Bang

by Charles Kennedy Scott

  ‘She’d never have worked that out for herself,’ said the lift designer, ‘not a hairdresser. Highlighting is one thing, a formula is quite another. My bag, actually, that sort of business. I’m not so bad with the old mathematical teaser. Mind you, I couldn’t cut a man’s hair if my life depended upon it. Ha ha.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ echoed the warden, but didn’t mean it either.

  A formula, thought Delilah, but didn’t show it.

  ‘I have some rather unusual predilections,’ said the lift designer. ‘And I was rather hoping they’d be catered for down here. I’m a rich man, warden. Lifts, you know. Could we talk?’ He flashed his Life.

  ‘Come into my office.’

  Now that she was stuck stood up in this cage, Delilah wished she was back in the hand and voice chamber. In the chamber she’d wished she was back in the shower unit. Nothing made her want to be back in Wet Room 102, nothing. But everything made her want to be back up outside, on the moving floors, even in the arms of Harry for 25 seconds. Those 25 seconds were the most recent, probably last ever, moments of kindness, if you could call them kindness, that she’d had or would have. Harry was a distant memory. They said that about prison, that your recent past became a distant memory. Really it was only a few days ago. What worried her more was the future: her impending miscarriage of justice, the sentencing, this cage. As the lift designer spoke and the warden looked rather startled then nodded his head, Delilah gave the bars a good rattle. But they didn’t, didn’t rattle. There was no give in the apparatus, other than the wheels, which really were very shoddily welded to the base. The locks were still welded as smooth as ever, very neatly done, the food-poisoned plumber had been a dab hand with the torch. Rattling the bars would according to the formula no doubt accord her an increased duration in here but she didn’t think anybody had seen her: the officers on guard in Remand 111 were only half attentive with only three prisoners left to guard, and tired too after dumping all the food-poisoned bodies in the lift and sending them to 330. Delilah needed to get out of the cage and needed to get an officer’s uniform to the lift designer and didn’t have a clue how to do either. Not because she was a hairdresser but because the task seemed insurmountable.

  ‘Cooee,’ called her junkie ex-teacher. ‘Got any more pills?’

  With that, Delilah began to have an idea, but didn’t know what it was yet. She could only feel it, ideas were like that sometimes. Soon somebody would explain why.

  ‘I’m high,’ said the teacher, ‘but I wanna get higher still. I wanna get mashed, me. This is top quality orange. You’re a much better supplier than the last one. He was a rip-off merchant. One day he encouraged me to nibble the edge of a pill to convince me of the quality then sold me a piece of orange chalk, saying it was how the pills came before they were cut. We’re not allowed scissors down here, and that’s probably the real reason, so I swallowed the whole thing and what happened? Nothing. Not the slightest hit. All it did was settle my stomach. I complained next time I saw him and he told me in his creaky old voice that it was just the way of the street and what was he supposed to do about it. I said I didn’t know what the street had to do with it. Anyway I had no choice but buy more pills from him because I needed a fix, and these pills were distinctly iffy at best. Another day he took my cabbage payment upfront, said he had to go see a man, then never returned. That was the last we ever saw of that dealer. Have you seen him at all? He was old and wore a nightcap, kept crying Go to sleep, Go to sleep. I’d have put him in detention if I’d been his teacher. Your paths crossed at all? No? Now about that pill? You’d make my day. Toss us one over, I’ll pay you later. You can trust me, your old teacher. You were my favourite pupil. I kept an eye out for you.’

  Now in the forced employ of the Whipping Boy, and working her idea over, Delilah delved into the package for a pill. The orange pills were wrapped ten apiece in smaller packages, like little tubes, and their supply was bountiful. What hadn’t been made clear was how the Whipping Boy expected Delilah to take payment. She didn’t have a Life down here, not even a limited one like some of the now-dead remand prisoners, and certainly not a flash one like the lift designer’s, which could have been her old one it looked so similar, even the tiny scratch – so she couldn’t take payment that way. What the Whipping Boy would want with a cabbage she couldn’t imagine. Nor could she imagine where her ex-teacher sourced these cabbages – a further 32 formed a pyramid in the corner of the junkie pen. Crossing her fingers, she tossed a whole tube over to her ex-teacher and cried, loud as she could, ‘No charge for those ten pills!’

