by Tim Scott
“We followed the ravens. Who are you? And what has happened to us?” said Nena.
“We are all guardians.”
“Of what? Of pizza?”
“No. Of this city. Would you like to order?”
“But where are we? What has happened to us?”
“You’re in New Seattle. It’s the same city. We’re just on the Otherside.”
“What ‘Otherside’?”
“You have heard of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?”
“Atoms appear to change in character depending on whether you are looking at them or not. It’s impossible to know the speed and position of their electrons at the same time,” said Nena.
“Exactly. And that’s because atoms exist on two sides of the same place at the same time. The same atom exists here as well as on your side of New Seattle. Everywhere has another side to it. It’s just a case of finding it.”
The man took off his sunglasses. His eyes were pricks of white light. “Do you know where the fridge with the virus test tubes is?”
“We have it.”
The man put his sunglasses back on and nodded. “I suggest the Fiorentina. It’s a house special.”
“We didn’t come here for pizza,” said Nena.
“I see. But please, try some. You think it’s just a kind of upscale cheese on toast, and yet eaten in the right way it induces a very particular sense of calm.”
“We’re still talking about pizza here?” said Nena.
The order came almost immediately and it was entirely wrong. I had asked for a quattro formàggi and I got a Fiorentina. No one asked if we wanted garlic bread with that, which made the experience all the more strange.
“The waiters can never know the order and the table number at the same time. So the outcome of the orders is always uncertain. Enjoy.”
So Nena and I ate pizza in a city that looked like New Seattle but was inhabited by only a few people with identical fashion sense.
“The mayor has created a secret laboratory, which is making a fear virus. He releases the virus into the city every few weeks, so that he can push through more Health and Safety directives, build a city wall, and do pretty much whatever he wishes.”
“The mayor is behind this?”
“Yes.”
“And the police?”
“He has them mostly in his pocket. But we have someone on our side.”
“Maddox,” said Nena.
“Yes. He contaminated the last batch of the virus, but the experiment didn’t entirely work. It merely changed it from a fear virus to an irony virus. How’s the pizza?”
“Good,” I said, feeling the overarching strangeness of the situation return in a wave. It reminded me of a time when I had been small and had stood up on stage for the first time. I had never imagined that the world could feel so different. Or that I could be so aware of my own skin.
“An irony virus?” said Nena.
“Actually, that makes sense,” I said.
“Yes. After that, Maddox stole the contents of the laboratory, so that when the place is destroyed, none of the fear virus will be released. But the fridge he had loaded up then escaped.” The man in black shifted in his seat.
“The Tiny Eiger.”
“Yes. And if all that virus was to be released at once, then the city would die. That much fear would cause a huge rip through from your side to this side. We wouldn’t be able to repair it in time, and we would all die trying. And without the guardians, New Seattle would soon die, as well. The city would become prey to all kinds of bad people.” The man had a calm assuredness about him, and a hypnotic quality to his voice than could eke out meaning from the most menial of words.
“So please, bring us the fridge as soon as possible so we can dispose of the virus. I would come with you, but I cannot survive on your side for more than a few minutes.”
“And the ravens?” I said. “Why are there so many ravens?”
“They are attracted by the rips. The virus has already caused some small rips. And the gateway is in so much use as we try to undo the damage that they can sense its presence. I hope you enjoyed the pizza. Now you must go.”
I wanted to mention the lack of an egg, but I held back. “The pizza was great,” I said. “And we’ll bring the fridge.”
I felt a confusing sense of detachment from myself as we walked back through the deserted streets. It was as though my body had left my mind behind somewhere else, and I was only vaguely aware of it falling through some soft, unending abyss. The luminous sky glowed, melding from a darkening turquoise to a thin, pale green. A clutch of wisping clouds raced away to the horizon, dappled with fluorescent shafts that jabbed at the sea.
Nena didn’t say anything. She was caught up in all that had happened and maybe we were both thinking the same thing.
That we wouldn’t be able to get back.
So we walked tentatively through the empty streets. When we came to the building, it looked exactly as it had, but something made me touch the stone to see once again if it was real.
Then we found the door around the back. It opened. The stairs were still there. We climbed them and stood in front of the door at the top.
Weird thoughts ranged through my mind. Maybe we would find our two bodies lying on the floor on the other side, dead. Or maybe the door would be locked.
But it simply opened with barely a murmur and we stepped through.
The room seemed to shimmer as though we were infecting it with the strangeness we had seen.
The chairs and pictures took on a stark, wild energy. We made our way down the stairs, and I noticed the bench where the old man had been asleep.
It was empty.
chapter
SEVENTY-ONE
A storm of noise and confusion.
The sidewalk was packed. And now the presence of this crowd seemed wrong. They had invaded a city that for a while had been our own.
Nena pulled me toward the street. For a moment I got tangled with someone shouting: “The sins of man are but nothing compared to the sins of geese!” I came unexpectedly close to his face and his ruddy unshaven complexion. “Geese are the real sinners,” he cried at me.
