Aethernet Magazine #3 by Ed. Barbara Ballantyne

Author:Ed. Barbara Ballantyne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub

The trip back took longer that it should have done. Despite my best efforts I had failed to memorise the route properly. We got lost in the hi-tech London and had to return to the same spot – one that we both agreed we’d passed on our first visit – several times before eventually stumbling on the gateway. The surprising part was that even though we were there for a good couple of hours we never once encountered another person, just the cars zipping around high above us and the occasional segmented transporter. Given the technology in evidence and how out of place we obviously were, I couldn’t believe that local authorities at some level weren’t aware of our intrusion. Perhaps we simply didn’t warrant their attention.

Once we found the gateway back into Smogworld things were pretty straight forward. The women’s boutique and charity shop were both closed, and we had to break a window to exit the latter, but I left them a trinket that hopefully compensated for the damage. A small price to pay for successfully ditching the brown coats.

Even so, it was still well past midnight when we eventually made our exhausted way back ‘home’.

“Does it ever worry you?” Claire asked, as we stood on familiar streets at last. “The thought that one day you might not come home at all and never even realise it?”

“What, you mean that I might find myself in a London that isn’t actually the one I left but is so similar that I wouldn’t know the difference?”

“Yes.”

“No,” I lied. Of course the thought had crossed my mind. I was convinced that I could feel when I was back in the right London, but what if that was just a comforting delusion? It was a subject I tended to shy away from, suspecting that somewhere down that road lay the path to madness. “Besides,” I said, a little disingenuously, “if I came back to somewhere that similar, would it really matter?”

“Maybe not, but the possibility would still worry the hell out of me.”

I changed the subject. “We’re going to have to find a place to stay.”

We’d missed the last train home and all the underground stations were shut, the subway entrances guarded by locked iron grills. Neither of us fancied risking Claire’s flat for obvious reasons. Fortunately, this was central London, where the nearest hotel is never more than a short walk away. Unfortunately, due to the hour, most of the more affordable ones – and that’s always a purely relative term in this city – would be closed.

We plumped for an upper range mid-price establishment – not the Dorchester but not a youth hostel either, though it harboured aspirations towards the former. God knows what we looked like as we strode up to the desk, but the tall, smartly-suited receptionist didn’t bat an eyelid.

“I’m afraid the only room we have available at such short notice is a suite, sir,” he said smoothly.

Like hell. He then named a price that would have paid for a week’s holiday in the sun.

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