“What just happened?” Mary asks her. “Is it broken?”
“You could say that.” Anika laughs. “Your spex are fine, don’t worry. But yeah, that’s the point where everything broke.”
Anika wonders how far back it goes, exactly when Rush kicked it off. Only one way to find out.
Spex back on, the room full of servers and junk again. Mission control. She works an imaginary jog wheel with her right hand, relieved to find the spex are working well enough to read her gestures. Rewind.
Time begins to collapse upon itself as she accelerates backward. Shadows strobe. Figures dance around the room at inhuman speeds, until she notices something in the motion blur. She releases the jog, and time snaps back to attention, the whiplash of normality.
She’s here, standing directly in front of herself. Towering above her as she sits on the ground. Arms outstretched at her sides, crucifix pose.
She laughs. Then the thought of that allegory makes her feel sick.
“Is that—”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s me.”
She can’t make eye contact with herself, unable to look into those young eyes. She doesn’t want to see what’s there; the slight nervous shaking of her younger self’s body is enough to tell her. She doesn’t want to look into those eyes when she knows there’s no way she can change things.
This was it, the beginning of the change. The tipping point.
College is here, too, on his knees in front of her, fiddling with the makeshift vest. Wires and cylinders.
“You sure this is gonna work?” says then Anika.
“No. I’m not.”
Now Anika tries not to start crying.
“Great.”
College stops his fiddling, looks up at her. “Look, you don’t have to go through with this. Just say the word.”
Then Anika looks down at him, smiles. “Shut up, College. Just hurry up, yeah.”
There’s a dull thud from somewhere outside the building. All four of them startle. The staccato riff of gunfire.
“Hurry up,” she repeats.
College has taken something from a bag on the floor, is wiring it into the vest. He hands it to then Anika. “Here,” he says.
“What’s that?” she says.
It’s a stubby molded grip with a trigger at the top, a flat button above that. It looks like the grip of a handgun with the barrel removed. “It’s the detonator,” College says.
“Yeah, yeah, I guessed that. But what is it? I mean, why d’you have fucking detonators lying around—”
“Oh. Oh, it’s an old VR controller. Wireless, but I didn’t trust that, so I added a cable to it. It’s a game controller.”
“Of course it is.” Then Anika laughs grimly. “It’s a game controller. Of course it is.”
“Keep it hidden.” He tucks it into the pocket of her hoodie. He stands up, looking at her. “Try to get as close as you can before—”
“I know, I know.”
“Okay. You know. I’m just fucking repeating myself.” College sighs, looks down at her. He zips her hoodie up, it barely covering the bulk of the vest. Now Anika laughs between tears. The way it pushes them up, it makes her tits look great. Then Anika would have laughed at that, too, if she could have seen it.
“Okay,” says then Anika.
“Okay. You ready?”
Now Anika doesn’t let her finish, her hand reflexively twisting that nonexistent jog wheel in retreat, time flowing backward again.
Mary is on her feet now, her back to her, glancing around the room. Anika is pleased Mary can’t see her face. With the fingers of her left hand she wipes tears from her cheeks behind the spex, the rush of memories almost too much.
Time collapse rewind blur.
About another thirty-six hours back, according to the readout, she instinctively releases the jog wheel.
Whiplash real time, silence pierced by screaming. Her at Rush. He’s got his coat on, a backpack hanging off one shoulder.
“You can’t fucking go! You can’t just walk out—”
“What choice have I got? Really? I’m putting everyone’s life in danger—”
“People need you here—”
“People need me to get the fuck out of here, Anika! Why do you think they’re blowing the shit out of us—”
“They need you here!” Now Anika can almost feel how hoarse then Anika’s throat is, sense memory of anger-burn. “You’re the reason people are here! You’ve always been—”
“They’re trying to kill me, Anika! They’re trying to kill me and they’ll kill everyone else in the process!”
“Then turn yourself in.” Claire’s voice is calm, rational. It cuts through the atmosphere in the room like a knife, even from the corner where she leans against the closed door, as if to make sure nobody leaves.
“What?” then Anika asks her.
“Turn yourself in.” Claire fixes Rush with cold, tired eyes. “If you really want to save everyone, then turn yourself in. Just leaving won’t help. They won’t know. They’ll think you’re still here and they’ll keep on bombing us.”
“He’s not turning himself in,” then Anika snaps. “Don’t be so fucking stupid.” Now Anika can see the resentment in her then self, that never quite quantified jealousy bubbling up to the surface. It’s needless. She’s flushed with embarrassment, regret.
“He’s got to. They’re going to flatten this place until they have him.”
“I’m not turning myself in. But I am getting the fuck out of here.” He turns from Claire to Anika. “And I suggest everyone else does the same.”
“Where you going to go, Rush?” There’s that edge of mocking to Claire’s voice that always came out when she was mad. Anika always hated that.
“Yeah. Where you going to go?”
“I…” He seems to lose his words for a second, glancing at the floor as if searching for them there. “Away. Just away. From here.”
“He’s going to New York,” says Claire.
Then Anika laughs at her. “He’s not going to fucking New York. His passport’s been canceled. Plus the airports must all be fucked. Right, Rush?”
Rush says nothing. Still searching for words on the floor.
“Rush?”
“He’s got some way of getting out of the country. Who is it, Rush?” Claire tilts her head to one side, trying to catch his gaze. “Your hipster futurist friends? Those millionaire infrastructure pricks, with their, their”—she stumbles over her words, anger bubbling up through the cool—“their gentleman’s container-ship yachting club?”
“What?” Then Anika looks confused. So much innocence, all lost now.
“Turn yourself in, Rush,” Claire spits. “Turn yourself in or we’ll turn you in.”
“Whoa.” It’s the first thing College has said. Now Anika hadn’t even noticed he was there. He looks up from the server cabinet he’s had his head buried in. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here—”
“Nobody is turning anybody else in, Claire,” then Anika says, stepping between her and Rush.
“Look… Okay. Okay,” Rush says, flustered. “Okay. I might have some way of getting out of the country.”
“What?”
“I might, okay. It’s a long—it’s fucking complicated, okay?”
“I fucking told you.” Claire, vindicated, shaking her damn head. “‘I might have some way of getting out of the country.’ Fucking coward.”
“You’re abandoning us?” Then Anika, close to tears.