by R E McLean
“Sorry, boy. No treats today.” She held out her hands; empty.
He hissed.
“Whoah. That’s not like you.”
She eyed him. It looked like her cat; but she was in another universe. And he’d materialized from the bitbox.
“Are you a hologram?”
“Meow.”
“No. Sorry. Still no biccies, though.”
She reached under his chin and started scratching. He pushed his head forwards, leaning into her hand like he always did.
Then he pulled back. He arranged himself into a neat shape; the shape of a cat ornament, not of a grumpy ginger tom. Paws in front, back arched perfectly, eyes wide.
This wasn’t her Shrew.
He opened his mouth.
“Welcome to the Hive,” he said. “How can the Hive help you today?”
She fell back in her chair.
“Shrew? What the—?”
Schrödinger blinked. Alex looked around, expecting to be the recipient of stares. But the barista was swaying with his eyes closed, deep in the Hive. And the couple had left. She looked back at her cat.
“How can the Hive help you today?”
“Shrew, are you some sort of computer?”
“I am a non-immersive Hive access point. How can the Hive help you today?”
Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t her grumpy alive-and-dead cat. She leaned towards him and whispered.
“Google ‘Alex Strand’.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand that.” His voice was sharp, metallic. He sounded like he’d been woken up from a particularly interesting dream about robotic mice.
“Of course you don’t, you’re a talking cat. Keep your voice down, will you?”
She gathered him into her lap. He let her move him, barely shifting from his tidy position.
She bent to his ear. “Open Google.” Maybe taking it one step at a time would help.
“What is Google?”
A world without Google, now that she wasn’t expecting.
“Open search,” she whispered.
“Certainly. What would you like to search for?”
She felt her heart pick up pace. “Alex Strand.”
“I cannot find a ‘Alex Strand’.”
“That’s me, you dummy.” She considered. “Try Alexandra Strand.”
“I cannot find a ‘Alexandra Strand’.”
She placed Schrödinger carefully on the table, turning her head away. The barista was standing at the bar with his eyes closed, smiling serenely. Suddenly, he started dancing, not opening his eyes. He made no sound, and no-one noticed him.
Again, she felt pressure on her fingertips. Had it morphed again? She turned to find a sleek black cube on the counter, with a single rotating light on one side. She fought disappointment mixed with relief.
She picked it up and pressed it. It was darker than any black she had ever experienced, like the color she imagined dark matter might be. She turned it ninety degrees and the rotating light followed suit, shifting to the surface which had been on the side, but was now at the top. The light was pale pink and gentle, hypnotic even.
She lifted it up. It was making a sound. She pulled it closer to her ear. Was that purring?
She whispered to it. “What are you?”
“Meow,” it replied. She almost dropped it.
“So you’re still a cat, of sorts,” she whispered. “Makes sense.”
“Meow.”
“You too.”
She put it down again. Even the most intelligent of cat-phone-cube thingies wasn’t going to help herself or her mom. She sighed and prepared to turn around again. She had to get it back into its original form before returning it to Mike.
The light switched from spinning gently to flashing wildly. It morphed from being pink, to yellow, to green, to red and back to pink again. Then it switched to red and stayed there. She was now holding a mysterious black box that was flashing bright red.
She heard movement behind her and turned to see that a man had entered the coffee shop. He was looking around, blinking. She plunged the device under her jacket, hoping she could muffle the light.
Instead, she found herself wearing a jacket that flashed red, like E.T.’s chest as he was about to go home. She jumped down from her chair and headed for the door, pausing to grab her coffee.
Damn. She hadn’t bought Mike’s coffee. She plunged the cube under her shirt, dulling the flashing, and headed back to the counter.
“Another skinny mocha with whipped cream, please.”
“Absolutamente. With you in two shakes.”
She gritted her teeth while he prepared the coffee, wondering what Mike would be thinking right now. She’d been gone eighteen minutes, which gave them just twenty before they had to leave.
The barista returned with another sundae glass.
“Takeout, please.”
“Takeout? What’s that?”
“Er, can I have it to go?”
He shrugged.
“OK, can I take this away with me?”
“Of course not. That’s a damn fine coffee mug.”
“This isn’t a coffee mug, it’s a… Oh, never mind.” She left the coffee and turned for the door.
“You haven’t paid,” he called after her.
“Sorry!” she replied. “It’s a bit difficult right now!”
She pushed out of the coffee shop onto the street outside. It had started to rain, and the street was emptying fast. A few hardy souls were sporting umbrella hats. But Silicon City, unlike her version of San Francisco, was clearly not a place where you ignored bad weather.
The cube was flashing more insistently now and had started to wail. The wailing was less like a siren, more like the noise Schrödinger made when he was accidentally locked out. Or when he woke up from a particularly long period of mortality. She had to get this thing back to Mike. He’d know how to turn it off. She was going to get a roasting from someone, but that was better than everyone here spotting the alien.
