The Cut Out

by Jack Heath

  At the bottom of the escalator he ran past the tattered movie posters, the billboards advertising iced coffee, the stained maps of the railway until he could see the turnstile. He sprinted towards it and jumped, sailing over the plastic barrier. His shoes skidded across the tiles as he landed on the other side.

  He looked up and down the platform. A tourist with a giant backpack stood nearby. A uniformed petrol station employee played with his phone while a pair of teenage girls whispered in each other’s ears. None of them were looking in Fero’s direction. A train waited, doors open, engine humming. His timing had been perfect.

  ‘Don’t you move!’ The moustachioed police officer was clambering over the turnstile behind him.

  Fero sprinted towards the train—

  But the doors were starting to close.

  ‘No, no, no!’ he cried.

  He reached the train just as the doors slammed shut. He pounded his fist on the safety glass. The passengers inside pretended not to see him.

  The police officer sauntered over. He knew Fero had nowhere else to go.

  ‘Lie down on the ground,’ he said, yelling to be heard over the train’s whining engine.

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’ Fero said.

  ‘Lie down.’ The officer pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and reached out for Fero with a gloved hand. The tourist was staring at them.

  Resisting arrest. Fare evasion. Unlawful assembly, disturbing the peace, or however the cops described participation in a protest that turned violent. Fero might be twenty-five or thirty by the time he got out of prison.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, dropping to his knees. ‘I’m lying down.’

  Then, as the officer tried to grab him, Fero gripped a handrail at the rear of the departing train.

  Pain exploded in his shoulder as the train dragged him off the platform and into the darkness of the tunnel.

  Fero caught a glimpse of the astonished officer’s face before the platform was sucked away. He kept his fist clenched around the handrail as the train rocketed through the tunnel.

  He had hoped to swing up onto the doorstep at the rear of the train and prise open the carriage door. But it was impossible. He’d been pulled down onto the tracks, and there was no way of climbing up. The rail bed was full of ballast – thick gravel that bounced under his shoes, bruising his ankles and his legs as the train accelerated.

  He pulled his feet onto one of the rails. There was no shower of sparks, no lethal shock as his shoes slid along the hot metal. The train must run on overhead power – or perhaps the current couldn’t penetrate the rubber soles.

  The handrail shuddered in his hand. His grip was slipping. He reached up and grabbed it in his other fist. The tunnel smelled like a coalmine. He could feel the oil coating his lungs. The clatter of the giant wheels was deafening; Fero longed to plug his ears, but couldn’t spare the fingers.

  If he let go, what would happen? Would hitting the ground break his neck, or would his clothes offer enough protection? He didn’t want to risk it. He kept his feet balanced on the rail, desperate to avoid the stony blur beneath.

  Ladders hung from the walls, whipping past every few seconds. Climbing one would probably lead Fero up to a manhole in the street, giving him the chance to run home. But he’d have to let go of the speeding train, and the ballast wasn’t the only peril below him. Deep pits yawned between the tracks, one every few metres. He didn’t know why these holes had been dug or what was at the bottom of them – and he didn’t want to find out.

  The next station on this line was directly under the Botanic Gardens. Even if he could get out of the station, the park gates were locked at night and he couldn’t climb the fence, since the whole park was currently covered by a gigantic bird net. But if he climbed onto the platform, he could board the train and ride it to Coralsk Station, near his parents’ apartment.

  There was a problem with this plan: he wasn’t sure he could make it to Garden Station. His hands, arms, legs and feet felt like they were on fire.

  The train lurched to the right. Fero slid sideways onto the rail bed where the ballast slammed into his feet. The impact shook one of his hands loose from the rail. His other arm stretched as it took the weight. He screamed and kicked his legs rapidly so the gravel wouldn’t scrape off his flesh.

  He couldn’t hang on much longer. He was going to have to let go.

  Maybe I’ll survive the impact, he thought desperately.

  The handrail slipped from his palm to his fingers, then from his fingers to his fingertips.

  He gritted his teeth. This was going to hurt—

  Then he realised the train was slowing down.

