Rayne put on her disposable sunglasses. “I feel like Ray Charles.”
“Rayne Charles.”
“Cute. Now put yours on until we can come up with a better disguise. And what happened to your eye cup?”
He blinked, silent for a moment. “I must’ve left it in the exam room back at Pod C.”
“How necessary is it?”
He shrugged “It’s a shield. Protection.”
“You look less obvious. It’s better this way. How’s the eye feel?”
“I don’t know. Good, bad. Horrible, terrific.”
“See you in a minute.” Rayne exited the car, put her head down, and forced herself to walk casually toward the unforgettable sign:
Coin Operated
Laundry
Open 7 Days
A wooden bench was on each side of the glass door. A heavy-set woman with a brown butterfly barrette in her hair was sitting on the left bench, smoking a cigarette and reading a wrinkled, celebrity magazine, which featured celebs on the cover without wrinkled skin. Rayne entered, smelling soap and bleach. The interior felt as warm as a clothes dryer. Posted signs forbade smoking and drinking. Washers and dryers hummed in two-part harmony. High on the back wall over a row of large dryers was a TV set, tuned to a soap opera. A plastic sheet was taped over the top of the TV; evidence of a leaky roof. No one else was inside; praise the Lord.
Rayne pulled a rectangular table closer to the jumbo dryers, climbed atop and stood, and turned the station to a local news channel. She jumped down, relocated the table. Through the windows, she saw a man wearing frightful, black sunglasses advance.
“This was a good idea,” she told Tim as he opened the door.
“Look at us. We’re on a recon mission at a Laundromat. Two days ago, did you ever see this coming?”
“Two days ago I thought I could keep the world at arm’s length, push it away at any time. Today the world is coming at us from all angles. I’m looking up and seeing an avalanche.”
“Actually,” Tim said in a weary voice, “it’s two worlds. Two worlds are coming at us, one from each side. I’m not sure where one ends and one begins, now that EyeSoar is invading this world. And maybe the other drone company, DR1, is over here too. Who knows?”
They both kept an eye on the TV, waiting for any update.
“I’ve been thinking,” Tim continued. “When we escaped back over here last night, the EyeSoar people must’ve been real pissed. You gotta figure we’re the only ones to make it back. So they must’ve freaked that we would spread the word, right? For them, there’s no upside by having us run free out here. Especially if EyeSoar is set to open markets over here. So they have to shut us down to shut us up. We’ve been back since about 11:30 last night. It’s 4:30 now. So we’ve been here for, what, seventeen hours. Every hour we’re here, we pose a risk.”
“I’ve been thinking along the same lines.” Rayne had another thought bubble up. It seemed like it’d been at the back of her mind for awhile, but she couldn’t put it into focus, couldn’t articulate it. Now the concern was emerging from what she called brain fog. “When you said seventeen hours, you reminded me of something. If EyeSoar suddenly swoops down and takes us out—”
“A drone strike,” Tim broke in. “How fitting. High-altitude drones track us, then smoke us with a missile strike. Picture some cowboy at EyeSoar Command Center, saying, ‘I’ve got a bead on the substitute teacher. I’ll smoke his silly ass. Say ‘So long,’ dickwad. Wait, hold on. Here comes that uppity high-tone waitress. I been wanting to turn that bitch into charcoal. Her name’s Rayne? I’ll rain some shit on her after the stunt she pulled at Bank of America.”
“Tim, feeling wired?”
He looked at her with raised eyebrows, then hoisted himself onto an empty washer and sat on the lid. “I can easily see it happening. Look how things have been trending. We’ve gone from hurricane alert to Category 5 shitstorm.”
“Listen. Since we’ve been back, they don’t know who we talked to, or what we said. If they suddenly abduct us, or kill us, they’re running a risk.”
He nodded. “If we disappear, that could set off an alarm. They have to worry that others may now know about the Gateway, and EyeSoar, and people disappearing through the exit door.”
“This is where it gets tricky. They can’t leave us alone, and they can’t suddenly make us disappear. So, what would you do? I have an idea what their next move may be.”
