‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ sighed the two-headed rhino-thing, rubbing a knuckle into one of his temples.
‘It’s a probationary measure,’ the goat lectured, calming everyone down. ‘It’s not like they’re getting off scot-free.’ He stared a much relieved Makka-Soj in the eye. ‘You and your people have forty-eight hours to return to your home universe, where we know you can’t do any more harm. Anyone caught loitering after that deadline will be dealt with swiftly and severely, is that understood?’
‘I will ensure that it happens,’ nodded Makka-Soj, rubbing his hands around his wrists. ‘Thank you. Thank all of you. The Torri-Tau will not forget this.’
‘Let’s just hope they forgive it,’ Pierre whispered into my ear.
The giant beetle buzzed aggressively and the blob slid off his chair with a guttural grunt. ‘This had better not be a mistake.’
‘Meeting adjourned, everyone. We’ll be in touch in due course, Makka-Soj,’ bleated the goat, trotting off his own chair. To my surprise he walked upright on his hind legs. ‘To set up trade agreements, legal treaties, that sort of thing.’ As he unclipped the key from the chain around Makka-Soj’s neck, he quietly added, ‘Please don’t make me regret this.’
The whole assembly began to file out of the hall; first the aliens on the benches, then the members of the Council. Only a few stayed behind to make sure everyone departed the Space Between Worlds safely.
Before the goat left the meeting for good, he turned back to where Pierre, Makka-Soj and I were standing.
‘Forty-eight hours, no more,’ he said. ‘Boy oh boy. The world I’m going back to had better look the same as when I left it, for all your sakes.’
‘Well they were a bag of sunshine and pear drops, weren’t they?’ I said as Makka-Soj, Pierre and I were escorted out of the chamber and down the torch-lit corridor by the guards. ‘Real stand-up group of guys.’
‘As much as I disagree with them, now more than ever,’ replied a much more reserved Makka-Soj than the one I’d seen over the mining facility’s television screens, ‘things are hard for them right now. The multiverse is still a relatively new discovery and already it’s in a bit of a shambles. They’re just trying to set some order to things.’
‘They’re not doing a very good job of it,’ said Pierre, as we emerged from the dark corridor into the infinite brilliance of white. Far in the distance I could make out a squiggly black speck. It was the door, and beside it a queue of alien delegates waiting to leave.
‘No, they’re not,’ agreed Makka-Soj. ‘But I have my doubts that anyone else would, either. I suppose I should be thankful to the both of you. Would they really have left us to rot in this place for all eternity?’
‘Oh yep,’ I replied.
‘And did I really try to reshape the entire multiverse to suit the Torri-Tau in revenge?’
‘That too,’ I said, nodding. ‘Though I can’t say I completely blame you. You were stuck in this place for a very long time and they did start some pretty nasty rumours about you.’
‘I’ve got to say, you’re a lot nicer than the Makka-Soj I met in the Space Between Worlds,’ interjected Pierre. ‘The one I met before, I mean. You’ve got a much saner head on your shoulders.’
‘Well, I’ll try to keep it that way,’ he replied, as we arrived at the door. It had been a much quicker journey than walking in the opposite direction, and yet the queue was gone. ‘If what all you said is true, you’ve both done the multiverse a great favour. Now if you don’t mind, I’d better get going. Three billion Torri-Tau aren’t going to banish themselves…’
‘You’re going to leave, then? You’re going to do as they asked?’
Makka-Soj shrugged. ‘Don’t see what choice I have, really. But it’s fine. Our universe contains the same rocks and stars as any other. And maybe the Council are right to introduce regulations. One universe should be enough for anyone. Every other is just a mirror, a replica. They’re fascinating and they’re tempting to stare into… but in the end they’re still only a reflection. Then again, what do I know? Apparently, my people haven’t got one.’
One of the guards used a key to open the door for Makka-Soj. He paused in the doorway.
‘I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you to get here,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure glad you came. Thank you, again.’
And with that he was gone. The door was closed, and reset, behind him.
‘Where to?’ asked one of the guards.
Pierre fished out his own key. ‘Don’t worry, we’re good.’
The guards looks at each other and shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ They departed the Space Between Worlds together, leaving Pierre and me alone in the great, empty expanse.
‘So that’s it,’ I said. ‘It’s all over. We actually did it.’
‘Yeah. We actually did it.’
‘And now we have to go back.’
‘Well, I suppose we don’t have to. But yeah.’
We stood there in silence, staring at the door.
‘I think I’m scared to go,’ I said, my voice soft and low. ‘I’m afraid that the world won’t be as I left it. I’m afraid everything will have changed, that in this new timeline Chloe and I will never have been married and Sam will never have been born.’
‘You don’t know that. For all you know, everything will be exactly the same as before.’
‘Yeah. And going back to that almost scares me more.’
