Artur grinned. “And that’s when the fun part begins.”
KELPO AGWA HATED PRISONER DUTY. Admittedly, this was his first experience of it, and he was less than twenty seconds into his first shift, but he already hated it.
If they were prisoners, then why did he have to run after them? Why did he have to give up his morning to deliver their food? Why were they even getting food? Cobia had said they were war criminals on a mission to infiltrate Deeper Down, so why were they in a cell rather than in pieces? ‘Better chopped up than locked up’ – that was his motto. Granted, it hadn’t been his motto for more than the last minute or so, but he felt confident he was going to adopt it long-term.
At least the bowls of gray gunk looked utterly unappetizing. That was some consolation, but it still seemed too good for them.
Pausing at the end of the corridor, Kelpo hocked up a mouthful of phlegm, then carefully deposited half into each bowl. He stirred them both with his finger, gave a satisfied nod, then continued on in the direction of the cell with a spring in his step.
Halfway to the door, he heard the shouts.
“Help! We need a doctor in here!”
The voice was loud, and Kelpo guessed it had to be the larger of the prisoners doing the shouting. He hesitated, not quite sure what to do.
“Please! Anyone! He needs his medication. He’ll die without it.”
Shizz. As well as, ‘Quit complaining and deliver the fonking food,’ Kelpo’s only instruction had been to make sure nothing happened to the prisoners. This included, he reckoned, dying.
“Artur! Artur, wake up, buddy. Wake up, help’s coming!”
Kelpo glanced around, hoping to see a medical team rushing towards him, ready to take charge of the situation. He was alone in the corridor, though. It was down to him.
“Fine. Hold on, I’m coming,” he called back. “What’s all the noise about?” he demanded, sliding open the hatch.
A little gunge-coated figure crouched just inside the opening, his hair plastered to his face, his dress pulled up over his knees. The tiny shiny man winked back at him through the gap.
“Surprise,” Artur said, then he pounced.
Dan waited by the door, listening to the shouting, screaming and swearing from outside. The shouting and swearing were mostly Artur. The screaming mostly wasn’t.
Something heavy shook the door in its frame.
A tray whanged against something boney-sounding.
“Did ye gob in these, ye nasty bollocks?” Artur demanded. It was followed by some howling, some sobbing, and something going crack.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“I’ll fecking ‘sorry’ ye.”
Dan couldn’t see much through the gap in the door other than a blue-green shape occasionally being thrown past it at high speed. This was usually followed by a crunch and a whimper, until the last time, when the whimper never came.
“Artur?” Dan whispered. “What’s going on? I can’t see.”
The door clunked and swung a few inches inward. Artur leaned on the door frame right down at the bottom, his arms folded across his chest and a smug expression plastered on his face.
“Get out of here,” he said. He made a ticking motion in the air. “Check. Now, what’s the next item on our agenda?”
IT TOOK them just a few minutes to do a sweep of the other cells. With each empty room they came across, Dan felt the knot of worry further tightening in his gut.
“She’s not here,” he announced, after checking the final cell.
“Then where is she?” Artur demanded.
“I don’t know!”
“Shizz. What if they’ve killed her? The bastards. I bet they have, an’ all.”
“What? I thought you said they were nice?” Dan hissed.
“I said they were quite nice. I never said they were fecking saints.” He threw up his arms. “So that’s it, then. They’ve killed her.”
“Let’s assume they haven’t until we find proof,” Dan said, waddling back along the L-shaped prison corridor and trying not to slip on his own slime trail. “Besides, I don’t think she’d go easily, and I haven’t heard anything being blown up.”
“Fair point, Deadman,” Artur conceded, scurrying along behind. “Ye’re right, she’s definitely alive. And yes, I’m aware that was a quick turnaround, but I can be very fickle.”
“Shh,” Dan urged. He had stopped at the bend in the corridor, and was pressed against the wall. He made a complicated hand gesture, then nodded in the direction of the cell they’d escaped from, which neither of them could see from their current position.
“What?” Artur asked.
