Shades of Freedom

by McNabb, Linda

  A State spy! Is that what they thought she was? Kala frowned and Cris looked concerned.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He looked devastated and Kala forced the frown into a smile. He may be simple minded but he appeared to be one of the few people here who liked her. Cris immediately cheered up but before Kala could ask more questions to find out who had started the rumour they reached the bottom of the stairs.

  It looked as if she had arrived early as there were only six people gathered there. She only knew two of them, Johan, and Gil, the man who had met them outside when they had arrived. The other four, all men, she hadn’t seen before.

  “Right, now we are all here we can get going,” Johan only briefly acknowledged their arrival and Kala couldn’t stop the frown that creased her forehead.

  “Is something wrong?” Cris was walking beside her as the group headed off down a very dimly lit corridor that Kala hadn’t noticed before.

  “Isn’t this rather a small group for a raid?” Kala asked quietly so the others didn’t hear. She wasn’t even sure why she didn’t want them to hear. “I don’t know much about these things but I expected more people.”

  “We only need eight for the Hand Cars, any more would take up room that we need for the supplies,” Cris didn’t lower his voice as she had done and several of the men turned around to look what was going on.

  Kala didn’t know what a Hand Car was but she decided that she would find out soon enough. Everyone else was walking in complete silence and she didn’t want to bring any more attention to herself.

  The corridor was sloping downwards and was in a very bad state of repair. The floor had been covered sometime in the past with a textured coating with ridges in it but pieces were missing and Kala almost went flying several times when her foot became caught in the holes.

  Without warning, they came to a brick wall that blocked the corridor completely. Why had they come down here? Surely they would have to turn back as they couldn’t go any further this way.

  Kala raised her eyebrows in surprise as Johan pushed one of the wall panels at the side of the corridor silently backwards to reveal a dark, and uninviting passageway. They all filed into the passage and were plunged into total blackness when Cris, the last one through, pushed the panel back into place.

  Instinctively, Kala put her hands up against the walls in an attempt to find something solid in the blackness that invaded her senses. They were made of rough bricks that scratched her hands. One came loose in her hand, sending a shower of rubble onto her feet, which destroyed the sense of safety the wall had initially given her.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when a torch clicked on further ahead in the passage and she followed them down the steep narrow path. Where could this path be leading? It would be a long walk if it led all the way under the wall and how could they be expected to carry the supplies back so far?

  Just as Kala was going to ask how far they had to go, the tunnel came to an abrupt end. It didn’t go up to street level, instead it came out into a huge cavern that became brightly lit when someone turned on the lights that hung from the high brick ceiling.

  There was a pair of huge doors to the left of where they were all standing with two strange looking metal rods coming from under them which ran along the ground.

  Johan and Cris pulled open the doors and a loud creak from the rusty doors made everyone jump. Everyone, except Kala, looked nervously at the ceiling of the great cavern where a trickle of dirt fell soundlessly to the ground.

  “That was close,” Johan whispered and then looked at Gil and his voice became sharp. “I thought I told you to oil these last week.”

  Gil obviously didn’t like being told off and Kala saw the flash of frustrated anger in his eyes before he turned to Johan with an expressionless face.

  “And I told Cris to do it.”

  Cris opened his mouth to object but Johan silenced him with a finger to his lips.

  “It’s not important… just make sure it’s done soon,” Johan whispered.

  Kala could see the hurt on Cris’ face and she doubted he had even been told to oil the doors. Gil certainly seemed to be one of whom she should be wary. Her thoughts were completely blown away when she saw what the huge doors had been concealing.

  She guessed that these must be the Hand Cars but how they worked still baffled her. Each was a large flat piece of wood on top of large wheels with grooves in them into which the metal running along the ground slotted. On top of the wood was a metal bar with handles on both ends.

  “This is a Hand Car,” Johan confirmed her guess and he leapt lightly up onto it. “You push the bar down and back up to make it move along the tracks.”

  Johan demonstrated and Kala was impressed to see such a simple action move a large object like that. It was then that she noticed that they both had another cart behind them with no handles.

  “We put the supplies on that one,” Johan informed her. “It takes more than one person to move it with that fully loaded.”

  Johan held out a hand to help her up onto the Hand Car, which she refused, then Gil and Cris climbed on. The other four climbed onto the second Hand Car and they all moved off noiselessly through the cavern.

  At the far end of the cavern the track split off into three directions and the Hand Cars slid into the middle one. The tunnel they went into was much smaller and darker. Cris lit a lantern which seemed to make more shadows than it dispelled.

  They had to stop several times to clear fallen bricks and rubble from the tracks but nobody spoke and Kala now knew it was because they knew the slightest noise might bring the roof of the tunnel down on top of them.

  Ten minutes later Johan motioned for them to stop. The Hand Cars slid to a halt in a part of the tunnel that looked just like any other.

  Johan reached up and pulled down a ladder from the shadows against the wall and climbed quickly up and out of sight. When Cris brought the lantern closer Kala could see he had gone up through an open trap door in the roof of the tunnel. The others followed and lastly Kala and Cris went up.