  Now she had to do two things at once. She cried, ‘Let me out. Let me out. I hate it in here. Let me out. Please let me out. You’ve got to let me out. Let me out. I demand that you LET ME OUT.’ This would achieve two things she hoped.

  First, remove any hope, an unbearable hope at that, that she might at any moment be released: the Superintendent said he’d take her hope away, but rather than let him do it, she did it herself. That felt good.

  Second, and followingly, she hoped by shouting to be let out she was forcing the Authority into a position where they couldn’t release her, thus taking control away from the Authority, acted for by the System, or in this case Warden 111, and in doing so her intention wasn’t so much to crack the formula – that would be too hard – as to overstrain it, upset it, mess with it, and leave them with only one option: release her from the cage, back into their control.

  Beyond that, she needed the uniform, so that the lift designer could dress up as an officer and escort her, his prisoner, to the lift and up and out. At least that was the idea. Escape, get beyond that Whipping Boy’s clutches, before he came for her. She knew he would. But didn’t know he was already on his way.

  The commotion began quickly. ‘Free drugs?’ shouted an agitated officer. ‘You can’t give the teacher free drugs. I want some too.’

  Bargains, thought Delilah, no one can resist them. ‘Come and get your pills.’ She hoped that jealousy and greed, always good motivators, would conspire with her plan and urge it along.

  An officer said, ‘If you’re giving him some, you’ll have to give me some too. I’m senior to him. Also I’m naturally the better man, if I may use the word naturally.’

  Another officer said, ‘I’m subordinate to that officer but superordinate to the other one, who is a foolish fool and invents stupid rubber stripes he has no idea what to do with. So you’ll have to give me pills if you give them both some. You’ll have no choice. There would be no question about it. Only an answer. His stripes are very stretchy. But they are purposeless. I want some pills.’

  ‘We’re having a party,’ called Delilah, eager to further gee up the officers as they arranged themselves with much argument into a pecking order, Warden 111 at the queue’s head ready at Delilah’s bars for his drugs.

  An officer said, ‘Parties are illegal.’

  An officer said, ‘So are drugs, technically. I will make good use of my elasticated stripes, just you see.’

  An officer said, ‘Technically, yes, you are not wrong there, I agree, but we’ve a hard day, what with the prisoners’ mass suicide. I wonder why they all decided to kill themselves like that? Still, they’ll regret it once the Former Bottle Manufacturer gets his hands on them. I’m telling you, your stripes have no purpose.’

  ‘They do. I have friend with a sowing machine.’

  The Warden spoke in his deep nasty voice. ‘A party it is then.’

  ‘Fancy dress,’ said Delilah.

  An officer said, ‘Not likely, we don’t do fancy dress. We’re System officers.’

  ‘I thought you could all dress up like Officer Gentle, to salute his memory. I have been bequeathed his clothes. It is only right that you all wear them,’ said Delilah. ‘You ought to honour him.’

  An officer sniggered.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said the Warden in his deep nasty voice, who didn’t seem to have a laugh itself. ‘That would be rather amusing. Send for the prisoner’
s bequeathment! Lock up the prisoners, we’re having a party.’

  ‘I’d like to come, too, if I may,’ said the rich lift designer, after Delilah shot him a look, and flashed his life again.

  ‘You may. It will cost, though. Ha ha.’

  Delilah handed the drugs out, liberally. The party got under way and the officers ran around, some in pink crotch-high synthetic fur boots that presumably Gentle had retained for private occasions, some not. Delilah watched from her bars and shouted and clamoured to be released. And waited.

  She watched two painters in bespattered overalls repainting Remand 111 an imperceptibly lighter shade of lilac than it already was, and wondered what the point of this was, and she waited.

  And waited.

