Falling by Debbie Moon Page A

it solves the crisis. Going back to the day before I was brought here and running away would solve the crisis. Not being born would solve the crisis.’
    â€˜But –’
    The sun was giving her a headache. The sun, her friends, and the burden of all the things they didn’t yet know.
    â€˜You can’t rely on when and how the crisis will get solved, or knowing what to do when you get there. Or how many shots it’ll take, or what else you’ll change along the way.’
    Yona was squaring her shoulders for a fight; probably didn’t even realise it. ‘Well. Hasn’t Miss Academia got a piece to say.’
    â€˜Miss Academia is being far from academic,’ Jude snarled. Hearing the difference in her own voice – the bitterness, the maturity – and knowing they did too. ‘And she hasn’t finished yet. The heist’s off. I can’t ReTrace and get the lottery numbers, because this isn’t fifteen-year-old Jude you’re talking to.’
    Emma’s foot swished through another arc, dividing the virgin gravel into strange new territories. Order out of chaos.
    â€˜Oh,’ Yona said, her voice high and thready. ‘Oh.’
    Farah stepped back as if she’d been slapped.
    â€˜And no, I don’t know why I’m here. Or what you have to do with the fact that I’ve just been thrown out of a skyscraper window and I have to find out why before I hit the ground.’ Her breath was coming in fierce, shaky gasps. She was angry, angry with them and with herself. ‘And for the record, it didn’t work anyway. I ReTraced and gave you the numbers, but when the draw happened – second time round, for me – the numbers they drew were completely different. Training Officer Anderson won. Gave it all to a kid’s charity. Just to prove that nothing’s ever as easy as you think.’
    â€˜Who told him?’
    â€˜No one had to tell him, Farah. Three ReTracers hitting the jackpot, pretty suspicious. And since he’s supposed to stop us exploiting our abilities for personal gain, it constituted a crisis, for him. And back he went, to sort it all out.’
    â€˜My head hurts,’ Yona muttered. ‘My head really hurts.’
    â€˜Imagine how mine feels.’
    Emma’s foot inscribed another section of the ever-expanding pattern. Jude wondered if she’d even heard.
    Farah stood with her head cupped in her hands for a moment. Finally, she emerged, her expression locked into a sweaty frown. ‘So, you’re from the future, right?’ A faint grin, a desperate attempt to make meaningful contact. ‘Just like that robot movie you’re always hunting the schedules for.’
    â€˜Yeah. I guess it’s true that you turn into what you loved the most.’
    â€˜I thought it was me you loved the most.’
    Jude hung her head.
    The stairwell door slammed shut in Yona’s wake, echoing and final. Perhaps she’d gone to report a glaring breach of the Recommendation, or perhaps she just couldn’t face the Ghost Of Autumn Future.
    â€˜We didn’t get hitched, did we?’ Farah observed. ‘Didn’t turn our backs on the capitalist hegemony for the open streets of anarchy and freedom. Or any of that crap you gabble when you’re high.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜So what did happen?’
    â€˜Farah, you know I can’t –’
    â€˜Oh no, of course you can’t. You can break the Recommendation to tell us how childish we are, how stupid you find us now you’re a professional, but you can’t tell us anything that matters. Anything that would actually help us get through this place. And if you’re so bloody professional, how’d you get thrown out of a window in the first place, eh?’
    Turning her back on a question she couldn’t answer, Jude stalked across the rooftop towards Emma.
    She looked up, briefly. Good sign. The convulsions of a leaf in