SOMEHOW BOC HAS climbed one of the pillars at the park entrance and is sitting on the top of it when I walk up a few minutes after four on Friday.
They both turn my way at the same time, and I have to concentrate on keeping my movements relaxed, fighting back a sudden urge to turn and run. Be careful, Scout, I remind myself. Think about every word.
I’ve already swiped the chip’s history map clean, of course, but I remember the dates that used to be there pretty well. I’ve spent some time thinking it through: how many times she skipped, how old I would be for it all to make sense.
Mason stands away from the gate and takes a few steps towards me. ‘Thanks for coming. Way cool you’re going to help us.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know if I can help, but I’m willing to listen.’ I speak slowly and meet his gaze.
He blinks with his mouth pushed to one side as if trying to hide the frustration. ‘Fair enough.’ It’s a start.
By now, Boc has manoeuvred his way down the side of the pillar with the skill of an acrobat. ‘Where to?’
‘Follow me.’
Together, the three of us make our way down the path and into the park. We catch up to a young couple with a toddler going in slow zigzags, passing them in silence.
‘So you know how to hack into messages, I see?’ Mason asks when we’re out of earshot.
‘A bit.’
‘How did you learn? I mean, the system was updated last year and you’re well up with the coding.’
My steps jolt so suddenly that I almost trip and somehow manage an awkward skip to recover. It’s something I haven’t even considered in my careful story creation. How would this person I’m supposed to be keep up to date on that kind of thing? ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I say after a moment. As if I’m chuffed rather than caught unprepared.
They glance at me, expecting an answer. My mind races.
‘Yeah, it’s just … I have an amazing teacher.’ Alistair. I don’t even have to make this up. ‘He’s been coding since the twenties and he’s brilliant. Taught me everything I know.’ I don’t even glance at them as I talk, just having a casual chat. ‘Most of the coding languages you use today are based on old ones.’ This, at least, is true. ‘Once you get the basics, it’s just a matter of updating each time. You know?’
Finally I risk a peek sideways. Mason has his eyebrows raised, impressed. He bought it.
‘How much of our stuff have you seen?’ he asks.
It’s relief that keeps me casual. ‘Not much. You’re the ones who started watching me first, remember?’
‘Touché,’ says Boc. I catch the hint of a smile.
At least the questions have stopped. Halfway to the canal we turn down a section of path near the edge of the park. There’s a shady clearing to one side, edged by trees and lined with polyturf. It’s the sort of place where you can talk without anyone overhearing.
Mason finds a place to one side, arms hugging his knees, while I find a patch and sit with my legs crossed. It’s strange being with them now. After reading their messages and watching them on the grid, I almost feel as if I know these guys. Though, of course, I don’t.
Boc does a full circle before settling in front of us. I get the sense he won’t be there long. His eyes trace up the trunks around us, maybe working out which ones he can climb.
‘So.’ Mason rubs his hands together. ‘You were born in 2024, but you don’t look any older than …’ One eyebrow lifts as his he scans my face.
‘Fourteen,’ I say honestly. There were so many long gaps in the woman’s history map that she’d only have aged about three years since the start of the ration system. Unless they saw her in person there’s no way they could know she was older than me.
‘It must be so weird,’ Mason says, eyes still on me. ‘How much the world has changed.’ We’re all quiet before he continues.
‘Is there anything you want to know? About, you know, how everything works these days?’
‘No, Miya is helping me.’ I sit a bit straighter, acting sort of annoyed and proud. ‘Listen. I’ll help you if I can, but don’t expect me to tell you my life story okay?’
‘Okay, okay.’ Mason’s hands go up. ‘Whatever you say. I just want some help with time skipping.’ His hands drop as I nod in agreement. ‘Each time you disappear on the grid, you’re re-orienting in time, yes? That’s why you return to the same location.’
‘That’s how it seems.’ I glance at Boc, who’s sitting quietly, and then back to Mason.
‘So how do you make it happen? Do you meditate?’
‘Sort of, ah …’ I don’t have to know what I’m talking about, but I do have to be convincing. A deliberate nod. ‘Yes.’
‘So is it like your time just sort of stops?’ They both look at me and wait. Mason even has his hands clasped together. I get the feeling that I could make out that I was born on the moon and they wouldn’t blink.
‘Well, I don’t think of it as time stopping, exactly,’ I say. ‘It’s more like I’m ignoring every other time except now.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Mason leans forwards. He’s so desperate for answers that he doesn’t realise I’m just repeating stuff I read on one of the Relative Time Theory sites.
I swivel my legs around and kneel with my feet tucked under me. It’s one of the poses for meditation I’ve seen described on the time travel sites.
‘How about if you explain the process you go through?’ I say. ‘Take me through, step-by-step.’
Mason matches my pose. ‘All right. So, it’s as if I’m sinking, right? And I can feel … it’s hard to explain … like my brain is slowing.’ He has this really quiet way of speaking and I find myself leaning forwards to meet every word.
