Deborah Hockney

by Jocasta's Gift

  Who were these people? If indeed they were human. Where had they come from? What was going to happen to them? And how much trouble were they going to be in if they got out of the situation alive?

  She shook her head, trying to free her mind, to concentrate on what was happening, then felt her arm grabbed firmly from behind as they were frogmarched down a narrow path towards a dim light that shone in the distance.

  There must have been half a dozen of the people all dressed in a mish-mash of clothes. After the Elite, and all its uniformed protocol, these characters looked quite surreal as if they had been transported from a remote race on Earth. And with her limited view through the helmet’s visor, Jocasta was unsure if they were male or female. The figure who seemed to be in charge appeared from his stance and voice to be male, but the one pushing her, guiding her, felt more like a female.

  Still shivering, Jocasta’s limbs felt tense and nervous, ready to jump at the slightest touch. Even so, her feet were uncoordinated and she had difficulty putting one foot in front of the other without tripping.

  The group emerged from the tunnel into an open area that resembled an underground clearing with worn stone walls and a low oppressive ceiling.

  They were instructed to remove their helmets.

  Jocasta removed hers with trepidation – were their captors simply going to let them asphyxiate? Although if they were human, that wasn’t likely to happen as none of them were wearing masks or helmets and although they looked odd and unkempt their appearance was definitely human like. She took a small sniff at the air and discovered with relief that as she swallowed she didn’t collapse. The atmosphere was breathable. Warm, muggy, and with a strange, metallic tang to it; but breathable. Her relief was quickly shattered when a heavy hand planted itself firmly on her shoulder and forced her into a kneeling position on the rough, stony ground. She could feel the tiny stones pricking into her knees but was unable to move as the heavy hand on her shoulder kept her body pressed down.

  She could see Will, out the corner of her vision, flexing his body, as he struggled to shake off his captor. David and Ed, like her, remained rigidly still: not daring to move a millimetre. She could just make out a glint of steel in the hand of one of their captors. A trickle of sweat ran down her nose.

  Animated talking was taking place in a far corner of the room. Jocasta could tell by the way some of the group kept glancing in their direction that it must be about them but she couldn’t make out what they were saying, and was petrified at the thought of what they might do to them.

  A circle of possibilities looped incessantly in her head. They might kills us… don’t think like that.

  If they don’t kill us… they’ll imprison us. Will the Elite find out where we are… Will the Elite want us back? What if we’ve overstepped the mark? But surely they won’t leave us to these… people? Who are these people? What do they want? What are they going to do with us? Will the Elite rescue us? If they don’t, what will happen to us then? They might just kill us and be done with it… no, don’t think like that. You mustn’t think like that.

  Suddenly there was movement as the group spread out and it was only then that the true extent of the strangeness of their situation became clear.

  It had been the odd clothes that had first struck her as different, but now Jocasta could see that not only did they dress oddly, but were in fact a mixture of people so strange it seemed almost natural that they would be hidden down here, out of sight.

  Some were wearing goggles, with huge, bulbous lenses, which gave them the appearance of grotesque, over-sized flies; one man had hair on only the right side of his head, the left half of his skull covered with a shiny metal pate, with electrodes winking intermittently. One woman, petite in stature, peeked out from behind one of the others. She had a tiny black feline nose, complete with a dusting of dark fur which was in stark contrast to her pale skin tone.

  All of them seemed to be in some way disfigured.

  But where had they come from? Before the question had fully formed in her mind, Jocasta felt – sensed – the answer: dumped. Sent away. Shut off from humanity. But who would do that?

  No one spoke to them, and then, inevitably, Will began asking questions: ‘Hey! Hey you, what d’you think you’re doing?’

  His voice, too loud and too pushy, echoed uncomfortably around the group, and was met only with a definite, ungiving silence. Jocasta wanted to tell him to shut up, shut up, or they might harm you, or us – but her throat was dry as dust and she didn’t dare to appear troublesome.

