﻿Newt Run By Chad Inglis Copyright 2012 Chad Inglis Smashwords Edition 1 Pilgrims Life and Death, Hate and Love - each but Vain Pursuit; Tears as well as Laughter oft bear as Sweet a Fruit, and if in these you deem a Unity, in Truth, where falls the Line between the Heart of a Man, and the Heart of a Newt? - Francis Sheldon, "The Heart of a Newt", 1889 (unpublished) An old man is sitting by himself in a bar, muttering over a beer. His frail body is dwarfed inside of an oversized jacket, and the hands that jut from its sleeves are thin, pale things, with skin like dry paper. Slowly (all his movements are slow) he wraps them around a pint glass; there's only a finger's width of beer left in the bottom, already flat, with slender trails of foam clinging feebly to the inside of the glass. The world has no shortage of old men, and many of them are lonely. They sit in bars, or in parks or libraries, and they can often be seen talking to themselves, but this old man is different. For one thing, he's not interested in picking apart his own failures, making a pile of well-worn regrets or detailing a lifetime's worth of small or large misfortunes. He talks about others, people he's never met and who, if all things were as they should be, would never have existed in the first place. "An unusual group of travelers was making its way along the Northern Road," he says. "There were seven of them. Five men, a woman, and a girl." They walked slowly, keeping to the side of the road, and all around them lonely flakes of snow skipped lightly in the cold air. One of the men spat onto the pavement. He was short, and heavily muscled, with a tattoo of a stylized falcon on his neck. His broad shoulders were set against the cold, and his chin was buried in the raised collar of a leather jacket. His name was Fawkes. "How much farther is he planning to go?" he said. "We'll run out of ground soon, we keep on like this." "Only thing up ahead is the sea," said the man walking beside him. This man's name was Stevens and there was a small, white scar in the shape of a crescent moon on his cheek, just below his left eye. "He expect us to swim across?" Their boss, a hard, dark man named Hertzwelder, turned to them. "We'll cross the Greater Sea when we come to it, yeah?" Fawkes saluted him lazily, pressing two fingers to his temple. Stevens did the same, aping the older man. The three of them were all members of a private security firm, and they were on the Northern Road because they were being paid to be. Their employer, a man named Lawrence Fisher, was walking ahead of them, next to a small girl. Lawrence came from an old family that made its wealth during the industrial boom of the previous century, and had been in a long, phlegmatic decline ever since. As a child he'd grown up listening to stories about the military exploits and patriotism of various of his ancestors, and it seemed to him inevitable that he should also enlist, although the act of signing his name (which occurred in a bland, cramped room on the first floor of a suburban mall) was oddly deflating. He thought that after receiving his uniform or being shipped overseas something would change, but every stage of his career in the army was accompanied by a familiar twinge of disappointment and the same nagging doubts; while a capable soldier, he was never comfortable as one, harbouring a secret fear that one day he would be found out for what he was: an imposter, asked to play a role he was never suited for. When his father died (of a rare form of leukemia that swept through his body like a gust of cold air) it almost came as a relief, giving Lawrence the excuse he needed to resign. Returning home, he used whatever collateral he could scrape together from selling off his family's assets and founded his own security firm. It was a small operation at first, but it grew, almost in spite of Lawrence's management, and in time he would count politicians, celebrities, and business leaders as part of his client base. He was no more at ease in this life than he had been as a soldier, but as the years went by the anxieties and frustrations of his youth receded into a haze of nostalgia, until finally he was able to look back on them with a kind of fondness. At sixty he was still a lithe, fit man, although his hair was thinning, and the tattoos on his arms had long since faded. His skin was sun-darkened and worn, and pale wrinkles were etched at the corners of his eyes, neat and straight enough to have been cut with a razor. "The fifth man was a copy editor at a financial newswire," says the old man in the bar. "He considered himself something of a literary type. Wrote novels in his spare time that no one read." Monday through Friday the editor sat at his desk, poring over documents emailed to him by his firm's clients (in his mind they were not his clients, nor did he consider this his real job.) When asked, he told people that he was a glorified proof-reader, a filter for financial information so time-sensitive that one minute too soon or too late could translate into millions of lost dollars. He said that it paid the bills but that the stress was hardly worth it. What he never said was that soon after taking this job he began to be troubled by visions. He saw his life stretching ahead of him, monotonous and routine, and at the end of it a picture of himself as an old man. Frail and stoop-shouldered, he moves about the rooms of a drab apartment, mumbling under his breath in a vain effort to stave off boredom. It was a pathetic image, but what most bothered the editor was that he knew the old man was almost happy; his life was simpler now, free from the resentment that his "talents" were being wasted on work that was beneath him, free from the burning, junky-like need to create, and to be validated by that creation. Free to tell stories for his own enjoyment, not even bothering to write them down, or care if anyone was listening. "No one knew the editor's name," says the old man in the bar. "They didn't bother to ask him." The only woman in the group was named Allison Gray. She was tall and fine-boned, and for the past six years she had been working at a bar catering to drunken, horny men. She didn't like her job, the play-acting and cynicism it required, waiting on men she wouldn't spit on in other contexts, and it had taken a toll on her. There was a sour, downward turn to her lips, and a bitterness in her voice, a hard, petulant tone born of too many years telling herself that she was happy without believing it. "Lastly, there's the girl," says the old man. He clears his throat, and looks with distaste at the half-inch or so of beer left in his glass. Glancing at the bartender, he weighs the relative merits of ordering another round, making a quick calculation of how much of his pension money he's already gone through this month, and whether or not he can afford it. "One more," he says, signaling the bartender. The girl was small, even for her age, with a plain, untroubled face, and large eyes set just slightly too far apart. She was awkward, and uncoordinated. Her thin legs often got in the way of one another, causing her to stumble, and once or twice she even came close to dropping the egg. "No one knew where she'd gotten it," says the old man. "She wouldn't say. She held on to that secret as closely as she guarded the egg. She never let it out of her sight, not for long, not even to sleep or go to the bathroom. None of the others had ever seen her apart from it, but a few of them were ready for it if they did." The bartender returns and sets a fresh pint down on the counter. Pleased with his decision, the old man smiles; the touch of alcohol in his system feels good, and he finds that the words are coming more easily now, as if they are already written down and all he has to do is read them. "The egg wasn't much to look at. At first glance you wouldn't think anything of it, or maybe all you'd think was that it was strange, seeing a little girl cradling an egg, the way other girls might carry a doll, but it did have a way of holding the eye. It was easy to lose track of time, looking at it. There was a presence about the thing, a weight or heaviness that wasn't natural." The old man frowns, collecting his thoughts. "The egg was…" he says, and pauses, feebly snapping his fingers together as he tries to land on the right word. "A metaphor. The egg was a metaphor." The old man has never had much use for metaphors, preferring the truth, as he sees it, of commonplace reality, and the sharp, clerical representation of reporting to the muddy waters of poetry, but he knows it's a metaphor that's called for now. The egg was a metaphor of potential. It was an egg of chance. "The girl's name was Sarah Fisher," he continues. "She was seven years old, and Lawrence Fisher was her grandfather. He was the one who'd arranged for all the security, calling it a job, but that's not what it was. It was a pilgrimage." Saying this, the old man laughs, and smiles across the bar – at no one, to himself, his own reflection in the mirror opposite the counter. "Lawrence had no idea why his granddaughter had taken to carrying an egg around with her, and he didn't care. As long as it kept her from crying he was happy." Sarah's parents had been killed in a car accident when she was four. Since then she'd stayed with Lawrence, who took her in and gave her a place to live, if not exactly a home. Neither he nor Sarah ever talked about the accident, doing their best to pretend that nothing had changed, as if the girl had always lived in his large, quiet house, or had been born an orphan. During his years in the army Lawrence received a thorough education in ignoring the truth and blocking out suffering, but for Sarah it was different; she was just a little girl, and she didn't know what to do with the hard, black stone of grief in her chest that was all she had left of her parents. She never spoke about the accident because Lawrence never spoke of it, and the strain of keeping it inside her was too much. She often had nightmares, and woke up in the middle of the night screaming. She'd also developed a fear of being in cars; having the seat belt strapped across her chest felt like being held down by an awful hand. She couldn't breathe, and she cried, working herself into a panic. "That's why they were walking," says the old man. "Myself, I wouldn't have put up with it, but Lawrence had a soft spot for his granddaughter. Not that he ever really had a choice about it, not after what happened with the egg." On the night it began Lawrence was late coming home from work. He paid the babysitter a little extra, and after seeing her off he went up to check on Sarah. He didn't expect the girl to be awake – it was past midnight, and the sitter had told him she'd gone down easily, but Sarah sat up as soon as he opened the door. She stared at him across the dark room. From where he stood, Lawrence could just make out the small motion of her hand as she rubbed something beneath the blankets. "Granddad," she said. "We have to go." He wasn't used to this; Sarah was normally a quiet, well-behaved child. She never asked him for anything, placing little or no demands on his time, content to be on her own, at least until a nightmare drove her from her bed and down the hall to his room. "Sarah, it's late," he said. "We're not going anywhere." The girl shook her head. "No! We have to leave now. If we don't it'll be too late." "Too late for what?" asked Lawrence, caught by the urgency in her voice. "I don't know!" she said. "But it will be bad. Look!" She thrust her hands out to him, holding up an egg. Lawrence recoiled from the sight of it, as if it was something hideous, an insect, or rotten slab of meat. He felt sick, and had a sudden urge to vomit, and then all at once the distance between himself and the egg fell away, until it occupied his entire field of vision, the last and only thing left in an empty world, and then it was gone. The egg was gone and Sarah and her small, white bed and the room he'd been standing in were gone with it. Lawrence was nowhere, was nothing, and then a thought came, a command: "DO AS SHE SAYS!" shouts the old man, banging his fist on the counter. At the far end of the bar a group of young people, three men surrounding a single woman, abandon their conversation to look at him. Quietly, the bartender approaches him. "Look," he says. "I don't mind you in here, but I can't have you bothering other customers alright?" The old man apologizes, nodding over and over again, and the bartender walks off, shaking his head. "Do as she says," mutters the old man, gripping his pint glass. "Do as she says." The words were fairly burned into Lawrence, coming from outside of the world, some far, deep place that accounts for the reasons of things, and then he was back in his granddaughter's bedroom and she was there in front of him, the egg cupped in her hands. "Pack a bag," Lawrence told her, and half an hour later they were ready to leave. "We're going to need help," said Sarah, almost singing the words. Now that they were going, her mood had changed, and she laughed, skipping down the stairs in front of their house while Lawrence locked the door behind them. She felt light, as if she might fly off at any moment, carried away on a gust of air. "What kind of help?" asked Lawrence. "I don't know," said the girl. "But you do!" So Lawrence made a phone call and within the hour Fawkes, Stevens, and Hertzwelder had joined them. If any of the men thought it was strange to be accompanying their employer and his granddaughter on a midnight walk, none of them said anything. They'd all been too well trained, and too well paid. But a week later they were still walking. Every day they woke up around dawn, and although they made frequent stops to accommodate the legs of the little girl, they kept on walking until dark. If there was a hotel nearby they would spend the night there, and if there wasn't they'd set up camp in some quiet spot, a park, or a farmer's field, cooking beans and toast over small fires they built with whatever wood they could find. Sarah was the one who set their course, relying on the egg to guide her. Lawrence did his best to hide this from the others, but they weren't stupid, and they caught on quickly enough. All three of his men believed that Lawrence had lost his mind, but while Fawkes and Stevens laughed about this privately, Hertzwelder was worried; he wondered how much longer he'd be willing to follow a crazy old man, and a girl who spoke to an egg. It took the better part of two weeks for them to reach the city. The editor was on his lunch break, eating a sandwich on the patio in front of a small cafe. He saw them pass by, an old man and a girl, and three other men who were obviously security, and he tried to think of what possible reason they could have for being there, but nothing he came up with sounded believable. He noticed that the girl was carrying something, a small, white object that she rubbed or petted, but thoughtlessly, as if she wasn't aware of doing it. She turned in his direction, and one of her hands fell away. Beneath it was the egg. Without thinking, the editor stood up and left the patio. The security men were aware of him at once, moving quickly to block his path to the girl. The editor stopped in the middle of the road. He started to speak, but realized that he had nothing to say; he frowned, trying to remember why he'd gotten up in the first place. He didn't feel like himself. Something inside him, some small but important connection had been severed, cutting him off from whoever it was he'd been just a moment before. He felt his joints being tugged at by dozens of invisible threads; his movements were jerky and exaggerated, like those of a puppet's. He didn't know what was going on, or why, and he felt a sudden desire to laugh. "What do you want?" Lawrence asked him. "He's coming with us," said Sarah. Her eyes were on the egg. "If he doesn't something bad will happen." Lawrence looked at her. "Fine," he said, at last. Hertzwelder stepped toward him. "What are you doing?" he asked in a low voice. "Just do what you're told," snapped Lawrence. He walked away, and the editor, not knowing what else to do, fell into step behind him. Fawkes and Stevens exchanged glances. "Let's go," muttered Hertzwelder. Fawkes shrugged, and then spit onto the pavement. He didn't move. "What is this anyway?" he asked. "What are we doing here?" "Field trip," said Hertzwelder. Fawkes snorted. "More like babysitting. Don't know who needs it more, the girl or the old man." Beside him, Stevens grinned, his lips parting smoothly over chemically-whitened teeth. "You know what I think?" Fawkes continued. "I think all of this has to do with that egg of hers." "No one cares what you think," said Hertzwelder. "Oh?" said Fawkes. "That right? How about it Stevens? You don't care what I think?" "Wouldn't put it that way exactly," said Stevens. "Shut up, both of you," barked Hertzwelder. "Just do your job and keep your mouths shut." He walked off. Stevens laughed, looking at Fawkes, who shrugged, and started after him. Before they left the city they stopped at a market for supplies. Sarah went in the store with her grandfather, leaving the security guards and the editor outside. Fawkes and Stevens went off together, talking in loud voices about unrelated things, a woman Stevens had been sleeping with, and who he was glad to be away from. Hertzwelder watched them go. Inside the market Sarah and her grandfather filled a cart with bread and dried meat and bottled water. Not knowing for certain where they were headed, or how far they still had to go, Lawrence planned to buy as much food as they could carry; outside the city there were a few small towns, but mostly it was farmland, and beyond that nothing but uncultivated fields and forests, and the narrow, lonely roads that lead at last to the mountains. Sarah moved slowly through the aisles after her grandfather. She felt sluggish, and soon she stopped altogether. A moment later Allison Gray rounded the corner. Seeing Sarah, she lost her grip on the carton of milk she'd been holding. It fell and broke apart on the tiled floor, slopping whitely over her feet. "Sarah was her daughter," says the old man. Seven years earlier Allison had gotten pregnant. It was an accident, and the man she'd been with walked out on her almost as soon as she told him about it. Allison had no steady work, and from one month to the next she struggled to come up with the money to pay her rent and utility bills, as well the interest on her credit cards. She was in no position to have a baby, but more important was the fact that she was terrified by the thought of a child. She didn't trust herself to know what to do or say, to answer its questions when it got older, or to make a proper home. She couldn't imagine being a mother, and so she set her mind to an abortion. For as long as a week she believed that's what she was going to do – she even made the appointment at the clinic – but when the day arrived she found she couldn't go through with it. It was not that she was opposed to abortion on any moral grounds, but when she tried to leave her apartment her feet refused to move. She sat on her couch, staring at the window across the room, and she stayed that way, long after it grew dark. The next day she began looking into the process of adoption. She saw her daughter just once, on the day she was born, and she didn't cry when the baby was taken from her. "I'll see her again," she said, and her friends and co-workers were sympathetic. They thought this was her way of dealing with the stress of the adoption, but as the years passed, Allison's insistence that she'd be reunited with her daughter began to sound imbalanced, the words of a woman who couldn't, or wouldn't allow herself see the truth: that her baby was gone, and that she was never coming back. Legally, Sarah was not even her daughter anymore. Allison had relinquished all rights to her when she'd signed the adoption papers, and while she understood all of this and accepted it rationally as true, none of it changed anything. She thought of the baby she'd held only once, and in her mind's eye she could see her growing older, becoming a little girl with wide eyes and clumsy limbs. She knew that no matter how much time passed she'd always be able to recognize her daughter, and now she was there, standing no more than four meters away, and the force of this, the weight of it, was like a rod of iron shoved down the length of Allison's spine. "It's her," she said, the words pulled from her throat in a soft, full whisper. She watched as Sarah brought the egg to her ear with a look of intense concentration on her face. The girl nodded, and scanned the space around her. When her eyes landed on Allison she smiled. "It's ok," she said. "You can come too." When Lawrence heard Sarah's voice he turned around, expecting her to be right behind him. He cursed himself for taking his eyes off her, and when he found her in the next aisle talking to a woman he'd never seen before, he experienced a low shiver of fear. "Who's this?" he asked. "A woman," answered Sarah. "She's coming with us too." The girl looked back at Allison. "You will come won't you?" For a moment Allison couldn't answer. She'd been more than half-afraid that all of this was just a sick fantasy, that she'd reach out to touch her daughter only to have the girl's real mother appear and snatch her away. But Sarah was the one who'd spoken first, just as if she'd been waiting for her, and that was all the proof Allison needed. "Yes," she said. "I'll go with you." Lawrence watched as Sarah took the woman's hand and led her from the store. He wanted to protest, but there was nothing he could say, and at last he went after them, shaking his head and muttering to himself. A week later they were in the mountains, pitching tents wherever they could find a level stretch of ground and shivering in their blankets at night, and a few days after that they were on the Northern Road. By this time they were all aware that it was Sarah, not Lawrence, who was guiding them, although she never said where they were going, never explained why she took one turn instead of another. Every morning after breakfast she pointed in a direction (usually vaguely south) and the group set out. They often saw her whispering to the egg, holding it up to her ear and nodding, as if she was receiving instructions. During all of this the grumbling of Fawkes and Stevens increased, and Hertzwelder felt himself less and less inclined to curb it; he didn't understand what was happening any more than they did. Maybe if Lawrence had ever talked with them, explaining what Sarah had been through in losing her parents, or if he'd simply taken command the way he used to, things might have turned out differently. But it wasn't in his nature to be open about personal matters, and his experience with the egg had only deepened his reserve. When he looked at his life and found he no longer understood it, as if all the systems he'd ever followed, from the structured, military discipline of the army to the stark realities of owning a business, were no more important or logical than accompanying his granddaughter on an insane trek through the mountains. Life, he now saw, was a much stranger proposition than he'd ever imagined, and so instead of taking the time to reassure his men, telling them that they should think of this as a kind of paid holiday, he walked ahead of them in a fog, seeing very little of the world or what passed in it, all his attention turned inward. "Their last day together dawned clear and cold," says the old man. "Around noon the sun disappeared behind a thin layer of cloud, and the first few flakes of snow began to fall." Sarah was unusually happy. She ran on ahead, jumping up to grab at the snow, or trying to catch it with her tongue. Allison watched her with an unsteady mixture of joy and pain; a part of her was thrilled to see her daughter so happy, but at the same time she was acutely aware of all the years she'd missed, all of the memories like this one that she'd been denied (or had denied herself), by letting Sarah go. "Never again," she said. Her determination to stay with Sarah, regardless of where she went or what happened, was the shape of a bullet lodged in her chest; at times it even hurt her to breathe, and she had to hold herself back from reaching out to the girl and crushing her against her breast. The editor was worried. He'd spent the majority of his time since joining the group watching Fawkes and Stevens. He noticed that they often sat apart, talking together in hushed voices and stealing glances at Sarah and the egg. The editor didn't know what they were thinking, or what, if anything, they had planned. Even if he did know, he was in no position to stop them. He was just a hack writer working at a newswire. By rights, he shouldn't even be there, and he knew it. It didn't make any sense. The entire idea that a group of people as disparate as this one could wind up marching after a little girl and an egg was preposterous. It was like something out of one of his own bad stories. That thought struck him, and he looked at the road and the others around him, the branches of the pine trees moving in a low wind, and all of it began to seem increasingly unreal to him, increasingly vague. Where was he, exactly? He found that he didn't know, and he laughed, because if he really was a character in one of his own stories then he was little more than a word on a page and nothing he did or said would make any difference. He realized that more than anything else he was curious to see how it would end. Fawkes was restless. His aggravation had grown worse as the days stretched into weeks. He knew that in the end he'd be well paid for his time, but he wondered how a journey without purpose or destination could ever come to an end, and how long he was supposed to wait. He wanted answers. Most of all he wanted to know about the egg. It weighed on him, often appearing in his dreams, where at last he was able to hold it in his hands, and stare at it for as long as he wanted. As he looked, the egg would begin to show a faint, trembling light, and Fawkes imagined that he could hear something, a sound like a voice calling out to him across a far distance. He tried to walk toward that voice, but no matter how far he went he never reached it. He woke up from these dreams sweating, his empty hands straining to grasp the egg that wasn't there. One night, while the rest of the group was sitting around a fire they'd built in a small clearing, he tapped Stevens on the shoulder. "Come on," he said. "Let's get some more wood." Stevens nodded, and the two men walked off into the trees, far enough so that they could only just make out the soft glow of the fire between the branches. "It's that egg of hers," said Fawkes. "That's the reason for all of this, all this bullshit." "Maybe," said Stevens, noncommittal. "Otherwise why all the trouble?" Fawkes persisted. "Why are we all out here? I swear that little bitch talks to it. It's the key. I'm sure of it." "It's an egg," said Stevens. "You're blind," replied Fawkes. "And you're crazy. Think about what you're saying." "I'm going to take it from her." "What are you talking about?" Without warning, Fawkes took Stevens by the collar. Fawkes' eyes were all but lost in the dim light, but Stevens could feel the older man's breath on his face, hot, and thick with the scent of poorly cooked meat. "Listen," said Fawkes, his voice rough and gloating. "I know about what happened in the desert. You thought no one saw, but I did." Stevens shoved him hard in the chest, but Fawkes' grip didn't waver. "Get your hands off me," Stevens said, and gasped as Fawkes' punch took him just below the ribs. Deftly, Fawkes clamped his hand over Steven's mouth, causing the younger man to struggle for breath, his wide nostrils flaring. "I saw her," whispered Fawkes. "I saw what you did. You want anyone else to find out about that?" Fawkes smiled, the barest hint of laughter concealed in a soft exhalation of breath; at last he let Stevens go. The younger man doubled over, sucking back lungfuls of cold air. "What do you want me to do?" Stevens asked once he could finally speak. "We'll have help," Fawkes told him. "The day after tomorrow. Be ready." "What about Hertzwelder?" "Leave him to me. Worry about the old man. The rest will be easy." "Any signal, or how am I supposed to know?" "You'll know," said Fawkes, starting back through the trees. Two days later they were on the Northern Road. Gradually, the hills grew smaller and the sea came into view, stretching gray and cold to a dim horizon. To their left a gentle slope was covered in a thick growth of pines, while on the right the ground fell away sharply, ending at last in a wide, tree-filled valley. "There's an instant before an event takes place," says the old man. "We may not be able to see it, but it's always there, a moment when anything can happen, and then the one thing, the thing that was always going to happen, does." A gunshot shattered the morning; Hertzwelder shouted and fell, clutching his stomach, and then many things occurred at once: Allison screamed, and Sarah took it into her head to run. Fawkes swore and started after her. Lawrence reached for his gun, but Stevens was aware of him, and faster; he drew his own gun and fired, catching the old man in the shoulder. The editor scrambled for cover. His instinct was to get out of whatever was happening, to run; he'd seen a man shot and he found he didn't care why, or what it meant. His mind was blank, and his flight put him in the path of the bullet when Stevens fired again. He was hit in the base of the neck, and he fell to the ground, dead. If anyone had stopped to examine his face they would have said he looked confused. "So that boy died without getting any answers," says the old man, drinking thinly. "But that's how it goes. Not many of us do." Allison, who up until then had stood frozen, watching the events unfolding before her like images flickering over a screen, finally took action. Crying, she threw herself at Fawkes, sending them both sprawling, and the gun flying from his hand. "It came from the ridge!" shouted Hertzwelder. Lawrence looked to the tree-lined slope above them, and another shot rang out. He dropped to his knees and shouted at Sarah to run, but she wasn't listening; spent, her adrenaline firing in all directions at once, she stood in the middle of the road, her head titled to the side, for all the world as if she was listening to someone whispering in her ear. Her arms hung limp, and the egg dangled loosely in her small hand. Fawkes tore himself free from Allison, and twisted, catching her in the stomach with his knee. She curled into a ball, retching. Fawkes turned, and saw his gun lying on the pavement a few feet away. He also saw Sarah, and the egg she held so lightly in her thin fingers. Thoughtlessly, he lunged for the egg. A bullet split his head, blood and bits of brain and skull spattering over the ground, all the way to the edge of Sarah's skirt; Hertzwelder had gotten hold of his gun and in almost the same motion he used to shoot Fawkes, he twisted on his back and fired blindly at their assailant on the ridge. Stevens had a clear shot at Hertzwelder's back, but he took it too quickly and fired wide. As Hertzwelder wrenched himself around, a spasm of pain to took him. He clenched his teeth and aimed again, but by then Stevens was already disappearing into to the trees. Hertzwelder let him go. Allison dragged herself to her feet and stumbled toward Sarah. She picked the girl up roughly, causing her to lose her grip on the egg. It fell to the ground and shattered. From around Allison's shoulder Sarah was just able to see the brittle white shell breaking into pieces. Pieces, and that was all: there was nothing else, no yolk, no small, half-formed creature, just the smallest breath of air, a breath that was quickly swallowed by a gust of wind, and carried on down into the valley. That was all Sarah knew or saw before her face was pressed to Allison's chest and she was blind. Allison tore down the side of the ridge in the direction of the town lying in the valley. The fact that there hadn't been a town there a second ago didn't bother her. No one left alive on the road was even aware that a change had taken place. "Sarah could hear her grandfather calling out to her, but that was all she heard, and soon his voice was lost in the distance. Whether because Hertzwelder had hit their unseen attacker on the ridge, or for some other reason, no other shots were heard above the town of Newt Run that morning." The old man nods, finishing the last of his tepid beer. The bar is nearly empty. Standing up, he moves to the door and shuffles into the cold. 2 Outsiders You See the Town A shattering that gives way to a blind field. There's no thought, nothing even close to it. This, now, this is, it's uniform, an immersion, a toneless intimation of the fact that now is, and is, and that is all. But. What? How can there be anything else? Although there is – small, microscopic maybe, but there, eddying in the endless current, not a thought (because there's nothing to think with and nothing to think), but there is... something. A sensation? Or at least an impression, possibly an imperfection – the sense that what seems to be whole is in fact a broken beat, and that you are beating with it. "And that you are" – call this a thought, and after that it happens quickly, patterns emerging in the field, variations in light, shapes as well as colours. You understand that there are things. It's a big leap, and one that doesn't come easily. In fact it's violent, maybe the only true violence, a final, perfect rending: once a thing's been torn it's torn, there's no repairing it, no return; there are things, each separate from the next, and you are separate too, distinct within a million other distinctions. That immersion in a unified whole? That's gone, and gone so far that even trying to describe it was a waste of ink, or at least of digital memory. And another thing: it's never coming back. Try naming it and fail, try pointing to it and miss. At most there's only the sense that it might have been, like mist from a fading dream, a thing best described by its absence: the hollow in a glass, or the space between spokes on a wheel. There's no sense worrying that it's gone. Things go, that's all, and anyway, this new world is more interesting, if less embracing; ten thousand different things, a million, infinite – look at one and you can't fail to see another, either within it or differentiated or implied by it, each of them unique, their own length and width and depth, their own reach and span of time, their own space and their own name. You know their names. There's no telling how you know them, but it's obvious that you do. Maybe the name of a thing is intrinsic to it, although that's debatable and sounds more like fantasy than the other possibility, which is that you gave these things their names without knowing that you did it, or at least without admitting it to yourself. Regardless, you're finally starting to get a handle on this world, this place where you find yourself. For example, over there? That pitted, stubbled field? That's a town, and the wide, grey line cutting through it is a river. There are houses, and trees, and beyond those, hills. Cars, people, garbage, windows, terraces, fences, pipes – one by one they receive their label, and perception for you is suddenly one long, instantaneous act of categorization and sub-division. You couldn't separate yourself from these words any more than a soul can leave its body. You and the names are stuck together, and armed with them, you see the town. It isn't small. In all honesty it's probably pushing the limits of what can properly be called a town, but as you're new at this game you get a pass. So let's call it a town, but if it is, it isn't a quiet one. It moves, teems actually, its narrow, winding streets clogged with traffic, pedestrians and vendors shouting into the crowd. It sits crammed between the surrounding hills and on either side of a river that cuts it in two. Most of the buildings are uniform, three storey townhouses with brick walls and tiled roofs, each of them connected to the street by a complex series of pipes. Originally these pipes were intended to provide the town's homes and businesses with cheap, renewable heat, shunting pressurized water vapor from a geothermal station next to the hills, but the system has never worked properly, the brainchild of an idealistic (and long dead) politician, and in recent years it's fallen into disrepair. As a result the town is wreathed in steam. From above it even appears to be smoldering, a pit of hot coals doused with water, or a meal of concrete and pavement left out to cool. Following the course of the river from its mouth at the sea, away from the docks and shipping lanes and past the mid-town apartment complexes and office towers, you come at last to the under-privileged north. Here the homes are older, centered on a rambling collection of tenements. Most of the pipes are badly maintained rip-jobs, rigged to siphon heat from wealthier neighbourhoods. You watch as a steady trickle of men arrive at the foot of the northern hills, lining up for the cable car and another day of work in the mines. If you look carefully you can see the anxiety on many of their faces, a visual record of the odd rumours circulating in local bars about men who've gone missing, good men, men with families (although that isn't always the case – some of them were single, and only a few of them were good), each of them silently taken by the earth, lost in the depths of the mines, and even if the bosses deny all this, going over the improvements that have been made in safety procedures, calmly reiterating that there's nothing to worry about, the truth is they're worried themselves and are just better at hiding it. You are aware of every face in every crowd, reading their emotions as easily as if they were written in a book. For instance, you know that this man is smiling because he quit his job, or that this woman is upset because she doesn't know how to explain to her mother in the capital that she can't make it back to her own father's funeral. You smell the bread baking, and the soft, organic scent of the shampoo a teenage girl is using to wash her hair, the thin reek of blood stains on pavement. You hear words spouting from a thousand throats, the metallic clatter of a truck rumbling across 3rd Bridge, the splash of water rinsing the street in front of a butcher shop. You see the town, but it isn't right, and you know that; nothing else moves as you do, nothing else exists in this way, formless, spread across every square foot of the place at once or exactly here, at the intersection of Norfolk and Nascent, moving from one face to another, each of them containing its own story and each its own prison. You are not like them, not trapped in a cage of flesh, and the truth of this is terrifying – you move, but have no body, see but have no eyes, and worse, no eyelids to shut any of it out: sights, sounds, smells and sensations flood in, unceasing, remorseless, a kind of torture, steadily flaying you, laying you bare. You want to cry out, yell, shout in the face of a thousand strangers, but you don't have a throat and the sound dies before it's born, echoing hollowly in a void, the ghost of a scream and nothing more. 5 Years Later "Nothin, no control, nothin I can say for sure, nothin ta do but endure, get high without touchin the sky, denied the hope a'escape, starin the hole in its face with no reason ta believe they'll ever cure the disease - please. Poverty is and will be, and in 1000 years it'll still be. It's the same old, same old on this planet Earth, and the same cold, same cold in the town of my birth, and all that they gut from the hills will ever be worth is just the price of our blood and the weight of our curse." - Extract from "I Mine" by Pit Boy, copyright Amalgam Records, 2009 Ring; breakfast; powder The front door is thrown open and a second later J walks into the room. He's busy blowin on his hands, his big head shrouded in the hood of an oversized jacket. "You see that?" he asks, jerkin his thumb behind him. "See what?" I say. "That ring outside your door." "A ring?" "Yes. Don't you ever leave the house?" I stand up and walk ta the front. The air is cold enough ta sting but I haul it in and hold it as I stare at the ring a'blood on the pavement. In the center is a bird, or what used ta be a bird, a pigeon with its head torn off, the end a'its spine juttin from the gore that's all that's left a'its neck. One a'the bird's wings is broken, bent back at an angle that hurts ta look at, even if the thing is dead. There are a few scattered feathers lyin around that must a'been torn off while it went through its death throes, but if they were, all of them wound up inside the ring, and the ring is a perfect circle. "You think we should leave it or what?" J asks from the doorframe, his arms crossed over his wide chest. "I don't know." "I'm not inta this. At all. I mean, if the man feels strongly enough about his art ta take the heads off birds who am I ta say anythin, but why here?" "No idea. But I'm not gonna argue with him by gettin rid a'it. Not my job ta clean the pavement." I speak with a calm I don't feel; the rings've been croppin up all over town for months now, the greatest percentage a'them here in Northside. No one knows why, or who's makin them, but everyone's heard the rumours. The things are black omens, and windin up with one outside your door is as good as bein told ta watch your step. "Forget it. Let's get somethin ta eat," says J. "You walk by somethin like this and you're hungry?" "We all gotta eat C, same for me as for that sick fuck scrawlin the things. We're all slaves ta our appetites." I shake my head; there's no arguin with logic as solid as that, and I walk back inta the apartment ta grab my coat from the hook on the wall. On our way out we both give the ring a wide berth, although neither a'us is about ta admit that's what we're doin; J and I play casual so often that the act is flawless, somethin we move inta by force a'habit. By now we're both so good at it that we're almost able ta fool ourselves. Reachin the end a'the block, we pass through the tendrils a'steam issued from a faulty pipe in the gutter. At the corner, a stray dog is busy nosin for food in a garbage pile, the fur at its back rough and mangy, and raw, pink patches a'skin showin round its haunches. As we walk past, the dog looks up as if it's afraid we might steal its breakfast. Mano's is just ahead, a small cafe built inta the first floor of a gutted, three storey town house. As soon as I open the door I'm hit in the face by a blast a'hot, wet air: the place is a sauna. Beads a'water have made snail tracks along the off-white walls, and the ceilin is damp with condensation. As usual, it's near empty, just a couple old mine heads sittin at the counter nursin coffees, and J and I have our choice a'tables. We take one in the back and I undo my coat and throw it on the seat next ta me. J leaves his on, and starts inta blowin on his hands again, tryin ta warm up. It must be 30 degrees in here and the boy is still cold. I can't believe a body his size fails ta insulate, but the way he carries on it's like he's only ever an inch away from freezin. "You know it's hot in here right?" I ask. He ignores me, and calls out ta the kitchen. Terry pokes his head around the doorframe, his pale face drenched with sweat. "What?" he asks, as if we're botherin him by bein here or he's got somethin better ta do than serve us eggs. "Coffee," I say. "And two omelets." "Yeah, fine." Along with a couple mugs, Terry grabs the coffee pot from behind the counter. On his way over he stops ta top off the old miners, who nod at him. "C got a ring in front of his door," says J. Terry eyes me, archin his left brow. "Yeah?" "Yeah." "Best not wash it off," he tells me. "Why not?" "Best not ta is all." "Don't mess around with it," adds J. "Can't I even ask the question?" They ignore me. "Pipe broken again?" asks J instead. "You're a fuckin genius you know that?" says Terry. "What gave you that impression?" "The steam," says J, very straight. "Oh, the steam." "Why don't you get it fixed?" "Is he serious with this?" Terry asks me. I shrug. "I tried ta get it fixed," he says ta J, very patient, the way a teacher might explain the thing ta a child. "Several times. I'm on Bird ta replace it twice a week but all he gives me are excuses. Meanwhile it's like a fuckin rain forest in here." "It's not so bad," says J. Terry grunts. "I'll be back with the eggs in a minute," he says, and leaves us ta our coffees. J wraps his hands around his mug ta warm them, and then adds some cream and a large mound a'sugar. Meanwhile I'm already feelin the heat, and by the time Terry returns from the kitchen with our food, I'm nearly covered in sweat. "Hurry and finish that," I say ta J, noddin at the steamin omelet Terry sets down in front a'him. "We stay in here much longer I'll forget it's cold outside." "Breakfast should never be rushed," he says, but he eats it quick enough, and once he's done we get up and move ta the counter. By the sound of it Terry is in the back, hackin away at the broken pipe with a wrench or a hammer, and I set the cash down next ta the register. Lookin over at the two miners seated there, it's possible that a couple heads like them, old and worn-out and sodden as they are, might not be above stealin. Still, Terry knows I always pay my debts. "You see Terry gets that now," I say ta them, and the older a'the two salutes me with a single, wizened finger. The other one laughs shortly, and then falls inta a fit of coughin. J and I leave the cafe and within a minute my hair, damp from the steam bath in Mano's, is already beginnin ta freeze. J shivers inside his coat, brushin away beads a'condensation from his chest and arms. "If it wasn't for the coffee…" he mutters. "I told you ta take your coat off." By now the street is beginnin ta fill up, most a'the fruit stalls and bakeries already open. At one stand a boy is busy stackin a pile a'oranges on a milk crate while his boss looks on from the doorway, barely awake. A few laid-off heads are standin in the laneway next ta South Block, throwin dice, and just beyond them I clock R loungin on his own in front of a coffee stand. He catches my look and waves, his face breakin inta a nasty grin. "Shit," I mutter. "What?" asks J. "R." J grunts. "No choice I guess." We make our way over ta him. R slaps J's hand and leans in ta say somethin, too low for me ta catch it, as if he's got anythin ta say worth keepin a secret. Whatever it was, J laughs, but it comes out soundin forced, and R glances away. He finishes the last a'his coffee and throws the plastic cup onta the pile on the ground. The boy workin the stand frowns and spits. "Coffee?" he asks, swishin a blackened pot over the kerosene stove. Despite the cold, he's got the sleeves a'his jacket rolled up ta his elbows, his pale skin a trace-work a'old scars and burn marks. "Already had ours this morning," I tell him. The boy shrugs, and turns ta grab some rough sugar from a bag on the table. He throws a few finger-fulls into the pot and swirls it with an expert flick a'his wrist. "Well C," says R, smilin from under his wide, knit hat. "Where you headin this mornin?" "Where you think R?" I ask, very casual. "Where do I think?" "That's right." "Wouldn't want ta hazard a guess." "I see." "Wouldn't have the temerity." "The temerity." "That's right," he laughs. "That's right." "Cause I'm gettin tired a'you askin." He spreads his hands apart, tryin ta look innocent. "C, you're just too high-strung. That's your problem. Anyone ever tell you that?" he says, and J laughs, more naturally this time. "Come on motherfucker," I say, startin out. R offers his hand and J slaps it before followin after me. We take the path behind the tenements, the pavement growin worse by degrees until it gives up altogether, surrenderin ta a wide tract a'hard-packed dirt. At the side a'the path an old woman is grillin an ear a'corn over an open flame. She grins at us, her mouth almost entirely free a'teeth, and I wonder how she thinks she's gonna manage ta gum down that corn. Past the last tower the old trail begins ta climb, and we follow it inta the hills. Behind me, I can hear J mutterin ta himself. "If we used the lift like normal people instead a'this bullshit..." "You want ta explain ta the boy operatin it why we're headin ta the mines when we're not miners?" I ask, without turnin around. "I'm just sayin." "Yeah." "That's all." "Well don't." Gradually the slope begins ta level out as it merges with a narrow ridge. The wind is stronger up here, howlin through the hills, and cold enough ta cut the skin. On our left is a thick growth a'pines, and on the right the Northside valley. At this height we're well clear a'the tenements. From here they form a staggered roofscape a'tar paper and rusted pipes, a few loose coils a'steam driftin up ta die in the frigid air. Further on, the sun is breakin free of a high bank a'clouds. The ridge curves ta the left, and I can just make out Art, standin with his back ta a rough outcrop a'stone. As we approach, he waves at us and takes out a pack a'cigarettes. He sticks one in his mouth but can't get the thing lit for the wind. It isn't until J cups his hands around the lighter that the flame catches. "Thanks," mutters Art. "You got another one a'those?" asks J. Art hands him the pack. "You need one?" he says ta me "No." Art sniffs, and stamps a few times in the dirt, tryin ta warm his feet. He's wearin a thin red jacket that's much too light for the season, and I guess some sales girl's tits must a'talked him inta buyin it. "Had some trouble with the foreman," he announces. "Yeah?" "Nothin major. Just asked where I was headin. It's not a big thing, seein as I have ta make the rounds sometime, but it means he's watchin me…" He pauses, his small eyes dartin nervously. "And?" "And I think we need ta find another place ta meet." "Fuck," says J, around a mouthful a'smoke. "We said that from the start didn't we? That this outdoor shit was no good for anyone. It was you who told us ta meet out here. Said this was a bad idea, didn't I?" "It was fine," Art insists. "And it's better ta get the stuff out in the middle a'the day when everyone's busy." "Was fine." "That's right. All a'this is just gettin a little hot." He won't meet J's eyes, or mine, shiftin his weight back and forth on the balls a'his feet. "A little hot," says J. He flicks what's left a'his smoke onta the ground. Art shrugs. I take out the money and hand it ta him. "We'll find another place," I say. "Let me think on it." He nods and reaches inta his bag for the package. "You just let him think on it," says J, stickin his index finger inta Art's bony shoulder. Art clears the phlegm from the back of his throat and spits. J sucks on his front teeth, eyein him. I stuff the package under my coat and start back down the path the way we came. It sits in the center a'the table, a mount a'rust orange powder on a sheet a'wrinkled tin foil. "Seems like less than last week," says J. "I weighed it." J grunts, and sets inta rollin himself a smoke. I dip my finger in the powder and stick it in my mouth, the bitter, metallic taste spreadin quickly over my tongue, and that other flavour I can never place, organic, and nearly rotten. "You don't want any?" I ask J, for maybe the fiftieth time. "Don't need it," he responds. He puts the smoke in his mouth and lights it, leanin back in his seat. "Never thought I'd say this, but Art is right. We got ta start bein more careful. Things are gettin tight up there, have been for a while, and now with the Institute buyin up as much powder as they can get their hands on." "We'll find somewhere else ta meet. Stuff's too valuable ta give up on, and it's not even illegal. Anyway, what are a bunch a'scientists gonna do? Write a paper on us?" He shrugs. "Who knows? It's not like there's anyone ta stop them, not with things the way they are in the capital, and the cops." "It's fine," I say, dippin inta the powder again. "What do you think the Institute wants with so much powder anyway?" "No idea," I answer, not wantin ta get inta it. I've got some thoughts on the subject, but there's no sense talkin about it now. It'll all come out sooner or later. Everythin always does. Through the doorframe, I watch as Auld passes inta the kitchen. "So how do we get it out?" asks J. "We go at night." "You want ta go inta the mines at night?" "We've done it before." Auld looks at me across the room. In the dyin light, the line that cuts the right side a'his face is a deep, midnight purple. "We were stupid before," remarks J. "We're not stupid now?" Auld turns and walks out a'the kitchen. J leans forward, starin at me. "I know what you're thinkin," he says. "Oh yeah?" "Look," he goes on. "I know how it is for you, but that was a long time ago. If you're still carryin that shit around, now's the time ta let it go." "Yeah," I say, walkin ta the kitchen. "You're right. You're a real fountain a'wisdom you know that?" "Where you goin?" he asks. "Ta make a sandwich," I say. "You want one?" He leans back in his chair. "Very kind," he says. Blanket; Northside; trouble The snow that fell in the afternoon's swallowed the ring, coverin it over with a nice, clean blanket. Lookin at the same space now, it's almost enough ta think the ring never existed, but that's only wishful thinkin. It's still there, under the snow. Somethin like that never really goes away. J hauls back in his throat and spits. "Did it get colder?" he asks. "Yeah," I say. "It's night. The sun went down." "Feels like the ass-end a'the moon out here." It is cold, not that it makes a difference in Northside. The streets are hummin, with small crowds gathered at every coffee and whiskey stand, and the miners are out in force, spillin out a'the bars, laughin, or else caught up in shouted arguments, one sound bleedin inta the other. The boys go hard at night, desperate ta slough off the time they spent in the pits, crammin a day's worth a'livin inta the space of a few narrow hours. As we walk, loose fingers a'steam drift across the road, leakin from a series a'pipes tacked ta the side of a tenement. Man-shaped shadows move about in the mist, and smaller, fleeter, child shaped ones, dartin here and there, or burstin forth inta the clear air, laughin. The door of a nearby bar swings open, and a blast a'tinny music escapes inta the street. Two mine heads stumble out, one a'them with his fly undone, as if he's gettin ready ta piss in the middle a'the road. His buddy, a rat faced little nothin in a leather cap, pulls him aside, and half cajolin, half pushin, manages ta lead him inta the shaded decency of a nearby alley. Once we turn onta Norfolk, the street widens and the sound a'the night grows softer, the tenements and coffee stands and mine-head bars givin way ta empty, darkened restaurants, and proper houses with small, snow-covered lawns. A little further on is the Eft and Dragon, the last bar in Northside, or the first, dependin on which direction you're comin from. It's a squat buildin with paneled windows and an old-fashioned, shingled roof. The only difference between it and its neighbours are the black scorch marks along the base a'its walls – the evidence a'some long forgotten fire – and a single neon sign that sits in one a'the windows, a blue lizard roundin on the tail of a pink dragon, the pair a'them formin a rough circle. J throws open the wooden door, and the warm air closes in around us, dense and homelike. The big, oak counter at the center a'the room is crowded with young heads and a few scattered college kids. Tam is standin at the counter, and I can see Auld sittin by himself at a table in the back. He looks up like he was expectin me, but I signal him to wait, followin J ta the bar. Tam glances at me sidelong, and smirks, his hands wrapped round an empty pint, the last flecks a'white foam clingin ta the side a'the glass. "Hey," he calls ta the bartender. "Another, and two more for these wasted young whores." "Tam," I say. "C," he says, very casual. "J." I take the bag a'powder from my jacket and hand it ta him under the counter. "I'll weigh it later," he says, and looks over at J, who's grinnin. "What're you smilin at, you dumb fuck?" J shrugs. "Just happy ta be alive," he says. Tam laughs once, passin a hand through his hair, and then he laughs again, more natural this time. The bartender sets our pints on the counter. I offer ta pay for the round, but Tam shakes his head. "It's mine," he says, and hands the man the cash. "Very generous," says J. "'In giving, the greatest good,'" Tam intones, and we set inta our beers, finishin them fast and easy, and without much more in the way a'ceremony. After my pint I leave them ta it, those boys always on about the same old shit, past lays and the collected reminiscences a'long, brutal weekends full a'drink and weed. That kind a'nostalgia was never good for me, not unless I'm drunk, and I'm not even a fifth a'that yet. Instead, I pick my way across the bar, the air thick with the smoke a'filtereds and the acrid stench a'hand-rolleds. An argument breaks out at a table full a'drunk heads, one a'them stickin a pudgy, mine-blackened finger in his friend's face. Behind them, unnoticed, two girls are makin out, but lazily, as if they'd rather be doin anythin else, and not much further on is Auld, sittin on his own at a table in the back. He has a way a'keepin himself ta himself. Never ceases ta amaze me how he can claim a whole table in a place as crowded as this. He kicks a chair out for me. I sit down and lean back, raisin the chair's front legs from the floor. "Everything smooth with Tam?" he asks me. "As always." "You guys have this all figured, huh?" "Seem to." "Well, don't lose your focus." "Meanin?" "Meaning keep your eyes open." "Auld," I say, sittin forward and bringin the chair down with me. "One day you're gonna run out a'useless comments." "Could be." "Just hope I'm around ta see it." "Keep your eyes open and you will be." He smiles, very mild, and without thinkin I glance again at the line on his face, a purple slash runnin from his brow through his left eye and down the front a'his cheek, the line he'll never explain and the one I've quit askin about. He stares back, but it's impossible ta tell what he's thinkin. Could be it's all a joke ta him, me and J, our dealin powder, life in general. With him there's no tellin. "But you'll be fine," he announces. "For a while." I snort. "You ever want ta elucidate on that you just let me know." "Most people have a hard enough time when they don't know what's coming. Think of how much harder it would be if they did know." "Just the same." "How's that?" "It'd be the same," I say again. "Everyone knows what the day brings, at least up here they do: work, food, sleep and more a'the same tomorrow." Auld shakes his head. "Go forward a year, or ten years or a lifetime, and then what? Not knowing how it turns out is what keeps people living." I snort, not sure I buy it. Seems ta me it'd be nice havin some indication a'where I'm headed. Could make the struggle ta get there a little easier. "Trust me," continues Auld. "If you knew what was going to happen it'd be like you'd already lived it. Surprises C, that's the key." "I thought the key was moderation." "That's good too." "Anyway, how is it you get out of bed, knowin what you know?" "Because I have something to do," he responds, his voice flat, and he looks away, wavin his hand at someone behind me. I turn around. Three girls are drawin up ta the bar. One a'them, the tallest, and natural, dirty blonde where her friends are all platinum-dyed and vulgar, waves back. She turns ta the girl nearest her, says somethin, and starts in our direction. She approaches the table, clear-eyed and neat in a short, leather coat and black leggins under a denim skirt; she's not quite pretty enough ta be beautiful, but she does make an impression, and I can't help smilin as she sits down next ta Auld. "Last place I thought I'd find you," she says ta him, very straight, in the crisp, functional accent a'the capital. "Really?" asks Auld. The girl shakes her head, once, in an odd, short movement, almost defensively, and then she turns ta me and sticks out her hand. The tips a'her fingers are all done orange, bleached ta the middle knuckles. "Hazel," she says. I take her hand and shake it. "Call me C." She glances at Auld. "They tend to keep things simple here," he says. "Short, they feel, being better than long." "In some things," I add, but the girl doesn't seem ta catch the word play, which is just as well, it bein a rather obvious and feeble attempt in any case. "What brings you ta town?" I try instead, but rather than answerin, she fishes inta the pocket a'her coat for a pack a'filtereds. She offers me one and I take it from her, polite fucker as I am, although I can't stand the things. Might as well be breathin steam for all the taste in them. She takes some matches from her jeans, and lights my cigarette before movin on ta her own. Auld pays no mind ta any a'this, seemin content just ta stare off at some point in the distance. "The trouble," she says finally, exhalin a cloud a'smoke and leanin back in her seat. "What's that?" "The trouble in the capital. It's why I'm here." "A lot a'people have been filterin in lately, for the same reason. You got family out here?" She nods. "My uncle." "Been in town before?" "No," she says. "First time." "Well there's a first time for everything," says Auld, and laughs. I choose ta ignore him. "This what you were expectin?" I ask. The girl shrugs. "It's not much different from back home. There's the miners, sure, but in the end it's the same thing, people drinking, talking. It's the same all over the world. You ever been to the capital?" "Once, but I was too young. The only thing I remember are the crowds." "Those are still there." "Good ta know." "But it's no place you'd want to be now." "What exactly is it that's goin on there?" "No one really knows," she says. She looks at Auld, as if she'd like ta ask him the same question. He shrugs. "How should I know?" he says, smilin, and it's hard ta tell whether that smile's meant ta reveal his knowledge or conceal his ignorance. Hazel looks away and stubs out the end a'her filtered. "It started last year," she says. "Around springtime, but then some people say it started earlier, even back as far as five years ago with the block killings. You remember those?" "Yeah," I say. Auld's starin down at the table, movin the end a'his index finger over the surface, drawin somethin there, or writin. "That upset people. I mean it was messed-up right? Murders in broad daylight, and some people just about butchered. And then it got worse. Or anyway... more confusing. Because at least the block killings had been about something, you know?" "Territory." "Well, that's how they wrote about them in the papers. But then last year all of a sudden you've got people in the streets, marching, carrying on about reform and social responsibility and at the same time other people saying everything's coming undone, claiming the protesters were just stirring up trouble, or making revolution or something. But revolution about what? Against who? Nobody knew. There were a lot of theories. It was in the news every day, and it was enough to drive me crazy, how much ink they wasted writing about it." "Read some a'that myself," I say. She makes a face like she wants ta roll her eyes, but then stops herself, maybe too polite. It's possible she thinks I can't read. "It was ridiculous," she says. "Experts contradicting other experts, and none of them really knew anything. It was the same with the prices rising. There were all kinds of statistics to explain it, but in the end they didn't amount to anything. They were just numbers. In reality no one had a clue. And then there's the rings." "Rings?" I interrupt. "Hadn't heard that. Thought they were our problem." "You've had rings in New Run?" "The last few months." "I didn't know," she says. "Why would you? News from town can't be very interestin." "But that's why I came here," she says. "I woke up one morning and there was a ring outside my door, and suddenly it just seemed like a good idea to get out, you know?" Auld looks up at me. He passes a hand over the table top, erasin all the invisible lines he'd drawn there. Auld, After the Bar The night air is frozen, and the sky that hangs above the houses is the colour of ice on a black highway. Despite the cold, Auld is dressed in a pair of jeans and a thin, cotton shirt. He wraps his arms around his narrow chest, tucking his hands beneath his armpits, but with the air of a man who's only acting cold, as if it's a game. He steps onto a metal pipe running parallel to the gutter, balancing with exaggerated difficulty, stretching his arms out like a tightrope walker. He watches the ground beneath him, the blanket of snow on the pavement white-orange and sparkling in the reflected light of street lamps. Abruptly, the pipe comes to an end, but Auld simply hops off and makes a left at the corner. Stenciled on the side of a nearby wall is a large mural of the King of Diamonds. The artist has taken obvious pains to recreate the details of the card faithfully, from the elaborate brocade on the king's robe to the jewels in his pointed crown, and the long, finely-wrought scepter in his hands. All of this stands in stark contrast to the blank space where the king's face should be; freed of semblance, the image is at once every king and none, both imposing and anonymous. Beneath it, the words "WHO'S IN CHARGE?" have been written in a clear, bold font. Two men emerge from a doorway at the top of the street. They are dressed identically, in black duffel coats made of a slick, synthetic material and opaque goggles, the lenses of which stand an inch from their faces. Both of the men are bald, their chapped heads left bare to the cold, but while one is middle-aged and short, the other is taller, thinner, and younger. The older man is carrying a leather briefcase. Auld falls into step behind them, his manner indifferent. His eyes wander