by Heide Goody
“That was us,” said Cattress.
“And if you call me your good woman, I’ll skelp you good and proper.” She opened a cabinet on the wall and took down a short-handled axe.
“I can assure you, I shan’t,” said the civil servant, eyeing the wicked edge of the finely wrought axe head.
“It’s just occurred to me,” said Morag setting off again purposefully.
“What has?”
“There’s a good reason why we don’t allow lighters and matches down here anyway. I think it’s back this way.”
She ran her hands along the cool wall as she followed the corridor to the over-engineered walk-in safe that housed the Bloody Big Book. Such a valuable and potentially harmful item was encased in more than metal and glass. The door, the frame, even the porthole were all alarmed.
And it was clear that Morag wasn’t the only one to have realised this.
Morag and Cattress were already there. Another Morag and Cattress. The other Morag looked up at the newly arrived original Morag and then at the axe in her hand.
“Perfect,” she said and gestured to the door.
“Watch your head,” said Morag, raising the axe. Then she swung it with more enthusiasm than skill into the glass porthole.
Nina found Rod in a little break room off the main corridor of the restricted ward. He and the duty doctor, Kathy Kaur, were hunched over a table covered in building plans and data print-offs.
“Hey, guess where I’ve just been,” said Nina.
Rod ignored her completely and stabbed at a name on a sheet. “This one too.”
Kathy circled the name in red pen and then made a mark on the plan.
“I mean it is traditional to guess,” said Nina. “Or you can just say you give up and I can tell you.”
Rod spared her a glance.
“We’re in the middle of something here.”
“Ah,” said Nina. “I wondered what old people foreplay looked like.”
Kathy Kaur gave her a starkly amused look. “Old?”
“Hey, Kath. Age isn’t a number. It’s a state of mind.”
“Middle of something, Nina,” said Rod in what Nina reckoned he believed was his stern voice. It was sweet, really. “People are vanishing.”
“Where’ve they gone?” said Nina, approaching to look at the papers.
“Vanished. Poof!”
“To a gay bar? And that’s a bit un-PC, Rod.”
Kathy put her fingertips on the plan. “It’s happened all around the restricted ward.”
“Well, not over here,” said Nina, pointing to a looping corridor where there were further crosses and circles. “And less so in these bits. If you folded it out, it’d look like one of those things that’s really big in the middle and then slopes off.”
“A bell curve,” nodded Rod.
“I was thinking of an erection under a bedsheet,” said Nina. “But okay. Whatever.”
“And the centre of the distribution curve” said Kathy, looking up a room number against another document. “Ah,” she said, and then, after some thought, a deeper and more serious: “Ah. The Koloba.”
“What’s that?” said Rod.
“Or Barbara, as I think she’s called. Sweet old dear with vascular dementia. Human, but host to a sentient parasite. It’s her. She’s been causing the disappearances.”
“Are you sure?” said Rod.
“Hey,” said Nina brightly, “guess where I’ve just been.”
Vivian stepped out of the lift, the application forms of the final four candidates under her arm. A red light flashed above the entrance to the Vault. A piercing alarm whooped close to. Two library security guards stood at the door, peering through, though neither had entered.
“Are you not aware I’m in the middle of an important interview selection process?” said Vivian. “What is happening here?”
“Not sure, Mrs Grey. The CCTV cameras have all gone a bit… wonky. The alarm’s gone off by the Bloody Big Book. It’s Morag and the government inspector in there.”
Vivian looked from man to man.
“And neither of you has been in to check?”
“Well,” said one, Andy, a little sheepishly, “we usually wait for the tech support to tell us what to do but, you know…”
“Ingrid is dead and we’ve not appointed a replacement,” said Vivian. “Fine.”
She tapped the access code into the panel by the door and it slid open.
“Should we come with you?” said the other, Malcolm.
“Why?” said Vivian. “What help could you possibly be?”
