“Have the young man in holding cell 31-142 brought to me.”
“Yes, Sir,” came the reply from the floating voice.
Within the room Alexi began to pace. A few minutes passed until the large wooden doors opened and two guards brought forth a shackled captive. It was Ky and there was still plenty of fight in him.
“Let me see his wound,” Alexi asked.
One of the guards went to undo the loose pants Ky was wearing. Ky shied away forcing the second guard to roughly grab him by the shoulders and square him up. The pants were unbuckled and they slid easily down Ky’s legs. Alexi stepped forward and inspected a fresh scar, now well healed.
“You aren’t nearly as savage as you make out,” Alexi said staring into Ky’s eyes.
Ky began his struggles once more, but they were abruptly brought to an end when the Chairman spoke.
“We’ve known for a long time how advanced and well established your communities are. You’re not the first Outlocked to confirm what we know under sedation. Don’t think less of yourself though, it’s impossible not to talk with the chemical technology we have. We also know you came into our city to kill the young man named Callen. You were trying to stop him revealing the truth about your world to us.”
Ky had stopped his struggle. The guard, who had only moments before cuffed Ky’s arms and neck within his own arms, was now letting him stand freely. Apart from pulling up his pants for the sake of dignity, Ky hadn’t moved and was now listening to the Chairman intently. He didn’t like what he heard and feared that his people’s Armageddon was close at hand.
“We’ve known these things for almost one hundred years, myself and my board members that is. The population still believe your world to be dangerous; a slow but sure toxic death. It’s allowed us to maintain stability in our city all this time, but now this young man, Callen, has started them thinking. Some of them believe what he’s told them. Every day that passes more people believe.”
Ky was shocked by this development. His mind was re-educating itself as fast as it could, but the enormity of the revelations made the concepts difficult to comprehend.
“We have Callen, by the way. We have him in a cell not far from yours.”
“Then kill him,” Ky said, a comment which brought a smile to the Chairman’s face. He was pleased they had a warrior in their midst; a man not afraid to kill for the good of his people. The Chairman was dealing with one of his own and he immediately began to grow more confident about Ky’s involvement.
“That would be the worst thing we could do. He’d become a martyr and raise the possibility in their minds that we’re trying to hide something. It wouldn’t matter how much money we spend to convince them the world outside wasn’t fit to live in, they’d want to see proof for themselves. If that happens, you’ll find yourself with eighty seven million people on your doorstep, all asking directions to the promised land, which, by the way, will no longer exist.”
Ky was beginning to understand that he was far from a prisoner. He was an ally to the city, a situation he wasn’t at all comfortable with. He looked at all those in the room with utter contempt and revulsion. The extent of the lie they were feeding their people to feather their own nests was extraordinary, but Ky also knew it was this lie that gave his people and their lands the advantages they currently enjoyed. The irony was, the circumstances made both Ky and the City leaders bedfellows. They too wanted to stop Callen’s account of the world beyond the City walls from spreading and being believed, although they wanted it for entirely different reasons.
“You want something from me?” Ky asked.
Alexi threw his arms in the air and laughed an exuberant laugh as he swivelled to the others present.
“Not savage and not stupid either!”
The other members of the board laughed loudly at their leader’s wit. Alexis, still sporting a wide grin turned to Ky and came close, taking him into his confidence.
“We want you to kill him. Our people need to believe he escaped, tried to leave the city and met with a horrible fate at the hands of one of the Outlocked. Just as we’ve always told them would happen if they strayed outside the City. And that Outlocked killer will be you. We have everything planned to help you get to our border, but we can’t afford to have anyone from the city play a part in this. If word got back that we were somehow involved, people would read it as confirmation we have something to hide.”
The Chairman walked to his desk and picked up an antique letter opener, a primitive looking knife, fashioned out of bone.
“I want you to do it with this,” he said handing the weapon to Ky.
“His stories need to be shown as fanciful and his death needs to be disturbing. Disturbing enough that not one person in this city will ever try to follow in his path again.”
Those in the room waited nervously for Ky’s decision.
“How do I know you won’t kill me?”
“I give you my word,” Alexi said.
Ky laughed out loud. The reaction painted a new expression on Alexi’s face. It was clear these two men thought little of each other and yet they were very close to working together to give the other what each wanted.
“How do I know you won’t escape with Callen?” Alexi countered.
Ky thought this over.
“I guess we have to trust each other.”
“We have a deal then?” Alexi asked.
Ky nodded. Those present would not credit it, but Ky had just given his word and he was a young man who would never renege.
“How do I go about getting Callen out?” Ky asked.
Alexi strode to his desk and tapped his viewer screen.
“We’ve come up with a solution to that. But there’s a lot you’ll need to know first.”
The two men hovered over the screen. Student and teacher, as the other board members looked on. Ky had a great deal of homework ahead of him.
Chapter 22.
