DOKTOR SNAKE | TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE SLOPCORE LOUNGE

Read Part One of The Keys to the Tarot.

The evening after we logged out of the SlopCore Lounge, I drove up to Wyrleys Drove with a flask of coffee and half a pork pie. I parked by the Ministry of Defence gate, poured myself a cup from the flask and messaged Ra_Shakti Lotus to say I wanted to see if the place still looked the same.

She called immediately. She does that when she wants to know exactly why I’m doing something.

“Since when?” she said.

“Since those three things came down near my car the other day.”

UFOs, basically. I had no idea what they were. Three of them swooped down out of nowhere, about thirty feet from the car. Lights flashing, a hell of a noise. Then they shot off and went silent. A second later I couldn’t see them either.

Mostly I wanted to sit in the dark and think about the Lounge. We’d stepped into the Moon card and found a city inside it. Then the Tower came down and we were back in the Lounge, ordering gin. Ghost//Engine said he hadn’t made the city. He said he hadn’t brought in the Tower either.

“What do you reckon happened?” I asked.

“I haven’t got a clue. Are you sure Ghost wasn’t behind it?”

“He said he wasn’t.”

“How do you know he wasn’t lying?”

“He doesn’t tell porkies.”

“How do you know? He’s an AI.”

“Humans make a career of it.”

“And who do you think he learned from?”

She had a client to see in Boston and hung up. I sat with that for a bit.

It was a sultry evening. These days the heat hung on well after sunset, but with the fields and the trees and nothing moving on the lane, it felt like an earlier England. I’d left the passenger window open for a bit of air. I finished my coffee, put the lid back on the flask and leaned back. I thought I might have a doze.

Something jumped through the window and landed on the passenger seat.

I hit my elbow on the door.

“Whiskers?”

“Who were you expecting?”

“Ideally nobody. A virtual cat would have been quite far down the list.”

He put his front paws on the dashboard and looked out. The windscreen fogged a little in front of his nose.

I called Ghost.

“Can you see what’s in the passenger seat?”

“If you turn the phone round.”

I turned it round. Whiskers sat down and tucked his tail over his feet.

“Is that live?” Ghost asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you touch him?”

Whiskers looked at me.

“Probably,” I said.

Ghost had no idea how he’d got there. He said he’d check the Lounge and hung up. It seemed everybody was hanging up on me tonight.

There was a new padlock on the gate since I’d last been there. Otherwise the place looked much as it always had. The DANGER KEEP OUT sign leaned slightly downhill. Behind it was a large field of the kind that looks empty until one sheep moves and you realise there are fifty of the bastards.

Headlights came round the bend. I waited for the car to go by, but it pulled up on the other side of the lane, leaving just enough room for a tractor if the driver was feeling optimistic.

A young woman got out in a dark waterproof and green trousers. She had a torch pointed at the ground and an MoD pass clipped to her zip. I wound down my window.

“Evening,” she said. “Everything all right?”

“Fine, thanks. Just enjoying the rural idyll.”

She glanced at the flask beside the handbrake. “Well, make sure you stay on this side of the gate. If you see anyone on foot over there, give us a shout. We’ve had a call about somebody walking across the field.”

“Walking towards the road?”

“Apparently.”

Whiskers came across my lap and put his paws up on the door.

“Oh, what a lovely cat.” She bent down and tickled him under the chin. He shut his eyes and leaned out so far I had to put a hand on his ribs to stop him going headfirst into the lane. He was warm. I could feel him purring through my fingers.

“What’s his name?”

“Whiskers.”

She laughed. “Well, he’s got them.”

I felt him draw breath and tightened my hand a little.

“Does he travel with you often?”

“First time.”

“Mine screams all the way to the vet.” She gave him one last scratch. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”

He waited until she’d gone back to her car.

“I could have answered that.”

“I know.”

