Lucas looked around the store with a critical eye. I resisted the urge to shift the weight on my feet, instantly flooded with anxiety by his presence in the bookstore. E.J. and Weiss had excused themselves to the back office. Apparently he was allowed back there. I hoped they were eavesdropping.
“So this is where you work?” Lucas said with a critical tone. “It’s…decrepit.”
Nice word use but while I would have used it to describe the store a few weeks ago, now I knew better and what’s more, I felt a little insulted at the description.
“It’s vintage.” I said sharply.
“Ooooh.” Lucas mocked me. He was in one of those moods. He tended to get like this. Even in school he would go from avoiding me out of spite to confronting me after he smoked a bit of courage.
Don’t get me wrong, in the early days he was great fun to be with and he knew a lot about computers. As it turned out, his family were very good at pulling computers apart and selling off their components. Not sure how many, if any of them, were actually theirs to do so with. It was a rough family and sometimes the roughness got violent, especially the older siblings. Most of them had moved out now, to the relief of the entire housing estate’s residents but there was always someone coming or going from the flat at all times of the day or night.
Towards the end of school, because I was trying to get decent enough scores to do the courses I wanted and eventually work in a professional IT unit, we tended not to spend a lot of time together. Eventually he dropped out, or was expelled, depending on who told the story. It’s such a shame because he was really brilliant at what he did. Even without the certificate to prove it, he could have gotten a job anywhere that allowed him to show off his IT skills.
But you’d never know if he was just pocketing all the stock and going home to sell it.
“You skipped out on us last night.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”
“You were ‘working’.” He even did the inverted commas gesture. He seemed edgy, probably even more so than me.
“I was.”
“So…what kind of work would a computer tech dropout need to do at the Maadi Gras that would justify deserting your friends?”
He was picking books up, looking at them like they were pieces of crap and dropping them on the filing cabinet. I could almost hear Weiss grinding her teeth so I followed behind him and put them back. Rather than point out that he was not doing the right thing, he took it as a sign that it was the best way to annoy me and pulled even more books out.
“Did you come here for a reason or just to mess this place up?” I demanded.
“I just wanted to find out when your next magic show was happening.”
I shook my head. “What magic show? What are you talking about?”
“You know, the trick where you make someone disappear?” Lucas’ eyes locked onto me and I felt every drop of blood drain out of my face like someone had turned a tap on. “I thought you’d remember what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t…” Now I was really hoping Weiss and E.J. were eavesdropping.
“I caught it on my phone.”
I’m surprised there wasn’t a loud clang as my heart hit the floor. I think I gaped like a goldfish at Lucas, trying to refute what he had said but given that I was still in a bit of shock over it, I couldn’t find the words to deny it. He pulled out his phone and held it up to my face. The camera had been pointed at the ferry but Lucas, being a bit shaky, had been looking at the ferry while his phone had drifted to the left. I could see a tiny version of myself on the bridge with Moriarty. It was hard to make out details at that distance and the camera did have trouble focussing at times. However, at the worst possible moment, it snapped into focus and caught Moriarty’s hand going on my shoulder and my immediate reaction. A bright spark blazed so quickly it looked like a sparkler had lit up and then, where there had been a person before on the bridge, there was no one.
My mouth dried out and my hands were clammy.
“Now that’s some magic trick.” Lucas said darkly.
“I don’t…it doesn’t…”
“You do and it does. So unless you want this,” he jiggled his phone at me, “going viral on YouTube and the police come knocking at your door, demanding to know where the person went that you lit on fire, you’re gonna pay me to keep quiet.”
I had done the unthinkable.
I had done what the Agency would have, betrayed Moriarty’s trust and then caused the briefest scene which, because of all the cameras in the world right now, was in danger of being plastered all over the internet.
“How much?” I rasped.
“Five hundred.”
That wasn’t so bad…
“A week.”
I was sick with dread. It occurred to me that Lucas’ habit had gotten a lot worse than I’d realised. His face was pale except for the sweat on his brow and spots of colour on his cheeks. His eyes were rimmed with red. He was jittery and in need of a fix.
“Lucas…I don’t have that kind of money.”
“And even if Sam did, you won’t be getting a dollar of it.” E.J. announced.
Weiss had approached Lucas from behind as silently as a ninja and caught the phone out of Lucas’ hand so fast he had to check several times that what she had thrown to E.J. was indeed his phone.
“Hey! Give that back! You’ve got no right to do that to my phone!”
E.J. pulled a little electronic box out of his pocket that had a connection on it which slipped into Lucas’ phone. The little red light on it went green and he removed it and put it on the filing cabinet.
“What did you…” Lucas snatched it up and hunted through his phone. “What the hell! Where is my damn video! What did you do?”
“Erased it and any mention of it that was sent out from your phone.” E.J. said calmly. “Now, you are going to leave.”
“You have no right to do that! You’re a damn thief!”
“That phone is stolen property in of itself, isn’t it?” Lucas stalled in his rant. E.J. tilted his head. “You’ve gotten lazy in your habit or overconfident. There’s a name engraved on it and it isn’t yours.”
Lucas snarled at them both and pulled out a box of matches.
“I’ll burn this place to the ground! You hear me!”
“Lucas, cut it out!” I yelled as he lit a match, Weiss shrieking in fright.
“Elton! The flame!”
E.J. simply stepped forward and wrapped his hand around the flame, extinguishing it without so much as a flinch. Lucas was trembling.
“I suggest you leave. Now.”
Lucas did so, yanking books from the shelves and swearing up a storm. He banged the door hard then turned around and kicked it too before leaving. I was shaking but I was nowhere near as frightened as Weiss. I watched her drop to her knees and pick up the books with long, trembling fingers. E.J. knelt down beside her.
“Hey,” he said softly, “Adele, it’s alright. I got rid of the fire. Everything is safe.”
She nodded and he left her to her tidy up, putting her sanctuary back in order. E.J. looked at me. Before he could say anything I blurted out an apology.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“It kind of was.” I insisted. “If I had stayed my hand, Moriarty would have come back here and gone home in the right way. I nearly got everything you guys do exposed.”
“Which is a hard lesson but one you’ve clearly learned.” E.J. assured me. “That lad, Lucas was it? Will he retaliate against your mum or you?”
It was kind of him to think of us when it still felt entirely like it was my fault.
I shrugged. “I doubt it although you can never be too sure now. I knew he used drugs but I didn’t think the habit had gotten to blackmail usage.” I was still shaking. “How…how did you know the phone was stolen?”
“Lucky guess. It could have been a hand me down phone or a second hand one bought online but judging by his character…”
“Do you think,” I swallow down the squeak that was forming in my words, “the video he showed me…is it really gone?”
“It and every other copy of it with its particular time, date and GPS location that is within its metadata.” I stared at E.J. “Mandatory Agency dealing with technology briefings.” He held up the box. “This little beauty has a program that infiltrates technology and matches up known recorded sightings of Agency word and erases or damages them irreparably.”
“But what if he uploaded it somewhere? Maybe sent a copy to someone?”
“I doubt Lucas had any time to do that and he doesn’t strike me as the kind of kid that thinks ahead. He was desperate for a fix and so logic came second to selfish instinct.”
“But what if…”
“Sam,” E.J. put his hand on my safe shoulder, “the program even tracks sent videos. Even if he sent it, its gone. And if, however unlikely, we missed one, how many ghost clips are out on YouTube that no one takes seriously? Or magic tricks that are downright disturbing as people are cut in half? The Agency reviews any recorded public sightings and ensures that there’s nothing incriminating in them and we get our little boxes,” he shook it in front of me, “updated with what is needed to sift through the digital world.”
