Disrupted (4 page)

“Stop!” Gale came out of her spin to ping Wanda with all three eyeballs. “Stop talking. Stop! Stop! Stop!”

“Oh, go and blow a fuse somewhere else,” said Wanda, dancing out of reach.

“I don’t have fuses,” hissed Gale.

“Hey,” said Chris, stepping in between them, then, “Ouch!” as one of Gale’s eyeballs zinged his forehead.

“Now look what you made me do,” squealed Gale before fluttering to Chris’s side. “I’m sorry, Christian Wood. Where does it hurt? Will you ever forgive me?”

I left them to it, wondering numbly why my feet dragged as if carrying a heavy weight, because inside I felt totally empty. Out in the passage, I stumbled through the first doorway I came across and slammed the door behind me.

It was a bedroom, minus any intimate clutter to make me feel like I was intruding. The only furnishing was a double bed and, angled in one corner, a full-length mirror swivelling on a black chrome base. The carpet was thick and woolly, but there were those stark white walls again that made everything in this time seem so cold and lifeless. Was it just Drustan? Or a sign of where mankind was heading? 

I limped to the double bed and sat down on the edge, staring at the carpet.

Alone with my morbid thoughts.

I should never have quizzed Wanda. I’d cheated on the test called life and got a big fat ‘F’ stamped across my face.

And maybe I deserved it.

I got up again, went to stand in front of the mirror, trying to view myself with an objective eye. I was never going to be America’s Next Top Model, but I wasn’t exactly Ugly Betty either.

If my hair looked a little fried on the edges right now, it was normally a silky feathered bob that slid into the curve above my shoulders. I puckered my lips to add some volume to the thin line, then gave up.

My eyes were my best feature, a warm brown that I liked to think of as soulful. And the rest of me, well, quite normal, really. Nothing amazing, but nothing to make guys run from in horror. And they didn’t. But they would.

It had already started.

Hadn’t Chris said he always avoided me? Even Gale hated me on first sight, and she wasn’t even a robot boy.

I stared at my reflection and watched a tear slip out.

Was I really such a terrible person? Another tear. I’d made a conscious decision to turn the breezy girl from Mayfair into a moody teenager who was clearly not okay with the mess my parents had made of our family life. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but what if I never found my way back?

What if I only had myself to blame for never finding someone who could love me forever and ever?

“Everything changes, you know.”

My hands went to my face at the sound of Chris’s voice, blotting the wetness beneath my eyes before I turned from the mirror.

“Just seeing the future changes it, Willow. That’s what’s got Drustan so worried about us finding out about stuff, you know.” He came inside, softly closing the door behind him. “If you know you’re going to hook up with someone, for example, you try too hard, or don’t try hard enough, so it ends up not happening.”

I shot him a dark look as I went to sit on the bed again.

Couldn’t he at least pretend he hadn’t eavesdropped on my very private chat with Wanda? “It really doesn’t matter.”

Chris dropped to the floor, his back against the wall, his long legs spread out in front of him. “Then why are you crying?”

“My eyes are watering from pain,” I muttered. “My ankle hurts like crazy.”

“It still hurts?” Chris jumped up. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Yeah, right. He was officially dead and I was going to whine over a sore ankle?

Chris left to fetch an ice pack, and came back with Gale. “Hopefully it’s sprained,” she was telling him.

“And I hope the scraps of metal holding you together land up in a recycling plant,” I snapped back. Honestly, what had I ever done to her?

“Why, you- you!” spluttered Gale. Her tubular body elongated into a thin spindly pipe until she was almost as tall as Chris. “I’ll have you know that I’m fashioned of a very unique, highly precious alloy metal that is—”

“Fashioned?” I burst in. “Now that’s stretching it.”

“Cut it out,” said Chris.

“She started it,” said Gale, slinking down to normal size.

I turned on Chris. “You heard what she said about hoping my ankle’s sprained. That slimy rust bucket detests me and I don’t care if you believe me or not.”

With a squeak, Gale flew up and at me. I slid off the bed to avoid a walloping, but Chris caught her by the foot, reeling her in. Then he let go suddenly, and she dropped to the floor with a thud and a whelp.

Before I could offer a smile of thanks, he yanked Gale onto her feet and glared at me. “Gale hoped your ankle was sprained as opposed to fractured, Willow. Because apparently while this—” he held out a folded patch of quilted material I hadn’t seen in his hand “—can heal inflamed muscle, it can’t knit bone.”