‘And it’s almost as if I’m outside of time,’ Mason keeps going. ‘Like I’m observing it … but then –’ He trails off and glances at Boc.
‘But then … what?’
Mason’s reply is a shake of his head.
Boc’s head tips back as he studies the tops of the trees. ‘Have you tried?’ I say to him.
Slowly Boc’s chin drops as he considers what to say. ‘Meditation wasn’t exactly on my radar before this. So I had to come from behind.’ He glances at Mason and then hitches himself around to sit facing him with his shoulders square. ‘But I’m catching up. Getting better every day. You’ll see, I’ll get there before you know it.’ His tone is defiant, almost challenging.
Mason shuffles closer to me on his knees. ‘The thing I don’t understand is how did you know it was first possible?’
I shake my head slowly. ‘I don’t know. It was just a feeling, I guess. It just … happened.’ They’re both quiet, waiting expectantly, and all I can think of is that woman who died. She’s not far from where we are now, alone in the cave.
‘I guess I was just trying to survive,’ I say quietly.
‘Hey, yeah.’ This time it’s Boc who reacts, pacing forwards on his knees as he pulls out his compad. ‘There was that snap hailstorm a couple of years back. You jumped right in the middle of it. And then the time before, there was that massive dust cloud. I looked it up.’
My mouth opens and I clamp it shut, glad that the other two are busy checking their compads. I’m itching to pull mine out to check as well, but I resist. Why would I check the weather reports from days I’m meant to have lived through?
The other two are busy for a while as my mind ticks over. This is interesting. It makes me think about the woman’s blackened fingers. Could that have been frostbite?
‘It’s like what you were saying,’ Boc says to Mason. ‘About the way people slow their own time so they can survive. Like when that wall of bricks fell and those kids dodged out of the way.’
‘Sure. It makes sense.’ Mason shuffles closer on his knees. ‘Will you jump for us now? Show us how you do it?’
They’re like cats, tracking each tiny movement of their prey.
‘You don’t have to go far, just a minute or two,’ Mason begs.
All I can do is shake my head, turning from one to the other. ‘I’m not sure I could do it around strangers –’ As if it’s their fault. I bite my bottom lip as Mason frowns into thin air, more questions forming.
This is such dangerous territory. I check my compad as if there’s some place I need to be. ‘Look, sorry. I have to go.’
They both stand up with me. I clear my throat and say, ‘I’m sure you’ll get there.’
‘Thanks,’ Mason mumbles, but I hear the rest of what he must be thinking. Thanks for nothing.
Boc’s standing with his arms crossed. ‘We’ll walk you out,’ he says evenly.
I don’t have much choice other than walking with them. We begin to head back in a group, but soon Boc bolts ahead of Mason and me, stopping to grasp a branch that’s reaching over the path, testing it with his weight. He must have decided it’s not strong enough because then he sprints ahead again.
Beside me Mason walks in silence, both hands in his pockets, his gaze on the ground just in front of him.
‘So I’ll just keep trying,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘Meditate every day.’
As we head up the final steep section towards the front gates, I sneak another glance sideways. Mason’s a little taller than me, with fine bones and smooth skin. Compared to Boc he’s slight, though compared to someone who’s lived on half rations all their life, he’s a picture of glowing health.
We’re nearly at the front gates when we reach a tree to one side of the path that’s shaking with the weight of a body clambering up the branches. Boc. By the time we reach its base and come to a stop, the midsection branches are rustling.
It seems rude not to wait with Mason. I glance over to find him watching me again, and quickly look down.
‘Will you at least tell me what it’s like?’ he asks. ‘I mean, I’ve come close I think, and then I get this sense of something … sucking me down and it’s so empty, like nothing else I’ve felt.’
The hushed tone in his voice is back; it draws my eyes up to meet his. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t know … it feels like a sinkhole pulling me in. I’m not sure I’ll find my way out.’
It makes me think about that woman again. The expression on her face … she wasn’t at all tense, it was more like complete bliss.
‘It’s safe, Mason,’ I say, hoping I’m right. ‘You don’t need to be scared.’
His eyebrows go up. ‘Will you stay with me? Or … come back later?’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t.’ Can’t look him in the eye either, so I squint up to the branches shaking at the top of the tree.
We say nothing as we track Boc’s slow descent.
After a while, Mason lets out a snort. ‘I’ve never seen that guy take a backwards step. Like ever.’ His voice has dropped so low again that I have to turn in order to hear. His head tilts close to me, his eyes moving over mine as he speaks. ‘I mean, he’s great. Don’t get me wrong. But he’s the only person I’ve met who is scared of nothing. He just doesn’t get how hard this is. Keeps saying he’ll get there first, as if this is easy. That’s why I wanted to see you again. To ask for your help.’
It’s as if he wants to climb inside my mind, the way he’s looking at me, as if I actually count. After being invisible my whole life, this is such a strange place to find myself. It’s unnerving, but I kind of like it.
