by R E McLean
“It could have been left here.”
“The MIU has been here before? Or the MOO?”
He shook his head. “Not sure. They don’t talk about ti. But I’m pretty sure, yeah.”
“So who do we call?” she asked. “The MIU or the MOO?”
“Whoever’ll listen.”
“Right. Go on then.”
He blinked three times, then looked away from the bitbox, his face contorted into an expression that made Alex think of her dad when he’d won the Gretna Green gurning contest.
“Is this some kind of ritual?” she asked. “You have to do things with your face to make it work?”
He glared at her. “I’m just trying to banish a longing for carrots.”
He pressed down on the bitbox with his thumb and it started pulsing with a thin yellow glow.
“Whoah,” said Lacey.
Alex looked past Mike toward the red glow Pip had created. It had stopped spreading.
She wondered why he hadn’t come any further. Was there something he was scared of down here?
The bitbox made a noise, like the sound of cats fighting. She stepped back. Was it about to go crazy at them, like it had in Hive Earth when she’d used it to try and track down her mom?
Mike placed the bitbox on the ground. He took a step back and motioned for Alex and Lacey to do the same.
There was a peal of thunder behind them. Lacey jumped. Alex looked up to see streaks of yellow light emanating from the storm. It was like a Van Der Graph sphere, but magnified a hundred times.
“We need to be quick,” she said.
Mike shook his head. “Patience.”
She could sense Lacey shivering beside her. It was late now, and a strong breeze came at them from the water. Mike was turning blue.
“Here,” said Lacey. “She shrugged her long black coat off and handed it to Mike.”
‘You should keep it,” he told her.
“I don’t want to look at you.”
“Fair enough.” He dragged the coat on and buttoned it at the front. Lucky Lacey wore her clothes loose.
“The bitbox,” Alex said.
The bitbox was pulsing. It bulged at them a couple times, then changed shape. It looked just like the poop emoji, except it glowed a rainbow of colors which shifted up and down, making Alex feel dizzy.
“Unicorn poop. Pretty,” said Lacey. Alex gritted her teeth.
“Wait,” said Mike.
The pile of poop at their feet stopped glowing and changed color. It was purple. A pinprick of light glowed at its tip. The light spread and flickered, coalescing into a holographic shape of a human being.
Alex felt her stomach clench.
“Mike,” said the hologram. “Where are you?”
Mike glanced at Alex. “Point Zero. Outside the Hall.”
“You’ve moved south.”
“I’m with Alex. And a girl.”
The hologram turned toward Alex. It was wearing a purple jacket and tight blue jeans, and had hair piled artfully on top of its head. “You found her.”
“And Mike. If it wasn’t for me he’d be a ten-foot rabbit right now.”
“Sorry?” the hologram squinted.
“Nothing,” said Mike. “We just need you to pull us back. The Spinner that Alex used is gone.”
“Bitboxes don’t have that capability.” The holographic Sarita folded her arms across her chest. She turned back to Alex. “How did Lacey get there?”
“There’s this kid.”
“Pip,” interrupted Lacey. “He made a kinda hole. Pulled me through it.”
“Hmm. OK, then you have to get him to make another one.”
“It’s not as easy as that,” replied Alex.
“It’s your only way home. And judging by the look of you all, I think you need to get to it.” Sarita paused. “You can do it, I know you can.”
The hologram grew by about ten per cent then flickered into nothingness. Alex, Mike and Lacey all stared at the bitbox, which was a featureless black cube again.
Alex glared at Mike. “Why didn’t you tell me Sarita knew where you were?”
25
Big Dipper
“I didn’t exactly have the chance,” said Mike.
Lacey watched Alex approach him. She looked angry.
“You could have told me when we were in the house.” Alex said. “You had plenty of time then, when you weren’t busy showing off your quantum cat.”
“I wasn’t showing off. I thought you needed to know what was going on in this universe. What we were up against.”
Alex shook her head. “How many times have you spoken to her? And how?”
“Just once, before this one. I had a bitbox. It got damaged.”
“How? We didn’t have one in the Spinner with us when we jumped back from Silicon City.”
“I found it. Just like we found that one you’re holding.”
“It makes me uneasy, that they’re just lying around here.”
Lacey took a few steps back. She had no idea what the MOO was, or a Spinner, or a bitbox. What she did know was that this pair were more interested in yelling at each other than in getting her home.
She looked across the water. When they’d been moving around the city, Pip had muttered about the Bay under his breath. He was scared of what was over there. So scared it made him develop a twitch when she’d asked him about the lights reflecting on the Bay from the other side.
She tried to remember what was over there in her world. Her parents hadn’t thought it worth making the trip; there was plenty to do in the city, they’d said. But she’d spent the first morning of their vacation looking at maps on her phone, getting a sense of where she was. There was another city over there: Oakland. And a university. Berkeley. Her friend Yin wanted to go there, to study Physics.
