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Back A Fractured Infinity Save as PDF
Chapters (41)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. 8
  11. 9
  12. 10
  13. 11
  14. 12
  15. 13
  16. 14
  17. 15
  18. 16
  19. 17
  20. 18
  21. 19
  22. 20
  23. 21
  24. 22
  25. 23
  26. 24
  27. 25
  28. 26
  29. 27
  30. 28
  31. 29
  32. 30
  33. 31
  34. 32
  35. 33
  36. 34
  37. 35
  38. 36
  39. 37
  40. Acknowledgements
  41. About the Author

He filled in the gaps for me about the celebration that morning. I had to tip-toe around glass when I asked, feeling a little dumb about how simple the words sounded, yeah, but isn’t this good? Something gnawed at my stomach with the idea of people getting hauled in by the cops for crimes they hadn’t committed yet. I kept my mouth shut because Yusuf didn’t need any more fuel.

“Right,” he said, “but how can we be sure he would’ve blown the bomb to begin with? Just because the machine said so?”

Around the track again, our feet kicking up red dust.

“I’ve been telling Kaori that this isn’t—isn’t… We don’t live in a periodic and predictable system. We should be studying the machine itself and using it to model and better understand our current frameworks. Just because the machine has predicted thousands of dice rolls or card draws doesn’t… I—I mean, we can’t even accurately predict weather patterns a week into the future because of all the different factors—humidity and wind speed and temperatures. Then you add people to that, and a million other variables. We’re chaos. We’re…”

He trailed, squinting at me with his lips pinched into a grim line. I squeezed his hand, knowing that his chattering wasn’t really aimed at me. Kaori must not have smoothed things over with him from the other night at margarita club. I spotted his quick blinks and the twitches at the corners of his mouth, the same things that would send me careening into the bathroom as a kid to dig around the medicine cabinet. Or leave scorch marks on the floorboards at night. And I know when I’m spinning out, sometimes the best thing to do is just get away from whatever cage I’m trapped in for a while.

“So what do you want to do?” I asked him with a shrug.

“I don’t want to go back inside.”

“Then let’s get outta here.”

“What?”

“Yeah. For the weekend. Why not?”

Not like weekends meant much around here since everyone worked around the clock, but it was Friday and we theoretically had days ahead of us to escape the hamster wheel of the Compound. He squinted again into the sky, and I could see him spinning all sorts of reasons why he couldn’t leave. Until he just laughed, and said, sure.

14

ELIXIR

Our road-trip montage was a blur of bleached red flatness as the electric car zipped away from the Compound and towards the horizon. Even though the AI-nav of the car was switched on, I gripped the steering wheel so I could live out my James Dean fantasy, tipping my head out of the window and sucking in the dry summer air. Each mile that we drove buoyed me up and up.