The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) (22 page)

Nisha was about to start banging on the window when she heard a noise coming from behind her. A door handle opening. From up and around the corridor. Someone was coming.
 

“Now, Dr Warwick. I think he’s coming,” she said.
 

“Okay, okay. This isn’t exactly the safest room, but … I guess,” he said as he walked over to the door next to the booth. He disappeared from the window and, a few taps and beeps later, the soundproof door unclasped from the locking mechanism.

Nisha and Darpal burst through and slammed the door shut behind them.
 

“Lock it!” Nisha said.
 

“Okay, okay, Jesus,” Dr Warwick said as he dialled in a few more keys and a length of metal manoeuvred along the top of the door, locking it into place.

Nisha walked Darpal past Luna, avoiding her eye contact, and sat him in the corner.
 

“Be quiet and safe, okay?” she said.
 

He nodded. She then turned and looked to the others.
 

“What’s wrong with this place?” she said.

“Well, for one, we can’t see out, but people can see in,” Dr Warwick said listing the problems off with his fingers. “And secondly, we have no weapons. Oh, and please tell me you shut the inner mic off.”
 

“Inner mic?” Nisha felt her mouth go dry. “What inner mic?”

“Fantastic. So whoever’s outside can hear us, but we can’t hear them?” Dr Warwick slapped his hand against his palm and shook his head. “I’m afraid that me, you, Darpal, and …”
 

“Luna!” she said again, almost screaming it. “My name is Luna.”

“Sorry, lost where I was for a second. But all four of us, right now, are simply gill-bearing aquatic craniates trapped inside a spherical wooden transport container.”
 

“What are you saying?” Nisha said.

“He’s trying to sound smart,” Darpal said from his seat in the corner. “He’s saying we’re fish in a barrel.”
 

“Quite,” Dr Warwick said. “If there is a man, or a group of men, out there, killing our children, then he will surely find us hiding in this well-lit amplifier of noise we’ve found ourselves in. He could even be out there right now.” He pointed to the window and everyone looked.
 

For all they knew he could be stood there now, looking in, smiling. They waited in silence for a few seconds before Luna spoke.

“Okay, everyone, although you trapped me here, called me a child-killer, threatened me with sending me to one of those black sites and whatnot, I would like us all to survive, so can we please, just be quiet and wait it out.”
 

Nobody spoke.
 

They were quiet.
 

Quiet enough to hear the noise coming from the window. A clicking. Faint, but definitely there. A tiny metal point tapping away on the glass. Nisha looked to the doctor, worried.

The tapping grew louder and louder until a final bang and the window fractured. Millions of white lines drew themselves across the once-smooth surface. Another second later and then a hole opened in the centre. The glass gave way, falling to the floor and crashing in teeth of glass and powder. Nisha heard Darpal crying. She bent down next to him, wrapping her arms around him.
 

“The man with the red eyes,” Darpal said. “He’s found us.”
 

Moomamu The Thinker

Moomamu’s feet slipped as he stepped in a puddle on the stone floor. He yelped as he slid into the wall. Didn’t matter. He needed to move. He ran through the castle faster than he thought he could. He’d taken the route already. He knew the way. A good practice run. Now for the real thing. His stomach felt sick. His head was light. He’d never run so much in his human life. He tried to inhale and exhale as fast as he could to keep up with the body’s demands, but he couldn’t match it. And to make matters worse, he had a stabbing pain on the inside of his stomach. A knot, tightening and pulling.

He skidded to a halt when he thought he heard a noise ahead of him. Somebody was in the castle. His heart was pounding. Thumping against the inside of his chest. It wanted out. The blood pumped around his body. Salty liquid ran down into his eyes and mouth.
 

The town, the horde, the cats would be outside looking for him. How many remained inside?

He held his breath to listen for the movement but couldn’t hear anything. Nearly there. Through the next corridor was the throne room and then to the right of that, past the giant fraying red rug, was the gilded door covered in math and symbols.

He started again, this time walking, listening and breathing. He held his stomach as he pushed his back up against the cold stone wall.

