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Winston guides me to a borehole. I’m not expecting him to say goodbye, but I assume he’s going to ask me to pass on a message to Inez, saying sorry that he can’t come. Instead, after looking uncertain for a few seconds, he taps the side of his nose and leaves me with something that’s either a riddle or a lame joke. “Remember, Archie, if he comes to the vine at the end of the line, a wise dog barks.”
As I’m trying to make sense of that, Winston heads back to his rooms and his locks. With a bewildered sigh, I step through the borehole and find myself on an island full of giant stone pineapples.
I gawp at the statues as I wander around. There are hundreds of them, and many have to be twenty metres tall. Some of the smaller pineapples have been converted into seats, while holes have been carved into others, with beds placed inside.
I do a complete circuit of the island. It doesn’t take long. There are mushrooms, a sandy beach, the statues and nothing else.
Back where I started, I climb one of the twenty-metre monsters – a ladder is helpfully carved into it – and check out the view. Then I climb down, head for the beach and lie down close to the water’s edge. I think about going for a swim, but Inez told me that my clothes would dissolve if I took them off, and the last thing I want is to be standing here naked when she arrives.
I feel peckish, so I veer inland, pick mushrooms and carry them down to the beach, where I have a feast. After that I go for another walk, counting pineapples – I give up after a hundred and sixty-two – and testing out various chairs and beds.
Another long spell chilling on the beach. Then the sky darkens. I climb one of the taller pineapples to gaze at the empty night sky. It’s so strange with no moon or stars. After an hour or so of quiet reflection – I think a lot about Dave and why I agreed to come here instead of heading home – I retire to one of the beds, make myself comfy and slip into the land of dreams.
I go for a run in the morning, before having breakfast back on the beach. A few hours later, bored and with nothing else to do, I begin building sandcastles, small structures at first, before growing more ambitious. It’s tricky without a bucket and spade, but by afternoon I’m hard at work on an entire complex, a huge castle at the centre, smaller houses scattered around.
I’ve become so caught up in the construction that I’m unaware of anything else, and leap as if shot when someone says, “Aren’t you a bit old for sandcastles?”
I spring away and look up, half-expecting Orlan Stiletto and Argate Axe, but it’s only Inez, smiling at me archly.
“You’re back,” I pant, wiping my hands on my thighs. “I thought you’d be a few more days.”
“I made better time than expected,” she says.
“Where’s Cal?” There’s no sign of him and I start to worry that he came to harm in New York.
“I sent him on ahead. He was sour at me for not letting him fight the SubMerged, so I figured a break would suit us both.” She nods at the sandcastles. “Did I disturb you in the middle of something important?”
“Shut up,” I scowl.
“I can come back later if you’re busy,” she trills.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll grab one of those pineapples and stuff it up –”
“Ah-ah!” she tuts, wagging a finger at me.
“– your nose,” I finish, and we both laugh. “I am too old for sandcastles,” I admit, “but it’s boring here, nothing else to do. Why did you arrange for us to meet on an island of stupid pineapples?”
She shrugs. “Not many people know about this place – Winston actually spent a few years here before he settled in the wrap zone – so I figured it would be as safe a spot as any to rendezvous.” Then her eyes narrow. “But you weren’t meant to meet me at all. You were supposed to ask Winston to come, then head home.”
“There’s been a change of plan,” I tell her.
“Is Winston alright?” she asks, concerned.
“He’s fine, but...” I clear my throat, not sure how she’ll take the news. “He won’t help you. He was scared that he’d be caught and tortured again.”
Inez looks grim. “I feared as much. It was good of you to pass on his answer. I’ll visit when this is over, as I promised, and if there’s anything –”
She’s already started to turn away.
“Wait,” I stop her. “There’s more.”
Inez looks at me with a questioning, impatient smile.
“Winston said I might be able to help you.”
Her smile vanishes. “He told you about my mission?”
“No, but he said you’d need help with a lock, and he thought I could...”
I stop. Inez is staring at me as if I’ve told the biggest whopper ever.
“If you don’t believe me,” I growl, “I’m more than happy to leave you to your own devices and –”
“No,” Inez cries. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I just can’t believe I had such an advanced locksmith under my nose and didn’t realise it.”
I blush with pleasure. “I’m not that advanced,” I mumble, “but Winston thought I’d be able to deal with your lock.”
Inez grabs me and whirls me round. “You’re a wonder, Archibald Lox!”
“Stop it,” I grunt, but don’t try to break free.
“I knew you had a gift,” Inez beams, “but I’d no idea...” Her smile fades and she stops whirling. Her hands drop and she curses softly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I can’t involve you in this,” she says. “This isn’t your sphere, so it’s not your problem.”
“But I want to help.”
“It’s too dangerous. If you came with me, you’d be risking your life.”
“I’ve already done that,” I remind her, “in the prison and on the boat.”
“All the more reason to get out while you can,” Inez says. “The odds against me are crippling, especially now that Winston’s out of the equation. I can’t ask you to share that risk, for people who aren’t your own. This is a place for the dead, Archie, not the living. Go home.”
“Home to what?” I ask hoarsely, then steel myself to talk about the subject I’ve never been able to discuss with anyone. “I had a foster brother. Dave. He drowned. We were walking by the Thames. He hopped up on a wall, pretending to be on a tightrope. He slipped and fell. I looked for something to fish him out with, but...”
I’m crying and have to stop. Inez says nothing.
“I should have dived in,” I moan. “I know you’re not supposed to, that the person in trouble can drag you under, that you should look for something to throw to them, but there was nothing nearby for me to use, and a current dragged him down and took him, and...”
I break down in tears again.
“I know it wasn’t my fault,” I say when I have my voice back, “but I feel guilty anyway. His parents don’t blame me or hate me, but they can’t look at me since it happened. We don’t talk. It’s a house of silence and suffering.”
“Is that why you walked away from it so readily when you found an entrance to the Merge?” Inez asks softly.
I nod miserably.
“But you can’t keep walking away,” she says. “You have to go home eventually.”
“I know,” I say with a weak smile. “And I want to. I’m ready to face George and Rachel – Dave’s parents – again. I don’t want to stay here to avoid them. I need to help you because...”
I pause, getting the words clear inside my head before I commit to them.
“When Dave died, I didn’t really believe in an afterlife. Then I came here and everything changed. I saw that my world isn’t the only one, that death isn’t the end. Dave’s soul has moved on. He’s trotting around somewhere in a nice new body, free to carry on growing and learning.
“I understand that Dave’s not in the Merge,” I continue, “and we don’t know what the other spheres are like, but I’m guessing there are bad people where he is now, just as you have the SubMerged here.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Inez says. “There might be separate spheres for the good and bad after this one.”
I shrug. “The point is, Dave’s in a sphere that’s maybe very similar to this one, and if millions of people’s lives were at risk in that place, and I could do something to save them, he’d want me to help. We’re all linked. What happens in my world affects what happens in the Merge, and maybe events here affect Dave’s sphere. I have to help you, because by helping the Merged, perhaps I’m helping Dave too. I failed him before. I won’t fail him again.”
“That was quite a speech,” Inez says with a chuckle, giving my shoulder a comforting squeeze as I wipe away tears.
“I meant every word of it,” I sniffle. “Will you accept my offer of help?”
“Yes,” Inez smiles, and without any further debate, she takes my hand and guides me to a borehole and the start of the next dangerous phase of her...
No.
...our mission.