Title: Just a Little Mad
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own Alice 2009 and I don't own Primeval, and if there's anything else anyone recognises, well, I don't own that either.
Rating: PG
Summary: Luckily for Stephen, Connor is more than what he seems.
Notes: So, I once wrote a little Alice and Primeval crossover on Primeval Denial, then was inspired to write this. It is a Stephen dying in S2 fixit. This does directly connect with the Alice 2009 storyline, so pardon my novelisation. Spelling varies a little once Alice comes into it because I write American for her PoV and try to pretend I can write like a Brit (which I can't) for everyone else. I also don't know if I got the hospital name right, I tried with the help of Wikipedia. Shame on me. I think that's everything.
He still couldn't believe it. His twin, his other half, gone. Not just missing, but . . . he couldn't think the word. Their parents were gone too, taken by that damned bitch, and that hurt only a little less than losing his brother. Just one moment more and he'd shove it all away inside where no one else could see it.
Connor Hatter squared his shoulders and walked into the Oyster school in front of him.
David Hatter took a deep breath and walked into the tea shop.
Connor ran down the hall, hoping to catch up to Stephen and Cutter, hoping he might be able to help with whatever it was that Helen and Leek had done. Suddenly he could hear Cutter shouting, voice wracked with emotion and desperate. "Stephen! Open the door! Get out of there! Stephen!"
The last turn and it was a long hallway. He could see Cutter pounding on the door.
Faintly he heard Stephen's voice, still confident and calm, through the door. "Tell Connor and Abby to stay out of trouble."
Connor redoubled his speed. That sounded like a goodbye. He wasn't going to let anyone else go. Not if he could help it.
"Stephen!" Cutter's voice was agonised.
One of the reasons Connor had fled to the Oyster world was that his gift was rabbit holes. What could the queen have done with a constant and ready source of rabbit holes? He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know what she'd have done to him, either. On Earth, the Oyster world, they were a bit wonky, but for something fast and short, say, taking him through a door, that he could do without trouble.
Between one pound on the door and the next, Connor slapped a portal onto the door in front of him, dashing through and letting it close up behind him. He barely checked at the sight of all the predators Leek had shown them, instead running at Stephen, whose eyes went wide in shock. Oysters did things to his rabbit holes, and on Earth it was even worse. He might've got Stephen through a quick, door's width sort of rabbit hole, but they weren't close enough to reach the door, not with the animals.
Connor saw his options in a second, he didn't know how thick the wall was, and more than six centimetres was asking for trouble up there. But there was a different route he could take. It would be a risk, but at least he could manoeuvre there and probably get Stephen home again safe. Most of all, they couldn't stay. It was like being in a cage of jabberwocky.
He hit Stephen, a picture-perfect tackle, and opened the rabbit hole behind the tracker. They toppled through, Connor clinging to Stephen like a limpet, feeling his own portal, really wonky at the Earth end of things, trying to rip Stephen away from him. If he wasn't careful, didn't hold on tightly, he might lose Stephen, and he couldn't risk that. The usual clocks and teacups, hats and random assortment of letters and numbers, playing cards and all sorts of weird, random things spun past. Connor had suspected for years that the reason you saw those things in the rabbit hole was because the human mind couldn't properly see the warping of space-time, and like the anomalies that presented as a glow and shattered glass, a rabbit hole meant your mind filled in the blanks with random bits of things.
The further they got from Earth, the more the rabbit hole seemed like a Tim Burton film gone wrong, and the less it seemed a chaotic skirl of energy in a vaguely tube-like shape.
With a sudden thump they were clear and dropped off on the City's streets.
"What the hell just happened?" Stephen asked, staring around at the dilapidated buildings before slamming himself to a wall away from the edge of the sidewalk. "Where are we?"
Connor sighed, then said, "It'd take a bit to explain, but as it's not safe out here, can we try to get someplace safe-ish and then I'll explain everything?"
"What do you-" Stephen was cut off as the teahead in the nearby doorway lurched out at them, mumbling something about a shot of serenity and ecstasy. Habits long-unused came roaring back, and Connor pulled Stephen aside, letting the ragged addict stumble past, then cracked a rabbit hole open in a wall in front of the man, sending him off to a spot a few flights up and east from there.
