I moved slowly to my right, towards the driver's side of the car, never taking my eyes off the man. He kept his eye on me, as well, a slightly amused look on his face. When I reached the side of the car, I quickly glanced down at the driver. He, too, was looking at me, but with nothing even close to amusement on his face.
I stepped to the back door and stopped.
"Good," the man said. "Now you can see your friend." He reached down towards the door handle, but paused before touching it. "Are you sure that's all she is to you? A friend?"
I clenched my fists and my jaw. "That's none of your goddamned business," I said through my teeth.
He shrugged. "It's not that important to me. I was just curious. However, you did answer the question, even if you didn't intend to."
He smiled slightly and opened the back door on his side. "Come on out, my dear. Your part in this is over."
He reached inside the car and took Lydia by the arm. I still couldn't see clearly, because she was on the opposite side of the car from me, but I could see her shape through the window as she turned and put her feet outside the car. The man helped her out, but she twisted away from him the moment she was standing.
"Not a word," the man said. "From either of you."
I wanted to glare at him again, but I couldn't take my eyes off Lydia. She appeared unharmed, but when she turned around to look at me over the roof of the car, my heart nearly stopped. I had never seen such rage, such pain, such helplessness, etched across a human face. And I knew it wasn't because she'd been tortured, manhandled, or even mistreated. The full weight of her wrath was directed squarely at me.
In those few seconds of looking at her tortured face, everything I had ever done came hurtling back towards me. I nearly fell over with the force of the realization. Lydia would never see me the same way again.
Not ever.
I felt the blood rush into my face. My fists tightened. I had to do something. I had to break the cycle of helplessness. I felt like everything was my fault, even though I had no control over what these agents and the denizens of the other world would do. But I had to take control of myself. Take responsibility for the things I had done and somehow try to make all this right.
I turned my attention to the man standing beside Lydia. I focussed all my energy, my anger, my rage, my frustration, at him. He represented everything I hated in this world. Power without conscience, subjection without compunction. He had to be stopped. I had no idea exactly how to stop him, but it had to be done. If I'd had the power, I would have sent a bolt of lightning from the center of my forehead straight to his heart.
I tried to control my breathing. I tried to slow time. I tried to see every detail around me. I tried to find some small thing that I could use to my advantage. The situation was intolerable. I had to change it.
The man looked up suddenly and frowned. "What the hell…?"
I followed his gaze, as did Lydia. Above us, a large piece of black cloth was fluttering down towards us. It undulated and rippled as it floated towards the ground.
"Anthony," the man snapped.
The driver got out of the car and stood beside the driver's door. He looked up at the wavering rectangular shape and immediately pulled his weapon out of its holster. Without so much as a beat, he began firing bullets at the flag-shaped artifact.
There was no effect. No holes appeared. The ripples were not disturbed in the slightest. The rectangle continued its descent.
The man looked at me hard. "This is your doing, isn't it?"
I snorted. "Yeah. Right. Like I could magically make a big piece of cloth appear out of nowhere."
He narrowed his eyes at me. "I told you to come alone."
"I did. My friend dropped me off way the hell up on Hollis Street. He's nowhere near here."
I looked up again. The cloth was much closer now. As I looked at it, I began to realize something. Despite the fact that I could see that it was rippling, I couldn't actually see the shapes of the ripples. There were no highlights or shadows, no glossy surface, no nothing. It was a black surface with no details. It was almost like an absence of light.
The man reached up to grab it as it neared the roof of the car, but he was unable to get a grip on it. His hand actually seemed to disappear into it. I squinted hard, unable to quite believe what I had just seen.
And then the thing landed, and everything changed.
I felt a rushing in my ears, and then everything went quiet.
I looked around. I was still standing beside the car. Lydia and her captor were still on the other side. Anthony, the driver, was still to my left at the driver's door.
But everything else around us was a different story. I could still see the harbour, but there were no longer any stacks of containers or idle loading cranes. There was no chain link fence. To my left, I could see warehouses, but they were not the same warehouses I had seen on my way in.
The black rectangle was nowhere to be seen.
I knew it was still Halifax, but I also knew instinctively that it was a different Halifax.
"What the hell just happened?" the man asked.
Anthony shook his head. Lydia was turning around, taking in her surroundings, eyes and mouth open wide. I suddenly realized that I was chuckling.
"You did this," the man spat. "You're in cahoots with them, aren't you?"
"Cahoots?" I said. "Do people still use that word?"
I turned to my left, suddenly feeling that something wasn't quite right. I was greeted by the barrel of Anthony's Glock 17 semi automatic pistol.
"Now," Anthony's superior said, the smugness returning to his voice, "tell me what you did."
I tore my gaze away from the barrel of the pistol and returned my attention to the man on the other side of the car.
"I didn't do anything," I said. "Not that I didn't want to, mind you. I was having all kinds of wonderful fantasies about leaping over the car and dismembering you, but big floppy black rectangles did not factor into any of them."
"Then where did it come from? And what did it do to us?"
I smiled. "How does it feel, being on the other side of things?"
The man frowned. "Keep that up, and up may allow Anthony free reign with that lovely weapon of his."
"What good would that do you?" I asked. "Have you looked around? We've crossed over the rainbow, pal. You're out of your element, and out of your depth. If we're where I think we are, you'd better think about hiding this car and finding some new clothes."
He stared at me for a moment. It looked like he was evaluating me, but I couldn't be certain.
"You've been here before," he said quietly.
"I think so," I said.
