SNAP! and the Alter Ego Dimension (13 page)

“No, or else we would have let somebody know where we were.”

Ulrich held his hand out to Wayne.

“Let me help you up,” he said in his heavily accented but very good English. “Did you come here to rescue Tammy?”

Wayne took Ulrich’s hand in a strong grip and pulled himself up. “Yes. Can’t think of another reason to want to come here.”

Ulrich smiled, not sure if Wayne was joking. They looked one another in the eyes and it seemed to Tammy as if they were sizing one another up.

Wayne stooped and picked the rucksack up, surprised to find it was much lighter than it had been in his room. He reasoned that the gravity here differed from that on earth, because his hunting knife wasn’t that heavy either. Maybe this dimension was much smaller than earth, or whatever strange stuff made it up was less dense than the mostly rock and magma that made his world. He swung the rucksack effortlessly onto his back.

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Ulrich asked.

“My parents don’t know, although they will guess where I am as soon as they can’t find me. I came alone to fetch Tammy. We have to get her home as her mother is worried sick,” Wayne replied in English. “How did you get here? You played
Snap
too, right?”

“Yes,” Ulrich answered. They were the same height and shared a similar athletic built.

“Who did you wish you could be?” Wayne wondered aloud.

Ulrich frowned a little as if he didn’t understand what Wayne meant, but then he answered: “Albert Einstein.”

Oh-oh
, Wayne thought.
A nerd.
But perhaps that’s a good thing. He’d probably know where this weird dimension is. This place with different gravity and almost without color, except for the loose items like . . . was this his wall with the posters of motorbikes? Had his room been torn apart? There was nothing wrong with Tammy’s room . . .

“Okay, Einstein, do you know where this place is?” Wayne asked.

Tammy felt so embarrassed that she could sink into the grayness in shame.

What’s wrong with Wayne? Was he deliberately trying to wind Ulrich up? He needed to understand that they had to work together in order to escape from this place. He shouldn’t try to throw his weight around, thinking that the second he turns up he’ll take over as the big boss. It’s not like being at school where he was the star and captain of his sports team. Here things are different. Here you learn to be humble, cooperative and to care for the people with you.

Ulrich didn’t flinch at the nickname. He just stared Wayne straight in the eyes.

“I’m planning to research this Alter Ego Dimension, should I get out of here alive,” he answered, his tone expressionless.

“Wayne brought provisions,” Tammy said to break the icy atmosphere developing between the two boys. “Is there any ready-to-eat food? And soap?”

Wayne nodded and Tammy smiled. At long last she’d be able to wash her face and hands.

“Tammy, let’s pull the door back to the tree. Hiroshi and Nick will be wondering why we’re taking so long,” Ulrich said.

“Who’s Nick?” Wayne asked. He knew Hiroshi was the Japanese girl’s brother. But he didn’t know who Nick was. He had seen his name in the email and, apart from him being Australian, that’s all he knew. “It’s not Nick the Devil, is it?” Wayne joked.

Tammy and Ulrich smiled wryly.

“No, but Nick may be a murderer. He had arrived here with a gun in his hand and a body at his feet.”

Wayne’s eyebrows shot up.

While they were walking back to the tree, Tammy told Wayne all he needed to know about Nick and they answered Wayne’s questions about the Alter Ego Dimension as best they could. They also told him about the millions of light specks and how they had turned red and apparently tried to suffocate Tammy, probably to let her alter ego overpower her.

Tammy did most of the talking. “So, keep away from the light specks and always be on the lookout for your other self. It’ll creep up behind you, grab your arms and pull you into the grayness. If totally surprised and no one’s close enough to help, you probably can’t defend yourself against them. When they come from the front, you’ve got a fighting chance. I kicked mine between her legs, while she was trying to strangle me. That was before I had this spike,” she said.

Wayne shook his head in disbelief. This dimension was a truly mystifying and dangerous place.

Hiroshi was overwhelmed with joy to hear that his sister was safely home. He danced around in a circle with his sword clutched above his head in both hands and he looked to Wayne like some Samurai-warrior he’d seen in the movies. It was only Hiroshi’s clothes, and the lack of armor, that was different.

“Now we know for certain how to get out of this place,” Ulrich said. As they walked, he held Tammy’s hand in his.

