches you?”

  “There are some things humans are not supposed to know,” Et said, “or understand.”

  “Is this to do with dark matter?” X-it asked.

  “No,” Et said. “Dark matter particles pass through you more often than you might think. Electromagnetic interactions are much more common and exchange much more energy.”

  “Et,” Cat said. “Enough with the physics lesson. What Word and X-it need to know is that if anything touches you or you touch anything it will have the same effect as galaxies colliding – total annihilation of the Earth and the galaxy –”

  “What Death – Cat – is telling you,” Et said, “without permission, I might add, is close to the truth – think massive collision – a giant asteroid hitting the planet with cascading effects on the galaxy.”

  “Okay,” X-it said. “Got it,” he said, voice rising, speeding up.

  “So, we’re inside a box that I used a bicycle chain to attach to the rusty iron mesh in the darkest spot on one of the five stone arches that provides access and ventilation to the railway tracks that run under Riverside Park. Not only are Word and me – along with Et, a creature from another galaxy, possible the creator of the Universe, and Death, who likes to appear as Cat, Bat, Kiss, Gaga, and Bowie – in a box, which is wrapped up in old parchment or vellum and tied up with old string, but our very survival depends on us getting out of the box, reading a clue, which is written on the wrapper, and confronting the Sick-Reapers before they capture Word!”

  X-it looked at Et, then Word, then Cat. “And our baby!” he said, holding his head. “And, if we can do all that,” he shouted, “We’ll save the world!” He looked at Word and then at Et. “Is that it? Did I leave anything out? It’s totally nuts!”

  “You forgot – no one touches Et,” Cat said. “Her real name, which I don’t think she’s told you, is Eternity.”

  “You also missed out,” Et said, “that whatever happens, Word must not jump in the Hudson River.” Et looked at Word, “This time you would not survive.”

  “What if they –?” Word began.

  “We’ll stop them,” Et said.

  “How?” Word asked.

  “Don’t know yet,” Et said, smiling. “It’s a mystery.”

  “Have we forgotten anything?” Word asked.

  “I think X-it covered just about everything,” Cat said, with a lopsided Cheshire smile. “Just in case things go wrong I just want you to know –”

  “Don’t,” Word said. “Your fur will fall out.”

  “I have to say it,” Cat said, the last few clumps of fur dropping. “I love you all.”

  “We love you too,” Et said.

  “I have a question,” X-it said, resisting an urge to say something sentimental. “How come Cat can sit on your lap?”

  “Because I’m a specter of course,” Cat said, her fur back.

  “Death does not have a form,” Et said, “and so she appears as apparitions of her own choosing.”

  “But we touched her,” X-it said.

  “That’s because you have fabulous imaginations and you’re inside the box,” Et said. “Ready?”

  Thirty-One

  Out of the box, X-it fumbled in the dark with the combination lock on the bicycle chain.

  “Hurry,” Et said. She looked more ancient and frail than she did inside the box. Her long blue coat dragged in the dirt a few feet from the railway tracks under Riverside Park on which trains traveling out of the city used to run. Under her coat, hidden in the folds, Et’s feet hovered a few inches above the ground.

  “Word!” a young woman shouted from across the tracks.

  “Hey Aisha!” Word called back. “How’s it going? Sorry – in a hurry!”

  The young woman was wearing work-boots and baggy jeans and a man’s vest, which was too big for her, dipping low at the front and the back revealing tattoos of quill pens, splashes of ink, and inkwells with ribbons of poetry coming out of them. A string of tattooed letters like the keys of an old Remington typewriter made a necklace and followed the curve of each breast and read, “I am myself the matter of my book.”

  “Come see!” Aisha shouted again, “We’re painting a mural!”

  “We didn’t plan for this!” Cat whispered.

  “Sorry, gotta go!” Word called back, and then she whispered back to Cat, “Last time I was walking by the Hudson when they caught me. Not here! We’ve changed what happened!”

  “Sick-Reapers?” Aisha asked, stepping over the tracks and walking over to where Word was standing with Et and X-it. Aisha didn’t notice Cat. “We’ll make sure they don’t get you,” she said, waving to the five mural painters who were watching from the other side of the tracks.

  “See what we’ve written?” Aisha asked, pointing at the mural. “‘We are such stuff, as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep’. Shakespeare! The Tempest! –”

  Word was chilled by the parallels between what was happening to them and the quote the young people from the Field h
ad chosen.

  “You know ‘sleep’ is code for –” she said, not finishing the sentence.

  “Death,” Aisha said. “I know. Everybody knows. Hope is gone, but we’ll resist till our last breath.”

