Conniveo

Chapter 11: Retina

"Wake the fuck up!"

I slapped Greg again. I had no idea where we were but I knew we were back in Los Angeles. Greg had slipped in and out of consciousness twice already and I was growing irritated. I was still on edge after escaping from whoever those Homini people were, I felt wet, cold and hungry, and we needed to leave wherever this place was. I couldn't go home without him. I mean, I could, but that would earn me two billion douchebag points. Greg stirred and opened his eyes.

"Stop hitting me."

"Stop passing out."

"You should have warned me. You know I can't swim."

"Well, I didn't know we were going to fall into a freaking ocean. I couldn't trip back. Every time I tried, it hurt like hell. Like it did in Neil's apartment."

Greg sat up. I was relieved that he had come around, but I still had no idea where we were.

"Did we get rescued or something?"

"Yeah. There was some weird flying machine and a lot of lights, and I think we were going to get arrested."

"That's because we probably infringed some law by showing up where we did. You didn't think they were going to just let us go, did you?"

He shook his head quickly and flicked water out of his hair. Some of it got into my eyes. I cursed silently and sat back. I was glad he was okay, even though my heart was still beating fast from the feeling that we had a really close call.

"I still don't get it. Why did we end up there? Why couldn't we go to Kana's room? I wanted us to go to Kana's room."

"You're so clueless Yuje, it borders on idiotic sometimes."

"Hey, can you show a little more respect for the guy who just saved your life?"

"You wouldn't have had to save me if you didn't drop me in a river. I don't see how that was any less dangerous than getting stabbed by a mugger."

"Cut me some slack, okay? I'm still trying to figure this whole time-travel thing out."

Greg looked around and I did too. We were in the middle of a parking lot of a convenience store, as far as I could see. It was still really dark. I looked at my watch. 22:13. Thank God it was water-resistant. We had been in Kana's world for about twenty minutes. I was surprised it had taken so little time for them to find us. Greg got up slowly and looked around, then slowly faced the left direction of the sidewalk.

"I think we should go this way."

"Are you sure?"

"Do you have any better ideas? Maybe a GPS in your head?"

"I'm just asking. I don't think we should get any more lost than we are."

"I just have a hunch."

"A hunch?"

"I remember we floated down in this direction. Which would mean that the way back to my car would be in the other direction, if my theory is correct."

"Theory? Really, Greg? What theory is that?"

"You only do a time-skip. You can't do a space-skip. Kana's world in the future would have direct parallels of the locations in ours. So I trust that the geography would be the linear, at least as far as coordinates are concerned."

"I don't get you."

"We are going to the same place in the future from here. You can't control where we go. Once you shift us, we only end up in the same place in the future. Her room and your room are in the same place. Her living room is also in the same direction as your living room."