The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) (27 page)

“Hello?” Liz said. “Anybody there?”
 

Nothing happened. A second later and it responded to her voice. A ripple flew outwards from her feet, across the floor, and up the walls.
 

“Hello?” she said again.

Movement. Ahead of them. In the centre of the floor. The black matter stirred. It worked its way around in circles and built itself up like a tornado sucking up water from the ocean. Only an inch or so thick. The black tendril grew and another one formed to the right of it, followed by another one, and then another. Hundreds of the cables of black lifted from the floor. They began to combine like fingers of a splayed hand intertwining. The skin melting between them.

She looked to David, but he wasn’t paying attention to her now. She thought of Donald, her husband, either drinking tea or sleeping.
 

The black hands then turned over themselves and flattened. They lifted upwards and turned themselves into a flat surface. More tendrils, much smaller now, erupted like threads of string from the table. They interwove and pulled themselves together. Liz gasped when she saw the eyes knitting together from the threads.

The small hands and feet, the pronounced ridge of the brow, and the big teeth and ears. Still made from the black sand and devoid of all colour, but still completely recognisable to Liz.

“This can’t be happening,” she said. “I don’t understand. This can’t be happening.”

As the threads finished the eyes and the tip of its nose it came to life. Sucking air in like it had emerged from a body of water.

“Miss Sam?” Liz said.
 

“Dr Thompson, what’s happening?” David said. Any confidence in him had vanished.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand it. But, it’s Miss Sam.”
 

“No wait, Dr Thompson, be careful,” David said as she wandered towards the table.
 

She looked down at the strangely familiar face. A set of eyes she thought she’d long forgotten. But she hadn’t. Those eyes had remained, lost somewhere in the forests of her mind. This wonderful little creature. The one she’d promised that she’d return to, but never did.

Memories of the mission came to her. The feeling of Miss Sam’s shuttle disappearing. The explanations given were ones of space debris. The ship burned up, they said. She’d never believed it, though. She always felt that Miss Sam would be okay. It defied all logic. It made her feel crazy. Surely a coping mechanism to help her with the grief. Somehow, she knew Miss Sam was alive.

A second later and her unwarranted, delusional, crazy, suspicions were proven true.
 

It woke up.

No.

She woke up.

Her eyes looked past Liz at first. Over her head. Up and around the cloud. Eventually settling on Liz. After all these years, Liz saw the same recognition in Miss Sam’s eyes that she used to see at the Holloman Air Base. Like she’d just nipped out for a meeting with the colonel or to grab a shake from the diner with Donald. Even after all this time, on the other side of the planet, in another body altogether, Miss Sam recognised her.

“Dr Thompson, please be careful. It isn’t what you think it is,” David called from behind.
 

She ignored the words. She continued to look at Miss Sam’s face. The wonder of it all. The magic.

“Miss Sam,” she said as the chimpanzee lifted its charcoal hand and touched Liz’s. “Ever since you went missing that day I’ve had dreams of you. I’m so sorry. Dreams of my little girl getting lost in space. Suffocating in that shuttle. That tiny fucking nosecone we shoved you in. I’m so sorry. I … you didn’t deserve any of that. You didn’t deserve it.”

Her words trembled as they left her tongue. She quivered and tears fell from her eyes.
 

Miss Sam pushed herself up to a sitting position on the table. She reached her arms towards Liz. She took another step forward and Miss Sam’s cold metallic arms wrapped around her neck. The skin was unnatural and the fur felt synthetic, but it didn’t matter. Liz wrapped her arm beneath Miss Sam’s bottom and lifted her up from the table. She was heavy. Almost too heavy.

“Dr Thompson, please think about what’s happening here. This isn’t real.”
 

“What are you talking about, David? I’ve spent the past fifty years moving around the world, teaching children who didn’t care to hear what I had to say, living in communities of people who thought the only world that existed was within the boundaries of their town maps, living with a man who slowly lost his mind, who now sometimes talks to his own big toe. The universe is bigger than your smartphone. It’s bigger than your version of reality, David. This is the realest thing I’ve seen in years.” She kissed Miss Sam’s cold metallic head.
 

