I wonder if there is a better spot to be, a spot the Trocarn would be more likely to congregate. And I just don’t know, but I think the marketplace will be better than here and so I start to walk, pulling the Crow with me. He mutters something—nothing polite, I don’t suppose—but he moves and that is all that matters.
I like being the one who is strong, though even that won’t last for much longer. Kolb and Lona have given me hope, but I could tell just by the way the other Crows looked at me that it will not be easy for me to survive. I suspect that there have been many times where I have died. And because of that, I must at least to try and find the Trocarn.
I have seen the Chemical Conjurers flicker up from time to time, and I am heading towards them. We will have to stop soon; the Crow will not be able to withstand this for long. But I make him walk the last few steps so that we’re right in the middle of the marketplace. I keep one hand on his arm as I tap at the phone with the other and we’re out of the Lock. The Crow doubles over and groans, no matter that we’re surrounded by people. But no-one seems to be watching us. The Chemical Conjurers have, of course, noticed us; they beckon us over. I point them out to the Crow, but he shakes his head so I leave him. I am not going so far that he won’t be able to find me, and I don’t think he’ll just up and leave.
They bend their bodies forward and then retract into themselves so that they are about my height. Their starred metal faces look closely at mine.
“How old are you?” asks one.
“Six weeks, perhaps eight. It was hard to tell when I was with Guerra.”
The other lifts my arm and looks at the scar under my skin. “How many?”
“Only three,” I say. “There wasn’t time for more.” The Conjurer takes something and places it over the scar. I can feel its soothing coolness seep into me. For a second I wonder if they have also betrayed me, but there is no drug fog.
“Do you know anything about the Trocarn?” I ask. “Where they could be?” It seems rude to ask so soon, but the robots will not mind.
“We have been searching,” says the other Conjurer. He is holding out his hand with its palm facing up. Right in the middle is one of Blue Jay’s dragonflies. I put my palm out and it flies to me. I recognise the straight body, the delicate wings, the large eyes. It makes me miss Blue Jay; it makes me want to cry.
“Then you know where they are?”
“It would be safer not to follow,” says the first Conjurer. But his voice seems far away and I see that they are lifting themselves back up to their normal height.
There is a loud crack and the dragonfly escapes from my hand and flies towards the Crow. I can hear people gasp and scream, but it is only the Chemical Conjurers and their tricks. There is something in the air, smoke, but I ignore it and focus only on the dragonfly. I run towards it, pushing through the people, not caring. And they are so scared they don’t notice me, they don’t make way for me as they usually might. The dragonfly has found the Crow. I am only a few steps away when I see its feet are on the phone. I have just enough time to grab onto his wrist before we are away.
Crow
THE BEST WAY of telling where I am is the graffiti. Depending on where Eva and the dragonfly drag me to, I take a look at the water tower. I take a look at the walls near the High Track. The less Eva/Olwin the better. I miss Ol’ Stick Man, and I’d even settle for that mangy bird with the chicks, but you take what you can get. And what we can get in this reality is a picture of something that is undeniably Tentie. No sign of the actual beings around, even though the dragonfly appears to think it’s done its job.
Personally I think I’ve accomplished sufficient Time Locked travel for one day and want to focus on getting something to eat. I’m hungry enough to risk waving my phone in the general direction of food and hoping it scans through. Failing that I’m hungry enough to try some other solutions, but I figure why not attempt a technological approach first?
The marketplace don’t really seem to exist in this Barlewin, though there’s a whole strip of shops lining the road. Bugger me if people don’t ride around on souped-up bicycles. I’ve even seen a few cars. Well, bubbles on wheels, but it’s a better car than I can lay claim to, so I can’t be laughing too loud.
We approach a shop with the enticing name of Amazing Grace Mini Mart. I figure if they’re true to their word, they’ll forgive some transgression, technological or otherwise. Eva has refused to come with me, though I doubt she’ll refuse to eat. Does she eat? I’m not completely up to date with the current state of her physiology.
The Amazing Grace Mini Mart is very bright inside, with aisles of packaged and canned food stuffs and cold stuff down the back. Same old. I grab a basket, casually pile some items into it and just as casually slip a few odds and ends into my pocket, just to be on the safe side. I grab a green-looking drink for Eva and a normal cola-type thing for me. Otherwise it’s biscuits-and-cheese-type stuff. We’ve got no way of heating anything up. Though I do find a pre-prepared salad. It’s old and wilted and probably still too healthy for my tastes, but I decide to make an effort, what with all this Time Locked travel shit.
I smile at the woman behind the counter. She’s not seen a salad in a while, I’d guess, but she’s a friendly sort with her hair piled up on top of her head. To counteract the heat, most probably.
“Hot today,” I say.
“Hot every day,” she says. “Rain’ll cool things down. There’s free slushies, if you want.”
Now that takes me back. It’s good to see some consistency over the realities. I wave the phone on my wrist in her general direction and it seems to work because she makes no comment and piles all of my goods in a not-quite-plastic bag. I decide to risk the slushie. “Can I take one for my friend?”
