Shift #2

by Jeff Povey

  They both nod but don’t think to ask why.

  ‘I don’t trust this world or anyone else here,’ I add. ‘But that’s between me and you two. OK?’

  The Ape leans forward, copying me, until our noses almost touch. His huge brown eyes have a depth I hadn’t noticed before.

  Non-Ape copies the Ape and looms even closer to me so that it feels like I am surrounded by great Ape heads and there is something almost comforting in this.

  ‘OK?’ I ask again.

  They both nod.

  ‘It’s us three against the world,’ I whisper, which they seem to like because they both let the exact same beefy grins run along their mouths.

  ‘Three’s enough,’ Non-Ape declares confidently.

  There’s going to be one hell of a problem if and when we get the chance to go home because it’ll mean splitting them up, but I’ll keep working on a plan. I’ll get Johnson to work on it as well. We gelled before and we can gel again.

  ‘We’ve got to find G-Man,’ the Ape announces. ‘Been thinking about that a lot.’

  I nod. ‘OK. Once we’ve searched the rubble, found the papers, then we’ll find GG.’

  ‘Big Me can push a train.’

  ‘Skills,’ Non-Ape adds again.

  ‘Skilllllllls,’ the Ape responds.

  They want to go back along the track again and find GG. The Ape is clearly not going to rest until he has done so. I’m amazed they’ve even had this deep a discussion.

  ‘Then we’ll do that,’ I say, nodding again.

  ‘Yeah, he’s . . .’ The Ape leans back and stares at the empty street outside. ‘GG’s OK,’ he adds, which for him is a huge statement of affection.

  ‘Billie can touch him,’ Non-Ape suggests.

  I’m stunned. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course we need to find GG and take him to Another-Billie. It’s so simple and so obvious. I could hug Non-Ape, but I doubt my arms are long enough to slip even halfway round him.

  This is the first sign of hope I have experienced since GG sacrificed himself.

  I need to make my own list now:

  Get the papers.

  Save the Moth.

  Get GG.

  Heal GG.

  Grab my dad.

  Go home.

  Six steps. Easy.

  I get to my feet. ‘I’m going to go find myself some fresh clothes so if you’re feeling strong enough why not start moving that rubble?’

  The Apes rise with me and hold out their massive fists. I knock my fists against them and it’s like we’re bonded in some Ape/Rev/Ape fisty triangle now.

  The best thing about any Ape is once they’ve decided that you’re their friend then you’re friends for life. They see no need to be otherwise and I totally trust them with my life. They don’t want anything but a bit of friendship and kindness. To be included, a part of the gang, to be useful and helpful. It’s so simple it’s beautiful.

  The Thames is filling with rubble. Non-Ape is lifting and hurling great chunks of hotel masonry into the majestic river. The Ape is helping by picking up smaller chunks of concrete and cement and heaving them as far as he can. Other-Johnson joins the Apes and back in his old body and with his increased strength he is a big asset. I try not to look too closely after he removes his T-shirt and reveals his tight sinewy body as he heaves a chunk of plaster into the Thames. He soon builds up a sheen of sweat and it’s only then that I realise that I’m still watching him.

  I turn and head for the nearest clothes shops, which I think must be near Covent Garden. I’m not sure of the general direction and I really shouldn’t be wandering around on my own but I aim to be as quick as I can.

  The boutique I find is in a row of shops that ring part of the square in Covent Garden. It is high-class fashion but there are jeans and a cool jacket on one of the mannequins and so I go in and grab them. My stabbed thigh and blistered hands need fresh bandages and as soon as I find a chemist I will ask Johnson to work his magic again.

  I get changed in the changing room and when I look in the full-length mirror I see a body I barely recognise. I am bruised and cut all over. I think my arms have developed muscles and I have definitely lost a few pounds. It’s not a diet I would recommend, but running for your life really does burn the calories.

  Billie would love this shop. She’s got the sort of elegance the more expensive clothes cry out for. I hope she is close by, and hasn’t tried to find a way out of London. No matter what she thinks, she can’t deal with what’s happened to her on her own. I grab a pair of high-fashion trainers and wear them in by walking all the way around the cobbled square. I love the emptiness and will probably never be able to do anything like this when I get home. For a few seconds at least I am totally free.

