Plato's Cave

by Russell Proctor

  "...sake, look where you’re going!"

  David was being thrown around in the back seat. "Do you actually have a licence?" he asked breathlessly. But the Maestro was concentrating too hard.

  Then the car chase started, just as we crossed the bridge over Breakfast Creek. I heard the siren behind us. This time I didn’t look around. There was no need to confirm what my ears told me, and Heather was giving a running commentary anyway. My eyes stayed glued to the road, since the Maestro seemed to feel that was a fairly low priority when driving, and one of us should be doing it. He was staring hard into the rear-view mirror most of the time.

  "They’re about two hundred metres behind us," said Heather. "One car. Lights and everything."

  "Left!" I called out to the Maestro and he swung the wheel just in time. The tyres on the right side of the car left the asphalt momentarily, then came back down with a bounce as we entered the new street, heading for the apartment blocks in Teneriffe. This was turning into an action movie, and I was on the wrong side of the screen.

  "They made the turn, too," said Heather, "They’re gaining on us."

  The ongoing commentary from the back seat was not comforting. If I shut my eyes really, really tight, and took three deep breaths, maybe everything would just go away.

  I tried it.

  No good. Reality stubbornly continued to exist. I’d noticed it had a nasty habit of doing that.

  "Let’s take the Captain Cook Bridge," I said. "It’s the easiest."

  The Maestro actually looked at me as he veered across the centre white line and asked: "Where is this Captain Cook?"

  I grabbed the wheel and moved us into legality again. "We drive on the left in this country!" I shouted into his face. He took my panic well, far better than I had, actually, and even seemed pleased to know a new road rule. He kept on the left while the rest of us argued the way.

  "But that means going through the city," said Heather. "Head for the Story Bridge."

  "The city will make it harder for them to chase us," David said.

  "And there are more things to crash into," persisted Heather.

  We had veered through a few more corners, managing to find our way back in vaguely the right direction. Around us, the inner suburbs were still happening. The Gap hung over everything, and the crowds and alarm that it caused was about to save us from further pursuit, at least for the moment. As we entered Fortitude Valley a gang of about six young men were looting a shop. They had driven a car into the front window and were climbing over the hood to snatch what they goods. Electrical goods it looked like. In any event, the police car stopped and we didn’t, heading further in. I glanced behind but all I could see were the heads of David, Joanna and Heather as they, too, peered out the back window.

  "Maybe they weren’t after us at all," said Heather.

  Who cared? Crime had apparently reaped dividends, even if it wasn’t for the people actually committing it. We were alone.

  Relatively speaking. There was denser traffic, now. The Maestro’s driving was not improving with practice, and our near misses were threatening others more frequently. This was the Valley, where the usual night-time crowds had evidently not been put off by the threatening Gap or anything else. A lot of weird things happened as a matter of course in the Valley.

  "Pull over!" David yelled, so suddenly we all jumped. The Maestro did so, crossing two lanes right outside a strip club, double parking beside a Holden Commodore. Behind us someone unseen – but not unheard – swerved just in time to avoid us, horn blaring.

  "I’m driving!" said David. "Out!"

  The Maestro was obedient, opening his door and clambering out, changing places with David. Just then there was a terrific blast beside me and the driver of the Commodore was waving his fist at us, only centimetres from my face, and leaning on his horn.

  "Out of the way, dickhead!" he screamed.

  Then a rather disturbing thing happened. Well, to be more accurate, a big black something happened. The man and the Commodore disappeared behind a darkness.

  That’s the only way I can describe it. One second he was there, then he wasn’t – or at least he was, just hidden from sight behind a wall of utter blackness.

  Just in front of my face was an almost tangible strip of starless night. I flinched away, slammed into David and shoved him rather rudely aside as I exited through the driver’s door. I felt bad about that, since I almost pushed David into the path of a car behind him. But he hardly noticed, staring as he was at where the Commodore used to be.

  I turned and stared myself. It was worth staring at, so I had a really good one. We all did – six pairs of bug eyes and not a single rational thought amongst us.

  A column of blackness had descended from the Gap. One of the tendrils I had seen coming out of it had come down all the way to Earth and covered the Commodore and its angry occupant. The strip was very narrow, and seemed just wide enough to cover the car. I stared upwards at the Gap, and could see the tendril where it joined the main mass far above us.

  "Bombok!" cried the Maestro, which I later learned meant "That’s really enormously interesting", but expressed the sentiment by referring to one of the excretory functions.

  Each of us expressed our surprise in our own way. David was apparently maintaining a silent, scientific curiosity. Joanna had issued another of her girlie squeaks, eyes wide. Heather craned her neck back to gaze along the length of the tendril as it reached down from the sky and said "Well, that’s something you don’t see every day."

  As for me, I just thought a few colourful phrases to myself as we backed away. People on the footpath were doing the same thing. It seemed a popular choice of activity at the time.

  Heather managed to recover sooner than most. She grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the footpath, well away from the strip of darkness where the Commodore had been. The Maestro alone remained near it, peering closely, warily moving his head side to side. He prodded it with his walking stick. The end of the cane disappeared into the darkness, then appeared again as he pulled it out.

