Solaris Rising (36 page)

He had to think for a moment. “Oh, right. Is that still on?”

“No one ever went broke underestimating etc, etc,” Kitty said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dov said. “If that isn’t rock bottom, it’s close. The novelty’s bound to wear off pretty soon.”

“It’s no-cost entertainment. All you need is a camera and pretty soon, you won’t even need that because you’ll always be in sight of at least one lens.”

Dov’s chuckle was uneasy. “Not getting paranoid on me now, are you? Or is it just that your nerves haven’t grown back yet?”

She was silent for a moment. Then: “Do you remember when you asked me about the difference between wave functions that hadn’t collapsed and those you didn’t know had already collapsed?”

He nodded.

“I thought you would.” And then she was hurrying away toward the hospital while he stared after her.

Customer traffic was brisk throughout the morning into the lunch-hour, with everyone apparently in the mood to spend money – retail therapy, they called it now – but the day went at a crawl. Dov stepped into the office whenever he could to check the monitor but there was no time for more than a quick glance. Sometimes he would have sworn that the system was actually looping the same ten minutes over and over again. It was just that he was busy, he thought. Plus, he was getting a double dose of the store now, with his own eyes and on the monitor, so of course he was coming down with a case of déjà-vu all over again.

He tried an assortment of busy-work to keep himself from haunting the office every few minutes, rearranging the window, rotating stock, even taking a quick-and-dirty inventory of the tacky souvenirs. There were half a dozen new snow-globes, albeit with glitter rather than fake snow. Most of the globes had glitter these days. Maybe the fake-snow globe was becoming an endangered species, he thought, as he picked up one of the larger ones and gave it a shake. Glitter swirled around an Empire State Building being scaled by a giant blonde woman in a pink evening gown, with a tiny gorilla tucked under one arm. He hadn’t thought there’d be that much wit in the tacky souvenir industry. He stashed it under the counter and made a mental note to ask the owners where it had come from and if there were any more around.

But nothing he did would make the day pass any more quickly. It was hard to believe he had seen Kitty only that morning – he felt as if it had been at least a whole day. He told himself he ought to try to appreciate it, it was better than feeling as if time were pouring away like fast-running water.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the photos Kitty bought, the firefighter and the Ferris wheel, then glanced at his watch: it was two minutes later than the last time he’d looked. Irritated, he took it off and put it in the register, in the always-empty slot meant for fifties and hundreds.

As always, the customers thinned out after lunch-time. He was serving the last few customers when a teenaged boy dropped off a brown paper bag containing lox on a bagel with a perfectly-applied schmear, an assortment of carrot and cucumber sticks, and a can of cream soda. The boy was long gone by the time Dov opened the bag. He was about to call the deli and tell them their delivery boy had made a mistake when he saw the note on the bag –
Nosh! xx Kitty
.

He spread a napkin out on the counter then paused, looking up at the camera. The owners probably wouldn’t approve. Gathering everything up, he started toward the office, then stopped. The idea of eating while that eye blinked at him every five seconds threatened to kill his appetite. Knowing that every fifteen seconds, he’d be treated to the sight of himself eating lunch gave him indigestion before he’d even taken a bite. Or he could hide in the lav.

He sat at the register with the bag in his lap.

McTeer was a no-show at six. At six-thirty, the owners’ secretary phoned to say he should close up and go home. She was cordial but offered no explanation. Apparently there was no one to plug this evening’s personnel gap, Dov thought. Maybe McTeer had run off to the Bahamas, leaving them shorthanded. He started to turn off the lights and then, on impulse, called back and offered to stay on until ten.

The secretary’s cordial tone had a hint of steel in it as she told him that wouldn’t be necessary and he should have a good evening.

“Well, okay,” he said to the phone receiver, although the woman had already hung up. “Don’t ask me, I just work here. Till six.” Again, he went to turn out the lights and then remembered the table was still outside.

He brought everything in, folded the table legs down and left it behind the display window where he always found it in the mornings and put the box of prints on the floor nearby. Then he went back to the office for a final look around to make sure everything was all right, even though he’d already done that at least half a dozen times already.

There was nothing to see on the monitor now, except for the office feed. Because he still had the light on. He flipped it off and watched the screen as it blinked through a series of vague shadows. It seemed like a big waste to keep them on all night when they had no night-vision utility.

Not his problem. He should go home and have a good evening, he thought as he sat down and pushed the keyboard aside so he could put his feet up on the desk.

He had no idea how long he’d actually heard the sharp sound of metal rapping on glass but he thought it must have been a while. Awareness flooded in accompanied by aches and pains in every part of his body. He lifted his head and gasped slightly at the flare of sharp pain in his neck. His shoulders and back chimed in as he straightened up.

The rapping sound went on, someone knocking urgently on the window with a coin or a key. He ignored it while he pushed himself to his feet, groaning as his knees cracked and popped. How the hell had he fallen asleep here? With his head on the desk, no less. Why hadn’t he gone home? His head didn’t want to turn. He’d probably have to put some chiropractor’s kids through college before he’d be able to look both ways crossing the street.

The knocking was getting louder and more urgent now. Someone wasn’t going to take no for an answer, although they’d have had to if he’d gone home instead of trying to cripple himself. He couldn’t imagine who would have come knocking now anyway, nobody knew there was anyone in here –

His gaze fell on the monitor, blinking every five seconds. No, somebody knew. Somewhere somebody knew where he was and they knew that he had seen what the cameras had seen.

Rubbing his shoulder with one hand and his lower back with the other, he shuffled out to see who was scratching up the window.

