“It’s Floyd,” he announced.
Custine opened the door cautiously and then let him in. He had pushed the wireless set back against the wall, leaving no sign that it had been tampered with. Even his tools were packed away.
“Anything new?” Floyd asked.
“Nothing. Whoever was transmitting those signals is still off the air.” Custine made a tiny adjustment to the dial. He sat down cross-legged on a pillow in front of the wireless, his unlaced shoes placed neatly side by side next to him. “I’ll keep trying.”
“Good. In the meantime, I need to talk to whoever it was you said saw that child hanging around the place.”
“The little girl? Floyd, you don’t seriously think—”
“I’m not ruling anything out.”
“Then speak to the gentleman on the second floor. The room next to the broom cupboard. But he’ll only tell you what he told me.”
“Maybe I can jog his memory.” Floyd looked guiltily down at his friend. Custine had been in here working hard while Floyd had been promenading through the gardens and eating ice cream. “You want anything? I can fetch you a coffee.”
“I’m all right, thanks.”
“You eaten?”
“Not since breakfast.”
Floyd reached into his pocket. “Have an apple on me.”
Floyd took the stairs down to the chequered linoleum of the second-floor landing. He knocked on the door next to the broom cupboard, waited a few moments and then knocked again. He pressed his ear against the door and listened for signs of life, but there was no sound of anyone inside. He tried the handle, but the door was locked. Floyd shrugged: it was the middle of the day and therefore quite likely that the tenant was out earning a respectable wage. He’d been the only one to mention the odd child to Custine, but that didn’t mean none of the others had seen something. Perhaps they just needed to be asked the right question.
Floyd flipped his notebook to a clean page and knocked on the door of the other apartment on the second floor. After a moment, he heard the shuffle of approaching slippers followed by a rattle of locks and chains. An elderly woman in a floral apron appeared at the door, opening it just enough to eye him with the instant suspicion Floyd normally reserved for salesmen.
“Excuse me for disturbing you, madame,” he said. “My name is Floyd and I’m investigating the death of the young American woman three weeks ago. I believe my partner, Monsieur Custine, may already have paid you a visit.”
“Yes,” the woman said guardedly.
“There’s nothing to be alarmed about. It’s just that one of the other tenants made a remark that meant nothing at the time, but which might be significant now.”
She wasn’t going to let him into her rooms. “I told your partner everything I could about the American girl. I hardly knew her.”
Floyd didn’t need to ask the old woman’s name—Custine would have already made a note of it. “This wasn’t specifically about the American woman. All the same, did you ever speak to her?”
“Not a word. We passed on the stairs now and then. I didn’t go out of my way not to speak to her, but at my age…” Something in her expression seemed to soften, some crack of trust opening up even though she still guarded the door like a fortress. “I’ve lived in this building for a great many years, monsieur. There was a time when I made a point of getting to know everyone who lived here. But nowadays the young people come and go so quickly that it’s barely worth learning their names.”
“I understand,” Floyd said sympathetically. “I live in a building like this in the fifth. It’s always the same—people coming and going.”
“Still, a young man like you—you would probably have known her name. She was very pretty.”
“From what I can gather,” Floyd said, “she was a very nice young lady. That’s why it’s all the more important that we find out what happened to her.”
“The police say she fell.”
“There’s no doubt about that. The question is, was she pushed?”
“They say she was just a tourist. Why would anyone want to harm someone like that?”
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”
“Have you spoken to the widower on the next floor up?”
“Monsieur Blanchard? Yes, we’ve had a chat. He was very helpful.”
“He knew her better than any of us.” The woman leaned towards Floyd and lowered her voice. “If you ask me, there’s something not quite right about that.”
“I think it was all above board,” Floyd said. “The American girl liked to put money on horses. Monsieur Blanchard helped her study the form.”
The woman pursed her lips, evidently not convinced by Floyd’s defence of the landlord. “I still think that a man of his age… well, never mind. Who am I to judge? Was there anything else, monsieur?”
“Just one thing: are there any children living in this building?”
“There was a young couple with a baby on the fourth floor, but they moved to Toulouse last year.”
“Since then?”
“No children.”
“Then you’ve never seen any other children in this building?”
“People visit now and then and bring their children with them.”
Floyd tapped his pencil against the notepad. “But what about unaccompanied children?”
“Occasionally. Monsieur Charles, who lived on the sixth floor, used to have a daughter visit him on Sundays.”
“Lately?”
“Not since they buried him in D’Ivry.”
“And since then? Any other children?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Think carefully, madame. Have you ever seen a little girl in this building, especially in the last few weeks?”
“I think I would remember, monsieur, given how unusual it would have been.”
Floyd snapped shut the notepad without having written a word. “Thanks for your time, madame.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“You’ve been more than helpful.” Floyd touched a finger to the brim of his hat and stepped away from the door as she closed it. He heard the securing of multiple locks and chains.
