Split Infinity (28 page)

Her hand is lying on top of the sheet near me and only now I realise her fingers are formed into a stiff claw. I lift it up, examine the shape and cradle it in my hands, pressing gently to straighten them, to fix her.

‘But you’re getting treatment.’ My voice comes out like a whine.

‘The best there is. For a while now, thanks to your extra credits. I have nanobots inside me, at the nerve endings. By imi … tating nerve signals, they’ve delayed onset by years. I’m alive today, Scout, because of that chip.’

Stiffly, she pulls her hand back from mine and glances again at the door as if she’s not used to having Jorge in another room. As if he’s her safety net.

That should be me
, I want to say.
I’m here now, I can help
. It’s chased by the clash of thoughts that comes after a long jump, everything suddenly stretched out and warped. In Mum’s world, I haven’t lived with her for ten years, apart from the occasional visit. For me, it’s been a blink of an eye.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I ask. This is the reason she was saving energy credits, I realise. Not because she wanted to move into a bigger room, but so she could pay the high costs of treatment.

‘I knew you’d worry … didn’t want you to change your life for me. It’s only in the last … year that I’ve needed palliative care. I moved … here a couple of months after your last visit. But Scout, I want you to know … I’m okay.’

She’s not okay, nothing about this is okay, but before I can speak she reaches out and brushes the back of my hand. ‘I mean it, Scout. I’m … all right. It was because of this disease I met Jorge. I know this is diff … icult for you to understand, but I’m … grateful for the time I’ve had with him.’

I can see the truth in her eyes, even as her words stumble and slur. She’s lying here in front of me, frail and twisted, but I’ve never seen her so at peace.

Mum keeps talking for a while, about transferring our room registration to my name, ways to manage the chip that will be mine again, sometime. She’s thought of everything, planning for a future she’ll never see.

‘So, what happens now?’ I ask.

‘We don’t really know … this treatment is cutting-edge. Some days are good, but others … Well, I have no way of knowing how much time I have left.’

No way of knowing
… It’s the emptiness of the tunnel, an uncertain future all over again. But she’s doing it, facing the unknown the way she always has. Not with time skipping but by holding on to hope, trusting in each new day.

Her eyes lift to find mine, somehow hopeful and sad at the same time. ‘I want you to know … I’m proud of you, sweet … heart,’ Mum says gently. ‘Every step of the way. Never forget … how much I love you.’

‘I …
Mum
, I love you too.’ But my whole being pushes against the words. It’s like she’s saying goodbye …

The door pings and Jorge appears, pushing a food trolley. I slip off the bed and stand up in a daze; my whole world has been transformed.

‘Soup okay?’ Jorge holds out a bowl with a clip-on lid for me. ‘Curried lentil.’

Mum’s favourite. I take the bowl with a nod and turn to her as a table folds out over the bed. Jorge places a matching bowl on top for Mum.

He heads out the door again as I position my bowl on the bedtable. ‘Here, have both.’ I can find food some other way – we have a bunch of vac packs already stored in our room.

‘Come on.’ Mum gestures at the place on the bed where I was sitting. ‘Eat with me.’

The lid for her bowl is still clipped on; she’s not touching hers until I touch mine. Our old routine.
You have it …

No, you.

This time, I decide not to fight. Whatever happens from here, I know I won’t be using the credits. They’re keeping Mum alive; it’s her chip for as long as she needs it. I unclip her lid and help position her straw, then we sit and share a small meal. Half-serve for her, half for me.

In broken sentences while we eat, she describes how it felt to have the nanobots injected. When I ask her about Jorge, her face lightens and her words flow easier. She sinks deep into the stories they’ve collected, their shared moments together. It’s as if she needs me to hear every one.

When Jorge comes back, I catch him sneaking glances at me again, still trying to work me out. I’m not sure how much Mum has told him about me, so I say goodbye for now, tell them I’ll be back the next day. Then I ride back to our room, stash the chip and collect water from the underground spring, still thankfully undiscovered. I’m ready for tomorrow.

