Shell Shocked (The Cosmic Carapace, #1)

by Barnaby Yard

  “Spencer! Good to see you up and about friend. Let me introduce you. Esme and Eva you have already met, dashed similar aren't they?! Twins you know!”

  The twins stifled giggles at this for some reason unknown to Spencer. He pointed at the small figure.

  “And this is our friend Norbert, he's a bit of a scamp aren't you Norbert?” He said in a way that attempted to be fatherly, but came off as gitly.

  Norbert turned to Spencer for the first time, eyes still rolling from Colin's comment. He was short and dumpy, with black scraggly hair which reached to his neck. He fondled a battered purple top hat with pudgy, and somewhat grubby hands. The hat sparked realisation in Spencer, something had been bothering him. It was the clothes. He looked around the group and realised why they looked so odd. The twins plain black dresses now somehow looked dated. Colin's white billowing shirt and black leather trousers now looked more 'dashing pirate', than as Spencer had previously thought 'mid-life crisis.' The overall effect was that this was some kind of fancy dress party.

  “Someone better tell me what the hell is going on right now! Including why you are all dressed like idiots and why the hell these two women drugged my bacon sandwich?!”

  Suddenly he heard a voice behind his left ear.

  “Alright. I'll tell you then.”

  ~~~~

  Spencer was looking at Arthur Spangler. At least, he thought he was. Whoever it was, was certainly the spitting image of him, but at the same time, nothing like him. The incredible eyebrows were still there, but smoothed down and under control. The moustache was there, but had been trimmed back to a less unruly state. His whole manner had changed, his face harder and more pinched. His movements more in control and precise. The biggest difference though, was in the eyes. The genial, mischievous sparkle was gone. These eyes didn't sparkle, they burned with an intensity that was making the back of Spencer's neck itch. Well, that and the fact that Spencer had just been told something that was completely impossible, and completely terrifying.

  “This is a different universe.” This wasn't a question. Spencer just let the words fall out in a dull, flat tone. He knew this was ridiculous, his biggest concern was that that didn't mean it wasn't true.

  “Yes.” A silence followed which made it perfectly clear that Spencer was going to need more explanation than this.

  Spangler continued, “When you tune a radio to a certain station, all other stations are silent. They cannot be heard. To access them, you have to tune to a different frequency. There is a device here which changes the frequency of anything in a certain radius of it. Tunes it like a radio to a new universe. This universe. If you had arrived at the time you were expected this morning, all of this would have been explained to you. As it is, you entered, without permission I may add, as the device was running. Luckily for you, you managed to follow one instruction at least and brought the tortoise.”

  “The tortoise?” Spencer's normally self-assured nature had taken a bit of a battering over the last day or so, and this conversation really wasn't helping matters.

  “Tortoises have a very good sense of their place in the universe.” Spencer looked at the tortoise in his lap, which categorically refused to give any sign that it was even aware of its own existence.

  “The tortoise is...” he hesitated, frowning slightly. ... ”from here in a fashion, from this universe, and so when you entered the transmission, it guided you here. Without it, you could have ended up anywhere.”

  Spencer thought about this.

  “Then why did you write 'Prat' on it?”

  Given the enormity of what he was being told, this would appear not to be high on the list of questions he should be asking. Spencer considered that what he normally thought of as his quite exceptional investigative skills, seemed to be letting him down somewhat in the recent, more pressurised situations. He made a mental note to work on this character defect as soon as he was back at home, with a cup of tea, and hopefully in the right universe.

  A flash of mild surprise glanced across this new, grim faced Spangler, but soon returned the scowl as he answered,

  “We didn't.”

  Spencer thought about this for a second, but decided it wouldn't do to dwell, and ploughed on.

  “Ok, so what is this job that I am supposed to do, in this other universe?”

  “We are G.R.I.N. The General Revolutionary Investigative Network. We investigate slippage between worlds, things that fall through the cracks and into places where they don't belong.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like that unfortunate man you saw last night. He arrived from a world where things are quite different I'm afraid. As you could see, his reaction showed a certain amount of discomfort.”

  “A certain amount, yes, what with the screaming and all that. Hold on. Was it you who knocked me out?!”

  “Not me personally, one of my team. She did however leave a note apologising I understand?”

  “Oh yes, I felt much better after reading that with half my skull caved in, thanks. So how exactly had this man fallen through?”

  “It just happens. I have more important things to do Mr Blake, the others will fill you in on any more questions you may have and show you around.”

  Spencer watched him stand up and walk out briskly. The others were still stood in a huddle on the far end of the table, they watched Spangler stride past them in silence. There was a distinct amount of shoe gazing among the group as Spencer approached.

  “So you are all on board with this are you? This other universe stuff?”

  “Well, yes. Can’t you feel it?” One of the twins answered. “Go and look.”

  She opened the door behind him and gestured Spencer to go through. Spencer strode toward the door purposefully, effecting a look which suggested that he was certain that this was all nonsense, but with just a slight hint behind the eyes that betrayed that the crack of doubt was widening into a rupture. The twin’s words had actually got to him a little. He did feel it in his bones. He had since he had first woken up here. Something wasn't right, something was out of place.

  Him.

  He walked through the opening without hesitation, until he got to the other side, at which point he hesitated so thoroughly, he stopped. The room was full of machine parts. Cogs of all sizes, copper coloured pipes, coils of coloured wire and sheets of metal lay strewn around the top of long benches which stretched off into the distance of the long room. A haze of smoke and fumes swirled around the air, dancing in the light from the enormous round window which dominated the center of the far wall. A central round pane was surrounded by long rectangular panes which shot off in all directions, separated by bronzed metal. It looked like a giant eye, inviting him to look through. He approached it and saw, through its clean and clear glass, a city sprawled out below. Hundreds, thousands of rooftops appeared to climb over each other before him. In the distance he could see lines of tall chimneys belching black smoke into the air. Further to the left, the sea, where he could just make out the masts of tall ships crowded in what he guessed to be a port. It was then that he looked up. Row upon row of lines crisscrossed the sky as far as he could see. Small metal boxes moved along them slowly in all manner of directions. Though, as he looked more carefully, he realised they weren't small metal boxes, they were large metal boxes, just very, very high. He heard the others arriving from the other room behind him. The other one of the twins, he had no idea which was which, came alongside him.