aimlessly over the houses on his left. This far north they are all old and run-down, many of them showing signs of earthquake damage, their roofs tilted at odd angles and the occasional snaking crack in the wall. The two men turn right at the next corner and Auld turns with them, entering a road not much wider than an alley. At the far end a single street light sputters off and on with the random timing of a facial tic. The sound of the snow crunching under the men's boots issues cleanly in the still air. Auld's steps are far lighter, barely louder than whispers. The men pause in front of a house with a wooden sign above the door. The man with the briefcase reaches into his jacket and takes out a small, round object. He looks at it for a moment and then he nods. He opens the door and the two of them disappear inside the building. Auld glances up at the sign, and the faded image painted on it. He can just make out the shape of what must at one time have been an animal, and part of a word which might be "TAVERN", or equally "CAVERN." He clears his throat and spits, rubs his nose with the back of his hand. After a time, he opens the door and enters a small bar. The room is deserted, with a deep thud of bass-heavy music issuing cleanly through the floorboards. On the left is a wooden counter, fronted by a row of stools. Behind the counter is a large mirror, and several glass shelves stacked with liquor bottles. Dozens of picture frames cover the opposite wall, each a different size and design, some of them extremely ornate, almost works of art in themselves, while others are the type of cheap aluminum model sold in discount department stores. Regardless of their size or shape, all of the frames are empty, showcasing nothing except the red brick of the wall behind them. Auld walks to the counter and sits down at one of the stools, helping himself to a bottle of whiskey from the closest shelf. He examines the label, frowns, and puts it back in favour of another. Satisfied, he takes a glass from behind the counter and pours himself a double shot. One floor beneath him is another bar with almost exactly the same layout, a similar counter and set of shelves, as well as a second wall of picture frames. Roughly thirty people are crammed into the narrow space, most of them male, and almost all of them drunk. The air is heavy with the smoke of unfiltered hand-rolleds and a pounding, electronic dance track. Despite the lack of a stage or any sign of a DJ, the music is obviously the work of a live performance: just behind the notes (or encased in them) is the steady movement of a voice, modulated and digitized, but for all of that undeniably human. The two men Auld followed in from the street are standing at the bar. Except for the light of a few scant candles, the room is dark, but both men continue to wear their goggles. "Where is he?" says the taller man. The shorter, older man's face twitches in irritation. "How should I know?" he answers, setting his briefcase on the counter. The taller man smiles and turns away. Not far off is an old man in a wheelchair, one of the few people paying strict attention to the music. His eyes are closed, and he is dancing in his chair, rocking it back and forth a half a step off the beat. A series of LED lights has been wired into the chair's wheels, and as he moves they flash alternately green and then blue. The taller man leaves the bar and approaches him. The man in the wheelchair looks up, flinching as if he expects to be assaulted, but the taller man's manner is entirely friendly, and aside from the goggles his face is open and unassuming. "You like this kind of music too huh?" he asks. "I love it," the man in the wheelchair says, relaxing. "I really like your chair." "What?" "I really like your chair!" says the taller man again, louder. "The lights!" "Thanks." "Did you rig it yourself?" "No. A friend of mine." "What are you drinking?" "Rice liquor over ice." The taller man nods and gives a thumbs up sign. He goes back to the bar, orders two drinks, and returns with them a minute later. The two men clink glasses. "Thanks a lot!" exclaims the man in the wheelchair. "You have a good night now," says the taller man. He goes back to his place at the bar and sets his drink down next to the briefcase. "I can't stand rice liquor," he says. The shorter man laughs. Abruptly, the music comes to an end and the sound of dozens of shouted conversations fills the nascent silence. Unnoticed by either of the men in goggles, a young man who had been standing by himself in the corner moves toward the largest of the empty picture frames. The frame houses a door, cleverly painted to look like the rest of the wall, with a handle concealed halfway along the frame on the left side. The young man turns the handle and passes quickly into the opposite room. One of the few women in the crowd, a thirty-two year old named Eva Porter, watches him go. She is stoned, and the sight of the young man walking into a picture frame strikes her as incredibly funny. Upstairs, Auld is pouring himself a second glass of whiskey. The door to the street bangs open, and a man enters the room. He has dark, restless eyes, and there is a small scar on his chin, something that could have been made by the tip of a knife, or just as easily by a hard fall. He takes no notice of Auld, who is sitting just two meters to his left. Auld regards him passively, rotating the glass of whiskey in his hand. He's seen the man before, but it isn't until he's halfway down the stairs that Auld recalls that his name is R. Downstairs, the shorter of the two men in goggles nudges his companion, pointing toward R, who is busy shouldering his way through the crowd. "You guys always wear those things?" R asks, nodding at their goggles. "Regulations," says the taller man, smiling. "You're on the powder?" asks the older one. "No." R almost spits the word. "Not on it." "We have to ask," says the taller man, and now it is the smaller man's turn to smile. His lips are thin and cracked, and the skin at his neck is scored with dozens of small cuts, as if he habitually shaves with a dull blade. "We have to do more than ask," he sighs, and R feels himself taken roughly by the arm. "What – ?" he starts, but falters as the tip of something hard and pointed is pressed into his spine. The taller man, gripping R's arm and digging the object further into his back, moves forward until his lips are nearly brushing against R's ear. "Just be quiet and you can go home," he says quietly, the words smooth and cloying. "Boys," stammers R, and gasps as the point is driven forward. He imagines his coat tearing, and pictures the tip of a cold blade against his skin. "I'm going to take a little blood," states the older man. In the crowd behind him, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline is laughing. R's eyes flash from the laughing man to the briefcase on the counter, and then to the shorter, older man in goggles. The sound of a glass breaking comes from somewhere, and more laughter. The bartender, a tall, well-built man in his mid-20s, is chatting with a young woman a few feet away. No one notices the bead of sweat slipping along the right side of R's face, or the look of panic in his eyes. The smaller, older man reaches into his jacket and takes out a metal box about the size of a cell phone. One end is pointed like a syringe, but is thicker at its base, and fashioned of a different material than the rest of the device. R struggles, but the taller man's grip never eases around his arm, nor does the pressure of the object at his back. The smaller man brings the device to R's neck; R looks away, his eyes landing on the smooth, leather surface of the briefcase. His thoughts fly in all directions, from the pain in his back to the pulse of blood in his captive arm, the contents of the briefcase, the bartender as well as the girl he's talking with, and the needle-fine tip of the device in the smaller man's hand. He feels the point sinking into his neck, and his eyes widen. There is a low, hissing sound, and an inrush of air. He gasps, shuddering, and then it's over, the device is gone from his neck, and the smaller man is nodding. The taller man lets go of R's arm, releasing the pressure from his back. "Well now," says the taller man, his voice light. "That wasn't so bad was it?" He signals the bartender. "A whiskey," he says. The bartender nods and pours him a shot. The taller man pays for it, leaving a sizeable tip, and the bartender walks away without so much as glancing at R. "Drink up," says the shorter man. "Next time you better push the fuckin thing through me," he mutters. The taller man smiles, holding up a standard, ballpoint pen. "This?" he says. R glares at him, but the man laughs, and puts the pen away in his jacket. "You see, perception is the most important thing," says the shorter man from behind R, who turns to face him. "Perception," echoes the taller man, behind R's back. "A real knife is superfluous. All that matters is that you think there's a knife," continues the shorter man. "It's all perception," says the taller man again, and laughs. "You want ta get ta the point?" breathes R, resting his hands on the bar. He is shocked by how steady they look, how still. "It's important for people to think there's a knife," says the smaller man. "Very important," chimes in the taller man. "If people understood that the knife was all in their head, it'd be trouble." "Real knife, fake knife, I don't give a shit," says R. "You want ta hear what I have ta say or no?" "We're all ears," declares the taller man. "Where's the money?" asks R, glancing at the briefcase. The taller man reaches into his jacket and takes out a small wad of bills, placing them on the counter. "Minus the cost of the whiskey," he says. R takes the money and stuffs it into the inner pocket of his coat. "So tell us," says the smaller man. "They're makin drops at a bar called the Eft and Dragon. Fair regular, once every couple a'weeks or so." "Do you know when the next meet is scheduled to take place?" the shorter man asks him. "No, but I can find out." "You'll be well compensated if you do," says the shorter man. "The Institute is one of the few agencies that can still guarantee it," says the taller man, laughing. R isn't sure what's supposed to be funny. He looks at the shot of whiskey on the bar, longing to drink it, but he holds back, not wanting to appear any weaker than he already has. The shorter man produces a business card and hands it to him. The card is blank except for a phone number printed in plain, black text. "You can reach us there," he says. He nods to the taller man, and retrieves the briefcase from the counter. "A real pleasure," says the taller man. R grunts. The two men in goggles push their way through the crowd, heading for the stairwell. Once their backs are turned, R reaches for the whiskey and downs the shot. He motions the bartender for another. Upstairs, Auld finishes his drink and stands up. He puts the bottle of whiskey back on the shelf and the glass away behind the counter and then he exits the room. By the time the two men in goggles reach the first floor he isn't there, and by the time they leave the bar he's gone. You Meet Inter-7 A Five years went by. Five years, but what is that to you? Time doesn't mean much without a body. You experience, sure, but you don't age, at least not the way everything else does. You do not decay, and you don't wind down, so you're not really a part of it are you? Less involved than the smallest microbe and farther away than the farthest star, although of course the reality of the situation is more complicated. The reality of a situation usually is, and in this case it's true that observation is itself an act, and that it changes what's observed. Regardless, free from the grinding processes of life, the age lines and grey hairs, the rot and rust stains, you are also free from time. For you it passes simply, one year giving way to another as easily as one moment to the next, as easily as reading the words "five years later" and turning a page. Not that it being easy will save you from much, in the end. The important thing is that time and space exist. Naturally, you must be somewhere, and in your case for the past five years you've been here, stuck in the town as if tethered to it. The farthest you've ever managed to get is about a mile off the coast, floating idly over the cold gray waves of the Greater Sea, and once almost to the top of the northern hills, although you never made it to the summit, never climbed high enough to see what was on the other side. Granted, no one can say you didn't try: struggling against whatever invisible cords have bound you to the town, you've set out time and again, but no amount of effort on your part has ever made a difference. No matter what direction you choose to go in, you always reach your limit. It isn't painful. More a feeling of indifference than captivity, once you reach the edge of town you no longer feel the need to carry on, and forgetting what it was like to want to leave, you turn around. This is only confusing or off-putting once you're back – while you're engaged in it, returning seems like the most natural thing in the world. Of course, the cycle resumes as soon as you do return, and it isn't long before the town again begins to weigh on you. Soon enough you'll decide to start out again, vowing this time to go for good. It never works. Newt Run is all you know and maybe it's all you'll ever know. Not that it's such a bad thing. Admit it: it's an interesting place, as far as it goes. At least there's a lot to look at, and for someone in your unique position that has to be considered a selling point. And that's what you've been doing for the past five years. You've been looking. You saw faces flash in the crowded streets, uniform pixels in a flesh-scale monochrome, all of them equally valid and therefore interchangeable. Unnoticed, you watched from the windows of buses, coming to understand the town through its architecture, the quality of the brickwork or the state of its yards. For a long time you dedicated yourself to a study of store-fronts, learning what you could from those elaborate tableaus in the boutiques off Clarion Street, headless mannequins posing in the latest fashions next to designer handbags strung up like butchered hunks of meat. Later you moved to the businesses of Northside, stores with cheap, red-brick facades and barred windows, or else abandoned entirely, the shuttered relics of some other, more prosperous time. You passed from one street to another and one face to the next, and suddenly one of them would stand out, if for no other reason than because of the set of a man's jaw, or the look in a woman's eyes, of solitude say, or agitation. A town is composed of these things, the faces of people as well as buildings, but you wanted something more than that: you wanted a story, and for a time searching for one was like a drug. You began to follow people, starting with the tired, middle-aged man you saw crossing 3rd Bridge, caught by the look in his eyes, a look that was at once sad and resigned, as if he'd long ago given up hope but didn't particularly care or miss it. You took in his shabby gray suit, threadbare but spotlessly clean (as if he made sure to have it laundered at rigidly defined intervals), as well as the way he put one foot in front of the other, his scuffed, leather shoes eating the pavement like a metronome does time. It was remarkable to you that he was, after all, still alive, still functioning, obviously still getting up in the morning, dragging himself out of bed and shoveling forkfulls of food into his mouth. Over and above all of this was the fact that you sensed in him, even in this man, more reality and cohesion than you could ever ascribe to yourself. You went with him to his apartment, watching as he unlocked the door and passed down the length of a hall into an off-white kitchen. Loosening his tie, he sat down at a wooden table and removed his shoes, pulling them off irritably, as if he was angry at himself for forgetting to do so earlier. At last he went to the sink and filled a glass with water. He drank slowly, looking out the window at the brick wall of his neighbour's house, and then he sat the glass down on the counter. Oddly disturbed, you left him there, understanding that you would get nothing more from him; whatever spark of recognition or insight it is that's needed to understand a life was not coming: here, if anywhere, was a man living a life devoid of stories. There was no subtext to be found in him, no plot, and nothing further to be learned. Abandoning his house, you felt a deep weight settle on you, as if the blandness of a man drinking water in his kitchen was itself the story and the point, and precisely because of its banality no different from any other moment, for him or any other man. You told yourself that you'd made a mistake, choosing him. Then again, you might simply have given up too soon. Perhaps if you'd been more patient you'd have witnessed something more, found whatever thread it is that binds the events of a life together, even if that life is made up of "events" as isolated as drinking a cup of water in an empty kitchen. This is an interesting town, or as interesting as any other, and you were sure there were stories to be found here. After all, what is consciousness except the drive to imprint a story on the world? And weren't you conscious? It seemed like a valid question, but you reasoned that if you were thinking about it you must be (thinking equaling being, in some sense anyway, or at least in some traditions.) Besides, the fact remained that time was passing and you were aware of it; you had to find something to fill your days. Later you passed a circular fountain in the middle of a public square. In the center of the pool was a statue of a dancing girl. The statue's face was nearly featureless, and its long, slim legs were frozen in a pose of perpetual grace. The blue-gray metal it was cast from was worn in places, with small patches of rust spotting its hands and shoulders. Seated at the edge of the fountain was a young woman dressed in a long, floral-patterned skirt and a white, sleeveless t-shirt. Hanging from a strap around her neck was a small watch, and as you looked at her, she held it up and checked the time. Her nails were painted black. It struck you that this girl was the polar opposite of the man you'd previously followed; neither sad nor resigned, she sat by the pool as if cut from some other, more perfect world. She was both young and beautiful, and very, very alive. In short, she was exactly the type of girl that a man might fall in love with, and suddenly it seemed so simple: if you were looking to find a consistent narrative in life, wasn't a love story the best place to start? You made the decision in an instant, and were with her as the girl rose from the pool and left the square. Her name was Caroline Brown. You learned this later, and that her friends called her Carol, or C. She was 23 years old and was a recent graduate from Newt Run University, where she'd majored in politics. She'd been an above average student, and one of her professors had even urged her to continue with her studies in a graduate program, but the thought of more school didn't appeal to her, and she suspected that her professor simply wanted to sleep with her, or at least to fantasize about the possibility. Instead, she asked for more hours at the clothing store where she'd worked part-time as a student; she was in no hurry, and felt like taking things slow for a while before she started worrying too much about her future. Besides, she got along with her manager and the work was easy. Her boss' name was Angie Majors. She was 32 years old and mostly happy, or at least that was the image of herself that she liked to project. Certainly she was happy with Carol, who she respected for her energy and her direct, unpretentious manner of speech. Angie imagined that she saw something of herself in the younger woman, although at 23 Carol was far more self-contained and comfortable than Angie had ever been. For Carol, Angie was a boss and the job was a job. She went to work in the morning and she left in the evening. It was a part of her life and very little more. During the year you followed her, Carol saw two men, one from February to August and the other from September to November. Their names were Luke Coulter and Terry Dunstan; she slept with one other man over the course of the year, cheating on Terry with a photographer named Richard, and while that encounter had its own particular impact, it was with Luke and Terry that she was most preoccupied. It should be noted that Carol's life was always more than these relationships. It was more than her job and her friends, more than where she lived, or the places she went and the food she ate; her life was the total of each these things and many others, and the sum of what she thought about them all. There were moments of texture and insight that had nothing to do with men, dialogues with people who touched her existence in only the most peripheral of ways that nevertheless managed to lay bare certain base elements of personality and intention. There were also times when Carol felt herself adrift and alone, when she felt that "life" (that vague and ill-defined notion by which she meant something other than what she was currently living) was passing her by. Like anyone else, she grappled with doubts and insecurities, and there were times when she wondered what the point of it all was, and where she was heading. Of course, life isn't something that can be naturally distilled, but you told yourself that with Carol you were resolved to look at the big picture, having made a conscious decision to ignore the more isolated details of who and what she was in an effort to focus on something more essential. In this way you hoped to unlock the secret, making whatever intuitive leap might be necessary to connect one moment to another, fusing even the smallest details of a life into an essential part of the whole. But first you'd watch Carol Brown fall in love. It started in a bar, which surprised her, since she'd always thought it was impossible to meet anyone in bars. It was also unusual in that she noticed Luke first; she liked his smooth, caramel-coloured skin, as well as the line of his shoulders as he slouched in his seat, and the look of his slim hands around a beer. She noticed a tattoo just beneath the sleeve of his white t-shirt and she had an urge to see the rest of it. At that precise moment, he turned around, and their eyes met. Had he felt her looking at him? You've watched any number of people and none of them have ever been aware of you, but then you don't have eyes the way that Carol does, eyes that exist in the same space as the things they see, so it's possible that Luke really had felt Carol's gaze. Then again, it's possible that he was just uncomfortable in his seat and wanted to shift position. Whatever the reason, he turned, and he smiled. It was a smile that struck Carol as completely unaffected, and it was enough to carry her across the bar to him; four hours later they wound up in Carol's bed. You didn't know how you were supposed to feel about it, watching them, whether or not there should have been some sense of excitement in the motion of their young bodies, the passage of hands, legs tangling, their mouths pressed together, or tongues, and the soft moans that escaped their lips. You took it all in, everything, from multiple angles, zooming in for a close-up of Carol's face and her expression, one that was both like and unlike pain, as if she'd gone somewhere else for a moment, somewhere outside. When it was over you felt almost as drained as they did, lying across the bed like wounded things, breathing heavily, the sheets damp with sweat. It had been good, but it wasn't conclusive; Carol wasn't sure whether or not she came, and Luke thought she probably hadn't. He resolved to focus more on foreplay the next time (he was sure there would be a next time), and three days later he invited Carol to his apartment for a meal. The food (a vegetarian pasta) was good, and she liked the quiet, confident way Luke had of carrying himself as he served it, and the intensity with which he occasionally looked at her, as if he was afraid she might disappear at any moment. Eating with him, and talking, Carol realized that she felt good. She allowed herself to think that maybe this was the beginning of a relationship that could go somewhere; Luke was nice, and he seemed to be genuinely interested in her. They each drank a bottle of wine with the meal, and it felt very natural to them both when Carol proposed they spend the night together. For several months things between them went well (or at least they appeared to go well, which is almost the same thing, and maybe all that can be hoped for.) The two of them met, shared meals, talked and went out, watched movies, slept together; they were dating. They thought about each other and spent the majority of their free time together. Twice they had dinner with Carol's mother (her father had died of a heart attack when she was 17) and once with Luke's parents, who were just as nice as he was, even if they were quiet, especially his father, who didn't say much of anything but looked at Carol kindly, and in his own way made her feel at home. As with everything else, their relationship wasn't perfect, but it was easy, and it felt positive. There were even signs that it was going somewhere, forward maybe, at least emotionally, and then there came a night when the two of them had an argument about where Carol had been and why she hadn't called (out with friends and because she hadn't thought about it), and the force of it surprised them both, the bitterness and recrimination stirred up by careless words and the seemingly endless back and forth of accusation and counter-accusation that did end, eventually, when they found themselves making up on Luke's couch. Lying next to her, post-coital and spent, Luke stared at the ceiling and told her that he loved her. A blue, pre-dawn light filled the room, and a silence stretched out before them, tightening, until at last Carol also said the words, breathing them in less than a whisper. She wanted to smile but somehow she was afraid to. Instead she stared at the ceiling until at length Luke turned and kissed her. For a moment she felt her body falling away, light as shed skin. Both of them thought that was something they'd remember for the rest of their lives, but in fact the memory was already fading, even as it occurred. Time doesn't stop, not even for love; moments continue to pile up, one after another, they don't care if you were happy yesterday, because now is all they offer. Carol and Luke went on dating, and even if the sex continued to be better than average, it never really lived up to the expectations they'd both had for it, that first time. They kept on laughing together, enjoying each other's company, but Carol laughed more often than Luke did, who was slightly too serious, and self-involved. They enjoyed sharing a bed, but whereas Luke could fall asleep easily, Carol had trouble, especially at his place, where she was often forced to lie awake for hours, listening to his soft, unconscious breathing. At first she found this soothing, but after a while it lost its appeal, and eventually she came to hate it. It seemed to her to be a perfect metaphor for the man, this soft, easy breathing, and the effortless way in which he fell asleep, especially after sex. It was as if he never worried, happy with everything that came his way, no matter what happened. Carol resented this lack of worry in him, but she shouldn't have, because the fact was that Luke worried as much as anyone else. He felt anxiety about his work, and was deeply concerned about whether or not he'd ever be able to make anything of his life; he'd dropped out of college a few years before he met Carol, hating the institution for its inflexibility, and the textbooks for their bland, colourless writing. He hated the cold, uncomfortable lecture halls, and the dry voices of his professors. Most of all he'd hated the way his peers latched onto any new idea, falling over themselves to agree with one another, voicing near identical opinions and mouthing the same stock phrases. It wasn't even that he necessarily disagreed with them, but Luke had a tendency to slow discussions down, focusing on known facts at the expense of rhetoric, and because he was nice, to play the role of mediator in any conflict, of which there were many. All of this left him exhausted, and he felt there could be no more useless way to become exhausted, expending energy on conversations that went nowhere, his words disappearing into the air like steam hissing from a broken valve. At the end of his first year he dropped out of school and took the first job he could get, which in Newt Run meant working in the mines. He didn't like this any better than he had liked school, but it was a change, and at least in the deep pits no one had time to waste on useless conversations. Later, after he'd grown sick of the dark and the dirt and the physical exhaustion, it was too late; he had bills to pay, rent on his apartment and car payments, and what with food and alcohol, at the end of each month he found himself right back where he'd started, saving nothing, and barely getting by. Still, he could sleep easily – lifting heavy minerals all day tends to have that effect – and maybe if Carol had ever expressed her frustration about any of this or told him what she was feeling it's possible they could have worked things out. As it was, she felt childish even thinking some of the things she did, resenting her boyfriend because he slept well, not that that stopped her from feeling it, or her resentment from growing. Luke wasn't stupid. He sensed that something was wrong, and that there was a distance between them (a distance that might have been there all along, he wasn't sure, but which in any case was more obvious now, and widening), and he was prepared when Carol told him they needed to talk. He agreed with everything she had to say, too readily maybe, nodding his head at each of her conclusions: yes, things weren't working out the way they'd hoped; yes, he felt like they were standing still; yes, it might be a good idea for them to stop seeing each other for a while; yes; that's what they did. They were both upset about it, for a while, Luke more so than Carol, but then the feeling of loss diminished, until eventually it was gone altogether. Had they really loved each other? You wondered, and so did they, briefly, before they stopped thinking about it. It wasn't long after this that Carol met Terry. Her boss Angie introduced the two of them at a house party. Terry was ten years older, and a manager at a small, vegan restaurant. He was tall and rather thin, but Carol liked the set of his eyes, the way they curved slightly at the corners, and the soft brown of his iris. She knew that something was going to happen between them as soon as she saw him, or that's how she put it to herself afterwards, and Terry was more than willing. Over the next few weeks Carol spent most of her time at Terry's apartment. It was a nicer place than her own, in a renovated building on Forest Street, and while it wasn't on the water, "it was within spitting distance", as he put it, an expression Carol didn't like but which she forgot about after their second date. She enjoyed the view from his small balcony, looking out over the lights of the town, the stuttered line of houses reaching halfway up the side of the eastern hills, and the glow of car headlights on the road below. Terry was better than Luke in bed, and with him Carol was even able to come from time to time. That was a nice change, although he liked to do it in the dark whereas Luke had preferred to keep the lights on, which Carol had found exciting. Terry wasn't as nice as Luke, but he dressed better and as he was older there was an air of maturity about him (real or imagined) that Carol found attractive. He knew people at restaurants and at the galleries he took her to; they often went together to the openings of photography and painting exhibitions, usually by young, local artists, but sometimes by those from the capital, where it seemed like everything was being done in monotones, grey abstracts or close-ups of odd, featureless objects. One exhibition, by a photographer who came to the opening dressed in a shroud and who spoke through an interpreter, was comprised solely of portraits of people sleeping. When Carol asked the artist if his models slept in the studio, he explained that all of them were dead. Immediately Carol's thoughts flew to the trouble, which had to be much worse than she'd imagined to account for so many bodies, but when she questioned him further, the photographer only laughed, telling her that it had all been very simple. His brother worked at a funeral parlour, and the families of the deceased had agreed to participate in the project, most of them having been compensated with prints, which they seemed to find comforting, seeing their loved-ones looking so peaceful in death, almost as if they were sleeping, and might wake up at any moment. That night, positioned on all fours with Terry behind her, Carol found herself staring at a spot on the far wall, where a small shadow had been created by a single, glancing shaft of light. From Carol's angle the shadow looked like a profile, the face of a dead girl, serene and untroubled. She stared at it, panting, pushing her hips back to meet Terry's thrusts, and thought of nothing, only how strange it all was, and sad. Their relationship wound down slowly, like a spring coming loose. It was what it was, Terry said, and he was right, although something about those words bothered Carol; they rang out in her mind, far more resonant than shallow words had any right to be, and leaving Terry's apartment for the last time, she watched as a couple of boys, no more than 11 or 12 years old, poked at a dead bird with a pair of sticks, and it struck her suddenly that she hated Terry, and whatever it was that it had been, she was glad that it was over. Soon afterwards you gave up following her. You were tired, and no closer to understanding anything than you'd ever been; it was true that you knew Carol better than anyone else, better than the man you once saw walking to work with his left shoe undone, or the young mother buying apples from a street vendor with her small daughter tugging incessantly at her hand, but how much better? You had more information but no stronger a connection. In the end, you hadn't found what you were looking for. It's possible that you would have gone on like that, slipping from one random encounter to the next, moving in and out of the lives of strangers, searching for a meaning you'd never find. Or maybe you would have found it, who knows? Once you saw the ring you never had the chance. It lay on the road, lurid and somehow obscene, a perfect circle painted in blood. You couldn't move, and you stared at it throughout the day and on into the night, its careful symmetry affirmed by the uneven ground and the cracks in the pavement, the dust stains. No one came to wash it away. It was as if everyone had struck some silent, tacit agreement to ignore the ring until the natural processes of snow and wind erased it, but that was only wishful thinking; something like that never truly goes away, you knew that much, the memory of the thing lingering long after the physical reality is gone. A week later you came across another ring, painted on the side of a building in an alley off Felt Street. Far less blood had been used here, and the ring tapered to a fine point at one end before the circle was completed. Not far away, partially hidden by a few plastic garbage bags and half-eaten scraps of food, you discovered the body of a dead bird, a pigeon with its head torn off. The bird's left wing was broken, bent back at an impossible angle, and many of its feathers had been snapped in half. Its body was strangely flattened, as if it had been rung out, or squeezed, and you realized this is what had been used to paint the ring. A revulsion rose in you that was more than a simple reaction to the blood-spattered pavement or the pathetic state of the bird: the ring should not exist. It was never meant to be, not in this town, nor anywhere else in this world. The sight of it on the wall was something beyond nature, like a baby born deformed, or the two-headed calf that prophesizes drought. You left the alley without really being aware of it. Eventually you wound up next to the river, where you stopped to watch moths darting around the street lamps, swooping and dying, their armoured bodies producing monotonous, flicking sounds, strangely inorganic, as if they were wind-up toys. You went into the mountains and followed the course of the sun over the surface of a moss-covered rock, the light changing by degrees, its texture and palette warping from one moment to the next. You went back to observing humanity, and it no longer mattered if you understood what you saw, only that you had something to look at, something that moved. You chose people at random, such as the young woman you followed to work one day and watched as she sat at her desk and ticked off the hours until she could leave. You were with her as she left for home, and there as she ate a sparse meal in front of the television, and later, as she quietly masturbated in her bed, her thick body curled foetally beneath the blankets. You watched waves hit the shore, clouds drift, ice melt, each moment so clear and defined that the motion of change was nearly forgotten and all you were left with was a succession of still images lasting for days. Or, alternatively you watched for the change alone, allowing the scenes to speed by in perfect, time-lapsed panoramas, but no matter where you looked, no matter what you chose to focus on, you couldn't escape the rings; their memory was seared in you as indelibly as circles burned into the retina of a man who's stared too long at the sun. You came across them in alleys and driveways, on the underside of bridges, house walls, the hallways of abandoned tenements, and you began to feel as if you were spinning, unable to decide whether you were the one who found them, or if the rings were finding you. In this way five years went by, five years that now seem to you as meaningless as a faded scrap of newsprint. Tonight you find yourself on the roof of an office tower, its surface covered with tar and concrete, a number of heating pipes linked together at precise, 90 degree angles. Steam from a faulty vent hisses softly in the cold air. A ring is painted directly in the center of the roof. Inside it are two headless pigeons, one gray, the other white. The gray bird's stomach is ruptured, its pink guts spilling out like stuffing from an uncooked sausage. The blood is fresh, the bodies barely frozen. Not far away, a man is sitting on the roof ledge. He is facing you, his features shadowy and indistinct. His arms hang limply at his sides, and his long, slender legs are drawn in against the ledge. As he stands up and walks toward you, his face gradually takes on definition, and you notice an odd tilt, or inflection in his eyes, something you've never seen before and that takes you a moment to comprehend. He is looking at you – he knows that you're there, in front of him; he can see you, and in an instant everything has changed. For the first time you are forced to confront yourself as something that exists, that has a physical reality. As something that can be seen. You study the man in front of you, trying to understand what's happened. He is wearing a gray business suit and a thin, black tie of a type that was in vogue more than 10 years ago, and which on this man, with his bland, expressionless face, is likely a conscious statement, some personalized or ironic comment on the current state of fashion. In any case, the tie suits him, as do his brown leather shoes, the classic design of which is off-set by the modern cut of his suit. The overall impression is of a stylish, slightly affected man with money, but looking closer you notice that his slacks are worn at the knees, his shoes scuffed and dirty, and his shirt is stained with blood. "Well you made it," he says flatly. "I thought I'd have to go on scrawling the things forever. It gets tiresome killing the birds." In his right hand is another dead pigeon. He drops it onto the roof, where it lands with a barely audible thud. He takes a step toward you, his eyes brown and calm, with a faint tracing of wrinkles at the edges. You guess that he's about 35, or 36. There is a small mole on his forehead, on the right side, about an inch away from the line of his black, unkempt hair. Dark circles mark the underside of his eyes. He looks as if he hasn't slept in days. "It's hard to know where to start," he says. "The anticipation of the thing takes on more reality than the actual event. Have you ever found that? Maybe it's just me, although it's hard to know what I mean by that, 'me', who 'I' am. I mean it's hard to explain with, what would you call it? Any certainty. There are good days and bad days, but basically it's hard to recognize my own face in the mirror. A problem that must be difficult for you to grasp." He speaks calmly, enunciating every word, and his eyes never waver. Listening to him, you begin to move outside of yourself, looking at the scene from the vantage point of a third person: the roof is empty except for a man talking to a point in space. You struggle with that, because obviously he can see you, but what is it he's seeing? More importantly, is he alone in this ability, or has something larger happened? Maybe everyone can see you now, maybe they always could; the thought is like being doused with cold water. Is it possible that you've been floating through the town these past five years, assuming you were invisible, when in reality everyone has just been ignoring you, out of some misguided sense of politeness perhaps, or a mutually agreed upon code of conduct? "My name is Inter-7 A," the man continues. "But once it was Malcom Collins. I'm fairly sure of that, but that's where it gets hazy. I used to be an art dealer. I think so anyway, but it's like a dream. It fades. There was a gallery, and I probably sold art there. I had a wife. I'm pretty sure I had a wife, but all I can remember is the shape of her body sleeping. Only that. Nothing else is left, just this lump of flesh lying under a white blanket, and the light from a window. Not much of a legacy. I don't even know if that's a memory from one day or many, not that it matters. "I think I might have a son. Or I'll put it another way: if I had a wife I had a son. One goes with the other. So let's say I did have a wife and a son. But if so there's nothing left of him, just that word, just this noun called 'son.' That's all. So there's not much to go into there. Needless to say I have no idea how to find either of these people again. I only mention them to give you some indication that I was once what could be called a person. "I remember the first thing I said to me." The man shakes his head, frowning, and then he laughs sharply. "That doesn't make any sense!" he barks, and rakes a hand through his hair. "But how else can I put it? It's difficult to know. Let's say that I remember what it said to Malcom Collins before we became Inter-7 A. Because there were two once, something other, and Malcom Collins. Now there is only Inter-7 A, but at that time there were two and it said it needed him. That's all it said. All I can remember it saying. It said it needed him and Malcom Collins responded to that, something deep inside him responded to that. That need, wanting to help something in need. That was all it took." The man pauses, his face hardening. He sits down, crossing his legs, and holds his head in his hands. He mutters something, and then he laughs again, pressing his index finger to his temple. He looks at you and smiles. "It's the headache," he says. "It gets bad sometimes and I just..." He shakes his head again and rises to his feet, surprisingly quickly, his body as agile as a dancer's. He walks to the roof edge and looks over. You watch him leaning forward, six storeys up, flush with a desire you've never known before: you find yourself wishing you had hands, and that you have an urge to push. The man looks down at the street below, and then he turns around. He walks back and looks at you directly. He seems calm again, his face impassive. "The first thing I should have said is that it was not from this universe. Neither am I, now. Inter-7 A is not from this universe, because it came from outside, and it's a part of Inter-7 A. That's somehow not as unusual as it should be, coming from outside. Not here. There has to be something wrong here, flawed. Something broken in the plane, but then I'm no one to judge. Anyway it didn't leave its own universe on purpose. It was an accident. It sort of, fell here. And now it's trapped, and with things the way they are, with the way they're going, it's getting scared. I'm getting scared… But then we're all trapped, aren't we? Malcom Collins as surely as Inter-7 A. As surely as anyone else. None of us can escape the future. It's on its way right now. None of us can escape. Except we're going to. I'm going to. And you're going to help me." He snaps the thumb and middle finger of his right hand, and then touches his left hand to the side of his neck. His eyes widen. "I don't know if you can understand it, how much farther out you come from. Much, much farther than it did. You shouldn't be here. Something like that. Or it could be that you have to be here, and that by being here you make all the rest of us possible. I don't know. The important thing is that you can help me. I'm very sensitive to these things. I hope you understand. Call it a benefit of being Inter-7 A. I was aware of you almost as soon as I arrived and once it was obvious that I was stuck here, well, then I had to find you. So I started painting the rings. And you see, they brought you to me." His words are heavy, solid things, remaining in the air long after the sound has died away; you can no more be rid of them than the man can unspeak them. You feel them all around you, as real and binding as knotted cords; they were, and so they are, and you understand that any freedom you might have had is gone, cut off as surely and as finally as a severed limb. "I trust that you see now?" continues the man calling himself Inter-7 A. "You're going to help me get out. I'm sorry but you no longer have a choice." Morning; Hazel; mine A dull, scratchin sound wrenches me from sleep and inta the pain of a hangover. I groan, and curl inta a tight ball; my head aches, and my body, and the thin light from the window is like sand in my eyes. I roll over and drag the blanket with me, hopin I can ignore the sound or that it'll go away, but I can't and it doesn't. Whatever it is just keeps scratchin away and scratchin away and in the end I haul myself off the mattress and pad unsteadily down the hall. The sound is comin from the wooden panel that serves as a step ta the kitchen. Why the apartment was built with a foot a'space under the kitchen floor I have no idea, but that's likely the reason I'm a drug dealer and not an architect. The sound is softer now, and I figure it must be a gust a'wind or a broken pipe, or any a'the hundred other things that can go wrong in a badly constructed apartment, but when I slide back the panel I discover a ferret lyin about a foot back from the openin, huddled in the dark. Its fur is matted, and very wet, as if it just crawled out of a drain or it's been up all night sweatin in fear. Its hind legs are both broken, the pale bones showin through raw patches in its fur. It looks about an inch away from death. I close the panel and take a pair a'rubber gloves from the kitchen, as well as some tongs, and an old, cardboard box I find buried in the back a'the closet. Once I'm done I wrench the panel open and reach inside. The ferret hisses and chirps, its small eyes nearly burstin from its head in fear. All at once it lunges at the tongs and I jerk back, but on the second try I'm just able ta get a hold a'its tail, and I drag it squealin inta the box. The thing stinks, a dank reek a'pits and fear and rotten meat. Quickly, I close the box lid and take it outside, doin my best ta keep it steady as I make my way past the tenements ta the river. This far north the bank is not much more'n an unkempt line a'scrubby grass and rocks. An abandoned shoppin cart lies on its side near the water, and further on are a few shelters a'plywood and blue tarp where the homeless have set up camp. The rocky, reed-choked ground is strewn with shards a'broken glass and garbage. Two crows loungin by the water's edge gaze at me with hard, glass eyes. I set the box down and throw a few stones at the birds until they take off in an indifferent flappin a'wings; I know there's no savin the ferret, but I'd like at least ta spare it bein pecked ta death. I open the box and tip it on its side. The ferret crawls off as quick as it can on its good legs, and burrows inta the knee-high grass by the river bank. For a moment I watch it lyin there, half-hidden, its small chest risin and fallin, and then I start back. My hangover begins ta reassert itself, a pain growin in the back a'my skull like someone gave it a once over with a rusty fork. I stop at the first coffee stand I pass, hopin the caffeine might help ta take the edge off. The boy workin the stall can't be older than 15. He's thin, with a curly mop a'black hair half-hidden beneath a woolen cap. Despite the cold, the sleeves a'his jacket are rolled up past his elbows, far enough ta see the veins standin on his taught, brown arms. The back a'his forearms are covered with a number a'faint, old scars, as if at one time he'd been a cutter or had ta defend himself from a knife. "Mornin," he says, swirlin the coffee around in the blackened pot. "Mornin. Coffee and toast." He nods and hands me a cup before settin a slice a'bread on the grill over the gas flame. When the toast is finished he gives it ta me on a paper plate with a rough mound a'butter on the side. He turns off the gas and sits down on the wooden bench behind the stand, watchin me eat. "It's good?" he asks. "Yeah it's good." "You live around here?" "Not far. Used ta live in that buildin there," I say, noddin at the tenement behind him. "I've seen you." I shrug, and wash down the toast with a mouthful a'coffee. "Listen," says the boy. "We don't know each other but I wonder if I can tell you somethin." "Alright." "It's about my dream. It's been on my mind you know? And it's been slow today. No one's come by." "Don't worry." "Ok," he says, takin a slow breath. "You know Park View?" The name a'the school produces a smile; I haven't thought about that place in years. "Friend a'mine went there," I say. "Yeah I went there when I was a kid," says the boy. "But in my dream it was different. Smaller, and when the bell rang at the end a'class it didn't sound right." "How'd it sound?" "Like it was broken, or like the recording was old or warped. Another thing was that I was the only one there. The place was empty, the field out back and the ball diamond, everythin empty and quiet, like everyone was dead. I don't know. Maybe it was just me who was dead." "Doesn't sound pleasant." "It wasn't, but anyway I started for home. I live in second block and normally I go down the alley ta get ta the buildin, but in the dream the mouth a'the alley was fenced off. I don't know why. They were doin construction or somethin and I had ta turn around and go back, and that was hard. I was tired. I don't know how you can be tired when you're asleep, but I was. My feet were heavy, like I'd been walkin through mud all day and had it caked all over my boots. I felt like sittin down on the curb and restin, but at the same time it was like I had ta get home, you know? Like it was the most important thing in the world." "Yeah I know that kind a'dream," I say. "So I went down ta the market, thinkin I'd get home that way, but standin in the middle a'the road was a table, a wooden picnic table, and sittin at the table was an imp." "An imp?" "You know, a little bastard, maybe two feet high, at most, and it was the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Bad ugly. Made me want ta puke just ta look at it. Its body was all wasted, with spindly arms and legs, but it had a big, bald head, with three hairs droopin from a mole on its chin. But the worst was its mouth, all wet and pink… I swear it looked like a pussy, but sideways, with another mole for the clit." "Dirty mind," I say. "Naw man," the boy replies, smilin. "Naw. I can have some dirty fuckin dreams, believe me, but it wasn't nothin like that. I never dream about weird shit like this." "So what happened?" "The imp had a crystal ball on the table, like it was a fortune teller, and it looks at me and says 'you want ta go home.' So I say yes, well done ya fuckin imp, that's exactly what I want, but it tells me that I can't. Says I've got no home. I wanted ta tell it ta fuck off, but I couldn't say nothin. My voice was stuck in my throat. All I could do was listen. Now it starts tellin me I can't get home because I haven't got one, because my home doesn't exist. It says the only thing that actually exists is the word, a word called home, and words don't mean nothin unless we believe in them." Somethin about his story has me on edge, but I tell myself it's just a part a'the hangover. "Fucked up," I say. "Yeah it sounded like the kind a'shit you come up with when you're high, you know?" "Yeah." "I asked him what he meant, but I didn't know if I'd gotten my voice back or if I was just thinkin in my head. Didn't seem ta matter ta the imp. 'What I mean is, this place doesn't exist,' it says. 'It's all a dream, so don't worry.' That should a'been reassurin, but for some reason I didn't like hearin it. Felt awful, almost like bein punched in the gut. Then the imp passes its wasted hand over the crystal ball and it tells me ta look. I didn't want ta, but it wasn't as if I had a choice. The ball pulled my eyes, and I started ta see things there, hundreds a'people, all a them swimmin around in some big pool. Then the picture got bigger and I saw that they weren't swimmin at all - they were drownin, all a'them, thrashin around and strugglin and pushin people under just ta keep their own heads up. Then it came ta me that what I was seein was both people drownin and people fuckin. The two things were happenin at once, like this huge orgy a'people drownin in a deep ocean, but like, forever. A shit awful orgy goin on forever." He shakes his head, tryin ta laugh, but I can tell that he's upset. "Finally I looked away," he continues. "Back at the imp, which wasn't much better, and it tells me that the future is just the past all over again. Says it's just a movement a'bodies, one generation ta the next. Then it says there's somethin it wants me ta do, that I need ta deliver a message. 'Actually,' it says. 'There's two. Don't forget them.'" "And you forgot right?" I say. "Fuck no. This wasn't a dream you forget. The imp told me the first message was that it won't die in the dark, but the second is that he will. It said ta make sure I told him that. I asked who it meant, but the thing just smiled at me with that mouth a'his. And then I woke up." He pauses, maybe embarrassed that he's opened up ta a stranger, and I stare at him, feelin the press a'the wind like an icy hand on the back a'my neck. "Pretty crazy huh?" the boy asks. "Yeah," I say. "Crazy." I finish off what's left a'my coffee. By now it's cold, and tasteless, and I throw the cup onta the pile by the stand. "How much do I owe you?" I mutter. "Three." I hand him the cash, and get up. "Thanks again," he says. "Yeah." It won't die in the dark, but I will. Not much of a prophecy ta wake up ta. Still, there's no sense arguin the point. As Auld would no doubt tell me, the future's already written. "Where were you?" J asks as I pull up ta the apartment. "Had some coffee." "Coffee." "That's right." "Alright." He motions ta the door. "We're goin in?" I shake my head. "We need ta get goin." "Thought I'd eat somethin." "We'll pick somethin up later." J shrugs, feignin indifference, and follows me onta the street. "What happened with that girl the other night?" he asks, after a time. "Who?" "The blonde you were talkin with at the bar." "Hazel." He takes a pack a'hand-rolleds from his jacket and offers me one, helpin ta shield the flame with his hands as I get it lit. The day's grown bitter cold, and a heavy bank a'clouds has rolled in, killin the sun. "She was pretty alright," says J, lightin his own smoke. "Some a'her friends too. Tam was too shit-faced ta do much about it, but you seemed ta have yourself sorted quickly." "Nothin happened," I tell him. "No?" "We talked." "Talked." "That's right." "What do you have ta talk ta a girl like that about?" "She's from the capital." "Exactly my point." "What are you tryin ta say, that I don't have the ability or cultural wherewithal ta amuse a capital city girl?" "That's exactly what I'm sayin." "Very kind." "What's she doin here anyway?" "Runnin from the trouble, like everyone else. Said she's studyin at NRU. Micro-biology, I think it was." "Micro-biology." "Think so." "You tell her what you do?" "Didn't come up." "Guess it didn't." "Not that dealin powder's exactly illegal." "That's not all we deal." "No, it's not." "Still, at least with the other shit you know who you're sellin ta, and why they're buyin. With powder..." He clears his throat, and then, as if ta take back what he said, he shrugs and looks away. "Tam mention anythin last night?" I ask. "He just makes a hand-off in the capital the same as us. He likes actin big, always has, but when it comes down ta it he's just as ignorant as we are." "Can't expect much from ignorant folk can you?" "You can't. Tried ta tell me he's movin up though, gettin closer ta whoever's buyin the stuff out there." "Well that doesn't mean anythin. Tam always was impressionable." "Impressionable," J laughs. "That's the word." "Can't rely on someone like that for answers." "Too impressionable," says J, smilin. It's too bad that J wasn't able ta get anythin more out a'Tam; I don't enjoy workin like this, dealin through him in the capital without knowin who's buyin, or why. The only thing we know for sure, with the weight they're askin for, is that they can't be the same type a'people we sell ta here, college kids mostly, and miners. Two kilos every second week is a lot a'powder just ta satisfy the weekend party crowd. "Anyway you should see what's up with that girl," J goes on. "But you'll just walk away as usual. You just can't be bothered, that's your problem." I don't bother sayin anythin ta that, and the two of us continue in silence. Besides, J's probably right; after Auld left the bar, it wasn't long before Hazel made her own excuses, tellin me that she had ta get up in the mornin. I asked if she wanted me ta walk with her, and at first she hesitated, but in the end goin with me must've seemed less threatenin than walkin alone; Northside's got a bad reputation, one that stretches all the way ta the capital, and the way things stood I didn't mind takin advantage a'that fact. I went with her as she said goodbye ta her friends, and we both left the bar. "You don't have to walk me the whole way," she said. Maybe she was tryin ta be nice, but it's just as likely she was havin second thoughts about walkin with me. "I don't mind," I said, doin my best ta keep my voice neutral. "No, I mean, I'm going to take the bus." "You want number 41 then, from Nascent. Come on." I led her ta the park, plannin ta cut through from there and get at Nascent without havin ta bother with the small lanes around Markus Avenue. A pair a'lamp posts burnt a white haze in the night, sketchin the outlines a'the ball diamond and the row a'bleachers behind it, as well as the few scant trees. "How late do the buses run?" she asked me. "Nascent goes all night." "Then let's sit down a minute," she said, and turned in the direction a'the bleachers. I didn't ask any questions. If she wanted ta sit out in the cold I wasn't gonna argue. The fact was I had nothin better ta do. She climbed all the way ta the top and sat down, and it was lucky we were both a little drunk, or else neither a'us would've been able ta sit there for long; it had grown deadly cold, and as we talked I watched her breath emerge in small puffs a'steam. A line a'blonde hair fell from her forehead, shadin her eye. "How long have you been taking it?" she asked. "The powder?" "Yes." I looked away. There was a moment's irritation. I felt stupid, sittin in the cold and actin like a kid on a date. I asked her for a smoke. She pulled out her pack and handed one to me, along with the lighter. "Maybe I shouldn't have asked." "No," I said. "It's fine. He just told me I shouldn't talk about it. Said it'd make things more complicated if I did." "Who? Auld?" "Yeah. It's not like I have any idea what that boy is, you understand? But I've never known him ta be off, makin predictions. Seemed best ta listen." "He never said anything like that to me." "Well he's not an easy one ta read." "But you do know what he is right?" she asked, like I was simple. I smiled, and I blew a cloud a'smoke inta the air. "I know he's not from around here," I said. She laughed, but it sounded forced, and it suddenly occurred ta me that there was a lot more goin on in her head than she was lettin on, thoughts that had as little ta do with Auld as they did with sittin in an empty park with me. "Not from around here? He's not from this universe." "So they say," I answered, and was prepared ta leave it at that, but the way she was lookin at me demanded somethin more. I sighed, and carried on. "Just seems ta me that's not a productive way a'lookin at things. There's people livin in this world that I'm never gonna lay eyes on, but I'm supposed ta feel connected ta them? A kid gets his head blown off in a war somewhere and it's supposed ta make a difference ta me because we share a planet, and maybe ta some people it does, what do I know? But Auld's here now, and to me that's what matters. He's an alright guy, never done wrong by me. So what if he's some kind a'alien, or whatever they are. At least that's how it looks ta me, ignorant Northsider as I am." She looked away, but I caught the hint of a smile: maybe she'd never heard such piss in all her life. Could be she hadn't. I don't normally go in for long speeches, tendin ta keep my monologues in my head where they belong, but I had ta hand it ta the girl – she wound me up, and I found myself wantin ta impress her, or at least ta demonstrate that I was capable a'thought. "How long you been usin?" I asked, after a time. "About a month," she said. "What's a girl like you take powder for?" "A girl like me?" I shrugged, and she laughed, more fully this time. "Where do you even find the stuff?" I tried instead. "Friend of mine knows a guy." "There a lot a'outsiders walkin round the capital?" "A few, but I've only talked to Auld. Met him a couple weeks ago. Said he was there on business, whatever that meant. I have no idea." "Didn't even know he'd gone." She blew on her hands; her fingers had gone pink with cold. "Many people usin there?" "Not many. It's pretty rare to find any powder. Most of it goes to the Institute." "Heard that, yeah." "You know some people blame them for the trouble?" "The Institute?" "No, I mean, people like Auld. The outsiders. They say they're the cause of it. But I don't see how. There aren't enough of them, and they don't seem to do anything. They just kind of... sit around. Even when you know they're there, it's hard to see how it makes a difference." "Yeah." She nodded, but again, it was a gesture meant more for herself than me. "Come on," she said, standin up. "Let's get out of here. I'm cold." We left the bleachers and crossed the frozen diamond ta the edge a'the park. I saw her ta the bus stop and while we waited I asked her for her number, more out of a sense a'obligation than anythin else. Seemed like the thing a normal guy would do, but I felt hollow askin, and when she told me that she didn't have a phone in town yet, it came as a kind a'relief. "You go to that bar often?" she asked, maybe thinkin that I needed the consolation. "Sometimes." "Maybe we'll see each other." "Yeah maybe." The bus arrived. She got on and sat down in the back, her head and slim shoulders just visible over the window ledge. I thought she'd look back when the bus pulled away from the curb, but she didn't and I guess it was just as well. Now, if I tried ta explain any a'this ta J, he'd just laugh and tell me I'd blown my chance, but the thing is it never felt like I had a chance, and I'm not sure that I wanted one. "Little fuckers," J mutters, drawin me back. I follow his line a'sight ta a group a'kids loungin behind 20 block. One a'them has his dick out, pissin inta the snow without even botherin ta turn and face the wall. His friends are laughin, all a'them more'n likely high. We enter the tenement through the rear door. The air is thick with the smell a'pan-fried food and burnt electrical wire. The hall is deeply shaded, the only light comin from the pair a'naked bulbs sputterin on and off at the far end. The mint-green walls are covered with tags and other graf work, and there's a wide, brown stain on the carpet, as if someone had been stabbed and left ta bleed out. Or maybe someone just spilled a pot a'soup. "Been awhile," I remark. "Shit," answers J. "Sometimes feels like I never left. You remember the last time we were down here?" "Yeah," I say, and leave it at that, makin my way down the low flight a'stairs ta the basement; I never told him that I came here without him, and there's no need ta bring it up now. Approachin the heavy, iron door at the foot a'the stairs, J takes out his bolt cutters. He strains against the lock, his big face flushed with effort, until at last it snaps in half and clatters ta the ground. Enterin the far room is like steppin inta a black hole. There is nowhere to look and nothin ta see, and