Amy couldn't help but look from lead-lined rooftops to the windows of the square, any of which could hold Hortez by now. April's arm was slung useless over one shoulder and dragged away any semblance of normality as the group made their way towards Exhibition road and the university buildings beyond. No matter how good your acting your party of misfits will never be above suspicion here of all places in the minds of stationary motorists, tourists, and distant police. You're shit out of luck, Aims, up the creek sans paddle, sans boat, without desire to keep adding little French words to your inner monologue. This time there's no hospital, only crime-scene chaos. Just cross Exhibition road quickly, get to the maths building and get out of sight.

They reached the intersection between their square and jam-packed Exhibition road before them. Afternoon sunlight heaved and rolled its way down the road that was supposed to be Art as if threatening to bowl a strike on the cars glistening in multi-coloured metallic sheen. She imagined the Sun would end up slamming onwards, rolling with an unimaginable boom of blazing hydrogen straight from South Kensington station and all the way through to the double gates of Hyde Park. 'Strike!' they'd hear from up above, 'that's ten points and a cross in the margin for God. Nice!' It was one of the things Dad would say during a thunderstorm. There'd be a flash of light and Amy would wait with a stopwatch to check the time before the boom hit. Then the thunderclap would come and she'd work out how far it was. 'The gods are at the bowling alley, sweetie. Inconvenient for us down here but it's all just good fun. That was Buddha's turn,' Dad might remark with a pint of beer looking out over the sombre lightning-drenched countryside. 'He's scoring a clean strike. Can't you hear it?' Then Amy would tell him how far the strike was.

From the imaginary approach of the bowling lane of Exhibition road near the museums and as far as the pins at the park on the opposite end lay thinly-spread flashing lights. Police directed traffic and cordoned off a region nearer the park where there'd been an incident involving the disappearance of senior U.S and British secret service staff.

Raynes stepped into the sunlight as the first to walk the gauntlet and cross the street into university. The situation had gone far beyond controllable, beyond maybe even the soothing calm of mints. He unclicked the safety off his handgun as he'd done too many times already today. Ceramics don't stand up to steel and after too many rounds and he could thumb the fibers coming loose from the handgun in faint seashell roughness. He resisted the urge to pick at its sides and instead traced his finger over the little U.S star emblazoned on its slide. The gun was on loan to him from the government and he imagined he'd never see it again if this went badly. He thought back to earlier when he'd been peacefully reading his travel book of nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine places to see before you die. There were so many places he'd crossed off already but he hoped he might've still had a chance to see a few. The Australian Outback was one he could go for about now.

Raynes was halfway across the street of stationary traffic. He weaved between a van and an off-white Toyota, caught a glimpse of its driver. Those people still thought this could be a normal day. They all thought these were terrorist attacks, co-ordinated disruption meant to send a message. How long would that last? He looked back, motioned for Amy and April to hobble across. He helped them and made sure the rest weren't far behind. In the distance near the park Raynes could see there were already small groups of men clad in full black riot-gear near police vans. There weren't many yet, and no army, so that was good news.

Safe on the other side they continued onwards through the main campus and into the true underworld of shade thrown from faculty buildings in the bowling alley guttering. Chemistry was first, a stout and red-brick veteran amongst its linoleum and more modern neighbours. It was set back and sunk deep into the concrete as if hoping no-one would notice it and start asking architects whether glass and steel might look better on that corner. Opposite Chemistry stood Engineering unsteadily on its '50s-era tiles and occasionally turbined out students through its revolving doors. They were moving against the traffic, lectures were ending and the university was slowly winding down for the evening. Amy prayed she wouldn't meet anyone they knew when they got to the Maths building. 'Why wasn't I in class? Why's April spouting secrets about your life from last month? Both good questions.'

They crossed the lush green square in the centre of campus where you could see almost everything. There'd be the back half of engineering with its bike racks stacked up high, opposite it the Sherfield building in its tired state, the Central library next door, and the various little hidden back-routes snaking out from the square all across the other buildings. Amy took the same route as the morning. She powered on, and made it to the Huxley maths building.

