"Should I kill you?" echoed Red_Two's hollow voice, as Emmet strolled the room with breakfast, balancing a tray of two porridge bowls and spoons on one arm. Despite the entire night of tranquiliser induced sleep, Red_Two looked exhausted, pulling himself out of the blanket shroud he had made himself, like life itself was a taxing effort.
Emmet laughed, then smiled brightly at him, shutting the door, filing away the comment to analyse later, during his mandatory nanobot project shift.
He twirled around to place the tray on the table. "I didn't know what fruit you liked, so I put a little bit of everything in here, then added honey to sweeten the pot, and get your blood sugar levels up," Emmet explained cheerily, bouncing over to pull the curtains open, flicking open the window to let the morning sea breeze run amok.
Red_Two shivered and pulled himself under the blanket hoping to shield himself from the cold wind, and the world. Emmet turned back to him and watche
"So, what do we do now?" Emmet asked, looking down at his half empty bowl.Red_Two struggled in his arms for a moment before looking up at him, still appearing somewhat dead. His eyes were still wet, red rimmed, and in pain.To Emmet, his eyes were like mercury, reflective and clear, and so different from the drab grey of the bedframe.His mouth moved to attempt making words before sealing shut. He had retreated into his mind, where Emmet couldn't follow him. Emmet tightened his arms, bringing Red_Two into a proper hug. He just wanted to learn all he could about him: his story, the world of the future, and what he was going to do in the past.But, if the world was that painful, Emmet wasn't sure if he even wanted to know.Away on their tiny island, cut off from the rest of the world , it was almost possible that they could ignore what was happening outside, but now, that wasn't possible. He placed his hand over Red_Two's head."Why do you wa
When Doctor Johnstone arrived to fix the damage of the hug, she first glared at Emmet, accusing and without saying a word. This time, Emmet was sure that she was going make good on her prior threats to put laxatives in his coffee.Doctor Johnstone had resewn the torn stitches on Red_Two's upper back and then tightened the bandages to the point of restricting his movement, pulled out his IV and had conducted her tests, silently, unreactive to any of the duo's attempts to stutter out apologies.The whole process took twenty minutes. Twenty long, awkward, silent minutes where not even the howling wind outside dared to disturb her.Red_Two looked down, despondent at upsetting her. She had moved him back to his original position whenever he shifted to alleviate the pain of his cramping legs, unrepenting, regardless of his apologetic expression.Emmet sat still on his chair, with his own legs crossed in solitude for the full twenty minutes, taking every opportu
Emmet Islington, much to Red_Two's surprise, turned out to be the facility director, and the head scientist, and had been neglecting his work: hours on the nanobot project that had been neglected; papers and reports had piled up on his desk, and the many spreadsheets on his computer needed to be reformatted with graphs, and summaries.He also had the best office on the island. A single door leading into a rectangular room with a set up of sofas and a coffee table in the centre, flanked by two walls chock full of books, and desk at the far end with a computer with a fancy swivel chair, the computer screen facing the final wall: a sheet of shining, translucent glass looking out over the cliffs of the island and directly into the sunset.Unfortunately for Emmet, swathes of piled papers had overtaken and drowned both his desk and coffee table in the three days of his ignored work."What've you been doing for so much work to be here?" Red_Two asked incredulously from
When the atlas was suitably modified, and Red_Two's initial rage and sadness had run its course, he placed the book down on Emmet's desk gently, and handed Emmet his pen back even more so, looking down off to the side. His throat made a quiet noise, before he turned back to the bookshelf and looked down into his lap.Emmet now properly looked over the atlas: lace names were crossed out with new, unfamiliar ones replacing them; full swathes of coastal land was scribbled out, presumably underwater and new borders were drawn on, particularly centred around mountainous areas. He was surprised to see particular rivers swollen up, and new lakes and estuaries where there were previously none.He looked back at Red_Two, his face crumpling. Pain medication or not, the man was sat hunched over, back shaking and soaked with sweat. His hands were laid limp at his side on the floor, fists unclenched, but elbows and wrists wobbling regardless, telling him all he needed to know.
