Split Infinity (2 page)
Throwing doesn’t seem to be working so I grip the end of the spout and use it like a hammer. Tapping at first, then pounding. Bashing.
Finally, the glass splinters and cracks. Now that it’s been weakened, it’s easy to break the glass, punching it through then pulling at tapered segments. They fall at my feet in pieces. I pick one that’s long and narrow, a sharp blade.
Don’t think too much.
I breathe out through gritted teeth and press the blade against the back of my wrist. The skin dimples inwards, but doesn’t break.
This is going to be harder than I thought. I lift my eyes to the ceiling for a moment, then bite hard on my lip as I focus again. The blade presses deeper, my skin now red but still intact.
Come on, come on
. If they see the window broken, there’s a chance they’ll work me out. I don’t have much time. My teeth clench, anger growing at my own stupid fear.
It’s only when I glare up at the ceiling again that I’m able to push harder, bolder, forcing my focus away from where I feel it most.
The pain is blinding when my skin finally gives, but somehow it’s easier without watching. I’m making progress now, cutting into the flesh of my wrist. The hurt is within but also outside me. It’s as if I’ve brought myself to the calm of meditation before a time jump. I’m resting at the edge of the tunnel without dropping in.
Wetness against my foot makes me glance down and I’m struck with the truth of what I’m doing: blood dripping in narrow streams, white tendons against seeping red.
Jagged sobs rise from somewhere deep. I didn’t realise those sounds could come from me.
Blinking though tears, I cut deeper, working my way around.
There’s a crunch of glass against chip and suddenly it’s too much. I’m crying outright now, smothering a raw scream in my throat.
I sink to my knees as the chip falls on the boards in front of me, a blob of flesh and metal camouflaged among drops of blood.
Relief flickers in the knowledge that I’ve made it through. I’m out the other side. Tears keep falling, more from the horror of what I’ve done than the pain. They mix with a stream of snot that I wipe against the top of my arm.
Pinching the chip between thumb and pointer, I carry it to a far wall, then change my mind and leave it in the back corner of a kitchenette cupboard. They’ll think I’m hiding in there, if only for a few seconds. It will lure them into the room, I hope.
I’m about to turn away when I stop. One last look at that woman’s chip and the silent promise I made to her once:
I’ll make it count for something
.
I can’t believe it’s come to this.
Now, I wait. I’d planned to stay beside the door, but the blood stain stands out dark against the floorboards. Wiping it only smears the smudge wider. My wrist keeps dripping even though I’m pressing my other palm hard against the wound, so I shuffle closer to the kitchen bench and lift my arm above the hole where the sink used to be. Can’t let any more fall on the floor and give me away.
It seems like ages before I hear the faint click and slide of the front door. That was more than fifteen minutes. Although my sense of time could be messed up. The shock of what I just did could have thrown my judgement.
I press the wound against my stomach, cradled by the other arm, and shuffle to the entrypad. Boots thunder along the hall and I have to force myself not to skip away. I don’t disappear. Not yet.
Be brave, Scout. Stay calm.
I’m just inside the door, senses straining, as they reach the other side. The lock disengages with a beep. Before the door slides open, I’m gone.
I’m away just a few seconds, maybe eight or ten: long enough for them to step into the room, but not long enough for them to work out what I’ve done.
The Feds are in front of the kitchenette when I return. One has a gun aimed at a cupboard and the other is crouched on one knee, his head at an angle as he peers inside. The door has been left open, just as I’d hoped.
In a flash I’m out and padding up the hall. My feet barely sound against the floorboards; perhaps they won’t even realise what I’ve done.
My old override works first time and as the front door engages I hear them react, a shout above shuffles and movement. I’m tearing up the front path and into the dawn light, sprinting with all I have. The bush at the front gate has expanded; it’s scraggier too, scraping my good arm as I cut the corner. No way I’ll let that slow me down.
Flashes of detail hit me as I streak down the street: walls and window frames have weathered in a blink, and the house a couple of doors down from us has disappeared completely. In its place is a high block of flats, the walls a kind of smooth moulded polymer that I’ve never seen before.
Already past the flats, I duck down the front path of the neighbouring house and almost trip over a homeless woman, her sleeping shape a lump of blankets that I barely manage to clear in a leap. She gasps and jolts awake.
‘Whasgoingon?’
No time to stop. Panting and grunting, I make it over a side gate then pause to check behind me.
Too slow. They saw me take the corner and are coming fast, leaping over the woman as if she wasn’t even there. If she’s illegal she may as well be invisible.
A tent sits in this backyard with an annex attached to one side. A skinny guy is standing in the doorway, and he jumps back and flips the tent flap closed as I dash past.
The back gate slows me again, and by now I can hear the police calling to each other as they run.
‘You go left!’
‘Try to cut her off!’
These backstreets are familiar territory. At least, they used to be, because when I bolt down the next alley I’m met with another of those smooth walls. A smaller block of flats has been built in the middle of the lane as if some kid playing Urbancraft just dumped a 3-D model house in any old gap. It’s blocking the lane and I have to pull up, panting and panicking at this sudden dead-end before I scramble over a wall.
The thud of boots echoes behind me, still coming. Still close.
These walls and gates are slowing me down. I have to find somewhere to hide.
My hand is wet with blood, still dripping. I’m even leaving them a trail of blood crumbs to chase …
It gives me an idea.
At the next gate I hit it hard with a clang and a rattle, smearing blood on the top rail as if I’ve climbed over. But instead of climbing, I sneak sideways past a scraggly rhododendron, through a gap in the fence and into the next yard along.
I’m off-grid, so I just have to stay out of sight.