The lightshow over the Bay looked a lot like a fairground now. The fast moving lights of a Ferris wheel and a big dipper reflected on the inky water.
Was that a way out? Were there more anomalies over there, more holes that led back to her universe?
“I don’t know any more than you do,” said Mike. “And I don’t see why you’re getting so worked up about it.”
“Because you didn’t tell me!” replied Alex. “Because she lied to me.”
There was a silence. Lacey heard a rumble above them and looked up. Pip’s anomaly was growing again, bleeding across the sky right over their heads.
“Er, guys…” she said.
Alex waved a hand. “In a minute.”
“Seriously. You’re gonna want to—”
“In a minute. Wait.”
Mike smiled. “I’ve got it. Why you’re so angry with Sarita.”
“No you don’t.”
“You’ve got a crush on her.”
Alex went pale. “That’s garbage.”
“Doesn’t sound like it to me. Don’t let your emotions get in the way of the mission. We need to get Lacey home. Sarita can help us.”
“No she can’t! She just said as much.”
“OK. Maybe she can’t but even—”
“And what about you and Madge? Why shouldn’t I tell her you spent an hour as a twenty-foot rabbit? Is that not letting your emotions get in the way?’
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“It just is,” replied Mike. “It’s not a pathetic crush, for a start off.”
The rumble above their heads stopped. A pink light pulsated from the edges of the anomaly. It reached out over the water.
“Please!” cried Lacey. “We need to get moving.”
“Don’t call me pathetic,” Alex was inches away from Mike, glaring into his face.
Lacey tapped her foot. This was just like being with her folks. She looked over the water again. Maybe there was a way of getting there. Maybe Pip was a safer bet than this pair.
She took one last look at them, turned away, and set off at a run.
26
Cotton Candy
Alex could feel anger rising from her feet, like hot flames licking at her. How dare Mike talk to her like this?
“This is none of your business,” she said.
“And my relationship with Madge is none of yours.”
He had a point. “So how did she make contact with you?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise not to yell at me.”
She gritted her teeth. “OK.”
“I found another bitbox.”
“Where?”
“Up near Union Square. Or what would be Union Square if it hadn’t been rubble.”
“Where is it now?”
“It’s nonfunctioning .”
“Nonfunctioning.”
“I took it with me. It morphed itself so it was phone-shaped. Like yours did.”
She nodded.
“But then it turned into a house brick.”
“It what?”
“When I went into that house, the one with the cat. It somehow changed. I felt it heavier in my pocket, then when I pulled it out, it was a brick.”
“Probably one of the bricks you were throwing.”
“No. Yes. Maybe. After a couple days, I lost track of which brick was a brick, and which one used to be the bitbox.”
“Maybe we should go back there, find it.”
“No point. We’ve got this one now.”
“True. Where are they coming from? So how are were going to get home?”
“Sarita said to use Pip’s powers.”
“Bad idea,” she replied. “He’s not exactly going to help us.”
“No.”
“But he might help Lacey.”
She turned toward Lacey.
“That’s all we need.”
Alex felt cold and tired. Her clothes were dirty, her skin felt like it was being rubbed with sandpaper, and her mind was foggy. And now they’d lost Lacey.
“We need to find her,” Alex said. “You take that edge of the park, I’ll take this.”
They separated, calling Lacey’s name and checking the shadows for the girl. She couldn’t have gone far; they were her only route home.
Unless…
“Mike!” Alex called.
He was in the trees at the northern end of the park, pulling cotton candy off his shirt, cursing the sugar sticking to his sleeve.
“What?”
“I think I know where she’s gone.”
“Pip,” they said in unison.
Alex punched him on the arm. “Maybe you’re not that bad.”
“Sarita could do worse.”
“I don’t want you ever to mention that again.”
“Sorry.”
“Let’s just get on with finding her, huh?”
“Right.”
“Can you turn into a giant rabbit again? It would speed things up.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said.
“Let’s move then.”
“Which way?”
Alex looked at the sky. The anomaly was fizzing in and out, cracking at its edges. It would have been beautiful, if it weren’t so ominous.
She pointed north.
“Fisherman’s Wharf,” she said. “Back where we came from.”
27
Snorkel
The streets seemed to shift and move. Lacey crept along, keeping to the shadows where she could, preferring stealth over speed now.
As she traveled north, the sky lightened. It was beautiful, like a pink aurora. It shimmered and flowed across the night, flickering and sparking. Something that beautiful couldn’t be dangerous.
She had to find a way to persuade Pip to let her go. He could create those holes, those rifts between worlds that would get her home.
Her so-called rescuers were worse than useless, dragging her all the way downtown just to discover they had no way of getting her, or themselves, home.
No, she had to do this herself.
She slipped from the shadow of one building to the next, trying to ignore the strangeness around her. The streets were littered with debris still, but instead of the rubble and litter from before it was now dog toys, boxes of candy, and Christmas presents tied with a bow. She ignored them and carried on moving.