  The stones pounded his legs with less and less force. The roaring of the wheels settled down to a dark rumbling as the brakes squealed in the enclosed space. Fero could finally hear his ragged breaths and his pounding heart.

  The carriages groaned to a shuddering halt. A recorded announcement echoed through the tunnel: ‘The train departing from platform three stops all stations to North Kamau.’

  I made it, he thought. I actually—

  The door above him slid open. Someone grabbed his wrist.

  Fero looked up at the two uniformed transit officers.

  ‘You’re in a whole lot of trouble, kid,’ one of them growled.

  SPOOKS

  The Towzhik Police Station wasn’t at all what Fero had pictured. He’d imagined bare brick walls, barred windows, benches with cuffs and fetters. Instead, the foyer looked like the waiting room at the Coralsk General Medical Practice. Battered, brightly coloured toys for toddlers lay in the corner. Outdated magazines were stacked on a low table, curling up at the edges. Upbeat posters displayed reassuring words like SAFE and PROTECT.

  Fero thought the soothing decor was spoiled somewhat by all the guns.

  His arresting officer – a heavy-set, shovel-handed man named Sergeant Hilliev – had a semiautomatic pistol holstered on his hip. Another cop leaning against the opposite wall had a snub-nosed revolver. And Fero was pretty sure there were more weapons under the receptionist’s desk.

  It seemed like everyone he knew carried a gun. His father carried one. So did his history teacher, Ms Tilya, and all the security guards at the Stolkalny shopping centre. Most kids his age seemed to be used to it, but whenever there was a gun in the room Fero found himself very aware of the angle of the barrel and the body language of the person who carried it.

  The cuffs were cold and tight around his wrists. I’m under arrest, he told himself. I’m a criminal. I’m going to prison.

  It wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be. The certainty that his life was over summoned a kind of numbness. He felt nothing at all.

  Sergeant Hilliev had a face like an Easter Island head and arms like the pillars in an underground car park. His uniform was crisp and dark. He had told Fero that he didn’t have to say anything, and that anything he did say was evidence, but also that anything he left out might harm his defence at his trial.

  Fero tried to picture his trial. He couldn’t. Nothing seemed real.

  The man behind the reception counter was bearded and hunched, with an improbably muscular head – veins bulged behind his jaw and across his clean-shaven skull. Fero wondered which gym offered a head workout. The name Pogodin was etched into a bronze badge on his breast pocket.

  Pogodin lifted a camera with a huge lens, connected to the underside of his desk by a power cable. He snapped one, two, three photographs of a young man with blood on his fingertips who stood behind the counter with his back to a height chart. Fero recognised him – it was the man with the drum and the earrings who had been at the protest.

  His drum was gone now. He didn’t look at Fero. He just stared at Pogodin with sunken, exhausted eyes. His sweaty hair was dragged sideways across his scalp. A purple bruise grew on his cheekbone like some sort of exotic fungus. The blood on his fingers, when Fero looked closer, turned out to be ink.

  ‘I want my phone call,’ said the
drummer.

  ‘You watch too many movies,’ Pogodin replied. ‘You don’t get a phone call.’

  ‘I need to call my lawyer.’

  ‘We’ll call your lawyer.’

  Fero wondered if his parents had a lawyer. A woman had helped them with the contracts when they bought their apartment, but he thought that might be a different kind of law.

  The cop with the revolver opened a door at the side of the waiting room. The yelling and clattering of other prisoners filled the air. The officer hauled the drummer out of sight, and let the door slam shut behind them. The screams were immediately silenced.

  ‘Fero Dremovich,’ Pogodin called.

  Sergeant Hilliev led Fero up to the counter. ‘Put your hands up here,’ he said.

  Fero rested his aching wrists on the plastic countertop. Pogodin slid an ink pad and a piece of paper towards him. Ten empty squares waited. The middle two were designated LEFT THUMB and RIGHT THUMB.

  ‘Can you call my parents?’ Fero asked.

  ‘This comes first,’ the receptionist said.

  The cuffs rattled as Hilliev grabbed Fero’s hands and mashed them against the ink pad. Then he rolled the stained fingertips across the paper one by one. Fero watched the loops and whorls appear on the paper.