***

"It's this one." Aims pointing toward the glass and the venetian blinds some way down the corridor. There were hints of old cream coloured walls here, marble floors gleamed alongside sets of classic energy-efficient lamps. Peeking through the blinds she could see desks lined up back to back with their computer banks and tamper-proof terminals all clashing in a dull matte black against a worn red carpet. This was room 326, third floor, silent study. It wasn't pretty but the dull surroundings sure helped her work efficiently. You had to crane your neck to look through the venetian blinds, and every room had them. If you weren't sure where you were going you'd have to squint through the blinds of every room on the corridor until you found the right one. What lay beyond the blinds could be a staff break room, office, or lab, sometimes a mix of lab and office. She squinted to make sure this was the right place and opened the door with a key card. Thank Christ she'd thought to take her card out of her phone case before they'd tossed them. The blinds clanked against the glass when the door clanked shut and a few weary sets of eyes looked up at her. She let Schofield take over.

"Hi," he said. It wasn't louder than Schofield's normal voice but here in the sanctity of personal study it seemed somehow louder. "Could I have your attention for a second please?" The request didn't sound like one. It seemed to Amy that it would be more truthful if he'd said 'you'd better listen to me or you might end up face-first in those LCD screens you've been staring at.' She imagined Schofield might continue along the lines of 'Mr Raynes will be happy to oblige if you don't do as I say. The screens will break on impact. You'll break more.' Instead he gave an apologetic smile. "This room is closed for student study this afternoon. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask everyone here to leave."

"It's closed? It's supposed to be open until five," shouted someone from behind a computer screen. "Is the room booked?"

"We've got a class booked for," he looked to his watch, "well, for now," bluffed Schofield. "We're going to need it. The library's open. Other rooms are open."

"Thanks for your cooperation," chipped in Raynes humourlessly when the first of them got up to pack their bag. Students began to filter out. Amy recognized one or two from her mechanics class who gave her a passing glance but there was no-one she spoke to regularly in this crowd. This late into the afternoon only people deep into their computational modelling were studying in this room. The last of the maths students left, so Amy sat at the nearest seat she could find and logged in. Username: AFP15, password - the same one as always for everything official. She heard the cracking groan of burdened office chairs as the boys tried to get April somewhat comfortable. She glanced and saw they'd propped her feet up with a second chair.

"Hey, is that any better, Apes?" Scott asked.

"Mmmh."

"She's not gonna reply, dude. Let her rest. Just lift her feet up and wedge the other chair," said Matt. "This one's got coffee and crap all over it." The chair rolled away in Amy's peripheral vision. She needed a recent photo, one from yesterday for her background to generate the right sort of 'enter' key. The others keys on the keyboard didn't matter. She opened too many windows at once and clicked through news sites. Maybe they'd have something, surely? She scoured BBC and the London section to try find a photo of the city, anything that would without a doubt be from yesterday with a door nearby. She scrolled and read the headlines. Government inquiry, South Kensington raided amidst terror scare, she read. This was all from today and none of it was useful. The photo had to be yesterday, or last week. It should be not too far back if possible.

"Will that do it?" Scott asked Matt behind her.

"Yeah, give me a sec."

"Wedge the back of it against a desk dude. We can roll her out onto the corridor when we're taking cover."

"Good?" asked Matt.

"Primo, that'll do for now. Oh and M can you grab those scissors and cut free these keyboards? Best to have them all in one place when you detonate it."

"Sure." She heard the intermittent sound of sawing scissor-blows punctuated by the occasional sharp snap of Raynes' wire-cutters. Scott paced up and down the room hauling rows of keyboards and dumping them on the carpet in the far corner. She set the desktop background for the 'enter' key. Hopefully this was the end of being chased or being shot at, at least for a while. It would give them time and freedom to figure how to make Matt stop creating these anomalies permanently.