"Come on," Connor said, grabbing Stephen's arm and towing him away. "I shouldn'ta done that, it'll probably bring March down on us, and we don't want to be here when he gets here. We're all a little mad, but he's madder'n most and not in the good way either."
They hurried down the stairs, heading for the lakeshore in record time while Connor kept an eye out for a good bolthole. If he was to get them home, at all, he needed the time and space to concentrate on opening up the rabbit hole just right. The Mirror was too much of a risk, after all. It belonged to the Queen. Before they got there, though, he saw it. A tea shop, the door cracked, windows shattered and what looked like the contents had been tossed in search of something. The LED sign over the door still flashed that it was a teashop, but no one in their right minds would look this one over for anything, not after it'd been raided by the Queen's suits.
But that suited Connor just fine. No one would be back through in the near future, so it'd offer up a safe place to stay. He led Stephen inside, well aware that Stephen clearly thought he'd run mad going into a place like this, but they needed someplace they wouldn't get bothered at. Slipping along, he started at the sight of a familiar dozing face. "Dormie?"
"Wha . . . Hatter? That you?" Dormie started awake, blinking muzzily. "Thought March'd maybe got you."
Snorting, Connor told him, "That'd be the day. March get me, get any of us? Right."
"Looks like you had to do more'n usual to give him the slip," Dormie said, a pointed eye running over the clothes that were only a little like what he'd once worn when the Hatter family had all lived together.
Connor gave him a wry smile. "Needs must, Dormie. The upstairs still in one piece?"
"They wrecked the grass, Hatter, and all the tea's been lost, but it's not much worse than the first time we fixed it up."
Nodding, Connor just turned and trotted up the stairs. He wondered who Dormie's partner was, but decided that, ultimately, it didn't matter. Once upstairs he found an office, Wonderland style. A once-gorgeous green lawn was there, an office chair and desk, and Connor made a beeline for the wardrobe at the back. There it was. Hats and a few jackets. Something enough to camouflage Stephen's far less flamboyant style. "I assume we're 'safe-ish' here?" Stephen asked. "Because I think you owe me an explanation."
It had been a supremely weird day and it was just getting weirder. Not half an hour ago Stephen had been about to die at the claws and teeth of a bunch of predators from across the millennia, and now he was in a wrecked tea shop of some kind, after hurtling through an anomaly unlike any other he'd seen before. An anomaly that Connor seemed to have some sort of control over. He looked expectantly at his teammate, but Connor shook his head. "You're right. I'm just . . . I'm not sure you'll believe me, and if you go runnin' off around here the suits'll catch you, and I can't even begin to figure out how I'd get you out of the Queen's casino."
"Connor," Stephen said warningly. "That's not clearing anything up."
"Right. Erm . . . so . . . this is going to sound like a non sequitur, but you know how Cutter'd never have believed it was time travel that put the anomalous animals into the fossil record if he hadn't seen the anomalies?"
"Yes," Stephen said slowly. "Are you saying this is a similar sort of unbelievability?" He had already suspected it would be something completely insane, Connor's hesitant beginnings of an explanation confirmed it.
"Pretty much," Connor said. "You see . . . the books, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, they're not real, but they're based on something real."
"Here," Stephen said, eyes narrowed. "This place is . . . what? The place Wonderland is based on?"
Nodding, Connor told him, "I mean, it, here, it's called Wonderland, but it's not some kid's story. Not to mention that it's been a hundred and fifty years since Alice came in through the rabbit hole and the looking glass." Connor had a wistful smile was on his face as he said, "My great-great granddad helped her bring the whole deck of cards down at the time."
"The man downstairs, he called you, Hatter," Stephen said, frowning. "As in the Mad Hatter?"
Connor laughed. "We're all a little mad here, it's sort of the Wonderland motto, really, but he was a bit of a strange one, it's true." He shook his head before plopping into the chair. "But Hatter's a family name. It had some prominence for the association with Alice and all." His amusement faded. "That . . . that got us all into trouble in the end."
"How come?" Stephen asked.
