Will broke into the first office and got the oxygen generator going within five minutes. He strolled through the empty, open space. She followed him, noticing the blinds on the mirrored windows, the sprinkling of dust that had crept in from unseen cracks. Paper flyers lay in strange piles across the floor, which, along with the two-dimensional interface screens, dated the place at least twenty-five years.
Will sat down in the middle of the room, rested his hands on his crossed legs and closed his eyes. She watched him for a minute. They were on the run from the police and he was meditating.
"Aren't you afraid, if we're caught not, and it's me instead of Monday, that I'll blow everything?"
She watched the rise and fall of his chest as he inhaled deeply. "What will be, will be. Maybe in this version of all the probable parallel universes we don't make it. That's a valid option. There's no judgment. No right and wrong. We make it, or we don't make it; the outcome is unimportant."
"So why are you bothering?"
"Because I believe it's beneficial for us to try. I believe it will be relevant and beneficial to the population of earth for us to find out what's on Mars."
"And if you get killed or imprisoned in a tiny cage orbiting the moon for fifty years, you're fine with that?"
"Dying is another way of letting go. You stop attempting to control the universe from your small person point of view and let the universe carry you."
Day shook her head and began pacing in front of where he sat in the lotus position.
"Couldn't we do something more useful? Like at least try to get away?"
"You've watched a couple of my videos. The first principle of transforming your life is understanding the external environment is a mirror. If you want to change what is being reflected at you, you change yourself. You don't alter the reflection."
"You're full of crap."
He smiled. "The entire world is full of crap. Nobody knows anything. Admit that to yourself, then let go."
It felt like a challenge. He was implying she couldn't let go. He thought she was highly strung. Next to him, a lizard would seem stressed out.
"Fine." She sat down, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes.
"Take a deep breath," he said. "And let it out." She did as he instructed, rolled her head over her neck, working though the muscle tension.
"Another deep breath and let it out. Good. Now relax your mind. As thoughts rise up let them drift into your awareness and out again. Let all sense of resistance in your body go. There is nothing you have to do right now, so you don't need to strain. The whole universe exists without your effort to keep it going. It doesn't need your effort."
For a moment, the office slipped away. Day felt herself retreating inwards to a restful quietness . A quietness that didn't care about Ed Lang lying in her bed night after night, about the explosion at the shopping mall, or the police looking for her. She was relaxing deeply into his words, when a loud propeller noise jerked her attention back.
Her eyes flipped open. Will opened his eyes at the same time. A smile broke across his face.
"Good job," he said, standing up. He gave her a hand to help her to her feet. She turned, wondering what he was talking about. Through the one-way window a droid on an old fuel motorbike was cruising past, slowly eyeing up the buildings.
"Come on," Will said.
He jogged towards the exit and Day followed. Out in front of the office entrance he shouted and waved his hands. The motorbike circled around and came back.
Day was half fascinated by how beautiful the antique was and the fact that it could actually still run, nauseated by the whiff of petrol, and half-annoyed. Will had duped her. He'd acted all zen-calm because he knew the droid was on its way.
The droid pulled up, kicked out the stand and left the engine idling.
"Will Van de Berg," the droid said. Its head was half-human half-interface, so Day could see him scanning Will for information.
"Yes."
"I have a message for you from Dave 3692.8B. The hijacker locked onto his mainframe before he could do anything. He only had time to send out an assistance signal with his location. And here I am." The droid got off the motorbike.
"Thank you."
"You are welcome. I picked up something else below Dave 3692.8B assistance signal. A code."
"A code for what?"
"I believe it is an encrypted log of where the hijacking signal came from."
Will withdrew a wire from his wrist-band and handed it to the droid. The wire, the droid—Will was using all outdated technology. Day guessed this wasn't arbitrary, but an intelligent ploy to make it harder for the authorities to track them.
The droid plugged the wire into the back of its head. It's eyes closed for two seconds and then it unplugged.
"I appreciate you picking up Dave's call," Will said.
"It is a pleasure to help."
Will climbed onto the motorbike. Day swallowed. Riding this thing didn't look so bad. Hey, it might be fun. Thousands of people rode motorbikes a hundred years ago, so they couldn't be that dangerous. She got on behind him.
"Do you know how to drive this thing?"
"I've had one or two tries." He handed her his shoulder bag. She strapped it over her neck. He kicked up the bike stand, revved the engine and pressed his foot on some kind of gear pedal.
She lurched back in the seat as the bike sped up and flung out her arms to grab his waist. She pulled herself into him, pressing her face against his back as gravel and dust blew up from the dirt road.
They careened around onto the main highway. Day slowly peeked up. The wind was still ferocious but no more gravel and dust flung up to blind her. She realised how hard she was gripping onto Will. How she could smell his fresh, aquatic scent through his t-shirt mixed with the tiniest hint of sweat. A hint that made him distinctively human. A very attractive guy riding a sexy racing 2017 Ducati.
She dipped her head closer to him and shouted in his ear, "You knew Dave would send out an assistance signal."
"What?"
"You knew Dave would send out a signal," she shouted again.
He signalled with his hand he couldn't hear her properly, and she gave up challenging him to admit it. Anyway, they weren't safe yet. The chopper still circled overhead and the county police would converge on this part of the highway soon.
A sign at the side of the expressway said they were on the US36, 18 miles from Denver, the capital of Colorado. Was Denver where Will knew someone to have her implanted personality extracted? All the tightness wound back into her. She tried to persuade herself of all the reasons getting rid of the implant would be a good thing: she wouldn't have to worry herself sick anymore. She wouldn't be a flake but a kick ass bitch.
Surrender yourself to the universe. Wasn't that Will's advice? If she surrendered herself to Monday, Monday would handle all this heat. What was she attached to, anyway? Her claustrophobic life with a pretend boyfriend who made her skin crawl, living in the middle of nowhere, barely seeing another human for days.
Will wanted her to be Monday. The real "her" wanted her to be Monday. All she was clinging to was a complicated web of nano programs resulting in a personality bypass that made her afraid of consequences, scared of standing out, standing up, of being exposed.
It was simple really, she could protect the fake intelligence, which, like all life forms, wished to preserve itself, and consequently mess up Monday and Will's plans, or she could let Monday take over. If the police caught Day and Will, Day would be an incapable liability. They'd spend the next fifty years in a space-prison eating jello!
It was an easy decision, assuming they could get to Will's implant extractor before the police arrested them.
But for some reason, it didn't feel easy, at all.
HELLO LOVELY READERS! Hope you're all having a fab weekend! Sorry the chapter's late--the next few weeks are going to be tricky because i have three kids on summer holiday. I hope to keep regularly updating but it won't be systematically on Fridays. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading. xox