  The rungs of the ladder were cold on Kala’s hot and sweaty hands and she was getting more and more nervous. Where were they going to come out? What if they were caught and why was she the only female on the raid? Her heart was beating loudly and it seemed to her that everyone should be able to hear it.

  She cautiously put her head through the trap door and let out a sigh. It was a mixture of relief and impatience. It led into yet another passageway that sloped upwards and although she was relieved they hadn’t reached the surface, for that meant the possibility of being caught, she was impatient to get this all over and done with. She wasn’t a thief but by the State’s actions she was being forced to become one.

  “This leads up into a food supply warehouse,” Johan wasn’t whispering and Kala looked cautiously at the walls and roof. Johan noticed her nervousness. “It’s quite safe here.”

  Kala thought the walls here were far less than safe as they were only held back with wooden boards but she said nothing. The passage ended with a smooth blank wall that Johan pressed his ear to and then smiled.

  “Sounds like there’s nobody there,” he said as, with some unseen switch or lever, he opened a section of the wall and stepped through.

  Kala didn’t know what to expect as she stepped through after the others and the huge warehouse took her by surprise. There were boxes and crates stacked in neat rows on metal racks for as far as she could see. Each rack went up at least twenty feet and, as far as Kala could see, none of the boxes were labelled.

  “How do we find what we want?” Kala whispered, a little unsure if she was supposed to whisper or not.

  “It’s all run by a machine that knows where it’s put everything. All we have to do is tell it what we want…” he said in a normal voice and paused as he typed a few commands into a nearby keyboard. “…and it gets them for us.”

  He pressed a piece of black plastic against the sensor panel and a gentle bu
zz filled the air.

  “What is that?” Kala pointed to the plastic and Johan turned it for her to see.

  “It’s a copy of the supply guard’s thumb print. So, as far as anyone is concerned, nothing has been stolen.”

  Kala began to relax a little bit. It seemed as if there was very little danger in this after all as she watched a computerized arm selecting crates and stacking them in a pile on the floor. Several of the men began to carry the crates out through the way that they had come in.

  “Come with me, Kala. We need to check outside to make sure there are no patrols near enough to hear the machinery.” Johan started to walk off through the huge warehouse without even checking to see if she was following.

  Kala hurried after him, her brief feeling of security shattered at the thought of going outside. She caught up with him at a small side door which he carefully unbolted and opened a couple of inches.

  “Follow me.” Johan was whispering again as he slipped out the door and Kala followed. They flattened themselves against the wall to stay in the shadows and moved into a group of bushes.

  Johan crouched down and parted the bushes to scan of the area. Kala looked out onto the partially lit market area that stood empty, waiting for the morning when it would buzz with people. One of those people used to be her. Less than a week ago she had bought their food at this very market. She would have laughed if someone had told her then that people crept around here in the dark of night and hid in the bushes. Funny, she didn’t feel like laughing now.

  “There’s the patrol,” Johan nudged her and she stared in horror as the two guards walked slowly towards where they were hiding.

  Johan held a finger to his lips and Kala pressed her lips together feeling a little annoyed. Of course she was going to be quiet, did he think she was a fool? Her anger helped her overcome her fear and she watched more calmly as the guards had a quick look around the market and then headed off down the road without noticing anything.

  “They won’t be back for at least half an hour. We can go back and help the others load the crates.” Johan waited for her to follow him and they slipped back through the side door. Kala couldn’t see any of the others and assumed they must be taking crates down the passage.

  “Halt! Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  A loud voice to her left made her jump and she spun to see who it was. She felt her heart drop to her feet as she saw a black clothed guard holding Johan around the neck with his stun stick. Johan looked limp and unconscious. Her feelings were totally different to when she had last seen him held by a guard. She no longer blamed Johan, it was the State’s fault.

  “Answer quickly or you’ll be next.” The guard was partly in the shadows and Kala couldn’t make out his face as he threw Johan to the ground and started walking towards her.

  “Identify yourself or you’ll find yourself in front of the adjudicator for theft!”

  The guard was only a few steps from her now and Kala felt all the hatred and anger about what had been done to her family well up inside her. She lashed out with her fists at any part of his body that she could reach and then instinctively brought her knee up between his legs. With a loud moan the guard crumpled to his knees and Kala brought her arm back, ready to thump him again.

  “Stop! Hold on!”

  Kala was pulled backwards and fell on the floor as several pairs of hands grabbed her from behind. She turned to launch an attack on them as well but stopped with a look of complete confusion when she saw that it was Johan and Cris.

  “What the… !” Kala looked back to where she had seen the limp form of Johan laying only seconds before. The shock from the stun stick should have had him out cold for hours.

  The guard was sitting up now and his helmet had fallen off. He wasn’t a guard, it was Gil, and he didn’t look very happy as he touched a hand to his bleeding lip.

  “We had to be sure where your loyalties were,” Johan said with a smile on his face. “I’m kind of glad you’re on our side with a punch like that.”

