“Walk on air?” I interrupted.
I heard a grin in Laurent’s answer. “We can do a bunch of stuff. Like, superpower shit. It’s thanks to this one guy, Haze. He knows everything.”
I half-listened. I put a hand down on the floor and tried to lie down. But it felt too uncomfortable—the floor was too warm, like a toilet seat just after someone leaves it. So I got back up and played with my flashlight, clicking it on and off.
“You’ll probably meet Haze one day,” Laurent trailed off. He rapped his fingers on the walls.
I didn’t think Laurent was lying—at least, I didn’t think he was knowingly lying. But even after seeing him suspended in the air, I still didn’t want to believe he could do superhuman shit. It wasn’t my concern anyway. I didn’t want to be Superman. I wanted to blog. That was it.
“So, you believe Leafs and Sens last week?” Laurent asked.
“I can’t watch Leafs hockey anymore,” I said. “It pains me.”
Laurent clucked his tongue at me.
We sat in the dark. Sometimes, far off, I heard a sound like groaning metal. Sometimes—closer—I heard a sound like creaking wood. Laurent wasn’t bothered, so I didn’t worry either.
“Aren’t they taking long?” I asked.
“Dunno,” Laurent said. He reached for his flashlight and flashed it onto his wrist. The light shone off an expensive leather watch.
“Dunno.” He sighed.
“I saw things,” I said. “Back there. It was like a dream.”
Laurent was silent. He flipped the flashlight beam up again, and placed it back on the ground. The light stood a little farther from him now, so I could only see the edge of his knee.
Then he spoke. “Haze thinks they can read your mind. They try to lull it into a false sense of security so you’ll go along with them. What did you see?”
I ignored the question.
I put my palm on the warm floor. I couldn’t feel anything—no rush of underground water, no vibrations of passing traffic. As far as I knew, there was nothing beneath this ground.
And Josh’s knife hadn’t left any marks on the ground. I was sure of that. So sure I didn’t even bother checking. This place was immune to us.
But then what lay beneath the ground here? And how high did the ceiling go until breaching a surface? Was there even an up or down here?
When you got right down to it—what was this place?
“The thing is though,” Laurent began,” Stalker Men don’t get human emotions, so they’ll put weird combinations in. Like, a vagina with lasagna in it. That’s a good way to tell a Stalker Man is messing with you.”
“The stuff I saw was stuff I wanted.” I said. No emotion in what I said.
“It’s probably a smart one then,” Laurent commented. “Shit luck.”
I groaned.
“They’ve been gone a long time,” Laurent said to himself. His fingers drummed the bat, making a hollow, silvery thrumming.
Hhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
A distant roar like clashing glaciers howled through the endless halls.
“What the hell?” I grabbed my flashlight and turned it on and winced; the light stung my eyes. I stumbled to my feet.
“Relax,” Laurent said. I swung the beam at him. It spilled over his face and retarded yellow sack-hat. He hissed. “Ah man what the fuck?”
“Just checking that you’re not a Stalker Man,” I said. The light in my hands shook. My stomach cramped.
“Hey we’re safe.” Laurent’s eyes screwed up and I lowered the light.
I didn’t believe him. I paced across the room, holding the flashlight to the ground like cops hold guns in movies.
“We broke the gate in time to seal if off.” Lauren said. “It’ll take ages for it to get back into Level Zero, and unless it has a gate to anchor itself to, it’s powerless.”
Laurent mumbled something.
“What?” I asked.
Laurent’s clothes rustled and he stood up.
“Nothing,” Laurent said.
Clink-clink-clink.
“And that? What’s that?” I asked. I backed into the wall.
“What’s what?” Laurent asked.
“That sound.” I said. I reached across the wall. My fingers found the beginning of a doorway—a sharp angle cut into the wall.
“It’s nothing,” Laurent replied.
I edged over to the doorway, and peered into the next room.
Darkness. Even with Laurent’s flashlight behind me, I couldn’t see. I raised my own light into the doorway. The beam disappeared with the dark.
