Part V
In India they catch me on a rural train, cramped and overcrowded. I jump to New York; they show up an hour later in an all-night café. In Hong Kong they're almost waiting for me to show up at a seedy hotel room, and in the desert two hundred miles west of Cairo they turn up with two jeeps and nearly catch me sleeping in a cave –
It's not a cave, it's a lair!
- but terminology doesn't hold much weight with paladins. If the jeeps had been quieter, I could be back in the box again by now. I practically sleep-jump to the Empty Quarter, sits shivering in the freezing wasteland, a clear black sky above, the swathe of the Milky Way making me feel small and alone. I try not to look up. Ten minutes later I have to move again; the paladins have cottoned on to the fact that the Empty Quarter is my instinctive place to escape to, and have set up camp in the vicinity.
By the time the sun is setting over London two days later, I am irritated, exhausted, and in serious need of sleep. I appear in a secluded corner of Kennington underground station and walk out into the evening commute. By now I don't think that I can escape them, all I want to do is hide long enough to be able to catch some sleep. But the longer I spend running, the more jittery I'm getting. Everyone who looks at me for more than a few seconds – which is quite a few, given that I'm in desperate need of a shower and shave – makes me want to jump away. Every grey coat sends shivers down my spine and makes me do a double-take. I follow the flow of the crowd along the corridor and down a wide set of steps. At the bottom I turn to the left and walk along the platform, checking over my shoulder constantly.
If you want to look shifty, you're doing a great job, I think. Just act normal.
Easier said than done. There's a slight scuffle at the other end of the platform and instantly I whirl round to see what's happening. Only a couple of teenagers mucking around, but my heart's pounding and out of the corner of my eye I see a man in a grey coat pull something out of his pocket. I turn, grab the man by the throat and slam him back against the tiled wall.
"Don't even fucking try it!" I hiss.
The man makes a small whimpering sound and holds up his mobile phone as explanation.
I drop my hold instantly, take a step back, mortified. "Sorry, I…er…I thought…"
The man frowns and rubs his neck. "You thought what?"
"I…" I shrug my shoulders apologetically. "It's been a long day."
In the background I hear someone muttering about drugs, and 'isn't it such a shame', and 'somebody should call the police'. I look around, stare at the two women who are watching me in what they think is a discrete manner until they look away.
At that moment, a train pulls into the station. A wave of tired, indifferent Londoners disembark, and a second wave push their way in through the doors. I find myself pressed into a corner, looking out of the window at the station wall. Posters show me films I have no intention of watching, exhibitions I will never see, and inform me that Transport For London is doing its bit, so I should as well. The train pulls out of the station and the posters blur, faster and faster until suddenly it's all black and all I can see is my distorted reflection staring back at me from the window.
Someone saying my name jolts me back to reality. I twist around in my corner, trying to focus in on the voice I'd heard. Nothing.
I'm imagining things, I think. Stop it.
Nevertheless, I get out at Waterloo, allow myself to be swept up in the movement of the crowds heading up onto the main concourse.
"– his parents died, of course – "
I jerk my head round to see a couple of young women walking past me, chatting.
"I wish they'd come up with a better plot than that…" the second one is saying, completely oblivious to me staring at her, a scruffy young man with bloodshot eyes and clothes that look as if they've seen a war zone. (They have, actually, by now, seen a couple…)
I close my eyes, let the noise of the station swallow me, wash over me and hide me in the milling crowds. Thousands of people pass through this station every day. Thousands of people on the underground. They can't track me through here. I open my eyes again, try to focus on the departures board. The words blur, and every time they move I have to try and refocus. Eventually I give up, turn to my right and walk down to platform 19. I skip past the guard checking tickets in a group of people, keeping close to the wall, and walk towards the far end of the train. At the end of the platform I can see the dark sky, shot through with the orange glow of a million streetlights; wet railway lines reflecting the white light from the station as they trail off into the darkness.
I board the train, no longer caring where I go, just grateful to sit down in warmth and anonymity. The carriage fills up around me, but I'm only aware of the existence of other people, no specifics register. I still can't sleep, though, not with so many people around me. I sit, huddled up against the window, staring out blankly at the water droplets moving slowly down the glass. The movement of the train numbs me into a waking doze, and it's only the screech of brakes twenty minutes later that makes me return my gaze to the inside of the carriage. The girl sitting across from me is wearing a long, dark coat, too big for her. An art folder leans up against the side of the seat, and she's engrossed in a book, red hair tied back.
