Jago
Prologue
“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
Albert Einstein
She was sitting boots-up on a high wall, the breeze flicking at her hair, shivering at her leggings, rippling at her t-shirt, it was picking up, she noticed, when the man emerged from the ruined building. She studied him as he stared around; he was heedless of danger, he looked confused. He wasn’t the one she was waiting for. He was fat, she thought, he had a belly bigger than any man should have, a belly like a sow. He wasn’t a prowler, but he was from no tribe she recognized either, his shoes were weak and flimsy, his clothes shiny and new, nothing worn or repaired, nothing had melded to him the way it should, nothing about him looked comfortable or secure; nothing you could run in. She almost snorted in laughter at this; he looked like he’d never walked more than a mile, never gone hungry, never done a day’s labor.
‘Hey,’ she said.
His head jerked up toward her, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the late afternoon sun.
‘Where am I?’ he said.
She pushed back the black hair from her face. ‘Jago.’
‘Jago?’
‘Repeating what I said and adding a question mark,’ she told him, ‘that ain’t making conversation.’
‘Everything is changed,’ he said, staring around, wide-eyed. ‘It’s the same. But it’s different.’
He’s a slave, she thought, a pleasure slave, he can’t be anything else. But who’d pick that sow for pleasure? ‘You alright, mister?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No.’ Then, ‘I’m not sure.’
‘You’ve got it covered then. You’re prepared for all eventualities,’ and her eyes gave him the slightest of sardonic smiles.
‘I need to get back,’ he said.
‘Sun’s going down,’ she said.
‘Right.’
She paused for a moment, then said, ‘You don’t understand.’ She spoke patient, like to a child. ‘Sun goes down, they’ll come out, and if they catch you they’ll kill you. Maybe rape you, just to see what it’s like to rape a fat man.’
‘Who’d kill me?’ his voice wavering, scared.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘But not here.’
She looked around, the sun low in the sky, the shadows thrown long, the darkness beginning to creep from the crumbling buildings. Figured she had a few minutes. ‘You do like to cover your options,’ she said. ‘How’d you manage to survive long enough to get old, fat man?’ He must have been forty years old, she thought. Hair all wispy and thin, shirt too tight across his belly. He wore spectacles. They looked new too.
Her mom wore spectacles. A scout had found a box with a dozen pairs of spectacles in a drawer in an empty resale shop, a little rusted, dusty, but useable, and had shared them amongst the people who needed them. She remembered the old folk trying different pairs on, looking funny to her. And there were a couple of pairs for kids. One pair so thick no-one could wear them without a headache. They’d be cared for and passed down.
His glasses looked new. ‘Come out of the doorway,’ she said. ‘See if we can sort you out.’
‘This is amazing,’ he said quietly, stepping forward. ‘Amazing and, frankly, very scary,’ his voice awed, ‘But I think it worked. It did. It really worked.’
‘What worked?’
‘My, uh,’ he frowned. ‘What should I call it? When it was a theory I’d never thought to give it a name.’
She watched him, amused.
‘But when I was building it, I’d call it ‘it’ or ‘she’ as in “she’s acting up today, or she’s running smooth.” We went forward. Five minutes. That was amazing. But this,’ he was talking to himself, ‘She works,’ and he looked around, seeing, as if for the first time, exactly where he was standing, amidst the evidence of, something, her, working maybe, and inside himself he felt an urge to go all HG Wells; theatrical. ‘My machine,’ he whispered to himself.
He dared not give it it’s full title. That would make it real. And a real thing like that would change the world. He looked up at the girl, sitting on the wall like a cat warming itself in the dying sun. He gathered himself up, ‘I’m professor John Ames,’ he said, ‘I work at the university here,’ he nodded at the almost-collapsed building from which he’d just emerged. His voice lowered, almost talking to himself, ‘And I think I’ve just had the greatest scientific breakthrough in history.’ He gazed around, stared at the dust and the emptiness and the broken-downness of his surroundings, and then at the girl sitting boots-up on the wall. ‘The greatest single anything breakthrough in history.’
‘What do you profess?’ she asked him, having ignored most of his barely intelligible words.
‘What?’ He looked up, seeing her properly now, noticing for the first time that she carried a staff, and the staff had a wicked-looking blade fastened securely to the end of it. ‘What?’ he repeated, a little louder, his voice a little shaky, he felt the beginnings of a hypo.
‘What do you profess, professor, when you’re in there, professing’ and she raised her chin a little toward the building behind him. ‘Cuz there’s nothing in there ‘cept dust and emptiness.’
She watched him as he stood thinking, confused-looking, beginning to be apprehensive, and she thought, he’s realizing something. He looked up at her again, forced a smile, then he looked a little sly, asked, ‘Do you know what year this is?’
In reply, she twisted and dropped down from the wall, eight feet down, landed with hardly a sound, knees bent a little, the butt of the staff hitting the ground at the same time as her feet. She brushed dust off a pant leg, looked at him and said, ‘What year do you think it is, fat man?’ her spear held lightly, absently, like she could hurl it fast and far without a second thought.
He told her.
She raised an eyebrow, ‘You’re about sixty-five years too late, professor,’ the evening breeze making dust-devils dance around her worn leather boots. In the distance a dog howled and she turned to look over her shoulder. She said, ‘I was waiting for someone, but he ain’t coming today, so we’d better get shelter. Prowlers are hunting tonight.’
‘Prowlers?’
‘Bad men. I told you.’
‘Can I trust you?’ he glanced at the spear.
She followed his glance, flicked a finger across the serrated edge of the blade. ‘Well I ain’t stuck you yet.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Shelter.’
She nodded, ‘Come with me,’ and she walked off.
He followed, asking, ‘Where are we going?’
‘We’re going to hide.’
‘Where.’
‘Somewhere.’
He had to jog to keep up. The sun was very low in the sky now, the shadows beginning to join hands. He felt wobbly, he shouted after her, ‘What’s your name?’
She paused, mid-step. ‘My name is Esta,’ she told him, patient, like to a child. ‘Don’t raise your voice.’ She began walking again.
‘Esta,’ he said, panting with the effort of keeping up with her, ‘Slow down.’
She paused, ‘Why?’
‘Because I know the perfect place to hide.’
She stopped and turned, looked back at him, curious.
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