The Life of Gaia

CHAPTER 16: Temps D'Arrêt

When I made that leap, the sound that struck me most was the sound of the hands: everyone in the room had a wristwatch or pocket watch with them. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone.

Along with their pulses, then, there was a kind of lighter, deeper ticking: these were their hearts, small machines driven by organic levers and tubes that were not so different from the watches they carried. But this I understood only after the end of that whole thing.

And finally I was enveloped in a harmony of near and far pops, metallic sounds and repeated rustles that all sang and vibrated together in a perfect mechanism.

Until I landed. As soon as my foot met the sound, a vibration covered those of everything else: the intruder alarm and, with it, the plan buzzing in my mind. The sign I had to act.

Amid the alarmed faces of the workers I ran aimlessly from one side of the hall to the other, jumping from time to time and bending to the ground to dodge the sentries that were coming in droves from all entrances. I seemed to have become lighter. People looked at me strangely as I vaulted over their heads between jumps, clutching children to them and backing away slowly.

I saw Zantas arguing with some guards - he was getting agitated, although it seemed that the situation was still under control. This was not going well at all; this was not the control we needed.

I spotted a shallow pipe and leapt to the edge of one of the hydraulic presses amid sighs of surprise from the crowd. I closed my eyes and focused on the vibrations produced by the gas molecules inside it and managed to freeze them for an instant, producing the hoped-for effect: the pipe burst, and a white cloud billowed into the air. The sentries went crazy, and dozens of cameras pointing at me popped out of the walls.

In the center of the room, a huge screen came down from the ceiling and lit up, showing my face photographed from countless different angles; below the images was a red sign that read, "Maximum alert: telekinetic protester." Everything was perfect!

Zantas rushed up to me (somehow he had freed himself from the guards) and glared at me.

°Gaia, are you crazy? Can anyone know what you are doing?°

"I'm following the plan. I told you to trust me!"

The look in his eye made me realize that that trust was wavering.

"Now we have to leave, we're done here."

°Then grab me and hold on tight. We clearly have to get out of circulation.°

As I had already done in Deep Reality, I clung to the flying sign with all my strength and let myself be lifted into the air. The cameras and the guards' gazes remained fixed on us, with the screen now also showing a picture of Zantas.

We had just exited the entrance portal, dozens of meters above the ground, when a vibration rumbled in my head that made my muscles contract in fear. I turned back, and saw that the very walls of the Usine were churning-it almost seemed as if they were calling my name, now that they could no longer reach me. Zantas continued his flight, unperturbed.

The question now was: would my plan work?

But more importantly: what had moved those walls?

*******

From the coal room where they were, Alexis and his father heard only the vibrations from the shaking of the walls. Swarms of soot came down from openings in the ceiling causing a few sneezes, and to general surprise the screens used for important announcements lit up after several days of inactivity. Framed in the images were two figures: the first, on the left, was a young girl with completely white hair, eyes and skin and a pink nose that contrasted with the rest; the second, on the right, was a strange flying object of dazzling white, with a single eye outlined in black in the middle of its body. Below them a red inscription marked them as "telekinetic protesters."

Alexis was sure he had never seen either of them before, but something about them seemed familiar. His father turned his cap inside out and went back to shoveling coal.

<<Look at that, you can't even work in peace anymore. In the space of a single day those Protestants organized no less than two demonstrations. Bah ... they have nothing better to do. In the old days things worked differently,>> he said. The boy disagreed completely, but he too joined the pile of black wood and avoided making it clear.

For the rest of the day they said almost nothing else, and that suited Alexis just fine. One of the reasons for him to return to that factory was precisely that no one there expected him to say anything learned or refined (as opposed to what happened in his mother's social circles). That, in short, he could be a lump of coal in a mountain.

One like any other.

As the sun set on the horizon, loudspeakers announced the end of the morning shift and the beginning of the night shift. The halls of the Usine emptied of tired, sweaty faces to make way for the cleaner, but still tired, faces of other workers.

Alexis waited as usual alone at the service exit for his father to finish changing. His breath condensed from the cold under the black night sky; even keeping his hands in his jacket pockets did not help in those temperatures. Ever since he had seen her, he could not get the image of that girl out of his head.

<<What is it boy, love? Don't let something like that distract you, that would be crazy of you.>>

Alexis turned toward the voice that had just spoken, and saw a man. He was tall, wearing a long gray coat that barely covered the brown shirt from underneath. On his right hand he wore a canary yellow ring. The boy looked at him, letting his wariness show.

"Excuse me, who are you?"

The man smiled.

<<You are right, we have never met and I have not introduced myself. But I assure you we will get to know each other>>. He paused to look at the sky, then recomposed himself and returned to look at the man: <<The director of the Usine needs a hand, and he has chosen to ask for yours, Alexis. For something of utmost importance.>>

The boy felt his heart palpitate at those words, but told himself that he could not know whether they were true or not: what if the man was lying to him?

"Prove to me that you are telling the truth."

<<Oh, certainly. I will do so tomorrow morning when we meet to discuss this matter a bit. At noon in this same place, all right?">>

"I don't recall you responding to my request."

The man chuckled to himself; his laughter was high-pitched and had something mournful about it.

<<Tell your father that Helix has come to speak to you. Good night, boy. We'll talk again in the morning.>>

After that Helix gave one last smile and walked off down the road, leaving Alexis alone again, in the company of his steam, the cold, and a name that would seal his fate.