A low ceiling provided greenish light, and musty breezes chilled Tran so’s wet skin. He knuckled his eyes. Too much pain and sensation for this to be the after-life; the deities had spared him. For what purpose?
When his stomach and lungs and sinuses had emptied most that he had ingested, he felt marginally better and, though he still could not see properly, and had no idea what the full extent of this underwater chamber might be, he could tell by the echoes of the lapping waves that he was in a confined area. A constant hum rang in his ears. The dim coloured lights he had seen while swimming — the lights that had offered him an image of his dead son — moved slowly through the air and swirled about his head.
A quiet voice called out, “Visitor? Visitor?”
Tran so gingerly shook his head to clear it — unsuccessfully — and did not respond.
“Visitor? Have you come to help me? Are you a man in uniform? Are you staff? Are you guest? By that, I mean, do you represent the engineer?”
Hugging himself, Tran so tried to stand. “My name,” he said, grating out his words, “is Tran so Phengh. I am here on my wife’s behalf.” His teeth chattered. “She has the Red Plague and soon will be dead. Your remedy is not helping her.”
“You did not come here to repair the damage done to me? I have been plundered, man. Pilfered.”
“Are you the lake god?”
The reply might have been a chuckle. “It seems we are both disappointed. I am no god, and you claim to be something other than a maintenance worker. My title, Tran so Phengh, is supervisor of the seventh reservoir. I’ve been waiting many years to return to full service.”
Tran so did not understand this. He said, “A crab told me that gods didn’t know how to fix people. Is that true?”
Again, laughter, though it was not mean. “For some reason, guest, I feel very proud about my crabs being able to talk. You might not be able to comprehend the challenge, with regards to the creature’s tiny neural mass . . . I’ve been bored here over the years. Lonely. That’s another story. I can’t help you, human. I can’t. I wish I could but I function minimally now. The network is down — ”
In Tran so’s peripheral vision there was motion, aggressive and quick. A moment later, when a powerful knee pressed into his back and something cold and solid jammed flat against his temple, he realized he should have asked the voice who or what had been doing the plundering, or if he was in any danger. Clearly, it was too late for conjecture and regret; two giant gods, in blue, twice his size, had easily subdued him before he had even a chance to think.
His cheek was crushed painfully against the floor. His arms were bound behind his back. Recalling the glimpse he’d seen of the smooth, dark faces, eyes glowing angrily within them, Tran so Phengh was entirely certain that he would never see Minnie sue or his home in Hoffmann City again, and that his questions would go forever unanswered.
2. SOLDIERS
PHISTER, L31
With surprising speed — belying all appearances, for he had begun to look quite ill and immobile — McCreedy twisted in the driver’s seat, gloved fist darting off from the wheel to snatch at Philip — who stood, in the rear of the car, arms open wide and face upturned, oblivious to any dismay he might have caused. Old crooked fingers roughly caught the dandy by the lapels of his dirty jacket before he could begin whatever soliloquy he had been about to start, yanking him forward, to crash, aghast, face to face with a terrible, red-faced rage.
“Where the fuck are we?” McCreedy screamed, dark moss spittle spraying from his lips. “What was that fucking thing?”
On the passenger’s side, awed, eagle eyes wide, Young Phister had been pondering the exact same two questions.
“Unhand me!” Philip flailed. “Barbarian!” In vain, he tried to pull free, shoving against McCreedy’s face with an open palm. “I fed you bread! I tried to help you! Lunatic!”
Jostled in his seat by the scuffle, Phister swayed. How he wanted to lose himself in this open vista, suck it in, as if it were purest oxygen, though if truth be told, the place they had come to smelled musty and dry.
He did not interfere in the fight.
He tried wishing the other two men away.
The feeling was as if his mind had been once composed of tiny chambers and narrow halls, like his world, and was now expanding rapidly, bursting free of crumbling confines, expanding outward at increasing velocity.
A moment ago, upon rolling out of what Philip had cavalierly called ‘the lift’ — and McCreedy had just referred to as ‘that fucking thing’ — Young Phister’s jaw had dropped.