Up ahead, the sky beyond the buildings glowed so brightly it hurt her eyes. She wondered if Pip was still there, at the center of it, or if he too had fled.
Either way, this was her best chance of escape.
She heard a high-pitched sound up ahead, like something between a motorbike engine and a blender. She pulled back against the wall, her hand on her chest. She was cold.
The sound got closer. She watched the empty street, heart racing. What if there were other people here, the kind who only came out at night?
A shape rounded the corner ahead of her. She shrank further into the wall. It bent against her weight, dipping in a way that reminded her of the bouncy castle. She tried not to think about what would happen if it swallowed her up.
The sound stopped. She clenched her fists. In the middle of the street was a toy light saber. Could she use it as a weapon? Could she even get to it in time?
The sound was back now, along with its source.
Up ahead of her was a motorbike made of plastic, painted in a metallic red. It gleamed in the reflected light of the anomaly. Riding on its back were a life-size Ken and Barbie riding on its back.
“Don’t move!”
It was a high-pitched voice with a Texas accent.
She ignored it, and carried on moving.
“I said, stay where you are!”
She looked back at the plastic motorbike to see that Barbie was pointing a gun at her. The gun was a uniform shade of green, more like a toy than a weapon.
Still, in a world where Barbie could ride a motorbike, a plastic gun might be as dangerous as a rocket grenade.
As soon as she’d had the thought, Barbie’s gun shimmered and swayed, morphing into the shape of a rocket launcher.
Stop it, Lacey thought. Keep hold of your imagination.
She raised her arms. Barbie was looking at her weapon and smiling.
“Why, thank you! Maybe you can think about poisonous spiders, or great white sharks for me next time.”
Lacey tried to squeeze her mind shut. But it was no good.
A horde of foot-long red ants scurried around the corner. Lacey screamed and jumped up onto a trashcan.
“Watch out!”
Ken revved the motorbike’s engine and they sped off, passing Lacey and heading away from the center of the anomaly. Barbie gave her a wave as they passed then looked up at the sky, her expression troubled.
Lacey glanced up to see a shadow bearing down upon her. She dodged as a great white shark fell from the sky, landing with a thud.
There was a roar behind her. Ken and Barbie were speeding back. Barbie looked panicked now, and the rocket grenade on her shoulder had been replaced by a snorkel.
Behind them was a tidal wave of water, spilling through the streets and heading their way. This was like no wave Lacey had ever seen.
As the motorbike drew level, Barbie cried out.
“Grab ahold!”
Barbie was leaning toward her, stretching out a hand. The snorkel was on her face now, magnifying her impossibly large blue eyes. She blinked with a sweep of the eyelashes that would cause hemorrhaging in any normal woman.
Lacey looked back at the shark. It was twisting and turning, trying to move. When the water arrived, it would start swimming…and biting.
That was if she didn’t drown first.
She grabbed Barbie’s hand. It was cold and stiff, made of the same plastic as the dolls her mum insisted on keeping in the loft.
As soon as she grabbed it, the hand shrank. Dangling from her outstretched hand was a regular-sized Barbie doll. Its legs clung to the motorbike, as did those of the regular-sized Ken doll in front of it.
The shark had gone, replaced by an empty burger carton on the ground next to her. The ants were nowhere to be seen and the
tidal wave had vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
This place was odd, sure enough. And she had a feeling it would only get odder as she approached the center of the storm that continued to rage above her head.
She drew a deep breath, torn between pressing ahead and going back to the relative safety of Alex and Mike.
28
Boat
“Here. We can use this,” Mike said.
Alex eyed the motorboat. It was the only boat tied up along a row of moorings. Alex wondered where the rest had gone. But more than that, she wondered where this one had come from.
“Are you sure? The way things are going for us here, it could turn into a giant sea snake as soon as we touch it.”
“You’re right. Hang on.”
Mike placed a hand on the boat’s keel, being careful not to lean so far that if it dematerialized he’d fall into the Bay.
It didn’t move.
“There’s nothing else here” said Alex. “Just this one. I think it’s suspect.”
Mike jumped onto the boat. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I say.”
“Or a gift rabbit.”
“I told you not to mention that.”
She smirked. “Only to Madge.”
“Not at all. Please.”
“Well I’m just glad you’re not naked.”
He paled but said nothing. Lacey’s coat looked warm. Alex, on the other hand, was wearing a denim jacket that was soaked through and a skin suit that was feeling increasingly slimy. It was starting to rain, thunder and lightning raging in the sky above her head. For some reason it was only above her head, and not his.
“Come on then.”
She ignored his outstretched hand and jumped down to join him in the boat. When her feet landed on the solid deck of the boat and not in water, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Do you know how to work speed boats?” Mike asked. He was fiddling with knobs and buttons on the dashboard.
“I assumed you did, that’s why you picked it.”
“No. I thought it would be easy.”
She looked at the dashboard. She’d ridden in boats like this on Loch Ness as a girl, and then behind them as a teenager enjoying wake boarding. She had to remember some of it.
