A Rift in Space and Crime

by R E McLean

  She needed to be careful. There was no 911 here, and if she couldn’t get back to Hive Earth soon, she needed all her strength to survive.

  She put her hands up to the glazed doors. She felt the edges with her fingertips. She tried prising the doors apart. She leaned into the glass and peered through. Beyond the doors was an empty space, dust swirling in sunbeams that came through the busted roof. No sign of the Spinner.

  She was trapped here.

  14

  Lycra

  Pip had bound Lacey’s wrists in a length of matted, greasy rope that he’d found lying on the ground. The rough twine grated on her skin, digging in painfully.

  She wasn’t about to let him see that she was in pain.

  He dragged her south, following the same street she’d taken when trying to get away from him.

  She stumbled on the rough tarmac, watching his face for signs of emotion

  They still hadn’t encountered any other people. Where was this kid’s family, his parents? Even if they’d banished him, as he claimed, they must be somewhere.

  How would he eat without adults? She’d be lost without her folks.

  They’d been walking for about fifteen minutes. Despite her heavy boots, her feet ached. Pip kept glancing back at her, his eyes bloodshot. He looked disappointed, even sad.

  She wasn’t going to take pity on him. He’d snatched her from Fisherman’s Wharf, he’d dragged her through some kind of turbulence, and he’d tied her up.

  He stopped.

  “No further south,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  He turned toward the Bay and started dragging her again. The streets were lined with empty warehouses, their windows smashed out. She heard the occasional sound of something scuttling through the wreckage; animals. Pip’s nose would twitch when this happened, and he’d tense. She felt ice run through her. She wanted her parents.

  Could there be people somewhere out there, coming to help? Rescue teams, emergency services, the government?

  Had this happened because of that thing Pip had created on Fisherman’s Wharf? Had he caused an earthquake?

  She stopped. Had what he’d done wiped the city out, so fast? Had he killed her parents? And if so, why was she still here?

  “Move.” He yanked at the twine and she started walking.

  No. She had to be in a different place. One that looked like San Francisco , but wasn’t. If this had happened just hours ago, there would be chaos. She’d seen enough disaster movies to know that.

  He yanked her into a building and pushed her to the floor.

  There was machinery ahead of her, rusting and broken, sharp edged enough to cut herself free if she could get away from him.

  Then where would she go? If this wasn’t San Francisco, how would she get home?

  She felt a shiver run through her. She was cold, and hungry. For the first time since getting here, she felt real fear.

  It was like they’d been taken back in time. It was like one of those museum exhibits about the 1906 earthquake. Maybe that was what had happened? Maybe that thing Pip created had been some sort of time travel device. And he’d dragged her through into it.

  But his outfit was made of a modern fabric. Lycra or something like it. The cape shimmered. Those weren’t clothes from 1906.

  This was all recent. Which meant this wasn’t San Francisco.

  He looked at her. “No funny business. No escape.”

  She shrugged.

  Outside, the sky was darkening, red turning to a deep magenta. She knew enough about wildlife to understand that this place would come alive at night. Foxes, dogs, even wolves. Who knew what else.

  Probably best to stay where she was.

  15

  Brick

  Alex looked up and down the street. Places as deserted as this usually had people hiding somewhere.

  The only thing for it was to head north. If she couldn’t get out, at least she could try and complete her mission.

  She hurried back to the spot where she’d given up last time and surveyed the rubble. She could climb that.

  She stepped onto the rubble, easing her weight back and forth to check it was stable. The rock beneath her foot shifted a little but felt firm enough.

  She leaned forward to grasp a section of piping just below waist level. She tugged at it, expecting it to come away. It didn’t.

  She pulled again and let it take her weight. She heaved herself upwards.

  This was working. She scanned the rubble for footholds and handholds as she went, sweating and breathing heavily. At last she reached the top.

  Beyond the pile was a street, heading directly north. She squinted. Powell Street, or Mason maybe. She remembered the route she’d taken to get to Clare Pope’s apartment in Silicon City, hopping on the Hive Earth version of the Powell-Mason trolley car. That felt a world away.

  It was a world away.

  This time she’d have to walk.

  She let her weight drop and skidded down the mountain.

  At the bottom, she clapped her hands together to release the dust then froze. Don’t draw attention to yourself, eejit.

  She lowered her head and headed north. The sidewalk beneath her feet was rough and pockmarked, with potholes she had to watch out for if she wasn’t going to sprain an ankle.

  She counted the intersections, trying to remember the map of San Francisco. Like all millennials, she was a slave to her cell. Google maps told her where to go. Her calendar app told her when to go there. And WhatsApp told her who to go with. She had spent time exploring the city when she’d first arrived from Scotland so did remember some of it.

  After ten blocks the air started to change. It became thinner, less oily. She was approaching the Bay.

  She looked back toward the mountain she’d scaled to get here. It was still too close, looming at her from beyond the buildings. She’d have to get over that again. She’d have to find a way to get into the Spinner.

