Worlds

Matt blinked his eyes in confusion. Rather than standing in the middle of a closet full of strange lights, he found himself standing in a room that made absolutely no sense at all. Nothing that had happened since he woke up made any sense. He wondered if he was dreaming, but he’d never had a dream like this.

For one thing, the walls were swirling. It was giving him a headache. The room seemed crowded with people, but they were all vague and out of focus and seemed to keep shifting in appearance.

“Oh, bloody hell,” a male voice drawled behind him. “I told you that locking fifteen humans up in here would be a mistake. Fifteen undisciplined and utterly barmy human minds. The room is confused. Doesn’t know what to look like.”

Matt spun around and stared. The voice had been the cat’s voice, but it was coming from a man dressed in something that resembled a tuxedo crossed with a fool’s motley. He was fixing his hair, which hung straight down his back in one long, black braid. Matt backed up a little and shifted his gaze to the woman beside him, but she looked nothing like the girl who’d followed him into the closet. Instead, Maggie looked more like her avatar in the video game they both played, her waist trim  her hips and bust full, all barely encased in a minute amount of chainmail. She was staring at her chest with a puzzled expression, poking at her left breast with a single finger as if it was something she’d never seen before.

She looked up at Matt. “So this is what you think I look like? Honestly, you’re useless. No real woman looks like this.”

He blinked back, jaw slack.  She shifted and winced.

“Chainmail bikinis are just as uncomfortable as they look. I’ve never had a wedgie this bad. Here,” she closed her eyes and shook her head, going as out of focus as the rest of the people in the room, then gradually sharpening again into something closer to what he’d seen in her apartment, except now in a faded black t-shirt and jeans.

Matt pursed his lips and opened his mouth, but it was Allie-the-not-a-cat-anymore who spoke up.

“If you’re not going to fix this room, I will,” he had one hand on his hip, the other shielding his eyes. “This is giving me a headache. Bloody humans.”

“The last thing we need is for it to look like a Spanish bordello, Aloysius,” she answered him, and smiled at Matthew in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. She rolled her shoulders, and the colors swirling about the walls of the room gradually stopped moving and began to solidify, some of them taking on the shapes of tables and chairs.  It took a good five minutes for everything in the room to stop looking fuzzy and actually began to look like a classroom with cinderblock walls painted in the typical institutional colors — that is, various shades of puke yellow, puke green, and clotted cream. The people, too, became sharper and clearer. Matt frowned as he realized that they all rather looked like him: ordinary, every-day folks…with one exception. Sitting on the top of the podium was an eighteen inch tall, chubby, redheaded girl in overalls. She had what looked to be bat wings sprouting from her back.

“What…?” he started, looking to Maggie for answers. She was striding over to a table in front of them that was littered with small white and blue labels and black markers. She picked up one of the markers and scribbled something on a label, then stuck it to her now-deflated chest, turning around and pointing at it.

“It’s pronounced MEHV,” she explained. “It’s a name someone gave me one time, and I liked it, so it’ll do. Fill one out for yourself, and have a seat.”

* * *

Lex groaned as two officers walked into the room carrying boxes of gadgets.

“Oy,” she frowned. “What’s all this? I’m already swamped!”

“The kidnapped folks. This is that last kid’s stuff. Nice computer setup. Must’ve been a real geek,” one of the pair answered, then winced as Lex gave him an annoyed look.

“He got snatched in the park, what does that have to do with his computer?”

“Detectives were looking through his phone and found some things that seemed to match up with some of the others who were taken. They’re thinking the kidnapper might’ve found them through the net or something,” he shrugged. “They’re bringing in the others’ computers later.”

“Alright…I’ll have a look at it. Sounds like they’re really grasping at straws, this kidnapping case doesn’t have the earmarks of an internet predator,” Lex bit her lip, thinking, then sighed. “Leave it there. Looks like I’m going to have more involvement with this case than I thought.”

The pair nodded and walked out, leaving her alone again. She plucked away at the program she was working on for several more minutes, but couldn’t concentrate. The boxes behind her seemed to almost be staring at her, begging her to come and look. Curiosity was getting the better of her. With a sigh, she gave up and wandered over to the boxes, unpacking them carefully. A desktop, laptop, smartphone – the kid really was obsessed with gadgets. She set up the CPU first and started it up, chuckling as she was greeted with the familiar voice of the HAL9000.

The desktop featured familiar icons of a dozen different popular games. His wallpaper was a page from a popular graphic novel. Smiling slightly, she began clicking on the game icons, one by one. If she could determine his preferred handle, it would make it easier to find out if he did have any connections to the other victims.  Sure enough, like most folks, he used the same handle across multiple games – it was likely he used it on any forums or chatrooms he frequented as well.

“Okay, Matthew Rodgers, aka “Silverknight”, let’s get to know you….” she whispered softly.

Two of the bushes that lined the small paved walkway through the park were rustling far  too much to be explained by the light breeze coming off the ocean. Angry voices muttered at each other across the walkway from them. The odd activities of the bushes would’ve been impossible to miss, had there been anyone to see them, but this section of the park was almost deserted.

The right-hand bush shook loose some leaves.

“Shhh!” the left-hand bush whispered. “You don’t want him to hear us!”

“I don’t think he’ll hear us, love,” the first bush said. “Look at ‘im. Not exactly payin’ much attention to all this nature, is ‘e?”

A young man with curly, mousey brown hair had just turned onto the path, a large rucksack tossed over one shoulder. The breeze was ruffling through his hair, but he didn’t seem to notice. There were ear buds in his ears, a faint, tinny echo of rock music drifting from them. He bobbed his head slightly to the music, his attention focused on the phone in his hand, his thumb frantically moving over its touchscreen. The bushes quieted down.

“Guess you’re right,” the left bush whispered, and seemed to settle down. The cement path the boy was following traveled right between them. All they had to do was wait.

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