Kivi enters the lab to find Ramses at his desk, listlessly scraping the
blade of a pocket knife back and forth along the back of his hand as if
trying to sharpen it. He doesn’t stop when she approaches, he’s just staring
at the screensaver on his computer. Half a container of fruit is teetering
on the edge. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“What? How?” He doesn’t look at her. He’s following the pattern on the
screen.
She uses her eyes to indicate the knife, but has to say it out loud, “the
blade.”
“Oh, it’s incredibly dull. It’s just self-soothing behavior.”
“Mateo and Leona are gonna be fine. They checked in with us, they’ll be back
through the portal later.”
“I know, but it’s my fault they’re there.”
“We didn’t get much information,” Kivi begins, “but it sounds like they
would not have been able to get through the bubble without going on that
detour first. Sounds to me like it was fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate. You can’t once you’ve been through what we have.
We’ve seen the people in charge of reality. They’re just men. Some are even
children.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that they’re going to be okay. They’re even
bringing back Erlendr, a.k.a. your real body. You’re gonna be back to your
old self.”
Ramses just nods.
“Talk to me, Ram.”
“What are we doing here? What are we trying to accomplish?”
“I dunno, what were you working on?”
“Before we found out where Mateo and Leona had gone off to? I was trying to
track their location.”
“Is there anything else that needs to be done?”
“That’s my point. We’ve been so focused on getting ourselves back to the
main sequence, and reuniting with temporal energy, that we haven’t asked
ourselves why. Why bother? Trina was born in this reality. Then she went to
another, and had a full life. She lived, she died, and by all accounts, she
was happy. The Matics have gotten themselves away from the powers that be.
Now that that’s all over, any mess we get ourselves into is our own fault.
The harder we push, the harder time pushes back. So let’s give up. Let’s
just...be. Sounds easier.”
Kivi sighs. “You can’t do that, Ramses. You have to get out of this
reality.”
“Why? What does it matter?”
She sighs again, harder this time. She’s wondered whether she should say
anything about this since she first came into existence, and now she may
have no choice. Like he said, they were focused on escaping, maybe they
would never have to know, but if he’s doubting that objective... “I am the
Third Rail Kivi. I can exist in this reality, and this reality alone. I can
feel the day that I die, because it is the same day that this reality
collapses. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but I know that it’s coming
up. And I’m afraid that if you’re still here when that happens, you’ll die
too.”
Only now does Ramses look away from his computer, and into Kivi’s eyes,
which he studies. He’s not trying to see if she’s lying, but gauging how
sure she is, in case she may be wrong about her assumptions. “Okay, then. I
better get back to work.”
No comments :
Post a Comment