by Scot Gardner
THE HEAVY DOOR under the Exit sign had a large flat handle that I rested on for a full minute, puffing and whispering my prayers. I prayed that when I pressed the lever, the door would open.
And open it did.
There were no alarms or flashing lights, just a blast of warm air that tasted of diesel exhaust. The door opened inward with a squealing creak that echoed along the tunnel like a sound effect from our House of Horror. Giant hydraulic rams extended from the floor to the steel roof of the chamber. The roof could be raised and lowered.
There were two walls – one that housed the door and another opposite, both blackened by exhaust fumes. To the right and left, big echoey nothingness.
The door bonged shut behind me and the sound cannoned off into the darkness and made me squint.
I was in a huge tunnel. A tunnel big enough to drive a truck down.
I knew where I was. I was underneath the shed at the back of the Lost Head Diner, in the tunnel that ran in a circuit through the Hive’s loading bays. I was underneath the floor of the shed – the platform that raised and . . .
The chamber began to shake. I covered my ears and stopped breathing. The steel roof above me hammered and clanged like a drummer in a stairwell, and I gritted my teeth.
A truck had arrived.
There was a moment of stillness then, with a clunk, the roof began lowering towards my head.
I ran in small panicked circles, hunting for an escape route. The tunnel lit up with the truck’s headlights. A dash down the tunnel in either direction would at best mean recapture and at worst annihilation. The door I’d come through had no handle on the outside – to allow the smooth passage of the steel platform – just a flat screw head.
I fumbled with Ravi’s granddad’s penknife, flicked open the blade and dug it into the screw on the door and twisted it open. The descending platform bumped into the top of my head, knocking it clean off my shoulders. My noggin bounced once then was punted – a beautiful shot for goal that would have looked amazing in slow-motion replay – by my distressed foot, through the door into the concrete tunnel beyond. My body dived after my head, the bundle of limbs clattering to a halt some distance from the door as the platform shunted home.
‘Quick!’ my head shouted.
My body was groping around for missing parts and dusting itself off.
‘There’s no time! Hurry! I’m over here!’
The tunnel filled with exhaust smoke as the truck powered away. My head watched the wheels roll past and the platform start to lift.
‘Hurry!’
My body propped my head into position and ran for the doorway. With a diving leap I made it through the door and onto the platform.
The floor slid into position with me dancing and punching at the roof of the shed.
‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ I shouted in a whisper.
I crept to the side door, turned the handle quietly and opened it a crack. The sun was setting, painting the strip of desert I could see warm orange. I gently pushed until the door was open enough for me to scamper through. The air smelled of rubbish.
I counted to three under my breath and ran for it.
Something grabbed at the mop of my hair.
My head stopped abruptly, but my body kept running. My head tore free and I watched as my body ran in a large arc before slamming noisily into the shed wall and falling apart.
‘Oh crud,’ my head said, as it hung in the air.
‘Well, now, what have we here?’ asked a heavy man’s voice.
My head was spun around to look at the face of my captor. My brainbox was being held at arm’s length by the monster from the Lost Head Diner. Doug DeGraves. His bald head glistened in the last of the sunlight and he laughed.
‘Well, my boy, where did you think you were going? The Head’s looking for you.’
My own head cursed.
CHAPTER 22
‘LET . . . HIM . . . GO!’ squealed a familiar girl’s voice.
The next thing I saw was Doug DeGraves’ head careening off his shoulders and into the big, smelly rubbish bin.
Crystal stood at the back of the diner holding an autographed baseball bat. Her mouth was open in disbelief. She looked at the bat in her hands and then into the bin at Doug De Grave’s head.
His body stood there, frozen, still holding my head.
‘I said let . . . him . . . go!’ Crystal swung the bat and landed another blow on Doug’s shoulder.
It was a good hit. There was nothing girly about the way she swung that bat.
Doug’s body reeled and bumped into the bin that contained his head.
Crystal hit him again and again until, eventually, Doug’s body dropped my head and toppled into the bin.