I pulled myself free and clawed my way across the sidewalk. Nena had somehow hailed a drongle and was shouting the address into the horn.
We both clambered in and sat down.
Wires hung from the panels in a long, dripping shroud, but finally we moved away as the screens struggled to life with a grouchy cough of static.
“Hi, I’m Dan Cicero, Mayor of Safety. You might have heard of me!” said the mayor, and then the picture froze, with his eyebrows at right angles to each other.
“Yeah, we’ve heard of you,” said Nena.
“Did that really happen?”
“At the moment, I’m thinking that it did.”
“Yeah, so am I.” But there was also a part of me that had already washed its hands of the whole thing. It wanted to think about other, smaller and far more uncomplicated things instead. The drongle dodged on through the traffic as an H and S announcement about cushions began to play.
My mind skidded every time I tried to think about what we had seen. “They had a Fiorentina pizza without an egg,” I said finally as I stared outside.
chapter
SEVENTY-TWO
Mendes was sweating as he folded the map again in the man’s office, and droplets fell on the paper. It was a small place, tucked into a loft, and the roof ran at a jumble of angles. A ceiling fan hung above, unmoving. The corners were crammed with metal boxes.
“Are you all right?” said Pulitzer. “You seem edgy. Is it the explosives? There’s no need. SEMTEX is as stable as anything.”
“I have a fever,” said Mendes. “It’s nothing. And I have had plenty of training with explosives. I was in the reserves.”
“Really? See any action?”
“No. Not really.”
“Well, please tell your colleagues about my products. You
have the lavender and ginseng SEMTEX, but I can do other scents. I hope to get a contract with an entire army, one day. Even it’s only the Dutch. I hear they like reusable products, so I’m working on a reusable bomb. They should like that; it will help save the environment.”
“How could that possibly work?” said Mendes, after a pause.
“We’re working on it. You have a bomb, it explodes once and then, well, the next bit is the part we’re working on. These scientists can do all kinds of impossible things. One of them can make an origami swan in about ten seconds. It’s awesome! I can’t believe you’ve cleaned me out of stock. That’s absolutely all the SEMTEX I have here. The only other thing I could give you are some Howitzer shells.”
“No.” Mendes got up, but the ceiling was not tall enough, so he had to hunch slightly.
“Or a trebuchet. You want a trebuchet? You look like you could really use a trebuchet. I’ve sourced one, and it’s cheap.” Pulitzer’s eyes fired up with energy.
“A trebuchet? I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure? Think about it. You look like you could use a medieval siege engine that hurls rocks or you could hurl other things if you felt like it; you know, odds and ends, ornaments. Must be a great way to get rid of all that unwanted clutter in your attic. Fling it into the distance. Job done. What do you say?”
“No. The SEMTEX is all I need. Now I have to go.” Mendes stooped toward the door, carrying the huge bag, but the other man somehow got there ahead of him.
“Nice doing business with you,” he said. “Stay safe for Mother New Seattle. And if you change your mind about that trebuchet, let me know.” He slipped a card in the man’s top pocket and patted it.
Mendes nodded and made his way down the stairs.
“It could definitely take a dachshund,” Pulitzer called after him.
chapter
SEVENTY-THREE
It was almost dark outside now and the warehouse was slipping into the gloom as the skylights above turned to a deep, impenetrable black. It was also cold.
The fridges had come waddling up to meet us as soon as we walked in the warehouse and I had chided them forcefully about the need to hide.
“What if we had been a Fridge Detail?” I said.
“We didn’t think of that,” said the Ice Jumper. “We were working on a new song. It’s pretty exciting.”
“Well, remember to stay hidden next time.”
I took a walk through the abandoned cop drongles to try and clear my head as Nena found some candles and lit them in a little circle by the fridges.
The flicker of the light had a religious overtone to it. And somehow, that seemed appropriate. There was a pagan sense of awe about what we had seen—possibly not unlike how the explorers first felt when they saw an elephant, or how Galileo felt on discovering the moons of Jupiter.
The axis of the world had changed.
We sat down among the cop drongles.
“Maybe we were drugged,” I said. “Or maybe they hacked our memories.”
“You really believe that?”
“No. But I’m struggling to believe that there’s another side to this city, one that’s empty but for some people with a sharp fashion sense.”
“They used to burn witches. They used to think Belgium was a good idea. Golf was once regarded as a sane pastime.”
“I know. But perspective changes. The world moves on whether you are a part of it or not.”
Fleetingly, I recalled the European law cordoning off large areas of Belgium with tape saying: “Much too dull. Do not pass.”
Then something fell out among the drongles and the noise reverberated through the hangar, snapping the thought away.
“So we’re going back?” I said, but I knew the answer. I had always known the answer. Of course we were going back. You don’t make that kind of discovery then decide to forget about it and play cards instead.
“Yeah,” she said.
We called the Tiny Eiger over and explained we were going on a little trip that was going to involve quite a lot of stairs. I took out the box with the head and put it in the Frost Fox.