Red_Two wasn't sleeping, Emmet noticed. Black bags hung under his eyes, in stark contrast to the slow recovery of the rest of his body. The more he seemed to heal, and the less grey his skin was, the more exhausted he seemed, though that didn't dim his excitement in the morning when he first entered the office.When Emmet had handed him his medical report though after their little façade of a deal, he had just stared at it, not even reading a single word, as Emmet had analysed his new map, mentally traced possible etymologies of the new place names, and guessed at the events which would occur in the future that would keep Switzerland mostly intact but would massacre England into a collection of tiny states. Even as he placed it aside, and begun battling through his piles of paperwork, Red_Two had not moved.His inner world must be at least rich, Emmet had mused, before scolding himself for his insensitivity. The man was suffering trauma, and he was making jokes
The falling rocks entombed his family, community, and all he knew. His ears were deafened by the colossal crashes and his eyes by the humungous dust clouds. He couldn't hear anything or see anything, and he felt as if he was coughing up blood, trying to free his throat from those all-encompassing streams and plumes of rocks and dirt, hellbent on suffocating him. He watched his home fall into a giant heap of dust, crushed under his own weight. He looked up towards the cloudy, grey skies, and saw a swarm of tiny, grey dots under the cloud cover. He needed to rescue his family. He stood to sprint towards them, only to see the first of the burning, red flames to fall from the sky.He awoke. The sun had not arisen. He laid awake, blanket thrown aside, for the rest of the night.The morning, his forth day at the facility, the newly named Jasper had learned over breakfast from under the glaring, wrathful eyes of Doctor Johnstone, occurred just like
Doctor Johnstone had woken up as she did every morning at 5:00 with her "roommate's" legs wrapped around her torso like she was some spider monkey. Although the bedroom technically had two beds, only one bed was ever used, with the other delegated to act as the table to throw the problems that the couple didn't want to solve. Currently, it was piled with unfolded clothes from the laundry yesterday.Doctor Johnstone looked over to that pile and sighed out loudly. "I'll do it Lisa," her roommate answered softly into her neck, her warm breath caressing her skin with those heavenly words. Lisa Johnstone hated folding clothes."Thanks Alice," she sighed out, bringing her arms up around Alice in a hug, leaning down to kiss her short, wavy, blonde hair.Lisa untangled herself from Alice, making sure to wrap the warm covers over her, watching her snuggle in for a some more sleep, and made her way to the bathroom to take her daily, twenty minute long, hot shower, thankfu
Fire had run through the forest, alighting every bush, shrub, and tree, and creating giant, black plumes of smoke, chocking everything. It fell from the sky, from the clouds like rain, and Red_Two knew, peeled to the shattered cliff edge, that he could not go back. His legs shook and his entire body shivered, too weak to move against the burning stones fell from the community. He was sweating and crying and the dust in his eyes just wouldn't leave him alone. He tried to move away from the cliff edge, crawl at least to the cool of the river, but his body wouldn't listen to him. Hot bile rose from his stomach and Red_Two vomited off to the side.He lay face down on the floor, eyes glued to the upwards, gazing up at the floating city.He just wanted to close his eyes and see that everything was going to be alright. He wanted to wake up from his hellscape dream.He woke up.He woke up again.And again.And again.His name wa
“Why’re you sleeping on the floor like that? Come on, get up. You’ll hurt your back doing that,” Doctor Marigold chided, dragging all her bits of heavy machinery around the office space to prepare for her demonstration.Behind her, Lila remained still.“I know that you’re not dead. Come, get up already,” she called out, stepping over a few sheets of paper that she had laid out to grab Lila by the shoulder and heave her up into sitting.The stubborn girl just flopped down again, not opening her eyes.“If you get the fuck up, we can move the flight a week forward so you can stop worrying about it,” Lucy Marigold shouted across the room.Like a rubber band, Lila snapped back up and finally opened her eyes.It had been harder to see the bags below them when they had been closed and Doctor Marigold wondered if she should buy the girl some sleep tablets.“I’m awake,” Li
Yolanda seemed to understand that she needed to back off and stop teasing Gretel, when the other woman's eyes suddenly misted over, and it was if she was no longer a part of this world.She kept the bubbling annoyance within her away from her face, putting on instead a mask of concern as she reached out and poked Gretel's arms, trying to maybe prod her out of her stupor and bring her back from the recesses of her mind.Yolanda had never actually seen somebody collapse inwards to a catatonic state over her own actions.It was interesting to see it all happen and fold out in front of her.She poked Gretel again, touching her in the face lightly to see if that would possibly work to pull the other woman out of her mind and back into the world where she was needed proper.It wouldn't reflect well on her if Gretel didn't wake up within the hour.It didn't feel as
