by Mark A. King
I smiled. “Hello there,” I said. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe I was trying to flirt in an act of bravado and nonchalance.
There was no doubt she was mesmeric and naturally beautiful. She demanded feelings of fear and respect. I felt the desire to prove myself, to show that I was equal to her, that she couldn’t intimidate me. Her eyes terrified me. Those eyes hinted at depths humanity can’t fathom. Dark matter. Dark energy.
“Don’t be a dumbarse, Cal.” She laughed at me. Could she really read my thoughts or was she bluffing? “You don’t need to prove anything to me, you did that a long time ago.” She ran an icy finger up my neck and hooked it under my chin. “Follow me.” She walked past me towards a ladder set in a vertical shaft. “You first,” she insisted.
She followed me down the ladder, which surprised me. If I had the powers she had, you wouldn’t catch me walking anywhere.
We reached the bottom and she nodded to me to try the door in front of us.
It was locked.
When Merla tried, it opened.
On the other side was a tiny station platform, perhaps only a dozen feet in length.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“Waiting for a ghost train, Cal,” she mocked. “What else would we be doing?”
I felt the vibration tremble through the platform, and I sighed as the familiar feel gently shook my feet and worked its way into my ankles. The whoosh was coming—like the wind you get just before a rainstorm. I saw the train headlights approach, the night-vision eyes of a creature in a cave.
The train eased to a stop. The driver was skilled.
Except there was no driver, just an empty seat.
Merla ushered me in. What did I have to lose but my sanity—or my maybe my life? Still, what life was I leading, anyway? Merla was right. I was afraid of what might be, but what sort of existence was that, really?
“Why here?” I asked as I eased into the familiar feel of the seat and laid my hands on the cool, sleek controls.
“This is an abandoned station, Cal. Like the river you visited before, the River Westbourne, this station is hidden from the world. It exists, but it’s concealed below the ground and millions of people walk above it completely unaware that it exists. The river ran through the city, supplying fish, eels, crayfish, fresh water, and leisure. Then it was dammed to form the Serpentine—you know all about the Serpentine, don’t you Cal?”
I wasn’t sure how to take that. “Yes, thanks for scaring the crap out of me.”
“I blame that on Abna filling your head with images that were twisted. The Westbourne River was buried out of sight, a source of life in the beating heart of the city, unseen from human eyes, forgotten and abandoned.”
“Like you?”
“You could say that. Yes, Cal. But also like those who wish to control the city.”
I pushed the train gently forward.
Merla looked at me, but I didn’t want to see her empty black eyes. I gazed ahead into a darkness I could understand. “This station joins the line to King’s Cross. We’re retracing the day you last did this journey.”
“No need. My hypnotherapist already did it with me.”
“Who, Rod?” From the corner of my eye, I saw Merla shift in her flowing midnight-blue dress. “Bless him, he’s a trier, I’ll grant him that. But poor Rod is just selling you the ticket for the ride. I’m taking you on it. Rod can’t move between time and space, can he, Cal?”
The train passed Green Park almost as soon as we left Down Street. We were moving at an abnormal speed. The lines, tubes, and wires in the tunnels came at us like a thousand cans of Silly String unleashed at a surprise party.
“Umm. He did take me between time,” I reminded her.
“Only in your head, Cal. A mere parlour trick. It’s not exactly a train from an abandoned station now, is it? Speaking of cheap circus acts—how’s your friend—the one with the hat and the strange taste in footwear?”
“Abna Neito? How exactly do you know him?”
“Know him?” She sniggered and turned away. Was she wiping a tear from her eye? “You could say I know him. Or knew him. He’s closer than you think. He was called something else when I knew him. It was a different time. Linked space. Same city.”
“He says that he’s the light of the city. Everything that is good about it. The love, the opportunity, the buildings, and the vibrancy. He is our glorious leaders. Our history. He says he’s the very spirit of resilience and perseverance. How we got through the Blitz. He told me ... he told me not to trust you. That you were the darkness, the hate, the evil, the cheaters, the pimps, dealers, muggers, opportunists. You—”
She turned quickly, and I caught a glimpse of her eyes. It was not tears but blood that fell from them.
Merla Kali took my hand in hers. Her touch was cold and needle-sharp, like holding an ice-cube. She raised my hand slightly, then bent and kissed the back it, leaving her lips against my skin as we passed through Piccadilly Circus.
I could see time like a hall of mirrors, an infinite wall of images, choices, and people. I could see myself in other mirrors, other times, but always here—connected across the infinite versions of London.
She tenderly parted her lips and left the feeling of her icy kiss lingering on my hand.
“You are as important to the city as I am, Cal. I can’t do this alone. There needs to be equilibrium—balance. You’re more important to me than you know. Abna is weak. He’s a liar and a fraud. Do you really think that the world is as simple as he portrays? That there are evil villains and saintly heroes? Even the saints themselves were not what we’d think of as saintly. They were real people, with doubts, weaknesses, and frailties. Angels, honoured in many religions and myths, were not angelic. There are no naked chubby cherubs with cute wings. The stories of fierce justice, vengeance, retribution, and brutality are long forgotten. If even angels can be skewed by propaganda, then do we really know the world we live in?”
