William Sandberg hurried through the deserted underground shopping centre, the sound of his soles echoing between darkened shop windows and rolled-down shutters. He half-sprinted past newsagents and watchmakers, bakers and shops selling tat, bookshops and shoe-repair kiosks, all closed, in darkness, devoid of people. His eyes were searching constantly, looking for the next sign to appear.
He had no choice, just had to hope she was right. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
It had been only four minutes since he’d left the station hall. He had stood on the wide shiny floor, staring with a steady gaze and miming the words as clearly as he could. I want to negotiate.
It was a risk, and he knew it. How did he know that the message was going to get through? And if it did, how did he know that the one he was trying to reach–it?–would even be interested in any negotiation? How long would he dare to stay, waiting for an answer, hoping to be heard? Presumably there was a room full of police somewhere, busy checking every camera they could get at, and with each passing second the risk of them catching up increased. Each time he heard an engine outside, a door creaking or hurried footsteps running into the hall to catch their train, he’d looked around for uniforms or weapons or black overalls. But no police came, and he kept turning, miming, turning.
Several times, he decided to give up. Each time he persuaded himself to hang on just a little longer. Then a bit longer, and after that, longer still. But with each passing minute, he felt the hope disappearing. Maybe he’d been wrong after all.
That’s when he’d started to notice the people around him.
It was late evening, and the hall was far from full, just a steady, quiet stream of single passengers, glancing quickly up at the departure board before they carried on down the stairs towards the platforms.
Suddenly though, it was as if that stream had changed. From the corner of his eye he noticed people stopping, hesitating, hanging around. Instead of the odd commuter turning up and then quickly disappearing, all of a sudden he now had company. One became three, three became a handful, and before long almost a couple of dozen night-time travellers were standing still, their irritated eyes all fixed on a single point, looking for information that wasn’t there.
In the end William had stopped rotating and followed their eyes. Above the steps down to the subterranean platforms hung the huge departure board. In sharp, white letters on a bright blue background, it announced destinations and departure times and what train was leaving from where. Or rather: had been announcing. Now it hung empty and devoid of content, stared at by passengers whose faces shone with confusion and irritation. What the hell? Wasn’t it working?
The only one not wondering was William. He walked over towards the board, stood right underneath it, and waited.
Before his eyes, new text appeared. Not a departure time, nor a platform, just a single word, and alongside it a discreet flashing signal, a little triangle that seemed to be pointing downwards, down the steps, down towards the platforms and the bowels of the station.
A single word. And of all the people standing there in the great hall, only one understood what it meant.
Amberlangs.
At the bottom of the stairs, there had been more signs. First were the split-flap display boxes showing train times, all rattling away to be replaced by Sara’s misarticulated word, then came the wall-mounted advertising screens, where ads for fast food and cinema screenings gave way to the same thing. They guided him out of the station, down a short flight of stairs to the shops, and now he hurried through the closed underground shopping arcade, half-sprinting across floors still wet from the footsteps that had crossed them during day, looking around as he went for something that would show him which way to go next.
He passed windows with books and pretzels, displays with flashing lights that tried to create a festive feeling . In shop after shop there were new electronic signs waiting for him, sometimes of the red dot-matrix variety with scrolling text, sometimes just faded monitors with special offers. One by one he saw their messages disappear to be replaced with symbols guiding him onwards.
He carried on past passages and more shops, a maze of small businesses that were not much more than holes in the wall, and after a while he had lost track of how far he had come and where he might be heading.
Somewhere behind him was the station hall. Perhaps deserted by now, with the departure boards back to displaying their ordinary information. But, more likely, it might well be crawling with police and their SWAT teams looking for him, perhaps even making their way down to the same maze of shops. They could be right behind him, seconds away from catching up, he didn’t know. But there was nothing he could do.
The words echoed inside him, the words from the message that had shone at him from the computer, sitting in the darkness of the railway tunnel.
If you don’t have a past, who are you?
If he was right, they meant there still was hope.
All he could do now was trust the directions, have faith that the arrows were leading him to safety, away from the police, and then–where?
Where do you meet someone who is everywhere?