by Tara Basi
“Where’s the door? What’s going on here?” the old woman shouted, looking confused and a little frightened.
“She looks like a mummy, from the old vids,” Stuff said, staring at the stranger.
“For god’s sake Stuff, she’s not even the right colour,” Battery Boy lamented, while noticing, with relief, that she spoke normally, no clenched teeth, and she didn’t have a Band.
“Not my mummy, idiot, a mummy,” Stuff answered indignantly, his terror momentarily forgotten.
“Are you with them?” Battery Boy shouted at the woman, ignoring Stuff’s surreal take on the strange new arrival.
“Who the hell are you?” Black bellowed, apparently just as shocked as the runaways by the strange woman’s appearance.
“She’s got a gun, give it here,” Jugger interjected, reaching towards the gun the woman was holding limply at her side.
The woman neatly sidestepped Jugger’s lunge and brought the gun up in front of her.
“Back, get back, everyone,” she screamed, panning her sidearm left and right.
“Sure, relax, they’re the ones you need to worry about, we’re just runaways,” Jugger said quietly, his hands up, smiling and nodding with his head towards the hunters and Black.
“Call out the gun guard, quick, quick,” Black shouted at one of the hunters who immediately ran off. No one else moved, the semi-circle pinning them against the wall was unbroken and Black was still out in front, looking stunned by the woman’s arrival. The hunters looked nervous, uncertain, Black retreated a little and just stared, apparently lost for words.
“They’ll be back with guns, we need to get out of here,” Battery Boy pleaded, hoping the old woman would side with them.
“They’re shitty bastards, tried to make us eat them creepy spiders, I showed them,” Pinkie shouted at the woman, pointing up at one of the paintings.
“Shut up, everyone shut up, I need to think,” the woman yelled and then, in a quieter voice, “Any idea what’s going on?”
“Like he said, we’re runaways, just got here, no idea who this crazy lot are,” Battery Boy answered.
“Not you, just shut up, right,” the woman shouted back.
Battery Boy was confused, the mad old woman seemed to be talking to herself. With one hand she held the gun out in front of her with the other she was pressing something in her ear, while struggling to keep hold of the helmet.
“Fuck off, this is serious. What,” she said to herself, then paused, stared up at the painting Pinkie had pointed at, then looked around at the hunters, their crackling batons and finally her eyes came to rest on Black.
“Right, OK, fine. You, get over here,” the woman called out to Black.
“What level are you from, how old are you?” Black answered, still in a seeming daze.
“They’re here,” a hunter to Black’s left announced.
“Send them in, do them all, we’ll sort this out later,” Black replied, shaking off his initial shock at the old woman’s arrival.
A new Purple with gloves and a basket of horrors flanked by a guard to his right and left came out of the crowd and headed purposefully towards them. The two new hunters had guns.
“Do something,” Battery Boy shouted at the woman.
The woman looked from the runaways to Black, the new Purple, the cage strapped to his chest and his gun guards and then back again. She looked confused and frightened. Suddenly her face hardened and she dropped her helmet. The crashing metal noise momentarily stunned the new Purple, stopping him in his tracks. The woman lowered her gun, fiddled with the butt and brought it back up just as Purple resumed walking cautiously towards them. The bang was deafening. Battery Boy clapped his hands to his ears. For a moment Battery Boy didn’t know who had fired, Purple’s guard or the woman. Everyone froze, wondering if they’d been hit, except the woman. She fired again, and again. Bang, bang, bang, rang out, echoing around the hall.
A thick curtain of smoke erupted out of the floor between the runaways and new Purple. The smoke billowed everywhere engulfing the ring of hunters and Black, as well as the new Purple and his guards. Shadowy figures could just be seen through the thickening smoke running in all directions or falling to their knees, coughing uncontrollably. Black suddenly stumbled out of the smoke, just in front of Battery Boy. He was blinded by the tears streaming down his face, a hacking cough left him barely able to stand. Before Battery Boy could react Jugger pushed past and grabbed the choking Black in a headlock and dragged the old-boy back towards the wall.
