TWICE

by Susanna Kleeman

  ‘Why do you have eyes?’

  ‘To see through your shit with.’ He started pressing my eye and with it the doughnut-shaped panel around the hole. The panel moved up a bit, he pulled back.

  ‘It moves?’ He let go of my ear and punched the panel up, moved it and me with it, shunted it and me aside, put both his hands up into my tunnel, yanked himself up from the chair and slithered through so he was squashed up in my tunnel with me and the light. Naked, grabbing me hard:

  ‘Show me the lock, the numbers you put in.’

  The two of us, jammed together.

  I showed him the silver lock with its ten panels, shined the unscrewed lightbulb onto the lock so he could see the random numbers that had opened it, apparently opened.

  ‘What’s the number? Where did you get it from? What does it mean?’

  ‘No idea,’ I said. It had a lot of nines in it. I showed him the whole mechanism: how to replace the panel, how the lightbulb and fitting got screwed into the centre of the panel by the winch that became the strap and clasp that hooked the lock to the tunnel floor. Nothing they hadn’t seen me do before if they were watching. But when I hooked the lock to the clasp the lock clicked shut, even though I didn’t move a single number, a single panel. It clicked shut and wouldn’t open, so we were locked into the ceiling together, me and naked him in the new gloom, whatever he was.

  ‘Open the lock,’ he said.

  I tried. ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘You moved it,’ going for my ear again.

  ‘I didn’t touch it. You moved it.’

  ‘I didn’t touch it. You know the number, put it in again.’

  ‘This is the number, I didn’t touch it, it just went shut,’ trying and fiddling.

  ‘Fuck you. You changed it. Put it in again. How did you know it in the first place?’

  ‘I just spun it! It was random, it just opened.’

  ‘Fuck random. Do it, do it,’ while I tried to spin the well-oiled panels like I’d spun them before.

  Nothing opened.

  ‘Fuck you, fuck you.’ He smashed the lock against the tunnel floor. ‘What kind of fucking lock is this? What is it? What are you, what do you want from me?’

  ‘Why do you have eyes?’

  ‘Do you know what you’ve done? You fucking fool. All for me. All for him, cos I look like him. Your bait. Damaged goods.’

  ‘What is the number?’ I lay there on my belly. ‘And anyway,’ when he didn’t speak: ‘if they used the lock to lock the panel then they knew the combination already. If I unlocked it somehow then I can’t have given them anything they didn’t already know.’

  ‘Unless the thing was ancient and they could never unlock it and they built the hook and panel and whole fucking set-up round it, built this whole boat round it in readiness for you to crawl up here and open it for them with whatever your Alan coded into you.’

  Which I hadn’t considered. A bad feeling. I lay there. ‘I didn’t enter any number. It was random.’

  He did his hollow laugh. ‘Nice work,’ not to me. ‘They’ve captured the data already, you betcha. You know they have. They’ve got what they need from us, well done. And all cos they know your hook: how much you still love your Chrissikins. Nothing more for us to do. Except kill each other before they kill us, don’t give them the satisfaction. The only good choice now.’

  And then from not far behind us: a tick and hum.

  33

  In Zita first her watch went backwards, then the sounds. Then sixty-six seconds to jump back before you saw it: wet puckered flesh over steel mouth, diamond-tipped maw ready and open.

  ‘We got to go.’

  ‘What is it?’ he said but I was already on the move.

  ‘We need something long and sharp,’ to pierce the red spot, the Cwyd’s only weak point: the red spot under its mouth, how Zita killed it, with a metal rod found in her tunnel, jutted it up there.

  But we had no rod, nothing sharp and no time.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The Cwyd. It’ll kill us,’ moving off.

  ‘Cos you gave them what they need. You’re trash now, like me. Served our purpose. Two-for-one deal. Let them kill us.’

  ‘No way.’ I let go of him, crawled off alone till I got to the next panel above the next room, fingers crossed it had a normal lock that I could undo with the 565656, nothing Babylonian. Don’t do their work for them, right? No way I was getting chomped up there if I could help it. Fuck him, whoever he was, their dismal agent. I’d open the panel, enter the new room, hope the ceiling hole was too small for the Cwyd to follow.