“Abna isn’t who he says he is?”
“Well—yes and no. He’s who he says he is, but his purpose in life is not as pure as he’s making out. He’s no better than me. Did he tell you that we go back? Way back? That we’ve known each other so long that we don’t count in weeks or years or generations or centuries. We count in civilisations.”
I knew he wasn’t all he seemed. People rarely are. “No, he didn’t tell me that. He just warned me about you.”
Leicester Square whizzed by so quickly I could barely read the signs.
“It figures.” She looked lost in thought. “You know, I saw the first people to settle in London before he did.” Her voice was soothing and calm, like soft summer rain.
Her skin had changed. It was pallid and nothing like earlier. No longer tones of brown, it became a whiteness so intense that it suggested a lack of melatonin, almost to the point of albinism. Her hair was darker.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you another time, Cal. Now we need to act. Abna, or whatever he’s really called, draws new people to the city under false promises. He offers hope to the many, when all that exists for most is nothing more than the struggle for existence. For a few it is far, far worse than that. All I have done is to offer distraction and relief from this dull and inevitable outcome. There needs to be balance. Too much of Abna, and the city dies due to a lack of ambition. Too much of me, and we have what we have now: greed and selfishness, the nightmares, not the dreams. He is weak. He’s trying to blame it on me. The balance is wrong. I am too strong for Abna. We are both fading, but he is fading faster than I am.”
We thundered through Covent Garden.
“You’re saying that if Abna is not strong, then the city is at risk?”
“There are other versions of London that became nothing more than villages, because the dreams of success and ambition come through darkness, and I was not strong enough to influence—to provide balance. Being nice and happy doesn’t drive or power a great city,
Cal.”
“But where you are strong, it does?”
“No. If I am too strong, then humanity doesn’t know when to stop. The weak are punished, the selfish thrive, the gap between rich and poor becomes too great, and the city will eventually fall. This is not my doing. I provide the dreams and opportunities, but people will behave how they are allowed to behave. Without the balance, a city cannot thrive. It needs dark and light. Night and day. Just look at all the great civilizations, they all took it too far.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What’s any of this got to do with me? How do you expect me to help you when I’m just a mortal person?”
Holborn station came and went in a blurred stream of white and red.
“Ahhh. Who said I was immortal, Cal?”
“I just assumed—”
“Best not to assume anything. We’re all immortal to some extent. We came from elements—we are all born from stars. Energy is eternal, it is just transferred into different states. Nothing is lost or wasted. Not even when we die. But what is more important than the physical, Cal? We are more than our bodies Cal. The things we fear, treasure, and remember—it’s only right that they continue as well. So in this sense I am immortal, but then so are you. But can I die? Yes, of course, if that means moving into another state of being. Even suns die.”
“Is this what is happening to you and Abna?”
“Yes,” she replied. “We have been searching for you—and another—for some time. You were in the tunnels of the Westbourne River, and you are here, now, because under the seen world are other layers, unseen. You can access those layers, Cal.”
I dared to look at her against my better instincts. In those impossibly black eyes, I saw my own insignificance, my failures, my inadequacies. But I saw something else, too. I saw a glimmer of who I could be, of what was possible. Something magical beyond the dullness of grey, something worth any risk.
Abna seemed familiar to me, so familiar and safe when compared to Merla that he wasn’t exciting. He was the distant moving headlights of car on a remote mountain in the dark. She was a neon sign, blinking, calling.
I’d had enough of Abna and his illusionist act. I was sick of the medication and the therapy. The meds only muffled Merla’s calling and made it more incoherent. Merla made me see with clarity in a world where technology made us blind, and marketing and politicians befuddled us with con-man tricks and subliminal promises.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, my head spinning. “You are the spirit of London, the same as Abna, yet, different—”
“Like any city is different, Cal,” she interrupted. “It’s easy to look at it as a god of light and a demon of dark. As I mentioned, it takes balance, skill, and sometimes good luck to craft a great world city. Abna has influence over the day in the city, the world most see and live in. I am the same for the night. A city will attract business, commerce, hard work, and personal sacrifice—but there is always release—from the toil and troubles of the working day, from the piety of religion, from the constriction of family, from the responsibilities conferred upon us through choice or circumstance.” She paused and waved in my direction. “Everyone needs to escape, sometimes.”
This, I did get. “So, what does Abna want with me? Why has he been so insistent in finding and pursuing me? For that matter, what is it that you want? Where are we going, exactly?”
“So many questions, Cal. Where do you want me to start?” I went to speak, but she continued before my sounds could be fully mouthed as words. “Forget that. You’ve never really known what you wanted, Cal. Let me take control. We are revisiting the suicide. You’re thinking you missed something, and you’re right. As for Abna—”
“Is this where you tell me that Abna is my father?”
She snorted and let the moment hang for a while before saying, “You do love your movies, don’t you? You’re not getting it are you, Cal? I guess that was always part of your problem.”
Part of my problem? She wasn’t making any sense, and I wasn’t in the mood for pound-shop philosophy. “You don’t know me. You can’t know me. I don’t want any part of this.”
