The Prado Problem

“Nothing says inter-dimensional adventure like losing a car to airport parking.”

The cleaner’s cupboard greeted me like an ambush, the air thick with the aggressive tang of bleach, ammonia, and something that might once have aspired to be lemon but now smelled more like cleaning rage bottled for institutional use. My eyes watered as I stumbled through the back of the door—ajar, thankfully—and landed in the cramped gloom.

As I turned, the physical door swung shut behind me of its own accord, clicking into place with the quiet finality of an afterthought. The Portal still shimmered behind me, its whorls of colour painting the cupboard in ripples of otherworldly light.

That sound — the hollow thunk — was one I knew too well: the bureaucratic sigh of a public building’s fittings, a noise caught halfway between resignation and a lock.

I blinked into the dimness.

The cupboard was tighter than I’d imagined, though not quite suffocating. Narrow, yes, but with that impersonal utility that made it feel less like a room and more like a storage slot. Shelves marched up both sides, stacked haphazardly with the props of maintenance: half-empty sprays with peeling labels, buckets dented from long service, a leaning tower of paper towel rolls threatening collapse, and at least three different brands of gloves that had long since shed their boxes. Disorder pretending to be order.

Luke once told me: if you saw something useful, take it — within reason. Cleaning supplies probably didn’t count as a diplomatic breach.

I reached up and pulled two rolls of paper towel from the top of the stack. The tower shifted ominously, then resettled. Possibly grateful.

“Congratulations,” I muttered, tossing the rolls back through the Portal. “You’re now Clivilius’ first paper product import.”

A half-used bottle of something blue and unnecessarily aggressive-looking followed — the label had mostly peeled off, but the warning symbols were still intact, so that was probably fine.

Then a spray bottle of glass cleaner with “DO NOT USE ON GLASS” scrawled across it in biro. Two extra rolls of bin liners. A cracked dustpan I didn’t need but couldn’t quite leave behind. And a sponge caddy containing exactly one sponge that looked like it had survived a war.

I paused in front of the glove shelf, then grabbed the whole box. Latex, powder-free, labelled small — which would fit absolutely no one we had, but the principle still counted.

Congratulations, I thought, tossing the lot through the Portal. You’re now officially contributing to inter-dimensional sanitation efforts.

Only then did I close the Portal, letting the swirling light snap shut with a whisper. The world returned to its standard palette of institutional beige and industrial despair.

Looking about me, someone had scrawled a phone number across the inside of the door in thick black marker. Just beneath it, a crude smiley face, the ink bled at the edges from age or moisture. A strange kind of graffiti talisman, like even the cleaners needed reminding to grin while marinating in bleach. Overhead, a fluorescent tube stuttered, flashed, then settled into a dull, resentful hum. The light painted everything in a pallid wash, the buzzing a quiet irritation that made the silence heavier.

I didn’t move. Not yet.

Instead, I stood still, letting the world press in through the thin walls. Footsteps tapped along linoleum, sharp and hollow. Somewhere in the distance, a voice mumbled through the tannoy, all consonants chewed away until it was just noise. A baggage trolley rattled over tiles, squeaking, clattering, fading. Everyday airport life, all carrying on just beyond this flimsy wooden boundary while I hid in the bleach-scented dark.

My gaze dropped. Dust smudged the cupboard floor where my shoes had landed, faint marks trailing in from the door. Clivilius dust — stubborn, fine, clinging to the hems of my trousers despite my best attempts to brush it off. I shifted my satchel higher on my shoulder, the strap digging against my collarbone, and listened harder.

More footsteps. This time slower. Closer. They scraped directly past the cupboard door, so near I could feel the vibration shiver faintly through the frame. A pause. Long enough to draw a breath tight in my chest. Then movement again, fading away.

The silence that followed was taut, elastic, stretched thin as if daring me to break it.

I exhaled, slow and deliberate, my pulse still lodged uncomfortably high. Enough waiting. The moment had arrived.

Time to move.

I reached for the handle and gave it a firm tug.

Nothing.

Another pull. A wiggle.

Still nothing.

My heartbeat kicked back into overdrive.

You’ve got to be joking.

I jiggled the handle again, twisted, pushed, pulled—nothing. The door was stuck. Or locked. Or maybe just having a bad day. I pressed my forehead against it and breathed in floor cleaner and existential regret.