Crystal poked my head with the toe of her shoe until I was looking at her. I smiled, embarrassed about being so detached in her company but more than a little in awe.
‘Wow,’ my head said. ‘That was impressive.’
Crystal patted the bat. ‘Thanks.’
‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay hidden.’
She shrugged and burped quietly. ‘Holy guacamole, those burgers are good.’
She jumped as Doug’s body began kicking at the air.
‘We have to get out of here,’ my head said. ‘Quick, take me to my body.’
Crystal grabbed me by the hair and dumped me near my hands.
In no time, I was reassembled and we were running, running, running, headlong into the desert. Away from the diner and into the arid twilight.
We ran out of steam before we ran out of light. We slumped behind a boulder, puffing.
‘Now what?’ Crystal panted.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. How about we go home?’
Crystal nodded. ‘My legs feel like they’re about to fall off.’
‘Hey, don’t joke about that sort of stuff,’ I said. ‘Listen, I’m sorry you had to see me all apart like that. I hate it when I fall apart around my friends. It’s just so . . . I don’t know . . . rude.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I can think of ruder things like blowing your nose on someone else’s shirt, cleaning the toilet with their toothbrush or shaking dandruff in their porridge. Don’t worry about it. Do we keep running?’
I nodded, but suddenly felt deflated. Where could we run? As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about where we were running to for long. A few seconds later, the desert exploded with activity and blinding lights. The torches were held by men in vinyl suits. We were surrounded. We were tackled to the ground and bundled into green bags.
‘NOOOO!’
CHAPTER 23
WHEN THE BAG was finally removed from my head, I discovered I’d been tied to a board. My ankles, wrists and torso were bound, my hands were strapped into woollen mittens and a band around my brow held the back of my noggin tightly to the board. I was pinned in a perpetual star-jump. Whoever constructed the boards knew a lot about detachability. I could unplug every joint in my body and I’d still be unable to escape.
A single bulb overhead made me blink and squint and cast the rest of the room in darkness. I could hear activity in the shadows but could see nothing. Presently, another board was wheeled under the light.
‘Crystal?’
‘Hi John,’ Crystal said.
‘Are you okay?’
She struggled against her bonds. ‘Kind of stuck, but otherwise I’m fine. You?’
‘Same.’
‘What are they going to do to us?’
I swallowed. I remembered Wilkin’s forecast of a forcibly detached body and a scrambled brain and felt panic tugging at my joints. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said, doing my best to sound cool, calm and connected. ‘Maybe ask us a few trivia questions or make us watch the news. I hope there’s no tickling. I can’t stand being tickled.’
A pasty-skinned man in a vinyl suit stepped into the light. ‘Shut up, you two, or I’ll have you gagged.’
Another guard called from the shadows. ‘Here he com
es! The Head is coming, everybody, take your places.’
The guard in the light levelled a finger at Crystal and me. ‘Open your mouths again and I’ll nail them shut,’ he said, and disappeared into the gloom.
I was happy to oblige, or would have been if I could stop my teeth from chattering. Crystal whimpered quietly like a puppy.
A door creaked. Heavy footfalls echoed around the room and stopped just outside the range of the light.
‘So, these are the individuals from Pilberton two-three-oh-seven?’ a voice boomed. ‘The slippery ones who have been giving you so much trouble?’
A guard stepped under the light, clipboard in hand. ‘Ah, yes, Your Grace. There was a third individual and he’s . . .’
‘Nothing much of them, is there?’ the Head boomed.
‘Just children, really. And they had you running around the desert like a flock of SHEEP.’
‘There were a couple of events that complicated their . . .’
‘SILENCE! I need no excuses from you. I already know your incompetence has no bounds.’
With that, the Head stepped into the light.
Crystal and I sucked a tandem breath.
He was huge. Easily a foot taller than the tallest of the guards, he was broad-shouldered with muscles rippling over muscles. He wore a dark T-shirt, neatly ironed suit pants, polished black shoes and a scowl on his face that a silver-backed mountain gorilla would have been proud of. But the most striking thing about him was not his size or his dress sense, or his scowl.
