\nI looked up from my green tea and she was there, standing in the doorway of Marek\u2019s Caf\u00e9 with long fair hair plastered to her head by the rain. A puddle formed beneath the hem of her dripping coat as she folded her futile umbrella. Her eyes flickered around the dim light of the caf\u00e9 searching, searching.\n<\/p>\n
\nYou might say I was surprised. It isn\u2019t often the woman of your dreams walks into your life.\n<\/p>\n
\nI mean that literally, I\u2019d never seen her before but I\u2019d been dreaming about her for two weeks. I knew that face, knew how the corners of her mouth creased when she smiled, how she pulled her fingers through her hair and tucked it behind her ears when it fell before her eyes.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe took two paces into the caf\u00e9, pulled the fingers of her left hand through her dripping hair and tucked it behind her ear. Her face turned towards me in the shadowy alcove at the back. Two seconds, then she marched up and stood facing down at me over the table.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou\u2019re Erica Fallon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI nodded. She pulled out the chair and sat. Marek appeared at her shoulder. \u201cEspresso,\u201d she said without looking up. \u201cThey say you\u2019re good at finding people.\u201d Her gaze held me with an intensity that might have been intimidating, from anyone else.\n<\/p>\n
\nI steadied my breathing. \u201cWho have you lost?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy brother.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhen did you last see him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cFifty-seven, but I don\u2019t remember it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTwenty-three years ago.\u201d The sea was where it was supposed to be, the bio-war was at its height. \u201cYou must have been very young.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThey thought six when they found me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMarek ghosted silently to the table and placed the small cup before her.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCM-2057-phi-kappa?\u201d I tapped my phone to pay.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe grimaced and nodded. That was one of the nastier of the weapons deployed in the war, went straight to the brain. Ninety-eight percent of infected adults died. Survivors, mostly kids, suffered total amnesia.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThey found me on a street corner. No idea where I came from, so they gave me a name and put me in an orphanage.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSo what is it?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYour name.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe briefest of smiles flashed across her face, creasing the corners of her mouth. \u201cRosemary Baker.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThat jarred. It didn\u2019t sound right. \u201cAnd your brother was with you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat can you tell me about him?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHer fingers stroked the handle of her cup. \u201cNot much. He\u2019s about six years older than me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDoes he<\/em> have a name?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe sipped her espresso. \u201cEverything else I know is… unreliable, more likely to mislead you, like it has me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA brother she couldn\u2019t remember, no evidence he ever existed. Her story was like something from a spin<\/em> dream.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI know that look,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have a healthy scepticism, Erica. But put aside your preconceptions.\u201d She took out her phone and flipped me five hundred picos. A generous fee. \u201cThat\u2019s for trying. Double if you succeed.\u201d She downed the remainder of her coffee.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nI sipped my tea as Rosemary Baker raised her umbrella and ventured back into the downpour. When I\u2019d finished I slipped her espresso cup into my bag, buttoned my trench coat tight and jammed my fedora hard on my head ready for the rain and wind. I stepped out under the clear blues skies of a crisp November day, just as it had been when I\u2019d arrived at Marek\u2019s an hour before.\n<\/p>\n \nRosemary Baker\u2019s story sounded like a spin dream, but it was my dream she\u2019d walked out of. I paced slowly along the pavement, took out my phone and called Colette. It went straight to voicemail. Again.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou said it would wear off in a day, Colette. It\u2019s been two weeks. Call me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI hung up, stopped walking and opened my bag. There was no espresso cup.\n<\/p>\n \nI worried about Colette. I worried about me<\/em>. I should have refused that little pink pill. No matter how much I\u2019d drunk, no matter how persuasive she had been. One night when illusion overlapped and blended seamlessly with reality. It all felt<\/em> real, every touch… In the morning she\u2019d gone, but she\u2019d left her bag of little pink pills.\n<\/p>\n \nA figure wrapped in a tattered blanket huddled in the doorway of the empty shop opposite my place, sheltering from the downpour. I looked up, the sky was still a clear blue.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWeather, hey? Doesn\u2019t that butterfly effect drive you crazy?\u201d He was sitting on the step, squinting against the bright sunshine.\n<\/p>\n \nI closed my eyes a moment. I wasn\u2019t going to lose my mind. I refused to go crazy.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHi, Gordon.\u201d I crouched down to his level. He peered at me from under a grubby forehead. The dirt and whiskers couldn\u2019t hide the sallow skin, the thin flesh over gaunt cheekbones. \u201cWhen did you last eat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSpare a pico, Erica? I\u2019ll get a sandwich.\u201d Big brown puppy eyes stared at me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIf I give you crypto, you\u2019ll buy spin<\/em>. Wait here I\u2019ll fetch you something.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nGordon was a living warning against spin. Supposedly it isn\u2019t addictive, but some people get so caught up in the illusions that they lose track of reality. He spent his days hanging around these streets looking for his real life.