  Her plan didn’t seem to be working. She stared at the plumber’s weld torch still on the floor where JJ Jeffrey had dropped it earlier. She was full of hope, and it hurt like anything. Hope was a pain.

  I am an officer,’ said an officer in an officer’s uniform who was in fact the lift designer, ‘and I’ve been instructed to remove you from this cage.’ He picked up the weld torch. ‘This decision has been taken by the Authority, which is acted for by the System, which is acted for by Warden 111 or by any party so designated by his instruction to so act, in this case me. I think that’s how it went. You, prisoner, have taken too much power into your own hands. You will therefore be released from the cage into the care of the Authority who will reassume control of your body and mind, not that the two are actually separate, as we have recently discovered. Additionally, and directly contradicting what I've just said, and by the power invested in me by the Authority to speak on its behalf, and citing the unpredictability that all absolute powers have, and further not because you have ruined the formula, because through your amateur double-bluffing you have not come close to doing so, but for another reason, which you will at any moment discover, I am told, I am releasing you.’

  ‘Just unweld the lock and shut up!’ said Delilah. He did so.

  ‘I have been promoted,’ the lift designer said when he’d done that and let her out. ‘I am now an officer.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Delilah. ‘We need to escape.’

  ‘When I asked the officer for his trousers he said, ‘Be my guest, officer, they are on the floor over there. Slip them on.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Whatever.’

  ‘You will furnish me a little more respect, madam.’

  ‘If you say so. Now get out of my way.' She raised a flat hand, a hand of the like that had initiated Gentle’s death, thought better of it, sidestepped the lift designer, feeling sure that she was missing something she should have thought of. As drug-high officers watched on in amusement, pointing, she reminded him, 'Remember, I'm your prisoner. You’re escorting me. Now, let's get go. This way, the lift.’ The lift designer followed. In this manner Delilah tried to pretend he was escorting her. It wasn’t very convincing.

  But before Delilah and the lift designer, also known as an elevator maker, got to it, the lift’s doors hissed open, mouthy as usual, and, knocking the big-headed popcorn seller and his popcorn flying, the Whipping Boy exited them and entered Remand 111. His Voltaire was holstered, and he was sullen and depressed: yesterday had been his birthday and today he’d failed his calculus exam. All the same, his were eyes scouting, Delilah knew, for her.

  ‘Hide,’ she said. ‘Quick.’

  ‘No, no,’ said the lift designer, in a purring voice and brushing aside Delilah’s warning with a confident voice. ‘I can’t resist it.’

  ‘Resist what?’ hissed Delilah, tugging at his uniform. ‘Hide, fast.’

  ‘Nonsense. The warden has come good. Huh-loh ...’ called the lift designer, now making his way over to the Whipping Boy. ‘Hullo, hullo ...’ Delilah put her hands over her face. The lift designer bent forward and asked, ‘Little boy, would you like some sweeties?’ Delilah looked through her fingers.

  ‘You talking pills?’ replied the Whipping Boy, who felt it his duty to test competitor’s pills before disposing of them, the competitors.

  ‘Not exactly,’ suggested the lift designer. ‘But I do have some lovely sweeties in the trouser pocket of my uniform. Why don’t you take a look. Here.’ He gently took the Whipping Boy’s wrist and guided his hand. ‘Have a feel,’ he said. ‘Bit deeper. Yes, that’s right ...’

  Oh no, thought Delilah, still looking through her fingers. The Whipping Boy, twigging what was going on – who while in some matters was ahead of his years, in others was still only ten, or eleven as of yesterday – freed himself with his surprising strength from the lift designer and stepped back. He unholstered his Voltaire. ‘What do you think of this?’

  ‘I very much like whips,’ whispered the lift designer, thrilled, unaware of what was about to happen.

  ‘This is a Voltaire,’ said the Whipping Boy.

  ‘Is it now, my pretty one? That’s a nice name for a whip. And isn’t it so very long. We will have lots of fun together. Now let me show you my whip …’ The lift designer began going for his fly … but the next moment his eye was gone.

  ‘I did it,’ shouted the Whipping Boy. The lift designer was yet to scream. ‘I did it. I did it!’