Wayne watched them discretely. Jealousy gnawed at his insides. Tammy had introduced him to Hiroshi and Nick as her friend from school. Not her boyfriend or even her best friend. Just a school friend. It’s so ordinary. So . . . nobody. But he could see that Tammy and Ulrich were sweet on one another. Perhaps they had actually fallen in love in this strange place. Ulrich was about her like a moth around a candle. And he’s always holding her hand as if afraid she’ll “vanish” without him to anchor her down.

The thought that Tammy would move on so fast made his stomach ache. Wayne didn’t think Tammy would ever fall for another boy so quickly and easily. She had only been gone for two days. Two days in which he had been thinking of her every second, but in which she surely hadn’t been thinking of him. In this strange reality she had found someone willing to protect her, perhaps with his life, and she had fallen for him.

Could he really blame her? He was the reason why she had been transferred here in the first place. She had arrived alone, terrified and vulnerable. Then she’d found a friend. Why should she go back to him when she had the gallant Ulrich?

“The only way we’re going to get out of this place is by killing our alter egos,” Ulrich stated. There was a determined hardness around his mouth that softened the instant he looked at Tammy. “Will you be able to do it, Tammy?”

Tammy thought for a while. To push a spike into someone else—somebody that looks exactly like her, even if it was another her—would not be easy. If she got a fright and acted on the spur of the moment, instinctively, it would be different. But to look someone in the eye and to push the spike deep into their body, that she’d probably not be able to do. That would feel like murder and, not in her wildest dreams, could she think of herself as a murderer.

“No, you’ll have to help me. We’ll have to help each other,” she answered truthfully.

Wayne stared at Tammy’s hand in Ulrich’s grip. He could not believe that he had lost her. He thought that she would be so happy to see him. That she would fling her arms around his neck and they would laugh and cry together—like the girls always do in the chick-flicks. So many tears, you never knew if they were happy or sad. But his beautiful Tammy, as she stood before him now, with a curtain over her body, with men’s shoes and men’s trousers on and with a soiled face, was Ulrich’s. The pimple was gone too, he noticed.

“I’ll shoot your alter ego,” Nick promised. He took his pistol out and let the magazine fall into his hand. “There are four bullets left.”

“Only four?” Tammy asked anxiously. They were five.

“Yes, the magazine wasn’t full when I . . . decided to . . . give the pistol to Chris. I bought it on the black market.”

“Oh. But you’ll easily recognize my alter ego. She’s got a bikini on, not a curtain like me.”

They went to sit under the tree. It had grown nice and warm in the five meter cube, thanks to the heat of the fire.

“Oh, yes, I brought you a t-shirt, tracksuit pants and a jacket. Would you rather put that on?” Wayne asked and unzipped the rucksack.

“Yes, please. That was really thoughtful of you, Wayne, thanks. She squeezed his arm. “I made this dress from the curtain that came through with me. But the material is a bit stiff. The socks and shoes I borrowed from the deceased Chris.”

Wayne made a face. “From the guy who’d been shot?”

“Yes, either that or die of cold. Here you have to survive, Wayne. This place isn’t for sissies. Sissies get stored here forever,” she said with a determination that made her think she probably could kill her detestable, egocentric other self after all.

Wayne pulled the clothes from his rucksack and unpacked the tinned food and the bottles of water. Then he took out a bottle of liquid soap, two towels and a handful of tiny rolls of wet wipes. The wipes, when put into water, soaked it up and swelled into ordinary, usable wet wipes.

“Who wants to wash?” he asked.

All four of his new acquaintances made use of the offer. They each used a little water to let the wet wipes swell out and soap to wash their hands and faces. The used water they recycled back into the holes in the ground. Then they each chose a tin of food. They used the can opener attachment from Wayne’s Swiss Army Knife to cut into the cans. Wayne gave each of them a white, plastic spoon from a packet of ten, and then they ate the cold food straight from the tins.

Tammy felt like a queen at a royal banquet.

“You brought good food, thanks,” Hiroshi said and let his eyes wonder over the other cans. “Are you a backpacker?”

Wayne liked Hiroshi’s accent and he liked him as a person.

“Yes, I’m a rambler. My dad and I love to go for long walks in the mountains. By now I know how to pack a good, practical rucksack. There’s even a small axe,” he pointed to the pack. “It’s on the back. Should make chopping wood easier.”

Wayne retrieved the axe and gave it to Hiroshi.