\n<\/p>\n \nI fetched him half a quiche and an apple I found in the kitchen of my flat above my office. Then I spent another afternoon searching for information on spin. I found nothing new. Plenty on the effects with repeated use: digestive problems, liver damage, psychosis. The dreams were common enough for a few days. Spin flashbacks \u2014 waking illusions \u2014 could happen for up to forty-eight hours, but this was two weeks later and a figure from my dreams had walked into my life.\n<\/p>\n \nIt seemed a stupid, pointless thing to do but I ran a search on the name \u201cRosemary Baker.\u201d I got a hit, with a photograph. It was her.\n<\/p>\n \nIt tied up with what she\u2019d said: found in fifty-seven, raised in an overcrowded orphanage in Enfield. Did well at school and went on to study biomedical sciences at Swansea University until the storm of seventy-two washed the campus away. Unemployed since then, like half the country. She had an address in Wapping, the wrong side of the flood wall: wet feet every time a high tide overtopped the Thames Barrier. No arrests or convictions, but plenty of shady dealings went on outside the flood wall.\n<\/p>\n \nHarris picked up the phone on the first ring. Detective Inspector Harris of the Metropolitan Police \u2014 we\u2019d had a thing for a while a couple of years back, until something he told me that he shouldn\u2019t have, leaked. He never said he blamed me but the undercurrent of mistrust broke us apart. He did have the decency to apologise later when one of his DCs was arrested for corruption. We were friends after that, and I wasn\u2019t above tweaking his conscience to get a favour out of him.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHey, Erica, what\u2019s up?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cEver come across a Rosemary Baker? Lives outside the wall in Wapping.\u201d I flipped him the address and the photo. He said he\u2019d see what he could find and get back to me.\n<\/p>\n \n \nAn hour later I was puzzling over the espresso cup that had reappeared in my bag. I took a swab from its rim and fed it to my DNA sequencer \u2014 low budget model intended for genealogy enthusiasts and paternity checks. It showed me a green light and started doing its thing. Something to match against if I found the brother, unless this was just another part of the dream. If it was, I\u2019d dreamed I\u2019d taken on a case for Rosemary Baker, so I might as well dream solving it.\n<\/p>\n \nI\u2019d just settled back into my chair when the office door flew open. Two men, the first a little on the short side, thin, weasel face, receding hair. The hang of his cheap business suit hinted at something hard and heavy on his left shoulder. The second was even more on the short side, but wearing a well-cut suit in finely woven wool, grey with a subtle pattern of fine stripes. He strolled past his companion and took his hands out of his pockets to sit in the chair facing me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s polite to knock,\u201d I said. My right hand found the handle of the drawer that held my Glock, I took another look at weasel-face and clasped my hands together in plain sight on top of the desk.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI apologise for my associate\u2019s poor manners, Ms Fallon. But I need your assistance.\u201d His voice was smooth with a hint of an accent I couldn\u2019t place: Russian, east European, maybe.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAnd you are?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFrank Wilson, perhaps you\u2019ve heard of me?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nEveryone in East London had heard of Frank Wilson. Some ended up wishing they hadn\u2019t, some ended up washed up by the tides. \u201cWhat can I do for you, Mr Wilson?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe reached into his pocket, pulled out a hard-copy image and placed it on the desk. \u201cI\u2019m looking for this woman.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI picked it up, and made a show of studying it. \u201cDoes she have a name?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cRosemary Baker. Word is she\u2019s been asking about you. You will let me know if you see her.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat\u2019s she done?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cShe provides a service. I require her to continue providing that service.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nWeasel-face stood by the door, hands clasped in front of him, looking at the wall above my head.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019ll bear it in mind, Mr Wilson,\u201d I offered him the image back.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cKeep it, familiarise yourself with that face.\u201d He stood and headed for the door, turning back in the doorway. \u201cYour co-operation will be appreciated, Ms Fallon.\u201d He closed the door gently behind him. He didn\u2019t need to mention what might happen if I didn\u2019t co-operate.\n<\/p>\n \nI let out a long breath and headed upstairs to the flat, into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Frank Wilson\u2019s visit might have been another illusion, but I didn\u2019t like the idea of even the illusion of what he might do.\n<\/p>\n \nI refused to go crazy, but I had to act as if it was all real until I could figure out what was.\n<\/p>\n \nNoises from outside crept in through the window and around the half-open bathroom door. Muffled thuds, a crack of something hard hitting something else hard. A cry of pain confirmed my suspicions.\n<\/p>\n \n \nFrank Wilson looked on with arms folded as his minion kicked seven colours of shit out of Gordon. \u201cWhat the hell!\u201d I shouted and shoved him aside. \u201cLeave him alone, he\u2019s harmless.\u201d Minion squared up to me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLeave the lady to look after her pet, Elphick,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cJust tell him to mind his own business, Ms Fallon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThey stepped into the shiny, nearly new Maxwell all-terrain vehicle parked by the curb and the car sped off with the rising hum of a high powered motor.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cGordon?\u201d I crouched down beside him. He opened one eye, the other was already beginning to swell up.