I’m up early the next day, not used to sleeping on my own. For a split second I almost forget that it’s 2095, but soon my thoughts move to Mason and the others. Wish I could check the grid. I have a theory that returns from long jumps usually land sometime in the morning, perhaps matching the sort of time you might wake up.

Before I head out, I stash the woman’s chip safe behind the bedside table. I have a compad scrounged from the tip that will help me get around. There’s no way I’m about to risk losing the chip now that Mum needs the credits for treatment. No way I’m about to trace a live path to the fire shelter with it, either.

A mix of familiar and foreign greets me as I head out on my bike. More swish buildings, more people sprawled in rags on the footpath, but at least the bike path hasn’t changed. Plans bubble and pop in my mind as I ride. We’ll find a way to contact the new time skippers, perhaps even teach the illegal settlers how to skip in exchange for food.

Amon and Echo’s place is near the point where the Maribyrnong Canal hits the Yarra Pipeline, so on the way I roll past Yarraville Square. It’s early still, but already people are milling around, sipping coffee or talking on the phone. They’re protesters, I think, preparing for a rally. No police yet, from what I can see.

I turn down Amon and Echo’s street to find a woman in a grey bathrobe yawning beside a tiny dog squatting in the dirt. Just to be safe, I keep rolling past, barely glimpsing the concrete block of the fire shelter set against the back fence at Amon and Echo’s place before the bike carries me past. I’m not taking any chances.

A pile of dry branches towards the end of the street works as a place to hide the bike. I check a map on the compad to make sure the street isn’t a dead end so I won’t be trapped if anything happens. Then I sneak down a gravel driveway and track along the fence line at the back of the houses until I reach the rear of the fire shelter. The hard metal from the fence digs into the backs of my thighs as I balance on top, scanning the corners of the house and dark-grey panels of the fire shelter. No motion sensors from what I can see. No security cameras either.

I’m about to jump down when something on top of the shelter roof catches my eye. Five or six metal lumps, like the spine of a concrete dinosaur, glinting in the sun.

My eyes glide over the shapes as I reach for the roof, hook a leg up and scramble on top. On hands and knees, I creep forwards over the hot sheeting to the centre of the shelter.

As I reach the lid to the escape hatch, peering closer, all the blood drains from my face. They’re maglocks.

Someone bolted the hatch shut.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I
T TAKES A
split second for me to realise what the maglocks mean, another before I’m scrambling off the roof and racing for the utility room at the back of the house. Whoever bolted the lid must have known the group would return inside the fire shelter. That’s the only reason the bolts could be there, to lock them in.

The key code to the back door works first time. Thank cripes Echo gave it to me before they jumped. Desperately I rifle though the tools and gadgets on shelves and hooks on the wall. I recognise the style of bolts from locked shopfronts and garage doors in 2085, so they can’t be recent technology. They might have been there for years.

I just have to hope I find a drill that will get them off. Before they left, I helped Amon to assemble a flat pack of shelves in the fire shelter with a drill, so I know there’s one here. I find it lying on a table under a layer of dust, beside a case lined with row after row of drill bits and bolt heads.

I grab the whole lot and race back outside, dread making my breath quicken as I realise how tight this is going to be. The Feds must have found the masking code, removed it, then discovered the real place the group was when they jumped. That means none of the skippers is off-grid anymore.

As soon as any of them returns, the Feds will know.

Based on how long it took for the Feds to respond in 2084, I’ll have fifteen minutes after anyone returns to get them out before the police show up. Maybe less.

A couple of false starts slow me down before I find the bolt head that’s the right size. It’s not just a matter of unscrewing the bolts; I have to cut the electro-circuit as well. But at least it’s not a permanent seal; they didn’t count on one of us jumping separate from the group.

The drill screams too loud, each bolt takes too long. Four. Five.

Six …

I swap the drill bit for an electro switch. With a fizz, the circuit cuts out.

The hatch clicks.