Malcolm straightened up, attempting through body language alone to express the idea that he was a big and beefy ex-military man and was a lot of help indeed. It was difficult to express such a sentiment when faced with Vivian Grey’s critical glare.
“Fine,” snapped Vivian. “You can come with me. You, go and turn the alarm off. We are now sufficiently alarmed, I think.”
Vivian and Malcolm proceeded through the double set of doors. Vivian strode towards the section that housed the Bloody Big Book but came to an abrupt halt. It was as if someone had placed a vast and imperfect mirror across the Vault. Beneath her feet, the corridor continued as normal up to a point and then it broke off utterly to become an aisle of display cases that ran off at a skewed angle, up and off to the left. Someone might as well have sliced the Vault into large chunks and placed them back together again with no concept of accuracy, direction or decency. Ahead, the floor sloped away at a crazy tilt.
“That looks freaky,” said Malcolm softly.
“It looks untidy,” said Vivian.
Morag came running along the aisle of display cases in the lopsided chunk of Vault. Vivian noted that the woman was as lopsided as the space she inhabited, pulled by a different gravity.
“What on earth has happened here, Miss Murray?” demanded Vivian.
“Cattress broke the Berry Mound vase,” said Morag. “And I think it’s now spewing out copies of the world.”
“And you permitted him to do this?”
Morag paused, put a reflective hand to her chin and then said in a tone that Vivian took to be sarcasm (she wasn’t always able to spot it), “Yes, Vivian, I permitted him to do it.”
“Where is he now?”
“He went off by himself. Claimed he knew better.”
“And what happened with the Wittgenstein Volume?”
Morag pointed up, gesturing at the still ringing alarm.
“The Bloody Big Book? I hope that one of the copies of me that’s been created thought to set off the alarm to get you down here. I hope. The alternative is that the Berry Mound vase is trying to make a copy of an infinitely large book and that sound is the universe about to explode under the strain.”
“Mrs Grey,” said Malcolm and gestured for her to step back. The boundary between the two worlds, the real and the one Morag had so thoughtlessly unleashed, was inching towards their toes.
Vivian took a judicious step back. “So, there are copies of you running around in here?”
“Don’t make it sound like a bad thing,” said Morag.
“I was just pondering… How do you know that you are the original?”
Morag tapped herself. “I am. I remember. I have memories from before the accident happened.”
“Yes,” said Vivian, “memories that would have been copied. We need to contain this now.”
“Good. Brilliant. How?”
Vivian thought for a moment. “Indeed, it’s a shame that you couldn’t have saved this little act until Thursday. It would have made a superb interview task for the tech support candidates.”
“Yeah, we might need a fix sooner than that,” said Morag. “I’m not even sure if it’s safe for me to step outside this bubble-world.”
Vivian took out her phone and leafed through the application papers under her arm.
“Nonetheless, I think I ought to give one of the candidates a call.”
Rod, who considered
himself to be a man of action first and a Venislarn-wrangler second (or even possibly third), listened as Kathy and Nina gave him the lowdown on the Koloba.
“They were sent over by the Cha’dhu Forrikler as emissaries or spies,” said Nina.
“They have a physical body but they pick a local host to inhabit,” said Kathy. “Not because they need to, like a true parasite.”
“But to blend in. They don’t like to be naked. It’s a symbiotic relationship; host and parasite become one entity: one mind, one purpose.”
“Ritualistically, they exist on a diet of emotionally and psychologically significant external representations.”
“Eh?” said Rod.
“They like to eat pretty things,” said Nina.
“Zondervan purchased a 3D bioprinter for her,” said Kathy. “The Kyoto consular mission developed it for the Koloba they have there. Offal goes in –”
“And hands and faces come out,” said Nina. “It’s so cool. You’ve gotta take a look.”
“Aye. Another time, perhaps,” said Rod.
“Anyway, the Cha’dhu Forrikler never made the trip to earth. Not worth the bother for some reason but the Koloba remained.”
