Cages & Those Who Hold the Keys

by Gary A Braunbeck

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Hummer paused at the door once again. “What the hell for?”

  “I’m sorry that you died. It must have destroyed your parents, losing both of you at the same time.”

  He shrugged. “We never knew. That’s part of the price for being Repaired.” He closed and locked the door behind him.

  I went into the bathroom (which had a shower), cleaned up, found some clothes that fit (the underwear was new, still in the sealed bag), and was putting my shoes back on when I noticed that some of the clothes remaining on the rack were damaged; rips and tears that had been stitched up, dark stains on some that didn’t quite come out in the wash, and some with hand-sewn, hand-lettered labels; property of s. wilson, DAVE’S PANTS, This Jacket Belongs To: JASON.

  I wondered if the clothes I’d just put on had similar labels sewn into them, then just as quickly decided that I didn’t want to know.

  I heard a slight, soft whirr behind me, and turned around. A security camera mounted in the corner nearest the bathroom door blinked its red light and adjusted its position.

  They were watching me, big surprise.

  I walked toward it, and with every step I took the camera shifted its position to keep me in view.

  “So these clothes,” I said. “I’m guessing they were, what? Taken from the bodies and repaired, as well? Is that what all these are? Dead men’s clothing?”

  “Yes,” said a voice behind me.

  I spun around, nearly tripping over my own feet.

  “Easy there, Driver,” said the nightmare in the doorway. “Mustn’t hurt yourself. Think of what it would do to our insurance deductibles.” It laughed and rolled forward. “I’d shake your hand, but as you can see, that’s somewhat problematic.”

  It—he—wore no shirt and had no arms or legs, and sat in an electric wheelchair that was guided by one of those attachments that enables the user to steer by using his or her mouth. As he rolled closer I saw that he wasn’t sitting in the chair at all—he was attached to it by a series of clamps that were soldered into the frame of the chair and disappeared into his flesh at waist level. The skin at the entry point was swollen, red, and crusted at the edges with dried blood.

  “My given name is Henry,” he said. “But everyone here calls me Daddy Bliss.”

  A series of three curved iron pipes curled out of his back and down into the wheelchair’s battery. Every time the chair moved, these pipes shuddered.

  “I do apologize for not dressing appropriately—one should always look one’s best when greeting a new visitor—but you caught me during one of my quarterly tune-ups.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude. You know—staring at you.”

  Daddy Bliss nodded, giving me a close-up view of the matchbox-sized rectangles with electrical wires implanted in his skull. The skin of his exposed scalp was also crusty and red where it joined the metal. It was impossible to see where or to what the scalp-wires connected because they hung down his back, mixing in with a bundle of other wires that were held together by plastic clamps. What I could see—too clearly—were the two clear plastic bags that dangled from the metal IV pole attached to the right arm of the wheelchair. The tube from the first bag—a catheter—snaked downward and then up into his penis, which was hidden behind one of the metal waist-clamps. The bag was filled not with urine but a thick black liquid, and as I stared, I realized that the liquid wasn’t going into the bag, it was flowing downward, into him.

  “Motor oil,” he said. “It seemed to me you weren’t about to ask, so I thought I would get right to it.”

  “Motor oil?”

  “A highly…specialized brand, mixed with my own blood but, yes, motor oil nonetheless. The second bag contains a liquid protein supplement that helps keep me both alive and regular.” To illustrate this last point, his bowels groaned, and something moist and heavy dropped into an unseen container housed within the wheelchair’s lower casement.

  I was glad I couldn’t see it.

  “My apologies,” said Daddy Bliss. “But I had Thai food for dinner, and it always goes right through me. But don’t worry, the casing is quite solid, you can’t smell it.”

  “Do you ever get out of that chair?”

  “Oh, goodness gracious me, no. I would lose my mobility, silly boy. Do you have any more questions along these lines?”

  I thought of Dash, Hummer, and the foundry worker and said, “Why haven’t you been repaired like the others I’ve seen?”

  “It’s a question of compatibility, my boy. Just as the human body will reject unacceptable organic tissue, the same goes for iron, steel, aluminum, plastic, any man-made alloy or other such material…it’s a question of trial-and-error. Some of us have been able to be Repaired almost immediately, while others—like myself and Fairlane, who you’ll be meeting later on—have to make due with more…primitive results.

  “For myself, I made the decision long ago to not attempt any further Repairs. It’s an excruciatingly painful process, despite the advances we’ve made, and each member of our ever-growing family is given the right to say ‘No more’ at any point in that process. The younger ones—like Dash, Ciera, and our resplendent Sheriff Hummer—are strong, and willful, and can deal with the pain of a full Repair…which is why they can interact more openly with the outside world. Any more questions at this point?”

  “Nassir.”

  “Sir, is it? So respectful. I like that right down to the ground. Yes, I do.” He bit down on the guidance device and turned the chair around. “Come along, Driver. There’s much to show you, and time is not exactly on our side.”

  He rolled out the door and I followed.

