by EJ Swift
A rumbling overhead causes her to look up in alarm. Trickles of dust are beginning to skitter down the walls and over the bones.
“Shit—”
She backs up, turns, runs; stooped, with her arms cradling her head. She hears the rush as the crawlspace they cleared caves in again. When she looks back, she sees plumes of dust. Then rubble.
The way is blocked.
“DID HE MAKE it through?”
From the interior of the hopper, she watches the bunker on her transmitter screen.
“Looks like it. His anomaly lit up like a star.”
“And the chronometrist?”
“She’s all set.”
The wounded man is lying on the floor. His eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. Inga leans closer to the screen, knowing the chronometrist can see her too.
“You know what you have to do and you know the stakes. For all our sakes, behave yourself. No detours. Remember the code of practice.”
The man’s lips tremble.
“As if—I would do anything else, my dear Inga…”
He draws in a single rasping breath. Then the air sighs out of his lungs, his head lolls to one side and he goes still.
“She’s out.”
They wait nervously.
“Okay, Prague’s lighting up. She’s in. And there goes north Paris. She’s crossed.”
How strange, she thinks. Somewhere, not far from here if you measure in distance, the chronometrist’s spirit is floating. If you can call it a spirit. Inga isn’t sure what she would call the chronometrist.
“She’s left us a corpse,” says Efe.
“She always was a generous sort.”
“Inga, how can we trust her?”
“We can’t. But it’s not as if we have another option.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We wait.”
“Are you all right there?”
“I’m all right. It’s quiet. It’s… peaceful, I suppose.”
It’s the end of the world.
She sags back in her seat. When she returned to the aircraft, she attempted to wipe the black dust from the windshield, but already new drifts are piling up, slowly obscuring her view of the silent city. Soon she will not be able to see out at all. A fit of coughing takes her. She tries not to think about the radiation levels, or getting sick, or how long it takes to die alone of radiation poisoning.
If history changes, will all this be redacted? Or will it be something only they have lived through, trapped forever in their memories? Will they even be born?
“South America’s gone,” says Toshi over the comm.
“Just like that,” she murmurs.
“Just like that.”
I shouldn’t be surprised, she thinks. In all the centuries she visited, she never failed to be amazed by humanity’s capacity for destruction. One crazy person with their finger on the red button. That’s all it takes. She wants to ask Toshi about Mexico, but doesn’t dare, and surely she would know, would feel the death of her anomaly like the loss of a lung.
Their hopes now rest with the twenty-first century incumbent. Inga wonders who she is and how she will respond to the events to come. It will be wondrous at first, and Léon’s job is to contain it at that, ensure she completes the mission and then get her the hell out of Paris. But if it continues, travelling will become impossible to resist. Incumbents who swore on their lives to adhere to the code of practice have gone to terrible lengths to return to their anomalies. They have escaped incarceration, deportation and exile. They have lost themselves in time. Eventually, the incumbent becomes like the chronometrist, a thing of air but no mass, disembodied, perhaps immortal, without sensory experience or ties to the physical world. It was the fear of that fate that led the first incumbents to form the code of practice. That led them to where they are now.
“Good luck,” she whispers. “Whoever you are, good luck.”
Part Two
Millie’s
Chapter Two
Paris, 2017
I’VE BEEN IN Paris for three weeks when I find myself outside Millie’s, the bar next door to the Moulin Rouge, the bar I am told will employ anyone with a pulse. Gathered at my back is the neon riot of boulevard de Clichy. Together with boulevard Barbès, Clichy cordons off the eighteenth arrondissement from the rest of the city. Noisy, congested, segmented with sex shops and kebab kiosks and tourists in fur coats queueing for the cabaret, spilling out drinkers from midnight until morning, its central aisle is riddled with addicts, dealers, sightseers and the homeless—whose ranks I am shortly to join, if this afternoon doesn’t go as planned.
I approach the entrance, then swerve away, my hands sweating. On the pedestrian concourse in the centre of the boulevard, two girls are taking a selfie on the Marilyn Monroe air feature, skirts billowing up around their thighs. I turn back. I’ve already wasted thirty minutes wandering up and down, trying to summon the courage to go inside. Something keeps drawing me back.
This is ridiculous, Hallie—even by your standards.
I set my shoulders and walk towards the double doors. This time I’m ready. As I reach for the handle, someone pushes from the other side; the door moves towards me faster than I anticipated, and next thing I know I’m flat on my arse.
“Fuck!”
“Putain—”
I scrabble back. A slender boy dressed entirely in black appears from the other side of the door. He extends a cautious hand.
“Don’t you look where you are going?”
He sounds amused by the situation. I am not, and my nose is beginning to throb painfully. My voice comes out taut and high pitched.
“You opened the door on me!”
“Ah, I did not see you...”
“Probably because you’re wearing those fancy shades,” I snap. “Indoors.”
He lowers the sunglasses and winces.
“Putain, your nose.”
I touch it tentatively, and encounter blood.