Tim fell silent for several seconds. “If we told someone what we know, the story is now out there.”
“Yes.”
“So…” Tim paused, gazing at the concrete floor. “Oh, wait. I get it.”
Rayne smiled. “Actually, the word rhymes with ‘I get it.’”
Tim returned the smile. “Discredit.”
“Yes.”
“Discredit us. Make us sound unbelievable. Can’t be trusted.”
“Uh huh.”
His eyes lit up. “No.”
“Yes. I’m sitting in the waiting room at Mass Eye and Ear. My little friend, my ally, Wendy, appears out of nowhere and says, ‘Wake up, Rayne.’ And there we are on TV, referred to as ‘persons of interest.’”
Tim leaned back on the washer, kicking his feet straight out in the air. “This is…”
“And now it’s all starting to come into focus.” Rayne felt a jolt along her spine.
“They’re setting us up. They’re scared we escaped and sounded the alarm.”
“And now they’re trashing us. Really trashing us.”
“James Carney,” Tim said.
“Uh huh.”
Tim sat up straight. “That scene didn’t make sense. James wouldn’t do that to me. Trust me, I spent enough time with him. The two of us were in the same boat. Us two against another world. He wouldn’t change and act like that. He wouldn’t. What happened made no sense. Even what he said to me made no sense.”
“I believe you. So look at it this way. There’s an explanation, but we’re just not seeing it.”
“Not yet.”
“For now, these guys are coming after us. In less than a day, we’re already ‘persons of interest’ for a crime we know nothing about.”
“Rayne, something else. Picture it, I’m sitting in the Buick waiting for you in the copy shop. And I spot James Carney through the windshield.”
Rayne looked at him and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “Set up.”
“I saw him because they wanted me to see him.”
“Set up.”
“And I chase after him in the Square, and stop him on the street.”
“The footage on TV must be from a security camera from a nearby store.”
“And what’s Carney do straight up? He accuses me. No hi, hello, nice to see you on this side. Nice to see you didn’t get smoked by a drone.”
Rayne recalled a scene in the movie Casablanca. “I’m shocked, shocked...” She waited for her fellow film fan to respond. Not a second passed.
“…to find that a set up is going on in here!”
She glanced again at the TV set on the rear wall, and noticed a black camera in the corner below the ceiling. “Look, we’re being surveilled. I am so sick of this. Every time we turn around, we’re being spied on.” She held her palms up in the air as if juggling invisible balls.
“Think of it this way. The Laundromat’s security camera is now recording our side of the story. We’re establishing a legal defense.”
“Tim, please.”
Tim slid off the washer and stepped toward the camera. He planted one hand on a table for folding clothes, and spoke in a subdued, even tone characteristic of a lawyer approaching the bench. “Just for the record, everything we said is true. Beginning with the Gateway Theater in Harvard Square.”
“Tim?”
“We didn’t kill anyone. We’re innocent. I’m Tim Crowe, a sub by day, screenwriter by night. Rayne Moore, behind me, slightly volatile but—”
“Shhh…look.” She pointed at the TV.
Tim backpedaled and looked up at the screen.
“…breaking news,” the mustached newscaster announced in a baritone voice. “Cambridge Police are reporting that the body of a man was found today inside a burning car in East Cambridge. The victim has been identified as James Carney. Authorities said the incident occurred in a secluded area behind a warehouse in the 800 block of…”
Rayne could feel a cold tingle as if the door had opened, allowing a blast of arctic air inside the Laundromat. She heard Tim say something under his breath, something like Oh my God.
“…homicide detectives are investigating. Firefighters from the Cambridge Fire Department discovered a body in the backseat of the vehicle. An eyewitness said spikes were driven into each door to prevent their opening, trapping the man inside. The investigation is ongoing.”
“Spikes?” Tim said. “That means he was…cooked.”
Rayne knew another shoe would drop. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Wait.”
“What a grisly story,” the female co-anchor said. “Very disturbing.”
“More details are still coming in.”
