“You need to let her wake up,” I say. “You need to at least let her decide for herself.”
“There is something we need to show her,” they say.
So now they’re claiming to be inside her mind, which, impressive as this Time Locked dome is, is a bit of a stretch.
“It won’t be long, Brom.” This comes, not from Kolb and Lona, who I notice are gradually beginning to lose their shape, but from another voice off to the side. It’s disconcertingly familiar, though I can’t quite place it.
“T-Lily,” she says.
“Of course. Hi.” And I recognise her now.
T-Lily performs that Tentie smile which is so disconcerting, with the beak and all.
“You’re coming with?” I ask.
“Yes, Brom.”
“Good,” I say. Which is true. This is, after all, what I asked for.
“And Eva?”
“It is up to her.” Which I hope means T-Lily is a little more flexible than Kolb and Lona, but is not exactly a ‘yes.’
There’s a flash of light outside, the brightest I’ve ever seen, eye-hurting bright. “Will this hold?” I ask T-Lily. But I see she’s already joined herself to Eva and me. There’s a scrap of tendril around my wrist like a bracelet. I want to flick it away, but T-lily’s holding my other arm. The tendril seems particularly persistent. I’d really like to get rid of it, but I don’t have time. T-Lily’s walking us swiftly through the dome. She’d be running if Eva wasn’t so out of it.
The tendrils and other assorted shapes fall away from us, until we’re right on the edge of the dome. The outside world is still no clearer, but I can see a shimmer in the air like heat haze. T-Lily stops, and gathers Eva even more tightly to her. She’s still hanging on to my arm, but it seems pretty obvious who’s going to get the bulk of attention if any difficulties arise.
“Ready, Brom?” she asks.
“Yeah—” I begin, but T-Lily’s obviously taken it as a given because we’re already stepping through the dome into the outside world. This time it hurts. It can’t take more than a fraction of a second, but it feels as if I’m being torn in two. Slowly. The outside world is bright, like artificial lights.
I hear T-Lily say something, but I don’t know what it is. I can see she’s released a cloud of murky green, a colour I’ve never seen before.
We’re right on the edge of the High Track, almost up against the railing, and I see that there are metal locks on the edge here, too. For all the good they did. There’s a flash of something and I feel T-Lily pull at me. She’s trying to get us away and into the dark, but the lights have found us and they’re not letting us go. This is worse than coming out of the dome. Needles of pain shoot through my whole body, as if the light had found my nervous system and had decided to examine the limits of its resistance. I want to ask T-Lily if this is it, if we’re caught, but she shakes her head. And despite it all I still find the movement of her tentacles slightly creepy.
We can walk. I’m not sure that this is anything more than the movement of dying fish in the net, but we’re walking anyway. T-Lily’s dragged us to the railing, and she has to let me go to climb up and over. I help her with Eva. T-Lily stands on the outside ledge between the railing and the very edge of the High Track. It’s just big enough. She’s holding Eva in her arms now. She turns, to tell me something, or to see if I’m going to follow, but then the light gets stronger and I feel a booming. Feel rather than hear, as if my body and my feet know it. My internal organs.
T-Lily jumps. I scramble over the railing, I rest my feet on the ledge, still with one hand on the rails. There’s no point looking down. There’s nowhere else to go. So I jump too.
I’M REASONABLY SURE I blacked out for a while, and, to be frank, that was a better state than the one I’m in now. The High Track’s only a few stories high and, if anything, I should probably have smashed into the ground long ago. Instead, my spine is on fire, there are barbs of pain up and down my arms and leg, and the tendril on my wrist is digging into my skin. There’s no doubt that a time net is trying to pull me up; what I’d like to know is what’s trying to pull me down. Oh, yes. Gravity. I look at the tendril. Either the Tenties have turned nasty or it’s trying to do something helpful to my body. God knows what. If it’s a choice between death and being turned into a Tentie, I’m not sure which I’d choose.
