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As she plodded down the lane, Robin passed a tiny crack in the space-time continuum.
At first, she ignored it. She had endured a long, frustrating day already, and any stray anomalies this far from the lab had nothing to do with her.
Probably.
She stopped. With a resigned sigh she marched back the several steps to where she’d seen it. There was no sign of it, of course: being one dimensional, you had to be facing the crack dead on or it wasn’t there. Bobbing her head like a giant pigeon, she stepped forward and back, trying to recreate the exact angle she had initially spotted it. There was a sudden flash of light, which meant she had passed in front a light source that was somewhere other than here and now. She slowly narrowed in on the one spot from which she could see the anomaly clearly.
It was hovering slightly above the roof of a rusted-out pickup truck. Fortunately, the truck was parked more out of the alley than in, and probably hadn't been driven in years. That meant no one was likely to drive or walk through the anomaly in the next few hours, which was as long as the crack could sustain itself.
Problem solved.
Except, there was always the off chance that someone else walking the lane might spot the damn thing as she had, and not knowing what it was, climb up on the truck to investigate.
In the distance, she could hear the sound of teenagers being rowdy. What if they came this way?
Ridiculous, of course. What were the odds? And so what if they found it? Threw a few rocks at it, or something? As long as they didn’t try to touch it, there wouldn’t be an issue.
Robin thought of herself as a teenager, realized she would be climbing up the truck and sticking her arm through, the second she saw it. No, the only way to be hundred per cent safe was for Robin to make sure the damn thing wasn’t visible from the lane.
Casting about, she found a stack of wood-slat crates discarded behind the next building down and grabbed one. Standing on tiptoe, she was able to reach the roof of the truck to position the crate to block the narrow ribbon of light that revealed the anomaly.
She stepped back to examine her handy work—again bobbing back and forth—and could see no sign of the crack through the slates of the crate.
Perfect.
Except, now there was a crate upended on the roof of a truck. It stood out like a sore thumb. Any teenage male confronted with such a target would be unable to resist knocking it off, just ’cause. She needed to find some way to block both the crate and the pickup from view.
She looked up and down the alley for something suitable. It was difficult to discern objects clearly in the deepening twilight, but parked between two sheds across the alley was a van-sized lump with a heavy tarpaulin draped over it. Checking to see there was no one around, she moved to appropriate the tarp. She’d come back in the morning to return it, but right now, hers was the more urgent need.
She grabbed the bottom edge of the covering and peeled it up, careful not to snag it on the side mirrors and whatever that was sticking out of its roof. Yanking it off the other side, she dragged the tarp across the alley, and after a couple of attempts, managed to arrange it over the pickup, being careful not to dislodge the crate, which was needed to keep the tarp from touching the anomaly. The pickup truck, crate, and anomaly thus covered, the effect was of an unobtrusive pile of junk kept safe from the rain. It shouldn’t draw a second glance.
Satisfied, Robin turned to memorize the spot where she had found the tarp, so she could return it again next morning. But peering through the gloom, she did a double take when she realized that was no van. That was an Oshkosh MK23 cargo truck, complete with grey military camouflage. Which was odd, because Oshkosh didn’t make a civilian version, and the military didn’t stash their trucks in random alleys.
It occurred to Robin that someone might not appreciate her uncovering the truck if it were stolen. Returning here in the morning might be a very bad idea indeed.
The longer she stared at the truck, the more its being there struck her as wrong. Examining its silhouette in the failing light, she suddenly realized that was a dish antenna mounted on the top of the truck’s box, and that the antenna was aimed—she rotated slowly, tracing a line in the air with her finger—directly at the hidden anomaly.
A chill that had nothing to do with nippy fall air fastened onto Robin. She ran her hands over her hair to smooth it back to her neck while she processed what she was seeing.
It couldn’t be coincidence. The lucky break of finding a convenient tarp immediately across from the anomaly had been no such thing. The dish antenna must be monitoring the anomaly. Or worse, generating it. Either way, she had just inserted herself into something much bigger than she wanted any part of.
It didn’t matter that she had done nothing illegal (apart from taking the tarp, of course). Her having recognized the anomaly for what it was would be enough to land her in a world of trouble. Possibly several worlds, if their theories of trans-dimensional cracking were correct. And that was assuming whoever was running the operation was authorized to do so. If they were part of some illicit operation . . .