  “The quote you’ve chosen is beautiful,” Et said. She looked at Aisha and then at the mural, and Word could see the sadness in her eyes, but then with a look of authority, Et said to Aisha, “Please excuse us we’re in a great hurry.”

  “One, five, eight, five,” X-it said. His hands were shaking. “Can’t open it!”

  “Wrong number?” one of the muralists asked, stepping over the tracks and joining them.

  “No!” X-it said, irritated. “Quiet. I’m concentrating. One! Five! Eight! Five!” he said, his hands shaking badly.

  “Try again,” Word said. “I think the eight slipped to a nine.”

  “It won’t open,” X-it said, sounding desperate.

  “What are the numbers?” Aisha asked taking the lock from X-it.

  “One, five, eight, five,” X-it said, putting his hands up to his head and grimacing.

  “Mooch time,” Cat said telepathically, her yellow eyes becoming black slits. “Going in.”

  “One, five, eight, five,” Aisha repeated, and this time the lock opened and she quickly untangled the chain from the package.

  “Careful!” Et said sharply. “Give the package to Word.”

  “Hey Aisha,” one of the young men who’d continued working on the mural called out as he crossed the tracks to join them. “What you doin’ with that bicycle chain? Can I have it?”

  “They’re my friends from the Field,” Word whispered to Et. “Hey everyone, what’s happ’nin’ is life an’ death. Don’t get in the way. An’ don’t touch my grandmother. She’s got psoriasis. Hurts. Okay?”

  “Hurry!” Et said to Word as she tried to untie the knots in the string.

  “Cut it,” the young muralist said who’d wanted the bicycle chain. Producing a knife in one hand, he reached out with the other to grab the package from Word, just as X-it shouted “Hacked!” and staggered towards the young muralist, who dropped the knife and caught him as Word stepped back and held onto the package.

  “Hacked!” X-it cried. “No …! Yes …! Coming to get us!”

  “Sounds like a cat fight in X-it’s head,” the muralists said, as ferocious snarls, growls, yowls, and fiendish screams echoed through the railway tunnel.

  Word had undone one of the knots and was trying to untie the other knots as the yowls and caterwauling grew louder and louder followed by a sound like trashcan lids clashing. Then silence.

  “All clear,” Cat said, appearing at X-it’s feet and gasping for breath. “Not much time,” she panted. “They’ll be here soon.”

  “Whatever’s in that package it must be important,” Aisha said, staring at Word, who had ignored what was happening to X-it and was still working on untying the knots. “Tell us what’s going on and we’ll help you,” Aisha said.

  It was at that moment that they heard dogs barking a ways a way in the dark tunnel. The two muralists who were still working on the other side of the tracks dropped their paint cans and ran across the tracks.

  “They’re coming from both directions,” one of them said, just as the white light of floodlights blinded them and they all closed their eyes and covered their faces with their forearms to shield themselves from the light.

  “Sick-Reapers!” Aisha said. “Come on!” And she opened the iron mesh door that led to the footpaths, one with steps, the other with a steep slope running north and south up to Riverside Park. But at right angles to this path was another path that led to the tunnel under the six lanes of the West Side Highway to the River Walk and the Hudson River.

  “We’ve gotta go!” Aisha said, whispering now, urgently, and desperately. “Or die.”

  But Word stood still ignoring the advancing Sick-Reapers. She’d untied the last knot in the string and she carefully took off the wrapper. X-it stood beside her, and next to him Et hovered never touching anything, and all the while Cat rubbed against Word’s legs as the last Truth Keeper held the old piece of paper up to the light from the Sick-Reapers spotlights.

  “‘Qui sçait si elle passe son temps de moy plus que je ne fay d’elle?’” she read.

  “What does that mean?” X-it asked. “Tell me!”

  “We’ve gotta go!” Aisha whispered fiercely, not understanding why Word and X-it weren’t running. “Now!” she suddenly shouted, looking down the tunnel at the Sick-Reapers who were close enough they no longer needed a spotlight.

  “Good luck!” one of the young muralists said to Aisha as he quickly ran out of the steel mesh door between the great stone arches. Three more followed whispering “Peace!” “In solidarity!” “Stay safe!” as they ran up the path to Riverside Park and scattered, running in different directions at the top towards the Warsaw Memorial and Grant’s Tomb.

  “Go now!” Word said to Aisha, seeing no point in continuing to whisper. “You can’t help us.”

  “I’m not going without you,” Aisha said to Word. “You’ve always been there for us when we needed you.”

  “Get as far away from here as you can,” Word said, pleading with Aisha just as a few moments ago Aisha had pleaded with her. “You don’t want to die because of us.”

  “Can you think of a better reason?” Aisha asked. She glanced down the train tracks at the Sick-Reapers who were rapidly approaching.