  10

  We passed through the office and made a left, going through the same doors to the vending area that Dash had taken earlier, only now the cafeteria was empty. Daddy Bliss moved toward a set of weight-activated doors at the far end. They hissed open as soon as his wheels touched the mat in front of them.

  We entered a long, brightly-lit concrete corridor.

  “Our family album,” said Daddy Bliss. “Feel free to stop and look at whomever catches your fancy. We were forced to eschew the traditional bound albums some time ago, for reasons I’m sure you’ll come to understand.”

  Every inch of wall space was covered by hundreds (if not thousands) of framed photographs, each one more gruesome than the one before; a car split nearly in half by the tree it had slammed into, the body of the driver splattered across the windshield; a head-on collision between two SUVs, the vehicles so demolished it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended, their drivers’ bodies little more than pulpy smears; broken bodies of passengers who’d been thrown free, their shattered remains glistening with blood, sometimes covered in one another’s internal organs…it was a photo essay of a slaughterhouse.

  “As they were when the Highway People came to them,” said Daddy Bliss.

  “Why keep such…gruesome reminders?”

  “Because each of us must never forget our beginnings. Neither the Highway People nor—more importantly—the Road would approve.” He said it with such awe and reverence I could see yet another capital ‘R’.

  I looked at him. “The Road?”

  He gave a short nod of his head. The wires in his skull stretched as he did so. “The Road demands its sacrifices, as any self-respecting god would.”

  “God?” I said. “So that would make you…what?”

  He smiled. “Think of me as the high priest.” He began turning the chair around. “Shall we, then? Get on with it?”

  I stood my ground. (Not as heroic or brave as it sounds—I was still scared as hell.) “What exactly are we getting on with?”

  He stopped, sighed, then turned back toward me. “Why must you try my patience so early on in our relationship, Driver?”

  “I wasn’t aware that we had a ‘relationship’.”

  “Oh, we do, Driver. That we do.”

  “What’s going on? What are you
planning to do with me?”

  “That is for the Road, and not me, to decide. I am only your guide—and you’re making it dreadfully difficult for me to discharge that duty. What the Road decides, it decides between midnight and dawn. We have only a few hours remaining before your options run out. Cooperate, and you may just be on your way back home come first light. Continue to be difficult, and here you’ll remain for the rest of your days.” He rolled closer, glaring at me. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Again with the ‘sir’ business. I could get used to that.”

  We continued down the corridor toward a set of heavy iron doors. As we neared them, a security camera mounted over the top of the doorway made a soft whirr, a red light clicked on, and a set of locks within the doors disengaged.

  “These doors usually require a card-key,” said Daddy Bliss, “but since I have no arms, for me they will open once visual identification has been made.” He looked up at the camera and smiled.

  The doors opened, and I was immediately assaulted with the sounds of a factory floor at full production speed. The smells of machine grease, metal, warm plastic, dust, and a hundred other scents put my sense of smell into overdrive, and I remembered how both my parents used to smell when they came home from a hard day on the line.

  I followed Daddy Bliss through the doors into a cage-style elevator. When the iron doors closed behind us, the back wall of the elevator dropped into place and the whole contraption began to rise. I reached out and grabbed two of the bars to steady myself.

  “Afraid of heights, am I correct?” asked Daddy Bliss.

  “Ever since I fell out of a tree in our backyard when I was five,” I replied.

  “You needn’t worry, Driver. This elevator is perhaps the safest one in the country.”

  It continued to rise like a roller coaster car clack-clack-clacking up the tracks toward that drop that you just knew was going to send your balls up into your throat, and a few moments later the elevator stopped, shuddered, made a clack-clack-clacking of its own, and shifted forward, the top mechanisms connecting with an overhead track and pulling us forward.

  “There will be a bit of a lurch in a moment,” said Daddy Bliss. “It’s nothing to be concerned with.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The elevator lurched, dropping down about a foot as the whole shebang left the safety of the platform and hung suspended thirty feet above the factory floor. Once my initial panic was over, I realized that both the moving mechanism and the overhead track were solid. The ride was smooth.

  Daddy Bliss grinned at me. “Better now?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Then I’ll ask you to step over here and look down, please.”

  0“I’d rather not.”

  “The heights business again?”

  “The heights business again.”

  “I assure that we are perfectly safe. Now, come here.”

  I moved toward the side, not once lifting my feet. Somehow it felt safer if I slid toward him.

  Below us I saw three separate work areas, each one crowded with equipment and machinery that dwarfed those people working the line. I had no idea what I was looking at, what these machines were called or what function they served. I did recognize a lathe press because Dad used to operate one, and an area near one of the walls was used for wiring small circuitry chips—this I knew because Mom used to do the same thing, only she wired chips for all-night banking machines. These two things aside, I couldn’t tell you what was what or what purpose it served.

  The only thing that was obvious to me was that each line started with some part of a trashed automobile; a door, a dashboard, steering wheel units, under-hood components, instrument panels, floor pedals, and other parts both external and internal that I couldn’t place because they’d been removed from whatever it was they’d been attached to in the first place.

  The cage glided over the factory floor as the workers continued with their labors. I couldn’t see what parts of the workers had been repaired from up here, save for a few people who—like Dash—had large sections of their skulls replaced with metal plates.

