by Amy Cross
"Sorry," he continues, "I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll let you get on with that."
Glancing over at the next table, I see a middle-aged, besuited guy with a cautious smile, looking directly at me. The first thing I notice about him is that he's got piercing light blue eyes; the second thing is that he has the kind of chiseled jawline and rugged good looks of a guy who might as well have been specifically designed to hit on women in coffee shops.
"I..." Pausing, I realize I have no idea what to say. I'm terrible at small-talk; right now, my brain is freezing up, and I'm pretty sure I must already seem like an idiot. Within a couple of seconds, I realize I've already left it too long to reply, which means that this insanely handsome guy must have already pegged me as some kind of idiot.
"Sorry," he says again. "I really don't make a habit of this kind of thing. I just heard you sighing a few times, I thought maybe something was up."
"Sighing?" I ask. Was I sighing? I don't remember sighing, but I suppose I might have been. Come to think of it, I guess I was sighing in my head, but I had no idea they were coming out in real life too. "Sorry," I say eventually, "I didn't mean to..." Before I can finish the sentence, I realize I'm blushing. Damn it, I'm not this kind of person: I don't meet guys randomly in coffee shops, and I can't hold a casual conversation to save my life. I need to reset my brain.
"It's a weird place to be, huh?" he continues, his pale blue eyes still fixed on me. "Tuesday morning, 11am, a coffee shop near Battery Park. Doesn't quite feel right." He checks his watch. "I should be in my office right now. I should be meeting clients, and yet here I am, just sitting here in this coffee shop." He pauses. "And obviously I'm bothering you. I'm sorry, I'll let you get on with reading your newspaper. Like I said, you were sighing, it seemed like something was wrong, and I thought I'd ask."
Smiling politely, I watch as he looks back down at his book.
"You don't happen to know of any jobs in the financial sector, do you?" I ask suddenly, figuring I should keep this conversation going. I glance over at Lydecker's apartment block, but of course there's no sign of him. The odds of him suddenly appearing are pretty much zero. "Sorry if that's a little forward," I continue, turning back to the guy, "but I figure I need to keep looking. I mean, I already have a job, but I'm kinda hoping to move on."
"You are, huh?" He pauses. "Me too. Sorry, I don't have any idea where you might get a new job. I'm kind of in the same boat myself, actually, except I'm in marketing, which I guess is the Devil's work." He leans over and offers me a hand. "Reed Williams."
"Caroline Jones," I reply, shaking his hand.
"I feel like I've seen you somewhere before," he continues, "but I guess that's probably just city-talk. I mean, you see so many people every day on the subway and in the street, I guess maybe the brain notices them all. It's hard to remember who you actually know and who you've just spotted passing by while you were heading to work." He pauses again. "Damn it, listen to me. I'm going on and on. I swear, as God is my witness, I've never started randomly talking to a woman in a coffee shop before. I don't try to pick people up on a regular basis. Not that I'm trying to pick you up!" He sighs. "I'm really messing this up, aren't I? I'm afraid I have a habit of saying completely the wrong thing."
"It's fine," I say, smiling. This Reed guy is kind of cute, even if his pick-up skills are kind of rusty.
"I should probably just let you get back to whatever you were doing," he continues.
"I was just flicking through the paper," I tell him. "This whole trip was kind of unplanned, so I don't really have anything to do while I wait."
"At least I've got this," he says, holding up his book so that I can see the cover. "It's not much good, though. I found it on the subway, figured I'd give it a try." He pauses. "So where do you work, Caroline Jones?"
"I'm actually at work right now," I tell him, keen to keep the conversation going. After all, it's so hard to meet a decent man, so I might as well see if this goes anywhere. He must like me, at least a little. "I've been sent to locate a colleague who's gone missing. Well, not missing, more like he just hasn't been showing up. My boss wants me to sit here and keep an eye on that apartment building over there, and wait until the guy appears, and then I'm supposed to drag him back to the office." I take a deep breath before letting out a sigh. I don't know why I'm telling this guy the truth; I should be bigging myself up. "It's hard not to feel a little disposable right now."