“Come inside, I’ll get you a drink,” declares the boy, as though this will fix the swelling in the middle of my face. I give him a proper appraisal. Dark hair and brown skin; a sculptor’s dream of a face with perfectly symmetrical features. He is wearing a leather jacket, slim fitting jeans, a pair of patent, pointed shoes and the aforementioned sunglasses.
“Do you work here?” I ask. He gives me a slight bow.
“Angel, at your service. And you?”
“H-Hallie.”
It’s out before I can catch myself. All this time I’ve spent trying out alter egos and now, when it matters, I’ve reverted. How amateurish.
“Hallie. Enchanté.”
“Angel?” I repeat dubiously.
“The Americans love it, they think I am a slayer of dark forces. You’re anglaise, yes?”
It would be rude to ask if he’s French, so I don’t, but Angel evidently reads the question.
“Algerian, darling.”
“Oh.” I feel the heat rising to my face.
“Not that I would be allowed in Algeria today.”
He doesn’t expand upon this statement and its exact meaning is left unclear—is he gay? Does he have a criminal record? Embroiled in social awkwardness, my meticulous planning is unravelling by the second.
Angel takes pity on me.
“I’m from Marseilles,” he says gently. “Come on, come inside. Millie’s boudoir awaits you.”
Angel ushers me through the doors before I have a chance to explain the purpose of my visit. The interior of the bar is dimly lit, and extends back into the building further than I expected. When we enter I hear a high-pitched keening noise, almost tinnitus, putting pressure against my ears. I hang back, worried it might prompt an attack, but then the noise and my head clear. I reassure myself: it’s going to be all right.
We go up to the bar, where an elfin woman with a blunt, heavy fringe and a dragonfly tattoo at her collarbone is the only visible staff member. She is stripping mint leaves from their stalks w
ith brutal efficiency and tossing them into a plastic box. Seeing Angel, she frowns, as though indecisive about how his return should be greeted. Angel hoists himself up onto the bar and kisses her on both cheeks.
“Eloise, ma chérie, mon coeur, this lovely Anglaise here needs a tissue and a shot.”
Eloise gives me a cursory glance.
“Why, what did you do to her?”
“It was an accident,” I say, then wonder why I’m defending him. He could have broken my nose.
Eloise relinquishes her bundle of mint with a ponderous sigh. Slowly she walks to the other end of the bar, and returns equally slowly with a single piece of tissue. I dab at my nose, wincing. Eloise trickles vodka into a shot glass and inches it over the counter with a gladiatorial stare. I look from her to Angel. It’s five pm, respectably into l’heure verte, but I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.
“I’m not—I mean—I’m looking for a job,” I say.
Angel spreads his hands delightedly.
“Our redemption! There you go, Eloise. You needed a new girl for tonight, here is one right here, looking for a job.”
Eloise looks pointedly at the vodka.
“I was not looking for some harlot you bring in from the street.”
“Eloise,” purrs Angel before I can protest.
“Well, maybe. I guess we could do with some more people tonight. I suppose. I’ll have to see if Kit’s about. You leave everything to the last minute, Angel, and why is there only one bottle of Grey Goose on the top shelf? One! We had ten last week. Don’t tell me you’ve been giving it out to the Moulin staff?”
“Um, if it helps, this guy—”
“No, no, no, no. Kit gave it out, most definitely it was Kit. Now where’s that planning for tonight? You’re my favourite poussin, you know, Eloise.”
“Everyone’s your favourite poussin,” snaps Eloise. “And anyway I’m your manager, I get to say who is the favourite, poussin or no poussin.”
“This guy called Léon sent me,” I say, when I can finally get a word in. Angel and Eloise exchange looks. “I mean—” I stumble on. “I said I was looking for a job—he said to try here—he said to say he recommended me.”
“Did he now,” says Eloise. Her voice is loaded with indecipherable meaning. She turns away. I’m beginning to regret taking the advice of some random guy who happened to be sitting next to me in the brasserie. If it hadn’t been for that smile…
“Eloise is one of the night managers,” Angel explains, when Eloise has stepped off the bar. “She does not like girls. Dutch,” he adds, thoughtfully.
“What’s she got against girls?”
“She doesn’t trust them.”
“Well, I’m not like that.”
“Like what?”
Flustered, I say, “Whatever she thinks they’re like. Should I not have mentioned that guy? Léon?”
“Oh, Léon,” says Angel, as though this should explain everything. I change tactic.
“Who’s Kit?”
“Kit is the top manager.” Angel leans over and plucks a few mint leaves from the box. From the other end of the building, Eloise glares and Angel blows her a kiss. “This mint is brown. Brown mojitos, that is revolting. It was Kit who hired me.”
“Not Millie? The website—”
“Oh—no. Millie doesn’t work what you would call regular hours.”
“Okay.” I digest this. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever had to do?”
“When I worked the nights, I had to clean up vomit all the time. Now I am days. You would start with the nights.”
Vomit, whilst far from pleasant, does not scare me. I doubt Angel has ever had to clean up after his mother decided to siphon her own blood for an art installation. I push the thought of her—of back there—aside.
