+++

Both Salvo and Trig stepped back like veteran shinobi, too afraid to move any other part of their bodies in case it turned the machine off again.

They waited, glancing at the walls around the space, checking to see if anything was being altered, changed or opened.

There was nothing.

Nothing overt anyway.

‘What did you do?’ asked Trig, finally releasing a minute’s worth of breath.

‘Nothing. Flicked one of its lights.’

‘That’s it?’

‘And told it to fuck off in Russian.’

Trig nodded, assessing the two possible theories quickly in his head. If this were a comedy, the flicking would be responsible. But if it were an espionage thriller…more likely the Russian curse.

Query: has anything funny happened so far?

Answer: not at all. Absurd maybe, but not funny.

Query two: has anything dangerous happened?

Answer: not tangibly. But there was definitely tension.

‘Try saying something else in Russian,’ he suggested, for some reason nudging Salvo closer to the machine.

‘Like what?’ she asked, pushing back.

‘Something nicer maybe.’

‘I don’t know very much.’

‘Huh? I thought you said you were fluent?’

‘That was English wor. In Russian, I’m more like Upper Beginner. Maybe lower intermediate if the person I’m talking with has really low standards.’

‘But you can make sentences…’

‘Yeah, bad ones.’

+++

The first thing Trig thought as he passed through the wall was diu lei pokkai, I’m in a nebula.

The second was, where’s Salvo?

He tried to crane his neck to see her but when as soon as the action was attempted, his whole body started to spin, and instead of seeing his friend’s face, he saw swirls of green mist.

Hence the ‘diu lei pokkai, I’m in a nebula’ line.

‘Salv,’ he shouted, and was duly alarmed when the sounds came out quiet and raspy. Must be the nebula effect, he thought. Or whatever it was he was floating through.

Floating…

Not painful, but…

Strange.

Sensual even.

Like floating in a hot spring or, more, existing as a bank of pure formless mist.

A jolt of…something…ran through his body.

Refocused his senses.

He looked down and saw metal.

It was ground…no, floor…laid out in squares with the edges trimmed off. There was probably a name for the exact shape he was staring down at, maybe if he used his phone to look it up, he could-

His hand dropped and felt the emptiness in his jacket pocket. No phone. Fuck. Panic streamed in, drowning the sensible part of whatever cortex. However, that was short-lived as hissing air rushed back into the unfamiliar space and the weird greenness of the nebula realm rapidly dissipated.

The sudden return to gravity almost put him on the metal floor, but he caught his balance just in time and pivoted over towards the wall on the left.

Salvo crashed on the hard metal next to him, her eyes saying ‘the fuck?’ while her mouth pushed out a mumbled ‘nebula.’

‘You saw it too?’ asked Trig, somewhat redundantly.

‘Where the fuck are we? That was-…no way, not a nebula. I could breathe and I-…we walked through a wall. A physical, real wall. How? Are we sub-atomic now? What the hell is this?’

Keeping himself pinned to the side, Trig rotated his body at a sloth’s pace and started touching all the vital parts; limbs, neck, chest, gut etc. Everything seemed to be in the right place. No blood leaks.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Salvo, watching him grope himself. ‘You still in shock?’

‘No.’

‘Diu lei, your face looks like wood.’

+++

By the time Trig made it to the bus stop, Salvo had already dropped and gone, calling him to say he was ‘fucking koala speed’ and she’d meet him at the maintenance door.

‘What? You can’t go there on your own, it’s-’

‘Already going. Anyway, it’s fine, there’s people around. Geriatrics, but they’ve still got eyes, can still be called up as witnesses if anything happens to me.’

‘Just stay where you are now, I’m jogging over.’

‘Don’t bother, traffic lights take an age to change. Just walk slightly faster than you normally would. And try calling Cav again. Maybe he’ll talk to you.’

Trig waited for Salvo to hang up, then did as she said. After four rings, he got a brief moment of hope as the tone stopped and Cav’s voice came up. ‘Hey, this is Cav, I’m either busy working or busy sulking, leave a message and I may get back to you.’

He waited for the beep then coughed. ‘Hey Cav, it’s Trig…haven’t heard from you all day. You okay? Me and Salvo are worried about you, call us back when you get this.’

On the second beep, he hung up and almost instantly got another call.

‘Did you get through?’ asked Salvo, giving him zero time to breathe.

‘Voicemail.’

‘Fuck, really? I never got that. What does it mean?’

‘That’s he’s probably using his phone and…’

‘…doesn’t wanna speak to us?’

‘Err…yeah. Basically.’

Voices in the background, possible geriatrics. Salvo waited them out a few seconds then slid back in. ‘I’m almost at the green stain door place. Two more minutes. That’s definitely what voicemail means?’

+++

Trig blinked

Three times

Then checked his surroundings.

Fan of Bing, he was by the river again, dragged like the world’s only effective fridge magnet to something intractable.

Why do I always drag myself here? he thought, mind-tapping the uncle sitting nearby, forcing him onto the bike path, then taking his place on the bench.

The river kept still, hiding sewage and kidnap victims, poor ones.

Don’t I want to go home?

He stood up

Then sat back down as that’s what his legs wanted to do. The sky, the wall, the bike path, the trees, the leaves on the trees, the runners’ clothes and faces, the puma logos, everything turned a pale shade of purple, though only he noticed it.

