It soon after that April started watching the early morning news over a decent chopped lettuce and avocado half. She'd woken early to get ready for a morning revision session, showered and prepared a couscous packed lunch before restlessly listening to some killer rap tunes and doing a few crosswords. In the background on a mounted TV a news anchor sweated through a war zone. She could usually do the cryptic Times in a half-hour if she got into the right mind-set of a neurotic forty-something crossword maker. Such moments came worryingly often.

There was no-one else in the communal kitchen today. The boys would be out on their morning jog and Amy was probably still either sleeping or preening. She sipped on her tea and tried to warm herself up in her jammies and fox slippers, ritualistically cursing the stinginess of college heating budgets and lazy kitchen hygiene. A selection of strange and unmentionably encrusted pans were heaped to one side of the counter in a damp cliché while the counter itself boasted a half-dozen pasta sauces. In another corner two recycling bins remained empty while the third brimmed with bottles. For some reason the oven was still on and had been overnight. There was nothing inside. April had checked, but left it on. All four musketeers lived down here in the basement limelight, Amy and April next door to each other, with Scott and Matt further up the burgundy-carpeted corridor. She wondered whether any of the unmentionable mess might lie with them.

Twelve down was 'aggrieve'. She pencilled in a preliminary answer while her headphones switched tracks. The music lulled and she heard a voice behind, prompting an instinctive jump to protect her avocado half from prying eyes. The boys laughed she only ate vegetables. It wasn't true. She had sweet potato and maybe some salmon every few days, and that was enough.

"Hey, April. What's up? D'you have a good morning?" April relaxed. It was only the other 'A' of the duo, Mademoiselle Amy. Her hair was a mess, and yet she could pull off a just-woken look. That was annoying. In pyjamas, as always. What time was it, anyway?

"Yeah, thanks, great morning" replied April, trying to make sure the crossword answer didn't slip away.

"Anything new with you?" A classic Amy line executed the same way each day.

"Nah, nothing to report".

"Revision today?"

"Mhm," said April.

"That sucks." Amy looked through her cabinets, forgot where she'd left the bowls, and realized she'd have to borrow someone else's. Hers had shattered in the ceramic disaster two weeks ago. She left April to her morning routine which she guessed from here looked like a quick review of some lecture on entropy or something with the usual music and half a cryptic crossword. Amy, however had got her cereal, realized like every morning that she ought to buy some milk one of these days and hurried, flaky bowl in hand down the corridor.

Okay. The door clinked shut behind the cereal bowl and Amy's room fell from hallway-lit cadmium yellow to dull grey. If she was going to make it on time she'd have to improvise as usual. The bowl was cleared with gusto and laid neatly on yesterday's. She'd packed most of her things the night before and knew she wouldn't have time to make the bed. Every minute was counted and planned for, tinkered and battered to perfection. In eleven minutes she was ready. Only one unplanned moment passed where she hastily added her scribbled notebook to the omnibus of mathematics in her satchel. The satchel was bloody heavy to carry on one shoulder, but made up for the weight by being a stylish creamy pink so the suffering was worth it. Amy took a final look in the mirror and made sure all was going to plan. She was a full two minutes early. Triumphantly Amy swung her bag down the corridor and popped in to wave April a cheery wave.

"Oi, Apes. Have a good day-ay." The sing-song voice never got old. Nailed it.

April lifted one eyebrow and waved back. April hated the nicknames in a forced way. It wasn't that she didn't like them, more the principle of being called an ape was off. Feelings towards nicknames were complicated. Luckily for Amy, Apes was too engrossed in four across to make a meal of the slight slur.

Amy on the other hand could've used more of a meal. Cereal wasn't cutting it, hadn't been cutting it for months. She had twelve and a half minutes left. On the stairs she passed Matt and Scott. They were later than expected and didn't seem tired at all. Slackers. Scott began his story with verve but was ignored. With a German precision that would make a Bavarian's knees quiver she calculated she needed to get going down to the half-minute. Another sing-song goodbye and the crestfallen duo were left in the dust.

"I still think you're wrong when it comes to her, she's hot." Scott was only half-kidding.

Now it was Matt's turn to reply with a thoughtful "mhm". The idea passed through his mind at just the wrong moment. Reality shrugged and complied for the second time, give or take a few milliseconds. A law clicked into place and fell on Amy. Calling her hot would prove a bad move.

"Breakfast before shower or breakfast after shower?" Matt looked forward to a mid-morning croissant.

"Definitely after shower," said Scott.

"But the croissants beckon. Their call is strong, I'm hungry as hell. You shower all you want to."

"Alright."