  I know it’s a lethal world but there’s something spectacularly beautiful about it as well. The Apes think it’s a violent video game, but for me it’s a big secret garden, a fabulous fantasy world that I just wish had been kinder towards us.

  On the way back to the river I find a chemist and ransack it for all manner of ointments and bandages. My thigh feels like it creaks every time I take a step and I am concerned it’s become infected. I am hobbling now and the tear in my leg is howling in protest. I pass an underground ladies’ toilet and nip down the steps so that I can wash and treat the wound.

  The toilets are a little on the dank and mildewy side, and date back to Victorian times with their tiled walls and uneven flooring. A sign proclaims that they are cleaned every hour and I have to marvel at how this empty world operates. It has got everything right, down to the finest of details.

  I peel off the old putrid bandage and have to turn away when I see how infected and pus-filled the slice in my thigh has become. I grab some paper towels and fill the sink with warm water, being careful to dab around the wound until it’s clean enough to apply whatever super-creams I have found.

  I do what I can and wrap a clean bandage round the wound. I check my burns and other cuts in the mirror and decide that if I carried on bandaging them I’d end up looking like a mummy. It’s only when I am washing my hands that I sense I’m not alone.

  I straighten up and press the hand blower fixed to the wall. There are two of them and I press both, one for each hand, and they blast hot air over my sensitive palms.

  While I do this I try to get a glimpse in the rust-speckled mirror fixed to the wall above the sinks. I can’t see anyone, not even a shadow. But there’s definitely someone there; my tingling shoulders are never wrong.

  The blowers are loud and I keep drying my hands as I try to locate something, anything, that I can use to defend myself with.

  All I can see is a row of cubicles and a tiled wall. Whoever is waiting for me expects me to get dried and dressed and then come happily whistling up those stairs, like one of the seven dwarfs after a good day’s diamond mining. That’s when they’ll strike – when I’m least expecting it.

  Overhead are opaque glass bricks that let in some daylight but they’re as thick as normal bricks and I can’t see myself busting through them.

  What would the Ape do?

  What would that King of the Ring do?

  The blowers stop.

  I want to press them again and keep on pressing them in the vain hope that whoever – whatever – is lying in wait for me will eventually grow totally bored of waiting for me.

  ‘Johnson,’ I whisper in my head. ‘Johnson.’ I don’t care that my voice is panicked. As soon as he hears it he’ll do everything in his power to save me. ‘Pick up!’

  I’m not sure if I said that last bit in my head or out loud. I often find myself mouthing the words I’m speaking telepathically, which makes me a pretty rubbish psychic type.

  Catching sight of myself in the mirror again I can see I’m screwing my face up, trying my hardest to send my SOS. ‘Mayday! Mayday! Come in, over!’

  A shadow moves.

  It’s the tiniest movement but the light streaming down the steps has thrown a shadow ac
ross the floor. It’s lean and thin and elongated.

  I’m thinking it has to be Evil-GG. The worst of the worst. He’s back and he’s probably got Non-Lucas with him.

  It makes sense. Moth Two came back from the dead so what’s to stop anyone else doing the same? Has Other-Johnson resurrected them? If it is him doing this . . .

  The shadow moves again. Whoever it is, is coming silently and slowly down the steps. But at least it’s only one person. That’s a positive, right?

  The shadow creeps along the floor and starts to rise up the wall.

  ‘Mayday! Mayday! HEY! FOR GOD’S SAKES!!’

  Why isn’t Other-Johnson answering? He said he needed time to recover his powers, but this is worse than being on the crappy Internet back in my flat.

  ‘Come on, answer me!’

  The shadow stretches its thin shape all the way to the ceiling.

  I think back to what Johnson said. What do we really know about Other-Johnson?

  But then, what if it’s Evil-GG? This world is so perfect it brings people back to life. Well, nasty vicious people anyway. So maybe not so perfect.