There were no other rooms on this floor, so Floyd set off up the stairs towards the third-floor landing. He had reached the halfway point when he heard the urgent unlocking of the old woman’s door as latches were thrown and chains undone. He halted with one hand on the banister and looked down.
“Madame?”
“I just remembered,” she said, her voice quavering. “There was a child.”
“A little girl?”
“A very strange little girl. I passed her on the stairs late one evening, when I was returning to my rooms.”
“Where had you been, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Nowhere. I sleepwalk occasionally—it’s a terrible thing to admit—and sometimes I let myself out of my rooms and wake up at the bottom of the stairs. It must have been three or four weeks ago when this happened. I glanced at her face, and…” She shuddered.
“Madame?”
“When I woke up the next morning, monsieur, I thought I must have dreamed about that little girl.”
“Maybe you did,” Floyd said.
“I hope so, monsieur, because when I looked at her face, I saw the face of evil itself, as if the Devil was in this building, in the form of a little girl. And the worst thing was that when she looked at me, I could see that she knew exactly what I was thinking.”
“Could you describe her?”
“About eight or nine. Maybe a little older. Her clothes were dirty, ragged. She was very thin. I saw her arm on the banister—it was like a skeleton’s, all lean and bony. Her hair was too black, as if it had been dyed. But the worst thing was her face. Like the face of a witch, or something left out in the sun too long.”
“Let me put you at your ease,” Floyd said, smiling. “You must have had a nightmare.”
“How can you
be so sure?”
“Because that’s not the little girl I was hoping you’d seen, who might possibly be a witness.”
“You’re certain?”
“The girl I’m looking for had the face of an angel. Little pigtails and rosy cheeks.”
“Thank goodness,” the woman said, after a moment. “Then I must have dreamed it after all. It’s just that when you mentioned a little girl…”
“I quite understand. I had a very bad nightmare myself only the other night. When I woke up, it took me a while to realise it hadn’t really happened. You mustn’t feel bad about it, madame. She won’t be back—you needn’t worry about that. I’m just sorry I made you remember her in the first place.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Please, try not to dwell on it. I’m very grateful for your help.” Floyd reached into his pocket. “Did my partner leave you with a card, just in case anything else occurs to you?”
“Yes, I have the card.”
“Please don’t hesitate to call.”
She closed the door. Floyd hoped he had reassured her—the last thing he wanted to do was go around scaring old people out of their wits—but as he turned away he heard her securing at least twice as many locks and chains as the first time.
“We didn’t build any of this shit,” Skellsgard said. “We just inherited it. Unfortunately, it means we have to play by their rules, not ours. And their rules say nothing dangerous makes it into Paris.”
They stood next to a two-metre-high hinged, circular door set into the wall. The frame was peppered with bee stripes and warning decals, with padded handrails set around it. Whatever was beyond that door, the signs clearly indicated, was unlikely to be good for one’s health.
“Nothing dangerous?” Auger asked. “You mean like weapons, bombs, that kind of thing?”
“I mean like anything the E2 people shouldn’t have. Almost nothing we can actually make gets through the censor. Not just the obviously dangerous stuff, but anything with the potential to screw up the world beyond the portal. Which means almost any technological artefact from E1.” Skellsgard pulled a lever, engaging a complicated mechanism that swung the armoured door away from the wall.
Auger wasn’t sure what she had been expecting—another chamber, perhaps. Instead there was only a glowing membrane of electric yellow stretched drum-tight across the frame. The light it emitted wavered and wobbled, like the reflection from a swimming pool. It threw odd shadows and highlights across the room, making Auger feel faintly seasick. She could see nothing through it, yet the yellow conveyed a subtle impression of depth and peculiar perspective.
“This is the censor?” she asked nervously.
“Yes. And before you ask, we don’t know how it works. All we know is that we can only push certain things through it. Other things… it either rejects or destroys, depending on what kind of mood it’s in.”
Auger examined the edge of the frame, which was set into the rock. Clearly this was a human add-on, bolted on to whatever had been here before. The portal had presumably been installed at the same time as the hyperweb connection, long before Skellsgard’s people had reopened it.
“What’s on the other side?” she asked.
“The rest of the world. Another chamber, actually, but one that’s connected directly into the tunnels under Paris.”
“Can’t you just bypass the censor? Dig through the rock on either side?”
“Doesn’t work,” Skellsgard said. “Nothing we’ve tried gets us out of this chamber. We’ve tried blasting and cutting through on either side of the portal, but it’s like chewing through diamond. The builders must have reinforced this chamber for exactly that reason, to make everyone use the portal.”
“But you’ve been through it. You can cross the censor.”
“We can,” Skellsgard said, “you and I, but not someone like Niagara. His body’s so full of machines that the censor would cook him alive. Nanotechnology’s one of the big no-nos. No matter how well we try to hide it, the censor always detects it and always fries it.”
