by J. L. Harden
I avoid the main entrances and the main hallways. I avoid the areas of the hospital where any triage nurse is likely to patrol. Security I can handle. But a triage nurse? No way. They’d take one look at me, figure nothing was wrong, kick me out and send me packing. And then they’d chastise me for wasting everyone’s time.
I descend into the depths of the hospital.
I arrive at the morgue and push my way through the large double doors.
Doctor Maximillian Schroder is hunched over a body.
He doesn’t look up. He is laser focused. “Hello, Zoe,” he says. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“You… you have?”
“Of course,” he says, waving his hand over the corpse. “We have a recently deceased citizen of Wonderland. As I understand it, the rumors floating around the Buried City are that she was killed…” he pauses, trailing off. And after looking at the dead girl, at her beauty, he reconsiders his violent choice of words. “The rumors are that she came to the end of her life via unsavory circumstances.”
I suddenly realize the body he is standing over is the girl they found with Hector.
The girl they found dead and lifeless in that sleazy hotel.
A beautiful thing in a terrible place.
Dead and lifeless.
Hector had covered her with a sheet. A sign of respect.
The girl from Wonderland. A girl who escaped Wonderland.
Her name was Ruby.
“That’s one way to put it,” I say. “She was murdered. I’m pretty sure she was poisoned.”
“I figured as much,” he answers. “No signs of struggle. No signs of trauma. No bruising around the throat. She is quite beautiful.”
“How did she even make it here? The scene, the entire hotel was closed off. Even I was banned from entering the premises. The only people allowed anywhere near the crime scene were the Enforcers. I thought for sure the girl would’ve disappeared back to Wonderland.”
“And yet here she is.”
Maybe they were going to use her as propaganda as well. Hold her corpse, her lifeless image up to the people. Show them that this pretty and innocent girl was raped and murdered by Hector Ramirez, and by the former disgraced Sheriff, Zoe Harrison.
And then they will show the people what happens when you cross Wonderland, when you kill its citizens.
It is a perfect story. As perfect as it is twisted.
Max places his hands, his finger tips on her stomach. He then places his ear over her stomach.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“There is something in her belly. In her stomach. Not food.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am not sure. This is most strange.”
He stands up and turns his attention to me. “What can I do for you, Zoe? And what has happened to your face?”
I tell him not to worry about my face. I show him my wrist, show him the tinfoil. As I do this I feel quite ridiculous. And well I should.
“What have you done to yourself?” he asks. “Another kind of tattoo?”
“I’m in trouble, Max.”
“Trouble? You are the Sheriff, no? You do not get into trouble. You stop it. You police it.”
I guess Max has been cooped up in this basement for a while.
“Not anymore,” I answer. “I’ve been framed. So has Hector Ramirez.” I point to Ruby. “We’ve been framed for her murder, for raping her, for doing a lot of terrible things.”
Max looks at the girl and then back at me. “You are not a killer of girls, of children. You are not a rapist.”
“Doesn’t matter. Because pretty soon, everyone in the Buried City will think I am a killer. They will think I’m a monster. They will be calling for blood. They will be calling for Exile and execution.”
“I see. And this is the doing of Wonderland, yes?”
Max is razor sharp. Laser focused. He knows the score. He knows better than most.
“Yeah. Something is rotten in Wonderland. These girls, Ruby, and another, they’re on the run. They escaped from Wonderland, from the Collector. And now they’re being killed. Poisoned. Murdered. They sent an Overseer into the Buried City. They sent him in so he could…”
What?
Take them back to Wonderland?
Kill them all in their sleep?
“What in this world, or the next, would make a person run from Wonderland?” Max asks. “Why would they want to escape such a beautiful refuge? Why would they sabotage their only possible chance of salvation?”
“Something terrible and awful is happening to them. Something big is going on behind the walls of Wonderland. And I need to find out what.”
I take off the foil, I show him my wrist. You can’t see the scar. It’s too precise, too small. All Max can see are my tattoos.
“What is it?” he asks.
“I was…” I want to say arrested, but that’s not the word. “I was captured. Thrown into a dungeon. I was tortured.”
Max’s face becomes more serious, if that’s even possible. “The Waiting Room?”
I don’t know how he’s heard of it. Then again, he deals with death on a daily basis. Of course he’s heard of it. “Yeah,” I say. “They threw me in and tortured me. They were setting up the frame. Setting me up as the villain, as the fall guy. They were going to sweep this under the rug, sweep it all away into the Wasteland. All this trouble, all these missing girls.”
“Girls? How many more are there?”