Pierre put his arm around my shoulders and led me to the door. Before I even knew it the key had been turned in its lock and Pierre’s other hand was resting on the handle.
‘No matter how the world looks, we’ve got to face it sooner or later,’ he said. ‘It’s reality. We can’t run from it forever.’
He opened the door, and home we went.
Chapter Seventeen
It’s been almost three months since we came back from the Space Between Worlds, and I am having a barbecue.
I suppose I ought to fill you in on a few things.
To Pierre, the whole Torri-Tau debacle now seems like nothing but a tiresome speed bump in the road of relative normality. And of course it would; three months is the same length of time that bridged my disappearance into the multiverse with my sudden reappearance at the bar in Port Iridium. Pierre’s fine. He snapped back to his old self within minutes of stepping through that door. But for me, it had only been a few days since I’d accidentally shot my doppelgänger and become an inter-dimensional fugitive. The idea of returning home was terrifying, and I’m still not altogether quite used to it.
I’d also presumed my return would be problematic. I was supposed to be dead, after all.
We had discussed that matter, Pierre and I, as we walked along the Thames back towards Le Petit Monde. We would make an appointment with the Council and remind them of our not-insignificant contribution to maintaining peace throughout the multiverse, and see if they couldn’t fiddle with some official records regarding my apparent suicide. Or at least get me my driver’s licence and National Insurance number back.
It turns out we didn’t need to. Although Earth now looked much the same as it was supposed to, our act of talking to the Council and letting the Torri-Tau go free had had some minor consequences. Chief of which was that I’d never died. Or rather, I’d never killed that other (happier, more handsome) version of myself.
We checked the hotel records, once Pierre had gotten over his near-hysterical elation that Le Petit Monde was not only still standing but that he remained registered as its Head Concierge. There was no record of any suicide. There was no record of me ever checking in, for that matter.
Both of those facts filled my veins with a curious cocktail of anxious fear and blissful relief.
Pierre’s emotions were, well, at least a little easier to read. He won’t admit it if you ever ask him, but I swear I saw him shed more than a few tears when Viola and Wesker came wandering out into the hotel lobby to meet him. They didn’t look ecstatic, only confused. Not
hing had been out of the ordinary, as far as they were concerned. Neither of them recognised me at all, which saddened me more than I expected it would. Pierre escorted them both back to the bar and explained to them everything that had happened the past day or so over a couple of whiskeys. They were both amazed and appalled by our story, but neither doubted it for a second.
Once that was over, and with the whiskeys having somewhat settled my nerves of coming back to my own reality, I climbed into a taxi headed back to Littlewick Green - all paid for in advance by Le Petit Monde, of course. It wasn’t as if I had a wallet on me anyway. As we pulled away from the kerb I caught sight of a grumpy Mr. Boyle lingering on the hotel steps, much to my dry amusement.
A lot of things about that car ride back to my cosy cottage were solemn. The weather, for one. The rain pelted against the windows so hard that the London skyline appeared to melt like a Salvador Dali painting. The ride, for another. It was as if the driver deliberately chose the most cobbled streets to drive down. I leant my elbow against the door and my chin against the palm of my hand, staring out at the city, dreading each mile that drew me closer to my empty home.
‘That Le Petit Monde, right?’ the taxi driver had laughed, not long after we set off. I paid him little attention, but he had a Polish accent. That much I remember. ‘God, the stories I could tell you about that place. I’d sell my right arm to spend a couple of nights in there, I’m telling you.’
I offered him a dry smile and we spent the rest of that long journey in silence…
…until suddenly we were stopped outside my cottage. The rain was still relentless, and I still hadn’t an umbrella to hand. The second I shut the door of the taxi behind me it pulled away through the oceanic puddles, leaving me standing alone by the gate outside my garden, contemplating my cold front door.
Sam. Chloe. So many happy memories locked inside, diluted by all those years of mourning until nothing remained but trace amounts. Only someone with a blithe allergy would ever find them.
Will their ghosts be gone, I remember wondering, as I stood there getting soaked, now that I’ve had a chance to see them - to save them - one last time? Or have I only made things worse, the way watching a video cassette too many times can make the picture distort and warp?
And with that worry reeling about inside my mind, I pushed open the sodden, wooden gate and walked towards that cold and empty door, sure as sure can be that behind that door lay a cold and empty-’
‘Are you going to turn that sausage over, George?’
Pierre’s voice snaps two things: me out of my daydream, and my head up from the smoking grill. He’s standing on the other side of the barbecue with a cold bottle of beer in each hand. They’re still wet from the cooler. He’s wearing summer clothes - shorts and a Hawaiian shirt - which I still find utterly disconcerting over an hour and a half after his arrival.
‘Come on, George. Flip it. It’s starting to look like a fossil. The pig hasn’t been dead that long.’
I grip the sausage in question with my tongs and turn it over. It doesn’t come easily. Some of it remains charred against the metal bars of the grill.