Oh!

“Sit down,” he barked in a voice that instantly knocked me back onto the bed. He handed the wad of material to Gale with the order, “Just get over there and zap the bad out of her ankle.”

And then, before I could blink or Gale could protest, Chris slammed his way out of the room.

I watched suspiciously as Gale wrapped the padded bandage once around my ankle. At first I couldn’t feel a thing. The bandage was neither hot nor cold, certainly not tight enough to apply the required pressure to a swelling. But before long a warm pins and needles sensation worked through my ankle and, with my foot stretched on the bed, I eased back and down onto my elbows.

“Remove it as soon as the prickling stops,” said Gale on her way to the door.

“You do hate me, don’t you?” I called out. I mean, I knew I had some good excuses for being testy right now. There were only so many surprise shocks a girl could handle in one day. Still... “Or am I being totally self-obsessed and paranoid? Am I picking fights for the malicious hell of it?”

One of Gale’s eyes extended over her head on its spring to look at me. She didn’t turn. But then I wouldn’t have been able to read anything into her expression anyway.

She’s a robot, for goodness sake. My mum’s one of Europe’s leading psychiatrists for work with troubled youths, and the first time ever I decide to open up and psycho analyse myself, I choose a robot for the honours. Go figure.

Gale’s eye retracted.

I thought she wasn’t going to answer, the dignity of silence or something.

I’d momentarily forgotten this was Gale.

“You were right the first time,” said Gale as she opened the door. “I hate you.”

Chapter 5

I
woke up on full alert. This was a new experience for me. Usually I toss about, muttering death curses and trying to hide from the alarm by dragging a pillow over my head. Nine out of ten times I land up on the floor, scrambling for bits of clock that’s still happily bleeping away after being smashed against the wall.

Maybe sleeping upside down was the answer. My head was at the bottom of the bed, my feet resting on the pillow. Exactly as I’d gone down after Gale had left the room.

Or maybe it was the stark white ceiling above instead of the creamy rippled effect I usually looked up at. I didn’t panic, didn’t pinch myself or blink determinedly until I woke up back in 2013. I knew myself too well, knew I didn’t have the imagination to dream any one of the things that had happened in this strange new world.

There was a pang of nostalgia, a wistful longing to rewind the clock to that moment I’d foolishly decided to chase Chris into the woods. Followed sharply by the boggling realisation that I could, in theory, because we did actually have a Time Capsule. But not in practice, because apparently that would be a really bad idea although I still wasn’t convinced. I’m all for changing symptomatic events when you have the tools.

I listened for sounds as I removed the padded bandage and examined my gammy ankle, but the apartment was a tomb. This room had no windows, so I couldn’t even see if it was day or night. My rumbling tummy suggested it didn’t matter, dinner or breakfast would do equally fine.

And my ankle was no longer gammy, certified first by a tentative step and then some vigorous hopping. I was officially wowed by futuristic medicine, but still ravenous.

I tiptoed down the short passage, pushed open the only other door to find a bathroom, and then went on to the sitting room. Chris was sprawled on the sofa, long legs hanging over the end, a blanket thrown over him. Gale, no surprise here, was tucked up near his feet.

The walls of the room, and this was a big surprise, were no longer white. Pale blue clouds drifted soothingly on a softly bruised background. And by drifted, I actually mean drifted. The clouds were rolling gently over a hazy morning sky.

“Shh,” whispered Gale, “you’ll wake Christian Wood.”

I rolled my eyes on, “I didn’t say anything.”

She was up and at me like a flash. “Do you not care that Christian Wood is exhausted and needs his sleep?”

“What time is it, anyway? And what’s up with the walls?”

“Six thirty,” she hissed in my ear, and did some ineffectual bumping at my back.

“But what happened to the walls?” I repeated dumbly, absorbing the tranquil bliss as I let her prod me toward a door other side the room.

Gale huffed loudly enough to wake the deaf. “I programmed the room to soothe Christian Wood’s dreams. He’s had a traumatic time, and someone selfishly hogged the only bed.”

“Well, excuse me for breathing any of Christian Wood’s precious air.” Okay, not nice. And I did feel bad about the bed thing (even though I hadn’t intentionally fallen asleep.) But, come on, does everything have to be about Chris?

