"Muuuuuuum!" yelled Carmine Harper, shouldering her bag and propping open the door with the toe of her shoe. Cold air rushed in, washing the lingering scent of incense out of the house and making the crystals hanging from the ceiling clink together. "I'm going to work!"
"Oh, let me kiss you!" said Carmine's mum, breezing down the stairs, her pashmina wrap floating in the air behind her. She stood on her tip-toes to kiss Carmine's cheeks. "You have all your papers?"
"Yes, mum," said Carmine.
"You have your mobile?" asked Carmine's mum.
"Yes, mum," said Carmine, inching towards the door.
"You're sure your sister is coming by to pick you up?" asked Carmine's mum.
"Certain, mum. You don't have to worry," said Carmine, giving her mother a fleet one-armed hug. "Everything is going to go perfectly. I'll just remember not to burn anyone's heads with the curling iron..."
"I just wish you could work somewhere better, Carmine..."
Carmine groaned mentally. Just what she needed, a sermon.
"If only you could meet a, a doctor or something, like Leah," said Carmine's mum. "I just wish you could be happy."
Carmine knew her mother was just trying to look out for her, but it was a bit annoying to always be compared to her older sister, Leah, soon to be a Mrs.
Carmine's mother finally released her and Carmine left the house. Taking a deep breath of the unseasonably warm, fresh spring air...not too fresh when a car rolled by. Carmine coughed and squinted through the morning sunlight, then set out walking.
The streets of London were already jam-packed, the foot-traffic as thick as anything. Carmine felt herself be jostled around by the passers-by. Maybe they could, you know, sniff out that she was nervous. Like hyenas, she thought.
Carmine stopped at a crosswalk, cars screeching to a halt inches from her toes, and took the opportunity to look around and assert herself a little.
Everyone was still a little wiggy about the past Christmas. Carmine could tell that from whenever she went out. Everyone was more subdued, more fearful of the sky. Understandable, really. Those hours when everyone had lost their memory, and to come to only to find that firey planet looming in the sky? Her mum and her ring of close friends had decided that it was a portent of the apocalypse - 2012 and all that. Carmine didn't really take stock in all that woo-woo nonsense, but so many strange things had happened over the past few years. She still hadn't forgotten her mother and sister, perched on the rooftops back in 2006.
Carmine gave an involuntary shiver despite the heat and crossed the road, jostled by everyone else as they dashed to work. Carmine took her mobile from her jacket pocket and checked the time. She was plenty early. Too early, almost. Would that look bad?
Carmine was so deep in thought she suddenly bumped into something in her path. Her head went CLUNK on a hard surface and she reeled backwards stupidly, trying to see what she had walked into.
She stopped and stared.
She had run into a large blue phone box- one she actually recognized from her college history textbooks. It was a police box. In the fifties, they had been like miniature jail cells. If you saw a crime you could phone for the police and they could lob the miscreant in a box like this until a car came to haul them off.
They weren't around anymore really, except for museums and the like. This one was just perched here on a street corner, next to a bicycle rack and a planter.
Carmine frowned. Something about the box felt strange. A small chill ran down her back as she looked around it, trying to see if it was part of an exhibit, but it was just the box, sitting on the sidewalk.
"Odd, isn't it?"
Carmine whirled around to find a small elderly fellow with a large canteen of coffee. He took a swig of it, then pointed with a grubby finger at the box. "Used to see these things alla time when I was younger, way back in the fifties."
"Yeah, a bit weird," agreed Carmine. "Wonder if it's part of something? Some sort of show? It's in good condition, too. Look, the paint's all new..."
She looked back round at the elderly fellow, to find that he was gone. Vanished into the crowd. She checked her clock again, bit her lip at the time, then hurried down the street with a last glance back at the box, still standing there silently like some blue monolith.
