Dive

I make no illusions about this being a rough first draft.  This is simply an idea that I've been toying with, possibly to turn into a new series.  Comments and criticism are certainly welcome :)

‘Alister!'

The engineer’s devices were on the fritz trying to deal with the world’s excessive neural output.  From inside their safe house, Tair, Aisling and the geist stared helplessly at a CRT monitor which displayed nothing but static.

‘Alister!’ Tair shouted into his mouthpiece.  No reply.

‘The door’s approaching, he has to be close,’ said Aisling.  She stumbled as the wall beside them trembled.  The wall had grown to accommodate the new world, turning the Rebels’ central space into a pleasant square room.  Each of the older walls had a door in the centre, unique to the Rebel whose world it once led onto.  The new wall hadn’t needed a door until Alister accidentally attracted the thief on the other side.  Now, as a pinprick grew into a catflap-sized portal and continued to grow, the remaining Rebels could only hope that Alister had outrun the thief.

‘There’s got to be something we can do,’ Tair pushed away from the small desk and tried to steady himself against the tidal forces that were seeping through the wall.  He turned to the geist.  ‘Isn’t there an escape trick or a subconscious weapon we can use to slow it down?’

The geist’s golden-white trail was beginning to pull towards the wall at varying speeds, but its face remained calm.

‘Not unless the girl used mental exercises to foster a back door...’

Aisling groaned.  ‘She’s a seventeen year old art student!  I doubt meditation was on the cards.’ The door was nearly full size.

‘I’m done with waiting,’ Tair said, stepping closer to the portal.  ‘I’m going for it.’

‘Don’t!’  The geist and Aisling spoke in unison, though the geist’s voice was more measured and neutral.  Their exclamation was of little use, each one’s voice slowing down like a bubble in treacle before compressing into floating sixty-point letters that wafted back towards them.

Tair was near the entrance horizon, so the onlookers behind him seemed to be a grey blur.  He turned the doorknob slowly, grabbing hold of the frame with his left hand.  There was no click, no opportunity for him to resist - one moment the door was closed, the next it flung out into a streaking, howling storm.

Stylised house pets and a can of peas flew past him in the void towards a dark vanishing point, both far away and too close at the same time.  Directly in front of it, rising (or falling) towards the door was Alister, carrying the precious plunder under his left arm.

Tair’s grip on the door frame began to slip.  He threw his right hand out to Alister, who grabbed it, slid back a little as the thief tried one last attempt at sucking him in, and then held firm.

Just as Tair felt his fingers give way, they were grasped tightly by someone else’s.  Aisling was floating inside the safe house, her waist attached to the door on the opposite wall by a length of rope.  A reverse image of the words DON’T LET GO followed by CLOSE THE DOOR floated in front of her before smashing into a million pieces against her face.

Alister nodded.  Slowly they were dragged back into the safety of their collective conscious, but the quasi-gravitational forces of the collapsing world were reaching the centre of the room.  The CRT monitor that they had taken from the engineer’s world was sucked into the vortex, narrowly missing Alister’s head.  He grabbed the door handle.

Before the final heave on the human chain, the world remnant and the thief behind the Rebels began to compress dramatically, creating a fast approaching 2D plane.  A roar of anger rang out and was silenced by the closing door.  Suddenly all of the suction stopped, and Aisling, Tair and Alister dropped to the floor.  It was a rainbow carpet.

The geist unbolted itself from the far wall and dropped the coils of rope still attached to Aisling.  Tair looked back at the silent portal which wavered ominously before bursting into a shower of pink and green.  In its place was a rectangle covered by an ornate pattern of chrysanthemums and carnations.  The door nob was shaped like a duck.

‘Don’t ever do that again.  Ever,’ Aisling said.  ‘This place is unstable enough as it is.’

Alister looked around the room.

‘I dunno, I sort of like some of the leaked stuff.’  The corner between his and the new wall was filled with beanbags and lined by a bench that looked like it came from a science lab.  The other corner had kept some of Tair’s toys but was considerably more colourful.

The geist aloofly helped the other rebels up.

‘I think we need a new plan to fight the thief.’

Tair stretched his arms, though he didn’t need to.

‘You think?’  He turned to Alister.  ‘You got the goods, didn’t you?’

The objects, taken from the world before it was stolen away, included an average looking pencil, a few paint buckets and a box of charcoal nubs.

‘The tools of a real Creator,’ the geist said.  ‘These will aid us greatly.’

There was a thumping from behind the new door.

‘Oh no,’ Aisling said.  ‘Not another hanger-on...’

Tair held up his hands.  ‘Wait just a second, Ash.  If anyone can use these tools properly it’s the person they belonged to.’

The woman raised an eyebrow but said nothing.  A muffled voice called out from the new door.

‘Somebody!  I don’t know where I am.’

Carefully, Tair turned the handle.  There was a quack.

Inside was a water-closet-sized room that had one recliner chair at the back end.  Every wall was covered by drawings and paintings.  Standing in the centre was the girl.  She wore a frilly red and black dress, black stockings, a black overcoat and had straight black hair.  She wore eyeliner like a goth and had a nose piercing, but was definitely not of the demeanour.

‘Where am I?  Who are you?’

‘We’re here to help,’ Tair said, realising too late that it was a goofy cliché.  ‘Come out here and we’ll explain it to you.’

The seventeen-year-old stepped into the main room.  As she did so, it became slightly larger.

‘Take a seat,’ Aisling said, motioning to the chairs around the desk.  She glared back at Tair.

The newcomer sat down and the others took up positions around the desk.  The geist was wisely hanging back - it would take a lot more than one sitting to explain what it was about.

‘Ever heard the expression that there are worlds inside our heads?’

The not-quite-goth shook her head.

‘No, not really, but continue.’

Aisling nodded to Alister.

‘Thing is,’ he began hesitantly, ‘there was an accident in a laboratory.  A rampant idea, sort of like a virus, got loose.  It’s been stealing the worlds inside people’s heads.  They go into a coma and lose all sense of where they are.’

Now the girl’s eyes widened.

‘I’d heard about the accidents.  Something about memetics.’

Tair took his turn.  ‘I’m afraid you were its next target.’

‘I’m not an idiot,’ said the girl defensively.  ‘If I’m in a coma, then how am I here?  Where on Earth is this place?’

Aisling continued the spiel.  She’d been at it the longest and had been shown a fair deal of the ropes by the geist.

‘The middle realm, or Earth, is just one of countless worlds,’ she said.  ‘We’re currently in a sort of non-place created by the subconscious energies our brains are giving off.  Things work a bit differently than in the middle realm, but it’s home.’

The girl sighed.  ‘So why are you here?  Why am I here?  And what is the thing over there?’  She indicated over her shoulder without turning around.

Aisling reciprocated with a shrug.

‘Some of this you will have to find out in time.  As for us?’  She pointed at the men.  ‘That’s Tair, short for Alastair, next to him is Alister - now you know why the first guy is Tair.  I’m Aisling, and the “thing” behind you is called the geist.  The world thief calls us Rebels, because we fight.  We're going to stop it.’