So this is how it ends. Trapped in a cleaner’s cupboard, two worlds at my fingertips and still outwitted by a badly fitted door.

A long moment passed before the handle finally turned—on its own. The door creaked open, revealing a young staff member in high-vis and earbuds, blinking in vague alarm.

“Oh—uh, didn’t know anyone was in here.”

I smoothed a hand down the front of my shirt, lifted my chin with calm, unbothered precision, and met his eyes.

“Five minutes of privacy. That’s all a girl asks.”

His face flushed a deep, startled red as he stumbled back a step, eyes instantly darting anywhere but at me.

I stepped past him without another word.

Which, to be fair, was probably the correct reaction to finding someone alone in a celaner’s cupboard at an airport.

He didn’t follow. I didn’t look back. The corridor beyond was as nondescript as they came — a narrow artery of linoleum and paintwork the colour of old porridge, designed to discourage memory. The kind of space airports grew like fungus in their hidden corners, meant for staff who knew better than to linger.

A Qantas logo sagged on the far wall, its decal peeling at one edge, curling like a half-hearted wave. I caught a flicker of movement: a maintenance worker wheeling a ladder down the passage, the rattle of its wheels skittering against the tiles. He didn’t even glance my way.

I adjusted the strap of my satchel and kept walking, the quiet scrape of my boots muffled by worn lino. Behind me, the cleaner's cupboard door clicked softly shut, sealing itself back into the wall like nothing had ever happened.

Just like that, I was in Adelaide.

And if the universe wanted to assume I’d popped in for a quick midday fumble, who was I to correct it?

The corridor was thick with the exhale of the air-conditioning, warm and slightly stale, buzzing under the hum of industrial strip lighting. My footsteps padded against the floor, each one soft, deliberate, the rhythm casual but certain. Not hurried. Not tentative. Just another body in transit, another uniform without a badge.

That was the trick, always: never look unsure. People spotted hesitation the way sharks scented blood. Confidence — whether borrowed, counterfeit, or stitched together from scraps of Sophie’s bravado — was camouflage enough to carry me.

I rounded the corner, and the airport opened up around me like a tide. The sound surged: the overlapping pitch of human voices, the hydraulic sigh of sliding doors, the metallic bark of the intercom declaring delays and gate changes with weary authority. Luggage wheels rattled, phones buzzed, toddlers wailed, and someone laughed too loudly. The dissonant symphony of travel — equal parts chaos and routine.

The air shifted too — bleach swapped for burnt coffee, perfume, jet fuel.

And there I was.

Just another traveller on the fringe. A woman with stolen quiet pressed into her bones and car keys in her pocket.

Luke’s new airport location had worked a charm. The Portal had opened exactly where he said it would. The cleaner’s cupboard had been precisely what he’d promised: obscure, unremarkable, tucked neatly behind the theatre of airport life. The perfect hiding place.

I had just crossed half the country through a cleaning supply closet.

And not a single soul had noticed — Well. One. But he hadn’t asked questions, and I hadn’t offered answers.

The smugness was sharp and absurd and completely mine. I held it like a boiled sweet on my tongue, tucked in secret, until the next problem came knocking.

---

The lift shuddered faintly as it ascended, carrying with it the ghost of every passenger who’d stood here before me. The smell was impossible to ignore — a sticky, chemical cocktail of fermented orange cordial poorly drowned beneath the teenage bravado of Lynx Africa. It clung to the air, thick and insistent, as if daring me to breathe too deeply.

I pressed myself into the corner, arms folded across my chest, eyes locked on the ascending glow of the floor numbers. Each one blinked alive with all the speed of bureaucracy at lunch hour, sluggish and unapologetic.

Level three. Car Park B. Row G-14.

I repeated it silently, over and over, as though the rhythm itself could keep me anchored. Like a mantra. Or a curse.

At last the doors slid open with a weary sigh, releasing me into a different kind of air — one heavy with echoes and the tang of cold bitumen. The concrete canyon of the car park swallowed me whole, its ceiling low enough to press a weight into my chest.

The world here was sound layered upon sound: the distant rush of airport traffic, the restless thrum of tyres grinding against ramps, the hollow whistle of wind threading between pylons. The air was dry, metallic, tinged with exhaust — a reminder that even winter in Australia could feel sun-baked, more desiccation than chill.

