"Miracles"

By Carly

Disclaimer: The characters and incidents portrayed in this story are fictional. No infringment was intended.

Summary: A terrible accident throws our hero into a different world.

If [miracles] have occurred, they have occurred because they are the very thing this universal story is about. They are not exceptions (however rarely they occur) not irrelevancies. They are precisely those chapters in this great story in which the plot turns. Death and Resurrection are what the story is about; and had we but eyes to see it, this has been hinted on every page, met us, in some disguise, at every turn, and even been muttered in conversations between such minor characters (if they are minor characters) as the vegetables.

C. S. Lewis

Mead checked her shoulder straps for the last time; then, pausing a moment to look about the wilderness of the valley below her and the clear blue sky above, she jumped.

The wind took her immediately. She’d glided a hundred times, more than that, but launching herself into the sky was always a risk. And that was why she did it. That small jolt of fear, the sense of victory at simply not dying - it gave her a buzz like no other.

Mead closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them onto the world beneath her, unable to stop smiling.

It wasn’t just the thrill, but the beauty. No one saw the valley as she did. Only birds, catching the currents in the air. The only sound the rushing breeze in her ears and in the trees below her. Such a small, enclosed place, surrounded by high rocks, and completely inaccessible to larger aircraft. It was filled with enormous snow gums, and tiny rock wallabies that moved swiftly under the shadow of the large blue glider.

Mead revelled in the sense of freedom, in the particular exultation of utter solitude. Mostly, she was surrounded by people, working as she did in a busy office in the city. Constant noise, constant activity, everything moving at a fever pitch. Here the sounds were muted, and the delicate shades of leaves that caught her eye, rather than blaring fluorescent lights or billboards. She could be the only person on earth - even Ram, her boyfriend who had driven her up to the mountains that day, had stayed in his car to finish a last-minute project on his laptop. But Mead always left her work behind.

It was impossible not to when she was captured by the sky, when she was taken by the winds. There was no other world, then - just the valley below her.

There was no point attempting to land in the valley itself, as it would take time and plenty of mountaineering equipment to pull herself out, let alone her glider. No, she set off from the high peak on the western side, and landed on the lower, flat rock ledge opposite. She’d done it many times, circling slowly, able to time her descent to the exact second. Nothing had ever altered.

Except this time a sudden gust pushed up one side of her wings and left her plunging like a stone.

Mead was blinded for an instant with utter panic - winded by it, unable to take breath. It cleared a moment later, and she struggled to regain control of the glider, moving her body sharply, pulling downwards. The fall stopped as another air current took hold of her wings. The sense of relief was palpable, but she hadn’t made it yet. She’d missed the rock platform she’d been aiming for. Instead, she was circling lower and lower over the trees of the valley.

She looked around desperately for another ledge, not wanting to land in the crown of some tree, or find herself perched on an inaccessible rock outcrop. Even if she made it to the valley floor, it would take hours to find her way out of the place with its sheer cliffs . . .

There. Another broad ledge, a good rock platform. She looked to it, timing her landing to the moment. The wind did not fail her again, and she landed hard on it, running, then falling to her hands and knees. She clutched at the solid ground a moment, closing her eyes.

There was a big difference, she decided, between the jolt of fear at jumping and the absolute terror of facing down death. And she felt no sense of triumphant victory at being alive - just a weak kind of relief. For a moment she never wanted to slide on the straps of the glider ever again.

She shrugged off the bands, realizing that she was going to have to do some climbing to finally reach safety. She’d landed on the correct side, east, but a long way below the rock platform she’d been aiming for. It was an easy access from there to the track around to where her car was parked, the road which would take her home. Ram was waiting in the car - he hated watching her fly - but she hoped he’d noticed that she was taking a lot longer than usual, and would come out. She would be glad of the extra help at getting the glider up.

Mead let it rest for a moment on the ledge, and decided to attempt climbing up herself before bothering with the small craft. She could always come back for it. There was no way, she realized, looking up at the treacheries of the cliff face, that she could get up any other way. She’d be struggling for each foothold, and although she had some experience with rock-climbing, it had always been with a rope.

She wondered for a moment whether to wait for Ram before climbing, whether to ask him to dig out a rope. Then she abandoned the idea. If he was in the middle of his project he was lost to time and to any ordinary concerns. He’d keep on until she interrupted him. And it would make a good story, her climbing up from near-death without him even noticing. Some might say a sad story, she thought, but funny stories were certainly better for dinner parties.

It wasn’t as bad as it looked, to start with. There were a fair few footholds, and she was able to pull herself up, scaling the cliff face quite easily. The difficulty came when she had to find a way out from under the jutting rock. Scrambling upside-down didn’t appeal to her. She moved sideways, reaching out for a hand-hold to her right.

And fell, fell utterly, crashing seconds late in a haze of terror and pain on the frame of her blue glider.

Chapter Two

It was about the fifth time she’d woken, Mead calculated.

The in-and-out buzz was becoming more familiar, as though her ears had been replaced with a badly tuned radio. She couldn’t see anything except white - a speckled white - but there was the chance that was merely the colour of the ceiling. She couldn’t feel anything, except an odd dreaminess. Things sometimes got loud, and often got soft, but were always incomprehensible, and were followed rapidly by sleep.

It was about the sixth time she’d woken. This time, when she woke, she remembered quite clearly that she had just fallen from a cliff. She was either dead, or hurt, but either way she was no longer on the cliff. There was no blue.

The white indicated that she was in a hospital, she decided. She hadn’t seen a doctor or a nurse - or Ram, whom she assumed had found her - but then she had barely been awake. The noise in her head still made little sense, and for a moment she wondered whether she was deaf. Perhaps that was what it was like, being deaf - not the absence of sound, but not being tuned to it.

“Mead?”

The sudden noise startled her - she found herself blinking rapidly, as though she could conjure up some sort image that would explain the sound. She had heard her name - but not with her ears.

“It’s good to see you’re awake at last, and can hear me. You’re hearing me courtesy of an implant which transmits impulses to your brain, by the way. Wonderful technology.” Mead could not believe that this person was telling her in such cheerful tones that she had lost her hearing, and had been given a cochlear implant instead. And where was this person? Beaming its voice in from another state?

“You’re very lucky to be alive, you know,” the voice continued, clearly reluctant to identify itself. “I don’t know whether you recall that you fell quite a few feet from out of the sky, onto rocks. Fortunately your boyfriend managed to get help and you were brought here with a spark of life still in you. But not entirely undamaged, unfortunately.”

Well, at least this person accepted that she wasn’t exactly in a fantastic state, Mead thought to herself furiously.

“You broke a number of bones - and your spine - and fractured your skull. Almost everything was shaken up, in fact. That’s why you can’t hear, or see, or move without us. In another place, or another time, you would be dead. But we’ve saved you.”

For what!

Mead found herself screaming internally, screaming at the placid voice inserting words of horror in her mind. It couldn’t be true - it was some kind of nightmare, some kind of delirium. Deafness, blindness, quadriplegia . . . it could not be true!

Suddenly the speckled white image in front of her blurred. Colours replaced its dullness - and then shapes formed. Mead found herself relaxing slightly. She could see. The voice had lied with this, and perhaps was lying altogether. She could make out forms, now, a form bending over her -

“Excellent.”

The white-coated stranger smiled as she bent down over Mead. “The vision receptors have been calibrated, and you can now see again. Not as you once saw - just as your hearing will be forever changed. But you have sight.”

And for that, Mead thought hopelessly, bitterly, she was expected to be eternally grateful. The speaker - evidently her doctor - was correct, in that the sight was not like that to which she was used. It was an image, as though she was staring through a camera. But she was not in control of the camera.

She was not in control of anything. She could not stop seeing, or hearing, and she could not reply. She could not stand up and leave. She could not even cry.