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cKeep away from Vidmar, Erica.\u201d He climbed unsteadily to his feet.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWho\u2019s Vidmar?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHis eyes scanned the street behind me. \u201cIs Alice alright?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nVidmar, Alice<\/em>, spin dreams. \u201cCome in, let\u2019s have a look at your injuries.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe followed meekly enough, I shoved him into the bathroom to take a shower and I dug out some old clothes that Harris had left behind. The sleeves and legs were too short but otherwise loose on Gordon\u2019s emaciated frame. As I stuffed his own filthy rags into the bin, an ancient, dog-eared paperback fell from his coat pocket: Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n \nHe cleaned up surprisingly well, even with the wild tangle on head and chin he might have been a good-looking guy once, but spin, life on the street, and Wilson\u2019s goon, Elphick, had taken their toll. I dabbed antiseptic on the cut eye and the swollen lip.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe should get you to a hospital,\u201d I murmured as he flinched at the little pressure I applied to the rising bruise on his ribs.\n<\/p>\n \nHe sat, a blank expression on his face, eyes defocussed.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou need to lay off the spin<\/em>, Gordon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe pinks are ok,\u201d he said, \u201cthey don\u2019t make you sick.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSome things you can\u2019t fix. He had to sort his own life out, I had to get on with mine. I ushered him out, then went into the bathroom to set everything in order. The bathroom cabinet was open. My heart skipped a beat while I rummaged. Colette\u2019s bag was still there, five little pink pills in it. There had been six.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI was sitting at a kitchen table flipping through a news feed. Oak beams above, stone walls, flag floors. I knew this house, it used to be my grandmother\u2019s.\n<\/p>\n \nLewis stood by the counter making coffee, his back to me. His crutches were leaning against the wall in the corner. He could stand unaided now, soon he\u2019d be able to walk without them and climb stairs so we could move back into the upstairs bedroom. My own injury had been less serious, I had only a faint scar from the entry wound above my left hip.\n<\/p>\n \nHe passed me a coffee. \u201cIs Alice up yet?\u201d he said, \u201cShe\u2019ll want one.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBefore I could answer she was there at the kitchen door in her dressing gown. Alice, wearing Rosemary Baker\u2019s face<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n \nI started at the sound of my alarm. I opened my eyes and I was lying in my bed in my flat. One of those dreams again. I could see where the elements came from: Gordon had talked about Alice, and there was the book. The book explained where I got the guy\u2019s name: Lewis, from Lewis Carroll.\n<\/p>\n \nTrouble was, I\u2019d dreamed about Rosemary Baker before I\u2019d seen her, though I\u2019d never had a name until she came into Marek\u2019s \u2014 if that had really happened. Rain or sun, cup or no cup, real or dream, I must have seen her, met her somewhere, sometime before, that I couldn\u2019t recall.\n<\/p>\n \nI called a car to take me to the orphanage in Enfield. It was still there, no longer overcrowded, there wasn\u2019t such a ready supply of orphans since the war. The manager was an old guy, been there since it was set up thirty years before. The row of ancient steel filing cabinets behind him might have been a hundred years older.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCM-2057-phi-kappa,\u201d I said. \u201cDid you get a lot of kids with no memories?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThat was a bad year, we were stretched. Three to every room built for one.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMany you couldn\u2019t identify?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSome. Most of the younger ones were found at home, or had a phone or some kind of ID, but there were a few wanderers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cRosemary Baker?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYes, I remember her. Bright girl.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cShe thinks she had an older brother. Was there a boy found anywhere near at the same time, another CM-2057?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIf there was, he wouldn\u2019t have come here. We were at full stretch. Have you checked with the registrar?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTheir data got scrubbed, human viruses weren\u2019t the only weapons used in the war. \u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe kept all our records on paper, just in case.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDo you have her file?\u201d I glanced at the filing cabinets against the back wall. \u201cI\u2019d like to see the admission record.\n<\/p>\n \nHe stood and opened the top drawer of the first cabinet, leafed through for a few moments. \u201cHere.\u201d He pulled out a manila folder and opened it, passing me the top sheet.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFound clutching a stuffed toy rabbit on the corner of Rosemary Avenue and Baker street.\u201d I looked up at him.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhen there\u2019s no memory, no clue to identity, we\u2019d give them a name relating to where they were found, or something they had with them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI guess she was lucky they didn\u2019t call her Rosemary Rabbit. \u201cIf someone else were found in this area, where might they have been taken?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat age?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAbout twelve.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMillwall Park. There was an establishment there for children of secondary school age.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI groaned. \u201cIsle of Dogs.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe gave me a sympathetic grimace. Isle of Dogs, outside the flood wall.