The geek flinched, then seemed to shove whatever it was that was upsetting him away, and said, "Doesn't really matter." He shook it off, giving a good try at pretending he was unaffected. "Anyhow, Wonderland has a queen. The Queen of Hearts. That's the family name, Heart. Like Windsor, yeah?"
Stephen let it go. "Alright. What does that have to do with anything?"
"She's a bit of a despot, you see," Connor explained. "More than that, she's really against letting the populace be. So, she brought in something. They call it tea, but it's not, really. Because real tea, proper tea is leaves and water and strainers. Tea like the Queen has made, that's a drug. There's a way to . . . to suck the emotions out of people. Out of Oysters, rather."
"Oysters?" Stephen asked with foreboding. A poem drifted through his mind. Now if you're ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed.
"That's what we, they, call people from Earth," Connor said, confirming Stephen's worst fear. "I don't know how it works, just that there's a lot of machinery up at the casino to do it."
"But, how does . . ." Stephen's mind raced, putting together pieces. "Do you mean they make . . . condensed . . . I don't know . . . happiness?" he asked.
He was dismayed when Connor nodded. "That's exactly what they do. They have some way to steal Oyster emotions and turn them into a liquid. Think about it. Having a bad day? You can take a shot of Serenity. Having trouble getting it up for your girl? A dose of Lust."
"It's a drug," Stephen said in horror. "She's drugging her people?"
"Exactly," Connor said. "Most people are addicted. You can see why. Who wants to feel sad or angry or any sort of bad thing? But more than that, regular happiness or what-all doesn't cut it anymore. Because Tea is perfectly undiluted Happiness in a bottle. After all, even the best time in the world has some bits that make it less than perfect. Best Guy Fawkes Day fireworks display and you still might be cold or have work the next day, yeah?" Then Connor frowned. "You're taking this awfully well."
"I just saw you run through a door, fell through an anomaly filled with playing cards, teacups and clock faces and have spent most of the last year chasing after dinosaurs," Stephen said. "I think the regular bounds of credulity have been pushed further with me."
"Ah," Connor said. "Well, then I'll tell you a little more. See, all Wonderlanders have a sort of magic skill. Some are born able to speed read, my brother, David, if he hit you with his right hand, it was like being clocked with a sledgehammer. Me, I can make Rabbit Holes."
"Rabbit holes?" Stephen asked. He could make a guess from context, but this was all weird enough it was worth checking. "What is a Rabbit Hole?"
"Sort of a wormhole," Connor explained. "Fast trip from one place or another."
"That's how you got through the door," Stephen said, thinking hard. "And how you got us here."
"Yup." Connor popped the 'p'. "But there's a bit of a problem."
"You can't get us back?" Stephen hazarded.
Connor winced. "Well . . . it's more like the bigger, longer the Rabbit Hole, the harder it is to control. And the further I get from Wonderland, the harder they are to control. Pulling an Oyster . . . human . . . nonWonderlander through also messes with the things."
"Getting us home involves all three," Stephen said. "So, do you need something? Some sort of . . . mystical widget?"
"Cheshire knows I wish it were that easy," Connor said. "Mostly I just need to have a lot of time to really concentrate, be well-rested and not be interrupted. Even then we'll be lucky to wind up in the London environs and not in France or Ireland."
Stephen winced himself. "I assume this means we're not going anywhere until tomorrow morning?"
"Not unless you want to risk landing in Tulgey Wood or a firefight in Afghanistan," Connor said wryly. "And it could go either way. Oysters queer my aim enough to wind up anywhere. As it is I'll have to cling to you the whole way to make sure we come out at the same place."
That was potentially embarrassing, but Stephen had lived through enough dangerous situations to know that he'd rather be humiliated and alive, than dead but reputation intact. "So, do you suppose there's something we could find to eat?" he asked.
Connor frowned, then said, "What've you got in your pockets? 'Cause it looks like the owner of this Tea Shop's not going to be back a while." He started digging through cupboards, producing fruits and vegetables, taking some things out of what seemed to be a fridge from the early '50s. "I figure we can leave a few things here and he can trade 'em for some good stuff. Because this'll all go bad if it's left, but it's rare enough, well, he's probably pretty good at wheeling and dealing to have stuff as fancy as this."
