Ollie turned to the woman, but Dan caught her head and turned it back to the scanner. “Look there now,” he instructed, pointing to the lens again.
“Like this?” Ollie asked, then the machine bleeped and the smiley face flashed up again. She smiled back at it. “Did I win?”
“There are no winners here,” Dan grunted, then the guns withdrew and the gate slid aside.
“You’re free to enter,” the first guard said. Her tone hadn’t changed, despite the system granting its approval. If anything, she sounded even less amused than she had done a moment ago. “Take the ladder and pass through the security checkpoint. Your living areas have been assigned.”
Dan stopped just inside the gate. “We’re together, right?”
“Take the ladder. Pass through the security checkpoint,” the woman reiterated. She pointed her gun at Dan, then motioned with it to the hatch. “All questions will be answered below.”
Dan tapped the brim of his hat, then took Ollie by the arm and led her to the hatch. The gate closed heavily behind them.
“We will be together, won’t we?” Ollie asked.
Dan tried a reassuring smile, but he was out of practice and, if he were honest, had never been great at them in the first place. “Guess we’ll find out, kid.”
He peered down into the shadowy corridor of the Stagnates below.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
THREE
DAN REACHED the bottom of the ladder first. A set of motion-activated lights blinked on, flooding the passageway with a clinical white glow. Two Sentinel Hoverturrets rose from charging docks in the floor and circled around, searching for something to lock onto. It wasn’t until Ollie clambered down the ladder that they found a target. They set up an orbit around her, guns trained on her head.
“What are they doing?” she whispered.
“They track heat,” Dan explained. “Just don’t make any sudden movements.”
Ollie froze.
“Regular movements are fine,” Dan assured her. “Just don’t try running. Or jumping. Or waving your arms around. Or…”
He frowned. “Actually, no. Just do what you were doing and stand still.”
The passageway was approximately round and gave the impression that it had been drilled out with a lot of hurry and very little care. The floor had been flattened out a little, but it had been done so inexpertly they may as well not have bothered.
The area they stood in was fifteen feet long, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors blocking the corridor in both directions. The same smiley face they’d seen on the scanner flashed steadily near the top of one of the mirrors, while the other sported a solid red X.
“Looks like we go this way,” Dan said, stepping closer to the mirror. The surface was slightly warped, deforming his already less-than-perfect features, and bloating him around the middle.
“Ha! Look at you,” Ollie said, joining him at the mirror. She gasped. “Look at me! I’m fat. Now I’m thin! Now I’m fat!”
Dan let her wiggle and shimmy in front of the mirror until it became annoying. Or, to put it another way, he let her wiggle and shimmy in front of the mirror for four and a half seconds, then ordered her to cut it out.
“I told you, no sudden movements,” he reminded her.
“Oh. Yeah. Forgot,” said Ollie.
She leaned left and laughed as one of her arms briefly developed Elephantiasis, before Dan yanked her back upright again.
“Sorry. Forgot again.”
“Weapon detected,” chimed a voice from somewhere in the mirror. The smiley face’s mouth moved in time with the words but remained fixed in its ridiculous grin.
A hatch slid open in the mirror, revealing the inside of a scratched and dented metal box. “Please deposit weapon for safe-keeping.”
Dan hesitated, but there was no point in trying to argue. Weapons weren’t permitted in the Stagnates. Not for the residents, anyway. The gun was registered – more or less – so he’d get it back. Still, he felt a twinge of something like grief as he took Mindy from her holster and gently rested her inside the box.
“I want that returned when I leave,” he said, but the cartoon face just smiled in reply. “And fully charged.”
The hatch snapped shut as soon as his hand was out, and it was impossible to tell where the opening had been.
“Place hands on the indicated areas,” the smiley face instructed.
The glowing outlines of four hands appeared on the mirror, two in front of Dan, the others in front of Ollie. Ollie lunged for them without hesitation, earning two cheeps of concern from the Hoverturrets.
