They’ve never met, Olwin Duilis and Eva. That’s an odd thought. I look at Mac, and he’s got no idea what to do. Although it’s obvious he’d like to grab that ninja pole from Carine and get Eva out of here. Shit, that’s what I want to do, and I’m not in love with her.
Eva holds out her hand. Olwin laughs, a bitter, sad sound, almost a sob, almost a cry of derision. But then she takes the hand, grips it fiercely.
“I’m Eva.” Her voice is unsteady, but it’s clearly her own. They may look the same, but their voices are different.
“Eva,” says Olwin, and a sound escapes her, more the sound of a wounded animal than anything else. She stretches out her other hand towards Carine, never taking her eyes off Eva. Carine hands her the ninja pole in an act of mind reading I hadn’t thought was within her capabilities. Eva’s still holding Olwin’s hand, but she seems a deal less sure of the arrangement. Presumably she’s not keen on heading into alternate realities with Olwin Duilis. Who could blame her? But it’s Olwin who lets go of Eva’s hand. She grips the ninja pole and twirls it around, up and over her head. Mac takes a step forward, hand outstretched, but he hesitates, and in that hesitation the pole comes down, completes the circle, and Olwin Duilis disappears.
Eva looks at Mac. I’m not sure I’d want to be the recipient of that look, and then she leaves too, turning back inside admin.
And then everyone reacts. Carine grabs Mac. Which is altogether too late, but I guess she feels the need to do something, maybe because Guerra has materialised from wherever he’s been hiding. Rose-Q runs back inside, and almost immediately runs back outside. A stream of yellow cloud follows her. Eva and Aleris are nowhere to be seen. If Tal’s still inside, he might help them. Although he’s more medical–emergency-help than fighting machine.
And then there’s a crack. The kind of sound that makes you think the air has been torn in two. Followed by the jangle of falling concrete. The ground we’re standing on moves around, settles. I fall onto my knees, and I’m blaming my dodgy leg for that. Carine falls too, and Mac uses the moment to wrench himself out of her grip.
“Fuck,” says Guerra. His voice is controlled enough that I spare a moment to admire his calm. But then I see what all the fuss is about. Right where staircase number 3 used to be is a whopping great hole. Luckily for us, this section of the High Track is resting on top of one of the support poles, but the other side isn’t faring so well. Bits of the platform seem to be weighing their options, deciding they have none, and then dropping down into the gap.
When most of the debris has found its rightful place, a head appears. A large robot head with engraved stars. Oscar. At least I think it is.
“Sorry about that,” he says.
And the sight is so extraordinary, so completely wrong, that Mac and I start laughing.
For a moment, that’s all there is. The sounds of the night, the echoes of settling rubble, and the two of us laughing our heads off.
But nothing good lasts for long.“Get the fuck out!” yells Guerra. “Just—get the fuck out, and take that bloody Olwin Duilis with you, and all her bloody little doubles, and—fuck! Fuck.” He’s sitting down, covered in dust. Carine comes over, tries to give him a hand up, but he swipes her away.
We don’t need any more encouragement. It’s hard to walk because my leg’s even more buggered and also we’re still laughing quite hard. But we make it over to Oscar, who grabs us and brings us back down to earth with relative gentleness. In fact, he transports us all the way over to the grass by the water tower, a place where we can survey the damage at our leisure.
We watch some under-dwellers emerging. Apparently unscathed, but frankly there’s no loss if that isn’t the case.
“Don’t tell me, you made a larger pole,” says Mac.
“Yes. It needs some work.” Oscar makes a noise that could be amusement, could be a robot snort. The thought that this may all have been a complete accident don’t completely sit true, but I’m willing to go along with it if Mac is.
“What about Eva?” I ask, surprising even myself.
“I’ll get her,” says Oscar. And somehow that’s funny too and Mac and I lie on the ground laughing until we’re fit to puke.
CHAPTER FORTY
Green Jay
I’M WITH ALERIS in my old room when I hear the world split in two. I see that I am shaking, but I feel as if I am watching myself from the outside. Aleris is sitting on the bed, completely still, as dust falls down on us both. I don’t know if we are safe inside, but I cannot think of another place to go.
“That was her,” says Aleris. “The first one.”
“Yes.” I can’t think of anything else to tell her.
But then, I think of everything: T-Lily, the way the Trocarn came through space. The way Rose-Q saved me in the end. I even tell her about the other Evas, the ones who died. The ones who lay in the shed and were sent to the stars. I hope that she will not join them. But I tell her about the future, about Kolb and Lona.
It takes so long that neither of us notice that the world has stopped shaking.
“I will stay,” says Aleris.
“No,” I say, because it seems so wrong. “Olwin has gone. You’ll have no protection.”
“She has me,” says Rose-Q. I’d forgotten she was there. She looks singed. Her tentacles are flat to her head, and it makes her seem defeated and lost. But that isn’t so.
“But Guerra…”
“Guerra won’t hurt me,” says Aleris. “But I don’t mean to stay here, I mean stay in this world.”
“You could live in the greenhouse,” I suggest.
“I would like to visit,” says Aleris. And I realise that I must leave her to find her own life.
I take her hand, because I don’t know what else to say. I would wish her a long life, but I’m not sure this can be. Even now I can see the signs of deterioration, a wilting of the skin. But she leans back into Rose-Q and I know that she will be as cared for as she can be.
Tal is still in the corner. I had assumed he had lost function, but he moves now, stretching up into his tall form. “Your chariot awaits,” he says. He is as obscure as the Crow sometimes.
“Do you mean you, Tal?” I ask.
“No, I am not the chariot. I believe you call them the Chemical Conjurers. One of them is here for you.”