I wriggle my fingertips under, and lift. Stale air seeps into my nostrils. The sensor light’s on already – is someone back? An empty rectangle with dusty concrete floor and reinforced metal frame stretches beneath me. The bags of supplies and comms have disappeared, I can only see scraps of clothing scattered in the corner. No food. No water.

If I wasn’t already dead-set certain it was the police who set those maglocks, I am now.

‘Scout?’ Boc steps into my sightline, his skin flushed and one hand shielding his face from the daylight. He’s wearing a pair of boxer shorts.

‘How long have you been back?’ This is bad and getting worse. The Feds might arrive before the others return.

‘Couple of minutes.’ Boc peers past me, his forehead creased. ‘What’s going on?’

I set up a timer on the compad for ten minutes. ‘You have to get out. Your chip isn’t masked anymore.’ At least, I don’t think it is. ‘The Feds will be here any minute.’

‘Shit.’ He swipes a hand at the back of his neck, turning a circle as he takes in the room.

‘Pretty much. I’ll have to find a way to warn the others.’

‘I can’t leave the crew.’

‘Boc, I’m off-grid. I can deal with them. You’re the one they’re coming for.’ I’m yelling at him now, each moment slipping faster than the last.

‘And how far do you think I’d get if I ran?’ Boc yells back. ‘I’d already be tagged for arrest. If my chip’s not masked …’

‘What else are you going to do? You don’t want to be caught. Trust me.’

His head lowers. All I can see are two broad shoulders either side of his close-cropped black hair. ‘We have to skip again,’ he says as his face lifts. ‘So far that we’re beyond this shit. An epic jump, fifty years …’

‘But the others …’

‘Is that a compad?’ Boc asks. ‘I can use it to leave a message for the others.’

‘You’ll have to hide it.’

‘There’s a panel in the back corner, the others will know where to look. The olds kept talking about leaving messages before they left.’

I lift the compad down for him, glad that there’s no ID trace linking the pad to Mum or our room. It’s auto-recharging, so it shouldn’t run out of juice.

Already the timer’s dropped below seven minutes.

I’m scanning past the sunlit roofs and treetops towards the highroad, checking for flashing lights, when a cough from the corner of the shelter pulls me back.

‘Who is it?’ I ask Boc, craning my neck lower as I peer in.

‘Echo.’ He jerks his chin as I hear shuffling and an intake of air. ‘And her mum.’

So the synched jumps are still working pretty well over long distances. My eyes shift to the corner where Mason left. I only need a glimpse, proof that he’s okay.

‘What if someone comes back while the Feds are here?’ I blurt.

‘Scout, I’ll handle it. We’ve all trained for quick jumps if it comes to that.’ Boc’s eyes follow my focus to the space behind him. ‘Trust me, all right? I got him. I won’t leave anyone behind.’

A siren whirrs in the distance and we both freeze.

‘What’s going on?’ Echo’s voice.

I think about climbing into the shelter, waiting until Mason returns and then jumping with the group. But we need someone on the outside to make sure the others aren’t locked in again in fifty years.

‘You’ll be ready for us, right?’ Boc asks me. ‘Fifty years.’

Our eyes meet. He’s trusting me with this as much as I have to trust him. I nod. ‘Count on it.’

Boc’s talking rapid-fire to Echo and her mum as the hatch shadows his frame. My fingers feel weak as I balance the bolts in place so that it looks like they’re locked back on, but leaving them loose so the others can get out if they need to. One hand shields my eyes from the sun as I scan past the roofs again. Red and blue lights flash just past the Yarraville Square. They’re about three minutes away. Maybe less.

I grab the drill and case and chuck them over the fence into the block at the rear. The wire clangs as I clamber over after them, then I duck out of sight behind a garage wall.

I’m safe here, hugging my knees to my chest, out of sight and off-grid. My thoughts turn to Mum, searching for words that will never be enough. There’s a lifetime of difference between ten years and fifty. But Mum’s with Jorge, the extra chip safe in our room. Right now, she’s not the one who worries me most. In my mind, I tick off the skippers still due back: Mason, his parents, Amon and his dad.