“Then no nanotech weapon can reach Paris. That’s good, isn’t it, if it means the Slashers can’t get through?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t stop with nanotech. Any complex manufactured object is blocked, no matter how innocuous its function. No guns. No comms gear. No watches or clocks. No cameras, sensors or medical equipment.”
“What does that actually leave?”
“Not much. Clothes. Paper. Simple tools, like spades and screwdrivers. Basically anything it deems safe. We actually managed to fool it, once, but in a very trivial way. It won’t let a gun through, not even a replica of a twentieth-century weapon. But we were able to dismantle a weapon and smuggle through its component parts—that worked. But what was the point? It’s easier to find a real gun on E2.”
Auger reached out towards the beguiling yellow surface. “Can I touch it?”
“Hell, yes. You can put your hand through it. Going to have to put your whole body through it anyway, so there’s no harm.”
Auger pushed her finger towards the eerie yellow membrane. It took longer than she had expected for her finger to encounter any surface. Then she felt a prickle of sensation in the very tip. She pushed harder, and the yellow surface began to visibly deform, puckering inwards from the point of contact. She was reminded of surface tension on water, the way it formed a skin that resisted gentle pressure. A rust-brown discoloration appeared in the yellow, radiating away from her finger in a concentric pattern.
“Are you absolutely sure this is safe?” she asked again.
“We’ve all been through it hundreds of times,” Skellsgard said. “Bodies aren’t a problem. It discriminates between complex biological processes and nanotech pretty well.”
“Pretty well?”
“Just push.”
Auger increased her pressure. There was a snapping sensation and suddenly her hand was engulfed in yellow up to the wrist. The surface had flattened itself again around her limb. There was no pain, merely a chill tingle. She wriggled her fingers. They all seemed present and correct. She withdrew her hand and checked by sight—still all there.
“See, simple,” Skellsgard said.
“I still don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll go on ahead and show you how safe it is. There’s a trick to this, so watch me closely. When I’m through you can pass me your hat.”
Auger stood back. Skellsgard reached up and grasped the horizontal handrail above the censor firmly with both hands. With a gymnastic fluidity, she pulled herself up off her feet and swung her body towards the yellow surface. By the time she reached it she had gained sufficient momentum to push through in one movement. The surface puckered, then swallowed her with a snap. Auger’s last glimpse was of the back of Skellsgard’s head disappearing into the censor.
A moment later, a hand pushed through and snapped its fingers. Auger recognised the blunt fingernails. She removed her hat and offered it to the hand. Hand and hat vanished back through the censor.
Auger reached up and took hold of the handrail. She pulled herself from the ground, muscles screaming at the unaccustomed effort. She pulled her legs as high as they would go and swung herself into the yellow. It was almost certainly less elegant than Skellsgard’s effort, but she supposed everyone had to begin somewhere.
The moment of transition, the passage through the yellow, was like an electric shock without the pain. She felt every atom of her body flooded with a sharp, inquisitional light. She felt herself being scrutinised, rummaged through, turned this way and that like a cut gem. It lasted an eternity and an instant.
Then it was over, and she was lying in an undignified heap with the hem of her skirt somewhere around her hips and one shoe off her heel. Someone had thoughtfully arranged a padded mat on the other side of the censor.
“Here’s your hat,” Skellsgard said. “Welcome to Paris.”
Auger picked herself up, straightened her clothes and plac
ed the hat back on her head. The chamber in which they had arrived was much smaller than the last one, but it was crammed with a similarly bewildering assortment of machines and lockers. None of the contents looked quite as advanced, however: from what Auger could judge, almost everything here must have been sent through in tiny instalments and then reassembled (which naturally precluded anything really complicated) or—more likely—had been purloined from the outside world of E2 and then adapted to serve some new function. There was a lot of electrical equipment, ungainly humming things in grey or green metal cases, connected together with tangled rubberised cables; flickering monochrome screens, showing wave traces; black things like typewriters, but which clearly weren’t. A generator chugged away in one corner.
“You feeling all right?” Skellsgard asked.
“More or less. Shouldn’t I be?”
“There was a small risk that some of Niagara’s machines might not have been flushed out before you came through. Didn’t see any particular point in alarming you unnecessarily.”
“I see,” Auger said tersely.
“There’s something else as well. Usually when we go through that thing, we don’t feel anything. It only takes an instant and it’s all over. But every now and then, something else happens. Maybe once in a hundred trips through the censor, it’s different.”
“Different in what way? Different as in painful?”
“No—not like that. It’s just that sometimes it seems to take longer. Much longer—as if you’re in that yellow limbo for a lifetime. You learn and feel things you can barely articulate. When you come out of it, you almost remember what it was like. It’s like waking from a beautiful dream, clutching at threads as they fade away. You sense something of the minds that made this place. You feel them looking through you, vast and ancient and long dead, but still somehow aware, and curious as to what you make of their creation.
“Have you…”
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