  "Nothing," he said. "I cannot feel the car inside."

  We started to move away further, trying to blend into the gathering crowd. The others caught our subtle retreat and joined us. Just as they did so the strip of night vanished.

  The car was there again, the driver inside. I was glad to see him. He was sitting there stunned, immobile, gripping the wheel, his hand still pressed tightly on the horn. It was only then that we realised there had been no sound of the horn while the car had been gone. Its strident tone came back and drowned the muttering and tight-lipped fear of the crowd.

  "Let’s go," said Heather quietly, and while everyone else stared at the scene, the five of us slipped aside. We kept our distance from David’s car. Certainly I wasn’t about to climb back into it. Nothing had happened to it, but I had the vague feeling the strip of night had been meant for me, and had missed. Narrowly. I wanted to present as small a mark as possible, just in case.

  There was a café beside us. We went inside, not so much because it as a rational thing to do, but there were less people there and we needed a moment to gather our thoughts.

  No one said anything really stupid like "What was that?" or "Did you see that?" or even "Golly!" We just stared at each other for a moment.

  "The driver looked all right to me," said Joanna eventually.

  "Yes," I said, equally unconvinced.

  The Maestro nodded.

  "Perhaps we should..." David ventured, with a vague sort of gesture towards the Commodore but I shook my head quickly.

  "Probably wants a moment or two to himself," I said.

  "Of course."

  "I mean, wouldn’t you?’ said Heather.

  "Of course."

  I kept glancing at the ceiling. There was nothing terribly threatening there – or to be more precise there were many threatening things there. If you ever go into a cheap café and are incautious enough to look up at the ceiling you may see quite a
number of (mostly unidentifiable) things likely to drop into your coffee. But they were not the ones I cared about just then. I was more worried about fingers of blackness lancing down from the sky and finding me. The fact that there was a ceiling in the way didn’t reassure me in the slightest.

  "Any ideas?" I asked the Maestro. "I mean, I presume the Gap is one of your shadowplanes, then?"

  He shrugged, his usual non-committal move. "It was certainly very interesting," he said.

  And he went over to the counter and calmly ordered a cappuccino.

  I followed him. "Well, is it?"

  "I do not know," he admitted, sighing. "Emily, it is very painful for me to admit, but I am once again uncertain what is happening. The – Gap, as you call it – it is unlike what I imagined shadowplanes to be. But it is some sort of gate. If you enter, you will find out."

  "If I go into the circle, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  There were several other people in the café. Not everyone had noticed the commotion outside. Life goes on, even under the most unusual circumstances. A girl stood up from her table and walked towards the door. Just as she reached it, a thin tendril of darkness appeared in front of her. Too late, she walked into it, and the girl became a split in two by darkness, then became normal again as she emerged out the other side.

  She hadn’t even noticed. She continued out of the door and was lost in the swirl of humanity.

  It had taken all my willpower to stop myself diving under a table at the appearance of the tendril. But as soon as the girl had passed through, apparently without any harm at all, the tendril disappeared. It happened so fast I doubt anybody but us had seen it.

  "Okay," said Joanna. "That was too weird."

  David shuffled me into a booth. He placed his hands on the table, the depilated one over the other, and stared at me intently.

  "How do you feel?" he asked.

  "Fine," I replied. "Well no, not fine at all. Why?"

  "I think the Gap is trying to find you," he said, taking out his mobile and tapping the keys.

  "I know."

  Someone answered his phone. He started talking.

  Behind us at the counter, the Maestro ordered another cappuccino.

  There was one already on the counter, the one he had just ordered a moment ago.

  I went over to Joanna. She was standing near the café door, looking out at the street. The crowds had returned to their usual doings, as if nothing had happened.

  "Did you see that?" I asked.

  "See what?"

  "The girl...she...obviously not."

  "Oh, her? Yes, of course I did. Sorry, Emily. It’s just that you’re ceasing to surprise me anymore."

  Me. Of course, it all had to do with me. The tendrils of darkness that were momentarily removing people or bits of people from the world were after me. Why didn’t that give me the slightest bit of comfort?

  The man behind the counter put a second cup of cappuccino in front of the Maestro. The thing that really caught my attention was that he put it on top of the one already there. The Maestro didn’t seem to notice. He was digging in his pocket for his wallet.

  David shuffled me into the booth again. He sat down, placing his hands on the table, the depilated one over the other. He stared at me intently.

  "How do you feel?" he said.

  "You just asked me that."

  "Did I?"

  "Yes. A moment ago."

  He took out his mobile – again - and tapped the keys. I stared at him until someone answered. He started talking.

  I slipped out of the booth once more and went over to Heather, who was sitting next to the Maestro, watching with fascination the two cups of coffee in front of him.

  "We have to get home. Soon."

  "What’s the Maestro doing?" she asked, nodding towards him.

  What in fact the Maestro was doing was ordering yet another cup of cappuccino. I watched, fascinated. The guy serving him carefully went over to the machine, which made all the appropriate gurgling and slurping noises, and topped it off with the frothed milk. Then he put the third cup down on top of the other two. There was a neat tower of cappuccinos building up in front of the Maestro, who didn’t seem to take any notice at all. Neither did the guy serving him.

