And we hurriedly moved to the other side of the road as the wave moved past, bending the shadows cast by the fence as it went and drawing dirt and debris from the road closer to the fence.

“You don’t want to meet the Manchild,” said one protester, whose name was Ken. “He’s—”

“Everyone should know what has happened here,” interrupted another. “If you see him, take a picture so we can use his suffering to advance our own agenda—No, hang on, what I meant was so we can get him the help he deserves.”

The arguing continued with increased vitriol until Friday said, “I would have become the sixth director general of ChronoGuard.”

The protesters all fell silent and looked at one another nervously. When the leader spoke again, it was in a quiet, respectful tone.

“You’re going to need gravity suits.”

28. Wednesday: The Manchild

28.

Wednesday: The Manchild

The D-H 87-B Mobile Localized Temporal Field Generator, colloquially known as a “gravity suit,” was developed and built by Dover-Percival Aerospace, one of the main contractors for ancillary equipment to the time industry. The first suits were introduced in 1938 but were prone to leaks and malfunctions. They could function only at a limit of Dilation .32 and had a limited range due to their clockwork mechanism. Later suits greatly improved upon this, and the D-H114 of 1978 was the last improvement upon the line and could increase the variable-mass substrate to a staggering .88 of the infinite.

Norman Scrunge, Time Industry Historian

They kept the gravity suits in the abandoned school, and we were measured precisely for size, as an ill-fitting suit could give you “old feet,” which was not recommended. After we were weighed, had our density checked and then our center of balance ascertained by being made to lie on a tilting bed, we were helped into the hardshell suits after first having to remove anything of greater than bone density from our pockets. I’d worn a gravity suit once before, but a long time ago. It was when Dad was still at the ChronoGuard, before the regrettable Sarah Wade stretching incident brought the SO-12 Bring a Child to Work Days to a rapid end.

The suits looked old and worn on the outside but almost brand new on the inside, which was at least some comfort. Friday pointed out that the suits had been built in 1992 and had long surpassed their four-thousand-year design limit, but I simply shrugged. The dilation level inside the facility was a life-frittering D=.31, and if we didn’t wear gravity suits, we’d be lucky to get out within ten months. Once the suits were sealed and tested for leaks, the helmets were latched in place and the power-supply and life-support units placed on our backs.

“Comfortable?” yelled the protester named George.

“Not at all!” I yelled back. “Bloody heavy, in fact—I can hardly move.”