Dan tutted and gestured again.
“No, that’s what ye did last time. I don’t know what it means,” Artur said.
“For fonk’s…” Dan sighed. “There’s someone there,” he whispered. “Outside the cell.”
“Our cell?”
“Yes! That’s what I was signaling.”
“Ye were waving yer hands around and jerking yer head all over the place,” Artur argued. “How I was supposed to get ‘There’s someone outside our cell’ from that, I’ve no idea. I’m not a fecking mind reader.”
A foot stamped down, flattening him against the floor and pinning him beneath its webbed toes. Dan lunged for the blue-green figure, but the other foot swung up and heel-smashed him across the jaw. He spun, then his gloopy coating made his legs slide out from beneath him and he hit the floor hard.
Dan and Artur both looked up into a face that was positively contorted in rage.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you, ‘chaun,” spat Marnie.
Artur smiled nervously up from between her toes. “Old time’s sake?” He gulped as the foot pressed down. “OK, OK, wait, wait! Let me explain.”
Dan made it to his knees and swung a punch at Marnie’s stomach. She pirouetted on Artur, and Dan grimaced as her heel smashed into the back of his head, clunking his face against the wall.
“Listen, darlin’, listen to me!” Artur pleaded. “I know we’ve had our differences. I did some bad things, you did some bad things…”
The foot pressed down harder until Artur’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets.
“Fine, fine, I did some bad things,” he wheezed. “And I’m sorry, darlin’. I’m genuinely, fully, one hundred percent, heart-on-me-sleeve sorry that ye found out, but right now we’ve got bigger fish to fry. No pun intended.”
“You escaped your cell!”
“Krato lied to you,” Dan said. He got up slowly in the hope of avoiding another roundhouse kick to the skull. “The surface isn’t going to attack you. They don’t even know this place exists.”
“Ha!” Marnie spat. “Of course they know. He would’ve told them. No way he’d have kept his mouth shut.”
“I didn’t, darlin’. I swear.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Dan said. “He didn’t even tell me.”
“And he’s me best mate!” Artur said. “I mean, more through lack of choice than anything else, but still. I haven’t spoken a word about ye. Not to nobody. I swear on me ma’s grave.”
Marnie’s eyes narrowed. “Your mother died?”
“That old cow? Chance’d be a fine thing,” Artur said. “But the point still stands. I didn’t say nothing to nobody. I kept it secret, just like ye asked.”
“But it’s not going to be secret for long,” Dan told her. “This place is about to draw a lot of attention to itself.”
“We… He said we need to protect ourselves.”
“That’s just what Krato wants you to think. See, war is his business. He makes weapons and then he finds idiots like your people to buy them,” Dan told her. “And you know the funny thing? When Down Here – my city, I mean, up there – when it starts shooting back, it’ll be using weapons he sold it. A lot of people are going to die on both sides, and the only one who’s going to win is him.”
Marnie’s jaw tightened, but she said nothing.
“He’s being on the level wit’ ye,” Artur said. “Yer people have been duped, darlin’. Ye need to help us stop this before it gets out of hand.”
Marnie’s jaw tightened. Artur’s face turned a worrying shade of purple as the foot pressed down. Dan tensed, but Artur stopped him before he could intervene.
“Don’t, Deadman,” he gasped. “Let her do what she needs to do. Sure, she’s got every right.”
“You’re damn right I do!” Marnie hissed.
“Whatever ye decide to do, I just want ye to know,” Artur said. He smiled benevolently. “I forgive ye.”
“What?! You forgive me?” Marnie spat. “You forgive me? Oh, that’s rich! That is… That’s just like you, ‘chaun. That’s just like…”
She sobbed. It snagged at the back of her throat and almost choked her. A tear rolled down her cheek and plopped onto the floor by Artur’s head.
“They’re using children,” she whispered, her voice cracking apart. “They told them it was a great honor, that they were the future of Deeper Down. But they’re children.”
“We know,” said Artur. “So if ye won’t help us, then at least help those poor skiddlers.”
