Negative Film

by Leonard Petracci

  “We’ll make sure he doesn’t come back with trouble,” I responded, and Roland’s eyes narrowed.

  “Boy, you are trouble. Don’t think I’ve forgotten. I’ve half a mind to arrest you now. And if I see you on the streets, don’t think I’ll hesitate.”

  “Under what charges, exactly?”

  “Lacit isn’t the only one who can play dirty,” he threatened. “Give me enough motivation, and we’ll find a reason. Destruction of city property. Assault of an officer. No papers. I could put you behind bars for life.”

  “You’ll just have trouble keeping me there,” I retorted. “But enough— Roland, we’re on your side this time. I can’t say I like the police, but out of all the ones I’ve met, I’d choose you any day. As far as I can tell, our argument isn’t with you.”

  “And for shutting down that school, even if it came in the way of our other plans, maybe I can let some past events slide,” he had answered. Then we stood, shaking hands, our grip slightly tighter than necessary. Olef escorted Roland out first, then made Lucio and me wait ten minutes before leaving on our own.

  “Next time you try to start a fight in one of my resources homes, will you let me know first?” Lucio said, exasperated, as we left. “Last thing I want to do is piss off Olef. Besides, we could use him in the future. You’re welcome for intervening, but I’d prefer not to jump into the minds of the police. At least not for serious things, making them think they forgot a doughnut somewhere is hilarious.”

  We were walking down the dark streets back to the subway, my hands in my pockets, thinking about what Roland had said before we left.

  “I know, I know,” I sighed. “After today, I couldn’t help it. Just the sight of a uniform gets me uneasy.”

  “Like you said, though, I don’t think Roland has a direct hand in this,” continued Lucio, kicking a small pebble to send it skidding down the street. “You even said the people who took your mother were impersonators. And it sounds like he was trying to solve the rehabilitation problem already.”

  “While delivering more students there,” I pointed out. “Sure, he might not be the devil, but he isn’t innocent. Besides, he worked with The Hunter.”

  “And we work with Olef. Speaking of devils, he’s no angel. I don’t want to know the things that Lucy has seen.”

  “Enough,” I said, cutting him off. The last comparison of myself I wanted was to the police. Especially after Larissa.

  We walked the remainder of the way in silence, then I climbed back into bed, getting some much needed sleep. As soon as I shut my eyes, I was claimed, my mind thankfully shutting off, with no nightmares or dreams. The next morning, I was jarred awake by my mother’s voice as it echoed through the platform, sharp enough to make me clamp the pillow over my ears.

  “SC! Lucio! Out here, now.”

  I groaned as I pulled myself from bed, the lack of sleep making me sluggish. Usually, my mother was agitated when we were late for breakfast, but something in her tone made my heart beat a little faster. When I crossed the threshold to my room, I found out why.

  Two blue tracks led to where I had taken off my sneakers in the darkness, as well as a matching set that led to Lucio’s shoes. They trailed backwards, all the way up to the entrance of the tunnel, marking our path from the night before. From the center of the tracks, my mother glared, her face livid.

  “I had my suspicions, but this is proof! You continue to endanger us all. Thank you, Lucio— your idea showed me how to discover your departure.” She gestured at the blue ink, which had been in a pool at the entrance. Not sensing anything awry in the darkness, we’d missed it, turning our sneakers into stamps.

  “From now on, you are grounded on full house arrest. Lucio, Darian, Lola, if you don’t like it, you can leave, but you aren’t coming back. I don’t care where you’ve been, but you’re not going there any longer. Effective immediately.”

  At her feet was fishing line and tape— later, we discovered that she had set lines throughout the exits that would leave traces of us passing. From now on, she would check them each morning, and when she awakened, plus whenever she returned. Since we didn’t know how many there were, it would be near impossible to escape without detection. Of course, I could bore another hole to the surface, but that would be discovered quickly, and I would face my mother’s true wrath.

