Julia

  I’ve never seen a superstring before, but, really, they look pretty much like what their name would imply. These ones appear to be open strings—gauge-theory degrees of freedom—with their ends anchored to a three-plus-one-dimensional Dirichlet brane that looks remarkably like a cello. If I pluck them, a black hole in a higher-dimensional anti-de Sitter bulk spacetime will start to sing the gavotte from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 in a chorus of quasi-normal tensor modes; this is how cellos have always worked, and the lack of attention paid to them is a serious oversight on the part of experimental physicists.

  (I don’t actually remember having carried a cello with me all the way from Ottawa, but I suppose that, what with the commotion, I probably just didn’t notice.)

  My tutor leans in expectantly. “Is…something the matter?” he asks. Mr. Garrovick, that’s his name. His breath smells like cigarettes, just like always, which is probably why he died of lung cancer two days before my sixteenth birthday (so it goes).

  My eyes wander from him to the audience, who regard me with an expectation bordering on impatience. All except my mother, of course, who’s fiddling with her comically oversized laptop, and my father, who’s stepped outside to take a call “from the hospital”.

  Shit, the recital! I had completely forgotten!

  I lean in anxiously toward Mr. Garrovick. “Umm…what am I supposed to play?” I whisper.

  Mr. Garrovier looks puzzled. “Don’t you know? Aren’t you a scientist?”

  This touches off a smattering of derisive laughter from the crowd.

  Mr. Garsevier rolls his eyes. “You know, I really thought that you were supposed to be clever. Well, play something, anyways! Everyone’s waiting!”

  I reach for my bow and feel a stab of panic when it’s not to be found. I look askance at Mr. Elsevier, who glares at me from behind his glasses. No help will be forthcoming.

  I take a deep breath, force a smile, and start desperately plucking pizzicato at the strings. “Twin-kle, twin-kle lit-tle Earth,” I sing, “let this mus-ic bring re-birth…no wait, sorry, that’s not right at all, is it?”

  The sine waves are all over the place; the audience starts booing mercilessly; the higher-dimensional black hole flashes its singularity in disgust.

  Géraldine leaps up, interposing herself between me and the crowd. “She’s doin’ her best, you assholes!” she exclaims. “I’d like to hear any of you fuckers do better!”

  “It sounds like she’s doing better,” my mother comments, looking up from her laptop just long enough to point off stage. I look in the direction that she’s pointing, across a sea of pitch blackness. Far away—very far away—I can see another little girl sitting in a tiny island of light. She’s got a cello—or something that looks somewhat like a cello—of her own, and she is indeed playing it better than me, better than anyone I’ve ever heard. I can only faintly make out her song, but it is sweeter—and sadder—than anything in the world. But somehow, I don’t recognize any of the notes.

  “Who is she?”

  *

  I jerk awake next to a capacious fireplace, sweating profusely.

  My eyes blink in confusion. Where—

  The cabin. Right.

  I take in my surroundings. Even in the dim firelight, one thing immediately becomes apparent: this was not the cabin of some dirt-poor trapper, nor even the vacation getaway of an upper-middle-class family. No, whoever owned this place was rich.

  The cabin is two storeys high with a pair of wide staircases leading to the upper level on either side of the entrance; the structural elements are made of pinewood so heavily burnished that they gleam, and the chimney is assembled from hewn granite blocks. And then there are the hunting trophies, each snarling out at me in glassy-eyed menace; after a moment, I realize that I’m lying on a literal bearskin rug—who the hell owns a bearskin rug?

  I also note that I’m wrapped like a human burrito in a blanket—and that I seem to be naked beneath it.

  “Captain, the civvy’s awake!”

  I feel a jolt of panic as I see one of the soldiers from last night—the one who held a gun on me—framed in the threshold of the living room. The man with the five o’clock shadow comes to join him.

  “How you feeling?” he asks.

  “…Where are my clothes?” I rasp.

  “Oh. Yeah, sorry about that. You had hypothermia and your clothes were all sweaty. If it makes you feel any better, it was a woman who helped you out of them.”

  “I…don’t remember.”

  “Not surprising,” he replies, pouring a cup of water from a thermos. “You were pretty out of it.”