It can’t come this far, he thought

not in mist form

but it could and did as the mist rose out of the puddle by his shoes, though actually through a non-physical portal that only purple could manipulate, and it kept coming, slowly, wrapping round his knees and his thighs, not in a sexual way, but to communicate more clearly with its comrade

victim

comrade

comrade from beyond the maintenance door

beyond the

+++

The walls of the hospital emergency ward weren’t as green and depressing as Trig remembered them, but they were still pretty bleak.

Maybe they’d painted them?

Or maybe his memory was playing very simple tricks on him.

It was possible. The last time he was there had been with his dad. The doctor had come out and told him, ‘sorry sir, you can’t have any more painkillers,’ and his dad had responded by punching a hole in the wall. One of the green ones. Like the one he was staring at right now.

‘You in a trance?’

Trig snapped out of his thoughts, re-focusing on Salvo next to him. ‘Just checking out the wall.’

‘Okay.’

She stared forward at the wall too, ignoring the green-ness and reading the medical posters at the side. Trig knew she was reading them as he could hear her muttering the words. It made sense, she probably had no history with the colour green. No history with hospitals either. Far as he knew.

They both sat in silence for a while, waiting for the doctor to come out. Despite a relatively tame final plea from Cav at the main entrance, they’d taken the injured runner all the way into reception and explained what happened. Luckily, the nurses bought the ‘collapsed on the street’ story and didn’t mention anything about calling the police. Probably because there were no external injuries on the man’s body, and…well, neither of them was an expert on the law, but they guessed the man would have to wake up and confirm their story first.

Cav probably would’ve claimed some kind of legal expertise and filled them in, but he’d left before they came inside. Apparently, he’d gone much farther than he intended, and now he had to go home and think about things.

This was basically code for I’m gonna go home and sulk, which is what he always did when he didn’t have control of a situation, yet neither of them said anything.

What was the point?

It would just lead to more arguments and neither of them had the energy for that. They barely had the energy to sit on the waiting room seats.

Besides, Cav had attempted a ‘half sorry’ before leaving, which was unusual for him, so maybe things weren’t that gloomy.

‘You think we actually need to stay here?’ asked Salvo, finishing the last of the medical posters with her arms folded.

+++

Sitting in the small square outside his workplace wasn’t something Trig was particularly pleased about, in fact, he’d told Cav at least six other places that were less bleak, that had competent views…but as usual his capricious, ghost horse friend didn’t listen.

‘You get the lights better here.’

‘Huh?’

‘The Zinc Burger backdrop, behind you. Lights are hands down the brightest in the whole shitty complex.’ Cav took a swig of his Asahi King Size, continuing while swallowing and almost spitting some back up. ‘You can see everything, see what you’re doing in front of you, the bugs crawling around…’

‘What bugs?’

‘…Salvo trying to look at her phone like a little sneak.’

‘I’m not a sneak,’ she replied, auto-pi.

‘Nope, not anymore. What are you looking at anyway?’

‘Probably a Ryukahr vid,’ answered Trig, smirking.

‘Ree what?’

‘A guy with a two metre beard who plays Mario Maker levels on YouTube.’

‘Japanese guy?’

‘Nope, American.’

Salvo finished whatever she was doing on her phone and looked up. ‘Stop talking about my activities when I’m right here. And it’s Mario Maker 2 videos now, not the original one.’

‘Is he speaking English, in these vids?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Native English?’

‘Yeah.’

Cav pulled a Yuen Wai-Ho face, a pretty good one. ‘How do you understand him then?’

‘Fuck off.’

+++

When work was done, Trig threw his jacket on over his uniform and quickly found his way back to the same spot he’d killed time at the previous night.

As it was only a little past ten, there were more people milling around; some walking dogs, some running like pros, some attempting to run like pros as the real runners passed by, and one guy basically having a slow-fade heart attack.

Walking through and around all of it, Trig checked his messages and cursed under his breath when he saw Salvo’s name pop up.

‘Watching end of Ryukahr vid. Thirty more minutes. Sorry.’

He stared at the message, hoping it would provoke some kind of justified rage, but deep down he knew it wouldn’t. Rage wasn’t really his style, he was too mentally distant for that. Besides, it wasn’t a surprise that Salvo would be late, it was her style. The trick was to say a time an hour earlier than the one you intended, then you’d intersect at the same time. At least that had been the trick. Now it seemed they’d have to stretch it out to ninety minutes.

And for what? A guy playing made-up Mario levels?

Trig’s phone vibrated, pulling up another message from Salvo.

‘Feel bad so gonna try and walk and watch vid at same time. If I get hit by car, you pay damages ga ma?’

This one got a laugh, not a loud one, but enough to make him forego his rant on Mario Maker vids. Ah, his heart wouldn’t have been in it anyway. He watched YouTubers play video games too sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, or when he wasn’t knee deep in alien conspiracies.

That was a lie. He was always knee deep in alien conspiracies. He couldn’t help it, they were addictive, soothing somehow.

The Greys running the CIA.

The Nordic Aliens with their base on Titan, producing human clones.

Reptilians from Zeta Reticuli introducing vapourwave.

And the one he’d read the night before, what was it? Gay enzymes injected into milk?

No, wait, that was the US government.

But if they were being secretly run by Greys then…

There was noise farther ahead, a car braking suddenly.