  “Where Aisha goes I go,” the muralist with the bicycle chain said.

  “Come on!” Aisha shouted. “We’ve gotta go!” She held the steel mesh door open and the muralist ran out, followed by Word, X-it, and Et. In the distance up above in Riverside Park close to the Warsaw Memorial they heard rapid gunfire and cries from one or perhaps two of the young muralists.

  “Cat!” Word shouted, when she didn’t follow them out.

  “Coming! You go on! I’ll catch up!” Cat called, as she disappeared and a depraved wraith took her place. Now twelve feet tall, with an evil looking skull, a maw of a mouth, and a vicious scythe dripping with blood, Death advanced on the Sick-Reapers who were coming from the south. She let out a blood-curdling cry that echoed the length of the tunnel, terrifying their ferocious genetically engineered dogs that turned tail and ran.

  The robots with the Sick-Reapers fired their unmanned weapons and the bullets went right through the wraith and ricocheted off the Walls of the tunnel, finding their targets in the army of Sick-Reapers coming from the north. Infuriated by the stupidity of the Sick-Reapers’ robots moving north, the Sick-Reapers’ robots moving south fired back.

  “Oops!” Death thought, impressed by how many bullets had passed through her. “I knew it! Unintended consequences! Autonomous systems – acting independently. Ha! Ha! Artificial Intelligence hostile to biological intelligence – running amok in a railway tunnel. Ha! Ha! Sick-Reapers down! Deliberately annihilated! Ha! Ha! Crawling attack robots with sea slug parts made on 3-D printers! Sea slugs down! Yowl!”

  “Cat!” Word called, frantically running back, “Cat!”

  “All set,” Cat said, joining Word. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she said, as they caught up with the others. “I’ve delayed them but more of them will be coming from the train tunnel and the paths from Riverside Park in less than no time.”

  “By now every Sick-Reaper in Manhattan and Northern New Jersey is homing in on the 79th Street Boat Basin,” X-it said as he edged his way with Word along the wall through the tunnel under the West Side Highway to the Hudson River.

  “What happens next?” Cat whispered.

  “Is that cat talking to you?” Aisha whispered to Word.

  “No time for questions,” Word said, suddenly feeling responsible for Aisha and her boyfriend. “When we get through the tunnel just watch me for – for –signals.”

  “Okay,” Aisha whispered inching her way along the wall. “But I’m tellin’ you that cat can talk and your grandmother’s feet are floating
three or four inches from the ground.”

  “Better be quick,” X-it whispered. “The Sick-Reapers are behind us and closing in on the river walk –”

  “From both directions,” Cat said. “From the George Washington Bridge and the Boat Basin.”

  “Jamaal,” Aisha’s friend with the bicycle chain whispered, putting his hand on his heart as he addressed Cat. “My name is Jamaal.”

  “How about that!” Cat mewed. “Death,” she whispered. “My name is Death. No one has introduced themselves to me before.”

  “Of course it is,” Jamaal whispered, with a little chuckle. “Cool name for a cat.”

  “No,” X-it whispered. “That’s who she is – Death.”

  “No time left,” Word whispered, putting her hand on his arm before he could finish explaining. They were midway along the tunnel flat against the wall.

  “Et,” Word said. “‘Qui sçait si elle passe son temps de moy plus que je ne fay d’elle?’”

  Et smiled at Word.

  “The clue,” Word whispered with a sparkle in her eyes. “You know who wrote it?”

  “I do,” Et whispered.

  “It was written in the sixteenth century and I know the handwriting,” Word whispered, her excitement far exceeding her fear of the Sick-Reapers. “It’s Montaigne’s.”

  “‘Qui sçait si elle passe son temps de moy plus que je ne fay d’elle?’” Cat whispered. “Literal translation, ‘Who knows if she passes her time more with me than I do with her?’”

  “‘When I am playing with my cat, how do I know she’s not playing with me?’” Word said, whispering the twenty first Century version.

  “The Sick-Reapers are going to kill you – us – and you’re translating something written on some wrapping paper in the sixteenth century?” Aisha whispered. “You’ve lost me.”

  “It’s a clue – all we have to do is figure it out,” Word whispered looking at Aisha.

  “Do you know what it means?” Aisha asked.

  “I know what it says but not what it means,” Word said, adding hastily, “but I think Et does.” She turned and for the first time she saw the thick mob of militia and robots with heavy artillery standing along the railings to the Hudson River. Then a dozen or so Sick-Reapers with their guns pointing at them moved into the entrance to the tunnel. Behind them the Sick-Reapers were blocking the other end of the tunnel under the West Side Highway.