the air is heavy with the tang a'metal. Switchin on the flashlight, I shine the beam around the room: the floor is damp, and long, wet strands a'greenish algae or mould line the walls. In the far corner is the busted furnace. J slips around me ta disappear behind it. "Well it's still here," he says. "Shit, it looks small." I move ta stand next ta him; the hole is right where it should be, and he's right about how small it looks. "Not sure I'm gonna fit anymore," J mutters, but I bang my fist against the rotten plaster around the hole, crumblin it easily. J doesn't look happy, and I can't blame him. The last thing I need is ta get back inta this habit, but if we want ta keep sellin powder I don't see how we have a choice. I push through the hole and down the short tunnel ta the chamber on the far side. I straighten up, suckin back on the cool, dark air a'the mines, and sweep the light across the dusty floor. Everythin is the same as I remember it, the rock walls and the steel beams reinforcin the ceilin, and the door in the far wall that leads ta the tunnels. J emerges from the hole behind me, takin it all in with a sour look on his face. "Hasn't changed," he says. "No." "So we just get Tam ta leave the package here and we pay him when we see him yeah?" "He doesn't have time ta come out this far." "So?" "So we'll have ta go deeper." J shakes his head. "Very nice. I'm startin ta think it was better when we were simple drug dealers." "Yeah?" I say, shinin the light in his face. He blinks and holds a hand up ta shield his eyes. "You can go back ta that if you want. You don't have ta come down here. I'll make the drop-offs on my own." "Really?" he asks, brightenin. "Yeah asshole, and I'll handle the money as well." "So maybe we split the work," he relents. "Yeah maybe," I say, movin back ta the hole. "Let's go. I'm hungry." "First thing you've said today that's made any sense." Auld Drinks Alone Auld is walking and it's like he's been here before, seen all of this, the street and the dirt-stained snow, the orange haze around the streetlights. It isn't true – he's never been here or seen any of this, but sometimes that's difficult for him to remember. On his best days he has a hard time separating the present from the future, and now, looking ahead to the stairwell and the bar, as well as the two men in black coats and black goggles who are hunting him, he has to remind himself that none of this has happened yet. Every so often he toys with the idea that he might do something differently, but the truth is that his legs move of their own accord, and the street unwinds before him like the plot of a movie he's seen a thousand times before. The possibility of anything else is meaningless. Only the true future has weight, and he can feel it pressing down on him now, a constant, physical burden that leaves his shoulders tense, and his back tight and aching. Lately this pressure has gotten so bad that he can no longer sleep. He lies awake for hours, his mind churning restlessly over the same useless details, half-remembered conversations or the disconnected fragments of past and future events. He tries to fight his insomnia, turning first one way, and then another. He considers drinking warm milk or reading, getting up to exercise or take a hot bath, but in the end he does none of these things; Auld's sleeplessness exists in that hard, definite future, and so he takes to the streets, moving from one bar to another and drinking himself into a pleasant, thoughtless haze. This is not healthy, and he knows it. At best, he is in danger of becoming a kind of high-functioning alcoholic, but as the future exists whether he likes it or not, Auld consoles himself with the knowledge that he has no other choice. Now he is approaching the stairs. At their foot is an iron door, covered in posters and hand-bills for independent rock acts and local DJs. The cool metal of the door's handle helps to place him in a certainty of time, relegating his foresight to the back of his mind, and for a moment at least, reducing the drumming pressure of what's to come to a dull, toneless whisper. The bar is deserted, the small dance floor empty. Along the left-hand wall is a long counter of polished wood. As Auld enters, a large man with a thick beard and tattoo-covered arms emerges from a store-room in the back. He carries a crate of beer to the counter and sets about stocking the fridge. Smoothly, Auld slips behind him and helps himself to a beer. With the stolen bottle in hand, he moves to sit down at a table by the door. He finishes the beer quickly, and returns to the fridge for another, and then another after that; the third beer is almost cold. Next, he decides to switch to liquor, and unnoticed by the bartender (as if Auld is invisible or the bartender himself is blind), he succeeds in pouring a double shot of rum over ice; taking a slice of lime from a bowl on the counter, he squeezes it into his glass and heads back to the table. The door at the front is opened and three men enter the bar. Their arrival seems to trigger something, and by the time Auld has finished his second glass of rum the bar is almost full. At some point a DJ must also have arrived, and a heavy flood of bass pounds thickly through the place's outdated speakers. Feeling like another drink, Auld threads neatly through the crowd. Next to the bartender is a young waitress. She is short, and Auld thinks she must be pretty, although in his current state he doesn't trust himself to judge it. "You know what I saw earlier?" the bartender is asking her. The girl shakes her head. "I was down by 2nd Bridge and a girl comes out of this store, her arms loaded with shopping bags. The thing was this girl was thin. I'm talking bone thin. Her legs were like sticks. She was wearing black stockings and I couldn't believe they made them that thin. Maybe they were kid's stockings." "Damn," says the waitress. "Seemed like the bags were gonna pull her arms out of their sockets." A woman in a leather jacket asks for a beer and he gives her one. The waitress is polishing glasses. "I had this friend back in university," she says. "When I met her she weighed something like 95 pounds. She was borderline anorexic all through high school, but when she got to university something changed. A switch flipped I guess, or she had a meltdown or something and suddenly she couldn't stop eating. She ate all the time. She'd polish-off whole bags of cookies and down like a liter of soda a day, and the messed up thing was that she knew she was doing it. She said she could see her body getting fat, and her skin getting oily and breaking out, flab hanging over her jeans. But she insisted she didn't have a choice, that she couldn't help it. She had to throw out all her old clothes and she started wearing these baggy track suits all day. Felt bad for her, but what could I do?" "Nothing," says the bartender. "That's the thing." "You see people messing up their lives but in the end you can't do a thing." The crowd continues to fill out, but still Auld has no trouble making his way back to the table with his drink. He spends some time thinking about whether it would be better to starve or eat yourself to death, but finally he gives up, unsure of whether there's even any value in the question. Instead he concentrates on the people moving through the bar, and the forward press of bodies. He feels the music touching him now, the bass, as well as the dark voices in the crowd. There's a half-empty beer on the table that he must have forgotten about and he puts down the glass of rum to finish it off. A girl is standing near the table, smoking. She has black hair, or dark brown. Her skin looks very pale and she holds her cigarette awkwardly, as if she's never smoked before. Auld can't remember when she arrived, and he guesses that he must be drunk. "I know you're there," she announces. "I can see you." "I can see you too," he replies. The girl shudders, quickly stabbing out what's left of her cigarette in the ashtray. She isn't looking at him. It's possible that she's frightened, but again Auld is unable to say for sure. "You're here alone," he says. "No," she answers quickly. "My friend is here. She's at the bar." Auld turns to his rum, thinking it would be better if he left now. "What's it like where you come from?" the girl asks him. Auld glances at her. In the dim light, the purple line that cuts the right side of his face is nearly black. "It's a lot like this," he says, watching the girl frown. "Excuse me a moment." He stands up and walks to the bar, sliding unsteadily behind the counter. The waitress clears a path, and steps aside long enough for Auld to remove two beers from the fridge. He returns with them to the table and hands one to the girl. Another cigarette is hanging from her slim fingers. "I thought maybe," she begins, and then shakes her head. Auld opens his beer and raises it up for her to toast. She hesitates, and then clinks her bottle against his. "Do you like it better here?" she continues, setting her bottle down on the table. Auld isn't sure if she even bothered to open it. "I like being away," he replies. "That's all?" He shrugs. "I was wondering," she goes on, and then stops. Her voice is quiet. She shifts uncomfortably, hugging herself with one arm. Auld leans across the table to bring his mouth close to her ear. The girl flinches. "What's that?" he says, even though he knows what she wants to ask him – of course he knows. The girl shuts her eyes. The end of her cigarette smolders, forgotten, between her fingers. "Can you see my future?" she asks. Auld pulls away from her. "It's not really my place." "Of course it is," she replies, more strongly than she'd intended, and then goes on in a much softer voice: "Otherwise why are you people here?" Auld feels a sudden, irrational rush of anger. He glances away, and once again turns to his drink for relief. "What if I told you we were going to end up sleeping together tonight?" Startled, the girl turns to face him; it's the first time she's looked at him directly. "I..." Her voice breaks around the word. "Really?" "No," responds Auld. "But if I said it it would happen. Sometimes the future is like that. It's better for you if I don't get involved." "You've got to tell me something." He shrugs. "Give me one of those cigarettes." Fumbling, she reaches for the pack and hands him one, along with a lighter. He takes his time getting it lit, and then inhales deeply. "Be careful of pipes," he says, finally. "Pipes?" "Yes. Watch yourself around them." "What does that mean?" "I don't know. It's easier to see my own future than yours. Try to understand that." He stands up. "Thanks for the smoke," he tells her. As she leaves the bar later that night, the girl, whose name is Iris Gordon, walks past a heating pipe just as it bursts, a blast of pressurized steam exploding across the left side of her face and her upper arm. The pipe was old, and it would have been replaced months ago if it had been located in a better neighborhood. Iris is treated at Newt Run General Hospital for 2nd degree burns. There, she tells the doctors that an outsider warned her about pipes, but since by then she is on a fair amount of pain medication, no one pays her much attention. Strangers Among Us by Eloise Johnston, The Newt Run Herald, Jan. 12 People from another universe, secretly living among us. Invisible and imperceptible to the naked eye, only users of a drug known as powder are able to interact with them. As if that weren't enough, there are also rumors that these visitors are able to predict the future. It sounds like science fiction, but incredibly, it is all true. "We've been aware of them for some time," says Dr. Lucas Parcell of the Institute for Applied Research. "The so-called outsiders are a definite reality." Dr. Parcell was unable to clarify how long the outsiders have been here, but he did stress that the Institute is actively investigating the situation. He added that there does not appear to be any immediate threat, and that there is absolutely no cause for alarm. Samantha Usher, a student at Newt Run University, agrees with him. "I took some powder just to see what it was like," she says. "At first I was kind of scared, but I didn't need to be. The outsider I talked to was really nice." Samantha says she met the outsider, who declined to give his name, at a bar in Northside. She claims they talked for an hour, and that he was "just like a regular person." Although she asked him about her future, he refused to tell her anything. "He told me it wouldn't do any good," she adds. While the fact of their existence is apparently beyond question, the outsiders' reasons for coming here remain a mystery. "It does seem doubtful they'd come all this way just to sample the beer," notes Parcell. The recent trouble in the capital has plunged the outsider question into confusion. The Ministry of Interior Security issued a hastily drafted statement last month stating that they are "aware of the situation." We were unable to reach the Ministry for comment. However, not everyone is buying the official line that there is no cause for concern. "The whole idea that they're out there is frightening," says Margaret Allende, 42. "I'm worried about letting my children outside. You can't see them, these people, and who knows what's going through their heads?" As to the sale of powder and its reported wide-spread use among local youth, David Cummings, superintendent of Newt Run Police had this to say: "It's extremely difficult for us to do anything. As of yet, powder is not illegal. As far as the law is concerned, our hands are tied." Night; pit; memory "I'll go with you," says J, his eyes firmly on the plate a'rice and vegetables in front a'him. "It's fine." He shrugs, still without lookin at me; I know what he's thinkin, but gettin inta that now is a waste a'time. If we want ta keep sellin powder we've got ta enter the mines, and I don't need him or anyone else ta hold my hand while I do it. "Leave me some a'that food alright?" I say. "I don't want ta have ta order again when I get back." "No promises." I grunt a response and leave the apartment. The street is empty, and a thin layer a'snow covers the sidewalk. A group a'kids are out on the lawn in front a'2nd block. One a'them, a stick in his hand, bends down ta poke at a dead bird he's uncovered in the snow. I think a'whoever's out there paintin rings, but this bird still has its head, and there's no sign a'blood. "It's a crow," says one a'the boys. "Fuck you," says another. The one with the stick is silent, his eyes shaded under heavy bangs. I cross the street, approachin the old buildin from the back. It stands before me, tall and drab against the black backdrop a'the northern hills. Nothin's changed, not the lines a'tar smeared over the cracks in the walls, the rusted pipes, or the silent, empty balconies. Every time I come here it's the same thing: I could make this trip blindfolded and never miss a step, the memory a'my years here like a thing cut from stone. Pullin the doors open, I enter the hallway. There's a sharp tang a'disinfectant in the air, and the stretch a'carpet where the stain had been is bleached a dull beige. From somewhere comes the familiar sound a'shoutin, and I waste no time passin down the short flight a'stairs ta the boiler room. The darkness inside is thick enough ta taste; I breathe it in, allowin it ta settle in my lungs until I've had enough and I reach inta my pocket for the flashlight; everythin is just as it should be, the concrete walls and dusty pipes, the boiler in the corner like the dried-out husk of a dead insect. I pass behind it and through the hole ta the chamber on the opposite side. I make a careful sweep a'the light over the ground, but it's obvious that no one's been in here, only two sets a'boot prints – mine and J's – visible on the dusty floor. Keepin the angle a'the light low, I cross the room ta the far door. Soon enough, the passage begins ta widen until it finally merges with the first a'the active tunnels. Everythin outside the range a'the flashlight's thin beam remains a deep, untouchable black. I listen ta the sound a'my breath and the fall a'my boots on the rock floor, my ears finely tuned ta the silence. After a time I grow aware a'the faint gurgle a'water, and as always my thoughts turn ta the pit. When I was a kid I figured it had ta be the place where my father died. The memory exists outside of him: he was 12 when it happened and by now he remembers it as if it happened to someone else. On that day this other boy was on a class trip to the capital. He has very little memory of this, the only clear detail remaining to him the mammoth glass and steel façade of the Natural History museum. If asked, he wouldn't be able to say what he'd seen there, dinosaurs perhaps, or the mummified remains of ancient kings. The specifics of the place are gone. All that's left are the broad strokes, the impression of a trip to a museum and a day spent outside the town. He does recall that it was hot, and that on the way back, the bus, crammed with over-tired 7th graders, was stifling. Even with the windows open, sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped along the length of his back: a bus full of sweating, tired children, noisy and laughing, unable to sit still. When they returned to school the boy got off the bus along with everyone else. Waiting for him in the parking lot was his mother, and beside her was a man the boy had never seen before. He was tall, with powerful shoulders and a thick, graying moustache. Both of them were both dressed in black, and the man was wearing sunglasses. The boy thought his mother must have been crying; her eyes were red, and the skin around them was puffy and raw. The man's face was all but lifeless, as if it was nothing more than a thin, plastic mask. The boy's mother knelt in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. She said she had some bad news. Her lips were trembling. The boy asked who the man was, and she told him he was a friend of his father's. The man nodded silently. His head was tilted in the boy's direction, but he might have been looking anywhere. It was impossible to tell behind his glasses. What is it? asked the boy. He couldn't hear himself speaking; he felt that he was standing behind a plate of glass. A bead of sweat slipped between his shoulder blades, remorseless. There was an accident at the mines, his mother said. Your father fell and – she turned her head away. The man who was his father's friend put his hand on her shoulder. The boy wanted to slap it away. On the way back to their apartment they took the man's car, a long, black thing that smelled of tobacco and old leather. At home the kitchen and living room were crammed with relatives and friends of the family, miners mostly, all of them wearing cheap, dark suits. They talked in hushed voices, like they were at a theatre, or as if they were being watched. Someone was serving snacks. Most of the men were drinking, and several of the women. One after another they approached the boy and told him how sorry they were. One of his uncles took him aside and explained that the boy was the man in the house now, and that he had to act like it. The boy didn't know what this meant. Everything that was said to him that day confused him; people talked about his father in the past tense, saying that he fell, and that he was gone, but no one told him that he was dead. The boy wasn't sure if they were just being careful with their words or if they didn't know. Hours later J arrived at the apartment. The boy didn't know why he was there. He guessed his mother must have called him, but he couldn't picture her doing it. She didn't like J. It shouldn't have happened said J, and his face, always so easy-going, was horribly changed, almost feverish, and this open show of emotion from his friend was worse for the boy than his own grief, which was a hollow, directionless thing, fluctuating wildly between helplessness and irrational anger. It's OK, he said without knowing why; it was the first thing that came into his head, but it seemed to be enough. J nodded, and they spent the rest of the night playing video games, saying nothing, or at least nothing the boy would remember later. He woke up the next day and discovered that his loss and anger were still there. He found he was surprised by this, as if they should have been gone already, and the boy realized that this was how it would be from now on. He wanted someone to blame for his loss, but his mother and everyone else assured him that there was nothing that could have been done any differently, that it was no one's fault. They repeated those words like a mantra, but the fact was that none of them could say what had actually happened. One of his father's friends talked about a faulty safety harness, while a woman who seemed to know his mother mentioned a ledge crumbling, rocks giving out at a spot that had been used for years without any problems. One man, a retired miner with a bent back and hands spotted with lonely, spidery hairs, simply said that the pit took him, and in time that was how the boy would come to see it, that his father had been taken by the pit. The pit where his father fell grew in the boy's imagination, until at last it became a living thing; it took his father, swallowed him, reached out and grabbed him. The pit was like a dark stain on the boy's thoughts, an empty, gaping mouth, hungry and gloating, and it was the only place he had to direct his anger. Time passed, and while things never went back to normal, they eventually fell into a kind of rhythm. The boy went to school, met his friends, came home and ate dinner. He spent more and more time with J, and his mother no longer said anything about it. One night, about two months after it happened, the two boys were playing hide and seek with a group of kids from their tenement. During one round, J hid in the boiler room. The door was supposedly locked, but as he told it later, he'd managed to get his hands on a key by sneaking into the maintenance office while the janitor was smoking. A perfect hiding place is a wonderful thing, but sitting alone in a dark room is trying work; growing bored, J poked his head into every corner of the room, and at length he discovered the hole that led to the mines. For as long as a day J believed that he could keep this secret to himself, but the pressure of his own silence finally got the better of him, and the following day he confessed what he'd found to the boy. That night they went in together, each of them carrying a flash light, their chests tight with excitement. Crawling through the hole was like leaving the world behind. The dark and the quiet, and the seemingly endless passages of the mines were a hidden kingdom, a lost world. Entering it, something inside the boy began to unravel, a knot that he'd carried inside him ever since his father disappeared, and reaching the pit was the culmination of this: here, the boy knew, he'd found what he'd been looking for. Every day he'd asked himself why it had to happen, what possible meaning there could be in something so random, and he'd finally gotten his answer: his father had been lost so that the boy could find him. He smiled at his conclusion, too young to understand that there are many things in the world that happen for no good reason at all. Twice a week he went with J into the mines. If it had been up to him the boy would have gone more often, but he wasn't ready to go alone and twice was all that J would agree to. For J, the mines quickly lost their appeal. Nothing happened there. There were no secrets to uncover, none of the things he'd been hoping to find, sticks of dynamite, or bones, crates of gold stored in some long forgotten passage. There was only the dust and the dark and the deep, restive quiet of the mines at night, and at last he simply refused to go. There's no point, he announced, you're not going to find him. Your father's dead. It was the first time anyone had said the words out loud. I know he is, answered the boy. He went back only once after that, on his own, taking one of his father's rings that his mother had given him after the funeral. He went as far as the pit, standing at the edge and shining his flashlight into the hole, hoping to see some trace of the bottom, but all that greeted him was the sound of the water far below, and the movement of soft, invisible currents of air. He held out the ring and let it go, watching as it slipped, too quickly, into nothing. And now, walking past the pit in search of Art's locker and the powder inside it, he doesn't stop or slow down, and he doesn't think of his father. Why should he? It was all so long ago, and in another life. You Put a Hole in the Wall The man who calls himself Inter-7 A spent the better part of the afternoon in the bedroom of an abandoned tenement building, scrawling symbols on the walls with the bloody necks of birds. He had a sack full of them, that he'd gathered just after dawn in a park off Heron street. He was exceptionally good at catching the birds, luring them in with scattered bread crumbs and squatting on the balls of his feet until one grew careless. Once it did, his hand shot out a single, seamless motion, catching it as easily as if he'd been training for it all his life. Disturbed by the sudden violence, the other birds would take off in a flapping confusion of wings, but they always returned; the promise of food was too tempting. The man came to the tenement directly from the park, entering the building from the rear. You got the sense that he'd been here before, maybe several times. He seemed to know his way around, and which of the rooms were empty, although it was clear that the building was still in use. At times you heard noises in some of the apartments, but you didn't see anyone, in the stairwell or any of the hallways. On the 10th floor he entered an abandoned room and quickly set to work, using the largest of the birds to paint the ring. The bird was a full-breasted, mangy thing with half its left foot missing and some kind of growth around its eyes. It barely put up a fight when Inter-7 A tore off its head. You were surprised by his technique, how careful he was while painting; he took his time, squeezing as much blood as he could from the bird's body, almost wringing it dry. His strokes were precise and unhurried, and he was perfectly calm. There was a meticulousness about him, a sense that he wouldn't allow himself to be rushed, and his efforts were correspondingly precise. He moved with the terse economy of a draughtsman. He started with the ring and when he was satisfied he continued with the symbols around it. Now, he is busy drawing a series of small characters in neat, perpendicular rows, directly inside the ring. When he finishes he turns to face you. The carcasses of 10 dead birds lay scattered around his feet. "I want to tell you about a dream," he says. He stands with his back straight and his hands bloody, framed by the ring and the symbols on the off-white wall. Some of the symbols are still wet, and dripping, far more vibrant and real than Inter-7 A's pale, grime-smeared face. "Or maybe I just want to hear myself say it," he goes on. "It doesn't matter. I don't have dreams anymore. At least I don't remember them and that's the same thing, but this was before I was Inter-7 A. I told you I don't remember much from back then and it's true. It isn't a lie. I'm not a liar." Saying this he closes his eyes and passes his right hand over his face, letting it linger there for a moment before coming to rest on his cheek. He mutters under his breath, glancing at you. "It's true I don't remember much from back then, but I do remember the dream. When dreams are the only thing you're left with they take on a certain reality. "In the dream I was having sex with my wife. You have to imagine this. You have to see it. I'm fucking my wife. Even if I didn't really have a wife, I remember her in the dream. I wasn't lying!" The hand falls away from his face. "She was my wife in the dream, and we were having sex. We were standing up, with her back to a wall and her legs wrapped around me. It was good. I was excited, but at the same time there was something wrong, a disconnect between our minds and bodies. Our heads were too clear, our thoughts too bright, and we talked as we fucked, about our relationship, how it was when it started, and how bad it had gotten. I told her it seemed useless to carry on. "She agreed with everything I said. We smiled at each other. We were being fully honest for the first time in years and it felt good. I was about to cum, I remember that, the feeling building, but then I heard the sound of a truck coming up the driveway. "My wife told me it was her father, and she pushed away, wide-eyed. Just like that the dream changed. You know how it is with dreams. They have their own logic, and it no longer mattered that I was with my wife of five years in my own home and that I had nothing to be ashamed of, her father was coming and he had never approved of me, and I scrambled off her, quickly getting dressed. "I ran, leaving the house from the back, but when I turned around it wasn't my house anymore. I don't know whose house it was, but I raced down a flight of stairs and into a small, frozen garden. The plants were covered in a layer of frost, and everything was completely still. It was like the yard was nothing more than a museum of small, finely-wrought figurines. "I could hear my father-in-law's voice coming from inside the house. I knew it wouldn't be long before he found me, but I had nowhere to go: the garden was walled-in by a tall, wooden fence and a stretch of lawn that dipped into a shallow pond. The pond was flooded, and there was a skin of ice on the surface of the murky water, dark with algae. "The dream was trying to trap me. I knew that. My dreaming mind knew it. In the end I'd wind up getting caught. That was what the dream intended, but I couldn't accept it. I don't know why. It's not so bad is it, to be caught in a dream? But that night I was terrified of it – not of him, you understand? Not of my father-in-law, but terrified of being trapped. I knew there had to be a way out, and that all I had to do was find it, and so I stepped into the frozen pool, breaking the ice. "The water was deeper than it should have been, much deeper, and I sank under the surface just as my father-in-law appeared at the back window. I shouldn't have been able to see him – the water was so dark it should have been impossible – but that didn't make a difference. I'd seen through the dream. Do you understand? I'd seen through it, so I could see through the water. My father-in-law was standing at the window, looking out at the garden, and I was safe. But the dream wasn't finished with me. It wanted me caught, and my father-in-law continued to stand there, as if he was waiting for me to run out of breath. I could feel my lungs screaming for air. I knew I had to come up sooner or later. But I didn't. I had another choice: I took a mouthful of water, expecting to drown, and breathed clear air instead. And then I woke up." He smiles slightly, an easy, fluent movement of his lips, completely serene. When he blinks the smile vanishes. There is a small, nearly imperceptible twitching in his right cheek. "It's hard to keep straight, but it couldn't have been long after this that I became Inter-7 A. Maybe the dream helped with that, invited the other, or maybe it was just a dream. The point is that today you're going to understand how I felt. You're going to see a way through things." He nods once, and then again, looking at the floor. "Does it sound easy? Like anyone could do it? It isn't and they can't. If they could I would have done it myself, but you're different. You're not... from here." He places a slim finger at his temple, grimacing, and you begin to understand that he's ashamed of what he's told you, that he regrets it. "Now," he says, his voice ringing harshly. "Look at the wall." There is no choice. He steps away and you are left to stare at the ring and the symbols within it. They blaze up before you, lurid, shining things, the black blood incandescent. It isn't clear whether you are moving toward them or if they are approaching you, but in any case they grow larger, until both Inter-7 A and the room are gone. You are inside the ring, a symbol yourself, another black scrawl on a white field, and at last you are able to read them: YOU PUT A HOLE IN THE WALL they say, and that's exactly what you've done; a moment later you are in the adjacent room, empty except for an old couch and a few scraps of newspaper on the floor. With you is Inter-7 A, grinning. "You see? You understand now don't you, what this is?" You don't, and he doesn't tell you. He stares into the space in front of him, at you, or at a point very close to you. You have no idea what he's looking at. Careful; pints; rescue I drink my coffee and watch the snow. It falls thick, coverin over the gutters and the filth, blanketin the roofs a'houses and the blue tarps strung over coffee stands. Everythin's burnished orange by the street lamps, softened, and with the snow it's almost beautiful, more like a paintin or a movie than the shit hole I grew up in. The woman workin the coffee stand scowls at a pair a'kids throwin snow at one another across the street. There's a hot edge ta their game, an intensity that could turn violent. One a'the boys curses the other, and then laughs. The woman spits, her wrinkled face flushed with cold, or maybe alcohol – most a'the stand owners spike their coffee with whiskey on nights like this. "It's too cold for fightin," she says. "Kids don't care." She spits a second brown wad onta the snow, and smiles, flashin a mouth full a'yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. I pay for the coffee and leave the stand, walkin down the block ta the bar. The crowd inside the Eft is buzzin, the usual collection a'miners and students interspersed with a fair number a'refugees from the capital. Those are easy ta spot, girls mostly, tryin and failin ta blend in or else goin out a'their way ta flirt with the mine-heads. The heads have a reputation for stamina that extends all the way ta the capital, but I guess not a few a'these girls are gonna wind up disappointed; a reputation like that can be a hard thing ta live up ta, especially when the boy in question has been downin beer and whiskey for much a'the night. Auld sees me enter and gets up from his place at the bar, the crowd partin around him as if he had the routine choreographed. For a moment the line cuttin his face catches the light, and I can see the barest hint a'movement reflected inside it, like streaks a'gasoline on a skin a'water. "Careful tonight," he says, keepin his voice low. I glance around us, but it's not as if anyone in here can hear him, not unless they're on the powder, and if they are it's because I sold it ta them. "Careful?" I ask. "Something's going to go wrong." "What something?" "With your deal. Don't make the hand off here tonight. It's not safe. There are agents from the Institute coming. Just tell Tam to hold off." "He's only in town tonight. You know that. We don't do this now we won't get another chance for two weeks." "Just hold off," he says, and brushes past me, headin for the door. "Where are you goin?" "There's somewhere I need to be," he says, and then he pauses. "Tell Hazel I said hello." I watch him exit the bar, wonderin what I'm supposed ta do with that; I've never known Auld ta be wrong, not when it comes ta predictions. Too cryptic maybe, and misleadin, but never wrong altogether. Still, if I don't make the hand-off tonight things'll get uncomfortable. Rent doesn't wait on psychic warnins. I catch sight a'J in the back and on my way over I scan the faces a'the people seated at tables and standin round the bar. Any one a'them could be from the Institute, or none. No one so much as looks at me, and I don't see Hazel anywhere. Seated with J is Tam, and for some reason R is there as well. The three a'them are halfway through a pitcher, with another empty one beside it. J has an extra glass ready for me. "You're late," he says. "Had ta speak with someone." He fills my glass with beer, then refills his own and Tam's, and finally R's. By this point there's hardly any left, and all that drips into his glass is the dregs. "I paid for that round," R mutters. "Yeah?" says J, and leaves it at that. I can't help smilin. "Where ya been C?" R asks me. He drains his glass and sets it down hard on the table. "Out," I say. He laughs, his eyes gleamin. "Just saw J sittin here and it struck me I hadn't shared a pint with you boys in a while." "Well now you have," I say. J takes out a'pack a'loose leaf and starts ta roll himself a smoke. R shakes his head, makin an act a'bein disappointed. "J and Tam here can be civil. Why can't you? All that was done a long time ago." "All what?" "You know what I mean," he says, very quiet, the tension between us stretchin like a fine cord across the table. J looks at the ceilin, while Tam has suddenly discovered an abidin interest in the back a'his hands. "Thanks for the pint R," I say, tippin the glass in his direction. He shakes his head again. "Alright," he says, standin up. "Have it your way." I nod, not botherin ta watch him go. "You still on that?" asks J, his big fingers smoothin out the wrinkles in his hand-rolled. "On what?" I say, leanin forward. All at once I feel exhausted. "Listen, it doesn't matter does it? R could be the greatest asshole in the world and it wouldn't change a thing. We don't let anyone else in on what we're doin, not with the powder." "It was just pints," says Tam. "Just pints," I say. "Right. Now, as I would a'told you had you not been sharin a friendly drink with that bastard, our friend from beyond has issued a warnin." "What warnin?" J puts the hand-rolled in his mouth, but makes no move ta light it. "Told me there's some boys from the Institute on their way and we're not ta make the hand-off." J raises an eyebrow. Tam frowns. "What'd I make the trip down here for then?" he asks. "Relax," I tell him. "We'll do it. I got no interest in waitin another two weeks. We'll just go somewhere quiet." "Outside?" "Yeah," I say, already risin. "J, stay here and see if anyone follows us yeah?" He nods, and lights his smoke. Tam and I get up and make our way out a'the bar. I'm almost ta the door when a light touch on my shoulder stops me; Hazel is sittin at the counter, next ta some pale college boy. He eyes me, and for a moment I get the feelin that I know him or that I've seen him before. His face is long and unassumin, his brown hair cropped close ta the head. The only distinguishin thing about him is the leather jacket he's got on, well-worn but obviously expensive. As I look at him a mist seems ta pass before us. "Leaving?" Hazel asks me. "For a minute," I say, my voice hardly soundin like my own. "This is Isaac." The boy nods at me, and the mist, or whatever it was, some ghost or trick a'light, falls away, along with the sense that I know him; I nod back, our necks movin on strings a'social grace. "By the way," I tell her. "Our mutual friend says hello." "Auld?" she asks, too loud. Beside me, Tam flinches. The boy sittin with her looks confused; I scan the faces around us, but no one is payin the least bit a'attention. "Yeah. I'll be back in a minute alright?" She shrugs like it doesn't matter ta her one way or the other, which I guess it doesn't, and turns back ta her drink. The college boy stares at me a second longer before he does the same. I leave the bar with Tam behind me and a bad taste in my mouth. At the first corner we turn inta a narrow alley walled off at the far end by a chain-link fence. I'm about ta take out the package when I hear the sound a'boots crunchin in the snow. "All right J?" I ask, but there's no answer. I turn around. At the top a'the alley are two men, both a'them dressed in black jackets with a pair a'goggles ta match. "Must have a good reason to meet in a place like this," says the taller a'the two. "Must have," replies the shorter one. "Can't imagine what it is though." "Oh I can think of one or two." "Yeah?" "Maybe a couple Northside boys like these might have something to hide from the authorities, such as they are." "Could be." "Then again, maybe they were just about to start sucking each other's dicks." The shorter man lets out a short bark that might be meant for a laugh. "He's funny isn't he?" he says. "What the fuck do you want?" asks Tam. "I like that," says the taller man. "Straight to the point. No dicking around for this one." The smaller man smiles. "To start with we want the powder you're carrying," he says. "Not carrying any powder," snaps Tam, and the shorter man's hand flashes from his pocket; there is a noise like the hollow poppin of a champagne cork and Tam falls ta the ground, his whole body shudderin. His hands tear uselessly at the air, his mouth stretched wide in a silent scream. "What the fuck!" I hear myself yell, uselessly tryin ta still Tam's flailin arms. "Just a little shock," says the smaller man. "It'll pass," announces the other, and he's right – Tam's body is almost still, the spasms already subsidin in his limbs. He gasps for air, a line a'spit hangin from his mouth. The two men move toward me. Tam curls onta his side, vomitin darkly onta the snow. "Hand over the package," says the smaller a'the two. He has a taser pointed directly in my face. "And then lie down with your hands behind your back." I push away from Tam. A shadow sweeps the air and the man closest ta me crumples ta the ground. The taller one turns, but too slow; there is heavy crack, as of some dull thing hittin bone, and suddenly he's down as well, landin in a heap on top a'his friend. Behind them both is Auld, an empty bottle a'whiskey clutched in his right hand, like a club. "You didn't listen," he says. The line on his face stands blue in the dim light. Cab; safe house; Ward Auld kicks idly at the nearest a'the two men and then bends down ta examine his head, but as far as I can see there's no sign a' blood. I help Tam ta his feet and he shrugs off my arm, coughin, and spittin up bile. "I can stand," he says, and then promptly doubles over, supportin himself with his hands on his knees. "Auld what is this..." I manage. "We have to get out of here." "Where's J?" "Don't worry." He leaves the alley and I've got no choice except ta follow after him, half-draggin and half-supportin Tam with my arm around his shoulders. "Where are we goin?" "Not far," says Auld. We turn onta Nascent and Auld instructs me ta hail a cab. When one finally stops the three a'us pile in. Tam's head rolls back on his neck, his eyes foggy with water. "South," says Auld and I pass the information along ta the driver. The cab pulls away from the curb and I look back, but there's no sign a'the men in goggles or anyone else. "Auld what was that?" I say. "Told you, the Institute." "Those boys were scientists?" "Agents," he responds. The cab driver looks at me in the rearview mirror. "You talkin ta me?" he asks. "No," I say. "Forget it." I shut up and stare out the window. Around 3rd Bridge Auld has me instruct the driver ta stop in front of a mid-sized apartment. I pay the fare and we get out a'the cab, passin quickly inta the deserted lobby. Auld leads us ta the elevator and presses the button for the 12th floor. Tam lets go a'my arm and sits down with his back pressed ta the wall and his head in his hands. "Who's place is this?" I ask, but Auld doesn't bother ta answer. At length the doors open and I haul Tam up. We make our way ta a room at the end of a carpeted hallway. Auld takes a key card from his pocket and unlocks the door, holdin it open for us ta enter. "Where's the bathroom?" Tam croaks. "Down the hall on the right," says Auld. Tam rushes off, and a second later I hear him retchin inta the toilet. "You alright?" I call. He grunts a response, which I guess is good enough, and I move with Auld ta the living room. There's barely any furniture, just a white couch and two chairs gathered around a low table, as well as a counter that separates the room from the kitchen. The paint on the walls is an immaculate egg-shell white, and the hardwood floors are free a'any scuff-marks or stains. There's no sign that anyone lives here, the place more like a showroom than an apartment. Auld motions me ta the couch. "Coffee?" he asks, walkin ta the kitchen. I sit down, wishin I had a smoke, or a drink, or both. "Tam how you holdin up in there?" I call. There's no answer. "Auld, check on him huh?" I say. "He's passed out." I close my eyes and rub them with the flat a'my hand; I'm exhausted, and gettin up from the couch is harder than it has any right ta be. When I reach the bathroom I find Tam sprawled on the floor with his arms around the toilet. "Come on," I say, and somehow I get him ta his feet. Auld directs me ta a bedroom where Tam instantly collapses onta the cream-coloured sheets, curlin inta a ball. He waves me away with a weak motion a'his arm, and I leave him where he is. In the livin room Auld is waitin for me with a pair a'mugs and a pot a'coffee. "I'm sorry there's no milk," he tells me. "I could use somethin harder." "There's just the coffee." I run my hand through my hair, releasin a long, slow breath. Auld stares inta his mug. "You knew I wouldn't listen," I say. "Yes," Auld replies tiredly. There are dark smudges under his eyes and his skin is the colour of wax. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. "But you warned me anyway." "Seemed like the thing to do." I study him, his drawn, expressionless face, and the line that cuts his eye; I've never known Auld, never been able tell what he's thinkin, but the fact that he somehow has access ta an apartment like this shouldn't come as a surprise – for all I know he could own the buildin. I recall the utterly casual way he brought down two men with a bottle a'whiskey, how he appeared at the exact moment I needed him, and suddenly understand that nothin that's gone on tonight, maybe nothin that's happened since the day we met, has been random. He wanted things ta play out exactly the way they did, the deal ta go sour and Tam ta get fried. The only question is why. "You put me in that alley," I say. "I never told you to go there." "But you could've stopped me." He shakes his head. "It was always going to be that way." A part a'me feels like arguin but I'm too tired ta think straight, and nothin I'm likely ta say will make a difference anyway. Instead I stretch my legs out beneath the table and close my eyes. "You didn't kill those guys did you?" I ask, after a time. "No." "That's good," I say, for lack of anythin better, and then I look up: Auld is bent over almost double with his head in his hands, the coffee untouched on the table in front a'him. "Where's J?" I ask. "In the hospital." I stare at the top a'his head. "Why is J in the hospital?" "He got hurt." "How's that?" "He tried to get in the way of the agents. They tasered him. Someone called for an ambulance and there was nothing I could do about it. He'll be released in the morning." "We've got ta get him now." "No we don't." "And what if those boys find him before we get there?" "They won't." "Don't give me that." I can feel my voice risin, the night's tension and stress spillin out at last, thick as burnt grease. Auld refuses ta look at me. "They've got problems of their own right now. I saw to that." "You think a bump on the head's gonna stop boys like that from gettin at J if they want him?" "They won't arrive at the hospital until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon, and by then J will be gone." I'm about ta respond when Auld gets ta his feet, cuttin me off. "They're here," he says, just as the sound of a knock comes from the door; a shiver makes its way down the back a'my neck. Auld moves ta the front hall and ushers two men inta the apartment. Like him, they sport lines on the right side a'their faces, thin, purple bars that cut them from forehead ta cheek. Both a'them are dressed in cheap track suits, one red and the other gray. "This is Ward," Auld announces. The man in red nods briefly. "And Irbe." The one in gray waves at me. "Nice ta meet you," I say dryly. Ward smiles, an action of his mouth that doesn't make it as far as his eyes. He is a big man, with a hard, dark face. The line, which on Auld is the mark of something alien, appears natural on him, more like a tattoo or a scar suffered in childhood. In contrast, Irbe is smaller, with stooped shoulders and a nervous, fidgety way a'movin. Neither a'them inspire much confidence, and for a moment I'm aware that with Tam passed out in the back, I am very much alone here. "This is who's buying your powder." Auld's voice is bland, as if he's announcin the time a'day or the state a'the weather. "What?" I hear myself ask. "The powder you sell to Tam. Ward and Irbe are your buyers in the capital." "You two?" The one called Irbe shrugs, and sits down on the couch. The other, Ward, regards me coolly. "What do you know about the Institute?" he says. "I know it's in the capital," I answer, glancin at Auld. "And that they're buyin up all the powder they can, and that two of their boys tasered my fuckin friends tonight. What do you know about it?" "They don't like us," he replies. "Not much," Irbe agrees, smilin. "That all?" "They've been studying us for some time," announces Auld. Ward shoots him a sharp look, but a moment later he relaxes, spreadin his hands like none a'this has anythin ta do with him. "They don't want us here," Auld continues. "Or anyway they don't want us moving around freely. They definitely don't want you interacting with us. One of the reasons they buy so much powder is to stop people from using it." "We think they might be trying to develop a vaccine," says Irbe. "A vaccine?" "To block the powder's effects and keep us invisible. Our being here scares them." "We've been buying as much powder as we can, through you, and we've been getting it to as many people as we can," Irbe says. "The Institute doesn't like that." "Which is why we've got Auld here keeping an eye on you," adds Ward. "That was kind," I say. "Isn't it?" "So why doesn't the Institute just close the mine? They want ta stop people gettin at the powder, that's the easiest way ta do it." "We don't know," says Irbe. "Maybe they don't have the authority. No one seems to know who's in charge here." "They might even have found a way to reach our side." "Your side?" "To cross over." "That right?" "Yes. Through the mines." "The mines are important," says Irbe. "There's a reason no one's ever found powder anywhere else." "So just head up there and have a look," I say. "You're invisible." "Their goggles." "How's that?" "They can see us with their goggles, and besides, you've been doing your work too well. By now, half the miners are using powder." Auld gets out a'his seat and moves ta the kitchen where he spends some time rootin through the cupboards. "Whatever they're doing, we plan on stopping them," says Irbe. "Well good luck ta you boys," I say. "Good luck to us." "Oh?" "You're going to help." "That right?" "Yes," says Auld, handin me a glass. "What's this?" "Whiskey," he says. "Said you didn't have anythin ta drink," I mutter. He shrugs. "I knew you'd need it now." I get out a'the shower and dry off, vaguely hungry, and pass inta the kitchen. Irbe and Auld are gone, but Ward is there, sittin by himself in the livin room. There is a cigarette burnin between his fingers, a thin trail a'smoke driftin from the end in a tight, blue-gray line. "Where is everyone?" "Had some things to do," he says. "What things?" He shrugs, and I decide ta leave it there. "You got anythin ta eat around here?" I ask. "No idea." I open the fridge, but all I find is a plastic jug half-full a'water, and in one a'the cupboards above the sink a container a'instant coffee and three unopened bottles a'whiskey. "How long you been dealing?" Ward asks from his place at the couch. "You a cop?" He looks up at me like I'm somethin he stepped on. "It's a joke," I tell him. "You don't want to answer the question?" "Not in particular, no." He nods and pours himself a shot a'whiskey. He sets what's left back on the table and considers his glass. I can't help but notice that durin the time I was in the shower, he's polished-off almost a third a'the bottle. "What's it like where you're from?" I ask him. "What's it like where you're from?" he counters. "The apartments aren't so clean." He snorts. "You people ask that question all the time." "Then here's another one: how'd you get here?" "That's the second thing people ask." "Indulge me." He nods again and knocks back the shot, and when he's finished with it he puts the glass down next ta the bottle. His hand is perfectly steady. "When I was in college I used to get drunk and break into construction sites," he says. I wait for him ta go on, and he seems ta pick up on my hesitation. "You asked, so I'm telling you. If it's not what you were expecting that's your problem." "Absolutely," I say, and make an attempt ta moderate my expression, killin any hint a'mockery or sarcasm. He regards me skeptically, and frownin, launches inta his story. "It was a habit. I'd go into the buildings at night, new office towers mostly, some housing projects. Usually I went alone, but once or twice with friends. Irbe's been up with me, and the last time I took my girlfriend. I'd been seeing her for the better part of a year. Shouldn't have taken her up there, but she insisted. There was this new condo they were putting up downtown, and the security wasn't what it should have been. There was a chain-link fence around the lot and a trailer with the logo of a private security firm on it, but there was no one in the yard and the lights in the trailer were off. The place looked deserted. So we scouted around a little and found a spot where the ground was low enough to climb under the fence. From there it was nothing to get inside. "It wasn't the tallest building I'd ever been in, but it was tall enough that halfway up we had to rest. We chose a room and sat down in front of a window that overlooked the street. Eventually this was going to be some rich man's bedroom, but at that time it was just a bare concrete block with dust on the floor. We sat there and got high. We'd already been drinking before we broke in, and this was a dumb fucking thing to do. It's something I regret." His words are measured, the way a man might recite a speech from memory, and as he speaks he looks straight at me, his voice as flat as his eyes. Somehow I get the feelin that he's makin this all up. There's no reason ta think so, but only this last point, that he regrets it, has any ring a'truth. That much at least is clear, the remorse settled on his shoulders like a shroud. "When we finished getting high we went back to climbing and we kept at it until the stairs ended," he continues. "Then we searched around for the crane. I'd been up a few of those in my time – they've got ladders inside them, and once you get on the arm there's a kind of metal walkway. Standing up there with nothing but a thin strip of metal between you and the pavement, 300 feet down, or 1000… it's hard to process. At the time, there's only the wind and the lights of the city, and a feeling like being cut out from the world. The vertigo and panic only come later, when you stop to remember it. At least that's how it was for me. "My girlfriend stood there and laughed, taking it in. That night the wind was bad, and it sent her hair flying. She had a camera with her and she spent awhile pointing it at the view, and me, and the arm of the crane. She was so intent on her pictures that she lost her footing, and fell backwards into the crane shaft. "I can still see her falling, her head cracking open on the railings on the way down, her limbs splayed out like a broken doll at the bottom, but that's not what happened. It's the image I've been left with, but not the truth. Don't ask me how that works, but in reality she just managed to catch herself with the back of her arms on the edge of the hole. I don't know how she did it. She even managed to kept her grip on the camera. I rushed to help her. She was shaking so badly she couldn't stand. I held her, and checked the underside of her arms, which were bleeding. We stayed like that for a while, until she was calm enough to make the trip down. It took us twice as long as it did coming up. "I thought we'd gotten away with something, but when we reached the ground a security guard was out in the lot. I pulled up, and my girlfriend asked what was wrong. The guard heard her, and he was on us in a second, demanding our I.D. and telling us to get out of the stairs. I could barely understand a word he said; I think it was only at that point that I realized how stoned I was. He asked for my name and I couldn't even think of a lie, so I got it into my head to run. Luckily my girlfriend had enough sense to follow me. We tore across the lot and dove under the fence. Next thing we're running down the block, but she was hurt and couldn't keep up with me. I took her down an alley and we hid behind a dumpster. She had me examine the back of her arms, which were scraped raw, but it didn't look like she'd need a doctor. I was for going on, but she said she needed time. While we waited, I picked up a loose stone from the pavement and tossed it, watching as it sailed clean through the brick of the opposite wall." "How's that?" I ask, interrupting him. "It went through the wall," he repeats. "Not through a crack or a grating, but the wall itself, you understand? I got up and ran my hand over the bricks. A second later my girlfriend was up and helping me." "Helping you what?" "Find the hole," he says. "The way here." "And that's how you got here, a hole in a wall?" He shrugs. "You expect me ta believe that?" "Believe whatever you want. There were plenty of people back on my side who didn't, but that didn't stop me from getting here. Nothing was official yet, but everyone had heard the stories. The holes had been cropping up for years. Holes or gateways, whatever you want to call them. People had gone missing. I had a friend who crossed over. Where he is now I couldn't tell you." "So you went through, just like that?" "Does it sound easy? A hole in the fucking world? My girlfriend's arm went clean into a brick, swallowed to the elbow. That was enough for her. She had me take her home in a cab. On the way back I talked about it, us crossing together, but she refused. She wanted to forget the whole night, both her fall and stumbling across the hole. In her mind, the two things were connected. She said she didn't catch herself just to disappear. But I wouldn't listen, and in the end I came here alone." "Why?" "Why's the real trick isn't it?" he says, and then he looks down, his mouth curlin inta the semblance of a smile. "You miss her?" I ask him. "What the fuck do you think?" he says, and that seems ta be the end a'the conversation. You Enter the Mines Inter-7 A is sitting on the roof of a tenement. His eyes are fixed on the western hills. Beyond them, the evening sun stains a long, low bank of clouds the colour of an open wound. On the ledge next to him is a rough, canvas sack, half-filled with birds. He leans back, supporting himself with the flat of his palms on the rough concrete. Although the day is cold, he isn't wearing gloves, and the skin on the back of his hands and his fingers is pink, his knuckles bone white. He's dressed in the same tattered suit as always, but today he's also wearing a woolen scarf and a pair of dark, thick-rimmed sunglasses. You aren't sure where he got these items: since he arrived things have been confused. There are gaps in your memory now, empty stretches of time in which you have no idea where you were or what might have been going on in your absence. One moment you are with Inter-7 A in the bedroom of an abandoned apartment, and the next you are here, hours, or even days later. Time is fracturing, and in the face of that what difference does a scarf or a pair of glasses make? He must simply have stolen them, and the fact that you can't remember where or how is no longer relevant. After all, you've seen him steal before, lifting fruit from the stalls in Northside's markets or pocketing sandwiches and drinks from convenience stores; he has no money, or none you've ever seen him use. If he wants to eat he must steal or forage, rooting through trash cans and dumpsters for whatever scraps he can find. He exists on the town's leftovers, in its margins, unwanted and for the most part unnoticed. Most often he sleeps in an alley not far from 4th Bridge, curling up on a flattened stretch of cardboard. He has some things stored there, stuffed into an alcove next to the building's fire-escape, a few soiled blankets as well as the canvas sack for the birds, and from time to time the exhaust vent of the neighbouring building will flood the space with a little warm air. Once you watched him as he slept, his face taut and weary, his limbs drawn in from the cold. Passing through dreams, he muttered to himself, and for a moment he could have been any homeless man, addled by drugs or a chemical imbalance, the long, pitiless stretch of years spent on the streets. When dawn came however, he reached for the sack of birds, taking one and breaking its neck like another man might scratch himself, waking. These memories remain to you, but whenever it was that he acquired the scarf and glasses is gone; you tell yourself that it's a small detail, and likely unimportant, but you've learned by now that the world depends on such things, that they are the foundation all the rest is built upon. As if aware of what you're thinking, he turns in your direction, smiling faintly. "It's nice isn't it?" he says. "The sunset. But that's all it's ever going to be, just this. It will never be any other colour, any other shade. It's locked in itself now, forever. There's something horrific about that, something disgusting. Everything gets locked in, layer after layer, all of them perfectly rendered, perfectly still. We call that reality. Reality is a cancer, one moment piled on the next, expanding without remorse or justification. There's no cure for cancer. Reality simply is, and I am and there's no changing me, or you, not once we've been." He speaks quickly, one word stumbling over the next. His breath comes steaming from his mouth and there is a spasm in his cheek, just below his right eye. All at once he gets up and climbs onto the roof edge, looking down on the street more than 100 feet below. His hand is shaking, the fingers spread wide, and straining against the joints. "The other way out is right here," he mutters softly. "But death is only the illusion of escape." He spits and watches the drop until it disappears. He stays this way for some time, long enough for the sun to sink behind the horizon, and then he turns around. "Well, we'd better start out," he says, taking the sack and slinging it over his shoulder. He exits the roof, making his way down a dim stairwell to the 10th floor. Two young children are playing in the hall, a boy and girl who might be brother and sister. They are both small, with pale skin and wide eyes. Neither of them is wearing shoes. As you pass, the boy over-throws the ball and the girl chases after it, her bare, dirty feet padding swiftly over the carpet. She ignores Inter-7 A completely, as does the boy, the two of them so intent on their game that he may as well be invisible. He takes the elevator to a deserted lobby and exits the building. Outside, a faded, middle-aged man is smoking, half-hidden in the gloom beneath a row of pine trees. Inter-7 A glances at him, and the man flicks the end of his cigarette into the snow. Turning right at the first corner, Inter-7 A passes quickly down a narrow alley. From time to time he glances over his shoulder, scowling. His mouth is set in a tight line, and despite the cold there is a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. He is afraid, you realize; lately he has grown convinced that someone is following him. This paranoia blossoms daily, and you understand that it is close to breaking him. Scrawling the rings and symbols about the town, he passes from one alley to another, one deserted roof to the next, and you are dragged along in his wake, a pair of hungry, restless ghosts. Leaving the tenements behind, he approaches the foot of the northern hills, coming at last to a narrow, brick building with a corrugated roof. Stemming from the building's back end, a cable track stretches up the side of the nearest hill. The tracks are blocked-off from the road by a chain-link fence, but in two short motions Inter-7 A is up and over it, dragging the sack of birds along with him. He sets out, climbing the tracks with the bag slung over his shoulder. A light wind is at play in the branches of the neighbouring pines, the sound merging smoothly with the crunch of the man's boots over the gravel and the snow. Halfway up the hill the tracks fork to the right, snaking along a cliff edge on their way to the capital. Following the left-hand tracks, Inter-7 A is soon brought short by a heavy iron gate. He sets the sack of birds on the ground and stares at it, examining the lock. At length he removes a bird from the sack. It struggles violently, tearing the skin at his wrist and drawing blood. The man hisses in pain, and with a sudden, sharp jerk, he rends the bird's head from its neck. Shuddering, the bird falls still. Inter-7 A presses the bird's neck to the gate, drawing a ring over the bars and bending down to scrawl a few rough symbols on the ground. The sound of the wind falls away, as does the gate and the ground before you. Eventually only the symbols and the ring are left, a series of brands on the night, and then they too are gone. "It's coming easier now, isn't it?" Inter-7 A remarks, standing next to you on the opposite side of the gates. "Quicker, with less blood. Unfortunately we'll never be able to cut that part out completely. Not until it's done. The blood is a necessity. " Starting off again, he sniffs, and wipes the blood from his injured wrist on the lapel of his jacket. Shortly the ground begins to level out, and you approach a broad, unpaved square. Surrounding you are a number of concrete structures, administrative offices, or perhaps storage facilities. Beyond