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI stood in my oldest boots at the top of the steps at Limehouse station, where the Victorian railway viaduct formed the core of the flood wall, and watched the tide easing back towards the old Thames watercourse. I\u2019d have about six hours before it came in again. The orphanage at Millwall Park was a good hour\u2019s walk away. Rosemary Baker\u2019s flat lay much closer. She wouldn\u2019t be there, not if Frank Wilson was looking for her, but I figured I might learn something.\n<\/p>\n \nThe flat was on the top floor of a three storey block. All the others were empty, windows broken or blanked off with plywood. Her front door hung on broken hinges. Inside, drawers and cupboards had been tipped onto the floor, an old sofa lay upside down with the fabric slashed and stuffing pulled out. Books were strewn below an empty shelf. They were mostly on chemistry and other sciencey things – The Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics, Theories of Quantum Consciousness<\/em>. Not my idea of light bedtime reading. A power cable snaked in through a hole in the living room window to a heavy duty domestic battery on the wall, bigger than a small flat would need. An output cable led back out through the window to the flat below.\n<\/p>\n \nAn old mechanical lock held the door of the downstairs flat. I fumbled through my purse and pockets looking for something thin and stiff enough to slip into the crack to ease the lock open. In the end a swift kick with a sturdy boot sufficed. Inside was darkness but for thin slivers of light leaking around the boards over the windows. I hit the light switch and stark white light flooded the room.\n<\/p>\n \nEmpty workbenches lined the walls, circles and rectangles free of dust told of objects recently removed, blotches and rings stained the wooden surface. Boxes and pieces of glassware rested on a rack of steel shelving and a gas cylinder with rubber hoses attached stood in the corner. My phone rang while I was studying a whiteboard above the workbench: DI Harris.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHi Joe.\u201d My eyes scanned the whiteboard. Letters and numbers joined by lines. \u201cAnything on Rosemary Baker?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cErica, I can\u2019t say. She\u2019s tied up in an ongoing investigation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cInto Frank Wilson?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nDuring Harris\u2019s silent response I began to make sense of the board; a list of chemical formulae, some crossed through, one with a question mark after.\n<\/p>\n \nFinally, he spoke \u201cWhat do you know?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cRed Lion,\u201d I said. \u201cFour pm, be prepared to trade.\u201d I hung up and took a photo of the whiteboard.\n<\/p>\n \nTime was pressing, I had to beat the tide to Millwall Park.\n<\/p>\n \nThe Isle of Dogs, a peninsula wrapped on three sides by a meander of the Thames, is crossed at its neck by a maze of old abandoned skyscrapers and malls, all built around a complex of even older abandoned docks: Canary Wharf. The riverbank path past the complex was only a couple of centimetres underwater, rusted railings marked the edge. I kept my hair tucked under the collar of my coat, my fedora pulled low, as I strode along trying not to look like a woman walking alone. The sound of the wind howling between the old towers of Canary Wharf gave me the creeps, and every noise made me want to look around to see whether I was being watched.\n<\/p>\n \nI breathed easier once I\u2019d left the towers behind. A few people still hung on, scratching a living on the higher points of the Isle of Dogs. Outside the mainstream, in more than one sense.\n<\/p>\n \nThe orphanage had partially collapsed where the tidal currents had undermined the foundations. What remained of the ground floor was two feet deep in detritus. I had to fight my way over a heap of chairs and tables that the tide had jammed against the main door, then wade through the mud to the stairway. The ooze sucked at my boots as I clambered up onto the concrete steps. Upstairs, dark streaks on the walls marked where the roof had leaked. Left of the stairway the rooms held beds patterned with mould, drawers and wardrobes with their laminated surfaces peeling from damp chipboard. The other way the passageway carried on a few metres before ending in open sky. I stood at the end looking down on the rubble. To my left, one outside wall was standing, and part of the floor. Lined up against the far wall, a bank of steel filing cabinets. I took a ginger step over the abyss onto the hanging floor.\n<\/p>\n \nThe steel drawers bore laminated labels with the year, dividers inside separated the files by month. I pulled all the files for October and November 2057, seven in all. They were beyond the tide\u2019s reach, but the rain had soaked them.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI spread the damp papers across my office floor, heating on to dry them out. The printed parts were mostly still legible but the handwriting in the boxes was smudged and faded. Staring at them longer wasn\u2019t going to make the writing clearer. Once they were dry I could run them through the multi-spectral scanner, but for now, I was late for my date with DI Harris.\n<\/p>\n \nHe was waiting, a pint of some obscure ale before him already half gone, a G&T waiting for me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI need to know, what\u2019s your interest in Rosemary Baker?\u201d That was his greeting.\n<\/p>\n \nI could have told him about meeting her in a spin dream, and got a lecture in return. \u201cI\u2019ve been told I have to find her.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t like the sound of that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIf I do find her, she\u2019ll need protection. So will I.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFrom Frank Wilson?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThat could have been a lucky guess. \u201cFrom Frank Wilson. Now, your turn. What put you onto Rosemary Baker?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe flicked me an image. \u201cColette Smith.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nColette. Two weeks since she\u2019d brought those little pink pills. \u201cWhat\u2019s the story?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe picked her up a couple of weeks ago selling spin. Said she got it from Baker.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhere is she now?