Not that it happened immediately. Or even, in my defence, that quickly. I had prepared—of course I had. Thoroughly and carefully. Especially when it came to social interactions, where I absolutely followed Garvel and Hanslethk’s standard protocols for participant observation. At least at the beginning.

Indeed, in my case I was completely comfortable with the persona of someone who was aloof, unsociable without being unfriendly, an observer sitting on the margins of whatever was happening around them. Which is exactly what I was, making notes and keeping records of all kinds of social interactions, across a variety of previously scoped environments.

And those included, of course, mating and pre-mating interactions in an assortment of eating and drinking establishments. So it was, with all due regard to the risks involved, that I found myself regularly attending what was known in this particular locale as a ‘pub’, observing the multifarious exchanges between the other clientele and noting their directionality, modality and degree of intimacy according to the  Xeldon-Traag matrix.

I’d been doing this for quite some time, building up what I felt was a detailed picture of this particular milieu, when all my painstakingly created social distance went out the window, as they say, along with my objectivity. As much as I would have preferred to have just sat quietly, making my observations, the local social protocols dictated that I purchase the occasional drink. And it was while I was doing this, having successfully engaged the bar-person in an exchange of electronic credit for a fermented beverage, that I made my crucial error. As much as I thought otherwise, I was in fact still not fully comfortable in this particular social setting, and so when someone behind me suddenly leaned forward and shouted out their order, I jumped and spilled my own drink on the arm of the person standing next to me.

I know I should have just followed protocol again, simply apologising whilst offering to make appropriate reparations and then departing as quickly as socially permissible, but when he smiled and looking directly into my eyes, told me not to worry about it, I found myself inexplicably unable to comply with what was laid down in the handbook. As I said, form can determine behaviour and in that moment I ceased being an anthropologist apart. Even so, I had plenty of opportunities to remove myself from the interaction. I could have just turned and walked away, for example, out of the establishment and beyond any further contact with the individual concerned. Which might have violated the relevant social conventions but any resulting awkwardness or more importantly, loss of further observational data, would have weighed far less than the burden I’m now carrying.

But I didn’t. Instead, I found myself smiling in return and I allowed ‘Daniel’, or so this person had introduced himself, to buy me a fresh drink and accompany me to a table. I honestly don’t know why I persisted in behaving the way I did. Maybe after all this time, I was simply tired of being the scientist and for once just wanted to relate to another sentient creature on some sort of par. Or perhaps there was some other, deeper reason. I was, after all, a long way from home and despite everything, I missed the intimacy of my own kind. This was different of course, but it functioned as something approaching an acceptable substitute.

I have tried to rationalise what happened next, telling myself that I was simply engaging in further exploration of human interactions, still operating in my role as an anthropologist, but that wasn’t true. This body reacted as those it was modelled on had evolved to do, which meant I felt what is universally experienced as desire and I could see from Daniel’s reactions that he felt it too. And so, in time honoured fashion, we ended up copulating. Even there, you see, I’m using a particular term in an effort to distance myself from the act. And the next morning I did indeed distance myself from both Daniel and, to my chagrin, the project more generally. At least as far as my further involvement was concerned.

So now I am on my way home. I can feel what had been my human skin hardening, becoming the protective carapace in which I will undergo the metamorphosis back into my original form. For of course, just as in the case of certain Earth insect species, shape shifting for my kind involves the breaking down into their chemical components of whatever organs have been constructed and then rebuilding them according to the dictates of my kind’s particular imaginal cells.

In order to direct the change, these must remain separate from the general dissolution but now, unfortunately, there is additional DNA in the mix, literally. How that will affect ‘my’ transformation, I simply do not know. It is not unusual for our anthropologists to return from the field psychologically altered by the experience, sometimes even physically affected as well. But I believe this will be the first time one of us has emerged chimerically changed in this manner. How that will be received by my compatriots remains to be seen but as my ship physically travels between the stars, so I find myself, as a scientist, eager to learn what my own biological destination will be.

Callum stamped his feet and hugged his arms. A sigh curled away from him. He guessed he was now only four taxis from the front. A relief, but a problem of its own: he lacked the funds to get home to Kilmaurs, supposing the driver agreed to take him out of the city and across the moors. Worse weather was to come.

Over the road, people kept arriving, lifting their heads and stopping short at the gates, and from the line would come the cry, “Trains are aff! Buses as well. You’ll need to join the back of the queue.” In a cruel quirk of nomenclature, the back of the queue—always emphasized—now snaked round the corner onto Hope Street.

Callum had joined their ranks an hour ago praying an idea would occur, that money would magic its way into his account. But it was the night before payday and his partner, Siobhan, still on mat-leave and now receiving only statutory, had even less to spare than Callum did. And his father wasn’t answering his phone. Likely he’d fallen asleep in front of the game. Rangers were winning handsomely away to Aberdeen; Dad was a Celtic fan.

Callum slipped his phone from his pocket. No messages.

Fuck it. He had thirty quid in his wallet. Thirty quid was half a taxi.

“Right,” he shouted, turning on his heel. A few dozen heads snapped to attention. “Anyone else going to Kilmaurs? Might as well share if you are.”

Those same heads shook, minutely, almost in unison. Then, agitation halfway up the queue. A purple bobble hat, double-pommed, the owner too small to establish eye contact, so she stepped out the line.

“Did you say Kilmaurs, son?”

Callum nodded. “Aye.”

She was in her mid-fifties. Furry white coat. Platinum blonde under the hat. Heavy mascara. A day’s drink sloshing around inside her. Not that Callum was entirely sober.

“Right,” she said, “that’ll dae us.”

She bent to pick up some bags and Callum spotted her companion, tall and teenaged and looking to the skies like she wanted the storm to entomb her entirely. That’d be the daughter, then.

Callum smiled. Could have been worse. The mum would likely demand his life story and the names of every living relative in the village, but his baby chat—right now, his only chat—would charm her well enough.

One place behind him, an arm cut through the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a wee minute here.”

Ah, Christ.

Baldy head. Barbour jacket with the logo on the outside. Probably fancied himself a Jason Statham lookalike but his jowls were on the slide.

“There’ll be no queue skipping while I’m about, so you just haud your horses, love.”

She stopped in her tracks, now out the queue, shopping bags in hand, teenage daughter wraithlike behind her.

A trill of fat fingers. “Back you go.”

But she just stood there, threw a stricken glance at Callum, as if torn between disappointing an Ayrshire-man and angering a maniac.

“Look, mate…” said Callum.

The baldy head swivelled round, all mad eyes and raised brows.

Callum pressed on. “It’s hardly skipping if they’re getting in the same taxi.”

“Hardly skipping? Hardly skipping?” He gestured towards the length of the queue. “Look at all these folk she’s about to hardly skip!”

“But it’s…”

He pointed at someone in the line. “Here, mate, you want to be skipped?” Someone else. “How about you?” Another. “You, mate. You look like you’re freezing your nuts aff. You want somebody going afore you?”

More tiny head shakes; a mumbled, “No.”

“Naw, didnae think so. And she’s sure as fucking fuck no skipping me, so I suggest you shut your face or lose it. Capiche?”

Jesus. “All right,” said Callum. “Erm, capiche. It’s just…”

But the eyebrows were on the rise again and the mum was shaking her head while the queue moved to absorb her, a hen hiding a precious egg. The daughter only smiled, momentarily cut adrift until a purple glove snuck out and snatched her back in.

Callum sighed.

“Aye,” said Jowly Jason. “Thought not.”

Callum’s hands were fists in his pocket, but he knew that’s where they would stay. He kicked a ridge of slush into the road. How was he supposed to get home now? Fucking gammon-faced prick. Into his collar, he mumbled, loud as he dared, “Fuck’s sake.”

Jowly Jason cleared his throat, somehow put a challenge in there, and it was enough. Too much.

Callum spun to face him.

“Haw!”

A shout from somewhere, accompanied by a strange creaking. All eyes in the queue were on the train station gates, so Callum looked too.

A moustachioed face peered back at him through the railings.

“You want to get to Kilmaurs?” he asked. “I can take you. You girls too.”

“Erm, right,” said Callum. “Okay.” But he hesitated, sensing a scam, or some strange joke. Jowly Jason would surely delight in refusing him entry back into the queue if he left it. But the guy was behind the gates. Staff. Likely leaving for the night and, overhearing the commotion, trying to do right by his fellow villagers.

Callum looked for the mum and daughter but they were hidden from his view. Probably waiting for him to move first.

Well, it wasn’t like he could get a taxi now anyway. What did he have to lose?

“M’on then,” said the man, and that strange creaking sounded again as he eased the gate open.

