by Dena Nicotra
Before I could raise myself up, she reminded me of the tube in my back, and instructed me to turn on my side. “I’m sorry, Lee. This part is going to hurt. For your safety and mine, please, try not to scream.” I was about to boast about my threshold for pain, just as she pulled.
I felt like my spine was being ripped out of my back, one weak vertebrae at a time. Fighting back the sheer need to howl, I grit my teeth and buried my face in my hands.
“There, it’s out! Get up and get these clothes on, we have no time!”
I felt that horrible, watery feeling you get when you are either going to vomit or pass out as I moved. My legs were weak and jittery as I slid the pants on. It took all of my focus not to pass out.
Two wasted no time as she threw a t-shirt at me. “Hurry, Lee!” Too weak to argue, I did my best to move my ass.
Ducking down, Two threw my arm over her shoulder and half-walked, half carried me out of the room and down the hallway.
“Just a little further,” she whispered. My head lolled to the side as wave after wave of nausea threatened to buckle my will to escape.
I was vaguely aware of Two’s commands to keep moving. Part of me just wanted to let go…and allow myself to drift away in a warm pool of darkness. Fortunately, my simp twin wasn’t having any of that. She hit a panel on the wall that forced a door to open, allowing the cool night air to wash over me, renewing my sense of urgency.
“Which…way?” I huffed.
“Just hold on to me, I’ve got you.”
She continued to drag me toward the back wall of the underground parking structure before finally stopping in front of a low retaining wall. “Lean here against the wall,” she commanded. Checking first to see that I was still hanging in there, she kicked at a rusted grate. The second attempt worked and she quickly returned to help me move through the opening.
We made our way through a series of dark tunnels that seemed to wind endlessly downward. It didn’t take me long to realize it was an underground sewage system. I began to question this escape plan. Especially as the situation worsened. The downward direction led to the raw essence of humanity, which required us to trudge through putrid water that came up to our knees.
“Oh, for fuck sake!” I said, stopping in my tracks to pull my shirt up to cover my nose. The stench was definitely getting stronger the further we got in, and the water was getting higher. “Tell me you thought this through, Two.”
“This was the only option, Lee. It’s just a little waterI. It’s not going to kill you.
“A little water? We’re wading through liquid ass down here!”
“I’m sorry the conditions aren’t to your liking.”
“To my liking? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“Do I look like I am joking?” She took a step sideways and held out her arms.
“I can’t believe I am arguing with you!” I snapped.
“I can. You’d argue with your own reflection if it pissed you off.”
“Fuck you, Two.”
“No thanks,” she said flatly. We trudged on in silence for what seemed like at least two miles. It had grown so dark that I couldn’t make out anything, and my imagination was getting to me as I envisioned floating fecal matter all around me. The only thing keeping me on course was Two, who had taken my hand and was now pulling me behind her like a lagging kid. The water was now thigh high and I couldn’t help but worry how much deeper it might get.
“How much further?” I asked.
“In two kilometers, we will come to a tunnel exit. You’ll have to climb a ladder. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yeah, I can do that. Just tell me what is on the other side when we climb out.”
“I can tell you where, but not what is on the other side.”
“Okay, then where will we come up on the other side?”
“The airport.”
“Oh, that’s lovely, we’ll just hop on a flight and go home. You can check our luggage while I go and order a double of anything with extra whiskey in it.”
“Very funny.”
“I would give my left tit for a shot of whiskey,” I muttered through chattering teeth.
“Now that would be funny,” she muttered back. The bantering was weirdly comforting. At least it was familiar and I wasn’t going to die at the hands of Towering Aaron. I guess if I had to put it into perspective, wading through sewage was better than dying.
By the time we reached the ladder I was exhausted. I’d pushed myself beyond my physical limits just to get this far. Grabbing the metal ladder that jutted out from the wall was impossible. I had no strength in my arms, let alone my legs.
“I thought you said you could do this,” said Two.