“Thanks,” Hiroshi said and walked purposefully to the door, swinging the axe. He left his precious sword in Wayne’s care. Hiroshi was first to finish eating, because with a spoon instead of chop sticks, he ate very fast, he explained.

“I’ll help,” Nick said and stood up from where he had been sitting, quietly listening to the youngsters. He then looked at Wayne. “Did Etsu say anything about me shooting another man?” he asked.

Wayne stared at Nick, lost in thought.
What a strange situation this is,
he decided. Here was a Japanese Samurai, a lovesick German and an Australian killer with him and Tammy.

As Wayne didn’t answer fast enough, Nick kept talking. “I shot a man while he was playing
Snap
. He lived long enough to bring me through and then died here in front of everybody. His body is nearby.”

“No, I don’t know what Etsu told Interpol, but there was nothing about you, Ulrich or Tammy on the news. She said her brother was still missing,” said Wayne. “Etsu wrote your names in the email to Tammy’s mother.” Wayne looked at Ulrich who was again holding Tammy’s hand. “Perhaps Etsu will also have let your parents know that you’re safe, Ulrich.”

Ulrich shook his head. “They don’t know my password. They won’t be able to read an email sent directly to me.”

“The police will,” Wayne told him. “When they start to look for you in earnest, they’ll hack into your messages.”

“When did you exchange email addresses?” asked Nick a little uneasy.

“While you were exploring the place and found the lights,” Tammy answered. “Do you want to give your email to us?”

Nick was quiet for a bit. “No, it’s fine.”

“We’ll want to know who made it safely back to earth, Nick,” Tammy said. “Please give it to me?” She let go of Ulrich’s hand and stretched towards the tree trunk where all their stuff was lying. She took an exercise book and a pen and pulled her piece of paper from beneath her bikini top.

“I didn’t have safe pockets, okay. I put the paper there before I put Chris’s trousers on,” she snapped at Wayne, who was grinning at her. “I’m going to put your clothes on soon, Wayne, but first Nick’s address. Okay, Nick, your email address, please.”

Tammy wrote as fast as Nick said his address. Then she wrote all the addresses onto another paper and gave that to Wayne. “To keep in touch with the others,” she said. Then she put the piece of paper into one of the pockets of the tracksuit trousers.

She stood up, took the shoes and the trousers off and pulled Wayne’s tracksuit on. It had strings in the middle and, after lifting the curtain-dress up, she tightened the strings and tied them. Then she undid the strip of curtain around her waist and threw the bulky dress off. Before Nick and the boys could stare too long at her nearly naked upper body in the bikini top, she pulled the t-shirt over her head and then put the jacket on. Lastly she pushed her feet into Wayne’s old sneakers and tied the laces. The sneakers were one size too big, but not nearly as big as Chris’s shoes.

Now, she was sure, she didn’t look quite the circus clown any more.

She thanked Wayne and felt warm instantly. He had done so much to get to her and there was no guarantee that he’d ever get back to earth. He was still the arrogant, egocentric Wayne she had a schoolgirl crush on back on earth, but in this dimension she had lost her heart to a bright, inventive German boy who would also risk his life for her.

Hiroshi and Nick started to chop the door into pieces. Every blow sounded strangely hollow in the grayness.

Tammy went back to sit between Ulrich and Wayne.

“Now we should make plans to get out of here. We can each write our own plans in this book. Then we must read each other’s plans and do so without thinking about them, then we choose one to follow,” Tammy proposed.

“How are we going to prevent the alter egos from knowing what we’re thinking?” Ulrich asked. “It’s sort of impossible, isn’t it?”

“If we don’t try something, we’ll never get away, Ulrich. Wayne’s provisions aren’t going to last forever. We’re five people who must eat and drink regularly. Even strict rationing only leaves enough food for a few days.”

Tammy got up and fetched another exercise book and two different colored pens. She was pleased by all the stationary that had come inside Hiroshi’s desk. It came in very handy.

And Hiroshi’s laptop. There must be some power left in the battery, or Hiroshi wouldn’t have brought it to the tree.

“Hiroshi!” Tammy called. “Does your laptop still have power, or not?”

Hiroshi stopped chopping the door and looked at her. He had really warmed up chopping wood and had taken off his jersey. He stood dressed in a blue and red check shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“It should be almost full. Why? What do you want with it?”

“You said that there was karaoke music on your laptop. Is it English or Japanese?”