Callum stepped into the road and as if in response the snow thickened, an instant blizzard, its flurries so dense he had to work to keep the giant gates ahead of him, and when he turned to see if the mum and daughter had followed there was nothing at all to look at. Even the queue had vanished.

Callum pressed forward, hands out in front of him, inching through perfect white and infinite silence, until his fingers found iron and rust and a gap to squeeze through.

Callum shook the snow from his coat, ran a hand through his hair, stepping away from the moustachioed man so as not to soak him.

“Cheers,” said Callum. “Really appreciate it. You going to be able to drive in that?”

“Hang on.” The man poked his head out the gate, beyond which the snow hung like wallpaper.

But from it he pulled the mum then the daughter, and with them came a great buffet of powder that swirled around the entranceway then seemed to dart forward, an invading army claiming new ground.

The daughter pinched her jacket under her armpits and gave it three shakes while the mum dumped her bags and waggled her hat in front of her. The invading army inched forward.

“Christ’s teeth!” said the mum. “Thought we’d tummelt into the netherworld there. You ever seen the snow dae that?”

Callum smiled, flexed his toes to combat the pinch of his dress shoes.

The mum balled her gloves into her hat and dropped the hat into a bag. “Cheers for the rescue, pal. And no a moment too soon, eh?” She pointed to Callum. “This one was about to get his head kicked in.”

Callum shook his head. “Not really.”

“You were,” said the daughter, and she smiled wistfully, like she’d missed out on some exquisite spectacle. “You were gonnae lose your face.”

Callum made to object but she wandered away, taking in the station like it was her first go round.

“What’s the story, then, handsome?” said the mum. “You taking us home?”

Callum looked again at their rescuer. He was good-looking, no doubt about it, despite the moustache. Or possibly because of it. The eyes, too, had something about them: gentle, tricksy, maybe a touch sad.

He produced an overstuffed keyring, twisted a key in the lock, and squinted through the bars. “Well, I’m no miracle worker. But mibbes it’ll ease off.”

Then he spun round and grinned like some hidden director had shouted for action. “But I think we’re a bit better aff in here, aren’t we? I’m Wee Johnny the Train Driver. Let’s get some names aff you.”

“Right,” said the mum. “I’m Laura and this is ma niece, Fia. We’re fae Kilmaurs, but I guess that’s old news.”

Callum recalibrated. Okay, not the mum. The mad auntie.

“Nice,” said Johnny, and he pointed at Callum.

“Callum,” he said. “Kilmaurs.”

“Fantastic!” Wee Johnny strode forward onto the main concourse, arms wide like some arsehole off the telly. He wasn’t even that small. “Welcome,” he said, “to Glasgow Central… after hours.”

It looked the same as always. Back before the pandemic, Callum had been through twice a day.

Fia spied the public piano and veered towards it, still twenty yards away but already taking her jacket off.

“That’s it,” said Wee Johnny. “Get some tunes on the go.” To Laura, he asked, “Can she play?”

For a long moment, Laura’s face communicated only fucked if I know, before she gathered herself and rebooted into auntie mode. “Course she can. What a question! Ma wee Fia can do anything she puts her mind to.”

Then she was off up the concourse too, leaving Callum at the gates with her shopping bags. He bent to lift them.

“Watch that one, son,” she said, over her shoulder. “It’s got a ham in it.”

“Right,” said Callum. “Fair play. A ham.” And suddenly he was so tired he could have laid down and used the meat for a pillow. This had been his first proper day out in eight months, since the baby came. She was a delight, little Cora, but she slept like a relapsing coke fiend and so her parents did too. Why wasn’t this day done?

Some of this must have shown on his face, because Johnny wheeled back towards him, head cocked in empathy, still with the TV arms.

“Callum, my man! How’s it going?”

Callum nodded.

“What do you think of the place?”

“Erm, aye, fine. Good.”

“That it?” asked Johnny. “Just good? Ach, well, you don’t see what I see.”

Callum looked again. In truth, he’d always loved Glasgow Central: the vaulted steel and glass roof that seemed to stretch to the horizon, enclosing what once must have been the external façades of Victorian buildings; the curved wooden concessions that lined and dotted the concourse, at least a century old and too small to comfortably host the newsagents and bars and patisseries and coffee shops that did a roaring trade anyway, everyone squashed in together.

At the piano, Fia fumbled through the opening bars of Chopsticks. Callum stifled a sigh, caught Wee Johnny mid-eye roll.

Fuck’s sake. Callum made a show of looking one more time at the station, widened his eyes some. “It is a great place,” he said. “It really is.”

Johnny winked. “Heart of the city. Hang on.” He strode off across the concourse. “All of you, hang on. I’ve got something for youse.”

Up ahead, Laura collapsed onto a chair and waved him off, eyes already half shut. She sighed and a “Sounding good, my love,” escaped with it, like a squeak from a deflating balloon.

Callum placed her bags beside her and sat opposite, trying to relax even though Fia had moved on to Merrily We Roll Along and was giving it a stilted, unsettling cadence, possibly satirically.

“Right,” shouted Johnny, reappearing from some shadowy corner. “Thought youse might be hungry.”

The piano stopped; Laura’s eyes shot open. Johnny brandished a large paper bag, its logo unfamiliar but the smell instantly recognisable.

“Burgers,” he shouted.

“Aww, Wee Johnny,” said Laura, “you shouldn’t have.”

“Aye, I should,” said Johnny. “Course I should. Dig in.”

They did so. The burgers were wide and warm, their paper wrappings translucent with grease. Casey Jones Burger, they read.

“Mmm.” Fia grinned, eyes closed, brows raised in pleasure. “That’s good.”

“Too right,” said Laura, already angling bodily towards her next bite. “Thanks, Wee Johnny.”

“Nae problem. What d’you think, Callum?”

Callum took a bite. Jesus Christ was it good. “Fuck me,” he said, and the others laughed. Between mouthfuls, he asked, “What’s a Casey Jones burger? Never heard of them.”

Johnny elbowed Fia. “Ha! He wouldnae know a Casey Jones burger if he was eating one.”

Fia laughed. “Aye,” she said, “but where do you get them, though? Is it boutique or something? They’re so nice.”

“Haud on,” said Laura, “I mind ae Casey Jones. Wasn’t there a Casey Jones burger place in the station?” She pointed towards the platforms. “Right where that wee Starbucks jobbie is now?”

Johnny grinned.

“This is going back some, mind,” said Laura. “Mibbes thirty years ago.”

“Forty,” said Johnny. “It’s forty years.”

“Hell, I’m no that old, am I?” asked Laura, and she laughed.

Callum stopped eating. There was some strange, clanging note in Johnny’s expression, an odd streak of satisfaction that bordered on the perverse.

“Sorry,” said Callum, “what’s actually the deal with these burgers?”

“They’re forty years old,” said Fia, and she grinned conspiratorially at Johnny.

“Aye,” said Johnny, smiling too, grease from his own burger staining his lips, “that’s right enough. What I did was, I went and bought these four decades ago and hid them away all that time ’cos I wanted you guys to enjoy them tonight.”

“Lovely thought,” said Laura. “I’m made up. Tastes amazing.”

Fia was still grinning at Johnny. “But you’re never forty. How old are you, would you say?”

“I wouldn’t.” Johnny winked at her. “But young enough.”

Ick. The answer was: thirty, at the very least, although you never could tell with these ironic moustaches. Johnny’s clothes, too, were confusing. He was dressed like a train driver all right, but not in the modern fleecy jacket and polyester trousers. Instead, he wore blue overalls, like somebody off Thomas The Tank Engine, like his duties might include shovelling coal. The logo on his chest read British Rail.

Johnny caught Callum staring at it and raised an eyebrow in challenge. British Rail had been privatised and broken up decades ago. It no longer existed. It was ScotRail up here now.

“You get dressed in the eighties as well?” asked Callum. He tried to put some levity in there, but he didn’t feel it, and it didn’t make it back out.

Johnny sighed. “It’s fancy dress, mate. Bit ae fun, if you’ve ever heard of that. Supposed to be going to a party later. Dressed up the burgers too, if you must know.”

“Oh,” said Callum.

“Aye,” said Johnny. “They’re home-made. Printed aff the labels, whole fucking lot. Took me forever, so I hope you’re enjoying them. Waste ae time, turns out.”

“No,” said Fia. “They’re amazing. And I think you look really nice.”

Johnny winked at her again. “Thanks, doll.”

“Whit else was there?” Laura cast her eyes round the station. “Was there no a wee restaurant?”

“Aye,” said Johnny. He pointed down the concourse slope. “Over there. The Caledonia, it was called. Big Mary and Brenda ran it. Had all the train times displayed in the windows above it.”