When he held up a bag of apples, Stephen winced. You knew it was bad in an area when common foodstuffs like apples were treated as some sort of delicacy. "Let me see," he temporised. He had a lighter, because you never knew when you'd need to start a fire. Some change, a Swiss army knife and a handful of bullets. Connor pursed his lips and seemed to be thinking. "The bullets, definitely. Ammunition can be pretty dear. The knife . . . oo! It's one of the ones with a sawblade? That could get talked up really nice. And a lighter? Stephen? Do you have some seer in your family? Because it's like you packed ready to trade for this trip."
Connor was digging through things and came up with a revolver. "Hmm. Forget the bullets," he said. Then carefully loaded the six into the gun. "You'd probably better keep-" He stopped dead, staring at the gun in his hands, flipping it around and looking it over. "Dad," he said softly as he fingered a nick in the handle. "Take care of this," he said as he handed the gun to Stephen. "I know Dormie woulda taken all our stuff. I can't really begrudge him doing it, but this was my dad's."
Not bothering to try to get Connor to carry it, Stephen just slipped the gun into his waistband, safety on, and nodded. Connor was getting to be a better shot, but between the two of them, it made more sense for Stephen to have it. They settled to splitting up the food, Connor nipping downstairs to share with the man he'd called 'Dormie', then they settled in for the night.
David had been having a very bad couple of days. Being shot by Dodo, chased by Mad March, going on the run, running all over Wonderland to avoid being killed, Charlie the White Knight, way more time at the Casino than anyone sane'd want and that Bloody Jack Heart.
Cheshire knew it was all Alice's fault. Bloody Alice with her bloody blue eyes and brown hair and fighting skills that had to be like a Wonderlander's Gift and that sexy short blue dress she made look effing amazing when she was all wet.
Cat curse the girl!
David had tried his best to get Alice away from the suits, but the best efforts of a gun, his fist and her Gift (Judo? Right. This was clearly a Gift), they still were outnumbered. As the world went dark his last thoughts were of Alice and Connor. I'm sorry, he thought. Not sure which one he meant it for.
The next morning Stephen woke up, stretching and idly thinking he was getting too old for camping out the way he had in his early twenties. Connor was sprawled out on the grass of the office, and wasn't that the strangest notion to wake up to. The short man called Dormie was there a moment later. "That's odd," he commented. "Hatter's a bit of an early riser."
It had been years since Connor had lived in . . . Wonderland . . . Stephen made himself think the word. But then, it was a hard thing to change first impressions. "I wouldn't know," Stephen told him with a shrug. "I haven't exactly been in a position to know."
"And you are?" Dormie asked.
"Stephen Hart," he replied, and watched as the man's eyes went wide in shock and horror. "You're what?" the midget asked, sounding a little terrified. "He's brought back a Heart? First it's Oysters, now it's Hearts, next thing he'll have the Queen over and we'll all lose our heads!"
Too late Stephen remembered Connor's statement the night before that the royal family name was Heart. "I'm not related," he said hastily. "And it's Hart as in a deer, not as in a card."
His panic coming to a halt, Dormie turned to stare at Stephen. "Not one of the Hearts?"
"Not in the least," Stephen assured him.
"Don't do that," Dormie said, staggering off back down the stairs. "I know Hatter spends his time with some odd sorts, but really. Cheshire knows I don't need that sort of stress. I need a dose of Serenity after that." He headed down the stairs mumbling about needing to find a dealer and collect their stock.
Connor had woken finally and was watching his friend thump down the stairs with a vaguely affectionate smile on his face. "Dormie could sleep through most things," he said, "But he's a good friend." He stood and stretched. "Right. After breakfast I'm going to try to open up a Rabbit Hole to home."
They idly conversed while Connor puttered around making tea and some strange concoction of berries Stephen suspected were entirely native and a porridge that sounded like it had emerged right from Lewis Carroll together, sprinkled it liberally with honey and handed it over. It was a strange collision of sharp cheese, berries and a sort of corn meal pudding. Finally they were done and Connor leaned on the desk, staring at the air in the middle of the room. Slowly a spot of light formed, then turned into a crack, then what looked like a hole in the air. Brightly coloured objects, many of which Stephen vaguely associated with Alice in Wonderland, could be seen, circling around and around. Moving to stand behind Connor, he could see it now looked like it was a tunnel to somewhere.
