The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) (14 page)

“Any luck?” she said.
 

The bald man, his skin pale and peaky, let out a wispy shriek. He coughed again and said, “Sorry, my voice is going.”
 

“Yes, that’s okay. So … the children?”

The bald man looked around the empty reception area, behind Luna, and then back to her.
 

“The thing I always noticed about London,” he said, “is that it’s so multicultural. Don’t you think?”

The sudden change in topic threw her.

“Yes,” she said. “Well, I’m Polish, so I guess I’m an example of exactly what you’re talking about. Do you think it’s a bad thing?”

Gary meowed.

“No,” the receptionist said, smiling now. Too much gum on display. It was forced. “I like it.” He went to say something else, but no words came out. It was like he wanted to talk but couldn’t think of the topic. Eventually he said, “Sometimes I wonder if we should have our doors open to any and all travellers, immigrants, wayward … aliens, I guess you could say. I mean, you never know who you’re letting in … wouldn’t you agree?”

Luna wiped her moist brow.

“Sure,” she said. “And the children?”

“Yes … I … err … about the children,” he looked behind Luna again. “The thing is …”

Gary meowed louder. His one good paw scratched at the roof of the carrier.
 

“Yes?” she said, batting away Gary’s meow. “And?”

“You see, it was a mistake.”
 

Gary was hissing now. Louder with each passing second. Luna didn’t even notice the door open behind her. Hell, she didn’t even know there
was
a door behind her.
 

“A mistake?” she said.
 

“You’ve made a mistake coming here,” he said. His voice rising. The actor’s stage voice coming out. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. In fact, I would never have liked to help you.” A new confidence came over him along with the rage. He stood up and pointed at Luna. She took a step back. “You’re a despicable person. And I hope you’re ready to rot in whatever cage they throw you in.”
 

“I’m sorry,” Luna said. She bent down to pick Gary up. “I don’t know what you’re … You’re right I’ve made a mistake. I’ll be going now.”
 

Gary let out a howl she’d never heard from him before as the unseen presence behind her wrapped its hands around her throat. A sharp pinch in her neck and her legs seemed to float upwards. The ceiling tumbled up and away from her and she spiralled to the floor. She saw Gary’s face. His one good paw reached between the plastic cage towards her. He was quiet now. Defeated. Before she passed out she reached her hand towards Gary’s paw but suddenly a man in black clothing lifted Gary away, out of her reach.

Moomamu The Thinker

In the middle hours of the night, the cell went back to its quietest. The familiar sounds of footsteps somewhere in the keep echoed through the walls until lost. The metal on metal. In the dark in the night-time the place felt like practice for the grave — cold, damp, and left to think about one’s choices.

Hearing gentle footsteps moving towards his cell he held his breath. A few seconds later and one of the holes in the cell opened. He waited, braced himself for the expected thump-stick but nothing came. The footsteps disappeared.

Moomamu remained silent and still. He could’ve stood up. He could’ve opened the door. Made his escape, but that wasn’t the plan.

He was supposed to wait. Thethi had told him to stay put. Not too long, maybe an hour or two. Thethi had said that he would come as the night-guards got ready for their switch. The fresher ones would take their places at the stations across the castle. But Moomamu was supposed to wait again, even longer, for the second transition of guards.

“You didn’t kill,” a voice said. The same one from before. The gravelled voice of a corpse. “I told you to kill.”

“I couldn’t,” Moomamu said from his rags on the floor. “I couldn’t just kill somebody who didn’t have a reason to die. It’s a miracle for atoms to come together and make up a life. Who am I to take it away?”

“Who are you?” the voice said, angry at the idea. “You’re Moomamu The Thinker. If anyone has any right to weigh a life against another then it’s you.”

Moomamu kept quiet.

“Do you not agree?” the voice said.

Moomamu clamped his eyes shut and willed the voice away.
 

“Fine … boy, I will give you one more chance, but next time I ask you to do something you should think it wise to do it.”

