“Can you get in touch with him again? Open another portal. I want to see.” He points downhill to the park near the marina. “Come on. We’ll do it there.” He breaks into a jog, cutting across the intersection and sprinting past Bayboro Tower toward a raised square of city park. “Hurry!”
I run after him, trying to catch up. He dashes up the slope of hill into the center of the park, stopping near a pair of benches, debating between the two of them. “Here. Here will work.” He grabs my arm and pulls me down onto one of the benches. “Do it again. Do what you did before. Open the portal.”
Benny’s eagerness is disconcerting. Something about his frantic insistence strikes me as overly intense, but I try to relax. I recall the elation I first felt when I realized there was someone in the real world looking for me. I likely looked just as eager.
“Last time I just sort of stumbled onto him by accident. I was actually trying for a different memory, but got someplace new.”
“You remembered a place you didn’t live?” Benny’s eagerness has a hint of awe. It reminds me of the rapture and jealousy childhood friends would express in learning that you had discovered a hidden level or warp zone in the latest video game. I hold a wanted key to a door he didn’t know existed.
“It’s easier when he’s asleep, but it works when he’s looking for me too. Last time he was in a hallway, but he was seeing things that weren’t real anyway. A little man in overalls. Stuff like that. I guess if he’s imagining things and has his mind open, it’s easier for him to hear me.”
This revelation is new to me, but as I say it out loud, it seems to make sense. So far I’ve only been able to contact my living self when he’s been dreaming or in some other way receptive to suggestion. Trying to get to him when he was awake and occupied with other activities only seemed to make him crash into unconsciousness. I could speak but get nothing in return. This last time he had spoken back. He knew I was there, and he wanted to talk to me. That was everything.
Benny grabs my shoulders. “Show me. Show me how.”
I put my hands in front of myself, not sure where to start. The air shimmers with possibilities. I close my eyes and concentrate, trying to reach out to my other self. Without a specific memory to aim for, I flounder. I can feel Benny’s eyes on me.
“I’m not sure I can do it whenever I want yet. It sort of just worked out last time.”
“Keep trying,” Benny insists.
I close my eyes again and try to remember the other me from the Academy, searching my mind and hoping he might be searching for me as well. At first there is only black. Mental darkness. I wait, still searching. The noise of my own mind slowly settles. I forget about Benny. I forget about the park and Zurvan and this whole experience, clearing my mind and breathing. The blackness persists, but ever so slowly, it transforms.
At first I can’t see anything to suggest I’ve made contact, but I get the distinct impression I have. It’s an emotion as much as a sensation. But there are sensations. I’m warm, even though I feel cool air on my face. I’m barefoot and drowsy, lying on my side. My limbs are wrapped up. A blanket? My left arm is draped over something firm. No, not something—someone. There is a faint scent of orange blossoms. My breath catches.
Mym.
I stretch my fingers, exploring her side, the bumps of her ribs, the back of her shoulder, caressing the outline of her. Her hair is all over the pillow. It’s tickling my face. The soft inhalation of her breath is followed by its slow release. It brushes over my eyelashes and nose. My heartbeat quickens. Not my imaginary ghost heartbeat—my real heartbeat. The one lying next to her in bed. I’m alive! I’m breathing. I don’t know how I fooled myself into thinking anything else could compare. I’ve been a shade—a pale shadow of reality, not this vivid, sensuous thing. My mind rapturously absorbs the textures around me—the sheets, the cool air, the warmth of my body pressed against Mym’s.
Mym. She’s alive and well, curled into me, her arm draped over my hip. I hadn’t thought I would get to feel this again. The exhilaration of it is almost too much to handle. Not only has she survived, but she’s still mine. Somehow, some way, death hasn’t taken this away. I feel like my heart could explode. I crack open my eyelids, ever so slowly, not wanting this miracle to disappear. She is there, her shape silhouetted against shaded starlight from a window beyond.
She’s here.
“Mym.” The word escapes my lips as a whisper. I don’t dare startle this apparition. I want it too desperately.
She stirs. “Hmm.”
“Mym. It’s me.”
