by Peter Clines
Debbie and Clive both shifted in their seats. Even Roger looked stunned. “Are you serious?” asked Veek.
Tim nodded. “Say nothing. In three or four days I’ll bump into Oskar and ask if he’s seen her lately. I’ll tell him I loaned her a book or something. That plants the seed. In another three weeks rent’s due and she won’t answer her door. He’ll knock, maybe he’ll call. Finally he’ll unlock it and she’ll be gone.”
Nate looked at him. “And?”
“And nothing. She’ll have skipped out or vanished. I guarantee even if he calls the police they’ll barely investigate. There’s almost ten million people in this city. I’d guess a dozen of them vanish into thin air every week.”
“But she didn’t vanish,” said Debbie.
“Yes, she did,” Tim said. “And we all know they can search this planet for a hundred years and they will never, ever find a trace of Mrs. Knight again. Her disappearance will get handed off, someone will do a routine investigation, and that’ll be it.” He paused. “I’ve seen it happen before.”
Tears ran from Debbie’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” said Tim, “but that’s the way it has to be.”
“I think she has cats,” said Clive. “Someone’s going to have to feed them.”
Tim twisted his lips. “It would look better,” he said, “if the cats weren’t fed.”
Debbie’s eyes blazed. “You are not going to starve her cats,” she said.
He raised his hands. “Then there’ll be a big bag of cat food. The cats will tear it open and eat like kings. I promise.”
She didn’t say anything, but her gaze dropped away.
Tim’s eyes traveled around the room. Roger and Xela clasped hands and nodded their agreement. Nate and Veek exchanged a glance and nodded as well. Debbie stared at the couch arm, but Clive made an agreeable sound for them.
Xela cleared her throat. “Does anyone know what her first name was?”
Veek shook her head. “I only knew her last name. I knew she was a Missus because once she mentioned Mister Knight not being around anymore.”
“I just knew her as Mrs. Knight,” said Nate. “I met her a few weeks back at one of our meetings.”
“Same,” said Roger.
Debbie closed her eyes. “I think it was Linda,” she said. “Or maybe Laura.”
Tim nodded. “It says L. Knight on her mailbox.” He sat down.
They were quiet for a moment as the conspiracy settled over them.
“I think Debbie’s partially right,” said Xela. She swept hair away from her face as she spoke and then jabbed a finger down the hall. The fingernail was cracked lengthwise, from tip to cuticle. “We need to tell someone about that room.”
Veek sighed. “Like who?”
“I don’t know. Someone. NASA? They deal with space stuff, right?”
“And what do we tell them?” asked Tim. “Hey, NASA, there’s space in our building. A whole room full of it. Come take care of that.”
Xela shook her head. “Not like that, no.”
“Well, how then? It’s the same problem. Think of a way we could tell anyone about it and not sound like raving lunatics.”
“Y’know, forget what it is,” said Clive. His head twitched with frustration. “I want to know how. How is there a black hole in our building? And how the hell is it blocked by a wooden door?”
“Language,” murmured Debbie.
“I don’t think it’s a black hole,” said Nate. “I think it’s just... space. It wasn’t pulling us with gravity. It was more, well, the building was depressurizing and we were getting pushed in.”
Tim nodded. “Thus the weather.”
“Oh,” said Clive. “Awesome. Now it all makes perfect sense.”
Xela snapped her fingers. “What about Torchwood? They deal with stuff like this.”
Veek smirked. “You know that’s just a television show, right?”
“Are you sure? I thought it was based on a real group.”
Tim shook his head. “It’s just a television show.”
“Think I know what it is,” said Roger.
Veek rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah.” He pointed across the lounge and through the wall. “Space room’s there, right?”
They followed his gaze and nodded.
His finger drew a line across the room. “Clive and Debbie’s place, the control room, is there, right?”
“Yeah,” said Tim. “What are you getting at?”
“It’s a sandbag,” said Roger.
Fifty Eight
Veek stared at him. Xela twisted her head around. “What the heck’s that supposed to mean?” asked Nate.
Roger straightened up behind Xela. “Lot of time on set you have to put up flags or scrims for the lights and they go way out past the base of your stand,” he explained. He held his hand up by his chin and mimed grabbing something stout with the other hand. “Sometimes we even use these big mambo stands ‘cause the arm goes out so far to get the flag in the right place. When you do, you have to throw a ton of sandbags on the other side to balance it out.”
“You’re talking about a counterweight,” said Veek.
“Right.”
Nate mulled the idea in his head. “So you’re thinking whatever the machine is in their apartment, the space-warp room is some kind of opposing force? That it’s supposed to be there for the machine to work?”
Roger nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We know this thing’s supposed to have something to do with bending dimensions or something, right? So if it’s bending really far that way over there...” His finger traced back across the lounge to point in the direction of 14. “...it’s gotta bend really far the other way to balance out.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying it,” said Veek, “but that almost makes sense.”
“Thanks,” said Roger. “Fuck you, too.”
“It does make sense,” said Nate. “This isn’t a brute force thing. They wanted this machine to run as long as possible. The generators show that. So it makes sense it’d be a balanced machine, something that works as efficiently as possible.”