“Oh, I remember that,” said Laura.

“Aye,” said Johnny. “Every platform had its own window.”

“Seem to know a lot about the eighties.” The words were out Callum’s mouth before he could stop them.

“Do my research, mate. If I’m gonnae dress up, I do it properly. What’s your go-to? Bin-bag Batman?”

“No,” said Callum. Not even. He took another bite of his burger. “So, just to be clear, you’re a train driver… dressed as a train driver?”

Johnny rounded on him. “Well, you’re a prick dressed as a prick, so what’s the difference?”

“Hey,” said Laura. “Be nice, the pair of you, or I’ll knock your heads together.”

Fia wandered away again, smirking, fishing her phone from her pocket.

“Aye,” said Johnny, and there was a note of contrition in there. “I’ll away and see what this snow is up to.”

When he had retreated, Laura whispered, “What are you playing at? This guy’s your only chance of getting home, and you’re bamming him up?”

“Aye,” said Callum, “but he’s strange, though. Do you no think he’s strange?”

Laura’s eyes flicked to Fia. “Strange I can deal with. But I’m getting in his car tonight, and ma wee niece is getting in his car tonight, and we’re getting home, and you’re no gonnae muck that up, you hear me?”

“Yeah,” said Callum. “All right. Sorry. I’ll just go, erm, text my partner. Give her an update.”

“You do that,” said Laura.

Fuck’s sake. What was wrong with him? That was twice now he’d gotten into an argument, almost a fight. He thumbed his phone and tried to tamp down, yet again, that most insidious of fears: that fatherhood was turning him into his father. In a quiet corner of the station, he tapped out a message.

Possible lift with other folk from Kilmaurs. Don’t wait up. Sleep when she sleeps!

He put his phone away and spied, on a distant platform, a train with its carriage lights left on. Odd. He moved closer.

It was an ancient thing, and done up in the wrong colours. Grey and light blue. Along its side, the logo read British Rail. It had three windows at the front instead of the usual two. Above the middle one a destination was displayed.

Kilmaurs.

When Callum turned round again, Johnny was marching back up the concourse. “Right. Weather’s still a bag of shite, so it looks like we’ve got some time to kill. Who fancies a tour?”

Fia raised her hand. “Me! I’ll go.”

“Isn’t that a nice idea?” said Laura, and she side-eyed Callum while she said it.

“Callum, pal,” said Johnny, “what do you say?” Again, he flung his arms wide, and again there was something off about his expression, that same clanging note that this time put a hitch in Callum’s throat and a shiver up his spine.

“Right,” he said, “a tour.”

“Fantastic!” And Johnny winked at him.

Wee Johnny unlocked a door marked No Unauthorised Persons Beyond This Point, beckoned everyone inside, then paused, stuck by some thought, or at least affecting to be.

“Oh, wait,” he said. “Forgot the drinks. Youse must be thirsty.”

“Parched,” said Laura.

Another smile from Fia. “I could drink.”

“Wait here.” Johnny ran off, back into the station proper, leaving the door to swing shut behind him.

Callum put a foot in it, arresting its progress, then peeked out, almost hoping to see Johnny lurking there with a key poised, awaiting the return of the lock, but he was gone.

Laura and Fia took no notice of this; they were busy on their phones.

Fia flashed her screen at her auntie. “See what my mum wrote? Telt her I’m stuck in the train station wi’ two randoms and all I get back is take care. Thanks, Mum.”

A tut from Laura, half an eye roll, then back to her own screen.

“Right,” said Callum, “do you no think there’s something a bit weird happening here?”

Fia looked him up and down, took in his foot in the door and raised an eyebrow.

“Hilarious,” said Callum. “I mean with him.”

“He thinks you’re a prick.”

“Yeah,” said Callum, “’cos I’m not buying into his bullshit. Plus, there’s an actual, honest-to-god British Rail train out there, from fucking yore, lit up like a fair and ready to go.”

Laura didn’t look up. “Well, we are in a train station.”

“You know its destination? Kilmaurs.”

“Naw,” said Laura. “You cannae get a train that terminates at Kilmaurs.”

“I know.”

“Probably just read it wrong,” said Fia, now regarding him like he was some snot-nosed schoolkid from two years below, like he was stood before her on a dare. “Probably drunk.”

“Now, Kilmarnock,” said Laura, “aye, could be.”

“It wisnae Kilmarnock, okay?” said Callum. “Right, how about this? This Wee Johnny is in his mid-thirties—I’m sorry, Fia, but he is—and he hasn’t once looked at his phone. Pretty odd.”

“You,” said Laura, “are clutching at straws.”

The door moved and Callum flinched away. Johnny was back, clutching a Presto carrier bag bulging with cans. A smile, then a glance at Callum.

“What’s he been saying?”

“Thinks you’re weird,” said Fia, “’cos you’re no on your phone all the time. You doing a detox?”

“A whit?”

“I know, it’s social suicide.” Fia smiled. “It’s fine if you’re a bit older, though. I mean, if you’re a bit older, it’s totally fine.”

Johnny cocked his head. “Cool. M’on then.” He led them down a staircase. “And you be careful wi’ they daft shoes on, Callum. Don’t want you taking a header over the railings, now, do we?”

Daft shoes? They maybe pinched a bit but they were fucking Italian. Prick.

On the landing, Johnny cuddled into Fia, gave her a squeeze. Creepy fucker. What age was Fia, really? Sixteen? Seventeen? A kid. And Laura didn’t seem to care. She was back on her phone again, for some reason shaking it up and down.

Momentarily defeated, she pocketed it, burped, then shouted ahead. “Not to take the wind out your sails, son, but me and Fia have already done the tour. The official one. Wi’ the disused Victorian platform and the dead soldiers and all ae that.”

“Aye,” said Fia, “and the ghosts. There were some brilliant ghosts he talked about.”

“That does make it a bit mair difficult, aye,” said Johnny. “But what if I telt you I could make this place come alive in a way no regular tour ever could?”

“Dunno, like,” said Laura. “Thon guy was pretty good.”

“Aye,” said Fia, “he was. No as much ae a wee ride, though.”

“Fia! Control yourself.”

“Sorry, Auntie. Just having a laugh.”

“Well, find something else to laugh about.”

Thank God. Some parenting. Callum caught up with Laura and walked astride, eyes on Johnny. I’ve got your back.

“Oi, Mr Man wi’ the bloody cans,” Laura shouted, “you keeping them all to yourself? Getting a fair drooth on over here.”

Callum sighed. That didn’t last long.

“Aye, aye,” said Johnny. “Let’s just get where we’re going first.”

The tour hadn’t gotten off to the most enthralling start. They were in a small underground car park with concrete floors, red and white painted brick walls and too-bright fluorescents shining overhead. Callum prayed one of the half-dozen cars left was Johnny’s, but they all looked too modern. Jesus, Callum. Get a grip. He’s only dressing up.

“It’s doon this way,” said Johnny, and out came the keyring again. He unlocked another door, this one a dull grey and bearing only the warning, Mind your head.

Behind was a narrow breeze-block passageway with hanging wires, a fluorescent light propped up vertically beside the door, and darkness in both directions beyond.

Opposite, the breeze block had been ripped out to create an opening. A modern metal staircase led down into darkness; foetid air rose up to meet them.

Fia scrunched her nose. “Boak.”

Beyond the staircase, just visible, a grooved, cast-iron column supported a riveted metal superstructure familiar from train stations across the country.

“This’ll be the Victorian platform, then,” said Laura.

“It stinks,” said Fia, turning away.

“Aye,” said Johnny. “But wait till you see what we’ve come to see.” He produced an ancient torch and shone it down the hole.

“Did it smell this bad last time?” asked Laura.

Fia gagged. “No! Jebus Crisp. Who died?”

“Somebody wi’ halitosis and a shitty arse,” said Laura.

Fia sniggered. “Aye, and a giant fan to waft it all aboot with.”

Johnny rounded on them, torch in their faces. “Enough about the smell, okay. Just… enough. It’s no that bad.”

It was that bad, but something else was upsetting Callum. He could hear, faint and echoing, the squeal of brakes, the rickety clank of train wheels over tracks. Impossible.

Johnny stood in the opening, and out came the TV grin and the TV arms, and all mysterious he said, “Are youse ready to experience what life was like in Glasgow nearly one hundred years ago?”

Laura and Fia glanced at each other. A shrug from the teenager.

“Sure,” said Laura, finally. “Be happier if I had a drink to experience it with, but, aye, what the hell?”

“Fine, fine,” said Johnny, and he reached into his Presto bag. “There you go.”