these, a gaping, semi-circular hole has been blasted into the side of the hill. "It's down there," mutters Inter-7 A. "The source." Hefting the sack onto his opposite shoulder, he passes into the mines. Gradually, his body loses definition, his features blurring, until he is nothing more than a vague shadow at your side. "It's close," he says, and you can hear him setting the bag on the ground. He bends down, and a sudden torrent of wings shatters the dry silence. The escaping bird careens madly in the direction of the entrance. Inter-7 A curses, reaching for another. With the bird in hand, he moves to the nearest wall, his motions slow and halting, like those of a drugged man, or a sleep-walker. "Sometimes I think the other world is only a dream." His voice comes in a whisper, oddly muted, as if the close darkness of the place has the effect of stifling noise. "It might all be in my head, and Inter-7 A is just a fantasy, a scapegoat, someone I made up to blame for the mess I've made of my life. But then how do you explain the rings? How do you explain us getting in here? Burning a hole in the wall, or stepping through the gates?" Slowly, with a calmness that approaches delicacy, he twists the bird's head from its neck and starts to paint. "Of course," he says. "Of course, of course, of course: it could all just be in my head. Of course it could. Maybe, but not all of it. Not this, now – this is happening. Probably. I can feel the bird in my hand. I can feel that. The details are clear. This is, if anything is. And I'm not prepared to admit that everything is fantasy. Not yet. Some things are real. This is. But I know how it looks. The magic blood on the walls might just be the blood of a dead pigeon, and the rings may be meaningless. That's possible. The details aren't clear. We went through the fence – how? I didn't see that, didn't feel it. Not like I can feel the rock in front of me now. And back in the apartment, maybe I put that hole in the wall myself, with a hammer, or just by kicking it down. It's possible I climbed over the gate back there just like I did earlier at the fence. Maybe the whole idea that you're even here listening to me is completely insane." He stops his work long enough to look at you. "Who are you anyway?" You can just make out his head shaking in the dimness. "It could be a dream," he goes on. "It could be. You might just be in my head. But I think you're there." He pulls back from the wall, and allows the bird to fall from his hand. "I know you're there," he says, after a time. "I know it because I saw you from the other side. Sometimes that other one appears, that's all, and then I doubt. The one from before I was Inter-7 A, the one who remembers his wife, as if he ever had a wife. As if that wasn't just a dream. Sometimes he surfaces, but in the end it's always me. And I'm not going to stand around waiting to be snuffed out along with everything else like a deer in some damn headlights. I have to get out. I'm going to get out. You'll see, because now we have a way to get in." Dimly you perceive him smiling, the ring's fresh blood dripping in soft pools at his feet. News; reconnaissance; lies J drops the paper on the table, open ta the third page. The headline reads "Institute purchases digging rights from Tanning." "Look at that shit," he says, fallin inta the chair opposite me. "I see it." "Tannin's held those rights since the mines opened." "That's true." "And now they're sellin ta the Institute." He looks at me, and when I don't say anythin he reaches for the bag a'loose leaf on the table and sets inta rollin himself a smoke. He fumbles with the paper, some a'the leaf spillin onta his pants. "Fuck," he mutters, startin over. "It's coincidental," I say. "Coincidental." He isn't lookin at me. "Us havin some problems with the Institute the night before this comes out." "Some problems? I was fuckin shot." "You were tasered." "Fuck you," he says. "And by the way, thanks for rushin out ta get me. That was good a'you." "I wanted ta come." "Wanted." "Auld told me not ta leave. Said you'd be alright there, 'til mornin, and you were." "And what if he was wrong for once? What if those boys from the Institute came back? Think they're gonna feel any remorse about breakin me, if it meant gettin at that outsider, or you?" "It was fine." I speak with a calm I don't feel; the fact is I spent the better part a'the night picturin what it would've meant for J if the agents had made it ta the hospital, them or someone they'd hired, off-duty cops lookin ta scrape together a little extra money or local boys with nothin better ta do. When the sun rose I was still awake, starin at the ceiling with a knot a'anxiety in my gut like a clenched fist. "You know what your problem is?" J continues, finally managing ta get his smoke lit. "What's that?" "You've just gotten too comfortable with all this, lettin some invisible psychic do your thinkin for you." "You might be right." "Yeah. Might be. And I guess he said waitin here is safe too, that none a'them Institute boys know about this place?" "He did." "That doesn't inspire a lot a'confidence." "So where else are we supposed ta go? The Institute's that interested in findin us they'll know about my place, and yours, and about anyone else we've done business with." "Yeah," J mutters, stabbing his smoke out in the ashtray, more than half unfinished. "What do you think is goin on there anyway?" "I don't know." "Content just ta wait it out huh?" "Pretty much." "Tannin's never leased nothin, never sold contracts, and the first time they do is ta the Institute? They must a'been forced inta it, and now you tell me these invisible friends a'yours are plannin ta get in the way a'that." "So they say." "You think bein a part a'that is gonna do you any good, or me? What do we get out a'any a'this?" "We get ta say we were there." He laughs once, bitterly. "You best wake up." "Sleepin am I?" "Might as well be. This isn't a fuckin game." "No?" I ask, very casual. He looks away. "It's done. Sellin powder is done," he says. "And we'll be lucky if we don't wind up in jail, or worse." I shrug, and close my eyes. For a moment I try picturin myself from above, sittin here as if none a'this matters and a pair a'men in goggles hadn't just put my friend in the hospital, tryin and failin ta convince myself that I'm not afraid a'the same thing happenin ta me. "So we find a new line a'work," I say. "Is that what you call what Auld and his buddies are plannin? A new line a'work?" "Not exactly." "Because there's a word for what they've got in mind." "Yeah?" "It's called terrorism." "I'm just helpin them get in." "Since when has that boy ever needed help from us?" He's right a'course, but that doesn't change anythin; Auld can see the future, and if he sees me guidin him and the rest a'them inta the mines that's exactly what I'm goin ta do, even if every instinct I have is tellin me ta run, ta get on the first train out a'town and never look back; there is no runnin, not from what's over the horizon. I've seen enough ta know that at least. "It's not like I haven't been in the mines before," I say. "I want ta know what the Institute is doin here, why they're after us, and why dealin powder is suddenly such a big concern. You're afraid? Don't come." He stands up, and for a second I think he's goin ta hit me. He opens his mouth, and then closes it. His arms fall limp, and he leaves the room without another word. I watch him go, tellin myself that he's just shaken up, that it's natural, given what he's been through, but all the same I can't help feelin disappointed. I thought he'd put up more of a fight. I know that the best thing would be ta go after him now. Left ta wallow on his own, that boy is liable ta make rash decisions, but I don't have the time ta fix this. Instead, I stand up and leave the apartment, takin the elevator down ta the lobby. The girl workin the desk looks at me briefly, and I spare a second ta wonder how she squares my bein in a place like this, what kind a'arrangement Auld or the other two have made in order ta rent an apartment here. I don't see how it could work, unless the buildin manager or real-estate agent is on the powder. Not that I should expect anythin ta make much sense. At this point I'm beyond hopin for things like clarity. I push through the heavy glass doors and inta a thick curtain a'snow; I can barely make out the sidewalk in front a'me. The road unrolls slowly, the houses on either side like rows a'blackened teeth in the gloom. It takes twice as long as it should ta reach a bus stop, and for a moment I allow myself ta hope that the buses might be cancelled. If they are, I'll be able ta prove Auld wrong for once, but soon enough a pair a'yellow dots appear at the head a'the street and a minute later the bus pulls up ta the curb. I get on, swallowin my resentment and payin the fare in silence. Besides myself the bus is nearly empty, just an old drunk passed out in his seat, and a couple college girls dressed for a party. I move ta the back and close my eyes. The girls get off at 6th Bridge, and it's just me and the drunk by the time we make it ta Norfolk. Exitin, I pass inta Northside, and in a few minutes I've reached the tenement. Inside the buildin I move down the deserted hallway and inta the boiler room. Auld and Ward are waitin for me there, flashlights in hand, the beams cuttin pale circles on the floor. "You're late," Ward informs me. "Bus took a while in the storm." "We're still on schedule," says Auld mildly. "The hole's behind the boiler," I tell them, brushin past Ward. I duck inta the tunnel, the flashlights a'the two boys behind me causin shadows ta reel crazily over the rock face. On the far side I straighten and watch as they scramble inta the chamber. "You think those lights are wise?" I ask them. "We're safe tonight," Auld answers softly, startin across the room ta the door. He sets a quick pace, never once askin for directions; he navigates the tunnels like he's been down here a hundred times, which given his way a'lookin at things I guess he has. "Auld, it's pretty obvious you know where you're headed," I say. "Is it?" His back is a thin, pale block in the semi-dark. "But I haven't told you the way yet." "You will." "And if I keep my mouth shut?" He doesn't respond. Behind me, Ward coughs, while up ahead the corridor branches in two directions. "It's the left," I say, the words spillin out automatically; Auld turns without breakin his stride. Ward laughs, shinin the light at my face. "Glad we brought you along," he says. Auld switches off his light and motions for Ward ta do the same. The last thing I see before the world is swallowed in blackness is his leerin face. As we go on, my eyes begin ta adjust ta the dark, until at last I'm able ta make out a faint light up ahead. We stop at the end a'the corridor, and Auld waves me forward. Before us is the pit, but the surroundin chamber is so changed that I barely recognize it: several industrial-sized lamps have been set up, and a half-dozen mine heads in blue overalls are millin about in the brilliant light. Some are bent over a bank a'computers, while others are busy wheelin in more equipment on low carts. Next ta the pit edge is a row a'plastic containers the size a'oil drums, and not far behind them are the men from last night, the Institute's agents, gazin out at the scene through ink-black goggles. "What is this?" I breathe. Auld doesn't respond. The smaller a'the two agents moves ta the computers and keys somethin inta a terminal. The heads stop what they're doin, most shiftin nervously away from the pit. A sudden light blazes up from the depths, and the rock walls of the chamber and the faces a'the men watchin are all stained a sharp, electric blue; there's some scattered shoutin from the miners, and the taller agent laughs, slappin the shorter man on the back. "Auld," I say. "It's a gate," he announces, steppin back. "We need to leave now." Blue light ripples over the roof a'the chamber like a reflected sheet a'water. One a'the mine heads rushes ta the Institute boys, who ignore him. I turn and follow Auld. Ward is already gone. I can barely see in the tunnel, and I make my way forward by listenin ta the sound a'Auld's feet and the touch a'the rough stone at my side. At length we reach the room opposite the boiler. Ward has already disappeared through the hole, but Auld is standin with his flashlight in his hand, waitin for me. The tracks of our boots on the floor are like the evidence of some ancient, forgotten murder. "Why'd you bother with this?" I ask Auld. "You must a'known what we'd find." "I knew." "So?" "You needed to see it." "If you think I'm comin back here – " "Everything Ward told you was a lie," he says quietly, cuttin me off. "Everything. Who he is, and where we come from." "Why are you tellin me this?" "You'll have a choice between Ward or Irbe, and it's important that you don't make the wrong one. Don't trust Ward." "Never thought much a'trustin any a'you." "Just remember." "Yeah," I say, startin down the hole. "It's important, I know." "What's important?" asks Ward, crouchin in the dark room with his back ta the boiler. "Not ta come back here on my own," I say. I try ta read his expression, but all I can make out is his line, a thin scar cuttin the dim plane a'his face. "Good advice," he says. "Always pays to be careful." Latex; coffee; later The light from the window is thin as piss and I run my hand through my hair, groanin; my head aches, and there's a taste in my mouth like dead earth. I roll over and shut my eyes, but there's no hope for it, and at last I drag myself out a'bed. I throw on the same jeans and t-shirt from yesterday and the day before; I haven't been able ta go home for a change, not that it matters. Since the mines it's as if I've been walkin around in a skin a'latex: nothin touches me, nothin gets through. J says it's the stress a'the past few days, but that's not it, or it's not the only reason. There's somethin else, a hole in the ground I can feel loomin up before me. Again, not that it matters: not even the possibility a'walkin headlong inta the grave holds much weight. Whatever's comin will come, and that's all there is. Everythin else is window dressin. I leave the room and walk down the short hall ta the kitchen. Auld and Ward are there, talkin in low voices, although they shut up as soon as they lay eyes on me. "You have any plans tonight?" Auld asks. "I'll have ta check my schedule won't I?" Ward snorts. "Better if you did have something to do," he says. "Better if you were gone." He gets up and moves ta the hall. "If we're doing this tonight I've got things to take care of," he says, throwin on his boots and exitin the apartment. I sit down at the couch. "Seems upset," I say. "Just a difference of opinion," Auld mutters. "We're goin out tonight?" "Back to the mines." "And I'm comin." It isn't meant as a question, but he answers me anyway. "You are." "Thought maybe after the last time that'd be the end a'it." "Almost," he says. "It's almost done." "Well," I say, gettin ta my feet again. "That's good." "You're going out?" "Thought I'd get a coffee. You want one?" "We have coffee here." "I could use the exercise." He closes his eyes. "It's better if you stay here." "Auld if there's somethin you've seen, some reason you don't want me goin out, you just tell me." He shakes his head, passin a hand in front a'his eyes. "I can't see much of anything today," he says, his voice flat. "Might want ta think about gettin some sleep," I tell him. He laughs, but there's no life in his voice. He turns his back on me, and I take that as my cue ta leave. I know I'm takin a risk; Auld's never wrong, not about anythin he's bothered ta tell me, but that's exactly why I need ta go. At this point I'd almost welcome a surprise. In the lobby the girl workin the desk looks up at me, and frowns. She's young, and pretty enough, not that it's easy ta tell with all the make-up, and the straight, too proper way she has a'sittin. By her gaze, it's obvious she doesn't think much a'me either, a Northsider with free reign in a buildin like this. She's never been anythin other than expressly polite ta me, but her distaste is plain enough, peepin out from behind every one a'her cool, professional smiles. I salute her lazily, pressin two fingers ta my forehead. She ignores me, and I exit the buildin. Outside, I cross the street ta the coffee stand I've taken ta drinkin at. The boy runnin it is my age, or maybe a little older, and he's friendly enough. He smiles at me in greetin, his arm movin lazily as he works the pot over the flames. "Rough night?" he asks. "No worse than most." He smiles again and sets about makin me a cup. I glance away. Not far up the street is Hazel, walkin with her head down and her hands in the pockets a'her jacket. I pay the boy at the stand without botherin ta count the change and walk toward her. "Hey," I say. The sound a'my voice causes her ta start, her head jerkin up quickly. "Oh," she manages. "Sorry. Didn't mean ta scare you." "You didn't scare me." I decide ta ignore the lie. "Where are you headin?" "Just walking." "Mind if I join you? "No," she says, but it's clear that she does. I hesitate for a moment, and then fall inta step beside her; I've got time ta kill and this is probably the best way I can hope ta kill it, even if she isn't happy ta see me. It's got ta be better'n waitin in the apartment with Auld. "Bit cold for a walk isn't it?" I say. She shrugs. "I wanted the air. I can't be inside right now." I nod like I understand what she means and sip my coffee. "What you got goin on today?" I ask her. "I have class later." I nod again. "Well," she says, movin ta turn at the corner. "Sorry. You wanted ta be alone. I'll just see you later." She frowns. "Or not," I add. She exhales sharply. "You're not really bothering me," she says. There's a tension in her, just below the skin. She presses a finger ta her temple and rubs it, but as if she isn't really aware a'herself doin it. I focus on my coffee. "Where's Auld?" she asks abruptly. "He lives in that buildin over there," I say, pointin. "Really?" "I found it hard ta believe myself." "I'd like to talk with him." "Need some advice?" She looks at me, her mouth tightenin. "Not exactly." I laugh. "I wasn't offerin any. I start givin advice and there's no hope left for the world. What I mean is, you got some need ta see the future?" "You don't?" "I've had enough a'lookin ahead," I say. She's about ta respond when someone calls out from across the street; without thinkin, I move in front a'Hazel, like a shield, but the man approachin is no agent or cop, just a well-kept young head in a fur-rimmed jacket. His broad face breaks inta a lopsided grin, and he waves. I know him, but can't place his name. Some college boy I sold powder ta once, or amphetamines. "How are you?" he asks, crossin over ta our side a'the street. "Fine man, fine." "What are you doin down here?" "Takin in the sights," I say. "This is Hazel." He nods at her, and she smiles thinly. "Listen," he continues, droppin his voice. "I'm out of powder. You got any on you?" "I'm not dealin anymore." "Shit, really?" "Afraid so." "Well, you know anyone who is? What about that big friend of yours?" "We're both done. The Institute bought a contract at the mines." "I heard about that, but – " "It's over," I say, cuttin him off. He looks at Hazel, who's busy ignorin us both. "Well," the boy says, turnin ta go. "Hey," cuts in Hazel. "Why do you want the powder anyway?" "You got any?" he asks quickly, his eyes lightin up. "Just curious." "I need to talk to an outsider." "Why?" He frowns, collectin his thoughts. Suddenly he looks uncomfortable. I drink my coffee and wait. "Well I met one once, and I didn't much like what he had to say. I just thought I would, I don't know, get a second opinion or something. " "What'd he tell you?" Hazel asks him. The college boy laughs, but there's not much humour in it. He shifts on the balls of his feet, and runs a hand through his hair. "Said he could only see as far ahead as next month. Anythin after that was like looking at a blank wall. That was a few weeks ago now." "What do you think that means?" asks Hazel. "I don't know," he says, and then he turns ta me. "That's why I when I saw you here I thought I'd ask. That prophecy of his didn't make me feel good, I can tell you that." "It's always that way with them," Hazel says, an edge in her voice. She stares at the ground in front a'her, bitin down on her lower lip. "They should be more... I don't know, proactive. They should be trying to help us." "I think maybe we're better off on our own," I tell her. The boy laughs, more confident this time. "Well," he says. "I better get goin." "Later," I say. He leaves, but Hazel continues ta stare at the pavement like there's somethin written on it. I decide ta leave her ta it, and finish off my coffee. "I better go too," she tells me, after a while. "You got plans?" "Yes," she says shortly. "See?" "What?" "If you've got plans you must be pretty confident about what's comin next. So what difference does it make what Auld has ta say about it?" "It's more complicated than that." "Yeah well," I say. "Life usually is." She looks at me, and smiles for the first time. "You're right." "I'm as surprised as you are." She laughs. I think it's the first true laugh I've heard in a week. "Later," she says. "Yeah," I say. "Later." Transcript [The following is an excerpt from Institute Transcript no. 00178-B, recorded at 9:17 AM on the 18th of January. The subject of the interview was Justin Doyle, 29, of the Northside tenements in Newt Run. The interview was conducted by field agents Clarington and Thomas. For their commentary on this session and the events surrounding the Jan. 16th incident, please see Institute files no. 00325-A through 00325-D.] CLARINGTON, hereafter "C": We're recording now. JUSTIN DOYLE, hereafter "J": Fuck you. THOMAS, hereafter "T": [Laughs.] J: Know I told you ta fuck off earlier, but I just wanted ta make it official you know? No sense wastin it in the ether. T: [Laughing] Oh I agree. I agree completely. C: Let's continue. J: With what? C: With what you were about to tell us. J: About C. C: That's correct. J: Listen, I don't know what happened ta him. He's dead for all I know. Alright? T: You're sure of that? J: How can I be sure? That's what's so fucked up about all this. I wasn't there. You were. T: Yes we were. You might say we had a front row seat. J: So what do you need with me? C: Tell us about the outsider known as Auld. J: Haven't seen him. I never saw him. Not on the powder am I? C: No, our tests show you're clean. J: So what can I tell you? C: Maybe Auld sent an intermediary to contact you. J: An intermediary? C: That's right. J: I haven't heard anythin from him. And you won't either. C: What makes you say that? J: You just won't. He's not the type ta let himself get caught. T: Not like you. J: Yeah, not like me. How much longer is this gonna take anyway? C: Relax. J: You relax. You really gonna use that in here? T: Find out. J: Come on – [SECTION DELETED] J: You mothers… You [Inaudible.] C: Tell us what happened. J: I wasn't there! T: Before J, tell us about before. Why were they in the mines? J: Look, all I know is what C told me. C: And what did C tell you? J: That they were goin back ta the mines, but he never said what they planned ta do there. Auld never told us, not outright. He never told us nothin, but you can bet he knew what was comin. T: Do you believe that? J: Don't you? C: Go back to the apartment the outsiders were staying in. J: Shit, I already told you everything. I just want ta get out a'here. I mean, what the fuck do you want from me? [SECTION DELETED] T: That's better. C: I trust you're ready to continue? J: Fuck you. No. Look. No, I'll – [SECTION DELETED] T: We don't enjoy having to do that. J: [Inaudible.] C: Let's return to what happened on the 16th. J: I already told you. C: Tell us again. J: They left early. Said they were gonna meet another outsider. Someone named Irbe. C: Who said that? J: C. I asked him about this guy, this Irbe, but he didn't know anythin. He asked Auld about him, or it looked like he asked him – you got ta understand how fucked up it was for me, I mean I couldn't see who he was talkin ta. It was like C was holdin the conversation in an empty room, you know? Talkin ta himself. C: He'd mentioned Irbe before? J: Yes. C: How often? J: I don't know. A couple times. He only met him when we moved inta Auld's apartment. T: Which was when? J: The day after you sent me ta the fuckin hospital. C: What else did he tell you about Irbe? J: Nothin. T: You'll have to do better than that. J: What the fuck else can I say? C: Was Irbe the one who supplied the explosives? J: Maybe. Anyway there wasn't anythin like that in the apartment. Nothin I saw. C: And Irbe was with them when they went to the tenement? J: I guess. C: You're sure that's how they accessed the mines? Through this secret passage of yours? J: Yes I'm sure. Did the same thing myself, dozens a'times. Anyway how the fuck else? T: Someone found another way. J: What? T: Someone else was there. J: Who was there? C: Let's return to the subject at hand. Tell us again how you knew that Irbe was bringing the explosives. J: I don't know, not for sure. T: You just said you were sure. C: Let's go back to the beginning. J: I already told you everything! I just want – no, wait – [SECTION DELETED] Warning; entrance; betrayal The tenement is a darker slab against the mud-coloured sky. The lawn and the road in front are a single plane a'snow, crisscrossed and dotted with boot imprints and trails where kids have rolled the snow inta balls. The fruit a'their labours, five white, vaguely man-shaped figures standin in a rough circle beneath a lonely pine, regard the space in front a'them with mute attention. The one in the middle, the tallest by a head, has a glove shoved inta its hollow mouth, as if he'd been gagged. "Come on," says Ward. "Let's get this over with." Irbe hefts a heavy-lookin sports bag over his shoulder and we start out. I think again about askin what it is he's got in there, but don't feel like havin ta listen ta any more a'their evasive bullshit; if I'm not supposed ta know what they're planning then that's the way it is. Not that it's hard ta guess: J had these boys pegged nights ago, and if by goin with them now I've crossed from bein a drug dealer ta a terrorist, the fact is I never had a choice, all of which sounds good in principle, but just try explainin that ta a cop. The intricacies a'fate are typically lost on those boys. I pull open the side door and hold it open for the others. The hallway is empty, but I can hear the sound a'shoutin comin from an apartment at the far end. The air smells a'overcooked cabbage and wet carpet. The four a'us walk the short distance ta the boiler room, where Ward clears his throat, and spits onta the mould-spotted concrete. "You're sure Auld?" he asks. Auld stares at him. His eyes are heavy and there's a sallow, unhealthy cast ta his skin. He looks about ready ta collapse. "I already told you," he says. Irbe shifts the bag nervously on his shoulder. Whatever this is about, it has nothin ta do with me; I leave them ta it and I move behind the boiler and through the tunnel. One by one they trail after me. Irbe and Ward switch on their flashlights; after the blind dark a'the tunnel the light is sharp and stingin. I blink, my eyes strugglin ta adjust, and notice R leanin against the far wall. "Who the fuck is that?" asks Ward. "What are you doin here R?" I say. Irbe looks from R ta me, and then back ta Auld. "They're with you aren't they?" R murmurs, glancin around the room as if he might be able ta see them. "They're here." "Tell them it's over," he says. "They can hear you just fine R. Why are you here?" "I'm tryin ta help you." "Help me?" "The Institute knows you're comin C." "Oh?" "I told them." "Did you now?" "You don't know them C, these agents. You think you do but you don't." "Go home." "He warned them?" asks Ward. Irbe steps forward, clenchin his fists, and I move ta stand between him and R, who has no idea that any a'this is takin place. "Wait," I say, ta both the outsiders. "Just wait." "Auld, you couldn't see this coming?" Ward asks, but Auld doesn't respond. He's starin at his feet, at the pool a'white light shinin on the floor and the dust covered rock. I move closer ta R, watchin his thin lips curl inta the semblance of a smile. "How'd you know about this R?" I ask him. "I followed you," he says. "Saw you come inta the buildin last week. After you were gone I checked the stairs and found the tunnel." "You did all that huh?" He shrugs. "Wasn't hard." "You been tailin me the whole time then?" He ignores me. "I called the agents an hour ago. Told them you were comin. They'll be here soon." "Here?" "Not here. Further on. They're waitin for you." I smooth my hands over the front a'my jeans, tryin ta keep myself from slappin him. "Saw a way ta make some money and you took it," I say, noddin. "I get that. That's your style. What I don't get is why you're tellin me about it." "I thought I could make it right," he says. "Ta make up for before." "Shut your fuckin mouth." I nearly bite the words, and watch as R flinches. A soft click causes me ta turn around; Irbe is standin with a gun trained at the middle a'R's chest. "Shit," I mutter. "What is it?" R asks. "Step away C," Irbe says. "Put that down," I tell him. "Irbe," says Ward, feebly raisin a hand. "Get out of the way," Irbe says again. "What's goin on?" R stammers. "Shut the fuck up R." Ward glances at Auld, lookin for instruction, but Auld doesn't seem ta be aware a'any a'this; it's like he's been drugged, swayin on his feet and blinkin dully. "Irbe," Ward tries, his voice comin in a tight whisper. "Why do you have a gun? None of us were supposed to have guns." "I told him to bring it," Auld announces, his eyes still lowered. "Why?" I ask him. Irbe glances from R ta Auld and back again. R is starin at me curiously. "What's happenin?" he asks. "You've got a gun pointed at your chest." His smile wavers for a second, dies. "Really?" "Irbe," says Auld, pressin a hand ta the left side a'his head, as if he's in pain. "Put the gun away." "Why?" "Because none of this is necessary." Irbe frowns, his brow tightenin, but he doesn't lower the gun. "You see me putting the gun away Auld? Is that it?" "Doesn't matter what I see." "Then what the fuck are we here for?" Irbe shouts at him. The gun is tremblin in his hand. "Why'd you tell me to bring the fucking thing if it wasn't for this?" "It wasn't for this," says Auld, and the moment seems ta lengthen, stretchin ta a taught line; at length Irbe lowers the gun. Ward barks a short laugh. "R get the fuck out a'here," I say. "One of them has a gun?" he asks stupidly. "Just go." I move around him and exit the chamber. Behind me, R lets out a brief gasp a'pain; I turn in time ta see Ward cuff him across the side a'the head and Irbe kickin the legs out from under him. R coughs, rubbin his face, and the three outsiders start after me. I pause long enough ta watch R pull himself ta his feet. He brushes the dirt from his knees, and walks off, not botherin ta look back. I wait until he starts down the hole, and then hurry ta catch up ta the others. "They know we're comin," I say. "Yes," answers Auld. "But that doesn't matter does it?" "No." "They were always goin ta know." "That's right." "So we go on?" He nods, and a sudden wave a'anxiety washes the back a'my throat; I swallow, drivin it back down, and carry on. There was only one way this was ever goin ta play out, and who am I ta question? There's a cord wrapped around my neck, pullin me on. The only consolation is I'm pretty sure it's about ta run out. Beside me, Irbe is mutterin ta himself, runnin his hand over the back a'his head. I let him pass, and then the rest a'them, focusin on the sound a'my own boots until we reach the pit. Lookin up, I expect ta find the two agents flanked by cops or private security, but the chamber is empty; the plastic containers and the bank a'computers stand like art objects in the harsh glare a'the floodlights. Behind it all is the faint roar a'water at the base a'the pit. "Give me the gun," says Auld, quietly. "They're going to arrive from the far side, two of them. I'll wait for them there." Irbe is about ta protest when Auld cuts him off. "You're going to ask why I wanted you to carry the thing if I'm the one who's supposed to use it." Irbe nods. "But you already know why." "Because it had to happen," Irbe answers, like a kid recitin a lesson at school, and I realize that all the time I've known them, I've never once seen Irbe or Ward make a prediction a'their own. "What's the matter?" I ask him. "Can't you see it yourself?" He sneers at me, and moves off. Ward watches him go, an odd, confused look on his face. "And me?" I ask. Auld shrugs. "Just remember what I told you," he says, turnin. He crosses the chamber with the gun held lightly in his hand, as if it was a toy. Ward frowns, bitin down on his lower lip. The line cuttin his face is a deep, inky purple. "You stay close to me," he says at last, and I'm reminded a'what Auld said, that this boy is not ta be trusted; without a word, I leave Ward where he is and cross the short distance ta the computers. Irbe has the bag on the ground beside him, and as I approach he takes out a small object wrapped in a length a'cloth. "You mind tellin me what you've got in there?" I ask. "I think we're past the point a'keepin secrets." Rather than answerin, he uncovers the cloth and exposes a compact blastin cap, the kind used ta set charges in the deep tunnels. He places it by the nearest computer, and removes another from the bag, and then a third, as well as a length a'wire. The line a'his shoulders is stiff with tension, and his fingers work nervously; whatever he did before crossin over, it's obvious that he's no expert, and watchin an amateur fumble with explosives is more than I can take. I step back: Ward is not far from the pit, and Auld is nowhere ta be seen. Standin by the far door are the two agents, both a'them grippin tasers. The taller one smiles. "What have we here?" he says. Irbe stands up, clutchin a small, black box. He holds it up where the agents can see it. "You know what this is?" he asks them. "It's a detonator," the smaller agent responds. "Got a death wish or something?" "Do you?" Irbe's voice is high, and tinged with panic. "Drop your tasers," comes a voice; Auld moves out from behind a low outcroppin a'rock, the gun in his hand. They agents regard him blankly, but they do as they're told, and first the small one and then his partner sets their tasers down at their feet. "Against the wall," Auld instructs them. Ward takes a step, and then all at once he slams a fist inta the side a'Auld's head, sendin him sprawlin backward, and the gun clatterin ta the floor. Quietly, the smaller agent stoops ta pick it up. Irbe is just before me as the shot is fired; he falls ta the ground, screamin, and loses his hold on the detonator. He presses his hand ta his shoulder, blood seepin from the wound. "Ward!" he shouts. I crawl over ta him; he shudders through a long breath, and gasps, his lips parted from his teeth. He doesn't look at me, maybe doesn't even know I'm here. The detonator lies a few feet away. I lunge for it, but stop as two black shadows fall across my path. "Don't move," the smaller agent tells me; he holds the gun an inch from my face. The taller man laughs. Ward appears from around the computers. "We're done here yeah?" he says. I look back at Irbe, who's got his eyes shut, breathin in and out in little ragged bursts. The hand at his shoulder and his forearm is slick with blood. "We?" asks one a'the agents. "I brought them here didn't I?" Ward offers. "Or they brought you. It turns out your services weren't required. One of our other informants came through just as well." "Yeah, met him earlier. You know, he sold you out as fast as he did his friends. Warned us you'd be here waiting." "Scandalous," says the taller agent. "So you set us up Ward?" I manage ta ask. Casually, the taller agent bats me across the mouth with the gun. I spit, tastin blood. Ward doesn't look at me. The taller agent is grinnin. "Look happy Ward," he says. "You'll still get your reward." "The Institute pays its debts," the smaller agent adds. Ward glances between them, lost. "Once we get the gate open you'll be the first one through," says the taller man. "That wasn't what we agreed." "You wanted to go home. This is your only ticket." "Wait " Ward is about to say something further, but the shorter man cuts him off. "There's something else here," he says. "Yes," says the taller agent, turnin. "There is." You Affect the Outcome "You know it's possible that even with your help I won't be able to get out. That's something I've considered." Inter-7 A is sitting on the roof of the tenement. His legs hang from the edge, and before him are the lights of the town, yellow-gold and burning against the slowly darkening plane. "I've thought about that," he continues with a touch of irony. "I'm not crazy." He leans over the ledge and watches cars passing on the road below. He hauls back in his throat, spits. "Or I could end it here and now. Just by jumping..." His neck muscles strain as he turns in your direction. "I know you wouldn't mind," he says, standing up. "But first we'll try it this way. It'd be a shame if all the birds died for nothing." He laughs, but the sound sputters and dies as his face is twisted in a momentary spasm of pain. He presses the palm of his hand to his temple. "If the headache would only give me a chance to think..." He frowns and picks up the canvas sack at his side; by now, the birds have stopped struggling, exhausted and at the point of death. He reaches inside and removes a mid-sized pigeon. Its wings barely flutter as he takes it by the neck and rips off its head. Blood shoots over his chapped, cold hands, but he ignores it, and sets to work on the ring. When he's finished, he tosses the body aside, and uses a second bird to draw the symbols. You stare at his work, aware of the by-now familiar inversion of tone and colour, the symbols and the ring burning blue-white against the tar paper covering of the roof. There is a searing burst of light, and a sense of motion as the fabric of things is ripped aside. Suddenly the roof is gone, and you find yourself in a wide, stone chamber. Floodlights wash the rough-hewn walls, and to your right is a massive, gaping pit. Behind you, Inter-7 A is kneeling on the ground, his hands gripping the sides of his head, a faint trail of spit hanging from his half-open mouth. A gunshot echoes through the cavern; the sound is vaguely familiar, even vestigial, recalling a memory of a time before any of this began. You struggle to recall it, but Inter-7 A is already moving, worming his way behind a row of large, cylindrical containers. He reaches for the sack of birds, his hand trembling, a look on his face like a startled animal. You leave him there. Not far away a group of men are arranged in an odd tableau. There are five in total, two of them dressed in black coats and goggles, the taller one with a gun in his hand. Two others are on the ground, blood-spattered and panting, but only the one with a line of shifting colour on his face appears to be wounded. Not far away is another man whose face is cut by a line, darker than the first, purple and livid as a fresh scar. "There's something else here," says the shorter man in goggles. The taller one turns. "Yes," he says. "There is." "What is it?" "I don't know." You look at the man bleeding on the ground, the steady flow of blood seeping from his wound. "Do we continue?" asks the taller man. "We don't have a choice," replies the shorter one. "But with this other here..." The smaller man is looking straight at you, his face confused, as if unsure of what he's seeing. The floodlights glare sharply over the black expanse of his goggles. "There's no time," he says, and, handing the gun to the taller man, he turns to the closest computer, calling up a menu on the display screen. A strange light flickers into life from within the pit, blue-white and crackling. You move toward the ledge: ten meters below you the pit is gone, replaced by a skin of rippling energy. It is unlike anything you have ever seen before, a featureless plane or mirror, reflecting nothing other than itself. "Whatever that thing is, it's right at the edge!" calls the man holding the gun. The shorter man does not look up from the computer. His face hardens, his lips twisting in a bitter smile. "Are you ready Ward?" he asks. "What do I do?" answers the man with the scar-like line. "Jump," replies the shorter man. "Is it safe?" The taller man laughs. "You're about to find out," he says, turning the gun on him. "Get moving." The man named Ward swallows, and steps toward the pit. A wave of vertigo overtakes you; the lines of the chamber begin to fall away, the men eroding like sketches drawn in sand, and you understand that whatever Inter-7 A was planning to do here, whatever ring or symbol he meant to paint, he has begun. He is changing the nature of this place, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop him. Auld is Awake Auld stands with the gun in his hand. Through the haze of his fatigue he is dimly aware of Ward moving toward him, but Auld does not look up, nor does he make any attempt to defend himself: Ward is exactly where he should be, as are all the rest. The pieces are set, each one perfectly positioned to fall. In this place and in this moment, Auld's foresight is as strong as he has ever known it. With numbing, terrible clarity, he watches the two men from the Institute enter the chamber. He raises the gun, and feels Ward's sharp blow on the back of his head. He falls, briefly losing consciousness, only to come to as he hits the ground. The gun slips from his hand and rattles across the floor. He sees himself lying on his back. His eyes are closed, and he should not be able to see anything further, and yet he does: he watches as one of the agents stoops to pick up the gun, and knows that he could prevent this, easily, just by standing up or reaching to take the gun himself, but he doesn't. Instead, Auld allows the agent to aim and shoot, and Irbe to be shot. He sees C kneeling beside Irbe, who is bleeding to death, and the men from the Institute calling up the gate. He sees them force Ward to the edge of the pit, all the while aware of another man, hidden behind the canisters of powder, busy scrawling symbols onto the ground with the blood of a dead bird. Auld does not know how this man arrived, or what he's trying to do, but he knows that he is necessary, that the illegible and seemingly meaningless symbols he is painting are as important as anything else. Auld watches the gate crackle into life within the pit. He watches the agent point the gun, and Ward jump from the ledge. He sees all of this before it happens, standing at the entrance of the cavern with the gun in his hand, waiting for the future to become the present. ; Ward's scream is sliced clean away the instant after he jumps, the light, or gate, or whatever it is that's down there swallowin him whole. Both agents are distracted by the monitors, and without thinkin I stand up and lunge at the gun; the taller man jerks back, much stronger than I expected; his grip tightens and the gun goes off, the shot glancin off the opposite wall. The man pivots on his heel and there's an explosion a'light and pain behind my eyes as his elbow connects with my temple; I stagger away, blinkin, but the light grows worse. It's comin from the pit, blue and near blindin, and with it a sound like rock bein torn apart, electrical storms ragin in a glass bottle. I let go a'the agent's hand, and he looks away, shieldin his goggled eyes. I can just make out Irbe reachin for the detonator. "No!" shouts a voice, maybe mine. I get up and run, but it's like someone's unplugged time; every motion is slowed ta a crawl, the only sound the whistlin call a'energy in the pit. My legs rise and fall, heavy as sacks a'mud; I have the sense a'runnin in a dream, but know that for the lie it is: none a'this may be real, but at least it's not a dream. Thoughts echo over a void; I think a'what's next, and whether or not Auld had this all planned from the beginning. I think a'what J will get up ta now that I'm gone, tryin ta picture it, but I don't have Auld's gift. I can't see ahead. All I could ever see was what was right in front a'me. I reach the edge a'the pit and the field a'blue light shimmerin below it. I think a'when I came here as a child, the pull this place has always had on me, the long, graspin fingers a'gravity and fear. Somewhere behind me a blast goes off, and I jump; the blue field flickers, dies, and all that's left is the fall into the dark; I can just make out the sound a'water rushin in the depths below. In a moment the light appears again, paperin over the hole, and it goes on like that, the light flickerin on and off, growin larger, until the blue field and the black are all I've got left ta see. I think a'my father. 3 Glass Eyes There is in me the hope to look upon your face once more. There is in this the urge to do what once was done before. I know in this I hope in vain, for what is not can never be: a doll will never cry in pain, nor glass eyes ever see. - Emi Foulliou, "Glass Eyes", from the album All of This copyright Milky Media, 2004 A quiet street lined by mid-sized buildings. Most of these are fronted by stores at ground-level, shuttered hair salons or bakeries, even a small butcher shop. Street lamps burn at regular intervals, their orange pools acting as a counterpoint to the drab monochrome of concrete and darkened brick. Abruptly, the window of a second floor apartment is thrown open, and a woman's body appears at the edge. It rests there for a moment, slouch-backed, before it falls and lands with a sickening thud on the pavement. The woman is still, her long, shapely limbs splayed wildly, her left leg wrenched back at the knee, obviously broken. She is dressed in a maid's uniform, her shoulders only half covered by wide, puffy sleeves, with a pair of decorative lace cuffs around her wrists. The impact has dislodged one of her shoes, a red leather pump with a four inch heel, and her short, black skirt has been dragged well above her knees. A corona of fine, yellow hair frames her head, partly concealing her face. The body lies where it fell, and the street goes on as before. Gradually the sky begins to lighten. A large, black crow sweeps over the road, lighting softly on one of the power lines suspended above the body. The crow lets out a single, shattering caw, and across the street a tall, thickly built man emerges from one of the houses. His eyes are drawn to the body. He glances up the street, as if expecting an ambulance or police car to appear. Neither does, and the man approaches the body. His hand trembles as he reaches to touch the woman's shoulder. Two glass eyes gaze up at him from a perfect, lifeless face. The man exhales sharply; it's only a doll, and this close he wonders how he could have mistaken it for a real woman. The doll's skin is too smooth, and its hair is obviously synthetic. Then there is the uncanny stillness of the thing – even a dead woman would seem more alive. The man steps back, wiping his hands on the front of his pants with a puzzled look on his face. Finally he turns away, leaving the doll where it is. In the dream I'm falling. Below me is a gaping hole, infinitely black. I try to scream, but the sound is stripped from my throat and sent spiraling before me into the dark. In an instant the hole is gone, covered over by a thin, blue light. I fall, and the light reaches up to welcome me. I awake with a shuddered gasp, sitting bolt upright in bed. I haul back on the dark air and press a hand to my head, trying to bring the room into focus. Nothing looks familiar, not this bed or anything else: I have no idea where I am. I close my eyes, and will myself to relax, but when I look again nothing's changed. This is not my room, and a low shiver descends my spine as it occurs to me that I might still be dreaming. I stand up, naked except for a pair of boxers. The room is small and sparsely furnished. Next to the bed is a night stand, and there is also a wooden dresser, as well as a desk before the window. Two doors stand on opposite walls, positioned in such a way that they are nearly facing one another. I scan the room for my clothes, coming up empty, but inside the dresser I find a row of shirts on hangers and a few drawers full of t-shirts and jeans. A black, leather jacket hangs on a hook on the back of the door. None of these things are mine. I move to the window, prying the blinds open with my fingers. I don't recognize the street, or any of the buildings. A light snow is falling, and across the road a cat is nosing around the garbage piled in front of a shuttered supermarket. I turn to the door nearest me and step into a narrow hallway. There are several other doors along the hall, each of them numbered, and at the far end, above a wooden table and a decorative, porcelain vase, is a large mirror. Returning inside, I try the second door, which opens onto a closet-sized bathroom. I grope for the light switch, and a thin, fluorescent strip lamp flickers into life above the sink. I turn on the tap, and allow the water to fall over my hands before dashing it across my face. I look at my reflection. A thin, yellow line cuts my face from forehead to cheek. I reach to touch it, feeling nothing except my own damp skin, and beneath that, bone. I press closer to the mirror: just beneath the surface of the line is the faint trace of movement, like coils of cigarette smoke trailing in a dim room. I run more water into my palms and splash it over my head, scrubbing until my skin is raw, but the line stays where it is, while the aimless smoke continues to drift behind it. Rubbing my eyes, I pass a hand over my scalp, realizing only now that my head has been shaved. I keep my eyes pressed together, willing the line to disappear, but when I open them again it's still there, very clear in the sharp light. "This feels like a dream," I say, and watch as the face in the mirror mouths the words. Again, I push my palms into my eyes, clearing the water from my face, and then I leave the room. I return to the dresser, grabbing clothes at random. They fit perfectly, better in fact than anything in my own closet. The leather jacket slips over my shoulders like I was born wearing it, and the boots stacked at the foot of the dresser fit as neatly as a pair of gloves. Quickly, I lace up the boots and leave the room. At the end of the hall I pause in front of the mirror. The line is reflected back at me, darker maybe, but still clear, and I quickly turn away, walking down a short stairwell to the ground floor and exiting onto the street. The night air is sharp and clean in my lungs. I fall into walking, turning over the events of the past few minutes in my mind. There has to be an explanation, and I like the sound of that, how solid those words are, 'an explanation', but I for the life of me I can't think of one; waking up in an empty apartment with a line on my face – maybe I was raped by a tattoo artist. I force a smile, conscious of the fact that whatever else the line might be, it's like no tattoo I've ever seen. As well, I don't feel as if I've been raped, and I imagine that's something I'd be able to feel. All things considered, I feel fine: the snow falls softly on my freshly shaved scalp, and the cold air is sharp and bracing against my face. I shove my hands into the pockets of the jacket, and watch my boots push into the unblemished snow. None of this is vague or uncertain, and the feeling of being in a dream begins to fade. At the end of the street I stop to get my bearings. From the look of it, I'm in the East end, somewhere around 4th or 5th Bridge, maybe even as high as sixth; the peaks of the Eastern range loom close over the tops of the houses, but judging by the state of the road, and the smooth, well-maintained asphalt, I'm not in Northside. Wherever I am, I'm far from lost: I only need to walk away from the mountains and I'll eventually come to the river. From there I can catch a bus back home, and then I can try to sleep off whatever drugs I may or may not be on. If the line is still on my face in the morning I'll go to see a doctor. A good plan. Very sane, which is important to me right now, because the most obvious (and likely) explanation is that I've lost my mind. Except that I don't feel crazy. I'm not confused – I know where I am and what I'm doing (I'm on a street, walking.) My thoughts are hard, definite objects, or at least they seem to be, although it's possible that a mental patient would say the same thing. Thinking along these lines, I come to a road with a number of cars idling at an intersection. A little further on I can make out the bridge, and then I see her, standing next to a small café with a cellphone at her ear. She's dressed in black leggings under a denim skirt, and a mid-length brown jacket. Her hair is different, pulled back from her face and much shorter, with loose strands drifting at her ears and around her temples, but there's no question that it's her. "Kelly," I say, walking closer. She looks at me and frowns, cupping her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "I'm sorry?" she asks. "What are you doing here?" "Do we know each other?" "Kelly, what – " "I'm sorry," she says again. "You must have me confused with someone else. My name is Hazel." I was eating in a basement on Felt Street. The café was hot, and terrifically humid - one of the pipes in the back had burst, and the brick walls were covered in a faint sheen of condensation. The two men working the grill were drenched in sweat, uniform, white t-shirts clinging to their chests and their pale faces flushed a vibrant shade of pink. Every so often one of them would pause what he was doing to pound back a pint of water in a beer mug. I didn't mind the heat; sweat doesn't bother me and the food was cheap and good. Besides, I was writing, and for once the words were coming easily. I sat with my head down and burned through a few pages in less than an hour, only very dimly aware of the stream of customers coming in and out, salaried workers for the most part, younger guys in business suits and girls in pencil skirts with mid-priced haircuts. By the time I was finished it had started to rain, a fine, slight drizzle that dampened the pavement until it resembled a stretch of sodden bread. Thanks to the rain and the sweat I'd worked up sitting in the cafe, I was soaked by the time I reached a bus stop. The number 17 brought me as far as 5th Bridge, and I walked the last few blocks with my head down and my hair plastered to my forehead and the side of my face, feeling that it would have been better if I'd gone home. The share house is just off Cove Street, a large, brick building with a small lawn that never gets mowed. It has rooms for nine people, but there are always more than that staying there, girlfriends or boyfriends, and a revolving door of assorted hangers-on, friends and well-wishers, one-night-stands or those failed attempts who inevitably wind up sleeping on the couches. Weekends are reserved for parties, but that doesn't preclude one being held on any other day; the tenants don't need much of an excuse to party. If more than five of them wind up drinking at the same time, that's usually enough. On this night, I found a small group of people on the porch, two guys lounging in deck chairs and a tall brunette sitting with her back to one of the wooden post beams. Maybe she'd just come in from the rain, because her legs were wet and glistening in the half-light under the porch roof. She nodded to me as I came up the stairs. "No umbrella?" she asked. I noticed that she had a bong cradled between her thighs, her slim hands draped loosely around the glass neck. "It's raining?" "Yeah man," replied one of the guys. He was young, with a thick shock of blond hair above a pinched, startled-looking face. "Look." He pointed to the fall of mist I'd just spent the last 5 minutes walking through. "Damn, you're right." The girl offered a nearly soundless laugh. "Richard around?" I asked. "Probably," said the other guy, a thin black man with an accent I couldn't place. "You want a hit of this?" the girl asked me, holding up the bong. "Kind of you," I said, taking it from her. She shrugged. "You got a lighter?" The blond passed me one, and I put the flame to what was left in the bowl and cleared the chamber, exhaling a cloud of dirty gray smoke into the rain. I handed the bong back to the girl. "You live here?" she asked. "No. You?" She shrugged again. It seemed to be a motion she was comfortable with, and it suited her, the gentle fall of her shoulders, and the slight look of boredom in her dark eyes. "Richard invited me," she told me. The blond motioned for the bong. He set a good amount of weed into the bowl, and then retrieved a plastic bag half-full of some kind of powder from the table next to him. "You mind if I add some of this?" The girl craned her neck to look. "What is it?" "Powder." She nodded then, and went back to gazing at the street. "You mind?" he asked again. Maybe he hadn't seen her nod. "No," she said. "I like it." The black guy laughed. "What do you mean you like it?" he said. "It doesn't do anything. Waste of fuckin money." "One of them comes around here though," said the blond. "Who does?" "An outsider." "Yeah?" "Yeah man, sometimes." The girl was looking at them. "I never met any outsiders, but I still like it. Whenever I take that stuff it feels like someone's watching me. Like someone's hovering over my shoulder." "You like being watched?" asked the blond; he'd finished sprinkling the bowl with powder and he put it to his mouth and inhaled deeply. "No," answered the girl. "It sounds creepy when you put it like that, but it isn't. I don't know, it just feels like I'm important or something. Like there's someone out there who cares about me." She was smiling faintly, and I wondered how much of what she was saying she believed. Maybe all of it, I decided, and the smile was only a result of not wanting to sound vain. "Someone here cares about you too," the blond remarked. "You're sweet." "Legs like that, why not?" The black man laughed. The girl closed her eyes and shook her head, but she was still smiling. The door to the house opened and Richard stepped onto the porch. He nodded to me and sat on the railing by the girl's feet. Casually, he rested a hand on her calf. She didn't open her eyes. "Hey," he said. I nodded. The blond passed me the bong and I nudged the girl's shoulder. She took it from me and hit it, and when she exhaled I thought I could see a hint of orange in the smoke. Richard went next, taking a small hit before handing it back to the blond. "This is Carol," he said to me. The girl gave a slight wave. Her eyes were open now, and there was still a trace of a smile on her lips. "Or C," she added. "Isaac," I told her, and then, turning to Richard. "You got anything to drink?" "Yeah." He got to his feet. "Come on." Carol looked up then, her eyes widening. "It's totally here," she said. "What is?" "Whatever's watching us." She looked away. Richard shrugged, as if to say he had nothing to do with it, and led me inside the house. "Nice girl," I said. "Met her at the gallery tonight. She was there with someone but he was too busy talking with the beautiful people, and I guess I'm more interesting." "The benefit of being an artist." "That's right." "So the opening went well?" "Pretty well. Sold almost half the prints." "People know quality when they see it." "They do." "If there's one thing I've learned it's that." Richard was a photographer. He specialized in architecture, but if he really wanted to make a living at it he would have been better off in the capital, working for a magazine or possibly an ad agency. Unfortunately, he had no interest in being told what to shoot, so he made what he could from the few exhibitions he managed to put together and the rest of his money came from working part-time in a bookstore, which is just another way of saying that he was usually broke; lack of funds was the main reason he was living in the share house, which for the most part catered to students, especially those on exchange from the capital. We found two of them in the kitchen when we arrived, guys in their mid-twenties with forgettable faces and average builds who were busy mixing elaborate-looking drinks that involved several types of rice alcohol, crushed ice, and a pulpy mash of raw fruit. "You need one of these?" one of the guys asked me. "No thanks," I said, and then to Richard: "You have any beer?" "Must have somewhere." He opened the massive, stainless-steel fridge and rooted through the shelves for a couple of cans. "Thanks." "Anytime." I opened the beer. "They tell me you have an outsider here." I mentioned this casually, as if it was something I was used to saying at parties. "He comes and goes." "He here tonight?" "Not tonight." "How long has he been showing up?" "Hard to say. First time I took powder he was already here, just chilling on the couch. Said he'd been coming round for a while." "Fucked up isn't it?" "No, he's alright." After that, one of the guys drew Richard back into a discussion about photography, and rather than standing there and trying to fake an interest, I left them and went into the living room. A dozen or so people were sprawled on the house's collection of mismatching couches, and the low table in the center of the room was littered with empty beer cans and half-empty bottles of wine. A large TV had been placed in the far corner, flanked by a couple of lap tops and two large speakers. The air was dense with shouted conversation and an aggressive brand of electronic music. A slight man with brown hair was sitting on his knees in front of the screens, a pair of over-sized headphones strapped to his ears. His hands flashed from one computer to the other, and the image on the TV screen, of a crowded city street, began to change, disintegrating into a numbing static of monochrome pixels. I found a free space on the couch. The girl next to me offered me a joint, but I was intent on getting drunk and I passed it on. In short order I'd finished my beer and helped myself to one of the bottles of wine. A blond girl sat down across the table. "That's my wine," she said mildly, bringing her knees up to her chest. The skin of her bare shins was visible, and there were scrape marks and small bruises on her left knee. Her face was unique rather than pretty, with a prominent nose and a wide, knowing mouth, but her eyes were worth looking at; blue-grey and almond-shaped, they were perfectly, almost unbearably, clear. "It's good," I said. "It's cheap," she returned. "You're new here?" "Been here a couple days. I think this is supposed to be my welcome party or something." "Welcome," I said, and handed her the bottle. She took it and refilled her glass. "What's your name?" I asked her. "Kelly." "What brings you out here Kelly?" "I'm on exchange." "What do you study?" "I'm a painter." Abruptly she turned to the guy kneeling in front of the laptops. "What is this sample?" she asked. He didn't respond. Probably he hadn't heard her through the headphones. She tapped him on the shoulder and he uncovered his right ear. She repeated the question. "Oh," he said. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a thin man. "Nothing. From an Emi Foulliou song." "Who?" "Just this singer." He was wearing a pair of large, square-framed sunglasses, and a leather chin-strap with a circular voice modulator in place over his mouth. The modulator was a custom job, and it looked like a cross between a SCUBA apparatus and a fetish mask. It also explained the man's voice: wearing one of those he could sound like anyone, or anything, he wanted. It was hard to tell because of all the shit on his face, but I got the impression that behind it all he was a very good-looking man. "It's nice," said the girl across from me, meaning the song. "It works with the images," he said. "He's on exchange too," the girl explained. "Your boyfriend?" They both laughed. "No," she said. "My boyfriend's back in the capital." "How long are you here for?" Her friend replaced the headphone at his ear and turned back to the computers. "4 months," she said, and leaned forward to top off my wine. "What do you think of the town so far?" I asked her. "Not sure yet," she said. "At least it's safer." "Things are that bad in the capital?" She shrugged. "They're pretty bad. Are you a student?" I shook my head. "I'm a writer." "I see." "Is that bad?" "It can be. What do you write?" "Mostly novels." "You publish anything I'd know?" "Never published anything. Any money I make comes from freelance work." She nodded. "Well," she said, standing up. "I think I'm gonna go see about smoking something." "Mind if I come?" "No," she said simply, already on her way out of the room. I followed her to the patio. The rain had stopped, but the pavement was still slick with moisture. The light from the street lamps spread over the ground in diffuse, orange pools. Carol was gone and so was Richard, but the two guys were still there, smoking contentedly in their chairs. Kelly took Carol's place on the ledge and I stood with my back to the post beam. She asked for the bong and the blond handed it to her. When she was done she passed it to me. It was thick with the metallic rot of powder. "First time I smoked with the powder," she said. "You're not missing anything," I told her. It was something I said by reflex, a conditioned response, and just as meaningless. "Hey," the blond piped-up. "You ever hear of a guy named Anson Peters?" "No," I answered. I thought I saw him shrug, and then he reached out for the bong. "Friend of a friend," he explained. "Did a lot of fucked up shit with powder, back when it first started making the rounds. Put it in anything. Used to lace his coke with it." "Sounds like a good guy." "Great fucking guy. One of the best, but who cares right? Thing is, after a while he went a bit off. Started talking to himself. Said there was more than just outsiders out there, and that sometimes they talked to him." "Yeah? What'd they say?" asked Kelly. I couldn't tell if she was actually interested or if she was just humouring him. Her voice was flat, and she gazed at the space by her feet, the fingers of one hand moving idly over the railing. "Like for example the universe is only five years old." "That doesn't make any sense," I said. "Of course it doesn't. It's not supposed to. It's crazy. But he said he saw it for himself. Said he could see into things, straight to the heart. And he was convinced of this, that creation happened five years ago. Everything we remember from before that, everything that was ever written down, all the events throughout history are just an illusion." "So if I understand correctly," Kelly said. "What you're telling me is not to mix powder and coke." He nodded. "That's one thing," he said, and then he looked at me. "But you know what it means if he's right?" "What's that?" "That any girl you've ever been with was underage." I laughed. I was pretty high by that point. We all were. Beside me, Kelly had her eyes closed, and I watched her, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Underage or not, she looked good. "Hazel," I say. "Yes." She speaks the word but it doesn't register; this is Kelly, looking at me with the same eyes and speaking from the same mouth. Kelly's face, and her voice, telling me that her name is Hazel. She's looking at me like I'm a stranger, as if we've never met before, and a dull weight drops in the pit of my stomach. I look for something to hold onto, but there's nothing there. "Are you alright?" she asks. "No," I say, stopping myself, and then just as quickly start again: "I'm fine. Listen, you don't have a twin sister do you?" "No... Why?" "Kelly..." "Please stop calling me that." "Alright, listen, you look like someone I know. I mean, you look exactly like her. It's like she's standing right in front of me, or you're her twin or something." "Ok," she says, and I watch as she takes a step away from me. "Can I buy you a coffee?" I ask, hearing the desperation in my voice. "I'm not sure." "I know there's no point in saying this, but I'm not crazy." She hesitates. "Alright," she says finally. Before she can change her mind, I move to the café and hold the door open until she walks through it. The place is smaller than it looked from the outside, just a single wooden bar with a half dozen stools set in front of it. A pair of middle-aged men are hunched over plates of food, and the bartender, a rail-slim man with gray, thinning hair is watching the news on a small TV set. Kelly and I walk to the end of the counter. On the way, I notice that one of the men is thumbing through a porn magazine, the glossy pages open to a shot of a busty girl half-falling out of a nurse's uniform. "You mind if I get a drink?" I ask Kelly. She shrugs. The bartender glances at us. "Whiskey," I say. "Coffee," says Kelly, and the bartender nods. She turns to me. "What's your name?" she asks. "Isaac." "Ok. So, I don't know what to tell you Isaac. I don't have a twin. I don't even have a sister." "Right." "So I don't know what to tell you." "Maybe you were separated at birth." "What, me and my twin?" "Yes. Or maybe you're Kelly, and you're just telling me that you're not." "Why would someone do that?" "To fuck with me, I guess." "This girl's the type that likes to fuck with people?" The bartender sets down our drinks along with a small brass pitcher of milk for the coffee. I take a sip of my whiskey. Kelly adds milk to her cup, and stirs in a spoonful of sugar from a glass jar on the counter. "I never thought she was that type, no," I say. "But you're entertaining the possibility." "That's right." "How did you know this girl?" "She was an exchange student from the capital." "So am I." "She's a painter," I say, not looking at her; I'm looking at the brown liquid in my glass, at my reflection in the mirror behind the counter, the rigid line of the bartender's back as he stares at the television, anywhere but her. Looking at her is like looking at something that's stepped out of a dream. "I'm studying biology," she tells me. "I can't see her studying biology." The girl looks down at her hands. "You're serious about all this aren't you?" she says, after a time. "Yes." "She was your girlfriend?" "Someone else's girlfriend." She seems to consider that. Abruptly, the man with the porn magazine bursts out laughing. He leans back on his stool, covering his mouth with his hand. The guy beside him, grinning, stares straight ahead, his wide shoulders shaking with suppressed mirth. They aren't looking at us, don't even seem to be aware of us, but I can't help feeling they're laughing at me. I glance at Kelly's fingers wrapped around the white porcelain coffee mug, all of them stained orange to the knuckles. The skin dye is new, but it suits her, and I wonder how long she's been thinking of having that done. I finish my whiskey and call to the bartender for another. "I'd like to buy you a drink," I say to her. She smiles without letting it touch her eyes. "Alright. Maybe it'll help me sleep." The bartender pours our drinks and I tip my glass in her direction. "You seem pretty worked up about all this," she says, a bit of the old Kelly in her voice. It's only now, hearing something that I recognize from the other girl in her voice, that I'm able to conceive of the possibility that I might not be sitting next to her. "You really aren't her are you?" I say. She shakes her head. "Sorry." "It's not your fault." "They say everyone has a double out there somewhere." "That is what they say." We drink silently. "It's been a weird night." "Yeah?" "Earlier I woke up in an apartment I'd never seen before. I had no idea where I was." "Strange." "And these clothes?" I say, tugging on the collar of my jacket. "Yes?" "Not mine." "They suit you." "Thank you. So did the apartment, and the really fucked up thing is that the more time passes, the more I feel like I belong in these clothes." "Sometimes it's like that. You wake up and you have no idea where you are, but after a while it comes back to you." "Yeah." "Was it like that?" "Sort of. But there was something else." I frown, struggling to bring it back, but it's like sifting through mist. "There was something wrong... with my face," I say. "Looks fine to me." "Thanks." She looks away, biting her lip. "I'm trying to imagine what it'd be like." "What? Waking up in a stranger's place?" "No. I've done that before. Meeting someone you think you know and having them tell you they're someone else." "It's not pretty." "Did you love her?" I look into my glass as if there might be an answer there, but there's no avoiding it, not when she's sitting right next to me and asking in her own voice. "Yeah I loved her," I say, and I watch as she considers that, takes it in with a mouthful of whiskey. She sets down her glass and orders us both another round. The bartender nods, but asks us to settle up now, obviously uninterested in running a tab. "I got it," I say, reaching into my jacket pocket for my wallet and coming up empty. "Shit," I mutter. The girl laughs, low and without humour, shaking her head. "I have cash," she says. "Don't worry." "I'll make it up to you next time." "Next time?" "Yes." She laughs again, not looking at me. "I didn't plan it this way," I tell her. "It's not the end of the world," she says, handing a few bills to the bartender. She doesn't ask me anything more about Kelly or what happened. Instead, she tells me about herself, how she left the capital because of the trouble and how she's only been in town for a week or so, staying with her uncle. I don't ask her about her work at the university or about anything else; I don't care. Everything she says feels wrong, as if she's reading from a script. A script written by someone she's never met and who didn't have her in mind when they wrote the part. I look away from her, at the man to my left, leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed over his wide chest and his eyes closed, maybe sleeping. The bartender takes out a cigarette and lights it. Kelly asks him for one and he gives it to her, except that it isn't Kelly asking and it isn't Kelly who takes it from him – it's someone else, some other girl reaching out with Kelly's hand and putting the smoke to Kelly's lips. We drink without speaking and she finishes the cigarette. When she's done she tells me that it's been interesting but she has to go. She pays for us both and we leave the café. The snow has stopped falling and the night has grown very cold. "I'm sorry about the drinks," I say. She makes a small motion like she's brushing away a fly and then wraps her arms around her chest, shivering. "It's fine," she tells me. "What's your number?" I ask her. "Are you serious?" "Yes. I think so." "I don't have one in town yet." "Your uncle's?" She bites her lip and looks away, and then all at once she's taking a pen from her bag and a small notepad and scrawling a number on it. She tears the sheet from the pad and hands it to me. "Well," she says. "Guess I'll be seeing you." "I guess so." She makes a slight wave and turns her back to me. I watch her make her way across the bridge and disappear into the crowd on the far side of the river, and then I turn around. I start walking, trying not to think; the whiskey isn't sitting well and half a block further on a brown fist of pain doubles me over and I pour a night's worth of drinks and bile onto the snow. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and spit, kicking snow over the mess. The streets are quiet, and it isn't long before I reach home. I walk up the flight of stairs to the second floor of the building, catching sight of my reflection in the hallway mirror; there is a touch of something on my cheek, as if an invisible insect had lighted there. I frown, and make my way to the door. I take off my coat and struggle out of my boots. I walk to the bathroom where I turn on the tap and gargle with cold water, rinsing the taste of stomach acid and whiskey from my mouth. I look at myself in the mirror, but there's something off about the reflection, a kind of warping in the glass, and the right side of my face refuses to come into focus. I take a hand-towel from the shelf by the sink and use it to wipe the mirror. When I look again my face is clear. The morning passes quickly, a short, blank stretch of time almost completely overridden by a hangover. I eat and shower, and do my best not to think. I stare at the table in front of me, the last crust of toasted bread on the plate and at myself in in the mirror as I shave; my reflection is very sharp. I spend a moment examining my face: tired and drawn, and unlikely to win any prizes for distinguishing characteristics, at least it's mine. Leaving the bathroom, I finish getting dressed and exit the apartment. The temperature dropped during the night and the air is cold and biting. I wait for the bus with my fists in my pockets, shivering. When it finally arrives I take it as far as 5th Bridge and walk the short distance to the share house. A girl I've never seen before answers the door. No older than twenty four or twenty five, she is tall, with a long fall of black hair trailing past her shoulders. Despite the cold, she's only wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top. Her wide, brown eyes take me in without a trace of interest. "You guys just keep showing up," she says. "Sorry." She shrugs and opens the door. I enter the hall and remove my boots. The girl passes into the living room and flops down on a sofa, taking up a book from the floor. I watch as she stretches out, crossing one long, tanned leg over the other. It occurs to me that this is the first pair of woman's legs I've seen in months, and I try not to think about how pathetic that sounds. "What are you reading?" I ask her. "A book," she says, but without a trace of irony. "What's it about?" "Myths." "Myths?" She sighs, and sets the book down on her chest. "My thesis is on myths, alright?" "Yeah that's alright," I say, crossing the room and sitting down on the chair nearest the couch. Between us, a low table is covered with out of date magazines, loose tobacco, and a number of empty beer cans subbing as ashtrays. I root around in the debris and come up with a stack of papers and enough tobacco to roll myself a smoke. "That's not all tobacco," the girl warns me, without looking up. "I'll live." I think I can see her smile. She holds the book in front of her face with one hand while pulling her hair up with the other, draping it over the arm of the couch. "There a light?" I ask. "No idea," she says, and I search the table until I find a book of matches. Once I get the thing lit I inhale thinly, thinking that she was right: along with the tobacco is the unmistakable flavour of weed, and something else, dry and subtly metallic. "You come here to talk about books?" she asks. "Not especially." "You don't live here do you?" "No." "So," she says slowly. "What are you doing here?" "I came to see a friend." "No, like, in general." "You mean what do I do?" "I guess," she says, and then she shrugs, amused with herself, or maybe by me, it's hard to tell. "Hand me that." I pass her the joint. "I'm a writer." "That makes sense," she says, nodding. She offers the joint back to me, but I shake my head. "Keep it," I say. "Very kind of you," she replies, and goes back to her book. A moment later I stand up. "Be seeing you," I say, standing up. "Yeah." I take the stairs to the second floor. Richard's room is at the end of the hall, next to one of the bathrooms. I knock heavily on the door, but he doesn't answer. "Richard!" I yell, and finally the door swings open. "I was developing," he mutters. His hair is a tangled mess and the t-shirt and jeans he's wearing look like they haven't been washed in weeks. There are dark smudges beneath his eyes, but that's nothing new, and he smiles as he ushers me inside. A line of heavy curtains is drawn across the room's only window, and there's a tangy, chemical reek in the air, most likely from the make-shift dark room in his closet. Every free inch of the walls is plastered with 8/11 prints hanging on pins, most of them black and white shots of buildings at middle-distance; one of the reasons Richard is not a commercially successful photographer is that he only takes this type of picture. Not many people are interested in buying portraits of buildings taken at a flat angle, and even less so when the majority of them are cookie-cutter townhomes built by no-name architectural firms. I once tried bringing this up to him, but all I got for my trouble was a withering look and a well-practiced speech about how visual interest was inherent in the subject and if I couldn't see that for myself then nothing he could tell me would make a difference. That much I agreed with. "You look terrible," he says as I take a seat on the couch. "You're not so pretty yourself." "Tell me about it. Someone invited half his fucking school over for a party and we didn't get them all out of here until just over an hour ago." "I saw Kelly last night." He looks at me sharply. "What are you seeing her for?" he asks. "What's she even doing back in town?" "It's not like I planned it. I just ran into her. I don't even know if it was her or not." "What does that mean?" I lean back against the plush couch, and experience a momentary wave of disorientation; I suddenly feel very stoned, and resolve never again to roll a cigarette with what I find on a table. At least not in this house. "It wasn't Kelly," I tell him, attempting to bring the room into focus. "You just said it was." "It was someone who looked like Kelly." "OK so you saw a girl who looked like your ex, whatever." "Exactly like her." "You need to get over this," he says. "I thought I did." "Well you were obviously wrong about that." "Just listen alright? Last night I saw Kelly standing on the street but when I said hello she acts like she's never met me before. She tells me that her name is Hazel. But it must have been her twin or something, a clone, or else it really was her and she was lying to my face." "Kelly has a twin?" "No she doesn't have a twin. I don't know." "So she came back and just decided to change her name?" "I have no idea." "You're sure this is not just you being insane?" "Maybe." "You know who you should talk to?" "Who's that?" "Taylor." "Why?" "They went to school together didn't they?" "I guess. He around?" "I haven't seen him for a couple of days. I think he's seeing someone." "Really? How do they get past the modulator?" "It takes all kinds." "Do you have his number?" "No. But someone around here must." "I'll ask around." "Good. Now if you'll excuse me I need to get back to work. My show is coming up." "There's always a show coming up." "Always like, every six months." "Good luck with that," I tell him, getting up. "Later," he says and returns to his closet, shutting the door heavily behind him. I return to the living room, hoping to ask that girl if she knows how I can get in touch with Taylor, but the couch is empty. I find her in the kitchen, watering a collection of plants on the window ledge. She moves slowly, the water pouring from her cup gleaming in the oblique rays of the afternoon sun. "That was a fast visit," she remarks. "He's busy." "So he says." She sets the cup down on the counter and leans back, offering me a nice view of her legs. "How do you keep a tan like that in the winter?" I ask her. "Never heard of a tanning salon?" She smiles and a moment later I find that I'm standing in front of her; I must have crossed the room, but I don't remember doing it. Light from the window catches a few loose, black strands of hair at her ears. She closes her eyes and a brief laugh escapes her lips. Her head falls back, exposing her throat, a soft network of blue veins showing just beneath the skin. I'm close enough to touch her, and she laughs again, lower, and places her hand on the back of my neck. She smells of soap, and washed skin, and nothing else. I think of the smoke I rolled earlier, the scraps of weed and tobacco and something else that went into it. "What did I put in that joint?" I ask, and I can feel her head shaking. She allows me to kiss her neck and the side of her face, but pulls away when I try for her lips. Her eyes are still closed, and the sound of her laughter is caught up in the fall of sunlight from the window. "What's your name?" I hear myself saying. "Call me Daphne." "I'm Isaac." "Daphne is a famous name," she says. I feel the words sinking into my neck. "Do you know the story?" "Never heard of it." "She was a very ugly girl. So ugly that anyone who saw her was blinded, struck dumb, and cursed. She lived apart from everyone else, and cried and cried, all alone." "Sad story." "Most of the good ones are." "What happened to her?" "The god of love took pity on her. He came to her on the night of her 16th birthday, binding his eyes with a length of silk so that he wouldn't go blind at the sight of her. He approached her as she lay sleeping in her bed, and took out his magic needle." "Magic needle?" "Mhmm," she murmurs. "One side of it was dipped in gold, the colour of beauty, and the other was dipped in blood, the colour of passion. A single prick from the golden end would transform the girl into the most beautiful woman in the world, which is what the god of love wanted, but because he was wearing the blindfold he made a mistake, and poked her with the blood-tipped end." "What happened?" Her hand moves to my back, over the blades of my shoulders. She places her words in the space next to my ear. "The blood-tipped end didn't make her beautiful, but it did cause anyone who looked at her to go mad with desire. From that day on, any man who saw her, even the gods, became obsessed, and for a while she was happy. Who wouldn't be? But inside her she knew that nothing had changed. She was still ugly: she could see that whenever she looked in a pool or a mirror or in her lovers' eyes. She was hideous. She knew it, and she cried, even as she was held by one man after another, even as they offered her gold, and jewels, and kingdoms to be with her." "Poor girl." "Yes. No matter what her men said or did, she knew that their love was a lie, and that she was still ugly. So she begged the goddess of the night to set her apart, so far away that no one would ever be able to reach her." "And did she?" "Of course. The goddess of the night put her in the sky, which is why the myth of Daphne is also the story of the moon – a pale disc hanging in the sky, scarred and pock-marked, beautiful and luminous, forever out of reach." She moves her head away. Her eyes are still closed and I understand for the first time that a part of her is afraid. I pull away and watch as the girl lets out a low, thin breath. "Is that how you see yourself?" I ask her. "Of course not," she says. "It's just a name. They don't mean anything." The light's angle has changed, falling directly into the empty sink. The girl moves to the cupboard and fills a mug with water. She drinks heavily, staring out the window and into a short strip of snow-covered lawn at the side of the house. "Listen," I say, but I'm not sure how to continue. She sets the glass down on the counter. "I need to study," she announces. "I just wanted to ask you something." "What?" "Do you know a guy named Taylor?" She nods. "He's strange," she says. "Yes he is." "That voice box of his creeps me out." "I think it's supposed to." "What about him?" "You know how I can get in touch with him?" "Well I don't have his number, but it's Friday right?" "Yeah I think it's Friday." "Fridays he spins at a bar in Northside. Lower Cavern I think." "He's still doing that?" "You know about the back room?" "Yeah I've been there before," I say. Glancing at my face, the girl frowns, as if she can see something written there. All at once she slips around me and leaves the room. It was a week before I saw her again, a seven day period that I've almost completely erased from memory. I worked, I know that – I must have worked because I had enough money to pay rent and buy food, but I have no idea what I wrote, or for who, which says a lot more than I'd like it to about the value of my work. The next Friday I showed up at the share house uninvited. I didn't know if Richard would be around, but I was sure I'd find someone there, even if it was just a few college kids getting drunk in the living room, and I reasoned that drinking with people, even people I didn't know, had to be better than doing it alone. The same two guys were on the porch when I arrived, the blond and the long, thin black man, sedate and comfortable in their deck chairs. It was almost as if they'd never left, two stoned, amicable guardians granting entrance to an infinite string of loosely-organized parties. "Hey man," the blond said. "Long time no see." "Yeah." "You goin out with them tonight?" "Not sure." "Well they're goin out." The black guy appeared to be asleep. "I'll just head in yeah?" I said. "Sure man," said the blond, laughing. "We'll be here." I found Richard sitting with Kelly and Taylor in the living room. Like the last time, Taylor was wearing sunglasses and his voice modulator, but he'd added a band of colour-shifting fabric to the ensemble, wrapping it like a bandana around his head. He nodded at me as I came in, and so did Richard. Kelly didn't seem to notice. "You're here," said Richard flatly; I couldn't tell if he was disappointed or not. Looking back, I guess it's possible that he was interested in Kelly himself, but if so he never said anything, and I've never bothered to ask. I sat down in an empty chair. Kelly was across from me, and finally she glanced up, not quite smiling, but with enough openness in her expression that I allowed myself to think she might be happy to see me. At the time I had no intention of sleeping with her. I wouldn't have minded sleeping with her, but I wasn't planning on it. I know that it doesn't make much of a difference to say so now, but sometimes that's the way things pan out; what's true at one time isn't necessarily true later, and the future can influence the past. Or at least our memories of the past, which amounts to the same thing. At the time, I thought Kelly was unique enough to be interesting and tall and blond enough to be good looking, but I wouldn't have said she was beautiful, not in any classic sense. She had very nice legs and an expressive mouth, but whether or not I found her attractive had nothing to do with it, as I don't make a habit of going after other people's girlfriends. Not that having good intentions makes what I eventually did any nicer, or me a better person. That night she was wearing a black, floral-patterned dress over dark leggings and a half-inch band of orange plastic around her wrist. The outfit worked for her: the dress was sufficiently short to focus attention on her legs and the unusual pattern did a good job of announcing her status as an artist, or at least as someone who wanted to be thought of as artistic. "Richard barbecued," she said, offering me a plate of grilled vegetables. I took a half of green pepper that had been stuffed with ground beef and onions. It was good – Richard's cooking is almost always good – but by then the meat was already cold and I set it down without finishing it. "You going out tonight?" I asked. "A friend of mine is playing at this bar," said Taylor. The voice that came from the modulator was high and musical, completely different from the one he'd used the previous week. "From the capital?" I asked. "No. A local guy." "In Northside," added Richard. "We're going all the way up there?" "Well we are," he replied dryly. "You ever been?" I asked Kelly. She shrugged. "You're not drinking tonight?" "I didn't bring anything." "Where would you be without me?" said Richard. He handed me a beer. "Dead," I told him. "In a ditch somewhere." "Raped and left for dead," said Taylor. Kelly was examining her nails. It wasn't easy to find the bar – it wasn't listed online, and we had to stop at a coffee stand to ask directions from a couple of miners. They were both drunk, and couldn't agree on the best route, not that it's easy to give directions in Northside; past Norfolk none of the streets are labeled, and the landmarks are always changing, coffee stands switching corners, buildings being torn down, and bars springing up and dying only to pop up again in the same location under a different name. When we eventually found the place, at the far end of an alley strewn with garbage bags and milk crates, it almost came as a surprise. The interior was small and dark, and the walls were covered in old concert posters blackened with graffiti and spattered paint. Kelly said it reminded her of a place she knew in the capital, but from her voice I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a good thing or not. We went to the bar and set into drinking, steadily and with authority. First Taylor and then Richard drifted off to talk to someone they knew in the crowd, leaving Kelly and I alone. Her slim body was draped over the bar, and she sipped her rice wine and brandy with a bored look on her face. "Absynic," she announced suddenly. "You want to go down that road?" "Can't hurt." "If you'd ever done it you wouldn't say that." "It's that bad?" "The miners say that working in the deep pits with an Absynic hangover is as close to perfect misery as a man can hope to get." "If it hurts that just means you're doing it right," she said, and I shrugged and ordered the shots. They tasted like a combination of cardamom and lighter fluid, and I nearly gagged trying to get mine down, but Kelly threw her's back as if she'd grown up drinking it. We followed that round with two more of the same, and after that it was easy, one moment sliding into the next and I found that I had my hand on her back and that she wasn't complaining. Her head was bent forward and I could just make out the shape of her nose and her cheek through the light fall of her hair. I asked her what she thought of the music. She said she couldn't tell, but it was loud and that was all that mattered. She was moving, unconsciously swaying in the way some girls do when they're drunk and drowning in loud music, and I ordered us another shot and once we had that in us I led her onto the dance floor. At times she touched me. More often she didn't. We were still hesitant with each other, trying and failing to act as if we hadn't already crossed a line. You move in a dark box, strobe lights cutting time into pieces and you wonder where in any of it there's something to hold onto. You look at the girl you came with, someone else's girlfriend and still more than half a stranger and then a column of light cuts her face to a cheek and an eye, streaks of sweat, a single, curling strand of hair, and you touch her arm, or the side of her hip, or brush against her, and it's almost enough. It's very, very close to being enough, and if you're smart, you stop there. But I've never been accused of being smart, or anyway not by anyone who really knew me. At some point we stopped dancing. She looked at me through the stuttered darkness and then she announced that she was going to find the others. I nodded and waited at the bar. When she came back she put her hand on my shoulder, briefly, as if I was a friend she'd known for years, and asked if I was ready to go. "Absolutely," I said. "Taylor's just saying goodbye to someone." "Fine," I said, suddenly possessed of a need to get away from her. "I'll be outside." I pushed through the crowd to the door. At the mouth of the alley a group of guys in heavy coats were standing in a rough circle. Before them, a tall man was biting off a series of short, clipped rhymes, the Northside slush rap that Pit Boy first popularized years ago. When he was finished, some of the others favoured him with a round of terse, scattered applause. "You like that?" asked the guy closest to me. He had a thick, nearly matted beard and, like Taylor, he wore a band of colour-shifting material around his head. "Loved it," I said. "He didn't like it," another guy chimed-in, and the man with the headband laughed. "You can't do any better you got no room to complain," said someone else. "Absolutely right," I answered. "So alright," said the man with the beard, and made way for me to step into the circle. I tried to beg-off, but they insisted. Either they were being very friendly or the idea of putting me on the spot was amusing, but in any case I was drunk enough and at last I entered the ring. I'd never rapped before and I haven't done so since. I write prose, and I've never been comfortable with lyrics or poetry. For me, writing is work. I can spend days revising the same, worn-out paragraphs, picking away at them until they resemble deflated sacks, all the life and colour drained out of them, and then I'll start again. But that night it was different. Words sprang into my head almost ready-made. It was like they were written in the air in front of me and all I had to do was read them. "Havin nothing, there is nothing," I began. "Nothing to fear, nothing to lose, nothing to hear and nothing to use: words follow hollow words, stated and weightless as I wait for a word that will stay where I place it, arrayed as I made it, static and still 'til the pit comes to claim it." And that was all - nothing else came to me, the flow of words faltering as quickly as they'd appeared. Their absence left me oddly empty. I stopped and looked at the ring of men, swallowing in a parched throat. A few of them nodded and the guy with the headband laughed, slapping my back as I stepped out of the circle. "You did good buddy," he said, still laughing. I turned back in the direction of the club. Kelly was standing in front of the entrance, smoking. If she'd seen me get into the ring she didn't mention it, which was fine by me. I felt hot, and embarrassed without really knowing why, and when she put her hand on my shoulder and left it there even after Richard and Taylor appeared, it was like I had a spotlight on me, as if the two of them could read my thoughts. I shouldn't have worried: they were both too drunk to notice anything. Of course I was drunk too - I must have been if I imagined that anyone would bother wasting their time on what I was thinking, and I moved away from Kelly and led the way to the bus stop. No one spoke much on the way back to the share house. Taylor sat on his own in the back, and Richard sat next to Kelly in the seat opposite mine. When we finally arrived we found the living room occupied by an older couple lounging on one of the couches. I thought I vaguely recognized them, from some party or event I'd been to weeks ago, but I couldn't recall their names. A bottle of rice wine was open on the table in front of them, and there were two others, both empty, beside it. The man, who was well into his 40s, moved like he was in a trance or half asleep, his dark eyes almost completely closed. Slowly, he fixed his gaze on us, taking a long time to register what he was seeing. "Join us," he said, pushing the bottle across the table. "Thanks," I said. Taylor went into the kitchen for cups, but as no one in the house had done any dishes, we wound up drinking from soup bowls. I sat next to Kelly on one of the couches, while Richard sat in the chair at the head of the table and Taylor laid down on the floor. "Taylor," Kelly said. "You ever meet up with your friend? I never saw him on stage or anything." "There is no stage," came a woman's voice, which I assumed was Taylor's. "Then where'd he spin?" "There's a room in the back for the DJ," the woman answered. "Did you see it?" "They wouldn't let us in." "That's weird they don't have a stage." "It's common in Northside apparently." I took a pen from my bag and started to draw on the back of my hand, tracing a few patterns around my finger nails. It's a habit I've kept from childhood and bring out when I'm drunk or forced to endure the after-effects of being drunk, conversations that blur into incoherency in the faded hours of the morning. Kelly watched me drawing. She stretched her arm out and offered her hand as a canvas. The warmth of her palm was a separate thing, more like a startled animal than any part of the girl sitting next to me. The older man looked in my direction. "Would you rather be present at the beginning or the end?" he asked, but as he was slurring his words so badly he had to repeat the question twice. Beside him, his wife or girlfriend snored peacefully. "The end of what?" I asked. "The world," he replied. "What do you mean by present?" said Kelly. "A witness." "I don't know." "Talk it out," he told her. She frowned and took a drink from her bowl. "Well the start is always more exciting. The start of a relationship, you know, a book or movie before the ending ruins it. Something new is always good. But then again." She bit her lip, and as I watched her try to reason out the answer to a useless question in the ass-end of the night I suddenly felt closer to her than I had any right to, closer really than I knew what to do with. "Then again," she went on. "There shouldn't be anyone at the end should there? Because it's the end. What would it be like at the end of the world?" "Darkness," I said. "No," she shot back. "Not that, something else. Emptiness, all the lights burnt out, but not dark." "So you'd choose the end?" asked the man. "Maybe," she said. "Because maybe being there you'd get a hint of the beginning." The man nodded and sighed, and after that he seemed to lose interest in us. Not long afterwards he pulled himself off the couch and tugged at the arm of the woman beside him. She responded slowly, getting to her feet and allowing him to lead her from the room. "That's it?" Kelly asked, smiling. "Took a lot out of him," I said. "Me too," said Richard, rising to his feet. He looked at us both quietly and then he turned his back and headed to the stairs. Taylor was asleep on the floor. Kelly glanced at me and I ran my hand up the inside of her arm. She looked away, because it was clear by now that we'd both been waiting for this, a chance to be alone, or as close to alone as we could hope to be in lives like the ones we were living. When I kissed her it was like falling face-forward into a shallow pool. I tell myself now that it wasn't special, that people kiss all the time, and that in the end a kiss is nothing more than the preamble to any intercourse that may or may not come afterwards. That's what I tell myself, and sometimes I even come close to believing it. Water courses over my back and my shoulders. I stand with my palms pressed to the tiles and watch as it swirls around the rusted drain. The air is thick with steam, and I breathe deeply, trying my best not to think of anything except the heat and the fall of water and the steam in my lungs, but other things keep creeping in. Like my ex parading around town with a new name, or the look of my own face in a mirror, warped by a distortion in the glass. I bend my head back to set my face directly into the spray until I can't stand it anymore and I reach for the knob and switch it off. I get out and dry off, and then I sit down in front of the computer to check my email; Kelly still hasn't written me back, which is surprising given the fact that in my last email I told her I'd met her double. I thought that would have generated a response, even from her. Unless there is no double, and the girl I met the other night really was Kelly. Either way, short of going to the capital to confront her, there isn't much I can do about it now. Forcing myself to get up, I leave the apartment, taking the Nascent bus as far as Norfolk. The night is chill and quiet, a few scattered street lamps burning like signal flares over the deserted streets. I have only the vaguest idea of where I'm going, and within minutes I'm lost, turning down a narrow alley behind a row of houses. Ahead of me I can just make out the shape of a woman standing in a faint pool of light. She is small, with a short mess of wavy hair above a delicate face. Despite the cold she's only dressed in a pair of loose pants and a simple, forest-green tank-top. She is facing me, and as I move closer she spreads her arms as if in welcome. Suddenly she crouches, and it's only then that I notice the outline of the brick wall showing through her body; I look up, following the trail of light to a projector set in the window of a nearby house. The projected woman raises an arm above her head, and then her image flickers and cuts as she starts into a series of remarkably subtle movements. Her head tilts in my direction and her hollow eyes fall on me, and for a second it's almost enough to believe that she knows I'm here; abruptly cutting to a new position, the woman kneels with her head bent forward, the line of her back curled in a graceful arc. Slowly, she rises up to spread her arms in the same gesture of welcome or incantation that began the sequence. I glance again at the projector, and examine the wall next to the woman, but there's no sign of anything written there, no signature or title to explain what I'm looking at. It's obviously some kind of art installation, but who would have bothered to put it here, in a back alley in Northside? I watch the projection for a while longer, and I can't help thinking of Kelly, and the way she made use of light in her paintings, but this doesn't feel like her work, and as with nearly everything else in the world it almost certainly has nothing to do with me. The alley's mouth is blocked by a wooden fence, but at length I'm able to squeeze through one of the gaps between the half-rotten boards and onto the street. Opposite me is a large, brick building, and above the entrance is a sign with the word CAVERN carved lightly into its face. Crossing the street, I climb the low steps and open the door. The place is deserted. On my left is a single counter, while the right-hand wall is covered in picture frames, each of them as empty as the bar. From below comes the sound of music, the bottles on the shelves behind the counter rattling in the thud of bass. The door at the far wall leads to the basement, and another bar laid out almost identically to the one above it. At least down here there are some people, most of them gathered in front of the counter or standing around with bleak expressions on their faces. The room is dark, with only a few candles to provide any light, but it doesn't take me long to find the door to the back room, hidden in the largest picture frame. Knowing that there's no use going back until Taylor has finished his set, I sit down on an empty stool and settle in to wait. A tall, well-built man appears at the top of the stairs, cradling another, much older man in his arms. The well-built man's expression is placid, as if the old man was merely a paper replica, and threading his way through the crowd, he sets his burden down on the stool next to mine. The older man is stocky, with broad-shoulders and a disheveled head of gray, thinning hair. He leans forward, resting his weight against the counter and bobbing his head in time with the music. Not long afterwards, the well-built man reappears with a wheelchair. As he moves from the stool to the chair, the old man turns in my direction. "Isn't he the best?" he says thickly. Although he is smiling broadly, his face is drawn, and his eyes have the unfocused, watery cast of a habitual drinker. Without a word, his younger friend moves behind the counter. "You need a drink?" he asks me, and it dawns on me that he works here. "A beer," I tell him. The man in the wheelchair orders a glass of rice alcohol and then moves onto the dance floor, the wheels on his chair lighting up blue with each revolution. The crowd around the bar begins to fill up, and I take my own beer to the corner; a slim woman who looks like she might have eaten a plate of acid for dinner glides past, and not far away two bald men in black coats and matching goggles are busy making their way to the bar. Abruptly, the music sputters and dies. I swallow what's left of my beer, setting the bottle down on a speaker and moving across the room to the hidden door. It opens easily, and I step inside a long, ochre-coloured antechamber. After the darkness of the bar, this room is almost painfully bright; the ceiling is strung with unshaded strip-lamps, and dozens of glass fish tanks are stacked on shelves along the left-hand wall. At a low desk in the back of the room is Taylor. Spread before him is an impressive array of sound equipment, a pair of laptops and several monitors, as well as a mixing board that stretches almost the entire length of the desk. Cables stemming from ports on his glasses and voice modulator connect him directly to the laptops, and his fingers are capped by black, thimble-sized cones, each with a wire stretching to a custom device next the mixing board; it's hard to say if he looks more like a puppeteer or a fetishist. "It's Isaac isn't it?" he asks, his voice distorted by a harsh, binary echo. He tilts his head to one side, making a few, short twitching motions with the fingers on his right hand, and when he speaks again the echo is gone. "Sorry. Isaac?" "Yes," I respond, surprised that he's forgotten. It's not as if we were close, but I thought he'd remember my name at least. "Why would Isaac come here?" he asks. There's a note in his voice that makes it clear the question is rhetorical. "I wanted to talk to you." "To me?" "You alright?" "Yes," he says, startled. "I'm fine." One by one he removes the caps from his fingers. He frowns, getting up and moving to the fish tanks stacked at the near wall. Only half of these actually contain any fish, while the others are designed for small animals or reptiles, and are bathed in the dry light of heating lamps. "Look at this," Taylor says, tapping on the side of one of the tanks. There is a soft rustling of foliage, and a moment later a mid-sized lizard emerges from behind a rock. It moves slowly, its scales and eyes both a vibrant shade of orange. "Very nice," I say. "It isn't mine. All this belongs to the owner of the bar." "Animal lover?" "Not exactly." "Listen," I say, trying to cut through whatever haze he's drifting in. "Is Kelly back in Newt Run?" He looks at me, or at least I think he does – it's impossible to tell behind his glasses. Absently, he begins to scratch his cheek. "Kelly?" "I might have seen her the other day." "Last I heard she was still in the capital. Why would she come back here?" "No idea," I remark, trying to ignore the faint blossom of disappointment in my chest. I'm not sure what I'd hoped for, coming here; whatever Taylor had to say, the girl calling herself Hazel might be Kelly, and she might not be Kelly. "You never met Nathaniel did you?" Taylor asks me. "Who?" "The bar owner." "No." "You should." "Why?" He tilts his head to one side, as if listening to something. "Here he is." Behind me, the trick door opens, and the man in the wheelchair enters the room. His face is flushed, and there are faint lines of sweat trailing from his temples to his jaw. He looks very drunk. The well-built bartender follows him in, silently closing the door behind them. "Good set Taylor," the man in the wheelchair announces, beaming. "Good set." The bartender leans against the wall next to the animal tanks. "Who's your friend?" he asks Taylor. "Isaac," I tell him. The bartender snorts. Taylor shifts on his feet, glancing at me. "Isaac?" says the man in the wheelchair. There is an edge in his voice, as if he thinks I'm lying. "Well... I'm Nathaniel." "You own this place?" "Yes, but Jared here runs it." He jerks his head in the direction of the bartender. "I just own the building." The old man closes his eyes, grinning to himself. His head rolls forward on his neck, and then he blinks, looking up at me. "Isaac you said?" "Yes. Is there some problem with that?" "Problem? No. No problem... Taylor did you offer him anything?" "I was waiting on you." "That's good of you." The older man wheels closer to the fish tanks and takes a pair of metal tongs from one of the shelves. "Taylor showed me your lizard," I say. "I've got several lizards." "The orange one." "They're all orange now." He laughs, wiping the sweat from his forehead and beginning to tap against the glass with the edge of the tongs. The interior of the tank is dark, but something is moving there, picking its way among a surface of decaying leaves. "What is it?" "Insects. Friend of mine came across them in the woods last year." "They live that long?" "They do now. Taylor, hand me a vial." Opening one of the drawers beneath the desk, Taylor passes the old man a jar filled with what must be powder. Nathaniel lifts the tank lid and sprinkles some onto the bed of leaves. I can see them more clearly now, a number of insects approaching the powder on long, slim limbs; they look like a type of mantis, but with much smaller forelegs, and delicate heads drooping from narrow, stalk-like necks. Like the lizard, they are all a dull, copperish orange. "You feed them powder?" "Not only powder," replies Nathaniel, somewhat defensively. "He gives all the animals here powder," says Taylor, his voice modulated again, this time in the accent of a rich kid from the capital. "Started with my cat," explains Nathaniel. "Gave her some powder when I was drunk. Just playing, you know." "What happened?" "Nothing at first. Then her eyes went orange. Next day she disappeared. Three days after that she came back as thin as a cancer patient. Thought she must have been sick and figured she was going to die, but then later when I was taking some powder she perked up. Kept mewling at me and pawing until I let her have some. She licked up the whole damn bag of it." "Where is she now?" "Dead," he says, and he moves his large head closer to the tank, so close I can see his face reflected in the glass, and the heavy shadows under his eyes. "They look strange when they eat don't they?" he says, nodding at the insects. "Yes." "What brings you here tonight Isaac?" "I wanted to ask Taylor about a friend." "A girl?" "Yes, a girl." "Hm," says Nathaniel. He leans forward to reach into the tank with the tongs. In short order he succeeds in capturing one of the insects. It struggles in the air, clawing at the tongs with its stunted forelegs. The others, unbothered, continue their feast of powder. "Pour some of that into my hand here," Nathaniel instructs me, indicating what's left in the glass vial. I dump it onto his open palm. He sets the insect down on his wrist and I watch as it moves to the powder. This close, it's clear that the thing must at one time have been green, the orange colouration more like a rust stain than anything natural, especially around its head and its joints. "You know Isaac if you're here about a girl I think you're worried about the wrong thing," says Nathaniel, taking me in with his wide, dark eyes. The look of him, his damp, sweat-smeared face and the insect eating in his open palm, causes me to shudder inwardly; the scene has the tenuous, unbalanced weight of something glimpsed in a nightmare. "I'm not worried," I tell him. "I'm curious." "Curiousity is a kind of worry. It preoccupies the mind. And I think in this you're wasting your time." "Is that right?" "There are better things to worry about. More interesting curiousities." "Like what? Bugs with a drug problem?" He laughs softly, and from behind comes the sound of the bartender's snorted laughter. "That's good!" says Nathaniel. "That's right. Like bugs with a drug problem. But even more interesting is the fact that you clearly aren't yourself." "I'm not." I make it a statement instead of a question, but I can feel the situation getting away from me. The texture of the light and the features in the room, the rows of glass cases, the old man, as well as Taylor and the silent figure of the bartender, begin to take on the quality of still images, imperfectly linked. Taylor is sitting down again, staring at me through the featureless expanse of his glasses. "No," says Nathaniel. "You aren't." "Then who am I?" "That's what you should be asking." "Listen to him," Taylor puts in, and for once the voice that emerges from his modulator is one that suits him. The sound of it after so much distortion is as shocking as a slap across the face. "I saw it too," he goes on. "Almost as soon as you came in." "Saw what?" "That you aren't yourself," he says, almost sadly. "What the fuck are you talking about?" Nathaniel closes his fist around the insect, leaving only the head exposed, and holds it out to me. "Eat this," he instructs me. "What?" "Bite the head." "You're fucking crazy." "I'm drunk, I'm not crazy. And I've eaten these and I know something you don't know, Isaac." His voice curls around the name in an audible sneer. "Taylor," I say, looking at him for help, but he only shakes his head. "I've already done it." "You too?" The bartender shrugs. "We all have," he replies. I could leave, I know that. Leave the room and then the bar and never look back. That's one thing I could do, but I won't: none of this makes any sense, but there's no reason that it should. You wind up living at the end of the world you've got no right to ask for sense. "It has to be alive?" I ask instead. "Of course it does," answers Nathaniel. "Why else am I holding the fucking thing?" I look at the mantis head poking from the edge of the old man's grip, and before I have a chance to change my mind I bite down; its neck severs with a wet, popping crunch, and the brains and chitinous skull pass down my throat in an ugly, organic mess. I pull away and Nathaniel opens his hand, revealing the rest of the body lying in his palm, its limbs still twitching, covered in clumps of sweat-dampened powder. "You want to finish off the rest?" he asks me. I find that I do. She takes the smoking hand-rolled from the glass ashtray and draws it to her mouth, slowly, as if she's practicing for a competition. Watching her you'd think she has nothing but time, and then she goes on like this, convinced we're sitting at the end of the world. "Everyone can feel it," she says, allowing the smoke to curl around her face. "You can see it in them." "Really?" I turn onto my back. "Don't do that," she says. "You know it too." "What do I know?" "That everyone's holding their breath." "It's all the same," I say. "What do you mean?" "If the world ends or not." "If." She laughs, and kisses the side of my face. The press of her lips is like a trigger, causing my eyes to close. "That's nice of you to say," she tells me. I'm not sure what she means. "Do you remember when I came here tonight?" I ask her. "Don't you?" "No." "You people are pretty fucked up aren't you?" "You people?" She ignores me, and turns onto her back. "It wasn't so long ago, when you arrived," she says. "I ate an insect tonight," I mutter. My thoughts are hard, round things, dropping one after another, like stones falling on a flat surface. "Oh?" "In the back room of the bar you sent me to. To meet Taylor." "I didn't send you to any bar." "No? But I remember that." "That was Daphne." Panic grips my stomach like a cold hand; if this girl isn't Daphne, who am I in bed with? "I was bored with Daphne," she goes on, and the panic recedes. "From tonight I'm Pandora." "Seems like a lot of girls are changing their names lately," I say. "Don't talk about other girls," she tells me. "I don't want to hear about other girls." "Alright." "Anyway I think if you can't even remember how you got here you're in no shape to worry about something as meaningless as a name." "You're probably right." "Everything is fragmenting. That's one of the signs of the end. No straight lines, no completed arcs. That's why I'm Pandora. You know that story right?" "Refresh my memory." "It's a sad story." "Your stories seem to be." "Don't judge. This is only the second one you've heard. You need three for a pattern." "Three," I say, and I am on my side. She's lying next to me, the light from the window touching the curve of her shoulder and her naked hip. "Twice is just coincidence," she answers. I sit up and put my hand on her side. She stabs out the end of her hand-rolled and stretches her arms above her head. "How did I get here?" I ask her. "You walked, I think." "I mean in bed with you." "I asked." It sounds reasonable enough. "Now I feel like telling a story. So shut up and listen." I do as I'm told, and hear her moving closer, and the mattress straining beneath her weight. She doesn't come close enough to touch me, but the heat of her body is like a warm compress. "The gods were tired. I guess they had a right to be. They'd created the world and everything in it, and then they created man. They wanted a break, but men have the bad habit of dying, and the gods realized that if things didn't change they'd never get any rest. Instead, they'd be at creation forever, replacing all the dead men with new ones. They thought it would be much simpler if they gave men a way to replace themselves, so they created woman, and the first woman was named Pandora." She lays a hand on my stomach, and I find that my eyes are closed again. I focus on the sound of her voice. It isn't beautiful, but alone in the darkness it isn't hard to listen to. "Not all of the gods were happy about this. The god of the day, whose job was to bring light into the world with the turning of the sun, was angry. He believed that if men were given the power to create themselves, they'd stop worshipping him. So in secret he worked a flaw into Pandora, one that would be passed on to every subsequent generation." "What flaw?" "Curiousity." "That's not such a bad flaw." "It is when you also seal the end of creation into a small box, give it to a curious girl and tell her never to open it." "Which he did." "Which he did. He told the other gods it was a birthday present for all women, a keepsake to remember them by, and he sent it with Pandora to earth." "What an asshole." "I don't know. I think maybe he was doing us a favour. Now shut up, because this is where the story gets interesting. Pandora kept the box on a necklace and hid it between her breasts. It was a small thing, black, and very ornately carved. She often admired it, looking at it when no one else was around, fingering the ebony latch, and wondering what was inside, what kind of present was fit for a god to give. "She knew that she shouldn't think about it, that it was willful of her even to imagine what might be inside; the god of the day had told her never to open it and she owed him, along with all the other gods, her life and the lives of her children. She did her best not to think of it, but she couldn't help herself – the flaw of curiousity was ingrained too deeply. "But Pandora was clever, and she thought she saw a way to learn what was in the box while still obeying the word of the god; she must never open it, but what if someone else did? The god hadn't said anything about that, and surely a god would tell her everything she needed to know. So one night Pandora left the box out, on a dresser in the bedroom she shared with her husband. Coming home he saw it there, and asked her what it was. She told him it was a gift from the gods and watched him pick it up. "I like to picture the two of them together in that moment, right before the thing was done, when they still had the choice not to do it." The feel of her hand on my stomach is uncomfortably warm. I shift away slightly, and she removes it. "But then I think that there never was a choice," she continues. "That box was always going to be opened." "You don't believe in alternate endings?" I ask her. "What, like in a parallel universe?" "Like that, yeah." "No," she says. "What about the outsiders?" "The outsiders?" There is something strange in her voice now, a hint of amusement, a stress she placed on the word 'the' that I don't understand. "Yeah," I answer. "They may be from outside, but once they're here they're here. Right?" "I guess. Anyway, what was in the box?" "Nothing." "Nothing?" "That's right." "Well that's a disappointment. I was expecting a plague of locusts or something." "No, you don't understand. Nothing was inside it. Nothing, the possibility of nothing. They opened the box and saw nothing, emptiness. They saw the end of things, and that sight marked them. It went deep into their hearts, so deep that through them, and through their children and their children's children, it remains in all of us, the fear of nothing, of the end." "You mean the fear of death." "More than that, the knowledge that everything ends. Not just our lives, but everything, this world, our universe." "That's a shitty birthday present." "Yes it is," she says, her voice softening. She suddenly sounds like a child, talking to herself in the night. "The end of the world isn't an explosion. It's not emptiness. It's just going to be a pile of useless, leftover parts. Parts that don't fit together anymore, lying around in a dead universe. Fragments." "I think it'll be like a blank page," I say. "Can you see it?" she asks me, suddenly sitting upright. She looks at me with an odd intensity. "I can't see anything. And anyway I think that's a horrible story to tell before bed." "It is a horrible story," she says, lying down again. "Obviously written by a man." The room was dark except for a sliver of blue light from the window. Kelly stood with her back to me. She leaned forward, and the small dress she was wearing crept along the back of her thighs. I watched as she removed her earrings and placed them neatly on the desk, and then turned to open her computer. Soft, synthetic sounds filled the room, with the barest suggestion of singing in the background. She turned around and sat at the edge of the desk. She smiled, but it was an uncertain thing, as if she was embarrassed to find me watching her. "I feel like a horrible person," she said. "You're not." "I feel like one." "Well you're not." "I didn't want him to come. I didn't ask him." "I know. Even if you had asked him I wouldn't care." That was a lie, but it was what she wanted to hear and I wasn't in the mood to argue. She came to the bed and sat next to me, resting a hand on my leg. The previous week her boyfriend had arrived from the capital. She said he wanted to surprise her, which he did, staying for almost a week, during which time I kept my distance and focused on my work. It was a surprisingly easy thing to do. I assumed I wouldn't be able to write, full of the thought of her, and of him with her, but that wasn't the case; we'd had some time together and now it was over. She had her own life and I had mine, and I was fine with that. I told myself I was fine with it, and spent the week working on text for a video game that a friend of mine was developing. On Friday I called Richard and asked if he wanted to meet me for a drink. "Why don't you come here?" he asked. "Things are happening." "Honestly I have no interest in meeting this boyfriend of hers," I said. "He left yesterday." "Yeah?" "Said she's happy he's gone." I was at the share house within the hour. As usual there were a few people smoking on the porch and several more crowded into the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen, but I was surprised by how subdued everyone was, as if they'd been drinking for hours and the party was already winding down. I found Richard in the kitchen, talking to a couple girls I didn't recognize. The sink was piled high with unwashed dishes, and the three of them were drinking beer out of plastic soup bowls. "You made it," he said. He stumbled over the words, slurring them badly, and one of the girls laughed. She had orange half-moons stained beneath her eyes, the only effect of which was to make her look tired. "He didn't think you'd get here in time," she said. "In time for what?" "The show." "He doesn't know?" asked the other girl. She was blond, or bleached-blond, and her over-sized t-shirt stretched all the way to her knees. Her legs were bare except for a pair of striped socks, and these coupled with her pouty expression made her look even younger than she was. "Doesn't know what?" "This is the official end of the world party." "So you're wearing a t-shirt?" "What? No." She seemed confused. Richard took me by the arm. "Come with me," he said. He guided me into the living room. Ten or more people were seated around the low table, and in the center, spread across a wrinkled sheet of tin-foil was the largest mound of powder I'd ever seen. My eyes drifted to Kelly, who was standing on her own in the corner. One smile from her was all it took to carry me across the room. "Hey," I said. "Hi." "My name's Isaac." "I'm Kelly." We shook hands and I tried not to think about the fact that she'd been with someone else less than a day earlier. I touched the back of her bare arm. It was hot in the room, and I looked for a place to put my coat, but all the chairs were occupied, and along with the powder the table was littered with empty cans of beer and half-eaten bags of snacks, so in the end I left it on. I could feel a line of sweat trailing down my back. "What's this all about?" I asked her. "Richard didn't tell you?" "He's drunk." "Oh, well Taylor met an outsider." "The one who'd been showing up here?" "I'm not sure, but apparently they got talking and Taylor asked him about the end of the world." "Obviously." "Right? But the outsider wouldn't tell him anything. Said he'd need a bigger audience if he was going to talk about it." "So you threw a party." She shrugged. "Well it's Friday anyway." Richard was handing out plastic spoons. I shared one with Kelly and dug into the powder, nearly gagging on the taste as it went down. I waited for something to happen, some rush or change in my perception, but there was nothing. I felt exactly the same. Kelly put her hand on my shoulder and I asked how her painting was coming along and it wasn't until one of the girls began talking to the empty space beside her that I realized something had changed. "Is there someone sitting there?" I asked Kelly. "Yes," she said. "That's him. It's your first time isn't it?" "First time to take it raw like this, yeah." "Then it'll take longer. The more you do the stuff the faster it is. Taylor says there's no gap for him at all now, between when he sees them and when he doesn't." Across the table, the girl in the long t-shirt cocked her head as if she was listening to someone. Suddenly, the empty space opposite her ballooned, the air rippling, and I watched as a vaguely human shape struggled to break through the transparent skin of the world. All at once he was there, a thin man with narrow, bony shoulders. He was wearing an oversized t-shirt and skinny jeans and there was a multi-coloured band of string tied around his right wrist. His head was shaved, and the right side of his face from his forehead to his cheek was cut with a narrow, purple line. He picked up a can of beer from the table and drank heavily. "What's his name?" I asked Kelly. "Auld," she said loud enough for him to hear it. He looked up. "This is Isaac," she told him. "First time?" he asked. "Yeah." "Fucked up isn't it?" The girl in the t-shirt laughed, covering her broad mouth with her hand. "A little." "Well don't worry. I'm just here for the free alcohol. You're not drinking?" "Not yet." He handed me a beer. It was luke-warm, but I drank it anyway. Auld looked at me, and then at Kelly, frowning. "What?" "Do you have a sister?" he asked her. "No. Why?" "No reason," he said, and then he turned away. I sometimes think about that question of his, aware that looking back on things lends them a certain coherency. Events have a tendency to fall into line that way, marching in neat rows toward a certain conclusion, but the truth is very different; patterns are formed in hindsight, and "life" is just a word we apply to a string of disparate events, hoping to tie them together. I once dated a girl who liked to say that everything happens for a reason. It's a tired cliché, and essentially meaningless, but she really believed it. In the early days of our relationship she took the time to walk me through the key plot points of her life, pointing out how each of them had helped her to get to where she was "supposed to be." I didn't buy it. I told her that was just her way of trying to make sense of a chaotic world, and that in my view there was no place she, or anyone else, was supposed to be. There was only where she was, and where she went from there. We didn't last too long, but I stand by what I said, and the point is I'm not about to read too much into Auld's question; he may have asked Kelly if she had a sister because he saw Hazel (or Kelly masquerading as Hazel) in the future, but he might only have meant it as a kind of back-handed compliment. For all I know he was just trying to get laid. Either way, he seemed to lose interest in us after that, paying more attention to his beer than the people around him. Honestly, he wasn't very impressive; Auld might have been an outsider, but aside from the line on his face he was no different from anyone else at the party. He carried himself with a kind of dogged weariness, and while he was the center of attention for much of the night, he seemed to find the constant barrage of questions boring. "The future isn't something it's good to see too clearly," he said at one point. As far as I was concerned, the future wasn't something I wanted to see at all. I was content in the present, or at least that's how it appears to me now, although I likely wouldn't have said so at the time. Again, these are all labels we apply in retrospect, like documentarians or hack novelists, framing times in our lives as happy or miserable, good or bad, when the truth is we're all too busy processing things to know how we feel about them. It was Richard who eventually asked Auld if he had a big enough audience to get things started. By that point Richard was sprawled across one of the armchairs, his legs dangling over the side, and he was alone; the two girls from the kitchen had moved to the opposite end of the table, and were ignoring him. "This is it?" asked Auld, with a rough edge to his voice. The line on his face was almost livid. The girls next to him shifted away and looked down at their hands. Taylor, who had been sitting on the floor next to the television, got to his feet. "Auld," he said. "Relax. It's only the end of the world." "Oh is that all?" Taylor laughed. No one else said anything. "Well it's easy enough to see. The world ends on the 18th of January." There was a tepid, expectant pause. "That's six months from now," Kelly said, breaking the silence. "That's right," Auld replied. The girl in the oversized t-shirt laughed nervously. Someone else asked if Auld was serious. "It's a good thing," he said tiredly. "This entire universe was a mistake anyway." Taylor tried to press him for details, but Auld refused to answer. A kind of quiet resentment was building in the room, a feeling as if we'd been conned into forking over money for a show that didn't live up to the hype, except that none of us had paid anything, and Auld was not a performer. One by one people began filtering out of the room. Richard was asleep; I'm not sure if he even heard the announcement or not. Kelly led me to her bedroom, where she apologized about her boyfriend and I told her that it didn't matter. All of this was nearly six months ago. Hey. Sorry it's taken so long to respond. Things have been crazy here. Coming back was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. While I was in Newt Run it was easy to pretend that my life didn't exist, but it was here waiting for me. I kind of hate myself right now. I know, all my guilt issues again. Boring right? But I can't help it, any more than I can help doing the things that make me feel guilty. I hope you won't take this the wrong way... Damn. I just spent 15 minutes writing about everything that's going on here, everything I've been dealing with, all the shit with my ex-boyfriend (yes, he's my ex now, I finally got up the courage to break up with him. But I'm a wreck. Somehow it didn't make things any easier.) Anyway I deleted all that and now I'm starting again. I mean I don't know if you want to hear any of it. It can't be easy for you and the last thing I want is for you to think I'm using you as some kind of emotional support. You did ask me to tell you everything, but I don't know. I don't want to feel any worse about myself than I already do. I almost deleted all of that too. I didn't really understand your last email. You met a girl who looks like me? Sounds weird, but you know I don't even have a sister let alone a twin. Are you alright? I'm sorry, I have to cut this short. Things here are crazy, like I said. I have a show coming up in a week and I am so not ready for it at all. I have no idea how I'm going to get through it. We'll speak soon ok? xoxo Kelly I can't help laughing. It's so obviously her, the characteristic mixture of concern and self-pity, and her casual disregard for the only thing that really mattered, the fact that I've met her double. Reading the email again, I ask myself what I ever saw in her, but the answer is so painfully obvious that I drop it in favour of finishing off what's left of the bottle of whiskey on the table. I watch the snow falling past the window, monotonous as static, and then reach for my phone. She picks up after the second ring. "Hello?" she says. "Hi." I'm surprised by how drunk I sound, even to myself. I make an effort to straighten up in the chair, rubbing my eyes and setting down my glass of whiskey before starting again. "How are you doing?" "I'm sorry, who is this?" I laugh. "Isaac. The asshole from the other night." "Oh," she says. "How are you?" "I'm fine." "So... what's up?" "Are you busy? I checked my jacket and there's money in it this time. I'd like to buy you a drink." There's a pause. "Actually I could use one," she responds. "Do you know the Eft and Dragon? It's in Northside" "Heard of it." "Can you meet me at Norfolk in about an hour?" "That's fine." "Alright then," she says, and hangs up. The bus takes longer than it should because of the snow, and it's so busy that I'm forced to stand, crammed along with dozens of others in the center aisle. Almost all the other passengers are students, heading to Northside for cheap beer and the promise of something real, or what they've been told is real, by Pit Boy and the other slush rappers who've spent the past decade turning the district's so-called authenticity into a commodity. I pass the time by staring at my boots and the boots of the girl next to me, the slow wash of dirty water in the grooves along the floor. At Norfolk everyone piles out into the cold and I stand at the curb to wait. The impact of hundreds of feet has transformed the snow into a brown, gritty hash, dotted with rock salt and dirt and the burnt ends of cigarettes. Across the street a drunk emerges from an alley to piss against the wall of an abandoned building. I check my phone but there's no message from Hazel or any sign that she's called. Time passes and the snow continues to fall. Eventually, I'm able to make out the headlights of the next bus approaching through the storm. It pulls up at the side of the road and Kelly or Hazel gets out along with a few other people, almost all of them girls. At first I take them to be her friends, but they walk off without a word, and finally she's left standing on her own. "Hey," I say, approaching her. "Sorry. That took longer than I thought it would." "No problem." We start walking. "You've been to this place before?" I ask her. "No." "Me either. Taylor knows it though. He's up here all the time." "Who's Taylor?" she says, and it's only now that I remember this girl doesn't know him, or that she wants me to believe that she doesn't. "He's a friend of Kelly's." "The other girl?" "The other you." "Can we not talk about that tonight? It's fucking weird, and I'm trying to convince myself that it's ok for me to be meeting with you like this, even though – " "I'm insane?" I finish for her. "I was going to say even though you're some broke guy I met on the street." "I'm not broke." "We'll see." Despite the snow, it doesn't take us long to reach the bar. I hold the door for her and follow her inside. The air is thick with voices and a tinny rock ballad blaring from a set of outdated speakers. The hardwood floor is slick with tracked-in snow and spilled beer. Hazel shoulders her way through the crowd. When we reach the counter I order a couple beers and pay for us both. "I told you I'm not broke." "So it seems." "You sounded a little upset on the phone." "It's a long story." "What else are we going to talk about?" She looks down the length of the bar and ignores the question. "You know that friend of yours, the one who looks like me?" she asks, after a time. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that." "We weren't." "What about her?" "I look exactly like her?" "Yes. But actually I'm still not convinced that you aren't her, and all of this isn't just some sick game you're playing." "Who would do that?" "I don't know. A psychotic person I guess, but it makes more sense than there being two of you." "Does it?" "Yes. Anyway, what about her?" She doesn't answer me, clearly distracted, and then suddenly she is reaching out and grabbing the arm of a man walking past. He's around my height, with an average build and a brown mass of hair above a tall forehead. Another man stops with him, shorter than the first, and dressed in a red, loose-fitting jacket. "Leaving?" Hazel asks, taking her hand away. "For a minute," the taller man says, and glances at me; my stomach turns over. The man's face warps sickly, and for an instant I could swear that I recognize him, that I've known him all my life. "This is C," says Hazel, and just as quickly the feeling passes: the man in front of me is a stranger, and I nod at him, trying to clear my head. He nods back before turning to Hazel. "By the way, our mutual friend says hello." "Auld?" she asks. "Yeah," he says, his voice low. "I'll be back in a second alright?" She shrugs and the two of men disappear into the crowd. Hazel is looking at me. "You alright?" she asks me. "I think I know that guy, or I might have seen him before or something," I say, struggling to recall the feeling. "It's a small town," she concedes. "How do you know him?" "C? He's a friend of a friend," she says distractedly. "There's a table opening up over there." She gets up without waiting for me to answer, and I have no choice except to follow after her. "It's a small town," she repeats, after she's taken her seat. "But don't get me wrong. It's interesting." "I thought you'd be bored here, coming from the capital." "No. I'm not bored." "You were going to tell me something?" "It's not important." "Again, what else are we going to talk about? You want me to tell you about myself, my family? My failed love affairs?" "Definitely not." "So?" "So it's just this dream." "What dream?" She sighs. "I keep on having it," she starts, her eyes darting from one invisible point on the table to another. "More and more often. Especially since coming here. It's not easy to explain. In the dream, I'm at home, but it isn't my home. I mean it doesn't look like my home – it's an apartment I've never seen before, but at the same time I know that I belong there, that I've lived there for years, and as I walk down the hall I pass by a mirror, and as I do..." She stops, taking a long pull of beer, and looks away. Her face has gone pale, and she bites down on the edge of her lip. "You pass the mirror," I prompt her. "I pass it and see my reflection," she continues. "It's my reflection. Nothing is changed. It's me. But I'm dead. The girl in the mirror is dead, a dead girl staring out at me, through my eyes." She tries to laugh. "It's the same thing every time." "That's a bad dream." She shrugs. "It's a dream. But when you said that I look like your friend, exactly like her, I thought... I don't know what I thought. But that's why I had a drink with you, the first time." "I thought it was my charm." She laughs shortly and we finish our beer. I ask her if she wants another one and she nods. "I'm starting to feel a bit drunk," she says, but she doesn't sound drunk, and her eyes when she looks at me are clear. I wake into the murky sluice of a hangover. There's a dull pounding in my head and a taste in my mouth like dead earth. I haul myself out of bed and into the bathroom, rinse my mouth with water, and then I move to the desk and sit down and stare at the window. I'm only half aware of time passing, a semi-conscious movement akin to breathing. After a while I force myself to get dressed and leave the apartment. I go to a small cafe where I order coffee and toast and eat it with the limp thoughtlessness of a mental patient. I work. I write about what happened last night and the things that came before and I write all of this. I should be doing the work I'm paid to do, the editing for foreign students at the university, the free-lance stuff with local magazines and the work on video games for my friend's company in the capital, but I can't be bothered. Putting it down like this is the only way I know how to make sense of it. Besides, a hangover isn't conducive to any other kind of writing. When I'm finished I leave the cafe. The morning is bitterly cold. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do, and I find myself walking in the direction of the share house. Someone is bound to be there, whether Richard or Daphne/Pandora, or whatever it is she's calling herself today, and talking to either of them has got to be better than listening to myself think. Reaching the house, I find a man smoking by himself at the far end of the porch. He isn't wearing a shirt, and aside from an old pair of gray track pants, his brown skin is bare to the cold. He nods at me and then turns back the street, one arm pulled in close to his chest in a vain attempt to keep himself warm. "Pandora here?" I ask him. "Who?" "A girl, about this tall." I point to the space around my chin. "Dark hair." "Never seen her," he says. "But I just moved in yesterday." "I see." "You live here?" "Friends do." "There's not many people home right now," he says. "What's your name?" "Isaac. You?" "Luke. Luke Coulter." He walks the short distance to shake my hand. "Nice to meet you," I tell him. "Yeah likewise." He turns away, and I move to the front door, stamping the snow from my boots before entering. The living room is empty, and so is the kitchen, and as I take the stairs to the 2nd floor I begin to wonder if I've wasted my time coming here. I bang twice on Richard's door, loudly, but there's no answer, and it's the same thing at Pandora's room. I'm about to give up when Taylor sticks his head around the door at the opposite end of the hall. "Thought I heard someone knocking," he says, his voice coming high and staticky through the modulator. "Seeing if Richard was home," I answer. "Yeah well, come in here a minute," he says, throwing the door open and disappearing behind it before I have a chance to answer. There is a reluctance to move, as if the hallway were much longer than it appears or the muscles in my legs had been numbed by anesthetic, but boredom and loneliness are powerful motivators, and in the end I force myself to walk the short distance to his door. It is dark inside the room, and filthy. The bed is unmade and clothes are strewn across the floor. Both the night stand and dresser are covered in piles of used dishes, and the small garbage can by the desk is overflowing with balled-up wads of tissue and the remnants of instant noodle packages. There is a sweet, cloying scent in the air, as of damp linen and rotten food. In the far corner, almost lost in the gloom, I notice a glass fish tank very similar to the ones in Nathaniel Parker's bar. "Nice room," I say, causing Taylor to snort, the sound emerging like a line of binary code. He sits down at the desk and leans back in his chair, possibly staring at me through the night-black lenses of his glasses. His head is backlit by a pair of laptop screens, each of them displaying some sort of chart or graph, with a stream of data scrolling along the lower edge. "How are you doing?" he asks. "Doing fine." "You feel any different?" "Different from what?" "From before." "Like I said, I'm fine. What's with the line graph?" "It's stock information. I run data from a few different exchanges through a program that translates it into sound. Here..." He swivels around in his chair and calls up a program on the left-hand screen. A sound like a whale call fills the room. Its piercing cries fluctuate wildly until all at once they are swallowed in a deep, penetrating fall of bass. "That's some company's stock crashing," Taylor announces. "A lot of people just lost a lot of money." He clicks the mouse, and the whale call is replaced by the confused chirping of a flock of birds. "Turn it off," I say. "I'm way too hungover for this." "I usually keep it on when I work," he says, muting it. "Why?" "I like to think about what's generating the sound. The price fluctuations, buying and selling. The economy is the sum of hundreds of millions of daily interactions, maybe billions. Distilling all that into sound is interesting. There's no real music in it, no harmony. It hurts the ears." "Fun hobby," I remark. "You still haven't seen it yet?" he asks suddenly. "Seen what?" "That line on your face." My jaw tightens. Taylor remains seated in front of me, his expression indecipherable behind his modulator. A shiver passes the length of my spine. "What are you talking about?" "You know what," he responds. "You did it too. The mantis. You're not completely blind now." "Blind to what?" "All of it," he says, and his voice changes, deepening and cutting through the drab room like a discordant note. "What do you mean?" "You've seen it. How thin this all is. The holes in everything." "How high are you right now?" "You know what your problem is?" he asks me. "You don't know what you're looking for." "I'm not looking for anything." He shakes his head. "No. You came to me looking for Kelly, but that's a dead end. It's not important. Not compared to that line." "What line?" He gets out of the chair and walks to the fish tank. "Here," he says. "My own experiment." Moving closer, I can just make out the mossy floor of the tank. Several pale mushrooms are poking out from the dirt, each of them capped by a delicate, misshapen crown. "I take it these aren't for cooking," I say. "No. I added powder to the ground." "And how'd that work out?" "See for yourself." He puts a hand into the tank and uproots two mushrooms. Handing me one, he undoes the strap on his voice modulator. It occurs to me that I've never seen his face before; his mouth is wide, with thin, almost feminine lips, and his skin has the unnatural smoothness of cast porcelain. Quickly, he downs the mushroom and puts the modulator back in place, securing the strap around the base of his skull. "It tastes like shit but you're going to want to eat that," he tells me. I look at the thing in my hand, bone-white and nearly weightless. Faint orange lines snake beneath the surface of the cap, vivid as exposed veins. "What else do you have to do today?" he urges. He's right of course, and somewhere along the line I must have stopped caring what I put in my body; I shove the mushroom in my mouth, chewing carefully, and several times I have to repress an urge to vomit. Once I've swallowed, I attempt to dislodge a number of clinging bits from my teeth and the roof of my mouth, the rancid, undead taste of the thing causing me to shudder. "It doesn't take long," Taylor murmurs, sitting down on the floor with his back to the foot of the bed. I sit down next to him and stare at the blank surface of the opposite wall. There is a tightening in the small of my back, the nerves or tendons there winding themselves on a spring of bone. Shivers of electric current stem from the base of my skull, and the floor is an undulating plane of water. "No," I say. "That didn't take long at all." I look at Taylor. His head is bent back on the mattress, his neck exposed. I can hear the follicles of his beard growing with a sound like the clawing of a caged animal. I look at my legs stretched out in front of me, and then I look away from those, because they don't seem like mine. Struggling, I rise to my feet (or someone's feet, the feet I have to work with.) Everything in the room is intrinsic to itself, distinct as shards of cut glass, which is the same as saying the room doesn't exist: only the objects comprising the room exist, the walls, the bed and the things on the bed, the discarded clothing. Taylor, sitting on the gently rolling carpet. He turns his head to look at me, too slowly. His neck is made of plastic: a doll's head turned by invisible hands. "I'm tripping out," I say. "Go to the bathroom," he tells me. His voice is flat. I can't look at him without seeing his glasses, and the modulator growing from his mouth. "Why?" I hear myself asking. "Look in the mirror." He turns away then, shutting down, and I am alone in the room. I go to the door and open it, passing into the hallway and onto the hard, wooden floor. I make my way to the bathroom, where I stand in front of the mirror. In the glass is the reflection of a man with a yellow line on his face. I saw her as often as I could, once or twice during the week, while on weekends I was essentially living in the share house, one of several others, significant or otherwise, who wound up staying in the building. It's hard to know what to say about her. She wasn't particularly nice, or even very considerate. She got ruinously drunk and talked dirty in bed. She liked dancing and she was good at it. She was fun at parties, sociable, independent, and flirtatious. She complained about her boyfriend, telling me how much better for her I was, while simultaneously managing to circumvent any attempt I made to "define" us, or to talk about the future. What happened when she went back to the capital wasn't something she was prepared to think about. She was in town to work, and that's exactly what she did. Everything else – where she was, who she was with – only existed in relation to that. Insofar as being with me was exciting and liberating after 8 years with the same guy, it was a good thing, but if I got in the way, causing her to sleep late or fuck for longer than she'd intended, I was a burden. None of this bothered me. I didn't make many demands on her; after a long, barren, single year I was happy with whatever she was prepared to offer. That attitude might have been a mistake, but I think if I'd pressured her for something more, to leave her boyfriend for example, all I would have accomplished was to make her miserable. I enjoyed being with her, and that was enough for me, at least at the time. The most surprising thing about her was the way she worked; as a young artist, I expected her to keep odd hours, waking up whenever she felt like it and working for as long or as little as her mood allowed, but she treated painting like a 9-5 job, going to her studio and coming home at the same time every day. This devotion to a routine didn't fit with the rest of her personality, which was somewhat erratic; she was prone to mood-swings, often and without warning swinging from one emotional extreme to the other. She was impulsive, trusting the "feel" of a moment as opposed to thinking things through (a good example of which was hooking up with me.) Again, none of this bothered me, and in some ways I enjoyed it. I liked the fact that I was seeing an artist, someone who took their work as seriously as I took my writing, and then I saw one of her paintings and realized that comparing my work with hers was arrogant to the point of being insulting. "Painting" is a shallow word for what she did; she worked with light, exposing photo-sensitive paper to dozens of different sources. These could be anything from street lamps to moonlight, or even something as simple as a television screen. She only made use of what she called "found light", never setting up a lamp in a studio or artificially manipulating the environment. To produce different effects she used custom-made silk-screens which allowed her to blend and soften the light. Afterwards, she would paint on top of the prints, faint ghostly shapes that might have been streets filled with people, or the landscape of a dead city, or may have been something else entirely. The painted forms drew the eye, but it was the wide, light-washed stretches of canvas that were most interesting, the pale colours that she somehow managed to blend and fade together like the tenuous connections between dreams. As brilliant as these prints were, for her they were only a kind of practice. What she called her "true" work was done using sheets of wafer-thin material composed of specially designed solar cells with the ability both to store and reflect light, the result of which was to turn the piece itself into a light source. The effect dimmed within a matter of days, but she made twice as much selling those as she did with her paintings. So she was a talented artist. On top of that was the sex, which was intense, if not exactly fulfilling: there was a desperation in the way we came together, and also something pathetic. We spent ourselves on each other's bodies, fucking like people who've been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and when we were done her hips would go on working, grinding into me, and her nails dug into my back as if she was pleading with me or with the world not to be finished yet. Time was a constant pressure between us, a massive stone wheel that ground our days into a dust of memory. Each night that gave way to the morning, every weekend that ended was one less we'd ever have, and as a result our conversation was as frantic as our sex life. We moved from one topic to another, talking of everything or nothing, desperately trying to describe ourselves with the naïve belief that in doing so we were making the best possible use of what little time we had left. What else is there to say? She wasn't perfect, but headcase that I am, I thought she was perfect for me. "You see it don't you?" Taylor asks. I shut the door and sit down in the chair by the desk. "Yeah I see it." The floor is no longer a liquid thing, but the movement in my spine is worse. Putting a hand to my face, I feel it, as well as hand and face, as things apart from myself, as if the sensation is being fed to me by radio wave. "One night I woke up in a stranger's apartment," I say, and don't look to see if Taylor is listening. It doesn't matter. The words come on their own, indifferent to their audience. "But by the end of the night it was mine. Now I know it was mine, but at the time it felt like another man's apartment, and the clothes in it were another man's clothes. But they fit me. Everything fit. And when I went into the bathroom this line was on my face." I point to it, running a finger from my forehead to cheek and feeling nothing, but the line is there whether I feel it or not. I know that now. "I wasn't too worried about the line. It didn't matter. I went out and I forgot about it. By the time I got back to the apartment I'd forgotten everything. It was my place, and the clothes were mine. The line was gone, and the only thing that didn't fit anymore was meeting Kelly and being told she was Hazel." "That's fucked up," says Taylor. "Yes," I respond. "It's fucked up." "But at least now you know what you need to do." "What's that?" I ask him. He is sitting in his place at the foot of the bed. The fingers of his right hand are twitching. "You have to find out why you've got a line on your face." "It's the same line the outsiders have." He shakes his head. "No it isn't. Wrong colour. The outsiders' lines are blue or purple. Yours is yellow." He pauses, thinking. "You know who you should ask about this?" "Who?" The question tastes strange in my mouth, as if I'm not really the one voicing it. "Nathaniel Parker." "The guy in the wheelchair?" "He knows as much about powder as anyone. More than the people selling it." "Then I'll ask him." I watch as Taylor rises from the floor. "I'll go with you," he tells me. "Now?" "Now is best." "I'm still high." He shrugs, and moves to the door and holds it open, waiting for me. I walk the short distance across the carpet. Taylor leads the way down the stairs, and I focus on his back, the line of his shoulders moving beneath his t-shirt. He grabs a jacket from a hook in the hallway. I busy myself with my boots. Outside, the man who'd been smoking on the porch is gone, but the sun has barely moved. I feel as though I've been upstairs for hours. Taylor eases himself off the porch and onto the sidewalk, where he turns, staring at me from behind his glasses. "Why are you so interested in this?" I think to ask him. "Who wouldn't be?" he responds, and the answer makes sense, as far as it goes, but that can't be his only reason; there is something more, a hard edge to him now, and a decisiveness that he tries to bury under a thin veneer of detachment. It occurs to me that I don't know anything about him. We get on the first bus going north and I watch the town through the window. The sun stains the building's faces a deep, nearly perfect orange, and the streets seem to be crowded with refugees and mental patients. Loose affiliations of children are milling in a wide tract of snow, absorbed in a game that looks more like a historical reenactment than play. At Norfolk we exit the bus and Taylor leads the way through an increasingly complicated series of turns. Eventually we wind up in an alley behind a row of houses. It's nearly identical to the alley I was in the other night, the one in which a woman was projected on a wall, but while I recognize many of the buildings, and even some of the graffiti, there is no sign of the projector; I realize that I'm sweating beneath my coat. Is this the same alley or not? The question has far more weight than it deserves, but I don't have the time to consider it; Taylor has already moved on, turning onto a broad street lined with more or less prosperous looking houses. Not much further is the bar. He moves up the short flight of stairs and knocks on the wooden door. I wait beside him, doing my best to ignore the line of sweat between my shoulders. Across the street an old man with a hard, round gut is standing on his porch, smoking. He regards me with lazy hostility, and then nods once, slowly, before flicking the end of his cigarette onto the street. Taylor is pounding on the door. "Try opening it," I say, and do so myself, reaching around him to push down on the handle. The door swings open with a short creak. "They never leave it unlocked," Taylor mutters, passing into the bar. The upper room is as empty as the last time I was here, each stool placed neatly before the counter. The untouched rows of alcohol and empty picture frames all have the slightly overblown quality of religious artifacts. "Nathaniel?" Taylor calls, and my back stiffens at the sound of his voice. "Jared?" No one answers. We take the unlit stairs to the basement and Taylor fumbles blindly for the light switch. A single bulb sputters and steadies in the middle of a black ceiling. "Jared?" he says again, his voice oddly small. He walks across the bar to the largest picture frame, and opens the hidden door. "Shit," he mutters. The opposite room has been torn apart, the floor littered with broken glass and muddy puddles of water. A half-dozen of Nathaniel's glass cases lie shattered on the carpet, and all of the shelves have been looted. The computers are gone, their connecting wires hanging limply from the back of the mixing board. "What the fuck happened?" I say. Taylor stoops to examine one of the damaged tanks. "There's a boot print in the dirt here," he says and looks at me, scratching absently at the skin beside his glasses. "Check the bar. The light switch is behind the counter." "Yeah," I say, turning around. I'm halfway to the counter when a blur of motion stops me; a small shadow lands heavily on the floor, straightens, and bolts toward the stairs. "There's someone here!" I hear myself yelling, and start after him; the man takes the stairs two at a time and is at the door by the time I reach the upper bar. Taylor's boots pound the floor behind me. The man hauls open the door and in the second it takes for him to do that I'm on him, slamming into his back. He loses his footing and we fall together into the ankle-deep slush in front of the bar. He struggles to get away, twisting his head around; his features are viscous and waxy, his narrow eyes and nose, and the small, white scar on his chin. I work to pin him to the ground; he isn't a big man, but he struggles wildly and it isn't until I catch one of his wrists and shove it into the ground that he gives up. He gasps, and Taylor is beside us, pressing his knee into the man's forearm. "Who are you?" Taylor says, his voice harshened by a crackle of digitized static. "Who the fuck are you?" spits the man, jerking his arm away and wrenching halfway free. Taylor smacks him casually across the mouth with the back of his hand. "My name is Taylor Wyatt," he says. His head tilts in my direction. "This is Isaac. What's your name?" "Let me up," the man growls. "Your name." The man glares at Taylor, and then fixes his eyes on me. "Name's R," he says, after a pause. "R what?" "Just R, motherfucker, now let me up. I'm not gonna run." Taylor takes his leg from the man's arm and stands up, motioning for me to do the same. I get up slowly, offering my hand, but the man bats it away, cursing under his breath. "What are you doing here R?" Taylor asks. The man glares at him, wiping slush from the back of his pants and his jacket. "What the fuck are you assholes doin here, huh?" he says, sneering. I'm tempted to hit him myself. "Well R, since you ask, I work at that bar. I'm a DJ, and Isaac is a friend of mine." "Little early for a DJ set isn't it?" R says. "We're looking for someone," I tell him. "A man named Nathaniel Parker." "Parker, huh?" R seems to consider that. "You and everyone else." "What do you mean?" "I mean that's why I'm here. I was waitin for him ta show up." "Why?" "Cause I'm bein paid for it, why else?" "Who's paying you?" Taylor presses him. Rather than answering, R reaches into his jacket for a pack of smokes and a lighter. "You mind?" he asks. Taylor shrugs. R's hand is shaking slightly, whether with cold or shock, and it takes a long time for him to get the flame to catch. "The Institute," he mutters at last. "Come again?" says Taylor. "I'm bein paid ta look out for that Parker guy by the Institute." "What does the Institute want with Nathaniel?" "How should I know?" R snaps. "Same reason they trashed the room in the back and took all that shit out a'the bar. It has somethin ta do with the powder. That's all those fuckin boys care about. That satisfy you? Can I go now?" "Did you see Jared?" asks Taylor. "Who?" "The bartender. Tall guy, broad shoulders." "Didn't see anyone. Just helped the agents load those cases a'frogs or bugs or whatever they were inta a van, and then I settled down ta wait. Good money for easy work." "Yeah, I bet it is," says Taylor. "We done here?" R asks, and Taylor waves him off. I watch as the man moves down the street, slouching with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Taylor turns to me. "We have to find Nathaniel," he says. The air is thick with neon. Signs suspended over the discreet entrances to places with names like 'Pixie' and 'Dream II' stain the night a hazy, burnished pink. A small army of men in cheap suits stand before the doors, calling out to potential customers in muted voices or else gazing vacantly at the pavement in front of their shoes. Beside me, Taylor is smoking through a custom hole on the side of his mouthpiece. He comes to an arched doorway framed by fluorescent tubing and stops, a languid cloud of smoke drifting around his head. "You ready to see some tits?" he asks. After we'd finished questioning R we went looking for the bartender. Taylor had his address, an apartment on the second floor of a converted townhouse not far from 6th Bridge. We spent a few useless minutes banging on his door before Taylor tried calling one last time, but the bartender still wasn't picking up his phone. I was for going home, but Taylor insisted on dragging me out here. "If this turns out to be a dead end I'm going to be upset," I say. "I told you, Jared only works here part time. He might be here tonight, and he might not. But if not, maybe someone can tell us where he is." "What makes you so sure this bartender friend of yours can find Parker?" "Wherever the old man is, you can bet it was Jared who got him there. Nathaniel's not exactly mobile." "Then let's go." Taylor removes what's left of his cigarette from the modulator and flicks it to the ground. A stuttering of red-gold lights moves over the surface of his glasses. He considers me for a moment, and then he shakes his head and starts through the door. The interior is wide and brightly lit. Two chest-high ferns flank the entrance, and on the left a fat, balding man in a tux is ensconced behind a glass partition. A wrinkled newspaper is spread in front of him, and beside that is a brass ashtray overflowing with the butts of old hand-rolleds. He glances up without interest, his stubby, pink fingers working to smooth a crease in the paper. "It's twenty each," he announces. I pass the money through a slot in the bottom of the glass and wait for Taylor to do the same. He only looks at me. "If you think I'm paying for you, forget it," I tell him. "You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me." "Forget it," I repeat, and at last he takes out his wallet, muttering. The fat man behind the partition waits with his eyes on the paper, paying less attention to us than he would to a pair of insects. Once he's paid, Taylor moves down the hall, at the end of which is a curved stairwell that leads to the basement. Two elderly drunks are seated on a leather couch at the foot of the stairs, talking together in low, unhurried voices. To their right is a wide doorway and next to that another potted fern and a vending machine stocked with beer and rice alcohol. Pushing open the doors, I step into a dark, cramped room, heavy with the scent of hand-rolleds and spilled beer. A narrow stage runs the length of the back wall, with a kind of raised, circular platform positioned just in front of it. Four semi-circular rows of seats fan out from there. The crowd is sparse, and comprised almost entirely of middle-aged men. None of them look at us as we enter, sitting primly in their seats with the tight, constipated expressions of people waiting on the results of an STD test. "I'll see if he's here," Taylor says, starting off in the direction of the small DJ booth in the corner. The stage lights are switched on, and as I move to find a seat a girl enters from a concealed doorway on the right. She is very short, with a slight, childish body and a thick bob of brown hair. A white, nearly translucent nightgown trails from her shoulders, falling in a straight line to her knees. Beneath the gown she's naked. The girl steps forward, and a treacly, 10-year-old pop track starts up on the house speakers. The girl's toes are pointed like a dancer's and her thighs slip neatly from a long slit in the nightgown. She draws her arms in, pressing her wrists together at her neck and gazing innocently out at the crowd. In two quick motions she reaches the circular platform at the front of the stage and sits down, bringing a leg up to her chest and allowing the nightgown to climb almost as far as her hips. Her fingers trail slowly to her shoulders and she tugs at first one, and then the other of the straps. They fall to her elbows, and she arches her back, exposing her throat. The nightgown slips over her breasts. In the hard light of the stage the girl's skin takes on the molded, hyper-real cast of plastic, every minute detail, from the gooseflesh around her nipples to a small mole just above her left breast rendered in near perfect clarity. She looks like a body laid out in an operating theatre, I think, and beneath her, the circular platform begins to rotate. It rises smoothly from the floor, lifting the girl over the crowd. As she's raised, a light like the flame of an acetylene torch kindles within the platform. It is small at first, but it spreads quickly, until at last the whole platform is glowing and the girl's skin is burnished the colour of a ripe peach. Now she is pushing the nightgown over her slight hips, and in a moment she is on her hands and knees. She bites down on her lower lip and extends one of her legs at a 90 degree angle, the muscles in her thigh visibly trembling. The girl completes one full revolution in the same pose and as if on cue the men in the audience break into a muted round of applause. After this, the girl moves through a series of more and more complex positions, at one point turning her back to the platform and lifting herself up, crab-like, on her hands and feet; her stomach trembles, a few, taut beads of sweat standing on her skin. The light seems to hum in the air around her, casing her body, or defining it; I look away, but her after-image remains with me, like a projection of light against the black wall behind the stage. Taylor falls heavily into the seat beside me, and I blink, trying to bring him into focus. "He isn't here," he says. "The guy working tonight hasn't seen him in days." "What now?" I ask. Taylor shrugs, and sets a fresh cigarette into the slot in his modulator. I glance back at the girl on the stage, but the odd hum or distortion is gone, leaving her humanized and diminished, a bored-looking stripper working a dull, unforgiving shift. Numbly, I rub at my eyes with the flat of my hand. "I need a fucking drink," I say, edging past Taylor's knees and exiting the room. Compared to the closeness of the theatre, the air in the hallway is fresh and bracing. The two drunks have vanished, and after slotting some change into the machine and selecting a tall can of beer, I sit down at the couch. The sound of raised voices reaches me from the floor above, and then a fragmentary burst of laughter. Leaning back in the plush seat I crack open the beer and watch as a pair of men in black goggles make their way down the stairs. "See?" says the taller of the two. "I told you tracking that bartender down wouldn't be a waste of time." The other man is silent. He rubs his jaw with bony fingers, and it hits me that I've seen them both before. It was in Nathaniel's bar, the night I went to question Taylor and wound up eating that mantis. While they hadn't seemed to out of place in the basement of an underground techno club, down here they look like extras from a bad sci-fi film. "That's an unusual colour," the tall one says, addressing me. "I'm sorry?" "Your line." "My line?" "I like it when they play dumb," he says, laughing. "Sorry, but you mind telling me who the fuck you are?" "You know," he muses. "In all my time hunting you people this is the first time any of you have us asked that." "You people?" "They also typically know that we're coming," the shorter man says thoughtfully. "Maybe a yellow line means they're retarded," replies the taller one. "You can see it?" I ask. The taller man taps his goggles. "Latest technology," he says, leaning forward and leering at me. "You know, I'm always curious to ask why you bother to come here." "Same reason you did I guess. To see some tits." He laughs. "What, there's no pussy in your universe?" "We never have seen a female," remarks the shorter man. "Maybe they're all faggots," replies his friend. The shorter man smiles, a brief, stark break in the grim wasteland of his face, and all at once what they're saying begins to dawn on me. "You think I'm an outsider?" "Let's get on with this." "True," the taller man says. "We can talk later." He reaches into his coat. Just then, the doors to the theatre swing open and Taylor steps into the hall. "Shit," he says. The taller man reacts first, drawing something that might be a gun out of his coat. Without thinking I throw my beer, watching as the can spins end over end in a spray of golden white foam; there is a sharp, thunking sound as it connects with the side of the taller man's head. He shouts and his arm jerks up, a pair of wires shooting from the thing in his hand to ricochet harmlessly from the ceiling. The shorter man makes a low, snarling sound, and reaches into his own coat. "Cover your ears!" Taylor shouts, and I have just enough time to obey before a piercing, needle-fine scream shatters the hall; the two men howl soundlessly, their voices drowned by the noise, dropping to the ground with their hands clutched to their ears. Suddenly the noise is gone, replaced by a toneless, metallic ringing. Repressing an urge to vomit, I stagger to my feet, dimly aware of Taylor grabbing hold of my arm. "Let's go," he says, from a very long way off. "What?" I manage. Spit is dribbling from my mouth. He wrenches me forward, and my legs respond by reflex. A dancing flurry of black dots overtakes my eyes, and I can only barely make out the stairs. Somehow we reach the top, where the fat man in the tuxedo is standing, tottering on his feet and blinking dumbly. "What was that noise?" he asks. Taylor pushes past him and we stumble out of the building and into the night and the cold bath of neon; my breath fogs the air, back-lit by the flickering red-gold light around the door. "What the fuck was that?" I manage, but Taylor doesn't respond. He drags me forward, and the street retreats before us, neon-fronted doorways and old drunks and men in suits falling away one after another. At last we reach the end of the road. Taylor leaves me doubled over at the curb and sometime later he returns, holding the door of a car and helping me to crawl inside. "I don't want him puking in my cab," says the man upfront, glaring at me in the rearview mirror. "He's fine," Taylor tells him. The driver shrugs and pulls away, slipping neatly into the traffic. I turn around and scan the road behind us, but there's no sign of the men in goggles. I rest my head against the leather seat cushion, closing my eyes. A dozen questions spin in my head, but none of them are as important as blacking out. She sat across the table drinking coffee and flipping through the pages of an oversized art book. She'd bought it earlier, in a used store that we wandered into on Nascent St. The store was very narrow, so much so that we were only able to browse the high, wooden shelves single file. After a time Kelly went off on her own, and I spent a few minutes looking over the fiction collection before she returned to show me what she'd found. "Look at this," she said. It was a collection of 14th century engravings from the time of the great plague. The page she opened to depicted a group of skeletal peasants marching toward an open grave. Opposite that was a portrait of Death with his candle and blackened palm, stained from snuffing out the flame of life. She shut the book, smiling strangely. "I have to buy this." The old man behind the register sold her the book at a discount. He barely looked up as she thanked him, nodding and muttering something about being happy to put a book in the right hands. Back in the street Kelly talked about coincidence (a word she said she didn't believe in), and the chances of finding a book like this so soon after Auld's announcement. Now she had it open on the table in front of her. "You know back then people thought the world was ending," she said, showing me another of the pages. At first glance it was a picture of a grinning skull, but when I looked more closely I could see that it had been formed by a clever arrangement of dozens of naked corpses. "And it didn't," I said. "It did for them," she countered. She set the book aside and looked out the window. There were a number of other bags on the floor next to the table, each of them stuffed with purchases. They were all hers; she'd spent the entire morning shopping, putting everything on credit. I asked her if she'd come into some money recently, but she just laughed. "What's the point of going out with anything in the bank?" she asked. At first I thought she was joking, but after a while I wasn't sure; there was a carelessness about her that day, a kind of morbid indifference that bled into everything she did and said, and which made it very difficult to be with her. "I can't believe you're taking this seriously," I said, and she shrugged. "Would it be terribly boring if I asked you to take me into the bathroom and fuck me?" She said it simply, and without inflection. I had no choice but to smile, but she wouldn't return the look. Instead, she took a sip of her coffee and waited. "Boring?" I asked. "A cliché. Like the ship's going down so let's fuck." "That's not boring." "No?" There was a hint of amusement on her face. "And the ship isn't going down." "Everything's fine?" "That's right." She nodded and stood up. "Then let's go." She led the way to the bathroom. Once inside, she pressed against me, seeking my lips as her fingers worked to undo my belt. I pulled her skirt over her hips and pressed my palm between her legs. She was already wet, but I was nowhere near hard. She put her hand on me, her fingers cool and searching. They worked roughly, squeezing and prodding, but it made no difference. A gust of frustration passed through me like a long, hollow sigh. "What's wrong?" she asked as I pulled away from her. I kissed her once more, and then again on the forehead. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's just not going to happen right now." She looked away, managing a small half smile. "Don't worry," she said. "We still have a lot of time." I sit up, struggling against a wave of nausea. It's very dark, and it takes me a moment before I realize that I'm in the share-house. This is the girl's room, I think, Pandora's, and the rest of it comes back in a rush: the strip club, the goggled-men and the flight to the taxi, but whatever happened after that is gone. A door opens and I shield my eyes at the inrush of light; the girl is standing in the doorframe, her body an indistinct smudge of black. "Mind closing the door?" I ask. She does, and enters the room, setting a glass down on the night stand. "Water," she informs me. "Thank you." "How are you feeling?" "I'm alright." It's a lie: the inside of my skull feels like someone went at it with a dull razor, and my ears are ringing so badly that the girl might as well be talking at me from behind a glass wall. "Taylor won't tell me what happened," she's saying. "But you don't smell drunk." "Long story." I reach for the water. It's luke-warm and I can barely feel it going down. Suddenly it's all I can do to keep my eyes open. The girl gets off the bed and I can hear her moving about the room. I lie down and when my I open my eyes again it's morning. The girl is sitting at the desk in front of a computer. "What time is it?" I ask. She turns to me. "Almost 10." "Where are my clothes?" "On the chair," she says, pointing. I grab my pants and boxers and throw them on beneath the sheets. Standing up sends a jolt of pain through my head, but I feel better than I did last night, and the ringing has subsided in my ears. "You're leaving?" "I need to talk to Taylor." "What happened last night?" "When I find out you'll be the first to know." "It's about where you come from isn't it?" She is gazing at me impassively, her legs drawn up before her on the chair. "Where I come from?" "You know," she says, hesitating. "The other side." I stare at her. "You're serious?" Her head tilts slightly, frowning. "Serious?" "You actually think I'm an outsider?" "Well," she says, and then stops herself. "Wait, what do you mean?" "Why would you think that?" "The line on your face. I just thought..." "You can see it?" "Of course I can see it. I've always been able to see you. I mean, I've been using the powder for a while now." "Shit," I mutter, pulling my t-shirt over my head. "I was born here. You want to check my driver's license?" I toss her my wallet, the tension of the past few days boiling over; I'm sick of all of it, never having a clue about what's going on, and the bizarre freak show my life's been reduced to. Without moving from the chair, the girl picks up my wallet and examines my license. "I wouldn't have guessed you were 29," she says, throwing it back to me. I catch it out of the air and stuff it in the back pocket of my jeans. "Is that why you were sleeping with me? Because you thought I was an outsider?" "No," she says, defensively. "I mean, that's not the only reason." "Wonderful." I leave her and walk the length of the hall to Taylor's room. I bang heavily on his door without getting a response. Richard calls to me from the other end of the hall. "Where the fuck have you been?" he asks, waving me inside his room. "Have you seen Taylor?" "Not since yesterday." He sits down at the desk and lights a cigarette. "Can I have a drag of that?" I ask him He holds out the smoke and I take it from him, glancing out the window at the snow-covered street. "You missed the opening last night," he says. I hand him back the smoke. "There was an opening?" "I told you about it." "I can't remember." "It went good though, thanks for asking." "You're welcome." "You look like shit." "Thanks." "What did you do last night?" "Went to a strip club with Taylor." "With him?" "It's a long story," I say. "I've got time." "I wouldn't even know where to start." "Is this still about that girl who looks like Kelly?" "Not exactly." "You've got to get over that. Isn't sleeping with Emily helping?" "Who's Emily?" He regards me with a look usually reserved for the mentally ill. "The girl down the hall?" "She wouldn't tell me her name." He snorts. "Figures. What'd she give you, a long dissertation on myths?" "Something like that." "She thinks she's an artist." "Yeah well, who doesn't." He shrugs, and hands me what's left of the smoke. I kill it and I stab the end out in the ashtray on the table. "This artist made close to a grand last night," he announces. "You're a credit to the profession." "You joke, but things are finally starting to come together." "Are they?" "Yes," he says, and then: "You know what your problem is?" "What's that?" "You get so caught up in these muses of yours you don't have time for anything else. Are you even writing anymore?" "I'm writing," I mutter. "Yeah? Some bullshit about this Kelly clone?" "Something like that." "No one wants to hear about your ex-girlfriend man, that's lesson one." "I'll keep that in mind." He turns from me to his computer. "What do you know about powder?" I ask him. "It comes from the mines," he says, without looking away from the screen. "You know that. That's all anyone knows." "And what do you think of this line on my face?" He swivels in his chair. "What are you talking about?" "This line." I point vaguely to a space on the right side of my forehead. "What line?" "You can't see it?" "How high are you right now?" "You take the powder don't you?" "No," he says. "Got off that shit a while ago." "Why'd you stop?" "I don't know. Talking to that outsider was getting to me I guess, all that stuff about the end of the world." "You took that seriously?" "No. Or anyway I didn't at the time. I don't know." "Well, if you believe it, you've only got a few days left. Better take up heroin or something." "If he was right." "He was probably right." I start toward the door. "Hey," he says, stopping me. "Is there really a line on your face?" "A lot of people seem to think so." "So... Then what is that about?" "I have no idea. I'm trying to find out." "And Taylor's helping you with that?" "Maybe." "How do you even get into a situation like this?" "Just lucky I guess." "Yeah," he says, and then he glances away, at his feet or the carpet, or maybe both together. "Just be careful," he says at last. "I'll see what I can do." I let myself out and try Taylor's room again, but there's still no answer. As I take the stairs to the first floor, a voice calls out from the living room; I can see her from where I'm standing, Emily or Pandora or whatever it is she's calling herself today, but I have nothing to say to her, and less interest in anything she's likely to say to me. I'm about to leave when she points at something beyond the doorframe. Entering the room, I find Taylor seated on a chair opposite her. "Sorry about the misunderstanding," she says. "No problem." "Taylor explained about your line." "That was nice of him." "And you just kind of... forgot about it?" "I'm forgetful." She reaches out, possibly to touch my hand, but the gesture dies before it's halfway finished; I look at her, not sure if I'm angry, or merely deflated. Maybe she did sleep with me because she thought I was an alien, but so what? That's better than if she'd done it for money, especially since I don't have any. She stares at me, her face all but unreadable. The face of a stranger, or an ex. "You two want to be alone or something?" asks Taylor. The girl laughs shortly. "Not especially," she says. "That's good. Because I know where Nathaniel is." "Where?" I ask him. "Holed up in a house past 5th Bridge. Jared called me this morning." "You have the address?" "I'll take you there," he says. "It's not necessary." "I think I should go with you." "Why?" A low crackle of static escapes his modulator; a burst of laughter, I think. "You remember last night? You know where you'd be now if I hadn't been there?" "I have no idea where I'd be." "What happened last night?" the girl asks. "Things could have gotten ugly," insists Taylor. "They could have, yes." "I don't know what they wanted but they had no problem pulling out tasers to get it." "You got tasered?" The girl looks from me to Taylor, her eyes wide, and her pupils large as pits. It occurs to me that she might be high. When all of this is sorted out, I need to remind myself not to come around here anymore. "You need my help," says Taylor, flatly. "This isn't your problem." He shrugs and moves past me to the hall. "Are you coming?" he calls. The girl gives me a sympathetic look, and I start after him. We put our boots on in silence. It's an old house on a street of old houses. This one is two storeys, with a shingled roof and a withered garden in the corner of a small, snow covered lawn. It reminds me of the house my grandfather lived in, back when he was still alive. A house for lonely men, and I picture Nathaniel inside, sitting by himself in a dimly lit room as what's left of his life is parceled out in the precise ticking of a clock; Taylor rings the bell, and the girl who answers the door is gorgeous. She is wearing a pair of tight jeans and a black tank-top. A wave of glossy, ink-black hair falls to her shoulders, and the tattoos covering her bare arms are a complex exercise in fractal geometry. Her lashes are heavy with makeup, but beneath them it's still possible to make out the green of her eyes. She regards us both with a look of boredom so complete it borders on disdain. "What's with all that shit on your face?" she asks Taylor. "Art project," he tells her, which elicits a laugh, but grudgingly, as if she only has so many to spare. She steps to one side and holds open the door. "You're just in time for dinner." She moves before us down the hall. On the left is a small dining room, where Nathaniel Parker and the bartender are seated at a wooden table. "We've been expecting you!" Nathaniel proclaims, raising a glass of wine. "We know," says Taylor, his voice modulated very low. "You invited us." "Right you are my boy," replies Nathaniel. "Sharp as a fucking tack, as usual." "He's drunk," the bartender informs us. "It'll just be a minute," says the girl, disappearing into the kitchen. Taylor and I sit down at the table; the place setting could have been ripped from the pages of a home and design magazine: gleaming, porcelain dishes are laid out next to fluted wine glasses and polished silverware, immaculate napkins folded in the shape of swans. Above us is a wrought-iron chandelier, its bulbs tapered in the shape of candles, and in the center of the table is a centerpiece of cut flowers. "What are you doing here?" I ask Nathaniel, but it's the bartender who answers. "This is my sister's place. After we saw what those agents did to the bar, it seemed like a good idea to lay low for a while." Nathaniel is nodding heavily. "Lauren has been most gracious," he says. "Some wine?" He tips the bottle over my glass and fills it to the brim. "For you Taylor?" Taylor shakes his head. "Our friend Taylor is self-conscious," remarks Nathaniel. "And somewhat rude. Drinking together is a kind of social glue. Hard to trust a man who won't drink with you." The bartender smiles faintly. "I wonder if he ever takes off that mouthpiece," Nathaniel muses. "If I've got something worth replacing it with," says Taylor. The bartender snorts. "Dinner," says the girl, arriving from the kitchen with a large, steaming dish. "Lauren has impeccable timing," says Nathaniel. "A good thing, but as you'll see, not nearly her best quality. Her casseroles are legendary." She smiles, setting the dish down on the table and taking my plate with her other hand. "Local legend," she demures. "One of the very best kinds," Nathaniel answers. Lauren serves us each in turn, working quickly, as if she's used to having company for dinner or has spent the past several years working at a catering company. Nathaniel's face is flushed, and his wide nose is marked with the faint purple trace-work of burst capillaries. The bartender smokes quietly, and behind his glasses Taylor could be anywhere, looking at anything; it's a scene composed of spare parts, an absurdist tableau with more shock value than artistic sense; none of us should be here, or at least not altogether. Slowly, I start into my food, a delicious, a cheese-rich casserole that's about as good as anything I've ever tasted. "As far as I'm concerned people ignore legends at their peril," Nathaniel continues. "I've had to listen to a lot of them lately," I say. "Have you?" "A girl I know is studying myths." He nods. "Myths are even better," he says. "A far more reliable vehicle for truth than a newspaper, or any other work of fiction. Myths are the playground of symbols, and symbols don't lie. They get at the heart of things. Take that line on your face." "What about it?" "You don't know the story?" "Should I?" For some reason the question elicits another snort from the bartender. Nathaniel frowns. The girl doesn't appear to be paying attention to us, or to anything else; I watch as she shovels food into her mouth with the plodding, stubborn intensity of a condemned prisoner. "It's the mark of the Beast," Nathaniel remarks. Idly, he swirls what's left of his wine in his glass, the red liquid rising and falling in regular, elliptical orbits. "The mark of the end of time." "I thought it was the mark of an outsider." He shrugs. "That too, maybe, although from what Taylor tells me their lines are a different shade. Colours carry their own meanings too, of course, but I'd rather not have to speculate on that." "It's a mark of displacement." The voice, that of a much older man, belongs to Taylor. "Certainly it is. But not all displacements are created equal." Across the table, the girl is rolling her eyes. "You don't agree my dear?" Nathaniel asks her. "Agree with what? You're not saying anything. Boy here has a yellow line on his face, but it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference as far as his personality is concerned. Personally I find the whole thing boring." "Boring?" Nathaniel says. "Boring? You're living at a time when visitors from beyond are walking among us, when people like our friend Isaac here can find themselves outside of themselves. I hardly think that's boring." "Is that what I'm doing?" I ask. "You're on your way. Besides," Nathaniel says, turning to the girl. "You wouldn't say it was boring if you'd just try it." She sighs, and looks at me directly. "He wants me to eat a fucking mantis," she explains. "Maybe you should," I tell her. "It could be a life-changing experience." Nathaniel brightens. "You see?" he says. The girl shakes her head. "It's really not that bad Laur," puts in the bartender, before he's silenced by a look from his sister. She gets up and begins to clear away the plates. Nathaniel takes a package of cigarettes from somewhere and lights one, humming to himself under his breath. Taylor leaves the table, and a moment later the bartender excuses himself and goes after him. "Just a minute," Nathaniel interrupts him. "Could you help me upstairs before moving on to whatever it is you're about to move on to?" "This is the last time tonight," the bartender warns him. "If I take you up there I'm not dragging you back down again." Nathaniel waves the remark away like an annoying fly. "You come up too," he says to me. "There's something I want to show you." The bartender stoops to lift him, and I follow behind them with the wheelchair. On the second floor, I help the bartender to get Nathaniel seated again. "Thank you, as always, for your kind assistance Jared." "Just remember you're up here 'til morning," the bartender says. Nathaniel nods and waves, and Jared retreats down the stairs. Nathaniel's room is at the end of the hall. It is very narrow, with a low ceiling and the feel of a converted storage closet. The little space not taken up by the small bed and night stand is crammed with fish tanks. "It smells like a fucking zoo in here," I say. "I hadn't noticed." Leaning forward in his chair, the old man taps delicately on one of the tanks. Inside, a mid-sized lizard is basking under the orange glare of a heating lamp. "You eat those?" I ask. "Her eggs," he replies. I sit down on the bed with my back against the wall, watching the slow movement of one type of animal or another in the tanks. One of them is even filled with fish; mid-sized and glinting silver, they pace lazily through the clear water above a bed of plasticized rocks. "I lost a lot of tanks at the bar," Nathaniel says. "It was a hard thing, having to choose which of them to save." "How did you know the agents were coming?" "I got a call yesterday," he responds carefully. "From someone named Auld. Told me someone had tipped the Institute off about my work with powder, and that there was going to be a raid. I didn't believe him at first, but he told me some other things that no one should have known, not unless they had a different means of sight. Figured he had to be an outsider." "Auld huh?" "You know him?" "We've met." The old man seems to consider that for a moment, and then he turns to another of the tanks. "See this?" he asks. The interior is unlit, with a dark mass of water rising about a third of the way from the base. A mossy formation of