The Empire of Beauty. The single most important name in the beauty business. It was really a brand name- shampoos, scrubs, facials, manicure sets...the very best of the best carried that little silver-and-black sticker, the letters 'E.o.b.' inscribed on it, twisted and curlicued around each other like snakes. But the brands were only the beginning, for in the center of London, in the busiest, most modern section there was the headquarters of the Empire of Beauty.
Carmine was approaching the building now, staring at the enormous silver skyscraper that shot straight into the sky like a huge arrow. It was gargantuan, the size of an entire block with its own multi-tiered parking garage. It even had gardens. Behind huge tasteful iron fences Carmine could see the leafy tops of trees waving and hear the rush of water as it shot from fountains.
It was in this great temple to perfection that Carmine worked. It had seemed glamorous, and she'd worked with hair and stuff before- after she'd lost her job as a history teacher at her old school. She'd gotten the job, much to her happiness and her mother's dismay. The pay was superb, though, much better than a chip shop or wherever she'd have gone to work otherwise. She might even be able to get her own flat. She'd had a flat but she'd been kicked out when she didn't pay rent one month.
Carmine ascended the huge black stone steps to the gigantic front entrance. The glass doors were emblazoned with the silver-and-black logo of the Empire, glittering in the sun every time someone left or went in.
She stepped into the busy lobby, peering around at the huge spiraled staircase and shiny polished wooden floors, her surroundings all burnished metal and expensive woods and glass. The logo of the Empire was everywhere- projected onto glass sheets hanging on the wall, on all the huge modern front desks, even on the pots of the potted plants that grew in the corners.
She looked down at the floor to find herself standing on one of the twisting silver ribbons of the 'E' in 'E.o.B.', the logo huge and inlaid into the floor itself.
Finding her way into the staff-only section of the building, a place that was considerably less swanky than the lobby with its white walls and linoleum floors, Carmine stuffed her bag and her civilian coat in her locker and slammed it shut. After a deep, cleansing breath and Carmine's personal mantra of you love your job, you love your job, you love your job, she left to her salon.
"Where's the stuff?" yelled Carmine as she pawed through the drawers of her station. She looked up, staring at the technician opposite, a nice girl called Marie. It was morning break, and Carmine was giving her inventory a once-over. She seemed to be out of Henna Herbal RejuveHair in Mahogany™- exactly the stuff she needed for the next customer's dye job. Figures, she thought.
"What stuff?" asked Marie, pouring tea from her thermos into a mug.
"The henna stuff, in the wonky bottle," said Carmine. She banged the shiny black drawer of her station shut. "It's not here."
"Well, I don't have any of it," said Marie. "You'll have to go get some from the closet."
It wasn't in the closet.
"Just get some from the store-room!" said Marie, waving Carmine off in a vague direction.
Carmine made a scathing sound and left the salon, passing through the polished wooden double-doors emblazoned with the logo of the Empire, and trying to remember exactly where the store-room was. Down a flight of stairs, maybe? Somewhere past the lobby? Aargh! I hate huge buildings. Bloody things are like bloody mazes.
She finally found the elevator doors leading to the storage section, far away from the general mayhem of the rest of the spa. She finally clicked 'basement' on the range of buttons in the stylishly decorated elevator, the entirety of which probably cost more than her mother's whole house.
The elevator gave a pleasant little 'ding' and deposited her in a dim, cold hallway, constructed of concrete and linoleum, cheap lights strung up on the ceiling. They gave a faint humming sound, but otherwise, the whole place was silent.
Carmine took a nervous step forward, peering down the hallway in either direction. She felt like this probably wasn't the right place at all.
She set off down the hallway anyways, trying the first door she came across. Locked. Figures. Peering into the little window in the door, she could see shelves of spa products. She could even see what she needed, just sitting there on the shelf, only a few feet away.
Carmine tugged on the door handle, but it remained locked. With a loud frustrated AAaaAaargh, she hurried down the corridor, her feet starting to ache in her ridiculously high heels, part of the ultrastylish uniform. She paused to tug them off and shove them in the pocket of her uniform.