“Yeah, well, I thought I could. Apparently I was wrong about that. Give me a minute to catch my breath.”
“We don’t have a minute, Lee. Eli is coming.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No. I wish I was. He’s still at least two kilometers behind us, but…you know how fast we can move.” I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to grab the ladder rung. My grasp slipped and I splashed down into the water, landing hard on my ass and damn near up to my neck in the muck.
“Give me your hand.” I reached up begrudgingly and Two pulled me to my feet.
“Get on my back,” she insisted. It wasn’t good for my ego, but what choice did I have? It got us moving. Two made light work of climbing what had to be thirty feet to the surface. I just prayed the rusty ladder rungs held our weight.
We were nearly to the top when I spied a glint of something beneath us.
“We’ve got company,” I said.
“Drop her, and I won’t terminate you,” Eli’s voice echoed off the cement walls, making him sound even more terrifying. My mind flashed back to the way he’d snapped that man’s neck back in Mojave, as if it was nothing more than a chicken bone.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted to Two. She continued to climb. I could feel the beads of sweat forming on my upper lip. I had no weapon, and I was in a weakened condition. My odds were not looking good. This shit soup was about to come with a side of pain. I could just make out the outline of his figure as he began to climb up behind us. Two was now taking two rungs at a time and the agony I felt in my spine was almost more than I could handle.
When we reached the top, I pushed with everything I had on the manhole cover. It was heavier than I imagined, but I was now running on adrenaline, so there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to get it to move. It finally gave way and I pushed with everything I had to give myself the room I needed to pull myself up and out. Scrambling to my knees, I turned around to reach my hand down for Two, just in time to see her and Eli plummeting to the dark water below.
“Two!” I shouted into the void. I could hear splashing, and then Eli shouted out in a series of rapid words that made no sense. The next thing I heard was an all-too-familiar high-pitched clicking. He was calling for Towering Aaron! For a brief moment, I was sure he had killed Two because the splashing came to an abrupt halt. Everything grew silent, and I held my breath. If he’d destroyed Two, he’d be up to kill me next. There was no way I would be able to fend him off, and making a run for it was out of the question in my current state.
“You fucked with the wrong simp, you sick sack of wires!” Two’s voice resonated like music in my ears. She climbed the ladder and hauled herself out of the sewer tunnel with a huge, shit-eating grin on her face. “He won’t be bothering us anymore,” she said matter-of-factly. I laughed and shook my head. She was definitely more like me than I could have ever imagined.
“You smell like shit,” I said.
“Yeah? Well, it’s a good thing I can’t smell then, isn’t it?”
“Right. Of course you can’t.” That was the icing on the cake. Now it was her turn to laugh. “I think you forget that I’m not human sometimes, Lee.” I looked away.
“Yeah, well, that’s the highest compliment I could ever pay y
ou, but you still stink.” She stuck her middle finger up at me.
We took our rest there next to the manhole cover for the next thirty minutes or so. From the looks of the surroundings, we’d come up at the street level of what had been the San Francisco International Airport, once upon a time. Now, it was littered with crumbling rubble, and the sounds of nothingness. We walked in silence around a rusted taxi hovcar. Next to it I observed a frozen hologram of an Asian woman in a long-sleeved, dark blue dress. Her hand was outstretched in a permanent wave, and she wore a permanent, frozen smile on her face. No, nothing creepy about that at all. There was a map of terminal three, just above her head, and I idly wondered how many travelers had paused to listen to her programmed message as they desperately hurried to check their bags and catch their flights. Maybe they were traveling for business or, even better, a well-needed vacation.
What wouldn’t I give for a vacation right about now! I punched my fist through her abdomen and kept walking inside the abandoned terminal. The carpeting was burned, and in several places we had to step around giant holes that dropped into open space below. Above us, a sign hung precariously that read “enjoy priority boarding.” We walked on, with the occasional growls coming from my stomach breaking the silence. When we came upon a dusty sign that read, “Stein’s Deli”, I swallowed hard. Not only was I hungry, it also reminded me of my Dad’s shop. What I wouldn’t give for one of his submarine sandwiches, thick with salami, mustard, and peppers! I lowered my eyes, and kept walking. Now was not the time to get sentimental about food or family.