  ‘I’m asking you a question. Where the hell d’you think you’re taking us?’ He was forcibly silenced as a piece of cloth was pushed unceremoniously into his mouth and then they were all blindfolded and gagged. Jocasta could feel hands lightly skimming over her clothes, checking, presumably, for weapons or coms.

  She felt a fist pushing firmly into her back as she was guided along more uneven ground; at one point she stumbled and reached out with a gloved hand to steady herself, and touching the edge of a rough hewn wall, guessed the tunnel was quite narrow.

  I don’t care if I’m out of the Elite. I don’t care if I’m kicked off of Mars. I don’t care what they think of me. Just please let me out of here alive. Please, let me out of here alive. Please, let me out of here alive…

  They stopped several times and she sensed discussions were taking place as to which way to go and once or twice, she heard noises that sounded like rocks being moved. Her greatest fear was that she may have been split up from the others.

  They won’t kill us, she told herself. If they were going to, they’ve done it already. But what if it’s not their ultimate decision? What if someone else makes that call? And that’s where we’re going…

  We’re going… I’m going. Where’s Will? Where’s David and Ed, are they here? Please don’t let me be my own…

  Please let us all get out of this alive…

  Eventually after what was probably only minutes but seemed so much longer, they came to a standstill; their gags and blindfolds roughly removed.

  Jocasta blinked several times trying to adjust her eyes to the lighted room; which although only dimly lit seemed bright after the dark and pressure of the blindfold. She was relieved to see the others; at least they’d been kept together.

  David was rubbing his eyes and carefully readjusting his glasses, which had been squashed against his face. Jocasta could make out red marks where the blindfold had forced them into the flesh of his cheekbone.

  He gave her an encouraging look which belied the rapid rise and fall of his chest, a sure sign, she acknowledged, that he was feeling more anxious than he looked. Ed and Will were both awkwardly positioned with their hands behind their backs. Then it dawned on her they must be tied or handcuffed. She was pulled sharply backwards by one of the women and could make out the roughly hewn rope binding their wrists. She felt strangely indignant that she and David hadn’t been seen as that much of a threat and hadn’t been given the same treatment; but she quickly pushed that thought away; this was no time to be getting irritated over such things that were an advantage to her.

  Her eyes began to adjust and she started to make out their surroundings, and immediately began to search for some kind of escape route, although, finding none, felt a strange mixture of disappointment and a kind of resignation: if she had found a likely escape, how could she possibly have done anything?

  They were in what appeared to be an underground cave, whether natural or manmade she couldn’t be sure. From the markings on the walls, it had probably been blown out by explosions. It was about three to four metres high and fairly symmetrical with one, two, three openings and strange lights on the walls that gave an eerie but consistent light. They had been placed on the far side away from the entrances, with a guard in front of each one.

  As if they would have any idea which way to go even if they did try and escape.

  They didn’t attempt to speak to each other, but Will and Ed kept exchanging
strange looks. Were they plotting something? Had they more of an idea as to what was happening?

  At last the motley gang approached them. Their ragged clothes and straggly hair gave them the appearance of being like the tramps Jocasta had seen in history books. The scourge of the twenty first century, when after the floods and fires had destroyed homes and factories, shops and offices, whole communities had taken to living on the streets; first as a protest and then permanently, as successive governments failed at each attempt to ameliorate the situation. There had been looting, gang warfare, and thousands had died; until at last the governments had given into the demands for military intervention and some stability had been reinstated.

  The thought was not comforting.

  As they drew closer, and she was able to get a clearer view, Jocasta could see that although their clothes were old and threadbare the group were not unclean. The men were mostly clean shaven and the two females who stood at least 6ft tall had clear, bright skin with traces of colour on their lips. Their hair was neatly braided and Jocasta found herself wondering, even in these circumstances, why the red haired one had bothered with such an ornate hairstyle in this dark and dismal place. For that was exactly how it felt; dark, dismal and abandoned. She shivered as though the cold atmosphere was seeping through the spacesuit into her body: but it was fear that made her feel this way.