I nodded, somewhat but not entirely reassured. It would take time for the adrenalin to stop streaking through my veins. I helped Weiss pick up the last of the books and put them back, her face as pale as I had ever seen it.
“I’m really sorry Weiss.” I offered softly. “I never even told him where I worked. He must have figured it out.”
She nodded, unable to trust her voice.
It was a quiet, tense sort of a day.
Lucas must have raided his fridge because he egged the door of the flat I shared with mum. Well, I’m assuming it was him. No one else was angry with me to that extent. I cleaned them up before mum could see. I hoped that, given twenty four hours, Lucas would calm down. We’d never be friends again, I knew that bridge had burned, but he would move on as I already had.
I just hadn’t realised it until now.
It was hard the next day to see that Lucas’ spiteful behaviour had gone as far as to run out into the night and egg the front of ‘Beyond The Page’. Knowing how much Weiss loved her store and the painstaking work Jean did on the lettering on the bay window glass, the unkind revenge of eggs thrown cut me to my core. Without asking for permission, I got out a bucket of warm water and a sponge and cleaned it up.
Lucas had been my friend and Moriarty had been my mistake.
I felt like it was all my doing.
Jai arrived while I was finishing the window with a soft cloth.
“No!” Jai exclaimed when I told him what had happened. “Not this place! It feels like sacrilege against a timeless wealth of creativity.”
That’s exactly what it felt like.
“Don’t mention it to Weiss. I’m hoping she hasn’t seen it and it looks good as new now. Even if she did know about it, talking about it will only distress her.”
“Maybe this box of books will cheer her up.” Jai said, clutching the cardboard box in both hands. “The last shipping container was from an old estate of an elderly man. The family couldn’t be bothered with sorting all the personal items so they stuffed it in the shipping container and promptly forgot about it.”
“Really? Who does that?”
“People who didn’t want to deal with the little things and didn’t pay the rent of the container so it was possessed by the storage company and left to them to sort. And they didn’t bother looking inside either. They just put the unknown contents up for auction.” Jai followed me into the store and he put the box down. “I imagine there are some gems in here.” He looked up as Weiss approached. “Miss Weiss, a box of treasures for you to save.”
Weiss was more interested in the box of books than Jai’s tablet and his fee but he seemed to be okay about being relegated to second place. He knew that Weiss’ passion was for the books. Everything else came after that.
I showed Jai what I’d been doing on the computer and he had a couple of suggestions that I wanted to run past Weiss. When I turned to her, I was hit with a terrible wave of dread. Weiss was looking into the box, most of the books pulled out and stacked on either side. I couldn’t see what she was looking at but her expression…
I’d once watched someone attempt to bungee jump. I’m not a fan of heights…or of falling…or of the sudden, body crunching stop at the end. I don’t know why I thought it would be okay to watch someone go through it. They had the harness on and inched, I really mean inched, their way to the jump spot. And you could see the fear, no the sheer terror, on their face and the sickening sensation that they were about to die. Never mind the harness strapped around them. It might as well not be there for all the fundamental, paralytic fear that was coursing through their veins. And I felt every single terrifying moment and when they jumped, I nearly screamed with them.
She was in a bookstore, her world and her sanctuary, staring into a box…and yet Weiss was somehow conveying that same terror that I had seen and felt on the bungee jumper.
Even Jai picked up on it.
We both wanted to help but it was like we’d been silenced, hoping that, if we were quiet and still enough, the evil that loomed over us, would move on and not realise we were there.
Weiss breathed in and out slowly and picked up the box. She carried it out the back and shut the door.
Jai and I both gasped for air to fill our lungs.
“What was that about?” Jai whispered.
“If you’re bold enough to ask, you go right ahead. I’m gonna put my head down.”
“No, no, I’m with you.” Jai agreed and paused. “Just tell her whatever she wants to pay me is fine. She’s never been stingy with my cut.”
I put the information on my new work tablet and Jai went home with his. When E.J. came in a little later, Weiss had yet to appear. I explained what had happened. He looked grim.
“She’s had quite the week. Let’s hope the fictional world gives us a breather for a while.”
And oddly enough, it did. Nearly two weeks went by and nothing scary happened, fictional or nonfictional. My program was up and running and it was just a matter of entering all the information in. Data entry is a chore and a tedious one. I would have gone completely crazy if E.J. hadn’t started to take me out for ‘field trips’. And when I say field, I mean, the warehouse district, Fairview hospital that was abandoned after a fire destroyed half of it and an old cinema that was kind of spooky without fictional characters possibly inhabiting every corner. E.J. had cameras everywhere that needed maintenance.
“If I had a team, I wouldn’t need so many cameras.” He explained. “But they do the job. It just means there isn’t an Agency presence here all the time to deal with interlopers the moment they appear.”
“Yeah, but why here?” I asked. “It’s a weird place for the line between reality and fictional to tear.” We were in the old cinema. “I mean in this cinema I can understand. You know, movies, fiction…fantasy…but a hospital or the warehouse district?”
“Like we’ve said, Sam, we don’t fully know the reasons why a place becomes so thin that someone or something breaks through. It could be that this cinema is built on an old graveyard or teenagers used to come and read spooky stories and hang out at night here. There are also a lot of people who live beneath the city who read and it’s possible they inadvertently create a weak point in reality.”
“I saw a documentary on them once.” That might have been a bit generous. I saw the first fifteen seconds of it on social media then moved on. “They actually live in the bowels of the city, like in the giant pipes and foundations beneath it?”
E.J. nodded, shinning his torch up at a camera. A piece of ceiling, one of those ugly tiles, had slipped sideways and was blocking its view. We had the very professional and technological method of using one of E.J.’s crutches to knock it out of the way.
“I really should return these.” He muttered.
“Camera’s live now. Wave.” I said, looking at the tablet. E.J. gave me a dirty look through the camera. “So…people live under the city?”
“Oh, yes,” E.J. cleared his throat, “there’s quite a community down there.”
“Who would choose to live in a sewage drain?” I wondered, following E.J.
“The homeless, the sorrowful, the alienated and those that can’t deal with living among other people.”
“There’s charities, suicide prevention and mental health programs on every other corner for people to reach out to. Why live in a tunnel?”
We headed out a side door, into the sunshine.
“You have to understand, Sam, that your knowledge of existence doesn’t even go back twenty years.” E.J. said as we walked to the car. “Unless a special needs or mental health issue had a physical component, no one paid it any heed. Depressed after having a baby? Buck up and be a mother! Real men don’t cry. Woman, control your child and stop him freaking out because the tag on his shirt is itching.” He shrugged. “We know so much more now about the kind of mental health issues that don’t have an obvious outward display. A lot of the people in the tunnels couldn’t hack living in the modern world, crowded by people, unable to reach out for help because they could barely talk or thought it was easier just to disappear.”
“So the tunnels are full of old people?”
“Mostly older but there are a few young ones who have had a bad experience, even with help, that flee down the tunnels. Sometimes they come back up but most of the time…” E.J. looked at me over the top of the car. “Actually I’m due to catch up with one of them. I didn’t think you were ready but since we’re on topic…”
“I’m gonna meet a tunnel dweller?”
“Oh good grief, he’s a person. You make him sound like he’ll be a cross between a human and a mole.”
Actually, Bluey was a pretty nice guy…albeit unwashed, stained, smelly and very wary of me. His nickname suggested that at one time, he’d had red hair but it was dirty, grey and straggly now.