"Huh," Reed replies with a frown. "You know what? Snap."
"Snap?" I ask.
"Snap. I've basically been sent to do the same thing."
"You're kidding," I reply.
He smiles. "The marketing firm where I work has this real genius guy who always gets the big clients. He's kind of an asshole, but credit where it's due, he knows his stuff. He's the reason the big accounts always come to our company. They ask for him by name, which means he's pretty much indispensable. Unfortunately, he suddenly stopped turning up to work a couple of days ago, and my boss is going crazy trying to contact him, and finally he came to me and told me to get down here and find this asshole and see why he's gone walkabout."
"Wow," I say, raising an eyebrow. "That's kind of spooky."
"So we're both basically in the same boat, huh?" Reed replies. "I've got to admit, I was sitting here feeling pretty useless." He pauses. "I guess it's karma that we met, or something. Two useless people sitting in a coffee shop on a Tuesday morning, feeling completely under-appreciated by their bosses."
"I guess," I reply.
"So tell me about your asshole," he continues, before immediately looking shocked. "I did not mean it like that!" he says, correcting himself as I start laughing. "I did not mean... You know what I meant, right?"
I nod, but it's hard to keep a straight face, especially as Reed is blushing more than I've ever seen a guy blush.
"I just wondered about the guy you've been sent to find," he continues awkwardly, still looking as red as a beetroot. "I mean, the guy I'm looking for is such a major pain, I kind of don't want him to show up. Seriously, he's just this angsty, loud bundle of hatred and venom. I guess maybe that's why he's so good at his job. He's totally focused on one thing, and one thing only."
"My asshole's a pain in the butt too," I reply with a smile, hoping to ease Reed's embarrassment. "I wouldn't say he's full of hatred and venom, he's more the miserable, depressive type. I swear, it's almost like he walks around the office all day with a little cartoon raincloud over his head. I really wouldn't be too upset if it turned out he'd just quit and was never coming back. As far as I'm concerned, it's not worth the bother to have him around. I mean, yeah, John's good at his job, but he brings everyone else down. I feel like productivity across the board suffers, which is why he looks so damn perfect in comparison."
"Huh," Reed replies, staring at me. "It must be a day for coincidences. The guy I'm looking for, my asshole, is also called John."
"Not John Lydecker, I hope," I reply, taking a sip of my coffee. I glance out the window at the apartment building, just in case by some miracle Lydecker might be strolling to his front door, but of course there's no sign of him. I turn back to Reed.
"Yes," he says, with a look of concern on his face. "As it happens, the guy I'm looking for is named John Lydecker."
Dr. Stef Grant
Today
"Everywhere's shut," I say as I rattle the door of a coffee shop. "Locked and shut."
"What's wrong?" Cooper asks. "Hungry?"
"Every door is locked," I continue, walking along to the next shop and finding the same thing. "It's not like people ran screaming out of their places of work." Cupping my hands around my eyes, I peer through the window and see that the interior of the shop looks perfectly calm. There's no sign of panic. It's just as if the owners locked up as normal and walked out, never to return. "This must be the most normal apocalypse ever."
"It's not an apocalypse!" Lacey says quickly.
"You know what I mean," I reply, followin
g them along the sidewalk. "There's no sign of panic. Hell, there's not even any garbage in the streets. Even on its best day, the average city has some garbage. With this place, it's almost as if everyone tidied up before they left."
"She's right," Cooper says, stopping by a garbage can. "All the bins are empty. It's like they planned ahead."
"Maybe they were worried about rats," I point out. "With no humans about, rats would quickly overrun the place, especially if there was festering garbage in the streets. Even if the place was cleaned..." I pause as I realize that we still haven't spotted any life at all since we reached the city. It's not only humans that seem to have deserted the place; all animals have departed, as if New York has been deemed unfit for any kind of habitation.
"Let's be careful not to let the speculation get out of hand," Cooper says firmly. "There's a reasonable explanation for everything, even if it's not immediately apparent. The last thing we can afford is rampant speculation."
