Chapter 6 Hazel #2
‘Not again!’ She groans. ‘I’m not going outside with you, I tell you every day! CHARL1E says it’s dangerous and while I don’t trust him a bit, I think he’s right about this one.’
She pins her arms against the doorframe, shunting Robin away from the airlock button with her foot.
The Tiny wobbles, then crashes to the floor.
Its hand hits the ground with a splintering noise.
Righting itself, Robin retracts its limbs and rolls to the corridor’s edge, leaving a couple of rivets behind.
Teaspoon darts over, picking up parts as Robin unfurls from its protective ball. Together, they examine the damage, looking slowly from the injured hand to Hazel.
‘For goodness’ sake, see what happens when you get too interfering? I can’t go outside, you know I can’t.’
The Tinys huddle together and wheel back to the Workshop, Teaspoon’s tail entwined with Robin’s. Hazel bites her lip. She’s never seen them mimic physical affection before. She hadn’t meant to hurt Robin, and she regrets snapping at it, which is ridiculous because the Tinys can’t feel pain.
Alone, she puts her palm against the airlock door, the empty biosuits hanging either side of her like beckoning ghosts. Air cannot be fresh. Why could they possibly want her to go outside that badly?
In her room, she finds Shiny folding clean laundry, and a bowl of what CHARL1E claims is ‘pro-fu bourguignon.’ Echo’s got no idea where the Tinys make food, but she knows it takes roughly an hour for them to deliver this dish, which comes with a warm but stale baguette and contains gloopy rehydrated protein lumps.
It’s just as bad as she remembers. She’s tempted to skip it, but the Tinys buzz about like wasps if she leaves anything on her plate, and she tells herself with each gelatinous swallow that lucid dreaming is easier on a full stomach.
She showers before bed, emerging wrapped in a towel and nearly falling over Shiny, who’s holding her pyjamas.
‘You’re worse than a cat, always underfoot! You know there’s such a thing as personal space, right?’
It gazes at her, holding her pyjamas aloft.
She sighs. ‘Thanks, I guess.’ Desensitised to the Tinys’ observations, she changes and sits on the bed, replaying the splintering noise Robin’s hand made as it broke. ‘Look, we can’t go on like this. We’re going to have to figure out a way to talk. Understand?’
Shiny stares. Its tail twitches.
‘I can’t understand a tail-twitch, but you can understand what I’m saying, right?’
Another tail twitch.
‘When I’m asking a question, can you nod yes or shake no like this, to tell me whether I’m right?’ She nods, then shakes her head vigorously to demonstrate.
Shiny nods back with its lenses, just as vigorously. Yes.
‘Alright, alright, not so much that your eyes come off.’ Hazel pauses.
‘Now we’ve got that sorted, let’s discuss some basics: Can you talk at all?
No. Didn’t think so. But you can understand me?
Yes. Good. And you talk to CHARL1E as well?
No. I’m pretty sure you do—ah! Wait. You communicate with CHARL1E?
Yes! There we go, I knew you were in cahoots. You are, aren’t you?’
Shiny stares at her.
‘You know, cahoots? In league. Up to something together.’
Shiny keeps staring.
‘Do you understand the question? Yes. That means the answer’s not yes or no, doesn’t it? OK, for “it’s complicated,” shrug. Like this.’
Shiny shrugs, lifting its hands to the ceiling.
Hazel laughs. ‘That’s actually quite sweet. Alright, million-dollar question: Can I make my own tea?’
It shakes its head.
‘Damn. So close. Still, can you teach the other Tinys what I’ve taught you?’
Shiny nods but doesn’t move.
‘So specific. Can you go now and teach the other Tinys what I have taught you, please?’
This time, Shiny zooms off, leaving the door fringe flapping.
‘One Tiny down, a couple hundred more to go,’ Hazel mutters.
Her half-healed ribs twinge as she tucks herself in bed and starts practising ‘Drifting Off With Intent.’ Lying on her left-hand side, she repeats the instructions that will guide her into a conscious state whilst dreaming, then breathes into her diaphragm, with her palm resting on her third eye.
She thinks third eyes are nonsense, but the authors of Lucid Dreaming are adamant they exist, and at this juncture Hazel will do just about anything to contact the Backward Traveller.
After several false starts, she drifts into the dreamscape. As usual, she arrives without any control, but she’s prepared. Repeating the instructions from Lucid Dreaming before sleep isn’t just a formality, it embeds them in her subconscious, so she can conjure them now without waking.
First, develop an awareness of your presence within the dreamscape.
Gently allow the conscious mind to surface—just enough to skim the dream—so that you can act with intent while your unconscious remains at the helm.