The door to the cell opened. A slumbering Callen lifted his head to see uniformed guards carrying a beaten and bloody Ky. They threw him roughly onto the ground and then quickly backed away, locking the cell door behind them. Callen tried to revive Ky as best he could but it was clear he was heavily sedated. All Callen could do was clean him up using the water from the single wash basin.
Hours past while Ky slept off the drug. A nurse with a guard as escort entered the cell sometime around when Callen was expecting food to be delivered.
“Get on the bed and don’t move,” the guard ordered Callen and then stood over him with a taser device almost daring him for a reason to use it. Callen watched the nurse go about tending to Ky’s wounds. She squeezed tubes of synthetic skin into his bleeding abrasions and injected those areas with any number of treatments to aide and speed his recovery.
“Alright,” she said to the guard. “I’m done with him.” The guard backed away from Callen never taking his eyes off him. It was clear he was still expecting some sort of rebellious last stand that never came.
“Here,” the nurse said to the guard as she handed over a loaded syringe. “In his arm.”
The nurse quickly left the cell and the guard placed himself between the door and Ky, still with an eye on Callen, as he crouched down. He aimed the syringe at Ky’s arm and then stuck it amateurishly into flesh and pressed down the syringe to administer the drug. He then quickly bounced to his feet and leapt out the door locking it behind him. Callen marvelled at how completely duped the man was about who and what the Outlocked were. His behaviour to Ky was that of a vet scampering away from a ferocious beast that would devour him whole had it the chance.
Moments after the door closed, Ky’s whole body jerked awake. He sat upright and looked around to get his bearings. He saw Callen, swivelled his head to look over the holding cell and then finally relaxed as he realised where he was. He ran his hand across his face as the residual pain from his injuries and the drugs came to his consciousness.
“Water,” he said with a hoarse voice.<
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Callen went to the sink and cupped his hands together to bring Ky water, leaving a dripping trail as he did. Ky drank, then got up, struggling for balance and went to the sink where he pressed his lips to the faucet and turned on the water to take large mouthfuls. When he stopped drinking it was only to stand and take in a couple of large breaths before he was back on the tap and drinking again. Finally, with his thirst satisfied, he turned and looked to Callen.
“I wouldn’t tell them anything, but they used something on me. I couldn’t stop myself. They know everything.”
Callen couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ky who was showing signs of being deeply ashamed of betraying his people. His condition proved in Callen’s mind that the city had treated him brutally to get what they wanted.
“They already knew everything, Ky. Interrogating you was just for show. I’m sorry. They probably do it to make everyone else believe what they want them believing.”
Ky looked shocked by the revelation. He was doing a first rate job of acting the role of an uninformed intruder discovering startling revelations for the first time.
“Liam and Gerda were here. They took Eve with them when they left.”
For the first time Ky wasn’t acting as he showed his shock. Callen helped him get up to speed.
“It’s a game to them. The city needs resources and dumping areas for waste, you want to be left alone, so they have a deal in place. I don’t know how long it’s been like that, but I know Gerda’s not the first Chief Elder they’ve dealt with, so it must be at least twenty or thirty years.”
Ky looked betrayed.
“Liam came with Gerda?” He asked.
Callen nodded.
“I don’t think he knew. Liam,” Callen said, clarifying who he was talking of. “I think he was just as shocked as you when he found out what was going on.”
Ky weighed it all up as he came to terms with this monumental shift in everything he thought he knew.
“How’s Eve?” he asked.
Callen took his time to answer.
“She didn’t want me to keep going, but I’m so close to doing something really important here. They wanted me to tell everyone what I said I found outside the City was a lie and I could have gone with her. But it’s not a lie and so many people are so close to believing me.” Callen looked more intently. “I’m not going to say it’s not true when it is. People should have the choice about what sort of life they get to live. I don’t care if it destroys the whole city. People have a right to know the truth.”
Callen was still on his history making quest, but he’d also given Ky all the motivation he needed to carry out his role for the City leaders. He didn’t want the City population knowing about the Outlocked lands and potentially destroying their way of life by fleeing their lives in search of the freedoms the people of the Outlocked world enjoyed.
The two sat in silence for a long time.
“What happens to us now?” Ky asked.
“They’ll come and take us to organ donation. It shouldn’t be long. They need the space. These places are always full of people arrested for whatever it is the City decides they should be arrested for.”
Morning came and Ky woke as food on plastic trays appeared through a seamless hole in the wall. The smell of food woke Callen and the two began to eat.
“Tastes like rubber,” Ky said, as he ate his perfectly symmetrical egg wedged between a perfectly round spongy muffin.
“It is, sort of. Just with flavouring to make it taste good. It has all the nutrients in it though.”
Ky pushed his plate away. Callen understood his disappointment. The Outlocked food had been a revelation to Callen and now the City food was equally lacking in taste to Ky.
After breakfast and well after their trays had been removed, Ky finally felt like talking again.
“Eve only liked you because you were different. It’s just her. One day it’s one thing then she gets bored and moves on to something new.”
Callen nodded. They were probably only hours away from the end of their lives and he had no intention of destroying Ky’s vain belief that Eve’s apathy towards Ky was more her personality than a show of how she really felt.
