by Adam Melrose
‘Arrogant? How do you get to that? It has absolutely nothing to do with arrogance. I have tried to talk her out of it – and for the record I do not think this is a good idea. I have also had a word with Max, and he assures me she will absolutely come down here on her own. I have taken advice, considered the pros and cons and decided this is the best option. OK?’
Norton shook his head.
‘No – not really, not at all in fact, but you’re the boss.’
Matt turned to head back to the others without saying a word. Norton had been out of sorts from the start of this case, Matt made a mental note to have a talk with him back in London, when the case was closed. He had never thought Norton would behave like this; something must be troubling him. Matt would try and help Norton when this was all over.
Another trip along the tow path, and they were all back at the entrance to the portal. Bella was very much undergoing the same experience they had all had when they first saw it.
‘Wow, even the detail you guys provided in your reports can’t prepare you for this place. I don’t think there is anything else quite like it in the world. I would not actually have liked to come here alone to be honest.’
Before long they had everyone kitted out again, and everyone was in the re-inflated dinghies that sat just inside the mouth of the portal.
‘I am sorry Bella, this is going to be very boring for you; there really is nothing to see.’
‘No I get that, but I just wonder.’
‘Wonder – wonder what?’
‘Well I was going through one of the cupboards in our flat, and I found a small plastic box with a solitary white plastic card in it. What really caught my attention was that the card had absolutely no markings on it at all. I thought that was odd, and wondered why Pete would keep a blank plastic card in a box. I took the card out and examined it. That’s when I noticed something peculiar.’
Bella paused for a moment. She was not sure how the team were going to take the fact she had kept something potentially important from them. Looking at them, none of the faces registered anything Bella took as anger, so she tentatively continued.
‘Well it didn’t make sense until a couple of days ago – but I had looked closer at the card, and it was not totally blank. It had a hologram on it. A very faint one, but it’s there none the less.’
Bella reached into her pocket and took out the card and handed to Joe who was nearest to her. He examined it.
‘Oh yes. I wouldn’t have seen it unless I knew to look for it; you’re right. It’s a logo; it looks like it is a small bird in flight coming into land. Is it a Blackbird?’
‘Yes, I think it is.’
By now the card had made its way around everyone, and was with Matt. He twisted it in the light and sure enough the logo appeared.
‘So what do you think this is then?’
‘I guess it is some sort of key card like hotels have, though this feels a lot more substantial than those, and…’
Matt made firm eye contact with Bella, he didn’t want anything being held back that might adversely affect Bella or his team’s safety.
‘And what?’
‘Well, the first couple of nights I left it by my bed at home. I was wondering whether it had any significance and whether I should tell you about it. My point is I looked at it a lot, and it never did anything odd.’
‘But it is doing something odd now?’
‘Yes Joe, ever since I took it in my purse to dinner with Evo.’
‘And…. What has it being doing that’s odd?’
‘It has started flashing red. Once every hour.’
Everyone’s eyes widened a little.
‘The whole thing flashes red, and it has been doing that since you were at Nalebury for dinner?’
‘Yes Max. Sorry, I probably should have said something, I don’t know why or what it is doing.’
‘I hope Evo didn’t spot it flashing.’
‘No, I’m sure he didn’t, it was deep in my purse.’
Matt began to hand the card back to Bella.
‘I have seen something like that before. You are right, it is a key card; they have a similar looking thing for the labs at Refract Speech. I have seen Ollie with something remarkably similar. There is a chip inside there, and it has a small rechargeable battery. The card flashing red means it’s asking to be recharged. You holding it must have woken it up; or it sensed a compatible charging station in Evo’s office. With no identifier on it, we have no way of knowing where it’s for. I am guessing you thought it was for here?’
Bella nodded.
‘Well…I wondered.’
Max came forward and looked in Bella’s direction.
‘And you brought it here to see if it did anything?’
Bella nodded again.
‘Well it can’t harm, though we saw nothing that even remotely resembled an access panel or slot when we were here last.’
Matt gave a knowing smile.
‘Well, we wouldn’t. The whole point of these card systems is invisibility. The card readers are hidden in the wall, so that any potential thieves or intruders have no idea where to look in order to try and override the system. I guess having something on the wall that is very clearly a card reader or lock gives intruders something to target. This way, they have no idea where it is. Ollie did mention that’s the reason the cards are a bit more substantial. They have to carry a battery because they have to be strong enough to transmit a signal through a wall. That allows the reader not to give off any strong signals, which means intruders can’t scan for it either. I think whoever owns this card has the same system the Refract Speech Labs do.’
Max picked up the thought process the others were all following.
‘So – I am guessing these systems are far from cheap, and you don’t put them on cleaning cupboards to protect the mops and the vacuum cleaners.’
‘No indeed Max, you only have one of these systems if you have something you are determined to protect from prying eyes.’ On finishing his sentence, Matt dropped the card back into Bella’s hand.