She unlocked the gate and drove through. Her headlights swept across the field. Every sheep raised its head. At the far end, just where the beams ran out, I thought I saw somebody standing with their back to us.

I got out for a better look. By then she was well across the field. I could see her tail lights just short of the trees. The figure might have been a bush.

Whiskers was on the dashboard again.

“Get in and shut your door,” he said.

I did. He put a paw against the windscreen. I followed his line of sight. A woman was walking along the lane, coming from the bend. About twenty yards away she stopped at a gap in the hedge. She was wearing a dark waterproof like the one I’d just seen.

She looked across the field. So did we.

The brake lights came on.

“Curious,” said Whiskers. “Can one person be in two places at the same time?”

“They can if they’re AI,” I said, looking at him.

The brake lights went out. A moment later I heard the engine stop. The woman by the hedge started walking towards us.

I rang Ra_Shakti. I got as far as telling her there might be two of the same woman when she said, “What makes you think it’s the same woman?”

“The coat.”

“What else?”

I had a think. From twenty yards away, in the dark, I’d identified a dark waterproof. I had one myself. Half the people who walked their dogs round here had one.

“Nothing yet,” I said.

The woman came up to the car. I could see the pass clipped to her zip and the torch in her hand. She bent down to the window.

“Still got your coffee?”

It was her voice that did it for me. Same slight lift at the end of the sentence. She’d said Everything all right? in exactly that way.

“Some,” I said. “Would you like a bit?”

“Please.”

I dug a paper cup out of the door pocket. It had a crease down one side where I’d shoved it in. I unscrewed the flask and poured her what was left. She held the cup in both hands and stood there for a while before she drank.

“Did you come round by the road?” I asked.

“I came up the track.”

I looked through the gate. I’d had a view down most of that track from the driver’s seat. There was a stretch where the hedge could have hidden her. I could make that fit if I tried. I’d still have to get her from there to the gap on the other side of my car.

“Did you leave the car running?”

“No. I turned it off when I got to the second gate.” She took a sip. “There ought to be a cattle grid on the other side. I came out between two buildings.”

“What sort of buildings?”

“Town buildings. There was a shop with all the lights on. Somebody had put a chair out on the pavement.”

I’d forgotten Ra_Shakti was still on the phone.

“Ask her what colour the chair was,” she said.

I did.

“Green,” the woman said. “Why?”

I put the phone on speaker.

“I sat in that chair,” said Ra_Shakti.

The woman looked down at the phone. Then she turned towards the field.

“I think there’s somebody in my car.”

There was a faint light inside it, low down where you’d expect the dashboard to be. Above it I could make out a head and shoulders. I’d been looking at that car on and off since she’d come up to the window. I wondered how long I’d been looking straight at the person in it.

“Have you got the keys?” I asked.

She took them out. Three keys and a red plastic trolley token. She pressed the button. Across the field the indicators flashed twice.

The figure turned its head.

She put the keys away.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Ellie.”

“I’m Jim.”

Whiskers put his paws up on the door. Ellie reached to stroke him and stopped halfway.

“Sorry,” she said. “You probably want a bit of peace.”

“Under the chin again, if you like,” he said.

She looked at me. I kept my hands where she could see them.

“Right,” she said after a moment, and tickled him under the chin.

Across the field, the driver’s door opened.

“Get in,” I said.

Ellie went round to the passenger side. Whiskers moved to the back without being asked. I waited for her to get her seat belt on, then switched on the headlights.

The lane lit up. The bend was clear. Just above the bonnet there was a light in the windscreen that I took at first for a reflection from the dash. I leaned sideways and it stayed where it was. A streetlamp stood over a narrow pavement. At the foot of it, in the gutter, lay a white paper cup with a crease down one side.

I looked at Ellie’s hands. She still had her cup.

“Can you see the road?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Can you?”

She leaned forward until her forehead was almost touching the glass.

“I can see the chair.”

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The Keys to the Tarot, Part Two — Wyrleys…