I shivered. Light traveled about 300 000 kilometers per second. If I couldn’t see it reflected back, then Level Zero stretched very, very far.
Clink-clink-clink. A sound like homemade wind chimes rang down the rooms.
“How do you not hear that?” I asked.
“I hear it but I told you it’s nothing,” Laurent grunted. He was still standing. I could tell by where his voice came from. “Put the light off. The others will be back soon.”
I lowered the light but kept it on. I tossed it around the room, checking the doorways. I strained to remember who went down the door beside me. Amrith, Lena, or Josh? Why couldn’t I see them? A hundred rooms wasn’t that much, was it?
“Please turn if off,” Laurent said.
Clink-clink-clink.
“I don’t see anyone down here,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it, just turn the light off.” Laurent said. I pointed the flashlight to him and he shielded his eyes.
Laurent was holding his bat across his shoulder.
“Why do you have that?” I asked.
“Protection,” Laurent said. He spun the bat and held it down so the head hovered just above the floor. “I call it the circuit breaker. Although really it does nothing like that.”
“Huh.” I said.
The air grew thicker. The room seemed smaller now; I was noticing how the ceilings cut too low, and how the walls seemed to press in, not like a mindless thing, but like a creature trying to test its boundaries.
Laurent felt too close as well.
I widened my feet. My centre of gravity settled. I tested the weight of the flashlight in my hand and the shaft of light jiggled.
“Please turn off the light,” Laurent said.
Clink-clink-clink.
“I’d rather not.” I replied.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
“Guys!” Lena’s voice came muffled down the hall. “Guys!”
Laurent’s head perked.
My hand tightened around the flashlight.
Tap-tap-tap-tap the sound of tapping feet came louder and louder. I pressed myself against the wall next to the doorway.
I listened to the rising volume and made a guess.
My guess was: three seconds.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Two.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
One.
Lena burst in breathless.
She didn’t look dangerous; I didn’t jam the flashlight in her throat.
“Found one," Lena gasped. She put her hands on her knees. “Forty-three down, twelve left, three right and thirteen left."
“Forty-three," Laurent muttered. “Hey Sam, on second thought bring the light over here."
I relaxed, but I didn’t let go of the light—and I stayed behind them.
Laurent and Lena crouched over the emptied backpack and pulled out a notebook with a blue Bic pen stuck through the spiral rings. They wrote down Lena’s numbers under the shine of my flashlight.
Clink-clink-clink.
The sound kept chiming in, but neither Laurent or Lena seemed to care about it.
After a few minutes Josh and Amrith came back. Lena told them about the gate, and they quietly packed their things into Josh’s backpack.
“Come on, between us,” Josh said as we lined up. “You won’t know how to look out for Stalker Men.”
I said I’d stay in the back.
In slow, single file, we trouped silently through Level Zero.
The dark was total. Laurent and Josh each picked up the unused road flares. But they didn’t light them until we counted forty-three rooms. Then, Josh lit his and threw it down. Lena led us down a new direction. No one ever spoke. And once Josh had tossed the flare, one looked back to savor the light.
Clink-clink-clink.
The wind chimes grew louder as we walked. I still didn’t know what they were. Then, near the end of our route, I saw a cloud of dark purple lights glinting on the wall
The cloud hung against a wall, waving faintly.
“What are those?” I asked.
“They’re violets.” Josh said. He corrected himself. “At least we call them that.”
“They’re starting to grow again. Level Zero becomes interesting other parts of the month,” Lena said. “You just caught it in its boring phase.”
I approached the lights.
They hung impossibly in the air, about an arm’s length from the ground. The individual lights looked fuzzy, like a lens flare in a photograph.
But as I got closer, I noticed the lights were flat planes. Or, like origami made of light.
The flat planes of light made little cups, like flowers, drifting back and forth to a wind I couldn’t see. Inside each cup was a spark. The spark was the yellow, violent brightness of a lighting match, contained within a single point. The sparks bounced inside the cups, and when it hit the light, it rang like a tin bell.