"Don't mind me, I'm just going to grab the time off your screen, Miss Packard," said Schofield leaning over her chair. One meaty paw struggled to get the pin out of his watch, then fumbled to twist it to the correct time. "How are we doing? Is that our image?"

"I've chosen one from two days ago just to be sure. It's low resolution, but the last one was fantasy pixel art so it's all the same."

"Miss Suzuyama isn't looking so well. I'd gather we've not got long."

"No we need to get her out of here. Pass me that recycling bin if you could," she replied. He handed it to her. "Thanks. And can you help roll her out onto the corridor?"

"She's not throwing up, Aims, you don't need a bin," shouted Scott from the other side of the room.

"It's not for that."

April had her eyes closed and breathed heavily. She gripped the armrests of her office chair with hands clenched into unmoving marbled blocks and barely heard what they were saying. Just hold on, she thought. Only a little longer. Amy can do this and so can you. Focus on May, stay where you are. The black waves can't breach the chair, they're too low, too small for that, she told herself. Just clench your eyes shut and feel the chair beneath you. Make sure it's still there. She heard Amy say something more, and then the chair rolled and moved beneath her. She sensed that her time at low tide on the sandbank was ending and the black waves were rising. Straining herself walking up the stairs and crossing the campus had made it worse. She felt as if she'd wandered too far out at low tide, passed the signs warning her of the rip currents and ignored them. The water pooled black beneath the chair, lapped at her and circled upwards. Or maybe it was that the chair was sinking lower, bubbling and falling into the pit of black waves. In the last few moments she tried to cling on to May. The chair stopped rolling, and she wondered if it was still there, close to drowning and neck-deep in black waves. She sat there like that for a while. Someone nearby whispered a phrase over and over and she caught snippets of conversation about whether this was far enough out of the blast zone, and something else about covering your ears.

They were all outside of room 326 except Amy. She stayed, had wanted to make sure it was right and double-checked that the screensaver was the one she'd chosen. She picked up the recycling crate then and dumped out the papers and cans onto the floor. The classically childish 'recycle here' sign fell off in comic sans glory and made a laminated whop on the floor alongside the rest of the half-moulded apple cores and cans with unknown leaks that blackened the carpet. It was far too late to feel guilty for destroying these computers or ruining the carpet and she upturned the crate to drop it over the desktop. Will thin plastic really contain the explosion, Aims? Last time this shredded your shoulder, what's a bit of plastic going to help? Well it's better than nothing, she thought. She wiped her palms on the desk sticky from the streaks of soda, thought again and lifted the bin to turn the keyboard upside down. She rotated it gently and put it back as if the damn thing had a float switch just waiting for a chance to explode if only she tipped it over too fast.

It's still just a keyboard. Just get a grip on yourself, just regular old Apple machinery. The heat is almost as bad as at its worst, but you're still okay. It's not time, not yet. She left the lights on, and went round the corner of the corridor to where the others waited. Amy slumped against the plaster and sunk down to rest on the cool tiling. The heat and cold fluxed, and she crushed herself with her knees to her chest. April's chair was rolled in a corner, and they'd taken her off it to let her lie down.

"This'll be fucking loud. I'd take cover," she said.

"What was it last time, Mr Raynes, a nine out of ten?" asked Schofield.

"Uh-huh."

She put her hands over her ears. Scott sat opposite, and Matt next to her, eyes closed and trying to filter out distractions with earphones unplugged and dangling lifeless from his ears.

"What if someone walks past?" asked Scott.

"Then it's too bad," replied Raynes. He planted his Doc Martens and slid down to join Scott on the floor. "Don't clench your jaw. Keep it loose. You'll crack your teeth."

"Sure. Maybe you should tell that to M."

"Leave him," replied Amy.