Who am I kidding? I’d choose survival any time. But God I hope it don’t have to come to that. I dig at the tendril to see if I can persuade it not to dig into me. It winds its way around the tip of my finger. It’s still attached to my wrist, and I can see the skin is red and raw. Shit. I think about all the Tentie-lovers way back when they first showed up. The way their skin became scaly and itchy. The way we all laughed at them. And now it’s me.
A blast of pain lances through me. I hear a scream and I know it’s me, but my brain’s processing it as someone else. Someone who should have known better and now has no fucking idea what to do. The pain subsides a little, just in time for the tendril to go back to its work of infiltrating my skin. I dig at it, furious. It won’t save me, but it’s the only thing I can do. Though it’s got itself under the phone now, hiding. I’d forgotten about the phone. I imagine myself making an emergency call to Mac, or even that crazy Eila. Help, I’d say. I’m stuck in a time net being dragged apart in at least two directions; what do you suggest I do?
I peel away the edge of the phone. I figure I’ll take it off, flick it out, put it in my pocket and address the question of the tendril. The phone comes off in a rush, and even that hurts now: I feel something like electricity in my fingers, trying to dig through, take a hold of the thing. So I let it go. Which is a remarkably stupid thing to do, given that it’s my sole contact with anybody in this reality or the next. But I’m glad. Because I can feel the electric net that used to be my spine and nervous system leave my body to chase the phone. Goodbye, I say. Which, again, is ill-advised seeing as I’m trying to pretend not to be here. But I seem to have become slightly addled. Who cares? I’m finally completing the rest of the journey down from the High Track. Addled or no, I’m about to hit the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Green Jay
WHEN I WAKE up, the first thing I see is a large blue jay looking down at me. Not the real Blue Jay, but a bird and even then only a picture. It makes me both happy and sad at the same time. He is looking after me, but he is not here. I don’t even know where here is any more. I don’t know where I am. I try and sit up, but it hurts too much to move. I can feel cold, hard concrete underneath me. I seem to be on a landing at the top of a short flight of stairs.
“Where are you?” I ask the blue jay.
“Here,” says T-Lily, and of course I do not tell her that the question was not directed at her. She is sitting behind me, or at least that is where her voice is coming from. I try to twist up and around to see her, but she puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “We have lost him,” she says.
The Crow can take care of himself, I think. But I say nothing.
“He helped save you,” says T-Lily.
“Do you think he is dead?” I ask. I don’t want him dead. He followed me into the dome, after all. He is Blue Jay’s friend.
“It is impossible to know. He is more likely caught by the nets.”
“Then he is back with Guerra.”
“Perhaps.” T-Lily’s voice is soft. She smells different from usual, though she has only just come back to this form. I don’t imagine I smell that pleasant either, though I am too tired to care.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Somewhere we can be found,” she replies. “Rest now. We are safe.”
We are completely out in the open, and I wonder that T-Lily has allowed this. But I trust her. She has released a cloud of blue-green mist. Turquoise. It swirls around us and then down the stairs. She is resting her arm on the back of my neck and my shoulder and I can feel her releasing chemicals into my body. I let myself drown in them for a while. I
bring my hand up to hers to tell her thank you, and I see that there is still a tendril on my wrist. It has fastened itself to my skin so that is has almost become part of me. I don’t mind. They have done so much for me, the Trocarn, I am glad to have a little part of them.
I think of myself lying on the bench in the shed. Lying in the dark with no-one around. I would much rather die here with T-Lily. Out in the sun with the picture of a blue jay looking down over me. The little dragonfly is still here. I can feel it buzz around my head. I close my eyes and let the drugs wash over me.
Crow
RIGHT NOW I’M lying on a bed and the world around me looks all gleam and high-tech. Not that I’ve examined much of it. Just an ‘open my eyes, take a quick peek, close them again’ type of thing. I have no idea where I am. I have memories of someone injecting me with what looked like a big-arse needle. Right into my leg. A leg I can’t move right now, incidentally.
