Endworlds - Nicholas Read [27]
“And that monster is a splash?”
“Yeah, but that nastie was just one in an ocean full. The things that keep the dimensions apart . . .”
“Membranes,” offered Castle.
“Right, the ‘branes wot keep things in their place,” Vector continued, “they’re stretched real thin at the best o’ times. And now, as we get closer . . .” He nodded skyward. “The membranes are startin’ to rip, and things come spilling through.”
“Splash,” concluded Eastwood, understanding.
The Russian took up the refrain again. “I was found in orphanage, like your Frenchie friend up front with Lion. Vector here was, how you say—picking pocket?”
“Yeah, a right little Artful Dodger I was. But wot’s a kid to do on the streets? The point is, the Foundation picked us up, dusted us off, and gave us a nudge in the right direction. Recruited us. Out there the governments, the suits and the soldiers run the normal world as far as anyone knows. Then there’s us, the glue between the cracks. Teams of us all over the world.”
Eastwood’s mind was spinning with new information. Or was it the cold? He was really shivering now. “You c-c-an’t keep this secret. People must see you—see those creatures all the time. Is that why there’s nobody on the streets—they’re all in hi-hiding?” He looked around at the windswept road as they left the bridge behind.
“No mate. It’s London, near midnight on a Tuesday, and the weather is shite,” laughed Vector. “Ain’t nobody in their right mind out in this but us.”
A lone mo-ped zoomed out of a side street and disappeared around another corner toward a ring of red flashing lights that silhouetted the London Eye against the dark.
“Us and that geezer,” the dusky youth corrected. “The thing is, you shouldn’t have been able to see us fighting Mr. Blobby back there. Not while our Longcoats are charged.”
He fingered a metal tab hanging from his right sleeve. “As for the creature, it hadn’t fully phased into our dimension yet. Sniffers like me and Jax spot ‘em using our gear. But you saw it clear as day. Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” Eastwood muttered. “And I saw you all walking on top of the river. That’s not n-normal either.” He shook involuntarily.
Vector lifted his coat flap away from his feet to expose a metal ring mounted around both ankles. “Mercury Boots. Bladeless fans; air goes down, you goes up.”
The buildings were denser now they were across the river, and the immense curved roof of Waterloo Station loomed before them, Big Ben faintly visible to the right.
Tucker eyed Eastwood’s dripping, comical shape up and down.
“S’truth, the little bugger’s frozen through. Let’s get him downstairs.”
INITIATION
BY CROWDING AROUND the newcomer the Longcoats were able to screen his miserable wet form from the few midnight travelers they passed as the group entered the station. Not that it was crowded at this hour as the icy rain was keeping normally curious tourists tucked in their warm hotel rooms or staying for one more round in cosy restaurants.
Even so, the team took no chances. When their distinctive coats were altered, the high collars folded down, and the protective visors retracted, each had a different appearance than his or her companion. How this was accomplished Eastwood could not imagine. Hummer explained that it had something to do with flux prismatics.
“But don’t ask me to do the math, my friend. If you want, you can research it for yourself in our lab.”
Eastwood eyed him quizzically. “You have a lab? A laboratory? For science?”
“O’ course we ‘ave a lab, mate.” Vector tapped him on the shoulder. “And a library. It ain’t like we don’t go to school. Though our lessons are a little—wot’s the word, Castle?”
“Advanced,” replied the gaunt dark-haired youth.
Clustered inside the station they waited while the late night crowd thinned even further. Like any sensible citizens of London who found themselves sharing a train platform with a group of unsupervised leather-clad teens, some in warpaint, these few folk hurried to be on their way.
Once