‘If you wanted gourmet dining, you should have brought your chef along,’ I reply, relieving Pierre of one of his beers.
‘What, Mahieu? From the hotel? In this weather? I wager he’d cook faster than the meats.’
‘Is Pierre being mean to you, George?’ Viola steps out from the house and saunters up to where Pierre and I are standing. She glares at him affectionately. ‘Don’t listen to him. He’s just irritable because he doesn’t like leaving that Ashley girl in charge of reception. He’s worried she’ll do a better job than him.’
‘Very funny,’ he says with a sarcastic smile. Viola plants a kiss on his cheek, snatches a carrot baton out of the Tupperware box on the table beside my grill, and wanders in the direction of Wesker at the bottom of the garden. He’s lounging in an old deckchair I rescued from the shed. Unlike Pierre, Wesker’s summer wardrobe only constitutes rolling up the sleeves of his shirts.
I airlift the burnt sausage off the barbecue and drop it into a bun for Pierre, then repeat the motion for my burger. With a little ketchup it doesn’t taste half bad, even if I do say so myself.
‘At least sausages still taste the same,’ Pierre muses. ‘Have you tried eating a pineapple since we got back?’
I think about this for a moment, then shake my head.
‘Absolutely ruined,’ Pierre declares. ‘Way too sweet. Everyone else still seems to like them though. I guess I never really ate them much except when they came on gammon, but still. Shame to miss out.’
‘How’s the wider multiverse?’ I ask. ‘Any big changes I ought to know about?’
Pierre shrugs and takes another bite from his hotdog. ‘Nothing I’ve noticed. It’s not as if I can exactly ask anyone. Nobody’s any the wiser for what happened… except for us, that is. I imagine it’s just the small things, same as here.’
I nod. It is the small things, mostly. The mailbox out in front of my neighbour’s house has changed from a sky blue shade to that of a blushing flamingo. The number 641 bus boasts another stop along its route. The price of a 400g box of strawberries down my local supermarket has gone up by 27p, though it’s possible that I simply hadn’t noticed the difference in cost before.
‘Haven’t managed to burn the whole garden down yet, I see,’ comes a sweet, mocking voice from behind me.
I turn around, still with half a bite of burger in my mouth, and smile. My wife is leaning out from the kitchen doorway in a knee-length dress, one foot down on the stone step outside, smirking. She looks both innocent and mischievous at the same time, and it makes my heart beat something terrible. It’s been three months, but each time I see her it’s like I’m getting her back for the first time.
Before I can swallow my mouthful and come up with a witty retort, a small and fluffy-haired shape goes barrelling past Chloe’s legs and across the patio, nearly toppling Pierre over in the process.
‘Sam, be careful,’ Chloe cries out after him. ‘You’ll hurt yourself running like that. No, I don’t think Mr. Wesker wants to look at your action figures right now, honey…’
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I say, watching my son as he races down the garden towards a rather bemused Viola. ‘He just wants to play while the sun’s out. Let him have his fun, he won’t be any trouble.’
‘Don’t worry, Chloe,’ Pierre says, plucking his beer off the table. ‘We’ll make sure Sam doesn’t come to any harm. Viola’s quite good with kids, promise.’
‘If you say so,’ laughs Chloe. ‘I’ll be back out in a minute, I’m just finishing up the cheesecake.’ She shoots me a wink and retreats back into the quiet, shaded sanctity of the house. I watch her dress swish behind her as she leaves. It’s hard to watch her go, even for a moment. I’m afraid each time she does, in case she never comes back again. I’m scared to blink in case I wake up from this dream.
Sam cries out and my attention snaps back to the garden, but it’s a false alarm. He’s laughing at Wesker’s moustache. Now Viola is laughing too. I don’t blame them; he looks like a Shoreditch hipster who never grew out of his suspender phase. I wish I could walk over and join them but then everything on the grill would burn, so instead I just hand my tongs on the rack, let a proud smile spread across my face, and watch. I have all the time in the world.
And you know what?
For the first time in quite a long while, I’m happy.
Okay. So maybe not all the changes in the multiverse were quite so small after all.
THE END
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About the Author
Tom (T.W.M.) Ashford is a British novelist. He lives in London with his American wife, not far from where he was born. He has moved in that time, he promises.
He's written hundreds of scripts and copy for some of the biggest companies in the world, and previously published articles on games and films. He has been known to play a bass guitar on more than one occasion, and sometimes well.
But, of course, his main passion is writing fiction. His books include the Blackwater trilogy, the Checking Out series and numerous standalone adventures.
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Also By T.W.M. Ashford
Everything Ends
Blackwater: Vol. One
Checking Out
Mouth of Midnight
Blackwater: Vol. Two
The Portrait Lingers Like a Whisper
Blackwater: Vol. Three
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