Dan placed his own hands in the marked areas. A flurry of activity lit up the mirror as readings were taken and databases were accessed. Dan and Ollie’s names appeared, along with several different serial numbers and codes.
Finally, two lines of text appeared, both different.
“Corridor eight-four-seven, pod nine-nine-four,” Ollie read. She looked at the writing on the mirror in front of Dan, then to Dan himself. “What does that mean?”
“It’s the location of your living quarters.”
“Yours is different.”
“I’m in eight-four-nine. That sounds pretty close. You’ll be fine.”
Ollie bit her lip. The one and only time she’d tried living somewhere Down Here without Dan, it hadn’t ended well.
“What if someone tries to hurt me?”
“They won’t,” Dan said, doing his best to sound convincing. “You’ll be fine.”
The outlines faded. Ollie and Dan both removed their hands from the glass. “But what if they do?”
“Then hurt them back,” Dan instructed. “Just try not to bring the whole place down when you do.”
The mirror split down the middle and partially retracted into the walls, revealing two uniformed men standing at attention on the other side, who had presumably been there all along. Compared to those upstairs, the armor on these two was less obvious, and was built into something that resembled a Tribunal officer’s dress uniform, but without the medal strips or the shiny buttons.
“You will follow us,” they instructed in near-unison, then they both performed complicated about-turns and set off along the corridor, arms swinging with perfect, clockwork-like precision.
Another door slid open ahead of the escorts, and the Stagnates was revealed in all its glory. The featureless corridor was now lined with metal doors on both sides, all of them scorched and scratched and stained with things that didn’t really warrant further investigation. Garbage bags were piled up outside most of the doors, and even though living with Dan had helped Ollie build up an impressive resistance to bad odors, she visibly flinched as the stench of the place hit her.
It was noisy, too. From behind every door came shouts, screams, coughs, crashes and cries. No laughing, though. Never laughing. There was no laughter here.
“It’s hot,” Ollie said, blowing upward over her own face. Beads of sweat stood out on her pinkish-purple skin, then meandered down the tapestry of alien patterns on her cheeks.
“Is it?” Dan asked. He shrugged. “You’ll get used to it.”
“She won’t,” said one of the escorts, although it wasn’t clear which one. “Now keep up.”
The escort on the left, who was ahead of Dan, turned sharply into a side corridor. “Eight-four-nine this way.”
Dan stopped at the junction. The other escort marched on, but Ollie hung back.
“What if I never see you again?” she fretted. “What if something bad happens?”
“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Dan assured her. He glanced around at where they’d found themselves. “Nothing worse, anyway. I’ll find you in the morning and we’ll get out of here.”
“But what if you can’t?” Ollie asked, her voice fraying a little at the edges.
Dan pulled his hat off his head, fiddled with it in front of him for a moment, then deposited it on her head. “Here. Take this. You know I always come back for my h
at,” he told her. “It’ll protect you. Think of it as a lucky charm.”
“I’ll ‘lucky charm’ ye, ye racist bastard,” mumbled a voice from inside the hat.
Dan winked. “You’re going to be OK, kid. Trust me.” He jabbed a thumb in the direction of Ollie’s escort, who was already forty feet along the corridor. “Now go catch up. Keep your head down, play it cool, and everything will work out just fine,” Dan said.
She hugged him. He wasn’t quite sure how to react, so he just stood there, staring impassively at the wall ahead of him.
He watched her dart off after the escort, holding the brim of the hat to stop it falling off her head.
“I hope,” he mumbled, then he turned and plodded into the half-darkness.
DAN’S CELL – BECAUSE ‘ROOM’ would have been an overly generous description – wasn’t too far from the junction. This was its one and only redeeming feature. It didn’t come close to making up for the rest of it.