  Daddy Bliss said, “Now here is where we see whether or not you’ve got half a brain, Driver. Take a good look at what’s going on down there, and see if you can spot the one thing that all this busy bee-like activity has in common.”

  “Is this part of whatever test it is you’re giving me?”

  He sighed. “You mustn’t think of this as a test, it will add far too much pressure on your nerves. Think of it more as an assessment, an evaluation, a review.”

  “In other words, a test.”

  “Have it your way, then. Now, take a good look and see if you can answer the question.”

  I studied the activity, though from above it was impossible to see any detail work. It wasn’t until I saw one of the workers use a pair of industrial shears to strip the covering off of a control panel that I knew the answer.

  “Plastic,” I said. “They’re removing all the plastic from what’s left of the cars.”

  Daddy Bliss smiled. “Bravo, dear boy, bravo—though I feel compelled to point out, for the sake of accuracy, that it isn’t precisely plastic. It’s polypropylene, a form of thermoplastic. Did you know that the average car has 245.5 pounds of plastic? The ever-increasing use of plastics in automobiles helps reduce vehicle weight, thus improving gas mileage and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A total of 4.19 billion pounds of plastic will be used in North American autos and light trucks this year, increasing to about 5.63 billion pounds within the next decade.” He laughed. “All that wonderful raw material, recycled over and over again.”

  “Is this where you make the parts for people to be repaired?”

  “Hm? Oh, goodness gracious me, no. The Repair facility is located about a mile away—in fact, I think Hummer drove by it just so you could see the place.”

  I remembered the worker and his tail-light eye and went cold. “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “Excellent. Here is where we manufacture our goods. We produce a limited, specialized line of products here.”

  The cage was nearing the farthest end of the factory floor. Below us, I could see several rows of molds arranged inside shelves that were built into the walls. There was something like a large oven, and another huge contraption that looked like some kind of cooling unit, and then an area where the melted, molded, and cooled final product was cut into shape.

  “Jesus…” I whispered.

  They manufactured custom-made HO-tracks and cars.

  I looked at Daddy Bliss. “Is this where Miss Driscoll got her track and cars? From you?”

  “Her name is Road Mama, Driver, and, yes, we make every piece of track and every car to specification.”

  “And all of it’s made from the polypropylene taken from wrecked automobiles?”

  “The track is made from the polypropylene. The cars are made from whatever is left over from the raw materials—the automobiles—once the polypropylene has been taken. Not one piece of raw material goes to waste. It is in this way that the cycle of production and purpose keeps turning, pardon my lapsing into pathetic poeticisms.”

  “And alliteration,” I said. “That’s the second time since we’ve met that you’ve done that.”

  “Is it, now? I shall have to take care to watch my tongue.”

  The cage slowed, then shuddered once again as it moved onto another platform, disengaging from the overhead track as the front-most door rose up automatically and another set of iron doors opened before us.

  We entered another brightly-lighted hallway, this one with a highly-polished off-white floor and walls the same color. The iron doors closed behind us and the stink of the factory was replaced by the sharp, antiseptic smells of a hospital.

  I moved alongside Daddy Bliss. “And this is…?”

  “The Pre-Repair Unit.”

  All of the doors were closed, and there were no personnel working the floor.
/>   We paused by one of the closed doors.

  Daddy Bliss jerked his head to the side, gesturing. “Why don’t you take a look through the observation window there?”

  I did. I wish to hell I hadn’t.

  All I can for certain is that the person lying in there was female; she could have been 17, she could have been 52—it was impossible to tell. Her massive facial injuries rendered her features almost unrecognizable as being human. Her lower body was covered by a sheet. From the ceiling there extended down a pencil-thick cable that spread out at the bottom like the wires inside an umbrella, each one attached to one of the spark plugs implanted in her skull. She jerked underneath the sheet as if in the midst of a seizure, arms and legs twitching as the sparkplugs lit up in a precisely-timed sequence. Her eyes were held closed by two heavy strips of medical tape. A clear plastic tube ran from her throat into a large glass jar set on a metal table beside the bed; with each jerk, dark viscous liquid crawled through the tube and oozed into the jar. With each sequence of sparks she bit down hard on her lower lip, breaking the skin and dribbling blood down the side of her face. Finally, one of the convulsions was so violent that she ripped the sheets from over her body, exposing the metal rings that encased her torso from the center of her chest down to her knees. It looked as if she were being tortured.

  I looked away, took several deep breaths to stop myself from vomiting, then looked down at Daddy Bliss and said, “Where are the nurses and doctors?”

  “There aren’t any. All of the medical care here is automated. The girl you saw in there is recovering from an emergency procedure. Her body rejected its new torso, so a new one is being made for her. Hopefully, we’ll have better luck this time.”

  I looked through the window again, this time seeing that what I’d mistaken for metal rings were actually grooves in a massive cylindrical chamber encircling the center section of the bed.

  “It’s holding her organs in place,” said Daddy Bliss as if I’d asked the question out loud. “Some of her bone structure remained intact, but not nearly enough.”