  David shuffled me into the booth. This was becoming monotonous. I tried to resist, but he was firmly guiding me to where I already sat twice before, just a moment ago. He placed his hands on the table, the depilated one over the other, and was staring at where I had been sitting.

  "How do you feel?" he asked.

  Time was out of joint, as a certain poet once wrote. His hero cursed his fate – so did I.

  "You said that before," I said, waving my hand in front of his face, the way people do when they feel invisible. Apparently I was, for all the notice David took. He reached for his mobile – again again – and tapped the keys. A few seconds later someone answered. What a surprise.

  "Maestro!" I called. "Stop playing around and let’s go."

  "Ah, Emily," he said, as if I hadn’t been standing beside him for the last five minutes. "I am sorry. It is very painful for me to admit, but I am uncertain what is happening. The – Gap, as you call it – it is unlike what I imagined shadowplanes to be."

  Hadn’t he just said that?

  - Great, I thought. I’m being chased by a dark thing in the sky, and the Maestro and David seem to be in a time warp. Anyone else want to give me a bad day?

  "The cops are here," said Heather.

  They were. A police car had pulled up beside David’s car. I didn’t wait for the inevitable, but turned inside, just as a crash brought everyone’s attention to the counter. The tower of cappuccinos had overturned, flooding the floor in boiling hot, caffeine-rich brew. The Maestro had leaped back, just avoiding the scalding torrent. Crockery smashed.

  At the same moment David stopped placing his hands one on top of the other and staring at the space I had been. He noticed me near the door.

  "Trouble?"

  I decided against telling him that he had been looping around and around in a tight time-ring, perhaps because he might have been upset, but more probably because he would stop and think about it, and we didn’t have time for any scientific analysis at that precise moment.

  "How much do you like your car?" I said.

  He came over to the door and looked at the police walking around it, checking the licence plate and saying things into the squawking radio in the police car.

  "It’s a university car," he said. "This won’t be good. Fortunately, we won’t need it." He glanced at his watch.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I phoned Max and told him to pick us up."

  "Three times, apparently."

  David stared at me. "Three times? Funny, that’s what he said."

  "Tell you later."

  The Maestro was arguing with the man behind the counter over the spilled coffee. Joanna grabbed him and we entered the street, the five of us tumbling out and heading away from the police and David’s car.

  The man in the Commodore was still there, gripping the wheel tightly. One of the police was bending over him through the window, arguing and trying to prise his fingers from the wheel. Heather leaned into David’s car through the open window and hauled out the stub of Mike, still calmly sitting in his pot. Alone of all of us, he was taking it all remarkably well. The other policeman glanced up just as she straightened up, clutching Mike tightly.

  "Hey!" he said. I recognised him: it was Fraser. Again. A persistent bloke, when it came to pursuing suspects. Commendable in other circumstances, inconvenient in these.

  "Don’t move," he said, and he did draw his gun this time. I didn't blame him – I would have too. We stood in a line, hands up resignedly – all except Heather, who had to hang onto Mike. "Hello, Fraser," she said.

  "Hi," he said, and smiled before he could stop himself. He was a good guy, really. Probably like him much more if we met him socially.

  It was
a shame, then, when Max ran over his foot.

  Of course, as Max explained later, he hadn’t meant to run over his foot. Fraser just had it there when Max drove his minibus onto the pavement and pulled up beside us.

  Fraser shouted something alarming. If he had bothered to listen, he would have had to arrest himself for obscene language. As it was, he merely let go with a colourfully abusive epithet about Max, which perhaps at other times I might be prepared to agree with.

  "Sorry," said Max as we crammed into his minibus.

  The other policeman stopped talking to the man in the Commodore when he noticed Max’s minibus on the pavement.

  "Hey!" he shouted, which was exactly what Fraser had said a moment ago - police training, I guess. But we weren’t prepared to listen this time. Max drove off as soon as we were all aboard.

  David sat up front next to Max, with Joanna, the Maestro and I sitting behind, surrounded by a mass of cameras, tripods, snaked cables and other equipment. Heather filled the back seat.

  As we left the pavement and hit the road again, I glanced up at the sky once more – it was becoming a habit, now, every few minutes. The side-bars of darkness had grown longer, and more stars outside the main Gap area were being obscured. I almost fancied I could see dark moving shapes within the main mass. Certainly there seemed to be something big going on up there.

  "Comfortable?" Max asked from the front seat, turning his head to smile broadly at us.

  "No," said Joanna. "Drive!"

  He did so, turning onto the approach to the Story Bridge. Just as he pulled onto it a police siren screamed behind us.

  "Here we go again," said David.

  Why couldn’t they just leave us alone? Saving the universe is hard enough without the police on your back, trying to be official all over the place and doing inconvenient things like putting people in jail.

  They were not the only ones we had to deal with, though. As we moved onto the bridge we could see two more police cars at the other end, forming a partial roadblock, lights flashing, one cop standing in front of them, signalling us to stop.