The escort had told him to report to the nearest ‘Education center’ in the morning, then left him to grapple with the voice-activated door. It was either malfunctioning, or it didn’t like him, and it took six attempts at getting the thing to recognize his voice pattern before one of his bunkmates got fed up of listening to the fonking thing and opened it from the inside.
The guy who opened the door was short and stocky, with the most pointed nose Dan had ever seen. His head and face were a tangled nest of hair, beard and eyebrows, and his red-raw skin looked like someone had recently set about him with an industrial sander.
He wore a cashier’s uniform from one of the big supermarket chains, and from his expression he’d either just got off a long shift or was dreading the thought of an upcoming one.
“Thanks,” Dan said, nodding down at the four-feet-tall figure. He gestured to the door. “Is it broken?”
“What am I, maintenance?” the cashier spat. “Just get in before you attract attention.”
Dan looked along the corridor in both directions. There were at least three people watching him from other doorways, tucking themselves in to try to stay out of sight. He raised a hand in a wave of acknowledgment, then stepped into the cell.
Something cracked him on the back of the head and the floor became quicksand beneath him. There was a set of metal bunks on the wall on the right. He grabbed for the frame and stopped himself falling, but the cashier was suddenly on Dan’s back, fists hammering him around the head and face.
Dan turned sluggishly. Something fat and semi-naked advanced on him, fists raised. Its skin was ice-white but patterned by a network of blue veins running just beneath it. A pair of tight red trunks covered its modesty, but only just.
While lacking in clothes, the guy wore a determined expression and two sets of Knuck’em-ups – metal knuckles with an added electrical kick. They were mostly illegal in the city, even more so in the Stagnates.
Stepping forward, Dan raised his arms to protect his head, completely exposing his torso. A flurry of surprisingly fast body blows pounded his stomach and ribs. If he’d needed to breathe, or had any functioning pain receptors south of his neck, it would’ve been a punishing attack. As it was, it just bought him five seconds to pull himself together.
Clutching at his ribs, Dan left his head wide open. One of the fists came up fast, barely giving him time to duck. He both heard and felt the immensely satisfying crunch of the knuckles connecting with the cashier’s face. The little fonker tried to scream, but the electricity had tightened his muscles and clamped his jaw tightly shut.
Bending sharply, Dan launched the cashier at the other guy. Their heads clonked pleasingly, and Dan took advantage of the flailing and confusion by introducing his boot to the fat thing’s (mercifully covered) testicles.
Both men hit the floor at pretty much the same time. Neither looked pleased by this turn of developments. Neither looked like they could breathe properly, either, which was a bonus.
The fat guy clutched at his groin, apparently having forgotten he was wearing electrically charged weapons on both hands. His flabby body went briefly rigid, and a howl whistled down his nose.
Dan smoothed a crease on his coat lapel, then crossed his hands behind his back, waiting for the groaning, sobbing, and involuntary urination to stop.
At first glance, he’d thought the larger of the two men was merely obese, but now he was able to look more closely, Dan realized a lot of the guy’s bulk was muscle, albeit with a layer of blubber on top.
His face was concave, his eyes set deep below his overhanging forehead, his chin jutting upwards to a squared-off point. There was a lump just above one of his eyes, although from the way it was growing Dan guessed that was a recent development.
“Thanks for the welcome,” Dan said. He looked around the sparse cell and sighed. He’d thought being both homeless and dead was depressing, but this place really upped the ante.
Aside from the bunkbeds he’d already encountered, the room contained a single slop bucket in the corner, a small stool that even from this distance looked agonizingly uncomfortable, and a lingering aura of misery.
A poster had been fixed to the bare stone walls. It read: Work is Necessary. That was it. No cute wordplay. No motivational images. Just those three words in stark black text on a white background. Incredibly, as an attempt to brighten the place up, it mostly succeeded, which said more about the cell than the poster itself.
The two beds thing was going to be a problem. Although, it should be said, not for him.