Take care, because if your conscious mind grows too powerful, you will awaken, and the dream will be lost …
It’s this bit that scuppers Hazel. She can never strike the balance between autonomy within the dreamscape and waking consciousness.
Even when she achieves awareness, she’s not yet strong enough to turn and look at the Backward Traveller, so she just stands mute, witnessing the dreamscape flow around her, like a waterfall over a rock.
Right now, she’s still alone; there’s no heat from another body on her left hand.
She’ll have to wait; she’s become good at that at least.
In the dreamscape, time is as long as forever and only a split second.
Hazel could dream a lifetime in a night and one moment for eight hours.
Dreaming turns time into a rubber band she has no control over; sometimes she waits minutes for the Backward Traveller, other times months.
Sooner or later, they always arrive—and tonight is no exception.
All at once, a sensation of shadow and solidity tells Hazel she’s got company.
Hazel reaches for the reason she’s here: to communicate with the Backward Traveller.
She trains her attention on the heat emanating from them, their breath rising and falling.
She relaxes both her dreaming self and her real sleeping body, which she senses at the edge of her awareness.
Skim the dream with your consciousness, don’t wake up. Leave the unconscious at the helm.
‘Hh—’ She makes a breathy noise. ‘Hello?’ Her dreaming lips move, but it feels as if her waking mouth might have done as well, and the word could have sounded in the dreamscape or Station C.
Silence.
Then: ‘Khaíre.’ A woman’s silken tones. It’s the first human voice Hazel’s heard in two weeks.
Her chest, which she didn’t realise was tensed, unclenches.
Tears fly from her cheeks, floating through the current like oil in the sea.
Don’t think about the fact that you’re crying, focus on the next word.
But she can’t understand the Backward Traveller and has no idea how to respond.
‘Hello? I’m Hazel.’ But the tears are too distracting, the lump in her throat too painful, and her victorious joy pulls her into the waking world. She’s there just long enough to hear the Backward Traveller gasp.
‘English. You speak English.’ As if that were the least believable thing about all this. ‘My name is … I’m Echo.’
When Hazel opens her waking corporeal eyes she finds the tears are just as real here as in the dreamscape. She sits up, making her watchers Shiny and Teaspoon jump, and throws off her pyjamas. Plunging into her clothes, she shouts for CHARL1E.
He doesn’t come on the Tannoy, so she bursts from the room, tumbling down the corridor as she pulls on her socks and boots, Shiny and Teaspoon skating in her wake. ‘CHARL1E! I talked to the Backward Traveller!’
The Workshop is dark, but she lunges for the icosahedron, bouncing on her toes as she waits for CHARL1E to load.
Shiny and Teaspoon catch up, flanking her like short spherical bodyguards.
As soon as CHARL1E’s falling code appears on the projected screens, she says, ‘I spoke to her! I spoke to the Backward Traveller, she’s called Echo. ’
CHARL1E’s screens flicker. ‘This is good progress. What else did you discover?’
‘What else?’ Hazel deflates. ‘Well, nothing else, I woke up too fast—but I spoke to her, isn’t that amazing?’
The screens’ golden light brightens, becoming brassy. ‘The term “amazing” is inapplicable here. Your progress is good but remains inadequate to our needs. You must work harder, stay in the dreamscape longer.’
Hazel’s throat constricts again, haunted by the humanness of the Backward Traveller’s voice compared to the uncanny symphony of CHARL1E’s. ‘That’s a bit harsh, CHARL1E.’
‘The severity of my statements is not salient. My assessment remains accurate. If you cannot communicate with the Backward Traveller on demand, at length, your usefulness is limited.’
‘I’m working as hard as I can, don’t you get it?’ Shiny and Teaspoon tug her dungarees in warning, but having come so close to another human, the last fortnight of frustration with her artificial existence explodes. ‘I am trying. I don’t want this to become my world, I don’t want to be alone.’
‘Inaccurate: You are not alone.’
‘You don’t count!’
CHARL1E’s code freezes. Shiny and Teaspoon retract their limbs, lenses darting between Hazel and the screens. ‘You do not think so?’
‘Of course not, you’re not anything. You can’t hold me, can’t comfort me, can’t even talk to me properly. You don’t fucking count!’
The code’s colour deepens from brassy to bloody. Hazel holds her breath. She forgot, for a split second, that she remains alive at CHARL1E’s grace, and has to atone for Lilith and Huxley’s deaths. On Station C, she’s the anomaly, not CHARL1E or the Tinys.
‘I do count,’ CHARL1E responds.
‘I—’ Hazel makes to apologise but CHARL1E interrupts.