She pushed open the doors to the building opposite Claire’s and ran through the foyer.
The receptionist stood up from his chair, jerking his eyes open.
“What’s going on?” he shouted. The cube was screeching now, like a Parisian rooftop at night.
“Sorry,” she called. “Just have to go back upstairs.”
“You can’t bring that thing in—”
But he was gone. The elevator doors closed and Alex breathed a sigh of relief, glad that they’d worked for her. She waved her hand over the controls Mike had used. What floor had he said? She couldn’t remember him saying anything.
The elevator didn’t move. She had no idea where she needed to take it. She waved her hand over the control panel again, muttering shut up under her breath at the cube. It responded with a loud, angry Meow.
Then she remembered the Morag-inspired Airbnb was directly opposite Claire, who lived on the sixth floor.
“Sixth floor,” she snapped, and the elevator rose.
She tried to regain control of her breathing as she headed upwards. She put the cube on the floor, shielding her eyes from the red flashing light with her arm. She turned away from it in the hope it would metamorphose again. But it was no good. She could still see the flashing, still hear the wailing. That counted as a form of observation and would not break the quantum field.
At last the doors slid open and she fell out. She stumbled along the corridor. The poppies followed her, waving in the breeze as if they were moving with her.
She stopped at the door to catch her breath and pounded on it.
“Mike! Let me in!”
The door opened and Mike stared at her. He looked her up and down, his eyes landing first on her sweaty face and hair that was surely no longer sleek, then on the cube in her hand.
“Aw, hell,” he said.
30
Bitbox
Silicon City
27 March, 11:51am
Mike grabbed A
lex’s arm and dragged her into the apartment. His face was puce.
“What have you been doing?” he yelled. “You haven’t even brought any coffee!”
“They didn’t do takeout,” she snapped back. “The barista had no idea what I was talking about.”
“So what have you been doing? You were gone twenty minutes!”
“I needed caffeine. I drank mine there.”
“Oh, great. Thanks. You’re swanning around swigging coffee in Hive Earth while I’m stuck up here watching an empty apartment.”
“Still no sign of her?”
“No.” His face darkened. “But that’s not the point. What have you done to my bitbox?”
“Nothing. It just started doing this.”
“It just started? When you left me, it was a soft wooden object. Now it’s a massive black cube shrieking at us.”
“I think it’s more of a wail. Have you noticed how—”
“You made it morph twice, for it to be like this.”
She blushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What were you trying to do? Break into the Hive, or something? Do you know the consequences if they found one of us in there? Not everyone’s like MOO, you know.”
Mike snatched the cube from her hand. He turned the object over, bringing it up to his ear and giving it puzzled looks.
“Why did you do it, Alex? I told you we had to go unnoticed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Never mind sorry. It’s flashing at us, and that means we have to go back.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s communicating with us. It’s a communications device, you numbnut.”
“Oh.”
“Or rather, Madge is. She’s summoning us.”
“Summoning us?”
“Yes.”
“Madonna is?”
“No, Madge.”
“Your Madge?”
He glared at her. She ignored it. “Cool,” she breathed.
“No. It is not cool. It means something’s gone wrong.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he said, sarcastically. Alex decided now was the time to shut up.
“Come on then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
That she did understand. She let him lead her out of the apartment, pausing only to grab his jacket from the back of an armchair, which seemed to be defying gravity just by staying where it was on the floor. He pushed the door open, peered out, then shoved her out and towards the elevator.
The cube was still flashing and yowling. Mike shook it, muttering at it under his breath.
Alex held out a hand. “Maybe if we put it down? Look away from it?”
He glared at her. “The first time you did that, it turned from a beautiful tactile wooden paperweight into something unique to you. What did it choose?”
“My cat.”
“Thought so. The next time it morphed into this thing. Do you have any notion what it’ll turn into next?”
“No.”
“Then quit with the dumb ideas.”
They stood at the elevator doors, waiting. Mike waved his hand over the panel next to them three times, shifting from foot to foot.
“I don’t think it makes any difference if you keep doing it,” Alex offered.
“Don’t you tell me what does and doesn’t make a difference.” He shoved the cube under his jacket. The flashing decreased but the yowling was still there.
“Damn,” he muttered, and took his jacket off. He wrapped it around the cube. It helped. A bit. Now instead of sounding like a hundred cats singing, it sounded like just three or four. Maybe twenty.
The elevator still wasn’t coming. Mike waved his hand over the panel again then lifted it to hush Alex. He looked down at the bundle in his arms.
“It’s not working,” he said. “Nothing is. The Hive’s detected out-of-world interference. Who can blame it, with this racket?”
He stared at the doors for a moment, not quite ready to give up.
“Shall we use the stairs?” ventured Alex, waiting to be slammed down.
“Good idea.”
She allowed herself a satisfied smile. At least she wasn’t completely useless.