Matt had thought the word 'the keys' to death. His mind wandered, and each time he tried to get it back on track he struggled to blot out the other voice which said 'this is stupid, this can never work, it can't be'. He covered his ears, and unclenched his jaw like they said, and tried to pretend the others weren't most likely staring at him right now. He focused on the keys, only the keys. It was like meditation. No. Stop. Forget thinking about meditation. Forget what you're doing. 'The keys' and only that. Matt struggled onwards, and the glass with its venetian blinds shattered from the explosion in the other room. He felt the pressure change for a fraction of a second and the blow thundered through. The blast echoed and resonated through the Maths building to leave the banisters and windows shaking in resonant harmony all the way down the third floor corridor. It was artillery fire that shook the plaster when stacks of Apple keyboards piled into one corner of the room went from being ordered in QWERTY to being packed under high pressure into metallic keys. Some were flung skywards and skidded, shattering glass and landing on the tiled floor or sailing through the room next door. It was order to chaos, and regulated keyboard keys became unregulated chunks of metal that were too large to be housed in their boards without being under immense strain.

Amy unclenched her toes, and opened her eyes to see the corridor still in one piece down the far end by the staircase. She moved to the edge of the wall and leaned round the corner. Beyond it lay carnage. The industrial ceiling lamps lay swaying off the few wires that hadn't snapped and the floor was a chaotic pile of glass and plastic potpourri. The familiar smell of burning hit her in full. Some of the lights were still on and the walls were pockmarked in a few places with metal and tags that had stuck in. She propped herself up and felt the grit of shattered glass shards stick to her hand when she did. The venetian blinds were still there, waving. 'What in the fuck was that?' shouted someone from a far-off room. She opened the door to the ruined computer lab and found the recycling bin had been blasted clear and was largely undamaged except for a crack down its midsection. No-one would be happily recycling in it ever again. She looked down. Shit, red carpet, red tags, and there was a moment of panic before she spotted the first of a familiar group of keys among the shredded piles of metal. She picked one up. The tags were like before, and a single letter 'T' was written on this one's tag. Last time they'd been smeared with blood, slick and hard to turn. Control your breathing, Amy. This time you're not hurt. Just relax. She put it on the table.

"No way. You must've finally destroyed those kittens last time. Rest in peace little fluff balls." said Scott leaning through the doorway. "Holy shit, look at the wall. It's gone through the plaster."

"This is way worse than last time. Come on, help me out and put them on the table. We're looking fo-" she was cut off by the fire alarm and sprinkler system that doused them from above and splattered the plastic in the corridor. She grasped under desks for keys and squinted to try and read them through the onslaught of water. Scott shouted something, looked back out onto the corridor and then joined her on the floor searching for keys. She grabbed a few and looked up as a blur of Schofield in the corridor marched down to cut off curious professors. She could feel blood rushing to her head, and she saw stars when she stood to put the next batch of keys onto the table. They weren't the same. Some were, but she realized with clenching terror that F1 wasn't a query key, and just had a picture of what seemed to be a Sun on it, and there were others that shouldn't be there. One was labelled "command", another one that she could only find the tag from stated "option". She should've seen the familiar clunky mass of 'end' somewhere in the soaked carpet. Of all the keys surely she couldn't miss that. Don't panic, Amy, it's not going to help. Deep breaths, stop and look, pick them all up and put them on the table. We only need one, only 'enter', the others don't matter. Every keyboard has an enter key, so don't worry.

"Hey, I got something from back here," shouted Scott. She barely heard him over the fire siren. He showed her. It hadn't gone far thanks to the crate. It was the enter key, thank God, same shape and weight, a little bent but that was okay. She grabbed it to read the tag.

It wasn't enter. RETURN was written on it in its careful cursive. The sirens wailed and had drenched her to the core. Hair plastered itself in thick algae strands to her face. Her shirt and jumper sagged and stuck to her back in patches. She clenched the key and ran her fingers along the length of its saw-cut brass. She thought she'd done a good job until now, really kept the pressure and the pain in check, you know? She'd been close to being overwhelmed back at the bridge, but they'd walked out of there with a plan. Salvador Dali's Plan, stage three, or was it four now? And maybe they still had a chance? The thought flickered for a moment that maybe this was the same as enter, but then she realized it couldn't be. These were Apple computers and Apple keyboards not PCs, and the keys were arranged differently on those, weren't they?

