Schild’s Ladder

Mariama held out her hands, and he ran forward to grip them in his own. They whirled around, laughing, surefooted on the polished floor, leaning back into their own centrifugal force, moving ever faster, until Tchicaya’s arms ached and his wrists burned and his vision blurred. But he would not be the one to stop moving, and he would not be the one to let go.

Chapter 6

Something unseen stung Tchicaya’s hand, a vibration like a tuning fork held against the bone. He turned and stared at the empty space beside him, and a dark blur shivered into solidity.

"Quickly! Give your Exoself this code."

No sooner had the data passed between their Mediators than Tchicaya wished he’d rejected it. He felt as if he’d been tricked into catching something incriminatory thrown his way, the reflex action triggered by the object in flight turning out to have been the wrong response entirely.

"I can’t!"

Mariama said, "No one will ever know. They’re like statues. You’ll be invisible."

Tchicaya’s heart pounded. He glanced at the door, and caught himself straining his ears for footsteps, though he knew there’d be nothing to hear. Could she have really walked through the house undetected, marching right past his parents in that scandalous state?

"Our Exoselves scan for danger," he protested. "If anything happens at ordinary speed — "

"Did your Exoself detect me?"

"I don’t know. It might have."

"Did it signal you? Did it bring you out of Slowdown?"

"No." He wasn’t an adult, though. Who knew how differently theirs were programmed?

"We’ll stay clear of them," Mariama explained. "I’m not doing this to pick their pockets. If we’re not a threat to anyone, we won’t trigger any alarms."

Tchicaya stared at her, torn. He had never feared his parents, but he basked in their approval. It only took the faintest shadow of disappointment on his father’s face to make him ache with unhappiness. His parents were good people; valuing their high opinion was not just childish narcissism. If he did well in their eyes, he would be respected by everyone. Mariama was only Mariama: a law unto herself.

She inclined her head. "Please, Tchicaya. It’s fun doing this, but I’m lonely without you."

"How long have you been out of Slowdown?"

Mariama averted her eyes. "A week."

That hurt. How lonely could she be, if it had taken her a week to miss him?

She put a hand over her mouth and mumbled, "Or two."

Tchicaya reached out to grab her arm, and she danced back and vanished from sight. He froze for a second, then rushed for the door, and stood with his back pressed against it.

He searched the room with his eyes, knowing that it was pointless looking for her if she did not want to be seen. Shadows slid across the walls and floor with hypnotic regularity. Lighting panels in the ceiling came on at night, and softened the changes at dusk and dawn, but even when he looked away from the window the diurnal cycle was obvious, everywhere.

Another week had passed, while he stood there. She could not still be in the room with him; even if she was able to go that long without food and water, she would have gone mad from boredom.

She reappeared in front of him like a trembling reflection in a pan of water, jolted into turbulence but quickly stilled.

"How did you get in?" he demanded.

She pointed a thumb at the window. "The same way I left."

"You’re wearing my clothes!"

Mariama grinned. "They fit me nicely. And I’m teaching them lots of new tricks." She ran a hand down one sleeve and erased the old pattern, supplanting it with golden starbursts on black.

Tchicaya knew she was goading him, hoping to prod him into giving chase. She’d handed him the key; he didn’t need anything more in order to pursue her. If he gave in and joined her now, at least he’d be spared an elaborate game of hide-and-seek.

He said, "Two weeks." That sounded more than generous, and the risk of his parents noticing his absence would be microscopic.

"We’ll see."

Tchicaya shook his head. "I want you to agree to it. Two weeks, then we both come back."

Mariama chewed her lower lip. "I’m not going to make a promise I might not be able to keep." Then she read his face, and relented slightly. "All right! Barring exceptional circumstances, we’ll come back in two weeks."

Tchicaya hesitated, but he knew that this was the closest thing to a guarantee he could hope to extract from her.

She held out a hand to him, smiling slightly. Then she silently mouthed the word Now.

Their Mediators were smart enough to synchronize the process without needing to be told. Tchicaya sent the code to his Exoself, and the two of them dropped out of Slowdown together. Switching the metabolic modes of cells throughout his body, and reconfiguring all the higher-level systems responsible for maintaining posture, breathing, circulation, and digestion took nearly fifteen minutes. The time passed imperceptibly, though, since his Qusp only resumed its normal rate once his body had completed the shift.