  “This is Augusta, the main city of Two.”

  “Two?”

  “We number them because they're all called Earth.” This was answered by the other twin who had spoken earlier appearing on his right.

  “All?” Spencer said in an excellent portrayal of nonchalance.

  “We've got seven logged so far, not all of them we can get to though. We think they’re infinite and that the further away the frequency of them is to our Earth, the bigger the differences.”

  “Talking of differences, what's that
?” Asked Spencer pointing at the lines in the sky.

  “The Overground.”

  “Right...”

  “It works in basically the same way as the London Underground does, just in the sky. It even has a couple of the same station names, well two, Elephant and Castle and Cockfosters.”

  “Well at least that proves the universe has a sense of humour. So the man I saw the other night, he was from here?”

  “Oh no, he was from Seven. We've only recently been seeing things from there, but from what we've been able to work out, a few items from a lost property bin at Birmingham station leaked through in the sixties. Well, it was the sixties on One, but not the sixties on Seven as they are quite a bit behind us.”

  “Hold on, is my world One?!”

  “Yes, ours is One. We're all from there apart from Spangler and Norbert who are from here, so Spangler said it made more sense to refer to that as One.” Spencer's brain tried to untangle all of this, gave up, put its feet up and decided to just enjoy the ride.

  “Anyway, a bowler hat, a leather jacket and some hippie's multicoloured trousers caused a bit of a stir in what was roughly their middle ages, but not nearly as much as the snorkel and Bermuda shorts did... They thought it was a message from God, but no one was sure what it meant. In the end they split into two factions, one lot wearing the bowler hat, jacket and trousers, or variations of, and the others wearing Bermuda shorts and a snorkel. They've been at war for years, though the fighting seems to have stopped more recently as they've started to argue amongst themselves regarding accessories. We think that man who slipped through thought he had landed in enemy territory and was understandably terrified. The punishment for trespassing is having your bowler hat shoved somewhere delicate. We got him back here and calmed him down before he slipped back anyway. Sadly if you enter a universe where there is an alternate version of yourself, that person pops out of existence.”

  “So someone died when he came through? Someone in our universe?”

  “No, they just don't exist while their alternate version is there. When the other version leaves, they sort of... pop back.”

  There was a pause while Spencer took this in. He didn't really want to know the answer, but he had to ask the question.

  “So did another Spencer Blake cease to exist when I came here?”

  The twin on his right who had spoken to him last, turned to face him.

  “No. You are a unique, there is only one of you across all of the universes, just like the rest of us here at GRIN. That's probably why you were recruited.”

  “Oh, right.”

  A bang echoed down the hall as the two wooden doors at the far end swung open, crashing into the walls on either side. Spencer spun round and looked into deep, brown, burning eyes which made his heart do a small backwards roll. She had wild, uncontrollable mousy brown hair which waved like Medusa's snakes above her head. She wore leather trousers, a white shirt, and leather waistcoat. She was also carrying a length of wood with a nail through it, and looked ready to use it.

  5

  Mr Pall

  The fire jiggled, alive with sparks inside a fireplace that would have dominated most rooms, but not this one. This room could take it. In fact it could probably take anything. An Elephant? No problem. The Argentinian Polo Team complete with horses? Almost certainly. The room gaped. It yawned. It did other things with its metaphorical mouth that made the mind boggle. The four fires that lined one wall were kept constantly lit to ensure that cloud formations didn't occur near around the vast rafters which ran the length of the high ceiling.

  At one end was a richly coloured oak desk. A man sat in the tall leather backed chair which accompanied it and leaned his elbows on its surface. His hands steepled in front of his face, the ends of his fingers lightly touching his lips.

  The figure the other side of the desk in a lower and far less plush form of seating, quivered. A bead of sweat was running down his already slick forehead and making for an escape down his nose.

  “Are you to tell me...” the figure in the tall leather chair began, before a long pause that caused his unfortunate sweating audience to hold his breath for the duration.

  “That you do not know what happened to our man? That his mission remains incomplete? And finally, that you have also run out of... specialists... for this particular task?”

  The perspiring man was now wringing his hands, turning them bright red as they twisted and turned. He rocked slowly forward and backwards as he tried to think his way out of this. There really was only one choice left, but he didn't want to think about it. He couldn't.

  “I would suggest you answer me Mr Geeb or face the consequences. Offer me another name who will not fail, and let me also be clear that if they DO fail, you will then once again, face consequences.” At this, he removed his hands from his thin lips and placed them palm down on the desk in front of him and stared at the unfortunate Geeb. His narrowed eyes became narrower, his thin nose became more pinched, his impeccably maintained moustache and goatee, remained impeccable. It is very hard to stay strong in the face of immaculately groomed facial hair, and the form of Geeb opposite him visibly crumbled, sagging into a heap as he croaked.

  “There is someone.”

  “Who?” The answer suddenly snapped back from below the moustache.

  “Don't know his real name, just know him as Mr Pall.”

  “And is he... capable?”

  “Yes.”

  Too bloody capable thought Geeb. He really didn't want to be doing this. Geeb was a firm believer in gut instinct, and right now his gut was having a similar kind of instinct to a snake who has just been woken up up from an afternoon nap by a mongoose. It was tying itself into a rather complex Celtic knot at the thought of giving up this name. This unpleasant effect was only outdone by the terrific thumping of his heart beating against his chest. However much stock he had in gut instinct, he was all too aware that his head was screaming at him that although there may be terrible danger in the future by offering up this name, there was a definite, terrible danger that was looking at him across this desk which should really have his full attention.

  “Get him.”

  “I can't, but I know someone who can.”

  “Then do it.” There was a slight pause before the man of the impeccable moustache smashed his fist onto the desk causing both the gut and heart of Geeb to huddle together and hold hands.

  “NOW!”

