“You need a name,” he says. “A name of your own.”
I have an old name. Olwin Duilis. Deep inside, it won’t go away. But I keep it down, I don’t let it surface. At first, when that name bubbled up, I would turn, I would jump as if I’d heard it called. But now, I can keep it down. It is not me.
“I can’t choose,” I say. And it’s true. I cannot think of a name that encompasses all of me. I am so misty still.
“It will grow,” he says. “The name will become you.” He turns to look at me. “We could choose a bird. You like birds.”
Green Jay, I think, but I am too shy to say so. I shake my head. “Eva,” I say, because that is how I want to think of myself. As someone new.
“Eva,” says Mac, and he grins. Blue Jay and Green Jay, I think. I stretch out my fingers and touch his hand. We lie here in the sun.
Crow
IT’S A SHIT of a hot day. It’s not that early and already I can feel the sweat gathering and the light pouring in, trying to poke at ungrateful eyes. You’d think we’d be getting used to the heat waves, but no, not really. There’s enough of them, there’s truly enough, but not enough for the average person to be prepared. The weather can still lull you into an unsuspecting apathy. But the worst part is that you really don’t know what to expect when. I’ve lived in Barlewin all my life. You’d think I’d know what’s what. But there are no seasons any more. There are areas of damage, broad times of possible danger. A homeless person could freeze and then burn. But shit, we’re all that much closer to being homeless now.
Mac is waiting for me in our usual spot for Morning Mentals. About the only time I see him lately. He’s besotted with the double. And I know there’s something he wants from me, something to do with the package and Guerra, but he’s not asking yet. And I have no intention of offering. We’re stuck in a holding pattern.
We do the brain training, Mac tapping away at his usual light speed, me spotting some peripheral birds and completing some arithmetic at my discretion. Then comes the half-arsed memory test set in a cafe with relentless customers who want you to not only remember their absurd orders but their names as well. The whole gathering groans. For a start, it’s a ridiculous set-up. Nobody, but nobody who has ever served me has felt the need to remember my name. Not even when they’d asked for it with the dubious pretext that they would yell it out when my order was ready.
“My name’s Beryl and I would like some eCrunchies and half a drop,” says Mac. It’s our usual joke.
“A bottle of tequila,” I add.
“With some Ace.”
“An ambulance.”
“And a stomach pump.”
At last, the endless array of pretend customers finally leaves the screen, dissatisfied, for the most part, with their orders and our collective lack of interest in their names. People start to drift away; the market starts to encroach onto the road. Mac suggests coffee before it gets too hot. It is already too hot, but I say yes, because I figure today is probably the day. The day of the favour. We get our drinks from the place we always do. They probably know our names, but they never see the point of using them.
“You ever have any flashbacks?” he asks while we wait. “I mean from that time-walk you did.”
Not the question I am expecting. In fact, I am faintly surprised that Mac even knows about that. “Nup,” I say. “But then it was only about fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“Anybody open the box yet?”
“Not my concern,” I say.
“But you’d know if it was opened.”
“I’m not still linked to it.”
“You sure?”
“Totally sure, Mac. And Guerra won’t be telling me if and when he opens the box, either. Strangely enough.”
Our coffees present themselves and Mac pays for mine as a peace offering.
“He say anything about it?” Mac asks. This is deeply out of character. You could almost see the man forcing the words to come out of his mouth. But for all I’m sympathetic, I know what this is all about: the double Mac is besotted with and her need for whatever it is Guerra has.
“He called it bait, Mac. Bait. You need to stay away from it.”
Mac shakes his head. We are wandering, but I know where we’re going. Away from the shops, through some alleys, down into the apartments. Mac tosses a doughnut to the kid by the door. “You don’t have to be part of it, Brom,” he says.
I grunt something noncommittal, but I follow him into the building and up the stairs. Mac gives the knock the Tentie gave. Two raps, then three.