  She caught movement from the corner of her eye. A trashcan on the corner near the next intersection had moved.

  She pulled back, tucking herself against a wall, her eyes not leaving the can.

  There was a moving shadow behind it. She sensed it watching her.

  She swallowed. Her hands were on the rough brick of the building she was squeezed up against. Her skin was broken from the climb and she had blisters on her toes.

  She took a deep breath and pulled herself further in.

  The shadow shifted, settling next to the trashcan. She could make out a dim shape between it and the wall.

  An animal. It had to be a fox, or a cat. A wasteland like this would be like paradise to wildlife.

  Her heart was pounding against her ribs. She put her palm to her chest: shush. She’d faced worse than this. Philip Gladstone, coming at her with a knife in Claire’s apartment.

  But then she’d had Mike, Sarita and the Prof, arriving at exactly the right moment. Like the cavalry crossed with the cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Today she was alone.

  She scanned the sidewalk for something she could use as a weapon. There was a pile of broken bricks against the wall. There were holes in the wall, gaps she could see through. Maybe standing here wasn’t such a good idea.

  She picked up two bricks and weighed them in her hands, calculating the swing she’d need to hit whatever was behind that bin.

  She was short, and ginger, and Scottish. She’d never tossed a caber in her life. And at school she’d been the one to cry off sports whenever any throwing was involved, knowing she’d make a twit of herself.

  Let’s face it, she told herself, she could throw these about as far as she could throw Madge.

  She approached the trashcan. It was still. The shadow seeming to be breathing, shifting in the gloom.

  She gulped down a rancid breath. She resisted the need to cough.

  “I know you’re behind there. I’m armed.”

  “What the hell are you wearing?”
a voice replied.

  She dropped the bricks. One of them landed on her toe. She cursed herself.

  “Who’s there?”

  The shadow shifted again and the trashcan moved forwards. A shape appeared from behind it.

  It was a man. He wore a blue shirt that had been torn down one sleeve and at the collar. His jeans were soiled with some sort of brown substance she preferred not to look at. And he had a beard that made her think of the crazy guy who slept rough at the end of her dad’s street in Gretna.

  “Mike?”

  16

  Puppets

  They were in another abandoned warehouse somewhere near the Embarcadero. Pip had pulled Lacey through one building after another until they’d arrived at this one. It looked exactly like all its neighbors expect for one thing.

  On the second floor was a den.

  A ragged, torn tent stood in one corner. Next to it was a bucket filled with rocks. Surrounding that was a pile of pipes, weapons maybe.

  Inside the tent was a makeshift bed, made from two torn mattresses that had been shoved together. It was greasy and stained, and smelt of stray cats mixed with mustard.

  Pip pulled Lacey roughly to him and untied her wrists. He frowned and spun her round. He retied the rope around her wrists, but this time behind her back.

  She struggled against him. He looked like an eight-year-old, but he was strong. His mask slipped down while they struggled, temporary blinding him. She pulled against him, harder, but he had a tight hold of her.

  He shoved her down to the mattress.

  “Turn over.”

  She ignored him.

  “Please.”

  He sounded as if he might cry. This kid was damaged goods. She could use that.

  “Sit. Please.”

  He avoided her eye as he spoke, looking around the tent. His gaze washed over everything in it as if making an inventory.

  She wondered who else was here; who might steal his stuff.

  Would they help her, or would they be worse?

  Pip grabbed a roll of duct tape from a rucksack near the tent flaps and tore off a section with his teeth.

  As he approached her, she shook her head violently.

  “No.”

  He stopped moving and cocked his head.

  “Please. We can’t be friends if I can’t talk to you.”

  His expression flickered as if coming to a decision. Then he balled up the length of tape and tossed it into a corner.

  “No shout,” he said.

  She nodded. She’d seen how deserted the buildings were. No one would hear her.

  Pip turned back to the rucksack and rummaged inside it. He drew out a knife.

  She fell back.

  He frowned at her. He grinned.

  “Not gonna hurt you.”

  “Then put that thing away.”

  He shrugged and slipped it into the rucksack.

  “Need it to eat.”

  “Eat?”

  He nodded. “Rats. Pip laid traps.”

  She shuddered. “I’m not eating rat.”

  “You starve then.”

  “Where are we?”

  He stood up, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the roof of the tent. It was shaped like a teepee but made of a gaudy pink and yellow swirly fabric, like a child’s toy.

  “Tell me where we are.”

  “San Francisco.”

  “This isn’t San Francisco. Not the one I know.”

  He nodded. “Don’t call that anymore. Point Zero.”

  “Point what?”

  “Point Zero. Since the quake.”

  “What quake? 1906?”

  He laughed. “Dummy. 2009.”

  She felt ice run down her back. “There wasn’t a quake in 2010.” At least, not one she knew of. But she’d only been five; what did she know?

  “Was.”

  “But that’s ten years ago.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He rummaged in the rucksack again and brought out a flask. He unscrewed the top and swigged from it. He offered it to her.

