EDGE OF DAY

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"What now?"

A small light came on from Will's wrist monitor. "I expect the police have tracked us down," he said scanning the metal plates of the lift walls.

"I don't know how you can live like this."

Will looked from the hatch in the roof to her. "Like what?"

"This constant danger."

His shoulders rose. "This is fun. Why create a reality you find boring?"

Day opened her mouth to answer but Will sprung up against the wall, and vaulted off the bar against the mirror up to the air vent in the roof. He clung onto the vent with both arms flexed and swung his legs up, hitting the roof with his feet. He swung again, increasing the momentum. The hatch came off with a crash, clanging against the sides of the elevator shaft. Will swung himself feet first through the hole. A moment later he reappeared.

"You coming?" he said.

You've got to be kidding. "How?"

"Use your imagination!"

"Wait. Will! Wait!" He was gone.

Damn! She climbed up onto the support bar on the far side of the lift, and reached for the air vent. Her arms weren't long enough.

"Will!" she called. "Will!!!"

His head appeared through the hatch again. "Not bad."

He lowered down onto his stomach and reached in to meet her. She reached up and his firm grip hooked around both her forearms. She mirrored him, gripping her palms tight around the top of his forearms.

"After three you push up off the bar with your feet. Push as hard as you can."

"What do you mean?" Day said, his instructions inducing more panic.

"We need some momentum to pull you through. So push up at the same time."

"I don't think I can—"

"You can", Will said, his gaze hooking onto her.

Day let go of the thoughts in her head and imagined her mind as an empty sky. She breathed out a long sigh, still looking at Will.

"Good," he said, recognizing the change in her. "After three you push as hard as you can."

She swallowed. Her breath caught as her sense of inner calm wobbled. What if he dropped her?

"Stop thinking. Your mind is trying to protect you, but it's outdated, working on old software. Stop thinking."

She nodded, and a seed of warmth bloomed in her chest.

"One," he said. She took a deep breath. "Two." Held the breath. "Three." She let out her breath and pushed up with all her strength, eyes closed, using only his arms to guide her. She felt him work with the force of her, and though she was the start of a wave and he was the end of it, pulling her up. And then she landed. But it wasn't hard metal. Her torso was on his legs. She opened her eyes and in the flare of light from his monitor saw he'd pulled her up and back and taken the brunt of their fall on his back.

She laughed in relief and he laughed with her.

"We did it."

"We did it." He pushed up on his elbows bringing his face to meet hers. He was going to kiss her. The energy in her body escalated. Holding her by the forearms, he rolled her off so she was sitting on the roof of the elevator, and brushed himself down.

Her body contracted in disappointment. He wasn't moving to kiss her, she was deadweight on his legs and he was pushing her off.

"Looks like we haven't run out of time yet," he said. "But if we're going to climb up the shaft we should get moving. The police could be lining up on a couple of floors above and below."

She nodded and clambered to her feet.

"There's an emergency ladder over here," he pointed his wrist to the side of the shaft. "How's your back doing?"

"Fine." The bandages seemed to be holding in place and though she could feel a couple of warm trickles where the skin had split and the blood was dripping out, it didn't hurt much.

"You want to go first?"

"After you," she said.

He began climbing. She followed. The ladder had very narrow rungs. It was tight against the wall not leaving much space to wrap hands around it.

Day felt herself quickly running out of breath and the stretch on her arms and back wasn't easy. Maybe Monday was athletic, but Day had spent the last few weeks as a depressed recluse. She wasn't used to physical activity.

She stopped on the ladder to catch her breath. She hadn't even gone one floor. Will realized she'd stopped, and turned. The light from his monitor shone in her face.

"You all right?"

"I just need a second," she said, trying not to sound like she was panting. Will waited, kept the light shining on her.

"Are we good?" he asked.

"In the recording you showed me of Monday," she said. "Monday said she'd intentionally been caught by the Vedas and she was deep undercover. What information was she trying to get?"

"The location of the inter-dimension machine on Mars that we believe is disrupting the southern-sphere weather."

Yeah, well, maybe she would learn to stop asking questions—the answers were never palatable, and always outlandish.

"How?"

"She thought Ed would subconsciously let it slip out when his guard was down."

Day scanned her recent bleak memories. "He never said anything about Mars."

"It would have been something indirect. It's psychological. Every mind has a gatekeeper. The gatekeeper filters the millions of details of information we are constantly surrounded by, only letting in those that fit with a person's preconceptions. Ed was intimately connected with base on Mars where the machine is kept, so there'll have been things that he was noticing, that his mind was drawn to and that are connected to the base, without him even realizing it."

"And Monday can figure that out?"

"When we remove the implant, she'll still have all your memories, everything you felt and saw and did. It's just the false ideas of weakness and fear, linked into your subconsciousness that will dissolve."

So Monday would remember what it felt to be Day. Like Day could remember what it felt like to be eight years old playing in her parent's yard; carefree and safe and unconscious of all that could go wrong with the world.

Monday would remember everything that had happened to Day exactly as Day had experienced it, it just wouldn't define the whole of who she was.

Day climbed with renewed determination. She and Monday weren't really different people. Monday had known her experience as Day could in some ways make her more complete. Monday was trying to discover what happened to their parents and Amber. And if it was true—there was an inter-dimensional machine responsible for causing the southern world cataclysmic weather Monday could find it and destroy it. Day needed to get the personality implant out before she was arrested.

"Okay," Will said, seeing her climbing towards him at double her earlier speed and not understanding the change in pace. "Looks like we're off."

THANKS FOR READING, LIKING AND COMMENTING; feedback is always  important for writers, and so thank you for your time.  I'll be using your thoughts and questions to help when I revise, and don't forget to add EDGE OF DAY to your booklist if you want to be notified when I update. xox Claire.