by R. A. Rock
“I’m soaking,” I protested.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, echoing my words.
So, I held her and felt the peace that I always experienced when she was in my arms. Like I could finally relax because, for just a moment, all was right with the world.
“How are we ever going to get home?” she said, into my shoulder and I could feel her warm tears on my cold skin.
“We’ll just have to rest up and try again,” I said. “What else can we do?”
“But…” She started to protest. I squeezed her tighter and she fell silent.
“Don’t worry, Yumi. We’ll figure it out. Now that we’re all together again, it’s going to be okay.”
And with Yumi back, I could almost believe it.
Decision
Chad
We spent the day of our arrival resting, then we went to bed early. All of us had headaches the size of the Milky Way but when Audrey didn’t show up for breakfast the next morning, Yumi and I were worried and went to the guest cabin to check on her.
As soon as we entered, we stopped talking because it looked as though she was still asleep. But then she sat up, coughing without covering her mouth. I grimaced and stepped back.
I may not have ever had a communicable disease but I knew how they worked.
“Could you cover that cough?” I said and then made another face as she put her hands over her mouth. “No, cough into your elbow. Now you have those germs all over your hands and they’re going to get all over anything you touch.”
She held out her hands, staring at them in disgust.
“Here,” Yumi said, sitting down next to Audrey and wringing out one of the small cloths from the plastic container on the nightstand by Audrey’s bed. The smell stung my nose and I tried not to inhale too deeply. “Cynthia left these cloths soaked in rubbing alcohol for people to sterilize themselves.”
Audrey took it and vigorously rubbed down her hands until she was satisfied and handed it back to Yumi. Yumi wrinkled her nose, taking it in two fingers and dropping it in the container for used cloths with a soft splat. Then she took her own cloth and cleaned her hands again.
“How are you?” Yumi asked as she rubbed down her skin.
“How do you think I am?” Audrey growled, her voice sounding rough and sore. “My head aches like someone took a boot to it. My throat is on fire and I feel completely weak.”
I met Yumi’s eyes.
That didn’t sound like the aftereffects of time travel.
“Audrey,” I said. “I think you might be getting a cold.”
“I’m not cold,” Audrey said, kicking her covers off her legs like a petulant child. “I’m hot.”
Yumi put her hand on Audrey’s head but the small blonde pushed it away in irritation. Yumi nodded. She thought Audrey had a fever.
“Not cold. A cold,” I explained. “It’s a viral infection that’s very common on Earth at this time.”
“Or it could be the flu,” Yumi said, thinking out loud. “If I remember correctly, the flu was very contagious and killed a ton of people in this time.”
“No, no, that’s not right,” I said quickly, because Audrey was looking alarmed. “That was a hundred years ago when the Spanish flu killed millions. Nowadays the flu is only a minor inconvenience, like the common cold.”
I gave Yumi a stop freaking Audrey out look.
“Oh yeah. Sorry, Audrey,” she said immediately, a contrite expression on her face. “Chad was always better at history than me. He’s right. The flu doesn’t kill anyone anymore.”
I didn’t know if that was true but I sure hoped it was.
“I hate being on this stupid planet,” she said, lying down again. Yumi gently pulled the covers up over her. “I hate being in this stupid time. I hate that I can’t understand what anyone says and they can’t understand me. I hate everything.”
She pulled the blanket over her head and Yumi and I exchanged a glance. We hadn’t thought about how hard it might be for Audrey, not being able to communicate with the people here.
At that moment, Grace and Shiv walked in, bringing the brisk scent of fall air with them.
“What’s happening?” Grace whispered.
“Audrey might be sick,” I said and Audrey lifted the blanket to look at the others.
“I’m not sick. I never get sick. Because nobody gets sick in our time,” Audrey said, with a cough. “And why hasn’t your stupid planet eliminated such silly little illnesses, anyway?”
She retreated back under the covers. Nobody bothered to answer her question, since she knew the answer as well as we did. There was no cure for the flu or the common cold in this time. Especially not now that civilization had crumbled.
“Well, since we’re all here,” Shiv said. “We need to discuss our plans.”
“Plans?” Audrey said, poking her head out once more. “We’re rested up now, so we’re going to try the bracelets again. I’m going to go home and get a shot to kill these stupid germs and I’m going to feel better. What plans do we have to discuss other than that?”
“Shiv?” I said, feeling worried by his sombre expression. “We’re going to try again aren’t we?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “I have news.”
“What news?” I said, scowling. I didn’t want to hear any news that meant we couldn’t try time travelling again.
“Let me explain,” he said. “When we travelled the first time, the bracelets worked perfectly, right?”
We all nodded.
“Then Brett took them and messed around with the devices and somehow damaged them. It’s complicated but…”
Audrey pointed at him.
“Speak in Primary,” she said. “Not geek.”
“Well, to make it simple, there is a piece in the bracelets that’s damaged and needs to be replaced. I thought I could use a nickel alloy because there’s plenty of that around. But based on the test we just conducted, it is not equivalent to the original metal at all.”