When she came to a stairway leading down into the inky darkness of the region that housed the generator and the boiler, below even the basement, dubbed the 'Dungeon' by the employees at the Empire, she didn't hesitate and ventured down the slippery concrete steps.
Finally, padding along in her nylons, Carmine came to the end of the dungeon hallway and wearily tried the door there. It creaked open to her delight, and she slipped into the dark storeroom beyond.
Less of a storeroom, really, and just another passage. Carmine narrowed her eyes, trying to see through the darkness, and walked forwards blindly. Her hands suddenly brushed something slippery and crinkly, hanging from the ceiling, and as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see that a bunch of tarps were hanging from the ceiling, like in a construction zone.
Carmine frowned. This is bizzare. Henna Herbal RejuveHair in Mahogany™ forgotten, she tugged aside the tarps to try and see where this weird passageway went.
The space beyond the tarps was brighter than the rest of the passageway, the air tinted a luminescent green colour. Carmine looked around herself and noticed the architecture was different here, the walls much smoother and ribbed like the inside of a huge piece of tubing. The air was warmer too, thick and humid. Somewhere, muffled by the walls, Carmine could hear a steady thump-thump-thump. The sound of a generator, maybe?
Carmine suddenly stopped. She had come to the entrance to an enormous concrete room, large enough to fit her whole house in. Great lengths of tubing branched over the ceiling like the veins of some huge animal, running down the walls to plug into several gigantic tanks. They looked the sort of thing one might put a basking shark in at an aquarium.
In these tanks, however, were no basking sharks. The water in the tanks glowed green, light like bioluminescence. Carmine had seen films about phosphorescent animals like glowworms in deep caves, and angler fish at the bottom of the sea, and this is what the light reminded her of.
She stepped further into the room, muggy heat washing over her. It was baking! Like a sauna. Carmine slowly walked up to the gigantic tanks, peering in, trying to see past the green glow.
Inside the tanks were globular forms, about the size of footballs, translucent-green and suspended in the green liquid. In the middle of each of the spheres was a small curled form, like a little worm. Like enormous grapes, they sat there, bobbing eerily in the tanks.
Attached to each of the spheres were hundreds of tiny tubes, which led up out of the tank and into a larger tube on the ceiling. Carmine inched closer, pressing her face to the glass. It was the liquid that was giving off the glow, and all the heat. And a smell. It was rotten and putrid, like a sandwich left too long in the wrapper that's started to grow mould.
It must be some new product. Got to be, thought Carmine. What other explanation was there for weird tanks of matter in the basement of a beauty salon? I sure wouldn't want to use it. It's nasty-looking. Probably won't sell too well.
Despite this mundane conclusion, something about the stuff in the tank gave her a creepy feeling. She didn't know what it was about this place, but...
It was like she was being watched.
Carmine stepped away from the tank, nearly tripping over one of the tubes on the floor, and left the bizzare room, pushing hurriedly through the tarps in the corridor outside. It was high time she was getting back to her station anyways. Break must be almost over...and she hadn't even gotten the henna...herbal....mahogany...whatsit. She was so in trouble...
She pushed the door to the dungeon open hard.
THUNK!!!
Something thudded against the door and Carmine felt a resistance, then the door swung open and Carmine almost stepped on a man lying sprawled in the hallway. He had evidently been right outside the door as Carmine had pushed it open.
"Oh my GOD!" said Carmine, horrified. The man, tall and very skinny, had on a snappy pinstriped suit, trainers, and quite the most amazing sticky-up hair that Carmine had ever seen. Now, sitting on the floor, he was looking somewhat stunned. "Are you alright?"
"Been slightly better in the past, the recent past, mind you, because I was slightly not-better in the not-so recent past," he said, getting up slowly. He patted himself over for damage, then turned and stared at Carmine. "You're...a girl!"
"Obviously!" said Carmine, caught off guard. "And you're not supposed to be here!"
She frowned. "Who are you?"
