‘YOU WORK AT the DOI?’ It’s Mum who breaks the shock in the room, her eyes as wide as mine. ‘All this time?’
Alistair hasn’t moved. ‘We monitor illegals who enter the city, at least those we manage to find. Usually we catch them via the black market. Sometimes fraud. Citizens sometimes give them away, paying illegals credits on the black market, and being found out when the credits are spent in unusual places.’
‘But why didn’t you turn us in?’ Mum and I say in tandem.
Both bushy eyebrows go up as Alistair shakes his head. ‘For six years you were living right under my nose. Six years and I never knew. It wasn’t until Scout unlocked your door that day that I realised what was going on. But by then, I suppose … I couldn’t –’
Mum glances my way with a slight head-shake. How close did we come?
Alistair keeps going. ‘Most parents who keep an illegal baby end up buying something that gives them away. Nappies, or a nanny-bot. They’re easy to catch because they can’t help accessing the ration system. But Miya …’ He lets out a snort, more with respect than anything else. ‘My own next-door neighbour and I never knew.’
‘How did you cope without nappies?’ I ask her.
‘Made them from old towels. I had so few credits, I was studying online at the time.’ Mum lets out a light laugh. She almost sounds embarrassed. ‘I used to rinse them at my feet in the shower. I was even too scared to buy proper nappy soak.’
Too smart, more like. For some reason she seems shy to be talking about this, but I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of her than I am now. It’s not just the sacrifice she made to keep me, but the way she kept us both safe all this time …
She’s worked too hard for me to mess it all up. She deserves way more than she has right now. Way more than she got in the firestorm.
‘And Scout.’ Alistair turns to me. ‘Even when you were little, I saw the potential. You had the smarts to survive, although there were times …’ He drifts off.
‘What?’
‘Well, sometimes I had to step in, steer a colleague down a different path by asking for help with other work. The selection committee at Karoly High were monitoring your combehaviour so I created a fake comscreen history …’ He drifts off, thinking. ‘The thing is … I couldn’t turn you in now. Not that I would. But you see, I have a lot to lose as well.’
Alistair keeps his eyes on the rug at his feet, as if he doesn’t want to see the way we’re looking at him. I don’t want think about how close I’ve come to being caught without even knowing it.
How many times did Alistair step in and save us? Save me?
How many illegals has he caught?
For the first time since Kessa told me, I feel a quickening in my chest. A whole pile of ideas tumble on top of each other. It’s beginning to dawn on me that if I show them how to time skip, the government wouldn’t need to lock me away in order to study how it works. I’d already be offering to help.
A low voice comes into my mind, an echo from my last moments in the streets outside Sunshine Hospital: I can’t help you unless you trust me. You’ll be okay.
Could I work with the government scientists? If I agreed to help, would I be safe? I’d be able to explain everything I know about the wildfire. They’d be able to stop it before it gets out of control.
I grab Mum’s shawl from the end of the bed and chuck it at her. ‘Count ten seconds okay? And hold this up for me?’
‘Right. Yes.’ This time she doesn’t try to stop me.
I turn to Alistair. ‘There’s something you need to see.’
Kessa’s about to send me info about the application process when I stop her. Nothing about the application can link to my name, our comscreen, our room. None of this can come anywhere near Mum.
She gets it straight away, popping her eyes. ‘Gosh, sorry. Of course.’ It’s funny though, something about the way she’s biting her lip makes me think she’s enjoying this. Agent X, secret spy. That’s me.
Kessa explains enough for me to find it myself, so I leave the chip at home and head into the state library, wearing a loose coat and a beanie pulled low, hacking into a library terminal with an old compad that I scrounged at the tip. Already I’m playing the role of the person I’ll need to be if this is going to work: an illegal born outside the city limits, with no connection to citizens here. Invisible once more.
‘You’ll have to use a different name for the application,’ Mum says once I come home. A small cloud of steam rises as she pours water into her mug. ‘And I think you should change the way you look. Maybe dye your hair. Thank goodness for the extra credits. We’ll need them to make sure everything’s right.’
‘Dad’s surname … what was that?’ I ask. I’ve been searching and planning a whole heap, but I haven’t begun the application yet. Everything has to be dead-set certain before I do.
‘Karimi.’
‘Okay, I’ll use the name Coutlyn Karimi on the application. Coutlyn’s pretty common these days.’
‘What about Carolyn?’ Mum asks. ‘It’s similar, but you’d have no more ties to this identity. Or the stolen chip.’
There’s a pause as we both consider the way it sounds. Mum’s eyebrows lift.
‘Okay. Carolyn Karimi it is,’ I say. A new name for a new citizen.
I’m just about to switch the comscreen across to TV mode when an alert sounds on my compad. Someone’s coming up the front path.
Mum stops stirring her mug and turns to me, the spoon hovering. An entrance request buzzes as I grab the compad.
Air escapes in a rush. ‘It’s only Mason.’
‘Ah.’ The corner of her mouth lifts, and Mum goes back to stirring.
‘Okay if I go for a walk?’
‘Of course.’
Mason’s patting the side of his thigh when the main entrance door disengages. He seems nervous. Leaves whirl around him but he barely reacts.
‘I … I wanted to tell you in person,’ he says straight out. He glances at the entrypad then back to me. ‘Boc asked me to disengage the safety sensors on the freight tracks. I said no, but he kept hassling. He wouldn’t let it rest.’ Mason stabs the edge of the doormat with his toe. ‘He was being a total pain, saying that he was going to do it himself. I had to tell him …’
‘Tell him what?’