Her eyes flutter slightly, but stay closed. She stretches her arm around my lower back, fingers grasping at my T-shirt. “Hey, you.” She pulls herself closer to me, tucking her forehead against my chin. My lips caress the top of her head. Just the touch of her is pure ecstasy.
I relish the feel of her, not wanting to wake her, but unable to contain my own joy. “Mym, I lov—”
Something clamps to my head like a vise. Hands. Invading hands. No. No no no. Not again. My eyes are open, but my mind reels.
Two separate views sheer away simultaneously, overlapping but distinct, like disjointed binoculars, each scene fighting for priority in my vision. In one, the me that’s alive is jolted upright in bed. No! My hands fly to my head, desperate to undo whatever force is pulling me away from Mym, but I find nothing there, I’m merely grasping vainly at my hair. It’s the other view that reveals what is happening. Benny is next to me on the bench, still in the Neverwhere, but somehow inside my mind now as well. His hands are clutching the sides of my head. My ghostly fingers latch onto them, prying frantically—trying to dislodge him.
“Get out of my head!” My voice echoes in my mind. I’ve shouted in both the real world and the Neverwhere. Mym wakes in fright. She’s upright in the matter of a moment, her eyes wide with confusion and concern.
“Ben, what’s—”
The other me is awake now too. The one in the real world. I can feel him return to consciousness with a jolt, dragged from sleep to reality by this horrifying pressure. My mind struggles to process the multitude of inputs it’s receiving. The real world is still vivid, the feel of the blankets wadded beneath my knees. The pounding of my heartbeat, Mym’s wild eyes and her hands on mine, trying to see what is going on with my head, perhaps thinking I’ve been injured. The me who is alive is struggling for control of his own limbs. I can feel the fight and realize that I no longer have control either. Neither of us is in control anymore. As our hands reach out toward Mym, I get the sickening realization that it’s Benny in control. Our hands grasp Mym’s shoulders and shake her violently.
“You need to get away from me! Get away! Get away!”
“Ben! What are you doing?” Mym protests, struggling to break free of the grip on her shoulders.
“You’re going to die if you stay!” Benny spits the words, his eyes frantic. From my position, stuck between the two realities, he’s screaming from the bench next to me, but I’m watching the results unfold in the real world with vivid clarity. I can only imagine that the version of us in the real world has the same expression of crazed intensity on his face. “You’re going to die, you’re going to die, YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!” He screams at her, clawing at her wrists as she tries to struggle free from his grasp.
“NO! Get off me!” Mym yells back, twisting in his grip and rolling off the bed. Benny loses his hold on her and she scrambles away toward the wall. He climbs off the bed and pursues her. The horror in my gut at her terrified eyes snaps me out of my lethargy and I struggle hard to stop him. The me in the real world slows. Mym looks on in terror as my body—our body—spasms in place. Benny screams and lunges harder toward Mym, sending her running for the hallway. The other me from the real world seems to sense what I’m doing and joins in the struggle to slow Benny down. Our legs strain as if walking through mud, each motion a fight for control. Benny rages and screams. “She has to go. GO! GO! You’re going to die if you stay. You’ll DIE DIE DI
E!”
The other me is gaining more control. Our body slows to a stop and I feel Benny’s strength failing against the two of us. From my position on the bench, I concentrate on Benny’s face in the Neverwhere. Releasing my grip on his fingers, which are still grasping my head, I cock my right fist and slam it into his face. Benny jerks loose, his hands flying back with the rest of him and losing his grip on my consciousness.
From the other side of my mind I can sense the real world version of me cutting loose as well. He forces me from his mind and mentally slams the door. He’s fully awake now and back in control. I try to speak, hoping to get a word in to him, a moment to explain that this wasn’t what I was trying to do, but his mind is gone—completely cut off from me.
Benny is sprawled on the concrete near the bench, one hand over his face.
“What did you do!” I yell at him. “What the hell was that!”