Eloise comes back and says Kit will see me. I wipe the rest of the blood from my nose and follow her into the back room, where two boys are unstacking armchairs and arranging them into lounge seating. Steps lead down to a wide dance floor and a second bar, smaller than the first. From a DJ box, a guy in a tight T-shirt and cargos is checking the lights.
I pass up my CV, an uneventful affair which I have embroidered with a few industry relevant jobs. The manager, Kit, inspects it.
“Geology?”
“That’s right.” I wait. He doesn’t say anything. “I studied mineral compounds, that kind of thing. It’s kind of like mixology. I mean, obviously the fields are different, but there are definitely parallels. Intersections.” Stop talking. “And I’m a very hard worker. I apply myself. You won’t regret hiring me, I promise.” Just stop.
“We take bartending very seriously here,” says Kit. I restrain myself from saying that it is unlikely to be taken too seriously anywhere else, and offer a chirpy smile. “Your CV says you started university two years ago,” he continues. “So you haven’t finished.”
I clasp my hands together tightly. Remember the octopus, Hallie. The octopus avoids detection through its faultless camouflage, and you—you are the octopus.
“I’m on a gap year,” I say.
“How’s your French?”
“Très bien.”
The manager’s expression suggests it is far from that, but he says, “Can you do a trial tonight?”
“Whenever you need.”
“Fine. You start at eight.”
I emerge provisionally employed, and tell Angel the good news. He tells me I have just missed his dear poussin Gabriela, who he swapped shifts with for tonight, but never mind because it is now the perfect time to go for a beer and meet the staff at the bar down the road. In the hour before my baptism, Angel gives me a short but unsparing run down on all of the staff, most of which I forget instantly. One pint turns into two pints plus tequila and by the time we amble back up the road I am feeling quite light-headed. Again it occurs to me that I have forgotten to eat.
This is about all the training I will ever need to work at Millie’s.
Chapter Three
ELOISE TAKES ME down to the girl’s vestiaire. She presents me with an oversized T-shirt, a bumbag and a cash float. “You’ll be working the front bar for now,” she says. “We may move you into the back bar later.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t loiter. Keep moving.”
“Okay.”
Like Angel, Eloise’s English is immaculate. I am already ashamed of my French, which owes its paltry existence to a C-grade GCSE and recent eavesdropping on café terraces. She shows me the ice machine (“If you’re asked for ice you get it straight away”) and the keg room, a dank concrete cavern stacked with kegs and crates. A line gurgles as lager is pumped upstairs. Again, I hear that keening noise emitting from an invisible source.
“Don’t leave anything down here,” says Eloise. “I want it tidy.”
“Of course.”
“One time I found a peacock in here.”
I stare at her, assuming she must be joking, but Eloise continues.
“It had shat everywhere. Those boys think they’re so funny with their little jokes. They didn’t find it so amusing when I made them clean up its shit.”
In the moment Eloise turns away, I feel an inexplicable shift in the atmosphere. There’s a flush of heat, a thickening in the air around us that acts like an opiate. I breathe out, struggling to shake the dizziness. Blink. A figure stands before me. Or something close to a figure. Its presence isn’t fully formed, but nebulous, composed of wisps and eddies, flecks of cirrus cloud. I can make out a head, a torso and limbs. Then the features of the face begin to emerge, contracted in alarm. Equally startled, I take a step backwards and bump into Eloise.
“Sorry, sorry—”
She gives me an irritated look. I glance back, but of course there’s nothing there. I can feel the residual heat in my face. I hope this isn’t some new permutation of the attacks—hallucinations are the last thing I need.
Our tour concluded, Eloise escorts me back upstairs. The place is beginning to fill
up. After the unsettling experience of the keg room, it feels reassuringly normal, and I’m eager to get started. Angel is behind the bar, juggling limes. He gives me an exaggerated thumbs up. On the floor, I begin a meandering circuit, and am accosted with my first order. From then on, I don’t stop. I take orders for burgers and bloated chips and ferry trays of cocktails. After the first linguistic mix-up, I carry a menu with me.
The bar grows steadily busier. From around half past nine the night team begin to trickle in. They form a huddle around the coffee machine, nursing their espressos, blinking soporifically. With their swaddling coats and the caldera shadows beneath their eyes, there’s something of the gothic about them. Not sinister, but separate, as though they have been set apart by their shared experience of the night. They stir only with each new arrival, which requires an enactment of ritual kisses: two, three, sometimes four.
A customer taps me on the shoulder.
“Hello-o, can we get some drinks here or what?”
“Sorry, yes, I’m coming.”
The group want shots and cocktails. One of the night team takes the order, a tall, angular blonde. She doesn’t volunteer her name, but I overhear it: Dušanka. She has a beautiful, truculent face, studied in its blankness. I wait while she begins making the drinks but she catches me staring and waves an impatient hand. Remembering my first and only instruction—don’t stand still—I melt back into the floor.
When I return, the bar is three deep and Dušanka is standing with hands on hips, long neck strained, completely ignoring any other demands for her attention. Catching my eye, she lifts one hand in a gesture that is purely French but in Dušanka’s body language I can only assume means get your arse over here now.