  The shadow is turning back on itself as it runs along the ceiling.

  What would the Ape do?

  He’d find a weapon. Or he’d charge at them. Yes. He’d charge at them before they were even ready.

  Evil-GG is fast though. If it is him, he’d cut me down in the blink of an eye.

  I need a weapon.

  Or I could just scream.

  It’s a silent world and sound carries. But I’m underground and that would muffle my scream to a squawk.

  The shadow stops.

  There’s got to be a weapon in here. I could wrench the hand heater from the wall and expose enough wiring like I did with the lamp in the private hospital. I could have ten thousand volts in each hand.

  I feel movement behind me. There’s something in the mirror.

  A reflected face.

  But not Evil-GG’s.

  It’s my dad’s.

  ‘Reva,’ he says. ‘I’m awake.’

  I have met my dad in a dream that was or wasn’t a dream before. He told me to run.

  This time it’s different.

  ‘Come back.’

  His voice is rich and gentle and he is healthy and his eyes are alive with promise and honesty.

  ‘How are you doing this?’ I ask him, but my voice is a croaky whisper.

  ‘It’s time, Reva. It’s time we fixed all of this.’

  He smiles and his handsome face beams back at me from the mirror.

  ‘You can’t be here and also there,’ I tell him. ‘You can’t be.’

  My dad is calm and confident. ‘It’s that sort of a world,’ he says and then disappears from view. I swivel but he is no longer behind me. Assuming he ever was.

  I have to take stock, to get control. I have no idea what is real and what isn’t any more. But I do know one thing. I know that I believe him.

  I grab my bag of bandages and creams and am about to charge up the steps that lead to the street when a thought grabs me and drags me to a halt.

  Does a dream cast shadows over the walls and ceiling? Does it creep up on you and wait in silence?

  That wasn’t my dad’s shadow. Someone is still outside.

  Waiting for me.

  I can’t hide down here for ever and I’ve got the added motivation from my dad now so I creep up the steps, taking them slowly and quietly. Daylight spears into the cold brick stairwell and then a shadow blots it out.

  Here we go again.

  Who’s it going to be this time?

  ‘God, you took for ever down there!’

  ‘Billie.’ I edge up the steps. ‘You, uh, you came back.’

  I should be glad to see her but her eyes are coal black and she is grinning way too much to be friendly.

  ‘I just needed some time.’

  ‘Did it help any?’ I try to look calm and casual, easy-going, friendly.

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ She keeps smiling and her metal teeth glint.

  ‘That’s . . . That’s great. Can’t believe it’s you.’

  ‘I think it’s me.’ She laughs and it shouldn’t do this but it unsettles me. ‘Who knows who I am any more?’ She hesitates. ‘Or what I am.’

  The laughter dies away.

  I’m not sure what to say next.

  ‘Anyway. You found me,’ I say.

  ‘I remembered the hotel.’

  ‘Always were smart. Took us hours.’

  Billie looks at her hands and she seems to have managed to get her talons under control.

  ‘You OK?’ I ask tentatively.

  ‘Getting there.’ She smiles again.

  ‘I was trying to make Other-Johnson scan for you—’

  ‘—Nice jeans.’ she cuts me short. ‘Been shopping?’

  ‘Uh yeah. Yes.’

  ‘Rev, don’t look at me like that.’

  I didn’t realise I was looking at her in any particular way.

  ‘I’m going to be OK.’ She adds, ‘I was in shock. Who wouldn’t be?’

  I nod. ‘True. We still friends then?’ I venture.

  Billie smiles again and I have no idea how we’re going to explain her metal teeth when we get home.

  But that will be a problem for later.

  ‘Listen, I think we can go home,’ I say.

  ‘You’re always saying that.’ Her black eyes are unreadable.

  ‘But my dad . . .’ I take a moment, because this is going to sound crazy but then again it’s pretty much on par with everything else. ‘He spoke to me. In a vision, a dream. But it was him, Billie, and he’s awake and he wants me to—’

  ‘What d’you mean “awake”?’

  ‘I’ll explain on the way, but we’ve got a better way out of here.’

