UMI
Umi's body felt like it was falling. She was out of sync with her own words, body, mind. The pulse of time rippled around Umi, from Honoka, from the rips in present tense, from the unearthly green glow that was condensing into the air until even moving a finger was difficult. Umi could almost hear its rhythm, now, a battle hymn, stark and proud and melancholy.
The zap was still there, the tingling of Honoka's power. If she looked at her phone, she'd be wildly out of time by now. Her arms were outlined in light. She knew what this meant, now, but she still panicked under the smothering green weight of it.
Umi opened her lips. "What… what do you mean, save…" Her mouth felt like mud. Images of this Honoka flashed in her mind, again: a lone woman, gray as a ghost, in the parking lot of a dollar store. Rifts in the sky. Constellations looming overhead, in the cold winter night, threatening and empty to a solitary woman with nowhere else to go. She heard someone humming a song, reciting a poem.
The Maiden cries tears of glass and pearls…
Umi looked up again. The green light was gone. There was just Honoka, remote and tired, standing there with an expression Umi couldn't read. There was anger, but there was something else.
Umi took a deep breath. They were here. In the other Honoka's apartment. The woman had just made an outrageous statement. "What do you mean, you can save at least one person?" "Travel? You can barely leave your apartment without causing a traffic accident!"
There was a frozen silence. Honoka looked like she wanted to throw something at her.
"That's why I said, considering my condition." The older woman said, eventually, with her raised voice a little, something Umi had never heard Honoka do. "I'm sure one of our governments has dealt with some kind of paranormal aspect before. Are you going to call Mary? We need to begin arrangements immediately. I can tell you travel is going to be slow."
Mary arrived shortly after with Honoka's 7-11 snacks. The two older women discussed logistics in hushed voices. Umi waited in the kitchen, checking her phone. I know, Kotori's message read. Nothing else. She wondered if the Other Umi had been happy in her other life.
The Maiden cries tears of glass and pearls… That line sounded so familiar. Out of a fairytale. Had Umi written something like that? She'd been on a fairytale kick, during the last months of muse. Why had she seen that from Honoka, now?
"Will that work, Honoka?" Mary had asked. "Or - I'll believe anything will work, at this point. But this can't be a suicide mission."
"I just need her to stop using the machine. I'm not worried anyone else can use it, only my Maki could really use it." Honoka took a sip of her 7-11 coffee. It smelled like burnt mocha, even from the kitchen.
"Is… it possible that Maki has seen her Other Self? Would her Other Self want to use the machine?"
"Possibly. I am only just barely aware of my Other Self, she's very faint and it's not consistent. I don't know much about this Maki's demeanor. Maki wouldn't have the body and ear training to fully use it, at least. But she would understand how, if she got that far. If she was desperate enough, or arrogant enough to try, she might use the device, and something might actually happen."
Mary brooded over her Arizona tea. There was no noise but the sound of cars from the highway. The other agents must have been called off.
Umi should be over there. This was her job. She'd been chosen for her connection to Honoka. Instead, she just watched the pair. Mary in her casual agent clothing. Other Honoka all in gray, long hair fragmented into white and red-gold. Honoka looked so serious. Mary had never met Honoka as a young girl who charged into things without looking. Mary never knew Honoka as an irresponsible person. They spoke as equals.
This wasn't her Honoka, Umi reminded herself. Her Honoka was back in Japan presumably ready to fry herself with a time machine. She thinks it's her fault.
"Actually," Honoka said, in a quiet voice. "My Maki once saw herself - peering across the garden wall, as she put it. She saw her Other Self - her Current Self at least once. We were… drenched, in the meteor's energy at the time. But if this Maki has spent any amount of time with the meteor, it's not unreasonable to think she could see into other places, into herself. I don't know how much information she could truly share, though."
"Could she figure it out on her own?"
"It's a possibility. She did once already."
"There are other people seeking this device out, as well."
Honoka nodded. "I know. They can't use it, but if they spend too much time in its proximity… if they so much as touch it… The less control someone has, and the less they're aware of what's happening, the worse the time rifts will become. My rifts are already out of control."