The door swings open and there she is. The double, dressed in some of Mac’s old clothes. Looking... much darker, much greener, still beautiful, still completely wrong. A cloud of black curls partially hides her face. But the smell… The greenhouse is already hot and the stink of the double has filled it up. A composty smell that reminds me of the farms out behind the water tower. Not completely bad, but there is something underneath, some decay. She looks deeply disappointed to see me.
“Eva, you remember Brom?” says Mac. As if we’re at a party.
“Eva,” I say. Not highly original as names go, but then what does it really matter?
We all sit on the floor in the sun. I would have preferred some shade, but there isn’t a lot of that available in the greenhouse. Eva and Mac link fingers, they can’t help themselves. I feel somewhat redundant.
“We’re going up to the High Track,” says Mac after a while. “We have to; Eva needs to get the box.”
“It’s a trap,” I say.
“We have no choice,” says Mac.
You do, I think. You have another choice, not very pleasant, but then again, this is a double, not a real person.
“You could open the box.” Eva is talking to me, and her tone isn’t quite so cutesy as it was before.
“No, I couldn’t,” I reply. “I linked with it once, yes. Don’t mean I can link with it again. There’s a whole... procedure. Not to mention it’s up at Guerra’s. Not to mention it’s a really stupid thing to do.”
“But you can,” persists Eva. “I have memories. Knowledge, from... You can link with it again. Quite easily. I know how.”
“It’s okay, Brom. It doesn’t make sense for you to get involved,” says Mac.
“She can’t go,” I say. “It’d be suicide for her. It’s exactly what Guerra wants.”
“All you need do is touch it again,” says Eva.
“Just walk up to it, and touch it,” I say. “That’s all you want. Just walk into a place I hardly ever go, certainly not without invitation, somewhere I’m not especially welcome and just touch a box which is probably quite heavily guarded or at the very least securely stored. Under guard. With surveillance measures. So just touch that box.”
Mac closes his eyes. “Brom,” is all he manages. It’s a kind of groan.
“I know how to open the box,” says Eva again, “but I need someone who’s been Time Locked to it.”
“Then get the original courier, old Orange Toes.”
“Yeah, Brom,” says Mac. “That’s feasible.”
“More feasible for him to show up than me.”
“He’s touched too many boxes,” says Eva. Looking at me as if I am the chosen one, which I most definitely am not.
“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me what I have to do.”
Eva shakes her head. “We must all go.”
“Well, that’s unlikely,” I say.
“You don’t have to go with us,” she says. “Just let us know when you’re there.”
“Who the hell are you?” I ask. Because it seems pretty obvious to me that however much this double imagines herself a unique individual, that there are memories belonging to a real person in there that would be much more relevant to the situation in hand.
“That person is not me,” says Eva.
“That person can help us now.” Actually that person, that real person, is probably out to destroy her renegade double, and likely sent the box in the
first place, but there is no point muddying the waters with speculation.
Eva looks away.
“You’ll come with us?” asks Mac.
“All for one,” I say.
“And one for all,” says Mac happily.
Apparently Eva’s memories don’t include Three Musketeers references.
CHAPTER FIVE
Green Jay
KERN BROMLEY IS a crow. I won’t even give him a colour. The kind of bird that drifts around picking up scraps with no direction of its own, no beauty. I don’t like him, I don’t trust him; but we need him, Blue Jay and me. We need him because he is the one who can open the box.
I try and sneak up on Olwin Duilis’ memories, to see what she wants with me, what she plans with the package. I am sure that she sent it. But she won’t let me know, there is nothing there to find. I don’t know how she did this, and it scares me a little to find a gap where there should be information. Perhaps it should comfort me, perhaps it means that she is fading away and that I am truly taking over. But I don’t think so. I have the information of how to open the box. I have the surety that the package will contain something to help me. These things keep popping into my mind. They are not my thoughts, they are the thoughts of Olwin Duilis, but they are very real.
