by Hugh Macnab
inter-worldy door and the rules governing our world won’t work in your ancient three-dimensional world.’
‘But, we don’t need to create the door in my ancient world,’ said Shylock, unable to prevent himself from resenting the derogatory descriptive term the Elements used to describe his home planet. ‘We have to create it here and go through it.’
‘Hmm, I suppose might be possible, but we won’t know till we try,’ said the Elements, turning to Absolute-Zero. ‘How about it, Abzi. Care to give it a try?’
Before anyone could say Boo, Infinity landed with a thump on the beach, as it appeared that Absolute-Zero had indeed decided to go behind the beach in Get Lucky and think up an inter-worldly door…but as no-one could either see Abzi, nor see behind the beach, it was pretty difficult to know what was happening. It was Permission who was able to help.
‘He’s created a gate but hasn’t decided where to put it yet,’ she told them.
‘How do you know that?’ asked Shylock.
‘One advantage of my third eye,’ she smiled.
‘You can see behind Get Lucky?’ Bb asked.
‘Mmm, hmm,’ replied Permission. ‘Shylock was right though. There’s absolutely nothing there, apart from Absolute-Zero of course.’
‘And he’s created a gate?’ asked the Elements.
‘Yes. A pink one,’ she informed them.
‘Pink!’ said Bb. ‘In my shop?’
‘Sssht,’ said Shylock. ‘Stop complaining. Who cares what colour it is, as long as it works.’
Just then Mass re-appeared carrying a white picket gate, and simultaneously Permission shouted that Abzi had hung the gate in place.
‘What gate?’ asked Mass, scowling.
‘We’ll tell you later,’ the Elements told him. ‘Just leave your gate there for now.’
‘Fine with me!’ huffed and puffed Mass, dumping the gate unceremoniously on the beach where it promptly disappeared. ‘Hey, where’s it gone?’ he shouted.
‘Ooops. Sorry,’ said Bb. ‘I’m afraid that’s my constancy spell that caused that.’
‘Great, just great! Hrrmphed Mass. 'As long as I get it back. I've had to sign for it, you know.'
‘Come on,’ interrupted Shylock. ‘Let’s try the other gate.’
However, try as they may, none of them could turn around to see the gate which Abzi had placed behind Get-Lucky. Only Permission could see where it was. ‘I’ll guide you,’ she offered. ‘Who’s going ? In fact, who’s going full stop?’
‘Well, don’t look at us,’ said the Elements immediately. ‘We’re just here to build the gate, not to go through it.’
‘But what if it doesn’t work, and we get stuck who knows where on the other side?’ asked Bb. ‘Who would fix it?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that sort of thing,’ replied the Elements. ‘We’re quality assured. You’d get your money back.’
‘A fat lot of use it would be to me if we were stuck on the other side and couldn’t get back to collect,’ said Bb, not at all keen on the proposed other-worldly adventure, now that he understood the financial risks involved. ‘Perhaps I should stay here?’ he suggested hopefully.
‘Forget it Bb,’ said Permission. ‘Your coming with us.’
‘What if one of you comes with us, as a kind of insurance policy?’ suggested Shylock, speaking to the combined Resources Inc. ‘Then, if something isn’t right with the gate, you could fix it and come back to Wilderment. After all, we are paying good money for this.’
‘Oh, very well,’ agreed the Elements, looking around the faces of his colleagues and seeing no enthusiasm whatsoever, ‘I suppose it has to be me.’
‘Excellent,’ replied Shylock. ‘Then, the four of us it will be. Now, we just need a wheel-chair for Bb and we can be off.’
‘I just hope dragon’s are common-place where we’re going,’ muttered Bb. But no-one heard him.
Home, sweet home.
Bb insisted on wheeling himself through the gate first. It seemed that he was suffering pangs of guilt for having trapped Shylock in Wilderment in the first place. Shylock followed next and was greatly relieved to find himself back outside the mirror-glass-fronted entrance to Get-Lucky. Permission arrived next, followed by the little green dragon bringing up the rear.
Shylock took in a deep breath, stamped the real solid-ground beneath his feet, and surveyed the comfortable familiarity of his surroundings. Everything looked pretty much as it did before he entered Wilderment, at least almost everything….
‘Oh no!’ shouted Permission, turning and seeing Bb slowly rise from his invalid’s chair. ‘Look at Bb! Quick, catch him!’
