Fracture

The first overlay happened when I was thirteen.

I'm not a hundred percent sure of the date, it must have been near the end of the year because my aunt took me when I went to visit her in the Capital City. I was traveling on my own for the first time, a week before Christmas.

She gave me a choice between the trip and having my ears pierced with dainty gold earrings, as a Christmas gift. I really did want my ears pierced, but I knew my dad wouldn't like it and I figured I could always pierce my own ears with two ice cubes and a needle, like my friend Olivia had done. My dad probably wouldn't love the idea that I ported either, but he had never explicitly forbidden me to do it, that would make it easier to get away with. The trip would be done and gone, I could say it was educational, I could say I didn’t know he didn’t want me to, and there would be no puncture marks to remind him of my disobedience. He could make up his own mind that porting was really his wild, worldly, sister’s fault, but those earrings, in my ears, piercing the delicate flesh on my otherwise unmarked young body, that would be too much. My dad would force me to take out the earrings before the piercing had healed, leaving tiny dimples of deceit, breaking his heart every time he looked at me. But no one could take the experience of porting away from me.

Not even my dad.

Not even me.

Not even if I desperately wanted to.

*

My gift was a day in Fiji, and it was amazing! (Even though my aunt got it on some government scheme, to prove it was safe.)

We ported out late at night here, but it was early morning their time. We were supposed to take an afternoon nap before we went, but I was way too excited to nap. I'd never been anywhere exotic before. We spent the day on an island paradise and ported back after dinner there.

The process of porting was simple, the army boy that booked us in looked barely older than I was. He droned the briefing at us in the monotone of someone who has given the same speech and answered the same questions a million times. The procedure is completely safe, his rehearsed monologue reassured us. Our scanned particles were disassembled here and sent through a quantum state to Fiji where they were reassembled, like flat-packed furniture. We would be exactly the same as when we left here, every hair and molecule put neatly back where they belonged. Our bags packed in exactly the same order we had.

No, the particles won't get mixed up.

No, you won't come out the other side with a camera lodged in your skull.

The only side effects ever reported have been a mild feeling of disorientation and slight nausea.

After the briefing we all walked to our own pods, we had stored our winter clothes in the lockers and I was dressed similarly to the rest of the sparse set of day trippers, wearing a bright yellow sarong, my blue bikini (that my dad would definitely not have approved of) a white shirt, sunglasses, a sun hat and sparkly sandals. My bag was small, even smaller than the 40cm by 30cm the regulations stipulated. My aunt said we didn’t have to pack beach towels, the hotel we were porting to would have some. All I needed was some personal stuff like spending money and sunscreen. I took a disposable camera too, no one in my class would believe me otherwise, none of them had been to Fiji before.

*

The official looking man buckling me into the pod said I would feel a slight tingling sensation, but that was a lie, the same way the doctor says, just a pinch before they give you an injection. But it's not a pinch, is it? It's the stab of a needle through flesh. It's the burn of foreign liquid in your veins.

I should have rather gone for the earrings, I thought.

My heart was racing when the beam began the scan me up and down and I didn't even have time to panic because my body was being ripped apart, particle by particle.

The assembly process wasn't so bad, there was just a strange static on a balloon feeling and a sucking sound as I came together on the other side. Completely whole, completely me, everything intact, even the ripped label on the little box of Tic Tac in my bag.

The in-between was nothing, not a blink, not a scream, just nothing.

The day went by in a blur. Everything slightly surreal in the magic of differentness. That evening over dinner my aunt even let me have half of her cocktail and I was slightly tipsy when we walked to the back of the hotel, where the port station was. As I saw the entrance to the port station I wanted to backtrack. My aunt thought I just wanted to stay because we had had such a nice day. But that wasn't it, I didn't know how to tell her I didn't mind going home, I just didn't want to port again, once was enough, more than enough actually. Once was too much.

Expecting the pain somehow made it so much worse, I felt every part of myself being ripped to minute shreds, my body being turned into ash and dust and then reappearing again like it was nothing.

