"Why the fuck wouldn't you lead with that?!" Emmet exploded at Lila, shaken all at once with worry, guilt, relief and pain.
There was a turbulent storm of emotions running through his body, waves of anger rising up above and out of himself, lashing out into the world, threatening to crash and break everything around him.
He wanted those thunderous waves to break everything around him. He wanted lightning to crash down around him and set everything ablaze. He wanted Lila to be dragged underwater and be dragged around, against her will, through the gigantic whirlpool of hate and uncertainty, struggling to keep going and keeping her head above water.
In that moment, he hated Lila for playing with his emotions. He hated her for stringing him along and making him worry, for forcing even more worry on him. He hated her lack of emotions, her callousness towards Jasper and his life. He hated her for keeping Jasper from him, and he also hated Jasper, just a little bit.
Emmet startled for a second.Was he brought here on purpose? What for?He heard his handcuffs rattle against the bedframe and winced as he shuffled without thinking, trying to pull himself further up the bed."How do you know who I am?" Emmet decided to ask instead of the obvious bait that Lila was laying out for him.It wouldn't be best if he simpl did everything that she wanted while under duress, even if she did hold all the cards and Emmet owed her a lot at the current moment. He needed to avoid setting a precedent where he would just play into her hands over and over again. It was his only way forward right now, and he was glad that soon, anyway, he would be healed enough to leave, even if he did require crutches for quite a bit longer as well as a sling on his arm."I know everything about you because it's very easy to get practically anything and everything out of your Jasper," she snared back, her face remaining unchanging even if her voice
"I know your Jasper, because one day he threw himself off a cliff, into a valley, near my house.I was playing with insects down there, near the bottom, and I saw him fall out of the sky. He had a leg cast full of technology which included syringes to inject painkillers, medicine, and increased healing factors into him, all monitoring his nerve stimulations remotely to inject those chemicals where needed and for what amount.He claimed, to me and me alone, that he was a time traveller, and he had come here in a time machine, from the future where he had unwittingly created a monster, and had unleashed it upon the world. He cried a lot about what he had done, and he regretted his actions so much that sometimes it felt as if he was drowning the entire room with them.One day, when he thought that he was ready, Jasper left in his time machine, to somewhere back in the future. He wanted to be punished for his actions, and because nobody was going to give that to him
“I kind of hate you, you know that.”Those were the first words of Lila when she arrived later, after 6 PM with another tray balanced on her arm.Emmet had been sat bored out of his mind, stomach growling at the lack of food and throat dry. His head immediately snapped up to look at her, and he was fairly confident that despite her words, she honestly did care for him on some level.Not many of his muscles were atrophied and he retained full motion of his left arm, albeit painfully, after rolling it around in its socket, after sitting up of course. His left leg was also fully functional, as well as the joint, on his right leg, connecting the limb to his torso.It also came to Emmet’s attention that he had a catheter. He was no particularly interested in learning how it was going to be removed at the moment, deciding to put that little tid-bit firmly to the side for now.He did not want to think
"Nighty, Nighty," Emmet's mother used to call out to him, stroking his hair as he laid his head down on her lap, finding comfort in her warmth, finding solace in the quiet."Pyjama, Pyjama," Aunt Minnie called back from where she slept at the side, all three of them laid down on Emmet's mother's double bed.Emmet never understood how Aunt Minnie managed to sleep on her back with her arms crossed, her body completely still save for her shallow, repetitive breaths, forming the beat which his mother's hands followed as she continued to run her fingers through his hair.He had been attempting to grow his hair out, wanting long locks, just like his mother and aunt.He wanted to fit in with them more. He wanted to look more like them, and less like his father. He wanted to show his mother more support. He wanted to show his mother how similar they looked.Emmet had fallen asleep in his mother's lap that night, the sun sinking down against the clear sky t
Emmet wasn't sure when he woke up, finding himself still in the morning handcuffed to his bed and finding Lila sitting across from him, eating her own breakfast as if Emmet didn't even matter.He blinked once and managed to get her attention with that one, minute movement.She blinked back at him in reply and saw that she was wearing the same uniform as she had done before, and the same fuzzy slippers as she did before.She sat with a book open, balanced against the sides of Emmet's legs, reading whatever was on those pages as she ate her breakfast from a bowl.Cornflakes and milk.Of all things, stupid cornflakes and milk.Emmet expressed his negative opinion over her dietary choices by simply repeating back his mental spew that consisted of nothing but repititions of what she ate."Cornflakes and milk," he intoned to her, his face exasperated and aggravated.Lila remained silent, not saying a single word or pausing in her con
Emmet sat there alone in the room for hours, waiting for Lila to return back for more food.He had sat alone in the silence, after she had left, doing nothing for a while.Without his constant work and then his scheming to keep Jasper safe, Emmet had dimly realised that his time with Lila had to be the first long stretch of a part of his life, in a long, long while, that he had been free to allow his mind to go blank.The thought had been pondered on briefly, celebrated for even less, before being summarily dismissed.Lila had taken advantage of it as well.Emmet had asked her a question and she had successfully managed to evade it and leave.Worse still, he was completely at her mercy here.If he ever wanted to find Jasper, then Emmet would need to plan out everything that he needed to do.He needed to keep his head above water and remain calm and steady, throughout everything that was going to happen.He couldn't let L
Number two: Emmet needed to find the location of the time machine and steal it from Lila, as soon as he knew where Jasper was.It would be much better for the time machine to never fall into the wrong hands. It could easily be abused to fit anyone less responsible's desires and wishes, especially because the exact theory of how the universe responded to time travel was unknown, as of yet.The time machine itself contained internal logs of where and when it had travelled from and to. If Emmet was unable to extract a location from Lila, then he would be able to simply search for one through the internal memory of the time machine.He would be able to intercept Jasper before he had even stolen the time machine in the future where he originally came from. He would be able to meet Jasper in the immediate aftermath of their separation.He could even cross his own timeline to have two Emmets exist at the research facility.Crossing his own timeline and ev
"Lunch time! I hope you like repetitive meals," Lila called out as soon as she entered the room, tray propped up on one arm again as she opened the door with the other.She swung her body around with a slight spring in her step, her face more well rested than Emmet had seen her this morning, strangely enough.Emmet looked up and blinked at her, vaguely gesturing the empty bowl that had been finished for breakfast, before putting out his arms for another plate of rice and steamed vegetables, this time carrots, rather than broccoli."We're finishing all this off before I make anything else, so shut up and enjoy it," she continued to keep speaking."I didn't say anything," Emmet replied to her, receiving a wry look of disbelief in return.Her face said it all."Nice acting, mate," she drawled out, sarcastically, " I totally did not see you completely reverse your opinions on what I served since breakfast. Truly, you are a master on your persona
“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