“Unfortunately we can’t repair the damage done to your spine, or your brain,” the doctor went on, in the same cheerful tone. “But you can choose a world in which that won’t matter. And where your eyes and ears are the same as everyone else - “

Comprehension dawned.

Ram. Ram had done this to her. Oh, he hadn’t made her fall - that was the chance of the wind, a chance she had taken herself. But he’d found her near death on the ledge and he hadn’t called the rescue team. One look at her damaged body and he would have known she was beyond their expertise. No - he’d taken her to the Forough Clinic. The place where he worked. The place where virtual reality was far beyond virtual.

He’d talked about it but she’d barely listened, Mead remembered, panic creeping up on her once again. He talked about a whole universe, peopled by those who couldn’t fit into the ordinary world. She hadn’t listened, she hadn’t listened! It had sounded like some crazed computer game, some megalomanic dream of his. But it was no dream . . .

The doctor smiled again, and Mead understood the smile. It meant triumph, and a little excitement. It meant another player for a large human game. She tapped hastily on a square grey instrument which she held in her hand, and Mead found her vision altering, as though she had been lying back and was now being raised up slightly.

She could see a row of beds, a long row of sterile hospital beds. A damaged body lay as though dead upon each of them - grey and silent and far away. The bodies stretched out further than Mead could see.

“It’s your choice, of course,” the voice went on in the same placid tones. “Say so, and you can lie here, and we’ll feed you and keep you alive. But it will be very boring.”

How could it be her choice? She could not speak.

“Otherwise, of course, you enter a world filled with all the beauty you once knew. You can glide again, without the danger. All these bodies you see? They’re people in our world.”

She could not shudder - she could not move a muscle to show her disgust for the doctor’s words.

“I can see you’re not interested in waiting any longer.”

The image began altering, slowly. “I can see you want to enter our world . . .”

Chapter Three

She was sitting on a grassy lawn, cross-legged. She could see the sky.

It was an improvement on the doctor, anyway. Mead had half-feared that the woman would be still bending over her, with her cheery smile plastered onto her face, and her voice assuring her that this was exactly what she wanted bleating on and on.

Although, Mead decided as she stood up and took stock of her surroundings, it was a lost opportunity. She was a lot taller than most women, and had far better reflexes, too. She could have laid that doctor out on the ground before she could’ve blinked.

The lawn stretched out for quite a distance, edging some sandstone buildings clustered ahead of her. There were a few people sitting on the lawn in front of her, talking amongst themselves. Her sudden appearance had not disturbed them at all.

Behind her, she discovered, lay an area of bushland - tall gums sharing the space with grevillea and banksia plants. The ubiquitous sound of the whip-bird brought a grim smile to Mead’s face. No patch of bush, even virtual bush, was complete without its coo-ee.

The sky above was clear. Did it rain in this world? Perhaps that was programmed in randomly, or, to give the impression of a perfect world, was only provided at night, once everyone had gone to bed. Perhaps a storm occasionally, for dramatic effect. Mead wondered what else Ram programmed in for that purpose.

She found herself wandering towards the other people on the lawn. It did not seem particularly amazing to be able to move, although apparently her body did not work - she had not had any time to get used to being without it. She could hear the birds, and the occasional shouted laugh from someone further on without any effort, and had no difficulty making out objects quite far away. But it was not her sight; it was not her hearing. She could not forget that.

A sudden movement caught her eye, and she turned. Someone was running up towards the group of people in front of her. A girl, or a young woman. She was racing! Mead knew that she would not have seen such speed in an Olympic athlete . . . and realised also that she would not have been able to bring the doctor down, had she appeared beside her. Her old reflexes were meaningless here. Here, anyone could run with the speed of the wind without the least effort; and could probably punch out the person next to them without it hurting either of them in the slightest. The old rules did not apply.

So she would have to learn the new ones.

“Hello!”

The girl hadn’t been running to those sitting on the lawn - she’d been running to greet her.

“I just heard you’d arrived, and I know I was supposed to meet you.” The girl held out a friendly hand, and shook Mead’s own hand firmly. “I’m Jules, by the way. I hope you didn’t think we were being unwelcoming!”

She fairly buzzed with energy - her wide grin and her red curls simply added to the effect. And she couldn’t keep still, almost dancing on the spot.

“No - no, I didn’t think that,” Mead answered slowly, then tilted her head, listening to her own voice. It sounded the same as ever. “You heard I arrived, did you?”

“Well, Dr Forough told us there was a new person, but -“ and now Jules lowered her voice “to be honest, she wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. All those operations, you know. Some people just don’t wake up.”

“I see.”

“But you did, so that’s all right -”

“I wonder.” Mead was actually speculating as to whether the good doctor’s placid cheeriness was programmed into the inhabitants of her ego-world. It evidently hadn’t taken off in her, though.

Jules’ expression became a little sympathetic. “Did you - leave some family behind? It’s all right, you know. If they choose, they can come here too.”

“What - there are people who voluntarily give up their sight, and hearing, and movement to join this place?” Mead asked with revulsion. She wondered whether she was actually being initiated into some strange cult.

“Oh, no! They don’t need to do that - they just use a headset. They can come and go as they please . . .” A wistful air entered Jules’ voice. “Just like the doctors, of course.”

So. Ram would probably pop in. He’d probably programme it so she couldn’t beat him up, because if he knew her at all, he’d realise that would be her first desire. Or was he that ignorant? Would he think that she’d be down on her knees, thanking him for saving him so that she could live in his monomaniac world forever?

“Let me introduce you to the others,” Jules went on. “You’re Mead, right?”

“Mmm. So, Jules - how did you get here? I assume you’re lying on some bed in the clinic with your vitals plugged into a machine? Car accident? Drowning?” Mead pressed, reaching forward and grasping her shoulder. “I was crushed to pieces in a fall. I should be dead, you know. I should be.”

Jules paled a little. “That’s all over with now,” she said brusquely. “Come on.”

She shook Mead’s arm off, and headed over to the small circle of people sitting ahead of them on the lawn. But she’d recovered her good humour by the time she arrived, turning and introducing Mead with a grin.

“I was a little late, but no matter! This is Mead, everyone.”

Mead shook her head slowly. Either her optimism was programmed in, or she was being deliberately annoying. She turned to the others who were looking up at her with interest. They were almost all young, and she wondered whether they’d chosen their forms. She hadn’t even taken a look at the way she herself was presented. A couple of them were lying on their stomachs, apparently engaged in some heated debate before Jules had interrupted them. One man was lying back, a book upturned over his face, while two women shared a paper. A boy was curled up a little apart from the others, poring over the comics.

The young man lying on his back lifted his book from his face and frowned. “Mead? I’ve heard that name.”

“You’ve heard of the drink, you mean,” the woman sitting next to him ribbed, grabbing his book out of his hand.

“Hey!” the young man shouted, reaching out for it ineffectually. “I hadn’t finished it yet!”

Mead looked over at the title - it was a new book, recently on the best-seller list. She had occasionally wondered why Ram, who was no reader of novels, occasionally perused the fiction section of the weekend paper. That was the answer - research.

“How many new books do they throw you, here?” she asked dryly. “The occasional thriller - or are you showered with literary classics?”

“We’d get the books as soon as you would,” Jules answered quickly. “Sooner, probably.”

“Oh? So you’ve read Smuggler’s Way, Our Lady’s Guitar, or Bottle-top lately?” Mead asked, naming a few titles she knew Ram had not come across.

Their blank faces gave her all the answers she needed. “You’re stuck in my boyfriend’s mind - and you’re as limited as he is,” Mead told them scornfully. “He doesn’t care how ignorant he is, and either do you.”

The sudden rush of air behind her didn’t alert her fast enough; or the hand on the shoulder, spinning her around and pulling her into familiar arms.