In front, a lantern lit the hallway. He stopped at the edge, held his breath again, and looked around the corner. The throne room. The frayed red rug, the gold mugs, cutlery, the platform, the weapons and paintings on the walls.
 

“Please be empty,” he whispered. “Please please please.”

He careened his head out just enough to see the prince’s platform. In it sat the furless prince, his chin resting on his paw. He looked angry. On the floor next to him was the shouting cat. The fat one. Payton. He was motionless.
 

“Somebody get Payton’s fat fucking corpse out of my sight,” the prince said. His voice was quiet. Tired. Bratty. A small number of guards around him. No sign of Snuckems. Just the smaller, less angry-looking guards remained. Probably those that never saw much of the actual fighting. Those that hid away. A cushy job behind the walls of the castle.

“Yes, sire. Right away,” one of them said. He pointed towards the body on the floor and two of the others walked over to the body. They dragged Payton’s corpse across the floor and left a trail of blood leading to his neck.

“Sorry Payton,” he said as the body was shuffled away. “But someone needed to die today. Now all I need is another loudmouth gobshite to take your place.”
 

Moomamu looked over the carpet, to the wooden door marked with math figures and symbols. The room of the star-doors. He could run. He could make it. But the guards. He looked over again. The smell of Payton’s corpse was in the air now. The two cats disappeared with the body into a room off to the side. A single guard remained with the prince. The guard looked small but strong enough. A thump-stick across his chest.

Images of the bronze warrior’s blood caking into the sand came to Moomamu’s mind. The deep, dark eyes of his fading. The life vanishing right in front of Moomamu’s eyes. Something that Moomamu still hadn’t gotten used to: death. Even in this place.

Moomamu looked again to the star-doors. He could almost taste the cappuccino. He’d rather die than spend any longer in the land of cats. With this thought his legs moved. Almost autonomously. They made the decision for him. He was running if he wanted to or not. No going back now.

“What in the name of Minu?” the prince called from his throne. “Over there!”

The prince pointed at Moomamu and his guard leapt into life. He ran towards him.
 

Moomamu pulled on the door and it opened. He didn’t recognise the place from the day before. Well-lit by candles lining the floor. The servant’s head had been removed. The door marked with Sol was still there. He ran towards it and placed his hand on the gilded handle. He yanked it open and a gust of wind blew into him.

Inside, a simple cave and nothing more. He’d finally made his way inside and there was nothing there. Symbols painted on the walls of the cave in a language he didn’t understand.
 

“What are you doing?” the guard said, now looking at him from the open doorway.

“Nothing I guess,” Moomamu said. “I thought there would be more to it than—”

The guard lifted the thump-stick and launched it towards Moomamu. He hadn’t noticed but it wasn’t a regular thump-stick. A metal edge had been fixed to the end. It sliced at his side as the cat vanished, along with the majority of the stick. The metal point tore at him and disappeared behind him. He screamed.

Another gust passed him that carried his screams. The pain went too. It all did. Blue light and white lines stretched forth and stars flew past his eyes. He reached his hands in front of him and watched as they elongated and stretched out so far he couldn’t even see the ends of his fingers. He pulled them back to himself and touched his face. The fine hairs that usually lined his face felt soft to the touch. Wet. Fluid. More like wet dirt and sand. The skin on his cheeks and below his eyes felt like a sliver, a membrane of flesh loosely holding together the blood and tissue beneath. He placed his hands in front of his face and could plainly see through them.
 

He tried to talk, but the words were quickly behind him. He tried again, screaming until … everything slowed for a second. All around him were blue and white streaks of light. He was still, motionless. A red ball floated upwards into his field of view. A bubble of blood. Trailing from his side where the guard’s stick had hit him.
 

With great effort, he forced the top half of his body to spin around. He contorted his neck around to see that behind him was more of the same. Nothing. As he went to ask himself where he was, he flew again, this time in the opposite direction and with greater force. Accelerating faster and faster until—

He was on the floor. The cold floor of the cave pressed against his cheek. Dirty liquid on his beard. He coughed and spat the dirt out. Bits of it were still in his mouth. Grit that cracked between his teeth. The pain on his side returned, dimmed somewhat. The bleeding had stopped. He stood up. He could barely see. The cold draft coming into the cave brushed against his cold naked skin and he shivered.
 