Marnie peered down at Artur like he was something unpleasant she’d trodden on. Mostly because he was.
“Why do you think I’m here?” she asked, then she lifted her foot away and Artur gulped in a generous lungful of air.
“That’s my special lady,” he said, winking up at her.
She raised her foot up high.
“Don’t tempt me.”
“OK, OK! I was just being friendly, like,” he said.
“Wait a minute,” said Dan. “What do you mean that’s why you’re here?”
“They shouldn’t be sending children. I don’t know about that other stuff, about Krato and what you said, but they shouldn’t be sending children. It’s not right,” Marnie told him. “I want you to help us stop it. I want you to help bring them home.”
“I reckon we can lend ye a hand, alright,” said Artur. He gestured up at Dan, then down at the snail-trail of slime that covered him. “But first, any chance ye might be able to get this shoite off us and help us find our friend?”
“Dissolve,” said Marnie, and the gunk became two puddles of liquid on the floor around them.
“Ta very much.”
“That was the easy part. The second bit will be more difficult,” Marnie said. “Your friend is being held in a stasis cell. She knocked out eight guards before they were able to subdue her.”
“Only eight?” said Artur. “Count yerself lucky she went easy on ye. She could’ve brought this whole place down around yer ears if she’d been of a mind to.”
“Where is she?” Dan demanded.
“Like I said, stasis cells.”
“Yes, but we don’t know where that is.”
“Oh. Right. Well, it’s not far,” said Marnie. “But she’s heavily guarded. You won’t be able to fight your way through them all.”
“Ye’d be surprised,” Artur said. “Me and Deadman? When we get going? We’re a force to be reckoned with, and that’s a fact. Sure, I took out yer guard fella earlier single-handed.”
“He wasn’t a guard. He was a fourteen-year old-intern,” Marnie said.
“Was he? Shoite. Is that why he kept crying?”
“What did you do with him?” Marnie asked.
“He’s in our cell,” said Dan. “He’s fine, but he’ll be out for a while.”
“The guards around the stasis cells, they’re… different. They’re not like the rest of us. You won’t be able to fight them on your own. Not all of them.”
“What about weapons?” Dan asked. “You’ve got guns, right?”
Marnie shook her head. “We’ve never needed them.”
“Well, we need them now,” Dan said. “There’s seriously nothing? Not one single blaster?”
“No. Like I said, we’ve never… Wait. There may be some in Salvage.”
“Salvage?”
“We have automated clean-up sweeps of the ocean around us. I pick through it sometimes looking for sculpting materials. I’m sure I’ve seen some guns there before. Don’t know if they work, though.”
“Sculpting materials?” asked Artur. “So ye’re still at the old art, or whatever? Good on ye. I always said ye had a fantastic eye for—”
“Shut up,” Marnie told him. “I’m still not talking to you.”
Artur held up his hands. “Fair enough.”
“Can we focus?” Dan asked. “The guns. Salvage. Where is it?”
“You’ll never get in without being spotted,” Marnie said. “I’ll go. They’re used to me going in and out.”
“Mind when ye were used to me going ‘in and out’ back in the day?” Artur asked, his beard parting to reveal a growing grin. “By which I mean—"
“I know what you mean,” Marnie barked. “But if you mention it again, I’ll crush you beneath my heel.”
“Right ye are. Receiving ye loud and clear,” Artur said. “I’ll come with ye. To the salvage, or what have ye. It’s not that I don’t trust ye, mind, it’s just that—”
“Fine. Whatever,” Marnie said. She pinched Artur’s hair between a finger and thumb and hoisted him off the ground. Only then did she realize there was nowhere obvious to hide him, with the possible exception of…
She sighed. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned, then she stuffed him down the neck of her armor and wedged him below the breastplate.
“God, I’ve missed these!” said Artur in a voice that suggested he was being smothered, but wasn’t about to complain about it.
“Don’t get used to it,” Marnie told him. “And quit wriggling around down there.”