On the other side, I felt sick, my aunt thought it was the porting, or maybe the half a cocktail, I didn't know any better, so I agreed. As I put my head between my knees, hoping that the nausea would pass, I noticed one of the rhinestones on my left sandal was missing. It hadn't fallen out, it was gone. The place where the bit of faceted plastic should have been was bare, there was no clasp, no thread, just an empty space where there was a beautiful sparkly rhinestone on the right shoe. I showed my aunt and she said it was probably just a factory error and I could take the shoes back to the shop if I wanted to. I said no, the porter lost my stone, my aunt said that's impossible, and we should get home, it's been a long day.

*

A few days later, the first overlay came in a dream. It was weird, but the dream itself wasn't so bad. I was just sitting on the toilet in a house that I didn't recognise, but I knew was my house. There was a sniff and a tiny whine at the door, and I knew it was my dog. I knew his name was Sam and he was a Staffordshire terrier. I knew the white spot on his chest was vaguely heart shaped, if you squinted. I remembered the time he got lost as a puppy and we found him, wet and crying in the rain, and he never wanted to go out in the rain again. I knew all this as I was sitting on the loo, in a house I didn't recognise, but I knew I'd lived in my whole life.

For days after the dream, I found myself looking for Sam, even though my dad never allowed dogs in the house. Or I found myself turning the wrong way to my room.

The overlay knowledge didn't stop at the dream. For two whole days I asked my mother where my platypus duvet cover was and she kept insisting I had never owned a platypus duvet cover and where would you even buy such a thing? And I said at Tango's and she looked at me like I was crazy. Tango's? Don't you mean Tesco's?

And then I wasn't sure what anything was called anymore.

*

The second overlay was awful, I woke up inside it, cold and hungry and I was very, very sad. I reached out to an alarm clock that I didn't recognise, but knew was mine, and my hand bumped a photo frame, and I knew, I just knew it was the last really happy photo taken of me and mum together, three years ago, at Christmas, before she knew she was sick. Before we faked smiles, and I hovered my hand above her gossamer thin skin in photos because she bruised so easily. I knew she was dead now; I knew dad had started drinking and I knew he had lost his job, and that was why I was hungry. I closed my eyes tight and curled myself into a ball and tried to squeeze myself back to sleep.

When mum woke me up the next morning I started crying when I saw her. I hugged her and I told her I loved her and I'm so happy she's alive again. Mum said I must have had a bad dream. I told her no, it was real, and she just stroked my hair and told me to come down to breakfast before I was late for school. For the next week I kept checking on mum, I kept smelling dad's breath for whiskey. I kept eating past full up.

*

When Mrs Green told us our school was selected for an experiment, we all jumped out of our seats. It took her ages to get the class settled down again. Our school was never selected for anything. The kids that went there didn't jump very far or high, they didn't run super fast or come first in Maths Olympiads or Science Fairs. If schools were colours, we were beige.

Beige never gets picked for anything interesting.

Beige gets picked when you don’t want people to pay too much attention.

The experiment would take the form of an exchange program, Mrs Green told us, the aim of the experiment was to enrich our curriculum and to see what different teaching methods would do for different children. There would be a control group, who carried on with classes as normal, and a test group that would go to teachers considered to be the top of their fields for on-site training and learning concepts and skills in real life situations. Of course, we all wanted to be in the test group. We practically clamoured over each other to get the sign-up sheets.

I wish she had been more honest. More explicit.

I wish she had told us that it wouldn't be a bus drive and a week away from home, or some field trips. I wish she had said we would be porting.

If I knew, I wouldn't have signed up.

If I knew, I would have asked to be in the control group.

If I knew, I'm sure... I'm pretty sure... I think... I would at least have considered not doing it.

My dad wasn't keen, but then again, my dad was never keen. I said but I ported before and nothing happened to me. And he said don’t remind me, I’m still livid. (Things were still a bit tense between my aunt and him.) Mum was ecstatic, the doors it would open she gushed, she wanted me to be picked, she wanted me to have the best opportunity to have a good life, a good career. Live a less beige life, in a less beige school, in a less beige town.

Mum wanted more for me.

I guess she got her wish.

*

There was a meeting with the parents and teachers before the experiment began and dad asked every embarrassing question you could imagine, even after they PowerPointed the statistics and showed the movie where a mouse with a big number 8 painted on its back was taught a maze and then ported and given the same maze.