Would be nice if someone had watched over me while I slept. And now that I knew all these white walls were actually a blank canvas, would be nice if someone had bothered to paint (or programme) some soothing care into my dreams.

Gale gave a furious prod at my back that did little more than tickle. “Since when do you get up before midday, anyway?”

“Since always,” I snapped.

“Not without a glass of cold water in your face.”

I might have wondered (aloud and rather caustically) how she knew so much, but just then we pushed through the door into a kitchen and my rumbling tummy took priority.

The kitchen was rather cramped, with a narrow counter beneath a row of cupboards and a large round table I had to edge past if I wanted to get to the shiny silver fridge. And I so did want to. “Thank God.”

I spoke too soon. The contents of Drustan’s fridge were alarming (and that’s coming from a girl who’d leapt a couple of decades on the arm of a boy who was probably dead.) A carton of what might be milk and a couple of dark coloured bottles.

I slammed the fridge door and looked at Gale. “Please don’t tell me the staple diet in this century is a handful of vitamin pills. I need proper food.”

“You might find the odd Brek-Pak in the cupboard,” offered Wanda, strolling into the kitchen. “Drustan usually orders in. What he needs is a wife.”

“Has Drustan been back?” I asked on my way to the cupboard.

“No, but he just contacted me. He’ll be along shortly.”

I stripped back the wrapper of what looked like a nutri-bar. The wrapper, that is. The grungy brown stick inside looked the opposite of nutritious. “Did he mention anything about stopping for takeout on the way?”

“Is that all you ever think about?” sniped Gale.

“Excuse me, she who doesn’t eat. How would you like to go without battery juice for 24 hours?”

“Batteries are so last century.” Gale hopped onto the table, leaned back on one hand, and made as if to examine her fingernails on the other (who was she kidding?) “I draw power directly from the neuron core.”

Not caring what a neuron core was, I took a timid bite of grunge.

“Stop!” yelled Wanda.

Too late. Bits of brown muck disintegrated in my mouth, tasting like cardboard and feeling like sand. “What is this stuff?”

Gale stifled a giggle. I don’t know why. Laughing in my face is more her style.

Wanda came closer. “What does the label say?”

I held up the wrapper. “Scrambled egg and bacon? I don’t think so.”

“You have to re-gen it first. Grab a plate, second cupboard to the left.”

My stick of grunge went onto the plate and into a black box on the counter that I’d thought was, well, a black box. Seriously. The size of a microwave with no window hole and only a single white button.

I pushed the button at Wanda’s insistence, but no way was this muck going near my mouth again. I’d seen it for what it was, before the dazzle and glitter of re-hydration or re-generation or whatever was going on inside there. A girl had to have standards, starvation notwithstanding, and mine was stale cardboard.

Half a minute later the black box popped open to the aroma of grilled bacon. Before I could think ‘Resist’ I was scoffing down my standards along with fluffy eggs and two strips.

It was divine and I had only one regret. Egg breath.

“Shopping,” was Wanda’s answer. “You need a lot more than a toothbrush.”

Didn’t I know it. “We’re not supposed to go out.”

“No one goes out to shop anymore, darling.”

“Online?” I wrinkled my nose. Internet shopping only worked if you were a size 0 mannequin. Been there, returned the jeans.

“Virtual shopping. Stand up.”

“Has Drustan authorised this?” asked Gale.

“Do you hear that?” Wanda cupped a hand to her ear. “I think Christian is awake.”

And that was Gale out the door.

Wanda winked at me. “Right, now let’s do your measurements.”

She ran her hands down the outline of my body, head to toe. “Turn slowly, all the way round.” And then, hands on hips, she stepped back to assess me. “So, what do you fancy? Retro designer or Rainbow Scalls? You’ve got the figure for Palliden Tunics, but I’m not seeing it.”

“Jeans and T-Shirt,” I said quickly.

“Can’t go wrong,” agreed Wanda.

And you can’t, I was to learn. Virtual shopping is my new BFF.

At the flick of her hands, Wanda had a 3-D holograph Willow in perfect proportion modelling clothes before my eyes. Better still, I could actually see myself from all angles without having to rubber neck a distorted mirror or put my trust in a friend’s idea of what did or didn’t add those mysterious inches to my backside.

“Oh, I don’t need to try on the underwear,” I told Wanda as she wandered, virtually, into a lingerie boutique and started pulling items from racks. “I’m bog standard 32B and medium pants.”