Kitty’s wide eyes met his. “Uh,” he said. “What time is it?”

“Late,” she said.

He looked at his watch then remembered it was in the register. “Uh,” he said again and leaned his head against the jamb. “I did the stupidest thing.” He was about to elaborate when his head exploded.

It might have been minutes later before his vision cleared and he realised he had both arms around Kitty in a clumsy hug, while she held him up. The sound of the explosion seemed to resound in his ears and he had the impression that the whole building and a good part of the street had shaken under him.

Horrified, he pulled away from her. “I did the stupidest thing,” he said again. “I – I did the stupidest thing –” He tried to tell her the rest of it but his voice refused to come. For several moments, he floundered while every siren and alarm in Manhattan went off at once, almost drowning out the shriek of human voices. Overhead, there was something dark in the sky and the air brought the smell of oil and metal and other things burning.

“I didn’t mean to know,” he told Kitty desperately. “I didn’t mean to!”

“I know,” she said.

A man in a wrinkled grey suit ran past holding a cell phone to his ear shouting, “Holy fucking shit!” into it over and over. The street began to fill with people all talking at once, to cell phones, to each other, to anyone who could hear and everyone they saw.

The man in the grey suit came back, still holding the cell phone. “I swear to
Christ
,” he told the cell phone. He stopped, looking around as if he didn’t know where he was, then noticed Dov and Kitty. “I thought a gas main blew up or a gas truck. An airplane crashed into one of the Twin Towers. A fucking
plane
! I swear to Christ you never know in this city, you never fucking
know
!”

Kitty put a finger to Dov’s lips; not really necessary since his voice had deserted him again. “And you never can tell.”

The second explosion came a little over fifteen minutes later. Then she went back to St. Vincent’s. When he couldn’t find his way home he went there as well, although amid all the crowds and the noise and the panic, he couldn’t find her either.

The second explosion came a little over fifteen minutes later. Kitty went back to St. Vincent’s. Dov went back into the office and watched. Sometimes he saw Kitty looking through the prints. A few times he saw himself behind the counter, but he always saw himself in the office and, when he realised he always would, he locked up and went home.

YESTERMORROW

RICHARD SALTER

Richard Salter is the editor of the anthology
Short Trips: Transmissions
, and the author of over a dozen short stories that have been published and plenty more that haven’t been yet. ‘Yestermorrow’ was born from his love of all things time travel, from
Doctor Who
to
Slaughterhouse Five
.

Monday June 5
^th
, 2017

The man runs because his life depends on it. He does not want to be late – the fate of the universe hangs on him being in the right place at the right time. Or rather the wrong place at the wrong time. The streets of Brighton are pretty much deserted at this time of night. The only vehicles that pass are taxis or buses. He dashes across the road, not waiting for the lights to change. He doesn’t even bother looking as he runs – the accident doesn’t happen here.

He is running up St James’s Street now, away from the Steine and towards the point of no return. He feels oddly nervous. No matter; this is where he is meant to be.

The uphill sprint makes his lungs heave and his chest ache but he does not fear a heart attack. He pulls a tattered leaflet from his inside coat pocket, just to have it ready. ‘Know Your Death Date!’ is emblazoned across the cover.

At last he reaches Chapel Street. He glances at his mobile phone, notes that he still has five minutes. He collapses in a heap on the street corner, fighting for breath, not caring that he’s getting dirt on his jeans. He checks the date and time stamped inside the leaflet yet again, sets his mobile down on the pavement by his side and forces his breathing to calm down. This is his final day – the last day he will live through. He has known this day was coming for four years now – the leaflet only confirmed what he already knew. There’s no getting away from it. You can’t cheat death.

His time is up. He stands and balances on the curb, his mobile forgotten on the ground. He places the leaflet reverentially back in his pocket and closes his eyes. He can hear the bus coming and knows what he must do. By his right foot, his mobile phone beeps an alarm. He takes a step forward.

A hand grabs his shoulder and yanks him back. He turns to face his saviour. “No, you don’t understand,” he says as the bus whizzes past him. The person who just saved his life has his face covered by a black hood. The masked rescuer drags the man onto Chapel Street, into the shadows. The man protests and struggles as he is thrown to the ground. He feels no pain as the blade slices through his chest, only surprise.

“This isn’t how I’m supposed to –”

Tuesday June 6
^th
, 2017

The rain spatters off the pebbles as my boots crunch across the beach. It’s hard to walk with purpose when each step sinks and slides. At the bottom of the rocky incline, the gently lapping waves spread out between the rocks, the water searching out countless paths to follow in its push onto land. Here the pebbles are darker and glisten from the constant wash of the tide.

The body lies slumped on its side, the feet and legs still encircled and released by each ebb and flow. Its posture and pallor resemble the carcass of a beached whale – the flesh bloated and bleached white. I avert my gaze, scanning the promenade for police cruisers conspicuous by their absence. The APP should be all over this case like flies on a cow’s arse, but instead they’re stuffing their faces with egg McMuffins and cheap coffee.

Why should they hurry? They know this case will never be solved.

Maybe I can prove them wrong.

I crouch down and push aside the victim’s shredded shirt with a gloved hand, examining the wounds. I’ve viewed the photos already, of course, but this is the earliest after death I will have a chance to see this. I reach into the inside pocket of the man’s coat, pulling out a sodden pamphlet. I check the faded date, time and place stamped inside, barely readable now. ‘June 5
^th
, 2017 – 3:05AM – St James’s Street and Chapel Street, Brighton – Suicide – stepping in front of a bus.’