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSomewhere safe.\u201d His emphatic tone said not to push that.\n<\/p>\n \nTwo weeks, and no word. She could have got a message to me, told me she was in trouble.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSurprises me Baker would be selling.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat makes you say that?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSeems out of character.\u201d Lame answer, Harris\u2019s raised eyebrow said he thought so too. \u201cShe\u2019s a client. I can\u2019t tell you more.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou can\u2019t tell me she\u2019s Wilson\u2019s chemist? We\u2019re not all stupid in the Met, Erica. Background in biochemistry. It surprises me she\u2019d be selling to Colette Smith. I\u2019d have thought Wilson would have a tight grip on distribution. Best guess is she was raising some funds to help her run.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThat was possible, or maybe the money would help her find her brother, if any of that was real. I flicked him the photo of the whiteboard from the lab. \u201cWhat do you make of this?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe studied it for a good minute, taking a long sip of his beer. \u201cSpin,\u201d he said. \u201cThe top one is the common formulation, been on the market for four, five years. It was never a priority for us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat about the others?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThis one.\u201d He pointed to the last one crossed out. \u201cWhen these little pink pills hit the market about a month ago we started getting pressure from the commissioner\u2019s office. Find the source and cut it off. \u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhy? It\u2019s just spin. Crazy people having crazy visions.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe original formula was self-limiting \u2013 after the high you\u2019d be pretty sick for a couple of days. Keep taking them and you\u2019d be seriously ill. Those side-effects are gone with the new formulation. Take as much as you want until you turn totally psychotic. People are getting killed losing track of where they are, what they\u2019re doing because they\u2019re lost in these illusions of different lives.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI took a sip of my G&T. Gordon, he was always high, the side-effects, the sickness wouldn\u2019t stop him until it killed him.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI shouldn\u2019t be telling you this,\u201d he said, \u201cbut keep away from Canary Wharf. We know Wilson\u2019s operation is based there. When we go in it\u2019ll be hard and heavy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nBack in the office, the documents were dry enough for the multi-spectral scanner. A basic model scanning only a hundred different frequencies of light. Still, it revealed enough for me to eliminate three of the seven files as girls, two more were found too far from Enfield, another was three weeks before Rosemary Baker.\n<\/p>\n \nThe name on the last one was washed out. A street name, might have been Osak<\/em>… or Drah… or some variant. The notes field was mostly washed out too, just a hint of a word. Squinting hard I could almost make it say Carol<\/em>. Found by or with someone called Carol was my best guess.\n<\/p>\n \nThey named the orphans for where they were found or what they carried. I pulled up a map of Enfield and let my eyes follow roads, looking for names, waiting for something to gel. Nothing did.\n<\/p>\n \nIt had been a long day. I went upstairs to the flat. Reheated bean chilli, and turned the lights low and collapsed in an armchair with a G&T. My heavy eyelids slid down.\n<\/p>\n \nSix in Metropolitan Police uniforms lowered the coffin slowly into the grave. The celebrant\u2019s words barely penetrated my dizziness. A hand on my arm supported me. Her face hidden behind a dark veil.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201c… and we take comfort from the knowledge that, though Detective Inspector Lewis Drake is lost to us in this world, he lives yet across countless alternative existences of quantum reality.\u201d The celebrant closed her eyes and bowed her head.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat use is that to me?\u201d I murmured. I heard the bitterness in my own voice.\n<\/p>\n \nA gentle crowd, not too close, but each waited their turn to offer their condolences.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe\u2019ll never forget what you and Lewis did,\u201d Harris said, taking my hand. \u201cWe can sleep easier knowing Vidmar is gone.\u201d The lady in the veil led me away to a long black car with a human driver. Once we were sat inside, she lifted the veil. Rosemary, or Alice. \u201cYou know it\u2019s true what the celebrant said.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI know. I\u2019ve seen it. The implicitin has been a comfort, but I\u2019m afraid. When it wears off, he\u2019ll be lost to me forever.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou can\u2019t take any more, Erica. You\u2019re not compatible. You saw what it did to Lewis.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s funny how he always finds me. Except…\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cExcept?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI keep getting these random flashes. Like there\u2019s a version of me that\u2019s looking for him. She\u2019s… I\u2019ve taken something that\u2019s like implicitin, but it\u2019s sporadic, she sees only one world at a time.\u201d <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nI woke in darkness, my neck stiff from sleeping in the chair. If nothing else, spin had given me a vivid imagination, picking up on things I\u2019d seen and heard. Vidmar<\/em>, Gordon had mentioned, Rosemary Baker and Harris both figured in the dream. Quantum reality came from the books I\u2019d seen in Rosemary Baker\u2019s flat. Implicitin<\/em> no doubt was my devious subconscious constructing a name from the Latin implicatus<\/em>, meaning entangled<\/em>. Entangled as in quantum theory. I\u2019d been an attentive student in my school days.\n<\/p>\n \nI was wondering what had woken me when I heard the noise again. A creaking of the floorboard on the landing. I groped in the darkness to find my bag on the coffee table. Reassuringly heavy with the weight of the Glock in it. I edged towards the living room door opening the bag as I went. Lights of a car on the road outside cast a shadow on the ceiling, the scattered light illuminated the door. It opened, and a shadowy figure stepped in to the room.