I crouch low in the gap between the fence and metal shed wall, hugging my throbbing wrist as I listen for the rattle and clang of the gate. I hold my breath, fighting back the instinct to keep running. Just stay calm, stay low.
Silence.
One voice calls, ‘That way’, and footsteps echo on the cobblestones in the alley. Just one set, I’m pretty sure, and they fade as he races off. They must have split up.
A minute passes. Two.
Five …
The footsteps don’t return.
I’m pretty sure I’m safe now, sort of. But still I stay hidden, crouched low and naked while blood slips down my forearm to drip from the point of my elbow.
It
should
be 2095, but I’m not sure if I’ve made it that far. I have to find a way to the cave in Footscray Park and the stash hidden there. Clothes, bandages. Even a first-aid kit. I have to seal this wound before I pass out. And now that I don’t have a chip anymore, I also need one of the compads we left there, to get around like I used to when I was illegal.
Then I’ll find Mum.
B
Y THE TIME
I stand stiffly and crick my neck, sunlight is shining on the bare patch of ground beside the shed.
My wrist throbs from pressing so hard with the heel of my hand, but that’s nothing compared to the way it pools blood when I remove the pressure. Each thought is a drifting balloon, and I concentrate on holding tight. Can’t let myself pass out. I need to stop the flow, but that’s easier said than done. I’m wet, sticky red all over. Blood splattered so far while I ran that it looks like I’m bleeding from every part of my body. A wide smudge on my stomach has dried to a cracked dark red.
Nice. If anyone sees me they’re going to run the other way and call the police. Though perhaps not in that order.
I’ll be able to clean up using the underground spring in the cave, but to get there I have to cross Ballarat Road.
It would be easy if I still had the chip in my wrist. Or access to a compad. But without either of those I need to blend in enough to follow someone across the road. Not easy when I’m bloody and naked.
Okay.
It’s still morning, maybe eight. Voices trickle down from some of the flats but not many people are in the street. I stay low and keep to the back lanes in case the Feds are waiting around. It doesn’t take long to make it to the end of the street, and Kessa’s house.
Or where she
used
to live. She might have moved long ago, but I know the layout well from all the hours I spent watching her family on the grid, daydreaming about how it might feel to be a citizen with two parents, a sister. And a chip. Someone with a normal life. The person I always dreamed of being.
The communal kitchen is at the front of the house, I’m pretty sure, and Kessa used to share a tiny bedroom at the back with her twin, Malena.
I take a couple of seconds to check for sounds from inside the house, then make my way up to the back door: the sooner I get in, the sooner I’ll be out.
First up, I disable the speaker on the entrypad so it doesn’t beep and attract attention. Then I start a manual override. Simple.
At least, it should be. But as soon as I punch the keys, the pad goes into alert mode: lights flashing and the words ‘access denied’. I end up ramming the cancel request fifty billion times, heart thudding in my throat, before it stops going crazy. Thank cripes the sound’s disabled.
Holding my breath, I strain to hear in case it triggered a partner alarm inside the house.
I’m met with only silence.
It’s a newer system than I’m used to. No surprise. Maybe there are more illegals these days looking to break in, or perhaps more crims. Same thing, I guess. But the coding on the pad is not exactly brain surgery either, and they’d still need a manual override option in case of a blackout. They’d have to.
That gives me an idea.
I could pull out wires to fake a blackout, but that might trigger another alarm. Instead I try a digital block of the electricity; trick the system into behaving as if there’s a real blackout.
It’s not easy standing out here, naked and blood-spattered with a throbbing wrist. I force myself to focus. When I trigger the bot, the whole system freezes and goes blank. I let out a groan.
Then again, it’s worth a try. Again, I punch in a manual override and the door disengages with a
pfft
. It worked enough for me to slide the door open further and shuffle through the gap. I’m in.
I can hear voices at the front of the house, but back here it’s quiet.
There’s just a swipepad to get into the rear bedroom, no lock, so the manual override works first try. It opens with another
pfft
and I cringe at the sound, stepping out of sight with my back flat against the wall in case anyone is inside.
I wait, listening, but nothing reaches me, not even the rustle of bedclothes.
Okay. Let’s get this done.
There’s barely space in here for the two beds. One doona is neatly pulled up and the other is half on the floor. Both empty.
Already I’m at the drawers set into the wall, grabbing a pair of tights from the top one and wrapping it tightly around my wrist, tucking in the end. My hands land on undies, a bra …
Jackpot. They’re a little baggy but I reckon I guessed right. These are the clothes of a teenager or twenty-something …
There’s not much stuff in the drawers and no time to check what I’ve found, but I aim for stuff at the bottom of the piles. Less chance they’ll notice anything missing. And their favourite things are most likely at the top, right?
It feels like longer but I estimate it’s been around a minute since I snuck in. I throw on a worn long-sleeved T-shirt and some faded jeans. Last of all I grab a pair of old runners from under a bed.
Then I’m into the hall and shuffling through the gap in the back door. I can hear traffic noises as I make it outside; the sun is harsher and higher. I can almost feel the movement of people in flats and rooms all around. Just another day.
Outside at the entrypad, I hesitate. Now that I have the clothes I’m tempted to bolt, but I have to be smarter than that. Use my head. Just one more minute to clean off any trace that I’ve been here.
My fingers move fast as I trigger a reboot and clean up my dodgy coding. Not my best work. A final restart takes it back exactly the way I found it and the back door clicks shut.
Keeping low, I sneak to the side shed before cutting across to a gate at the back fence. My hands are on the top rail when I hear movement behind me.
The
pfft
of the door.