Miss Sam looked up at Liz. It was the same face, same expression, same responses. It was Miss Sam. The body may have changed but somehow, by some miracle, the mind was in there.

“It’s okay now,” she said. “You’re home now.”
 

“Home,” Miss Sam said. Her voice didn’t come from her but from somewhere within the cloud. The word didn’t sound right. Like it was air being forced through a gap in the cloud. “Home,” she said again.

“Yes, Miss Sam, my girl, you’re home.” Liz touched her free hand to her chest. The sign that would often comfort Miss Sam before.

With this, Miss Sam’s expression changed. The soft sweetness turned to bitterness. The loving eyes hardened. Miss Sam pressed her fist to her chest.

“Home,” she said. This time with more force. Angry.

“Miss Sam, it’s okay,” Liz said. “It’s okay, baby.”
 

“Home!” Miss Sam said, showing her teeth now.
 

Liz didn’t notice at first, but the stairway had closed. Their only way in and out sealed up. The chamber they were in started to move. Echoing Miss Sam’s emotions.

“Miss Sam, please. I love you,” Liz said.

“Dr Thompson, put it down. Come with me! Now!” David called.

Liz nodded and went to put Miss Sam back down on the table, but Miss Sam’s grip tightened around her neck. Her eyes never looking away from her own.

“Home!” she screamed again, now shaking with rage. “Home!”

The cloud around them sparked and crackled. A storm was brewing around them.

“David, I can’t, she won’t let go.”

David ran over and grabbed Miss Sam’s shoulder. His hand was quickly overtaken with the black sand. He screamed as it worked its way up from Miss Sam’s shoulder, over his hand, into and up through his sleeve. He fell backwards onto the floor and screamed in pain, an invisible fire all around him.

“Please don’t do this, Sam,” Liz said. “Please!”

Miss Sam looked at Liz. She calmed a little, before touching her chest again.
 

“Home,” she said quietly. “Home.”

As David’s screaming went quiet, she turned to see that only his right half remained and what was left was being consumed by the black. The remaining eye eaten into nothing.
 

Liz then looked back to Miss Sam.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know,” Miss Sam said before pressing her palm into Liz’s chest. Each fingertip ate away at Liz’s flesh. The fingers pressing into her, all the way through to the other side.
 

She fell to the floor and screamed as the black sand consumed her too. The last thing she saw was Miss Sam’s face, angry as ever.

Strangely, she felt relieved. Like she was paying a debt. Something she felt she owed for a long time. An open loop that could finally close.
 

“Alas, poor Yorick.” The words came to her mind as the cloud swallowed her up. “For we knew him well.”

Moomamu The Thinker

“Why didn’t you kill?” he said. “I asked you to do one thing. That’s all. To kill. It’s really not that hard, boy. It would’ve made your life a whole lot easier.”
 

The Light was standing outside the cave entrance. Naked. His arms out by his sides. His legs shoulder distance apart, standing in the rays of the sun. With skin like his he might explode into a cloud of dust at any moment.

“He didn’t deserve to die. I can’t just go around killing things.” Moomamu stood at the cave entrance, shielding his eyes from the sun.

“Oh, did he not? He would’ve killed you, though. If he had the chance.”
 

“Yeah well … some people are confused. And he didn’t have any option.”
 

“Neither did you,” The Light said as he turned around. “Neither did you.”

Moomamu shielded his eyes some more.

“You’ve witnessed more death than nearly all of life. Most space-beings like you pay no bother to the deaths of regular creatures. What’s the difference between a planet colliding with a meteor and wiping out the billions of lifeforms living on it and taking the single life of a human? It’s all just death.”

“But it’s not. One of those involves an active force.”

“Mmmmnn … who’s to say there isn’t an active force behind the meteor?”

“Regardless, it’s
not
my active force, and, oh wait, yes I did have an advantage. I teleported.”

“What?”

“I teleported and accidentally got my stick all caught up in the human’s bits.”

“Yes … you leapt.”
 

“You should know all about that. You were the one who told me to do it in the first place,” Moomamu said.

