Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(68)

Yeah.

Good night, then.

? ?

Ya know the first ruptures were silent? Mac pushed a fresh cigarette into the side of his mouth. And they were smaller, too. This was back when the military first started generating ’em. The ones nowadays are bigger – much bigger. And they make that weird low humming sound. First ones didn’t do that. They just looked like… You know how paper looks when you tear it? It looked like that. Just little rips in the air right in front of you that would glow for a minute or two before they’d close up. Well!

His lighter clinked.

They’re much bigger now. Hey. I wonder if that’s why they built the Destabilizer out west, hey? Because there’s lots of room out here in B.C. and they figured the ruptures might get bigger.

My cell phone wheeped. Notification: 25 minutes to the rupture in Duncan. We were parked in a lay-by in Cobble Hill. I drew a deep breath and released it as quietly as I could. Nerves: time to put the plan into action. I slid the car into gear and pulled onto the highway.

So Mac… you said you used to go inside the ruptures…

Yeah. Why?

What, ah, what was it like?

I felt his attention settle on me as I navigated the curve by what was once the golf course. A series of wildcat rupture openings closed it a few years before, back when the phenomenon was new and people assumed they were natural. This was before we had the statistics and the technology to predict them – long before the military ’fessed up.

Why? Mac’s repeated question dropped heavily into the silence.

Just curious. I shrugged. Janus’s package – a small black box the size of a candy bar – weighted down my jacket pocket. We coasted downhill past the turn-off to Maple Bay and made for the bridge. I kept my cool. It wasn’t until we’d crossed the river and begun hunting for downtown parking that Mac spoke.

I remember feeling this weird tingle. He frowned. You pass into the rupture and everything darkens, like it’s suddenly twilight. And I figured that’s because the past happened before the sun rose the day of the rupture. Like the night is smoke – he held up his cigarette and cracked the window – streaming backward to touch the past. The noises are softer – everything inside a rupture is always less intense, like when the volume or contrast knobs are turned down on the TV. You’re brighter and louder and more conspicuous than anything else there. You clearly see and feel everything that’s going on until it starts to darken and fade, then there’s a rushing in your ears and you pop back out into the present. But a piece of you is gone.

Like how? I turned into the public lot by the train station.

It’s – hmm. Hard to say, really. It’s like… Here’s what it’s like! Mac sat forward and tapped my knee. The president, the guy visiting Toronto right now? Remember when he got elected? His hair was blond. Seen it lately?

It’s all grey. I stepped out and locked the car. It’s always like that. Yank presidents always leave office with a head full of grey hair.

That’s because they leave part of themselves behind. When they clock out from their shift in the Oval Office, a piece of them is gone. It’s like that with ruptures.

I considered this. Per SOPs for a rupture in an urban area, the cops had evacuated and cordoned off a two-block radius. The constable manning the barriers at the corner of Canada Avenue and Second Street snorted at our IDs.

Rent-a-cops, he muttered. Government should be handling this!

You mean, like, obtaining approval from nine different subcommittees before approaching a rupture? I smirked. Sounds like a winner!

We were halfway up the block before the cop hurled a response at our backs. His words melted into the murmuring throb of the aperture pulsing in the middle of the intersection.

You know what I always think of when I see one of those things? Mac paused, hands in his pockets, head tilted to examine the anomaly.

I cringed because I knew the answer.

It looks like a woman’s—

SHIT!

What?

I pointed: It’s that kid from last night!

WHERE? Mac whirled, searching.

The Native kid who got away! She just ducked around the edge of that building!

I’ll go! Mac moved double time in the direction I pointed. And the moment he turned the corner, I entered the rupture.

? ?

The destabilization’s hum swarmed me, flooding my ears, my anus and heart, causing every inch of me to swell and fall into harmony with and vibrate in time with the tonal song. Meanwhile, I watched my leg extend an impossible distance into the void. I remember feeling as if I’d suddenly been turned to clay, squeezed, stretched and elongated. I couldn’t breathe for an uncomfortably long moment, and there was this weird tingling in my scalp. The rushing in my ears rose like an ocean, only subsiding as my Play-Doh foot and ankle touched down to harden into a base against which my body could Doppler-shift back to its accustomed dimensions.

I blinked. I was in a big city, one with a familiar skyline, but was having one of those moments when you see something you recognize but can’t name it. The sort of thing that happens frequently when you smoke dope or grow middle-aged. Your eyes dim, too, but the dim light here wasn’t from bad eyesight. It was a slightly darker world.

Because it happened before the sun rose the day of the rupture…

I looked around. I was supposed to meet someone Janus promised I would recognize, but so far I was alone. This was the sort of street you’d expect to encounter a fair amount of traffic on at twilight – the rush-hour crowd heading home – but it was completely still. Until another rupture opened right in front of me.