The Split Second (20 page)
“Back on the train,” Becker stirred in the sugar with a wooden stick, “you were talking about seeing the big picture.”
Sully perked up at the mention of his favorite topic. “Oh, yes. Of course.”
“Care to expand on that?”
“Like I said before . . . once I began to dig into the Records, I started to realize that all those things I thought were so terrible—as small as someone breaking her arm to as big as war or hunger—take on a different light when looked at through the prism of History.”
“What kind of light?”
“Most of us look at things in a cause-and-effect kind of way. ‘I hit the lottery, therefore life is good.’ ‘My child was hit by a car, therefore life is bad.’ But what we don’t see are the Chains of Events that are connected to those things.”
Sully took another sip of coffee and continued.
“
A
doesn’t lead to
B,
Drane.
A
leads to
B
, which leads to
C
, which leads to
D
,
E
,
F
,
G
. And you can’t tell if
A
was a good thing or a bad thing until you see how it ripples across the rest of the alphabet (not to mention all the letters that came before
A
!). Therefore, it can be said that the very idea of cause is an illusion . . .”
“I don’t believe that,” said Becker, and even though all the things he relied upon felt shaken by this day, he truly didn’t.
“Neither do I.” Sully smiled, happy that the boy had beaten him to the punch. “In fact, after studying the History of the World since back in the Day, I have come to believe that there was only one thing behind the Plan on the day it was implemented, and there is only one thing behind the Plan as we speak.”
“Which is?”
Sully leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.
“You’ll have to read my book.”
Becker flashed back to the stacks of paper sticking out of every possible nook and cranny of the Hall of Records (along with a host of equations, calculations, and graphs that had been half erased from multiple chalk and grease boards). Back then, he’d been pretty sure Sully had lost his marbles, and though the Fixer still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t, he wanted to hear more. But before Becker could pry any further, he spotted something across the street.
“Dude, is that . . . ?”
The woman who was heading up the stairs of building 274 had silver hair—the kind that only comes after years of being blond—and wore a simple white blouse, ankle-length skirt, and leather sandals. Her wrists were covered with bracelets and she was carrying a bakery box, but the only thing Becker and Sully were looking at was her face.
“I think it is, Drane,” Sully whispered, incredulous. “I think it is.”
Both of them recognized that face from paintings in The Seems—most notably the masterpiece known as “The 13
th
Chair,” which depicted the founding members of the Powers That Be gathered around their conference room table. Sitting next to the symbolically empty seat at the head was the original Second in Command—the same woman who was now fumbling with a set of keys and opening the outer door to the crooked brownstone.
“Excuse me!” Becker rose to his feet and called out across the street. “Can we speak with you for a second?”
As a thirteen-year-old Fixer and a mangy-haired Keeper of the Records tentatively approached the person they believed to be the Time Being, they did not notice a figure stepping out of the Corner Bistro with a paper bag in his hands. He was tall, thin, and bearded, his faded jeans and suede jacket fitting in perfectly with the downtown hipsters. In fact, the only thing about him that stood out from the crowd was the strange pendant that dangled from his neck—forged of black pewter and shaped into the image of a cresting wave.
The stranger sat down on the curb and started to eat his cheeseburger, all the while paying close attention to the conversation across the street. After a few more words were exchanged, the older woman opened the door and the trio disappeared inside.
“
Trés bien
, Draniac,” said Thibadeau Freck, licking his fingers and putting on a pair of Serengeti shades.
“Trés bien.”
21
. 1. Taste. 2. Touch. 3. Smell. 4. Hearing. 5. Sight. 6. Humor. 7. The 7
th
Sense. 8. Direction. 9. Style. 10. ESP. 11. I See Dead People. 12. Common.
22
. A derogatory term hurled by Manhattanites at citygoers who hail from the outlying boroughs (and particularly New Jersey).
Mountain Time Zone, Department of Time, The Seems
Tony the Plumber pulled off his “Iovino’s Plumbing & AC Repair” hardhat and wiped the sweat off his furrowed brow. High above the mountains the sun blazed down and reflected off the Babbling Brook, a tributary of the Stream of Consciousness that flowed directly through this Time Zone.
“Where the heck is this thing already?” Tony spat on the ground and took a swig of much needed Diet Inspiration from his thermos. “I thought you guys said it was gonna be here like snap, crackle, and pop!”
Tony was speaking to the gaggle of Time Flies who had helped him construct the Containment Field on the banks of the brook. The ten-foot-square box of glass was finally complete, with a semipermeable membrane on the roof to allow the Split Second in (but not out), and Firsts and Thirds scattered on a floor of freshly mown grass. It had taken a lot of work, however, and as the crew lowered their shovels and glass cutters, they were caked with perspiration and dirt.
“Patience, brudda,” said the dreadlocked foreman of the crew in his lilting accent. “The watched pot never boil.”
“Yeah, but The World’s gonna roast like my mom’s braciola if this Split Second don’t come marchin’ through the door!”
“Man makes his plan,” responded the foreman with a toothy grin. “And the Plan laughs . . .”
A chorus of “iries” went up among the work crew, and someone turned up the thick reggae coming over their portable radio. Like all the construction workers, affectionately known as “Time Flies,” this bunch had been raised on the Islands in the Stream, where the perfect sunsets, tasty waves, and offshore breezes contributed to a decidedly mellow mind-set. They were also practically immune to the Essence of Time (probably because Time Flies were always having fun) and thus were solely responsible for mining First, Seconds, and Thirds from the three indigenous Time Zones in The Seems.