“Call off the guards,” Jugger hissed in Black’s ear.
“Stay back, everyone stay back,” Black spluttered.
“You wanted to talk to him?” Jugger said, coughing himself now, tears starting to run down his face.
“Thanks,” the woman said to Jugger looking surprised at how quickly he’d acted. Then, turning to Black, “Who the hell are you, what were those things in the cage?”
“Don’t hurt me, I’m Black, the controls are… necessary… for optimum efficiency, harmless really, we all have one, see,” Black said and then opened his mouth very wide.
The woman turned away in horror and bent over, Battery Boy thought she was going to be sick. She wasn’t, after a moment she turned back to face Black.
“Take me… to your leader,” the woman said, and then giggled a little hysterically.
“I am the leader,” Black indignantly replied.
For a moment the woman seemed confused, lost for words, “Let’s go to your office. No one is to follow or I’ll shoot you,” the woman growled at Black while waving the gun under his nose.
“What about us,” Battery Boy asked, unsure what the woman was up to and why was she interested in Black’s office.
“You’re wearing the same clothes as this lot, why should I trust you?”
“We got here yesterday; they took our old clothes, gave us these, and then brought us here,” Battery Boy explained, hoping she would believe him.
“And they took our hair, bastards,” Pinkie added, running a hand over her shiny bald head.
“Your hair? Right, look, I’m not from here either, I don’t know what’s going on. I aim to find out, you can all come along if you want,” she answered.
Battery Boy looked across at Jugger, who shrugged. Pinkie nodded. Stuff just picked up the old woman’s helmet and took hold of the woman’s hand, much to her surprise. She flinched at first, then smiled weakly at Stuff and squeezed his bony fingers.
“We’ll stick with you, for now. What’s your name?” Battery Boy asked.
“Mina.”
Battery Boy introduced the others.
Jugger pulled the terrified Black onto his feet, and gave him a gentle push. Black moved slowly towards the blank wall flanked by Jugger. Mina was just behind, pushing the gun barrel into Black’s back with Stuff at her side still clinging to her hand and carrying her helmet. Pinkie and Battery Boy were at the rear, constantly looking back over their shoulders. The hunters weren’t following, some were still coughing hard, even though most of the white smoke had cleared.
As Black approached, the wall dilated revealing a short white corridor with a waterfall door at the end. Everyone followed him in and then through the waterfall into a square white room. The only furniture was a simple chair and a clear glass table.
“This is my office, what do you want?” Black asked, still frightened but gaining in confidence.
“Where’s your system’s interface? What is it, audio, touch?” Mina demanded looking around the room.
“You don’t make any sense, the office is mainly used for assessments, there’s nothing in here,” Black answered, obviously confused by Mina’s line of questioning.
“You must have systems, how do you make records, give orders?”
“Like QQ numbers?”
“Whatever, yes, how?”
“Reference.”
“OK, but how do you connect to this Reference?”
“Connect? Oh… afte
r we’re apprenticed we’re always connected.”
“They tried to make us apprentices by giving us one of those spider things, we saw thousands of kids getting them,” Battery Boy explained, wondering what was so important about a connection.
“Trinity you get that, is that possible?” Mina said.
“Who’s Trinity? We thought you were alone,” Jugger asked, immediately suspicious.
“What’s the bandwidth? That’s not possible, are you sure? You could just say yes… fine,” Mina continued in apparent dialogue with the unseen Trinity.
“Just give me a minute,” Mina said to Jugger and then turned towards Black, “Open your mouth.”
“What?” Black answered, looking alarmed as Mina pulled a small box from inside her jacket.
“Open, I’m not going to hurt you,” Mina said, pushing her little box almost inside Black’s mouth. After just a few seconds she said, “Done? Really? OK. You can shut your mouth now,” Mina concluded, looking disgusted.
“What did you just do?” Black asked, looking worried.
“Sent a little spider of my own to have a talk with this Reference,” Mina answered, smiling broadly.