“Clearly,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, wincing as he spoke. “But we’re lucky to be alive.”
“What?” Yumi said in a soft tone, her eyes glittering dangerously.
“I’m sorry,” Shiv said, guilt in his eyes. “I never should have let us try using the devices without the proper metal.”
He dropped to one of the beds and held his head in his hands.
“I could have killed us.”
Grace sat down beside him and put her arm around his back but she had a serious look on her face. A moment later, Shiv pulled himself together and went on.
“Which means that this time, I have to do it right. I won’t risk our lives again. I know how to fix these devices. I just need the right materials and tools.”
“And where are you supposed to get those things in this place and time?” Yumi said, lifting her eyebrows.
Shiv drew in a deep breath.
“The only place we have any hope of getting them is in… Winnipeg.”
“Winnipeg?” I said, flabbergasted. “You mean the Winnipeg that’s 800 kilometres away?”
“Yes, that Winnipeg,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Is there some other Winnipeg in the world that I don’t know about?”
“But it will take…” My mind couldn’t fathom how long it would take to walk there. “A really long time to walk there.”
“That’s true,” he said, looking reasonable. “But we’ll be stuck here a really long time if we don’t go and get the parts and tools I need to fix these bracelets. I just hope we can scrounge what we need from ASR Enterprises.”
“ASR Enterprises? What’s that?” Audrey said, her brow wrinkling.
“They have, I mean had, a tech manufacturing plant on the outskirts of the city. I went to the museum honouring Ayren Simon Roque’s contributions to the tech industry last time I was in Winnipeg.”
“The guy has his ow
n museum?” I said. “What did he do?”
“He figured out how to get fast wifi to pretty much everyone on the planet. It was a game changer for rural and remote northern communities in Canada and around the world.”
“Hm. Cool.”
“The museum was built in the location of the original factory, so I know where it is. Scavenging for parts and tools in the abandoned building is our only hope.”
“This is ridiculous,” Audrey said. “Is there no other way to fix them?”
Shiv shook his head.
“Not safely. I need to do it properly, Audrey. I won’t let us try again until they’re fixed. I just won’t be held responsible if the devices aren’t fixed and we use them again and something happens to one or all of us.”
“But Shiv, how can we consider walking that far?” Grace said. “I mean, we would have to walk for… what? Weeks? Months?”
“I don’t know,” Shiv said. “But I have a feeling that Ernest will.”
Nobody said a word.
“Well, would you rather stay here for the rest of your lives?” he said, an incredulous look on his face.
“No.” Audrey said sharply.
“Of course not,” Grace added.
“Let’s go to Winnipeg,” Yumi said, making a little circle with her pointer finger in the air. “Woohoo. Road trip.”
I laughed.
“You’ve never been on a trip on an actual road,” I pointed out. “Only hovercraft and spaceships.”
“And I think the expression refers to going on a trip on a road in a wheeled vehicle,” Grace said. “Not feet.”
“True,” Yumi said with a shrug. “But it’s one of the old expressions that just sounds cool. I’ve always wanted to say it.”
Audrey groaned.
“Shiv, why can’t you just manifest new bracelets when your powers are back?”
Shiv shook his head.
“No can do, Audrey. I have to have detailed knowledge of the thing I want to create — down to its blueprints or for living things, their genetic structure. I don’t do it consciously but somehow my brain uses that information.” He tapped his temple. “I know quite a bit about how they work, but I never actually saw a detailed schematic.”
He huffed out his breath in frustration.
“Manifesting them would certainly be an easier solution but I just don’t have enough information to create a working device. If I tried to manifest the bracelets, they would look exactly like the time travel devices, but without knowing precisely how they’re constructed, they wouldn’t work.”
“Like someone could build something that looks like a Smartphone in this time, but without the proper insides, it wouldn’t function?” I said.
“Exactly.
“I think we’ve had enough of them not working,” Yumi said.
So… we’re going to Winnipeg?” Shiv said, looking around and meeting everyone’s eyes.
“Looks like we are,” I said. My mind instantly began churning, thinking about everything we would need to get ready.
“Like I said… Road Trip,” Yumi said, with a half smile.
“I guess so?” Grace didn’t look at all thrilled at the prospect.
“I wonder if there’s anyone we could ask to guide us,” Shiv said and I frowned. He held up his hand to stave off my objection. “I know that you guys can handle yourselves in the forest but what I’m worried about is what we don’t know about this time period.”
“He’s right,” Grace said. “I’ll ask Nessa if she knows anyone who would be willing to take us.”
Yumi looked peeved, as if she didn’t want to have to depend on anyone but us. But Shiv was right. We had no idea what we were dealing with. Having a guide who knew the territory would be invaluable.
“I’ll talk to Matt about it, too” I said.
“Tell me when it’s time to go,” Audrey said, rolling away from us. “I’ll be in bed, till then.”
She pulled the covers back over her head, shutting out the world. And with everything that had just landed on my plate as the leader of this team, I wished I could do the same.