He springs to his feet, eyes still frantic, and charges at me with his hands outstretched for my head. I grab his arms as he rams into me, and we crash over the back of the park bench, thudding into the grass beyond. Benny is flailing and kicking, trying to get at my head again. I swat away his arms and plant my hand on his face, shoving it as far from me as possible. He snaps at me, snarling like a wild animal and I scramble away, aiming a kick at his groin as I depart. I miss and Benny grabs my leg, dragging me back down again, my fingers clawing at the grass as I try to get away. It’s a graceless and ungainly fight. He comes at me with teeth and fingernails, pinching and biting. I finally get my legs under me and swing at him, my fist connecting with his face just below his left eye. He flails backward into the grass and finally lies still. He’s staring up at the leaves of the trees and the patch of blue between them. His arms fall out to his sides and he gasps heavily, finally releasing the tension in his body.
“What the hell, dude?” I’m shaking with anger. If I had a real body, I could blame adrenaline, but in this place, I know I’m just furious.
Benny slides his legs under him and struggles to his feet unsteadily. I brace myself, ready to defend against any other attacks.
“I had to warn her.” Benny scowls at me. “He’s no good for her. We’re no good for her. It’s being around us that gets her killed.”
“Speak for yourself. She was doing fine in my timeline.”
That’s not entirely true. When I was alive, Mym was being framed for murder and Ambrose Cybergenics was threatening to wipe her out of existence, but I don’t plan on admitting that to Benny. Not now. Not when I was so close to her. Touching her. Him robbing me of that moment and taking me away from her has me angrier than I’ve felt in all the time I’ve been dead. What chance will I have now of seeing her again? Probably none now that she thinks I’ve threatened her life.
“I was there! Really there. I was alive again. How could you—What did you . . .” I fumble for words, still reeling from the loss of that moment. I was with her. I was alive. And now whatever hope I had to tell her is gone.
“You can’t have her. None of us can. I’ve seen what happens,” Benny says.
“You’ve seen what? Just because in your lifetime something bad happened, you think that’s the only outcome? We’re time travelers. We can make new choices. Change things.” I’m lying to myself again, but I can’t help it. I want to believe it’s true. There are limits to what can be changed. What happened, happened, as Doctor Quickly always says. New timelines only bring new problems, and whatever happened to Mym in Benny’s timeline can’t be undone, but I still don’t believe it has to happen in mine. We’re not slaves to fate. I refuse to believe that.
“You’re a liar,” Benny yells at me. “If you loved her, you would know you have to let her go. You can’t have her.”
“Why? Because you let her die? You think I will too?”
“You’re already dead!” Benny screams. “What do you think you can do to protect her? Nothing! We’re lost here. Just—dead. Nothing we do matters.”
“So you’re just going to give up?”
“I gave up a long time ago,” Benny spits back. “You will too. You just haven’t realized it yet.”
“So why don’t you just die already?” I ask. “Why are you sticking around? If you’ve got no reason to be here, just leave!”
“You think I haven’t tried? You think I haven’t wished for it? How do you think I got here in the first place? I thought I could—I thought if I ended it . . .” He strokes his own head and runs his hands down the sides of his face. “This place is Hell. It might not have lakes of fire or demons with pitchforks, but it’s Hell just the same. We’re trapped here, forever.”
“Bullshit. You’re still fighting and you know it. If you want to give up, why don’t you run off to your buddy Zurvan and let him Hoover up your soul for you? You saved me from him. You’ve been saving yourself, too. If this was all so pointless, then why do you run? You must still think there’s a chance. You have to believe in something good in this place or you wouldn’t have saved me. There are no saviors in Hell. You could have just let him kill me.”
Benny glowers at me. “No. Not him. You don’t get it. I didn’t save you. I just kept you away from him. Don’t you know what he does? Whenever he finds someone else in this place, he robs their mind. He steals their memories so he can use them. If he got your memories, he’d have mine too. He’d be able to go anywhere we’ve been, search me out the way you’ve been doing. He’d hunt me down.” He twitches a little, fidgety inside his own skin. “And he’d be able to remember her too.”