Mary was silent for several moments. Umi looked over with a sullen interest. Did Mary care about the side effects of the machine?
"I doubt certain places (well, specifically Russia, but also everywhere else) will care. If I were on a different team, I certainly would be encouraged not to care. I was being truthful when I said my interests lie in a super weapon - but this is a lot of work for such a dangerous tool. Perhaps some department with a lot of money could train individuals to become hyper musician-dancers from birth, but that would be a long, difficult undertaking."
Umi wondered what her team lead actually wanted from this project. They were in some kind of defense investigative squad. But Umi had never actually spoken with her superior on what he'd planned on doing with this machine one they'd gotten their hands on it.
The conversation chased itself: who knows what, who can know what, what can they do about it. Mary even asked if Umi could possibly use the time machine apparatus. Other Honoka had taken a long time before answering. Probably not. But it's a very small possibility. The more musically inclined someone is, and the more physically adept they are, the more likely that they could hold that energy together. But with Umi's injuries, and lack of… sensitivity, it's very unlikely. It's been a long time since Umi was the sentimental lyricist of muse.
\\\
Umi had said something to Mary after Honoka had gone to sleep.
"This is weird. First Honoka says everything is meaningless and now she wants to save someone?"
"Saving herself, it seems."
"It seems selfish, and erratic, to me. Honoka should have helped from the beginning in that case."
"I don't think Honoka had any hope that she could affect anything. Maybe something inspired her last night. Brought something back for her. What did you say to her, when I left?"
Umi turned away. She didn't want to bring up Eli with Mary again. You didn't do a good job in either timeline. "I'd told Honoka some personal things. She became angry with me."
"Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe you two need to be angry with each other" Mary smiled. "So, are you going to work on your lyrics? Miss 5% likelihood Time Machine Candidate."
Umi snorted. She wasn't sure if she was flattered for being considered at all or offended that she wasn't considered sensitive. "For what? The tiniest chance that I need to break the universe, too?"
"Given the nature of time… well, it couldn't hurt to brush up on your skills, right?"
\\\
Umi slept badly that night. She'd dreamed she was in Portland again, with Kotori and Honoka in the hotel, only it was Other Honoka and Umi sat at the sidelines of the bed, watching the two entangle into each other, like snakes, like an artistic pornographic film.
They were late for a show. Umi's phone kept ringing, but Kotori's voice got louder and louder, moaning to the point the neighbors banged on the wall, but neither of them stopped.
"We need to go."
Kotori responded with a desperate moan from the back of her throat, the kind of moan Kotori always meant.
"Umi." Other Honoka said, her voice muffled in the folds of Kotori's dress. "Why don't you step out for a moment?"
Umi stormed out into the hotel hallway. It was the hotel they'd stayed at in New York. Eli stood outside her door, in the ballerina outfit, with a crown of black feathers on her head. She was bleeding, half dead, with empty blind eyes. She was crying gemstones and glass.
The Maiden cries tears of glass and pearls, a voice inside her said.
"This is what you wanted, right?" The spectre said. "This is what we both wanted." Eli turned her plump, dead lips to kiss Umi. She had an undercurrent of soil and honey to her battered skin.
"I never wanted this, I never wanted…"
"The bones fill with withered buds, Umi."
Umi woke up to Mary's alarm.
/
Umi washed her face with Honoka's cleanser, and tentatively dabbed the expensive-looking moisturizer. She didn't touch the rest of the products, with their alchemic-sounding names. The Maiden cries tears of glass and pearls… The bones fill with withered buds… Umi turned the phrases over and over in her head. She'd written that. When? Umi hadn't touched a song since The Band had split up. Umi knew it would be in some long-forgotten notebook, tucked behind all of her muse costumes. The lyrics must have been for muse.
Umi sprayed on perfume, out of habit. The only perfume she'd ever worn. Kotori had gotten it for her, for her birthday a long time ago. The bottle was almost empty. Almost empty, like our relationship.