“Sure thing, hon,” she says.
As everyone knows, it’s hard to balance a bag of stuff and two slushies, but I manage. The heat of outside hits me hard after the cool gleam of the shop, but Eva’s found a spot with a bit of grass. Just about the right distance away from the big screen, which has made a semi-miraculous re-appearance. Not that there’s anything showing right now. Although there are other people out on the grass, and it’s possible they’re waiting for something to start. Which could be overly optimistic of them, considering the clouds building over in one corner of the sky.
I plonk myself down beside her. “Slushies!” I say, handing one to her.
She’s less enthusiastic than I’d hoped; I don’t suppose she has the same childhood memories as me. She presses the coolness of it against her face for a moment and then brings the cup down, looks at it and turns it slowly around.
“Or I got you this green drink. Look, I don’t know what you want. Take your pick.” I spread out my offerings on the grass. She’s impossible to please.
“Brom, have you looked at the cups?” she asks.
Why would I do that? They’re the same old slushie cups. Brightly coloured, probably not made out of quite the same earth-damaging plastic as they were in my childhood days, though it sure feels like it.
I take a good, long slurp as a reply of sorts, and then humour her by looking at the cup. There, on the side, and why the fuck didn’t I notice it before, is a Tentie. A pretty unevolved Tentie, or at least very close to the way they looked when they first arrived: its tentacles are up and waving, its beak is out and proud, and the cup is designed in such a way that the Tentie’s cloud is the colour of your slushie. It’s quite disturbing, really, but that don’t stop me from taking another slurp.
“At least we know they were here,” I say. “Maybe still are.”
“Have you seen anything like this before?” she asks. She’s almost embarrassed. It’s easy to forget that her experience of life only extends to a couple of months, and mostly fucked-up months at that.
“Haven’t had a slushie since I was a kid,” I say.
“So, last week, then,” she says. It’s almost a joke, and I’m slightly proud of her.
“Don’t think
there were any Tenties on the cups in our Barlewin,” I say.
“It’s not just Barlewin,” she says. And she has a point there. It’s not like anyone in Barlewin’s making this kind of shit; it’s not artisanal. It implies a whole-country involvement, probably a whole-planet involvement.
“We have to find them,” she adds. I’m not sure whether she’s talking to herself or to me.
I look around at the people gathered out here on the grass. It’s just people, no Tenties, not even any slightly unpredictable robots. And no humants. At least not that I can see; but it’s not like they advertise.
“We can’t just wander around looking,” I say.
“No,” says Eva. “We need to go up to the High Track.”
I take a particularly long, loud slurp. “Why?”
“Because that seems the obvious place,” she says. She’s not drinking her slushie, but she has started on her green drink. I’ve pretty much stuffed myself full of cheese and biscuits, but I could take more. The dragonfly’s landed on top of the salad in a rather obvious let’s-try-and-blend-in move.
“Do you want it?” I ask, nodding at her slushie. She hands it to me with an air of complete distraction. “If we’re going to go, we need to go before it rains,” I say, more to show willing than anything else. There’s no way I think going up to the High Track is a sensible idea.
Eva finishes her drink and gathers up all her rubbish and puts it the Amazing Grace Mini Mart bag. It’s getting dark fast, and quite frankly, we need to go somewhere that will keep us dry. And that’s not the High Track. Most people around us are making a move, packing up their stuff, getting back to the safety of home.
“Come on,” says Eva.
But almost as she speaks, there’s a loud crack of thunder and huge drops of rain are falling. We run, both of us deciding that under the water tower is the safest bet.
But then someone pulls at my arm. “It’s not safe.”
The man’s wearing a tentacle T-shirt and orange sunnies. I’d be inclined to ignore his advice, but the evidence is right in front of me: the water tower’s a mess. It’s still standing, but one side looks as if someone unexpectedly set off a reasonably devastating homemade bomb. The roof is very obviously sinking in. The only option now seems to be the underneath of the High Track, far too close to Eva’s obsession for my liking, but still, beggars and all that. We change direction mid-stride.
Our new friend sticks with us. We’re under the High Track’s protection, but we’re all fucking wet and I can see him giving Eva the eye. I don’t exactly blame him, but I don’t exactly care for it either; especially as she’s not looking so good. Time Locked travel is one thing, but running in the rain appears to be another. She leans against one of the posts and closes her eyes. The dragonfly’s in her hair and the man sees it and stretches out his hand to touch it. So, of course, I knock the hand away and then it’s on for young and old.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Green Jay
THE NAME OF the man wearing the Tentacle T-shirt is Reen. Which makes the Crow laugh, even though he probably shouldn’t, because he’s sitting on the ground gasping for breath. Which is entirely his fault. It’s all been explained, everyone has apologised, but I can see the Crow would do it all again given even the smallest of chances. Right now he seems mostly upset that his drink is ruined, though how he could have expected it to last through the rain I don’t know.