Suddenly Connor said, his voice strained. "That's it." Then he took Stephen's hand, holding on with bruising force. Stephen winced, but decided he didn't want to risk breaking Connor's concentration, and that since Connor was the expert, better that he let Connor take the lead.
Just as they crossed the threshold, a commotion at the door caught their attention. A bunch of men in suits burst into the room, shouting and pointing at them. Connor's eyes were wide, but it was too late, and Stephen felt himself get ripped out of Connor's grasp, and suddenly he was falling without any sense of where he was going, and knowing that he was probably going to wind up very far from Connor. There was a sudden sideways wrench, and he was spat out with tremendous force.
Staggering to his feet, he was left with a sinking feeling as he saw more men in the same sort of suits as had distracted Connor back at the strange tea shop. There was also a man in a weird white, silver and plastic outfit and a huge mirror. It all added up to his being lost in this strange place that, if Connor were right, used people like him as some sort of drug source.
"Where'd that Oyster come from?" shouted one.
"I don't know! The White Rabbit didn't say anyone was supposed to come through yet, the raiding parties aren't due back for another half hour!"
It was confusion, and Stephen tried to bolt, but there were too many and he found himself tackled, heard someone shout something about compliance and calm. Something was sprayed on his face, and before he knew it, he was calm. Couldn't think of a reason to struggle. Why struggle? They shone a light at him, then pulled him along, periodically hitting him with some sort of spray until they had dragged him into a small room. Then everything got very pleasant and very fuzzy.
His last clear thought was a vague wondering of why he didn't have his shoes anymore.
The damn suits had come bursting in, and Connor lost his grip on the Rabbit Hole, Stephen and everything else as he fell through. Worse yet, the bloody suits had followed him in. "Catch him!" the six in the lead shouted.
Cat help me, he prayed as he twisted the Rabbit hole hard, sending them all spiralling off. They came out of the Rabbit Hole in a mess of arms and legs. Connor scrambling to his feet saw the suits pulling themselves up. "You! Stop!" one shouted.
"Really?" he asked. "When does that ever work? I mean, what sort of an idiot's going to let the Queen's suits take them in?"
"It's the Hatter!" shouted one, "Bring him in!"
A roar brought them all to a halt and a jabberwock came flopping out of the woods. "Huh," Connor said, "Tulgey. Good to know where you are, after all." As the 'wock lunged, the suits scattered. Connor laughed and spun up a Rabbit Hole. "Cat's luck to you!" he called, and was about to hop in when he thought of the look on Abby's face or Stephen's or Cutter's if he'd just left them all to die at the buck-toothed mouth of a 'wock. Shaking his head he opened the Rabbit Hole up underneath their feet before they could scatter a second time and sent them up into a tree. They'd be safe up there until the 'wock lost interest, and then they could make their way home. Meanwhile, Connor needed to get back and see if he couldn't trace where Stephen had wound up. With any luck, he'd be back home getting yelled at by Cutter.
As he slid towards the tea shop, Connor smiled wryly. The more outrageous your Gift, the more likely you'd have Cheshire's luck. The spirit of Wonderland itself, the Cheshire tended to be a very old school chaos spirit, a little like Coyote or Loki. Lots of really good luck, lots of really bad and very little between. with the bits of good luck since he and Stephen had arrived in Wonderland suggested a high chance of it all turning soon.
He came back out in the phone booth down the way from the Tea shop and froze. The whole place was swarming with suits and some bloke with a ceramic rabbit head. A moment later he felt his heart nearly stop as he realised it was Mad March. What had happened to his head? Connor shook his own head and hurried off, hoping they wouldn't follow him. The last of the Hatters being captured, especially the one that made Rabbit Holes would be enough of a coup that the Queen would never let him go.
"Hatter?"
His concentration at tracing the path of the Rabbit Hole Stephen had vanished down was shattered. A smelly, filthy, slimy-looking man with long hair and an ugly assortment of rain gear was standing there. "Yeah?" Connor asked, wondering who the hell this was.