\n<\/p>\n \nThe Glock was at his neck in an instant. \u201cDon\u2019t move!\u201d I hissed. The light from outside lit the bony cheeks, black and missing teeth, swollen eye, scab on the split lip,\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat the fuck, Gordon!\u201d I stepped back, slipped the gun back into the bag.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSsssh!\u201d he whispered. He glanced at the window. \u201cVidmar\u2019s coming for you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWho the hell is Vidmar?\u201d The lights outside went out. I leaned over to look: Frank Wilson\u2019s ATV, four people got out, guns in hand.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cKitchen.\u201d I pointed and followed. The back window opened onto the rain-sodden flat roof of an extension. Gordon climbed out as the door downstairs crashed open. We were down the drainpipe and over the garden fence before the kitchen light came on behind us.\n<\/p>\n \nGordon jogged along the alleyway behind the terrace, keeping to the shadows. He moved with a precision and purpose I would never have expected from him.\n<\/p>\n \nIn the shadow of a recessed gateway I took out my phone and summoned a car. Any car, just to get the hell out of there. A gunshot ricocheted from the brickwork above my head. Gordon pushed me back against the gate. My bag fell from my hand and the Glock spilled out and skittered to the middle of the alleyway.\n<\/p>\n \nBefore I could react, Gordon had dived down onto it, picking it up and rolling into the gateway on the opposite side. A volley of shots hit the brickwork, raining fragments down on us.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhen I start shooting,\u201d he said, \u201crun.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe put his finger to his lips as I opened my mouth to object, then he turned and fired back down the alley. Once. Twice.\n<\/p>\n \nI ran, waiting for a bullet to hit me between the shoulder blades. twenty metres to the end of alley, it felt like miles. Two more shots rang out behind me, the Glock. Gordon was keeping them down. Something had changed in him. All I could think of was the pink pill missing from my bathroom cabinet.\n<\/p>\n \nI ducked around the corner at the end of the alley and flattened against the wall, gasping for breath. A car approached, slowing, like they do when they\u2019re homing on a waiting client. It stopped at the kerb and the door popped open. I didn\u2019t stop to think about the fact that the interior light hadn\u2019t come on like it should, until I was inside with the door closing behind me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSo glad you could join us, Ms Fallon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe light came on. Frank Wilson, and a gun.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThey put a bag over my head, tied my hands behind my back and threw me in the boot of the ATV. After a few minutes slow driving we stopped and I heard the rumbling of the Pitsea street gate sliding back on its rollers. Pitsea street: one of only four openings in the flood wall between the Tower of London and the river Lea. After the gate, the tyres splashed through the dips and hollows in the road that the tide had already filled. Soon after, the floor beneath me tilted back as the car climbed a shallow slope that could only be the road that led up to the Canary Wharf complex, the ground between the old buildings was a raised platform, the roof over the maze of malls and car parks that stretched under and between the buildings. So far only the highest spring tides rose high enough to cover it.\n<\/p>\n \nThe car stopped at the top of the ramp. I\u2019d expected it to head deeper into Canary Wharf, to be dragged out and taken to some hideout in one of the towers. The boot opened and hands grabbed my arms and pulled me out. The hood was pulled from my head. We were on Westferry Circus overlooking the Thames. Below, at the bottom of the flight of concrete steps the moonlight picked out the water lapping over the riverside path, the edge marked by the line of rusty railings.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhere is Rosemary Baker?\u201d Frank Wilson\u2019s voice quiet and calm.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo idea.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nTwo of them frogmarched me down the concrete steps into the freezing ankle-deep water. We splashed across to the railings where they zip-tied my wrists to the top rail. Lights moved on the river, a green point followed by rows of white lights: a boat heading upstream on the tide. The low hum of its motor carried across the still water.\n<\/p>\n \nWilson came towards me, his fancy suit tucked into a pair of wellingtons. My feet were beginning to go numb from the cold water swirling over them. It was already creeping higher up my ankles.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLet\u2019s try again. Where is Rosemary Baker.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhy did you meet her in Marek\u2019s caf\u00e9.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI shrugged. \u201cI was having lunch. She came in and sat down.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhy? What did she want.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNothing that concerns you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe reached up and grabbed my chin with his hand, squeezing, pushing my head up so I had to look down my nose to see him as he hissed at me: \u201cI will decide what concerns me.\u201d He glanced past me, and his eyes went wide.\n<\/p>\n \nHe let me go and stepped back. \u201cElphick will be waiting on the steps when you\u2019re ready to talk.\u201d He turned and half-ran, half-waded towards, the steps.\n<\/p>\n \nI heard the noise first, the surging sound of rushing water from my right. The moonlight picked out the white horses of the wave\u2019s crest breaking over the path. The wake of the boat speeding upstream behind us. It lifted me from my feet, soaked me up to the chest and rushed over the path, catching Wilson and flinging him down.\n<\/p>\n \nI couldn\u2019t stop myself laughing as he clambered dripping up the steps. He said something to Elphick and walked away into the shadow of an abandoned hotel. My laughter died down as the cold and dark set in. Elphick sat on the steps, watching me.