Wanda leaned in confidentially. “Let me teach you one thing in our short time together. Don’t cut corners on the most important part of your outfit and there’s no such thing as bog standard when it comes to these.”

My eyes grew wide at the selection of push-up bras she held out to me. Before I could wince, holographic-me was stripped down to a slip of black lace and matching padded bra that pushed from underneath so the little I had could pop out over the top. Mum would have me locked down into weekly counselling sessions until I was twenty-one.

“Bleeding hell,” came a dry wheeze from behind.

My face flared hotter than a lobster on the broil. I jerked about to point a finger at the door Chris had just walked through. “Get out!” To Wanda, “Turn that off, would you? Chris, out! Wanda, off!”

“I’m telling Drustan,” sang Gale, tugging Chris by the hand. “Come on, Christian Wood, you don’t have to see this.”

“Wanda,” I squealed. “Will you shut that down? Now.”

“Second lesson,” said Wanda. “When it comes to frilly wear, always seek a man’s opinion.”

And all the while, other-me (not–so-shy me) was parading frilly nearly-not-there wear up and down the kitchen.

“Why are you still here?” I bleated at Chris, but he was in cuckoo-land with semi-naked birds.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Wanda with a smile on Chris.

“Yes? No! What?” At least she finally snapped her fists and I was gone. The other me, I mean.

“Your purchases should be arriving shortly.”

I marched up to Wanda. “Tell me you didn’t buy that.”

Her smile turned solemn. “I didn’t buy that, Willow.”

“You did,” I sighed.

“You’ll thank me later.”

I looked at Chris who was, of course, still rooted to the spot.

My hands went to my hips. “We are never ever going to mention this, understand?”

“Hell, Willow, I sorry about— I didn’t mean to—”

I held up a hand to stop his torture. I knew guys who’d consider it their boy-given right to smirk and tell to anyone who’d stand still for half a second, but Chris wasn’t like that. Now if he could just un-tell himself. “And you are never ever going to think about this, ever.”

“Never,” vowed Chris.

“Think about what?” enquired Drustan, coming up behind Chris to stand in the doorway with a puzzled expression.

I suppose it could have been worse. Drustan could have arrived thirty seconds earlier. I slinked back into my chair while Chris moved aside for Drustan to come inside.

Gale wasted no time filling him in. “Wanda and Willow were shopping and I told her to clear it with you first and Willow was buying fancy underwear and Christian—”

“Never mind.” Drustan’s quietly spoken words clamped Gale’s blubber.

I was totally impressed. “Is that like a pre-programmed voice command to shut her up?”

“I don’t have pre-programmed—”

“Never mind,” I ordered with clear authority.

“—voice commands,” finished Gale.

“Obviously not,” I muttered. “But you really should consider that option,” I told Drustan.

He gave me a look that translated into, ‘I have no idea what you’re on about and please don’t feel you have to enlighten me.’ He also had dark hollows beneath his eyes and the kind of saggy jaw you get after pulling an all-nighter and can’t scrape up the effort required to keep your lips aligned.

I don’t have a maternal bone in my body, but something about Drustan standing in his own kitchen, looking a little lost and totally exhausted, had me jumping up and reaching into the cupboard. “Let me get you something to eat.”

“That’s not necessary, but coffee would be welcome.”

I looked at Wanda. “We have coffee?”

“Instant yuck,” she said. “Fridge. Brown bottle.”

With Wanda directing, I made coffees all around. A tot of sludge in a mug and into the regger (my new name for the black box) for a couple of seconds.

There were only two chairs around the kitchen table, and barely standing space, but for some reason no one moved out into the sitting room.

Drustan and I each took a chair, Chris propped against the counter, Gale perched on top, and Wanda leaned against the wall. We all looked at Drustan with the same burning question in our eyes.

Instead of answering, he took a large sip of coffee and then swept his gaze from Chris to me and back to Chris again. “I can’t stay. I just stopped by to check up on you two. Everything alright here? Did Gale help you order in food?”

I gave Gale an ‘A-Hah’ look.

Chris skipped over the niceties. “What’s happening? Have you found what needs to be reversed yet?”

“We’re still working on it, Christian.” He sounded totally hesitant, as if he’d said too much. And then he really went big, giving us all the juicy details at the risk to Chris’s stupendous destiny. Not. “We’ve hit an unexpected barrier.”