"How are we doing in here?" shouted Raynes through the doorway. "You close?"

"We got it," replied Scott. He gave the American a thumbs up and went back to stuffing the collection of keys into his pockets. "Aims, come on. We're done, let's go."

She grabbed his hand. "Return isn't the same. Scott, we've got to keep looking."

"It is. Return's another name for an enter key. It's fine. You said the plan was to go back in time, yeah? So it returns to the past," he shouted over the sirens.

"No. It should say 'enter'. Scott, it's not the same, it should be written on the tag. If it's not 'enter' then we don't know what the fuck this key does."

"Amy, return key is the same. It's in the same place on the keyboard. There can't be an 'enter'. Return and enter keys are just two different names for the same thing."

She stayed there for a while longer in her soaked shoes and didn't know how to feel. Because at the end of it all there was only ever one way in her mind that it could've ended if they had found 'enter' and told Raynes and Schofield about it. She had meant to follow the secret second half of the plan she hadn't told even Salvador Dali himself and use the key with just the four of them, because if Raynes and Schofield found out they had 'enter' then it was the end of the line for them. Going back to two days ago would mean Hyde Park, Ichor, and all the other problems would be erased, and the only anomalies left standing would be ones who could die. For all their help she felt that Raynes and Schofield were capable of doing that if it meant stopping this, and there was a real possibility they could end them all before it had even started. Did Schofield really need to get the time off her computer to change his watch? No, Miss Packard, I'm just watching, she thought Schofield might say. I'm just making sure that you do as we planned. And when we go back and when this is fixed we won't need you. That's when we'll bring handcuffs and zip-ties, and that'll be the last anyone hears of you. And would you believe that Scott loaded the magazines for himself?

Screw it. She walked out and turned left. The next door down was a laboratory and server room. Regular lock. She opened it with the 'return' key.

"Amy what are you-"

She scraped the door open and stepped over the threshold onto the violet cobbles of the square that appeared beyond. She held the door which had gotten damn heavier than even the lab-grade steel of the Maths department with a single key-turn. 'Return' then was lot like the other keys. Mac or PC there are some things where the rules stay the same. The Maths building shimmered in static beyond the cool door of Otter's world. She left the key in, good Christ that was a lesson well learned, and found that the door was heavy enough to stay open in place when she let go. She searched for something to prop it open just in case and found herself struggling for materials. No sticks or trash except a tartlet tin, there were no motionless pigeons in Otter's square that could act as a door prop. The bins themselves on the square seemed weakly bolted to the ground. Maybe they'd lift free. She kicked one.

"Hmph. Oh shit," the ornamental trash can let out a dull gong. No, those shoes of hers were half a size too small, she was sure of that now when they'd jammed her toes too far. Bad plan, the cans weren't just bolted in place, but welded. She took off the shoes, and positioned them in the static between the paired doors to prop open the threshold just in case it started to close on her. Maybe those shoes would have a better use now. Beyond the static door-frame was Schofield who'd settled into freeze-frame and now he stayed immobile with her shoes halfway across the threshold. Return key. Return to what? Return to a previous world, a previously used key? It wasn't enter, but it worked a little like enter because it was in a similar place on the keyboard? She'd walked down those violet-fuchsia hills thinking the worst had happened the last time she'd been here.

It's a mess of orthodontics and nastiness down there, Scott. She remembered that line even if Schofield wanted to pretend he didn't. Here in the fuchsia-dead city it was calm. Maybe you could nap forever and then think of a plan. Back in the land of purple sunsets the Sun continued to refuse to move. The shadows were just as long, just as peaceful. And everything was the same except for the pile of dust that had been flattened by the opening door into a fine windscreen-wiper smear that ran into the grooves of the cobbles. Maybe it never rained in the land of purple sunsets and dust just accumulated, or maybe there was no-one to clean it up. The rest of the square was clear, its bins empty except for a tartlet tin she'd added. An otter statue in the distance gurgled water with the same frozen grin. She approached it, and this time tried to read the inscription on the base. It was all nonsense and runes, English had rubbed off on him. Kavaldish on her had not. She sat on the edge of the fountain and drank from the pool. And waited.

