I walked for a few meters and then, feeling sentimental, turned around for a last look. There was a line of orange people standing in the air. They were saluting Pvt. Kawalski. He stood at the Prison entrance, the backpack filled with the fruits of our labour two storeys high, waving them goodbye.
None of them saw me.
PART 2: ESCAPE
“I, Raziel, was to suffer the fate of traitors and weaklings
and burn forever in the bowels of the lake of the dead.”
Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain
“Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of your death.”
-Agent Smith, The Matrix
20 Years Ago…
In her belly there grew a child, protected from the desert winds, and the sins of the world.
The woman had wandered in the desert so long that her mind was like a desert. Her thoughts were scorpions. The deadliest was the one that said "your baby is going to die". She tried to crush it with every step. Her legs were man-made instruments of steel that never tired. The rest of her was human and it was only love for her child that kept her going after the water was gone.
A person alone in the wilderness can sometimes speak to the Gods, and the forces of the Universe. The woman made a deal with Death, he could have her but her Son would go free. But she knew Death was greedy and wanted them both.
She closed her eyes and when she opened them she was in a Doctor's office. The Doctor was telling her that the best thing she could do for her baby was eat handfuls of sand. "Sand contains all the vitamins a growing baby needs", he said knowingly, lighting a pipe. That’s when she saw his diplomas were upside down and written in blood.
"You won't get my Son", she said.
He just smiled, a "see you soon" kind of smile.
~
Someone had left a giant mirror in the sand. Maybe the mirror was magic and led to a different world, she didn’t know. She
saw herself reflected in it, floating over the landscape, a half-woman, a monster.
The only other option was to lay down and die. How could she explain that to Christopher, how could she explain that to her son?
She gathered what little moisture she had left to cry for help.
Hoping life would answer her.
1.
A tank sat wedged in the sand. Khaki coloured and so well-blended with the environment that I didn't notice it at first. Sand had gotten all the way to the turret and in another few storms it would be submerged. I tried the roof but it was sealed shut.
Nearby was a row of makeshift graves. Simple crosses made from posts with military dog tags hanging from them. I read the names: Ado, Davidson, Carter, and took a moment to pay my respects before moving on.
~
I took it for a stonework wall at first. Until I got closer and saw the stones were moving. It was a large mass of interlocking grey vines, each one thick as my arm and pulsing with life. The blockade was twice my height. I walked up and down its length but there was no end to it.
When I tried to push through the vines they reacted by pulling themselves together tighter. The only way out would be through. I took the Garden Buddy™ out of my backpack, twisting the rings until the end became the circular saw blade of a Weed Wacker.
The vines made a screeching sound as the saw blade cut through them, burrowing into the ground to escape. I realised too late that their sap was acidic and I got badly burned as it splashed on my hands and face. With sap in my eyes and the agonised screams of the vines all around me I had no sense of direction. I sensed rather than saw that the path behind me had closed over.
I felt numbness sinking into my arms as claustrophobia and panic crowded my mind. There were vines wrapping around my legs and arms and I had to chop through them without heed to whether I took off my own limbs in the process. I could feel the vine's animosity, like I was a foreign body they intended to destroy.
Before I could succumb I felt my Garden Buddy™ clang against something metallic. I slashed the vines covering it, revealing a door. A legend above the numeric keypad read: “Prove you're not a vine. Answer 2+2?” I hit "4" and the door slid open with a hiss.
The vines on my legs now had me lifted up in the air like Superman. I got the Garden Buddy™ through the door and used it as a bar to pull myself inside. I slammed the lock button and it whooshed shut, severing the vines. They released their grip and with disgust I threw them across the room where they lay, quivering.
~
“Knotweed Outpost-1” announced the sign. From what I could gather this place was a military outpost that used mutant Japanese knotweed for defence. There was a map on display that indicated I had made my way through a hundred metres of vines. The station was run on Geothermal energy and the logo of Geo-Therma Industries adorned the consoles.
The skin on my legs was badly lacerated. My bag was a lost cause, torn to pieces with only a few apples left at the bottom. I placed it with my bloody pants in a pile on the floor. My hands were completely raw from sap burns. There was a first aid kit on the wall stocked with bandages and iodine. I focused on my legs, wincing where I applied the iodine.
For my hands I tore strips from my shirt and made makeshift orange bandages. I looked around for more clothes but there was only a one piece protective suit that was much too big. From now on I would be travelling in a vest and underwear. At least it was Summer.
There were some simple cots the researchers must have used for overnights. I lay down on one and stared up at the domed ceiling. I could hear it creak under the strain of the vines who were still trying to kill me. I didn't expect I would get much sleep.
There was a piece of tentacle under glass that I stared at for a while. It was like something out of H.P. Lovecraft. I could also see there was something brown sticking out of my ruined bag. It was an envelope, presumably put there by Moss. I brought it back to the bed and opened it. There was a small note inside.
“Dear Christopher,
If you're reading this it means they got me, I'm sorry.
I wish I could see you now. I bet you look beautiful all grown up.