Clink-clink-clink.
About twenty flowers hung on the wall, chiming their eerie music.
“Do you not realize,” I said quietly. “How beautiful these are?”
The bells waved beneath my gaze. Behind me, someone coughed.
“Uuuhhh,” Josh said.
“We’re physics majors,” Laurent said.
Amrith patted my shoulder.
We continued down the halls.
Finally we came to a set of rooms that burned with light. Lena took us around them and finally entered a room with a shining line in it—a gate to the real world. Except this gate blazed brighter than anything I’d seen before. Light like this would swallow the violets.
I shielded my eyes. This line meant escape: it meant home. My world might not be normal anymore, but I could at least eat a sandwich and watch TV before facing the otherworldly horrors.
“We don’t know where this gate leads, but you can’t run away from us when we get to the other side,” Lena said from my left.
“You have to agree to work with us,” Amrith agreed.
“And it’s in your best interest to do so,” Laurent added.
“Also please don’t punch me,” Josh said.
I nodded.
Just ten minutes ago I’d suspected Laurent wanted to bash my brains in. I still did, a little bit.
But the gate was here, and if they’d wanted me dead, they could have done it. Frankly, I had no other option than to deal with them. It was the only way I could work with my world changed. I couldn’t do it alone certainly—that had taken me to a parking garage, and to a memory I didn’t want to relive.
It looked like I had some new friends.
We walked into the light.
#
Wind surged over us, driving into my chest and sucking out my breath. It tore away my voice, knocked away my sense of balance, and roared inside my ears, making me deaf.
Laurent shouted something next to me. It sounded like ‘shit.’
I blinked my eyes open. The sky flashed in my sight: dark blue sky, clouds crashing into each other like waves in a storm.
We stood on a square of light grey concrete spotted with a few metal boxes. The boxes looked like air vents, communications equipment.
Where was the horizon?
Buildings towered around us. Buildings with no bottom in sight. No traffic, no pedestrians.
“Shit,” I said. I didn’t hear myself.
We’d landed on top of a skyscraper.
The evening sun slashed orange fire on the buildings around us—a forest of glass and steel needles, encircled lazily by hawks, reaching—shooting—up to the crashing, churning clouds.
Directly behind us, the CN tower loomed—larger than anything. It looked strange from such a high angle, almost alien. A blue line at the top hub signaled the construction of the new Tower Walk I read about in the news. Over the lake, an orange sun blazed on the water. I turned away but still felt the faint heat on my cheek.
My fingers curled up, pale and bloodless. The wind was faster here. It was colder too. My body temperature was unravelling like a thread.
Amrith hugged himself and bounced up and down. Josh tugged his hoodie tighter. Only Lena seemed unbothered by the cold. She surveyed the roof, and pointed to a concrete outcrop—a door. The door was industrial green, set in a concrete box at the corner of the rooftop. It looked so safe. So warm.
I took a careful step towards the door. The wind snaked beneath my feet. My feet wavered on the ground and I struggled to keep balance. Walking here was like walking on the ocean floor—filled with currents and pressure.
This’d make a good post for Stranger Danger—I could call it “as the hawk flies.” Write about the urban jungle. Greg would get to use his camera.
Someone shouted. I didn’t make out the words. Just kept on taking crude, clumsy steps towards the box.
The sinking sun cast long, thin shadows on the ground. As we neared the box I saw a hint of traffic in the streets below. I couldn’t see the people or cars in the light-blur, but I saw shadows—small and distinct—trailing after their owners.
The streets lay deep, deep down.
My mouth tasted sour.
Lena got to the box first. She grabbed the nickel-plated door knob. She turned, pulled, rattled it, but the door didn’t move.
This was not the brilliant escape I had in mind.
I edged closer to the box and the wind slackened. The release swung my balance off. I felt like a swimmer out of the ocean. I fought not to fall on my ass.