Sick
Yumi
But it turned out we weren’t going anywhere. Because by the next morning we were all down. Matt’s mother — Cynthia — when she came to see us in the guest house, pronounced all five of us sick with the flu.
“Are you sure?” Grace said from her bed where she was running a high fever.
“The symptoms all point to the flu,” Cynthia said. “And you say that none of you have ever had it? Maybe you just didn’t know what it was.”
She so didn’t believe that we had never had the flu. Probably everyone in this time had had it. But we weren’t about to explain the marvels of modern medicine in 2481.
“Maybe,” Chad conceded. His nose was red from blowing it and he looked as ashen as a corpse. He lay down, a miserable expression on his face. I had never seen him sick before because, as I just mentioned, we didn’t get sick. Have accidents? Yes. Get hurt? Yes. And there were still some people who got lifestyle diseases because they just didn’t follow the galaxy guidelines.
But the five of us were young, in shape, and had never had any sort of infectious disease because they simply didn’t exist anymore in the future. The only place we had heard of them was in old books from centuries ago.
Cynthia left us with plenty of water and extra blankets and told us to rest. There wasn’t much she could do for us, other than that.
“You know, the fact that we’ve never had the flu could make it so that we get it worse than if we had been exposed to it before,” Chad said, his voice gravelly. “Like when the Europeans interacted with the native peoples of North America and so many of them got sick and died from sicknesses that would kill very few Europeans.”
“Chad,” Grace said, narrowing her eyes at him. “I don’t think those sort of pronouncements are very helpful.”
I curled up in my bed, my bones aching.
“Can you two be quiet?” I said, feeling as though I had been stabbed in the throat multiple times. “I’m trying to die, here.”
“Oh come on, Tanaka,” Shiv said, throwing his covers off as if he was too hot. “You must have been through worse than this.”
“Maybe,” I conceded, glad my nose was stuffed up so that I could no longer smell the horrible astringent scent of the rubbing alcohol Cynthia had used to clean her hands. “But this is pretty bad. I’ve never felt like this and it’s no fun.”
“Agreed,” Grace said. “We should definitely try to get some rest. Our bodies can fight off anything if we just support them properly.”
The conversation subsided and I lay, my limbs heavy, not thinking of anything. Gradually, I drifted off to sleep.
***
Time passed by in a blur as I slept, sat up to drink broth that Cynthia held for me, then lay down to sleep again. I had strange, vivid dreams where I used my powers and people’s brains melted and ran out their ears.
Yeah. Gross.
Except that my mental abilities are strong enough to do that.
One of my greatest fears is that I can’t control my powers and I hurt someone by accident. So, I found the dreams deeply disturbing and woke up crying more than once.
When I finally became fully consciousness, I realized that the five of us had been really sick for a long time. I managed to stand up, swaying on feeble legs and took note of the orange light of sunset coming in through the only window that wasn’t covered.
The ache in my hips, back, and neck almost made me fall down again, though. Chad looked skinny where he was sleeping, curled up on his side. He has trouble gaining weight because he’s got a high metabolism, so, any stretch of not eating, usually means that he gets too thin.
Grace’s long curly red hair had been braided back but strands of it were stuck to her sweaty forehead. She must still be running a fever.
Shiv was lying on his back, with his arm over his eyes as if to protect them from the brightness. Th
ough the guest cabin was definitely dim, with most of the curtains drawn. There was a small fire in the little wood stove to keep us warm.
Cynthia came in then and gasped when she saw me standing.
“Yumi,” she said, coming over to me. “Sit down.”
I was more than glad to oblige and let my legs release their burden, collapsing down on to my bed.
“You shouldn’t be up yet. You’ve been barely conscious for the past five days.”
“Five days?” I said, shocked that I had been out that long.
“Yes,” she said. “This flu has knocked you flat. I hadn’t expected it to take you all so hard. Because you’re young and seem healthy. Maybe there was some truth in the idea that you’d never had it before. That would explain the severity of the symptoms. Or it could be like the Spanish flu of 1918 that took so many young people in their prime…”
She trailed off, muttering her thoughts to herself.
I laid down, feeling terrible and wishing I hadn’t stood up because it seemed to have made things worse. And Cynthia’s mutterings hadn’t exactly been reassuring either.
“Are the others going to be okay?” I said, closing my eyes.
There was a hesitation before she answered that made me open my eyes again to see her face. She looked uncertain.
“Yes.”
“Cynthia?”
She sighed.
“Oh Yumi.” She sat on my bed, wringing her hands in her lap. “You four will be fine but…”
“But?”
I couldn’t stand not knowing who was doing so poorly.
“But Audrey is… I’m afraid she’s on the brink of…”
“Of what, Cynthia?” There was an edge to my voice but I needed to know.
“Of death,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
“Are you serious?” I said, getting up again and taking small steps so that I wouldn’t fall flat on my face, which is what I felt like doing. I moved with baby steps until I got to Audrey’s bed.
“She hasn’t been conscious for two days. I’ve tried everything I know to do but… She’s not responding.”
Maybe because her genes were slightly different from an Earth human. We were all descended from the same original humans who had colonized the galaxies.