The Head had four arms.
With his hands on his hips and more across his chest, he was the stuff of nightmares.
‘So, which of these two is the detachable one?’ he boomed.
‘Well, Your Grace, the intelligence from agents Fenshawe and Brown doesn’t really specify which . . .’
‘INTELLIGENCE? You need a BRAIN to deliver intelligence, Mr Stone, and Fenshawe and Brown don’t have a brain between them. No matter, we can soon find out.’
There was a bang and commotion in the darkness.
‘Sorry,’ someone called. Wheels rolled across the floor and another board was pushed under the lights.
‘Ravi?’ Crystal and I squeaked, in total disbelief.
‘My best buddies in the whole world! It is so good to see you again at last. For a while there I . . . holey moley, you’ve got four arms!’
‘Quiet!’ Mr Stone yelled.
The man in vinyl who’d delivered Ravi swallowed hard. ‘Sorry, Your Grace,’ he said. ‘This one has just arrived from Fenshawe and Brown. The third party in the Pilberton two-three-oh-seven case.’
He handed the paperwork to Mr Stone, who in turn handed it to the Head.
The Head glanced at the page. ‘Nice of you to join us, Master Carter. Better late than never.’
‘Thank you, big scary man with four arms,’ Ravi said. ‘I would have been here earlier but my flight out of Mascot was delayed. Apparently . . .’
‘Shut up!’ Mr Stone screamed.
‘Yes, of course,’ Ravi said. ‘I’ll be shutting up now.’
‘Shhh!’
‘Not another word,’ Ravi mumbled.
‘Hush!’
‘Oh, yes, silence is golden, as they say in the classics.’
‘ENOUGH!’ the Head boomed. ‘Start them up. Let’s see who screams and who doesn’t.’
Mr Stone pressed a button on a remote control. Small electric motors began to whine and I could feel the straps that held me in place getting tighter. Gaps opened in the board beneath me. I was being pulled apart.
Crystal was fighting against her bonds. ‘Stop! What are you doing?’
‘For the first time in my life, I hope I’m wrong,’ Ravi said. ‘I think it’s a modern version of that medieval torture they called the rack.’
‘Precisely, Master Carter,’ the Head purred. ‘In a few moments we will know which of you is detachable and which of you isn’t.’
‘And what difference will that make?’ Ravi groaned.
‘Well,’ the Head began. ‘If you come apart, we’ll use your pieces in our little enterprise. Your appendages will be sold to the highest bidder and shipped off to all corners of the world. And if you’re not . . . well, let’s just say that you’d be better off being detachable.’
The room echoed with a chorus of sinister laughter.
‘I’m rather fond of my appendages,’ Ravi said.
Wilkin had been right. I could feel my joints stretching, but I hung on. The thought of being sold off for spare parts when they realised I was the detachable one made me strong.
‘Arghhh,’ Crystal croaked. ‘It hurts, John!’
‘Best buddy,’ Ravi moaned, ‘if I survive this, do you think it will make me taller?’
I knew I had to let go. I had to be brave. I had to put an end to this torture and take my chances with the Head and the Hive before my friends were torn apart.
There was a ripping sound.
The motors in the racks stopped at the same time.
Ravi breathed a sigh of relief.
I realised the ripping sound wasn’t me. I was still intact.
‘Oh bother,’ Crystal cursed. ‘Bother bother bother and blast it.’
Crystal’s head had been torn from her shoulders.
Ravi gasped. I was too gobsmacked to speak.
‘Well, well, well,’ the Head said. ‘Take her down to Titania. Process the other two.’
Crystal was detachable.
CHAPTER 24
‘I ACTUALLY DO feel a bit taller,’ Ravi said, as our boards were wheeled down a long corridor.
I still hadn’t managed to speak. Crystal was detachable. All the years we’d known each other, she’d never let on. Now she was being taken to Titania and Ravi and I were about to be ‘processed’. Whatever that meant.