Four cans of Tennent’s Lager appeared, with an old-style logo on one side and pictures of coyly posed young women on the other, all big hair and plunging necklines. The Lager Lovelies. Jesus.

Laura grinned. “Oh, you’re some man, Wee Johnny. They look bang-on.” She fizzed open her can and chugged a mouthful.

“Lovelies for my lovelies.” Johnny winked, jerked a thumb at Callum. “And one for this grumpy prick too. Right, get them necked and on we go.” He descended the stairs with Fia at his back, a skip in her step to keep up with him.

Callum examined his can, tweaking the old-school ring-pull before flipping the thing over and reading the expiry date. Sept 86.

“Laura,” he said. “Take a look at this.”

Laura looked at the date. She stopped short, horror in her eyes. Finally.

“Callum,” she said, “do you think ma ham’ll be all right upstairs? It’ll no freeze in the cold, will it? It’s bone in.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Callum. “Your ham’s fine. Get out the way.”

He bundled past her, down the stairs, trying to pick out Johnny and Fia in the gloom. He couldn’t see them directly, but Johnny’s torchlight swung erratically from behind a nook in the wall up ahead.

What Callum could see was a ruin. Nothing beyond the skeletal remained. No trains, no tracks, just slick bricks and warped wood, and debris all around.

As Callum’s foot touched the platform, Johnny’s torch went out. The darkness was near total, just a sliver of light from the opening above. The echoing clang of Laura’s shoes on the stairs punctuated deathly silence.

“Fia?” said Callum. “Johnny?”

Nothing.

And then a whine, distant and mechanical. A train was coming. That couldn’t be.

But it was.

Callum could see nothing, but beneath his feet a great rumbling took up, steam hissed and popped and screeching brakes reverberated off the bare walls. The thing was coming along the platform.

Callum scrabbled for his phone, fumbled for the torch.

But suddenly a light was on him. It must have been Johnny’s torch but was much too bright and way too close, and among the hissing and screeching and shaking came Fia’s voice.

“Johnny, I said no. I told you it was just a laugh. Fucking pervert!”

And then something hit Callum’s face, something heavy and soft and awful that sent him sprawling to the floor and left a streak of wetness all across him.

The darkness and the silence returned.

Johnny’s torchlight flicked across the ceiling. From somewhere, dripping. Water? Hopefully water.

“Aw, fuck,” Johnny was saying. “Aw, fuck me.”

Callum sat up, rubbed at the wetness on his face. Liquid matted his jacket, cooled at his throat. Too dark to see its colour.

“Has something happened?”

Laura. Her voice floated down the stairs, childlike, thin as a memory.

“Johnny, you there? Somebody tell me what’s happened. Fia? Is it ma wee Fia? What’s happened?”

Callum had dropped his phone when he fell, but there it was, mercifully, at his feet. He picked it up and Siobhan and Cora beamed out at him, the lock-screen picture now bisected by a great crack in the glass.

“Callum,” said Laura. “That you? You need to tell me what’s going on, son.”

Johnny was a long way up the platform now, his light erratic, receding, allowing only brief snapshots of a bricked-up tunnel entrance behind him. No way a train could have come through there.

Callum thumbed his torch app and lit up his hand.

Blood. Of course.

He scrambled to his feet, fighting some urge not to face Laura, not to let her see, because this wasn’t his own blood. He was sure of it. But there was no point in delaying.

He swept his torchlight towards her and illuminated a severed arm on the ground between them.

Fia’s. Ripped away above the elbow.

Laura screamed. “Ma Fia! Ma wee Fia!”

She was off down the platform, into the darkness, Callum running to keep up. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

“Aye, but it was an accident.” Johnny shouted. Only his legs were visible. A great swathe of inky blackness lay between the torchlight arcs. “I thought she’d see it,” he said. “I thought…”

“Help us,” Callum shouted, but Johnny stayed put.

“There,” Laura scrambled down onto the trackbed, shoe half off, the Tennent’s can falling from her hand and rolling away.

Fia was alive, sitting upright. She stared at the stump of her arm, then at Laura, then at Callum.

Then she passed out.

Dark blood gushed from the stump, glistened on the floor as it followed the phantom train.

A tourniquet. Callum jumped onto the trackbed, already reaching for his belt as Laura rushed to Fia, kneeling in all that blood and holding her niece’s head, and looking back at Callum like he could fix all this.

He couldn’t. But he had to do something, so he set his phone on the ground and tightened his belt around Fia’s ruined arm, trying not to see the ragged skin flaps, the pink flesh studded with bright white bone fragments, the viscous, endless blood.

“Oh, Fia.” Laura fussed at Fia’s hair, stroking her too-pale skin. “Oh, ma wee Fia.”

Callum had to wrap the belt three times before it was tight enough but, mercifully, the flow slowed.

“Laura,” he said. “We need an ambulance.”

“Right. Of course.” Laura fished for her phone, turned the screen to Callum. “No bars, son.”

Fuck. “Okay.” He checked his own device. “No bars.”

Laura nodded at Johnny, still at the far end of the platform, his torchlight now unnaturally still. “He’s not going to have a phone, is he?”

Callum shook his head, and in the same moment Johnny put his torch out and was gone. A ghost, spirited away.

“Jesus Christ,” Laura whispered.

“Laura,” said Callum, “I’m going to have to run back upstairs to phone for help. I’ll be as quick as I can. You’ll need some light.”

“Right,” she said, but she only stared into the darkness where Johnny had stood.

“Your phone, Laura. It’s in your hand. Turn on your torch.”

She turned her gaze to Callum, hardly seeming to see him. “Right, son. My torch. Don’t be long.”

Callum climbed back onto the platform, skirted the arm, up the stairs, turning back only momentarily to see, in tableau in the darkness, like a snowglobe on a distant shelf, auntie and niece in terrible embrace.

“Come on, baby,” Laura was saying. “Come on. Oh, ma wee Fia.”

Callum moved on, out through the opening, through the dull grey door and into the underground car park. He killed his torch and held his phone high above him, spun a slow spiral on his heel with eyes on his screen until he heard a key in a lock.

What the fuck?

Johnny, at the grey door. Locking it.

Callum took three steps backwards. “What are you doing, Johnny? They’re still in there. They need… Her fucking arm’s off.”

Johnny grimaced. “I know, I know. It’s fucking dreadful. And her a piano player too. Bloody tragic, mate.”

“She needs an ambulance.”

Johnny just shook his head. “Nah. These guys… Aye, I made a mistake there. Thought they’d loosen you up, help you get into the spirit of the place. But, aye, mibbe best to pretend they just didnae happen.”

“What? They’re…”

“A distraction. Especially that big spooky wan.” He shook his head. “I shouldnae have bothered wi’ them, but you might no have come otherwise. They don’t see what I see. But you do.”

What was he talking about? The train?

Callum took another step backwards. “Fuck off.”

A smile from Johnny. “Aye, you see it.”

Callum had no time for this, so he just turned on his heels and ran. Now he needed the police and an ambulance. Fine. They’d sort him out.

There was no reception in the underground car park anyway, so he raced upstairs, back towards the modern station. Johnny didn’t follow.

The access door was still unlocked, thankfully. Callum battered through it, eyes on his phone, waiting for it to reconnect.

How can there be no reception in Central fucking Station? There was always 5G.

But something felt different. The lights… Had they changed colour? Callum looked up.

The lights were the least of it.

Twenty yards ahead, where the Starbucks should have been, a kiosk: Casey Jones Burger. What the fuck?

Giant advertising hoardings hung from the rafters. Benson & Hedges, one read, and Bring your cheque book in for a free tune up, and, Order by phone.

Callum staggered forward. This was wrong. All wrong. The concourse chairs were gone, the floor now bare concrete and dotted with stubby black litter bins.

The electronic departure board was away too, but Callum knew where he’d find the train times: in the upper windows of the main concession building. Only one train was scheduled for departure. Its destination: Kilmaurs.

Movement in the doorway underneath. Callum flinched, squinted into the shadows between orange gingham curtains, beneath the glowing sign for the Caledonia Restaurant.

Johnny hadn’t followed him, but all the same he was here.

He stepped forward and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to Glasgow Central, Callum.”

“You see it, don’t you? What I see. You’re here. Tell me you’re here, Callum.”

Callum blinked. No point denying it. “I’m here.”

His phone was still in his hand. Subtly, he angled the screen towards him. Still no bars. Oh, hell.

“Callum, pal, naw,” said Johnny, nodding at the phone. “Look about you. It’s 1983. Outer space disnae chat to fancy rectangles here. Put it away. Embrace what’s happening.”