When she awoke, she was sat ready to eat and was dressed just like her mother, in a pastel blouse and a lungi down to the floor.Lila looked down at herself and jumped when she heard rattling, noticing the ten, or so, bangles on each arm and the lines of mehndi that ran down all the way to the hems of her sleeves, resting halfway between her shoulders and elbows. A pin held her blouse shut at the top and a quick once over of her hair, with one of her hands, revealed that it had been styled in a simple bun and adorned with flowers.“This is weirdly romantic,” Lila commented, staring at the lit candles nestled in the variously sized candelabrums set around the circular room.There was no door, but a giant window which led to a balcony outside. There was no ceiling but the walls reaching upwards, all the way up, until they formed a dome in the same shade of dull brown that coated the floor and the giant, round table in the centre.The only dishes
“So, is she finally asleep?” Emmet asked the boy stood behind the counter. He was exceedingly slim for someone surrounded by sugar all day and Emmet could make out the outlines of his spindly elbows through his shirt. His face held a no nonsense, blunt, and almost bored expression. “Yeah, she is. She’s been knocked out on the sofa since I sent her back there,” Kai answered the long haired man in front of him, his hair pulled back by a ribbon matching his eyes before being pulled over his shoulder once more. He looked vain. “Oh good. Don’t tell her that I was involved,” the man asked, putting both his palms up to face Kai. “I’m telling her that you’re a fucking weirdo for that,” was the scowled answer. “No. Seriously, don’t tell her. She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her. She’s known my partner for longer that I’ve known him. She doesn’t trust me with him. Why’re you making that face?” Emmet tried to justify himself before giving up
“Are you sure that you’re getting enough sleep?” Kai asked Lila, watching her sway on her feet and clutching the front counter.“Yes,” she gasped, dropping her head into her hands, elbows on the table.“Go and lie down on the sofa. Go to sleep for a bit. I’ll wake you up when I have to leave for college,” Kai instructed her, tapping her on the shoulders and shepherding her towards the office.“… fine,” she conceded, letting Kai move her along towards the back.“You know that this just proves my point,” Kai pointed out, pushing her through the boundary of the door and closing it behind her.“Fine,” she whispered back to him, talking into the silence of the office.She let herself fall over the sofa, draping her upper body over the arm rest and letting her head be cushioned by the pillows. Shuffling a bit over to put her body entirely on the sofa, Lila f
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now again!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now keep on going!”Lila landed each punch, timing her breaths to the count as she moved her fists, dodging underneath the swing that came towards her head, before blocking the second hit that came to her and moving along with the force of the fist that hit her arm.The swinging punching bag forced distance between Lila and Tweedle Dum, and she stepped back to where she was stood before, within the path of the moving bad, to put more distance between him and her.“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”Lila punched the bag once more, landing all of her hits.“Okay, time for a break,” Tweedle Dum announced, grabbing the punching bag and pulling it back to him as Lila moved away from the centre of the room, sitting down on one of the rickety plastic chairs at the side of the room.She took of
“Bitch! Why’d you run off and abandon me like that!?” Lila shouted from behind the counter when Kai finally walked back into the store.She was waving her hands about and wore an apron covered in flour as the single customer in the store, an old man precariously balancing on his cane, slept whilst leaning on the radiator.“I thought that you wanted some bonding time with your family so I left you to do that it private!” Kai answered her, tiptoeing past their unconscious patron, in a combination of whispering and shouting.“They’re hardly my family and you left us in the middle of a public café!” Lila cried, not modulating her voice at all.In the background, the old man began to snore.“But you still talk to them a lot like you do to me, so I let you, and besides, I got about fifty more pages of Good Omens done in Waterstones,” Kai appealed, finally at the counter and opening up the
Gretel and Silver had their fun as he continued to teach her how the interface worked and how he had managed to figure out that the system was an older model from the lack of integration between the screen and the touch pad, and explaining how easily it would potentially be to do so once the technology, as displayed in this device, had been demonstrated and established to work in a functional product."We were working on something like this as well, back in the workshops back home for the company that I was in the research and development department for. We were trying to get our motion sensors to be as small as possible for more commercial and personal use of technology that we could sell to the public and those who couldn't afford the contact computers.We had no idea on how their tech worked, because of trade and company secrets and all, but we managed to piece together a few things by looking at the patents and when we bought a few and m
“Alright, the shop’s free. Why are you actually here?” Lila questioned, crossing her arms and staring down at the tablecloth of Jasper and Emmet’s table.“I’ve got lesson now. I’ll be back in a few hours,” the teenage boy behind Lila announced, picking up a bag that had been hidden behind the counter the entire time and rushing outside.Lila continued to stand there, waiting for a reply.Jasper couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t meeting either his or Emmet’s eyes.“Are you planning to leave us?” he asked her back.Lila’s fingers dug into the creases of her shirt,” I’m going to be leaving for a trip soon, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Kai’ll be running the shop and will be looking after things, broadly. He lives here now and I scheduled my leave for when his school term ends so he can take care of things.”“On thi