33. Bad August
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
BAD AUGUST
RIFT
Since we left Amber and Shashi’s place, the sky has grown darker, a deep burnt-looking colour.
The world is falling apart at an alarming rate, even for me.
Nightfall is settling, and when it does, I don’t really expect there to be any stars to see, not that I’ve told them that yet.
Everyone’s increasingly on edge as the plan has time to settle in.
We’re all close to death, and we all know this idea is the next best thing to insane. But it’s the only option we have.
It’s ticking over in the back of my mind, and no doubt everyone else’s too, what if this doesn’t work the way Shashi projects? What if it rips new holes in new universes, spreads destruction in every direction?
But she’s right. That’s not necessarily worse than what I’ve done. It just speeds everything up. Worlds get annihilated faster. If we can’t stop the quantum wave I created, it’s just death, no matter what we do.
And beneath all that, there’s a heavy quiet between me and August. He stays by my side, trying not to touch me. He won’t look at me either. He’s silent, that fake, slanted smile plastered on his face.
He looks like he might break down any time.
I’d say I feel the same, but I know this is so much worse for him. Since the day we met, I’ve always had the understanding in the back of my mind that we would be separated. No matter how much I liked him, or how deeply I fell for him, I knew the two of us were an impossibility.
August never believed that. He still thinks me loving him could make me stay. Imagines I have agency in this. He believes in me so much it hurts.
I want to give him the world. And I’m utterly useless. Just a man who’s brought him pain and sadness.
Shashi and Amber suited up in jeans and a short skirt respectively, with boots and Non Jovi shirts. Between them and Jon, looking like he always does, then three Augusts, I feel fifty shades of ridiculous walking into the computer lab at Cambridge University.
We’ve had to come here because Shashi said she had access to Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC), also known as a fuck-off-powerful supercomputing system.
But that access was before she went ‘on sabbatical.’ If she still has it, great.
If not, we continue to be fucked. The only way we can get in is through the intranet here at the university.
Jon and Amber are unloading an understandable but irritating running report of news stories about the destruction of the world. Shashi’s swearing a lot about her password and how slow the computer is, while Asshole August leans over her shoulder offering provoking suggestions.
And my August… He’s leaning against a desk, looking as glum as you’d expect, turning the particle accelerator over and over in his long fingers.
I lean back against it next to him, not touching, lest we get yelled at by Shashi again. Her rules got about a thousand times stricter once she saw the state of things outside.
“How are you doing?”
A faint smile cracks, and he blinks too hard. “Not good.”
“I’m sorry.”
He raises his left shoulder, just a little. I guess he’s too upset to talk about it. And what’s he supposed to say to that anyway? ‘It’s fine. You lied to me about who you are, what you did, why you were here, then gave me feelings you tried to take away right before you left me. I’m grand.’
Memories of how awful I’ve been play over in my mind so vividly I forget that I’m supposed to say something more until he asks, “How long will it take? To put things back?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Will we… be blasted back with all the things? Do you think we’ll die?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like you to not be in the room when I open the rift.”
He turns the particle accelerator over again, head dipped low. “It feels weird that you’ll go. And… I mean… we can’t even touch. After everything.”
“I will kiss you goodbye.” I mean it from my heart. I couldn’t step away without it.
He manages a half-hearted smile. “‘Goodbye.’” When he looks up, his eyes are hazy, like mine. “I guess some things just aren’t meant to be.”
“You know I’d do anything to stay.” My hand drops to the table, so close I feel the heat of him. “Sometimes I wish I’d never come near you, so I could have saved you from this. If I’d ever known this would happen, I wouldn’t have touched you… But August, I’m so glad I met you.”
He turns his face away. Not before I see the tear run down his cheek.
“I meant everything I said. You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. I mean, look at you. Saving the universe while I tear it apart.”
His brow draws tight, even as he stares at the floor. “I’m not doing anything. I’m just sitting here.”
“You’ve amassed this group of people who care about you. I can see they do. They’re all here because of you. August didn’t kill me because of you. We’re only doing this because you’re irresistibly lovely.”
His laugh is sad. “‘Irresistible.’”
“I’d love to say fuck you to the universe. Truly. But I don’t think it would listen.”
A loud crack interrupts—Shashi smashing her hand down on the keyboard. “It’s not fucking working!”
“Just call support!” Assassin Augusts insists, and maybe he’s said it ten times already; I wasn’t listening.
“It’s not that!” Her exasperation suggests he maybe did say that ten times already. “They’ve cut me out. I can’t log in. How am I supposed to get coordinates?” She slams her hand down on the table several more times. “We’re running out of time!”
She glances out the window at the blackening sky, and Amber runs her fingers over Shashi’s head, massaging her scalp. She’s perfectly quiet, which I’m pretty sure isn’t normal for Amber.
“How exact does it have to be?” my August asks Shashi. “The coordinates.”
“Pretty exact would be nice.” I appreciate that Shashi tried to keep the irritation out of her voice, even if she failed.