“You don’t seem very nervous about dying,” Ky said.
“It’s not so bad if it’s got a purpose, I guess.”
Ky looked to Callen with a new sense of respect. He didn’t agree with what he was trying to do, but as warrior he respected his willingness to fully commit to his task.
A small panel within the door opened at waist level, accompanied by an electronic voice.
“Prisoners, place your arms through the slot in the door.”
Ky and Callen stood up and placed both hands outside the cell where they were quickly cuffed with electronic cuffs that adjusted perfectly to the shape and size of their wrists. The door then opened and they were taken from the cell by six guards. One each side with a taser chord looped under each arm, while two other guards followed behind with tasers at the ready.
They were marched down a long white corridor past hundreds of similarly locked cell doors as the one they’d just come from. It was hard to believe behind every door was a citizen at odds with the life expected to be led within the City’s walls. The two were escorted to internal lifts and then taken deep below ground to a basement car park and strapped, still with guards either side, into seats within a shiny plastic van with the word ‘Corrections’ plastered down its side.
Ky and Callen were deep in their own thoughts. Callen was mentally preparing himself for the end of his life; Ky, trying to remember everything he’d been told about what was about to happen.
The van passed almost unnoticed down the busy streets. There were no sirens or escorts. Everyone knew what the corrections van on the street meant and most people chose to look the other way and ignore the most disagreeable aspect of the City’s judicial system.
Around a corner the van hit something. Without windows Ky and Callen couldn’t see what had happened, but they felt it. The tumbling van made it clear they’d had an accident and when they came to rest the van was on its side. Callen was on the low side of the van now lying like an astronaut awaiting takeoff, while Ky was high side with his arms and legs hanging downwards. The unrestrained guards lay unconscious near Callen, one actually slumped over his midsection. Before Callen could get his bearings Ky’s straps broke away and he dropped from his seat landing almost on top of Callen. He grabbed at the electronic key he’d seen the guard use to lock them in place and then fumbled with it, unable to make it work.
“Hold it against my lock and press down hard on the end with your thumb.”
Ky remembered what he’d been shown in the Chairman’s office and following Callen’s instructions he freed the straps holding Callen in place. They came away easily and a few sharp kicks to the weakened door at the rear of the van and the doors burst open with a clatter, the bottom one fell hard against the road outside.
“Come on!” Ky yelled at Callen, breaking him from his astonishment at how incredible their escape was. He bolted from his seat and followed Ky out of the van and into the street. Around the corner Ky held up one of the guard’s tasers to the throat of a teenage boy who’d been walking with a friend of similar age. The two teenage boys looked like they were having a stroke from the fright of being threatened and held up so brazenly in a world where such things were heard of but rare because of the brutal consequences. The teenager’s outfits were perfect, one had a hooded top, the other a cap, but they were similar in colour and would help Ky and Callen blend into any crowd.
“Your clothes! Give them too us! Now!”
Both boys began to undress quickly. Others nearby had moved away, but many within sight had their phones to their ears; no doubt calling the police to alert them of these two escaped ‘corrections’ candidates now terrorizing innocent people.
Ky and Callen took the clothes and ran. They ran around the corner and found a smaller side street where they strip
ped out of the prison uniforms and dressed in the stolen clothes. Then they ran down the street and away from the scene of their crime.
Twenty minutes later, having not let up their running pace, Callen grabbed Ky and pulled him up.
“We can’t just keep running. We need a plan.”
“We need to get to the carriages and then get through your tunnel,” Ky said.
“Okay, but you follow me. I know the way, you don’t. We’re in my world now, remember?”
Ky couldn’t protest. In spite of the studying he’d done to know exactly where he was going, he couldn’t tip his hand. He knew the authorities would be going out of their way to avoid them, so felt letting Callen assume he was in control of this ‘escape’ wouldn’t cause any problems.
A few blocks further, Callen stopped again. A public servant work crew was busy remoulding the side of a composite plastic building. A resin skin was being coated over the original and it was obvious why the work needed to be done. The words ‘they lie’ had been written on the white plastic wall by something with obvious corrosive powers and the bold letters were drawing the attention of every passer-by. Ky was forced to return to Callen, dragging him forward to get him moving again. A few streets later a viewer box was similarly marked. At one point, the words had been painted across the street like a pedestrian crossing. Once he was looking for his words, they seemed to be everywhere. No matter how hard the work crews tried, they’d never be able to remove the phrase faster than it spread.
“I have to go to the university,” Callen called to Ky.
Ky came to a dead stop and the two exchanged heated words about continuing straight for the carriage system. Callen made himself very clear; he had started something and he meant to finish it, at least where his friends were concerned. He wanted to make sure whatever story the city came up with about his disappearance, it wouldn’t be believed. Ky argued the detour would be suicidal to them both. Callen gave Ky the option of heading away without him. Ky could go straight to the tunnels alone and Callen could follow him later. Ky refused. Callen stood his ground.
Inner City Page 21