"Oh, someone," said the man, fluttering his fingers vaguely. "Interesting place, this, isn't it? Sort of…sewer. Damp, mind. Could catch arthritis, spending so much time in damp places."
"What are you doing down here?" Carmine asked, suddenly suspicious. He didn't look like the sort that frequented salons, though you could never really tell from appearances.
"Could ask you the same question," said the man seriously. "What are we all doing here? In this time? In this universe? Funny, isn't it, how fate does drop us in the randomest of places?"
"No," said Carmine. "What are you doing down here?"
"I'm maintenance," he said. "Doing maintenance. Obviously!"
"That's likely," Carmine scoffed. Her mind suddenly slid to the tank of stuff in the passage beyond, then this strange fellow being all stealthy and secretive -well, somewhat hyperactive. She wondered momentarily if he were on something- and put two and two together.
"Oh my GOD," she said, watching the man take out a small metal torch and shine it around. It made a strange humming sound, and cast rather less light than torches usually did. "You're from BeautyTech International, aren't you?"
She snapped her fingers. "You're sneaking in here to steal the formula for the new stuff."
"Ooh, stuff!" said the man, flicking off the torch and stuffing it back into his jacket pocket. "I do love stuff! Squishy stuff, nice stuff, stuffy stuff. All kinds of stuff. Mostly. What stuff?"
"You know what stuff," Carmine said grimly. "You're a spy, you...spy, and I'm going to stop you!"
She ran to the nearest emergency phone booth in the wall, unhooking the phone from its jack. She brandished it like a sword, finger poised over the numberpad. "I am calling security."
"Ok!" said the man brightly.
"I'm calling them RIGHT NOW," said Carmine, attempting to sound as authoritative as possible. "Look! Look! I'm dialing!"
She tried to force herself to press the red button that would alert security, but the man was had those enormous puppy-dog eyes that Carmine melted over, and he was cute. She hated to think that, for this sort of thing to be her determining factor, but...
Carmine felt herself blushing. "I am DIALING," she said.
The man ignored her. "Increased levels of regenerative cells in the atmosphere, paaaay-dirt!" he muttered, shining the torch around. "Must be close...Must be really close...." He gave a great ha, and sort of punched the air. "I am good!"
With that, he turned and dashed up the stairs and down the hallway towards the elevator. Carmine made another scathing sound, slammed the phone back onto its jack, and with a last look at the door leading to the tank, followed him.
"Wait!" she yelled. "Just...are you with BeautyTech? Oh, come now! I won't report you..."
She was cut short by a strange sound, a sort of rough grating, or a whooping, or a vworping, like some kind of strange machine that had gone a bit wrong. Carmine careened around the corner just in time to see something very strange indeed.
In the passageway opposite the elevator doors, fading away into thin air, was a police phone box. A blue one from the fifties, like the one she had seen on the sidewalk that morning.
A breeze ruffled her hair and she squinted as she watched the box just fade away into nothing. The strange sound echoed around the basement for a few seconds, then that too was gone.
A Police phone box. Fading into thin air.
I must be going mental, Carmine thought as she stepped forwards to stand in the place where the box had been. She reached out a trembling hand, as if expecting to touch something that wasn't there and had never been. Her fingers brushed the air of the basement, the cold raising goose-bumps on her bare arms.
She backed away, fumbling for the elevator buttons, and silently rode the thing back up into the world of the sane. She stepped out of the elevator, nearly running into a crowd of well-dressed spa-goers, and made her way back up to the salon where she worked.
Carmine caught a glimpse of the time on the big modern wall clock, and instantly all thoughts of strangely dressed spies and tanks of strange matter and disappearing phone boxes were erased from her mind. Break had been over for fifteen minutes and-oh, God- a group of customers were standing impatiently around Carmine's station like a flock of very wealthy birds.
"Carmine!" yelled Marie, in the midst of curling someone's hair. "Where have you been? Where's the Herbal Henna RejuveHair™?"
Her mascara-lined eyes widened. "And where are your shoes?!"
-Constructive criticism is widely encouraged-