“No go,” Lena shouted. She looked over at Josh. Josh nodded and left the group. He walked absurdly normal—hands shoved into his hoodie pocket, head bowed like a dog smelling out tracks.
“No picks?” Amrith asked. Laurent patted his pockets and shook his head.
The edge of the building was ten meters away, glowing in the light. It pulled.
I felt the tug in my navel, and in my ear a sick little voice spoke. It spoke so quiet I could hear it even in the deafening wind.
It asked, aren’t you gonna do it?
No. No I was not.
You’re not even a little curious?
I was not going to jeopardize my mental state—not now.
You know you’re gonna look eventually.
Fat fucking chance.
Lena waved at me. I looked away from the edge.
“We’re gonna—” Lena shouted. The wind cut off the last of her sentence. Her dark brown hair whipped across her face.
“What?” I asked.
Amrith pointed to Josh. Josh was waving from the other side of the building, away from the sun.
“We’re—” Lena began again but the wind cut her off again.
“I can’t hear you!” I said. I didn’t hear myself.
Lena scrunched her face. She patted Amrith’s shoulder and Amrith shouldered past me. Laurent and Lena followed him.
I looked at the sun-bleached edge again, and turned away. I was smarter than that. If I looked, I’d panic. If I panicked, I’d be useless. And I couldn’t be useless, not after waking up in that parking garage.
Josh stood on the ledge on the other side, legs splayed and arms wrapped around his chest. He turned slowly in the wind, observing something.
I caught up with Lena, Amrith and Laurent. Laurent’s yellow hipster hat flapped out his back pocket. His ironic beard and curled moustache had stayed though: I’d half-expected them to blow away.
Josh hel
d out a hand and leaned over the empty space. The wind blew his hoodie into a parachute. His glasses shook against his forehead and he held them steady with the other hand.
He lowered his hips.
Tensed his legs.
Oh no.
Josh jumped.
And landed on air.
We meet again, the voice announced.
Shut up shut up shut up.
“I’m not going!” I shouted.
The others didn’t even turn back. Couldn’t hear me. I ran after them and stumbled in the wind. Lena, Laurent and Amrith mounted the edge like it was a sidewalk curb, and casually walked onto the air.
They hung there, unmoving except for the wind tossing up their hair.
Lena turned her head. She waved me over.
“I’m not doing it!” I shouted.
Lena cupped her hand to her ear.
“I said!” I walked closer, “I’m not doing it!”
Still nothing. I walked closer.
“I SAID!” I screamed, “I’M NOT—HOLY SHIT!”
Deep drop.
Sheer drop.
Why was I so close?
Welcome back fuckwad.
The wall of the building loomed great, flat, and impossibly wide. Below, toy cars weaved the streets and tiny tops of hair trickled like sand in an hourglass down the sidewalks.
It played with my senses. It made me feel it was right-side up and I was hanging off of it like a little kid. And then, when I got used to that, it switched again. Now the wall loomed in front of me. I was an ant standing in front of something larger than I’d ever seen.
And the height. The yawning sensation of physics wanting you dead.
“Come on!” Lena shouted.
Josh looked side to side, like a dog sniffing out a dead thing. He looked down, tensed his legs again.
Jumped.
Josh landed a meter below the edge, safe and still on the air.
“I’m finding the bugs,” he shouted at me. “Listen to Lena!”
“Come on!” Lena rolled her fingers. The invisible plane of non-gravity continued to hold her up.
I closed my eyes and raised my foot to the ledge.
Fuck it.
I jumped.
I hung in the air for an impossibly long second. I worried the wind would sweep me away, blast me into the streets and a pile of mashed organs.
But then I felt the tug of gravity. And as my feet drew level with Lena’s, it stopped. I didn’t feel a landing, or any hint of a surface—I just stopped moving.
I opened my eyes. Lena smiled. Amrith bit his lip and nodded.
“We call this type of glitch a platform!” Lena shouted. “Easier to say than invisible floor!”