“Unhand me!”
McCreedy roared.
Pushing and shaking at each other, the grappling men attempted to gain advantage without much effectiveness. Thuds of various body parts off the car, off each other. A knee bone jammed against Phister’s ribs and glanced into the speedometer, webbing the plastic cover with cracks.
In different circumstances, the fight might actually have been amusing.
Philip wailed, “What’s the matter with you?”
“Tell me where you’ve taken us! Tell me where we are, you fucker!”
Where they were was not a room. An area this vast must be called something else. Larger than Phister had imagined any possible place, except in dreams. The nearest wall appeared to be over a hundred metres away, running behind rows and rows of crates bigger themselves than most rooms he had known. There were no halls at all, none visible from where the car had stopped — no corridors, either, of any sort — and the floor, what he could see of it, was bone-dry and comprised of small, uniform, grey tiles.
Far above, hazy, darker patches of a ceiling, glimpsed through layers of what looked to be dense vapour. Ceilings Phister knew were touchable. By some means or another. Maybe you needed to jump, or step on something, or maybe pipes got in the way, but there had never been a ceiling he couldn’t touch. Ever. His entire life.
Until this one.
In several locations, boxes, crates, and barrels were stacked so high they faded, ghostly, near invisible from this distance, beyond the mist. Suffused light permeated down, casting its yellowed hue over the car, the boxes, the tiled floor, the entire massive space.
The panorama gave him vertigo. Under the distant ceiling, despite his expanding mind, Young Phister was miniature, and he felt more insignificant than usual.
But they had gone up!
Crazy stories from Boy Harbour and the like were true: the world was divided into two tiers. Stacked one on top of the other. Phister knew this now, first hand, because he and McCreedy and Philip and the car had driven inside an elevating device. And they had gone up —
Philip was wedged in the front seat now and McCreedy had managed to free a hand long enough to punch him, hard, in the chops, once, twice, knocking his wool hat off. Only when a boot hit Phister in the side of the head did he grab McCreedy’s arm with both of his own.
“Okay, that’s enough! Stop fighting!”
Philip, bleeding from the nose, rose, flopping heavily over the windshield, onto the hood of the car, with McCreedy still held rigid at arm’s length.
“Unprovoked,” Philip grunted. “Of all the — ” His body shook with efforts to keep the driver at bay. “I’ve never — ”
But that black glove darted out again, grabbing Philip by the throat this time. The words issued from McCreedy were guttural, expelled in staccato bursts from that mucus-hardened tube of gristle the driver called a throat: “One last — time — tell me — what the fuck — this place is!”
“Enough!” Phister had nearly been pushed out of the car; he managed to force his scrawny body back between those of the larger men. His ear, where the boot had landed, was aflame. Every physical resource he possessed channelled down into his wiry limbs, holding his body locked tight until the men finally separated, collapsing, panting, staring each other down.
Phister said, “Come on, McCreedy. Why you wanna attack this guy? You didn’t have to hit him.”
&n
bsp; The old man slowly turned. His breathing rasped and there was blood at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were wild. “Who’s side you on?”
“Side? There’s no sides. Why do you think we have to take sides? All I’m saying is you can’t beat the shit out of anyone you want, whenever you want.”
“This is my life, you little fuck. What you can’t do is tell people how to act. And yes, sometimes you do have to beat the crap out of people. Like now. You think we should embrace this guy? Look around you. Where the fuck has he taken us?”
Philip managed to struggle up onto one elbow. Blood smeared the hood in two thin streaks beneath him. “Phister, what I propose, young man, is that we tie this lunatic up. In some fashion.” His face was already puffy, his lips split, one eye closing. And his teeth were red with blood, hair in total disarray. “He’s clearly a threat to both of us. Himself, too. He’s insane . . .”
Phister rubbed at his sore ribs and said nothing while McCreedy glared, stubbly chin thrust forward, probably waiting for either Phister or Philip to make a move. But if push came to shove — and, Phister supposed, it just had — his allegiance would have to fall, unfortunately, with old man McCreedy.