Callum took a step backwards. 1983? His voice was a croak. “What’s happening, Johnny?”

“Magic! Or, I don’t know, something like that. Point is, I’m going home. And I’ll be honest wi’ you: I’m no really a train driver.”

Callum’s stomach fell. Somehow this admission was worse than anything else. Johnny had been lying from the off. “Uh-huh.”

“Or not anymore, at least. Was a train driver, had a bit of an accident, more of a caretaker now. And I cannae fucking leave.” Johnny shook his head. “But it’s somebody else’s turn now. It has to be.” Into the rafters, he shouted, “Surely to fucking goodness!”

Callum swallowed. “Yeah, but not me. It can’t be me. I’ve got a baby. A wee girl. She’s… Please, Johnny. I’m no interested.”

“And you think I was?” He pointed to the timetable above him. “Train to Kilmaurs leaves in ten minutes. That’s my ticket out of here. I’ve arranged it all. Scheduled it up.”

“Okay, but not me.”

“Has to be, mate. Plus you owe me. You owe me.”

“Johnny, I don’t.”

“Aye, you do. Time is weird here, Callum. You’ll find that. You cannae leave, but you can slip through time, forward and back, at least for a little while. I’ve seen this place getting built. I’ve seen it fall. And I’ve seen tonight, many times.” That sympathetic head cock again. “And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but usually by now you’re lying deid out the front.”

What? No.

“Aye. Sorry. You get in a fight. I think you know who with.”

Callum laughed. No way was this real. No chance. He’d never been in a fight in his life. He wasn’t his dad. He wasn’t. “Bullshit.”

Johnny shrugged. “Lucky punch, shit shoes, down you go. Sorry, pal, but there it is. You don’t get to go back to your wee girl. That’s out of the equation.”

Callum looked at the gates, like the answer might be out there. From his angle, it was impossible to see much beyond them, only that the snow was gone. Orange street lights reflected off slick, powder-free tarmac. Another impossibility.

“And I am sorry about all this, Callum. I know it’s hard to hear. But on the other hand, I did save your life. I intervened. So, aye, you owe me.”

“I don’t believe you. I…” Callum swallowed. “I have… I…”

“I’ve got kids too, you know,” said Johnny. “Or at least I did in 1983. That’s why it has to be now. Why I’ve worked so hard. I know you see how hard I’ve worked. How much I’m fucking concentrating. And the thing that’s holding me here will see it too and just let me go. Just let me go. That’s all I ask. Has it no been long enough?”

A new chill swept through the station and Callum had to adjust his stance, faltering like a weight had been lifted from his back.

“Ha!” Johnny pointed at him. “It’s working. It’s fucking working!”

Callum looked down. His jacket was gone. Underneath, blue overalls. His hand went to the stitched-in logo. British Rail.

“I knew it would work. Fucking yass!”

But Callum was barely listening. He had to get out of here. He sprinted for the main gate, nearly going over on his ankle as he turned. His shoes had changed, replaced with clumpy work boots. Oh, shit. What’s happening?

Callum rattled into the iron gate, pulled at it with all he had. Locked. The street outside was deserted. No people, no taxis, no snow. No body.

Okay. There were at least a half dozen ways out of here. Back inside, round the corner and down the steps onto Union Street. Worth a try.

Johnny watched him go, without bothering to give chase. “You know why it’s working? ’Cos you love this place, Callum. I know you do. You’ll look after it. I’d see you in here all the time. That’s why it had to be you.”

Locked. Where next?

“Always sitting in the Costa Coffee. Or you’d be coming in aff the train and you’d be the only one—the only one out of everyone—to walk through wi’ your head up, taking it all in.”

Hope Street. Back across the concourse, clomping across the concrete, but Callum could see from halfway that the shutter was down. Fuck!

With sudden clarity, he knew the whole place was locked up, as sure as if he’d locked the doors himself. He knew too that Johnny had the keys and that he didn’t have much time.

Johnny had quietened. A smart leather bomber jacket had materialised over his overalls and he was marvelling at it. He fingered its hem, grinning. Fuck.

Callum had never been in a fight in his life. But he thought of Cora, her smile, her smell, her tiny hugs. And he thought of never seeing her again, and of her never seeing him, and of leaving Siobhan to raise her on her own. And he thought, no.

Between Callum and Johnny: Laura’s shopping bags. They still existed, here in 1983. Did that mean Laura and Fia did too? Were they still down there, waiting for help to arrive?

Callum eyed Johnny again. Still distracted by the jacket. If Callum was going to do something, it had to be now.

Something caught his eye, sticking out of Laura’s shopping bag: a ham. Bone in.

That’ll do.

Callum ran at Johnny, picked up the ham leg on the way past. Cold to the touch but still soft. Not frozen. Shit.

He raised it high anyway, now at a full sprint, and Johnny saw him coming.

“What the…”

Callum didn’t slow down. He swung the ham, twisting with his full body, aiming for the head, his feral scream echoing through the station.

It wasn’t enough to knock Johnny out—he’d got a hand in the way at the last second—but it sent him staggering backwards, his fall near arrested until Callum stepped forward again and with his great clompy work boots sent him through the Caledonia Restaurant’s gingham-curtained window.

He landed in a shower of glass, head scudding off a table corner on the way down.

Was he dead? Was that even possible? Callum didn’t wait for an answer. He searched Johnny’s pockets, found the keys. Fled.

Callum smashed through the access door, flung himself down the stairs, through the underground car park, caught his breath at the door marked Mind your head. He didn’t have to guess which key would open it. He just knew.

They were still on the trackbed, held in their distant arc of light, Laura hunched over Fia, who was still unconscious and now deathly pale.

On seeing him, Laura flinched and held her niece closer, but said nothing. There was fear there. Terror. She thinks I’m Johnny.

Callum raced down the stairs. “It’s me, it’s me. It’s just Callum.”

“Callum? Christ. Did youse swap clothes?”

“No.” He ran the length of the platform, readied to jump down, but hesitated. That terror was still there. Laura gripped Fia’s remaining arm so tight it was sure to bruise.

“Are you one as well? Of whatever he is. A demon? Oh, tell me you’re not, Callum.”

“No,” said Callum. “I promise.” I hope. “But we have to get out of here. Now.”

Laura glanced at the exit. “No ambulance?”

Callum shook his head. “Johnny’s locked all the doors. But I’ve got the keys now. I can get us out. We can carry her together.”

Laura took Fia’s hand and clasped it, fingers threading together. She didn’t get up.

“Please,” said Callum, “just trust me.”

Laura took in his boots and his overalls, then looked him square in the eye. “I’ve no got much choice, have I?”

Quickly, they moved, placing Fia on the platform edge while they clambered back up and picked her up again. Laura took the feet, moving backwards until Callum suggested she turn around. Callum grasped Fia under her armpits, her head lolling on his shoulder, while with phone in shaking hand, he tried to light their way.

At the bottom of the stairs, Laura stopped. “The arm. We need her arm. I’m no leaving it.”

“Right,” said Callum. “Of course. Her arm.” And he fought an unseemly stab of impatience that seemed to surface then dissipate in the same moment. What was his hurry?

“They’ll stitch it right back on,” said Laura. “Good as new.”

“Aye, good as new.” And, regardless, there’ll be another tour group down here tomorrow. Can’t have an arm lying around.

Shit, where did that thought come from?

Callum found the arm and grabbed it, though they had to set down their cargo for him to do so, then reload, rebalance, then slowly manoeuvre up the stairs, Callum now with the added awkwardness and ick of the severed hand, which he lay across Fia’s belly and held secure by interlocking its fingers with his own.

An ambulance. Somehow Callum knew there were payphones in front of platforms one and nine, that three of them were properly out of order and one was awaiting cleaning after being doused with beer. If Laura’s phone didn’t work—if it really was 1983—the payphones surely would. But Callum didn’t want to spend another second in the station. Not the way his thoughts were turning. Plus there was a body up there, needing to be cleaned away. A glazier to book.

No, no. That wasn’t right. Concentrate. Callum had killed a man—a ghost?—and his body was lying in plain view. Did they have CCTV in 1983? He needed to get out of the station now.

“Just to warn you,” said Callum, “things look a bit different upstairs. Johnny’s… done things.”

“Aye, and I’ll do things to him,” she mumbled.

“No,” said Callum. “We should just leave. Maybe there’s a doctor in the taxi queue.”

“Right. That’s a plan.”

The main concourse was as he’d left it—the wrong-coloured lights, the concrete floor, the kiosks and adverts from Laura’s youth. If Callum had expected a reaction from her, he didn’t get one. She barely glanced up. Yet for some reason, he wanted her to be impressed.