Reflexively, the dragon jumped and caught Bb’s hand, just managing to drag him back down to ground level. ‘Different gravity?’ Bb suggested, still involuntarily tugging upwards against the dragons pull.
‘I don’t notice any difference,’ said Permission. ‘Me neither,’ agreed the Elements.
‘Well, whatever causes this…we have an extra problem, we don’t really need. Maybe I should just go back?’ Bb suggested.
‘No way,’ said Shylock. ‘We’ll tie you into your wheel-chair,’ he said, removing the belt from his gabardines ‘This will have to do until I can get you home. Then we’ll figure out some better solution.’
‘Well, if you’re all satisfied that you are in fact back on Earth,’ said the Elements. ‘I’ll just be getting back.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Shylock. ‘Everything seems fine. You have done a fine job and earned your payment’ he said, fishing the small silver coin out from his pocket and holding it out towards the dragon - but, before the Elements could take it, Permission inadvertently triggered an uncomfortable concern.
‘There aren’t many people around, are there?’ she observed.
At the last possible moment, Shylock closed his fist on the coin and snatched it back, just before the dragon could take it. ‘Yes, now that you mention it, I thought something was bothering me. Where are the people?’ he repeated.
‘Probably asleep,’ suggested the Elements, keen to collect his payment and get back to the card game at Infinite Resources Inc.
‘Not in the middle of the morning, which was the time of day when I entered Get-Lucky,’ Shylock explained. ‘In fact, it was quite busy that morning as I recall.’
‘Well, perhaps they’ve all gone for an early lunch?’ suggested Bb, hopefully.
‘There should still be people around, even at lunch time,’ said Shylock, now both concerned and suspicious.
‘Look,’ said Permission, pointing across the road. ‘There’s a food eatery over there. Why don’t we check it out?’
Without replying, as one they all stepped – or wheeled in Bb's case - from the walkway and crossed the road towards the restaurant with a large letter – like a huge double golden archway – over the top of it.
This time Shylock was the first to enter and look around. No-one. No customers. No staff. The place was empty. Stepping back outside he moved to the next shop - Bargain Books, and peered in the window. The same. No-one inside. Panicking now, he ran to the next shop, and the next – each time looking for someone, anyone, but finding no-one.
The Elements groaned, realising a few more seconds and he could have had the silver coin and been back in Wilderment. Experience had taught him to collect payment as quickly as possible, then, even if you really had to give it back there were always ways of delaying, not to mention that you may have gone bankrupt in the meantime and not have to pay it back at all. These troublesome installation problems were always a pain.
Permission had gone the opposite direction from Shylock, looking in a realtors, a bank and a coffee shop with the same result as Shylock - no-one in sight. She returned just as Shylock told them his result, agreed with him but added one refinement. ‘One thing is particularly odd,’ she said. It doesn’t just look like there’s no-one around. It looks more like there never was?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Shylock.
‘Look,
in here,’ she said, leading them back towards the coffee shop and entering. ‘Look. There’s no food, no coffee. There’s everything we would need to make whatever we wanted, but everything’s new. See,’ she said, lifting a large jar of coffee and unscrewing the lid. ‘It’s full, and the seal isn’t even broken.
‘And there’s no smell,’ added the Elements. ‘No Human-smell, present company excepted of course.’
‘And so clean and tidy,’ observed Permission.
‘So, what’s going on?’ Shylock asked the Elements. ‘Did your gate work or not?’
‘Of course it worked,’ the Elements replied, flicking his tail nervously. ‘At least I think it did. We’re here aren’t we?’
‘But where is here?’ asked Permission.
‘Here is fine,’ said Shylock. ‘This is my home town, no doubt about it. I recognise too many small details for it to be anywhere other than home. But where is everyone?’
‘And why is everything so new?’ asked Permission. ‘It’s almost as if everything has just been newly created.’
‘Or imagined?’ said Shylock, his suspicions suddenly crystallising around Bb, who had been remarkably quiet throughout this whole discussion.
Bb flushed as everyone turned to look at him. ‘Why…why are you looking at me?’ he stammered.
‘Beeebeee,’ Shylock uttered. ‘You did this, didn’t you?’
Bb studied the ground intensely, remaining silent.
‘But why?’ asked Permission. ‘Why would you do this Bb?’
‘Because he knew the gate wouldn’t work?’ suggested the Elements.
‘But how was he able to create such a