"There has to be bacterial life," I say. "The entire city can't be completely devoid of all lifeforms."
"Why don't we try to go into one of these places?" Lacey asks as she wanders over to a shop window. "Maybe there's something inside that could help?"
"We're sticking to exterior locations today," Cooper tells her. "All being well, we'll start going inside certain buildings tomorrow, but for now we just have to get a better idea of how things are looking across the city in general."
"But if we go inside today," she starts to say, "we can -"
"We have a plan," Cooper says firmly, interrupting her. "I was promised that the company's observer wouldn't interfere with the way I want to run the operation. I hope, Ms. Hobbs, that you're not going to start causing problems. Remember, we have no way to communicate with our base while we're here, so it's not as if you can call in back-up."
She stares at him for a moment. "Are you threatening me, Mr. Cooper?" she asks eventually.
"No-one's threatening anyone," I say with a sigh, keen to break up their monotonous bickering. "Seriously, guys, is it going to be like this all the time? We're supposed to be here for a week. If the pair of you are going to spend the whole time arguing, I think we need to reconsider our plan to stick together, otherwise I'm going to end up banging your heads together. Okay?"
"We're sticking to the plan," Cooper says gruffly. "Stef, you and I are in charge of this mission. Anyone else is just an observer." With that, he turns and continues to walk along the street, leaving me standing with Lacey.
"He's under a lot of stress," I say after a moment.
"We're all under a lot of stress," she replies. "I wasn't even allowed to bring any cigarettes. I've got these damn patches all over my arms, but I swear to God, they're not doing a damn thing. If that idiot keeps provoking me, I can't be held responsible for my actions."
"Maybe you should let me deal with any problems that come up," I tell her. "If you want to challenge one of Cooper's decisions, don't go to him directly. Come to me, and I'll act as a kind of mediator, okay? I know how to handle him."
"You two go back a long way, do you?" she asks.
"We've known each other for a while," I reply, deliberately avoiding giving any details. "Come on, we need to keep moving. The last thing we want is for him to start ranting about how we're slowing him down."
"I just find this place creepy," she says as we start walking again. "Like, there should be millions of people here. They should be swarming the streets. A city without people is just totally insane. It doesn't make sense, you know? I really thought we'd get some answers when we arrived. If there were bodies, at least we could start examining them and working out what happened. The population of an entire country can't just up and vanish overnight." She pauses. "Can they?"
"No," I reply, seeing that Cooper has stopped up ahead. "They went somewhere. We'll find them. Alive or dead, they have to be around."
"Wait!" Cooper calls back to us, raising a hand to indicate that we shouldn't get any closer to him.
"Did you find something?" I ask, hurrying toward him.
"Wait right there!" he says, turning to me with a look of concern in his eyes. Cooper's not the kind of guy to get carried away unnecessarily, so it's immediately clear that something's wrong. "We might have a problem."
"What kind of problem?" Looking over my shoulder, I see that Lacey has hung back, as if she's scared of going any further.
"See for yourself," Cooper says, "but be careful. Don't go past me."
Frowning, I walk over to him and stop as I see that there's something written on the sidewalk.
"What is it?" Lacey calls out anxiously.
"I'm not sure," I reply, taking a step back in order to get a better view. Written in big letters, using some kind of chalk or paint, someone has left the words 'Stop!' next to a crudely-drawn line. It looks, for all the world, like a message left behind to warn us. Looking over at a nearby wall, I see the same message sprawled in huge letters, and then again on the other side of the street. Whoever left this warning behind, they were clearly very keen to make sure that we wouldn't go any further.
Caroline Jones
Fifteen days ago
"Apartment 23," Reed says, as we stand in the corridor and stare at the gold numbers on John Lydecker's door. "So this is where your John Lydecker lives too, huh?"
I nod, but in truth I'm starting to feel pretty creeped out. The John Lydecker who works with me at the bank, the guy I'm here to find, has always been a workaholic. Until he stopped showing up a few days ago, he was the kind of guy who'd be at his desk by dawn, and who wouldn't leave until close to midnight. Despite all his other faults, you could never say that he wasn't a hard worker, and he barely had time to eat and wash, let alone to have a whole secret life and another job. Whatever's going on here, I'm at a loss right now.