The female anchor with perfect teeth adjusted her earpiece, and said, “It’s now being reported that a word was spray painted in large letters on the car’s trunk. The word is ‘up.’ At this time, investigators have no idea what that means. We have WXZY reporter Lisa Lane standing by in East Cambridge with more details. We’ll be right back.”
A blue sneaker with a red lightning bolt on its side filled the TV screen—a commercial for Road Runner’s new line of Zoom Shoes for women on the run.
Tim said, “They know the title of our screenplay.”
“They left out a word. They should have spray painted ‘set up.’”
“There’s only one way they could have known that title.”
She nodded. “Alex.”
“They must’ve grilled him. Now EyeSoar must know our names, where we live, where we work, who knows what else. Feel like I just got hit in the nuts with a sledgehammer. We’re gonna get shredded in the media. We’re gonna be portrayed as…what? Screenwriting sadists? How about tortured artists who torture?”
“We saw this coming.”
“But this? They lock James Carney inside a car and torch it. What next?” Tim rubbed his face with his hands, taking in a deep breath. “And there’s something else, now that I think about it. When I saw James today, he looked different. Now I remember. I saw James only once without a phantom mask, beneath a bridge at night. And he had these red things on his skin, on his face. Small lesions. They look similar to pimples. He said he wondered if he had picked up a disease in this other world, a virus of some kind, and the lesions were symptoms. He didn’t know, but he was clearly worried.”
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? Frankly, the two of us were scared shit by everything that was happening. Things were snowballing. This was one more horror on a growing list of horrors. But I mention this, you know, because today, well, there was no sign of the lesions. Nothing.”
Rayne listened, and wondered what that meant. “What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know, Rayne. Maybe it means nothing. Still, how does all that clear up so quick? Does it begin to heal as soon as he flips back into this world? Beats me. But that was him today. No doubt. Face, height, weight, voice, you name it. Even his clothes were the same, the same wrinkled clothes from being out on the run for several days. Christ, it was his same damn shoes if I’m not mistaken. This whole thing gets me more and more creeped out.”
“Ditto.” Rayne folded her arms across her chest and shuddered. There was such a tidal wave of data and information coming at her, and with so little time to process it. She had to be logical, methodical. No room for error. Looking through the plate glass windows, she saw rooftops and chimneys and satellite dishes and thought of her apartment not far from where she stood. She saw her parked car across the lot. The sun had set; dusk was coming. Shadows lengthened. “I hate to do it, but we’ll have to hide my car. Or just ditch it.”
“That crossed my mind too. The cops will be looking for the Buick. Wonder if we could buy any time by stealing a license plate and swapping them.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s all new to me. So we ditch the car, our apartments…” She paused and reached into her pocket. “This too, my cell. They can track us.”
“Phones have an RFID chip, and their cameras can be remotely activated. We could drop it into a washing machine.”
“Realistically, I wonder how much time we have.”
“If we stay in the city, and they keep tightening the noose,” Tim said, “they might find us tonight. Or maybe we get slick and stretch it out a few days. But right now, all we’re doing is reacting. We need to be proactive.”
WXZY returned. The male anchor said, “Welcome back. This is our continued coverage of a breaking story. Lisa Lane is standing by in East Cambridge. Lisa, what have you learned? Have you gotten any additional information?”
At the lower left corner of the screen, a white banner with two red words the color of an ambulance: Breaking News.
Lisa Lane stood by a tree and faced the camera, the breeze flapping her bleached hair. The audio picked up the sound of cars driving by. “I just received word….hold on….there’s been an unusual turn of events in this investigation. According to Cambridge Police, the EyeSoar Corporation had a threatening video emailed to their corporate headquarters today. EyeSoar sent a copy to the Cambridge Police, and offered their assistance. Cambridge Police confirmed that EyeSoar will assist in the investigation with their state-of-the-art technology. I believe we…hold on a second…” She adjusted her earpiece, studied the ground for a moment with a grave expression. “All right, okay. Yes, we have it. Here’s the video sent to EyeSoar. At this time, the identity of the sender has not been confirmed.”
Lisa Lane waited for the video, her wide, oblong eyes the size of enormous popcorn kernels ready to pop…pop...
“Here goes,” Tim said. “Now what?”