Debbie shuddered. She pushed herself off the couch and searched around until she found a spot that let her not look at anyone. “I think I need to go to bed,” she whispered. “I want to see if they’re done in our apartment.”
Clive stood up and set his hands on her shoulders. He gave the rest of them a nod. The two of them walked off down the hall.
“She’s not taking this well,” said Nate.
“She’s doing better than most people would in this situation,” said Tim. “We all are.”
“Had a while to ease into it, bro,” said Roger. “Slow steps into madness.”
Xela smiled at him. “How poetic of you.”
“Was in a movie I worked on,” he said. “Actor was an idiot. Heard that line twenty-nine times. Figured we’d all go nuts on thirty.”
Down the hall, Nate saw Clive and Debbie talking with Oskar. He heard the echo of their voices, but not the words. Oskar’s head bobbed up and down. He gestured at their apartment door and talked at length about something. He kept his back to 14 the whole time.
“You think they’re telling him?” Veek murmured.
“No,” Nate said. “Debbie’s shaken up, and I think living across the hall from another solar system is a big hole in Clive’s view of reality. But they’re still with us.”
“You sure?”
He shrugged. “I was in deep space an hour ago. I’m not too sure of anything right now.”
“You and me both,” said Xela. She snapped her fingers. “Y’know what? That’s why the wall in sixteen says ‘danger.’ It’s not a warning for the room, it’s telling you not to mess with that wall.”
Roger nodded. “Makes sense. Don’t want a repair crew breaking through the wall to work on pipes and getting sucked in.”
Veek’s eyes opened wide. “That’s what all the writing on the walls is,” she said
.
They looked at her. “You think it’s all warnings?” asked Tim.
She shook her head. “Think about it. This building’s a big, complicated machine Koturovic and his pals knew was going to be running for years after they were gone. We know the combination for the vault was in Xela’s apartment—it let us get down to the generators. It looks like all the math is Koturovic’s equations, maybe some of the big dimensional physics. The wiring diagrams in Tim’s place are for the different circuits. There’s even a note from the creator in your apartment,” she said to Nate, “but set off from everything else so we know it’s different.” She paused and smiled. “It’s an instruction manual.”
Nate knew he should feel more excited, but his brain felt sluggish and his body was heavy with exhaustion. He looked at the others and saw they felt the same way.
Oskar stepped into the lounge. “The men are done,” he announced. “All broken or cracked windows haff been boarded up. They will all be replaced in the next few days, starting with those apartments which lost both windows.” He waited for them to acknowledge the words before moving on. “If any of you wish to stay in a hotel, Locke Management will reimburse you for the cost.”
“I’m good,” said Tim, “but thanks anyway.”
“Same,” said Xela.
Veek and Nate nodded as well.
Oskar returned the nods. He looked at Nate and his eyes flicked up to the Band- Aid across his forehead. “None of you are injured?” He gestured back down the hall. “I know Mister Holt was cut.”
Nate shook his head. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said. “A piece just hit me and bounced off. I’ve got a hard head.” He rapped his knuckles above his ear.
The manager snorted, then shifted his feet. “I cannot reimburse you for any damages to personal property,” he said. “I am sorry.” He bowed his head and shuffled back down the hallway.
“So,” said Roger. “What d’we do now?”
They all turned to Nate.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe we should think about calling our little investigation done.”
Veek frowned. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged and one of the tendons in his shoulder popped. “We know why the building is the way it is. We know how most of this weirdness works. I’m not sure what else we can hope to find. And...”
“And what?” asked Tim.
“It’s getting dangerous,” Nate said. “Not just possible-eviction dangerous. If this machine is supposed to save the world—”
“It’s still saving the world,” corrected Veek.
“Right,” he said. “That’s my point. We shouldn’t be screwing around with it. I mean, we’re like kids with a nuclear bomb. With a pile of nuclear bombs.”
“You think we should try to forget all this?” asked Xela.
Nate shook his head. “No, of course not. But we don’t want to risk doing something awful to the world.” He gestured up at the television, where the news was now about flooding in the Valley. There were shots of a Japanese garden where the water was ankle-deep. “We changed the weather tonight. We grounded planes.”
“I think,” Tim said, “we crashed one. No serious injuries, though.”
“Aside from Mrs. Knight,” murmured Veek.
Nate nodded. “And that’s all just minor, side-effect stuff. What if we did something and we shut the machine off? Not just tweaked its settings for a few minutes, but maybe broke it?”
“Super-ginormous alpha predators,” Xela said. “That’s what’s supposed to happen, right? Lions and tigers and bears? Dogs and cats living together?”
a whale with bat-wings and tentacles
“Yeah,” said Nate. “Something like that.”
A yawn burst out of Roger’s mouth. “Sorry,” he said. “Wiped.”
“No worries,” said Nate. “I think we all are.”
Roger pulled his phone off his hip and glanced at it. “Shit,” he said. “Call time’s at seven-thirty tomorrow. I need to get to sleep.”
Veek squeezed a handful of hair. “I need to finish a project, too.”
The real world came crashing down on them.