They sped to the other end of the corridor, where a fire exit sign glowed. Thank goodness for inter-dimensional health and safety, thought Alex. She hurled herself at the doors, hoping they would be real doors, not held shut by the Hive.
They fell open under her weight. Mike pushed past her and the door slammed shut behind them—no swish-thunk this time. They clattered downstairs.
After two stories Mike stopped.
“What’s that?” he muttered, as Alex barreled into him. They had both come to a standstill, but she could still hear the clatter of footsteps below. Not theirs.
“Let’s slow down,” said Alex. “Act casual.”
“Casual? With a yowling black box wrapped up in my jacket and you looking like you’ve gone ten rounds with Darth Vader?”
She shrugged. “You have any better ideas?”
He sniffed and started walking, more slowly this time.
The footsteps drew closer. Alex held her breath. They rounded a corner to see the top of a man’s head coming the other way.
She grabbed Mike’s sleeve and gestured at the man with her head. Mike looked at him, frowning.
“What?” he whispered.
The man looked up as he was about to pass them. He looked startled and flushed, as if he wasn’t used to taking the stairs.
“Morning,” he said.
“Morning,” muttered Alex, trying to overcome her urge to shout his name.
Everything about him was the same; the hair, the voice, the specs, the slim but muscular form. The smell. Even the way he moved upstairs, like a cat. Or a ballet dancer.
The smell.
The man’s footsteps receded. Alex and Mike picked up their pace, rattling down the last set of stairs to the first floor. As they tumbled out of the doors to the lobby, Alex turned on Mike.
“Didn’t you recognize him?” she gasped.
“Shush.”
The receptionist had pulled his earpiece out and was looking at them, his expression teetering between shock and disdain. The cube had loosened itself in Mike’s jacket and they were once again blaring out their presence like an ice cream truck on steroids.
Outside, the car had gone.
“Great,” Mike said. “It’s gone back to base. We’re kicked out of the system. As far as Silicon City is concerned, we’re a virus now.”
“A what?”
“You heard. That summons has put us into shutdown mode. We have to get back to MOO, and fast.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“We’re going to have to run.”
“Run? But it’s two point two miles.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “That’s very exact.”
“Yeah, well. I had to do it in our San Francisco. In Rik’s car that his second youngest had chucked up in one morning. I was counting down the miles.”
Mike chuckled. “This is an improvement, is it?”
“I’ll tell you that when we get safely home.”
“Come on. We may as well take it at a brisk walk, at the very least.”
“Mike, did you not recognize that man, back in the stairwell?”
“Of course I did.”
She nodded. “Sean Wolf. Our prime suspect.”
31
Teletubby
San Francisco
27 March, 2:37pm
“Where the hissing shirtballs were you?”
Monique’s face was the color of the Teletubby with the handbag. Her hair kept flopping over her face, waggling as she spoke. She huffed it away, almost screaming every time she did so.
“Long story,” whispered Mike, following her lead. “The box went into alert mode. We were kicked out of all Hive systems.”
“And by all that is holy, how did that happen? The damn thing’s d
esigned to alert you quietly, subtly. It vibrates. It’s almost pleasant, for Christ’s sake.”
“Er, that was my fault,” said Alex. “I sort of—I sort of looked away from it.”
“You did what?”
“I looked away from it. Put it down. Twice. It was unobserved.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s a quantum transmitter,” said Mike. “It has some—er—some unusual properties.”
Monique sighed heavily and looked through the glass into the Homicide department. Inside, twenty-two staring heads immediately turned away.
“You’ve made me look like a real ass,” said Monique. “I had to tell the Captain that we’d lost you for good.”
“You what?” said Mike. “We were only an hour late.”
Monique glared at him. “You know the rules. You know what happens if you break them. Nobody was ever late before.” She turned a darker shade of violet. “Not without some sort of disaster.”
Mike fell quiet, looking down at his feet. Alex saw that his fists were clenched and his teeth gritted.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “Really I am. Don’t blame Mike. It’s my fault. Blame it on the noob. It won’t happen again.”
Monique looked back at the glass partition. This time, twenty-three heads turned away; Madge had appeared, with the teapot. Monique gritted her teeth.
“Anyway,” Monique breathed. “I was about to start the daily briefing. You need to be in it.”
“Before you go in,” said Alex. “We need to tell you that we saw—”
Monique raised her palm. “Save it. I can’t keep them waiting any longer.”
Alex and Mike waited as Monique slammed through the doors. The chatter beyond immediately subsided. Alex slipped in and took a spot at the back, Mike following. People kept turning to stare at them. Alex tried waving and smiling but then resorted to staring at the carpet tiles. She thought of the rug in that apartment, and of Auntie Morag’s home renovation.
Monique picked up a bottle of water and knocked it back in one. She sat on a desk at the far end of the room, her nostrils flaring. She thumped the bottle back on the desk, the force crumpling it neatly. She slung it at the wastepaper bin. It missed and landed on the floor with a brittle thud.