“Not sure. Edgar Ramirez seems to think there are at least five girls. Maybe more. But I only know of one other. Her name is Angel. And right now… she’s in just about as much trouble as a person can be in. Right now, I’m all she’s got. So I need to go and get her. I need to save her before it’s too late.”
He studies my wrist, moving towards me. He takes my forearm in his hands. “They have inserted a tracking device, attached it to the radial artery.”
“Yes.”
“The tin foil will do nothing to stop its signal. But thankfully we are surrounded by a reinforced concrete bunker. It will weaken the signal.”
“How long do I have?”
“Not long.”
He gets to work immediately. The blade he uses is so thin, so sharp, I don’t feel it. He runs it across my wrist, avoiding the artery, avoiding all the major blood vessels and veins.
I see blood. Just a little. I see it and yet I feel nothing. I feel no pain.
He then injects me with something. The needle hurt more than the scalpel.
“What is that? What did you just stick me with?”
“It is a numbing agent. You should look away.”
Yeah. I probably should.
But I don’t.
I want to see it.
Max is quick and precise. Skillful and careful. He peels back my skin. He finds the tracking device in no time at all. It’s smaller than I expected. No bigger than a finger nail clipping.
“They lay this along the artery,” he says, holding it up with tweezers. “Tiny needle like harpoons attach themselves to the walls of the artery. Attach without puncturing. To remove it, you must apply pressure to this area.” He points to a small area at the base. “Pressure here will release the harpoons and it will come free. However, apply pressure to the wrong area and it will cause the harpoons to dig deeper, slicing open the artery, causing the person to bleed to death within minutes.”
He places the tracker in a small glass dish, and then pours a few drops of liquid on top of it. Almost immediately the tracking device starts to smoke and dissolve. Within seconds it has been completely destroyed.
“What was that?” I ask. “What did you just pour over it?”
“It is a kind of acid. Very strong and concentrated. Very dangerous.”
He then takes my arm and places a kind of glue across the tiny, almost non-existent wound. “No stitches necessary. You will heal in no time at all.”
Before I can thank him, the intercom buzzes to life. “Doctor Schroder? There
’s a man here to see you. Says he’s the Sheriff? Sheriff Mike Malone…”
Max answers the intercom. “Certainly. Send him down.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for everything. I should get going. I don’t want to get you into any trouble. And believe me, if they find me here with you, there’ll be trouble.”
“Leaving so soon? Do you not want to find out what secrets the girl from Wonderland has kept hidden? Secrets she has taken to the grave, to the next world, to the afterlife.”
“Secrets?”
He moves over to Ruby. Picks up another scalpel. A bigger scalpel with a bigger blade.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” I warn. “I need to go before Mike gets here.”
“This will take no time at all,” he says as he makes an incision down the length of her stomach. “They say the dead tell no tales. But this is wrong. This is completely false. The dead will tell you everything you need to know. They will tell you secrets and history. They will tell you the entire story of their life and the entire story of their death. You only need to ask the right questions. You only need to speak the right language.”
He opens her up. And he digs around.
I should turn away. But I don’t.
“Her story is this… Her body is in a perfect state. It’s almost like it has been preserved. Whatever did this to poor Ruby was a very special kind of poison. A very rare and very expensive kind of poison.”
No question where the poison came from. This is definitely the work of Wonderland.
“You should hold your breath,” he warns. “This next part will not be pleasant.”
I’m already holding my breath. Unable to look away.
And suddenly, Max is holding what appears to be a key in his hands. A key that is covered in coagulated blood and god knows what else.
“Interesting, wouldn’t you agree? Why would she feel the need to swallow this? I wonder what treasure this key unlocks.”
I can take a guess what this key opens. A pretty damn good guess.
This is a key to a door.
A vault door.
This key unlocks the door to Wonderland.
Max cleans the key and gives it to me. He tells me to go. He will deal with the new Sheriff. He shows me an exit no one else knows about. I can hear Mike walking down the stairs.
And then I can hear him speaking into his radio. My radio. “She’s close, sir. Don’t worry, she won’t get far. Angel has been moved to the Casino. No one will find her there. Not even the fucking Overseer.”
I disappear into the shadows of the morgue, to the basement levels of the hospital, vowing to make Mike Malone’s time as Sheriff extremely painful and extremely short.
Chapter 12
Angel has been moved to the Casino…
The Casino.