The thought gives me pause. I don’t know what Zurvan is up to, but the idea of him being able to access all of my memories, even the ones of Mym, makes my skin crawl too. Those memories are all that I have left of her. I think of my other friends, my family, and all the cherished moments of my life. Imagining a stranger rifling through them is abhorrent.
Benny brushes his hands off on his pants and straightens up. “He’s gone now, isn’t he? The Ben from there.” He taps a finger against his temple.
I frown at him. “What did you expect? You highjacked his life and scared off Mym.”
“You highjacked his life. I just joined in.”
“You ruined it.”
Benny opens a portal just big enough for himself to walk through. From my angle I can’t see where it leads. He gives me one last venomous look. “Your life is ruined already. I won’t let you ruin hers too. If you try to reach her again, I’ll stop you.”
He steps through the portal and disappears.
I stare at the empty space he vacated until I lose motivation to stay upright any longer. I crumple to my knees in the grass. Fake grass. My pale memory of what grass ought to be. Now that I’ve tasted real life again, this illusion seems much less convincing. My senses are dull here, mere afterimages of what they were in life. I pick at the grass and let the broken blades tumble from my fingers.
I touched her. She spoke to me. It was so real.
Whatever Benny’s objections, I know I am going to try again.
I’ve discovered a new high. Living.
I don’t know how I’ll manage it, but I have a new life goal. Death goal. Whatever.
I want her back, and I’m going to make it happen. If death itself hasn’t been able to keep me from her, then there’s no way in Hell I’m letting Benny stop me. One way or another, my time in the Neverwhere is limited.
I’m getting out of here.
<><><>
Cornwall, UK- Sprocket Manor, 2165
Darius’s reputation as a chef has not been overstated. The smells wafting from the kitchen are heavenly. When I wander in to investigate, I find the metal man hard at work. It’s like nothing I have ever seen. While his dexterity in his human form is admirable, that is clearly not his chief tool. The workings of the kitchen seem to take little action from his physical body to operate. To the contrary, his frequent stillness seems even more productive. Ovens heat themselves, stovetops regulate temperatures of sauces and even the dis
hes tend to themselves in his kitchen. I’m familiar with wireless technology, but this is truly futuristic, and it’s clear that Darius and the manor are on more than just friendly terms. He is the master of the house the way a captain steers a ship, bending it to his will with silent and invisible commands.
Darius has uncorked a bottle of wine for Mym and popped the top off a lager for me. He slides the beer across the counter. “Master Jonah has returned from his walk and is seated on the back steps. He’d enjoy your company.”
“Another prediction?” I pick up the beer and take a sip. It’s ice cold with a hint of lime.
“He asked me to tell you,” Darius replies, efficiently wiping up the ring of condensation my beer has left behind.
I stab a thumb down the hallway. “That way?”
Darius nods and goes back to his cooking. I squeeze Mym’s arm and kiss her on the cheek, then make my way toward the back of the house.
I find Jonah just where Darius said I would, seated on the back steps and tossing a ball into the yard for Barley. The silver helmet on his head glimmers in the porch lights. The drizzle has stopped, at least for the time being, but the sky is still gray. I settle down next to Jonah as Barley trots up. The dog drops its tennis ball at my feet and waits patiently for me to toss it. I stretch for the soggy ball and whip it as far as I can. Barley vanishes into the darkness in a blur. I’m happy to see that even though I’m over a hundred years into the future, dogs still enjoy the same hobbies.
“Jay’s not a bad guy, you know,” Jonah says. “He’s not.”
I watch the boy’s face. His brow is furrowed. I can’t help but think that he’s been through far too much for his age. First a chronothon and now a brother caught up in a futuristic cult. Some people draw all the short straws.
“I think Jay could just use our help, bud. I get the feeling that he could use some better friends.”
Jonah looks up at me. “Are you going to be his friend?”
I recall the scene I just witnessed from Wednesday night and Elgin as a child, hissing at me. “You’re too late, Traverssss.” Darius suggested that it’s Jay who had chosen to associate with these people. I try to imagine what could possess him to do that. The notes in his journal were the frantic scribblings of someone obsessed. Whatever path he’s gone down, he’s been headed there for a while.
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 124