More Than This (31 page)

Unless it’s on foot,
Seth thinks.
Who knows how fast it can run?

He pushes harder on the pedals.

Regine is ahead of him, fighting her way up the hill on an overgrown concrete path.
Go,
he thinks, forcing his body to work.
Go, go, go, step, pedal, push, go, go, go.

“You are doing very fine,” Tomasz says, as if he can read Seth’s reeling mind.

“I’m finding it hard,” Seth says, sweat seeping into his eyes as they climb the small hill. “I’m finding it hard to keep . . .”

Keep what?
he thinks.
Keep conscious? Keep in this place?

He doesn’t dare blink for what he sees whenever his eyes are closed. Even when they’re open, he can still see shadows of it all, one world laid down over the top of another, everyone he ever loved, everyone he ever knew, seeping into the flight of bicycles up a hill –

“It is not following us,” Tomasz calls to Regine.

“How is it still alive?” she shouts backs. “How did it just stand up like that?”

“Bulletproof?” Tomasz suggests, but Seth can see Regine shaking her head and he knows what she’s thinking. That was something more nightmarish than simply a bulletproof vest or uniform. The hole in its chest was too big.

It should be dead. It should have lain there forever.

But instead, it got back up –

They ride through the collapsed fences until they reach the rubble by the train tracks, where the electric light still burns. There’s no path through, so Regine stops and lifts her bike over the tumbled bricks.

Seth and Tomasz do the same, hopping off. Seth grabs the frame of the bike, hoisting it up –

And the world empties.

Sound and noise, memory and image, all of it close in on Seth in a silent crush.

He calls out, strangely softly, and the bike slips from his fingers, clattering down on the bricks, the wheel bending sharply as it crashes.

“Seth!” Tomasz says, shocked. He crouches down by the bike. “Can we bend it back into place?” He looks back up. “Can we –?”

He stops. Because Seth is frozen there, hands out in exactly the same position as when he dropped the bike.

He can still see Tomasz, see the bike, see Regine hurrying back to them.

But he can see everything else, too.

Everything.

He can’t stop it.

His mind has filled, in a quiet tumult so enormous he can no longer fight it, no longer even move –

Everything. Everything is there.

“What’s going on?” Regine says, her voice echoing faintly in his ears, as if from three rooms away.

“He is stuck,” Tomasz says, eyes wide.

Regine steps over to Seth. “Are you there, Seth? Are you with us?”

Her words echo across the miles of everything that’s ever happened to him, and any answer of his will take too long to reach his mouth to explain –

He is far from them. So far, he’ll never reach them again –

And then Regine takes his hand.

She presses it between her own, squeezing hard, but not untenderly.

“Seth,” she says, “wherever you are, it’s okay. You can come back from it. Whatever happened to you down there, whatever the world looks like now, that’s not how it always looks. That’s not how it’s always
going
to look. There’s more. There’s
always
more. Whatever you see, wherever you are, we’re still here with you. Me and Tommy.”

Seth opens his mouth to try to answer her, but it’s like slow motion. His mind and thoughts are so full, there’s no room for action, no room for speech.

“Yes,” Tomasz says. He takes Seth’s other hand, gently, his own still swaddled in the torn-off sleeves of Regine’s coat. “Here we are, Mr. Seth. We will be taking care of you. We will be finding you.” Seth can see him suddenly smile. “Like we did just now in big prison breakout! Including guns!”

Regine shushes him but keeps staring into Seth’s eyes.

“Tell us where you are, Seth,” she says. “Tell us where you are so we can come and get you.”

Seth can feel both of his hands held by Tomasz and Regine, can feel her warmth and roughness, can feel Tomasz’s worry even through the cloth, can even maybe feel their heartbeats, though for Tomasz that’s hardly possible –

But still, he’s feeling
something
real –

(Isn’t he?)

(He is.)

And he feels himself coming back –

Feels it all still spinning, churning, raging like a hurricane –

But the eye of the hurricane returns, too –

Small –

But still –

He looks up at the moon, at the prison behind them, at the silence down the hill – no Driver approaching out of the murk, no increasing sound of the engine, though his brain is still telling him they need to run, to get out of this place, but –

But Regine and Tomasz are here, too.

And he tells them.

Tells them what’s happened.

“I remember,” he says. “I think I remember everything.”

“Everything?” Tomasz asks. “What do you mean everything?”

“It’s all there, I think,” Seth says. “Everything that happened. Why we’re here. How we
got
here.” He frowns. “But it rushes away when I look at it too closely.” He reaches out a hand as if to grasp it. “It’s just . . .”

“We have to get home, Seth,” Regine says when he doesn’t continue. “You can tell us all about it when we’re safe.”

Tomasz turns balefully to the bike with the bent wheel. “This will not go.”

“Can you run?” Regine asks Seth.

“I think so,” he says.

“Then come on,” she says. She abandons her own bike and takes off down the brick pathway alongside the tracks. They follow her, Seth able to keep up better than he expects, Tomasz frequently looking back to make sure he’s still there.

“Just go,” Seth says. “You won’t lose me.”

“That is what you said before,” Tomasz says, “and you were saying an untruth.”

“I’m sorry about that. I really am.”

“Apologies later,” Regine says. Her breathing is very heavy. They catch up to her easily. “Goddamn cigarettes.”

