EDGE OF DAY

CHAPTER EIGHT

The way Ed kept glancing outside made her nervous. Was he expecting Will Van de Berg to show up again?

"So who was trying to kill us back there?"

Ed stopped eating and put down his knife and fork. His face softened. "Hey, I know you've got a lot of questions. And you'll get your answers. You just have to be patient."

"Okay," she nodded. A strand of hair fell into her eyes and she brushed it out again, feeling self-conscious. She wondered how Ed felt about his assignment: her.

You don't care what he thinks of you. Why should you?

She broke eye contact and stared down at her toast. This is all an illusion, Will's voice said. Ed is a projection and you are creating him.

She sighed. She'd listened to way too much Will Van de Berg in the last few days.

Ed reached for her hand. "You'll be okay. Just do what I tell you to do and I'll get you to the rendezvous point. And you'll get your real self back and all this will make sense." He held her hand in his and a tingle ran up her spine. She smiled awkwardly and tugged her hand away.

Ed stood up. She spun around, wondering if something was wrong.

"I need to pee," he said. "It's okay. Finish your toast."

She nodded, and he ambled off to the toilet. She gazed out the window and breathed in and out deeply to calm herself. Her back burned. She reached under her T-shirt and tried to adjust the cotton pads so they weren't slipping down beneath the gauze. Her fingers came away sticky with blood. She took some napkins from the silver napkin holder, loosened the gauze and fixed them to halt the bleeding. Then she knotted the gauze tightly under her breasts to hold the bandages in place.

She glanced at her wrist for the time. It felt like Ed had been gone for ages, but her broken monitor couldn't tell her anything. She looked around the diner. It was empty. Even the waitress wasn't at her station behind the counter.

As the seconds passed, nerves got the better of her. Day got up and edged towards the toilets checking around. Something caught her eye outside the diner. Far across the highway, a man in a white shirt and black trousers was walking up a hill.

Day ran to the men's toilets and flung open the door. The waitress stood by the sink, her head drooped like a wilted flower. There came the sound of her battery charging.

Barely noticing the cuts ripping open on her back, Day bolted for the door of the diner. She ran out onto the old parking lot.

"Ed!" she screamed. "Ed!"

What the hell was he doing? Where was he going? Why had he abandoned her?

"Come back inside," the diner computer said. Its voice was on a speaker, booming around the parking lot.

Panic swept through Day in electric waves. Far on the horizon was a blue flashing light. The police were a speck of dust in the distance but the vehicle would be there in two or three minutes.

'Your oxygen levels are depleting,' the diner said. 'You need to come back inside.'

Day tried to think through the haze of panic. Apart from the Maglev Floats she'd seen no vehicles the whole three miles they'd walked here. And she didn't really know where she was. She needed a map. But even with a map where would she go?

There'd been a paper highway map pinned up on the wall by the toilet. A souvenir of by-gone times. She pushed back into the diner and grabbed the picture frame from the wall. Battery recharged, the waitress appeared.