“They’re information gatherers,” said Kathy. “Functionally limitless. They’re practically omniscient.”
“And they know everything,” said Nina.
“You have an omniscient old lady in one of your wards?” said Rod. “Okay.”
“Obviously, they’re not actually omniscient,” said Kathy. “The Koloba’s physical presence is only…” She held out her hands as though grasping a well-stuffed sub sandwich. “You can’t hold infinite information in a finite space.”
“I’ve seen a book that’d beg to differ,” said Rod.
“The Koloba store information by sort of linking their brain to real world,” said Nina.
“The Koloba integrate the surrounding physical universe into their conscious mindstate,” said Kathy.
“That’s what I said,” said Nina.
“I see,” said Rod, who didn’t. “And this creature is making people – and rooms, I should add – disappear? How? Is she eating them? Are hands and feet –”
“Faces.”
“– faces not providing enough crunchy goodness for her?”
“You don’t get it,” said Kathy.
“He never does,” said Nina. “It’s cute.”
“The individual Koloba draws the physical universe into line with its own conscious mind.”
“Okay. Words,” said Rod.
Kathy rapped her knuckles on the break room table. “You know this table exists because you can see it, experience it.”
“Sure.”
“And when you’ve left the room, you know it’s here because you remember it.”
“Of course.”
“The Koloba’s omniscience functions by switching that round,” she said, rotating her fingers over each other. “As soon as the Koloba sees this table, it becomes a physical figment of its imagination. It is stored as a memory in the real world.”
“Crazy but I get it.”
“And this little nugget of Venislarn trivia has zero impact on the real world,” said Nina, “except…”
“Barbara has vascular dementia,” said Kathy.
“She’s forgetting things.”
Rod put his hands on the papers before him, maps marked with places where people and objects once had been but now were not.
“She’s forgotten these people,” said Rod.
“That’s what they’ve all got in common,” said Kathy. “They’ve met Barbara.”
“Bloody hell, Nina!” said Rod. “And you had to pop your head in and say hello!”
“Well, she’s hardly likely to forget me, is she?” said Nina. “I mean, just look. Visions of this will keep even a heterosexual granny awake all night.”
“You need to get yourself back down there, plant yourself in her field of vision and make sure she doesn’t get a chance to forget about you.”
“Fine,” said Nina with a tut. “But I don’t see how this is my fault.”
“Because this always happens to you,” said Rod and he was angry, angry because he cared and this stupid fearless girl couldn’t see the danger she was in. “If there’s a big sign that says, ‘don’t stick your finger in here’ or ‘don’t touch the big red button’ or ‘keep your hands and legs inside the carriage at all times’… It’s always bloody you.”
“Come on. That business with the big wheel could have happened to anyone.”
“But it doesn’t, does it? It wasn’t me or Vivian who had to be cut out of the carriage, was it? You don’t find Morag making stupid mistakes that put lives in danger.”
“You know,” Morag said to the other Morag, the one who had swung the axe and smashed the Bloody Big Book porthole, “I think I’ve had better days.”
“You think we’re going to get fired for this?” asked the other Morag.
“How many of us do you think there now are?” asked Morag.
“Uncle Ramsay did say that one Morag Murray was plenty enough for any family.”
Morag mentally reminded herself that it was normal to be a bit unnerved at meeting a copy of oneself – an identical copy of her current self at that – not least because, despite the existence of mirrors and photographs and such, she spent very little time looking at herself. The sense of strangeness and mild loathing she felt was like – as much as it was like anything – was like the experience of hearing one’s own recorded voice played back. This woman, this other Morag, wasn’t the Morag she thought herself to be. Her posture was more slouched, her clothing less flattering, her resting facial expression far more irritable. The other Morag was a walking, talking version of every bad selfie Morag had ever taken.
One of the Cattresses poked the other in the shoulder.
“They’re solid,” he said.