I kiss Aleris on her forehead, and she smiles at me. I follow Tal out of the room, through the corridors of Guerra’s building and into the sunshine. I can see the great hole in the High Track. But there is one of the Chemical Conjurers, standing taller than I have ever seen him, so that his head is sticking up through the hole. There is no-one else in sight.
We walk towards him, Tal and me. Any minute I expect to slide away, the High Track collapsing further, but the ground is solid and I reach my chariot without damage.
“I will take care of her,” says Tal.
And now I know that Aleris will be safe. Not only because Tal will keep her as well as he can, but because she and Rose-Q can escape if needs be. But Tal already understands that, I think. He has already thought this through. “Shall I tell Brom?” I ask.
“Thank you,” he says. I would hug him if I could. I remember the way he carried T-Lily, the way he cared for Blue Jay. I extend my hand and he takes it and shakes it gently. And then, without warning I am borne up in the air by larger robot hands, lifted up and out of the High Track and deposited on the grass by the water tower.
The Crow and Blue Jay are there, lying on the ground, and as soon as they see me they start laughing. Normally I would be cross with the Crow, but I don’t care. It makes me feel like laughing too.
Crow
NOW THAT EVA’S here, the fun’s pretty much over. She and Mac are more cautious around each other than I’d expected. At least there’s no lovey-dovey to contend with.
“What will you do now that Olwin’s stolen your ninja pole?” I ask.
Mac shrugs. “Make another one?”
I nod my head at the wrecked H
igh Track. “After that.”
“Maybe some extra safety features,” says Mac. I can already see him itching to get back into the water tower, start work on modifications.
“The time nets are still looking,” says Eva. “Olwin Duilis never turned them off.”
“Yeah but now they’ll be after her,” I say.
And that thought makes me sadder than I expected, though not completely. Serves her right and all that. “Will she survive, do you think?” On the one hand I’m probably asking the wrong people; on the other hand, who the fuck else would know?
“Yes,” says Eva.
“No,” says Mac.
They look at each other and smile. Of course they do. There’s nothing like complications and contradictions to make them long for each other. My money’s on Olwin Duilis. She’s a tough lady in a metal cage and not one to jump to her own death. Plus she’s got the dragonfly, which, admittedly, is more of a good luck charm, but it knows a thing or two about travelling between realities.
“But what will you do, Brom?” asks Eva.
“Free the Tenties,” I say. I can see Eva’s downright surprised, but it seems fair enough. It gives me a goal. It won’t be as easy as the other time, especially as they’ll figure out I’m coming pretty soon. And I dare say most places have better security than Guerra. Yes, theoretically the Tenties could free themselves; but hell, they’re not going to, are they? Maybe they injected something altruistic into me via the tendril, maybe I figure I owe them.
That said, I’m confining myself to this reality, and this reality only.
“Tal’s going to stay with Aleris,” says Eva.
“Fair enough.” Though I can’t say I’m not disappointed.
“Maybe Felix and Oscar will help out,” says Mac. And that’s a thought. Me travelling the world with my two giant robot companions. That’s a thought I like a lot.
Eva and Mac retreat into the water tower, but I lie on the grass for a little while longer. I don’t expect to see much of them. I don’t really expect them to stay in this reality either, time nets or no. I wonder what Guerra will do now. Whether he’ll stay up on the High Track, or give it back to the government now it’s wrecked. Could go either way.
But then hunger takes over, as it usually does, and I’m back in the marketplace, looking for food. Not that I’ve got any dosh. I have a brief yearning for my lost future phone and its tap-and-go credit, but I figure I can persuade somebody out of something. That’s my gift, after all.
Somebody’s pumping some music into the air. Nothing as good as the concert up on the bicycle High Track, but it’s happiness-making. Maybe it’s a celebration of Guerra’s downfall. Who knows? I can see a few brave souls with ladders and climbing gear heading up and over the High Track’s railings. I wish them luck.
I watch as Felix pours what looks like a glass of water onto a tray. Instead of just making a mess, as you’d expect, he’s sculpting what appear to be ice towers. “Sodium Acetate,” he tells me. Not that I particularly care. Oscar, meanwhile, is tossing jelly snakes into a large test tube and watching them dance around in the violet flames. They’ve both collapsed their bodies so that they’re not quite so robokiller, destroyers of large structures, but given their role in the High Track collapse, they seem remarkably unphased. Well, they’re always unphased; they’re robots, after all. And they’ve an audience who don’t particularly seem to care that the Chemical Conjurers, aka Felix and Oscar, were recently seen demolishing part of the city.
I sit on the kerb and watch them for a while. A kebab seems to have found its way into my hand, and I munch on it and watch the show. The Chemical Conjurers keep up an educational patter, but I let most of it wash over me. There’s rainbow fire which is somehow associated with metal salts and then later a crowd favourite—elephant toothpaste—which is foamy and messy and fun and hotter than you’d expect. I watch them and I think about ways I might persuade them to come with me on my Tentie rescue jaunt.
Maybe they’ll come with, maybe they won’t. I’ll have to wait and see.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
HEARTFELT THANKS TO David Moore for his judicious editing. Michael Foster gave me some unexpected encouragement along the way. But, most especially, thanks are due to my family. Amina was brave enough to read an early draft. And while Albert and Rehana probably had no idea what I was writing, they believed in it anyway. I am grateful for you all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DJ Daniels is an Australian author and musician. She writes when she manages to get her husband and two daughters out of the house and during lulls in the ongoing dog-lizard war. (Lizards are well ahead.) Her first novel, What the Dead Said, was followed by a raft of short stories which have appeared in publications such as Aurealis, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, and So It Goes. She was a judge for the 2012 Aurealis Awards and is one of the Sydney Story Factory’s Ambassadors of Ink.
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