Up to the right, though, obscured by the jagged silhouette of a rock was a light. Moomamu had never seen anything look so warm and inviting as that amber light that whispered into the cave. He could practically feel its warmth readying for him as if to say “Come on out, Moomamu, you’re home”.

Holding his side, he walked slowly. He stubbed his toe against a rock and slipped. He climbed over the rocky edge and followed his way to the light source. As he stepped outside, it was so bright he had to cover his eyes with this free hand. This sun wasn’t kidding. He felt whatever coldness in him wash away as it was replaced by the blistering heat of the sun.
 

“Holy shit,” he said to the heat. His eyes adjusted to the light and he lowered his hand and looked outwards. All around him were waves of sand. Through the heat-distorted horizon, he saw a triangular building. He recognised it from his time as a Thinker — it was a pyramid.
 

Gary

The smell of death. Familiar to Gary. Too familiar. It had its way of working into Gary’s slashed wet nose. Found its way inside him, uninvited, into his inner self. His inner cat.
 

Cats were different than humans in many ways. Even the Earth cats resembled Gary in their nature. One of self-preservation. Keeping out of danger where possible. One of territory. A certain curiosity that might lead them into the arms of a stranger. A Tall One from times gone past. One who would explain the dying universe to Gary. The Tall One who told him that his family would die.

As the elevator doors opened, the two stupid Tall Ones in black with their non-lethal weapons stepped into the academy floor.
 

“Tell you what,” Kevin said, “that alarm is giving me a splitting headache.”

“Have you not got a Paracetamol or anything?” Daniel said to the older one. A bit more wear and tear to his eyes. “Or a ‘profen?”
 

Before the elevator sealed shut, Gary walked into the room. The scent was definitely on this floor. Somewhere in that mix of death and children he could smell Luna’s cheap perfume which she bathed in every morning. The perfume that made Gary sneeze.
 

“No, I don’t take anything unnatural,” Kevin said, rubbing his temples.
 

“Unnatural?” Daniel said.

“Yeah, I don’t want to be putting those chemicals into my body. It
is
a temple and all that.”

“A temple?” Daniel said, open-mouthed. “Your body is a temple? No, no. Now, that TV host they got downstairs, the one spouting numbers on her show, now her body’s a temple. I saw her do a shoot in her undies once. Believe me, that there is a temple. Yours, however, is more of a, how do you say … a council flat?”

Gary ran ahead of them. As he rounded the corner he heard one of them talking about how painkillers make people worse off than before and the other one responding with a copious amount of tutting.
 

He made his way past patrolmen lying on the floor. Metal darts sticking in their heads. A trail of blood around them all. He jumped over the bodies and made his way to the double doors. The sign above read ‘Auditorium B.5’. He stood onto his back legs and pushed the door with his body weight. It gave way, opening, revealing the massacre within.
 

The auditorium was a large well. Rows of desks descending towards a central stage area. In each of the desks were children, sealed up, just like the boy and his family. Their faces smoothed out. The alarm, wailing away, faded into nothing as Gary looked upon the silent room. It was the lack of breath that Gary found disturbing. That small rhythmic sound. So slight it was normally overlooked. But the absence of it created a void in the room that shook Gary to his furry core. He’d seen death before, but this was different. This was stillness.
 

He heard shuffling coming from the bottom of the well. A door to the right of the stage tucked away. A circular window. A face, looking up at him, eyes magnified through the thick glasses. He made his way down the stairs and saw the man’s face in greater detail. A bald head peppered with liver spots and a beard of white and grey. The Tall One looked at Gary with great confusion. He pushed the door open.
 

“Hello, there little pussy. What are you doing here?” he said as he got down on his knee and made a come-hither gesture with his hand. The Tall One made a sound to Gary. A sound that Tall Ones often did to lure Earth cats in for cuddling and pleasantries.