  ~~~~

  Mr Geeb was sat in the darkest corner, of the darkest pub, in what would delicately be called 'the bloody nasty part' in the city of Alexandria. He was not a happy man. Partly because he was waiting to meet a man who he knew to be a violent, sadistic killer, but also because he was having to wait with one Norbert Strang. It wasn't that he disliked Norbert, in fact they had always got on since they had been at school together. That is until now.

  Norbert had always been from the rougher side of the tracks, which was saying something at a school where the star pupils were the ones only involved in mild fraud and larceny. He just had a knack of knowing everyone and knowing everything about them. This would normally have been a great concern for the kind of people they had grown up with, but somehow Norbert was never seen as a threat. He was looked after, protected. People helped him out when they could, finding him work, a place to live, a place to hide some delicate items he had happened to come across...The truth was that he was too inconsequential to worry about too much. He just kind of bumbled around on the periphery of the underworld, but always with one squinting eye on the way the wind was blowing, and one hairy ear to the ground in order to find any gap in the criminal market he could slide into and make a few dollars.

  What had made Geeb slightly less than enamored with Norbert right now was the fact that he seemed perfectly at home in this, almost certainly, life threatening situation. He was currently leaning back into the filthy material of the bench they were sat on, puffing on a slim cigar. He was at this moment relating a story about a ma
id he knew who worked for one of the big houses in the city that belonged to old money. She had apparently been having an affair with the older gentleman who paid her wages and had managed to persuade him to set her up in a nice apartment near the house, and lavish her with gifts. Apparently the wife of this gentleman, herself several years younger, had found out about this arrangement and had paid this young lady a visit to give her a piece of her mind. From here Geeb somewhat doubted Norbert's rather lurid version of events, but an abridgement would be that the two women fell in love and had now bumped off the husband and were living quite happily together in the large house. Norbert's version had a lot more description of the hot and heavy elements, including many chuckles which implied a level of muckiness that Mr Geeb could barely imagine and some words that he had definitely never heard before and wouldn't want to again.

  Mr Geeb wasn't one for imagination in general. He preferred things to be very much tangible, in front of his eyes, and hopefully involving sausages. His stomach was rumbling now. Where was he?

  As he thought this, he caught sight of a man who had arrived a few minutes earlier and sat at the table next to them. He was now removing the cloak and hood he had been wearing, revealing a face that may well keep Mr Geeb off his sausages for a few days. Its individual features were all decent enough. A strong Roman nose, a pronounced chin which led up to strong cheekbones, but then you reached the eyes. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then these needed cleaning. Or possibly smashing in. They somehow changed the whole face into something sinister, malevolent, unnerving. They slithered from one side of the narrow openings that passed for eye sockets to the other, alert and searching. These gleaming black holes were currently focused on Geeb, and below them a thin lipped mouth was curling at one corner into what was clearly an award winning sneer.

  “'Ello. I believe you've been looking for me.”

  This wasn't a question, just a fact that he had wrestled to the floor violently. To Geeb, it appeared that this man would probably do everything violently. He opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out, leaving him goldfishing, his red cheeks deepening in colour. Norbert came to his rescue.