where they’d expected to find the narrow space according to the blueprints Maddy had printed out for them. And then, when it became clear the blueprints weren’t entirely accurate, at random intervals along the wall.
Rashim worked the tip of his screwdriver along the mortar around a loose brick. This time, finally, it looked like they’d found the narrow voids beyond; they could hear the hollow echo of skittering rats, the tap and echo of grit and mortar falling off the brick wall on the far side. The mortar was like clay.
‘Not very good,’ he said. ‘The building contractor must have been using a cheap mix.’
The brick shifted. It was loose enough now to remove with his fingers. He pulled it free. Liam flipped on a torch and shone it through the small hole in the wall into the darkness beyond. They could make out a passage about a yard wide and only the same again high.
Rashim cursed. ‘I was actually hoping it was tall enough to be a walk space.’
Liam studied the floor of the passageway, littered with rat droppings. ‘It’s a crawl space,’ he said. He grimaced. ‘And it’s covered in rat poo.’
‘Great.’
They eased another dozen bricks out and widened the hole. Rashim consulted the blueprint by the light of Liam’s torch. ‘Twenty, maybe thirty metres down there, and that takes us very, very close to where the generator is supposed to be located.’
Liam took off his thick felt coat and began to unbutton his waistcoat.
Rashim sighed. ‘No, maybe… I should go. If they’ve used this conduit for laying down cables then it’s best I take a look at them.’
Liam looked again at the rat poo. ‘Are you sure?’
Rashim grimaced at the fleeting sight of tiny grey furry bodies, flickering bald pink tails and the glint of dozens of beady black eyes. ‘Not really.’ He sighed. ‘But I… it’ll be easier if I can see for myself to do the job.’
Liam nodded. Patted his shoulder. ‘Aye, there is that. I’ll probably get it wrong and end up blowing this place to kingdom come, or something.’
Rashim stripped to the waist, folding his clothes carefully. He grabbed his tool bag and then, with a cheap keyfob pen torch between his teeth, climbed into the hole in the wall. He hesitated outside the crawl space.
‘I really hate rats.’
‘Ah now, go on. They’re probably more frightened of you than you are of them.’
Rashim ducked down into the space and began to crawl along the passage.
‘Ughhh!’ His voice echoed back after a minute of grunting and shuffling. Liam heard him swearing in Farsi.
‘You OK in there?’
‘I have just put my hand in something disgusting.’ Liam heard Rashim’s breathing and muttering echoing back towards him. By the light of his own torch Liam could only faintly see the soles of Rashim’s boots.
‘Rashim, are you OK in there?’
‘Dead rat.’
SpongeBubba was hovering curiously beside Liam’s elbow. His plastic lips curled half convincingly. ‘Ewww!’
Another couple of minutes of shuffling, the grunts and scrapes slowly receding, and Liam had lost sight of him. He snapped his torch off. Now their main room was lit only by an oil lamp flickering away on top of a wooden crate for a table.
The room was filling up with things from 2001 as well. They’d spent the last two days beaming back supplies and components and spares of things they thought they might need. Sal and Maddy had raided Walmart. The tools from their DIY section. The kettle, toaster and George Foreman griddle from their Home Essentials aisle, all sitting in a yellow plastic stack-box, would have been an unforgivable contamination of modernity under their old stricter contamination-averse regime, their old mission statement. But down here in this dungeon-like environment, under lock and key — and only they had the key, of course — no one was going to stumble upon these things.
There were boxes of Coco Pops, pot noodles, several dozen packs of Dr Pepper — enough to keep Maddy going for a few weeks.
Halfway up the brick wall on the far side of the room another plastic stack-box protruded as if it had always been a deliberate part of the viaduct’s foundation construction. A mis-translation. A box full of batteries, electrical flex, diodes, spare circuit boards that at some point they really ought to chip out of the bricks and remove from the wall.
Rashim and Maddy’s response to that mistake had been to offer him a nervous ‘oops’ grin. Liam had complained that this instance of mis-translation could easily have happened to one of them. As it happened, it turned out to be the result of a bug in the new code they’d written for the reconfigured displacement machine. Since then, everything else beamed back from 2001 had landed in the middle of the chalk squares marked out on the floor of their new home.
He was about to call out again to Rashim, to check if he was all right, when he heard a loud knock on their small door. He was planning on ignoring it until he heard the voice of their landlord, Delbert Hook.
‘Hoy! You gents all right in there?’
He turned to SpongeBubba. ‘Go hide and don’t make a sound.’
‘Righto, Liam.’
Liam tucked his torch away, picked up the oil lamp and made his way to the door. He ducked into the low archway. Hesitant to slide the bolt and open it, he cupped his mouth instead and answered through the door’s keyhole. ‘Uh… I’m perfectly fine, Mr Hook, so I am!’
‘Come on now, Mr O’Connor,’ the man’s muffled voice returned. ‘That’s no way to welcome your good neighbour, is it?’
Liam cursed. He looked back over his shoulder. SpongeBubba was out of sight and most of their bits and pieces from 2001 were covered by a tarp. By the faint glow of lamplight Delbert Hook wasn’t going to see anything much, and most importantly, not the far wall, vandalized as it was with holes all along the length of it.
He quickly slid the bolt to one side and pulled the door open — catching Delbert still hunkered down, caught in the act of attempting to sneak a peek through the keyhole. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Hook?’
Delbert awkwardly straightened up, flexed his neck and smoothed down his waistcoat. ‘I… well, I heard some knockin’ going on in here. Thought perhaps one of you might have got stuck. Locked in by mistake, so to speak.’
‘No.’ Liam offered him a reassuring face. ‘No, we’re just fine.’
Delbert was craning his neck curiously, trying to see past Liam. ‘Is that some of your scientific paraphernalia I see behind you?’
Liam looked over his shoulder at the dim hump of the tarp in the middle of the floor. ‘Aye. Just assorted bits and pieces.’
‘A lot of bits and pieces by the look of it.’ Delbert frowned suspiciously. ‘I didn’t hear you bring all of that lot in.’
‘We used the Farringdon Street door, so we did.’
‘Very quietly it seems.’
‘Ah well, we didn’t want to disturb you up the front.’ Liam offered him a polite smile. ‘Don’t want to be a nuisance or anything.’
There was an awkward silence between them as Delbert’s head ducked and weaved to get another look past Liam, and Liam shuffled subtly from side to side to obscure his view.
‘So, is your Dr Anwar going to be starting his experiments soon, is he?’
‘When he’s good and ready.’
Delbert gave up on the peeking. The doorway was too narrow. ‘Well, if you gents need anything… any supplies? You know I’m the man to call on. I can get you anything you want.’ He winked. ‘ Anything.’
Liam nodded. ‘Well, if we do need your help, Mr Hook, we’ll be sure to ask.’
The little man stood on tiptoes and craned his neck to one side, one last time. Liam mirrored him. ‘Anything else, is there, Mr Hook?’
He sighed. Back down on flat feet. ‘No… no. Just remember, your rent’s due on the Sunday.’
‘Aye, every Sunday. I won’t forget.’
‘Right then.’ A frustrated smile flickered across Delbert’s lips. ‘I’ll bid you good day.’