/
The solution to the Other Honoka's condition was a spacious private jet with an energy-absorbing material, that blocked radiation. Or, they hoped this would be a solution. Honoka had never tried this before. The three of them drove to the airport with Honoka crammed as far as possible into the back, wearing clothing covering most of her body, even gloves, surrounded by blankets and pillows. Umi could still feel it. The… pulse. This latent fog that seemed to expel itself from Honoka, that tasted green and bright. The car flared green a few times. They'd taken back roads, and only hit corn stalks during the brief swerves.
Umi simmered in resentment towards the Other Honoka as the car veered and time spun around them. You didn't do a good job in either timeline, she'd said. That might have been true. Umi didn't know about her other self. But… Umi was trying. She'd tried to look after Honoka. To be a good friend. To protect her. And now Honoka was this ticking time bomb.
Halfway there, Honoka insisted they pull over to a rest stop. "I can feel something coming. Time is… speeding up, a little. Don't touch anything I touch." She'd gotten out, laid on the picnic table, looking only slightly unseasonably bundled. "Get me a tea or something."
It was a few hours before Honoka would let them leave. Umi found herself impatient, that Honoka was delaying them. She'd always made them late for everything. Umi knew this wasn't her Honoka. She couldn't be angry with this woman, realistically. They had stopped for their safety, everyone else's safely.
At moments Umi caught glimpses of another girl, with a less guarded face, a posture that was not resigned and rigid. (Those moments disappeared, the second Honoka noticed Umi looking.) She would find herself thinking all over again, how angry she was, how much trouble Honoka had made for her and Kotori. I wouldn't have cheated if this had never happened, Umi thought. Not for real. I would never have sought Eli out for real, if I'd just never slept with Honoka. I could have gotten that flash drive another way.
"Honoka." Mary had said, sitting at another picnic table outside of the green time aura. "You don't still have the meteor, do you? You don't have it hidden away in a suitcase or something?"
"Yes and no."
"What do you mean?''
"I think I am a meteor myself, now. The meteor itself was not from our time, we think, and interacting with it changed the way we perceived and navigated time's flow. Touching it sent us out of normal time. The same is true for me. I'm out of this time, and I alter everything I touch. Of course, I'm a person, I won't give off the same results as an inanimate object. It's less direct. My skin, my organs, keep the power from running free, to be easily absorbed by another."
"That makes you even more dangerous." Umi said. "The meteor doesn't move, at least."
Honoka sighed. "I see."
"I'm just saying…"
Mary stood up. "How are you feeling, Honoka?"
"I'll let you know when I'm ready. It will be soon. I think I can keep up with the pace of the music inside of me. It's riding me, right now. I need to be able to move with it."
A song, Umi thought. An out of control song. That's what time was, Honoka had said, a song no one could predict.
/
Umi went inside to the rest stop convenience store, and bought a spiral-bound notebook and a pen. She got a coffee and sat in the food court, thinking. The Maiden cries tears of glass and pearls. The bones fill with withered buds. What rhymed with pearls? Hurls, whirls, unfurls.
The Mirror's Shade Unfurls.
She wrote this out, several times.
The Maiden cries tears of glass and pearls.
The bones fill with withered buds.
The Mirror's Shade Unfurls.
Umi had no idea what this meant. It was fairytale inspired. Pretty nonsense for an idol's song. She thought of Eli, last night. A ballerina. Feathers Some quick internet searching brought up Swan Lake. Umi vaguely remembered some songs, now. She'd written the lyrics for Eli, a long time ago, before anything strange had happened between anyone, before anyone even knew Eli and Nozomi were dating.
The fairytale song was a duet for Eli and Maki. Umi tapped her pen against the coffee cup. She hadn't meant anything in particular, when she'd written this. Simply that their voices would be well suited for the song. Maybe Other Honoka would know something. Maybe this song was had great meaning in the other timeline, if the Other Honoka was singing it recently. Umi would have to ask Honoka on the way back to Japan.