The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)(94)

Time. The easiest way to see it—or whatever of it Tristan could identify—was to stand there, nearly out to the street, and to exist in many stages of it at once. It wasn’t a normal activity, per se, but none of this was. Their supervision seemed to have decreased over time; coincidentally or not, none of them had seen much of Atlas since they had each been confronted by the Forum, which led to an odd sort of tiptoeing among the Society’s residents. Each had developed their own odd habits, and this was Tristan’s. He stood in silence, twisting dials he only partially knew how to use, and hoped—or, rather, assumed—that something would happen if he only looked long enough.

The trouble was his imagination. Libby had said it: hers was too small. Tristan knew the falseness of geometry, the idea that the world contained other dimensions that they were not yet programmed to understand. But he had learned shapes as a child, so naturally he looked for them now. To stare into the familiar and somehow expect to see something new felt so frustrating as to be thoroughly impossible. Yes, Tristan could see things other people could not, but he didn’t believe his own eyes when he saw them. A child told habitually of his worthlessness was now a man bereft of fantasy, lacking the inventiveness to lend him a broader scope. Ironically, it was his own nature that crippled him most.

Only once did Tristan run into someone while he did this. He looked up, startled, to suddenly see a young man facing him, staring at the house as if he couldn’t quite see it, or perhaps like he was looking at something entirely else.

“Yes?” asked Tristan, and the man blinked, adjusting his attention. He wasn’t particularly old, probably Tristan’s same age or a bit younger, and had slightly overlong black hair, plus a general look of rare untidiness. As if he were the sort of person who didn’t usually spill coffee on his collar, but he had done so today.

“You can see me?” asked the man, incredulous. Tristan supposed he might have been using a cloaking illusion, but was interrupted before he could ask. “Well, never mind, that’s obvious,” the man sighed, mostly to himself. He was not British; he was extremely American, in fact, albeit different from whatever sort of American that Libby happened to be.

(Tristan wondered why she had come to mind, but hastily dismissed it.)

“Obviously you can see me or you wouldn’t have said anything,” the man remarked in something of a continued amiability, “only I’ve never actually encountered another traveler before.”

“Another… traveler?” asked Tristan.

“Usually when I do it everything’s a bit frozen,” said the man. “I knew there were other kinds, of course. I just always thought I was existing on a plane that other people couldn’t see.”

“A plane of what?” asked Tristan.

The man gave him a bemused half-frown. “Well, never mind, I… suppose I’m wrong.” He cleared his throat. “In any case—”

“What are you looking at?” asked Tristan, who was academically stuck on the point at hand. “Your surroundings, I mean.” He hoped to determine whether they stood in the same place physically, or only temporally. Or perhaps neither, or both.

“Oh.” The man glanced around. “Well, my apartment. I’m just deciding whether to go inside.”

“I don’t think I’m on the plane you’re on, then. I think I can just see it.” Tristan paused, and then, because he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted the encounter to end, “What are you deciding?”

“Well, I’ve just not entirely made my mind up about something I’ve got to do,” said the man. “Actually no, it’s worse. I think I’ve already decided what I’m going to do, and I just hope it’s the right thing. But it isn’t, or maybe it is. But I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he sighed, “because I’ve already started, and looking back won’t help.”

That, Tristan thought, was certainly relatable.

“I won’t keep you,” Tristan said. “I’m just… playing around a bit, I think.”

Calculations had started, albeit unhelpfully. It seemed they were both on the same plane of something—time was the only plausible explanation—but how had Tristan arrived there? Either it had happened so subtly he didn’t know how he was doing it (and therefore he might have done it before, or might do it accidentally again) or he had done something to initiate the mechanism and failed to write it down. He ought to start cataloguing his meals, his socks. Every step he took differently, just in case something he did managed to drag him to another corner of reality.

“Yes, well, play responsibly.” The man gave Tristan a lopsided grimace. “I’m Ezra, by the way.”

“Tristan,” said Tristan, offering Ezra a hand to shake.

“Tristan,” echoed Ezra, brows twitching as he accepted Tristan’s grip. “But you’re not—?”

Tristan waited, but Ezra stopped, clearing his throat.

“Never mind. Best of luck, Tristan,” he said, and strode forward, gradually disappearing into the thick fog that covered the house’s lawn.

Once Ezra had disappeared, it occurred to Tristan that he had done something. What it was he hadn’t the slightest idea, but he had done it, and so he turned on his heel and marched himself into the house, launching up the stairs.