“Also,” Tomasz says, “you are quite plump.”

Regine slaps him on the back of the head, but she picks up her pace a little. They reach the train station without seeing any sign of the Driver. They climb onto the platform and hurry out the exit, rushing down the steps between the blocks of flats. Instead of turning toward Seth’s, they head north, down house-filled streets. After a number of corners, Regine pulls them into a tree-filled front yard to rest and hide for a moment.

They listen, panting. The night is silent around them. No footsteps, not even the sound of the engine, which should have been audible even at this distance.

“Maybe we really did hurt it,” Regine says.

“But how did it rise at all?” Tomasz says. “I shot it. With a gun.”

“And nearly killed yourself in the process.”

“Not being the point right now, even though no one seems to be thanking me. I shot it from one meter. And still it stands?”

“I don’t know,” Regine frowns and looks at Seth. “You’re the one who said you remembered. Do you have an answer?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Everything’s crowded together. I can’t get it into any kind of order yet and it’s . . .”

He stops, because when he tries to think about it, it threatens to swamp him again. It seems to be everything he ever knew, but without any way to sort it. It’s like having a million instruments playing a million different songs in his head at one time, far too noisy to make sense of. He grips on to the one thing that feels absolutely sure.

“I need to find my brother. That’s what I need to do next.”

“He is here?” Tomasz says.

“I think so. I feel like I
know
he’s out there somewhere. Alone, not with everyone else. And if he wakes up and no one’s there . . .” His eyes fill with tears. The other two watch him, warily.

“I understand,” Regine says, “but it’ll have to wait until morning. That thing could be out there anywhere.”

Seth looks into the long, dark night. His head feels so heavy with thoughts and memories that it’s hard to even talk to Regine or Tomasz, hard to even feel present. The answers are all there, he’s sure of it, he just can’t make any sense of them yet –

“Seth?” Regine says.

“Yeah,” he says, almost automatically. “I can wait. I need to rest. I can barely stand –”

“That’s not what I meant.” She pulls down on the back collar of his shirt.

“You are blinking, Mr. Seth,” Tomasz says.

“I’m what?” Seth asks, putting his hand up to where they’re looking.

“Here,” Regine says, guiding him back to the front window of the house. It’s filthy, but even through the dust Seth can see it reflect the blinking blue light coming from under the skin of his neck.

“Blue,” he says. “Not green.”

“What about ‘blue not green’?” Regine asks. “Why is that important?”

“I don’t know.”

Regine sighs. “So when you said you remembered everything, what you actually meant is that you don’t remember anything
useful.
”

“I opened a coffin. There was a man inside, hooked up to tubes and bandages and everything. He had a green light, right at this same place.”

“When we found you,” Tomasz says, “the screen said N
ODE
A
CTUALIZING
. Maybe blue means you are not fully actualized. Maybe that was why all of the screaming.”

“Yeah,” Regine says, “but what does
actualized
mean?” She glances at Seth. “Let me guess: you don’t remember that, either.”

“I told you –”

She holds up a hand to stop him, frowning again. “I don’t like this.”

“Don’t like what?”

“Not knowing stuff.”

“How is that different from before?”

She gives him a look. “We just found out there’s new stuff not to know.”

Seth sees Tomasz’s lips move as he tries to figure out that sentence.

“Let’s get back to our house,” Regine says. “I’ll feel safer inside.”

“It is a long walk,” Tomasz says, slightly mournfully.

“Then we’d best get moving,” Regine says.

They sneak down the sidewalk, keeping a careful eye out, following Regine as she turns up one street and then another.

“Blink-blink,” Tomasz says, watching Seth’s neck as they go. “Blink-blink.”

“Yeah, because that won’t get annoying,” Regine says.

“Trying to see if there is a pattern,” Tomasz says.

“Is there?” Seth asks.

“Yes. Blink-blink, blink-blink. But what it means is a question for someone else, I think.”

Regine stays ahead of them, leading the way, never quite letting them catch up.

“She is angry with you,” Tomasz says to Seth.

“She’s been angry every second since I met her,” Seth replies.

“No, I mean from before. We are calming now, so she is remembering it. She did not want you to disappear from us. She said it was your right to do what you wanted, but I could tell. She did not want you to go.” He turns to Seth. “I did not want you to go either. I, too, am angry with you.”

“I’m sorry,” Seth says. “But I had to see. I had to know.” He looks down at Tomasz. “Thank you for coming for me.”

“And
there
is the thank you,” Tomasz says with a surprising burst of frustration. “At very long last.”

“How did you find me?”

“I knew something was wrong.” Tomasz frowns at Regine’s back. “She was acting funny, all out with the cows.”

“‘Out with the cows’?”

“Also growing a little tired of making fun of how I speak,” Tomasz says under his breath, then more loudly, “Perhaps I have misunderstood. What is the word? Distracted. She was distracted.”

Seth drags something up from his whirling memory. “Away with the fairies?”

“Yes! That is it. She was away with the fairies.”

“Very similar to being out with the cows.”

“And still you make fun,” Tomasz complains, “after I am saving your life. Again. So tell me, please, your intricate knowledge of Polish references. Yes, that would be most amusing. Long, long talk now about how much you know about Polish language and the words Polish people use to describe how they feel in picturesque language.”

“Where did you learn English? The 1950s?”