“The words are in both, Japanese and English. What do you want to do? Are we going to sing now?”

“Yes, while we’re writing our plans down. If we read and sing the words of a karaoke song,” Tammy said, “it may confuse them. The words of the song will be in our heads mixed up with the plans. Our alter egos might have trouble understanding which is which . . . ”

“Brilliant! It could work!” Ulrich cried out and jumped to his feet. He grabbed Tammy by the shoulders and gave her a kiss on her mouth.

Wayne felt his blood boil. The faster he can get Tammy away from here, the better. He looked down to hide his jealous anger. Where did they sleep the previous night? In one another’s arms? No, surely not. Whatever, even the chance of that mustn’t happen again. Tammy was his girlfriend. He must get her back home, to Pretoria—as soon as possible.

“Where did you sleep last night?” His curiosity was getting the upper hand, but he tried to make the question seem innocent, addressing it to everyone.

“There is no night here. We took turns to sit under the tree and sleep while someone watched the fire and looked out for the alter egos,” Tammy answered, and Wayne breathed a sigh of relieve.

Wayne took one of the exercise books and a pen. He opened the book and found an empty page. As he’d been able to make his way into this place, then surely he could think of something to get them out of here. He wrote everything down that he knew about this dimension.

Karaoke. He wrote.

“You said that Hiroshi had given his sister’s alter ego a very hard blow on the head with his sword?” he asked for clarity. “And you think that her alter ego is dead, which sent Etsu back home. Where was Etsu when that happened? Wasn’t anybody watching her?”

Tammy sighed and started to explain what had happened. She told him about the room and that they were busy collecting all the stuff that was lying by the tree.

“Etsu was busy near the opening. Her alter ego grabbed her and started pulling her away. Hiroshi reacted very fast, and after the blow to the alter ego’s head, they both vanished. Etsu screamed, that’s how Hiroshi could distinguish the alter ego from his sister.

“But just before you came, a little girl was transferred here. Her alter ego was very clever. She screamed and yelled and spun and danced with the little girl and we didn’t know who was who. We didn’t know who to attack.”

“Okay, they look exactly like us. Like in the
Snap
game,” Wayne said aloud while he was writing it down. “Let’s think . . . ”

“I know! First of all, we need to look different from our alter egos,” Tammy chipped in. “Like me. My alter ego looks the way I did when I first came here in my bikini. I think they can’t change into other clothes. That’s why you wouldn’t mistake me for her now. But the rest of you, you still look like your alter egos. And if they react the same way as you . . . ” Almost everyone was watching and listening to Tammy, although Hiroshi glanced towards the grayness around them so often he looked like he’d developed a twitch.

Tammy pressed on: “Ulrich, take Nick with you and fetch my other curtain. Fast! I’ve got a plan, but without the curtain we’re in danger.”

Ulrich didn’t ask questions. He put his thumb in the air as if he knew what Tammy’s plan was. He ran towards Nick, grabbed him by his arm and shouted: “Come with me!”

Nick didn’t resist. He dropped the wood that he was breaking with his hands and started to run. The two of them disappeared into the grayness.

“Help me, Wayne,” Tammy said in Afrikaans. “Let’s cut this curtain-dress into strips. Then if every one of you puts a scarf around your neck, we’ll be able to tell you apart from your alter egos. There are scissors amongst our stuff . . . ”

“Very clever,” Wayne said and searched through the things lying near the tree. “Two very dirty scissors,” he announced.

“Yes, we used them to eat with. There were birds and eggs in the tree branches.” Wayne’s face was a mixture of awe, shock and horror. “We wanted to survive,” Tammy added when she saw what she thought was a look of disgust.

“I’ve got a clean, sharp pair of scissors,” he replied, and pulled it from his rucksack.

Tammy took his scissors, cut three wide strips out of the curtain material while Wayne held it tight. The fourth piece was the strip she had used as a belt. The cutting went quickly because Tammy only had to cut a centimeter or two, and then she could tear the material apart. Before Ulrich and Nick were back with the other curtain, there were four scarves.

Tammy gave a scarf to everyone. The other curtain she folded neatly and put it by the tree.

“The scarves won’t be of any use if the alter egos copy the idea,” she said, delighted with her plan. “We couldn’t leave the curtain for them to use.”

The others agreed. Hiroshi put more wood on the fire and then they all came to sit by the tree to plan their escape.