  She sensed the others felt it too.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The tallest woman, who towered over her male counterparts, glared down at them with eyes flashing with anger in the reflected light.

  ‘Where have you come from?’ she snarled, spitting the words out with such ferocity that Jocasta took an involuntary step backwards. ‘What folly brought you here?’

  Jocasta glanced sideways at Will who, she could see, was twisting his bound hands over and over trying to release them from the harsh, spiky rope that had rubbed red patches into his wrists almost to the point of making them bleed.

  ‘Why d’you want to know?’ Ed replied, sounding surprisingly calm in the circumstances. ‘We didn’t come here to do you any harm. We’re not here looking for any fights.’

  ‘Think not!’ came the reply from a broad, fierce looking man, with arms as thick as space-probes. ‘Chances are you’d end up dead… or worse.’ He smirked, opening his jaws wide to display a range of sharp metal teeth.

  ‘Shut it, Murf,’ the other woman, the one with the red hair, muttered. ‘You’ll have no fun here, these S.Cs will be much more useful to us alive. Won’t they Delilah?’ She addressed the tall woman who seemed to be their leader.

  Alive.

  ‘And how’d d’you work that one out?’ someone else butted in. ‘Better to get it over with now, and send the bodies back the way they came.’

  ‘What! And waste that machine?’ another voice added, as each individual tried to make their view heard.

  ‘Who cares?’

  ‘I’m not going to sit back and let–’

  ‘You heard Delilah, we’ll–’

  The tall woman, Delilah, raised her hand, and at first, Jocasta thought she was going to strike someone, but then slowly the others followed suit, until they had all fallen silent and stood with one hand raised in a half-mock salute.

  ‘We have discussed the situation, at length,’ she added. ‘And we will proceed as agreed. Take them to section C and we will,’ she emphasised the last two words in such a way that Jocasta’s legs started to buckle, ‘find out exactly what they were planning to do.

  Intruders are not welcome here.’

  The rather unnecessary statement bounced off the walls of the narrow passageway as they were manhandled along the nearest exit.

  Pushed into a small, metal panelled room with a low ceiling and hard benches made out of an unidentifiable material, they were left alone. Certainly won’t be wood on Mars, Jocasta thought, yet not metal because it’s not cold to the touch. Jocasta made her way over to Will and with fumbling fingers helped him loosen the chords around his wrists while David did the same for Ed. They both fervently began to rub at their chaffed wrists where the rope had scratched and reddened their skin.

  ‘Whatever that stuff’s made of,’ complained Ed, ‘it’s irritated my skin and I don’t mean because it was tight.’ He grimaced as blood started trickling down his arm and dropped in large globules from his elbow.

  ‘Ed,’ Jocasta’s startled voice ran out clearly. ‘Your blood. It’s purple.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, unabashed. ‘Just like my eyes. It’s okay,’ he continued, ‘I’m not contaminated or a mutant. I’ve been checked out a hundred times time or more.’

  He sat down heavily on one of the benches, looking round for something to stem the flow of blood, but the room was quite void of anything likely to act as a bandage. Will’s wrists weren’t quite so bad, and within a few moments he had removed his top and torn it into strips to wrap around his own and Ed’s wounds. The other two helped, David’s deft fingers tying knots as he whispered to the others that he feared they were all doomed unless they thought up a plan to escape really quickly.

  ‘Look guys, I’m really sorry I’ve landed you in this mess but give me a few minutes and I’m sure I can think of something to get us out of here.’ Will’s voice didn’t sound exactly confident and Jocasta felt a tightening panic rise in her throat, gripping her until it clasped her skull with an icy glove as she sank onto one of the benches.

  ‘Yeah,’ retorted David sounding quite aggrieved. ‘Well I think this time you might just have overstepped yourself. I don’t see how the hell we’re going to get out of this one. And even if we do,’ he continued. ‘Our chances of being able to stay in the Elite seem pretty slim.’

