Abi pauses like she’s checking him again. In the ordinary world he’d be dead, but here it’s impossible to tell. “He’s not changing,” she says.
“I need to get Farah back,” I say. “She’s dying.”
Abi gives a slight shake of her head. “He won’t wake up.”
The world rocks beneath me. I press my hands to my face. I want to scream but there’s no air inside me. We were so close! Tears scald my eyes. We should have made it. We deserved to make it.
I want to crawl out of my own skin. I want to die again so I can go back to whatever it was and tear It apart for making us like this: just real enough to love but not real enough to last. Finite and fragile and exactly as It wanted us to be.
“Let me try,” a voice says behind me.
I turn and for the first time I notice Ose standing like a shadow over by the far wall. I reach for my knife but he doesn’t move towards me. His face is thoughtful, sad. He knows that I killed his friends – Tongue, Levi and Jonah – and yet he watches me calmly, almost kindly.
I flash my knife in his direction. “Don’t move.”
“Please,” he says, holding his hands up. “I can help.”
“Why?” I say. “You didn’t want to help before?”
“I have enough blood on my hands. I did whatever it took to save my own skin. I think it’s time I saved somebody else’s for once.”
I glance at Farah and she nods weakly. Ose goes to the console and starts typing. “It was all ready to go,” he says. “It shouldn’t be too hard.”
The MRI makes its familiar humming noise as it cycles up. The bench gives a mechanical jerk as the servos kick in. Ose glances up at Farah. She’s trembling, doing her best to stay still. She twists and catches my shirt with her free hand and pulls me towards her.
“Come and find me,” she says. “Ask me and keep asking.”
I nod. “Until you’re sick of me.”
Ose hits a key and Farah’s body slides away from me, into the machine.
“How come you know how to make it work?” Chiu says.
“Microchips are not as complex as people think,” Ose responds. “Once you have a sense of them, once you can imagine how they work…” He gives us an oddly self-satisfied smile. “Jonah always did underestimate me.”
The bed slides and the discordant, rasping sound of the machine grows louder. I swear I don’t look away, but suddenly Farah is not there, the machine is empty.
“Did it work?” I turn to stare at Ose and Abi.
Abi looks blank. “It got Devon back. We think.”
“Chiu?” I say. “We don’t know if the machine is really—”
“I’m going,” Chiu says, without hesitation. “I’m done with this place. Anywhere has to be better than this.” He looks at Ose. “Fire her up.”
Not a moment’s doubt, I think. Brave, brave Chiu.
Ose types and the bed slides back out and Chiu hops on. He gives me a broad, guileless grin like he’s about to go on a fairground ride and has not a care in the world. “Hey, you come visit me too,” he says.
“Of course I will.”
“I won’t remember you and I’ll probably think you’re a bit weird.”
“I won’t take it personally.”
“Tell me … tell me about my leaf collection. Then I’ll know you’re for real.”
“You collect leaves?” I say. “And you call me weird?”
Chiu looks like he might regret telling me. “No one knows.”
He lies down and the machine does its thing, spinning its magnets and pulling and pushing at the cytoelectric rhythms of his brain in this world and maybe a dozen other worlds and a moment later he’s gone.
His absence feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
“What about you?” I say to Abi. “This is your chance.”
“I can’t leave him,” Abi responds.
“Your turn,” Ose says.
I shake my head. “I’m staying too.” I turn to Abi. “Benedict was working on the protocol, right – to help people remember? So if he recovers he might be able to finish his calculations. Figure out how to get me back without losing my memory.”
“That could take years,” Abi says.
“But it won’t be years in the ordinary world.”
“Probably not.”