‘How?’ I finally asked.
‘How?’
‘How did you get here?’
‘Ha! You’ll be impressed, I know. I made a plaster cast of my own hand then pretended to lose it right in front of the black Saab that had run you down. Some big burly men in shiny black suits bundled me into the back of the car and here I am. Mother thinks I’m at camp. I have my passport, toothbrush, dental floss, mouthwash, and a small tube of toothpaste. All the essentials.’
We were wheeled into a room lit like a hospital operating theatre. There were computers, a sink and three chairs. We were greeted by a man with an enormous and hairless head. He was dressed in a green hospital gown and he welcomed us with a sinister smile. His teeth looked as though they’d been playing musical statues. The music had stopped and his teeth were frozen every which way.
‘My goodness, John,’ Ravi murmured. ‘That gentleman has a head like a watermelon. And his teeth! Arghhh. I can’t bear to look at them.’
Watermelon-head dismissed the guards.
‘Don’t worry, this won’t hurt a bit,’ he leered.
If I hadn’t been pinned to the board, I would have been a pile of quivering limbs on the floor. As it was, my tongue detached in my mouth.
The tongue that saved the day.
As Watermelon-head came closer and I opened my mouth to scream, my tongue popped out. It landed on the floor and Watermelon-head stood on it, slipped and came crashing into my board. Together, we skidded across the room and hit the wall with so much force that Watermelon-head lost his watermelon. It hit the floor with a dull thunk and rolled under a desk. My board toppled and crashed to the ground, freeing my right hand from its bondage.
My hand stretched and scrabbled to release the straps that had held me in place. By the time Watermelon-head’s body had righted itself, I was free.
‘Over here!’ the watermelon called. Watermelon-body felt the air in front of it and started to pace across the room.
I pushed a chair in its path and sent it sprawling across the floor. I undid Ravi’s bonds and together we collected the pieces of Watermelon-head and hung him in bags in the cupboard.
‘Wh
at are you doing?’ the head shouted. ‘You can’t do this to me!’
We had to lift together to get the head onto a chair.
‘You’ll never get away with this!’ it screamed.
I rinsed my tongue in the sink and reattached it. I patted the shiny noggin on the chair and smiled. ‘You’re probably right, but there’s no harm in trying.’
Ravi drew a chair to the computer desk. ‘Hmmm. What a lovely set-up you have here. Do you mind if I have a play?’
‘Yes! Keep your hands off my computer!’
‘Oh, it seems we’re already logged in. We don’t even need a password! Now, do we have any games installed?’
‘Not games, Ravi,’ I said. ‘We need a distraction. We need confusion. We need total mayhem while I find Crystal.’
Ravi was winking furiously with both eyes. ‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking of Age of Mythology, best buddy, I was thinking more like “Let’s push buttons until something really funny happens.”’
CHAPTER 25
I RAN LOW and hard along the corridor. I had to find Crystal. Had to find Titania before it was too late. It was somewhere near the bottom of the Hive. My mind raced as I tried to remember what Argus had told me about Titania. Both a place and a person. And a smell, a really bad smell. The rats knew about Titania but there were no rats to be seen. There were no cells here either, only doors with names on them, perhaps the living quarters of the men in vinyl. I slowed at each corner only long enough to check that the coast was clear. I ran until I found the transparent doors of a lift and pressed the button. I backed against the wall and prayed that the lift would arrive empty. It seemed to take forever but my prayers were eventually answered. I was on the fifty-third floor. I stabbed the button marked ‘100’ and the lift doors closed. As the lift descended into the bowels of the Hive, I detached my foot and joined my legs together – stilt style – so I could reach the manhole in the roof. The lid was unlocked – it must have been the same lift I’d travelled in earlier. I pushed through into the shaft and put myself back together again as the lift whistled down towards the hundredth floor. The air rushing past tugged at my hair. About twenty-five floors from the bottom of the shaft, the lift began to slow. It was stopping. Someone was about to get on and see me crouched on the roof.