"Look, I'm sorry about the whole thing with Mad March, but I needed the Tea, you know? Summat to trade."
This was unbelievable. Pure luck of the worst sort. "Whatever," he said, turning his back on the stinky undercity-dweller.
"Come on, I'm just Ratty," he said, as though that was supposed to mean something.
Connor glared. "Just go away, would you?"
"I brought you Alice, didn't I?" asked the clearly delusional rodent-man.
"Alice," Connor muttered in aggravation. "Bloody hell." He turned to the other man. "Go away." He'd finally found the end point and opened up a Rabbit Hole, only to discover it was right next to the Mirror and surrounded by suits and scientists. "Cat on a hot tin roof," he muttered. The Wonderland woman who'd masqueraded as his mum back on Earth had taken to using the phrase. It'd taken years to train himself out of using Wonderlander curses, and being home was just bringing it right back.
In any event, he now had a pretty damned good idea of where he'd find Stephen.
The Queen's Casino.
Connor had once been bloody stupid enough to break into the Queen's casino on a dare. He hadn't known his way around and had been lucky he'd opened the Rabbit Hole up in a blind corner with no one in it. Pure Cheshire's luck it'd been.
A week later his whole family had been dead. Not for any fault of his own, but that was just how Cheshire's luck ran. Something really good, something really bad.
Now that old bit of luck was lucky again, because it meant he knew a bit of the inside. Not a lot, but enough that he could land up there out of sight, combine a few things in the Tea shop closet and his own regular clothes and have a bit of camouflage. He wouldn't really pass for a suit, but at least no one'd look at him twice out of the corner of their eyes in the halls. Soon enough he was ready and spun up his way into the casino.
Hair slicked down, black jacket on white shirt and all, he hurried through the corridors, trying to look like he was there for a reason, comfortable and had somewhere to be. Hurrying through the halls, he looked at the signs, smiling a little at the abstract symbology that made sense to a Wonderlander but would have an Oyster asking why they couldn't just have an arrow, names and numbers there. A hopping white rabbit and plate of oysters pointed the way to the White Rabbit lunchroom.
A pearl and a happy face looking to the left pointed the way to the section where they sucked the emotions out of Oysters. Connor tried to keep his breath even, tried to look casual as he walked towards the start of the Tea factory. Glancing with faux casual interest into the actual casino room, he saw that Stephen wasn't in there. But there were other places he could be. Emotions they pulled out that weren't right for a casino.
Two scantily clad Diamond girls ambled past, giggling. "They want him drained of Lust before they put him onto the casino floor," the blonde said. "He's very handsome-"
"For an Oyster," said her brunette friend.
"Oh, not just for an Oyster. He's more handsome than the Prince," the blonde informed her friend lasciviously. "This is not a hardship assignment, trust me. Blue eyes, all long and lanky and muscled . . . mmmm. I don't even need a dose of Lust for him, believe you me."
"Sometimes you've got such Cat's luck," the brunette grumbled.
As they parted ways, Connor sighed and followed the blonde. Because if Stephen wound up anywhere, wouldn't it just be in the Lust room, being petted by a hot blonde. His guess was right, as a slow meander past the room showed him a smirking redhead passing off her shift of inducing Lust to the brunette, and Stephen was looking very . . . acquiescent in that room.
He was about to try sneaking out when suddenly the hall was emptied, shift changes having ended. Connor took a deep breath. He wouldn't have a better chance than this, and scattered as he was, better not to try shoving Stephen through a Rabbit Hole right then, because Connor would be distracted and Stephen wasn't going to be all there for a good few minutes after Connor got him out. So, he let impulse carry him through and burst in. With a swing that would have made David (or Abby) proud, he knocked the girl out and off of Stephen, then dragged his teammate out of the room and started hauling him down the corridor, hoping to find a quiet corner for Stephen to recover in. At least enough to get him acting some other way than a space cadet with too much Lust in his system. A quick glance back and Connor winced. Those trousers could not be comfortable right about then. Way too tight.
"Where are my shoes?" Stephen mumbled.