“Top bunk’s mine,” he informed them, not keen on the idea of having the big behemoth on the bunk above. “Any objections?”
He took their grunts and groans as acceptance. “Wise move,” he said.
The big brute found the strength to sit up. Dan’s foot sent him back to the floor. “Now,” Dan said, towering above them. “How about you tell me where I can find my stuff?”
“QUARANTINED? What do you mean it’s quarantined?”
“I mean it’s quarantined. Quaran-tined. You want me to write it down, dummy? It’s an awfully big word for that little brain of yours.”
Dan stared at the curly-haired old woman behind the screen. She was sitting back in a wooden chair, one hand half-buried in a bag of mints. Dan could hear one of the hard candies rattling against her teeth whenever she spoke.
“And wipe that stupid look off your face,” she instructed. “And close your damn mouth before I close it for you.”
Dan hadn’t realized his mouth was hanging open. He was fairly sure the five feet tall blue-haired senior citizen sitting in the chair would be unable to carry out her threat, but he closed it anyway.
“Ha! You always do what you’re told like that, dicksticks?”
Dan blinked. “Dicksticks?”
“Hey!” the woman barked.
She leaned forward and tapped the back of a sign that had been taped to the transparent screen. It read: ‘Verbal or physical abuse will not be tolerated.’
“Consider that your one and only warning,” she told him. She reclined and waved the back of her hand at him. “Now go. Shoo. You’re uglying the place up.”
To his annoyance, Dan found himself turning. It took some effort to make his feet stop.
“Look…” he squinted until he could read the badge on the woman’s lapel. “Notty. I want my stuff.”
The chair creaked as Notty leaned forward again. “And I told you, you animal-fondling shizz trumpet, you can’t have it. It’s in quarantine.”
Dan pointed to a battered filing cabinet and a couple of cardboard boxes lined up against the wall behind her. An overcoat, identical to the one he was wearing, and a battered old hat could just be seen at the top of one box.
“Then what’s that?”
Notty looked back over her shoulder, then gasped. “Oh! That? You know what that is?”
She faced front again.
“It’s none of your fonking business, that’s what.” She smiled sweetly. “Got that? You colon sniffi
ng tit hole.”
Dan found himself blinking again. His eyebrows formed a knot above his nose. “Tit hole?”
“Right! That’s it!” Notty announced. “You had your warning. Language like that isn’t acceptable.”
She jabbed a button under the desk. A klaxon sounded and the room’s lights blinked out. “What the fonk is this?” Dan demanded, but then he became aware of movement behind him.
And on his left.
And – yep – there it was on his right, too.
His night vision was good enough for him to make out the shapes of several figures, although he couldn’t tell what they looked like, or even where they’d come from. He got the impression they wore masks, though, and hazarded a guess that no matter how good his night vision was, theirs would almost certainly be better.
“Hang on, not so fast. I like to watch,” said Notty. There was a rustling sound, and when she next spoke her voice was muffled by a mask of her own. “There. On you go.”
Dan felt the buzzing of a shock-rod against his back, but it barely registered as information, let alone pain. He turned, caught the weapon, and drove an elbow into the mask of his attacker, crumpling it into the guy’s face.
Twisting, Dan jammed the shock-rod into the stomach of one of the other figures and felt the vibration rattle through his skeleton as it unleashed its charge. He allowed himself just a moment to enjoy the guy’s gargled cries, then immediately regretted it when something hard hit him even harder on the back of the head.
“That’s it! Get the fonkfaced sock stuffer!” Notty hissed as Dan’s legs were swept out from beneath him, sending him partly horizontal in the air, then fully horizontal on the ground.
A baton went crack just above one eyebrow, filling Dan’s head with light and noise. He raised his hands to protect himself, but four arms wrenched them away, and a boot stamped his face into the floor.
Brain fogging, he reached into his coat for Mindy, and was briefly surprised to find the gun missing.
Dead in the Water_A Space Team Universe Novel Page 3