“I have an app,” he suggests. “It shows you where things are in space. I mean, I know that’s far from perfect, but it might have the centre of the galaxy. The direction at least. Let me look.”
“If we just had a bit more time,” she sighs out, ignoring his idea. She picks up the phone and dials a number she’s reading off the screen.
“Your phone’s going to stop working soon,” I tell August. “And her supercomputer. Everything’s about to break. Permanently.”
The soundtrack of the app comes on—some hokey generic ‘space music.’ He holds it up, searching to figure out where we are relative to the core of the galaxy. “That way, according to this.” He points off to our left.
Shashi smacks the phone down. “Ugh, why does it have to be Sunday? I can’t get a new login. I can’t do this. How can we calculate it exactly?” She’s up, around the desk. “August, can I have your phone?”
He hands it over, moving the screen in and out for her to see what he’s found.
Assassin August’s peering out the window, watching the world kick up its dust storm of death. “It’s because there are three of us here, all in the same place,” he mutters. “That’s why it’s happening so fast.”
“Anytime you want to go home,” I suggest to him.
“If you could have just kept it in your pants,” he prods.
He’s not wrong. That’s the worst part. We’re so close to maybe fixing this. If we only had that little bit more time. Time the two of us burned through last night.
I instinctively pull my hand away from August. He notices, eyes running down my arm first, then with a flash up at me. “If there were only two of us, how much more time do you think we’d have?”
“It’s impossible to say. It might buy us a day.”
“Would it get us to Monday morning? When the supercomputer people are in, so they could fix Shashi’s login?”
“It might.” Assassin August shrugs, coming back towards us. “I’m not super keen on dying today, but I guess if it helps—”
“No.” August shakes his head. “No, no one’s dying. You’re going home. You’re both going home. You’ve both worked really hard at this, trying to fix the problem. For years. And we need both your minds on it going forward. You can’t break up a team like this.”
“It’s a moot point if I can’t get this bloody thing to work,” Shashi mutters, swishing her fingers across the jarringly slow screen of August’s phone.
August watches her a few more seconds, then slides away from me, wandering over to Jon.
I have to wonder what he’s saying to him. Goodbye, most likely. Or maybe he’s gone to him for the physical comfort I can’t give him. All while every atom in my body aches to reach out and touch him.
Their heads are bent close. Jon tries to step away, and August catches his arm, ripping him back, talking in his ear.
It goes on, Jon shaking his head. It honestly looks like another breakup, only I can’t imagine August going over there to start a fight with him.
Especially in these last few hours. He’s far too sweet. Far too kind.
Shashi throws the phone down, drops back into her chair, and starts hitting the keys again, so hard I think they might break.
Then August’s back by my side. His brow’s hard, set, while he stares down at the carpet, that particle accelerator turning over faster in his fingers.
“What was that?” I ask him. Jon’s still over there, glowering across the room at him.
He blinks fast, a few times, then snaps his head up, the volume of his voice addressing everyone. “Listen, you’ve got three great minds here. I really think you can do this. I think you just… you need a little more time. So…”
He moves fast, striding to the centre of the room. Then he turns and locks eyes with me. His arm shoots out, his finger clicks a button on the particle accelerator, and August tears a hole between this world and the next, just like that.
I’m up like a shot, faster than I can even process what’s happening—this complete and utter catastrophe that’s unfolding right in front of me. But even quicker, a weight smashes into me—Jon coming down on top of me, his full dead weight knocking me to the floor.
“I’m sorry, August,” August calls above the confused and horrified shouts of the others. “I don’t see another way.”
“Let me up!” I shove against Jon as hard as I can, but he’s got the advantage, got me down on my back, pinning my arms so he sets bruises in my skin with every struggle. “August, don’t do this!”
“You can fix it. I know you can. The three of you.” He makes himself so small as he says it, when he’s the entire centre of this fucking universe. “You do that, then maybe you come find me. We’ll see.”
The room seems to collapse beneath me—the chairs, the desks, the hardwood floor, the small space between us—utterly insurmountable. “August, please don’t!”
Amber makes a move for him, but Shashi grabs her hand and wrenches her back, her eyes flinging upwards when the building shakes.
August’s gaze traces across the ceiling, eyes wide and frightened. But it’s like the confirmation he needed. He nods once. “I have to go.”
“August, don’t!” I kick my legs up at Jon, fighting as hard as I can. He slams his forearm down into my chest, knocking me back against the hard floor.
August turns towards the portal, then stops, and just for a second, I think my pleas are working, he’s thought better of it, he’s coming back. But he only places the particle accelerator carefully down on a table, saying to Asshole August, “Close it. When I’m through, close it.”
And he nods. The fucking bastard, complicit in my one love walking into god knows what kind of other world, with nothing and no one to protect him. All he does is nod, agreeing to his death.
I scream for him, shout our name, shove at Jon with all my strength, but nothing helps. I can only watch, struggle, bereft, while August disappears into thin air.
Gone.
Out of my life.
Out of his life.
Lost forever.