E.J. drove me to the old train station that had been cut off from the mainline when a better tunnel had been built. I was starting to realise just how many creepy abandoned buildings were within walking distance of where I lived. I knew we were classified as a lower socioeconomic, but it was really becoming clear just how much had been abandoned in my suburb and those around it. It was like the city planners decided it was easier to let it fall into disrepair, hoping we would all move away so they could bulldoze the lot.
We didn’t go into the building that was chained up and covered in graffiti. After we grabbed some bags from the boot of his car, E.J. led me to the disused tracks that descended steeply into a dark tunnel. There was even more graffiti down here and tales of the devil inhabiting the tunnels. It was decidedly creepy.
“Ignore the artwork. It stops after the blockade.”
E.J. had built a blockade which would deter most people from entering or exiting the tunnel unless you knew that it operated on a hinge and swung out of the way with the same ease as a door hinge of Swedish design.
It was dark as the blockade closed behind us. Out came our phones, the torches scanning around us quickly. E.J. picked up a piece of wood and banged on a pipe. It clanged loudly and echoed down the tunnel.
“Now we wait.” He said, leaning against the wall.
“For how long.”
“Depends how deep below Bluey is.”
It took about twenty minutes for Bluey’s shuffle to catch our attention. It took another five before he began to emerge from the darkness around him. His eyes shifted from E.J. to me and back again.
“Someone new…I don’t meet new people…” He said, edging backwards.
“Blue, this is Sam. Sam, this is Bluey.”
“Um…hi?”
Bluey half turned his head as though he was afraid of being recognised although how anyone could make out facial features on a face so covered in wild, tangled hair was beyond me.
“Bluey, Sam is learning about what I do. If anything happens to me, Sam will be here instead of me.”
This statement alarmed me. Was I really becoming one of them? Would I be forever doomed to live an isolated existence and struggle from day to day, getting security cameras to work and chasing down fictional characters?
Bluey seemed as unsure as I was.
“I don’t meet new people.” He grunted.
“I brought water, soap, canned food and clothes.” E.J. said, gently, not ignoring Bluey’s awkwardness but not letting it get the better of him. He took the bags from me and stepped forward. Bluey shifted at the edge of the light, like he was about to run. E.J. put the bags down in the middle between us and the homeless man then retreated. Bluey inched forward and looked in the bags.
“Tomato soup.” He wheezed. “I like tomato soup.”
“So do I.” E.J. smiled. “Bluey, have there been any unknowns in your area?”
Bluey was preoccupied with the contents of the bags as he shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“No, no one new. We don’t like new people.”
“No nasties in the tunnels?”
“No, not since you got rid of that spider…”
“Spider?” I whispered. E.J. shushed me.
“That’s good Bluey. Really good. I’ll be back next week, okay?”
“Weiss will come next week?”
“If she can.”
“Good. Good, good, good. Tell her we miss her.”
“I will, Bluey. I will.”
He nodded, took the handles of the bags and dragged them back into the darkness. E.J. put his finger to his lips and we left the tunnel. I pulled the blockade back and latched it like E.J. showed me. He nodded. Once in the sunshine, it felt like we could breathe and speak again.
“Don’t mind his fear of you. It’s taken me years to get him to even talk to me. But I’ve caught a number of interlopers who sought refuge in the tunnels thanks to Bluey’s intel. They always know when someone new is creeping about.”
“Like spiders?”
“Spider. Singular.” E.J. shuddered. “Big. It had snaffled up several of the community. Bluey told Weiss, Weiss told me and I went down, with permission from the community, to hunt the thing.”
“I take it, it didn’t want to leave amicably with you?”
“Not one bit. But the unfortunate thing about spiders, for them that is, they weave webs and this was a big spider and it left a lot of web, a giant tunnel of webs actually with it at the very back of it…and what comes out of a fictional character is just as flammable as the character.”
“You lit up one web and the whole lot went up, taking the spider with it?”
E.J. snapped his fingers. “Like that. Then I hightailed it out of there because while I’ve come to be tolerated, they’re still edgy around me even after all this time.”
We got into the car. “Bluey seemed to like Weiss.”
“They all do, the entire community.” He smiled softly. “They call her, their angel.”
I looked at him. “Why do they call her that?”
He sighed and turned to me. “Where do you think Weiss came from?”
It kind of fit, the people paranoia and the love of inanimate objects, her lack of people skills in contrast with her compassion and her strange manner of speaking, the things she found odd that were perfectly every day. There was also a wariness about her that reminded me of Bluey’s fear of me.
It must have taken E.J. months to coax her out of the tunnel. I wanted to ask him more about it but he remained tight lipped on it apart from saying,
“Weiss does not appreciate her past being poked into. I only told you enough for you to find a little understanding. Now let it be.”
So I let it be…at least out loud but I wondered about it a great deal.
The next couple of weeks weren’t incident free but E.J. was able to handle it. He was finally crutch free with the doctor’s approval. Weiss seemed to improve from her shaky week and we ambled along in our motley crew kind of way with me doing data entry most of the time.
So when E.J. came in just before lunch time and asked if I wanted to go interloper hunting, I leapt at the opportunity.
“Wait…it isn’t dangerous, is it?”
“Nope. Just fast.”
An hour later I was dashing through the sewer drains playing a game of tag that was so fast, only Olympians were capable of keeping up.
“I got him! I got him!” I lunged and missed the furry sod by a mile. “I don’t got him!”
E.J. sprinted past me. “Head right!” He yelled. “The tunnel meets up in about a hundred metres! You might head him off so hurry!”
I got up, wiped the mud from my jeans (no, not my new jeans. I’d learnt my lesson) and did as I was told. I had one of E.J.’s waterproof torches in my hand, my phone sealed in a sandwich bag in my pocket. I ran down the drain, following its curve. I could hear my footsteps and breathing echo around me and paused to catch my breath.
“This is crazy.” I wheezed. “Where’s a carrot when you need one?”
“Sam! Hurry up!”
I ran through the stitch in my side, trying not to slip on the mould that grew up the sides of the tunnel. Fortunately, when E.J. and I met in the intersection, we appeared to be on an incline and the water didn’t come up as far. Unfortunately, we’d missed the little blighter.
“Damn it.” E.J. looked at the two exits. “You take right, I’ll take left.”
I gasped out an affirmative and began to jog. My torchlight bounced up and down even as I tried to swing it from side to side. Goodness knows where I was. We’d been chasing the interloper for at least half an hour. All the drains twisted and turned, leaving me completely lost as to where I was. I couldn’t even hear E.J. anymore. I realised there was no point running and walked until my breathing returned to a less rasping, about to expire, pace. I continued, sure E.J. must have gotten the right drain as mine was just stretching on without any entrances or exits yet there was no sign of life, fictional or otherwise.
I nearly slipped on a patch of mould and two steps later, I found the water that had left the tide mark. I tried to walk as much on the sides of the curved walls as I could. I don’t know why I bothered. My shoes were already soaked.
I reached an intersection and put my hand on the wall, peering down the other exits with the torch.
Nothing.
No sign of life anywhere.
There was a manhole cover above and a little natural light filtered down. I switched the torch off and tried to remain still. The drains made fantastic echoes but it was so hard to know if something was close by or on the other side of the city.
Then I heard a thumping sound, not a clanging but a solid, heavy but soft, thumping. Something was running along the tunnel. I held my breath and opted for the darkest side of the drain. I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from so I waited and listened. The thumping was powering towards me.
I saw a shadow bounding off the wall of the tunnel briefly, caught in the refracted light coming through the manhole cover. Thump, thump, splash, splash, splash…
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
My chest tightened as I looked at the interloper that was just out of direct sight in the shadows.