  He offers me the cup and I take a sip, my anxiety de-escalating somewhat. His explanation makes sense, and yet…the thought of being stripped by strangers…

  “Beaton, right?”

  “That’s right,” Beaton replies. He takes a seat next to me in one of those overstuffed leather wingchairs favoured by Victorian robber barons. “I didn’t get your name, though.”

  “Julia Chen,” I reply. “I was…lost in the woods.” A thought suddenly occurs to me: “I had a companion—an elderly woman! If she’s still out there—”

  “Easy now,” Beaton urges.

  “But we’ve got to find her—”

  “We’re not finding anyone right now,” says the other soldier, whose uniform identifies him as “Ritter”. “It’s night and it’s still snowing.”

  I settle down miserably, unable to argue. Beaton pours me a fresh cup of water.

  “So, you’re what?” he asks. “Local cottager? Resident of Petawawa?”

  I shake my head. “We walked from Ottawa.”

  Ritter lets out a low whistle. “That’s more than a hundred kilometres!”

  “In the wrong direction,” Beaton adds. “What brings you out this way, Ms. Chen?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  He leans forward in his chair. “I’m all ears.”

  *

  I give him the rundown of everything that’s happened over the past week—though I understate the direness of Paul’s situation. Captain Beaton is particularly interested when I tell him about Elsevier—how he had magic beyond what other Fairies are capable of and how he seemed to be a rogue amongst his own people.

  “And you have no idea where he went?” he demands.

  “We were walking in a westerly direction away from Petawawa,” I reply. “Beyond that, I can’t tell you anything. I don’t even know if he’s still in the country or if he found the portal to Faerie. I…suspect it’s a lost cause.”

  The captain frowns. “Too bad. Someone like that could be a major strategic asset.”

  “Shame you didn’t ask him some more useful questions,” says Ritter. “Combat magics. That sort of thing.”

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  I shake my head. “I’m a scientist, not a soldier.”

  “You’re a citizen of an occupied nation,” Ritter retorts. “You have a duty to resist—”

  “Ease off, Corporal,” Beaton interjects. “It sounds like he wouldn’t have been too helpful, anyways.”

  “So, what’s your angle?” I ask following a pause. “I assume you were with the garrison in Petawawa.”

  Beaton nods. “Second Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group. They called us up to Cayamant when the Tinkerbells invaded.”

  “You were in combat?” I hope the question isn’t unwelcome.

  “That’s one word for it,” Ritter deadpans.

  “We were there for the battle—all fifteen minutes of it. Just long enough for our vehicles to stop working and our weapons to overheat.” Beaton smiles humourlessly. “Not much to do after that.”

  “Run,” says Ritter. “And pray.”

  “By the time we made it back to base, it was all over. Ottawa had surrendered.”

  “And so now you’re”—I cast about in search of a polite word for terrorists—“freedom fighters?”

  “Right now?” Beaton replies. “We’re a scrounging party. We’re gathering what food and supplies we can from the surrounding countryside. And helping civilians, when we can.”

  “You’re welcome, by the way,” chips in Ritter.

  “In the longer run? Well.” Beaton smiles wryly. “Time will tell. Anyways,” he says, rising to his feet, “you should get some rest. We’ll see what we can do for your friend come morning.”

  *

  It takes me several hours to return to sleep, given the growling in my stomach and my concern for Géraldine; and it seems that almost immediately after I manage it, I’m awakened by the soldiers’ reveille.

  A quick glance out one of the cabin’s floor-to-ceiling windows confirms that the snow has ceased. As a result, the soldiers are doing their morning exercises outside, giving me the privacy to change into some clean clothes—an oversized flannel shirt and blue jeans that presumably belonged to whoever used to own the place. About half an hour later, my rescuers return for breakfast.

  There are six of them: Captain Beaton, Corporal Ritter, a round-faced man named Kuong, a tall, unreasonably cheerful man named Ranbir, a scowling man with a handlebar moustache called Thayer, and the woman, whom Beaton, for whatever reason, calls “Eggplant” but whose actual name seems to be Higgins. With her helmet off, I can see that she has short blonde hair and striking green eyes.

  “I hope everyone wants Alphagetti, because that’s what we have,” says Ranbir, dishing it from a tin.

  “Care to join us, Dr. Chen?” says Beaton, pulling another chair to the dining room table.