“You shouldn’t have done that, there’ll be consequences,” Black answered, staring angrily at Mina.
“Shut up,” Mina replied.
“Who were you talking to, where did you come from?” Battery Boy fired at Mina.
“Slow down. Look, I’m on your side, more than you can imagine. We thought everyone was dead, but you’re alive, living in this monolith,” Mina said, looking a little more relaxed.
Black, getting more and more agitated, shouted, “You’ve got to let me go. I’ll be replaced if I don’t resume control, they’ll take me straight to the Vat, I’m too old for the Yard.”
“We’ll let you go when you tell us how to get to the top floor, my friends are up there, I need to get back to them,” Mina answered.
Battery Boy still wanted his own answers from Mina, “Look, just answer my questions first, OK. Lots of people asked for our trust and then most tried to kill us.”
“I was talking to my computer system, it’s called Trinity. Do you know what that is, a computer system?” Mina asked.
“Course, we’re not stupid, we went to school, before we ran away,” Stuff said.
“Or got took,” Pinkie added.
Mina looked from one to the other and tried to explain, “Look, I’ve been away a very long time, with others, on a ship. When we got back, everything had changed. There are these monoliths and we couldn’t find any people. We came to have look, something went wrong with our ship and we crash landed on the roof. I got separated from my friends and ended up down here.” She paused after every few words, checking to see if they were following.
“We call it the Block,” Battery Boy replied. As soon as they’d walked in to the huge hall he thought they might be inside the Block and not underground. The woman had helped them, she might help him find Tress. For now, he’d help her. “We lived outside, in the wasteland, got taken yesterday by this lot. I’m looking for someone. She knows a lot about the Block, the census; she can help, if we can find her.”
“Census? You know about that? We heard about it from someone else. It would be great if we can find your friend, we have lots of questions but first I have to find my own friends,” Mina replied.
“So, how old are you?” Jugger asked.
“What? Why’s that important?”
“That’s all some of us care about. How old?” Jugger insisted.
“It’s complicated, I left Earth a hundred years ago, I was twenty then, that makes me one hundred and twenty. By another count I’m thirty, biologically I’m twenty four,” Mina answered slowly, as though she was working it out for the first time herself and finding the answers surprising.
“Impossible, all of it, you’re talking rubbish, just let me go,” Black shouted.
“One hundred and twenty,” Stuff repeated, eyes wide and sporting a goldfish mouth.
“How’d you get to be that old?” Jugger asked.
“Can we talk about this later,” Mina answered, obviously confused by Jugger’s line of questioning and turned instead to Black, “I need to get back to the roof, is there a lift? Tell me how to get up there and I’ll let you go.”
“What roof? What lift? You’re not making any sense,” Black wailed.
“What about the Heaven House, how do we get there,” Battery Boy asked remembering the first Purple’s speech to the apprentices.
For a while Black just laughed and laughed, seemingly unable to speak, till Jugger grabbed him by the throat.
“You think I’d be down here, in the basement, with all the other crappy workshops, scraping a living if I could just jump up to the Heaven House,” Black croaked, his laughter abruptly halted by Jugger’s thick fingers around his throat.
“How do you go up a level?” Battery Boy pressed.
“Your numbers, only if your numbers are good enough, you get invited, a door opens. The people in the paintings, they went up,” Black answered.
“Trinity, can you fudge the numbers? Shit, shit. You, Black, there must be another way, think, think hard,” Mina shouted, obviously disappointed by Trinity’s response.
“It’s impossible, just rumours, let me go,” Black whispered as though afraid to be overheard.
“If you don’t want your fingers broken one by one, you’ll tell the nice lady all about it,” Jugger interjected.
“I’m not telling you anything, let me go now, and you won’t go to the Yard,” Black answered.
Jugger dislocated Black’s smallest finger on his left hand in one rapid movement, leaving it sticking up at a sickening angle. Black screamed in agony, “It’s just stories, old rumours, it means crossing the Yard, you’d be crazy to try.”