“I never … did I?”
 

“Yes!”

“Okay, show me then. Can you do it now?” The Light walked towards Moomamu. He placed his hands on Moomamu’s shoulder.
 

“Do what?” Moomamu said as he distanced his waist away from The Light’s naked parts.

“Teleport, jump, leap?” he said, grinning like a madman.

“I’m not sure I was ever really in control of it,” Moomamu said.

“Sure you were,” The Light said. “Follow me.”
 

He led Moomamu out into the hot sun and drew a line in the sand with his foot.

“If you were to think about home, where would you think of?” The Light said.

Moomamu looked to the sky.
 

“Isn’t it obvious?” he said.

“No, not anymore. What if I were to tell you that those people you helped on Earth were dead?”
 

“Who?”

“The cat,” he said. “The red-haired woman.”
 

“I saved them once already. I’m even with them. Sure a nice cappuccino wouldn’t go a miss, but … I think I just want to go back to my real home. To my Thinking point.”
 

“Okay,” The Light said as he stood up and paced to the other side of him. “Well, I can do that for you. I can send you home.”
 

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Moomamu said.

The Light then bent down and made another mark in the sand.
 

“See this point here,” he said, indicating the floor.
 

Moomamu nodded.

“And what about—” Suddenly The Light disappeared. A second later and he reappeared on the other point. “… this one?”

Moomamu took a step forward.

“What the …? You can’t just go teleporting around like that. Plus, how do you, like, do it on purpose?”

“There're a lot of things you can do, Thinker, if you knew how, but I only need you to do one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to save the planet.”

“Again?” Moomamu whined.
 

“Yes, again,” The Light said, like a parent asking their child to tidy their room. “And I thought you’d be more up for it now you’ve made some friends.”

“I know but … last time it ended in … you know … bad stuff, and all that.”

“There are worse things than cats,” he said.

“Like what?” Moomamu said.

The Light didn’t answer. Instead, he disappeared, only to reappear a second later, kneeling on the floor by Moomamu’s feet. Without a moment’s hesitation, he punched Moomamu straight in the groin. Moomamu toppled to his knees and crumpled to his side. The dull ache below drifted upwards towards his stomach. His eyes watered. He struggled to breathe. He cried.

The Light stood up and looked down at Moomamu with the biggest grin that Moomamu had seen on him. He laughed and walked away, leaving Moomamu to cry in the sand on his own.
 

***

“You call it teleporting. Personally, I’ve always been partial to calling it leaping. Because that’s what you’re doing. Teleporting makes it sound more like it’s happening
to
you than what’s actually happening, which is you, pushing the action forward. The impetus, you see Thinker, is in you.” The Light was sitting on the ridge inside the cave, gulping a bottle of water. Thankfully fully clothed again.

“But every time I do it, I end up in the wrong place.”

“Leaping without intention is a flipping death wish. You leave yourself susceptible to your subconscious. Stray thoughts that you don’t even know are there. Repressed sexual desires, for example, might take you to a certain planet full of sex pests.”
 

“What are you saying?” Moomamu said from the fabric chair, holding on to his swollen groin.

“Doesn’t matter,” The Light said. “What does matter is that you figure out how to leap with intention because I’m going to need you to leap through time. Something you’ve not done before.”

“Can you just, please, slow down because you’re giving me a headache. What are you saying now?”

The Light shook his head. He downed the last of the bottle and threw it, teleporting to the other side of the cave to catch it.
 

“We can leap small distances with relative ease. The toll on the physical body is small. Longer distances take more precision, but are doable. If you were to leap to the other side of the planet, for example, it would take some effort, some planning, but it would surely work. But what I need from you is something more. I need you to not just leap through space, but time too. I need you to leap back half a century.”

“Why?”

“Oh, dear Thinker. I’m afraid something terrible is happening right now. Let me tell you. As I talk to you here in this cave, this planet is being consumed. All organic matter chewed up and swallowed by the will of an emotionally-damaged chimpanzee. The green of life consumed by the nanobot manifestation of an ancient alien artistic trio of brothers.”