Almost from a distance, I hear myself saying, ‘Okay. Tomorrow night.’
His face relaxes into a hopeful smile. ‘Where?’
What am I doing? ‘Your basement. Eight o’clock.’
I don’t want to be stuck with slow train connections on the way home, so I ride my bike to Mason’s house. It’s not too bad: forty-seven minutes door-to-door.
Mum knows exactly where I am. It’s easier since she’s met them. She thinks I’ve come to discuss the entrance interview. Close enough.
Mason welcomes me in, this time looking any place except my face. As I follow him in he points out rooms to fill the silence. We pass a lounge room and he introduces me to his mum. She seems surprised to see me but is otherwise gentle and quiet, somehow like a stranger in her own house.
Mason lists a series of hot concentrates – coffee, tea, hot chocolate – and doesn’t react when I refuse. Of course, it would have been rude to accept.
‘I’ve been limiting my food intake?’ he says, barely above a whisper. ‘I’ve found I’m more in the moment when I’m hungry?’ Each sentence finishes with a question at the end, as if asking for my assessment.
‘Yeah, that’s good,’ I say confidently. ‘And maybe not too tired?’ I’m talking about study techniques rather than time travel. But who’s to know that?
It’s become easier now that I’ve realised that I don’t have to actually know about any of this; I just have to be convincing enough to keep Mason believing I do.
‘Have you tried waking up early to meditate?’ I suggest. It was on one of the sites I was reading.
We’re clomping down old wooden stairs and Mason pauses in front of me: ‘Your time jumps were at all times of day.’ He is matter of fact.
‘Yeah, but …’ I stumble for recovery. ‘While you’re trying to get the feel for it, I mean.’
His head tilts, considering the suggestion as he continues ahead of me.
At the bottom of the stairs is a door that leads into a converted garage, not a basement like I thought. He already has a bedroom upstairs, so it seems insanely luxurious to have this as well, two whole rooms to himself.
Paler bricks fill out the space where the roller door used to be, a long window lining the top. I get the feeling that this was used as a living room when it was first converted; there’s a cityscape art print on one wall and a family portrait on the other with Mason, his mum, a man in a beard and a guy that must be Mason’s older brother. A sideboard has been dressed with an empty vase.
Layered on top of it all is Mason. A doona lies bunched at one end of a couch, a pillow at the other and a keyboard in easy reach. A comscreen is the focus of the coffee table. You can almost see an outline where Mason spends his time, the glow of the screen lighting a circle around his downstairs world.
‘What do you think?’ He lifts an arm towards the space.
‘Yeah, wow, great!’ Until I realise that he’s asking whether he could time skip here. A nod as I glance around. Even a chin rub. ‘Hmm, should be fine.’
Mason seems to have given up asking me to demonstrate a jump for him. At least, I hope he has. He pulls out an old camping mat and unrolls it on the floor.
‘You’ll stay with me while I try?’ he asks. ‘Help me to slow my time?’ Mason sits and crosses his legs.
I find a place on the rug a short distance from him. ‘Try not to think about it too much,’ I say. ‘Just feel your way.’ He’s completely still as I talk, listening to each word. ‘Trust that you’ll be all right.’
Mason’s mouth forms a small oval as he breathes out, hands resting on knees. His eyes slowly close.
‘You’re going to ah … reach a place where now is all that exists,’ I say calmly, repeating stuff that Mason said in his emails. ‘Then you’re going to choose a new time to return.’
You can actually see the tension melt away with each breath. The pinch of a frown smooths away slowly. Fingers go limp. Shoulders soften.
His skin is a light golden, face narrow. His frame is slight but balanced.
It’s only now that I’m sitting here, with space and time to think, that I realise why I’ve come. One of the reasons, at least. I’m here to see what they’re like, these people my age who were chipped, deemed worthy of the resources to help them live. They have a complete set of mother and father citizens, of course. But still. What makes them special? I want to know. Why were they chosen?
After about twenty minutes, Mason pulls out of the meditation, breathing in and opening his eyes. Complete peace hangs about him. ‘I went close, but it’s not easy with –’
‘With me here?’ I finish. Not surprised.
‘Yes, but …’ The pinch of a frown is back. ‘You helped, too. It felt different. Not so empty.’
Already it’s getting weird so I cover up by standing and straightening my shirt.
‘Stupid to think that it would work first time,’ Mason says quietly. I’m walking to the stairs when he calls out, ‘Will you come again?’
I turn. ‘Why?’
‘I know it’s possible because of you.’ His face is so open, so trusting. ‘You stop me from giving up.’
Still he has faith. I can’t help wondering what he’d think if he knew the truth.
‘Will you come again?’ he pushes.
A pause, but I don’t really need to consider. ‘Sure.’ Because I think I have faith, too.
Even though I don’t know how it works, I saw someone jump in front of me so I know it can be done. There’s just the small matter of working out how.