Rows of cars stretched in regimented silence, baking in the muted sunlight that filtered through wire-mesh openings. Bonnet after bonnet gleamed with a weary sameness, a metallic herd at rest. A couple trailed past me — one dragging a suitcase, the other snapping at a phone screen, their argument a low hiss of frustration about flight schedules or ticket machines. Neither spared me a glance. Good.

I squared my shoulders, angled my steps with purpose.

Row G.

The sign glared down from a concrete pillar, bold and impersonal. I turned right, boots clicking lightly against the cement, the sound bouncing back at me in the emptiness.

And I walked.

Each stride took me deeper between the silent vehicles, towards G-14, towards Paul’s black Prado, towards whatever waited — or didn’t — at the end of this row.

Car parks have their own particular brand of unease, and this one was no exception. Even half-empty, the place wrapped itself around me like a maze — all angles and repetition, every row a carbon copy of the last. The air echoed strangely, carrying the faintest shuffle of other footsteps, the occasional slam of a door, all of it blurring into that background hum that prickled under the skin. A space designed for order, but steeped in quiet disorientation.

I counted as I walked, each painted number a small reassurance.

G-12.

G-13.

G-14.

I stopped.

The bay was empty.

I stared at it longer than I should have, as though sheer concentration might conjure a shape where none existed. But the concrete lines were bare, pale tyre-marks the only memory of something that should’ve been there. A car that size didn’t just vanish. Not a phone. Not a wallet. A bloody great Prado — heavy, boxy, unapologetically obvious — with Paul’s sun-bleached NRMA sticker peeling on the bumper. Several tonnes of Japanese steel and reliability, gone.

My breath slowed, deliberate. I turned a full circle, scanning the rows again.

Maybe I’d misread. One bay over. One row down. Maybe G-15 held the black shape I wanted, tucked safe behind a minivan. Maybe G-13.

Nope.

I walked the length of the row once more. Then again, slower, eyes dragging over each bonnet, each glint of glass. Still nothing. My boots echoed on concrete as I ducked to the level below, half-hoping Paul’s memory had failed him. But Luke’s coordinates were never wrong.

The Prado wasn’t here.

The knot in my gut pulled taut, and with it came that low, crawling awareness — the whisper at the back of the brain that says: this isn’t right. Not quite panic, but close. The kind of sensation that made the air feel thinner, the ground underfoot less certain.

Stolen? Maybe. Possible, even. But unlikely. Airports were riddled with cameras, security systems watching every inch, and a black Prado wasn’t exactly the hottest joyride candidate.

But then again — when had anything connected to Clivilius ever stayed neatly within the bounds of “normal”?

My mind ticked over the possibilities. Had someone been tracking Paul? Watching for his return? Had the Prado been lifted not by chance, but by intention — another thread pulled from the strange tapestry I’d already tangled myself into? Or was it something painfully ordinary, embarrassingly mundane — a council tow, a clerical error, a security patrol gone zealous?

The air in the car park pressed closer, heavy and hollow.

I stood in the middle of Row G, exhaling hard through my teeth, eyes sweeping the emptiness again, knowing what I saw wasn’t changing: the Prado was gone.

Signage in car parks is always a gamble — either too much, or barely legible. Here, predictably, it was the latter. I found a metal post with lettering so faded it looked like it was trying to retire from public service altogether.

For assistance or reporting abandoned vehicles, please contact Airport Parking Services.

The number was printed below, along with a QR code that would’ve been useful if half of it hadn’t been obliterated by bird shit. I stared at it for a beat, mildly incredulous. Of all the places a bird could defecate, it had chosen here — under cover, on the one square of information anyone might actually need. A kind of avian spite.

Suppressing a groan, I pulled my phone from my satchel and keyed in the number.

One ring. Two. Three. Four.

Then, a click.

“Yeah, Airport Parking,” a voice answered — flat, uninterested, the vocal equivalent of a shrug.

“Hi,” I began, adopting my best approximation of polite enquiry, trying not to sound like I was gearing up to accuse them of participating in international conspiracy. “I’m trying to locate a vehicle. I believe it was parked here earlier this week — black Toyota Prado, registered to a Paul Smith.”