  “‘Doctor’,” echoes Kuong. “You a medic?”

  I smile weakly as I take a seat. “Not the useful kind of doctor.”

  “So, like…a philosopher?” asks Thayer, who seems to be fondling a coffeepot for some arcane reason.

  “Dr. Chen’s an astrophysicist,” Beaton interjects.

  “Oh yeah? So, what’s the verdict? Did aliens cause the Shift?”

  I polish off a spoonful of pasta before answering, revelling in the feel of having something in my stomach. “I’m a theoretical physicist, actually; and as for aliens—”

  “Theoretically you’re a physicist,” quips Ranbir, just as Thayer starts pouring coffee into mugs.

  “Wait,” says Kuong. “Does that mean you work on those, like, Large Hadron Collider–type God-particle—”

  “It means she sits around on her ass, mathematically masturbating,” Eggplant interrupts.

  I side-eye her, recognizing her tone. “You’re an engineer?”

  She grins. “Guilty as charged. Explosives specialist.”

  “Explosives and alcohol, eh?” I reply. “That sounds like a safe combination.”

  “Who said anything about alcohol?”

  “Well, you did say you were an engineer.”

  This manages to provoke some laughter from the other soldiers. I may be utterly lost in every other domain of life, but I still know my way around an interdisciplinary bickering match.

  “Wow, it’s like she knows you, Eggplant.”

  “Shut up, Ranbir; I’m your superior officer.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Jesus, Peanut; you heat this by farting or…?”

  “Magic’s not an exact science, Lieutenant,” Thayer replies.

  “You know magic?” I ask, taking a sip of my own mug. It does, indeed, taste like lukewarm crap, but I’m not in a choosy mood.

  “A little,” says Ranbir. “We can heat things with our minds. Really slowly.”

  “Do you lose energy from your body?” I ask in sudden interest.

  “Not as far as we can tell,” Eggplant replies. “It’s like…stupidly easy, actually. I could teach you…”

  I hesitate. “I probably don’t have time. My friend’s still out there in the woods and I need to find her—actually, I was hoping I might have some help with that.”

  Beaton shakes his head. “We don’t have the time or manpower for a search party.”

  I frown. “But you said you were out here to gather supplies and rescue civilians—”

  “There are enough civvies in danger that we can’t get bent out of shape finding a specific one. Sorry.”

  “But she’s one of you,” I insist, unwilling to let it go. “Her son-in-law is deployed to the same base—”

  “What’s his name?” Ritter cuts in.

  “Marciel. Or at least that’s her name. I don’t know her son-in-law’s. Look, she’s trying to find her grandson, alright? That’s why we came up here. The son of a man in your regiment! Surely you can spare some time for that!”

  There’s a long pause, during which I can only hope that I haven’t just alienated my only allies in this wilderness; then Eggplant Higgins surprises me by speaking up: “Sir, let me go with her on the skidoo. We can spare one person for a couple hours.”

  The captain mulls it over. “And the gasoline, Lieutenant?”

  “We’ve siphoned quite a bit from disused cars, sir. I think we can afford it for something like this.”

  Beaton frowns. “Alright. But I don’t want you gone more than four hours. That good enough for you, Dr. Chen?”

  “It will have to be.”

  “Damn right,” he replies. Then, softening his tone, he adds: “And good luck.”

  *

  Lieutenant Higgins and I set off immediately after breakfast on a snowmobile that was parked in a garage beneath the cabin, next to an armoured personnel carrier to which a snowplough blade has been crudely welded. For want of a better option, we set out along the straight line between the cabin and Petawawa—roughly what I had walked the previous day.

  I’ve always kind of wanted to ride a snowmobile, but the actual experience is less exciting than I imagined. The limiting factor is that we have to crawl along at maybe 20 km/h, both to avoid the trees and to examine the surrounding countryside. With the engine producing only a low whine, it is actually possible in principle for me to hear a response to my periodic cries of “Géraldine!” through a megaphone—but no response is forthcoming.

  I see no flash of blue or fuchsia from her parka, no pile of snow looking recognizably like a quinzhee, just the endless frontier of snow-caked trees. With each passing kilometre, I become more and more convinced that she’s somewhere beneath us, buried in the fresh-fallen snow—

  “Wait! Stop! Stop!”