  Jocasta had never heard David take this tone with Will before. Okay, Will had always been the one with the harebrained ideas, but David had never refused a challenge or the chance of excitement.

  ‘Look I’ve apologised, haven’t I?’ Will sounded genuinely sincere.

  ‘So we can use your apology to formulate an escape, can we?’ David snapped, tying the last knot on Will’s bandages, and not sparing any force.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t have pulled you into this,’ Will continued, ‘but if I can only get them to listen to me, explain… I’m sure they’ll let us… or at least let you guys go.’

  ‘Think that’s a bit unlikely somehow. On my account anyway.’ Ed’s voice was low and calm, but Jocasta sensed an underlying fear. ‘My father’s not the most popular person in this place. Nor’s my mother.’

  ‘You know about this place?’ Jocasta’s incredulous question cut through the atmosphere which had turned into something like a courtroom accusation.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us? Warn us… or something! Why didn’t you let us know, what – who was down here?’

  ‘Well I didn’t know for sure. I’d heard rumours about the first – well. ‘Fifth’ city as it’s been called. And the so called mutants who live here. But never anything concrete. Every time anyone mentions the possibility, it’s like a wall comes down and people just don’t talk about it.’ His voice trailed off in an apologetic tone.

  ‘Well we can’t just sit back and do nothing!’ Jocasta snapped, fighting the urge to scream with frustration. But the discussion was cut short by the arrival of two of the guards who had taken them captive in the tunnels, the one named Murf and the woman with the red hair.

  ‘Hey Mex,’ said the man, with the alarming metal teeth and a bulky physic. ‘Looks like our little chicks are ready to fly the nest, ropes untied and everything.’ He gave a low snorting sound which might have been surprise or anger – Jocasta couldn’t tell. ‘Let’s see how far they get before I catch ’em, he continued, licking his lips with an ulcerated tongue. It’s a long time since we tasted real flesh.’

  A shudder went through Jocasta’s spine but his companion announced, quite tersely, ‘Shut up Murf.’ And then turning to the four captives said, ‘Ignore him. Thinks he’s all macho and mean, but underneath all that bra
vado he’s nothing more than a moron.’

  Murf’s look of incredulity and disbelief made him look almost comical and Jocasta feared she might start giggling as much from fear as relief. She dared to think that perhaps their fate wasn’t going to be as bad as they’d anticipated.

  The four prisoners, as Murf insisted on calling them, were herded down the narrow corridor to another room, similar in size, with sandy coloured stone walls and yellow lights. More people were waiting, like spectators. One sat on an upturned bucket, and others, some with dark, tattooed faces or strange, cat-like ears, conversed in low, serious voices. In the centre of the room were a series of makeshift booths set in a line, and four figures waited in each, like interrogators.

  Will was placed opposite an older man with thin greying hair and sunken blood shot eyes. His hands looked mutilated and his shoulders sagged down under the weight of a heavy brown overcoat. He looked chilled to the bone, even though the temperature felt hot and overwhelmingly oppressive. Jocasta was now experiencing the opposite sensation of her earlier experience; where before she had felt so cold now the heat in this room was becoming unbearable. The air was dense and stifling, she felt her eyelids grow heavier and her movements become slow and clumsy.

  David’s inquisitor was a young woman who looked much younger than any of the others that they’d seen before. It looked as though she was no older than her late teens. Her elaborate clothes shone out in stark contrast to everyone else.

  The woman, Mex, had a kind of gothic splendour which seemed somehow appropriate down here in this secret, broken underworld, but this girl was different.

  She had masses of coloured ribbons tied in her hair, a red top with large buttons that was snugly done up to her neck, and wore large oversized green gloves. But the thing Jocasta noticed most of all was the happy, serene look upon her face. With a shock she realised that she had encountered no-one on Mars who had anything like contentment in their demeanour. There were a few people who could be described as happy; Marcella and Tara sprung to mind, but this young woman radiated a sense of contained serenity that seemed to belong to only her. She leant across the table and whispered softly to David, but loud enough for them all to hear.