She only allowed herself to remember his lips on hers for a second. Then she pulled back and aimed a punch.

“What the -!”

Watching Ram, flat on his back on the lawn, with surprise and hurt indignation in his eyes, was entirely too satisfactory, Mead decided. And she’d learned another rule. She couldn’t injure him with a punch, but there was no reason she couldn’t knock him to the ground.

“What the hell was that about?”

It wasn’t Ram, though, gingerly picking himself up - that was Jules, staring at the pair, totally perplexed.

“Well, I did a good job with Mead, didn’t I? She’s exactly right,” Ram said, shaking his head.

“You had to kiss her to ID her? You didn’t need to do that for the rest of us,” a young woman interjected hotly.

“She’s unique. As you see . . .” Ram retorted, beginning to move after Mead, who was stalking back across the lawn. “Hey! What was that for?”

Mead pulled off her boot - the only possibility of a weapon - and flung it at him. “That was for sticking me in your snow-globe!”

The shoe reappeared on her foot immediately like a glitch in a b-grade movie.

“Better than putting you on ice!” Ram shouted back, running to catch up with her and finding himself a few steps before her. He took a breath and spun around. “You - you’re just lucky you didn’t see what I saw. On that ledge - crushed to pieces - it was horrible. And you chose that!”

“Right,” Mead hissed, leaning forward. “I chose that. Not this half-life. Not being withdrawn from all my friends, my family, and shoved into your little game. I never chose this!”

“No, I did,” Ram told her. “I mourned you, damn it! I wanted you to live!”

“I’m not alive,” Mead told him scornfully. “I’m just a fantasy of yours. I’ll never be alive again.”

“You’re being completely unreasonable!” Ram shouted finally.

“I’m being honest. There’s a difference.”

“No, you’re lying even to yourself. Who wants to be dead? You glided because you liked being alive. And because you wanted to get away from me - you knew I never liked it. And now you can’t ever get away from me again.”

“So you get it at last.”

There was a silence, then.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, and disappeared.

Chapter Four

“Now I know where I heard that name!”

Mead turned. The little reading circle had abandoned their books and were standing, staring at her shamelessly.

“What, is that the name Ram gave to the moon?” she asked sarcastically.

The man who’d had his nose in the latest best-seller grinned. “He doesn’t seem the type to worship from afar, to be honest.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Warwick. Welcome to the snow-globe.”

Mead took his outstretched fingers, smiling reluctantly.

“It’s not so bad here, really,” he went on, shoving his book in a large pocket in his coat. “We have the world to ourselves, and if we don’t have something, we can always ask.”

“I’ve never been satisfied with not so bad,” Mead told him. “And I hate asking.”

Warwick laughed at that. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Well, if you don’t want to ask, I’m happy to,” a young woman interjected. “I’m Tamsin, by the way. Does this mean Ram will be around a lot more? He’s always forgetting to rotate the weather settings.”

Warwick snorted. “Weather settings? Don’t you understand how that formula works? It’s when the . . .”

Mead left them arguing, leaving the carefully manicured lawn and heading directly into the bush. Its casual untidiness comforted her a little. The bark hanging in shreds from the trees, the scattered leaves underfoot. The sudden scuttle as a bird or lizard hastened from her heavy tread. Its scent reminded her of the bush around her valley, and she wondered why she had no sense of horror at its memory. The place of her death . . . she missed it, nevertheless.

“In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” she murmured to herself. Ram was certainly king of this world. She wondered how she could have known him for so long without really understanding what he did with his time. She wondered how much of her own passions he really understood.

“Don’t ruin this. Don’t ruin it for us all.”

Mead stopped. Jules was ahead of her, leaning against a tall eucalypt.

“Scared he’ll unplug us in a fit of temper?” Mead asked, raising an eyebrow. “How does it feel, contemplating death? That’s something you wouldn’t feel very often . . .”

“Death?” Jules snorted. “Oh, I’m not like you. I know exactly what would happen to me, and dying isn’t part of it at all. I’d live, damn you - I’d live to a hundred but I’d be imprisoned for every second of it . . .”

Mead frowned. “You weren’t brought to the Forough clinic as I was, after an accident?”

Jules shook her head. “You want to hear my story? That your crushed body was mine from the day I was born? Barely hearing, barely seeing, unable to control a muscle. Unable to choose! Without family - they left me in the hospital, while the hospital dumped me in a home - and without a future. Don’t you see that this is freedom for me?”

Mead suddenly understood Jules’ irritating joy.

“No one looked for me, ever. No one wanted to see me. I lived in a house with a few others, and we were there to be tucked away from society. Who wanted to know us? I can see now! And you have to listen to me, you can’t pretend I don’t really exist - that I’m not human, like you!”

Mead cocked her head to one side. “So - now you’re free?”

“Doubly free. I was imprisoned in my body, imprisoned in a home. The day Dr Forough took me from that place was the happiest day of my life. I was taken out of it all . . “

“You’ve got low expectations,” Mead said bluntly.

“What?” Jules said incredulously.

Mead shrugged, and turned back. She didn’t feel like exploring the recesses of Ram’s mind, even if it was exploring his virtual world.

“You’re still imprisoned,” Mead told her. “You were worth more than that home, and you’re worth more than this one. Why should you be put away? Why should any of us?”

She looked over her shoulder at the girl for a moment, and felt both shame and a small pleasure at seeing her jaw drop, and the expression of righteousness disappear from her face. Then she walked on.

A few drops of rain dampened her face as she reached the lawn area; she headed directly to the buildings ahead of her, wondering whether Ram had overheard Tamsin’s complaints about the weather.

The cluster of buildings, the walls thick sandstone blocks, oak doors, and leadlight windows, reminded Mead more of temples than simple houses. A buzz of noise and light led her dash through the increasing rain over cobblestones, and head for the large, centre building.

“Just made it! I think it’s a storm coming on,” Tamsin said with obvious pleasure, standing in the doorway. “Come on in - they’ve got a fire going, and someone’s managed to scrounge some popcorn.”

Mead decided she couldn’t bear the idea of sitting around eating popcorn with a group of cheerful simulates, intensely curious about her, and about Ram.

“That’s all right. I’ve had popcorn before. I’ll take a look around, I think -”

Tamsin shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Wandering around the large building, Mead was reminded of Ram’s early fascination with some of the older buildings in Sydney, when he’d first arrived there. He had said something about colours, about the way they suited the muted greys and greens of the native foliage. And how every sandstone building needed a Jacaranda tree nearby. Yes, she remembered him saying that.

She looked out a window. There were plenty of purple-flowered Jacarandas outside.

She’d never realised it was a native tree until she’d met Ram. But they didn’t have it in India, he assured her, although they made up for it with other trees and plants. He hadn’t grown up knowing its loss.

Mead found herself grinning, remembering, and then stopped. Would the rest of her life be like this? Stuck in Ram’s mind, how could she not attach meaning to everything she saw?

“There are rooms, if you want to sleep.”

Warwick startled her from her thoughts, and she jumped.

“Sorry,” he said apologetically. “Where were you?”

Miles away, she wished she could reply, but that answer would never be accurate again.

Chapter Five

She fell again in her dreams, in her sleep.

She fell without flying - without even climbing. It was just the fall, the drop in her stomach, the shock in her chest. Plunging backwards, and slamming hard. It almost hurt - it woke her up.

Mead found it dark when she woke, and quiet. It was so utterly silent that she wondered for a moment whether the fall was the only true thing, and the rest had been dreams. She could not see, or hear - perhaps she was still in the clinic, or had been returned there, to live unmoving, blind, deaf, until something within her gave and she died.