  Higgins brings the vehicle to a halt. “What is it?”

  I dismount and walk toward a nearby tree, wishing all the while I still had my snowshoes. There, flapping about a twig, I can make out a small mylar bag.

  “Hickory Sticks,” reads Eggplant as I hold it up for inspection.

  “Géraldine and I had some bags left in our rations.”

  “The wind’s from the northeast,” Eggplant notes. “The bag probably blew downstream.”

  I nod my head. It isn’t a lot to go on, but it’s the only clue we have. I get back onto the snowmobile.

  *

  “Géraldine!” I cry into my megaphone. “Géraldine!”

  It’s been a good half hour since I found the bag, with nothing else to show for it. Either it had blown a fair distance…or I’d missed where it had blown from. That’s the problem with our strategy: it can take entire search parties hours or days to find missing persons, even when they’re alive. We, on the other hand, are two women on a snowmobile hoping to catch sight of someone while moving through a forest. And soon, I know, we’ll have to turn back.

  Abruptly, Eggplant turns the snowmobile to one side.

  “What are you doing?” I demand. “We still have time—”

  But then I see what she sees: a couple of partially collapsed blue tents, half buried in snow. The skidoo draws to a halt.

  Eggplant and I dismount; thanks to the wind and the forest canopy, the snow is only somewhat deep here. I raise the megaphone to my lips: “Hello? Is anyone here?” Figuring I might as well go for broke, I add, “Géraldine?”

  “I’m going to check those tents,” Eggplant announces. “You stay here.”

  “Do you think you need that?” I ask as she retrieves her rifle from the skidoo.

  “You think I don’t?”

  I don’t press the issue. Instead, it’s all I can do just to keep calling Géraldine’s name as Eggplant wanders toward the campsite.

  Megaphones, of course, work by transmitting sound in a particular direction; if Géraldine is not in that direction, she might not be able to hear me. To overcome this limitation, I turn around 90° and call her name again; then another 90° and—

  I pause, my eyes catching sight of a figure amongst the trees. He sits hunched over with his back to me maybe thirty metres distant, dressed in a cherry-red parka.

  “Hello?” I call into the megaphone.

  He makes no acknowledgement, but I can tell he’s alive by the rise and fall of his shoulders.

  “Uh, sir,” I try again. “Are you in need of assistance? Monsieur?”

  I hesitate, the memory of Lester’s corpse still fresh in my mind. But zombies don’t breathe, do they? So, he must be human, possibly incapacitated, probably in need of help. I can’t very well let fear of the boogeyman stop me from assisting someone in need.

  “Sir!” I shout again, moving forward. “Are you alright?”

  I become aware of the blood staining the snow around him. Immediately, I lower my megaphone and break into a jog; I don’t actually know what I can do for him if he’s gravely injured, but he shouldn’t be alone. “Sir, can you hear me!?”

  Finally, he groans out a response: “Hel’k nee.”

  Help me.

  “Yes, yeah, okay, I can help you. Just stay where you are—”

  With a great lumbering motion, the man stands upright, lowering his hand to his side, and in that hand—

  A rib.

  He lets it fall into the snow with a despairing groan. “Wrong…sise.” He shakes his head. “Wrong…sise! Ne’er ffffit.”

  Only now am I close enough to see that the blood, while human, does not belong to him. I can make out a pair of boots, a motionless hand—

  “Hel’k nee,” he says again, turning around.

  At once, I feel my gorge rise. The man…is not.

  There is a head, yes. With skin, yes; and eyes; and teeth, if not lips. There are shoulders and arms, or at least look to be beneath the parka.

  And that’s where it ends. His parka hangs open unzipped, and beneath it, still slick with blood, there is part of a ribcage, part of a spine, a heart, a pair of lungs—and then a tangled mess of thin, wooden vines, dead leaves, and bits of plastic garbage holding it all up; weaving throughout its body; holding its eyelids and mouth-hole open; palpitating its organs. Its mittened “hand” holds a clutch of bones—obviously taken from the remains splayed out behind it on the bloodstained snow.

  “Hel’k nee,” it repeats, tears streaming from its eyes. It throws the bones angrily onto the ground. “I need…yourrrs!”