I ask Reen about his T-shirt, partly to make up for the Crow’s behaviour but mostly to see if there’s anything we can learn about the Trocarn. Reen is sitting down too, not breathing quite as hard as the Crow. “Oh,” he says, “I’m a supporter, you know. Do what I can.”
“A supporter of what?” asks the Crow, which is a question I would also like to ask, although I would have taken a different approach.
“You know, of the Trocarn. We miss them around here, would like to get them back.”
“And that’s a sentiment shared by the majority of people?” asks the Crow.
“You know, you look familiar.” Reen is talking to me, ignoring the Crow, which is usually wise. “But you’re not from around here, are you?”
“No,” I say. And that is as true as it can be. Of course, it is possible that there is someone like me here. Having met the other versions of the Crow, I know it is possible. But the fact that the dragonfly led us here makes me think that I have never existed in this world. We’ve not seen any green goddess graffiti, though we’ve not really been here long enough to explore properly.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” says the Crow. He’s teasing Reen, of course, but I realise he’s partly spoken to break the silence.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m a little tired.” I wish that T-Lily was here, even Rose-Q, but these are not thoughts I should hold on to.
“You look like you need a place to stay,” says Reen.
“No, we’re fine, just didn’t expect it to rain,” says the Crow before I have a chance to speak. He is right, of course. We cannot go with this man.
“Won’t last for much longer,” says Reen. I hope he is right, though the rain truly shows no sign of letting up. It’s impossible to see out to the marketplace, because of the water sheeting down from the edges of the High Track.
“Take us to see them,” I say. The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
Reen and the Crow both stare at me.
“Take us to see the Trocarn,” I ask.
“No,” says the Crow, but Reen agrees at the same moment and the Crow has no choice but to follow.
Crow
AS IT TURNS out, all of Reen’s talk was so much shit. We’re doing nothing we couldn’t have done ourselves and, quite frankly, exactly what we were just about to do: that is, climbing staircase number 3. The only difference is that we now have his dubious company. Given the similarities to his other-reality namesake I feel like I should be running in the other direction. Reen, Carine... a friendlier approach does not mean we really had a choice.
Nevertheless, we’re trudging up the metal rungs, sending drops of water flying and of course, me being the final party, I’m getting my jeans wet all over again. Eva appears to be handling the stairs just fine; I’m not completely convinced her fainting spells aren’t largely attention-seeking. Or this one seems to have been, anyway. The clouds have gone, but by now it’s evening so it’s still dark. The High Track’s lit up in a softly glowing fairy-light kind of way that don’t do much for visibility on the stairs.
“Mind the puddle,” says Reen at the top of the staircase. Eva politely steps around, but I stomp right into it to splash him. Which is just plain childish, but there you have it.
Then, unexpectedly, we turn to the right, away from admin—or where admin would be if we were in our true and rightful place—and walk towards the place I’d had the talk with the Barleycorn King and Eila. Of course, there’s no sign of them. In fact, there’s no sign of anyone, though admittedly it’s only just stopped raining.
“Happy now?” I say to Eva.
“Look around, Brom, it’s beautiful,” she says.
She’s right, of course, though I’m in no mood. We walk in silence through the High Track. They’ve got some of that tickly grass here. Which reminds me again of the Barleycorn King. I don’t know why I’m so anxious to see him.
We reach a part of the High Track I’ve never been. At this rate I’ll have made the complete circuit, albeit in different realities. That’s disappointingly touristy of me. I’m half expecting a convenient bench, but Reen stops, as far as I can see, in the middle of nowhere. He grabs Eva’s hand and she lets him hold it.
“It takes a while,” he says. “You need to let you eyes adjust, watch until you see it.”
There’s not much light in this part of the High Track, so for a while we’re standing in the near-dark looking at, well, nothing. The rest of the city stretches out. Lights have come on, but there’s still enough daylight to make out shapes. The sky’s that de
ep blue colour that makes me a wistful fool. A fool who could almost believe this could turn out alright.
“Oh,” gasps Eva, and I’m glad to see she’s taken her hand out of Reen’s grasp.
And then I see it too.
It’s a shimmer in the air, nothing more. It looks like a dome at first, and then inside there are shapes. Some moving around, some still. Shapes of what, I can’t say. Some creature, some obviously living creature, but the name of such a creature does not immediately come to mind. Not even the Tenties look like this.
“This is the Trocarn,” says Reen.
“What have they become?” asks Eva.
“They’ve adapted.”
“So they’re still Time Locked here?” I ask. Just to clarify, because that’s sure not the message Eva’s friends Kolb and Lona were spinning.
Reen remains silent.
“That’s all of them?” I ask, ’cause I’d like to get some information out of him.
“No,” says Reen. “Of course not, just the Trocarn from this area. But we believe they are able to fuse their bodies as well as adapt them. So the exact number of individual Trocarn may be different.”
“That’s true,” says Eva. “That’s how they travelled here.”
I can’t tell if she’s okay with this or not. Right now she seems to be marvelling. But I’d thought the whole point was to get them out of this mess, not observe them in it.
“Are they happy?” she asks.
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