He was close, and if he’d had a pair of needle-nose pliers he could have yanked the damn thing out, but instead he had to use the blade again. He cut in a second incision, creating more of an X opening, giving him room to put both fingers inside. Pax’s head was back, bouncing against the tree and popping the brim of the bowler hat up, eyes squeezed tight, lips pinched, shaking hard. Then Ellis caught the thing. A slick disk he pinched tight between two fingers and pulled. It came free with a sucking sound that coincided with a cry from Pax.
“Got it!” Ellis gasped in triumph.
He set the disk aside and pulled the first-aid kit out. He tore the wrapper off a sterile pad, held it to the wound, and began wrapping a gauze bandage around Pax’s shoulder. When he was done, he repeated the process with the medical tape.
Somewhere in the darkness he could hear snapping branches.
Pax’s face was slick with moisture. “They heard me. We need to go.”
“Wait,” Ellis said. “If we send this chip through a portal, they’ll think it was you, right?”
Pax nodded.
“Then dial up someplace crazy.”
Ellis used his big, bloody knife to strip a chunk of bark off the tree, then taped the chip to it. As he did, Pax worked the Port-a-Call with one hand. The portal opened. Through it, all Ellis could see was a star field. He wound up and pitched the chunk of bark as hard as he could through the opening. Pax closed the portal and began dialing up the next as Ellis stuffed everything back in his knapsack, including Pax’s shirt and coat.
Somewhere to their left, Ellis heard people hacking through the undergrowth, and he saw a light splash across the underside of the canopy. The shrill voices of an excited jungle cut the night.
Pax popped another portal next to them, showing the same nighttime forest as earlier. Ellis threw his pack over one arm and scooped Pax up with the other, and together they staggered through the opening.
Chapter Eight
Another Time, Another Place
Pax was still asleep when the sun came up.
Ellis sat on the hill, marveling at the notion that he was very close to the same place he had been on his first morning after time traveling. He was back in Dearborn, Michigan, and somewhere down the slope to the south was Greenfield Village. The only difference between the sunrise that morning and the falselight dawn he’d witnessed at Pax’s home was the heat he felt and the realization that the genuine article was somehow less beautiful. The real sunrise was now a bit plain, like going back to vanilla after tasting peanut butter chocolate fudge crunch.
Ellis remembered how sad he’d felt the last time he sat there. He’d just lost everything, and believed he would die alone. He had the whole world, and yet no one to share it with. Ellis looked down at Pax nestled against the pillow of his knapsack, covered in the blanket of the frock coat. He lifted the corner to check the wound. He’d changed the pad once already—the old one had been a bloody mess. He threw it as far away as he could. Blood attracted animals to campsites. All they needed was a bear.
The current pad was still white.
The night before, after replacing the bandage, Pax had unexpectedly fallen asleep propped up in Ellis’s arms. He had panicked, thinking that blood loss had caused Pax to pass out. He woke Pax, who assured him nothing was wrong. “I’m just exhausted, and this”—Pax squeezed his arm—“is nice. Lying here feels good, and I haven’t felt good in a very long time.”
Pax fell asleep again and left Ellis replaying those words over in his head. Did anyone feel good for long? Ellis couldn’t remember the last time he felt that wonderful brand of no-worries-no-regrets good. Such moments were lost to the mists of youth, but most likely they never existed at all. If he really thought about it, being a child had been a nightmare of fears and a frustration of restrictions. Like photographs that yellowed, memories got rosier with age, and no memories were older than childhood.
Wallowing through the sludge of unremarkable routine, dodging bouts with disaster, humanity still survived off fleeting gasps of happiness. Ellis wondered if he’d ever feel truly good again, or if even that mundane dream had slipped past him. In the still night, on a silent world with Pax sleeping safe beside him, Ellis realized this was his moment to breathe.
As the sun rose, he was still thinking about what Pax had said and wondering what the words meant.
“Morning,” Ellis said, noticing Pax’s eyes flutter open.
Pax shivered.
“Hungry? Care for breakfast?”
“You have a Maker?” Pax yawned while struggling to button the shirt.
“No—good old-fashioned canned goods.” Ellis pulled a Dinty Moore stew out and held it up to the sun. The label was scraped and torn from rubbing something inside his pack, but the image of a steaming bowl of hearty meat chunks and vegetables was still visible. “Two-thousand-year-old beef stew. Yum.”
Pax fixed the can with a skeptical stare. “Am I going to like this?”
“Depends on how hungry you are. How do you feel?”
Pax grimaced. “Like someone stuck a sword in my shoulder last night. Where did you get such a mammoth knife?”
“The Internet.”
Pax sat up, glanced at the bandage, then began getting dressed. “The Internet—I read about that. Information Age invention, like the steam engine or electricity—started a revolution, right? Lots of people mention the Internet during arguments about the Hive Project. Everyone saying it’s like that, and how well that worked out. But then people are always comparing extremes to make a point. The Hive Project is either as good as the Internet or as bad as the Great Tempest.”
He handed the can to Pax, who began studying it, as Ellis rummaged around for the can opener. He hoped he hadn’t left it back at the time machine or, worse yet, in his garage. “So, exactly what is this Hive Project I keep hearing about?”
Pax was smoothing out the torn section of the label and studying the can with a skeptical expression. “It’s an initiative the ISP is pushing for—the next step in evolution, they call it.” Pax paused and thought a moment. “The Internet globally linked everyone through machines and wires, right?”
“Some would say tubes.” Ellis grinned, but Pax only appeared confused. “Never mind—old joke.”
“Well, the ISP wants to do the same thing, only they want to put the machines in our brains.”
“Make you like cyborgs or something?”
“No, that’s just a metaphor—sorry. There’s nothing mechanical involved. They want to alter our biology to make it possible for humans to link telepathically.”
“Is that possible?”
“They think it is.” Pax rotated the can to look at the picture on the label. “The way the ISP presents it, the Hive Project would solve all of our problems.”
“Hollow World has problems?”
Pax smiled. “Yes—many.”
“No war, no discrimination, no disease, no pollution, no violence, no class warfare…”
“I didn’t say we had the sameproblems. Well—I suppose you could say we still suffer from one remaining issue that manifests itself in several problems.”
“Like?”
“Communication. Misunderstanding. Isolation. You see, with the Hive Project we’d all be joined as one mind and know each other’s thoughts and feelings—all part of a giant whole. Misunderstandings would be a thing of the past. Everyone would know what everyone else knows, so it would eliminate the need to relearn knowledge in schools. Like the Internet—like global communications—the Hive would make it possible for humanity to leap forward creatively as never before.”
Pax tapped the can and then shook it. The dubious look remained. “They also say the Hive would solve the identity-maintenance problem.” Pax touched the bandage. “We wouldn’t need chips to tell who we are—we’d just know—or maybe we’d all be one, so it wouldn’t matter. It would be impossible to lie or cheat. We could also abolish government altogether. All decisions would be made as a whole—no more suspicion or deception—no need for laws, really. It’s believed that compassion will overflow and the whole human race will unite in perfect harmony.”