“I can just as easily put it back and stop the pain if you tell us about this shortcut,” Jugger advised in a consolatory tone.
Battery Boy noticed Mina going off-white with shock; she obviously wasn’t used to violence. Probably why she’d shot smoke rather than bullets. It was a good sign.
“What shortcut, you think I would still be in this hole if I knew about a shortcut,” Black exclaimed through gritted teeth.
“Maybe if you had a matching pair of little fingers it would help your memory,” Jugger suggested, with a cold smile.
“Wait, wait, there’s supposed to be a path through the Yard, to the eastern side, to a light that takes you up. It’s a mad idea; you’ll never make it across the Yard, even if there was something on the other side. That’s all I know,” Black said, rocking back and forth in pain as he clutched his hand.
Mina touched her earpiece, “Trinity, find anything about this path and the eastern light? It’ll have to do. Trinity’s found something, not a lot of detail, all sounds a bit vague,” Mina said, after she’d finished talking to Trinity.
“We’re used to vague,” Battery Boy answered.
“Now Mr Black this nice boy is going to fix your finger and you’re going to take us to the Yard,” Mina instructed.
Mina turned away as Jugger snapped Blacks finger back but everyone heard the terrible crunch followed by Black’s pained screech.
“You’re mad, you want to go to the Yard?” Black said as he blew on his finger.
“That’s right, first we want food and water, for now and for the trip. Then you’re going to tell us all about the Yard, this place and the Heaven House,” Mina said.
“And two guns, for me and him,” Battery Boy said, indicating Jugger, who smiled in appreciation, “a compass, and torches.”
“What about me,” Pinkie shouted, “I want a gun too.”
Battery Boy ignored Pinkie, Black only nodded in response. Battery Boy looked over to where Mina was leaning heavily against the wall; she looked exhausted, and struggling just to stand up. Battery Boy took her arm and moved her slowly to the chair behind the desk and she slumped down thankfully.
“Mayb
e you should try and get some sleep, we’ll watch him,” Battery Boy suggested, nodding towards Black.
“Thanks, I will sleep, I’m not used to the weight, but I’m keeping the gun,” Mina answered. “I’ll be talking to you later,” she said to Black, then tucked the firearm inside her trousers, rolled a pillow out of her jacket, placed it on the desk and laid her head down. She was asleep in seconds.
Black sat on the floor, back against a white wall, his legs outstretched, a sullen scowl written across his plump face. Battery Boy and Jugger took turns keeping an eye on Black, while Mina, Stuff and Pinkie slept.
“You trust her?” Jugger whispered.
“Doesn’t matter if we trust her or not, we can’t stay here,” Battery Boy answered.
“You, can you open up the door under the Block?” Jugger asked Black.
“Sure, better choice than the Yard any day,” Black answered.
“We could go back, to the wastes, we’ll have guns, food,” Jugger suggested.
“I’m not going anywhere till I find my friend, Tress. The old woman could help. Besides, I’ve had it with the wastes, there’s got to be something better,” Battery Boy said, with grim determination.
“Hope you’re right, we ain’t found nothing better yet, but I’m coming, want to know how she did it, got to be so old,” Jugger answered quietly, then settled down to sleep.
Everyone was up and immediately alert when a few hours later a sad looking young girl appeared through a materialising door. She was struggling to carry a number of heavy bags. With a grunt she dropped them on the floor, turned and exited, leaving just a blank wall behind her.
“Thank god,” Black said, obviously relieved.
“You that hungry?” Jugger asked.
“You don’t understand, Reference could appoint a new Black any time. I’m still Black if they’re listening,” Black answered.
Battery Boy removed the two guns, a box of ammunition, the compass and torches; he passed one gun to Jugger and emptied out the remaining contents of the bags onto the floor. They were full of fruit, dried food and bottles of water. Pinkie continued to sulk for a while over the lack of a gun but, eventually, even she settled down to eat, and listen as Mina resumed her interrogation of Black.