The Infinity Bridge

Part 5

10.

Sunday morning at York station had a very British eccentricity to it. Nick looked up at its Victorian façade, one more snippet of the past in a city saturated with history.

And here I am, he thought, sitting with the stuff of legends in my hands.

Nick and Sam sat outside the station café, with a view of the platforms and the graceful curve of the glass and steel roof. The station had gradually come to life over the last few hours, as visitors alighted from the trains and ambled across the concourse towards their day out.

Nick loved the station. He had enjoyed it since he was a young child, a relationship propagated by his mother’s aversion to driving and her belief in more traditional modes of transport. He loved the people that milled around the place; he loved the idea that they all touched his own life so transiently on the journey through their own. A thousand stories would be passing him as he sat looking around the trains and the bridge and the waiting rooms. He liked to imagine he had a computer cursor that he could hover over each person as they passed, that with a click would give him a snapshot of their story.

‘How long until this train arrives?’ Sam glanced up from his copy of NME.

‘Ten minutes, if it’s on time.’

Sam grunted and returned to his magazine. They were three coffees into the day, which hadn’t eased Nick’s nerves.

Occupy your mind, he told himself.

A pigeon was hopping across the station floor, its motions jerky and robotic. Two girls sat at a nearby table, talking in whispers. They wore black skirts and purple jumpers, frayed at the cuffs from being pulled over their hands. Nick caught one glancing at Sam; she blushed and looked away.

A group of boys, about Nick and Sam’s age skulked near the kiosk at the entrance. Their hooded tops and tram-line haircuts did little to allay the suspicions of the kiosk owner, who glared at them in warning.

A chattering group of women stumbled from the platforms, wearing fairy wings and L-plates. One winked at Nick and his glasses steamed up with embarrassment.

Nine minutes, he thought. Occupy your mind. His fingers fiddled with the smart-phone. He ran through the prior night in his thoughts.

***

‘An InfinityBridge... the android said that before he kicked the bucket,’ Sam said. ‘Dare I ask..?’

‘It is a device capable of establishing a permanent portal between alternates. If it falls into the hands of the Hidden then, well...’