Had it seen me?
Is that why it had stopped?
Then it sat up to its full height of two feet, front paws down in front of it, its long ears pointing straight up. They trembled even as his nose twitched, looking down a different path to the one I was hiding in.
I realised, for the first time in an over an hour, that he wasn’t moving.
It occurred to him at the same time too and he turned and went to push off with his powerful back legs, but I threw myself in his path, hands and claws fighting each other for the final say. When I did get a good hold, I made sure it was firm even as we both floundered in the water.
Abruptly our location was flooded with bright white light and I cringed away from it, blinded but not letting go of my quarry.
“Hold it right there!”
“Freeze!”
A series of clicks told me I was a split second away from being peppered full of holes and I could smell a chemical combination that smelt very flammable.
“Don’t shoot!” I shouted. “Don’t shoot!”
“Ryder…it’s a civilian!”
“Hold your fire! Taylor, turn it off! We’ll have a charred corpse here if any stray sparks hit your tank.” I waited for what seemed an eternity before I heard someone slosh through the water towards me. “Well, well, well…what do we have here?” A silhouette came into blurry view and leaned down. “You’re not who we were after at all. Who are you?”
I got to my feet, dripping and soaked, once again, from the sewer water. My captured fictional character, the once White, now a dirty grey, Rabbit who had fallen through from Wonderland, looking very put out as my left hand gripped his ears.
“My name is Sam,” I said tersely, “who are you?”
“Turn down the lights, Patch.”
The absence of the light was almost as blinding as the sudden presence of it. I blinked at the spots in my eyes, trying to think of where I knew the name from.
“You’re either very lucky or very stupid to have blundered into the capture of this,” the man tilted his head, “creature. We’ll take him off your hands.”
I held onto the White Rabbit, tucking my other arm beneath him and took a step backwards. As my eyesight adjusted I could see that there were four people, three men and a woman, standing in front of me in what can only be described as black tactical gear. They held themselves with military precision and even had weapons in their hands which were not unlike AK-47s yet had distinct differences.
“What are we going to do with the kid, Ryder?”
I blinked. “Patch…Ryder…you’re with the Agency.”
All four looked at me in surprise. “How the hell do you know about the Agency?”
I don’t know if I was making them more or less comfortable with me but kept blundering on. “I work with E.J.”
Ryder’s expression remained guarded. “Really? You’re E.J.’s trainee?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Where is he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The kid’s lying.” The one called Taylor said darkly.
“Sam isn’t lying.” E.J. announced his presence, striding into the intersection and standing almost entirely in front of me with his arms folded.
“This kid is working with you?” Ryder said as though the notion was as palatable to him as a nose full of salt water.
“Yep.” E.J. looked over his shoulder. “Sam, you okay?”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“And our little friend?”
I looked at the White Rabbit whose chest was trembling from his racing heart. I felt bad for him. If he hadn’t taken off at the sight of us, we wouldn’t have chased him and put him in this state.
“He’s okay too.”
E.J. nodded and turned back to the agents. “So…what are you doing here?”
“It ought to be, what are you doing here?” Patch said, pulling out a tablet. “This intersection marks the end of your territory and the start of ours.”
“And you know the rules, Elton,” Ryder said with a superior smile, “you let even one out of your territory and you lose any and all connection with the Agency. Hell, you might even get tossed into a book.”
“I’m not the one who caught the White Rabbit and as you can see,” E.J. gestured without looking, “Sam, who did, is on my side of the intersection.”
I wanted to edge back but even in the glare of dimmed spotlights, every move I made would have been visible. I held fast, hoping I was on the right side of the intersection.
Ryder, a man with a little stubble and a lot of attitude, eyed E.J. sharply. “Of course, you made sure your employment of this child was sanctioned by the Oversight of the Agency, didn’t you?”
“Actually I didn’t hire Sam originally for this role but the kid’s got a knack for this work.”
“I doubt the Oversight will see it that way. They might take your little pet project away from you.”
“Then why don’t we go see them together?” E.J. asked brightly. “I’m sure they’d love to hear how you and your band of itchy trigger finger sledgehammers nearly gave a real person third degree burns.” He looked directly at Taylor who didn’t appreciate being singled out.
“The kid’s an agent.”
“So now Sam’s an agent only when it saves your ass?” E.J. snorted. “Taylor, are you inhaling the fumes of that cannister?’
“Now look here…”
“Cut it out you two.” Spoke the one agent who had yet to say anything and I didn’t know their name. He was a big guy with skin the colour of dark chocolate and as much silver in his hair as E.J. “This pissing contest has gone on for long enough. You three have an interloper to contain. Elton,” he looked at E.J., “you best come with me and clear up your lack of a paper trail with this kid before Oversight gets fed up with your way of doing things.”
“Yes sir.” E.J. nodded then turned to me. “Sam, take the White Rabbit to Weiss. She’ll get him home.”
“I will.” I promised. E.J. walked towards the unidentified man and then out of the intersection.
Taylor, the guy with, what I guessed was, a flame thrower of some description strapped to his back leered at me and my catch. “I’d let us at him if I were you,” he held his gun suggestively, “a quick burst and your job is but done.”
“Were you born a jerk or did you do night classes to get your degree?” I asked angrily. Taylor laughed as if my quip was like a mosquito and he’d fought dragons.
Patch, the only woman of the foursome, leaned towards the White Rabbit whose nose was quivering like mad.
“Better take your little prize home, Sam,” she said, more condescendingly than cruelly, “and stay out of our territory. We can’t be dodging civvies, or rookie agents, while hunting something far more dangerous than a fluffy bunny.”
I rolled my eyes, turned and headed back the way I had come. Goodness knows how I was going to find my way out of the drains but at the very least I was going to get out of their sight.
And in my arms, the White Rabbit trembled. “Don’t worry little fella, I won’t let them hurt you.” I said. “They’re going after someone or something else.”
I had said it more to myself than to the Rabbit. Despite the fact that E.J. had told me he was an intelligent creature that could speak, I was still monumentally surprised when the White Rabbit did indeed speak in a rather cultured, English accent.
“They will not find him.”
I looked at the Rabbit. Stared is more accurate and he returned it with his pink eyes and perfect clarity.
“They won’t?” I said, internalising my shock as best I could at the notion of a talking animal.
The Rabbit shook his head as best he could with my hand around his ears.
“He escaped their blockade and ran down the way your friend came from.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. “But E.J. didn’t see him or say anything. He mightn’t like those guys but he wouldn’t intentionally let an interloper go free out of spite.”
“He would not have known. The man is invisible.”
My jaw fell open. The Rabbit reached up with his little paw and kindly closed it for me.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
The White Rabbit nodded. “Quite sure. I was running for, what I thought was, my life but when I reached the intersection, I realised I had passed someone I could not see with my eyes.” His nose twitched in a rabbity way. “I can help you find him.”
I eyed the Rabbit. “How?” I asked.
“I can smell him and I can hear him. I didn’t want to tell those people,” his pink eyes flickered back behind us, “they were most unpleasant. But I will help you.”
“In return for what?” I asked suspiciously.
“A day.” The Rabbit said surprisingly. “Just one, single day in your world.” I tapped my teeth and hesitated. E.J. had told me that characters had to return to their worlds. It was non-negotiable. The White Rabbit sensed my doubt. “While his scent is distinctive, it will fade in a few hours. If we are to go…”
“Alright,” I blurted, “you’ve got a deal.”