  And what would I find in the new room? Another Sean? Chris? Don himself, the grand high poobah?

  The new lock felt normal, I prayed it opened with the 565656 combo.

  Praying to whom, you fucking fool?

  The hum grew. With jittering fingers I tried the numbers. The lock opened. The strap and the winch, unlocking the central hole, as per normal—my new normal, speed it up. Down there was black, no way to see what was in the cabin. I shunted the doughnut panel aside.

  He’d come to see, was close to me now. ‘What the fuck are you doing? What numbers did you put in? This is what they want us to do.’

  It was the normal 565656, I explained, not like his room, his room had been different. ‘I thought what they wanted was us to be killed.’

  The roaring hum, a blinding light. I turned for a nanosecond to see the tunnel behind us fill with steel whiteness barrelling towards us, a train with circular jaws globbuling in and out like a puckered mechanical arsehole, red in the middle, the wind of its suction.

  Ten metres away. No way I was hanging around for that encounter. I jumped down the hole into blackness, he fell down after me, hard onto wooden floor, the Cwyd whooshed over the hole above our head.

  We lay winded on the floor in the dark, me moving my limbs, checking I still worked.

  ‘The cleaning bot,’ he said. ‘Cleaning the vents. What did you call it?’

  ‘It would have killed us.’ I laughed, big joy. ‘We escaped.’

  ‘You dumb fuck. No one escapes. The whole world’s smeared. No one gets to escape, have adventures, any more, don’t you get it? Only Don has adventures. The rest is airtight. We’re here cos they want us here, cos their machines planned it. They know all your stories, don’t think you can twist them. And where are we now? Into the fire. With them watching. Don’t say you weren’t warned.’

  He got up, started pacing the black of wherever we were. There was echo and more sway, in this room, and the clink of something and the sound of—what?—lapping? Waves? The sound of water.

  Light flicked on: he’d found a switch at the wall. We were in a large pale wooden space like a ballet studio, much bigger than all the other rooms / containers I’d crawled over, peered down into. A strange space because in the middle, surrounded by a glass barrier, was a supersleek, hypermodern speedboat. Everything else was bare.

  He slid down the white wall, naked, sat folded up on the floor, put his head in his hands. He looked up at me, with his eyes: ‘What are you?’

  ‘Where are we? Why do you have eyes?’

  He got up, naked, came for me, yanked down my sweatpants, felt for my upper thigh, the v-shaped scar he’d carved into me in the lake, my branding. Not that they couldn’t have copied my scars too, if I wasn’t me, if I were some clone or machine sent to snare him. He got up, held my face tight, smearing blood down my cheek, the blood from my torn ear.

  He bored into me with his eyes, the perfect eyes that shouldn’t be there if he was Sean. But if they were trying to trick me why not rustle up a gouged, blinded, scarred instance? If their aim was to make me think this one was Sean, my Sean?

  What did I know about their aims?

  What were they doing, why weren’t they coming for us? Could there be bits of their ship they didn’t track or notice?

  No.

  He bored into me with the eyes, I did the same to him. Clutching on, searching b
lindly, both of us, to see into the truth of each other.

  ‘I’m me,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t even know what that means.’

  I prised his hand off my cheek and pinched into it: WHY EYES?

  He looked at me. ‘I have eyes,’ he said, ‘because they fixed me. Because that’s what pleases Don. Cos I am Don, or his thereabouts. I belong to him. He wants me with eyes, he has hospitals full of eyes, eyes are trivial.’

  ‘And Chris?’

  He laughed. ‘Ah yes. Your Chris.’

  ‘What is this? Why aren’t they here? Are you Sean?’

  ‘I’m Sean,’ he said, standing naked in front of me. ‘This is my garage. Was my garage. When I was Don’s. Before I turned. Where I docked my boat,’ nodding at the speedboat. ‘My toy room. The fuckers.’

  The speedboat sat in water, partitioned off from us by the low glass barrier. Some kind of internal dock for the speedboat within the vastness of the container ship.

  ‘That’s your boat?’