  Kala stood up and faced the smiling Johan, feeling even angrier than she had a second ago. How dare he pull a stunt like that?

  With a sharp left hook she wiped the smile from his face and he fell backwards and hit the ground with a satisfying thud. Then she turned and did the same to Gil.

  **

  It was almost dawn and Roma paced The Square impatiently. Where were they? Surely they should have been back before now.

  He woke early and left his wife and daughter sleeping to come and see if Kala was back. Several hours had passed since then and he was getting worried. He should have gone with them. A raid was no place for a girl and he would never forgive himself if anything happened to her.

  He realised that this wasn’t helping and he felt a great urge to go for a run to release some of his tension. He looked out the crack between the huge doors and saw that the sun was about to rise. Surely it would be safe to go out there now.

  He unlocked the doors and strained to pull one of them open far enough to get out. He would just run around the black land a few times and they were bound to be back by then. Running felt good and he ran in an ever increasing circle around his new home.

  Just as he was getting tired and thinking of heading back a man stumbled out of the shadows and fell at Roma’s feet.

  “Help me. If they catch me they’ll kill me,” the man’s breath was coming in short gasps and even in the half light of pre-dawn Roma could see that he had been badly beaten.

  He looked up and saw a patrol Hoverpod was doing a search with a sweep-beam into all the alleys around the empty warehouses. Roma’s response a few days ago would have been to leave and not get involved but he wasn’t the same man he had been a few days ago and he didn’t think the same.

  “Quick, we can make it to the building before they get here.” Roma grabbed the man under the arms and when it was apparent that he could not walk, let alone run, Roma hoisted him over his shoulder. He didn’t look back as he ran as fast as he could towards the huge doors.

  Just as he pushed the man through the door of Clover Downs he saw the blinding light of the sweep-beam light up the ground beneath him and heard the bellow of the loud hailer.

  “Stop or we’ll shoot!”

  **

  Johan rubbed his cheek gently, knowing it was going to be black before long. Why had she hit him as well? He had asked her but she was refusing to speak to him. They had just finished loading the crates and it was time to start back. The first Hand Car had already left.

  “I’m not going on the same Hand Car as her,” Gil muttered quietly as he glared at Kala and Johan cursed under his breath.

  It had seemed like such a good plan to find out if she was a State spy or not, but if he had known she could throw a punch like that he might have found another way. Gil seemed to be holding a grudge and he couldn’t afford conflict amongst them.

  “You volunteered to be the guard,” Johan reminded him.

  “Well I don’t want to be on the same Hand Car as either of you,” Kala spoke for the first time since she had punched Johan and stood with her arms folded and a fierce expression on her face.

  “You didn’t get punched… yet,” Gil’s voice rose slightly as he took a step towards her. “You didn’t need to punch me the last time.”

  “And you should have more faith in others. You deserved it,” Kala threw back at him.

  Gil stepped menacing closer and Johan knew that the situation was completely out of control. Gil had reached Kala and looked ready to punch her and Johan stepped forward.

  “Leave her alone,” he ordered, trying to keep his voice down.

  “Who’s going to make me?” Gil was past being reasonable but before Johan had a chance to reply Cris grabbed Gil and he held him completely off the ground.

  “Put me down,” Gil demanded.

  “He’s not going to hit anyone. Put him down,” Johan added and gave Gil a stern look.

  Cris did as he was t
old and dropped him but Gil stumbled forward and landed heavily against the crates causing one to fall off.

  Everyone froze as the sound echoed through the tunnel. Then what they had all been dreading happened, the roof began to cave in.

  Johan wasted no time diving under the Hand Car, pulling Kala after him. There wasn’t much room after Gil and Cris joined them and the sound of falling bricks was deafening.

  It was a full minute before the bricks finally stopped falling and Johan made a move to come out from under the Hand Car. He pushed some bricks out of the way, squeezed out the gap he had made and then he helped the others out.

  “What a mess,” Johan whispered almost to himself and meaning more than just the pile of bricks.

  It took them nearly three hours to clear the tracks, even with the help of the other four men that came back to help. The subject of the test of Kala’s loyalties hadn’t been brought up again and Johan hoped it would be forgotten.

  It was nearly dawn by the time they reached the main cavern and put the Hand Cars away. Johan decided the crates could stay there for now and he would send someone down to unload them later. The only good thing was that the crates hadn’t even been dented when the bricks fell on them. The State had done something right for once.

  Wearily they all trudged up the corridor from the cavern. Johan was about to tell them all to go and have a sleep when he heard the commotion coming from The Square. He led them all towards the noise and they stopped and stared at the sight of the guard holding Roma completely off the ground by his collar.

  “Another test?” Kala was by his side and he could tell she was hiding her fear beneath her sarcasm.

  “No. These are the real thing.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Johan paused for a second to take in the scene. This was the last thing he needed after the night he had just had. What had Roma done to bring the guards here so early in the morning? He didn’t doubt now that Kala wasn’t a spy but something was still wrong and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Trouble seemed to crop up every time one of her family was around.