  So we plotted together when my mother left for groceries, huddled around the kitchen table. Mother had assigned Lola to watch us, not realizing that our missions were aligned. And after a few hours, a plan started to fall into place.

  Chapter 30

  “You’re driving her insane,” Lola said when we were huddled around the table, gesturing to where my mother had departed. “Give her a few days’ rest, then negotiate. Maybe even show a little compassion?”

  “We don’t have a few days,” I countered, tracing the seams in the table with my finger. “We have to act now.”

  “Coming from the person who was so bored he was paralyzed by inaction just a few days ago?” asked Lola, raising an eyebrow. “What makes this time so urgent? Seems like none of you can sit still. No wonder she can’t bear you. You know that the entire expanse of time that we were shopping she had a torrent of questions about the facility? Did you tell her nothing?”

  “Oh, because you’ve been so open with us? Besides, what she finds out is just going to make her more worried, and she already knows enough.” I took a deep breath, then continued. “Lola, they’re leaving soon. Lacit is with a task force. They’re heading straight to the Amazon, and I don’t know what they’re after, but I know you’re wrapped up in it. And I think you know that too.”

  “They’re what? Who is they?” Lola asked. “Hold on, wait here.”

  She flickered out of existence for a few seconds, then popped back, shaking out her hair. “Who?” she demanded again.

  “What was that about?” Lucio asked. “Disappearing in case they’re showing up?”

  “For your information, I was checking to make sure no one was approaching,” she answered. “You don’t always have to assume the worst.”

  “What, you ran all the way to the door, peeked out, and returned in five seconds?”

  “Ugh, not coming from here, coming from there.” She waved a lofty hand in the air, gesturing vaguely.

  “Where?” the four of us chorused at once, leaning in.

  “You don’t just think I disappear when I utilize my power, do you? I go somewhere else, obviously.” She punctuated her point with a shimmer, then reverted to her original question. “But who is going to the Amazon?”

  “Lacit, his task force, and damn knows who else. The rehabilitation facilities. Whoever it is, it’ll be trouble. And we’re going to stop them.”

  “Then you’re right, it’s time to get started. Now,” she said.

  “But first, you never answered our question,” interjected Slugger. “Where exactly do you go? If you want us to move, then you give us an answer first.”

  “I’ve already said too much,” she hissed. “It’s a secret.”

  “Because we don’t have any of those already,” stated Darian, his voice dry, his eyes rolling.

  “And otherwise, we’re leaving you behind when we go. Ticket of passage isn’t free,” I added.

  Lola’s face contorted, then she spun on her heel, walking towards the corner of the platform. “Fine!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Hurry up; follow me!”

  Glancing at each other, we bumbled after, bumping into each other as we craned our necks to see where she was going. But she crossed the platform without hesitation, walking directly towards the wall. When she reached it, she turned, leaning against the concrete.

  “Join hands,” she said, then raised her voice when we hesitated. “Join hands! We have a rainforest to save!”

  Lucio latched on to Darian and me, Slugger to Darian, then Lola reached out with her palm up, her voice commanding.

  “Now, two rules. One, don’t let go once we start moving.” />
  “Or what?” asked Lucio. “What would happen?”

  “While my body can handle being in two places at once,” said Lola, looking Lucio up and down, “I can’t say the same for yours. Most scientific studies show that the human body functions best when left in one piece. And the second rule is this— once we’re inside, don’t wander off. No one goes more than an arm’s length away.”

  “Or what?” repeated Lucio, though the words squeaked out after the first response.

  “Or when we come back, I’ll leave you there, because I don’t have time to hunt you down. And rule three, freshly instated— no more questions. Ready?”

  Then, without waiting for us to answer, she stepped forwards through the wall, pulling me after her, the space enveloping us. To my eyes, the effect was the same as when Peregrine teleported— but here, I felt no ripping of space, no change in my perception. Rather, my power sensed nothing, as if Lola’s actions of pulling reality apart were no different than shoving aside a shower curtain.