The fall wasn’t that far, as it turned out. Or maybe it was and I just fell fast. Don’t know. I made an attempt at that curl-up-and-roll shit. All very stunt professional, until I caught my leg on some sharp metal thing sticking up unexpectedly which naturally ripped it to shreds. And then it just fucking hurt. I don’t know how long it took, but eventually there was fuss and what not. I seem to remember drones. The kind of ones that used to bring the Chemical Conjurers’ parcels. Could be I was just imagining that.
There’s nobody here in this room with me. It’s big enough. Other beds, nobody in them. The door is this strange black thing that looks like two pieces of rubber. I’ve seen it open a few times: it slides to the side and the two pieces roll up and around. It’s weird shit, but it’s fun to watch. Unfortunately there’s not much door action. No-one’s much interested in the state of my health, it seems.
Which is not to say I’ve not been cared for. There’s a drip in my wrist, handily inserted under the Tenties’ tendril, which seems to have irretrievably attached itself to my wrist. I’m feeling fine, though it’s the kind of fine that you know will stop just as soon as the drugs wear off. And I’ve not really tried moving, except to note that my left leg is quite determined to just stay put, thank you very much.
There’s a shitload of bandages around it, so it’s hard to know what the damage is. The memory of the metal spike resurfaces and I try not to dwell.
I close my eyes, but then I hear the door doing its thing. It’s a swishing sound, very distinctive. I’m expecting the usual robot thing to emerge. So far I have not seen a living person in this building, not that I’ve been paying much attention. But it’s not a robot. It’s a completely human being of the male persuasion. And I recognise the face: Mac.
I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life.
I pull myself up as far as I’m able; which, to be honest, is not that far. Mac walks over and gives me a swift hug, which hurts like hell. Then he sits down on the black chair conveniently placed beside the bed. We grin at each other like idiots for a while.
“How’d you find me?” I ask.
Mac spreads his hands. “Long story.”
“I’ve got the time.”
“Tracked the phone, used the drones when that fell through.” So I was right about the drones. “I’m glad you didn’t get caught in the time nets, Brom. I tried to stop it. Tried and failed. Sorry.”
“Wouldn’t have thought you’d have much of a say about what was going on.”
“I promised to bring them Eva.” He says it with a grin, so I know it’s a trick, all part of a cunning plan, but there’s something about his voice I’m not sure of.
“Have you found her too?”
Mac looks down at his hands for a moment. “Not yet.” Much as I’m glad to see Mac and all, there’s something about this that makes me glad that Eva and I got separated. Which makes no sense. I mean, I should be handing her back to him, all thank-God-the-lovers-reunited. I trust Mac completely, even with my life. So why this feeling?
“How’d you do it?” I ask. “How’d you slip through to different places?”
“I worked on something with that glove you showed me. And the Chemical Conjurers helped. They send their drones around all the time.”
“But you’re the real you?” I ask. And because Mac gives me the look I’d give myself if I’d been him, I say, “I mean, I’ve met versions of me. Older. One super old. But, they’re… not me. So it’s possible you’re not really Mac.”
“It’s me, Brom. There’s not as many of us out there as you’d like to think.”
“Yeah, but there’s some.” And then an unwelcome thought. “How many Guerras are there, Mac? All with time nets?”
“I don’t know, Brom. I seriously doubt that you and Eva are the main concern of all the versions of Guerra that exist.”
I think about telling Mac about the Barleycorn King, with his artificial companion. Seemed like an alternate version of Guerra to me, albeit one that had gone a little mad. “What’s with the time nets, anyway?”
“There has to be some way of retrieving Time Locked parcels that have gone astray,” says Mac. “That’s all they are. They weren’t really designed to look for people.” He looks kinda tired, Mac does. But then I don’t imagine I’m at my best either. “Brom. I’m sorry. I really am. This has all got complicated and messy and, look, I don’t know if I can make it up to you. But I’m asking you to go back.”