When Kern Bromley the crow visited, he looked at me the whole time with his beady eyes, with his questions that he didn’t speak but that we both knew were there. Who are you? he wants to know. What is inside you? How human are you? Why do you think you should be alive? How do you know what you know? He doesn’t look at Blue Jay that way, and that is the only reason I have hope. I watch the Crow through the glass when I can. He is making no attempt to go to the package; he is never anywhere near the High Track. I watch the ripples that he makes and they are so few that it is almost as if he is gliding. He is trying not to be seen. But that is impossible, especially if Guerra is watching. A crow is a loud, noisy bird. Smart, but not small. Always in the way. Always noticeable.
I watch a body copy as it makes its way through the market. This one is the androgynous model, with jeans and a T-shirt and short red hair. It has a job to do. It’s moving so deliberately that it creates its own ripple, like a swimmer in a calm lake. People give it a little more space than they would give to another person. If I watch carefully I can see the moment they recognise it as a copy, step back just a little. Nobody wants to acknowledge that they can be built so easily. And the copies have such short lives, like butterflies. It is disconcerting, I think, for people to see something so much like themselves born and then die. To learn that the stuff that they are made of is not so special.
Crow
IT ISN’T ENTIRELY true I haven’t had any time flashbacks. But I am choosing to ignore them, treat them as dreams. Worse side effects than the first time I did it, but so far, so good, they don’t seem to be affecting my day to day life. But they do mean that when I see Carine I am sitting down, watching the Chemical Conjurers, letting myself acclimatise to what I hope is my regular world. They crack me up, the Chemical Conjurers. Ol’ Felix and Oscar. They have names, long names they’ll recite given half a chance, complete with numbers and addendums, but I call them Felix and Oscar. There’s no particular correlation in appearance or personality with the old TV show characters: in fact, as far as I can tell the Chemical Conjurers are pretty much identical twins.
Every day there’s something new. You’d expect repetition, but no, they seem to get bored quick, though some routines are definite favourites. They’re always getting deliveries. Usually with those drones. Which also cracks me up, especially as what they seem to be delivering is insignificant shit.
I mean, what does a robot want? An endless array of meaningless junk, if you’re thinking with a human brain. Not drugs, not sex, but yes to the rock and roll. They love music, the robots do, although their taste, as they say, is questionable. Now some might say I’m unfairly extrapolating the preferences of the two robots I know best onto all of robot kind. Forgive me, for I have sinned. The Chemical Conjurers love them some beats. But also, it must be said, also the chemicals. Their favourite at the moment is concentrated sulphuric acid added to p-nitroaniline. They told me this one day when I had nothing better to do but take the information in. In any case those two chemicals mixed together produce an angry punch of weird arse black stuff. That seems to be incorporated into the show most days. It’s a bit aggro, I tell them. But they pump up the bass, put the music on loud, spin a few lights and then, hey presto. It’s fun stuff, the way they do it. Quite why they decided to settle in Barlewin, nobody knows. But everyone loves them.
They’re up for a bit of helping hand too. A bit of cover. I’ve used them myself. For me, they used an old rubbish bin, put some liquid nitrogen in and added ping pong balls. Man, those balls went everywhere. And to add to the chaos, that moment also turned out to be one of the rare times a car chose to use the road as an actual road. The market shops—which, naturally, had drifted out onto the bitumen—had to quickly drift back in again. I had some major restitution to do with the shopkeepers, but I managed. Spent a lot of time picking up squashed ping pong balls, for a start.
So when Carine comes and sits down beside me, we watch the Chemical Conjurers in silence for a while. Today’s routine involves hydrogen peroxide mixed with potassium iodide. If you’re imaginative, it looks like there’s another robot, a third conjurer, with all the body movements of a balloon man swaying with the wind. Which is pretty much how I feel, and Carine, for once, seems to appreciate that. This is my chance, I know it, to get up to see Guerra. Just can’t quite seem to form the words to come up with something plausible.
“How you feeling, Brom?” she asks after a while.