  I want to hurry back to the Johnsons and Apes, but Billie’s hand snakes out and catches my wrist. ‘Explain now.’

  ‘Later. C’mon, we’ve got to get the others and go.’

  ‘You’re going to leave the Moth?’

  ‘No. We’re going to find him – somehow. Other-Johnson can do that, once he’s back to full power.’

  I want to see excitement in Billie, but instead she takes a step forward and draws close enough for me to feel her quiet breath on my skin. ‘Who do you want?’ she asks. ‘I need to know, Rev. Who do you really want? Which Johnson?’

  ‘What? Didn’t you hear me? My dad can probably get us home.’

  She lays a hand on my bicep and gently squeezes my arm. ‘It’s like you’ve got two hearts. One for Johnson, one for Other-Johnson. But in truth people only have one heart.’ Billie’s words sound exactly like some of the mushy melodramatic poetry that Carrie used to write. She entered it for competitions but, surprise, surprise, never won a thing.

  I twist out of her grip. ‘My dad’s healed. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t know if it would work or not. But it did, he’s better.’

  ‘You need to make up your mind,’ she tells me, unable to think about anything but Johnson. ‘You can’t have them both.’

  ‘There’s more at stake than that.’

  I head away but within a heartbeat I feel a swoosh above my head and before I know it Billie has leaped over me and landed in front of me. ‘Which one, Rev?’

  I have pined and mooned for the Johnsons and dithered and been torn one way and then the other. I have been as honest as I could be in such a mind-bending, heart-jangling situation. It’s not my fault that I keep fluctuating, who wouldn’t? But I certainly don’t need Billie making my mind up for me.

  Her fingers snap round my wrist again and she tugs on my arm, wanting me to come closer. I resist, digging my new trainers into the tarmac road.

  ‘Tell me,’ she says gently, but tugs a little harder.

  I’m completely at her mercy and I think she likes seeing the fear in my eyes. Well, you can, I think, you can look into my petrified eyes and you can see what you’ve become reflected strai
ght back at you.

  ‘Billie, my dad’s alive and he can help fix everything. He’s in a private hospital,’ I say. Not knowing how else to make her let me go.

  ‘He’s what?’

  ‘They didn’t go home. The other me and you are still around. My dad’s been healed.’

  I know it’s a risk, but she has to snap out of this somehow.

  Billie takes a moment.

  I’ve played the only card I have left.

  She lets my wrists go. Then she nods. ‘Well, that’s . . . That’s amazing. Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘I never . . . Never really got the chance,’ which is sort of true.

  Billie dredges up a smile. ‘You should tell the others. Before one of them gets brained by a piece of hotel.’

  ‘It’s going to be good, Billie. All of it. You can meet your doppel and she can probably – help – you.’

  Billie nods, warming to the idea.

  ‘This isn’t about boys,’ I tell her. ‘It’s never been about that.’ Even though it sort of has. ‘We’ll do what we’ve got to do. You and me. BFFs.’

  Billie nods again, keenly lapping up my words. ‘I’m right there, Rev. I’m right there.’

  I go for an awkward hug but Billie keeps me at arm’s length. ‘Enough with that . . .’ she jokes.

  I grin at her. ‘Everything’s going to work out,’ I promise her and realise that I’m starting to believe it. ‘C’mon, let’s tell the others.’

  ‘I’m right behind you.’

  I’m out of breath by the time I reach Johnson who is also now helping to move the rubble.

  They have been going since early dawn and the mountain of dead hotel has shrunk a little. Masonry and plaster splash into the Thames.

  ‘Boys!’ I yell breathlessly.

  Non-Ape has cleared tons of rubble and the Thames now has the beginnings of a concrete island sticking out of it.

  ‘Stop!’

  Everyone stops bar Non-Ape who keeps hurling concrete.

  Johnson is also topless now and, be still, my beating heart, I’ve got two lithe torsos to gawp at.

  ‘We need to go back.’

  Other-Johnson stops. ‘How come?’

  ‘My dad’s awake.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Johnson suddenly calls out.

  I turn and see a lifeless body hurled into the Thames.