But there was a faint light of dawn to be seen through the window, and she was able to pull herself up, hugging her knees, and watch the changing colours of the sky. She loved the sky. It was one of the joys of flying, being part of it. Ram had got it wrong - flying wasn’t going away, it was going towards. Not separating herself, but joining something.

A slight sound disturbed her; she looked towards the door. The knock repeated itself.

“Who is it?”

“Jules.”

Mead sighed. “Come in.”

She’d given the girl a sleepless night, and for what? Mead waved her over, shuffling to make room on the bed.

“Thanks.”

Mead shrugged.

“I mean, thanks for what you said -“ Jules sat herself down, hugging her knees in imitation. “That was one of the nicest things anyone had said to me.”

Mead stared. “It was? You have had it hard.”

Jules laughed softly. “I wasn’t kidding.”

She looked away then; not at the window, but at the colours reflected on the sandstone walls. “Where’d you meet Ram, anyway?”

Mead sighed again, but decided talking about him was preferably to apologising for her words the previous day. “In Bangalore; it’s India’s silicon valley. He already had a great thing going there, he was big news. I crashed into him - literally - and things ended up changing for the both of us.”

“Start from the beginning,” Jules commanded.

Mead grinned. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might be beginning to like this girl.

“I was travelling round India. Hit Bangalore and liked it - great restaurants, you know. It’s leafy, too, like a Sydney suburb. A Sydney suburb with auto-rickshaws. I was in one, urging the driver to hurry it up, I needed to get somewhere. Or else I was being sarcastic, because the drivers always went too fast. Can’t remember now.”

Except she could, far more clearly than she had in ages. It was hot, even though it was winter, and there was a great ice-cream shop not far off from the railway line . . .

“Anyhow, we managed to hit a car - which was driven by Ram. We’ve never decided satisfactorily who was to blame, or who gets the credit, either. Ram ended up paying the driver, to impress me, I think, and then we went off and got ice-cream. Soon afterwards he had to leave the country.”

“For eating ice-cream?”

Mead laughed. “I don’t know where that’s a crime, but certainly not there. No - it was for wanting me. He had been supposed to get married the following spring, and he called it off, and it got rather ugly. I think the girl liked him, too, although I don’t think I cared enough to find out.”

She still didn’t think she cared, not really, but for the first time her own attitude bothered her. She had made a large number of people very unhappy by crashing into Ram’s car, but it had scarcely disturbed them at all. She hadn’t thought of their feelings; she never had.

“Anyway, he came back to Australia with me, kept working on the projects he’d started on and then got involved with Dr Forough’s work, a few years ago. I don’t really remember exactly when all that happened. I was pretty busy setting up my own designing business.”

Although she didn’t aim for worlds, with her designs - they were limited to patterns on plates and cups, things you could hold in a single hand.

“Two years ago.”

“What?”

“That’s when it all began - two years ago,” Jules told her.

“That sounds about right,” Mead shrugged. “I hadn’t really kept track.”

“I had.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Would it have been different had Ram crashed into you?” Jules asked finally.

“Maybe,” Mead said honestly. “Maybe he’d be back in India with that girl.”

“I’m glad it didn’t happen that way.”

Mead felt a sudden, sickening burst of utter anger. Ram had imprisoned this girl - he had, he had! - and worse, he made her feel glad of her bonds.

“I want to sleep,’ she said brusquely.

Jules nodded, and went to the door. She hesitated there a moment, then slipped out.

Mead wondered why she cared nothing for the girl whose life she’d altered utterly in India, but felt tremendously for this stranger. Who was she to make Mead regret her past?

Chapter Six

He appeared again with the same rush of air, the same suddenness right behind her.

Mead had been amusing herself by trying to outrun Jules - if they could each go as fast as they wanted, surely it was a matter of who wanted to win the most? - while the others sat with their books on the lawn. She missed the aching legs and pounding heart of real exhaustion, though.

“You haven’t even been there, yet,” he said.

Mead sighed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She glanced over at him, wondering how he had chosen to present himself in his own world, realising she hadn’t really looked at him for a long time.

T-shirt, jeans; he hadn’t gone for a costume, at any rate. His dark hair was perhaps a little neater than it usually was - he had a habit of running his fingers through it as he spoke, which generally left it a little unkempt.

“Come on,” he said, reaching out a hand and pulling her. She shook off his grasp, but followed him, sighing, as he headed towards the bushlands. The fascinated gaze of the reading circle was a little too much for her.

He grabbed her hand again, though, as soon as they were off the path and into the bush; and she let him hold it, knowing that her refusal was a language that he still didn’t understand. He was pulling her eagerly towards something, and his enthusiasm infected her a little; she followed his lead, trying to appreciate his intention and the moment, trying not to wonder whether he sat by her empty body in the ward and there held her lifeless hand.

“I made it for you.”

Mead stopped. The bushland stopped, too; it ended with a gulf, a rip in the earth.

“I made your valley.”

It was rather macabre. Ram had dished up her death to her, and he didn’t even realise it. The thought made her laugh, but she was angry, too, furious - not at the reminder, for she cared as little as he did about it, but because he still didn’t understand. Didn’t, didn’t understand!

“That’s not my valley!”

Ram’s startled expression gave Mead no clues as to whether she were actually laughing or crying.

“Don’t you realise you can never make my valley?” Mead repeated desperately. “You’ve never ever seen it! You’ve never seen it!”

No one had ever seen it, excepting Mead alone. Forget memories of death; it meant life to her, that she had an image so clear in her mind. It was her own, solely hers, and no one could replicate it.

Ram’s mouth was opening and shutting fruitlessly, as he looked from the landscape ahead of them and back to Mead again and again.

“I tried - I wanted to - are you angry because I never went gliding?” he finally asked suspiciously.

Mead groaned in frustration, covering her face in her hands. “You didn’t exist in this valley, so there’s no way this valley can exist here, don’t you see?”

Something akin to comprehension was beginning to dawn, but it seemed as though Ram was still attempting to fight it.

“You can fly here, you know. You can fly here without any danger -”

“That’s not flying, Ram.” Mead told him flatly, and turned back to the bush.

She noticed the reading circle had their noses stuck assiduously in their books as she strode back out onto the lawn; she also noticed that Warwick’s was upside-down, while Tamsin was poring over the copyright page with fascination.

Jules was missing, though; and so Mead kept going, past the lawn and the buildings and the stately formal gardens, to the sand-dunes which were built high like walls, like ancient crumbling walls. The sands stretched out after that like a desert, but Mead could hear the rhythmic pounding of the sea.

She was sitting on a piece of half-submerged driftwood - so large it was almost a petrified tree. The sun was behind her, making her bright hair shine out, her skin glow. Mead hesitated a moment, wondering whether that was who Jules really was, or whether she had chosen to look so very much alive.

“Did he create this whole world for you, do you think?”

Her voice came from a distance; or seeming thus, anyhow. Mead walked closer before answering, bending forward to tug at a large sea-shell embedded in the sand.

“What do you mean?” she asked finally.

“Do you think he wondered what he would do - how he’d cope - if something ever happened to you? Did he worry so much that he made this world so that nothing bad could take you away?”

It was a nice idea, Mead mused, but so patently unlike Ram to be ridiculous. “I think he thought it was fun,” she said honestly. “Not about keeping people safe, or imprisoning them, or about anything at all. It was just - fun.”

“That’s why you’re angry.”

“Yes.” Then Mead corrected herself. “Partly. Partly because I knew about this and I didn’t care at all. I didn’t think about it.”

“Like the girl from India,” Jules offered acutely.

“Yes.”

Jules turned and looked at Mead, who had settled herself at the other end of the log.

“Is it so bad, here? Really? I mean, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“So don’t beg.”

Chapter Seven

She didn’t dream that she was falling again, but flying.