Rayne watched as Lisa Lane vanished, the screen darkened. A voiceover sans image:
“They’re here,” said a female voice in a hushed tone. The screen was solid black, the voice seemed disembodied. “Some are here, more are coming.”
“She sounds…a bit…” Tim’s voice trailed off.
“And if they’re not stopped, the world is doomed.” The voice rose, the sound of increasing urgency. “They come from another world. Now they’re coming after you. They are aliens, the ultimate illegal immigrants. A breach in our borders has...”
“Rayne,” Tim said in a monotone as if hypnotized. “She…kind of sounds…like...”
The darkness on the TV screen faded. An image came into focus. A pot of water on a kitchen stove. Something wiggled inside the pot, obscured by a veil of steam.
“The hell is that?” Rayne said.
“People of Cambridge. You are blind. You have ‘boiling frog syndrome.’ You are frogs. We are watchdogs. We are the guardians that fight the aliens, one by one. Traitors among us aid the aliens. Today we declare war on the traitors, the New Earth Order fascists. The NEO fascists: The World Bank, Gateway Theaters, EyeSoar, and various Illuminati hybrid bloodlines. Don’t be a frog—be a dog.”
Tim elbowed her and said in a low voice, “You hear what I hear?”
She didn’t respond, not moving a muscle, eyes upward. The Laundromat suddenly felt like a tiny fort in a war zone. An image of a sign popped into her head:
Coin Operated Fort
FORT LAUNDRY
Under Siege 7 Days
“Rayne, I think my ears are hallucinating.”
“Shhh.”
The frog looked up from the pot, ground zero, unable or unwilling to leap to freedom. Ribbons of steam expanded over the stove, a misty mushroom cloud. A different voice continued the narrative, a male voice.
“We are the watchdogs. Our video has no financial backers, no cro
wdfunding on Kickstarter. Our video is a labor of liberty, a stark warning, the ultimate chatter. Department of Homeland Security, are you listening? Aliens must die, so we can live.”
The picture of the boiling frog vanished, replaced by two young people standing in a room in front of a suspended, white sheet against a wall. A homemade movie screen.
Rayne rocked back on her heels, seeing herself and Tim, side-by-side on TV. Mirror images. Two clones. Tim made a guttural sound, as if on the verge of throwing up. He gripped her arm so tight it felt as if he were checking her blood pressure with an inflatable cuff. Well, as of this second, her blood pressure spiked. Way up. Moon shot.
Their doppelgangers in the video spoke simultaneously, a shared vision, defiance in their eyes: “Cambridge—get off your knees!”
The video faded to black.
Lisa Lane reappeared. Her eyes, cast down and presumably watching a monitor, slowly rose and looked straight into the camera. She hesitated for a second, and seemed confused. Understandably confused. Her posture straightened as she said, “This is Lisa Lane…reporting from…”
“Mars,” Rayne said in a hollow voice. Now even she sounded disembodied.
Tim turned and looked at her, speechless.
“That was us,” she said. “Dead-ringers. Our identical twins. We worked with image-editing programs at the ad agency. It’s amazing what you can do. But not like this. This took it to a whole new level. And it was image and sound. They had our voices down cold.”
Tim’s face had visibly paled. “Before, we were talking about getting set up. And how would they discredit us. Completely trash us. Well, there you go. They blew us up in less than a minute. And it was brilliant. EyeSoar took themselves right off the hook. They got us declaring war on...the New Earth Order fascists? The NEO fascists. If I was sitting at home, I would’ve rolled my eyes at the acronym, and spilled my drink. But EyeSoar played it smart. They included themselves and the Gateway on the hit list, sandwiched in there with the World Bank and, God love ‘em, the Illuminati hybrid whatthefuck. So now, if we or anyone else sounds the alarm on EyeSoar or the Gateway, it makes us the ultimate space cadets. Say the name, people wince. We’ve been lumped in with every fringe group out there.” He took a long, weary breath, eyes blank, looking ready to kill himself—jump into a jumbo dryer and end it. “Gotta say, it was a masterful presentation. Oscars for the video production team.”
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