  ‘Unless it’s a replica. Clone garage, clone speedboat, more games. The fuckers.’

  The speedboat was smooth, dark fibre-glassed wood outside, high luxe inside: white cream leather, two seats, chrome, dials, screens. Across its bow was its name in florid script: The Chimera. Beyond it was a metal wall different from the white walls of the rest of the room. I looked at this metal wall.

  ‘A door? To the outside? To the sea? D’you know how to open it? We’re at sea level? You know how to get out of here?’

  The glint of this possibility. The elation. Escape from the fun house.

  Trying to weigh if it was possible we could get out like this, without them noticing. That he had to be part of it if they weren’t coming for us, that even if he was fixed Sean, he could still be part of it, their agent working with them always. Just cos he’d been nice in the tramp wreck, cooking me seaweed.

  Or we could both be caught here.

  Or else what? Go back up into the ceiling? Do what?

  My head hurt. I had to get off this crazy ship.

  ‘Why aren’t they coming for us?’

  ‘They are.’ He stepped over to me, took my hand again, pinched into it: LETTING US while his mouth said: ‘We got to go before they get here.’

  He went over to the glass barrier and pressed one partition. It slid back, he went through, stepped into the boat. He ran his hands over the controls and steering wheel, pressed his finger to a glass button. The deck lit up, a warm low light gleaming from the displays onto the polished wood. He sighed, put his head in his hands, sank into the cream leather.

  ‘Full tank. No dust.’

  He sat up, stared straight ahead, closed his eyes, did deep breaths.

  He stood up and went down the steps deeper into the boat, to where? Some berth?

  I went over to the glass gate, called for him. He came back up wearing jeans, pulling on a white shirt, carrying a leather bag.

  ‘They packed for us.’

  Drenched in cams. I didn’t give a shit. Outside there was hope, no matter who he was. If we could get outside, into what they hadn’t built. If it wasn’t some new room or wider set. ‘Can you sail it? Will it still work? Did you start it up? Can you open the door?’

  Fuck the hell out of dodge by any means necessary.

  He looked at me. ‘Why do you even trust me? Who I say I am?’

  ‘I don’t. But I’ve had enough of here. We can deal with each other later.’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘Why did you cut your eyes out?’

  ‘To damage myself. To spite Don. He’s vain.’

  ‘Why did you lie to me before? Pretending to be Chris?’

  ‘I had to. It doesn’t make me the bad guy.’

  ‘Can you sail this boat? Can you open the door? Is it sea outside?’

  ‘I dunno.’ He stepped out of the boat, came over to me behind the partition, took my hand, opened the glass, led me through into the boat.

  We sat in the two seats hand-in-hand. Slowly he pinched: I’M YR DRIVER. THEY FIXED MY EYES 2 DRIVE U. THEY WANT US 2 DO THIS. CAMS EVERYWHERE. NO SPEAK. JUST PINCH.

  We sat there holding hands.

  He reached into the leather bag, drew out two thick waterproof jackets, put one on, made me put on the other. He ran his hands over the steering wheel, then punched numbers into a keypad. The engine purred.

  ‘My old code.’

  His numbers. He punched in more, there was a clank from behind. The metal doors shuddering open, letting in dark night and wind, seeming actual cold salt air, the unbuilt outside. I hoped. The doors opened more, sliding back to show us the huge black night sky and ocean behind us. Or dock or set or whatever they were letting us out into.

  ‘Strap yourself in,’ he said, beginning to back us out. ‘Hold tight.’

  34

  Fresh salty mild air, black sea, him churning round, speeding us out into the night over dark water away from the Skidblad, floodlights on, into the huge outside. Too fast: hitting waves in the open boat, me crushed against the side. ‘Hold on,’ while I screamed, holding my hand to hold my hand, not to pinch, clutching on, both of us braced for death, capture, something to stop the elation of us escaping faster and faster, his face lit up in the spray.

  He hunched over dials and shouted: ‘Behind?’

  I tried to see. ‘Nothing.’ The final white lights of the Skidblad, specks in the distance.

  ‘Sure? Above?’