rocks has been placed in one of the corners, along with a layer of what might be dirt or sand. Something is moving in the water, but without standing up and going closer it's impossible to tell what it is. "Newts," Nathaniel informs me. "Saving this one from the bar was never a question. If the Institute ever got its hands on these..." He trails off and shrugs, and then he laughs. "I've been using the powder longer than anyone," he continues. "I was the first to try it. Or anyway the first person I know. First or second or tenth, makes no difference. I was on the crew that discovered the vein. You know I worked in the mines?" "No." "Years ago. Before my accident." "What happened?" "Nothing glamorous. A support beam gave way and I happened to be under it. The beam was old, and it should have been replaced, but it wasn't and now I'm better off." "Are you?" I ask the question without thinking, but Nathaniel doesn't look up, continuing to stare at the tank of newts. "The settlement package was more than generous, and now I have the chance to focus on the things I actually enjoy. Running the bar, putting on shows. And all this," he says, waving his hand vaguely at the tanks. "I miss walking. But I wouldn't trade what I've gained for what I lost. You'll see what I mean." Saying this, he picks up a small net from the nightstand. Placing it softly into the near-black water, he waits for one of the newts to wander inside it; with a flick of his wrist and a single, sudden jerk, he pulls the newt from the tank. It splutters, its body contorting wildly, and then Nathaniel tips the net over and it drops into his palm. He cups it gently, and with his free hand he produces a small pocket knife from his jeans. Fumbling, he finally manages to open the knife, and then casually, as if he's done so a hundred times before, he slits the Newt's throat; blood spills over his fingers, and in a very short time the thing is dead. Deftly, Nathaniel turns it onto its back and draws the tip of the knife along its chest. He works quickly, and in short order he has removed a small, bloody chunk of flesh from the newt's body. "What is it?" I ask him. "The heart," he says, handing it to me. The lump of flesh is still warm. It rests in the center of my palm, dark and glistening, and there is no question of my not eating it. I put my hand to my mouth, closing my eyes as I bite down; the heart breaks open in a pulpy spray of blood. "The newt is a fast one," Nathaniel is saying. "Deep. It gets in the bones. For a while you'll be gone. You understand? The body stays here but the mind is gone. You'll find you won't remember yourself." "Wait..." I struggle with the word, my tongue grown thick in my mouth. "What is this?" "You'll see," he says. "But it won't be you who sees it." He laughs then, his face shining in the cheap, yellow light suspended above the tanks. The air of the room is vibrating, the connections between each object falling away. "What's happening?" I hear the words but I don't remember saying them. A fist of pain tightens in my gut. "Almost there now," he whispers. "Almost," I say, the word stuttering over deadened lips; suddenly I'm very cold, but that doesn't seem right - the room had been warm. I am aware of a cool, damp scent, like the inside of a cave. "Goodbye Isaac," says someone, and my eyes close. When I open them again I am lying beside a man with a bloody hole in his chest; a wave of vertigo passes through me. The chamber is awash in a blue, shimmering light. The dying man reaches for the detonator, and I push myself upright. I run, and the black mouth of the pit looms up before me. I jump into a darkness that is swallowed in light. I tell myself that it's only a dream, but I don't believe it. There is only the fall and the horror and surety of death until the light takes me and I wake up someone else. On the night she went back to the capital Kelly and I met in front of the central station. She was taking an overnight bus, and I was there helping her to kill time before she boarded. That's how I put it, "killing time", because the truth was that I wasn't ready to see her go and I couldn't bring myself to admit that I was there to say goodbye. I took her for dinner at a restaurant in a mixed-use tower opposite the station. The place was busy, and Kelly's bags made it difficult to navigate the narrow aisles and around the small army of bustling, black-aproned waiters. She was embarrassed by the trouble she was causing, and she made a point of apologizing several times to our server. We ordered grilled fish and some appetizers, and drank from large mugs of beer. "I'm hoping if I drink I'll be able to sleep on the bus," she said. "Can't hurt." "I'm actually looking forward to not being drunk so much. Getting back into some kind of routine." I nodded and said nothing, but the statement left me cold. I understood that for her coming to town had been a kind of vacation, a break from her "real life" (whatever she meant by that, the life she lived in context maybe, or that struck her as possible), but I didn't need to be reminded of it. I let her words die off, and washed away any bitterness they might have provoked with a long swallow of beer. "What are you thinking?" she asked me, after a time. "Just that I'm not looking forward to going back to my routine." "It can't be that bad." "It was boring." She smiled into her food; she had a hard time meeting my eyes that night. "I'm going to miss you," she said. "Going miss you too," I told her, surprised by how light my voice sounded. I spoke as if it didn't have anything to do with me, as if it didn't matter, and hated myself for doing so; I should have been more honest with her. I should have done a lot of things, but life is littered with bad choices, and as I looked at her across the table I seemed to relive each of mine again. "Besides," I went on. "You could just ask me to go with you." "You have a life here." I spread my hands, glancing around the restaurant. "You call this a life?" I asked. She laughed and drank her beer. "Maybe I will ask you, when I have everything sorted out," she said. "I don't want this to be the end." "It's not the end," I told her, and when at last she met my eyes I almost found myself believing it. We finished our meal and left the restaurant, taking a pedestrian bridge across the street to the station. Stopping halfway, I rolled us both a cigarette, which we shared next to the railing. I don't remember what we talked about. Maybe I asked her what she planned to do once she graduated, maybe about her next show. At some point I told her that I loved her and she smiled and artfully deflected the comment with a quiet touch of her hand. "You're halfway gone already aren't you?" I asked. "Can you tell?" "You're not hard to read." Both of us were smiling, well aware that our time together had been pared down to minutes. "It's all timing isn't it?" I said. "Yes it is." "Things come together for a while and then they drift away." "That's pretty much the way of it." "Depressing." "I know," she said, and she touched my cheek, leaning in to kiss my neck, and then my mouth. "But right now," she said, very quietly. "Right now I love you. That has to be enough." "It's enough," I said, knowing that it wasn't, and I put my arm around her as we waited for the last minute to come and go. Above me, an expanse of off-white plaster. A hand is placed on my temple; my own, I realize, and I shut my eyes. When I open them again the plaster is still there. I turn my head: seated next to me is Nathaniel Parker, his liver-spotted hands folded placidly over his stomach, waiting. "Feels good doesn't it?" he says. "What's the date?" My voice emerges in a hoarse whisper. "Why?" "The date." "The 17th." "The 17th," I repeat, testing the sound of it, the weight. "So it just happened." "What did?" "He just died." "Who?" The question is like the slap of a hand; who died? I did, or else it was him. One or both, it makes no difference, and I force myself to sit up and put my feet on the ground. My feet or his, not that it matters. "He was in the mines tonight," I start. "With a group of outsiders." I'm not talking to Parker; saying the words is the only way to understand them, the only way to give them context, and as the seconds stretch on I can feel myself returning. I am here, sitting on a narrow, uncomfortable bed in a room crammed with fish tanks, and I go over everything again, the explosion and the fall, waking up in a stranger's apartment with a yellow line on my face. None of that was a dream. Or else all of it was. Either way it amounts to the same thing. "You were in the mines?" he asks me. "Yes. But it wasn't me. Not Isaac. Someone else." "What happened?" "They were trying to build a gate, a door to the other universe. The Institute was building it, but something went wrong. Their gate didn't lead to the other side. It just led back here." I frown, trying to bring it back, and again a hand is placed on my temple; I work the fingers over the skin and the bone, trying in vain to sort through the confused impressions of another man's life. "He fell into the gate and wound up in me," I say at last, laughing bitterly. "The poor bastard." "I don't understand. You say this just happened? That line's been with you for days." "I don't know. But if people are out there ripping holes in the universe maybe you've got to expect this kind of thing." I stand up, a tension like a coiled spring in my legs and along the line of my back. The floor is a hard, precise thing, but the rest of the room continues to vibrate with a soft, nearly imperceptible hum; I'm still high, I think, but that doesn't matter. There's no reason to worry. Not anymore. "What time is it?" I ask. "10 in the morning." "So long?" "The newt is a deep one, I told you. Now, what exactly did you see? Where did you go?" "Later." I grab Nathaniel's chair by the handles and push him out of the room. "Careful," he mutters. I can sense his frustration, but even if I wanted to answer him I don't have the words: a man fell through a hole in the world and a part of him wound up in me. What do you call that, a transmigration of souls? I don't know if I believe in a soul. I'm not even sure if I know what the word is supposed to mean; I'm both more and less than I was, that's all, and there's no time to go any deeper. Time is the only thing that matters now, the little of it I have left. At the top of the stairs I lift Nathaniel out of his chair. He feels very light, as light as paper or a sack of cloth. His arms hang at his sides, his face turned away from me, and he stays that way until we reach the kitchen and I set him down in front of the table. Lauren is there, dressed in a red bathrobe and smoking a cigarette by the sink. Her hair is piled in a loose bun at the back of her head, and the skin beneath her eyes is raw and puffy, as if she'd spent the night crying "You guys want some coffee?" she asks. "Sure," I tell her. Nathaniel shakes his head. Lauren fills a mug with coffee and hands it to me. "There's sugar on the table if you need it," she says. "Any milk?" "In the fridge." I get it myself, conscious of Nathaniel watching me. Lauren seems not to be aware of either of us, her cigarette smoldering between her fingers, apparently forgotten. "You alright?" I ask her, sitting down at the table. She shrugs. "Rough night." "Tell me about it." "You too?" "I've had easier." Taylor and the bartender enter the kitchen. For once, Taylor isn't wearing his glasses, but his dark eyes are tired-looking and glazed. He falls into one of the chairs and the bartender puts his hands on his shoulders. "Morning," Taylor says, in a voice like that of an old man. "How'd you sleep?" Nathaniel asks him. Taylor shrugs. "Intense dreams." Lauren looks at him, and then at her brother. "Both of you?" The bartender nods. Nathaniel frowns, considering each of them in turn. The bartender begins to rub Taylor's shoulders with the flat of his palms. "Well," I say, finishing what's left of my coffee. "Thanks for the hospitality." Lauren nods listlessly. "You're leaving?" Nathaniel asks me. "Have some things I need to do." "Got what you came for and you're gone, is that it?" "That's it." He chews on his lower lip as he searches for words. "I wonder if you wouldn't mind meeting me later," he says. "I still have a lot of questions." "I'm likely to be busy." The old man regards me flatly. "I know what it's like," he says. "I know. You feel new. New thoughts, new way of thinking. It's nice. Most people never change their minds about anything, their politics, the kind of women they enjoy sleeping with. But now you know what it's like to really change. Besides, you owe me that much. Those newts aren't cheap." "Alright," I say, giving in. "What time?" "There's a bar at the corner of 4th Bridge and Nascent. I'll be there from 8 o'clock tonight." "I'll do my best." Lauren and the bartender nod at me. Taylor waves his hand, but makes no move to get up; the bartender leans down to whisper something in his ear. In the hallway I grab my jacket from the hook on the wall and step out into the cold. The bar is a single room built into the first floor of a mid-level office building. A counter runs the length of the right wall, all but one of the stools occupied by men in suits. None of them look at me as I enter, but the bartender removes himself from behind the counter to intercept me at the door. He is a tall, thickly-built man with broad shoulders and forearms lined with veins like strung wire. "Isaac?" he asks, eyeing me coolly. "That's right." He considers that, as if searching my words for a lie, and then he nods and leads me to a booth in the back of the room. Nathaniel is there waiting for me. "I wasn't sure if you'd come. Sit down." I slide into the booth opposite him. "What'll you have?" he asks me. "Beer," I say. "Two beers," Nathaniel tells the bartender, who nods again and leaves us on our own. "The owner here is a friend of mine," Nathaniel informs me. "Worked in the mines together. I asked him to keep his eyes out for you, and anyone in a black coat." "Wise." Nathaniel regards me from across the table. His eyes are large, dark things, staring. "It's beginning to fade," he remarks. "The line?" He nods. "I noticed that myself." "How are you feeling?" "Fine. I'm not sure. At least the high's worn off." "Could you tell me more about what you saw?" "I'm not sure I want to talk about it." The bartender returns with our beer. Nathaniel thanks him, taking a small sip before setting his glass down on the table. "Your voice is different you know," he tells me. "Is it?" "There's something of Northside in it now." I shrug. "Funny how life works out." "Well - " he starts, before my cell phone interrupts him. I reach into my pocket to answer it. "Hello?" I say. "Hey," comes Hazel's voice. "Where are you?" "In the back," I tell her, and she hangs up. "I asked a friend to meet me," I inform Nathaniel, replacing my phone in my jacket. "Hope that's alright. I've got a lot to do and there isn't much time." Parker is about to respond when Hazel rounds the corner; the old man's voice curdles in his throat, his jaw dropping. Reflexively, he reaches for his beer. "You alright?" I ask, and he shakes himself, tearing his eyes away. "Fine," he says unsteadily, pausing long enough to drink. He extends a hand to Hazel. "Hazel," she responds, shaking his hand. Nathaniel clears his throat. "It's a pleasure to meet you," he manages. "Likewise." "What do you do?" he asks, gazing at her with an odd intensity; Hazel looks away, uncomfortably shifting in her seat. "I'm a graduate student," she answers. "I'm here on exchange." "Not a model?" She laughs nervously, and I frown; it's like the old man is in shock. I watch him as he downs another mouthful of beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm afraid I'm not feeling well," he mutters, attempting a smile. "Alright," I tell him. "We can talk later." He makes some mumbled, off-hand remark and moves to pull his chair from the table. I get up to help him. "I wonder if I could ask you a favour," he says. "What is it?" "Could you help me get home? It's just around the corner. That's why I chose this bar." "Yeah, no problem." "I need to be going anyway," Hazel says. "Nonsense," states Nathaniel flatly. "You just got here. It'll only take a minute, and then the two of you can come back here, or go wherever you like. I'm sure Isaac has some things he'd like to say to you." She looks at me uncertainly. "Come on," I say. "And then I'll walk you home. Or to the bus, or whatever." Finally she nods. "Excellent!" Nathaniel bursts out. "Excellent. Then let's go." I push him from of the booth, stopping at the register next to the counter. Nathaniel insists on paying for both of us, making a big show of pulling out his wallet and counting the bills into the bartender's hand. We find Hazel at the front holding the door, and the three of us exit the bar. "You're sure it's safe to be at your place?" I ask Nathaniel. "The agents haven't found it?" "No," he says, shaking his head. "No, I think that's unlikely. The apartment isn't listed in my name. It belonged to a friend. She's dead now." A brief silence follows, only partially filled by the sound of a passing car. "I'm sorry," says Hazel lamely. "It was a long time ago," he answers. After that we stop talking; Nathaniel's chair is not easy to manage in the snow, but at last he directs me onto a narrow street lined with two and three storey buildings, and from there to a solidly-built apartment complex. The lobby is deserted, and the small elevator is horribly cramped with all three of us inside it. I listen to the sound of Nathaniel's ragged breathing, my eyes on the reflection of Hazel's distorted profile in the metal doors. On the 3rd floor we follow Parker down the length of an exposed hallway overlooking the shingled roofs of neighbouring houses. A misaligned heating pipe attached to the near wall issues a faint column of steam into the cold air. Nathaniel's door is at the far end. The old man fumbles with his keys, cursing as they fall to the concrete. I stoop to pick them up. "Thank you," he mutters, getting the door open. "Just take your shoes off once you're inside." "Oh, I should really be going," Hazel interjects. "Have a drink with an old man," he tells her. "Ease your conscience. There's something I want to show you anyway." She looks at me, and I shrug, holding the door for her until she sighs and enters the apartment. Ahead of us, Nathaniel switches on a light and disappears around a corner. "We won't stay long," I say to Hazel in a low voice. "One drink." She walks ahead of me. "Honestly," she continues. "It's ridiculous how often I drink in this town. Must be because - " Her words are cut off in a strangled cry; inside the next room is Nathaniel, sitting with his head lowered and his hands working nervously in his lap. Beside him, on a low, cushioned chair, is Kelly. "What is…" Hazel stops, pressing a hand to her mouth. Nathaniel looks from her to me, and then turns away, grimacing. He rests a hand on Kelly's bare forearm. She is dressed in a maid's uniform, and her eyes are dead. "A doll," I say. "What's going on?" Hazel manages, turning to me. Her face is very pale. "It's why I asked her if she modeled," murmurs Nathaniel. "I thought maybe she posed for this company. Maybe they modeled the doll on her." "What company?" Hazel asks him. "It's a sex doll," Nathaniel says. From somewhere comes the hum of a machine switching on – the apartment's heating unit maybe, or water-softener. "This is sick," says Hazel. "Sick." "You have no right to judge me," snaps Nathaniel, but his hand falls away from the doll's arm. "I didn't plan this. I didn't know you were real." "Real," she mutters, closing her eyes. A thin burst of laughter escapes her lips. "He didn't know I was real." She shudders, and then steadies herself, breathing deeply. She takes one step forward, and then another. Frozen, I watch as she moves toward her mirror image: the only difference between them is the stillness of the doll, the perfect immobility of its plastic features. Nathaniel stares into his lap, one of his hands twitching feebly over his leg. "Sarah," he says weakly. "Forgive me." He looks away as Hazel picks up the doll, slinging it over her shoulder and moving awkwardly to the window. She works the latch free with one hand; the click of the window as it opens causes Nathaniel to moan. Hazel lifts the doll up, and for an instant its eyes are level with my own. They rest on me, lifeless and unseeing, until Hazel shoves it from the ledge. 4 The Last Day One! Two! Three! Four! Jump this way, jump some more! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Do it now, don't be late! The day is ending, the day is done but we'll keep jumping 'til it's gone! - Children's skipping rhyme 18th January, 6:05 AM J wakes up in the back of a van with his arms wrenched behind him and his wrists bound with duct tape. His body is a network of dull aches culminating at his neck and shoulders, while the back of his head is pierced by a hot, knife-edge of pain. A gag has been stuffed in his mouth and his tongue is dry and swollen, and after a time his thirst relegates the other pains to a kind of background static, a white noise he is no longer fully conscious of experiencing. The windows have been blackened, but there is just enough light for J to make out the van's interior, as well as the outline of his own body lying prone on its side. He struggles to sit up, fails, and lies down again, his head pounding from the effort; each new tremor as the van shudders over a pot-hole or gouge in the road sends a fresh jolt of pain through his skull. He closes his eyes, and tries to remember how he got here. It comes back to him in fragments, the sound of a door banging open and the fall of heavy boots in the hallway. A moment later two thick, vigorous figures in black coats were inside his room, hauling him from the bed. He tried to fight them off, but one of them put a taser to his chest and J crumpled into a ball, retching. He felt the crack of a boot tip connecting with his temple and nothing more until he woke up in the van. He'd only been wearing boxers when he went to sleep, but now he finds himself dressed in track pants and an old t-shirt. The idea of the agents dressing him while he was unconscious is somehow worse than his current pain or the fear of more to come, and a rage begins to well up in him, an angry humiliation that acts like a drug or anesthetic so that for a while he even forgets his thirst. Suddenly the van comes to a halt. J can hear the two men exiting the cab, and a moment later the doors at the back are thrown open. The inrushing light floods J's eyes with water, and he feels himself taken by the heels and dumped heavily onto a hard, flat surface. In short order he is hauled upright and sat down in a chair. When he tries to stand, the smaller man hits him in the gut. J falls back, blinking through tears and struggling to breathe. He is in an empty hockey arena, directly over the red line. Dozens of floodlights are suspended from the rafters, and the agents' shadows fall like smudges of black ink over the milky surface of the ice. J spits a flurry of unintelligible words at his gag. "Shut up," the smaller agent instructs him, holding the end of his taser an inch from J's face. The taller agent glides across the ice to undo the gag. "Thought you wanted me ta shut up?" says J thickly. "No," replies the taller man. "We want you to talk. Just needed you to wait until we were ready to start recording. Regulations." "You boys have regulations?" "We've been given a certain amount of operational freedom here," the taller man tells him. "But protocol is protocol." "Well then, you think I could get some fuckin water? Your operational freedom include that?" "He wants water," says the taller agent. The smaller man nods as if thinking it over and returns to the van. A moment later he reappears with a bottle of water. Taking his time, he unscrews the cap, and then dumps the contents over J's head. J laughs, craning his neck to gulp down whatever he can, the water running in rivulets over his chin and soaking through his shirt. "That better?" the taller agent asks. "Great," J says, still laughing. "Fuckin great." "Then let's get on with it," says the shorter one, taking a small box from his jacket. "We're recording now." "Fuck you," says J, and the taller agent laughs. "Know I told ya ta fuck off earlier," J goes on. "But just wanted ta make it official you know? No sense wastin it in the ether." "Oh I agree," the taller man says lightly. "I agree completely." The arena is cold, only a few degrees above freezing. The ice grips the soles of J's feet, softly at first, and then painfully, and it occurs to him that the agents might have neglected his socks on purpose. He does his best to keep his feet from the ice, holding them up until his thighs are shaking under the strain. The water that was poured on him and which at first was almost pleasant, shocking him alert and clearing his head, soon grows unbearably cold. Within minutes he is shivering, his feet and legs are numb, and the t-shirt clinging to his chest like a second skin has all but robbed him of breath. The two agents take turns questioning him. Their technique is haphazard, their questions veering wildly from one subject to another, but again and again they return to the events in the mines and the whereabouts of C and Auld. They press him for details, teasing his answers and spinning them, until at last J even begins to doubt himself, questioning his own memory and the sequence of events that led him here. He feels his mind drifting from his body, set loose in a wide, hollow space: hollow, and terribly bright. At times he thinks that he can hear people on the bleachers, noises that might be doors opening or closing somewhere in the distance. He calls out for help, his voice cracking in his throat, and the smaller agent applies the taser; whenever J says or does anything other than answer questions the agent applies the taser. J stares at this man, his chapped, stubbled head and unbending mouth, aware of the bored, almost mechanical way he has of using the device, like a listless factory worker pulling a lever. Despite the pain, J knows that the taser is set to a far lower voltage than it had been at the bar: if it wasn't he would be unconscious by now, or dead. Still, it's high enough, and as time seeps forward and the questioning continues J begins to feel its bite even when it's not being used, the pain residing in him like an echo or after-image, burned into his memory; there is a word for what is happening to him, he realizes. He is being tortured, and this strikes him as so absurd, so perfectly ridiculous – that he should find himself being tortured, that anyone in the world would want to waste their time torturing him –it causes him to laugh, a great, shuddering laugh that echoes through the arena and brings the interrogation to an abrupt halt. "Something funny?" asks the taller man. "It's funny," J manages. "It's funny." "Tell us why," says the shorter agent, as if the fact that J is laughing now is equally pressing, equally pertinent to their investigation. "You don't see the humour I can't show it ta you," J spits. "Very astute," remarks the taller man. "Now I'd like ta ask you a fuckin question, if I may." "Go ahead," says the taller man, amused. "You all rent the arena by the hour, or how does it work exactly?" The shorter agent presses the taser down in a long, contained burst just above J's navel. J laughs, the sound exiting his throat in short, panicked bursts and it is only by an extreme effort of will that he manages to prevent it from becoming a scream. "Keep laughing," says the smaller man, his face knotted with contempt. "It's all a joke. The powder, the outsiders, all of it." "But you won't see the truth," adds the taller man. "The truth," J mutters with a mouth that no longer feels like his own. "You tell me what the fuckin truth is." "The truth is that none of this is real," says the shorter agent. The taller man looks at him, frowning. "All of this is shit," continues the shorter man. "Very finely ground shit, and people like you are content to wallow in it." "What the fuck are you talkin about?" J says. "You find a way to make a bit of money dealing powder, why wouldn't you take it? No one blames you for that. The stuff's not even illegal. But you don't know where it leads." "And where's that?" J's voice is voice faltering; his head is heavy on his neck, and he gazes at his knees, and his bare feet on the ice, feet he can no longer strictly feel and that might as well belong to someone else. "Heroin?" The older man shakes his head. "People need to think it matters. They need to believe that all of this is real." "Real?" J forces his head up. "Maybe we should take a short break," says the taller agent uncertainly, but the older man stops him with a look. "You can't see where it leads," he goes on. "But we can. It starts with the outsiders, but that's not where it ends. Once people lose faith in their own reality everything goes to shit." "So you boys are all that's standin in the way a'social chaos, that it?" The taller man laughs, but it comes out sounding forced. "That's it exactly," answers the shorter man. "Well shit, you should a'told me so before. I'd never stand in the way a'good work like that. Auld's hidin out in the closet back home. You take me back there and I'll hand him over." All three men laugh now, and for a moment they find themselves bound together, almost like brothers, and then the feeling dies, cut off by a scream as the shorter agent presses the end of his taser to J's neck and holds it there. At last J's voice hits a wall: beyond it there is nothing, darkness, and the end of pain. Once when he was 14 years old J got into a fight with an older boy. For the life of him J can't remember what he did to make this boy angry, but whatever it was, the boy cornered him with a couple of his friends and beat him so badly that J spent a week recovering from it in the hospital. Now, as his mind reluctantly returns to his body, he feels as if he is there again, alone in a sick bed, idly tracking an odd progression of memory and colour that trails before him like curtains stirred by a breeze. A sudden bump in the road jerks him back, and he vomits blindly onto the floor of the van. At some point the doors are opened, and he is dragged outside and dumped into a muddy bank of snow. The agents leave him there, getting back into the van and driving off without the least appearance of haste. J rolls onto his side, shivering. From across the street the boy working the coffee stand comes running. He kneels in the slush and shakes J roughly at the shoulders, calling his name. "Where am I?" J asks him. "Northside," says the boy, and with a great effort he is able to drag the bigger man to his feet. The two of them stagger up the road, the weight of J's arm nearly crushing the boy. Finally they reach his apartment, where J slumps onto the couch and promptly passes out. When he wakes up again the boy is gone, and the window facing the street is dark. J takes himself from the couch, peeling off his sodden clothes and almost falling into the shower. He sits with his back to the mould-spotted tiles and allows the water to fall on him. Now and then he blacks out, only to rouse himself again with a shuddered gasp of pain. Eventually he gets up and takes his robe from the hook on the wall. He is on his way to his bed when a knock on the front door stops him; a sliver of panic appears in his chest, but he reassures himself that if the agents had returned they wouldn't bother to knock. Standing in front of the door is a man he's never seen before. "Yeah?" J asks him. "Hello J." "Who are you?" "Call me I," the man says, smiling at him as if they've known each other for years. Allison Gray "Allison ran down the side of the ridge. The way was steep, and thickly forested. Once she stumbled, nearly dropping the girl in her arms. She stopped then, resting with her back against the trunk of a pine tree. The girl struggled against her, but Allison would not let her go; she crushed the girl's small, slight body to her chest, feeling her protests as a hot press of air on her skin. Finally the girl managed to free her mouth. 'You're hurting me,' she gasped, and Allison set her down." The old man looks up from his hands and pictures Allison in the woods, and the girl, Sarah, wandering off to sit with her back turned on a moss-covered rock. It's been awhile since he's sat in this bar, three weeks at least, maybe even as long as a month, and in all that time he hasn't thought much about Allison, or Sarah, or any of the rest of them. He has a life, such as it is, and other things to think about (money for one thing, or the lack of it, and an ever dwindling collection of memories that at times he views with fondness and at other times as a type of penance.) If he ever turned his thoughts to Allison it was only in passing, but now he sees her as clearly as if he was standing in the woods next to her. "Sarah never spoke about that day," he says. "Or any of the things that happened on the Northern Road, and Allison was happy. She wanted to forget everything that had come before, all of the wasted years since she'd given Sarah up. She wanted to start a new life." The two of them stumbled into Newt Run a few hours before dark. By then Sarah was almost asleep on her feet, and Allison took a room in the first hotel she could find. After putting Sarah to bed she went to the window and gazed out at the empty parking lot in front of the hotel. She looked at her own reflection in the glass, finding that she barely recognized it, as if it belonged to a stranger. She smiled, or tried to smile, and the face reflected in the glass did the same. "She's my daughter," said Allison, and watched as the woman in the glass mouthed the words along with her. She stared at the other woman's eyes, trying without success to see them as her own. At last she turned around and joined the girl on the bed. They remained in the hotel for almost a week, during which time Allison began looking for work. Eventually she took a waitressing job in a restaurant that specialized in breakfasts, and soon afterwards she moved with Sarah into a small apartment just south of Norfolk. She never considered returning to the capital or letting any of her friends and family know where she was. Rather, she did her best to shut her mind to the past completely; everything before the attack seemed to her like an image from a fading dream, and in time as even less than that, the ill-defined outline of a story that had nothing to do with her at all. For her part, Sarah also seemed content. She never complained or questioned the fact that she was now living with a woman she barely knew in a town she'd never heard of. She did sometimes ask about her grandfather, but Allison told her that he was fine, and that they would find him as soon as they could. The answer seemed to satisfy the girl, and Allison left it there. She didn't feel good about lying, but she had no intention of going after Lawrence, if he was even still alive. She was afraid (rightly) that if she did find him, Sarah would be taken from her. Instead, she fostered a vague hope that Sarah would forget about him. "She knew it wasn't likely the child would ever completely forget her own grandfather," says the old man, drumming lightly with the tip of a finger on the edge of the counter. "But maybe in time he'd start to fade, growing less and less real to her as the years progressed. Allison only had to look back on her own childhood to know how easily that could happen. On those rare occasions when she did pause to consider her past, the best she could manage was an impression of her elementary school and a brief sketch of her parents' faces. It never occurred to her that there might be something wrong with her memory, something more than the natural progression of age, and the almost limitless capacity of the human mind to forget. She never suspected that her life had been rewritten by a broken egg. Why would she?" Rather than dwelling on any of these things, Allison threw herself into her new routine. She worked double shifts at the restaurant and did her best to ignore the black, gaping hole that loomed beside her and the life she'd so precariously built for herself, a life which she knew would fall apart if even its smallest details were ever questioned. For a while it appeared as if they never would be: Sarah gave up asking about her grandfather and anything else that had happened before. She kept her peace, staring at the world through large, placid eyes, and seeming to accept it all, evenly. In this way five years went by. For Allison, they were the happiest of her life. She wanted nothing more than for things to go on as they were, living in a continual present where both the past and future were merely opposite sides of the same, worthless coin. "And then," says the old man. "Sarah came home from school carrying an egg." Auld The future is contained in the present. This is something Auld has never doubted. For him, time exists as a single point. It is a seed, continually fertilized by the endless and eternal occurrence of events. There is no difference between what is going to happen and what is happening: they are one, and so in standing in the present, he is also in the future. On the night of the 17th he leans against the wall of the chamber, protected from the coming explosion by a small outcropping of rock. He watches C jump from the edge of the pit, and the two agents from the Institute as they bring their hands to clasps fastened at their jackets: the cavern erupts in a roaring violence of fire and cut rock and blood, but the two of them remain untouched, encased in spherical bubbles of still air. The chamber settles in a scattering of rocks and the slow, downward drift of orange-tinted dust and powder. A low humming persists in the air until the agents tap their clasps once more, killing it. They begin to pick their way through the rubble, the crunch of their boots loud in the infant silence. "Look at the vats," says the taller one, pointing to where the row of plastic containers had stood next to the pit. All but two of them are gone, overturned or ruptured in the explosion and sent tumbling into the river below. "Fuck," mutters the shorter man. "You think they planned this?" "Of course they did." "Do you hear that?" The shorter man tilts his head to listen. A sound like the moaning of an injured animal is coming from one of the overturned vats. Behind it they discover a man lying on his back, one leg pinioned under the weight of a container. The end of a metal brace juts from a deep gouge in his side, and the man gazes up at them dully, a steady trickle of blood seeping from the wound. He struggles to breathe, and coughs, a line of reddish spit dribbling from his chin. "Who are you?" asks the taller agent. The wounded man attempts to focus. "Inter-7 A," he responds. The taller agent laughs, but the shorter one frowns and bends down to examine the man's side. "That's a nasty cut you have there," he says. Taking the brace, he twists it sharply in his hand. The man gasps, his face contorting in pain. He stares at the agents with hollow eyes, his breathing ragged. His skin is the colour of old newsprint. "What are you doing here?" asks the agent, and he twists the brace again, causing more blood to spurt from the wound. "Do you work for Tanning?" "Tanning?" the man gasps. "No, I..." He spasms shortly, his thin lips pulling back from blood-streaked teeth. "I don't work," he says. "I was using it, to get out, but now... now it's gone." He opens his eyes then, as if he's only just realized what he's saying. "It's gone," he whispers again. "What's gone?" presses the taller agent, but the man on the ground can no longer hear him. The shorter agent stands up. "We'll run the alias later," he says. "Could be his real name," remarks the taller one, smiling faintly. The older agent ignores him. "What do you think he meant by working with 'it' – the outsider's group?" "No," replies the shorter man. "You remember that distortion just before the blast?" "Yes." "Do you see it now?" The taller agent adjusts the right lens his goggles, twisting the outside edge by 45 degrees. "It's gone," he says. "What do you think it was?" Rather than answering, the shorter agent leans over the pit. Below him there is only darkness, and the distant sound of rushing water. All that's left of the portal they'd worked for months to build are a few ruptured vats and a number of cables that trail from the edge like severed veins. "What do you think the chances are this river flows into the town's water table?" asks the shorter agent. "Very good I'd say," says the taller one. "And the chances the outsiders knew that?" "What do you think?" The smaller agent straightens up. He kicks a pile of rock and powder over the pit edge and watches it disappear into the gloom. "You think this was their plan?" asks the taller agent "His plan, not theirs. Everything that asshole does is mapped out for him. He's just playing out the string, you know that." The taller agent nods. "And now instead of a few drug pushers and students – " "We'll have a whole town that can see the fuckers," the shorter agent completes the thought. "So what do we do?" "We count bodies." "You don't think we'll find him here do you?" "Auld?" sneers the shorter agent. "Do you?" Unnoticed by either of the two men, Auld slips from his hiding spot and out of the chamber. He moves quickly through the dark tunnels, coming at last to an old service elevator. The clang as its doors open and the creaking of its gears is enough to make him cringe. His breath comes quick and shallow, and his heart is pounding within his chest. His eyes dart from one corner of the elevator to another, tracking the slow, upward drift of lights bolted to the walls beside the shaft; for the first time since he arrived in Newt Run he is afraid. The agents were wrong – almost nothing is mapped out for Auld, not anymore. He shuts his eyes, caught in the implacable grip of the present. His foresight is gone, and with it all responsibility. There is only one thing left, the final act that he can still see ahead of him, shining like a pearl of light at the end of a dim passage. The elevator comes to a shuddering halt, and Auld exits the mines. He moves between the deserted loading bays and company offices to the fence at the edge of the compound. From there, he makes his way down the cable tracks to the woods. He sits down in the frigid darkness with his back to a tree. Within minutes he is asleep. Lawrence Fisher "Lawrence was dying. He felt his life draining from the hole in his side, and his breath running short in his chest. It didn't bother him; he was tired, and old, and sick of being both. He gave up. He shut his eyes." The old man laughs before his voice catches in his throat and gives way to a fit of coughing. With the back of his hand he wipes a sheen of moisture from his eyes. "I know the feeling," he says, after the coughing subsides. "But there's nothing for it. Sometimes we give up before our bodies do. None of us get to choose our end date, unless we kill ourselves, and Lawrence was in no shape for suicide." His first thought on waking was surprise that he wasn't dead. The pain told him as much, a shit-awful ache in his bones as if he'd been inexpertly soldered together and the raw, tender throbbing of the wound in his side that flared to white heat when he tried to sit up. He fell back against the pillow and watched drops of clear liquid fall from an IV bag next to the bed. When he flexed his hand he was barely able to form fist. He shut his eyes, disgusted at his own weakness. "Bastard should have aimed for my head," he said. His voice was little more than a light croak. "You're awake." With an effort Lawrence looked up. Hertzwelder was seated next to the window. "Don't be fucking redundant," said Lawrence. Hertzwelder got up and went to the foot of the bed. His face was gray with pain, and he moved slowly, favouring his left side. "Fucker couldn't aim for shit could he?" Hertzwelder laughed briefly and handed him a cup of water. To Lawrence it felt as heavy as a lead weight. "Where are we?" he asked. "Newt Run General Hospital," Hertzwelder told him. "Never heard of it." Hertzwelder glanced at him, but the old man had already shut his eyes, and within seconds he was asleep. He was confined to his bed for some time, and after the first few days he gave up asking questions about where he was. He found that when he did people looked at him strangely, and spoke to him in the kind of soft, measured tones normally reserved for the elderly or the mentally ill. Hertzwelder showed him maps on which the town of Newt Run was clearly labeled, not 100 miles from the capital, but to Lawrence they looked like fakes, cheap replicas printed off of a home computer. He knew that Hertzwelder wouldn't lie to him, but all the same he had never heard of Newt Run. His doctors thought he might have suffered a mild stroke as a result of his injuries. That at least would explain the memory loss, but as far as Lawrence was concerned he hadn't forgotten anything. The town shouldn't exist, although if saying so meant he'd grown senile or was suffering from dementia, he was prepared to swallow his tongue. The only thing that mattered was his granddaughter. "Where is she?" he asked, as soon as it became clear that she was not in the hospital with him. Hertzwelder hesitated, frowning. "We don't know," he said at last. "You don't know?" "But she hasn't been admitted to another hospital, not here or back in the capital." "What about that woman, or the copy editor?" "The editor's dead. So is Fawkes. There's no sign of the woman." "And the other?" "I'll find Stevens," Hertzwelder assured him, but as if he was humouring a petulant child, and for the first time Lawrence considered the possibility that it wasn't only the maps that had changed. In all he spent two weeks in the hospital, but while his body recovered, his mind did not, at least as far as Hertzwelder and his doctors were concerned. Lawrence remained disoriented, and easily confused. When Hertzwelder drove him the short distance from Newt Run to the capital, the old man recognized nothing, neither the highway nor the wide stretch of country that lay beyond the mountains. He did not even know his own home, a two bedroom condominium that he'd lived in for years, and he was shocked by the number of demonstrations that clogged the city's streets, the gutted buildings and torched cars that lay like blackened carcasses on the road. He was in no condition to work, and Hertzwelder took over management of the company. The younger man seemed to relish the idea, embracing his new position with an enthusiasm that Lawrence found oddly disconcerting; Hertzwelder had always been more comfortable in the field than behind a desk, but then it was clear that this was not the same Hertzwelder. He was more like an actor than the genuine article, and Lawrence found he no longer trusted him. As a result, despite Hertzwelder's assurances that everything possible was being done to locate Sarah, Lawrence decided to start looking on his own. He tracked down Stevens' address in the company database and the next day he drove out to the building, a crumbling, multi-storey apartment complex which seemed to be overrun by half-feral children and reeked of burnt cabbage. The building manager informed him that while they did have a Stevens listed in the register, he hadn't been seen for more than a month. Lawrence peered at the manager. The man seemed to be in his middle fifties, with a pinched nose and narrow, rheumy eyes. "You wouldn't be lying to me would you?" The man blinked, his head snapping back as if he'd been slapped. To Lawrence, he had the look of a frightened, asthmatic stork. "Why would I lie?" he asked. "You wouldn't. Not to me." Lawrence took a card from his wallet and passed it across the counter. "Stevens comes back here you call me. There's money in it." The manager looked at the card over skeptically, but at last he nodded and stored it behind the desk. Lawrence exited the building. The short walk back to his car left him breathless. The manager never called, and a few weeks later Stevens' apartment was rented out. Lawrence moved on to question anyone even remotely connected to Stevens and Fawkes. He spoke to their few remaining family members, as well as a long string of bitter or ambivalent women who'd spent time with them, but no one could tell him anything more than he already knew. Hertzwelder had no new information, and Lawrence's brief attempt to engage the local police was a waste of time. He took to trusting in chance, canvassing strangers at bus stands and train stations. He wandered into parks and alleys, showing pictures of the two men as well as an old school photo of Sarah to the city's large homeless population. He grew thin, and went days without shaving. His clothes took on the disheveled, slightly threadbare look of a religious fanatic. People began to shy away from him as he approached, while others he could hear laughing as soon as his back was turned. In time, he went out less and less frequently, holing up in his condominium and pouring over newspapers that read as if they'd been penned by lunatics. He drank often, and stayed up long into the night, staring alternately at the bottle of whiskey or at his hands: pale, wizened things that he could never quite convince himself were his own. And then, almost five years after the attack, he received a call from Hertzwelder. His former partner had put on weight since Lawrence had last seen him. His skin was tanned, while his thinning hair was neatly trimmed and combed with oil. Shaking hands, Lawrence was aware of the softness of the other man's palm, as well as the large, platinum watch he wore at his wrist. "Please sit down," Hertzwelder told him, taking a seat behind the polished oak desk that had once belonged to Lawrence. Behind him, a towering pair of windows overlooked the heart of the financial sector. "Business suits you Max," said Lawrence, lowering himself with difficulty into the opposite chair. He was one of a handful of people who felt comfortable using Hertzwelder's first name. "I just continued where you left off," the other man demurred, and Lawrence was acutely aware that the old Hertzwelder would never have said anything half so vapid. "How's your wife?" he asked, deciding to play along. "Fine," said Hertzwelder. "Fine. She's due any day now." Lawrence hadn't been aware that she was pregnant, and he let the subject drop. There was a pause, and Hertzwelder cleared his throat. Abruptly he reached into a drawer and removed an envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper with an address typed on it. "What's this?" Lawrence asked. "That's where he's living." Lawrence looked at him. "How did you find him?" "A contact of mine fed the information to me." "Who else knows about this?" "No one yet. How do you want to handle it?" he asked, something of the man he had been returning to his voice. "I'll do it myself," Lawrence told him, standing up. Hertzwelder rose with him. "Lawrence..." "What?" "At least let me send someone with you." He noted that Hertzwelder didn't offer to go himself. "Send someone if I don't come back," he said, and left the office. He took a cab back to his building and poured himself a drink. He moved to the window, staring out at a view he no longer recognized. A line of cars crawled along the street below, and further off he could just make out the soft glow of fires burning unchecked in the distance. A police helicopter swept its lights over the face of a neighbouring high-rise. To Lawrence it looked like a city perched on the edge of an abyss. He finished his drink and went to bed. The next day he boarded a train for Newt Run. It was the 18th of January. Stevens "Stevens crashed through the trees, thin branches tearing at his face and arms. He kept his eyes on the ground sweeping before him, the mossy rocks and tree roots and the needle-covered snow." The old man's face tightens, thinking of it: he doesn't like Stevens. He tells himself that he shouldn't care, that his opinion doesn't matter, but in the end Stevens was a coward, and to the old man a coward is no better than a rat. That said, he knows that it's not up to him to judge Stevens' character (or the lack of it), and in any case he's never been one to let his personal feelings get in the way of telling an honest story. He reaches for his pint, takes a short swallow, and forces himself to go on. "Stevens pulled up sharply as the woods gave way to the edge of a low cliff," he says. "He bent over almost double, panting and gasping for breath with his hands on his knees. Below him was the town. Faint columns of steam drifted up from the houses, each of them burnished gold in the winter sun. He waited until he caught his breath, and scrambled down the ledge to sit with his back against a rock." His thoughts were scattered, useless things. Again and again he returned to the attack on the road, the bodies he'd left behind and how close he'd come to being killed himself. Most clearly he saw the egg, breaking open on the pavement with nothing inside of it, or almost nothing: a hollow breath of air, and silence. The sequence rang in his mind like struck metal. He held his head in his hands and raked his fingers through his hair. He watched the egg fall and break, over and over again; he moaned, and then shouted, but the egg was always there. He opened his eyes to look at the town, but he could still see it, an off-white oval superimposed over the roads and buildings, falling and shattering in an endless loop. As the sun began to set behind the western hills the day grew cold. In the gathering darkness Stevens came back to himself, the vision of the egg receding until it was no more than a troubling memory. He stood up, rubbing his hands over his arms and thighs to warm them. He left the ridge, keeping to the trees for as long as he could, reasoning that it would be better to enter the town without attracting too much attention. He went north, skirting the edge of the hills until he found himself in an all but unused strip of scrub land not far from Last Bridge. By then he was shivering in his coat and working his fingers in his pockets to stave-off numbness. He walked toward the river and took a barren, lamp-lit road into Northside. At the first bar he came to he stopped and sat down at the counter, blowing heavily on his hands. A middle-aged waitress approached him. "What have you got to eat?" Stevens asked. She pointed to a jar of pickles on the shelf behind her. "That's all?" "Most people don't come here for the food," she answered. "Where's the closest hotel?" "You want a hotel in Northside?" "I just need a place to sleep," he told her. The waitress shrugged. "You can rent rooms by the night at Manor Apartments," she said, scrawling a simple map on the back of a napkin. Stevens stuffed the napkin in his pocket and ordered a beer, staying in the bar just long enough to warm up. He paid the waitress and once he was outside he took the crumpled map from his pocket, but the woman's drawing proved to be useless. Twice he stopped to ask for directions, once from the teenage boy working at a coffee stand and then from an elderly woman at a bus stop. By the time he reached the apartment, a three storey, red-brick building huddled next to a shuttered warehouse, he was nearly frozen. The entrance was locked, and Stevens peered through the window into an unlit lobby. Pounding on the glass until his knuckles were sore, at last a man appeared to let him in. The man was tall, with deep-set eyes and an angular, pockmarked face. A ragged bathrobe hung from his shoulders. He gazed at Stevens warily, sucking on his teeth. "What is it?" he asked. "I need a room," Stevens said. The man made an inarticulate sound and ushered Stevens into the building. In the lobby, he moved behind a wooden desk and told him to write his name down in a ledger. Stevens gave his name as Thompson, and paid a week's rent in advance. The man took his money without comment and led him to the second floor. The small room he showed him consisted of a single, wire-frame bed and a window that overlooked the warehouse. As soon as the man left him alone, Stevens fell onto the bed and slept for nearly 15 hours. In the days that followed he confined himself to his room, leaving only long enough to search for food and alcohol. The rest of his time he spent sleeping; his body ached for sleep, as if he'd suffered a concussion in the attack or the sandwiches he bought from the nearby bakery had been drugged, and as he slept he dreamed. In these dreams (long, fragmentary cycles that could change shape at any moment) he was often not himself, but rather several people, none of whom he'd ever met but who he nevertheless felt intimately connected to. Disembodied, he watched as these people grappled with strange, nearly incomprehensible tasks, unaware that with each passing moment they edged themselves closer to an abyss. Waking was like breaching a surface of mud; Stevens gasped, spluttering into consciousness, nearly as tired as when he'd gone to bed. At other times he dreamed of the egg. Not every night, at least not that he remembered, but often enough, and some mornings as he rose to sit on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, these dreams seemed to bleed into waking life; Stevens watched the egg fall and break apart on the scuffed, wooden floor of his room, just as clearly as he'd seen it on the ridge, and a part of him was convinced that this was not a memory, but a rather glimpse of the future. This vision clung to him throughout the day, and he moved about as if coated in some thick, translucent material, touching nothing, and never wholly present. He considered the possibility that he was losing his mind, but consoled himself with the naïve belief that if he was really going insane he wouldn't be able to tell. Aside from all of this was the stress of his rapidly dwindling stack of money. He kept some cash in a locked box in his apartment, but Stevens was wary of returning to the capital. He had no way of knowing if his name would come up in connection with the attack on the Northern Road, but if anyone was looking for him, that would be the first place they'd start. He had credit cards, but he was reluctant to use those as well, and at the end of his second week in town he resigned himself to the thought of finding another job. With no contacts of his own and not knowing what else to do, he approached the building manager to ask if he knew anyone looking for help. "Something that pays cash," Stevens told him. "Cash," repeated the manager. "Tax issues." The manager glanced at him, stabbing out what was left of his cigarette in the ashtray on the desk. "That why you're always carryin a gun?" "What gun?" Stevens' voice was very low. "The one you got stuffed in the back a'your pants." Stevens said nothing, and the manager spread his hands. "I'm not blind," he said mildly. Stevens brought out the gun, and examined it, turning it over in his hand. "This?" he said. Casually he pointed it at the manager. The older man smiled and spread his hands wider. "No offense," he said. "None taken," answered Stevens. He leaned forward, rapping the gun barrel on the edge of the counter. "It'd be a mistake to tell anyone about this," he said. "Who am I gonna tell?" the manager asked him. "Besides, I don't need the attention." Slowly, the other man lowered his right hand, looking to Stevens for permission. Stevens shrugged with a casualness he didn't feel, his grip tightening on the gun handle. The manager reached under the counter and removed a shotgun which he set down between them on the desk. "See?" Stevens laughed. "How about a drink?" the manager said, returning the shotgun to its hiding place. Stevens shrugged again and, slipping his own gun into the back of his pants, followed the other man into a cramped office. Dozens of cardboard boxes were stacked against the walls, each of them filled with old ledgers, a dusty record of the building's previous tenants. The manager sat down at a desk, and indicated Stevens to take the seat opposite him. He moved to open one of the drawers, and Stevens tensed. "Relax," said the manager, producing a bottle of whiskey. He took two glasses from the same drawer and poured a generous shot for them both. The two men drank without speaking. The manager regarded Stevens evenly, and at last he smiled, a single golden tooth flashing in the left side of his mouth. "Tell you somethin," he said. "What's that?" Stevens asked. He sat stiffly in his chair, very conscious of the hard, blunt outline of the gun at the small of his back. He felt hot, and the little room was bearing down on him like a cage. He had the uncomfortable sensation that he was dreaming. A drop of sweat crawled along his back, and he swallowed in a dry throat. "Managin this shit hole is just my day job," the manager told him. His pitted face gleamed hugely under the room's single fluorescent lamp. Just beside his right eye was a black mole that appeared to be vibrating. Stevens stared at it, holding his breath. "What else do you do?" he managed to ask. He watched as the manager took another swallow of whiskey, his throat muscles contracting heavily, and those along his jaw. "I'm a delivery boy," he said. "Delivering what?" Stevens barely registered the sound of his own voice. Again the manager reached into the desk, this time taking out a mid-sized envelope. He passed it to Stevens. Inside was a mass of what at first he took to be sand, although the texture and colour was wrong: it was much too fine, and tinted a deep, rusty orange. The envelope felt very light in his hand. "What is it?" he said. "Call it powder. Comes from the mines." "What's it do?" The manager made a brief motion of his shoulders. "Let's you talk ta aliens," he said, and he laughed. Stevens set the envelope down on the table. "It's a drug?" "You could say that. It hasn't been around long. Shit's not even illegal, but lately we've started havin some problems. Seems that Institute a'yours back in the capital has taken an interest in the stuff. Me and the people I work for have been lookin for someone ta lend us a hand. How does that sound?" Stevens said nothing, staring at the envelope lying on the table like a disembodied organ. "It's good money for easy work," said the manager. Stevens looked up. "How much money?" he asked. 