Chapter Seven

“Where are we going?” I had to shout over the sound of London’s night traffic. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere out of the ordinary,” he shouted back. “I don’t think you’re going to believe it… but what the hell, I’m going to give you the time of your life!”
Soon, the traffic was waning out. At first I thought that it was just getting very late. It made me nervous, because I had to get home before my mum thought I was done with work. But then I realized that the time wasn’t what was slowly slipping away from the road, it was us. We were going down some road I had never even known existed. It seemed to get darker and darker until finally, we arrived at this old, worn-out looking factory. Lucas parked in front of it.
“Is this where we get our motorcycle engines from?” I asked.
Luke smiled. “I might as well tell you now, I haven’t been totally honest when it came to telling you my profession.”
“Aha! I knew I couldn’t trust you,” I spat. “So, what, you’ve come here to mug or rape or murder me? My mum will wonder where I am, you won’t get away with this!”
“Whoa! Calm down, Caitykins,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything horrible to you, and I have absolutely no interest in shagging you.” He laughed. “I’ll explain when I show you, I suppose. Let’s go inside.”
He put a key into the door, and slowly opened it, letting it creak to its fullest eerie and cliche potential. It was dark and dusty inside, like someone hadn’t been here for a while. Yet there was a sense of familiarity, which is odd, because I’ve never been in a place like this my whole life. Never been anywhere so dark, so cold, so mysterious, and so empty.
“This way,” he said. He held my hand and guided me through the darkness.
He took me into another room. It was just as dark and empty as the last one. We crossed it, and went into another room. And another, and another. All of the rooms seemed to be identical. It still seemed, though, that Luke knew where he was going. I would’ve gotten thoroughly lost at this point.
“Am I taking the right doors?” he said to himself before opening what felt like the fiftieth door in those ten minutes. “Ah. Yes, this is right. Come on, then.”
The last door was different. Instead of musty and gray like the other ones, this door was a violent purple, completely standing out from anything that was in the building. The door knob was perfectly round, silver and dazzlingly shiny. If everything else in the whole building was dark and unkempt, why did this door look so perfect and polished?
“Let’s go,” he said. He opened the door.
I gasped. There was… nothing. Just another room.
“Well,” I said. “That was anti climactic.”
Lucas laughed. He pulled me in through the door, and closed it behind us. The factory was as musty and dark as ever before.
“I don’t understand what’s so great about this place,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to show me something super magnificent?”
“Yeah, calm down,” he said. “And be patient.”
So he guided me through the many rooms again, and it was like we were leaving the same building.
“What was the point of coming in here if we were just going to come back out anyway?” I asked. “That place was disgusting. Except for that one door. Lucas Francium, where the hell are you taking me?”
He opened the door, and stepped outside.
“I asked you a question Lu—” But I froze in my tracks before I could finish.
Buildings. Everywhere. I was surrounded by them. Tall, massive, monstrous, eerie looking buildings. All made of a dark red brick, towering over me like a complete intimidating monster. Of course I used “monster” twice, it was so intimidating and scary, I couldn’t think of any other adjectives. My brain just couldn’t wrap around what was going on.
Because when we entered the building, it was night. The stars twinkled faintly, and the sky was black. Now, the sky was not black at all, and there were no stars in the sky, not even a sun. But the sky was a deep, blood red that spilled over the buildings like a can of water and paint that just fell over. Whisps of orange clouds swirled over the blood like some sort of nasty infection in a cut. It would have been beautiful if it weren’t for the dozens and dozens of black blimps in the sky, floating like ominous seeds of death.
“What happened?” I asked. “Where did all this stuff come from?”
“My dear Caity-cakes, this stuff has been here from the very beginning,” he said. “It’s always been here. It was built by the people of this city, the people of London.”
“No,” I said. “No, it hasn’t. This stuff wasn’t here when we went into that building… and what time is it? It was night when we first entered, and now… now, I can’t even tell what time it is.” I looked at my watch. The time kept moving forward like nothing had changed. “Okay, you will tell me where we are right now, or else… or else…”
“Or else?”
“You don’t even want to know what I have in mind,” I said as scarily as I possibly could. “Tell me. Now.”
“My dear Caitykins, this is London,” he said. “Just not the London that you know and love. Or, didn’t know, for that matter.”
“What does that mean?” I said through gritted teeth. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”
“I think to explain where we are, I’ll have to explain who I am,” he said. “As you could have probably guessed by now, I do not own a motorcycle engine factory. And my motorcycle… well, it does more than just travel on roads.”
“What are you talking about? Have you gone completely insane?” I almost screamed. “What’s it supposed to do, fly?”
“Not fly,” he said. “But it can go on water. Go at remarkable speeds. Aaaaaaand in desperate measures and a great amount of energy, it can rip through dimensions.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You following me?” Lucas asked.
I still didn’t answer.
“Right,” he said. “Well, if you haven’t guessed yet, we’re in an alternate dimension.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Alternate. Dimension,” he said slowly. “Like… a totally different universe, parallel to this one, similar in many ways, yet drastically different in many more.”
“So… this is a…”
“Alternate dimension,” he said again, very slowly. “Yes, yes. Good job, you’re starting to catch on.”
“And it’s parallel to my universe?”
“Your universe in your dimension, yes. Technically, this universe doesn’t even exist from the view point of yours, and vice versa.”
“You’re losing me again.”
“Don’t worry, it took me a while to understand, too. But I had to learn quickly, of course, because I’m the one who has to protect the balance.”
“Wait… what?”
“Yeah, that was my reaction exactly.”
“So you…”
“Don’t make motorcycle engines,” Luke laughed. “Right. I am a keeper of the dimensions, I protect the balance between parallel universes.”
“And you…”
“Do this as a living, yes. Like I said when I met you, it gets terribly lonely, but I have to remember how important my job actually is.”
“So we’re in a…”
“Al. Ter. Nate. Di. Men. Sion.” He said slower than ever. “That’s right.”
“Like… in Doctor Who?”
Lucas his his forehead with his palm. “Yes, well, I suppose if you want to look at it that way… right, it’s almost like how it is in Doctor Who, with the parallel universes and all.”
“So your motorcycle is like a TARDIS?” I asked.
Luke sighed. “I suppose… in a way… but not really… it doesn’t travel through time…”
“So we’re in an alternate dimension?” I asked again.
“Yes, how many times do I have to say this?”
“Apparently a lot, because I’m just not getting it.”
“Alternate dimension,” he repeated. “Parallel universe.”
“All right,” I said. “I know what those things are.”
“And you’re in another one. Now.”
“What do you mean ‘another one’? Are you calling my home an alternate dimension?”
“Well, yes,” he said. “Yes, this is true. Every dimension is just… another dimension. There is no original one. One can’t exist without the other. There’s a finite balance, and I am the one who has to maintain that balance. You never know if something from one universe is going to come spewing out of some random hole into another universe. It could happen. You could get a random flock of birds, or a flood of water or—”
“Or flames?” I asked.
“Yes, or flames,” he said. “And there’s got to be someone to make sure things like that don’t happen.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Are you following me now?”
“I think so,” I said. “So you do this all by yourself?”
“That’s what I said.”
“No friends… no family?”
“Just lots of girls to shag,” he said lightheartedly.
I laughed. “You’ve got to be joking.”
He shook his head. “Of course not. When you live a life like mine, it’s way too difficult to maintain relationships with people. And my two favorite things in all the universes are sex and chocolate cake.”
I laughed again. This had to be some sort of joke. “So,” I breathed. “Alternate universe, huh?”
“That’s right,” Luke said. “Would you like a look around?”