  “What is it?”

  “Brandy. Stole it. Water euuch.”

  “No thanks.”

  He shrugged and took another swig. She stared at him.

  “Where did your family go?”

  “West.” He waved the bottle in that general direction.

  “Why did they abandon you?” Her throat was dry and her skin felt damp. She wished she’d accepted that brandy.

  He grabbed her elbow and hauled her to a standing position. Her head dragged against the fabric of the tent.

  “Come,” he said. “Show you.”

  She pulled her elbow out of his grip. He looked down at it then seemed to decide to trust her. He left the tent.

  She followed him. It was even colder out here. She could hear water dripping somewhere, and the sound of scurrying feet. Rats?

  “Watch,” he said. She looked past him toward the broken stairwell. She’d tried making a run for it before and failed.

  “OK.”

  He nodded and took a few paces backwards. He licked his lips and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. They were gleaming. His skin had taken on a sheen she remembered from Fisherman’s Wharf. The cape moved; was it billowing?

  He raised his arm. She flinched, half expecting a blow. But he was oblivious to her now.

  He stood still for a moment, his chest heaving. He looked up at his raised hand, then started twirling his fingers, like he was auditioning for a puppet show without the puppets.

  She snorted.

  He lowered his hand.

  ‘’Not funny.”

  “Sorry.”

  She clamped her lips shut and sat on the floor. It was made of smooth concrete; cold but better than standing on her aching feet.

  “Go on,” she said.

  He resumed his pose, looking up at his outstretched arm, trailing his fingers. A giant glow appeared at his fingertips.

  She held her breath.

  He started humming. It sounded like twinkle twinkle little star. As the hum grew louder, the glow intensified.

  She stared, her mouth open.

  The glow at his fingertips grew. He drew his hand down, slowly, carefully not moving his fingers. Then he started spinning his arm. The glow shimmered and coalesced, forming shapes that appeared and disappeared. They looked like the dim forms of people.

  A growing circle of light was between them now, casting shadows on the walls. At its center was a tiny patch of stillness. At its edge was a glowing rim of yellow that looked like the diamond ring in a solar eclipse, a blurred, shimmering mass of pale grey light between them.

  Pip’s humming became singing.

  “Up above the sky so bright, like a diamond in the night!” He was all but shouting it.

  Lacey wondered if this was the last song he’d heard before the earthquake, if this was all the music he knew.

  The still patch at the center was growing, engulfing the shimmering, shifting air around it. The forms within became clearer. People, machinery. She could hear a faint drumming sound.

  She looked around her. The warehouse was deserted. Where were those people?

  Then it hit her. That was her San Francisco. That was how he’d snatched her.

  She pushed herself up and ran for it, leaning forwards and ignoring the pain in her wrists and legs.

  Pip’s eyes widened. He glared at her, his face full of horror.

  “No!” he screamed.

  He clapped his hands.

  The air in front of him went dark. She was running too fast to stop and hit him in the chest, sending them both to the floor.

  She tried to pull away from him, to stand up first. But the rope around her wrists made her lose her balance.

  He stood over her as she tumbled back to the floor. He put a foot on her chest, lightly.

  She stared up at him.

  “Send me home,” she told him. “You’ve no right to keep me here.”

&
nbsp; “No,” he said, and went back into the tent.

  17

  Banana

  Alex rushed toward Mike. She was about to hug him but then drew back. Partly because he was still Mike, the grumpy guy who’d resisted her joining the MIU. But mainly because he stank.

  “How did you get here?”

  “No idea. I was in the Spinner with you and Sarita, then everything went white and I was spat out here.”

  “Right here?”

  “No.” He pointed in the way Alex had come. His beard was in the shape of a banana. It waggled as he moved. “I was downtown, outside the Hall of Justice, or what passes for it here.”

  “So what made you come up here?”

  “There were some people,” Mike replied. “They didn’t look friendly.”

  “What kind of people?”

  He shrugged. “Three of them. Looked like they came from a circus. They had a sledgehammer. I didn’t get close.”

  Alex eyed him. She wanted to get him home. She wanted to get both of them home.

  “I know where we are,” she said. “Monique sent me here.”

  “To get me?”

  She looked down. “No. Sorry. There was a girl. Lacey. She disappeared on Fisherman’s Wharf.”

  “What’s that got to do with this place?”

  “She went through some kind of rift, Mike. She came here.”

  “You think she’s one of the people I saw?”

  Alex shrugged. “Describe them.”

  “There was a guy, in a gorilla costume. A woman in a Wizard of Oz outfit, way too old to be dressed like that. And a kid, teenager. Looked like PT Barnum.”

  “Huh?”

  “He was wearing a ringmaster’s outfit.”

  “He? It was definitely a he?”

  “Red hair. Skinny. Adam’s apple the size of a kumquat.”

  “No girls?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “East, I think. I was too busy trying to find something to eat. And I didn’t want them spotting me.”

  “Where have you been, all this time? Have you found food?”