“I guess we’ll talk later,” said Nate. “I mean, if anyone wants to talk about stuff anytime...”
“We know where you live,” said Xela.
Veek glanced down the hall and then up at the ceiling. “What are we going to do about the lock from the roof? That door’s one short now, right?”
“I’ll head over to Home Depot in the morning and buy one to replace it,” said Tim. “It looks like a pretty standard padlock.”
“Oskar won’t have a key for it,” said Roger.
“A little corrosion on the lock and he won’t question why his key doesn’t work, assuming he ever checks it. He’ll just assume it rusted inside, cut it off, and buy a replacement. Done.”
“What if he tries to open this one?” Xela asked.
Tim glanced down the hall. “I feel pretty safe saying that door never gets opened except by stupid tenants.”
A few of them chuckled, but the laughter died a swift death.
Xela and Roger got up, and the rest of them followed. Roger shook Nate’s hand while Xela gave Tim a big hug. Roger moved on to give Veek a clumsy embrace and Xela wrapped her arms around Nate and squeezed him. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He hugged her back and she squeezed him again. Then she released him and grabbed Veek. Roger and Tim had a manly handshake and exchanged punches to the shoulder. Then Roger and Xela headed down the back stairwell.
“I should go check on my friendly detective,” said Tim. “I’m sure there’s some way all tonight’s activity could get spun against me.” He gripped Nate’s shoulder, smiled at Veek, and walked down the hallway.
“What about you?” asked Veek. “Don’t you have work tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Nate said. “Yeah, I do. I just...”
“What?”
He looked at her. “Does this feel a lot like we all just said goodbye?”
She shrugged. “Sort of, I guess. Isn’t it? Sounds like the Mystery Gang is breaking up.”
Nate smiled. “You never see what they’re doing the rest of the time, do you? No idea if they live in the van or they’ve got a home somewhere or what. Do they go to the movies or hang out with other friends or anything like that?”
Her mouth twitched. “Guess we’ll never know.”
“Suppose not.”
Veek took a few steps toward the hallway and her apartment. “Y’know,” she said, “we could go to the movies sometime.”
“What do you mean? Get everyone organized for a big night out or something?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Or it could just be, y’know, us. You and me.”
“You’d want to be seen in public with Shaggy?”
The twitch became a smile. “Shaggy wasn’t that bad. When they got older, all the girls realized he was a lot more fun than Fred.”
“Where would you want to go?”
“The Arclight’s nice,” she said. “We could see something on the big dome screen.”
“Expensive, though.”
“But they have the best popcorn.”
“If we’re talking about getting popcorn, it’s super expensive.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “It’ll be my treat. I should have some extra cash after this assignment.”
“Okay, then.” He looked over at her. “Thanks for watching out for me.”
“Everyone deserves a night out now and then. Even poor slobs like us.”
“I meant...back there.” He tipped his head down the hall.
“Ahhh. Well, no problem,” said Veek. She looked at the floor. “You know, Xela’s probably really grateful. You saved her life.”
“I think it’s you guys who saved our lives. Maybe with an assist from the doorknob. So thanks.”
She smiled. “On behalf of the doorknob, you’re welcome.”
Fifty Nine
&n
bsp; Nate sat in his cubicle and stared at his computer. There was an address form on the screen that had been there for half an hour. It corresponded to the pink return card on the top of his stack.
He’d done six of the forms so far. Six in three and a half hours. It was below his cruising speed of one every ninety seconds. A lot lower than the mythical one every fifteen seconds Eddie kept claiming he could do.
I was in space yesterday. Hanging by a doorknob in deep space.
It occurred to him, for the third time today, that he should switch to returned magazines. More bulk meant he could wear away a larger part of the pile. Like the last two times it occurred to him, he glanced at the mail tote full of magazines and then back to the screen.
The real question is, why isn’t anyone protecting this thing? If this machine is the only thing between us and the end of the world, why isn’t there a Marine base built around the damned thing?
Granted, the machine had stood in plain sight for over a hundred years without being discovered. Or, at least, without being reported. If anyone had found it, they’d kept very quiet about it.
He drummed his fingers on the desk and looked down at the pink card. It was almost lunch. He stabbed at a few random keys without thinking.
He’d typed SPACE into the last field he’d been working on. There was a fifty-fifty chance ALAN SPACE would either get a kick out of his new name or call to complain. If he called, he’d speak with Eddie, who would come talk to Nate. It was a safe bet Eddie’s talk would take at least five times longer than the phone call.
They have found us.
Of course, someone had discovered the machine. Or at least, where it was hidden. They’d chased Koturovic across the city back to Kavach. And he’d managed to keep it a secret, even though they killed him.
He tapped at the keys again and replaced SPACE with ALAN’s real last name. A few more keystrokes and he’d updated the subscription information. Seven in just under four hours. He tossed the card in the trash and peeled another one off the rubber band-wrapped stack.
Something wasn’t sitting right in his mind. He worked back through his thoughts and found himself at his mental picture of Koturovic writing his final message in blood. There was a problem with that image. Something gnawed at him. It was just out of sight, right on the tip of his—