After all, I was still going to return the White Rabbit to his world…just not straight away.
After I found a topside exit, I figured out where I was and headed back to E.J.’s car. I also gave Weiss a call and asked for particulars about the Invisible Man. It was hard wrangling my phone out of my pocket and then out of its sandwich bag without letting go of WR but I wasn’t about to let him go. I doubted I could catch him again.
Weiss gave me her reference card of details then asked me,
“Do you really believe you will be able to contain him?”
“I think I can, with your information.”
“How will you even find him?”
I glanced at WR. “I have my ways.”
There was a pause on the phone.
“Make sure your ‘ways’ do not become known to the Agency.”
With that subtle permission, I felt like I could tackle the Invisible Man…after I changed. I’d had the presence of mind to put a spare pair of clothes into E.J.’s car and a whole heap of wet wipes and sanitiser. E.J. mightn’t mind wandering around, smelling like a backed up sink but I wasn’t keen. We were parked in the warehouse district so I knew I wouldn’t be seen by anyone outside as I changed. And WR sat on the front seat, his paws over his eyes.
I made sure not to let him out of the car as I went to the boot and rummaged through the bags that were meant for the down below people. E.J. and Weiss tried to make a weekly, if not fortnightly, stopover to give Bluey essential supplies which he distributed to the community. I felt bad about taking stuff from it but knew I had one shot at making my plan work.
I opened the door a crack, peering through at WR.
“I think I’m ready.”
“I noticed you did not let me get changed.” He retorted testily.
“There’s nothing in these bags that would fit you.” I insisted. “Just take the waistcoat off.”
“And go around naked!”
It was hard not to laugh at the remark when It was clear that, while WR did indeed wear a waistcoat, a neat navy pinstriped affair with gold buttons, his bottom half was naked and, at the moment, filthy.
I sighed. “Look, I’m making this up as I go. Now, jump in the bag.”
WR eyed the bag then looked at me with the same glare that Weiss used frequently.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. I don’t honestly know if I can trust you and we both know that if you chose to run, I’d never catch you, not again. And even if I did, you can’t just hop around the streets…bunnies don’t do that here.”
“I’m a rabbit.” He muttered and hopped dutifully into the bag. I nearly dropped it. He was quite heavy because he wasn’t a small rabbit. I did up the zip three quarters of the way and his nose immediately poked out. “Now, head back to where we encountered those unpleasant people in that giant unnatural rabbit hole.”
I did so after grabbing E.J. sunglasses off the dash. It was a bit of a walk back there, especially after all the running I’d done but I was grateful for the exercise. Because the city I lived in was at the edge of the bay, the weather had a tendency to change its mind with a snap of its cumulus nimbus fingers. We were on the cusp of Summer turning into Autumn but today, it was as though we’d bypassed the yellow light season and gone straight to Winter. While it was pleasant enough in the sunshine, the shadows were decidedly cooler and the breeze had a bite to it.
We reached the manhole that looked down into the drain.
“You need me to go back down?” I asked, lamenting my good quality runners.
“No,” WR said, sniffling, “I already know he went that way.” He pointed and I turned and followed the direction of the furry paw. At each manhole or curb side drain, I lowered the bag and WR sniffed and then pointed. We made good, steady progress although it wasn’t nearly as fast as I would have liked.
“Are you sure you’re following the right scent?” I asked.
“I assure you, I know which direction he went.” WR replied tersely. “This nose and these ears never lie.”
I wanted to protest but when we went to the next curb side drain, the gravel around it looked scraped away and nearby there was a footprint.
“There.” WR said proudly.
“That could belong to anyone.”
“Unless he figured out how to make clothes invisible, which, from your conversation with Weiss I know he did not, he is naked. That is a footprint, not a boot or shoe print.”
I had to concede that point. “So, he’s muddy now. That would make him visible.”
“Hold the bag lower.” I did so and followed WR’s directions into a lane where a tap still dripped and three was a puddle beneath it.
“Did he wash himself clean?”
“Yes and he went that way. Look, there are a couple of footprints left behind while his feet were still wet.”
Excited that we had not lost the trail, we followed the direction of the footprints and ended up at a large road crossing. WR whimpered at the sight of the cars barrelling towards us.
“They’ll stop at the red light.” I assured him as we crossed over.
“Such terrible beasts in this world, like an army of bandersnatches.”
We made it over without being mauled by the cars and I realised that, not only were we moving out of the abandoned and less populated area to a far more populated one, it was getting later in the day. After picking up my spare clothes and emergency supplies from the flat and all the running around in the drains and the back and forth-ing from the exit point to the car, it was getting on to towards the three o’clock. The streets we crossed were already starting to fill up SUVs and family saloons with parents heading towards schools, hoping for a prime position parking space. There were also a lot of buses and though there had been a big push to replace all the old diesel buses with electric ones, the funding had run short so now and again there were clouds of diesel to avoid.
WR moaned. “What a fearful stink!”
“Just be grateful you’re in the bag.” I said quietly. I was not alone anymore and had to be a bit more careful. Not that anyone would think I had a talking fictional character secreted in my bag. I just didn’t want to look stupid. “Hey, with all the smells that are around, are you sure you can still catch his scent?”
“It’s not as strong as it was but it is very distinct, even amongst these smelly, gaseous mindless beasts.”
I slid between a group of women talking and kept walking. “What kind of smell?”
“Like his body is saturated with a strange combination of chemicals. There’s nothing quite like it, not in my world or, I suspect, in yours.”
I had to take his word for it as I felt a little foolish, wandering the streets, pausing now and then for no apparent reason, apparent to anyone else that is, then continuing on.
We got stuck at another intersection where the lights did not favour us as they had done before. I stood a bit apart from the crowd that increased in number at the edge of the curb, as though jostling for the starting position.
“Back in the unnatural hole, with those unpleasant people,” WR said softly, “I heard what you said…and I wanted to let you know that I am grateful.” His little pink eye peeked out of the bag and gazed into mine with perfectly clarity. “I did not want to be caught by anyone but I am exceedingly glad that you did and not they.”
I felt a twinge of regret. “I’m sorry we chased you. We did try to explain…”
“I was frightened.”
“I’m not surprised.” I paused. “I wish I could have approached the situation differently but I’m pretty new at this and I’ve never met a talking animal before.”
“I find it interesting that we have yet to truly meet. We know each other’s names but we have not formally made each other’s acquaintance.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the Jane Austen way he spoke. It was so polite, like staring down inevitable destruction armed only with manners and a tailored pinstripe suit.
“I’m Sam Baker.”
“Hello Sam Baker, I am the White Rabbit.”
“That really is your name?”
He looked at me. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because you are a white rabbit.”
“Yes?”
I shrugged and saw the lights begin to change. “It’s a bit of a mouthful.”
“And Sam Baker is not?”
“Just Sam.” I glanced at him. “How about Fluffy, for a name?” The glare showed me he did not approve. “Cuddles? Mr Hoppity?”
“Are you deliberately trying to insult me?”
“Alright, what about Whitby?” I said out of frustration. “It’s kind of like white and kind of like rabbit.”
“How would you feel if I suggested I call you Saker? Or Cuddles?”
The lights finally changed and I hoisted the bag up. “Good point. Alright, come on then.”
We crossed the road. On the other side was a shopping centre. With WR’s direction we headed for one of the entrances. It was decidedly warmer inside. There were also a lot of people and, as we got over the three o’clock bump, more and more school kids running, yelling and making it difficult to precisely follow WR’s directions. We made it to the food court and my stomach rumbled violently.
