Walking Past Time

A slow steady trickle of time was all that she counted and twisted to lock into place. There was no adjusting pressure and creating jury-rigged connections. Tools rested for the first time since they began developing scratches.

Quiet. Silence in the shop.

At some point Yuki showed up in the back staring down at her, seated at her bench unmoved the whole time. She looked up towards him already having an idea why he was showing up. “They aren’t the only ones, are they?”

“…no…”

She had a while to think about it as she stopped her work. After the emotions burned away and she just stewed in everything her mind started to think a little more clearly. “I guess it’s not all that surprising. They need someone to target for their blame. All the easier for someone that’s dead.”

“You don’t think she survived?”

“Most seem to think that she is and I haven’t seen anything that says otherwise yet. Though I think that she’s likely alive still. It’d be a problem if she wasn’t.”

“So you’re thinking the same thing then.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense given everything that we know.”

“What do you plan to do then?”

“Rumors are hardly much to work by and there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

“So you’re getting back to work?”

“Are you telling me to work?” she asked with a smirk coming across her face.

“You do have a large backlog of work and as your business partner it’d be bad if you started to make your clients upset.”

Yumi stood up and picked up her personal pad to see everything that Yuki logged for the morning. The list never ended, it seemed as she scrolled over it. Several names as she went through were familiar with already getting repeat customers. “Definitely wouldn’t want to see them upset,” she returned in a sardonic tone.

Chapter 493 – Walking Past Time

Rumors always found themselves being referred to as a virus or worse than that. It was always a shockingly accurate way to talk about rumors. Even in the future, where things might have been socially better, Yumi never looked deeply into that side to know, but the worst of humanity remained as it always had been no matter the age. A fake future didn’t change those rules any.

Yumi stepped out of her workshop and out into the uneven plated street of the town. She had to be careful about her foot as they still hadn’t finished leveling everything out. It was more of a priority to get it down rather than making things perfect. Though she felt it was a safety hazard, one which she complained to HQ and Karen repeatedly.

A long sigh with a stretch of her arms came out finally able to look forward after a long day of work. She heard footsteps behind her and stepped aside letting Yuki join her. A soft smile came over her face as she glanced at him.

“Still not used to it?”

“You spend weeks pulling 20 hour shifts and see how you feel.”

He reached around giving her a comforting embrace. “I was there.”

“I know you were.”

“This is healthier, even if foreign to you.”

“Yes, yes, you’re such a worrier.”

A teasing bump and grin from him broke away any sort of doubts that she had. “I always will be.” He offered out his hand for her as he took a step forward.

Yumi accepted and joined him at his side as they walked together. Hand in hand, they strolled down the street until they came to an unfinished part. Everyone had their roles within the community. It was what kept everything going. Most of the initial tension that people had managed to vanish as they looked at the goals. Work seemed to give them focus, even if it was hard. Fewer machines worked out in the town with each passing day.

They turned away from the construction down a side street that hadn't even started. It was easier to see it defined as a side street now, than how it had been even a month ago. More every week wanted to move into the town rather than being trapped in the ruins of the Ark. Even though they still used the protection of the Ark for the town, it felt like they moved away from it. The ground was partially that from the habitat and the planet that they crashed on. A hybrid of familiar and foreign made for some comfort, better than the reminders that the Ark gave most. They naturally wished to leave it all behind.

After picking up some snacks along the way, they stopped at the observatory deck. Beyond the shield, the planet’s hostile environs continued unaffected by their presence. It felt a little less troubling these days with the reactor issue truly resolved. “We’re eventually going to run out of room here.”

“But that’ll be years from now. You’re not planning on staying that long.”

“No, but things have been in a standstill since the crash. No Sumiko means that we’re stuck.”

“There’s been more rumors as of late about her popping up.”

“I’ve heard about them, but no one has found her yet. With so many people looking, you’d think that they have found her by now.”

“She’s a very intelligent woman.”

“True…” It wasn’t something that she needed to be reminded of. Yumi knew how smart she was having spent years learning off of her. Even if it wasn’t her sort of field, hiding away would likely not be that hard for her. “Though if she was hiding, she would still need to be able to get materials, even if she was salvaging them herself.” Standing up suddenly, it hit her as she thought about it. “Sorry, Yuki! I’ve got to go now!”

“I know,” he said with a smile letting her be free. She quickly ran off and disappeared from his sight leaving him alone.

In a darkened room within the Ark, a familiar figure occluded the little light from the hall. “What are you doing, Yumi?”

Pausing in her typing, she glanced over at Karen, who still refused to leave the Ark. “If you’re down here, you already know what I’m doing.”

“Then why?”

“You didn’t think this could go on forever did you?”

“Nothing’s going to change.”

