Page 129 of Tapeworld Induction

He walked deeper into the tube, moving slowly, anxious about what might be waiting for him.

He exited the tube at the other end, half expecting to be in another trapworld from Astrid, but no. It was a blank white space, only his chair replicated in the middle of it.

“Okay. The screen will show what we find.” Jeff’s voice startled him, coming in like an ominous god.

“What screen?”

A blast of light and colour invaded the pure white room, like an ethereal ultra-high-definition cinema.

“That screen.”

All the bright lights made Isaak’s eyes hurt.

The screen showed his point of view, like a bodycam in a police brutality incident. It was already trained on Cardinal Row, the warehouse and the beds loaded with people, the Crypterra Sleepers strapped to their heads.

“Whoa, whoa, what is this? What have you been doing, man?” Jeff’s surfer-like demeanour made for a very jarring ominous god. “Did you do something naughty to these sleeping people?”

Was the only thing on this guy’s mind sex? “No, just… Stop.”

Jeff chuckled. “Make me!”

Figures. Sex and being a fucking wanker.

Isaak’s POV walked forward then turned. Two grey shapes attacked him, and he struck one with the sword-pistol. The other one he sliced and shot, Gunkatana in hand. The shapes writhed on the floor.

“Dude… That’s some serious hardware. You kicked their asses… What are they? Bots? And what’s that sword, man? A laserpistol?”

Isaak didn’t want Jeff to know anything, not even the weapon’s name, but he was already finding out too much.

The replay of his fight continued. Then the screen showed Astrid threatening Talia.

“Ow, don’t hit me!” Jeff said. “Okay, okay, I paused it.”

Isaak couldn’t hear Dylan’s side of the conversation, but he didn’t need to. The screen was paused on a shot of Talia, barely conscious, wrapped in the glass cage filled with water.

“Hey… You can lean next to me speak… Okay, take it!”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“That’s what you saw?” Dylan said into the space around him, having commandeered the controls. “She’s bound and being drowned? Fucking hell, Isaak!”

“I tried to spare you the details. Sorry. But we know Astrid is keeping her alive. She’d be without a pulse by now if she wasn’t.”

Silence again.

He really wished she hadn’t had to see her best friend drowning in the Tapeworld. Had holding that back from her been the wrong decision?

Dylan let out a frustrated noise. “Let’s just find where this fucking warehouse is before it’s too late.”

Isaak crossed his arms, scanning the still frame. His eyes landed on a street visible through the wood-framed windows. “Is there a way to go back to when I was looking out the window, with a better angle?”

“How about this?”

There was a whirring sound like an old video tape being rewound. The footage on the screen crackled and shifted as it played backwards.

“I know it’s somewhere in London, but there aren’t enough landmarks for me. I can’t place it. Fuck.”

“Wait. This metal bridge,” Dylan said, moving the footage frame by frame. “It’s connecting these two buildings. Five stories tall. And then another further ahead. Wooden beams crisscrossing the bottoms of the bridges. I know vaguely where this is. Docklands!”