They approached the kitchen door. They were greeted by a BBC anchor on a TV interviewing someone on a hideous sofa. That and the girl with the tea in dark blue.

"What do you know, they're back. You've been a while. Good run?" April prepared for an explanation behind a robust kitchen table, arms folded over a crossword with one earphone limp at her side, newspaper over her breakfast. Scott had an audience for his story and judging by that half-finished avocado it was a captive one.

***

"...there remain major hurdles in visualizing the classic Atomic Vice case and similar disasters. While great strides have been made since Petrowski et al, 2095, our ability to detect and effectively pick apart alternative events and histories remains inadequate and fallible in five key areas..." – extract from 'Many Wonderlands: A systematic review fifty years on in the Darwinian multiverse' (Venner, Emery and Xiu, 2151).

Amy crossed the square in front of their halls, made it through the gauntlet of Exhibition road and power-walked down the main college street to pass by the first of the university buildings. Colonial-era red brick of chemistry squared off to her left with the decaying sixties ruin of electrical engineering, and somewhere behind her the glittering business school put both to shame. Lectures were across campus past the ancient Queen's tower with its gorgeous lawn, beyond chemistry, engineering, biology, the lot. How was it this hot outside? Already? It wasn't even nine. She fell out of her stride to rub away sweat and makeup and reckoned that soon it was all going to run down. Amy swore, crouched to a halt, and dropped the satchel. It fell kitten side up. The one thing about her bag that was worse than its weight was the small adorable stitching of three kittens playing. They were infuriating. Many an attempt was made to unpick the threading but it seemed for now the kittens had won the war. She pushed her cats aside and added her jumper onto the jumble of maths, sheet music and laptop within. How long did she have? Long enough to not have to run for it. She wouldn't try it in this state. There's something she hated about falling through the doors mid-lecture. She'd just end up feeling guilty. Not too guilty, but enough.

Her watch should've been melting by now, as should everything judging by what it felt like. But there was no mirage, no oasis, just an oppressive morning winding into a Salvador Dali heatwave that continued to radiate mercilessly as she made it beyond the glass monolith of biology. It didn't let up when she put on a clammy set of shades that started to steadily slip down to reveal her eyes bleeding mascara. One hand reached down for a bottle of water, struggled past kittens, proofs and the computer screen to get at it while still keeping pace. Obviously it was at the bottom and when she lost grip she found it launched itself out of the satchel and clattered onto the pavement. Shit. She squinted past the mascara-burn. No, shades weren't going to work. She put them back in her pocket, then finished off the water, doused her face. The crumpled bottle had staved off Salvador Dali's most aggressive blows and the battle seemed won at a price of two minutes. Her hair was a mess as always in passing windows but she'd be in the back of the hall anyway. She could go home fix it later. Okay, good, I'll be on time. The slab-like maths building was ahead and her hand squeaked an imprint on the double-doors. Four flights of stairs separated her from a comfy seat. She wished she was back in the basement. At least that had air conditioning. Granted, it was set cold all year round, but that was better. Predictable.

***

"So M and I ended up at the Union bar like that. At goddamn eight o'clock."

"It was your idea, to be fair."

"It was a good idea."

April looked puzzled. She was going to pretend as if she believed the story for now, contemplated it all and munched down on the last of her avocado.

"Maybe you should get checked out, or like tell someone about this? Hundreds of people cross that bridge," she said through bites.

"I feel fine now," said Scott. "You don't get hallucinations and snap out of them that quickly."

The husk lay finished and April realized she was wasting revision time here. There was half a crossword left but answers weren't forthcoming in that mystery. She got up to go to the sink, paused momentarily and was satisfied by the unmistakeable whollop of a discarded avocado husk binned. Her plate was cleared and the little pieces of croissant lingering in the drain were dealt with while the boys puzzled over two across. That pile of pans, on the other hand, was going to stay right where it was. Casual cleaning was one thing, and tidying the occasional stray croissant flake is fine while you're washing the dishes. The leaning tower of non-stick Teflon is quite another.

"April, are you sure fifteen down is right?" asked Scott.

"Yeah."

Someone clanked down the stairs in the distance. The banister groaned. She finished scrubbing and looked for any non-sodden drying cloths. There was a second of silence before the door slammed open with a pink-satchelled battering ram not far behind. Amy roared into view behind kittens and a pan-pile. She was by her own account forty-seven minutes early. Dr. Gottleitz hadn't got halfway through explaining 'obvious' concepts of advanced set theory. Her face remained set in anger, stoutly red. The bag was tossed aside onto the countertop kittens-side up while her jumper flopped and trailed lost on the linoleum flooring. With a sigh that insisted she didn't have time for this April was pushed aside with her sponge and plate in hand. Her friend stared with hunger at the flowing sink and dunked her head under the stream. There was nothing to be said. April stepped back from the splash zone. Her friend seemed to be clinging onto that counter for dear life. She thought she heard her sigh and say something along the lines of 'fuck Salvador Dali'. At least there was another sink.