  It was the air I noticed first as she pulled me— where it had been thick and humid on the platform, here it was dry, wispy. Then my feet sank an inch into the floor below, the surface almost gummy, as if we were walking on sponge. As Lucio was pulled in after me, I noticed that the wall was now behind me, and that we were in a small enclosure— one that appeared to have no doors or windows that I could see.

  I avoided a row of potted plants as Lola continued to walk, pulling Darian then Slugger inside. I saw a small couch to my left, accompanied by a freshly made bed on my right, the sheets stretched tight over the frame. Ahead, there was a small table and reading light, then behind that a bookcase with a handful of thick volumes, followed by a rod that held a dozen hangers with new clothes. Clothes that my mother had bought Lola.

  “Welcome to my room,” she said, turning a circle and gesturing. “Or more specifically, the other side.”

  Chapter 31

  “Where— where are we?” asked Lucio, his mouth hanging slightly open and eyes wide. “What’s wrong with this place?”

  It took a moment for me to realize just what Lucio meant— at first, there was nothing too strange about the room we had entered. Or rather, there was nothing too strange about the objects in the room.

  Everything else was alien.

  There was no ceiling that I could see; rather, the room seemed to extend forever upwards in a shaft towards a dark sky, though it was only midday. Light seemed to play off the walls, gathering in the corners, dancing rainbow colors replacing the grey of concrete mixture. And the soft floor bent under my feet, though it appeared the same texture as concrete, the feel of the material unlike any I had ever touched when I bent down to touch it with my fingers.

  But most striking was the light bulb above us, suspended by a lone wire to the walls, the filament visible through the glass. Where the tungsten wire should be glowing, there was only darkness. An active darkness that seemed to expand from the bulb itself, reaching the corners of the room to cast them in shadow, casting away the light rather than feeding it.

  “It’s for the plants,” said Lola, reaching upwards and snapping the light bulb off when she noticed we were staring at it. “Wouldn’t want them to starve.”

  She gestured at the pots that decorated the corners of the room, filled with flowers and ferns. The leaves were white rather than green, and a single white sunflower angled towards the bulb.

  “Lola,” I said, as I realized that the passageway behind us had closed. “I’m with Lucio. Where are we?”

  “This is where I go, when I disappear,” she answered, gesturing to the room. “And where I lived before you found me, SC. I had something similar to this in the academy when I needed to get away.”

  “This same room?” asked Darian as he dragged a finger along the wall, pressing against it to ensure it pressed back. “Do you just return here?”

  “No,” Lola said as she laughed, then pointed behind us where I had missed a door leading through the wall. “This entire place. Follow me, I’ll show you. There’s a variety of nomenclature for it — it occurs in stories, and there are those who end up in it when they should not. But I think the term that best describes it is your world’s shadow. Its counterpart. Now stay close, no wandering off.”

  She opened the door, leading us outwards, to an area that vaguely resembled the platform. Except it was everything the platform wasn’t.

  Like her room, colors and sourceless sunshine replaced the grey while the bulbs overhead shone black, giving the exact opposite impression of the dim lighting that we shared. Where our temporary rooms were there was only blank space, accompanied by a thin layer of dust and webbing that mounded around where larger objects like beds or dressers should be. Down towards the subway, the tracks had rusted clean through, appearing far older than they should. The places that were dry appeared wet, and those that were wet appeared dry— and below, our feet still bounced on the same spongy material that had made up Lola’s room.

  “It’s not very impressive, for your first glance,” said Lola as we gawped, our necks straining as we tried to take in the sheer exoticness of our home. “But this isn’t a place of power. Those are far more interesting.”

  “Would most say a good type of interesting or a bad type of interesting?” inquired Slugger, sniffing at the air, which seemed to bear the slight scent of flowers.

  “That would depend upon your definition of interesting. Certainly not safe either way. Taking you here is strictly forbidden— most Transients would be murdered on the spot if word escaped that they had shown this to outsiders.”