18th January, 11:05 AM The man standing in front of J is of average height and build, with a dark sweep of brown hair and a day's worth of stubble covering the lower half of his angular face. He is dressed in an expensive-looking leather jacket and an unremarkable pair of jeans, and his boots are scuffed and salt-stained. He is not smiling, but there is a slight upturn at his lips, as if he wants to smile, but can't or won't allow himself; he's got the mask, thinks J, but his clothes are all wrong for Northside, and so is his voice, an uneasy blend of accents with no business coming from the same throat. "Alright I," J says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorframe. "What can I do for you? Wastin your time if you're here for powder. Supply's dried up." The man considers his feet. When he looks up again his face has hardened. "C's dead," he says. The words are an almost physical assault; J's hands collapse into fists and a small muscle just below his left eye begins to twitch. "What's that?" "I was with him last night. Can I come in?" J hesitates, eyeing the man before him, but he is too exhausted to go on standing. He moves from the door and leads the way to the living room. The walk back to the couch is like something out of a long, pointless dream. "You look like shit," the man tells him. "Yeah well, thanks for the medical opinion. You say you were there last night?" "I was working with Auld, and the rest of them." "Workin on what?" "Trying to stop the Institute from building their gate." "Why?" J asks. "Seems like ripping a hole in the universe might not be a good idea." "I wouldn't know," J answers. He begins to feel himself slipping away; the couch rises up to take him, and his feet and his hands are full with a prickling numbness. He blinks heavily, trying to focus. Just before him is a solid wall of air. "There was an explosion," the man continues. "The agents from the Institute arrived too soon, and everything went wrong. C jumped, to escape the blast." J tilts his head back. He closes his eyes, absently drumming on his thigh with the fingers of his right hand. His breathing is shallow and the muscles in his jaw are tight as knotted cords. At last he stands up, hauling himself from the couch. He clears his throat, and motions to the other man. "Coffee?" he says. "That'd be fine," the man replies, unable to meet J's eyes. They move one after the other into the kitchen. "Sit down," J tells him. He goes to the shelf for coffee and a pair of mugs, wincing through the pain of lifting his arm. "You alright?" the man asks. "A bit stiff," J says flatly. "Was it Auld who told you where to find me?" "Yes," the man responds, after the briefest hesitation. "Might have been nice of him to deliver the news himself. But then, he's invisible isn't he? So that leaves him off the hook." The man says nothing. J busies himself with the coffee maker. "Guess I should thank you for comin out here," J says. "Don't worry about it." J sets a mug down in front of the other man and eases himself into a chair. The two of them stare at their coffee, neither of them drinking. A dry silence fills the room. "Can't wrap my head around it," J says, after a time. "None of it makes any sense. You say C's dead, but I can't picture it." "You knew him a long time." "That's one way a'puttin it." "What will you do now?" J shrugs. "Doesn't seem ta be much left for me here. Maybe I'll leave." "And go where?" asks the man, but J doesn't answer. He sips his coffee, feeling his own weight pressing down on the chair. He draws a hand over his face, aware of his bruises, and the inflamed patch of skin where the smaller agent put a taser to his neck. "Who knows?" he mutters. "But I wouldn't mind another crack at those boys from the Institute before I go." "Are you serious?" "Don't I sound serious?" "Because I wouldn't mind a word with them myself." "They've got some things ta answer for." "They do." "But I'd have ta find them first. And even if I did, I wouldn't stand much of a chance. Learned that the hard way." "Might be different this time." "And I might wind up dead." "Maybe." J regards the other man. At last he pushes his mug away with a short, nearly unconscious movement of his hand. "You've got somethin in mind?" "Have an idea about how to find them anyway," the man says. "You goin ta ask that psychic friend a'yours?" The man shakes his head. "Not Auld," he says. "R." J rubs his aching jaw. After a moment he nods. Outside it has begun to snow, a light, gray flurry that mixes with the steam of broken pipes to leech the street of colour. J moves as quickly as his battered body will allow him, stopping once to exchange greetings with the boy working a coffee stand, and then again to slap hands with two men smoking in front of a bar. None of them spare more than a glance at his bruises or the burn mark on his neck; J's mask of casualness fits so well that he is not even conscious of wearing it, and no one that he's likely to meet on these streets would ever think to embarrass him by asking what happened. They are all Northsiders up here, the ones who matter anyway, and like J they understand that life is not an ideal: things happen, and when they do you either move on or you fold. In either case, you certainly don't ask for sympathy. J knows that may be too stark a world view to label compassion, but he is grateful for it nonetheless; whatever happened in the past is finished, and today is all that matters. He has never taken powder, never bothered to ask C or anyone else what the outsiders saw coming for him. He wasn't interested. As far as he's concerned, the only reasonable thing to expect from tomorrow is more of what he got today. A gust of wind sends a low column of steam billowing around him. He views the tenements through the haze, and trudges across the frozen lawn to R's building, the other man trailing a step behind him. Pulling open the glass doors, they step into a cavernous lobby. Half of the ceiling lamps have had their bulbs broken or removed, and the room's corners stand like shadowed recesses into a dimmer, hollow world. Both elevators are out of order, and there is no choice except to take the stairs. J sets his teeth against the pain, hauling himself up with his hand on the banister as much as with his legs. By the time he exits the stairwell on 4th floor he is struggling for breath and his thighs are shaking. The air is thick with the smell of boiled vegetables and mildew, the concrete walls that line the hallway a palimpsest for generations of graffiti. J clears his throat and spits heavily onto the worn carpet, doing his best to ignore the faint stain of blood in his saliva. The other man is leaning against the nearest wall, waiting with a strained expression on his face. With an effort, J straightens and starts down the hall. Stopping in front of R's apartment, he balls his hand into a fist and bangs against the door. "Who is it?" comes a muffled voice. "Let me in you dumb fuck." A latch is turned, and the door pulled back by inches; J slams his shoulder into the wood, throwing open the door and sending R sprawling back inside the apartment. J pushes into the narrow entryway and grabs the smaller man by the neck, forcing him to the floor. Casually, he lays a knee on R's chest, squeezing the air from his lungs. "R," he says. "Where are they?" "Who?" wheezes R. His eyes flash from J to the other man, who has quietly entered behind him. J stabs a finger in R's face. "R," he says. "Look at me. You've been workin for the Institute. I want you ta tell me where I can find your bosses." "What is he doin here?" R asks unsteadily, his eyes back on the other man. J slaps him across the face with the flat of his hand. "Don't worry about him. Worry about me. Where are they?" "Let me up." A moment passes, and then J sighs and gets to his feet, dragging R along with him. "Could have just asked to come in," R mutters. "Thought you'd respond better this way," J tells him. "You and everyone else." He continues to eye the other man, and then, wearily, he moves from the hall and into a cramped living room. He slumps into the only chair, leaving J and the other man to stand, and fishes a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans. His hand is unsteady, and he fumbles trying to get the smoke to light. "Here," J says, snatching the lighter to do it for him. R bobs his head. "Many thanks." He settles into a nervous silence, bending forward to tap the ash from the end of his cigarette. J folds his arms across his chest, shivering; the apartment is cold enough for him to see his breath. "Trouble with the heat?" "Pipe's busted again," R mutters, glancing at the burn on J's neck. "They do that to you?" "This? This is nothin." "Would've warned you if you'd bothered ta ask." "Very kind." "Just tell us where they are," says the other man. R considers the smoke rising from his cigarette. "Those boys move around a lot, you know. Lookin for outsiders." "So what good are you?" J asks him. "All I know is that they were talkin about a raid." "What raid?" "Like at the bar, when they grabbed all those fish tanks or whatever," R says, jerking his scarred chin in the other man's direction. "He knows what I mean." "So where's this raid goin ta be?" "I don't know. Down at the docks somewhere, some big shipment a'powder they got wind of." "When?" "How should I know?" J takes a step toward him, causing R to flinch. "You wouldn't be lyin ta us would you?" J asks, his voice quiet. "I'm not lyin," R tells him. He looks at the collection of cigarette butts in his ashtray. Dull circles shade the underside of his eyes, his face a study of nervous exhaustion. "Let's go," says J. The other man looks at him, but finally he nods. R stubs what's left of his smoke out in the ashtray. "J?" he says thinly. "What?" "You see C you tell him I'm sorry alright? I never meant for things ta get so fucked up." "C's dead," J says. R closes his eyes. From across the room, the man calling himself I looks at R strangely, as if he wants to say something, but before he has the chance J takes him by the arm and leads him from the apartment. The going is easier on the way down, but all the same, by the time they reach the first floor J is ready to collapse. The snow is falling thickly now, swirling over the tenement roofs and masking the sky in a uniform wash of gray. Without a word or glance at the other man, J heads to the nearest coffee stand. The place is nothing more than a few wooden stools grouped around a portable heater, with an old tarp strung up to provide some scant shelter from the snow. At this hour they are the only customers, and the owner, a heavyset woman in her 50s, greets them with a sour look on her face. J sits next to the heater and orders a pair of whiskeys. Reaching for the bottle, the woman mutters something unintelligible under her breath, but the shots she pours for them are generous. J lifts his glass to the man next to him before swallowing it whole. His joints are aching, and his grip feels limp and powerless. He isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed that R couldn't help them track down the agents. Relieved, he thinks, and taps the edge of his glass with his finger, signaling the woman for a refill. There is a bitterness in the back of his throat, but he tells himself that it's just the after-taste from the whiskey. From somewhere inside the man's jacket, a cell phone begins to ring. "Yeah?" he says, answering it. There is a long pause, in which he looks at J as if appraising him for a job. "Alright," he says finally. "I'll be there in an hour." He ends the call and returns the phone to his coat. "You feel like meeting some people?" he asks J. "Feel like I want ta die." "That's the spirit." John Clarington He watched them through the sight of his rifle, crouching in the underbrush above the Northern Road. His breathing was slow and measured, his muscles loose. The heft of the rifle felt good, the trigger cool and inviting against the exposed skin of his finger. The weight of the rifle's butt on his shoulder was as comforting as the touch of a friend's palm, or a father's. He sighted the gun along the column, moving from the old man and the girl at the front to the tall man who brought up the rear. A low shiver of pleasure worked its way from the base of his spine to the back of his skull. "Nothing's real," he whispered, and touching his tongue to his lips, he pulled the trigger. At one time John Clarington had been a soldier. He enlisted out of high school, telling his friends and family that he was doing so to pay for his college tuition, but after a year of service he knew he'd never do anything else. For as long as he could remember, Clarington had lived with the sensation that the ground he walked on was nothing more than a shell. Beneath it there was nothing, an emptiness in the shape of the world; everything carried the faint reek of fabrication. Looking at his face in the mirror was the same as staring into a mask, and other people, even his own family, seemed to him like actors or automatons. This didn't change when he joined the army, but at least the gun they gave him had some weight. He made a good soldier. He followed orders, and he was fearless, or that's how it appeared to the men he served with; he never flinched from combat, throwing himself into even the most dangerous situations with an abandon that bordered on recklessness, but the truth was that Clarington was almost always afraid. Most nights he spent gazing at the ceiling of his barracks or at the back of his eyes, doing his best to choke down the fear that lodged in his throat like a wedge of tin. If it came at all, sleep was a thin, fraying blanket that never managed to fully cover him. He was not afraid of dying, or of being injured. In fact, this fear was only a continuation the same anxiety that had been with him all his life; he felt like a counterfeit being in a made-up world, and the broad, dusty streets of the towns he patrolled and the men and women he saw there were as thin as strips of paper. He had only to reach out his hand to tear them away. "Of course he might have been right," mutters the old man. "Maybe none of this is real. Maybe it's all a dream, but who cares? Thinking like that is as good a way to wind up in a mental institution as I know, and whether it's real or not there are 24 hours to kill in a day. Clarington was no different: he got up when he had to, shat and ate, drank down his thin coffee in silence and did what his superiors told him to do. The only difference between being in the army and any other type of life was the reality of battle." Once the first shot was fired, the day seemed to break apart; time was reduced to an abstraction, parceled out in units of sound and heat, and the pounding metronome of Clarington's heart: now he was crouching with his back to a wall, now rising to fire. Still later he was cowering in the dust, pressed to the ground by the iron weight of the sun. Only in battle could he ever place himself, only here he was alive, and then, almost overnight, the war was over. They reported it as a victory, but Clarington could smell the lie; nothing had been resolved, no one liberated, and even his own nation's tenuous grip on the resources they'd really been fighting for was no certain thing, not once the troops were recalled. At home there had been some kind of economic crisis, and the government was on the verge of collapse; the truth was that the war was over because they could no longer afford it, and for the first time in more than a decade, John Clarington was no longer a soldier. He drank for a straight week, waking up each morning with only the most tenuous grip on where or who he was. When he remembered to eat he had food delivered to his door, paying for it with a crumpled and diminishing wad of bills. Otherwise he filled his empty stomach with whiskey, and looked out from his kitchen window at a city he barely recognized. Just beneath its surface, he was sure, waited a gaping pit. There's no telling how long he would have gone on like that, but then, on the morning of his eighth day in the capital, his phone rang. He moved numbly from the couch, stepping over a floor littered with empty bottles and used dishes. "Hello?" he muttered into the receiver. On the other end a man was clearing his throat. "Clarington?" said a voice. "Yeah? Who's this?" "It's Fawkes." Clarington pictured him as he had last seen him, a young man in a uniform that had never quite seemed to fit; they'd met during a campaign to take a town that didn't even appear on most maps. At that time, Fawkes wasn't much more than a kid, a raw recruit who did his best to ingratiate himself to the older man. When they weren't on patrol they deadened the long succession of hours with sparse conversation and even sparser emotion; it was only the approximation of a friendship, but when Fawkes' tour was up and he announced that he was done with the army, Clarington was sorry to see him go. "Fawkes," he said into the phone. "I heard you were back." "Read a paper huh?" said Clarington; his tongue had the weight and texture of a slab of dried meat. "How you getting on?" Clarington grunted, and the man on the other end of the phone laughed. "I know. Worst thing they could have done to you, ending that war." "You call for any particular reason?" "Thought you might be up for a bit work, assuming you haven't found anything yet." "What work?" By the time the younger man had finished explaining the job, Clarington was smiling. His shot took the tall man in the stomach; Clarington pulled the trigger again, and watched as the old man dropped to his knees. He was about to fire for a third time when Fawkes was shot in the head. A second later another blast rang out, not two meters from where Clarington was hidden. "Shit," he muttered. He had gone over all the details with Fawkes again the night before, and spent the morning waiting in the designated place. Fawkes and the group he was travelling with arrived more or less when they were supposed to, and up to this point everything had gone as planned; Clarington knew their target was the little girl (he assumed she would be ransomed), but with Fawkes dead he had no idea how he should proceed. He could risk taking the girl on his own, but the thought of bringing her to some remote location, a warehouse or abandoned cabin, and threatening her until she told him who her parents were was like a scene from a movie he had no interest in watching. Instead he began to disassemble his rifle; the air was cold in his lungs, and the ground he stood on a solid, unbroken thing. He already had what he came for. He got to his feet and backtracked through the woods, making his way along an overgrown path to the road. From there, he got in his car and drove back to the capital. There were reports of the attack all that night and the following day, but Clarington didn't see them. He sat in his kitchen and stared at his hand, rotating it slowly in the fading light from the window, clenching and relaxing his index finger at intervals; the hair follicles on the back and the lines crisscrossing his palm were startlingly clear, the response of his muscles as articulate as he'd ever known them. Something had changed. He had changed, and the sense he'd carried all his life of living in an unreal world was gone. When he finally opened a newspaper, he did so looking for work. One ad caught his eye, a half-page call for private security contractors from the Institute for Applied Research. Without stopping to think about what he was doing, he took out his phone and dialed the number at the bottom of the page. Within minutes he found himself agreeing to come in for an interview the following day. The address they gave him turned out to be a mid-sized office tower just outside the business district. The lobby was deserted, and half of the ceiling lights had been switched off, possibly in an effort to save electricity. Next to the elevators was a whiteboard with a list of firms written in a black, erasable marker. The Institute for Applied Research was on the 8th floor. The elevator's interior was an unadorned box. There was no music, and the noise it made during its ascent was like the monotonous droning of a hive of insects. At last the doors opened, and Stevens walked the length of a silent, cream-coloured hallway to a door at the far end. Opposite was a wide conference room, the walls of which were lined with mirrors. Hanging from the ceiling was a low bank of fluorescent lights, half-hidden by a decorative sheet of crenellated plastic. Seated at the only table were two men, both of them dressed in drab, conservative suits. Neither looked like a scientist or a security contractor. At best they resembled business men, middle-management types destined to spend their careers watching younger colleagues promoted ahead of them. The man closest to the door looked up as Clarington entered the room, while the other continued sifting through a stack of papers. "John Clarington?" asked the first man. "That's right." "I'm sorry," he said. "We're having trouble locating your resume here." "Not a problem," said Clarington. The man stood up. He was tall, with wide shoulders and close-cropped brown hair. His cheeks were chapped and raw-looking, and there were several red cuts on his neck, as if he'd recently shaved with a dull blade. In his hand was a vaguely cylindrical device that might have been a metal detector. Clarington raised an eyebrow. "Sorry," the man said, waving the device over Clarington's chest. "Standard procedure." "You think I'd bring a gun to a job interview?" Clarington asked. "Of course not," replied the man, smiling, and then he made an adjustment on the back of the device. "This will only take a second." He passed it over Clarington a second time and frowned, going so far as to show the reading to the 2nd man, who made a note of it on Clarington's file. "Did I pass?" asked Clarington. The man continued to smile, but his eyes hardened. "Have a seat Mr. Clarington," he said. "My name is Marshall Harris. And this is Dr. Lee." "Nice to meet you," said Clarington. "First of all Mr. Clarington, I'd like to ask you what you know about the Institute." "Just what everyone else does. You all do some pretty heavy research." Dr. Lee smiled and jotted something down in the file. "That's a nice summation," said Harris dryly. "We are engaged in some pretty heavy research, but recently we've embarked on a project that, shall we say, extends beyond the laboratory." "I see," said Clarington. Dr. Lee smiled again. "You don't," he said, speaking for the first time. His voice was firm, but oddly muffled, as if he was speaking from behind a glass wall. He was much smaller than Harris, with short, dark hair and eyes the colour of sunbaked tar. "Not yet. Mr. Harris and I have been charged with putting together a task force, and based on your file you have exactly the background we're looking for." Clarington stared at him, trying to decide what he meant, but the man's face was unreadable. "What kind of task force?" he asked instead. "Investigation." "I see," said Clarington. Dr. Lee made another note. "Recently certain facts have come to light," Harris chimed in. "We have reason to believe there are possible... rogue agents at work in the capital, and perhaps elsewhere." "Rogue agents?" "Subversive elements," said Dr. Lee. "We want to make one thing perfectly clear at the outset Mr. Clarington, and that is while the Institute has in the past been affiliated with the government, we feel as if we've moved beyond that." "Our patents in various technologies have afforded us the freedom to operate independently," Lee explained. "These days we prefer to think of ourselves as a corporation with an aggressive focus on research and development." "If you agree to work with us you'd be taking an active role in the research side of things." "I'm not scientist," said Clarington. "We know that Mr. Clarington, but for what we have in mind you appear to be an ideal candidate. Needless to say, the compensation we're prepared to offer is generous." Clarington looked at his hands. "How generous?" he asked. After being hired he was made to sign several non-disclosure agreements and relocated to a compound at one of the Institute's regional facilities, about 100 km from the capital. Once there, he was escorted to a small room where he was left on his own. Besides the Plexiglas table and two plastic chairs, the room's only discernible feature was a large two-way mirror that dominated the wall opposite the door. Clarington sat down with his back to the mirror. A moment later the door opened, and a slim man entered the room. Like Clarington, he was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He took in Clarington and the room's contents with an amused expression and sat down roughly in the other chair. He regarded Clarington mildly, drumming on the table with his fingers. "We'd like to thank you gentlemen for agreeing to be a part of this task force," said a voice, so heavily distorted that it was barely recognizable as human. Clarington swept his eyes over the walls and the ceiling, but could see no sign of speakers. "The two of you have been matched as a result of the personality tests you completed during your respective interviews. For the duration of this task force you will be working as partners. The door to this room will remain locked for the next 24 hours. We sincerely hope you will use this time to get to get to know one another." The taller man laughed. Clarington did not like his partner, a younger man named Elliot Thomas, and he doubted the credibility of a scientific organization that couldn't even get a personality test right. Still, he'd worked closely with men he didn't like before. Harder to bear was the so-called "training" they were subjected to: most of it, as on that first day, was monitored, either from behind mirrors or by silent pairs of scientists who observed their progress openly, marking down notes in an illegible short-hand that looked to Clarington like the scribbling of an epileptic child. Clarington and his partner were assigned spatial reasoning tests and abstract problem-solving exercises, given pieces of paper and asked to fold them into boxes, the failed results of which were collected by cool-faced men in lab coats. They exercised daily, and were made to watch hours of security footage without being told what it was they were looking for. Through it all, Thomas was a picture of ironic detachment, while Clarington clenched his jaw and several times had to hold himself back from screaming. After a few weeks, the two of them were brought to another of the seemingly endless array of nondescript meeting rooms the Institute had at its disposal. Inside were both Dr. Lee and Harris. Neatly folded on the table in front of them were two coats made of a black, synthetic fiber, along with two pairs of goggles, and a single black briefcase. "Your equipment," Harris told them. "As the senior partner Mr. Clarington, you'll be responsible for the case." Clarington said nothing. "Gentlemen," said Dr. Lee. "I suppose by now you're wondering what it is we hired you to do." "Thought this was it," said Thomas. "You're just about done with your training," murmured Harris. "There's only one more test we'd like to perform." Dr. Lee removed a small, metallic box from the pocket of his coat. Within it were two disposable syringes, and a vial of orange liquid. "This is a narcotic," he said, plunging the first of the syringes into the vial and extracting a large amount of liquid. "Developed using powder taken from the mines at Newt Run. We'd like you both to take it now." "Sounds like fun," Thomas said. "What does it do?" asked Clarington. "The powder affects perception," said Dr. Lee. "We've added various other agents in order to amplify the effects. Taking it will help to answer any questions you might have about the nature of your job and the reason this task-force has been formed. I assure you that it's perfectly safe. Doing things this way will be much more efficient and... convincing than anything either of us could tell you." Clarington shrugged his consent, and Dr. Lee took his arm. As the point of the syringe pierced his skin, a single, perfectly formed drop of blood appeared at the hole, and he became aware of a faint sound in the distance, like the hum of a small cooling fan or the hiss of steam from a broken pipe. Both men spent the next several hours in their seats, staring at the far wall. When at last they returned to the room, Dr. Lee was gone and only Harris was there to meet them. "When do we start?" asked Clarington. 18th January, 5:32 PM They climb the stairs to the porch. Next to the door, on a low table between a pair of high-backed chairs, is a cigarette-choked ashtray and a bong that looks as if it's been sitting outside for years. Without bothering to knock, the man who calls himself I enters the house. J follows him, removing his boots and passing down a short hall. On their right, seated in a cramped living room, they find a young man and woman eating a meal of fried noodles out of soup bowls. "Hey," says the woman. The man who calls himself I glances at her and she returns her eyes to her food. "Who's your friend?" the man beside her asks. He is wearing an over-sized t-shirt and a pair of black jeans spotted with paint. He blinks tiredly, setting his bowl down on the table with the lazy precision of an insomniac. "Call me J," J tells him. The man nods dully. "Richard, where's Taylor?" "I guess he's in his room." "Come on," says I. He turns from the room and a moment later J does the same. Neither Richard nor the woman on the couch watch them go. They take the stairs to the landing on the second floor. Coming to the door at the end of the hall, I bangs heavily against the wood with a balled fist. A young man in dark sunglasses opens the door. A device like a fetish mask is in place over his mouth, its straps biting firmly into the soft flesh of his cheeks. He leans against the doorframe, absently brushing the side of his pants with the flat of his palm. "Taylor," says I. "It's you," the other replies, in the drawling tones of an old man; the disconnect between his voice and body hits J like a brace of cold water. Up to this point he has followed I blindly, trudging along in his wake without comment, his thoughts as blunted as wet clay. Now he is awake, aware both of his surroundings and the pain of his body. From behind his opaque lenses, J can feel the man with the voice modulator, Taylor, staring at him. "You'd better come in," Taylor says. "Your big friend too, if he wants." Stepping back, he shifts his weight on his heel and holds the door open. Behind him is a dark room, the windows shaded by heavy curtains. On a desk strewn with used food wrappers and unwashed dishes, three computer screens provide some scant light. Clothes are scattered across the carpet, a large pile of them lying in the corner like some homeless man, huddled against the cold. "Why are we here Taylor?" I asks. "Your voice is different." "And I didn't even need a modulator." Taylor laughs warmly. "There's someone you should meet," he says, bending down to pick up an old t-shirt. Idly, he lobs it across the room. There is a brief stirring, and J sees that what he took to be a pile of clothes is actually a man wrapped in a blanket, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chin. Slowly, he raises his head. All at once he seems to shudder. With a great effort he brings himself to his feet. The blanket slithers from his chest and down the front of his legs to settle on the floor. He takes a step forward, and then another, slowly drawing himself into the shallow light of the screens. Like everyone J has met so far in this house, he is young, with fine, dark features and a shaved head of black hair. There is nothing unusual about him, unless it is the dullness around his eyes and the heavy way he has of moving, as if he'd been sleeping in that corner for hours, but seeing him clearly for the first time, I backs away, his face hardening. "The line," he says. The young man stops walking. He is caught in the act of smiling, a row of white teeth showing from behind his lips. He brings a hand to his face, tracing a line from his forehead through his right eye, and down the side of his cheek. As far as J can see, there is nothing there. "This?" he says. "Just noticed it myself." "I know you," mutters I. "We met on the porch. Your name is Coulter." The young man shrugs. "You can call me Luke." "But not just Luke." "No," he says, hesitating. Again he touches his hand to his face, tracing the invisible line. Standing with his back to the wall, J closes his eyes; his body feels like that of a much older man's, aching, and full of regret. "Someone mind tellin me what the fuck is goin on?" he asks. "Taylor," says I. "You have any powder?" Taylor waves his arm at the dresser next to the bed, and I spends some time rooting around in the topmost drawer before producing a plastic bag. He holds it up and tosses it at J, who catches it out of the air. Hefting its weight in his palm, J guesses there is enough powder here to dose everyone in the house for a month. "You never wanted to take the powder," the man called I tells him. "I know that. Never felt the need. But tonight at least you'd better. It'll be easier." J shuts his eyes, suddenly exhausted; he can hear it clearly now, C's voice coming from this stranger's mouth, or something like C's voice, an approximation close enough to the real thing that it makes no difference. He has heard it before, but he shut his mind to that, and everything it might have meant. He is drained, and the constant throb of pain at the back of his head and the raw skin at his neck threaten to overwhelm him. He knows that if he stopped now, sat down on the floor or on the bed, he would not be able to rise again. The only thing keeping him on his feet is the knowledge that he won't stop, or that he can't, because nothing is finished yet; what began when the two agents dragged him from bed and set to torturing him is still taking place, and he has no choice except to see it through. They should have finished me off when they had the chance, he thinks, and plunging his hand into the bag, he swallows a mouthful of powder. The metal tang of blood hits his tongue: blood and a hint of decay, as if the stuff had been cut with rotten fruit. J waits for something to happen, a sudden rush or change in his perception, but there is nothing. His eyes are closed, and his back is flat against the wall. The sound of a creaking mattress reaches him as someone sits down on the bed. "Something happened," says the man named Luke, his voice seeming to reach J from a long way off. "Last night, or maybe the night before. I can't remember. I was here though, in this house. In the kitchen. I was washing dishes, and I was looking at the window in front of the sink. Then I felt it, something. A tremor, and I dropped the plate; my reflection was wrong in the glass. It was someone else's reflection, only for a moment, and then he was gone. But then tonight with Taylor and these mushrooms it all came back… His name was Ward." J looks at him. From his forehead to his cheek, the right side of the young man's face is cut by a yellow line. Standing next to the bed is the man called I, and there is also a line on his face, more faded perhaps, but still clear enough, and running straight as the incision of a scalpel. "What are they?" J asks. "A symbol," I tells him. "That's one way to put it," says Luke. "I told you about the accident in the mines," I goes on. "Told you that C fell into the pit. But there was more to it than that." "A blue light," Luke blurts out, looking about the room as if seeking confirmation. "I don't know what the Institute was building there," I continues. "But something went wrong. Maybe they thought they had a gate, a door to wherever it is the outsiders come from, but it didn't take C anywhere. When he fell, he just wound up here." He presses a finger to his temple. His face is nothing like the man J knew, but the mask is there, and from his mouth the echo of his friend's voice. For a second he appears ready to say something more, but instead he turns to the young man on the bed. "You have Ward's memory?" he asks. "Pieces." "All I need is a way to find Auld." "Auld," he says. "Why?" "I'm looking for the agents." "From the Institute?" "We'd like a word," says J. Luke seems to consider that, and then he smiles. "Wouldn't mind a word myself," he concedes. "So you'll help us?" "Yes, and I can do one better than just telling you where Auld is." The car is crowded. Luke is up front, driving in silence, and beside him in the passenger seat is the man called I. J and Taylor are crammed together in the back. None of them are speaking, and J is content to watch the street through the window, the passage of store-fronts and apartment blocks, the odd person walking in the frigid night. Using Ward's memory, Luke told them about the raid, likely the same one that R had mentioned earlier, but unlike R, he had known that it was tonight, and where it was going to be. The fact that Luke dredged this information out of a dead alien's memory is not something J is prepared to think about. The less he thinks the better, for which reason he is grateful for the numbing fatigue that has settled on him in the last hour; his head continues to ache, and there is the pain of his throat where the agent put the taser to him, but the passage of time has made these both bearable. Knowing that he is being driven toward the agents now, and putting himself in a position to absorb the same kind of punishment again is far more pressing. He sighs, and watches his breath briefly mist against the window. He tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter, that nothing the agents or anyone else can do to him now will make a difference, content in the certainty that he didn't have a choice, not once he accepted that it was C's voice coming from this other man's throat; J glances at him now, thinking again how different he is from the person he knew, a thin, pale man with two days' worth of stubble and a yellow line cutting his face from forehead to cheek. J leans back, and would laugh if he had the energy; it's not as if he had any big plans for the rest of his life. He knows who and what he is, a Northside drug dealer, and more useful, probably, for his size than anything in his head. He is aware of how that story plays out, watched the dealers who came up before him, all of whom are now either dead or in jail, or else still dealing, but every year with less conviction, as if playing the game for so long had robbed them of something essential, a solidity or concreteness that, once gone, is lost forever. And tonight he too could wind up dead, but that fact, more of an abstract concept than complete thought, is thankfully bled of its immediacy. Despite it all, everything that's happened to him in the span of a few narrow hours, J feels good. There is a stillness about him, a sensation akin to standing alone in the center of a dark room. Just before him is a wall, and he knows that very soon now he will be passing to the other side. Partially reflected in the window glass, Taylor leans toward him. "You alright there?" "Just thinkin this might not have been such a good idea." Taylor laughs. "You worry too much." Before J can respond, Luke turns the car from the main road onto a narrow laneway. Here, they are only two or three blocks away from the water, a post-industrial wasteland of run-down warehouses and deserted, gravel-strewn lots. Slowly, Luke pulls up to the curb. On their left is a two-storey warehouse. A yellow light shows in a window on the first floor, and parked on the opposite side of the road is a white, unmarked van. "That's theirs," J announces. "Yeah?" I asks him. "Spent some time this mornin gettin acquainted with it." "Alright." He opens his door, and one by one they exit the car. From the back of his jeans, Taylor removes a pair of wire-cutters and sets to work ripping a hole in the high, chain-link fence that surrounds the building. J crouches beside him, aware of the two others at his back. His breathing is even, and the night is a single, unbroken plane; at the end of the alley is the white halo of a street lamp, and from somewhere in the distance comes the sound of a car alarm. J tenses, but there is no sign of movement, and Taylor is already pushing through the hole. J follows after him, with I and Luke trailing just behind. For J, the noise of their passage is horribly magnified, each misstep or crunch of gravel under an unwary foot as distinct and lacerating as the shot of a gun. He keeps his eyes trained on the yellow square of the window, and soon the four of them are next to the wall. J breathes deeply on the cold air. Taylor is already moving off, while I and Luke seem unsure what to do, both of them standing with their backs pressed to the bricks. Straightening, J cranes his neck to peer through the window. On the far side is what might be the floor of an old factory. Dozens of flat tables stretch from one wall to the other in neat, parallel rows. One of them, not far from the window, is piled high with bags of what J can only assume to be powder. As he looks on, a man backs into J's field of vision. The man is tall, and well-built, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans. His hands are raised, as if he were holding someone off, and a moment later the two agents appear. J watches, his mind dulled, as the man in leather wrenches a gun from the back of his pants. As if from nowhere, two prongs sprout from the man's throat, and he drops to the floor in a twitching pile of limbs. J staggers away from the window, cursing under his breath. "What is it?" I asks. "They're here," J announces. "And one other guy they just took out with a taser." Taylor is next to him. "I found a way in," he says, his voice nearly lost in a haze of static. He does not wait for them to answer, already moving off in the direction of a service door not five meters from the window. J begins to feel that he has been here before, possibly dozens of times. "Stay behind me," Taylor mutters. He twitches his head to one side and the air shivers in response; the hairs on the back of J's neck prick up, and it is all he can do not to stuff a finger in his ears. Taylor pulls on the door handle and strides into the warehouse with a shattering, digital howl; even from outside the noise is head-splitting, and J clutches his ears, watching in an odd, ringing silence as the agents fall to their knees, their mouths prised open in silent cries. Abruptly, the noise cuts out: J is already rushing into the room, setting on the older man with a series of vicious kicks to his stomach and chest. Dazedly, the agent attempts to fight him off, but J pulls him onto his back, his fist connecting with the man's goggles in a thunderous crack; a stab of pain shoots up the length of his arm, but still J goes on, watching his fist fall and rise and fall again, until all at once he is lifted into the air and sent flying across the room. A low, electric humming, and the warehouse roof swimming in front of J's eyes; somehow, he pulls himself to his feet. The air is thick with an orange fall of powder, and all around him bodies are strewn about the floor: a bomb, J thinks. Not far away the smaller agent is also standing, smiling at him from a battered, blood-streaked mouth. "Latest technology," he says, patting the clasp of his jacket. In his other hand is a taser. A shot rings out, and the taser clatters to the ground. The agent's hand is pressed to his stomach, where a network of small, red lines are blossoming between his fingers. He falls to his knees. Standing behind him, the gun still smoking in his hand, is the man in the leather jacket. Taylor is already on his feet, while I is busy raising Luke from the ground. The taller agent is lying on his back. The man in leather looks from one person to the other, and then at J, the gun moving between them all, but thoughtlessly, as if he was unaware of holding it. Slowly, he begins to back toward the door, stopping long enough to prod a ruptured bag of powder with the tip of his boot. He swears under his breath, and then he is gone. J is the first to react, crossing the short distance to the taller agent and catching his wrist before he has a chance to reach the clasp of his jacket. "Don't," J tells him. "Well this is a surprise," murmurs the agent, almost to himself, and then, looking at J: "Good for you. The way you were screaming this morning, I thought we'd broken you." The punch sends the man's head snapping back; he collapses to the floor, and J lets go of his wrist, ripping the jacket from his shoulders and tearing the goggles off his head. Where the lenses had been, the agent's exposed skin is pallid and unhealthy looking, his small eyes like those of a frightened animal. There is a rancid taste in J's mouth, and enough pain in his right hand that he is sure it must be broken. He looks at the corpse of the smaller agent lying a few feet away. It seems a small, pale thing, and J spits, rubbing his aching hand. "You boys go on," he mutters. "You're sure?" It is C's voice, but J does not turn to see the man using it. "Yeah. Have some things ta discuss with my friend here." He bends toward the taller agent, only dimly aware of the others leaving the room. The agent shrinks away, his hands scratching helplessly at the powder scattered over the floor. "You ever get the feelin you've just about run out a'time?" J asks. "Every day," the man says. He is still smiling as J's hands close around his throat. Stevens Stevens pulls the car into the driveway and takes the key from the ignition. Lying on the seat next to him is the gun. He can't remember having put it there and it bothers him that he's forgotten. For a time he sits with his back to the seat, staring out at the blank stretch of pavement before the car and his apartment beyond that. He touches the marks on his neck where the taser prongs went in, but the pain is muted; aside from a kind of creeping embarrassment at how badly he handled things, he is numb. The loss of the shipment of powder is the worst of it, much more dangerous than having killed a man in front of witnesses. Stevens has rarely met the people he works for, but he knows that none of them are likely to be forgiving. He will make excuses, saying that the agents came out of nowhere, that he was outnumbered and he should never have been left alone. None of these will be enough. In the end, all that will matter is that the powder is lost and he was responsible. He reaches for the gun and shoves it behind his pants. The metal presses tightly on the small of his back, and a sharp bark escapes his mouth; he frowns, not having meant to laugh. Grimly, he realizes that he's reached the end of the line, but it doesn't matter. There's always another town, and another job. One thing Stevens has always been good at is moving on. He opens the door and gets out of the car. The air is sharp in his lungs, and a cold wind stirs the edge of his jacket. He crosses the lawn in front of the building, his boots sinking deeply into the snow, and climbs the stairs to his door. Inside, he switches on a light and enters the hallway. In the kitchen he takes a bottle of rice alcohol from the shelf above the sink. Drinking thinly, he stares out the window at the brick wall across the lane, and a moment later he sees the dull outline of the man reflected in the glass. "Hands," says a voice. Stevens sets the cup on the counter and spreads his arms, watching the reflection grow larger; in a moment a hand is groping at his back, and in short order his gun is taken away. "Turn around," the voice instructs him. Stevens turns. The man in front of him is not merely older, but very old, as if he'd spent the last five years in the grip of a debilitating illness. His eyes are watery and red-rimmed, and his back is stooped. His liver-spotted hand is trembling, either because of the weight of the gun or due to the effects of age. He looks like a man on the verge of death, and Stevens chokes down an urge to laugh. "Hello boss," he says. "Why'd you do it?" Lawrence asks him. "Fawkes wanted that egg. Thought it was worth something." "The egg," Lawrence breathes. "You did it for that?" "Maybe we got tired of babysitting that retard grandkid of yours." Light bursts in front his eyes; Stevens staggers back, stunned, but otherwise unhurt. Inwardly he smiles, knowing that if Lawrence had hit him with a gun five years ago he would not be standing now. "If you know where she is, now's your chance to tell me," Lawrence says. "Why would I know a thing like that?" The old man nods, and raises the gun to a point level with Stevens' brow. "Too bad," he says. Quickly, Stevens raises his hands again, massaging the air between them in what he hopes is a soothing gesture. "Now just hold on boss. Of course I don't know where she is. Why should I? But maybe I know someone who does." Lawrence blinks, and peers at him. Stevens watches the gun totter in his hand. "Who?" Lawrence asks. "That faded bitch who ran off with her." Lawrence cocks his head to the side, struggling to remember. "Her?" "I know where she is." "You lying to me Stevens?" Lawrence's voice hardens, and Stevens begins to feel the first blush of fear. "Boss I'm lying you shoot me," he says. "Now come on, you're the one with the gun. You got a car? We can go right now." The old man wavers, but in the end the temptation is too much. "Alright," he says. "Let's go." "Smart choice boss," Stevens mutters, his hands still raised. "Very smart." He takes one step forward, and then he lunges, grabbing Lawrence's fist and shoving the butt of the gun in the air. A shot explodes into the ceiling, showering the two men in a flurry of plaster. They struggle in near silence, until at last Stevens is able to wrest the gun away. He pivots, wasting no time before shooting the old man point blank in the stomach. Lawrence gasps, weakly moving a hand to cover the wound before he sinks to the floor. There is shouting on the floor above; the people living in this building are not used to gunfire, and there is a good chance that someone has already called the police. Stevens takes a final glance at Lawrence's crumpled form, and then he turns and moves quickly down the short, straight hall. He is halfway to the door when the bullet takes him in the neck. He has just enough strength to turn; in the kitchen, Lawrence is lying on his side, Stevens' gun clutched in his hand. Stevens attempts to speak, but his mouth is full of blood. He sputters, choking, and falls face first into the carpet. When the police arrive twenty minutes later they pronounce both men dead on the scene. Alison Gray Sarah was careful to keep the egg with her at all times. Unless she was washing or getting dressed she never took her hands from it, and even then she made sure to fold it neatly inside of a towel or place it somewhere she felt it would be equally safe. Allison tried to talk to Sarah about the egg, asking her where she'd gotten it, but either the girl didn't remember or she wouldn't say. All she told Allison was that she'd been given a chance to make things right. "Make what right?" Allison asked her. "Everything!" Sarah answered, laughing. That was two days ago. Since then, and despite her best efforts, Allison has grown increasingly worried; it isn't natural for a 12 year old girl to make up stories about a magic egg (nor, strictly speaking, would it have been natural for anyone.) Allison told herself that it was just a phase, and that in everything else Sarah was a perfectly ordinary girl: she liked books, hated school, and wasn't entirely sure how she felt about boys. Recently she had decided that she wanted to learn how to cook, and she is with Allison in the kitchen now, helping her to chop vegetables. On the counter beside her, resting in a small dish, is the egg. From time to time Sarah pauses to touch it, running the ends of her fingers over its cool, dimpled shell. Once they are finished with the vegetables, Allison helps Sarah to boil some noodles. Afterwards, she turns on the television and sits down at the round, wooden table. From time to time she checks on Sarah, making sure that she's being careful around the stove. "I'm old enough to do it myself," Sarah tells her, resentful of the attention. "You're pretty big," Allison responds. "But you still need to be careful." The girl clicks her tongue in frustration. It's a habit she's picked up from Allison, and hearing it never fails to make Allison smile. Indulgent, she leaves the girl alone. On the news they are showing a report about an accident at the mines. Allison turns up the volume. Behind her she can hear Sarah humming a sweet, unmeaning tune. "The cause of the explosion is still unknown," the reporter on the screen is saying, a young man with an earnest expression a bad, shapeless haircut. "Officials have confirmed that a large amount of powder was disrupted by the blast, and preliminary tests show that the water supply has been contaminated. Powder has never been demonstrably toxic, but until further testing has been completed, residents are being urged to drink bottled water." While she can hear the tap running behind her, Allison does not immediately connect this sound to the news report; she is sitting in a dull, golden haze, safe and complacent, and tired after a long day of work. By the time she turns to Sarah again, the girl has already finished drinking half a glass of water. Rushing from the table, Allison snatches away the glass, causing water to slop over the edge and down the front of Sarah's shirt. "I'm sorry!" Allison cries, attempting to dry the girl off with the flat of her hand. Sarah squirms away. "You hurt me," she says. A familiar wave of guilt rises in Allison's chest; although she has done her best to push the thought away, a part of her is still convinced that she doesn't deserve Sarah. A narrow sliver of doubt remains that the girl is not really her daughter (the unvoiced corollary of which is that Allison has stolen someone else's child), and in moments like this, sure that she's made a mistake a "real mother" would never make, Allison's doubt assaults her like a licking tongue of flame. "What's wrong?" the girl whines, her eyes darting to the egg. She reaches out and takes it from the dish, cupping it protectively to her chest. "I'm sorry," Allison stammers. "But the news says we shouldn't drink from the tap for a while." "Why? Is the water dirty?" "There's something in it that might not be good for you." "Am I gonna get sick?" "No!" Allison says, brushing a loose strand of hair from the girl's forehead. "No, everything's fine. Come on, let's have dinner. I'm hungry, aren't you?" Sarah nods and Allison helps her to finish cooking. They sit down to eat, but Sarah barely touches her food. Frowning into her plate, her hand strays continually to the egg, pouring over it with her fingers, as if seeking out some flaw or hidden sign on its surface. Soon she asks to be excused. Flush with an uncertain anxiety, Allison tells her to go on. She gets up and clears the table, using a pair of plastic gloves so that the tainted water will not get on her hands. Soon she is worrying about how much Sarah had to drink, and what kind of effects the drug could have on a little girl. Despite what the news said, she wonders if she should take Sarah to the hospital, just to be sure, reasoning that any mother would do the same. She puts away the dishes and goes to check on Sarah, but the girl is not in front of the TV, nor is she in her bedroom. Allison looks in the bathroom, drawing back the shower curtain to reveal an empty tub. Quickly, she returns to the kitchen. "Sarah?" she calls, frightened by the note of panic in her voice. She moves through the small apartment again, but there is no sign of the girl. Fear grips her insides: in the front hall she finds Sarah's boots missing, along with her coat. By now the fear has risen to her throat, and Allison is stepping into her own boots, her hands dumb and fumbling. At last she stands up and opens the door, rushing out of the apartment and into the snow. 18th January, 10:04 PM Not long now. I put my feet on the railing and pull back on the hand-rolled. Across the street a flurry of snow passes through the orange haze around the lamp post. I exhale slowly, and reach for the bottle of whiskey, thinking again about the car ride back here, the three of us sitting with our mouths closed and our eyes refusing to meet, and the way it seemed like about ten people were missing. Leaving J there on his own had been a mistake, but I could say that about a lot of things and even if I'd dragged him with us I wouldn't know what to say to him, or how to explain anything. The fact is that I've never met him before today, and any other memories I have belong to a dead man. The front door opens and Richard steps onto the porch. He looks bad, even in the poor light under the awning, and he stumbles as he sits down next to me. I offer him the bottle but he shakes his head and I shrug and pull back on it myself, paying strict attention to the burn it leaves in my throat. "Not long now," Richard says, echoing my thoughts. "Yeah." "Either that or nothing happens." "Could be nothing happens." "If I wake up tomorrow I'm going to regret some of the choices I made today." "Sounds like every day." "Hand me the bottle." I give it to him and he swallows heavily. "You don't think it's really going to happen do you?" he asks. "Who knows? Probably." "Then what the fuck right?" "That's right." He rises unsteadily to his feet and arches his arm back, making to hurl the bottle into the street. "You better not," I tell him. "No?" "No. I'm not quite there yet." "Well hurry up. If it's coming it's coming soon." I retrieve the bottle from him just as my cell phone rings. I take it from my pocket and answer it. "Hey." Kelly's voice, or Hazel's, not that it matters. It's a voice I didn't think I'd get a chance to hear again, but now that I have, it hits with far less force than I thought it would. "Listen," she continues. "I'm leaving tomorrow." "Yeah? Where are you headed?" "Home. Back to the capital. I can't be here anymore." "Well...," I mutter, and allow the word to fall away. I have nothing to say and even if I did I doubt it'd be anything she'd want to hear. "I just thought I should say goodbye." "Very kind of you." "Well." A weight of silence presses down the line. "We're saying goodbye we should do it proper," I find myself saying. "Have a drink with me." She hesitates, but that's not important. It's just the moment she gives herself, believing she has a choice, when the truth is that all the answers to all the questions have already been decided; a tremor that is not a laugh passes through me and I flick what's left of my hand-rolled over the railing. "Come on," I say in a voice I barely recognize. "What else do you have to do?" "Alright," she sighs. "Can you meet me around 6th Bridge?" "Is half an hour ok?" "Fine," she replies at last, and hangs up. Richard looks at me. "You're going out?" "Looks like it." "That's cutting things a little close isn't it?" "I'll be fine." I stand up and hand him the bottle of whiskey. "Thanks," he tells me. He takes the bottle and puts it on the arm of the chair. "Later," he says. "Yeah." I leave the porch and start down the street. When I near the corner I turn just long enough to see Richard standing by the railing. He waves once, and then he looks away. She is dressed in the same brown jacket she wore the first night, and maybe the same jeans as well, but her hair is different, swept back from her face and held in place with a number of small pins. "Hazel," I say. She looks up, smiling faintly. "Hi." "You alright?" She shrugs. "Hard to say." I put my arm around her long enough to start us both walking and then I take it away. "Don't worry," I tell her. "Everything will look better in the morning." "You're in a good mood," she says. "I'm fine. Why shouldn't I be? But there's room for improvement. Always is. It's why I suggested the drink." "Sound logic." "How about here?" I say, pointing out a small bar on the corner. "Anything's fine." I stop and hold the door open for her. The interior is wide, with a dark, wooden floor and a number of tables centered around a square-framed bar. A middle-aged man is sitting at the counter, apparently trying to engage the bartender, a woman in her 30s, in a one-sided conversation. Besides him, the only other customer is an elderly man sitting on his own in the back. Hazel and I move to the counter and the waitress drifts our way. "What can I get you?" she asks. "Beer," I tell her. Hazel nods wearily. "The same." The waitress moves off. "You holding up alright?" I ask. Hazel nods again, but it's only a reflex action. Her eyes are heavy and shaded, and her posture is tense. I watch her fingers playing nervously with the sleeve of her jacket. "I don't know," she says. "You're supposed to say you're ok right?" "Maybe." "I'm not ok." "It was bad," I agree. "Bad, yes." "No question about that." "Right." "I wouldn't know what to make of it myself, finding out I've got a doll for a twin." I'd meant it as a joke, but her face doesn't soften. "I don't think you can make anything of something like that," she says. "You just try to forget it." "Think you're likely to manage that?" "No." The waitress returns with a pair of mugs. "Well let's try anyway." Hazel manages a weak smile, and we both turn to our beers. We don't speak, and the silence between us is an odd, tight thing: sitting next to each other, we might as well be in different worlds. Down at the far end of the bar the old man is talking into his beer. "They entered the apartment," I hear him say, and he nods several times before continuing. "In the chair next to him was the girl.. looked exactly like her, exactly... and afterwards on the street they saw it again, lying on the road..." Beside me, Hazel is saying something. I shake my head, and then turn to her. "Are you listening?" she asks me. "No. I'm sorry, but that man." "What?" "The old man, there." I jerk my head in his direction. The old man is still speaking, and there is no sign that he's aware of us. His eyes are on what's left of his pint of beer, and then something he says causes him to laugh, and he takes a small drink. "What about him?" Hazel asks. "I think he's talking about us." "Really?" She glances down the length of the counter. "What is he saying?" "I think he was talking about the doll." Her face tightens. "The doll?" I motion for her to be quiet, but the old man is too preoccupied to notice. "... and they left the bar with him," he mutters. "They stepped into the cold. It wasn't long before they saw the woman..." The door swings open, drowning out the man's words in a sudden rush of cold air. I turn to find Auld standing in the doorframe, brushing snow from his shoulders and the top of his stubbled head. Neither the waitress nor the two other customers look up. "Auld," I say; I find there is no surprise at seeing him, only that it's taken him this long to arrive. "Isaac," he replies. "What are you doing here?" Hazel asks. "Thought I could use a drink," he says, sitting down next to her. "You mind ordering for me?" I call the waitress over and order another round, along with a third beer for Auld. The waitress delivers them with a bored expression, never once looking at Auld. At the end of the counter, the old man is still talking into his beer, and I wonder if there might not be someone sitting next to him, someone that he can see in the same way that I can see Auld, and what kind of drugs I'd have to take before I could see them too. "You're just in time," Hazel is saying. "I'm leaving tomorrow." "Yes," Auld answers. "Just in time." I glance at him. He sits curled over the beer with his hands pressed to the edge of the counter. He bites down on his lower lip, and then he turns to me, his face utterly devoid of expression. I think about what happened in the mines, and how much of it Auld was responsible for. A weight builds in my chest, and it comes as something of a shock that even now I can be angry. "How do you like my line?" I ask him. "It's growing faint," he says. "Is it? Guess I must be getting used to it." "Maybe." "What line?" asks Hazel. "It's nothing." "I didn't know you two knew each other," she continues. "We've met," I answer. "What time is it?" Auld asks, his voice neutral, as if today's date and the time were trivial things, and the three of us are not here sitting on the edge of a cliff. Whatever calm I'd managed to piece together with the whiskey and now with the help of the beer is cut away; with a single question, uttered flat and hollow and almost entirely into his glass, Auld has managed to confirm it all: this is the end, finally, and I guess there's nothing left to worry about. I take a swallow of beer before checking the time on my cellphone. "Around 11," I say, when I'm sure that my voice will be steady. "Just after." "Drink up," he orders. I close my eyes, but only briefly; it's always better to keep your eyes open, even when the only thing to look at is a scene like this, a lonely bar filled with forgotten people, and I finish off what's left of the beer in my glass, barely tasting it. "You think I have time for another?" I ask. Auld shrugs. "If you drink them like that, why not?" I signal the waitress. The beer arrives and I pay for it along with all the others. Hazel watches me as I drain the glass. "What's the matter?" she says. "Ask Auld," I tell her. She looks at him. "I wondered if the two of you would join me for a walk," he mutters, as if he's afraid that we might say no, and it occurs to me that maybe he isn't sure, maybe he's as blind to what's coming as I am. "A walk?" Hazel asks. "It's a nice night." "It's freezing." "Come anyway." She shrugs and gathers her things. I try to stand but the beer rushes up to meet me and I take a moment to steady myself with my hand on the edge of the counter. On our way out, I catch the old man looking at us. He is no longer talking, and the glass in front of him is empty. Unsteadily, I make my way across the room. Auld is walking through the door but he doesn't hold it and I have to push against its weight before exiting into the night. Up ahead Hazel is a brief, gray smudge and Auld is even less than that. None of us says anything. The snow continues to fall, and I listen to the fall of our boots and the muffled sound of our breathing. Everything is quiet, simple, still. In a moment I grow aware of a woman standing on the corner; despite an oversized coat, she is obviously very thin, and her hair is pulled back from her forehead in a severe, bleached line. She is looking about wildly and her hands are working together, as if rubbing the cold out of her joints. "Sarah!" she calls. "You alright?" The woman barely registers me, and I realize she's half out of her mind with fear. "Have you seen a little girl?" she asks, and then she turns to Hazel, pleading: "About this high? With brown hair?" "I'm sorry," Hazel answers, faltering. "Is she lost?" I try. "I don't know," says the woman. "She left the house. It's... We just live up the street. She can't have gone far." "Can we... I mean, we can help you look for her, if you want," Hazel tells her. "I, that's..." The woman pauses, collecting herself, or at least making the attempt. "Thank you. She's got brown hair. Her name is Sarah." "Come on," Hazel says. "We'll go this way." Hazel starts out, leaving Auld and I to follow after her. "You knew about this?" I ask him. "I knew we should go for a walk." "And how about this girl? You think maybe you could look ahead a little to tell us where she'll be? Or is that too much to ask?" As I go on I start to feel the anger I'd managed to suppress in the bar making its way back up my throat. "Standing on the sidelines must feel pretty safe. Must be comforting to know how to avoid trouble. And to be able to wipe your hands when you put someone else in the way of it. You just say that was the way it was supposed to be and you move on. So what if anyone dies? We all die someday, right?" Auld doesn't answer me. He moves dully, his eyes on the ground, his thin shoulders hunched against the cold. All at once I grab him by the collar, my throat tight. His body is nearly weightless. "It was all going to turn out like this anyway, so what choice is there, right Auld?" I shove him and I watch as he stumbles to the ground. He picks himself up and brushes the snow from his knees. I move toward him again. Hazel rounds on us, angry. "Stop it!" she barks. "There's no point." My hands are knotted fists. At last Auld looks at me. His face is drawn and haggard: the face of a condemned man, I think. He stands there, empty, and all the anger bleeds out from some hole in my chest. "Yes," Auld says. "There was never any other choice." Hazel looks from one of us to the other, and I turn my back on them both. I don't need it, her or the other one, but certainly I don't need her. I start off, unsure of where I'm going. The pavement wheels beneath me. Rounding a corner, I nearly run into a small girl. She is standing on her own in a hard pool of light. Next to her is an iron door, the service exit to an office building or a bank. Seeing me, the girl breaks into a wide smile. "I knew you were real," she says quietly. "Sarah?" "I saw your line in a dream," she goes on. "That's how I know it's you." She extends a hand, holding something up. "You take it now," she tells me, and I look at the egg cupped in her hand. It has the formlessness of something ripped from a dream. A motion at the top of the alley causes me to turn around, and I can just make out Kelly standing there, or Hazel, but it might only be a trick of the light. Looking back, the little girl's eyes are a pair of hard, black pits. "Take it," she says. The egg feels very light in my hand. Flakes of snow hang suspended in the still air. I turn my hand over, and watch the egg fall to the pavement.