Labyrinth Through The Mirror of Time Chapter 12

 Chapter 12: Network Crash

First thing in the morning, Professor Simoon Gale turned up at the Veterinary Quarantine office at Cairo’s Terminal 1. He knew perfectly well that Remi couldn’t go home just yet because she was still needed in Cairo. However, he wanted to make sure everything was in order so nothing would stop them from catching the portal back to Ireland once it opened. He was determined to avoid any last-minute bureaucratic surprises.

But as the saying goes, the best-laid plans often go sideways. What was waiting for him at the Egyptian airport was far worse than anything he could have imagined.

Heat, chaos, shouting, thick crowds, and a sense of total panic had taken over the place, even more than usual.

After a whole hour of standing in line, the professor finally made it to the front of the massive desk. It was topped with grey granite, its edges worn smooth by the corners of thousands of pet crates that had rested there over the years.

Behind the thick pane of security glass, which was covered in smudges and dulled by time, the Veterinary Quarantine office looked like an administrative bunker frozen in the past. The white light of a fluorescent tube flickered overhead, casting a harsh glow on towering stacks of folders tied with string and huge ledgers with yellowed pages, where entries were written by hand in elegant cursive. An ancient air-conditioning unit built into the wall was clearly on its last legs; it rattled loudly and spat out stale, lukewarm air, completely useless against the sweltering heat pouring in from the corridor.

On the back wall, right under the official portrait of the country’s president, a yellowed piece of A4 paper stuck on crookedly with sticky tape warned travellers in both Arabic and English about quarantine fees. Behind the clerk, you could see a plain stainless-steel examination table, cold and empty. Next to it, on a metal desk, a computer with an old-fashioned box monitor sat completely dead. It looked like a useless museum piece in the middle of the chaos caused by a cyberattack.

The duty vet, a middle-aged man wearing a white lab coat over his everyday clothes, didn’t even look up at the professor. He kept shifting his exhausted gaze from the pitch-black screen of the crashed computer system to the mountain of paperwork on his desk. With one hand, he absentmindedly twirled a string of ebony prayer beads (a misbaha), and with the other, he tapped twice on the glass, pointing to the narrow slot at the bottom of the window. Without lifting his eyes, he muttered in a mechanical voice, half-drowned out by the noisy crowd behind:

"Papers, please!"

Simoon handed over the folder he had tucked under his arm. He leaned forward to explain the situation to the grey-haired clerk, whose eyes had deep, dark circles and whose face was shiny with sweat. The professor tried to offer a polite smile, but failed miserably.

"Sir, I just need to make sure my cat’s paperwork is in order."

"When is the departure?" the clerk asked, flicking through the pages.

"We don’t know for sure yet, but we want to be prepared."

"Mr Gale, please come back four or five hours before your flight, not now."

"I just wanted to check—"

"Can’t you see the absolute chaos here? There’s been an attack. The system is dead, sir," the clerk interrupted. "The Ministry of Agriculture and Customs servers were encrypted in a cyberattack last night. It’s impossible to check anything in the international database. Nothing goes in, nothing exists on the computer right now."

"But surely there must be a backup manual procedure!" Simoon insisted.

"Not possible! You need the international health certificate required for boarding. That is only valid for 72 hours from the moment it’s issued. Are you leaving within 72 hours?"

The professor took his folder back from the clerk’s hand, mumbled a mechanical "thank you", and walked away, utterly defeated.

Before his eyes, the whole nightmare of their arrival flashed by—Remi’s sneezing fit, the quarantine, and everything that followed. He felt as though he was trapped in a hamster wheel, with no way out.

*

While the professor was at the airport, Anemo and Remi had stayed behind in the flat and were on a video call with the House of the Winds. The call had come completely out of the blue. It was Saturday, and they had expected Fleur, with her tufty hair, to want a lie-in, but there she was, bright and early on Anemo's screen.

"Can't sleep, Tufty?" Anemo asked, trying to sound cheerful.

"Good morning, world! How are things over there in Egypt? Mind you, I wouldn't have called..."

"It's seven in the morning where you are, Fleur!" Remi chimed in. "Do you really miss us that much?"

Hearing the question, Fleur made a cheeky little face.

"I don’t, but the fur-babies can't wait for you to get back. Isn’t that right, Mistral?"

Squeezed in front of the screen back in Dublin, all three felines were lined up as if for a family photo. In the front row sat Aeolus with his trusty coffee bean; in the second row were Mistral and Sirocco; and right at the back stood Fleur, the biggest of them all.

Remi looked at each of them in turn.

"Hello, boys! I haven't lost my fur yet, so I'm still one of you. In the end, it was never your fault, Mistral, nor Sirocco's. It wasn't even my fault that I ended up turning into a cat. It was just meant to be. Only I could do this, and the collar was destined for me."

"How so, ma belle?" Mistral asked, tilting his head back with practised elegance. "C'est incroyable! I can't believe it was all a master plan of destiny. Why on earth did you have to become a cat?"

Sirocco, the ginger kitten, wriggled his way between the black cat’s front paws to get a better view of the screen, swishing his tail with excitement.

"Oi, little one! Easy with the tail, you’re going to make me sneeze. Bise was telling us something interesting, settle down."

"Sorry, Mistral! You know I just want to learn more and more every single day. And... and I still miss Miss Remi-Bise too."

"I've actually gained a new name here, boys," Remi said. "They call me El-Beyda."

"That means 'The White One' in their language," Aeolus chimed in for the first time. "It’s well known that white cats have the power to ward off evil spirits, to purify, and to heal..."

"Exactly, Aeolus. My mission here is to heal a boy whose spirit refuses to return to his body. It’s a bit of a long story."

"Mi-Miss Remi, have you found one of those spirits that lives in..." Sirocco trailed off, looking confused because he had forgotten the details of the story, and turned to Aeolus for help. "Where does that spirit of Aladdin's live again, Aeolus?"

"In the lamp, kiddo, but Remi is talking about something completely different. Don't worry, I’ll explain it to you later," Aeolus said, placing his coffee bean on the grey living-room carpet. "Tell us, Remi!"

"I am truly living the adventure of my life!" the white cat continued. "I travelled to Ancient Egypt, three thousand years into the past, and guess what, Mistral... I met a black cat there who looks exactly like you, named Mehyt. This cat claims he serves the goddess Bastet, but he is just as..." Remi bit her tongue, catching herself before she could say 'snobby' or 'grumpy' because she didn't want to offend the sleek black cat, "...special as you are."

Remi had barely finished her sentence when the connection abruptly cut out. Then, a few seconds later, the power went dead too.

"Is that it? What was that, Anemo? What’s happening?"