Sherri closed the side entrance door before ducking into a bush beside Tim; one of many large shrubs, bushes and grasses that grew wild among the roots of the tree. On an elevated platform, about fifteen feet above her, ran a road sat on concrete and steel pillars. Underneath, Sherri surmised that the growth of roots made it an unsteady surface to pave, which explained the roads overhead. They looked as though they would provide a convenient cover for her movements as she made her way to Quinn’s location.
The vast canopy above set the whole city in an eerie liminal state between day and night, like a shadow-borne twilight. Beneath the roads, among the columns and scrub, it was pitch dark.
After the intense situation, all Sherri could think to do now was laugh – so she did. It was a deep, cathartic laugh.
“I can’t believe that worked,” said John, who was pacing and looking at his handlink with a nervous energy. “I mean… they just looked right past the both of you.”
“Wasn’t that the idea?” Sherri asked. “Your performance was riveting. But you should know that Willy Wonka didn’t sing that song.”
John glared at her. “I know who sang the damn song,” he snapped, before looking up the enormous tree trunk that rose into the clouds. “I just… have this knot in my stomach that won’t go away.”
Sherri took a deep breath of the remarkably clean air. “We’d better keep moving,” she said to both her companions, as she hurried towards the cover of darkness.
John followed, using his handlink to increase his perceived brightness. He stuck out like a beacon in the darkness. Even moreso as he tapped on the handlink a few more times, and a 3D mesh of the ground topography was projected in a radius around him of about six feet.
Sherri kept close behind him. She grabbed Tim’s hand as she walked.
“You can see in the dark, too?” he asked as she guided him over bulging roots and around imperceptible structures.
“Enough,” she replied, stepping over a shrub. “Watch your step there.”
Tim stumbled over the plant with a grunt. “So where’re we going next?”
Sherri paused. “My ghost friend is showing me the way to a man named Quinn,” she said, looking back into the blackness where she knew he was standing. He gave her hand a squeeze.
“Quinn? Who’s that?”
“You could say we were married once,” she joked, and knew that in at least one reality, that had been true – for a hot second, anyway. “But he’s here to make a really big mistake, and I need to get to him before he does. Then, the three of us can get out of here.”
She began walking again, tugging his hand.
“And go where?”
“Another world,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Like outer space or somethin’?” His uneven steps echoed against the concrete.
Sherri chuckled. “No, another Earth. Parallel to this one.”
He was silent for several more steps, before piping up again. “Is that where they came from? Another Earth?”
“Who, the Kromaggs?”
“Yeah.”
Sherri stopped again. “Yeah, they aren’t originally from here, are they? Would have all shown up in the mid-seventies, right?”
“You’re sayin’ that like you weren’t there…”
Sherri sighed. “Janet was. But I wasn’t.” She started edging forward again, but Tim pulled back against her tugs.
“What… what does that mean? You’re not Janet?”
“Look, we don’t have time to get into that. Come on.”
“Uh-uh,” he said, yanking his hand out of hers. “I ain’t going any further ’til you tell me who the heck you are.”
His voice was shaky, but resolute.
John moved between them, giving Sherri an apprehensive look. “I don’t know about this, Sherri.”
Sherri licked her lips.
“It’s pretty out there, Tim,” she said. “You might not believe me.”
“Yer talking to a ghost, seeing without eyes, and talkin’ about another Earth,” he spat. “Feel like anything could be true at this point.”
John’s face was crinkled with worry. “Try and avoid specifics, would you? If he ends up caught… think of what he could tell ’em. They can’t know about time travel.”
Good point. Come up with something different.
“Okay, fine,” she said, mind racing as she tried to think of a way to obfuscate the truth while still giving a satisfactory answer. “So, you know how the Kromaggs use their cloaking ability to look like someone else? You could say I have a version of that.”
In the darkness, she couldn’t make out Tim’s expression, and thus had to rely on audio clues as to his reactions. She heard him click his tongue.
“I’ve never heard of a human havin’ that,” he said, and drew a sharp breath. “You’re not human!”
His voice was accusing.
“I am human, Tim,” she said calmly. “I don’t have any innate powers; it’s all technology.”
He took a shaky breath. “Where is the real Janet? When did you take her place? And why?”
“I don’t choose whose place I take, it’s an automatic process,” she said, hoping this explanation would suffice.
She didn’t have to go into the theories John and the Professor had long been toying with – besides the ideas around divine intervention, they had theorised that the leaper may be drawn to someone deemed most ‘compatible’ – whether that be by brain waves, or even some kind subconscious willingness to accept help.
She recalled the Professor’s attempt at an explanation to her, long ago:
“Imagine, if you will, being in mortal danger. You make a desperate, final plea to your deity of choice, but you know, deep in your proverbial bones, the point in time when things began to go pear-shaped.
“So this ‘prayer’ is more than merely a split-second result of facing one’s demise. Instead, the brain creates a temporal bridge with itself, back to that prior moment. The moment where decisions were made that could have prevented this outcome. And it is precisely that moment that may provide an opening for a leaper to slip in. In some strange way, it is a cry for help that we are able to answer.
“Additionally, such openings may also occur in those around the misadventurous soul, borne of profound regret. Perhaps multiple moments in each person’s lifetime, there may be these openings. The responsibility of the leaper, therefore, is burdensome. Such moments are highly exploitable by the wrong kinds of people.”
“Janet is safe,” Sherri added. “Probably safer than she’s been in a long time.”
John affirmed this with a nod. “She’s not exactly chatty, but she seems pretty calm. She’s had a few nice meals, and a hot shower. More than I can say for you, huh?”
Sherri, who’d been doing her best to ignore her hunger pains, snorted.
She felt a hand touch her arm.
“Technology, huh?” he mused. “Even stuff the ’maggs don’t got? You must be pretty smart.”
“Ah, all the brains are with my ghost friend,” she said. “I’m not gonna go into how he works, but suffice to say, he isn’t a ghost. He’s a real person helping me out remotely. Think of it like an advanced comms system.”
“Amazing,” Tim breathed. “Um… hello… um… what do I call him?”
“John,” she said. “And… my name’s Sherri.”
“Sherri,” he echoed. “You know, now we’re in the dark and I can’t see Janet’s face, it finally feels like I’ve met you for real.”
Sherri felt his hand move down her arm and grasp her hand.
“I used to have a girlfriend,” he confessed, his voice thick with emotion. “Name were Belinda. She got taken for the breedin’ camps nine years ago. Since then I ain’t made nice with another woman in case it happened again.”
Sherri placed her other hand on top of his. “I’m sorry,” she said, as Tim let out an uneven sigh.
“I miss her so much. An’ I wish I knew where to find her. I wish I could bust her out or somethin’. But I wouldn’t even know where to start.” He shuddered. “Can I just… leave her behind? Ain’t seem right.”
His voice began to break, and Sherri moved forward, bringing him into a hug as he sobbed into her shoulder.
We have to pick our battles, but…
“Maybe there could be a way to find her,” she murmured, causing him to stiffen in her arms.
“You serious?”
“I don’t know. Maybe John can find something. Maybe we can figure out some way to help her.”
John looked at her with wide eyes. “Sherri, don’t go writing checks you can’t cash. You know I’d love to help these people, but we have to be realistic.”
Sherri pulled out of the hug. “I can’t promise anything,” she said, “except that we’ll do what we can, if we can.”
John bit his lip. “If we can, yes. Good. Nice and noncommittal.”
Sherri pulled on Tim’s arm. “We should get going.”