After a long moment, when it must have become apparent to Philip that Phister would not offer a response, or concur with his suggestion, the man tried a new tack.
“Am I, then,” he said, wiping his face with a sleeve and blowing tentatively through both nostrils as if to test them, “to understand . . . to understand that, that neither of you have been in a lift pod before? Never been . . . up? Either of you?” Beneath his stained jacket, the man’s chest still heaved. He straightened the fabric and tried to brush it flat. “You two have never left the basement? At all?”
Phister had to quickly wedge his shoulder hard against McCreedy’s head because the old man had started to get up again, trying to grab Philip from around Phister’s torso. But he was losing momentum.
“No,” Phister said. “We never done that before. That pod thing you brung us in. We didn’t even know such a thing existed. Or that this place did. This upper level. Only rumours of it . . . We didn’t know . . .”
“I had assumed.” Philip slid off the hood, onto his feet. “But I should never assume. I tell my students that all the time. I could not conceive that anyone would stay in one place for . . . for generations? Especially the basement. No matter how ignorant they appear.” Glaring at McCreedy, who did not react this time.
At least, not with violence.
“We fuckin stayed put,” the driver said. His voice was oddly flat. “We stayed away from everything and everyone and let me tell you we were fuckin happy down there.”
Philip narrowed his eyes, suspicious of this lull. He said, “I suppose you might be in a state of shock. It’s understandable. Your first time away from home. Though really, Phister, I must say that this cretin’s reaction,” chin indicating McCreedy, “is inexcusable, for a man of our era. Yet I feel much empathy for you, dear boy. I should have mentioned in advance what we were about to do. Or perhaps realized the extent of your provinciality.” Wiping his face again, Philip winced when he saw the fresh blood that marked his sleeve. “Well, let me tell you,” he looked up, “a few facts.
“This place is called the warehouse. Most of it — most of what I’ve seen, anyway — is much the same as what you presently view. Boxes and shelves and such. My students and I congregate here at times, to rehearse, on account of the open areas and good acoustics.
“All we did was hail a multiple pod from the basement, enter it, and take it up one level. That’s it. Nothing magical or mysterious. People do it every day.”
Phister and McCreedy, sitting there, slack-jawed.
“How can I express this succinctly? You two gentlemen have lived, underfed, isolated, at the bottom of the world. Literally.”
McCreedy said, “And if you don’t take us back down there again soon, I’ll wring your fuckin neck.” Yet his gloved hands lay on the dashboard railing like two dead animals. Sweat beaded his forehead and ran in rivulets at his temples and from beneath his cap. He was beginning to emit a sharp stench.
Standing by the car, grooming, Philip snorted, “Take you back down? I will do no such thing. You, sir, are a maniac and an imbecile and I am departing your company this very instant.”
McCreedy hunched farther into the driver’s seat. The fight he’d had inside was certainly gone, expended in one flurry. He stared blankly at Philip, subdued, and seeing this look on McCreedy’s face, Phister could not help but think that the old man’s surprising deflation was in part due to his own lack of support. Phister just hadn’t wanted to be left alone with McCreedy. Not for another three days. He found it hard to believe that two grown men could act like such fools. He asked Philip, “So what does that mean? You’re going to leave us here?”
“As I said, I wish you the best of luck, young man.” Philip bent and retrieved his wool hat, dusted it off, and pulled it down over his head. He tucked strands of his long white hair up under the hat and fixed it in place. “My condolences for travelling with such an abrasive lout. You seem like a reasonable boy. Under better circumstances I might have taught you a thing or two.”
McCreedy snorted but held his retort.
“You can’t leave us,” Phister said.
“Listen. I fed you, and I tried to help you. All I received for my efforts was verbal abuse and a blow to the nose. I am unaccustomed to such treatment. I was doing you a favour. I am unaccustomed to the company of ill-bred men. Adieu. And bonne chance.”
“Go fuck yourself,” McCreedy said, peering out from under his cap with hooded eyes. “And stick your fancy words up your ass.”
