Читать книгу The Infinite - Patience Agbabi - Страница 10

Chapter 03:00

MC2

At the beginning of Seventh Year, a criminal came to our school. He was a skinny black boy with clumps of hair sticking out of his head like antennae. His eyes turned up at the edges and he had an infinity tattoo on his left hand which looked like a number 8 sideways: . He wasn’t in school uniform because he was a criminal, so his trousers and top were white with graffiti all over them. I tried to read what it said but it gave me a headache. His name was MC², the boy we’d see months later in the Time Squad video. But we didn’t know that at the time.

Mrs C Eckler had given us investigative homework on MC² the night before, so we could ask sensible questions. She gave us a ‘secret link’ and reminded us of our Oath of Secrecy. That’s when I found out he was a Leapling who’d committed lots of Anachronisms. Normal bad people commit crimes in their own time, but bad Leaplings steal things or kill people in the past so it’s harder to trace the crime. All these crimes are called Anachronisms. MC² was nicknamed the Mixer of Chronology but I didn’t have time to find out what it meant because Grandma wanted me to fetch the comb and pomade.

Mrs C Eckler smelled of perfume that day rather than Pears soap. She had her ginger hair down to her shoulders rather than piled up on her head as usual and was wearing bright blue eyeshadow. I didn’t like this. I kept thinking she was someone else who’d stolen Mrs C Eckler’s voice.

‘Now Seventh Year, we are EXTREMELY lucky today.’ She was pacing up and down rather than standing still, which was really distracting. ‘We have a very special visitor . . .’ I think I zoned out during her introduction, but the next thing I knew everyone was cheering like he was a pop star.

MC² blinked all the time. He blinked so fast you might not even notice. I think he was scared. I tried to hate him because he’d broken the law but I felt bad for him because he was scared. And he spoke in rhyme so it was more like a rap than a talk.

‘To the power of 2, I deliver my apology,

I committed intricate crimes against chronology . . .’

That word again. Chronology. I know now it means the order that things happen. MC² was nicknamed the Mixer of Chronology because he sold things that were out of time, like DJs who used to ‘mash up records’ so the words came out backwards and sounded like another language. But I didn’t know that last year.

‘The making of watches and clocks is horology,

I stole the past, so the present acknowledge me.’

And I remembered reading online he became an expert on clocks and watches. He would go back in time to find a clock that was worth lots of money and then bring it back to the present to sell it. Then he did the opposite: he stole modern watches and sold them to rich people in the past. He didn’t make as much money that way round but liked to watch people do what-big-eyes in 1800. The wristwatch hadn’t been invented yet.

‘If you’re in a mess, if you’re in distress,

send an SOS via SMS . . .’

Lots more applause.

And Mrs C Eckler was smiling from East to West.

‘Thank you for that wonderful presentation, MC². Seventh Year have looked you up online so I’m sure they have lots of questions to ask you. But before they do, could you tell us the story of your name?’

‘Yeah.’ He disappeared, reappeared on the spot, his whole body blinking! Big Ben whooped, the whole class started muttering in amazement and my eyes went too big for my head. It was like leaping for a split second. How did he do it? ‘When I was a kid,’ he said, ‘I leapt before I could walk. For real. Too much energy with no place to go. Doc said ADHD and prescribed medication. But the meds didn’t work so I got sent specialist school to help me.’

‘One of my peer mentors said,

“You’re a bomb ready to blast, spar.

Channel that energy, you’ll go far.”

‘I put my energy into rhyme. When I started rapping, I leapt all over the stage. Here, there, everywhere. There was this brother called himself Einstein after the genius professor that hatched nuclear energy. Einstein said, “You ain’t just MC, you’re MC².” He didn’t just mean a rapping MC. He named me after the formula: E=MC². E’s Energy, M’s mass, C’s the speed of light. The most hyper MC on the planet.’

I’ve heard of the original Einstein. He had the best rhyming name ever. He wasn’t a Leapling with The Gift but he must have had one in his family to get that surname. MC² is a brilliant name because it means lots of different things at the same time.

Mrs C Eckler thanked MC².

‘Now Seventh Year, I know you have lots of questions.’

I put my hand up immediately and she peered round the room. ‘Yes, Elle.’

I stood up. ‘Doesn’t MC also mean Mixer of Chronology? That’s what it said online. And Master of Ceremonies?’

‘Yeah. Maestro. Elle, isn’t it? And Microphone Commando in hip hop and any other meaning you wannit to mean,’ he said. ‘I don’t wanna confuse no one. But words are my specialisation. I like what they can do.’

‘If you’re a criminal, you are a liar because you don’t want to get caught. So you could be lying to us now.’

I sat down, embarrassed. That didn’t come out the way I wanted. I was happy and scared at the same time. I loved the way he made words sound like music but I didn’t trust him. He was a criminal. He must have told lies to escape the police.

‘I ain’t a crim no more, Elle. An’ I never told lies. When they caught me, I told the truth. I had to go back in time and replace everythin’ I’d stolen so I didn’t mess up history and vice versa.’

By messing up history, he meant you had to be careful when you went back in the past in case you swatted a fly and Hitler ended up winning World War Two. We did that in Sixth Year. I stood up again.

‘Is it a poem about vices like greed and gluttony?’ My voice was speaking before I could stop it.

‘No.’ He blinked. ‘Vice versa’s same as the other way round. I also had to find all the watches I’d sold in the past and bring them back to the present.’

‘Did you kill anyone?’