“I’m not going anywhere for a while,” I tell him. Which is stalling, ‘tis true, but also a matter of fact.
Mac sits forward and runs his thumb along the surface of the chair. It’s a black rubber thing that kind of matches the door. But what I really notice is the blue dot on his thumb. There’s a whole past to Mac I don’t know anything about, never wanted to know anything about. I wonder if it’s catching up with him. But, after not too much reflection, I realise I don’t care. I trust him. He went to all the trouble of finding me, after all. And he’s a friend, for better or for worse. (And it can’t get much worse than this, can it?)
“What do you need me to do?” I ask.
“She’s there,” he says. “I mean Olwin Duilis. The person, you know…” I understand he don’t want to say she’s the original person, Eva’s creator, so I nod. “She’s not who you think she is, Brom. But Eva doesn’t want to see her. I understand... But if you went back instead? Maybe that would be enough.”
“I doubt she’s going to be satisfied with me instead of Eva.”
“But you could explain. Tell her about Eva, and the way she’s been living, and…”
“There’s a shitload of things I could tell her, Mac. I don’t think she’d be interested in any of them.”
“Maybe not,” says Mac. He’s back to tracing something onto the chair again. But it’s a crap plan and he’s got to know it.
“What about Guerra? Maybe he can talk her around?” Which is also a crap plan, but possibly a more likely one.
“Guerra’s got nothing to offer her,” says Mac.
I want to tell him about the Tenties and Guerra’s role in their exile, but now don’t seem the time. With the older Guerra, you could put a spin on it, make him feel guilty. I doubt the current Guerra’s got quite to that stage yet.
“What does she want? This Olwin Duilis. I mean, apart from wanting to see Eva? What’s it all about?”
“She grew up in Barlewin,” says Mac. “I don’t know, it’s all mixed up, all sentimental. It was never meant to happen like this.” He pulls himself upright, looks at me straight for the first time. “She wants to see what she’d be like if she got to live a normal life,” he says.
“Eva’s living a normal life?”
“More so than Olwin,” says Mac.
“Then we show her that,” I say. I grin, and Mac’s fool enough to grin back at my non-plan. And then someone else comes through the door; this time, as expected, a being of the artificial variety. The kind of metal-and-plastic construct that seems so much easier to deal with than biological doubles and creatures that can m
imic different looks and insert their tendrils into your arm. The robot comes over and does all its monitoring and checking. It also does something with my pain medication that makes me sink back into the sheets. I wave feebly at Mac. Enough’s enough for now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Green Jay
THERE’S SOMEONE SITTING on the landing beside me. At first I think it is T-Lily, but the feeling is different. Someone warmer, hairier. It is a dream, I am sure. A dream that Blue Jay is with me. Only because of the picture on the wall and because I am letting myself drift. I am dying; why not imagine the life I dreamt I could have? It is the only way it can come true.
But then he speaks and I know that it is not a dream. I hurt too much for it to be a dream. He swims in and out of focus. His hair is too long and he looks grey and worn, but it is him. Blue Jay. Perhaps he has come too late, but he is here.
The dragonfly is buzzing around his wrist. He brings out something small—a piece of plastic, it looks like, but I’m sure it’s more than that—and it settles. Feeding. Communicating.
“Where is T-Lily?” I ask.
“She’s gone,” says Mac. At first I thought he meant she wasn’t there, that she’d gone to look for food or shelter, but he looks over and I see her body collapsed onto the landing. She is still sitting with her back to the wall, but her head is bowed and her tentacles are dark and flaccid. Something is oozing out from her side.
“We jumped,” I say. “We had to.”
“The time nets, I know,” says Blue Jay.
“Will they hurt the other Trocarn?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not…”
“Not now we are gone.”
“I found Brom. He’s okay. His leg is pretty bad. But he landed in a good place, I mean a high-tech kind of place, and they should be able to help.”
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