Young Writers Society

The time Chasers :: Part One

By the time she had slithered out of her clothes, walked freely over to her draws and carefully extracted her poly prop and old pair of running skins, and finally got dressed; it was 10:23. Still.

It was easier walking in something tight, she decided, even if it was ugly as something her mum might wear. If walking without being bombarded with rolling pins meant looking like an Olympic swimmer, then she was more then happy to make that compromise. She was still slow, though, but the only way to stop that would be to walk around naked.

She went downstairs for some breakfast, but was disgruntled to find that ever single door she went though had some compelling urge to smash itself on the wall – or break off its hinges, or snap into two pieces – after she went thought it. The carpet was dimpling with ever step, and when she turned around, the rug running up the stairs was still in the process of twisting itself in a thousand different ways at once.

“Well,” Stephanie muttered to herself. “Looks like twenty twelve may be a little earlier then you expected.” Not that she believed the world was going to end anytime soon, but what other explanation was there?

The cupboards broke in her hands, the toaster did a back flip when she pressed down the lever, and then broke apart anyway, so she had to settle for a drink of milk out of the carton – which took her about half an hour to slowly and carefully extract out of the fridge – and a slice of bread with nothing on it.

Because she had nothing better to do, and the house was in ruins anyway, she poured some of the milk on the floor. It almost made it worth it to see the white liquid slop effetely out of the carton. It was like a white worm, glistening as it squeezed itself out of the container and fell towards the ground. When it hit the floor it looked like a long stream of diamonds shattering into a thousand tiny pieces, then collecting together and forming great clumps. She ran her finger through the stream at some point in time, and she felt the pressing weight of it, moving ever so slowly – what she would relate to a millimetre a second – towards the ground.

When her hand got tired from holding the carton she slowly brought it up, chucking it in the air slow enough not to punch a hole in the roof and let it fly up. Milk still spluttered out of it, broken up by the sudden movement, and she watched as intently as she could. Maybe, she reasoned, if I can distract myself enough, then I won’t get as freaked out as I should be.

But she couldn’t help feel the sadness seep through her bones and onto her face as she watched the slow world. Just imagining how long the whole thing would take in real time – a few seconds – and comparing it to the hours of moments she spent watching it. She couldn’t; help but frown, no matter how beautiful the beads of liquid looked.

Just as the empty carton was a centimetre off the floor, she saw another sound wave come through the wall. And it was a loud one.

+_+

They drove around in a brand new Mercedes; blue, high gloss coat and fitted out to the latest in comfort and technology. But neither of them noticed it after five hours of drinking coffee and staring at a computer screen. The smooth leather seats somehow got cancelled out by the sore muscles and the technology had proven useless compared to the laptop.

The laptop was flashing new alerts and information each second. Five different scanners were in minimized windows, each relaying real-time images from the camera hooked up to the side of the car via a temporary Bluetooth connection. The video files were displaying an array of colours, feeding information about what was going on. Thermal imaging technologies were calculating what was happening to the people inside each house, and most importantly, how fast they were moving.

The man in the back seat pushed his hand along with the heavy - and slightly damp from last night’s rain - sleeve of his coat forwards, creating a ruffling sound throughout the car. He felt the reconstituted paper of his coffee mug and brought it up to his lips. His eyes never left the screen.

Even before he drunk from the cup he was taking note of how light it was. After taking back a short sip, grimacing at the lukewarm, concentrated liquid he tasted, he crunched up the cup and wound down the window with his elbow. As he did this, he said, “Ready for lunch break?”

The man in the front seat didn’t reply in words, only nodded. It didn’t matter that it was barely scraping eleven O’clock, they had been up for hours and it was almost dinner time in his body’s time.

Just as they drove past the target house, for the hundredth time that morning, there was a hushed sound from the back seat. “Ae? Slow down, Syd. I think we’ve got something.”

The car dropped a gear.

“See anything?” Syd asked.

“It’s happening, alright. One second she’s top of the stairs, next she’s in the kitchen.”

Syd slammed on the breaks and the car stopped in the middle of the road. No one else was in sight. He turned around to look at Mac, who was already closing the laptop and undoing his seatbelt. He pulled out a small container from under the seat and opened it. They both took a needle and

Held it firmly in their hands. Just before Mac stabbed himself with the tip, Syd interjected. “So remind me again what the point of this was?”

“Wha’ddya mean?” Mac lowered his hand, still holding the needle ready to jab himself.

“You know, why is she in Quantum time? Why not just us, and we could go in and take her… She’d disappear without ever knowing what happened. Easy. Saves half the house being broken, at least.”

“I dunno. Ask the boss when we get back. Good point though, ‘cause we’re just going to erase her memory, like… a bazillion times. Seems like he wants to see how they react,” he patted his laptop, which held all of the data log files from he moment they started cruising through the neighbourhood. There were numerous cameras embedded into their suits, too. But it took a year to get the cameras and clothing moving in quantum time, let alone recording in it. The cameras wouldn’t be much use if they were in and out in the planned time. He halted the conversation by bringing his hand to his neck and injecting the clear liquid. Syd followed his lead, and before the effects started to take hold, each of them opened their doors and walked onto the street.

“Five minutes, in and out. Ready?” There was a beep as they set their watches to count down, and then they walked towards the house. Behind them the car stereo was running, but as they crossed the centre line the sound disappeared, not because of distance. A quick glance over his shoulder and Mac could see the sound waves as they blasted out of the car, coming toward them as a snails pace.

“Le’s go.” He said, powering towards the front door.