  “Most Transients?” asked Darian, asking the question on all of our tongues. Lola met his eye then spoke, elaborating no more on the subject.

  “I’m not most Transients.”

  As she talked, my gaze drifted, until my eyes latched on to a formation at the far end of the platforms. A mass of dark tunnels spiraled from a centerpoint there, hundreds of branches that forked and doubled back upon themselves before racing out of the station, passing through the walls on their exit. They shimmered with a static that seemed to rush along their outer edge, like insulation to a wire, the pulses racing in and out of their origin. And each started in a door frame— the doors that Peregrine had created as part of his machine.

  I could see the spots where I had interacted with the branches, where I had twisted and knotted them together to conceal our tunnel, or how they were kinked before each of the door frames that cut off any flow through them. Lola caught my gaze and nodded, walking over to the machine.

  “There are few instances where powers exist after their owner dies,” she said, laying a finger on one of the tunnels that erupted in static at her touch. “But of those phenomena that do exist, they straddle both realities. I doubt Peregrine knew exactly what he was doing here, but something like this is rarer than you know. Even my people only know of a handful, and half of them are unconfirmed.”

  “And your people, who are they?” I asked,

  “The Transients. We are walkers between worlds.”

  Chapter 32

  “Damn,” said Slugger, breaking the silence. “And here I was thinking I was in Kansas.”

  We laughed, the sound echoing around the chamber and amplifying upon itself, while annoyance crossed over Lola’s face.

  “You’re missing the point,” Lola said, crossing her arms. “While you pretended to read books you brought back from the library, I’ve been actually studying. SC, before you knew I was here, I watched you trying to work Peregrine’s machine, and I watched you fail.”

  I frowned at that but nodded, knowing she was right. Despite my efforts, I doubted even a lifetime of working on the contraption could get it to work. I felt like a blind man trying to paint a picture— if my concentration lapsed for just a moment, I forgot which brush strokes I had already completed, or which colors I had mixed on my palette. Adding in the nausea and headaches only irritated an already impossible task. Then Lola continued.
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  “Like I said, contraptions and items like this have existed before. In myth or in isolated incidents. No one knows quite how they work, but there’s entire books written on the theory. Books most people think to be gibberish— and they are, halfway, because they don’t know about this, they don’t know about the other side. All their math theories are half baked, incomplete— but with my help, together, we can get that machine to reach a functional state.”

  “Straight to the Amazon,” said Darian. “To cut Lacit off.”

  “Straight to anywhere,” Lola said, eyes gleaming. “There’s no reason to limit it.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Darian asked. “Let’s get started.”

  They all looked to me, and I swallowed, remembering the nausea that came with Peregrine’s power. But we needed the machine, and I nodded to Lola.

  “But first,” she said, “it’s not going to be easy to navigate — it is a rainforest. We’ll need a guide, and if Lacit is coming after us, we don’t want to let him know we’re ahead of him. Not just that, but they don’t let just anyone go on an expedition— you need permits, which mean either bribes or the black market if we want to get moving quickly.”

  “Right, that means we need a plan,” I said, casting my thoughts around for a solution, but Lucio stepped forwards.

  “And I have the perfect one!” he announced, and we huddled around him, listening as the words tumbled out of his mouth with excitement, sometimes too fast to comprehend. We had to make him repeat himself twice, but in the end, I nodded. Then I made a few tweaks, rounding out the corners of his idea, until smiles lit up around our group.

  “I know you’ve just been waiting for an excuse to try it out,” said Slugger. “But it’ll work. Might even work well.”

  “Then let’s begin,” I said.

  ***

  “Left, a little more left,” Lola instructed. “No, not that much!”

  “I’m trying, but you’re just a little distracting,” I answered, doing my best not to look at her. Or rather, the half of her that was visible, split directly down the center. With one eye in the other side and one eye in our world, she could watch my actions in both, guiding my power to activate the machine. “And, Lucio, you’re not making this any easier.”