“You must be getting hungry,” said Two.
“I’ve got a massive headache, and I’m fucking starving,” I said. We walked in silence down the people mover that had long since stopped moving people. The sign above read, “stand on right, pass on left.” How badly I wished I could pass. Even in the darkness, the layers of dust on the rails made me miserable. This place, more than anything I had seen in a long time, provided a haunting visual of what was…no more. We had to step over or around the occasional abandoned suitcase, most of which were open and long since pilfered. I shuddered to think of what had become of the people that had once tugged them behind them as they bustled along. Open holes in the ceiling had caused water damage, so it wasn’t worth trying to find something less foul for Two to wear. I averted my eyes as we stepped around a dusty red baby stroller. The airports had been knocked out in the first waves of the attacks. Unsuspecting humans, traveling with their simp assistants, or hell…their simp children for that matter, never knew what hit them.
“How about a drink?” Jostled from my thoughts, Lee charged ahead to a sign that read “Kazu.” It was a bar, just between gates G95 and G97. Despite my physical and emotional state, I quickened my pace behind her as I muttered a silent prayer for anything containing alcohol. Whiskey would be ideal, but I’d settle for anything at this point. My lower back was oozing and dripping into the back of my jeans. I didn’t want to think about how bad that could be.
My hopes were quickly dashed as I realized that the bar was picked clean. Squatting down slowly, I checked the lower cupboards. Aside from a stack of paper napkins, (which I took) these were empty as well. Disappointed, I used the counter to pull myself back up and began checking the drawers. Here I found a pack of matches, a box of multi-colored plastic swords, (useless without a cocktail to skewer olives), and a few very hard, very dried out limes. I took the matches and shut the drawer. Disappointed, I walked to the nearest stool and took a seat on the patron side of the bar. The large mirror I now faced was cracked, offering a macabre reflection of my badly bruised face that forced me to look away.
Two had gone to the supply area in the back, and now emerged just as empty handed. “Nothing back there either, huh?” She shrugged. “Just this.” Raising her hand up to reveal a half-full bottle of premium vodka.
“You just made my day!” I said, crossing the small distance between us to take the bottle from her hands.
“Not so fast, Lee.”
“What are you talking about? You’d better give me that damn bottle right now!” I warned.
“First turn around — and pass me those napkins too.” Begrudgingly, I turned around, knowing she was right. Splashing around in the sewer with an open wound wasn’t conducive to staving off a potential infection.
“Just fucking save me some,” I mumbled.
“Don’t worry, I will, you’ll need a drink because this is going to hurt like…”
I let out a string of obscenities as she attended to my wound. When she finished, she handed me the remains of the bottle and I chugged at least two shots worth before I asked what I’d been afraid to ask. “How bad is it?” Two blinked a couple of times, her facial expression unreadable. That is, unless you recognized the expression as I did. “It’s not that bad,” she said.
“You’re a bad liar, Two.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, well, I learned from the best.”
“So, cut the bullshit,” I snapped.
“Okay, it’s like this…you’re going to need medical attention. I could help, but I have no access to proper medical supplies. I absorbed what she said and the severity of my situation sank in. Towering Aaron had inserted a tube into my spine, and, according to Two, I was suffering from a cerebrospinal fluid leak, and I would need surgery to repair a dural tear. Apparently, the only reason I was able to move at all was because of some sort of synthetic abilitator that Aaron had used during the insertion. It was wearing off; hence, the pounding headache. The irony was that the best option I had was to return to I.D.E. where she could manage a synthetic repair. Yeah, like that was going to happen. I sucked down the rest of the vodka and settled into a booth with Two’s help. I found if I lay on my side, the pain was somewhat manageable…or maybe, it was the vodka. At least the headache seemed a little better.