“Are you sure this astroturf ain’t screwin’ things up?” Tony pointed to the floor of the Containment Field, which had been made from the vanilla grass that grew on the edge of the Brook. “Maybe we shoulda used dirt instead.”
“Trus’ me, Tony Plumba mon. We do dis every day.” The foreman pulled a First from one of the wheelbarrows. “Whenever we got one dat be cracked or damaged, we wrap dem in da grass so we don’ get no runoff. In da mud or dirt da Essence jus’ seep tru.”
Tony tried to take their word for it, but the farther the sun set behind the mountains, the more his stomach drifted in the opposite direction. Part of that was probably due to the meatball parm he’d inhaled before starting the Containment Field, but the other part was no doubt related to something wrong in The Seems. Something very, very—
Honk! Honk! Honk!
Tony and the Flies turned to see a white golf cart bouncing up the dirt road that led to their work site. It was Permin Neverlåethe, who looked nearly as pale as his vehicle.
“What’s the word, Permee?” asked Tony, as the vehicle pulled to a halt.
“I checked the log sheets, just as I promised,” replied the Administrator, his voice shaking. “And it seems there was one Minuteman who didn’t show up for work today.”
“Who’s that?”
“Ahem . . . his name is Ben Lum.”
“Big Ben?” A murmur shot through the Time Flies . . . but not a happy one. “Dat boy crazy!”
“Not ta mention eight feet tall,” blurted out another.
Tony the Plumber dropped one hand to his Receiver and raised the other to rub the back of his sunburned neck. Fixer #22 knew the feeling of a Mission coming together . . . but this one felt more like a Mission falling apart.
“Yo, Brief! How we doin’ in there?”
The In-Between
“Chillin’ like a villain,” shouted Harold “C-Note” Carmichael over the roar of the In-Between. But if he had to be honest, “chillin’ ” didn’t quite apply to how the Briefer felt right now. “Barely hanging on” was probably more like it.
C-Note was currently standing atop one of the countless Tubes that transported Goods & Services between The World and The Seems. Goggles shielded his eyes from the frost and glare, while his feet were lined with both Rubber Soles™ (to keep him from being singed by the electrostatic energy) and Concrete Galoshes™ (to keep him from drifting off into the infinite blue).
“My Blinker says that Essence just smoked an island off the
Moldavian coast.”
Tony the Plumber’s voice squawked over the Briefer’s Receiver.
“You got a handle on where it’s comin’ from?”
“Yeah, T. I’m lookin’ right at it!”
The Briefer had been deployed to the In-Between to track down the pathway by which runoff from the Split Second was spilling into the World. Using his 7
th
Sense like a homing beacon, he’d field-tested thirty-six of the Tubes before hitting pay-dirt on the one set aside for Animal Affairs.
23
“I just got off the horn with Administrator Hoofe and she says it’s business as usual up there. It’s gotta be slipping in from another source!” C-Note watched a bundle of zebra stripes pass below his feet. “You want me to keep lookin’?”
“Negatory. Get that Q-Turn
™ on ASAP!”
C-Note reached into his Briefcase and pulled out the heavy, Q-shaped Tool. Anything that entered the mouth would automatically be looped around 390 degrees and sent directly out “the squiggly,” but it was normally used for redirecting Creative Juices. Tony’s hunch was that if his Briefer installed the Q-turn in the middle of the Tube, any future bursts of Essence could be diverted before ever hitting The World.
“I don’t know, T. Essence might turn this Q into an R!”
It wasn’t that C-Note was afraid to get his hands dirty. In addition to his job as a Briefer, he worked two other part-time gigs to put himself through med school: pizza delivery man and car detailer at Slick Willie’s, the hottest polish house in LA. But tricking out the rims on a Bugatti Roadster was a whole different ballgame than finessing the Essence of Time.
“Got any suggestions?”
“Yeah, I got a good one.”
C-Note could almost hear the devilish grin on Tony’s face.
“Use your imagination!”
Meanwhile, The Seems
Shan Mei-Lin rushed to Mr. Chiappa’s aid and quickly began to untie the straps that bound his arms and legs to the chair. The restraints had left deep welts in the English teacher’s wrists, and his face and body looked like he’d been severely beaten.
“Who did this to you, sir?”
“Who do you think?” coughed Fixer #12, spitting the gag from his mouth. “The same
scioccos
who planted the Bomb in the first place.”
Even though Mr. Chiappa was as bruised as he was angry, Shan was amazed to see that he showed no visible signs of aging. Everyone else in the radius of the initial blast had been turned to dust.
“How is this possible, sir? We all thought you were dead.”
“So did I.” Lucien Chiappa rubbed his sore arms and eked out a smile. “When the Split Second exploded through the Frozen Moments, instead of being aged, I was somehow taken along for the ride.”
Shan offered her Fixer a bottle of Inspiration from her Briefcase, and the Corsican polished off the whole thing in one thirsty gulp.
“It yanked me through dozens of Moments—maybe even hundreds—I don’t know, it was all a blur of color and sound until I splashed down at the bottom of some kind of waterfall . . .”
“That’s how I got here too.” The Briefer quickly recounted the tale of what happened after she and Fixer Drane had ventured into the Frozen Moment pool. Shan surmised it was Chiappa’s footsteps she had followed into the heart of Meanwhile, but how he ended up bound and gagged was a wholly different tale.