“You seeing this, Laura?” he asked. “Look—it’s 1983.”

She looked. Nothing. “Right,” she said. “Okay, son. 1983. How are we getting out?”

Callum bristled. She couldn’t see what he saw. And she’d spoken to him like he’d gone mad, like she was humouring a lunatic out of fear and necessity. But why did he care? She was only interested in Fia. Of course she was.

“Main gate,” he said, then regretted his choice. It took them too close to the Caledonia Restaurant, and with Laura at the front, Callum wasn’t steering the ship. Would she be able to see Johnny’s body? Would it still be there?

“Jesus Christ!” she said. “There’s ma ham.”

Right. The ham. “Yep,” said Callum, and before he could conjure an explanation, they were upon the smashed restaurant window and Johnny’s mangled body. Still there.

Laura slowed. Her shoulders slumped. Callum didn’t know if she was seeing the Caledonia or the Marks & Spencers the building had become, but she saw Johnny, all right.

“Just keep moving,” said Callum.

And she did, faster than ever. Callum wanted to explain that in killing Johnny he’d saved her life and—hopefully—Fia’s, but he knew she would nod and agree and not believe him. She’d fallen in with demons, and this was the outcome.

Beyond the gate, the snow had returned, as thick as ever. Maybe good news. And maybe not thickness at all—was it instead a void? Callum had a sense of the station detached from the world, somehow moving through time, in a sort of flux. Could he return to 2025? Was that what Johnny was able to do?

In silence, they set down Fia once more, and Callum unlocked the doors. That squeak again.

“Can’t even see the taxi queue.” Laura avoided Callum’s eye, seemed to be speaking only to herself.

“They’ll be…”

“Is anybody there?” she shouted, cutting across him. “I’m needing help.”

No reply.

“Let’s just get out of here,” said Callum, and they lifted the body again, Laura leading the way with the legs and Callum following until, in an instant, he wasn’t.

He’d stopped dead against the snow, but Laura—already out of sight—kept going, pulling Fia from his arms. If Fia fell, if Laura fell with her, landing in the snow, Callum had no clue. He could see nothing, hear nothing at all.

What the fuck? Callum pressed his hand flat to the void. He felt no cold, no wetness. Only a gentle resistance that grew as he pushed.

“Laura?” he shouted. “Anyone?”

Nothing. And the echo was wrong, like shouting at a wall. What had Johnny said—he could never leave?

Callum stepped back, tripped on something underfoot.

Fia’s arm, forgotten on the floor. Shit, she needs that.

He picked it up, pushed it through. The fingers disappeared, then the wrist and forearm, with no resistance until Callum’s own fingers brushed against the void, whereupon the arm simply vanished.

Okay. Dealt with. There was little point, but Callum wanted to shout after them, to apologise for their ordeal. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was responsible, that he should have taken better care of them.

But they’d left the station. They were on their own. His job was done. Ah, no—one more thing. Laura’s bags. They were still on the concourse.

Callum gathered them, stuffed the ham back in—it didn’t look too bashed, would likely cook just fine; she’d been worried about that—then gently kicked them out the gate and into the void until they too disappeared.

There. Callum wandered back up the concourse, eyeing the seats. There was more to do, but fuck was he ever tired. It had been a hectic day at the station: the snow, the cancellations, the impromptu tour and murder.

He sat, sighed, smoothed down the bristles of his heavy moustache. A moment, then he’d deal with the body and the glass. After that, back down to the Victorian platform to mop up Cora’s blood.

No, not Cora. Fia. Who is Cora?

Fuck! Callum shot to his feet.

Cora Jane Galloway, eight months old. La Bambina, Cora Menora, Professor Partytime. Lady Shenanigan Nonsense. Five teeth and an urge to use them. Resolutely bald. Big hat fan. Her mother’s eyes.

Callum raced for the platforms and jumped the gate, towards the two-carriage Class 303 scheduled for special departure to Kilmaurs in just a few minutes’ time. No, no, none of that jargon: the train home.

Cora’s mother. Siobhan Annabel Galloway. His partner in exhaustion. Two years his junior but the adult in any room. So empathetic she’d root for pocket lint if you named it. A sneeze like a dying elephant. Needlessly profane. A survivor of too much already. But not this.

Instinct took Callum not to the passenger doors but to the driver’s cab where, inside, the controls fell into his hands like an impatient lover.

Johnny thought this a way out, worked hard to arrange it. But he wanted 1983, not 2025. What had he said? Time was funny here—you could slip through it, forward and back. You just had to concentrate.

Right, then. 2025. Cora, Siobhan, Dad. Mobile phones, WhatsApp, Signal, Insta. Digital fucking marketing. Brexit, the pandemic and a cost of living crisis. Climate collapse.

Time to go.

Callum peered out the cab windows. Was the void thinning? Did it look like snow again? Hard to say.

But impossible to delay. Leave the station late without just cause and he’d get written up. The time had come.

Callum took a deep breath, flexed his toes one last time against the pinch of his fancy Italian dress shoes, and accelerated.

Emerging from an elevator a few dozen floors down, I filed in behind a couple of salarymen and was briefly distracted by glimpses of ads for watches, investment counsellors, and canned coffee ahead of me on the skywalk. I wanted to see the coffee ad—it featured a famous American actor—but as soon as I got an unobstructed view of the screen, the ad abruptly changed to one for female hygiene products.

Annoyed, I looked away, then caught sight of something that made me stop in my tracks. Two students from my school were in a skypark halfway to Junco Tower, and they were smoking cigarettes. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I recognized the distinct teal of the girl’s sailor suit. Our school was strict about smoking; getting caught usually led to expulsion. Who would have the guts, or stupidity, to smoke in public, and in uniform?

Before I could think of likely candidates, they put out their cigarettes and left the park, returning to the main skywalk via the single narrow one attached to the park. Now I recognized them. It was Arisa, the infamously pretty-but-weird president of the Noh club, and Hirota, who was in my own homeroom, though we’d never talked much. He was also in the Noh club. Huh.

To avoid running into them, I slipped around the salarymen to enter the skypark they had just vacated. It was tiny and unremarkable with a few vending machines, a smoker’s corner with a large ashtray, a few benches and trees, and a flowerbed. One of the vending machines was for cigarettes. A sudden, reckless urge struck me. I wanted to smoke too. I wasn’t the meek goody two-shoes my mom was trying to mold me into. I could break the law and smoke cigarettes like a delinquent. I’d even do it by myself, for my own satisfaction, not due to peer pressure.

After glancing back to make sure no one was heading my way, I fished out a five-hundred-yen coin and put it into the coin slot. I was glad for Japan’s obstinate liking for hard currency; mom routinely checked the contents of my card statements, and the cigarettes were sure to have been labelled as such.

I picked a brand at random and pushed the button.

Nothing happened.

I pushed the button again.

Clink. A single coin fell to the change tray, and the tiny screen next to the coin slot flashed. Purchase denied — purchaser underage. After a moment, the message disappeared, replaced by an advertisement for anti-breakout facial cleanser, a smiling school girl patting her clear face.

Annoyed, I took the coin from the slot. There must’ve been a camera I hadn’t noticed with some age estimation algorithm. I supposed the Noh club members had gotten someone else to buy their cigarettes for them, or gone to a convenience store—did convenience store workers check age? Well, I couldn’t try it now, at any rate, since I was in my uniform.

Nevertheless, even the attempt had been exciting. It was a tiny, tiny rebellion that I’d be able to remember when my mom got on my nerves.

I resumed my walk, stopping at a bookstore to browse for a bit, then arrived home at dinner time. Tadaima, I called out as I slipped off my black loafers. I’m home.

The okaeri I had expected to hear shouted in response never came. Through a doorway, I glimpsed my dad in the living room, on the couch with his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up. He said nothing but gave me an odd, hard-to-interpret smile. In retrospect, I think it was meant as encouragement.

The next moment, my mom appeared before me, like a blonde storm cloud wielding a soup ladle, clutched so tight her knuckles were white. “Exactly what do you think you’ve been up to?”

Confused, I glanced at my watch, confirming it really was just eight o’clock. “I… went to Book-Off after cram school and read some manga. Were we supposed to eat early today? If so, I missed that—sorry.”

Mom inhaled sharply. “No, I mean the cigarettes.” She pronounced the word as if she was detonating a bomb in the hallway.

My jaw dropped. “How… how did you know?”

“So you did try to buy cigarettes. Marie, why would you…”

I interrupted. “Really, how did you know?”

She looked annoyed at the interruption, then took out her phone, swiping a couple of times and then holding out the screen to me.