‘About the accident on the tracks, and what happened to you. He kept asking why I hadn’t told him and I … I didn’t have an answer for that.’ Finally the patting stops. ‘He knows you’re illegal.’
I close my eyes. Not now. Not again. Not when I’m so close to being out of the woods. Now that I’m using time skipping to negotiate my status, I can’t send the Feds after Boc either, so I don’t even have a back-up plan.
‘I’m sorry, Scout. I know you’re worried.’ Each word comes clear as if he’s been practising this in his head. ‘But I’ve spoken to him. Boc’s not going to turn you in. I can promise you that. He gave his word.’
‘His word?’ I scoff.
‘I’m not asking you to trust Boc, I’m asking you to trust me.’ For a moment Mason considers me and the muscles in his jaw clench.
I’m still scared. But I’m suddenly even more scared of what it means to have Mason stand with me. The last time he stuck with me, when I was trying to find Mum, he ended up caught. Because of me.
Mason lifts a thumb over one shoulder. ‘Want to take a walk?’
Somehow it’s like he’s asking, forgive me? So I nod and follow him along the front path, past the bush and into our street. We walk in silence, passing through the on-off hot sun between blocks of shadow.
Something brushes the back of my hand, and I glance down as Mason reaches out again with the back of his knuckle. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’ Maybe this is safer than I was last time. I can’t bring myself to trust Boc, but I can trust Mason, at least.
We reach the end of the street and turn towards the park; the hum from the road grows louder.
‘He’s been asking if you’ll train with us at the climbing centre. Will you come?’ Mason asks. ‘I’ll be there the whole time. I promise. They’ve been asking questions.’
‘They?’
‘It all came out after I told Boc. Amon and Echo have both managed a jump from standing. I’m not sure which of them is more obsessed. They’re training pretty much every spare minute they have …’
Just like last time, except it’s even quicker. The first dominoes have fallen; the pull of the future is growing stronger. I’m just not sure anymore where we’re headed.
We stop at the crossing point at Ballarat Road.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I call over the pulsing swish of smartcars. ‘I’ve been working on something, an application for citizenship, using time skipping as proof that I have something to contribute.’
‘You can do that?’
‘I didn’t know either, until a friend told me. I wanted to check with you.’ It was Mason who first realised that time skipping was even possible. Before I send in the application I need to clear this with him first.
‘I’m going to use a different name and pretend I grew up outside the city. My whole case is set around time skipping as a way to survive, a skill that anyone can learn. This could be a real chance for me. To apply for my own rations. I’d be totally legit.’
Mason’s eyebrows go up. ‘You’re going to explain Relative Time Theory?’
‘Maybe. A bit. But mostly I’m planning to tell the truth: that I did it by accident in a dream. You said so yourself, a bird doesn’t need to understand aerodynamics to –’ I drift off as I realise he’s never said that in this timestream.
The crossing point pings and we cross without speaking.
‘Are you … upset?’ I ask as we reach the curb. Does he think that I stole his discovery?
‘No. It’s a good idea, Scout.’ And then quieter: ‘Excellent, in fact …’ Mason slows and I stop beside him as cars accelerate and zoom off on the road beside us. ‘Do you want me to help? The case will be stronger with a scientific explanation. I can bring them up to speed straight away; explain the theory while you demonstrate.’
‘Yeah, but …’ Already my head is shaking. ‘I’ll be stating outright that I’m illegal. So what does that make you? The penalties for helping –’
‘We’ll have to be careful, but I’m willing to risk it.’ He rests a hand on my shoulder and leans closer. ‘Once you show them a skip, everything’s going to change. You realise that? You’ll be even more famous than Eichmann. Governments the world over will be desperate for a piece of you. If we play our cards right, you could negotiate a spot with a research team for me, once you’re a citizen.’
My hands fold together, pushed against my mouth, as I think through the idea. ‘You might be able to work out what was in the syringe …’ He’d have a chance, at least.
‘We don’t have to admit how well we know each other. I can vouch for the story that you grew up outside the city. I’ll say I saw you jump by chance … and started researching from there.’ His mouth kinks at one side. ‘It’s sort of true.’
I share the smile, still not sure. ‘It’s still a risk, Mason.’
His eyebrows pinch. ‘Okay. So what about this, why don’t we keep it secret how to skip? Show them what’s possible. I’ll only give them a taste of the theory. But we don’t have to explain how it’s done. Synching a skip, everything we’ve trained for … They’ll be so desperate to find out how it’s done, we’ll be the ones holding the power. Each time they want more, we get another chance to negotiate.’
‘Actually …’ My arms drop. ‘That’s good. Really good.’
‘This could be good for Boc and Amon as well –’
‘Wait, Boc?’
‘Yeah. He’s all over the war tactics of time skipping. Imagine if troops were trained to disappear before a bomb hits? Boc and Amon could be the ones who bring this to the military. This could fast-track both of their careers …’
I’m not sure. The idea of Boc being part of this makes me nervous, especially now that he knows I’m illegal. What’s to stop him from turning me in for stealing the woman’s chip, and claiming all the kudos for himself?
Mason grabs one of my hands and holds it against his chest. ‘I swear with all my heart, Scout, I won’t let anything threaten your chance at citizenship.’ Just slightly, my hand rises and falls as he breathes. He drops his head to one side. ‘Trust me with this?’
It doesn’t come easy. But more than anyone, I trust Mason. It takes only a single word to make his lips kink into a smile.
‘Okay.’