Mrs C Eckler brought her eyebrows down to her eyes. I think she was cross. But I had to know whether he was bad or mega bad. He smiled.

‘Never killed no one. Live by the knife, die by the knife.’

I remember wishing he didn’t talk in riddles. What had knives got to do with it if he never killed anybody? Big Ben put his hand up.

‘If you killed your dad in the past, will you die?’

‘As I said . . .’ He scrunched up his eyebrows. ‘I never killed no one. But you’re right. You wouldn’t exist if you killed your dad. Your dad wouldn’t meet your mum and hatch you. It would be a time paradox. Heard of the Grandfather Paradox? Same thing. Don’t think it’s ever happened.’ He looked at Mrs C Eckler, who cleared her throat.

‘Could you say something about the work you do NOW?’

But before MC² had time to respond, Jake said: ‘Did you ever steal watches from the future?’

Trust Jake to ask this. He’s always in trouble and I think he was asking for criminal tips rather than to learn from someone else’s mistakes.

‘Yes and no.’ More riddles. ‘I committed crimes but my action’s bin erased. The future ain’t fixed like the past. You can change it.’

I liked that idea. If you do something stupid in the future, you get another chance and another and another to make it right. You get an infinite amount of chances until it becomes the present. Then it’s the past and you can’t change it any more.

I think MC² liked that idea as well. He seemed to double in size.

‘Now,’ he said, like he was punching a hole in the present, ‘I work for the Time Squad.’

I heard someone whisper, ‘Thought it was the Rhyme Squad,’ and Mrs C Eckler turned her head but she couldn’t see who it was.

‘We fight crime on the time-line. Mostly respond to SOS texts,’ he continued. ‘SOS is code for HELP. If an Anachronism’s bin committed, usually someone’s bin attacked or their life’s in danger. We get there ASAP. Most texts come from the future.’

‘Why?’ Jake again. There’s no hope for that boy.

‘There’s bin an upsurge of eco-crimes since the millennium. Peeps starting to realise they can make big cash from it. Easier to hide stuff in the future. You don’t mess up history; you’re less likely to get caught. Mostly smuggling. Meat, ivory, extinct animals. Toxic waste. The odd murder. Murderers get life imprisonment. Ad infinitum. Don’t mean 20 years, means you’re locked up till you drop down dead an’ they bury you in the prison vaults.’

We all did what-big-eyes.

‘How can you work in that job when you used to be a criminal?’ Maria, and she didn’t put her hand up. Sometimes she goes out of turn in a high jump competition, gets disqualified and swears in Portuguese. She hates rules.

‘They gave me a choice.’ He looked round the room and everyone was holding their breath to see what he’d say next. ‘Work for us or go Young Offenders Unit. I made the right choice.’

I stood up. ‘How old are you?’ Mrs C Eckler gave me another look.

‘15. And a bit. Lost count on my travels.’

We gasped. You’re supposed to stay in full-time education till you’re 18.

‘I’m based in 2048. Different rules. If ya got talent, age don’t matter.’

Mrs C Eckler cleared her throat as if to make an announcement. ‘In Term four, there’ll be a Leapling trip to 2048 where you’ll have the chance to stay at the Time Squad Centre.’ Class noise. ‘It will be the last opportunity before it moves years. As you know, the future is always in flux. But we can only take four pupils. You have to earn it. I’ll be assessing you on Effort the next two terms and make a selection based on that.’ It all went quiet. There’s fourteen of us. ‘Yes, Ben.’

A three-second pause. Big Ben often pauses if you ask him a question, like he’s translating it into English. It’s the autism. You need to give him time to process. ‘If you wanted to report a crime . . .’ He paused again. ‘An Anachronism. What number do we text?’

MC² scrunched his eyebrows again. ‘2000,’ he said. ‘Easy to remember. But text me now, an’ your names, so you got Time Squad number on your memory. An’ I got yours.’ He took a massive silver phone out of his bag. ‘If you come next year, you’ll get a Chronophone. Can text past, present, future. Your TwentyTwenties should work normal.’

Mrs C Eckler gave him another mega smile. ‘It’s usually against school rules to use phones in lessons but this is a very special occasion. Please do as MC² says.’

I took out my phone, which is white, and renamed it TwentyTwenty in my head because I liked the echo, typed Time Squad and the number 2000. Then my name, letter by letter: E L L E and pressed send.

I could see Big Ben wanted to ask another question but he didn’t put up his hand. He sounded like he was going to cough. But Mrs C Eckler could see as well and encouraged Big Ben to speak.

‘If you got a Predictive, will you die?’

Mrs C Eckler cleared her throat. MC² stopped blinking and raised his eyebrows at Ben.

‘Leap’s done his homework,’ he said. ‘Predictives are rare, bro. VERY rare. You won’t die. Depends on context, not TEXT. Know what a Predictive is?’

There was a long pause before Big Ben answered.

‘When your phone sends a text before it happens.’

‘Close. But it’s not your phone. Someone types a text in the future to the past. Often a call for help. You get one, you gotta act on it.’

He looked at Big Ben for a long time before he nodded his head and smiled. Mrs C Eckler was looking at her watch.

‘MC² is available to sign autographs afterwards and you’ll have the chance to ask him a question 1-2-1, if you didn’t get a chance just now.’

I didn’t get his autograph. And I definitely didn’t want to talk 1-2-1 with a criminal. It was noisy and I needed to go outside. Walking across the quad, I got out my phone and already there was a message from Time Squad:

MC².