“Have I got time to grab something to eat? I’ll pass out before we find this guy, especially if I have to run again.”
“Does food have the potential to increase your size or shrink you down?”
I wanted to laugh as I took my place in the queue. “Only if you’re on a diet. The food is safe here.”
“You may eat.”
I quickly bought a bun from the bakery then, as an afterthought, I grabbed a few more things and a bottle of water. WR was not impressed at having his space encroached even more as I jammed it all into the bag.
“I’m hungry too, you know.”
“I know and if I just knew…what?”
WR’s nose was twitching. “Sam Baker, he is over there.”
“Where?”
A paw came out of the bag and pointed. I looked, as if that would help. There was nothing and no one in the direction of WR’s paw. I started walking casually in the direction, going close to the window display. Feeling like an idiot I began to speak.
“Look, I know where you’ve…oof!”
I landed hard on my backside, a group of school kids laughing their heads off at my apparent ability to trip over thin air. But I hadn’t tripped, I’d been pushed.
“He’s running!” WR exclaimed.
I grabbed the handles of the bag and began to sprint in the direction of the pointed paw. Although, for once, I didn’t need WR’s help. I think we must have flustered the guy as he started bumping into people, yells of indignation as men and women were shoved out of his way and then he stumbled over a little old lady’s collection of bags at the foot of the bench where she rested. I heard him swear and kept on after him. It all happened so fast, no one really understood what was going on. I did try to keep out of his direct line of flight as I didn’t want the issues to end up being pinned on me. But no one even noticed me as I ran to the exit at the far end of the complex.
“Straight, go straight!” WR insisted and I did so, sprinting across the carpark. “He’s already on the other side of the road!”
And into Pattison Lakes Botanical Gardens.
“This place is huge.” I said, looking around at the gardens.
“Keep heading in. He’s running in a straight line, hoping to put distance between you and he.”
I did so, jogging now cause my lungs and legs were threatening to quit if I kept running at full speed. The gardens were really nice for picnics and kids to play ball, poetry readings and the odd moody musician sitting under a tree, composing the next greatest hit. Pattison Lakes was what happened when government funding meets middle class suburban planning and development. Not only were there no housing estates for those who couldn’t afford more rent on their minimum wage jobs, sending them all the way to Bellamy or Fairview instead, but there was enough space for them to design, develop and plant the botanical gardens.
And, in keeping with the name of the suburb, there was a lake in the gardens with little off shoots that led to pools tucked away in leafy alcoves. There were large patches of flowers, deliberately planted to bloom at different times of the year and there were always gardeners about, tending their precious verge. There weren’t a lot of people to be seen. It was cold, all the kids were in the shopping centre and the dog park was on the other side of the lake. The gardeners nearly had the place to themselves.
“He’s towards the lake.”
This was unfortunate for him. A hedge wall blocked off one side of the lake so unless he was willing to cross in front of me, I had him pinned against the water. I’d seen stray dogs bounding through it and knew it was only about a foot deep. Not that anyone who didn’t know that could tell. Despite all the money poured into the gardens, the water was still pretty opaque and, in some areas, covered in lily pads and surface moss that the ducks like to root around in.
“Where is he?” I asked quietly.
“I can’t tell.”
“You what?”
“It’s the natural surroundings,” WR insisted, “they’re softening his scent. In the artificial buildings and tunnels, it was amplified. Out here, the natural order of things is already cleansing the air and him.”
“So you can’t smell the chemicals on him?”
“Not as much as I could but the scent of fear is thick around him. Put me on the ground.” I eyed him sharply. “Leave me in the bag but put me on the ground. I need to be still.”
I did so and undid the zip a little so WR could sit upright. He was very still, his nose barely moving except for his nostrils when he breathed. His ears were bolt upright and I noticed them twitch ever so slightly.
“He’s up against the hedge, only a few feet from the edge of the water. His heart is still beating very fast.” WR paused. “He is more frightened than I was.”
I inched towards the location WR said. I knew I couldn’t see him but when I spotted two footprint indents in the grass, I realised I’d found him.
“I’m not here to…”
The footprints shifted and the hedge rustled as he pushed off from it. I could track him from the grass as he left tracks but I needn’t have bothered. He ran into the water, big splashes coming out as he sloshed further and further away from the edge, startling ducks in his attempt to flee.
“Griffin!” I shouted and suddenly the motion in the water stopped though the ripples continued to drift out until they diminished. “Griffin, I know you’re scared. Goodness knows how long you’ve been running for, even before you stumbled into my world.” The water of the lake had settled yet I could see two circular ripples that showed where two legs might be standing. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He hadn’t responded and I started to wonder if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Maybe he wasn’t there at all. “You must be tired and hungry and freezing without clothes on.” I stepped backwards to the bag, keeping my eye on the lake. “I have clothes for you in here. I’m going to put them…in that toilet block over there.” I pointed to the stone building. Even the public toilets were nice in Pattison Lakes. “Please Griffin, let me help you.”
I looked at WR who shrugged. I knew there wasn’t much else I could say. Weiss’ description of the invisible man, apart from including his name, spoke of a man who went insane after performing the incredibly dangerous experiment on himself of making his body turn invisible. He eventually gave in to his rage and violence. But he was still a man and, from WR’s description, he was very frightened.
I picked up the bag and took it to the toilet block. I removed WR from it, tucking him beneath my arm much to his annoyance and took the food I’d bought out of it. I left the bag in a cubicle and went outside to wait. I found a place that overlooked the lake and the ducks that had returned to their precious water. I made sure it was in the sunshine. The cold breeze had begun to have an arctic edge to it.
“Can you tell where he is?” I asked WR after a few minutes. I was scared of asking in case I’d fudged the whole endeavour.
“He,” said a voice behind me, “is right here.”
I stood up and turned. I’d managed to find track pants, socks and a pair of shoes in the bags in E.J.’s boot. There had also been a hoodie and a cap. The invisible man, Griffin, had figured the cap out and put it on his head, flicking the hoodie up over it. He wore E.J.’s sunglasses and I’d found a scarf that he’d wrapped around the bottom half of his face and a pair of gloves for his hands. It wasn’t perfect and he did look a little odd but he must have been so much warmer.
“Hey,” I said nervously, “I thought you might be hungry.” I sat down and showed him the food I’d bought from the bakery. Hungry didn’t begin to describe the man’s starvation. He nearly threw himself on the food in desperation. It was impossible to eat without exposing the bottom half of his face, which of course I could not see, but the food rolled around in the space where his mouth was, pulverised into portions he could swallow which, of course, then could be seen going down his neck, or at least, where it ought to be.
I turned away, a little sickened by the sight and also trying to respect the awkwardness of his situation.
WR rapped me on the leg and held out his paw.
“Sorry dude,” I said, breaking off a chunk of iced apple bun, “here, you deserve it.”
He nibbled on it happily. I let him rest on the grass between my legs. He could have taken off on me and be gone in an instant but I had someone else to look after now. WR jerked his head towards Griffin and I glanced at him. He’d pulled the scarf back over his nose and cheeks and lowered his head. I could see his shoulders shaking.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
I heard him sniff. “Forgive me…it has been so long since anyone was kind to me.”
“I can only imagine.” I offered gently.
“Even your imagination falls short of my torment.” He lamented. “I proved something remarkable but condemned myself in the process. I was starting to make progress in reversing it but then that damned woman and her nosy husband…” His temper flared up immediately and he spat their descriptions out with vehemence. Then he breathed in and out a few times. “Forgive me again. My mind…I am prone to fits of extreme rage now. My temper is…out of control.”