“You didn’t let me make that choice.” Yumi finished what she was doing on the computer and stood up. The search was complete. “You’ve lost the right to decide now.”

Karen couldn’t stop Yumi from leaving as much as she wanted to do it. It was out of her control now. “Yumi! Don’t go to see her!” The plea fell on deaf ears as she walked out of sight.

Standing on the edge of the town looking into the distance, she saw through the rubble something that looked a little bit like a figure digging around. She sat and watched, keeping her distance as they worked. ‘It’s a little surprising that no one has found her. This isn’t exactly far away. And they’ve been looking for months…’ The results she got from the computer didn’t tell her much. It was difficult to piece what she could find together as there was a lot of effort to delete the tracks.

Watching for an hour in silence, there were no interruptions, though it was late into the night, not that the artificial light in the town made it very clear at times. But eventually she finished what she was doing and walked away, towards the town. She didn’t even seem to be trying to hide herself, not wearing a disguise or something to hide her face. ‘Explains why the rumors happened anyway…’

Tracking her back, she found that the place that she called home now was just a normal looking home matching the others in the area. She was just an ordinary person living amongst everyone completely unknown. How any of it managed to work for this long was a mystery to her. But she didn’t follow any further.

Yumi returned to the shop where Yuki waited for her. She sat down at the table quietly still hanging in her thoughts after everything that she saw.

“You found her then.”

Slowly turning her eyes up to him, she acknowledged him more directly. “Yeah…though not really what I expected to find.”

“What was it?”

“She’s in plain sight, about all she’s doing is working when people are normally asleep, but otherwise she’s not trying to hide. If anything, she’s making a statement that she’s right here. The only one that seems to be hiding anything is Karen and the boy.”

“You know that Susumu has a name, Yumi.”

“Who?”

“Forget it, did you talk to her?”

“No, I just watched her. I hoped to find something about what she’s thinking, why she’s no longer doing anything. She’s just picking at trash, wasting her time.”

“I guess, give it time. You’ll figure it out.”

She passively nodded to him, mired in her thoughts still. Yumi leaned against the table with her chin resting on it, no longer certain about things. ‘I didn’t even try to talk to her…damnit…’

Time flowed differently for Yumi now that she learned about Sumiko’s location. Despite what it might have seemed logically, she didn’t keep going out to follow her. She just focused on her work and let things move forward. Passing months brought continued change in the town with everyone now in the town rather than the HQ, besides a couple of hold outs.

While everything was changing around them, a routine developed that didn’t change anything. The goals for people continued to push things. They adapted more to their situation, but not everything could go smoothly. What had to happen eventually had finally occurred.

Yuki opened the door to the shop and poked his head into Yumi’s work. “It’s happened, Yumi.”

Her hands stopped as he said it. This was the day that they waited for. The way that things were going it was going to end up slipping out eventually. Even with everything that they were doing to hide what Sumiko was doing, someone would figure it out. It honestly should have been a long time ago, but there was a lot of luck. “About time.” She stood up leaving her tools on the bench.

“What are you going to do?”

She pulled on a thin jacket over her dirty clothes as she went to the side door. “Depends on what happens.”

“Yumi…”

Digging her hands to her pockets, she watched as the crowd of people started to build. It was like rain water in a heavy storm all going to the sewer, but it being too much for it to take progressively flooding at the mouth. There was going to be little chance she had in getting close. All she could hope for was a good position to watch it all happen.

“Get out here!” shouted part of the crowd.

“They’re not being violent, yet at least…” She hopped over a short fence to get up on a construction platform that was fixing a broken down network relay. It wasn’t much without getting too much in their way, but she could see over the heads of everyone. Sumiko’s door was clearly visible and closed to the crowd. No movement in the windows meant that she was deeper in, either unaware or hiding.

“Murderer!”

“Open your door!”

“Sumiko the Plague!”

“They're getting pretty nasty with their remarks. Though if she was actually standing in front of them, what would they say? They can only do this because they have the safety in no conflict.”

Several started to pound on her door demanding louder that she come out to face them. If the streets didn’t stay so clean because of the machines, they might have started to throw trash. Sumiko could only ignore it all for so long. She had to do something or they would only get worse. But in contradiction to what Yumi expected, Sumiko remained hidden as though she wanted to keep up the little dirty secret held by them.

The pounding became worse until they started knocking on the walls with more people pushing to get a piece of the action. It quickly started to roll out of control. She didn’t know what they would do anymore with their emotions fueled so hotly as they were. These normally hard working and honest people were going to destroy everything that they were for this one moment.

Sighing heavily, Yumi climbed up the construction scaffold until she got to the top. ‘I’m not keeping your secret.’ She didn’t know what she was doing anymore, but things had to change. A choice had to be made even if she regretted it. “Everyone, shut up!”