Peter Anghelides - Another Life

An earlier search of the food district had turned up nothing. He wondered initially if he’d spotted her outside the Surer Square again, when one of the occupants had thrown someone through a window, but the figure had gone by the time he checked out the venue. She wasn’t in any of the streets nearby, nor by the balcony where they’d last talked.

Owen knew she could reconfigure her avatar, but he’d kept looking for that distinctive white trouser suit and the sparkling silver hair. He knew also that she might have more than one persona in Second Reality , so he had worn the Mage’s sunglasses to check out everyone’s true identity. It was hard to guess how many people he should expect online right now because, although it was late on a Sunday morning for him now in Wales, it could be any time of the day or night for the other participants all round the world. Their IP addresses told him they were mostly from North America, predominantly East Coast, with a handful from elsewhere around the world. And it was somehow disheartening, a let-down to be honest, to discover that the multitalented ‘Harley Hydrurga’ was actually only Colin Townsend from Wichita, Kansas, and not the juggling seal he appeared to be.

Owen smoothed his hand over the nearby table-top, and it transformed into a display screen. The results of a conventional web search rippled into view on the surface, information from his real world shown to him in Second Reality . It told him that Dr Megan Tegg had worked as a Senior House Officer at Cardiff Royal for the past six months. She lived in Whitchurch, over in the north-west of Cardiff. There were a couple of published papers, no criminal history, and no evidence that she was married or divorced or had kids.

What was he expecting after all this time?

A couple of albino twins peered across at his display screen from across the table. He extinguished it with a flick of his fingers and then threw the remains of his cocktail over the twins. They spluttered with indignation, rose stiffly from their chairs and walked quickly away to a nearby phone booth. They were probably trying to phone their mum to have a good cry, decided Owen — the sunglasses told him they were Jane Lawson and Tricia Lawson, using the same IP address in Timperley, Cheshire.

A cheering row of flame-haired midgets wiggled past Owen in a conga, stopping briefly only to light an Eskimo’s cigar with their heads before snaking off into the nearest bar. Everyone around Owen was laughing or dancing or entertaining other enthusiasts. Owen wriggled lower in his chair, frustrated and powerless. This was so stupid. He could drive out to Megan’s place in Whitchurch now. Her real place. Knock on her real door and say, ‘Hi, remember me? I’m the boyfriend who abandoned you in London six years ago. You wanted to get married, I wanted to get away. So, how’s it worked out for you, then, eh?’

His jaw clenched, and the tension rose in his neck and shoulders. He jumped out of his chair and stalked over to where a crowd had gathered to watch Harley Hydrurga. The seal was balancing a stack of chairs on his whiskery leather nose. Owen strode around the back of him, made a little jump into the air and landed as heavily as he could on the seal’s tail. Harley gave a yelp, the chairs all tumbled, and the crowd scattered out of the way.

He wanted to laugh at the reaction and attempted a sarcastic wave at the furious Harley. But his Glendower avatar refused to move. It was as though the figure was locked — like the screen had frozen, except that everyone else was able to move around him.

A stern-looking policeman marched across to him. He looked like one of the Keystone Cops with a handlebar moustache and a comedy truncheon. When he reached Owen, a blue light on his helmet started flashing. ‘Time out!’ said the policeman, and everything started to fade away around Owen.

A couple of seconds later, he found himself standing on an endless square stairway atop a tall brickwork turret. Each leg of the walkway was two metres wide and formed an open square that vanished into a mist far below. It was just like an Escher engraving, except there was some sort of additional, invisible wall that prevented him from leaning over the edge to peer down. A blue sky with fluffy white cirrus clouds stretched in every direction. And on the opposite side of the square stood the distinctively brilliant outline of Egg Magnet.

‘Busted, huh?’ Egg Magnet called. ‘Me too.’

Owen took a few of the steps on his side of the turret, and found he was going uphill. So he turned round and took the steps in the other direction instead. They were uphill, too, so he stopped trying.

‘Where is this?’

Egg Magnet laughed. ‘Hey! First-time offender, nice one! This is the Sin Bin. A place for reflection on your misdemeanours in Second Reality . Got to pay the penance before they’ll let you back in.’

‘Pah!’ said Owen. ‘I’ll just log out and log back in again somewhere else.’

‘Nuh-uh,’ Egg told him. ‘You’ll end up here every time you log in, until they decide otherwise. So, whatcha here for, mate?’

‘You first.’

Egg puffed out his chest grandly. ‘Started a fight in the Surer Square. Again,’ he added with perhaps a new note of regret. ‘Now, what’s your crime?’

Owen shuffled his feet. ‘I trod on a seal.’

This amused Egg hugely. The silver-haired figure giggled and giggled. Energised by this hilarity, Egg hared up the steps around two sides of the tower until he stood next to Owen. ‘Nice job! That’s a new one on me.’

‘I suppose I may have upset a couple of twins, too.’

Egg was delighted by this information. He offered his hand. Owen attempted to shake it and realised he was still holding his empty cocktail glass. After swapping hands, he was able to return Egg’s firm grip.

‘You’re Glendower, aren’tcha mate?’ said Egg. ‘I remember you from the other day.’

‘And you,’ said Owen, ‘are Dr Megan Tegg.’

Egg Magnet looked shocked. He tried to take a couple of steps away from Owen. This was more difficult than he’d expected, because it was a movement up the stairs, and Owen was still tightly holding his hand. ‘Says who?’ Egg said feebly.

‘Megan Tegg. It’s an anagram of Egg Magnet.’

‘So what?’ insisted Egg Magnet. ‘So is…’ There was a distinct pause while he worked it out. ‘So is “Get Egg Man”.’ Owen sat down on the stairway, and patted the step next to him. It was wide enough for them both to sit side by side. ‘I know you in fleshspace. In the real world, I mean,’ he corrected himself hurriedly. ‘Er… in the flesh. So to speak.’ Egg seemed to be giving up the pretence now. Or rather, Megan was not pretending any more. ‘How do you know? I haven’t told you anything.’

‘You’ve told me more than you think,’ he replied. ‘Remember what you said about preferring a nice cup of tea to a crappy cup of tea? And what else… oh yeah, that thing about “safe in taxis”? You might as well have suggested we have a kebab-throwing competition in Woodrow Road. Nearest to the late-night postbox wins?’

‘OMG,’ said Egg, oddly.

‘You what?’

‘Oh my God,’ said Megan. ‘You can’t be!’

‘I am,’ he said. ‘I’m Owen Harper. Dr Owen Harper, actually. But you’d remember that…’ He showed her the empty cocktail glass. ‘You know what this is? Vodka, tequila and lime. A Hawaiian Seduction. We bought these in the Kington Club. That’s when I told you that joke about Hawaiians.’

‘So you’re trying to seduce me?’ Megan asked.

‘I’m trying to convince you.’

‘What’s the difference, Owen?’

‘So it’s Owen now, is it?’

‘This could be a trick. I’ve read about people like you. People online, they’re not always who they claim to be.’