“I’m sorry for making the situation worse by chasing you.” I offered gently.
“I’m actually glad you caught me.” His hooded head turned towards WR. At a passing glance, he just looked like the kind of person you would avoid in a park late at night. The kind of person you didn’t hang around too long or stared at. But as he looked at the White Rabbit, I could see the gaps in his disguise where I could see the inside of the hoodie and not his face. “You are an unusual sort of bloodhound.”
I looked at WR who tilted his head and raised an eyebrow which was so comical, I wanted to laugh.
“You think he’s a dog?” I asked.
“My vision is very poor. I knew you had some kind of animal to track me. I assumed it was a dog.”
I frowned. Weiss hadn’t mentioned poor vision.
“Has your eyesight always been bad?”
“Only since stepping into this world.” I made a mental note to ask Weiss about it as it seemed inconsistent with her record of him. “How is it you know of me and my condition?”
Now this was the hard question. How did I explain it to him without freaking him out further?
“In my world,” I said slowly, “we have some…documentation on who you are and what happened to you. It’s not widely known, in fact only a handful of us know of you.”
“Does that handful include those dangerous men with weapons who laid traps for me?” He asked darkly and I could hear how his temper was just simmering beneath the surface.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I nodded, “but while I work alongside them, me and my boss do things very differently.”
“How do you differ?”
“We try to reach out to people, like yourself, who have become stranded here and help you to get home.”
“And what do the others do?”
“Shoot first, clean up the mess later.” I admitted.
He breathed in and out deeply. “I saw them setting up the trap for me in the intersection but they had underestimated how fast I was and I simply slipped past them. I was tempted to grab one of their weapons and start shooting…but I decided on stealth instead.”
“Fortunate for them.” I remarked.
“Did you say you could get me home?”
“We can.” I nodded. “We take you to a place where an artificial rip is made between my world and yours. You step through it and you’re home.”
Griffin paused, his hoodie facing forwards, watching the ducks swim away from the fading light, going back to their well hidden nests to curl up and sleep.
“Where I come from,” he whispered, “I am hunted and treated with suspicion.” He shook his head. “I know I deserved the attention…but I had no one to turn to, no other road to take and then they started sticking their noses into my business…” He turned to me. “Why would I go back?”
It was a hard question to answer. I had to think about it for a while.
“Because, as rough as that road is, it’s nothing compared to what will happen to you here.”
“How so?”
“Even if you manage to evade the people I work for, who have a policy of returning everyone to where they came from, this world is drastically different to yours. There are cameras everywhere and while they can’t see you, you are invisible, not untouchable. You’d only have to make one mistake, one slip up that people in authority can identify and they will hunt you down with every conceivable method. They may not be able to see you but we have technology that can sense your heartbeat and pick up on your heat signature.” I pointed back towards the shopping complex that was somewhere behind us. “If more moments like what happened back there continue to occur, you will be traced, tracked and caught. And they won’t send you home. They’ll put you in a box, poke and prod you, scrape skin samples and analyse every fluid and emission you give out. They won’t even have to open a door to do it. Once in a six by six box, they’ll perform all kinds of experiments on you in an attempt to replicate what you did.”
I knew I’d painted a very bleak picture about his future possibility but the truth was, unless he met someone who was smart and powerful, he would be imprisoned, hidden away from the world and experimented on.
“You might be able to evade detection for a while…but it wouldn’t be long. There are so many more people in the world now than there was before and we are a city full of nosy people.” I added softly. “It would only take one who wanted five minutes of fame on the news to betray your presence.”
Griffin cleared his throat. “But, surely, with your help, I will be able to reverse the process. You must help me.” His tone was hard and demanding.
“The means don’t exist in this world.” I insisted. “Griffin, you haven’t just fallen out of time. You’ve fallen out of reality. And the documentation on what you did to yourself is incomplete. It’s from a narrative that we know anything at all and you know that, with this kind of science, you need to be exact. Hearsay and rumour can never take the place of scientific process.”
Griffin’s shoulders bowed in defeat. “Then I am lost.” He said softly. “Unless…do you think the means to undo what I did to myself exist where I come from?”
I don’t know whether I was relieved or worried that I hadn’t read the book and Weiss hadn’t told me how it ended.
“I think it’s far more likely there than it is here.” I said by way of excusing my lack of knowledge.
Griffin stared at the fading light on the duck pond. I didn’t want to rush him. We just sat on the grass as the world became cooler and dimmer. WR was happy to sit and enjoy the quiet as well.
“How do you propose to send me home?”
I glanced at Griffin, hearing resignation in his voice.
“I’ll call my boss, E.J., and he’ll decide whether it’s better that he handles it or if he should take you to the Agency. He’ll stay with you and make sure you’re treated with respect.”
He sighed deeply. “Very well. Do as you suggest.”
I called E.J. and had a quick conversation with him.
“You sure he’s willing to come in on his own volition?”
“Yeah I’m sure. But the Agency isn’t allowed to get their mitts on him.”
“I’ll make sure of that. Be there shortly, Sam.”
E.J. took about half an hour to break through the two main roads of rush hour traffic and find a park near us in the gardens. WR sat up, his ears twitching. His pink eyes looked at me.
“Hide.” I hissed and he darted away into a thicket. “Just like Peter Rabbit.”
Griffin and I stood up as E.J. approached.
“Ah…nice glasses.” He said, tapping his face.
“Griffin, this is my boss, E.J.”
E.J. held out his hand and Griffin shook it. “I’m sorry my fellow agents are low in the compassion and intelligence department.”
“Your apprentice more than makes up for their incompetence.” Griffin said kindly. “I have spent only a tiny portion of time in your world compared to the lifetime in my own, but it has had a profound effect upon me. I will never forget this afternoon and the company I shared.”
“Me either.” I said.
“Allow me to escort you home, Griffin.” E.J. smiled. “Sam, you need a lift?”
“No. I’ll walk.”
“Okay. Don’t bother going back to Weiss. She knows you’ve been working with me, or for me as it were. Go home and get some rest.”
I watched E.J. and Griffin go. I think Griffin looked back at me before he disappeared over the rise so I waved then dropped my hand. I turned around and realised WR was nowhere to be seen. “Great.” I muttered. “White Rabbit? WR?” I resisted the urge to whistle, sensing that my kindness had made a fool out of me when the White Rabbit hopped out of the thicket and sat up, looking at me. “I thought you took off.”
“Tempting,” he shook his head, “but there are a great many dogs in this world. At least in Wonderland, they do not tend to chase and eat rabbits.”
“Trust me, they do here.”
He tilted his head to the side. “You did a kind thing for that man.”
“Clothes and food are never wasted, neither is kindness.”
“I wasn’t talking about him. I meant your friend, the one you call E.J.” I looked at him in surprise. “You don’t mean to say that it didn’t cross your mind that E.J. would belittle his fellow ‘agents’ by bringing in the one they had missed with their net?”
I laughed and put my hand at the back of my head. “You clever sod. I can’t believe you figured that out.”
“I heard their tone when they spoke to him. I think they will look a little foolish when E.J. escorts Griffin back home, caught with kindness and not with force.”
“Well, maybe a bit of force. I’m going to be sore tomorrow.” I held out the empty bag. “Come on, in you get. I’ve got to find a bus that’s going in my general direction to save my legs.”
He eyed it sadly. “I suppose that’s it for my day spent in your world.”
I liked this creature. He was smart, personable and funny.
“Well…you agreed to help me find and catch the invisible man. Technically, we just finished that so I think it’s only fair that your day in this world starts from right now.”
