SKIPPING TIME

Chapter 19

                 

                 

Ray leaned towards her, his face intent.  "Okay. It's important to understand that, when you skip and go into your own past, you have no memory of the first time you lived through those experiences. You think you're that age again. You believe you're there. That's what happened to the kid."

She sighed loudly and Ray gave her a bewildered look. Shaking her head, she pointed out, "His name is Jess."

Ray frowned. "Yeah, so he keeps saying. Anyway, to Jess's knowledge, he was fourteen again." This time instead of any respect, Ray said Jess's name the way someone would say a curse.

She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

Ray, who seemed oblivious to her irritation, just spoke faster. "Before any skip, The Station implanted powerful subliminal messages, letting the Comps know to pull out, that the experience wasn't real. We still lost a ton of men."

Ray grimaced and, for a few seconds, his face was far away. Then he continued, "They'd go catatonic, wander off course in their own minds. It sometimes took months to bring them out of their past. And those were the men we saved. Too many stayed comatose and eventually drifted away. That's why the Comps were so elite. Every skip, they took a chance of losing themselves and dying."

She asked, "Did that ever happen to you?"

"Once. I was out for a week."

She frowned, "Why did you keep doing something so dangerous?"

"I was young. And stupid and invincible. The danger was half the draw. And skipping fascinated me. I got to go back in time and watch history being made."

Cacee gasped. "Where did you go?"

Ray shook his head. "One conversation at a time."

Her shoulders slumped. The topic was intriguing, but Ray was right.

Ray said, "Getting back to my explanation, the whole thing is a horrible experience, especially since people generally return to their worst memories. The Comps underwent lengthy psychological testing and months of intensive training. I don't understand how the kid went in completely unprepared but still pulled himself out."

Her jaw tightened but she let the name thing go and offered, "The gash on Jess's forehead."

"What?"

"He said he got it when he went back in time."

She tried to explain what Jess told her.

Ray nodded his head repeatedly, confirming that these were things he'd seen or experienced himself.

When she'd finished he said, "We shocked a lot of Comps in the infirmary wing, trying to use pain to bring them back. It never worked. No. I wasn't pain that pulled him out—something else did. Something he must be insanely determined not to lose, although I can't imagine what has such a concrete grip on a kid like that."

Ray didn't even glance her way, but her heart beat a little faster. Was there any way Jess pulled himself out of his past because of her? She shook her head, reluctant to even consider it. He cared about her, but they'd just gotten together. He wasn't madly in love with her or something. In fact, he'd seemed totally okay with leaving for at least a year. It must've been his mother who'd brought him back or perhaps Peter.

She turned her mind back to the conversation as Ray said, "At any rate, how he came back will remain a mystery for now. As for the gash on his head, my guess is that he got cut in the clearing but his mind made the two things mesh. I've heard of people doing that. He's a smart kid. Angry but definitely smart."