She was flying over the valley. This time, though, she wasn’t alone. She was with Ram. He was flying with her, and asking her in incredulous tones, “This has been here all along?”

Mead woke up, frowning, thinking that she was the one who was supposed to be saying that.

It was an early wake-up again. She realised that she was going to bed, waiting; and waking up, waiting as well. She wondered whether she was grieving - grief was a kind of permanent waiting, because you could never really believe that that which had been lost was never to be found - but concluded that she was just waiting. She had been here for days, now. But there was no way that her routine within Ram’s created mind was to be forever. She knew that as well as she knew that she wasn’t a beggar or a body to be discarded.

“Mead!”

Jules pushed through the door, her eyes wide and frightened. “Get up, now!”

Mead pushed back her bedclothes and was at the door in an instant, before she’d even had time to think. Then she stopped. What on earth could there be here, in this controlled world, that could frighten anyone?

Unless Ram had let a tiger loose for fun.

Fury propelled her; she followed Jules, running down the corridor, feeling and not feeling the old stones beneath her feet, the sharp cold of the morning, the sunlight breaking in through the windows. She had not seen Ram for a while; not since she’d spurned his gift of the valley. Maybe she wasn’t any fun anymore, and so maybe he had to create some.

She peered out through the windows, wondering what she’d see, but everything looked quite ordinary - except no one was on the lawn, or wandering around the buildings at all.

“Come on,” Jules directed impatiently, leading her back through the English garden to the sand which bordered it. Such arrogance, putting roses and the desert side by side.

They pulled themselves up the steep sand-dunes effortlessly, and then Mead noticed that the others were all there - standing about where the driftwood lay, staring out. Warwick, Tamsin, the younger boy Matt, all the others; in a line, staring.

Because the sea had gone.

The beach had become desert. The sea, which made them feel as though they were stranded on an island perhaps, rather than isolated within a silicon circuit, had disappeared. The sand went on, and then ended.

Mead moved forward curiously, but when it stopped, she stopped, too. She was unable to go further.

“It’s like a computer game,” Matt said finally, breaking the silence. “When they haven’t drawn anymore, and you can’t go forward, only back, because there isn’t anywhere to go.”

“You were right,” Warwick added to Mead, his voice thin and hopeless. “We laughed at you, but you were right about it all.”

He’d slammed it in their faces, that they were just characters in a very large game. Part of Mead wondered whether that was a sort of victory. After all, she’d been trying to explain that very concept to Ram himself. But that he’d use it against her in such an ugly way . . .

Use it against them, she corrected herself. She felt Jules trembling beside her, and took her hand. But when she saw her face, she realised that the girl was not afraid - she was furious.

“How dare they do this!” she burst out, her voice choked. “Give us the world, and then take it away from us! How dare they!”

“Will it keep going, do you think?” Tamsin asked then.

They were silenced by this idea.

“You mean - will they take it from us, piece by piece, until we’re balanced on a pixel?” Warwick breathed. He dropped his book in the sand, then, and didn’t even pick it up.

“You have to talk to him, Mead.”

Suddenly they were crowding around her, turning their backs to the missing ocean.

“You’re his girlfriend, aren’t you? Ask him what’s happening, tell him that he can’t do this to us! Find out what they’re planning, whether it’s all going to be taken from us, whether we are going to have to go back to what we were . . .”

Mead stepped back, her hands raised. “Whoah! Hold on! I don’t even know how to contact him, he generally just appears!”

“Then get his attention,” Tamsin suggested. “You have to, Mead. We can’t live like this.”

They weren’t living at all, but Mead chose not to point that out. Instead, she turned and began walking away from them. She had an inkling of an idea. It was not a nice idea, but some part of her wanted to hurt him very much, and she thought she knew how to do it.

She walked past the gardens, and the buildings, and the well-kept lawn. Into the bush, into the bush, where a lizard scrambled away from her feet and a lyrebird squawked indignantly, its tail drooping. The chasm awaited her, the rift in the earth that he called a valley. Didn’t he know there needed to be heights, that there needed to be a mountain?

She waited a moment, standing on the edge, looking down. She balanced a moment and then let herself fall.

Chapter Eight

He plucked her from the air and slammed her to the ground. She’d never seen him so angry.

“How dare you do that!”

Mead sat where she was, waiting. Part of her felt guilty at the hurt in his eyes; part of her felt satisfied.

“Don’t you think once was enough for me? Seeing you broken, did I need to see you fall as well?”

Then he dropped to the ground beside her and entirely embraced her, pressing her so closely to him that she could feel the juttering beat of his heart. Surprise stopped her protest; even when he began kissing her face, the corner of her mouth, his hands coming up to cradle her. She allowed him to kiss her, allowed herself to kiss him back, amazed at the force of desire which remained in her. She was so hurt and so angry with him, but she supposed that was because she expected more from him.

He pushed her back, kissing her more thoroughly, moving his hands over her body, sliding his leg between her own. Then he lifted his face up and looked at her.

“I want a bed,” he mumbled.

Mead almost laughed. Ram had always had odd ideas about not making love outdoors.

“I’m permanently on a bed, Ram, so you’re quite safe.”

“That’s not you, Mead, this is you,” he whispered, stroking her hair and her face and her breasts so that she could almost forget she hated him. “If you weren’t angry and you never argued it wouldn’t be real, but this is you, this is you, this is you . . .”

He forgot about the bed then, and so did she, letting one another think away their clothes - Mead refusing to note the advantage of an imagined universe - and instead remember their bodies, exactly. Mead knew then that had she ever been called to create a simulate of Ram she’d be able to do it in a heartbeat, and knew that her virtual body was very much her own because Ram knew it in the exact same way.

They found themselves, finally, his head buried between her breasts, her hand stroking his hair gently.

“Did we make love just now, or simply have cyber-sex?” Mead asked vaguely.

Ram lifted himself up and frowned, moving beside her and grabbing her hand. “Don’t, Mead.”

“I thought that’s who I was,” she challenged him.

Ram closed his eyes, and sighed. “I thought - well, what did you think?”

“I thought we had an ocean.”

Ram was standing up fully clothed almost before she’d finished her sentence.

“I see.” His voice was cold. “Did you think that was its price?”

She hadn’t -

“Who knows?” she asked lightly.

He crouched beside her, then, and lay his hand on her shoulder.

“It cost six million dollars, actually, which was money we didn’t have. So, no - one good lay won’t restore it.”

Mead almost winced. Instead she clothed herself and sat up.

“One stock-market crash and you might find they’ve downsized me, too.”

Ram’s lip curled unpleasantly. “You’ve downsized yourself,” he told her, and disappeared.

Maybe she had, Mead thought to herself, leaving the bush. She’d just hurt Ram terribly, twice, and she felt not just shame but also the warmth of revenge. She had a feeling, though, that the initial glow would fade and she’d be left feeling very cold.

“Mead?”

Jules found her, and ran up to her, staring a little.

“Your hair’s all messy.”

She’d remembered her clothes, but Ram had buried his face, his hands in her long brown hair, and it was still lying unkempt around her.

“I saw Ram. They’ve got financial problems, it seems. They had to cut the ocean - it cost too much.”

“So what’s next? Are we only as stable as the sharemarket?”

Mead shrugged. “I suppose the answer to that is yes.”

“We can’t stay here, then.” Jules covered her face with her hands, then dropped them, stamping her foot, her face a picture of fury. “I’ve been so stupid!”

“No - you’ve trusted people, and you didn’t know they couldn’t be trusted,” Mead told her wearily. “I knew, because I know not even to trust myself.”

She left Jules then, and headed to her room. She wished she’d just asked Ram outright what had happened. She wished she’d stopped it earlier. It felt like a strange covenant, that they’d made love in a virtual world. That they’d met here.