"Are, are you okay?" Silence resounded in the kitchen, broken only by a thick bass line whispered around April's neck and the sound of suds from a sponge forgotten.

Two boys and a Times crossword tried to get a better look. Amy gurgled through the sink incomprehensibly for what seemed like forever but not quite long enough to get a photo. The cold water was slowly shut off with a free hand. It reached back and mumbled.

"What?" asked April.

"Flannel, please. From my drawer. Any of them will do." She wrung out most of the water from her hair and reached back for the drying cloth. Amy ignored the sound of the trio taking another step away and looked up with the reserved calm of someone who'd 'seen things'. She had tried and failed to rationalize her symptoms or downplay them and felt that the strained beating in her chest only confirmed something wasn't right. She pushed past the trio's questions and started to answer through boiling breaths as she made her way to the freezer. She opened it, then decided to open the fridge too and remembered she'd bought frozen carrots. They'd help a little.

"Yeah. It was a bad lecture, and the bottom line is I've got a fever, a headache and nausea. The full roster. April, have you got anything for that? Pills?"

"Yeah, hold on. I was already thinking what I have." A deep bass filtered past her and out of the kitchen into the corridor.

"Is there any more ice?" She took another pained look at the freezer and fridge, one hand clutching the cloth round sodden hair, the other busy with carrots. She considered dumping out people's food and taking a seat in there. No, on second thought, that was possibly an even worse idea than the water thing. At least the soothing chill helped.

"Maybe it was heatstroke or something" Scott suggested. Amy didn't seem to agree. The carrots were now on the floor and she was wrestling with an ice tray.

"No idea. I feel a bit better. It's weird, even basement is hot. For once I don't even want it to be." She took some miscellaneous medication from April with a glass of water and managed to stand with help from the freezer. Nothing much happened. She waited a while and tried to theatrically convince herself that she was feeling better. She wasn't. If anything it was worse, and the flannel was starting to drip.

"Thanks, April," she gasped in boiling air. "I think I'm going to take it easy today".

Amy slowly bent across the counter to grab the satchel, wheezed quietly, then bent down for her carrots. She changed her mind and sat down again next to them and clutched at her hateful kittens. Breathing was becoming a struggle. The cut-price saviour vegetables defrosted at an alarming rate.

"You should see a doctor, Aims."

Amy squinted and saw April crouched down beside her. She was too tired to say anything and just nodded. This wasn't normal. Amy went through a mental checklist. No allergies, sore throat or anything, no muscle pains. Just furnaces.

"Look, Scott and I had some weird stuff happen, you know. Maybe it'll pass?"

"M, we better take her though. To be honest we might have what she just had now. Like meningitis or something."

"I say we go to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital," said April. "It's closest."

"We'll want an ambulance." Matt reached for his phone and for the second time that day considered calling 999.

"No. I can walk. It's fifteen minutes, I was there when Jack broke his leg. Less if we're lucky with the bus. I'll make it," said Amy.

"Who's Jack?" asked Scott.

"The one who jumped the stairs in the first week."

April protested in vain that they should get an ambulance. Her headphones had fallen out and were whispering sweet beats to the floor. She turned them off. With some effort they heaved Amy up and restocked on ice before helping her out of the kitchen. The girl insisted that no, she could walk and no, she definitely did not need or want paramedics. They took the elevator up from the student halls and made the short walk across a small square and a back street before taking a left into Exhibition Road.

"Why are there this many kids on the road? It's just a sea of hazard jackets and teachers."

"It's Monday. School trips."

Scott weaved through a pair of primary kids in an endless school procession and dragged a barely-conscious Amy behind. He flashed a fake smile at another pair of six year-olds and barely said 'excuse me' before shoving past. Matt could barely keep up. April was lost somewhere in the distance.

"Just stop complaining Rowenstein, at least this way you can tell the pavement from the street."

"Look M, I don't care. It's criminal."

"Slow down, we've lost April."

"She'll catch up."

Rushing wasn't going to get them anywhere. Amy groaned and shifted her carrots. The students pushed onwards, more slowly, pausing to make sure April followed a few rows deep behind. She reached the same point a few seconds later behind the leaders and pushed past a stationary group of teachers doing a head count. It was times like this April almost wished she'd gone to a quiet campus university.