Which it aced.

And my dad said, loudly enough for the scientists to hear, so you can't paint an 8 on two different rats? And I wished I could just port to wherever the mouse was.

There was a big fanfare and ribbon cutting as the port was set up in two shipping containers they parked next to the sports field, it was big news because port stations were still only in big cities and holiday resorts. But they weren’t being used as much as you would think. People just didn’t like them. For some reason people still preferred over crowded airports and sitting in a bus with wings breathing recycled farts being at their destination instantly. I think it’s like those dolls that look like real babies, people don’t trust it, it’s just too weird.

The investors were getting upset. That’s where we came in, the young little lab-rats to show it’s safe. Like Thalidomide.

Ours was the first port station in our backwater county and everyone was hoping they would open it up to the public when it wasn't used for school. The scientists said no, they can’t just open it for everyone, that would pose security risks, but people shouldn't worry, there were plans for port stations so compact you could have one in your own bedroom.

*

They started us slow, once a week we were told where we would be going and what to expect, then we walked down to the field and herded into the first shipping container where they took our vitals and then we ported to our lesson.

A month in we were doing at least one lesson per day off-site and they were only taking our vitals at the beginning of the week.

But they still had questions. Every day, a lot of questions. Never about the lessons we had learned though.

The funny thing about porting is you kinda get hooked on the pain. Look, the being able to arrive in any other place with a port in the time it takes to send the signal is pretty amazing. It took less than an hour to get us all to our science lesson, on the moon! (And most of that was putting on the gear.)

The travel is fantastic, but somehow, the pain is even better. I guess it's like people who get hooked on tattoos. One day you have a tiny skull inked on your wrist, a few short years later you're a canvas from head to toe. Some people just dig the needles.

For the first six months or so, before the overlays got really bad, that was me and porting. I loved that fizzy suction. I loved the feeling of being a balloon pulled through a magician’s fingers and bent into the right shape.

I loved it all.

*

You know how kids are. They love rumours almost as much as they love sweets. We all heard the murmurs, a pen whose design changed slightly, its owner tried to convince you. A hairband disappearing in transit.

Some minor inconveniences lost in a world of fun.

We did our own experiments too. Sneaking a note or a sweet or a thumb tack into a friend’s pocket just before porting and watching their faces as they discovered this gift from the quantum realm.

When we told the adults they just scoffed, remembering their own youth and stories of Redrum and saying Bloody Mary into mirrors. Just kids being kids, they thought.

Maybe if they ported with us? Or was it our age that did it? Maybe the overlays only happened to kids our age, growing minds are open to so much.

But that was part of the experiment, the teachers taught, the scientists studied, the kids moved to different locations.

Did the overlays only happen to us? Were they studying other kids too?

Our vitals stayed boringly similar, every time we came out the other side we were fit and healthy and our normal, shiny, inquisitive selves. Did it matter that we died every time in transit? It looked like the same kid arrived home every night. How could you even prove if it was a very good forgery? When even the DNA looked the same?

*

We noticed the change in each other fairly quickly. One morning my friend Olivia asked where Dan was. Who's Dan? I asked her. She got all irritated with me and said, my twin brother, you know, Dan. And I told her she didn’t have a twin brother.

She nearly bit my head off.

Later in the day I found her staring into the bathroom mirror.

I was so sure he was real, she said, maybe to me, maybe to herself. She said that she had dreamt about him, and that she could tell me everything about him.

Then she cried.

Later that week I saw Michael (who I secretly had a crush on) staring at me the whole time. In the queue to the port, he came up to me, the snakes coiled in my stomach. He told me that he honestly thought I only had one arm from the car crash I had been in, but clearly, I have two, and then he shook his head and he walked away.

My own dreams became weirder too. Not only was I dreaming about Sam the dog and my drunk, widowed father, I dreamt about living in other cities and having siblings and friends that felt so real I ached for missing them. Some dreams made me so scared and sad for the young girl in them that I felt down for days.

Funny enough, I never ported in any of them, no one did, no one even spoke of porting. It was like, in these dream worlds, porting had never been invented.