Her phone was off, so they couldn’t track her that way. There didn’t seem to be anyone on site, in either the truck or the sheds. If they were running the operation remotely, there must be cameras, but they might not be positioned to see her clearly if they were focused on the anomaly. If she walked away now, there was a chance she’d never be identified.
The distant voices of the teenagers were coming closer. Time to move.
She walked out of the alley a lot more briskly than she had entered it. As her heels echoed in the empty street, she realized how completely exposed she was, and abruptly reversed directions and headed for the subway. If they had satellite access, hers would be the only heat signature leaving the scene, so easy to track. Her only chance was to get underground; take the subway, maybe head down to theatre district, lose herself in the crowds as they came out of the shows, before heading home again.
She should stay downtown tonight, take a room, rather than risk leading them home.
She shook her head to clear it. She was being paranoid. She’d seen an anomaly, yes, and a truck, but nothing that could possibly identify or incriminate anyone. It wouldn’t be worth wasting resources chasing her down. And, if anyone did show up on site, they’d be distracted by the teens, who should be coming up on the pickup truck about now. She felt a stab of guilt about that. She had tried to protect them from the anomaly, but had probably put them in greater danger from . . . whoever this was.
She reached the subway entrance, went down the stairs, the clicking of her heels echoing even more loudly against the tiled walls. Once on the empty platform awaiting the next train (eleven minutes out, the display said), her nervousness had to compete with the feeling that she was being ridiculous. Just because there appeared to be other players in cross-dimensional cracking, didn’t mean there were legions of secret agents in black helicopters behind the operation. And even if there were, whoever this was had to know that her going missing might well trigger its own investigation, ultimately leading the authorities to the lab where she worked—and once that happened, there’d be too many uncomfortable questions about unregulated cracking research for the culprits to continue to fly under the radar. No, it just didn’t make any sense to believe anyone would come after her.
Eight minutes until the next train. Now that she was here, though, she might as well wait and take the train downtown. She could go for dinner. Deciding to go for dinner was a normal thing, and not paranoid. She hadn’t been out to dinner for ages.
Seven minutes. Not that she was dressed for dinner. And she was terribly tired. She’d been looking forward to going straight to bed before all this. She would not be able to enjoy herself if she were looking over her shoulder the whole time. Dinner wasn’t going to work.
Six minutes. This was stupid. She should just go home.
But then, what if it wasn’t stupid? Maybe not worrying would be the stupid thing. Logic dictated treating the situation seriously: if she was wrong, it just meant wasted time and energy, and feeling foolish after; whereas not taking the threat seriously and being wrong . . .
Five minutes. It occurred to her that there might be a compromise available. If she proceeded down the subway station to the cross-over, she could simply walk out of the opposite exit, as if just disembarking from the train going the other way. Whoever was looking for her—assuming anyone was—would be looking for someone getting on the train going south, not someone newly arrived from the north. She could mix in with anyone getting off at this stop, go out with them, and just go home normally.
Four minutes. But they might have gotten a look at her jacket. It was too risky to just go back out in the street, if they’d gotten a proper look at her. She’d be walking right into them. Take the train downtown, mingle with the theatre crowds and then . . . not dinner, but a bar, maybe? Just to kill a little time?
Three minutes. Or maybe let herself get picked up, working off all this adrenalin in a good way. It had been awhile. And they couldn’t predict where she was headed, if she didn’t know herself. She permitted herself a daydream about that tall guy she’d seen her last time in a bar.
Two minutes. She laughed out loud. Here she was contemplating something that was actually dangerous, while jumping at imaginary shadows. It was crazy. And then, enjoying the irony, her paranoia pointed out that she couldn’t even trust that whoever picked her up wasn’t working for Them—whoever They were. She was being an idiot. She should just go home.
One minute. What if they were already on the train? They could have put a team on at another station up the line, and be waiting for her to board. Or they could manufacture an accident, take out the train after it left the station. She should just let this one go by, let them focus on the wrong train. She could hide in the bathroom until the next one. Of course they’d check the bathrooms when they didn’t find her on the train.
The headlight came into sight, right on schedule, as the train turned the curve of the tunnel into the station. Robin still hadn’t decided whether any of this was real or not.
The driverless train rattled into the station. As it slowed noisily to a stop, she heard several others pounding down the steps two at a time, no doubt commuters racing to catch the train they would have heard arriving.
The train waited the two minutes it was programmed to wait, then rattled on its way down the track and out.