There was a pause, followed by the muffled sound of the receiver being pulled away. A clatter of keys, the drag of lazy typing. I imagined a desk covered in paperwork and crumbs, a half-eaten sausage roll perched on a napkin, grease stains inching towards the keyboard.

“Uh, hang on… yeah.” A pause, more typing. “That was towed on Friday.”

I closed my eyes briefly. “Of course it bloody was,” I muttered.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, injecting false brightness into the word. “Do you know where it was taken?”

“Yeah, that’d be Eastern Suburban Vehicle Recovery. Franklin Street. Tow 83A.” The voice was bored, almost mechanical. Another pause, then: “It was recorded as overstaying the maximum period permitted for short-term parking.”

That did it. A dry, involuntary snort burst from me — not a proper laugh, more the exhale of someone too wrung out to care. Short-term parking. Paul, of all people, racking up a bureaucratic offence simply by existing too long in the wrong place. I could picture his face now, the slow eyebrow lift, the muttered: didn’t expect to be gone so long.

“Thanks,” I said, still caught between amusement and irritation. “Do they have a number?”

She read it out in the same monotone, then hung up without the courtesy of goodbye.

The dial tone hummed back at me.

Typical. Even Adelaide’s parking authority had perfected the art of leaving you to it.

For a long moment I just stood there, Paul’s keys digging into my palm, my phone still heavy in the other hand, the absurdity of it all pressing down like an unwelcome weight.

This was not the plan.

The plan — my neat, efficient, entirely hypothetical plan — had involved a brisk in-and-out. Walk through a Portal, pluck the car from its waiting space, drive it somewhere anonymous and unmemorable, then Portal it straight into Clivilius. After that I could hand it over with a wry comment, maybe a smug little bow, and embellish the whole ordeal into a tale of daring recovery when I inevitably relayed it to Paul.

Instead, here I was: Adelaide Airport car park, empty bay, missing Prado, and the thrilling prospect of negotiating with a private tow yard without so much as a plausible cover story, let alone an intention of paying the ransom fee.

Brilliant.

I sat down heavily on the low concrete divider, ignoring the wind that sliced through the car park like it had unfinished business. The cold knifed up through the gaps in the walls, making the metal railings hum faintly. From where I perched, the view stretched into monotony: endless rows of vehicles, some fogging gently at the windows, others blinking their little anti-theft lights like patient heart monitors. All present, accounted for, and utterly indifferent to my missing car problem.

I shoved a hand into my satchel, more for distraction than necessity, rummaging past notebook, pen, and a crumpled muesli bar wrapper. My fingers brushed the edge of something hard and laminated. Paul’s licence. Luke had packed it with the care of a man preparing for a military campaign, labelled, zipped, and slotted in amongst the essentials as though it might save me.

I pulled it out, studied the photo. Paul, smiling faintly, radiating his peculiar brand of good-humoured stubbornness. The thought of presenting myself as “Paul Smith” was laughable. I didn’t look like him. I didn’t sound like him. I didn’t have his unflappable cheer or his innate, irritating optimism.

But documents… documents had their own kind of power. Flash one with enough confidence, and doors sometimes opened — not out of belief, but out of sheer unwillingness to deal with resistance.

I slipped the licence back into the zip-lock, then fished out the muesli bar and unwrapped it. The oats crumbled dry in my mouth, tasting faintly of dust and resignation. The perfect fuel, really, for what was shaping up to be yet another ill-advised con.

Because that’s what it was going to be. There was no universe in which I could walk into a vehicle impound office, smile politely, and request they release a black Toyota Prado. Even armed with Paul’s licence, the odds were slim to nil. Best-case scenario: a sceptical look and a gentle refusal. Worst-case: forms filled, my name noted, footage reviewed, my face replayed in grainy black and white until some official started asking the wrong questions.

No, it needed a lie. Something bureaucratic, sharp enough to cut past indifference, vague enough not to be checked too closely. Something… Sophie would have thought of already.

I stuffed the wrapper back into my bag, wiped my hands on my jeans, and rose. The wind caught at my jacket, tugging like it wanted me to reconsider.

“All right,” I muttered under my breath. “Let’s go be someone else.”

The words scattered into the concrete vastness. Somewhere behind me, a magpie gave a warbling shriek that carried far too much glee. It sounded uncomfortably like laughter — and for once, I couldn’t help but agree with it.