Go East from the Prison, there you'll find my people.
Love, Mom.”
I folded the note and placed it under my pillow. I chomped on an apple and listened to the creak of the domed ceiling and the throb of the pain in my legs. It was easier than listening to my heart.
~
I woke up and looking around with fresh eyes I saw a large red button with “Napalm” next to it. I pressed it and watched with glee as the readout for Knotweed Concentration went from 100% to 0.
I walked through fields and fields of the blackened corpses of my former foes. I stepped on a few for good measure, laughing as their bodies crumbled to dust. Stopping to get my bearings I heard a sound like distant whispering coming from the earth. I started to run as I saw the first fresh tips burst from the ground.
Like an evil iceberg the majority of the vines must have been underground. I didn't know if the vines were really sentient but the groaning sound it made as it grew back to full size definitely sounded angry. There was no time to use the Garden Buddy™. I sprinted for a line of dead trees up ahead that I thought marked the edge of its territory.
I reached it in time and collapsed onto the ground, grabbing hold of one of the tree roots. Grey fibrous tentacles encircled my entire body. That's when the tug of war began. It pulled. I held on. It pulled. I held on.
Finally, the vines gave one last powerful jerk that I thought would wrench my limbs out of their sockets. Then according to some simple binary process it must have decided I wasn't worth the trouble and let me go.
2.
This world was full of barriers. This one was a fence, easily twenty feet high, flat and white with pointed ends. Behind it were rows and rows of identical houses, white squares with sharp multicolored roofs. It was like a child's drawing of what a house looked like. Using the Garden Buddy™'s thresh hook
function I was able to scale the oversized picket fence, though not without nearly leaving my testicles as a souvenir.
I walked along the street, looking for any sign of life. The doors seemed to be only for show but I knocked on a few anyway. At one I heard a beeping from inside but no one came.
One house had a gnarled old oak growing alongside it, the roots had grown through the foundations, causing a sizable crack to appear in the wall. It was just big enough for me to squeeze through.
The crack led to a kitchen. There were cupboards with pictures of chickens and smiling vegetables and a large oblong box that must have been the refrigerator. The only furniture was a single armchair. The walls were blank and covered in black glass. I looked pretty silly reflected in it. I was still in just my underwear.
There was a door to outside and another one that looked like it led to another room but I couldn't get it to open. I tried the refrigerator instead. It was completely empty. An electronic voice told me: “Your food has passed its expiration date. It has been destroyed for your safety."
I tried the cupboards next. There was a small crack in one, I set the Garden Buddy™ to mini-hoe and prised it open, sending splinters flying. There was some ancient fruit that looked like a museum piece. At the back I saw something shiny and yellow. I took it out. It was a small yellow sponge. I opened the packet and ate it, hoping to regain some of my lost calories.
I read the label as I chewed: “Contains 98% of your recommended daily intake of sugar.” It was like Dr. Pepper in solid form but way better. It tasted so good I had to sit down. I slunk into the armchair, feeling as though I had partaken of some incredible drug.
~
I awoke to lights and someone calling my name. Was it Sophie? Had she followed me from the Prison? Before I woke up fully the thought seemed somehow reasonable. The voice was actually coming from the wall of the kitchen which was now displaying some kind of movie.
We had only one movie in the Prison, Battleship from 2013, but it had nothing in it like this.
There on screen, as big as life, was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. I knew she wasn't real even as I fell in love with her. She was 22 and a natural red head. She was wearing nothing to cover her body which was perfect except for a slightly fat belly.
She was writhing around on a four poster bed, cupping her own breasts and saying my name ecstatically.
“Christopher, Christopher...”
I looked around to make sure no one was there (even if you're the last man on earth you don't want to get caught jacking off) and slipped down my boxers. As if on cue, the camera panned down to between her legs to where there was an orange triangular corn chip.
“Eat Doritos” came up on screen before it went black again. In the reflection on the wall I could see a tall man in uniform standing behind me. I barely had time to pull my underwear up before his hands were around my throat.
“You have the right to remain silent.”
No problem there. The hands crushing my windpipe made talking impossible. The way he lifted me off the ground with no effort at all convinced me he wasn't human. He's a machine designed to kill people like me, I thought pessimistically.
“You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney you waive your right to an attorney.”
I think there was something wrong with his voice synthesizer. It sounded like coals being rubbed together in hell.
I hung in the air like a human piñata as he read me my rap sheet.
“Trespassing.”
“B and E.”
“Aggravated Theft of a Twinkie.”
The light drained from the room. I knew I'd be dead by the time he got to the indecent exposure part. My Buddy lay a few feet away but it may as well have been on the moon.
“Come on Tag,” I said to myself, “you can't die with your pants off.”
It gave me the motivation I needed. I got my fingers under his just enough that I could suck in a pathetic amount of air. That turned the dimmer switch up. I studied the cop, looking for some sign of weakness. His face was implacable and his reflective glasses showed only a dying me, but under the brim of his cap I could see a small line of broken skin where his paint/skin had chipped away.