“You can look after this,” I said.
“What’s in it?” said the fridge.
“It’s a specialty of the area. You ever heard of a Fiorentina pizza without an egg?”
“Without an egg? Are you crazy?” said the fridge. “What kind of a place would serve you that? Hey! You guys, he’s talking here to me about a Fiorentina pizza, but without the egg.”
Nena went outside. When she had hailed a drongle, she came back in.
“Time to go,” she said.
“You guys look after yourselves, do you hear?”
“No problem. Any chance of bringing us some yogurt?”
“I can’t promise,” I said, and led the Tiny Eiger outside to where the drongle was waiting. As we helped it inside, we heard the fridges all singing:
“Where’s she gone?
Here’s a bit of trivia,
It’s got the highest bridge,
That’s right! It’s Bolivia!
So tell us exactly what he said
about this Fiorentina pizza…”
Then I pulled the door shut with a grating crunch, and the drongle nosed off through the darkness, into God knows what future.
chapter
SEVENTY-FOUR
Rain.
We passed a police checkpoint and I felt my stomach churn. If they stopped us now, we’d be finished. The screens made a halfhearted attempt to flicker into life and then died.
Outside, more people were heading toward the fireworks. I tried to think about anything but where we were going.
“You nervous?” said Nena.
“A little,” I said.
We pulled up near the building. I wrenched the drongle door open and we stepped out into the crowd. It was dark.
Instinctively, I looked around. A fiery red cloud of smoke hung in the distant sky, lit up by the wet city lights, and the full force of where we were going hit me once again.
chapter
SEVENTY-FIVE
Maybe this time, it would be death.
And for a moment, I remembered the dark rearing force that had swept through me in the head hack. I tried to steady my mind.
We climbed the stairs through the silence. There was barely any light. But the glare from the city found its way through the huge arched windows with enough strength to light the treads.
What was on the other side of that door was no more insane than the fact that slavery flourished. Or that people once thought Belgium was a good idea. It’s just showing the world in a different perspective.
“It’s just about perspective. And we are all free to choose any perspective we like,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess we are,” said Nena.
“You can even choose to ignore the truth,” I said, looking at her.
“Yes, you can,” she said, and she met my gaze.
And I had been choosing to see the world through a filter of the past.
We carried on climbing up the stairs, helping the fridge up the treads, which were each a bit of a leap for it.
But holding onto a healthy perspective, that’s the really hard part, I thought. Not forgetting it when you are swamped by events.
“We’re going to keep a mojito cold for him,” said the Tiny Eiger unexpectedly.
“That’s right,” I said, patting the fridge. “You are. Good to hear your voice, little fellow. Come on.” And I realized the revelation had swept away my fear.
We reached a landing and passed the bench where the old man had been asleep.
It was empty.
And for a moment, I recalled the gentleness of his face.
chapter
SEVENTY-SIX
Mendes slipped through the soaked crowds at the down-at-the-heels end of Rainier Avenue as the rain beat down methodically, rapping the tin roofs and spooning off badly made gutters in wild waterfalls.
The
air was heavy, as though there would be thunder.
All about him, people hustled and shouted, scurrying under flimsy canopies, trying to stay under some kind of shelter. Someone up above was scraping a pan. The sullen metallic sound seemed as though it might be heralding the approach of a medieval body collector.
The drongles rambled lazily across the street and steam poured from the vent of a building that looked as if it long ago had given up the will to actually stand up, but somehow still managed to do so out of sheer habit.
Somewhere close by was an entrance to the tunnels in the city wall. He took out the map and unfolded it in the rain.
chapter
SEVENTY-SEVEN
The massive door opened with a recoil of dust, alerting the ravens, and their shadows dropped over the room as they flapped, screeching, at the windows.
We coaxed the fridge through, and the door shut behind us with a soft boom. The sound had a disconcerting finality about it.
We helped the fridge down the staircase, and it made a little leap on each tread until, eventually, we reached street level. Outside, it was just as before, except that now the wind was blowing furiously, and toward the horizon the dark sky was tinted with a deep purple.
Still no one.
The strangeness prickled.
We headed for the Quantum Physics Pizza Delivery Company through the empty, silent streets. Nena encouraged the Tiny Eiger now and again, and her words felt fragile in the emptiness.
The pizza company was alive with lights, exactly as before. We approached down the street, and I felt my life stretch out behind me, as though all the moments from my past were alive, and that each had had some kind of point to it that I had been unaware of at the time. But it had been to lead me here.
“Hello?” shouted Nena as we stepped inside.
But it was deserted, though the lights blazed and I smelled pizza.
“Service needs a little attention,” she said.
“I guess we’re not in any hurry.”
I checked through the menu above the counter. They still had the Fiorentina but without the egg, and I looked systematically through the rest of the pizzas. Quattro formàggi, Napoletana, quattro stagióne, pizza Romana. All the ingredients on those were standard. They also didn’t serve anything else, and I was reassured by that. Pizza places that also sell burgers are breaking some kind of unwritten but important law.