Moomamu sat up. His body ached but he felt able to move again. Some of the swellings in his arms and his eyes had gone down. He could hear a noise now. The clinking of metal in the distance. The guards were changing.
 

“Sounds like you’d better go,” the voice said. “You want to make it home after all?”

Moomamu’s feet ached with each step. One of his toes was surely broken by the guard’s sticks. A sharp pain in his ribs kept him from running. He placed his hand on the door, took a deep breath, and pulled it open.

His lungs stung when he exhaled. He coughed as quietly as he could into his hand and wiped the blood against his raggedy trousers.

As he made his way out, following the same steps the guards had dragged him through before, he walked up a cold metal stairway in the dark, lit by little more than the odd candle and the occasional hole of starlight. The only sounds were of the wind finding its way through the stone corridors. He walked past what smelled like an excretion-point and made his way towards a well-lit doorway. He stopped in his tracks and his heart jumped when he heard purring and laughing.
 

Peeking his head around the corner, he saw a stairway, the biggest he’d seen in the keep. A majestic rug, frayed at the edges, draped the stairs, and at the bottom sat a guard cat, completely bald apart from the wiry fur on its tail. Next to it was a smaller female cat on all four paws. It was stepping around the guard, draping its tail over its shoulders.

Moomamu looked across the hallway and saw the door he’d been brought through. It was just across the other side. He held his hand over his mouth as he coughed. He held his breath, waiting to see if the laughing or the purring stopped, but it didn’t. He exhaled. He looked at his hand to see another spattering of blood on his palm. Looking around the wall again he saw that the two cats were facing the stairwell. They were occupied with some painting on the wall — a pinkish-grey human-cat hybrid of a sort. Moomamu took the opportunity and walked as fast as he could across the cold stone floor and to the other side. Once there he could see the open doorway. It was the doorway to the throne room. Thethi told him that the star-door was in the throne room.
 

So close, he thought to himself. He stepped a little quicker now. Thoughts of Earth and Mexican spices and cappuccino came to mind and he found himself running. His pulse quickened. He ran past another doorway of candlelight and into the throne room. His toe throbbed but still, he ran. Illuminated by lanterns hanging from the ceiling, a gilded door lay to the right-hand side of the platform where he’d seen the prince gobbling fish. Drawings in gold lined the door itself. Pictures of stars and planets and calculations. Triangles pointing to the skies and what looked like humans bowing to giant cats. He pressed his hands against the door and it creaked open. Inside it was gloomy and sound was non-existent. Squinting to look at another batch of five doors, each with its own set of golden drawings displaying different star systems and calculations, he smelled the blood rising from his throat. The familiar rusty scent.

Moomamu stepped forwards. Thethi had told him he was looking for Sol. He looked closely at the markings on one door. He looked at the calculations. He inspected the star-system. He recognised it from his time as a Thinker. Two suns and a binary planet. It wasn’t the right one. He moved onto the next.
 

The smell of the blood coming from his insides grew worse with every passing second. Something rotting. It reminded him of the parasite’s mouth.
 

On the next door, he saw the star-system of the eight planets, the binary planets, the sun. Not this one either. Moomamu took another step forward. As he did he kicked something with his foot. A ball. A piece of fruit. Something …

Never mind, he thought, as he found the right door. The right constellations. The single sun. He pulled on the door, but it didn’t move. He tugged again, but it remained solid. Something was blocking it.

“I’m sorry,” a voice said from behind him. Suddenly a light entered the room and Moomamu squinted. He saw lanterns and teeth and the prince. “But you won’t be leaving here.”
 

Moomamu looked down at the ball by his feet. It was mangled and bloody. Moomamu recognised the skin, the wiry arms, the body detached from the head. The smell was coming from a slice along the stomach where the innards had fallen out. The piece of fruit he’d kicked was Thethi’s head, now loose from his body, getting in the way.

“Let me go home,” Moomamu said. “I didn’t do anything to you. I just want to go. Please.”

The prince’s small face wrinkled. His tongue darted in and out as he purred.
 

“I don’t think so, human. We’ve got a kingdom expecting a mauling in the morning. I wouldn’t want to disappoint my people, would I?”