Chapter Nine

He appeared at the end of her bed, only a few days later, early in the morning. Mead wondered what it was about that time that caused people to seek her out.

“It’s not good.”

Mead focused in the half-light, watching his lined face.

“There’s something going on, with Dr Forough,” Ram went on. “I’ve been given totally different projects, small things for private companies. It’s like she’s lost interest - I don’t know, I don’t know!”

“Have you asked?”

“Yes, but she knows there’s a conflict of interest,” Ram explained, rubbing his chin. “She won’t be upfront with me.”

“Someone else - is there someone you can trust?”

“I don’t know,” Ram admitted.

Mead sighed. Then she leaned forward. “Take me with you, when you go back - maybe I’ll see something, notice something that you don’t. If you do think that there’s a conspiracy, something big happening . . .”

Ram frowned. “How?”

“You’re the technician, you work it out!” Mead retorted. “If you can do this, you can let me see and hear out there, too. Every inch of the world is cabled and computerised now!”

Ram tilted his head. “Let me - let me think about this.” Then he moved forward, pulled her hand so she was leaning towards him. “There is a conflict of interest, you do know this, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know,” Mead murmured, allowing herself to lean even closer and touch her lips to his. She gave him a gentle, chaste, kiss, barely tasting his mouth. She could not give him more, then - after all, they were on a bed. “Think on it?”

“I will,” he promised, and left before Mead realised what she’d said, or he had.

She spent the day half-wondering about what Ram would do, while trying not to show her annoyance with the reading circle’s impatience and fear. They’d abandoned their newspapers; even Warwick couldn’t lose himself in words, while she saw Matt rip angrily at his stack of comics until they were a wad of torn pages, blown into coloured shreds by the wind. Every so often one or the other would walk out and look at the sea, as though hoping it would appear from behind a fog. Jules didn’t, though. She waited calmly, watching Mead’s face. And whenever a slight breeze moved the air, they both jumped.

“You’re trusting him, you realise,” Mead warned. “That’s what got you into this trouble in the first place.”

“Not him, you,” Jules replied calmly. “There’s a difference. And I’d rather be wrong than not believe, right now.”

“What’s different?” Mead scoffed, trying not to show how startled she was.

“You are.” And she got up then, and ran back to the house. Mead watched her run, watched her smooth movements, and hoped she would never have to lose it. Then she wondered at Jules’ comments. Was she any different, now?

“Maybe that’s what dying does to you -“ she murmured out loud, then stopped, turning. There’d been a whirl of air around her, and sure enough Ram was there, looking anxious and distracted.

“I think I’ve done it, but I wanted to warn you first, that you might get pulled out of here in the next few moments. If it’s all working ok . . .”

Mead swallowed, then nodded. If Ram hadn’t done it right, she might disappear - she might truly die. She felt worse about betraying Jules than anything else, at that moment.

Ram left again in a hurry, and Mead waited, feeling awkward. She tensed, expecting some sort of tug, or even pain, but she simply blinked and discovered herself in an entirely different landscape.

She’d been outside, but now she was standing in a small room, with cream walls and carpet, and no windows. There were two desks, and Ram was bending over some kind of equipment in the corner.

“Well, I suppose it worked?” she asked doubtfully. “Where are we?”

“In my office,” Ram replied, without turning around. “What can you see?”

Mead described the room adequately, and Ram nodded. “Great - you can see and hear all right.” He moved over to his desk. “I hadn’t thought of doing it this way, but as you said - every inch of this place is computerised. You’re not actually in my office, of course -”

“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Mead interrupted suddenly, afraid that she was too horrible to lay eyes on.

“I can’t see you,” Ram explained. “You aren’t really here, anymore than you are really in the VRspace. You’re basically accessing the security system - their audio-visual set-up, and the sensor system, too.”

Mead moved over to the door experimentally. She could feel the carpet under her feet, the temperature of the air. She couldn’t stretch forward her hand to open the door, but she knew the code as though it was her own phone number, and the door sprung open for her as soon as she thought.

“Hang on,” Ram said anxiously, staring at the door. “Where are you going?”

“I want to look around,” Mead replied. “I’ll be back in a moment -”

She slipped into the corridor, amazed at the fact that it felt exactly as though she were moving along a carpeted walkway in a muted office space, when in fact she was still lying in bed and was simply accessing wires. Like travelling through cyberspace, but she didn’t have to imagine the details. In some way, she was really here - the part of her that made her who she was.

She’d picked Ram up from work a few times and knew the layout of part of the building, anyway. There was the foyer with a few chairs, security personnel behind a desk, and a couple of leaflets lying on a low round table, which she’d never bothered to look at, even when she’d had to wait for Ram to be called up.

Sometimes he’d come down to her, but at other times she’d been allowed to slip through the alarmed door into the offices beyond. Quiet corridors with firmly closed doors, and Ram waiting behind one of them, hunched over his flat grey workpad. He’d had an upgrade since she’d last met him - only sharing the room with one other, rather than the three she remembered. Maybe that was a reward for designing the ocean, or for being willing to lose it.

The corridor ended abruptly, with a glass partition and a very interesting security system. Mead was the security system though, then, and slid the glass sections across without a problem, hoping no one was staring at the door as she passed through.

It looked as though the real work of the Forough clinic was hidden behind glass.

As she walked directly inside she saw a number of large tables, with a few people moving about them, talking to one another and tapping quickly on their hand-held instruments without even looking.

On her right was a wall of images, ever-changing. The computer equipment below it was monitored by some harassed-looking assistants, who seemed to be working at some length to keep the imagery stable.

And to her left was the long room filled with hospital beds that she remembered, bodies lying uncovered upon them. It looked like a mortuary, like a scene from a war movie. Mead hesitated, then made herself move closer. She saw herself, her terrible injuries apparent on her body, her hair shaved but her face calm, as though she were sleeping. She seemed caged by wires, though - caged by the machines keeping every organ in her body alive. She was no longer a woman but a city - a thousand roads led from her, from her very thoughts to the walls.

Turning, Mead found herself looking at her friends also caged by wires. It seemed almost shameful to see them thus. Odd, seeing Matt so still, Tamsin so quiet. Warwick did not seem himself without his book in hand. And Jules. Her red-gold hair cropped so close to her head it was barely visible. And her face was tensed and gaunt, the muscles on her arms and legs shrunken.

Suddenly Mead could not bear it any longer, and moved away from the still bodies on the beds. She had a horrible feeling that they were all dead, and she was the only one who had escaped.

Instead she stared at the computer imagery. It wasn’t Ram’s world - at least, Mead didn’t recognise any of the images at all. It seemed to be an island, and it seemed to be growing quickly, but silently, as though it was a plant being monitored. She realised its stillness lay in its emptiness - there were no people in the pictures at all.

The images changed quickly, but as soon as the pace started rising significantly, one of the assistants turned and bawled out, “Slow down, will you!”

Mead realised that the technicians chatting and working at the desks were simply designing, while the assistants were keeping the system stable. So, they were creating a whole new virtual world - when Dr Forough had just told Ram they’d had to cut back.

On the other hand, there was no way Ram could not be aware of this.

When was she supposed to know to trust him?

She made her way back to Ram’s office quarters, finding herself able to move as fast as she liked, past a thousand closed doors, in the silence.

“So what’s this new design all about?”

“You made it in?”

Ram still had no idea of how to look at her, Mead thought impatiently. “I’m over here, by the door.”

“OK,” he replied. “I can’t hear where you are - you’re in my head, not my ears. In my mind, not my eyes.”

“All right. So - answer my question? Have they taken off with our ocean?”

Ram’s surprised expression told Mead that he’d never even considered that possibility.

“Maybe they have,” he replied slowly. “They’re designing a new virtual world for a Micronesian kingdom. Maybe they are trying to up the profits by borrowing from your world.”