  I looked up: clouds, stars, satellites, a big moon. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Copter?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘We did it. We’re free,’ grabbing my hand again. WLD SEND THINGS. THEY LET US. ‘Maybe the sub’s below.’

  Subs, copters, dials, screens, levers, whipping through water, putting big space between us and their crazed containers on some sea or vast set somewhere in the world. Him at it, big thrills. In the Lakes I’d been shocked about how well he knew boats but then he’d been pretending to be Chris. Now he was Sean Thabbet, reared different in his desert to maximise the sequence, taught boats by Pacific sailors, animal instinct, no longer having to pretend. Unleashed by Don to drive me somewhere. The Chris-shaped blank page speeding me away.

  Not quite blank: I knew some things about him, if he was Sean, the body I’d been with in Nissans and Fiestas, who’d kidnapped me and skinned me in lakes and nursed me, who’d lied to me all the way. But there’d been something in Sean: a desperation, a vulnerability, a knowledge of pain and the care for others that knowledge gives. Feelings unknown in cruel, cold, closed Chris, something I’d responded to. Something that couldn’t be faked.

  You hope.

  Clones. They’ll all be the same.

  We sped like that for some time on the dark sea, me savouring freedom, him chatting merrily about how we were free, how brave and brilliant I was, how clever Alan had been to teach me Zita, show me the way out for us both. How sorry he was for tricking me before. How, without me, he’d have been trapped on the Skidblad for all the rest of his natural born days. He reached for my hand. BABBLE.

  ‘Where are we?’ I said, figuring it was OK to speak normal questions that had nothing to do with knowing they were on to us, as long as it sounded like I thought we’d really escaped.

  ‘Somewhere in the East Atlantic, according to this,’ nodding at the dashboard screens, pinching: NO IDEA.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To Barrow. Get what they want, whatever’s hidden there they want so badly. Leverage. Then we’ll see.’

  NO BARROW, he pinched. OTHER PLANS.

  WHAT?

  But he shook me off, put both hands on the steering wheel, big man in charge. I kept my face neutral for the cams but didn’t like the sound of these other plans. Either he was their agent, in which case absolutely no thanks, or else he was straight up what he was purporting: Sean, someone who was against them. Someone I’d been with against them before, who’d cobbled botched plans that hadn’t ended well, for either of us,
for Flora and her family, despite the gouging, the shaving, the boats and the holes. His smiling face at the controls, lit up in the spray: full of plans: an eager reckless amateur. Chris and Don’s crap clone I’d got mangled with, who thought he knew, who didn’t know, who knew less than Chris had.

  I was the one with the stories after all.

  A pang of regret but I couldn’t have stayed on that ship. Better here on the waves with him than trapped in their containers with Ramona and co. Better odds. Here at least, zooming through water, you felt the illusion of escape, to buoy you up and maybe give you that extra inch of vim to burst you through into real escape, when the chance came. Then we’d see. And the chance would always come: there was always a chance, a crack, when you were out in the world they hadn’t built and couldn’t fully factor, even with their machines, when you weren’t sealed up in their floating lab.

  Which they must have factored-in when working out the odds before letting us out.

  Maybe we’d escaped after all. Me getting us out, Zita paying off, him not wanting to acknowledge I’d saved us. Like when we played as kids: having to be Mr he-man, though I was the one who usually solved things.

  Except this one had never played Scritch.

  Or at least not with me.

  The blood running down his face from his old gouged eyes.

  When the light started to change he cut the engine and we bobbed for a bit with no power on. Just us looking at each other in some grey sea under clouds, trying to see into each other. A whole black world beneath us, fathoms deep.

  He lay back on his seat facing the sky, then reached for me and held me to him, cupped my face. FOR THE CAMS. ‘You can’t know what this means.’

  He got up, cased the small boat, checking things in the new light and by the gleam of the dials. Sean himself, no longer being Chris, prowling round in a new way that gave clues about who he actually was. He went down the stairs to the berth and came back up with a metal bucket, leant over the side of the boat and drew up water, tasting it. Then he lifted the full bucket high and swung and smashed it down onto the control panels, fracturing displays and surfaces over and over.