“Sure, that’s not what ye used to say. Just the opposite, in—”
Marnie banged a fist on her breastplate.
“Ow!”
“We’ll be back,” she told Dan. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Don’t be long,” Dan said. “Or there’s no saying where I might wind up…”
“SERIOUSLY, Marnie? Now? With everything that’s going on?”
The man sitting behind the desk was much older than Marnie, as evidenced by his dried-out scales and graying moustache. He was short, overweight, and had swapped the traditional golden armor look for a comfortable shirt and slacks combo.
Marnie smiled and shrugged. “You ask me, Bool, times like these are when we need art more than ever. All that war stuff? Creativity is the best antidote there is.”
Bool’s bushy eyebrows knotted above his flat nose. “Marnie, that’s a load of fishshizz,” he said. He held her gaze for a moment, then chuckled. “Ah, get out of here,” he said, waving her over to a door marked ‘Salvage.’ “But when you get rich and famous, I want my ten percent.”
“You got it, Bool!” Marnie said. She blew him a kiss, which he made a show of catching, then she hurried on through the door before he changed his mind.
“OK, quick question,” said Artur from inside her armor. She waited until the door had clicked closed behind her before answering.
“What?”
“Are you having sexual intercourse with that man?”
“What?!” Marnie spluttered. “Who, Bool? He’s, like, a hundred and forty.”
“Avoiding the question, I see,” Artur said.
“No, I’m not avoiding the question, I’m refusing to acknowledge it.”
“I’m yer husband. I deserve to know.”
“No, I’m not having sexual intercourse with Bool. He’s old enough to be my grandfather.”
“So am I, and it never stopped us,” Artur said.
Marnie looked down into the shadow beneath her breastplate. “What?!”
There was a moment of awkward silence.
“Look, can we just focus on the matter at hand?” Artur said. His head emerged from beneath the armor, and his eyes widened when he saw what they’d walked into.
It was impossible to tell how big the
salvage room was. This was mostly due to the towering piles of junk that loomed like a mountain range around the small clearing where Marnie stood. They stretched several stories high, and if Artur squinted he reckoned he could just make out a layer of cloud around some of the higher peaks.
“Holy shoite. Ye fished all this out of the sea?”
“Not me personally, but yes,” said Marnie. “You land people dump a lot of stuff.”
“So it would seem,” said Artur. He whistled through his teeth, then hopped out of the armor and landed beside a coil of fencing wire, half a street sign, and a bucket mostly eaten by red-brown rust. He picked up an old bolt, turned it over in his hands, then tossed it back into the pile.
“How are we meant to find a gun in all this?”
Marnie strode over to the pile on the left. It curved steeply at the bottom, before rising straight up into a cliff face of metal and plastic. “This is the latest stuff,” she said. “I’m sure I saw a rifle or something here a few days ago. It might be buried a little deeper now, but we can find it.”
She began to dig through the scrap, tossing aside unrecognizable bits of car engines and fried-out old circuit boards.
Artur scrambled up onto the junk pile and began heaving some of the smaller pieces aside. “So,” he said, rolling the word around in his mouth. “How’ve ye been?”
Marnie stopped digging and glared at him. “Seriously?” she sneered, then she went back to shoving the scrap aside, more forcefully this time.
“I’m getting the impression that ye’re still a little upset.”
“Upset? Upset? No, I’m not upset!”
Artur’s face brightened. “Aren’t ye?”
“I’m furious! She was my sister, Artur. My sister!”
“Shoite. Ye knew about that, did ye?”
“Yes! I knew!”
“Right. Yes. I can only apologize. I was out of line. I should never have taken advantage of yer little sister like that.”
Marnie stopped digging. “Wait, my little sister?”
“Oh. Ye meant the other one.” Artur winced, then held his hands up in surrender. “They both came onto me, it wasn’t my fault.”
Marnie’s face darkened. She kicked out at a piece of buckled wall cladding, dislodging it from the pile. The mountain creaked ominously above them.
Dead in the Water_A Space Team Universe Novel Page 22