"Otter. Are you there?" she asked.

There was no reply. She tried a bit more of the fountain water and when it didn't do any good she considered exploring the square on her own. She hadn't had the chance last time to do much of that. She took a moment by the fountain-side to dry out a little. She was just as soaked from the sprinkler system this time as she'd been from the airplane bathroom, she realized. Nevertheless Amy decided she'd explore and limped around the square to find all the doors were bolted, and all the bronze window-shutters lay flush against their mountings. What next? If only she had the thesaurus then it would've been easier. How far had they got through that thing? Halfway through B, and a little way into C and the letters beyond? There were a few good pages full of homonyms but by now she was sure those pages would be floating in the Serpentine and lying between the café tables, soaking and plastered to the floor where they'd disintegrate into pulp if only there was someone left in Hyde Park to step on them.

"I didn't think you'd return," said the voice of an otter that was too close. "I'm glad you're alright. You're looking a lot better, more blood, less pain interference. Wonderful!" Otter sounded better too.

"Where were you? I was starting to think that the effects of blood loss were a lot stronger than I'd realized."

"I was hibernating. And booting up my resources takes a lot longer than it used to. I've got to conserve energy. I'm a renewable Otter, for sure, but even I won't live for ever."

"Otters don't hibernate. At least I don't think so," Amy said to what seemed like thin air.

"Well this one does," he replied. "At least until the Sun moves, as you put it."

She couldn't argue with that. She thought to ask again about why it didn't move, or why the square was deserted. There were no signs of damage, or death, or panic. It was a cold place, for all the colour and the sunsets. And she supposed that she'd always suspected it to be a cold place even when it had been just a screensaver. She'd stared at it for long enough over the years with her head on the table to know that, the laptop inevitably open with half a maths problem sheet that refused to solve itself.

"That history's not something I can say. I'm sorry. I'm just a tour guide and I hope that I can help you in any other way I can."

"I wasn't asking about your history, Otter. I know this place isn't right, believe me, but that's fine. It's nice to have it last like this forever." Amy sat on the fountain. She wished she'd brought a bottle or something to take the water through the door, have Otter strategize on the other side.

"I wish I could leave too but it wouldn't work to do it like that," said Otter. "I don't mind it here. Don't get me wrong it's too quiet and nice when you visit, almost no-one else does."

"How long have you been here?"

"Too long. Maybe one day when this is all over you'll be able to actually see me instead of just hearing my musical voice."

"Yeah, the disembodied thing is creepy."

"I want it to go on record. I'm nodding vigorously."

"Why wouldn't it work for me to take you? You can't go through the door?"

"Amy, I'm a computer bank with fancy communication. I'm rooted here. I'm good for chatting at quite a distance but very much cemented to the great grand city of Vern-Delnitz and nowhere else."

"I don't know what to do, Otter. We're fucked out there," she said.

"I know."

Amy looked from the wedged door to the fountain and hoped that it would stay open for a little longer. Her shoes might do some good work and being barefoot on the cobbles wasn't bad. The streets of Vern-Delnitz were even enough and the pavements either side of the cobbled road seemed to be smooth like stained plate-glass that rolled their way down the hillsides of the city and down into the square. They weren't bad to walk on either and were smooth but still had grip. Beyond the streets the brass doors were all the same and all the monolithic spires stood silent in the sort of way that kept you quiet too.

"I think I'd like a tour now," she said. "And maybe on the way back you can recommend a place I can get some stationery, food, or something to plan my next move with?"

Otter said he didn't have a problem with that, and insisted that he couldn't advertise one store over another. Amy followed him out of what he translated as GeDevez' Courtyard, and meandered up the spiralling hills towards the city centre. To her it didn't much make a difference which stationary shop she'd be breaking into.