“A clever comeback,” said Philip. “What else could I expect?”
Young Phister motioned with a sweep of one arm, indicating the stacks of boxes both near and far and the strange, seemingly endless areas that lay beyond and between them. “But where do we go? I mean, how big is this warehouse?”
Philip shrugged. “Nobody I’ve encountered in my extensive travels has seen all its extremities. Though logic dictates such borders must exist. There has to a north, south, east, and west to all places, no? Four boundaries, a top, and a bottom?” Clearly, Philip relished opportunities for impromptu lessons; he relished the sound of his own voice. “I can tell you one thing: there are thousands — possibly hundreds of thousands — of receptacles stored here.”
“Is there another layer of the world, Philip, like this one? Another one? Above?” Now that he’d encountered this place, and thought a little about it, the notion of a third layer, possibly even a fourth — piled one on top of the other — seemed to be a possibility. Anything did. Phister had pointed up, but warily, as if by aiming his finger at the high ceiling he might bring down some sort of wrath upon their collective heads. He felt the weight of the answer before he heard Philip’s response.
“Of course there is. More levels than you could imagine. They go up forever. Well, at least until they hit the suns. The whole thing is capped off with the blue sky. The top of the world.”
Despite anticipating this, the news was more unsettling to Phister’s already unsettled state than he had prepared himself for. Really, how could he assimilate this? Sitting there, stunned, he wondered if he ever would. Who would he be, this time tomorrow, if he were even still alive? Knowledge like this would surely change him. Change would surely kill him. Gripping the railing with one hand, and gripping the doorframe with the other, he said, “Don’t abandon us. Look, McCreedy has, well, he has problems. He won’t attack you again.”
“Like fuck I won’t,” McCreedy said. “You little freak. You fence-sitter. Listen to me.” One of those lifeless gloved hands lifted from the car’s rail but did not make it quite as far as Phister’s wrist. “This asshole won’t ever leave us, Phister. You know that?”
The first time McCreedy had used Phister’s name — ever. Just when Phister had been thinking he might not be able to get shocked any fur
ther. “What are you talking about?”
“He wants our car,” McCreedy said.
“What?” Philip sneered. “That’s absurd. Why in the world would I want a jalopy such as this?”
McCreedy set his jaw, as if it hurt to speak. “Think about it, boy. Think about how fast he climbed up onto this fucker, when he flagged us down in the corridor. Claimed he was looking for some twins and then right away he takes us here, to this place. Without a second thought. Right? What ever happened to looking for his friends? He knew we would be caught off guard here. It’s a trap. You think about it, boy. Don’t trust any hairy-headed motherfuckers. Not with teeth like that. You assholes want to tie me up and gag me, go ahead. Do what you want. But you think about what I say.”
Philip had opened his mouth in disbelief. “These absurd accusations! If you were not a sick, malnourished man, I would challenge you to a duel, right here on the spot.”
“Challenge away.” McCreedy glowered.
Young Phister furrowed his brow, staring down at the little grey tiles on the floor and thinking — as McCreedy had suggested. Maybe the old man did have a point. Maybe Philip was up to something. Certainly, the stranger was no longer as alluring as he had once been. But they needed him now, more than ever.
“Phister, I tell you, boy, that theory is utter gibberish. I’m offering help. Of mutual benefit. Why would I need a vehicle?”
Yet Philip was actually climbing onto the car again, giving McCreedy clearance as he did so, though the old man only turned his head to watch. Holding onto his ribs, a little worse for wear, Philip settled as best as he could behind Phister. “Look, if you keep driving straight ahead for about a day you’ll be over the area of the basement where you’re from. I know where it is. I’m pretty sure. You’re from Public Works. I’d heard rumours about a backward tribe living there, in some remote dead end. Your ancestors were caretakers. Garbage men. Sewer workers. I’ll get you home, if that’s what you want. And you can rest assured I’ll warn you in advance if there’s going to be a change in the scenery that might incite a seizure in our friend here.”
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