*

I think it was a Friday, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was a Friday, Michael and I were sitting together, our knees touching, we were making plans for the weekend, when Olivia asked, in a teasing tone, if she should give us some privacy. Michael asked her why she was being so weird? She knew we were dating. Then Olivia looked confused and said since when and I said for three weeks that day. And she got all huffy and said, well that’s news to her, and I said she was the first person I told after he asked me in Geography in Mrs Otis’ class, when we were doing that boring lesson about the Mariana Trench. I passed her a note and Mrs Otis nearly saw.

Then Olivia got really upset, she said we were being dickheads and we knew how much this shit creeped her out, why are we fucking with her?

I had never heard Olivia swear before. Not even when she stuck the needle through her ear.

I asked her what she meant and she said we hadn’t been to Mrs Otis’ class since we started the experiment, we were in a submarine in the Mariana Trench when we did the lesson with Professor Omar. It was anything but boring, our mouths were hanging open half the time. She sat between me and Michael the whole time and no asked anyone to be their girlfriend.

I looked at Olivia, and I knew she was telling the truth, I could remember it like it was yesterday, we were in the Mariana Trench. But I could also remember Mrs Otis' voice droning on and on till I nearly fell off my chair, half asleep, and Michael caught me, and his hand lingered on mine, and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he quickly whispered, please be my girlfriend? And I whispered back, yes. But that was a dream, I remember waking up and feeling disappointed that it wasn't true, but then I got to school and Michael ran up to me and touched my hand and said, happy one-day-a-versary girlfriend and I thought, hey, it wasn't a dream. I was just happy; I must have imagined I dreamt it.

Michael looked at me and he looked at Olivia and I could see the conflicting memories crashing in his mind too.

I wish I knew where my soul is Michael said, and neither me nor Olivia asked what he meant, because we felt exactly the same.

*

As far as I remember it was Olivia's mother that insisted on the second meeting. She always wore flowing clothes in muted colours and I never saw her with any make up on. Not even when she went for drinks with the other mums. Her hair was so grey it looked white. She made her own kimchi and yogurt, but not in a creepy way. I saw the scientists roll their eyes the first time she confronted them, the teachers also spoke to her in a calm manner, but after a while she wore them down.

She asked the lead scientist how they knew that the child that came out the other end was the same child that went in? The lead scientist gave a little laugh and said that it’s obvious, they had done tests. But Olivia’s mum wasn’t that easily put off, but how do you KNOW she insisted. The lead scientist called her Ma’am and said that she can be assured that porting is perfectly safe.

Then Olivia’s mum started talking about the strange dreams we had been having.

But the lead scientist cut her off mid-sentence and said that all dreams are strange, it’s how REM sleep works. It is only to be expected, these children have been sheltered in a small rural town their whole lives, of course their minds would be expanding, they get to go to the moon and the depths of the ocean for goodness’ sake, of course this new knowledge would creep into their dreams.

Then Olivia’s mum said something about quantum entanglement.

And the scientist interrupted her again with the Ma’am thing which made Olivia’s mum turn quite red and then they said, with all due respect, the difference between what they know about quantum mechanics and what she knows is frankly staggering.

And that was pretty much the end of the meeting, the message was clear. A line drawn in the sand between the hard facts of science and the superstition of folklore, with a harsh reminder that the country bumpkins needed to be a little more thankful for the opportunities their children were getting for free. Olivia's mum wasn't stupid, despite what she looked like, she never used essential oils when a paracetamol was handy.

*

The adults flippantly closed the book on the discussion. And we kept dying and being reborn several times a week.

With the plasticity of childhood, we accepted our lives, we started calling the dreams that informed us about our other selves, overlays, after Michael found an old book showing how different animals see the world.

At first, with all the overlays on top of each other, what you see is just a jumble of lines and colours as the translucent pages obscure the base picture underneath, but as you untangle the cat’s cradle of images you can see the difference between one animal's view of the world and another.

That's what was happening to us. Every time we ported another page was added on top, another version of us, just a dream away.

That's how it feels, on some days, the other selves layer over you in a thick, foggy, blanked, so suffocating you hardly know who you are. Other days you manage to unpick enough of the strings of lives to compare two and know who you are, and when you are, and where you are.

Still, now, all these years later, every night I try to rifle through the deck of dreams to find the me with pierced ears.