"So on the same day," Reed continues, "in the same city, we were both sent to this apartment to find John Lydecker." He pauses. "Sounds like fate. Except, my John Lydecker is a senior associate at a marketing firm, and your John Lydecker is some kind of analyst at a private bank." He pauses again, clearly as stumped as I am. "My Lydecker is an absolute beast. He works non-stop. I swear, the guy doesn't even have time to breathe. There's no way he could be the same guy you're looking for."
"My John Lydecker is a kind of short, plump man," I tell him. "Balding, with this terrible comb-over. He has the foulest breath you ever smelled in your life, and he always wears these blue plaid shirts with -"
"Cream slacks," Reed continues.
"Cream slacks," I say, "and braces over his shoulders."
"And sandals, with socks," he adds. "And he's always got loads of dandruff on the lenses of his glasses. I don't know how a guy with such a small amount of hair can have so much dandruff."
"He smokes a pipe," I add, "and even though he's not allowed to actually smoke it in the office -"
"He smokes it right outside," Reed says, "and when he comes back inside, he still makes the whole damn place stink." He pauses. "He knows everyone hates it, but he does it anyway. It's almost as if he's intentionally trying to piss off the entire office. Even though people complain, he keeps on doing it."
We stand in silence for a moment.
"Twins," I say eventually.
"Twins?"
"There must be two of them," I continue. "Two identical twins. They're basically the same, they've got the same habits, the same personality, and they live in the same apartment. They both live right here in apartment 23."
"And they're both named John?" he asks, clearly finding it difficult to accept my explanation.
"Yes!" I pause. "Maybe it's some weird game they like to play, or maybe they had mean parents. There's got to be some kind of explanation, though, 'cause it's not like the same guy can be living two completely separate lives! There have to be two of him!"
Sighing, Reed turns and bangs on the door. "Lydecker!" he calls out. "Are you in there?"
Silence.
"I already tried t
hat," I tell him.
"Me too," he says, "but right now, I figure we need to try everything." He bangs on the door again. "John Lydecker! If you're in there, you need to open the goddamn door right now, do you understand? It's Reed! I'm here with Caroline, from your other office! We need to talk to you! We've both been sent to find out why you haven't turned up to work, and now we kind of have a few other questions for you!"
"He's not there," I continue.
"Turn around," Reed says.
I raise an eyebrow.
"Just turn around," he says with a smile. "Just for a few seconds. Please?"
Figuring that he seems pretty trustworthy, I turn around and immediately hear that he's doing something to the door. I stare along the dark, carpeted corridor, and for a moment I think back to all those moments when I was forced to speak to Lydecker. Was there anything he said or did that should have made me suspicious? I mean, the guy was an absolute asshole, so I guess I kind of zoned out most of the time when he was talking to me, but apart from that he always seemed like a really boring, totally uninteresting kind of guy. It's hard to believe that, suddenly, he might actually have been hiding something.
"Okay," Reed says, as there's a clicking sound. "You can turn back now."
Turning back to face him, I see to my shock that the door to Lydecker's apartment is swinging open, while Reed is smiling nervously and holding what looks like a very thin screwdriver in his hand.
"Do I want to know how you did that?" I ask.
"It's a long story," he replies a little sheepishly as he puts the screwdriver back in his pocket. "I'll tell you some other time. Usually, I'd let the lady go through the door first, but on this occasion I think maybe I'll take the lead. That okay with you?"
"That's okay with me," I tell him, making a mental note to ask him later how he managed to get the door open.
"Lydecker!" he calls out as he walks through into the apartment's hallway. "Are you in here?" He waits for a reply, before turning back to me. "You know, what we're doing now is technically a felony. It's okay if you want to wait outside. If your John Lydecker is anything like my John Lydecker, I don't think he'd be too happy if he came home and found us wandering around inside his apartment."