  The lift designer screamed. Delilah moved her hands from over her eyes to over her ears. She couldn’t stop herself from listening, though.

  The Whipping Boy was jubilant. ‘First time once again. I thought I’d lost it. But I got his eye out first time. Just like I used to. Hole in one!’

  Then the screaming lift designer’s other eye was gone too – or nearly. For on a dangle of nerve it swung from its socket, and the lift designer, or elevator maker, desperate to escape, had no choice but follow escape routes this dangling eye offered, which were generally down toward the floor, or left, or right, depending upon the swing. He soon fell over. Couldn’t get up. Delilah watched dismayed as the Whipping Boy used his ears for target practice. ‘You next,’ said the finger that pointed at Delilah when the Whipping Boy paused briefly for breath. She edged toward the lift, slowly, surely, unimpeded. Then, just about to make a leap for its open doors, she was grabbed from behind and taken by a powerful force. Darkness next.

  11 – A Kidnap

  ‘You’ve been kidnapped,’ said a voice.

  Great, thought Delilah, just my luck.

  ‘By the two genetics students. You may have heard of us.’

  Nope, thought Delilah.

  ‘We’ve heard of you, in any case.’

  ‘Otherwise we wouldn’t have kidnapped you.’

  ‘We’d have kidnapped someone else.’

  ‘We can take the bag off her head now.’ While doing so they stepped out of their painters’ overalls, unnecessarily complicating the whole procedure, because they could easily have done this before or after. From somewhere distant came a clunky bang. Over in a corner stood a suitcase, which seemed to be humming and at which the kidnappers were smiling. Whenever I’m about to escape, thought Delilah dejectedly, something bad happens.

  ‘You might have noticed …’ said one of the students, and left it at that. He was long-haired and had a low-income look. His partner (neither could have been much older than Delilah) had neat dark hair and forwarded the impression of wealth and travel. He ran a hand through his partner’s hair as if it were his own, and said, ‘… that whenever you’re about to escape, something bad happens. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed. But this is the way of the System. You can’t escape. They have to let you out. Even if they don’t want to. They’ll have to let us out, and they certainly won’t want to do that. Which is where you come in.’ He ran his hand through his partner’s hair again and scratched his scalp, then displayed relief on his own face.

  The long-haired student said to him, ‘Get off me, I don’t like when you do that.’ Then to Delilah, ‘You’re quite a name down here.’

  ‘Right, let’s call them, where’s that Life?’

  They juggled the Life then made the call. ‘We have shown what we can do. Give in to
our demands or we kill the prisoner. That’s right, put a bullet through her brain. A brain bullet.’

  Delilah braced herself at this unfortunate development. She widened her big eyes.

  A reply came back on the Life, ‘Do away with her. We agreed to that anyway. You have no bargaining tool. You have shown us nothing. Surrender yourselves, students. You don’t stand a chance.’

  ‘We have killed many prisoners,’ said the foreign-sounding neat-haired student. ‘Do not mess up with us, matey.’

  He was laughed off: ‘Ha ha.’ From the sounds of it, Warden 111 conducted these negotiations.

  The student stated, ‘By execution of a carefully engineered piece of biological terrorism we have mass-murdered. Give in to our demands or worse will follow.’

  There was silence this time, then laughter again, ‘Ha ha.’ Then, ‘Wait one moment, my boots are itching.’

  ‘Never mind your boots! Our creation the bloodbottles laid their eggs in the feast. Many ate of this feast and died. Their death belongs to us. We can recreate such an incident at will. We are progenitors of doom. We are calling the shots now, Warden 111, and you’d better believe it.’

  There was silence this time, then no laughter.

  ‘That’s made them think,’ said the poor student, flinging the other student’s hand from his hair and arranging it into a ponytail and tying it back, so that his forehead got stretched taut and his eyes bulged. His T-shirt claimed I’ve seen 333, which he hadn’t, it was an outlandish claim typical of students that didn’t fit easily into society, one that put them at risk of making the very visit they claimed they’d made but hadn’t.