“Fine,” I say. Which we both know isn’t completely true.
“Got time to come up to the High Track for a bit?” Which, despite the syntax, can’t strictly be viewed as a question.
“Sure,” I say. Yes, too good to be true, gift horse, etcetera, etcetera. But also beggars can’t be choosers. I text Mac, being a cryptic as I can, and then Carine and I walk up to staircase number 3, taking a path vaguely reminiscent of my Time Locked walk. The nauseous quotient is about equal, I have to say.
“Don’t dick around with him,” Carine offers once we’re past the guards at the bottom of the stairs. It takes me a while to formulate a suitable comeback: so long, in fact, that we are standing inside admin and I still haven’t said a thing. The same table off to the side, this time with various papers on it and, surprise, surprise, no Time Locked box. There’s a Tentie hanging around, same one as the other day, I’m fairly sure. It’s dithering, but essentially it’s hovering close to a cupboard in the back right-hand corner. No prizes for guessing what’s in there. We wait, not for long, but long enough. Eventually Guerra arrives. Carine disappears, and so, after a long, hard look from Guerra, does the Tentie.
“Remember that box you brought up for me the other day?” begins Guerra. No hellos, none really necessary.
I nod.
“Remember what I said it was?”
“Bait,” I reply. As nonchalantly as I’m able.
“Bait that hasn’t worked,” he remarks.
“Hasn’t been that long,” I say.
“Long enough,” says Guerra. There’s a pause in which neither of us appear to have anything to say. “You do a lot of work for me, Kern,” he says. “A lot of deliveries. And you’ve earned my trust.”
I nod, I smile, I realise he means almost the exact opposite.
“But, in the beginning, as a sensible precaution, I took the liberty of having you tracked. I can see where you go and when, Kern. That way, if there are complaints of non-delivery, I have evidence to back me up, I can accurately point the finger at the guilty party. So far, that hasn’t been you.”
This is no revelation; I’d already figured as much. Not sure if it’s my own person, my phone—the most likely culprit—or even traces from the parcels I carry, but it amounts to the same thing.
But I also know the tracking isn’t a hundred per cent reliable, that a lot of suspicious types, which for some reason includes many of Guerra’s customers, put up blocks around their home or business. I am reasonably sure that Mac’s true love is hiding out in a place that can’t be tracked. First sign was the kid at the entrance, second sign was the hardware clearly on display in the staircase. Of course, I can’t be sure. And, probably more to the point, my tracks would take me quite close to the door of that apartment building before they were blocked. Guerra could figure the rest out for himself.
I convey all of this in a shrug.
“So, Kern, seeing as how you and I both know where you go and, for the most part, what you do, I want to ask if you’ve come across anyone interesting of late. Anyone who possibly shouldn’t be here. Anyone with something to hide.”
“You already know all the secrets,” I tell Guerra. “The citizens of Barlewin, they’re not that interesting.”
Guerra walks over to the cupboard and opens the door. There is the Time Locked box. Not the only thing in the cupboard, but the thing I am trying hard not to notice. “It’s not the citizens I’m talking about.” He taps the plastic of the box. “Strange feeling,” he remarks. “There and not there. You want to move it for me, Kern?”
“I’m still feeling a little”—fucked up is what I want to say, but Guerra don’t take to that kind of language—“strange from the last time.”
“But you know what to do?” asks Guerra.
“Sure.”
I don’t advance any closer.
“The thing about alternate realities is they usually turn out to be immensely dissatisfying,” remarks Guerra.
Alternate Reality One: I refuse to move the box for Guerra. Black mark in Guerra’s eyes, black mark in Mac’s eyes. But probably redeemable. Well, possibly. But at least I haven’t linked with that bloody box.
Alternate Reality Two: I move the box. Gold star in Mac’s eyes. Not quite sure what in Guerra’s eyes. Why the fuck does he want me to move the box, anyway?
Green Jay and Crow Page 3