“One of those island nations about to be submerged courtesy of the greenhouse effect?” Mead asked with interest, before realising what Ram had said. “It’s not borrowing if we don’t get it back.”

“Dr Forough doesn’t make any money out of the scape I designed,” Ram admitted. “It was something on the side, an experiment.”

“Pretty expensive hobby!”

“Yeah - unless it wasn’t a diversion but an investment.”

They stood silently for a moment, considering this. “You realise that she can reuse every part of your world except its inhabitants?”

Ram simply nodded. Suddenly he slammed his fists onto his desk. “I wanted to save you!”

“Save me?” Mead retorted. “You built this world long before my life was part of it. Face it - you weren’t thinking of saving anyone at all.”

It occurred to Mead that Ram still hadn’t realised there were others involved, and that even if he did, he still wouldn’t care.

“It wouldn’t have lasted forever, anyway.”

Ram’s eyes narrowed. “I want forever. That’s what I want!”

There was nothing to say. “Send me back, will you? I need to talk to the others.”

Ram opened his mouth, then shrugged. “All right.”

He turned back and tapped on a panel, and she disappeared.

Chapter Ten

“I don’t get it. He couldn’t see you, but you could see him?”

It was, as usual, early morning; and Jules was sprawled out on Mead’s bed, watching her pace up and down the room, explaining what had happened once she’d disappeared from their world.

“I wasn’t looking with my eyes - not really. What I was seeing was whatever the cameras were picking up. There just happens to be thousands of cameras in the place . . . I couldn’t tell the difference. It was the same sight as we use here, really. Straight through the optic nerve to the brain . . .” She could tell Jules wasn’t listening. “Cybersight.”

“You chose the smallest bedroom, you know,” Jules observed.

“It’s not my permanent residence. You shouldn’t be making long-term plans, either. They’re recycling this place and making some real money on the side, too . . .”

“If you were seeing and hearing through cameras, how could you feel?” Jules interrupted.

Mead sighed. “It’s all the sensors round the place, ok? I could sense exactly where every object in the place lay, how solid it was, the amount of heat, light and moisture it gave out . . . to me, that was like feeling. If I was computer it’d all be a stack of numbers, I suppose, but it felt the same as reaching out and touching with my hand -“ She stopped. “Enough with the physics, ok? What’s important is understanding that your beloved Dr Forough doesn’t have your best interests in mind.”

“I know that,” Jules said simply. “I’ve known that ever since you arrived.”

Mead stared. Jules burst into laughter, then, and after a hesitation, Mead followed.

“I’m that much of a threat to your health?”

“To my sanity, maybe,” Jules grinned. “Look, you know what I mean. The rest of us clutched onto straws, even when the truth was right in front of us. You were the only one honest enough not to accept straw. So - I think you’ll find a way out of this, for us. I don’t know how, but I think you will.”

“Thanks - I think,” Mead replied, frowning. “You’re putting your life in my hands?”

Jules reached out and stopped Mead’s restless pacing, reaching out and threading her fingers through Mead’s own.. “No - just my hands,” she replied quietly.

The door crashed open behind them, and Warwick stuck his head in.

“Sorry it’s so early, but -“ he began, and Mead rolled her eyes. “Early? What’s that? Come on in.”

Warwick entered - and Tamsin followed, with Matthew not far behind. Mead discovered that Jules was right - the room was small.

“Look, can’t you talk to Ram?” Tamsin began persuasively. “Even if Forough decides to wipe out this world, can’t you get him to create some other place for us to live? Doesn’t have to be as big or flash as this one - just a building, or a patch of land, somewhere.”

“It wouldn’t have to be big or expensive. He could host us on his own server - and get some charity to take care of our bodies - maybe they could fund-raise . . .” Matthew added eagerly.

"Or even if they let us into the Micronesian world!" Tamsin put in excitedly. "They wouldn't mind, surely . . .”

“Anything. Anything, so that we don’t have to go back to where we were - what we were,” Warwick finished quietly.

Mead felt a peculiar sense of anger growing within her - a mix of frustration and terrible pity. “Go. Please, go. All of you. I know what you want - don’t you think I know? Just get out.” Then she spun around. “No, Ram - you can stay.”

She’d felt him a moment before he had appeared, and she wondered how much of her friends’ desperate plea he’d heard. It didn’t matter, really, either way, because he could not see behind the words the way she could. He didn’t care the way she did.

He didn’t say a thing; he simply frowned and said, “You need to come and see this. Hang on a moment.”

She sighed and waited and then opened her eyes to find herself back in his office.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Come on,” he said, moving almost through her to the door. “Follow me.”

She shook her head, but followed him through the corridors as he strode briskly past the closed office doors, and headed directly to the glass-panelled room. She saw on the large screen that the island had progressed since she’d last been there; it was almost complete, in fact.

The technicians were no longer chatting around tables, however; they were sitting formally in a large circle, with Dr Forough sitting in the midst of them, on a slightly larger chair.

“Oh - you’ve decided to join us, Ram? Thanks,” the doctor said sweetly. “As I was saying, the nature of our work has changed decidedly over the last few months. With this contract complete, we’ll be able to show a full-scale model to prospective clients; and yes, we have clients. Plenty of them.”

Mead found herself watching the woman carefully. She’d learned that when a piece of information was repeated so hastily, it was often because it wasn’t secure at all. Rather than having plenty of clients, it seemed that Dr Forough was afraid she’d have none at all. It didn’t surprise Mead - after all, they were working hard to solve the greenhouse problem. One couldn’t count on an Atlantis every week.

“We will, of course, have to put all our resources into completing this project. So we will be temporarily closing down certain branches - simply so we can remain focused on finishing the island. After that, well. Things will be different.”

Mead could feel the rise in temperature, the increase in moisture, which indicated the doctor’s tension. So - this project was life or death for the company. Life or death for the doctor’s career, perhaps. She was having no problem announcing retrenchments - and she would have no problem cannibalising their entire world for the completion of her one great work. While they slept, or were sent off to nursing homes . . .

Looking around, she saw that she wasn’t the only one listening to what was quite deliberately remaining unsaid. One of the stabilisers cleared her throat and said something about putting one’s eggs into a single basket; a comment which was simply laughed at and ignored. A few others remained silent, but sat back, watching and listening carefully.

“And our shareholders?” a designer asked finally.

“Will be very happy with the increased profits,” Dr Forough said firmly. “And that’s all for the moment - thank you for your time.”

There was some muttering, but the technicians finally filed off to their individual offices. Ram hesitated. Mead thought he might ask the obvious question of the doctor, but realised that he did not want to hear what she would say. He paused, instead, in the doorway, looking over at Mead’s own body. She wondered how often he did that.

Mead herself left him there, following after a tight group of designers whom she had noticed during the meeting. As she thought, they went straight to a single office, and stood around, or perched on desks, talking furiously.

“Segregation has never been the answer; doesn’t she know that?”

“The internet? Yep, all that connection and interaction is obviously a flash in the pan,” another designer added sarcastically.

“Some people don’t even realise they think in boxes - live in boxes - want to hand others boxes on a plate . . .”

“I bet she lives in a gated community,” a technician scoffed. “Entirely closed off from the rest of the world . . . well, good luck to her! But she can’t close off all our opportunities like this!”

“She’s sinking every cent into this venture, you can tell,” another designer said gloomily. “And sinking is the right word. All our energy, all our creativity over the last few years - wasted.”

“Well, what are we going to do about it?”

It was the young stabiliser, who had spoken up during the meeting. “Well? None of us like this; probably no one, apart from the short-sighted doctor. What’s the solution?”

“Good on you for saying something, Amy, but I can’t see a solution except for leaving - all of us,” an older designer replied.

