Schrodingers Maze

Part II - Into the Box

"But how?", Schrodinger whispers under his breath.

A few seconds later the numbness in his body thaws enough for him to realise the shopkeeper is looking at him, his eyes raised over the metal frame of his glasses. Schrodinger doesn't think the man suspects anything. More likely he is just wondering what the policeman has found on his security camera footage.

"I'll be taking copy of this," Schrodinger says, "and if anyone else comes asking, and I mean anyone, just say you don't know anything."

"Anything about what?", the shopkeeper asks.

"Anything about anything," Schrodinger replies deadpan.

With his eyes still fixed on the shopkeeper, as if to hold him physically in place with his gaze, he plugs his phone into the USB port of the video system and transfers the file. Hitting delete on the original, Schrodinger scoops up his possessions and stuffs them into his pockets. He fumbles with his jacket, his hands shaking as he zips it all the way up over his chin. Pulling his cap down over his nose he shuffles out of the shop, hands in pockets, cheeks burning red, incognito but not invisible.

He knows he doesn't have much time, but worse than that he knows he has even less space. There are other cameras, and soon his colleagues will see what he has just seen and then he will have nowhere to run.

"But how?", he asks himself out loud again, as he half runs along the pavement still ashen and dry from the explosion.

Dipping into an ally he grabs at his head, squeezing as if trying to juice the memory of planting the bomb from his throbbing brain. "Come on," he mumbles, but the amnesia is total and the only thing that comes is a terrible retching from his stomach, the vomit sending a puff of dust up from the cobbled surface as it hits.

Bent double, hacking up the last small chunks of sick and acid which stick in his throat, he turns his head right, looking out of the alley and across the road. As he does, a policewoman, a colleague that he knows well, points at him and shouts "He's there! Quick!"