"Should've taken the underground passage," said Matt.

"It's all the same. Rush hour. They're hungry for museum knowledge and postcards".

The group waded onwards past a classical violinist fighting with a clown for valuable sidewalk real-estate and Scott winced as Vivaldi's four seasons started up its latest attack on the clown's entrenched position. Clearing Exhibition road they paused for a breather by the tube station and the hundred-yard queue for the entrance to the Natural History museum that always grew around this time of the morning. April jogged into view.

"Maybe we should take a cab? Or an Uber?" asked Scott.

Amy thought she was past the worst of the heat but still took a seat beside a set of iron-wrought railings of the Natural History Museum. Breathing remained a struggle and the carrots had defrosted completely. She opened the bag and munched on one with difficulty.

"In this traffic it will be just as long as walking," said April. London gridlock was in full flow. "Will you make it Aims?"

Amy nodded and was helped up on unsteady feet. She leaned on Matt and Scott's shoulders and passed them her spent carrots. Onwards it was. There'd be no cabs. If Amy thought she could make it, then April reckoned she would. At South Kensington high street the group passed a corner shop. Amy slowed.

"Look, you get me some water? Or ice? Something? Those vegetables are awful."

"Aims, are you sure about walking like this this?" asked Matt.

"Just get me the water."

"Alright. Wait here." Matt took some money from Scott, ducked into the store and went from fridge to fridge.

"You got ice?"

The shopkeeper looked up from his phone. "No."

"Cold water?"

"Try anything from the back of the fridge. That's as cold as it gets." Matt took a bottle and paid at one of those inexplicably high counters that are a staple of newsagents. Pushing past to the exit he struggled past a display of chocolate and deodorant. Why the two were on opposite shelves was beyond him. Newsagent logic continues to be something of a slippery slope to insanity. He held the door for an elderly lady as he emerged.

"Here, Aims. Bit of water." They kept moving down the street and turned the corner.

Amy's question was the cause of the third calamity of the day. It would end in a terror investigation, an innocent man's imprisonment and the raising of the national terror alert across the country. It would give one old lady an anecdote to die for.

"They didn't have any ice? Only water?" the girl asked through gasps. A simple question poorly timed.

"I'm sorry Aims. There was only drinks, deodorant and magazines," replied Matt.

'And there are two types of magazines, aren't there?' the universe might say if it could speak. 'You've stumbled into something here. And you've said that word at just the wrong time, Matty-boy, and that word's got a double-meaning, doesn't it. You've got the power, and you've given us the chance to play. You're the knight in the chess game that can move in straight lines. This law of the world works for you now. It works for you if you say it at just the right time. You've done it now. You said the shop had magazines. Fine – we'll give it magazines.'

The woman Matt passed at the door was Mrs. Eva Rashkoff, and she was running low on tinned tomatoes and cheese. Doctors mentioned she should avoid cheese and food in general with her high cholesterol but she thought a few slices of Havarti never killed anyone. It had taken her a while to walk from her grand apartment off Brompton road to the nearest off-license. They had an appalling wine selection that she had secretly taken a liking to, and wondered whether to buy one bottle or two. She greeted the man behind the counter before heading off toward the cheese. Impulsively she picked up a copy of "Gardener's Weekly" along the way. The magazine suggested that it was now time to plant your brussel sprouts and that it could be a tough year for bees. She made a mental note that either way it was time to replace the soil in her planters.

"Can I help you with anything today, Mrs. Rashkoff? We took your suggestion, by the way."

No-one would ever find out what that suggestion was. Because at that moment paper magazines turned into magazines of a different kind. And we're only following Matt's orders. We're only doing what we're told.

Bullets tumbled across the floor in clanging rivulets. Brass of all colours and sizes littered the shop floor and stacks of shelving crumbled under the weight of blackened metal. Mrs. Rashkoff screamed, suddenly clutching rifle ammunition instead of a glossy front cover of a family planting potatoes. American-made pistol rounds pre-packed in their magazines scattered as they fell alongside shotgun shells. She didn't know she could still move that quickly. Slipping on brass she burst through the door with the clerk swearing not far behind. Lead burst out across the pavement.

"Help," she stumbled into someone. "For God's sake help, he's got a gun."

"Mrs. Rashkoff. I don't know what's happening." He held up his arms. "Please, calm down." He looked at the tourist. "Hey, she hasn't paid for those."

"That's him. Help." The clerk could only make out a bejewelled hand pointing at him from behind the tourist. Then the ammunition smuggling charges began to fall, and they fell hard.