"Not here," Connor told him. "We'll find you some more. Later."
Stephen stumbled along as he was towed behind Connor. He struggled to make sense of the dreamscape he was in. Because a minute ago there'd been girls, lots of really hot girls, and it had been pretty brilliant, even if they were teasing a lot. Warm and soft and perfumed, he'd been enjoying himself. And suddenly the world had gone cold and hard and Connor was there, which didn't really make sense, because Connor wasn't the sort who'd interrupt a bloke when he was alone with a girl.
Also, his feet were cold as he was towed along. "Where are my shoes?" he asked.
"I told you, we'll get you more," Connor snapped.
This was distinctly less nice than the girls in the room.
Connor suddenly pushed him into the wall. "Shush," he muttered. From the recess he'd been pushed into, he could see a bunch of people walking by in a crowd, including a girl he thought he recognised from the room. With a frown, he noted that everyone else had shoes. His feet were cold. "Where are my shoes?" he asked.
"Outside," Connor said, a weird note in his voice. Like he was tired of answering the question and was distracted.
A thought was trying to solidify in Stephen's head, but it was so hard to think past the lust those girls had been so set on inducing . . . something about that skittered through his head, and Stephen tried to latch onto the thought and make sense of what was going on. Connor was pulling him along again when a loud announcement shattered his thought processes. "Would the Fives, Sixes, Sevens and Eights of Clubs please report to the third level," came a voice over a PA system.
It had the effect of snapping Stephen back to reality. Clubs, lust, girls with diamond patterns, Wonderland! "Connor? Where are we?" he asked.
Connor shot him a considering look. "We're in the Queen's Casino and I'm trying to break you out. You back with me yet? Or are you going to keep asking about your shoes?"
"I assume we're not going to try one of your anomalies home right now," Stephen murmured.
"No," Connor told him. "It's not like I can concentrate on much of anything but getting out and not getting caught right now."
"Fair enough," Stephen said. Then he glanced down. His feet were bare and terribly cold on the linoleum floor. "Where are my shoes, anyhow?"
"No idea," Connor told him blithely. "I guess they suck feelings out through your feet, because I've yet to see an Oyster around here with shoes."
And then suddenly they were spotted. "It's the Hatter!" shouted a man in a suit with a numeral four and a club on the lapel. "He's escaped from Dee and Dum!"
"Cheshire's luck!" Connor said in a tone that suggested he was cursing. Then they ran, hurtling through the halls, and Stephen found himself being wrenched through a wall or two, Connor looking paler with each transit. They were momentarily safe, and Stephen pulled Connor to a halt. "Breathe, Connor. Take a minute. You look like hell," he said. It was true. The geek was sweating and shivering and clinging to the wall behind him to stay upright.
"Of all the Cat cursed . . ." Connor trailed off. "It's just so hard, Stephen."
"Take it easy and we'll figure a way out," Stephen reassured him. He was surprised to find that he still had the gun. He supposed that people who were drugged up to the gills were probably compliant enough that it wasn't worth bothering to check them for weapons because they wouldn't think to use them. "What happened to you, anyhow?" he asked.
Connor took a deep breath and frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, they said Hatter had escaped from somewhere," Stephen pointed out. "You said that's your name, so unless you've got a twin around . . . what?"
But Connor was suddenly wild-eyed. "Hatter . . ." he murmured. "But Dodo said that . . . he wouldn't . . . but maybe, times being what they were . . . that'd mean . . . We have to find him!"
"Who?" Stephen asked, perplexed.
"Maybe I'm wrong," Connor told him. "But I wasn't being held by anyone. I just broke in. Which means there's someone here that looks like me being held." The look in his eyes when he glanced back at Stephen was so hopeful it almost hurt to look. "But I did once have a twin brother. I thought he was dead."
Following the cryptic signs, and Stephen wondered what a cartoon thinking bubble and a stick could possibly indicate to Connor that would make him take a turn down that hall. "Why don't you people use words and numbers?" he muttered.
"Why should we?" Connor asked, sounding far too amused. "It's obvious that's leading to the rooms where they dig through people's minds."
"With a stick?" Stephen asked.
"That's a cattle prod," Connor told him.