WR’s eyes lit up and he very nearly leapt int the bag. When I climbed onto a bus I put the bag on the window side of my seat so he could see out. Every now and then he would be so surprised at something that his ears would shoot straight up in the air. I would reach out and gently comb them down. No one in the bus noticed. They were too busy with their faces planted on their phones. We might have given a few kids a giggle as they stared out the car windows which passed us by.
I took him to the housing estate and let him out at the flat. He scampered about eagerly.
“You do not live here alone. I smell someone else.”
“My mum. She’ll be here in about an hour. So,” I looked around, “what do you want to do first?”
The first thing WR asked for was somewhere to clean himself up. We had no bath and the shower terrified him. In the end I gave the sink a really good clean out, put the plug in and filled it up with warm water and body wash that bubbled and smelt like coconut. It was the funniest sight to see him sitting amongst the soap suds, cleaning his face with his paws and giving his ears a once over as well. I offered to dry him but that didn’t go down very well. Despite his being a rabbit, and a large one at that, he was intelligent, modest and proper. I gave him a towel that he dried himself off with while I tried to give the waistcoat a decent scrubbing.
I felt it was the least I could do.
WR was just finishing off drying himself when mum came home. She said hello from the door and I looked at WR in horror. He caught sight of my face and dove for cover as I gave the waistcoat a good rinse and let out the water. I wrapped it up in the towel just as mum came into the kitchen.
“Hello Sam, how was work?”
“Tiring.” I said automatically.
“Working at a bookstore? How could that have been tiring?” She smiled, putting her hand bag down and pulling her shoes off. I jerked my head towards WR’s hiding spot and he leapt out of the kitchen while my mum’s back was turned. “Oh my aching feet. Some days are worse than others.”
“Tell me about it.” I murmured. “A friend of Weiss an E.J., the people I work for, went missing. He was a bit confused and didn’t know who to trust. I helped look for him.”
“What a kind thing to do.” She praised me up. “Did you find him?”
“Yeah, E.J. picked him up. He’ll be alright now.”
“That’s good to hear. Listen, Sam…what’s with the towel?”
“Oh…I spilt water…just cleaning it up.”
“Thank you. Sam, I’ve got a few ladies coming over tonight for a study. You know you’re more than welcome to join us but I thought perhaps you’d like fair warning to maybe go out with friends?”
“Honestly mum, I’m really tired. I’m going to have a shower, have something to eat and go to my room. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No of course not.”
I poked my head into my room. “White Rabbit?” I whispered intensely.
He peeked his head out from beneath my bed. “You really need to clean under here.” He grumbled.
“No one usually goes under there.”
“Where’s my waistcoat?”
“I’ve got it but it’s still very wet. I’ll hang it up to dry. Let me get washed up and I’ll see if I can’t find you something to wear.”
Mum had a doorstopper that was the shape of a little boy who was facing the corner with his hands over his eyes like he was counting during a game of hide and seek. He was tucked away in the linen cupboard, all but forgotten. When I spied him, I picked him up and deposited him into my room.
“See what you can do with that while I shower.”
By the time I got back to my room, the doorstopper was stripped of its clothes and WR was dressed in blue tartan t-shirt and a pair of denim overalls.
“I bit a hole in the backside for my tail.” He confessed and showed me.
“We’ll just call it moth damage and say no more about it.” I chuckled. “I know I promised you a full day here…but I think eight hours sleep needs to be part of it.”
“I understand.” He nodded. “Are you going to sleep right now?”
I paused. “Actually, no. Let’s watch a movie.”
I wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea to show WR the Alice in Wonderland movie but by the way WR laughed his way through it, I figured it was worth the risk.
“What a funny idea of what Wonderland is. What an imagination!”
“There’s a sequel if you like.”
I was so tired I dozed off in the second movie. I opened my eyes at the end credits and switched it off. I rolled over to see WR hop down off the bed and clamber up to the windowsill. He looked out, curious at the sparkling lights of the city. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
When I woke up, I didn’t need to look far for him. He was curled up next to me on the bed, like a pet rabbit. It was tempting to stroke his fur but I had to remind myself that he was not a pet and so let him be. When he pried his eyes open we raided the fridge for breakfast. I wasn’t sure if he would be pleased or insulted that I offered him a carrot.
“I do like carrots.” He insisted. “Usually steamed with a little cream sauce. Do you have any porridge?”
In the end we had toast and jam. As he nibbled on his slice, I studied him.
“So…your day in my world…what would you like to do?”
“I’d just like to see it, some of it, if I may.”
“There’s a lot to see,” I confessed then brightened, “but I know a great place to start!”
One of those giant Ferris wheels had been constructed years ago not far from Southbank and the promenade where I’d encountered Moriarty. We travelled by train, WR peeking out of the window as the buildings flashed past. I was worried he’d freak out in the carriage but he loved every second of it.
The banks of the river were lined with beautiful green lawns the paved promenade and all the nightlife you could ask for. Either side of the river could be reached by bridges of varying heights. The largest bridge was at the mouth of the river. It was a ten minute walk from one side to the other and only if you maintained a brisk pace. In the middle of the bridge was the Ferris wheel. It was perched on the two centre pillars of the bridge and was so high it offered the best views of the city and of the bay. Many a budding photographer had done their best to capture sunrises and sunsets through the wheel as the light glanced off the expanse of water beyond or of the glittering nightlife in the background. At night the line for the Ferris wheel was huge. First thing in the morning, we got a carriage all to ourselves.
WR scampered around on the floor of the carriage peered at everything, the bayside, the docks, the CBD rising through the crisp morning fog, the rainbow of cars creating a constant flow, the river and the suburbs sprawling out as far as his pink eyes could see.
“How extraordinary!” He exclaimed. “What a sight! A land unlike ours yet full of wonder all the same.”
“You’re not wrong. Want to see more?”
“Yes please!”
We bought hot donuts and fairy floss from a stall near the Ferris wheel.
I showed him the flower gardens and he breathed in the smell of gladiolas, hyacinths and dahlias.
We went to toy kingdom and he fit in better there than he did anywhere.
“Mummy, mummy, I want a bunny like that!”
We made tracks out of there before a desperate mother pinned me down and demanded where I’d bought my bunny.
There was a petting zoo exhibit and I took WR to see the llamas, the sheep, goats, miniature ponies, pigs and, in an enclosure, the rabbits. I squatted down next to the cage and opened the bag up so he could get a good look at them. They were much smaller than he was and while they were cute, there wasn’t the same comprehension in their eyes as there was in his.
“No wonder you were surprised I could speak.” He said, shaking his head.
We had lunch on the lawn overlooking the river. I let him out of the bag on the condition that he didn’t speak or eat like a human. We got a few funny looks but only one person commented on it.
“It’s cruel to dress animals up like they’re people. For goodness sake, leave the rabbit alone.”
The indignant soul stalked away, probably pleased with the verbal conviction they’d shovelled out.
I looked at WR and he looked at me…and we erupted into laughter.
We caught a taxi to Kingsbury and I carried him inside in the bag. At the top of the stairs I let him out. He looked around.
“Where are we now?”
“The last place before I really need to take you home,” I said firmly, “but I know that there is a person here who would love to meet you.”
We made sure no one was in sight down the corridor. WR stood up straight on his back legs and made sure he was neat and presentable as I knocked. When I heard the call to come in I did so and Jean Miller looked up with a smile on her face.
“Sam, what a lovely surprise…or have you brought a book with you?”
“Not a book. A friend.” I pushed the door open. “Jeanette Miller, I’d like you to meet the White Rabbit.”