As the guards rushed him he heard the prince say something about leaving the skin untorn for the morning.

Nisha Bhatia

A window. Similar to the one before. Reflective on one side and see-through on the other. Buttons along the bottom that turned microphones on and off, though this one didn’t have the fresh condensation from the indigo child’s breath. The words imprinted on the glass that read “Save me”.

Nisha rubbed her stomach. She wasn’t feeling ill anymore. Her head was clear. Her vision in focus. And she felt more awake than she’d felt in a long time. Thoughts of Edward ran through her mind. She thought of the two years prior. She rubbed her stomach again. The fallout. The separation. Did she still love him?

She brushed the thoughts away as she ran her fingers through her hair. It was those sort of thoughts that led to drink. She was busy watching the child-killer: the copper-haired Eastern European woman. Handcuffed to the chrome metal desk on the other side of the window. Scared. Afraid of the consequences. Dr Warwick said Nisha didn’t need to be at the IPC anymore, but Nisha insisted on staying until the child-killer admitted her guilt.
 

The room itself was an odd one to have in an academy. It was an interrogation room if ever she’d seen one. When she’d asked Dr Warwick about it, he’d told her that sometimes getting the truth out of an indigo child could be difficult. On account of their abilities.

“Where’s my cat?” the child-killer said. “I need my cat.”

Dr Warwick was sitting on the other side of the table. The chair he was on had an extra cushion, just to raise him up a little. Something for his self-confidence. The child-killer wouldn’t see that. She’d just see an average-sized man.

“Tell me how you knew about this place?” Dr Warwick said. He looked down at a tablet computer in his hand and tapped on the screen.
 

The child-killer shook her head, her mouth agape.
 

“I need my cat,” she said again. “I can’t explain … without my cat.”

“That won’t be happening,” he said. “You won’t be seeing your cat for a long time, Miss …”

The child-killer didn’t answer. She buried her face into the table and sighed.
 

“What are they talking about?” a voice said.
 

Nisha looked down to see the child from before stood next to her, looking up. He’d said his name was Darpal.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Nisha said. “Go on. This is adult business.” He looked like he might cry. Nisha knelt down and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

He nodded and scampered off in his yellow uniform — a colour for the younger years. Nisha stood back up, but too fast. Her head felt light. A flash and she saw a man’s face. Red glasses. A trench coat. A smile. She shook the thoughts away.

“No, I don’t think so … ahh, Miss Gajos,” Dr Warwick held up the tablet computer and pointed it to the child-killer. A picture of her. Her name. Details. Everything. Facebook. Twitter. Passport. “I’m afraid you won’t be seeing your cat
ever
again.”

Gary

When they lifted the crate Gary didn’t hiss or scratch or make a noise. It wouldn’t help. Gary lay down and waited. When they threw a rug over the crate so he couldn’t see, Gary kept silent. It was an hour before they removed the rug and he found himself in a laboratory, surrounded by all sorts of equipment — medical supplies, computers, some sort of chair to restrain people.
 

“What do you reckon they’ll do with him?” a man in a black suit said. He had a black stick attached to the side of his leg. A vest for protection. A thick black helmet.

“Well … poor guy looks like he’s been beaten, probably by that lady they took in. He looks old too, so … probably just put him down.” A doctor, his face covered by a pale blue mask and overalls. He picked up a syringe and left with the uniformed man, who flicked off the light switch as he went. The door didn’t latch as it closed. It was a push door.

Gary waited a while longer. He waited until it felt right, and when it did, he used his good paw to pull open the plastic latch that they’d built into the crate so that he could unlock it from the inside. He pulled it down and the plastic door swung open.
 

He climbed out and got a better view of the facility. A storage area. He scampered towards the door, stood up and pushed it open with his body weight before disappearing into the facility. He didn’t just have children to save now; he had to save the Luna too.
 

A MEMO from the IPC Internal Blogosphere

Article submitted to the IPC (Indigo Parade Collective) on Sept 1st 2006.

Dear colleagues and women,