This is an automated message to inform you that Tanimura Marie attempted to buy a pack of Mevius Light at Skypark 714 at 19:12 this evening. The identification certainty level is 97.6% and based on facial recognition confirmed for feasibility with Tanimura’s latest location records.

I stared at the message, incredulous. “That… that is such a violation of privacy!” I stuttered finally. “Is that even legal?”

“Marie,” mom hissed, “you are the one who tried to break the law! And you’re underage—it’s perfectly normal that we were informed. Now, the bigger question is, why would you do such a stupid thing? Who put you up to this?”

“No one,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I just felt like it.” Normally, my mother’s anger would’ve immediately reduced me to contrite apologies, but now I was too shocked, and too angry myself, to be cowed. I wasn’t angry with her, though, but with the vending machine, with that surveillance system that had sold me out. I felt violated, as if discovering I had been watched while undressing.

“That’s hardly likely, now, is it? Out with it. Was it one of the girls in your homeroom? I could see Rie having some harebrained idea like this. Or did someone bully you into it?”

 “I said, no one.” Losing my patience, I raised my voice. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I swept past her and into my room, slamming the door behind me, surprised at my own courage in the face of my mom’s anger.

“Marie, we’re not done talking,” she yelled through the door. She began to turn the doorknob, but before she had opened the door, my dad’s calm voice sounded from further away. “Leave her be for now, Hanna. Now’s not the time.”

Mom didn’t say a word about the cigarettes at breakfast the next morning—nor anything else, for that matter. Either dad had persuaded her to cut me some slack, or she was brooding over what new, draconian rules to impose as punishment.

My resolve had hardened, though. At lunch break that day, I headed upstairs to where the gym and club rooms were located. I walked down the corridor outside the club rooms, reading the lettered signs on each door. Baseball club. Judo club. Karuta club.

Noh club.

I knocked on the door before I had a chance to get anxious and change my mind. After a moment, someone called out, “Come in.”

I opened the door and almost jumped. A hundred faces were staring at me. Then I saw they were masks: countless Noh masks of men, women, and demons, mounted all over the walls. There were only four human faces. Hirota sat by a small table, a convenience-store lunch spread out in front of him, and on the floor sat Arisa, plus a boy sipping chocolate milk and a girl with a scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Yes?” scarf girl said.

“Sorry to disturb you guys,” I said. “I was just wondering… Wait.” I pushed the door shut behind me, then looked at Arisa and Hirota in turn. “I saw you guys smoking cigarettes in a park yesterday.”

The three sitting on the floor exchanged a glance. Hirota had been about to take a bite from a custard bread, but froze.

“And, I wanted to know how you went about buying them,” I continued.

“Why?” Hirota asked, frowning.

“Because I want to buy cigarettes, too.”

Hirota had resumed eating. “You want to buy cigarettes?” he asked between mouthfuls of bread.

I nodded. “I tried to yesterday evening, from a vending machine in that park, but it didn’t work, and apparently, it sent an alert to my parents, so I got totally chewed out. I hadn’t known it could do that. So now I really want to buy cigarettes.” I laughed.

The three on the floor exchanged glances again, then Arisa looked at me, a little too long and a little too intensely.

Scarf girl piped up. “Sorry, but we can’t help you. You’ll have to figure it out on your own.”

Before I could decide on what to say, Arisa spoke. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t tell her.”

Scarf girl and chocolate milk boy protested indignantly. “But Arisa, she isn’t even…”, “Prez, we don’t know if we can trust her…”

What was this big secret to buying cigarettes? They were acting like it was some sort of arcane, privileged information, so clearly, they hadn’t just asked someone’s big sister to do it.

I waited while a staring contest continued between the three club members on the floor, as if they were attempting a telepathic debate about the merits of telling me.

 “You don’t have to tell me, of course,” I said, finally. “Thanks anyways.” I opened the door, then glanced at the walls again. “Also, your masks are really cool.”

The next few days, I couldn’t stop thinking about the vending machine that had sold me out, about what the great cigarette-buying secret might be, and about the Noh club. I was no longer thinking about what club to join; the Noh club was the only one that intrigued me now, but I hadn’t gotten the impression they were looking for new members.

The following Tuesday, my cram school class got rescheduled to the last slot of the evening. It was past ten and dark above the skywalks when I finally headed home, and the bars I passed in Junco Tower were lively with businesspeople from the nearby office floors.

At a corner after the last izakaya on the floor, I saw Arisa.

She was dressed in jeans, a hoodie, and a baseball cap, a large shopping bag slung over her shoulder. She was looking down at her phone, and I was debating whether to stop and say hi when she suddenly put it away, turned, and disappeared into a door that I had never noticed before.

Without thinking, I followed her.

The door led to a stairwell. Arisa climbed the stairs, exiting again two floors up. I kept my distance and exited a few moments after her. I emerged into a floor of offices, empty and dimly lit; only the corridors had the lights on, while the offices were pitch black. I looked around for Arisa, then heard a rustling sound from around a corner.

I padded quietly in the direction of the sound and spotted her again, now standing in front of a large door in glass and stainless steel; it must’ve been the entrance to some swanky corporation. She rummaged through the shopping bag, then pulled out something I couldn’t identify, a shapeless mass of beige and gray and pink. Then, she removed her baseball cap and pulled the thing over her head.

I gasped.

Arisa’s face was now that of a man in his fifties. The shapeless thing had been a mask. Not a stylized Noh mask or one of those jokey rubber masks caricaturing famous people, but an incredibly lifelike one; it looked as if the head of a man had been transplanted onto the body of a teenage girl. The effect was so uncanny, I felt like I was going to be sick.

Arisa tilted her neck backwards, looking up. I followed her gaze—or the gaze of the middle-aged man, rather—and noticed a camera mounted above the door. Then she lowered her head and stepped forward.

Nothing happened.

She waved a hand, as if to activate a motion sensor, then mumbled something I couldn’t make out. She stepped back, tugged at the mask, and looked up at the camera again. Then she stepped forward once more, and again, nothing happened. Now, she cursed audibly.

I was watching this, fascinated, when I heard a noise from the other side. A security guard had just entered the floor: a gray-haired man wielding a flashlight, probably a part-time retiree on his standard patrol route.

I looked back at Arisa. She didn’t seem to have noticed. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but I suspected she wouldn’t want to get caught doing it. I dashed out from my hiding place.

“There’s a security guard just around the corner,” I hissed at her. “Take off the mask.”

She stood frozen for a moment, then removed the mask. The middle-aged man’s face seemed to crumple and collapse, and had I not been so nervous and high on adrenaline, I would’ve felt nauseated again. Then her own face was revealed, and she had just stuffed the mask back into the shopping bag when the guard turned the corner and saw us.

“Ora! What are you misses doing here?” he asked, walking up to us. “Everything on this floor is closed for the night, you know.”

“We were going to surprise her dad with an evening snack delivery to the office,” I said, letting my gaze flicker to the big paper shopping bag Arisa was holding. “But it turns out he’d already finished for the night.” I laughed as if this was a big joke.

“Aw, that’s sweet of you girls.” Then his tone turned mock-gruff. “But you ought to be in bed at this time. There; off you go.”

He shooed us away and I acquiesced, grabbing Arisa by the elbow and steering her towards the door to the stairwell. She didn’t say a word until we emerged among the bars and crowds two floors down. “Let’s go over there,” she said, nodding toward a skypark.

It was empty save for a salaryman tapping away on a smartphone in a corner, oblivious to the world. We headed for the opposite corner.

Arisa turned to me. “Thanks for that. It would’ve been bad if I’d gotten caught.” She didn’t ask why I had been there.

I nodded.

“I should’ve paid more attention myself, but I was so frustrated that the damn thing wouldn’t work.” She plopped down on a bench and rummaged in the shopping bag. Eventually she fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Do you want one?” she asked suddenly.

“No, thank you,” I said automatically. “But… what were you doing back there with that terrifyingly real middle-aged dudeface? And where did you get that?”

Arisa looked pleased. “I made it. It’s modelled after an employee there. I was testing it to see if it was good enough to fool those ID cameras and unlock the door. The answer is no, unfortunately.”

“But… what is that place, and why do you want to get in there?”

“It’s just some real estate company, and I don’t.” She lit her cigarette. “But their facial recognition algorithm is really good, and making a mask that can fool it would be a big achievement.”

“Don’t all the ID cameras work the same way?”

“No, no, not at all!” She stood up and waved her cigarette, excited. “There’s a whole range. Like, some really old beer and cigarette vending machines are so shitty you can literally take an eyeliner and draw lines on your face in a certain pattern, like wrinkles, and it’ll trick them into thinking you’re an adult. And on the other extreme, some corporations have ones that are practically like retinal scans. That place,” she nodded toward Junco Tower, “is fairly advanced. We use it for testing purposes. So far, none of us have succeeded in making a mask that’s good enough, though. Except granny, of course.”