Using the last of my strength I hooked my right foot around the back of his neck, making a human flag. I drew my other foot back and smashed into his face as hard as I could. His glasses smashed to pieces but he made no reaction.
“Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?”
I gave one final desperate kick, he released me and I fell, to the ground, my body shaking as I gulped in sweet mother air. I scrambled away, trying to get some distance between me and it. I had managed to knock its hat off and some sense of android etiquette made it bend over to pick it up. I got a glimpse of its shame, there was a gaping hole where its forehead should have been.
“Assaulting a Police Officer.”
I could see artificial rage blazing behind his cracked glasses.
“The Penalty is Death.”
“Bullshit,” I said even though it hurt to speak, “you were gonna kill me anyway.”
The android came at me like a cop-shaped bullet. I deftly flicked off his hat and went for my Buddy. It was still on hoe mode, he was bending for his cap when I rammed it home, shoving the mini-hoe far enough into his cranium that only the handle was visible.
What happened next was pure slapstick comedy. The cop would try to put on his hat but it wouldn't stay on because of the protruding handle of the Buddy. He'd bend over to pick it up and the skit would begin again. I watched the whole routine 20 times before I was convinced he wasn't going to break out of it.
I started to regard the cop with more pity than fear. His uniform was old and faded and his boots were badly scuffed. Who knows how long he had wandered the wastes, searching for a perp to collar. The door to the other room was now open and I entered cautiously.
~
It was a bedroom, sparsely furnished. Just a double bed, a bedside cabinet and a wardrobe. Looking inside I saw they were all women's clothes and much too small. On the bedside locker was a small ornament of a blue hedgehog as well as an electronic picture frame which was now dark. Lying on the bed was a woman's corpse. She grinned at me with perfect teeth. Her flesh had deteriorated but her skin, which must have been artificial, was still perfectly intact, making it look like she was wearing an ill-fitting pink suit.
In my loneliness I felt vaguely comforted even by this human form. At the same time the place felt like a tomb and I had no right to be there.
On the way out I passed the cop, still stuck in millinery hell. I wondered, not for the first time, what kind of a place America had been.
3.
If this was America why was there a medieval castle here? It stood in middle of the landscape like a time-travelling eyesore. There were turrets, a drawbridge, the whole thing. The stone was smooth and black, like someone had carved it out of a piece of obsidian.
The gate at the front rose at my approach, making me feel like a visiting king. It gave way to a small courtyard and garden. There were statues dotted around the garden. They depicted warriors and mages from the pages of a fantasy book. They looked like they had fallen in battle and been frozen by some magical force at the moment of defeat.
An imposing set of iron-clad doors led into the castle proper. Embossed in stone above the entrance was the word E-Scape. Of all the natural human instincts, curiosity is the worst. I pushed open the heavy doors and went inside.
~
If the facade was Middle Ages than the lobby was 20th Century. The reception area of a Madison Avenue advertising firm in the 1960s. There were potted plants, evergreen and fake. The chairs were the brightly colored swivel kind that look sort of like a baseball glove. There was no one on reception and I didn't see much point in ringing the bell. A poster on the wall showed a medieval Knight clashing his sword with demonic forces. Quotes on the bottom proclaimed: “Dark Ember
Makes History” and “The Biggest Selling Game of All Time.”
At the other side of the lobby were two elevators. Hanging above them was a huge skeletal dragon's head. It looked like something you would find in the den of a retired Barbarian. I watched with incredulity as it shook its bones and came to life. It descended on its long bony neck to meet me.
“Greetings Traveller, my name is Bethor, how may I direct you today?”
I was speechless.
“Are you here for the guided tour? Half-price today!”
I shook my head. I think there was something wrong with its voice synthesizer. It sounded like coals being rubbed together in hell.
“Ah, no problem, are you here for the interview?”
“Eh, yes.”
“Excellent, interviews are held on the 22nd floor.”
The doors to the elevator opened and I jumped inside.
"Good luck, I'll be rooting for ya!”
It bobbed happily in the air, grinning with a mouth full of 3-inch long teeth.
“Thanks.” I said, frantically banging the door close button.
The doors closed and I breathed a sigh of relief. Well that's something, I thought, the first artificial being I've met that hasn't tried to kill me.
~
As I stepped onto the 22nd floor an arrow directed me towards human resources. It was the hope of encountering a real person drove me on. I passed another framed poster. This one showed a businessman, beaming messianically while sales figures exploded behind him. The tagline read: “Will Xander Matthews take over the world?”
The door to HR led to a waiting room but since it was devoid of people or robots I decided to go straight through. The next room had a bunch of seats facing a black glass wall. I was expecting another movie. Hopefully it would have a better ending than the last one. Sitting down triggered the lights to go out as it started to play.
The movie was shot in Hell. The sky was blood-red, filled with clouds of fat black flies. The houses used human teeth for shingles. The theatrical British voiceover told us this was Kandar, Land of the Dead.
The Earth is My Prison Page 7