“I know everything about you, Cal. As sure as you are standing there, I know more about you than you do yourself. For every action we take there are consequences. Sadly, the consequences for the city are likely to be severe. And that is why it is now time to decide, Cal.
“Like the Westbourne River, Cal. You think you saw it, but you only saw a small part. It flows to the Thames, it flows beneath the Serpentine pathways, it flows beneath the streets, pubs and restaurants. It squeezes above the platforms of train stations. This is you, Cal. You are everywhere.”
Russell Square shot by. This was the final section of track before King’s Cross. I could feel my pulse quicken and throb against my collar.
Merla Kali’s skin was no longer ashen. It had gone darker and more like my own again. Her voice seemed to change, too, her accent less mixed, more certain. The hints of India were subtle but unmistakable. “Who do you think he is, Cal?”
“Abna?”
“Yes.”
“At first I thought he was part of my illness. I’ve suffered a lot of stress. I see things that I can’t ignore.”
“And now?”
“He’s as real as I am.”
“Interesting choice of words, Cal.” She stood and raised her arms out in front of her. Her dress shimmered in swirls of luminous indigo and cobalt. She placed her palms against the windshield. The train slowed until it was moving at half the speed of normal time. Despite this dramatic change in speed, I didn’t lunge forward or crash through the window. I looked around at the slow-motion universe as I saw the tunnel ahead and the creeping platforms of King’s Cross.
“Abna can’t be seen by everyone, he can only be seen by a few. Those who can see him interpret him in ways that make sense to them. Our eyes are pinhole cameras, nothing more. Our brains try to process the images in ways that make sense to us. If space and time are infinite, truly infinite, then there can be only one conclusion—other versions of Earth, of London. The odds seem impossible, Cal—but infinity means it’s ... inevitable. The lost River Westbourne is buried and runs beneath this city, but in other versions of this city, it still teems with succulent fish, it is still the purest and most refreshing drinking water in the city. Here it become an open cesspool, a butchery sluice, running red with crimson blood and animal carcasses. These are just small examples, Cal. In some versions where Abna is strong, the city is nothing more than a backwater. In others, where I am strong, it is a ghetto of violence and exploitation.”
“But we have balance,” I said. “Just look at where the city is. What it can achieve.”
“You are wrong, Cal. You need to see what is happening. It is in front of you and still you are blind to it. Exploitation, slavery, trafficking, drugs, debt, political chaos—the darkness is almost overwhelming. Don’t you feel I, Cal? It’s time to open your eyes and do something about it.”
“What if I say no?”
“You’re entitled to, Cal. In other places we have had this discussion and you’ve walked away. As I mentioned, there are consequences. What do I care? Soon I will be gone and replaced.”
“So what do I do?”
Merla grabbed my chin and forced me to face the King’s Cross again. “Pay attention, Cal. This is important.”
As we approached King’s Cross, I felt the raging fire that had engulfed this station decades ago. The terrorist attacks of 7/7.
I felt the searing pain of the passengers and commuters, burning through my skin.
Then it passed.
Ahead, was the man who would throw himself under my train. How many times did I need to relive this? The bend. The smile. The jump—
But in the half-speed of the approaching train, I could clearly see the object grasped in his fingers. He waved as he fell—as if drawing attention to it. A small folded object, pink. It looked like paper or card wrapped tightly around a sm
all rectangular shape. A tiny detail easy to miss in the horror of the original events.
Merla stopped the train before I felt the terrible thud again. “Answers, Cal. Here you will find answers.”
“What is he holding? Will the object tell me why Gerry took his own life?”
“Gerry is holding information, Cal. There is a small memory card with evidence on it and a means to access that information. Gerry couldn’t cope anymore. He’d been having visions. He didn’t jump in front of your train by accident, Cal. He wanted you to find the objects. To act on the information. The evidence will start you on the journey of rebalancing the city.”
I shuddered at the desperation Gerry must have felt. “I’ll do everything I can to help find out why Gerry took his own life, but I don’t know what you mean about the city. Is it really that bad? Isn’t that disrespectful to the millions who live here and work hard?”
“Most people are well-meaning, Cal. But it is easy to be blind. Comfort and excess become normal. Too many people are struggling. There has never been more intolerance, neglect, or apathy. Sleeper cells. Cyber criminals. DDOS attackers. Intense secular views verses religious extremists. Depravity against the untouchable elite. Institutionalised corruption and overwhelmed purists—the decisions being made now will affect the future of the city and its place in a new world. You need to help, Cal. London is at a crossroads. Fractured relations with Europe, with England, with the UK, and with the world beyond. It needs new light, Cal. Abna exists in other Londons. Here, Cal—here he is you.”
Iona
At Upton Park station, Danielle Greene had indicated that she had someone else working on her theory, that she was using him to get information on the unit in a different way. Greene told Iona to sit tight and wait for the call—and to search for Maria Mathan while Greene, as promised, would increase awareness of the missing girl.
Iona and Raf trudged the residential backstreets of West Ham. Iona needed somewhere to talk, to think.