"E.V.?" I can't help asking.
She looks up, puzzled. Not E.V. – how could it possibly be her? She's thousands of miles away. And a good five years older than this girl is. Now I look at her properly, I can't see even more than a passing resemblance.
"Sorry, thought you were someone else," I mutter, looking back out of the window at the now-still landscape. There's no explanation for the sudden stop in the middle of nowhere, and I get a sense that something's wrong. This is too much of a coincidence. As this thought crosses my mind, the door at the far end of the carriage opens and two men in long grey coats walk through, scanning the seats as they come. I shrink back into my corner, but it's too late. The taller of the two men talks quickly into his phone, while his companion reaches inside his coat and pulls out a gun.
The screams are still echoing in my ears as I appears in Sam and Consuelo's house.
Standing in the hall, I look around, confused. Morning sunshine streams through the broken windows.
Okay…this wasn't even where I was thinking of, I think. Can't stay here.
I try to remember the cave in Peru, tucked away halfway up a mountain, remote in the extreme. Nowhere for a helicopter to land, no roads nearby. They might be able to tell where I am, but it'll take them a while to get there, surely. But the images skitter around in my head, flashes of all the places I've been in the last couple of days, blending together. It's like watching a film reel unwind at double speed, unable to pause on any one image. I keep catching glimpses of the cave in my memory, but I can't focus enough to be able to make the jump.
There's a crash outside, a bin being knocked over, maybe. Whatever it is, it's enough to make me jump away.
Standing outside the block of flats in Ljubljana, I look around in horror at the ruined landscape. Heavy rain is falling from a black sky, soaking the mounds of rubble and earth that stretch off towards a wire fence in the distance; remains of other buildings that have been demolished. Thunder rumbles around at the edge of my hearing.
Bewildered, I walk among the ruins, ignoring the deep puddles that soak through my boots and the cold rain that trickles down the inside of my collar and drips from my hair.
I have no control over where I jump to, I realise. The thought chills me more than the rain. The realisation that I could accidentally jump back to the glass cube or – possibly worse – try to jump to a place that no longer exists, makes me stumble. I find a large chunk of broken masonry and sit down, staring out at the desolation. My entire body aches and my hands are shaking, whether with cold or exhaustion I can't tell any more.
"So, what happens now?" I ask out loud, and am shocked to hear a slight tremble in my voice. Now? I think, now the paladins turn up, and I can't get away from them. I can't pick my battles any more.
"They're in control."
Haven't they always been?
"No."
No?
The sound of approaching vehicles makes me look up. Blazing white headlights cut a swathe through the darkness, illuminating the rain sheeting down, making hard shadows of the uneven landscape. Deep puddles of water in the mud, twisted metal reaching like broken fingers out of the crumbled brickwork and earth.
In my mind's eye, I see a war zone, and something I once said to David flickers through my memory.
Welcome to the war.
The Coliseum, warmth and sunshine seems like a different world. I sit silently, watching the trucks pick their way across the rubble and then stop. Dark figures step out with military precision.
I get to my feet, bend down and grab a piece of broken metal out of the dirt. It's about three feet long, and heavy, and my arm muscles scream at me with the effort. I grit my teeth through the pain and stand, holding it up in front of me, waiting for them to notice me. It doesn't take them long.
"Come on then!" I yell, drop and roll away from the first tether which hits where I'd been sitting. I feel splinters of brickwork hitting the back of my head, then I'm back on my feet again, swaying.
"Is that the best you can do?" The second one catches me in the chest, sending spasms through my body. I drop the metal bar, fall to my hands and knees in the mud, feeling the electricity burning. Lightning flickers across the sky and thunder crashes overhead almost immediately after, seeming to rip the world apart. I don't have the strength left to try and struggle out of the cables, and now the paladins are walking towards me. Through blurred vision, I can make out five figures. Then I see a sixth, walking a pace or so behind them. In the next flash of lightning I think I see white light reflecting off a long, thin blade.
The next moment I hear a scream, then shouting and the sound of weapons being fired. Blinking water and mud from my eyes, I can make out four figures running around, and a fifth who suddenly appears crouched in front of my, dark hair streaming with water, katana in her hand. Blood drips dark from the blade, already being washed clean by the rain.
"I'm not doing this for you," she says, then jumps back to the fight, as a tether hits the ground where she's been.