I woke up with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and a powerful thirst. I rubbed my eyes and used the table to pull myself into a sitting position. The pain in my lower back was nearly unbearable, and I winced as I scooted myself out of the booth. I had to stand there for several seconds just inhaling and exhaling in short bursts. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” I heard a whirring sound and my whole body tensed. If Towering Aaron had found us, I was as good as dead. I didn’t have the strength to crawl under the damn table to hide, let alone run. I looked around for Two, but she was nowhere in sight.
I leaned on the table with one hand to steady myself, and frantically searched for anything within reaching distance that I could somehow use as a weapon. The dusty surface of the table held nothing usable, and I squeezed my eyes shut as the sound drew closer, and then stopped. I opened my eyes to face Two, sitting in an electric cart. I exhaled heavily and willed my face to look calm.
“How’s the pain?” she asked.
“It’s manageable,” I said.
“And I’m the bad liar?” she asked, as she climbed out of the cart, grabbing a canvas tote. “It looks like you’ve been busy,” I said, deflecting her scrutiny. I didn’t like showing weakness, especially to a mirror image of a stronger me. She shot me a concerned glance out of her good eye as she sat the tote on the table and began pulling out items. That’s when I noticed that she’d managed to find herself a fresh change of clothes. She was wearing a bright pink tank-top and white shorts….definitely not something I’d ever wear. Seemingly sensing my disapproval of her girly apparel choice, she pulled out a small can of apple juice, and an unopened package of peanuts and thrust them at me.
“You did good, Two,” I said, as I cracked open the top of the apple juice and gulped it down. The liquid tasted faintly of aluminum and vinegar, but it was hydrating and I needed it. Her efforts to ensure my comfort and safety during the night left me feeling more than a little grateful. I cleared my throat and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The tremor in my hand made it difficult to hold the can, which Two didn’t fail to notice.
“Any sign of others?” I asked. She shook her he
ad.
“I haven’t spotted any humans or simps. I think we’re reasonably safe, for now.” She furrowed her brow, distracted in thought before she regained her focus. “I also found a medical clinic with a few supplies we can use, and a working shower.” Things were definitely bad, but I was relieved to hear that we weren’t in immediate danger from Aaron or anyone else. I shook the last of the peanut bag into my mouth, and then Two helped me into the cart. Nice outfit, by the way,” I said.
“Fuck you,” she replied, as we whirred through the abandoned terminal.
The medical clinic yielded a few packages of sterile gauze, and an unopened bottle of antibiotics. The shower was ice-cold and the water came out in a disappointing trickle, but Two had found a zipped baggie in an abandoned suitcase, filled with travel-sized products that almost made up for that. When I finished, she bandaged up my wound and helped me into a change of cleaner clothes. The over-sized sweatshirt felt warm and comfortable, but the matching pants were so big that I had to roll them down around my waist to keep them from falling off. I noticed, in the process, that my hands were shaking. I sat down on a small bench and ran my fingers through my hair. I couldn’t bend down to get my shoes back on, so Two helped me with that as well. It was tremendously frustrating to be so incapacitated, and I was growing increasingly concerned with the amount of danger that could place me in.
“I think we should try to find a hovcar now,” I said, as she helped me to my feet. The silent nod she gave me said more than words could. She was equally concerned with my weakened state.
It took us less than twenty minutes to get outside, and the biting cold wind almost made me change my mind. The ashen sky, mixed with the fog, created a miserable reminder of how much I missed the desert. I’d grown accustomed to the constant sunshine, even in the winter.
The cart wouldn’t operate outside of the terminal, so we had to leave it behind and walk. I pulled my hood up, and cursed my luck. The first parking lot was a no-go. The only vehicles left were either out of fuel, or so badly scavenged for parts that they were useless. Despite the cool temperature, I was sweating by the time we reached the second parking structure. Two insisted I rest while she continued the search. Unable to argue, I crawled into the backseat of one of the abandoned cars and waited for her to return.