  He was on file now. Even if a lawyer managed to keep him out of prison, anything he touched could be linked to him. Any government employee could search for his name and an arrest record would pop up.

  ‘This way,’ Pogodin said, leading Fero around the counter to the height chart. ‘Look at me, please.’

  Fero did.

  ‘Smile.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I need to see your teeth.’

  Fero smiled until his face hurt. Mum and Dad will be so ashamed, he thought.

  The flash blinded him for a few seconds. As he blinked and rubbed his eyes, Pogodin examined the picture on the screen.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Turn to face that way.’

  Fero turned side-on. His shadow flickered on the height chart as Pogodin took another picture.

  ‘He’s all yours.’

  Hilliev glared at Fero. ‘Follow me.’

  Pogodin’s computer beeped.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just wait a second—’

  It beeped again. Pogodin peered at the screen, alarm filling his gaze.

  ‘My God,’ he whispered.

  Then he drew his handgun and took aim at Fero.

  It was the same gun his father had. An MP-443 Grach Yarygin pistol. Square-nosed, Russian-made, semiautomatic. Loaded with up to eighteen 9mm Parabellums, ready to punch through Fero’s skull and scramble his brains.

  Wilt said para bellum was Latin. It meant prepare for war.

  Fero wasn’t at war with anybody. But nevertheless, the iron sights of a gun were lined up with his head.

  He raised his hands. ‘Whoa! Take it easy!’ The cuffs jingled above his head.

  The pistol stared at him through a cold, black eye.

  ‘Lie down on the ground,’ Pogodin bellowed.

  ‘You already arrested me!’ Fero cried. ‘What more do you want?’

  Hilliev put one hand on his semiautomatic. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘He’s got a file,’ Pogodin said. His expression was halfway between furious and fearful. ‘He’s a Besmari spy.’

  Fero’s heart was racing. ‘What? That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Lie down on the ground!’ Pogodin’s finger was inside the trigger guard.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Fero knelt on the linoleum and crawled onto his belly.

  ‘His name isn’t Fero Dremovich,’ Pogodin said.

  ‘I checked his ID.’

  ‘Check the file.’

  Hilliev examined the computer screen and swore. He stomped on a pedal under the counter, and a shrieking siren split the air. Automatic bolts slid shut throughout the building. Heavy shutters rolled down to cover the doors and windows. The police station was completely sealed.

  Hilliev pointed his gun at Fero and flicked off the safety.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Fero yelled. ‘This is all a mistake!’

  ‘Where did you say you picked him up?’ Pogodin asked.

  ‘Garden Station.’

  ‘On which train?’

  ‘The North Kamau line.’ Hilliev’s voice was dark. ‘He was headed for the border.’

  ‘No!’ Fero’s breath was hot against the floor. ‘I was getting off at Garden! I’d be back home in Coralsk if you hadn’t grabbed me!’

  ‘Coralsk isn’t your home,’ Pogodin growled.

  ‘If he was on his way to the border,’ Hilliev said, ‘then he must already have whatever he came for.’

  ‘What did he have with him?’

  ‘Wallet. Phone. Keys.’

  ‘Get forensics to tear them apart. Did he have any weapons?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen to me!’ Fero howled. ‘Of course I have no weapons! I’m not a spy! I’m a high school student!’

  ‘Shut up,’ Pogodin said.

  ‘What do we do?’ Hilliev asked.

  ‘Call the Library.’

  This sentence made no sense to Fero, but the way Pogodin said it sent shivers up his spine.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I don’t—’

  A black bag smothered his head. He screamed as the fabric tightened across his nose and mouth. A second set of cuffs snapped closed around his ankles. Someone hauled him to a standing position and looped a chain between his wrists and feet. They tightened it so Fero couldn’t raise his hands and fastened it with a heavy padlock.

  The bag wasn’t airtight, but Fero struggled to breathe. He was blind and could barely move. The beginnings of a panic attack stirred in his belly.

  ‘We need backup.’ Hilliev sounded like he was talking on the phone. ‘We’ve just arrested Troy Maschenov.’