The poked Cattress looked at the point of contact as though he had been violently assaulted.
“Yes, I am,” he said.
“He touched me,” said Cattress, pointing an accusing finger at the other Cattress.
“Don’t whine about it, man,” said the accused Cattress. “I’ve not met a copy of myself before.”
Cattress splayed his hand across his chest. “Copy? Me?”
Morag was observant enough to spot both the Cattress’s eyes flicking momentarily to the axe embedded in the split-but-not-smashed porthole.
“Easy,” she said. “We don’t know who’s real and who’s a copy and we don’t even know what that will mean when this is all sorted out.”
“You stay away from Jennifer!” blurted out Cattress hotly.
The other Cattress spluttered. “Damn it, man! You’re married!”
“So are you!”
“To your wife! And you’re welcome to her!”
Cattress made a patting motion. He spoke in the patronising tone that Morag imagined he used on everyone. “Now calm down and let’s be sensible. There’s only one way that this can be resolved. You will return home and say nothing of this while I take care of Jennifer. It will be best all round if we make a clean break, you must see that.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” the other exploded. Morag guessed that Cattress was not used to being on the receiving end of his own condescension. “If you think you can tell me what to do, you’re very much mistaken. I simply will not tolerate it and if you think you can go off with Jennifer and keep that a secret, well you’re in for a nasty shock, I can tell you.”
Morag looked to the other Morag for confirmation.
“Yes,” the other said. “They’re arguing over who gets the wife and who gets the… girlfriend?”
“One each. It’s amazing they had the foresight to prepare for this situation.”
“You think this is a joking matter?” said Cattress, angry, agitated and on the verge of tears.
“Of course not,” said Morag. “Let’s the four of us keep our shit toget
her and work out what to do next.”
“Eight of us,” said the other Morag, looking over Morag’s shoulder.
Morag turned. Another party of four (two Morags and two Cattresses) was coming down the aisle towards them. One of the Cattresses had a black eye and the other had a rip in the shoulder of his suit.
“Okay, maybe some sort of timeshare on the wife and mistress might be in order,” said Morag.
“Yeah,” said the other Morag. “Whatever. I’m having the day off tomorrow. You’re gonna come in and cover for me.”
“Fine, as long as you deal with that backlog of laundry.”
“It’s a deal!” said Morag with a thumbs up.
In the little side ward, Barbara Gudge, demented old dear and omniscient emissary of the Cha’dhu Forrikler sat in her armchair and looked at Nina, the nurse, the orderly and the administrator who sat across the coffee table from her. As Barbara turned her head, they all leaned to stay front and centre in her vision and, by extension, in existence.
“Smile,” said Nina.
Barbara obeyed and gave her a toothy little smile, all dentures and wrinkles. Nina snapped a picture and then messaged it to Rod.
“I don’t usually have so many visitors,” said Barbara.
“Thought we’d drop in,” said the nurse with a big, terrified smile on her face. “Keep you company.”
“Oh, you don’t have to.”
“Oh, we really do,” said Nina.
The doorway to the room had been covered with a mobile screen. The world beyond the screen had gone awfully quiet.
“Is it time for Bargain Hunt yet?” said Barbara, casting around for her TV remote.
“Or maybe,” said Nina, who had chucked the TV remote in the bin after the first time Barbara had asked for it, “we could get to know each other a bit better. You know, a good chat?”
The administrator nodded like a hyperactive bobblehead. “You remember me, don’t you, Barbara?” she said. “I’m Lizzy. We spoke last week. I told you about my cat, Loki. You remember?”
“I do. I like cats.”
“I have two cats,” said the nurse, cutting in with a sudden ferocity, as though having multiple cats would instantly beat a singular cat in the game of staying in Barbara’s memory. “Two. Jibber and Marmalade. Two. I have pictures on my phone.” She automatically patted her uniform. “Oh, but it’s…” She looked forlornly towards the door and then turned to Nina. “Can I go and get it?”