“I need a job, I don’t know about anyone else - mortgage, three kids -“ a few voices spoke up. “You said something about shareholders, Nick,” Amy reminded one of the designers. “It’s their money she’s using.”

“Well, we don’t want them to cut and run!” Nick retorted. “I might not like this, but I don’t want it all to collapse in some kind of financial heap!”

“I’m not saying you do,” Amy replied patiently. “And that’s not what the shareholders want, either, do they? They want something that will work - that will get them a lot of money. I think all of us know this isn’t it. The question is, what will? What could be presented at the next shareholders meeting that would capture their interest - that would force Dr Forough to change course?”

Ram’s workplace, Mead thought to herself, was a far more interesting place than he’d ever revealed. Conspiracies, secret laboratories filled with bodies, and disappearing oceans to boot. She’d always imagined it as quiet and terribly boring - but geeks evidently led rather exciting lives.

She made her way back to Ram’s office. He was perched on his own desk, frowning to himself, hands gripping the edge of the table, his feet swaying idly beneath him. Mead felt a sudden urge of compassion, remembering his face looking over at her body. She moved closer to him, knowing he could sense her presence at all, if she were silent.

The low heat he gave off, the speed of his heart, the pressure of his blood, the space he took up in the room - she sensed all of it. It was not a cold or rational knowledge. It was as clear and refreshing as the scent of a flower, the taste of water. The exact contours of his skin, the slight moisture on his face -

She realised he was sweating.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a strangled voice.

Mead stepped back, surprised. “You could feel me?”

“Well, if it isn’t you, some other woman has been running her hand up and down my - er - leg.”

Mead laughed. “OK, so you can feel me. How?”

Ram was silent, and Mead frowned. "How, Ram?”

"It's - probably I'm just sensing some - er - change in temperature, increased energy, or maybe it's radio waves, some kind of electro-magnetic effect . . .”

He was blinking, she saw - nearly squinting.

"You can almost see me, can't you?" Mead whispered. She saw him open his mouth to prevaricate; then nod, slightly.

Mead remembered wondering about trusting Ram - and realised that she'd trusted him all along.

"Ram, what happened to that girl - that girl you were supposed to marry?" she asked inconsequentially.

He held her hand and smiled. "Don't you remember? She married my best friend . . . and what did I care? I had you. Mead. Mead, what Tamsin and the others said - maybe I could talk the doctor into it, putting you on the island . . .”

He still wanted them hidden away.

“No,” Mead said furiously. “No, I won’t have you even repeating their stupid ideas. I won’t have it!”

“And I won’t have you dying on me again,” Ram said in a low, harsh voice.

“You always do that - you always do that! Tell me it’s live or die, kill or be killed, that it has to be one or the other. Don’t you know there’s always another way?”

Ram hesitated; and then he looked directly at her.

“So you’re asking for miracles.”

“It’s all I ever ask for.”

Chapter Eleven

“And, of course, this kind of large-scale investment will lead to greater profits, far greater profits, than this company has even seen before. Thank you.” Dr Forough finished, smiling, and began to move from the podium to her seat.

The shareholders meeting was packed; the room was overflowing with people. The attendance was, in fact, almost double that of the previous year’s meeting. And all sorts of people had come along, from the large corporations to the small-scale private investors; people young and old, wealthy and struggling. There seemed to be a cross-section of Sydney itself within the room.

“One moment, Dr Forough.”

The doctor paused. “Yes?” She wondered why it was always so hot, despite the air-conditioning, and what was causing that constant buzz of conversation beneath everything said.

“Can we count on the same number of contracts like this, over the next few years? This is a rather large investment you are proposing.” A tall man stood up and threw the question at her. “If there is no follow-up, we could lost a lot - if not everything.”

“Of course there will be further contracts like this,” the doctor replied, continuing to make for her seat.

“I’m sorry - I’m sorry, could you elucidate, please?” A young woman called out. “You’re suggesting quite a few wealthy Micronesian nations are about to be drowned?”

A laugh rippled out across the audience.

“Not at all,” Dr Forough replied, irritated. “But there are other groups of people who will be interested in this kind of product. This is the way of future.”

“I sincerely hope not,” the tall man threw back, and there were some shouts of agreement.

“Come, now! Isn’t everyone around the world trying to escape their neighbour, even as we speak? This way, everyone can live exactly as they please without disturbing anyone at all.”

“Some of us might need disturbing, though -”

“Who ever said running away solved anything?”

“Live exactly as they please?”

The voices began to rise up, louder, until the chairperson stood up and called for quiet.

“Perhaps, Dr Forough, you could come back and explain further?”

“I’ve explained enough,” she replied sulkily. “This is the way of the future . . .”

“No. No, it isn’t,” Mead said quietly.

She walked up through the centre of the crowd, her eyes intent on Dr Forough’s ashen face.

“But you’re - you’re -”

“Dead? Or pretty much so?” Mead retorted. “All that stuff about the dead rising? It’s true, you know.”

She watched Dr Forough with some enjoyment as the others followed her into the meeting; Jules, Warwick, Tamsin, Matthew, and all the rest from Ram’s world.

“There is another option - another future, if you like,” Mead said, turning and facing the shareholders. “It’s something you might consider. You can choose to shut yourselves away, or to allow us to be shut away, hidden from view. Or you might open your eyes one day and be surprised at what you can see - if you really look -”

Suddenly Mead had the image of her valley in her mind, and the swift desire to go there again.

“The good doctor here tucked me away, out of sight, when I was broken. Not really fit for society. But here I am . . . none of us really understand the how, or the why,” she went on, throwing Ram a smile, “except that if we’re able to create rocks and trees through pulses, waves, and electronic signals, then we must also be able to feel the energy of a human being, standing right next to us. See her, hear her voice. You see, my body is lying on a bed far from here - but it's wired into the universe now. They've done this, for me, for all of us standing here.”

The room was silent, for the first time since the meeting had begun.

“You can, of course, invest in Dr Forough’s project. Why not try to isolate one person from the other? Or maybe, you can listen to what these people have to say. It’s about connection - about letting everyone out into the sun. It can be done. I think it should be done. Unless you find it disturbing . . .”

A different, warmer, laugh rippled across the audience. A few of the technicians - Mike, Amy, and Ram himself - got up and began to explain the new technology, and what it could mean. The buzz of excited conversation rose up, louder and louder.

“This is nonsense! Some kind of trick; you can’t seriously believe . . .” Dr Forough spluttered.

“Seeing is believing,” Jules told her. “Sometimes, anyway.” Then she turned to Mead. "I wasn't wrong to trust you.”

Her joy wasn't irritating any longer - it was infectious, and Mead laughed and hugged her friend. "Nor I, you.”

“Does this mean we're not counting on regular island disappearances each financial year?” the tall man asked, and the room erupted into laughter, as Dr Forough picked up her things and left.

Slowly, people got up from their seats, began to chat to the technicians, to the people of Ram’s world themselves. Mead saw Warwick settle into a heated debate about the relative worthiness of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre; she noticed Matthew begin a shy conversation with the young woman who’d argued with Dr Forough to begin with. Jules, her bright curls shining, was laughing with a circle of admirers around her; and Tamsin was explaining the weather controls to an older man. Mead grinned, and decided she’d had enough. She grabbed Ram’s arm and pulled him out of there.

“And where exactly are we going?” Ram asked a little while later, as they drove out of the city.

“Do you need to ask?”

“Not really.”

They stopped at their usual place; but this time, Mead didn’t walk alone to the mountain peak. Instead, she had Ram to help her lift the hang-glider.

“I’ve never done this before, you know,” Ram warned her, as they reached the heights, saw the beauty of the sky above them, the valley below.

“I know,” Mead replied, loving him. “But this way we can fly.”

They paused for a moment, looking around, looking at the wilderness about them. Then they jumped.

~*~

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