‘So, what’s your plan, you want to swipe it as we go through The Portal? I guess we could.’
‘I thought we could somehow hold it close to the wall, and maybe at some point something will happen.’
‘OK Bella, good plan,’ said Max, ‘In fact we can lock the card into the selfie-stick and hold it close to one wall on the way in, and then the other on the way out. It might take us a bit longer as we probably need to go slower. Are you alright with that Matt?’
‘Yeah sure, can’t harm to try.’
Bella had been handed the selfie-stick with the card attached. Bella tried to stand up in the dinghy and lost her footing. As she slipped, her left hand which held the selfie-stick instinctively jabbed out and struck the wall. At this moment Max caught Bella, and in one move managed to rescue her from her fall.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Max.
‘Yes thanks – wow look at that.’
Max followed Bella’s stare, and his eyes came to rest on the key card at the end of the stick. The whole card was glowing green. Bella passed Max the selfie-stick, and he swiped it slowly across the area of wall nearest to him. Suddenly there was a large humming sound, and something seemed to be running towards them along the top of the roof; it was coming at speed.
‘What – the – hell ...?’ Norton looked around in different directions in an almost comical manner.
‘Lights, they are lights, coming on one at a time from the deepest part of The Portal outwards. Some of these fake bricks in the roof are actually lights. That is cool.’
Once on, each light seemed to grow rapidly in brightness, until the entire portal was now bathed in a modern white LED style light. Instead of some old haunted abandoned building full of exciting possibilities and adventures, the whole place took on the character of some modern clinical establishment. Whatever these smooth fake bricks that lined the portal were coated in, it acted as some sort of refle
cting material that seemed to brighten up in the light.
Bella shivered. For a moment she was back in that characterless hospital corridor. There was something reminiscent of that place here, now these lights had removed any romantic notions Bella may have had about the portal. It was revealed to be exactly what they all really knew it to be. A very large-scale feet of human engineering, clinical in nature and purpose; not some secret gateway to another dimension. Whatever the façade and the path up to the portal entrance conjured up in anyone’s imagination, at the end of the day this was just an enormous pile of stone; how much damage could it really inflict on anyone?
Whilst everyone’s eyes were adjusting to this increasing bright light, Max took the selfie-stick and ran it around other sections of the wall. They all watched Max’s actions. Close to the portal’s mouth, about twelve feet from the hidden light switch they had found, the card glowed green again. Suddenly, Max felt a vibration through his feet and heard a large humming sound apparently coming from behind the wall. He looked down into the water and saw some small whirlpools forming as if a plug had just been pulled out below them.
Max’s voice was powerful and clear, in the same way a doctor dealing with an emergency might bark orders at those around him.
‘Bella, get out of the dinghy now. Now. Out and get out of The Portal now. Everyone, out now.’
There was a mass exodus, as people tried to balance the slippery floor and the water with not hanging around. All the movement in the water caused even greater disturbance, and meant that Max could no longer determine what was caused by the team, and what was caused by the strange phenomenon. He was still looking when he felt a hand around his collar.
‘Out means you too Max, come on.’
It was his twin Joe. He followed the direction his brother was gently pulling him in, and in a matter of moments they were out of the portal, and standing on the bank in the sunlight. Everyone listened intently. There was no sound. A couple of moments later, the two dinghies silently drifted out of the portal and rested on the lip. After a couple of minutes Max looked at everyone, and then slowly began to head back towards the portal entrance.
Everyone else stayed on the bank, though Joe was beginning to head towards Max when he heard Max call out.
‘Wow, what is this place?’
Joe carefully entered the water, as he didn’t want to rip his waterproof suit, and headed towards where his brother was standing. Where the wall on the left had been, there was now a gaping hole, and it revealed a massive room. This room also had water to the same depth as the portal, but there tethered up to a floating pontoon, were three large boats with enormous fans on the back of them, and three two-seater jet bikes. There was also a large store of fuel. Behind them up on a large metal shelf was two dirt bikes and two ATVs; together with hydraulic handling arms that were bolted to the wall.
‘Wow indeed, what is this place Max? I think it’s someone’s toy box. What exactly is going on here?’
‘Hey guys, come and look at this.’
Everyone gathered round, peering into the room.
Max scratched his head.
‘I guess that sound was the hydraulics for this enormous door. I can’t think what else it would be.’
‘Why don’t you wave the card back at the same place? See if it closes again,’ Bella said.
Max did as Bella suggested. Again, there was a swirl of water and the noise returned. This time everyone stood still. Within one minute, where the entrance had been, once again there was a solid stone wall that gave no hint to being a door.
Matt gave a little shake of his head.
‘Well that snazzy entrance is in stark contrast to those old rotting oak doors a few feet behind us.’
Ava looked round to remind herself exactly what they looked like.
‘You’re not wrong.’
Matt looked around at the group.