Granny? I had so many new questions, I barely knew where to start. “Who’s ‘we’?” I finally decided on the question that was bothering me the most.

“Why, The Noh club, of course.” She smiled. “The name is a bit misleading. It’s more like the Noh-and-privacy-protection club. Most of us are privacy rights activists. Ogura is the only one who’s hardcore Noh-only. Do you want to join?”

Noh and privacy protection. I hadn’t expected that. “Privacy rights activist” had a punky, rebellious ring to it, but Noh was ultra-high culture. “That is so cool,” I said, then it hit me that she had asked if I wanted to join. “But… I don’t know anything about Noh. Or about privacy.”

“You can learn.”

My phone vibrated audibly, and I recalled how late it was. “I have to go; that’s probably my mom, wondering why I’m not home yet.”

Arisa nodded, then stubbed out her cigarette. “If you’re interested,” she said, “I’ll show you the workshop after school tomorrow.”

“Good evening, sensei,” Hirota and Nanami—that was scarf girl’s name—called out as we emerged from a staircase into the workshop. The workshop covered most of the second floor of Arisa’s house. Yes—a house, like in the remotest of suburbs, except this one was squeezed in between Junco Tower and another high-rise; they must’ve been under siege with developers and yakuza wanting to buy the plot.

The workshop was divided in two. Half had tatami mats and antique furniture and Noh masks covering the walls. It was in this half that sensei, an old woman, sat working by a low table. The other half had laminate flooring and furniture in bright white, lifelike latex masks mounted on stands.

Hirota plopped down on the tatami floor, relaxing, while Nanami beelined for a worktable on the other side. Arisa knelt down next to the old woman, motioning for me to follow. The woman was working on a Noh mask, carving the corners of its eyes with a fine scalpel.

“Granny, this is Marie. Marie, this is my grandma. She’s a Noh mask artisan. And she pioneered the latex painting techniques we use for the other masks.”

The woman looked up from her work. “Are you a new member?” Before I could answer, she continued, “Our family has been Noh mask carvers for four generations. Arisa here will be next; her father didn’t have any talent for mask-carving.” She put down her scalpel to pat Arisa on the shoulder.

“Arisa’s parents are both big digital rights activists,” Hirota said, leaning back on his elbows. “Like, super big. That’s another of the reasons we hang out here: my parents would be totally freaking out that we were doing something illegal.”

“Is this illegal?” I asked, nervously.

Arisa’s granny chuckled, then returned her attention to the mask.

“Depends,” Arisa said, getting up. I followed her to the modern side of the workshop, where Nanami had gotten to work on a lifelike mask, a superfine brush in her hand. The mask depicted an older Western woman, but it was nowhere near as realistic as the one Arisa had worn the day before.

Arisa looked over Nanami’s shoulder as she spoke. “There’s nothing illegal about making a mask. It is sometimes—but not always—illegal to use a mask to trick a facial recognition algorithm. Let’s say now that you’re impersonating a specific person and entering a place using their face as credentials. If you don’t actually enter the place, it’s a bit more of a gray zone. And if you’re not impersonating a specific person but just happen to like wearing masks that make you look like a different gender, or perhaps thirty years older, that’s usually—but not always—legal.”

I nodded, watching Nanami make the tiniest brush strokes along the nostrils of the mask. Then she paused, resting her wrist against the table. I wanted her to know I didn’t hold any grudges for her refusal to share the big cigarette secret with me a few days earlier, so I asked politely, “Nanami-san, what’s the reason you decided to join the Noh club?”

She turned to me. “Because of Arisa. And because I don’t like personalized advertising. I had never really thought about it much, but after Arisa told me how face-based advertising worked, it really upset me. Like, we go about our lives boxed in by our own faces, constantly having the world tell us who we’re supposed to be, where we can go and what we should buy and do and watch. I hate it.” She paused, looking down at the mask. “So it feels good to use another face once in a while. And I like the artistic aspects of mask-making, too, though my own masks are still not very good.”

That was exactly it, I thought, as Nanami resumed her painting. I didn’t want to be told who I was supposed to be any more either.

So I joined the Noh club, and I couldn’t say what I loved the most: learning about privacy laws with Arisa’s parents and our adrenaline-fueled outings to test masks in the night-time, or our monthly outings to the National Noh Theater, where the actors transformed into demons or courtiers with the help of finely carved, stylized masks, like those made by Arisa’s grandmother.

At the dinner table at home, I gushed about how Noh masks can appear to change expression based on the angle of the light or the stage presence of Noh actors I had seen. Mom was both out of her depth and fundamentally in awe of anything “traditionally Japanese,” so she never pried, and the Noh club became my sphere of freedom.

A few weeks before the end of the school year, I completed my first realistic mask, and Arisa and Hirota joined me late in the evening at Skypark 714 to try it out. They kept a lookout over the skywalk adjoining the park, and once they had assured me that the coast was clear, I pulled the mask out of my bag. It depicted an elegant older woman; I had modelled it on the old folk singer Misora Hibari in full stage makeup.

I tugged it over my head, then approached the cigarette vending machine warily. It was the same one where I had obliviously tried to buy cigarettes almost a year earlier. Rather than the glamorous Hibari, it would’ve been more fitting had I worn a Noh mask of the vengeful samurai Soga Tokimune.

I put a five-hundred-yen coin into the coin slot, then hesitated over what to pick.

“Get the regular Mevius,” Hirota shouted. “If you don’t like them, I’ll take them.”

I pushed the button for a pack of Mevius, then tilted my head to look directly into where I now knew the facial recognition camera was mounted. We waited in expectant silence.

Thump.

I bent down to fish out a pack of cigarettes from the slot and held it out toward Arisa and Hirota. “Look,” I said, as amazed and proud as a new parent. “It worked!”

“Good,” Arisa said, giving one of her rare smiles, while Hirota let out a whoop and pumped his fist in the air. “Well done, Marie!”

We bought ourselves cans of hot coffee from another of the vending machines and sat down. I unwrapped the pack of cigarettes reverently and extracted one. I had never held a cigarette before.

Arisa handed me a lighter, and I attempted to light the cigarette without much success.

Hirota laughed. “You have to inhale while you light it, you know.”

“Oh,” I said sheepishly. I succeeded on the next attempt and inhaled deeply, then began to cough. It tasted disgusting, and I felt weirdly nauseated. Hirota laughed again, while Arisa moved closer to pat me on the back. Once I stopped coughing, I got up and put the cigarette out in the ashtray. Then, I handed Hirota the pack. “Well, that was a lot of trouble for something I will never do again. Gross!” Arisa and Hirota both laughed this time. I sat down to sip my coffee, and despite the exhaust-fume taste in my mouth, I felt happy and free.

> Beloved sophonts, dearest beings,
>
> You do not know me, but I greet you from my dreary
> exile. I am the persecuted relict of a once-
> admired and honoured warrior and statesman. Envy
> and corruption brought him low, secured his sad
> discorporation, leaving me with all his wealth — his
> myriad possessions: weapons, knowledge, precious
> metals, gems, and all the rest.
>
> Yet I am watched and hounded by my enemies; I have
> no haven where I can enjoy my rich bequest — I need
> your help. Please send a starship to me, fully fuel-
> led, and with the details of your planetary location.
> I shall come with all the riches that my late depart-
> ed brother-uncle-husband left me. For this aid, I’ll
> give to you a fifth of all I have.
>
> May the wise and loving spirit of the cosmos guide
> you and protect you.
>
> Mrs ∇∷⌣⋑∦ô

Buff Patrol

                                        sublunar but above the Kármán line
                                                                  around the spinning Earth
                                                                            there’s surreptitious motion.

                                              in darting spacecraft — little more
                                                        than bulky suits —
                                                                  the vandals creep in darkness,
                                                                                  running silent:
                                                                                        taggers, writers,
                                                                                                  activists,
                                                                      all scrawling on the sky,
                                                          their heaven spot.
                                              countless tiny bots, they spray,
                                      invisible until they flare
                                                    in glaring, star-eclipsing brightness.

                  but it’s not my job to hunt them down,
          to tangle-field them,
                        reel them in;                                                          
                                  I venture out,
                                          my craft no larger,
                                      no more capable than theirs,
                        and scrub the sky clean,
              sweeping up the photopellets,
    buffing back to blackness,
                              making sure that those below
                                        can gaze at constellations,
                                                  wish upon a falling star,
                                                                  make love in moonlight
                                                                            navigate the trackless seas by night.