\n<\/p>\n \nThe water crept higher, to my knees, and I began to shiver uncontrollably. I pulled and twisted my hands trying to break free, but the ties were too tight.\n<\/p>\n \nI sagged against my restraints as the water crept up my thighs. \u201cWould you tell him?\u201d a voice said close by, \u201cif you knew?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI peered into the darkness, the wind drove invisible waves splashing into me, the bright moon was lost behind thick clouds.\n<\/p>\n \nHer long dark hair whipped by the wind was silhouetted against the lights on the south bank.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cColette? How did you get here?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWilson\u2019s got someone in the Met. His thugs came to the safe house.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI mean, I didn\u2019t see them bring you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey tied us up together… OK, I see.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSpin dreams. I\u2019m delirious. This is a spin dream.\u201d I squeezed my eyes shut.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey aren\u2019t dreams, Erica.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI opened my eyes to a moonlit, flat calm, and I was alone.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI passed out for a while, or time passed in a haze, but as the water crept up to my armpits I was ready to panic. The cold had penetrated to my bones but the fear, the adrenaline brought me back to full alertness. The electric whine of an outboard on the river cut out, leaving just the gentle lapping of ripples on the water. High on the concrete steps, Elphick sat engrossed in his phone.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cElphick!\u201d I tried to shout but it came out as a muffled croak. I wanted to tell him, tell him anything to buy a little time.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDon\u2019t bother,\u201d said Colette. \u201cDoesn\u2019t matter what you tell them. I spun them a story last night and they left me to drown.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI turned to face her, and saw only the lights on the south bank.\n<\/p>\n \nAgain I heard the whine of motors on the river. If a boat passed close enough I could call for help. I twisted to look but there were no navigation lights, just flickering shadows of waves: waves that came closer, rippling over the water. Just in time I realised and took a desperate breath as the water washed over my face. Four, five times the waves came washing over me. Then the water settled again. I lifted my head high as I could and coughed and spluttered.\n<\/p>\n \nElphick was standing now, peering into the darkness of the river.\n<\/p>\n \nI started when something brushed against my hand.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cQuiet!\u201d a voice whispered behind me. Cold metal pressed against my forearm, then down between my wrists, and the tie parted.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cStay here until it starts,\u201d the voice whispered.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat starts?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nMy question was answered by searchlights from above sweeping down over the steps and around Westferry Circus. Stealth helicopters. Shadows moved on the upper level, helmeted and armoured figures moving in from the south, then the night erupted with the sounds of automatic gunfire. This was what Harris had said, they were going in \u2014 hard and heavy.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNow,\u201d my rescuer said, and pushed me towards the steps. I swam as well as my frozen arms and legs would allow. One of the helicopter searchlights found us momentarily as we climbed the steps and I saw his face for the first time.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cGordon?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo time to explain, we have to get into cover.\u201d He grabbed my hand and half-pulled me scrambling up the steps. He dropped down at the top and pulled me down beside him. The gunfire was moving away towards the Canary Wharf complex. He peered over the top step.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTo the left,\u201d he said. \u201cTake cover behind the pillars of the hotel.\u201d He had a gun in his hand. A Glock, I was pretty sure it was my Glock.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cGo.\u201d His hand on my arm encouraged me.\n<\/p>\n \nI pulled myself up and ran, keeping low. Forty, fifty metres. At the pillar I turned to see him rise and follow. A searchlight caught him.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHalt! Drop your weapon.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA figure in black police tactical assault gear, emerged from the darkness, rifle raised.\n<\/p>\n \nGordon placed the Glock on the ground and kicked it away, then straightened and raised his arms. The gun came to rest a metre from where I hid.\n<\/p>\n \nGordon turned to face the armoured officer. \u201cDetective Inspector Lewis Drake, undercover. Check with Superintendent Donahue.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe armoured officer took a few steps closer, keeping Gordon covered, speaking softly into the microphone of his headset. I was still paralysed by Gordon\u2019s words. Lewis Drake<\/em>. The name from my dream, the man with crutches. The man I lived with. The hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, the straggled hair, and beard \u2014 all the scars of living on the street, the poisoning of impure spin, had changed him so much I hadn\u2019t recognised him.\n<\/p>\n \nIn my distracted daze I didn\u2019t notice the door of the old hotel ease open until the gunshot struck the officer full in the face. The second hit Gordon in the chest as he turned.\n<\/p>\n \nI threw myself to the ground and picked up the Glock and fired at the shadows by the door, and I kept firing until the magazine was empty.\n<\/p>\n \n \nHarris went to fetch me tea while his colleague, DI Baxter, read back my statement to confirm the details. I recognised her from the dream of the funeral. Maybe I\u2019d met her before, but that was irrelevant. I slumped down in the chair and closed my eyes. I\u2019d tried to keep it simple, leaving out any talk of spin, of other realities, of Rosemary Baker. I didn\u2019t have to pretend too hard to be confused and uncertain of exactly what had happened.