‘Right shall we try again; I really don’t want us spending all day here. Whatever Evo is up to, this place is clearly being used, so let’s not hang around any longer than we need to. We don’t need his kind of legal power being directed at us for trespass. We might survive any fine, but wouldn’t survive paying his legal fees if we lost.’
As they headed deeper into the portal for the second time, the new lights shining down on them meant that anxiety in relation to any imminent danger was gone.
Bruno looked up at the portal roof, and then around the area there were in.
‘I also hope he doesn’t forward us his electricity bill since we turned all these lights on.’
This remark served to further lighten the mood. They had gone slower as agreed, and Max had held the selfie-stick against the wall the whole way, but the card had not changed colour again, and no more sections of wall had moved to reveal any other caverns of delight. They had passed a couple of bricks with a single letter marked on them throughout the journey. No one was sure exactly what they were, but it was mutually agreed it was probably some sort of old marking system for distance into the tunnel, or depth of water from the early days when the portal was used for its original intention.
Matt spoke rhetorically.
‘I guess we missed these lettered bricks last time as we only had torches to flash about, we were mostly pointing them forwards.’
‘Perhaps the letters told something to the boys who used to walk the barges through the portal back in the day.’ said Norton.
‘I can’t make sense of them.’ said Bella, ‘I think I must have missed a few. I have seen a large S and a T and a Y but that’s all.’
Ava pointed slightly ahead, ‘There’s another one, I think that is an X. Maybe X marks the spot.’
They were all distracted as the mound of bricks in the middle of the tunnel slowly hove into view. Both dinghy captains throttled off the small electric outboard motors, and let the dinghies come to rest in their own time.
‘Blackbirds.’
Ava’s outburst caught everyone off guard a little.
‘I’m sorry, what?’ Matt carefully repositioned himself in his dinghy to look at her.
‘In here? Did you see a blackbird in here? I wouldn’t have thought so. Not this far in anyway.’
‘No no… Blackbirds generically speaking, not specifically.’
Matt looked confused, as did the rest of the team.
‘What have blackbirds generically speaking got to do with us here, now?’
‘Sorry Matt.’ Ava gave a short laugh, ‘I should have explained myself rather than just shouting that out, but it just suddenly popped into my head. It was simply that ever since we saw the hologram on that key card, something has been nagging at me.’
‘And now it has come to you?’
‘It has… Chantmarle Capital the name of Evo’s hedge fund.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well I have just remembered that I read somewhere, or it was in a crossword, that Chantmarle means song of a blackbird. I think it was Norman French or something like that.’
‘Interesting. Well it’s certainly another link to Evo. Seems odd that he has put the logo on a card that otherwise is meant to keep things anonymous. But if it’s the same system that he uses for his security at the office, then maybe they just use the same cards to save money. If that’s the clue that breaks the case, it won’t be the first time a rich person has been undone by their penny pinching.’
‘Yes, as I say, it just popped into my head.’
‘Definitely worth having more confirmation though Ava, good memory skills.’
Now the dinghies had come to rest against the mound of bricks blocking the portal. The rubber noses of the dinghies bounced gently off the bricks at water level. Matt gave a few moments silence, he watched Bella looking around. He would give her some time before suggesting they head back. Max passed the key card back to Bella, and collapsed the selfie-stick, placing it in the floor of the dinghy.
About five more minutes passed before Matt spoke.
‘OK Bella? Are you
happy if we head back now? There is nothing down here, that card hasn’t opened any more secret doors. I really think we should leave.’
Matt was expecting some resistance from his client. As it turned out, he need not have.
‘Yes thanks. I can see there is nothing here. I did have to be sure though. If I exhaust everything in my mind so that I can have no doubts, then I will slowly be able to get on with my life. That’s why I need to do this, or the doubts will continue to win, and I will be stuck in limbo forever.’
‘Of course Bella, I … we understand totally, that’s why we are here with you. Now this is all done though, let’s leave. Captains turn your vessels round please; let’s go back towards the sunshine.’
The second Matt said the word sunshine; all the lights went out at once, plunging the portal back into darkness. Everyone kept calm, but seven pulses quickened in that moment. Two of the team reached for the bright torches they had brought with them and turned them on.
Bella took the key card and zipped it up safely in one of her pockets; then shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Not wishing to reference the lack of light or appear scared, she carried on with the previous conversation.
‘That would be great, I am suddenly feeling the goose bumps. I guess it’s all linked to the emotions of coming here.’
Ava gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
‘No, I don’t think it’s just that. I feel it too. It’s more than goose bumps, suddenly there’s a cold wind in here; I don’t like it… there wasn’t one a moment ago.’
Ava studied the water and listened to the outboard motors.
‘The dinghies are needing more throttle in order to maintain speed, it’s as if… well as if we are suddenly in tidal waters. It’s almost imperceptible, but look at the water. Now it has a direction of flow. It didn’t have that before.’
Everyone carefully looked to where the water met the walls. Ava was right, the water was showing clear signs of movement and directional flow.
Matt had not noticed the wind, given his collar was raised over his neck.