  The name sounded faintly familiar to Fero, but he was too panicked to remember where he had heard it. ‘I’m Fero Dremovich!’

  His voice was muffled by the black bag. No one seemed to be listening.

  ‘Call my parents,’ he said. ‘Call my teachers. My classmates. They’ll confirm what I’m telling you.’

  ‘Yes, I’m serious,’ Hilliev was saying. ‘Send one of your people right away.’

  A hand grabbed Fero’s collar and pushed him. He stumbled forwards, sideways and forwards again as he was shoved around the reception desk.

  The door clanked open. The other prisoners roared, louder than before. It sounded like dozens, even hundreds of people.

  Someone shoved him through the doorway. On either side of him, inmates yelled and pounded on cage doors. Fero shuffled blindly past the throng.

  Somebody was screaming: ‘Grigieva must go! Grigieva must go!’ The chant sounded even angrier than it had in Stolkalny Square. Whoever was shouting had probably been beaten and arrested for protesting against police brutality. Now she was crazy with rage.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Hilliev growled behind Fero.

  ‘My name is Fero Dremovich!’ The bag scraped his lips and eyelashes.

  ‘Fero?’ Irla’s voice was barely audible among the shrieking crowd. The cops must have found her behind the bins.

  ‘Irla!’ Fero yelled. ‘Tell them who I am! Please!’

  A hand hit the back of his head. ‘Shut up,’ Hilliev growled.

  Fero stumbled forward. This couldn’t be happening. Violent arrests, mistaken identities, black bags. He knew this sort of thing happened all the time in Besmar – which was a crumbling fascist dictatorship – but not here.

  Soon the police would realise that they had made a mistake; that he was just an ordinary teenage boy. Surely. He just hoped he could stay alive between now and then. The cops’ fingers had been on the triggers of their guns. They were fully prepared to shoot him.

  A lock clanked. Thick hinges moaned. Fero was pressed forwards through a doorway into what sounded like a small room. A cell, p
erhaps.

  ‘Okay,’ Pogodin said behind him. ‘You wait here until – hey!’

  Fero ducked, teeth chattering. What was happening? He had no way of defending himself.

  A woman spoke from inside the room. ‘Did I startle you, Sergeant?’

  ‘How did you get here so quickly?’ Pogodin demanded. ‘How did you get into this room?’

  ‘Shut the door and uncover him.’

  ‘He’s dangerous,’ said Hilliev, who was standing somewhere behind Fero.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

  The door boomed as it slammed shut. The bag was torn off, burning Fero’s face and leaving him blinking in the bright light. His hair crackled with static electricity.

  It wasn’t a cell. It was an interview room. Four chairs squatted on either side of a formica table. Stained linoleum lined the floor and walls. A phone was mounted on the wall, trailing loose cables. A neon light hummed overhead.

  The woman stood in the far corner, blending into the shadows. Fero could see how Pogodin hadn’t noticed her at first – her bone-coloured shirt and trousers matched the wall almost perfectly. Her shoes looked soft and flat and quiet.

  She had large, watchful eyes and hair like brown feathers. She looked like a hawk, watching the movements of three plump mice. Though she wore no make-up, her age was difficult to determine. Thirty? Fifty?

  ‘Nice to meet you, Mr Dremovich,’ she said. ‘You can call me Noelein.’

  ‘His name isn’t Dremovich,’ Pogodin said. ‘It’s Maschenov.’

  ‘This isn’t Troy Maschenov,’ Noelein said, and a tide of relief surged through Fero. He had no idea who Noelein was, but it sounded like she could save him.

  ‘The computer says his face is a match,’ Hilliev said.

  ‘The computer doesn’t know Troy Maschenov like I do.’ Noelein walked forwards, holding Fero’s gaze. Her dry, chemical perfume reminded him of the air freshener in his father’s car. ‘Maschenov has a small scar, no bigger than a shaving cut, right here.’

  She touched Fero’s chin with a pointed nail. Her face looked suddenly familiar. Had he seen her on TV? Or perhaps in a photo in the newspaper?