\n<\/p>\n \nHarris came back in with the tea and I hauled myself upright again.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI need to clarify a couple of details.\u201d He sat down, elbows on the table between us. \u201cYou said Colette Smith was there, tied to the railings near you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt was dark, I thought it was her.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHarris and Baxter glanced at each other.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe thing is,\u201d Baxter said. \u201cThis mornings tide… Pathology say she\u2019d been in the water about twelve hours. Marks on her wrist suggest she was tied, perhaps to the same railing, the night before.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSpin dreams, but they weren\u2019t dreams. I knew that now. I reached for my tea. Tepid. Stewed. \u201cAnything else?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cRosemary Baker.\u201d He grimaced. \u201cI have to ask you again. Do you have any idea where she is, or how we can get in touch with her.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI shook my head.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI thought you might like to know, we got a DNA match from Frank Wilson\u2019s body. He came from Slovenia ten years ago, real name Franc Vidmar.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYour homeless friend.\u201d Baxter added. \u201cHis name was Gordon Carroll, Superintendent Donahue says he has never heard of a Lewis Drake, and there is no record of that name anywhere.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSpin dreams,\u201d Harris said.\n<\/p>\n \nLewis Drake. A name I\u2019d never heard before Gordon uttered it, except in a spin dream. A dream of his funeral. It wasn\u2019t a dream\n<\/p>\n \n \nShe was waiting in the alcove at the back of Marek\u2019s caf\u00e9.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHello Rosemary,\u201d I said. \u201cOr is it Alice?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNeither. I have to become someone else.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nMarek appeared with a tray, Espresso for her, green tea for me. Of course she knew that\u2019s what I drank.\n<\/p>\n \nA swab from Gordon\u2019s old clothes in the bin had been enough for the sequencer. It had found the match with Rosemary\u2019s sample from the espresso cup. While it was working I\u2019d studied the map of Enfield again. I knew before the sequencer had finished. I knew before it started; the map, the DNA, they were just confirmation.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey found you on the corner of Rosemary Avenue and Baker street,\u201d I said. \u201cHe was on Gordon Road, with a book by Lewis Carroll, so they called him Gordon Carroll. But in other worlds they found you together on Drake street. Lewis Carroll, Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland. They named you Lewis and Alice Drake. But you know all that. Why couldn\u2019t you find him yourself?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSince I found the formula for implicitin I knew too much that was only true in other realities. It\u2019s taking me time to integrate it all. I came to you because he nearly always finds you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cImplicitin. That\u2019s the pinks. You were using Frank Wilson, making spin while he provided what you needed for your research.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cClose. The pinks were a step in the right direction, but like spin, you catch only glimpses of your alternates\u2019 lives. With implicitin, I am one person, living many lives. I see, feel, remember it all.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThat was why she had to disappear. The scale of the Canary Wharf operation was way beyond a simple drugs bust. They knew what she was looking for, knew what she\u2019d found, and they were afraid.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe pinks were enough for Gordon to see his life as Lewis Drake. I saw a life that I shared with him, but he\u2019d been hurt. Another where he died. What\u2019s the story?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThere are so many stories, Erica. Every possible past, every possible future.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo happy endings.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSometime there are. But it doesn\u2019t matter how hard you try, sometimes it turns out badly.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLike for Lewis, for Colette.\n<\/p>\n \nI took my time with the tea, watched her walk out into a crisp November afternoon. When I left, the sun was still shining. A petite figure with long dark hair sat hunched on my doorstep.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cColette?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe looked up. Her eyes were red raw. \u201cDo you still have those pinks?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI was going to flush them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cGood,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \nI offered her a hand up and opened the door. All I could think was that there was another world where she was gone.\n<\/p>\n Rehabilitated former software developer who now spends his time playing guitar badly and writing science fiction. David lives in West Sussex with his wife, two cats and a varying subset of his four adult children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I looked up from my green tea and she was there, standing in the doorway of Marek\u2019s Caf\u00e9 with long fair hair plastered to her head by the rain. A puddle formed beneath the hem of her dripping coat as she folded her futile umbrella. Her eyes flickered around the dim light of the caf\u00e9 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107926,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,14,20125],"tags":[20122],"class_list":["post-140246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-publications","category-tcl-47-spring-2023-publications","tag-the-colored-lens-47-spring-2023","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107926"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140247,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140246\/revisions\/140247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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