God fucking dammit…
The Casino is the epicenter of the Underworld, and really, if we’re all being honest, it’s the epicenter of the Buried City. It is the heart of the community, of this refuge. It is simultaneously loved and loathed and feared. It is a special and deep circle of hell that I would rather stay away from right now. But if what Mike says is true, then I’ve got no goddamn choice but to dive right in and just hope and pray that lady luck is on my side. Or at the very least, hope she favors the bold and the reckless and has a wicked sense of humor. Maybe she’ll get a kick out of my arrogance, out of the sheer fucking audacity that I must possess, strolling into a place like the Casino.
I don’t know how I’m going to do this.
Unarmed.
With nothing but my wits.
My fists.
And the element of surprise.
The Casino is made up of three main parts.
The gaming floor.
The entertainment floor.
And the hotel.
The least patrolled, the least guarded of these areas is the entertainment floor. Not entirely sure why. I guess it’s because folks are just spending their money there, buying booze and drugs and women.
Security is ramped up on the gaming floor. There are guards everywhere. And pit bosses. And of course, the ever present surveillance cameras.
The hotel on the other hand, is a place where people can go to do all manner of messed up things. Most of these things are frowned upon by the wider community. And some of those things are even frowned upon by the criminal underworld.
Therefore, they patrol the hotel like a fucking prison.
So basically, if I want any chance of getting inside, I’ll have to sneak in through one of the bars on the entertainment floor, try and blend in with the regulars. Me, a former Sheriff, in a wolves’ den, a hive of criminals and bad guys and desperates.
Yeah, this should work out great.
I make my way to the entertainment floor. It’s something that looks like a warehouse turned into a nightclub. Bars are located right throughout the floor. Once again, I’m walking with my head lowered, looking at the floor, hiding my face. The music is cranked up. The lighting is low.
Every single person in the place is either stone drunk or just plain stoned. Every single person is trying to escape, trying to numb the stress of living underground, of living a life buried under the Wasteland, of hiding from the Red Giant.
I try and get into Mike’s head. I try and figure out where they would’ve taken Angel. They wouldn’t take her to the gaming floor, and they wouldn’t take her to the entertainment floor. What would be the point? There’s too many people. Too many eyes.
No, they wouldn’t bring her through here. They’d take her to the hotel, to a nice and secluded room. A room where they’ve lined the walls with carpet. A room they’ve completely soundproofed. A room with a big lock on the door.
I slip out the back, making my way through what appears to be the maintenance and ‘staff only’ corridors. I’m thinking there has to be a service elevator back here. Or maybe an emergency stairwell between the floors.
There has to be something.
Just need to make sure I stay out of sight. Just need to make sure I avoid the guards and the patrols and all the security cameras. And I just have to hope that whoever is watching the security cameras, is not paying close attention. I have to hope for human error. Hell, on a night like tonight, where every single person is off their face, maybe the workers are drunk and high on the job as well. It wouldn’t surprise me.
I continue walking through the service hallways, behind the scenes, through the backstage of the Casino and the clubs. A few people walk past me.
Workers.
Bar staff.
Black Jack dealers.
Even security guards.
All too busy to stop and ask me who I am or what I’m doing. Too busy to even notice me or my busted face.
I find a hallway leading to I’m not sure where.
It gets real dark, real quiet.
And then I hear it.
Screams.
Bone chilling, blood curdling screams.
Full of pain and fear.
It’s her. It’s Angel. It has to be.
I hear her screaming and shouting, begging and pleading. “I don’t want to… I don’t…”
I make my way to a large door that is slightly open. I peek through.
Angel is crying.
Two men are holding her down in a seat.
They appear to be in a theatre, a large and majestic and classically designed motherfucking theater. The kind of theater you wouldn’t expect in a place like this, in a city buried under the Wasteland.
And yet here it is.
A buried treasure of human architecture and imagination.
There are rows and rows of seats facing a stage and a large screen that fills an entire wall.
One of the guys says, “Man, we need to get the Overseer back. Or some of the Enforcers. Someone from Wonderland needs to up this bitch’s dosage. It ain’t working no more. She’s fighting us all the way.”
“They said it’d be like this. They sa
id it would wear off eventually. We just need to shock her back into obedience. We need to give her some incentive to play nice. They said it would extend the life of the shit they gave her. Like it matters. She won’t be around for much longer anyway. She’s on death row, brother. The Magician is going to make her disappear in a few days’ time.”
The Magician…
Don’t want that guy to get her hands on Angel. Don’t want him anywhere near her. The Magician is a Wasteland Raider, one of the only ones with half a brain. Well, more than half a brain. He’s smart enough to keep on the right side of the right people in the Buried City. As a result, he gets a lot of work from the Bosses, and probably from the Mayor as well. He gets the kind of jobs that no one else wants to do. The dirty work. The hard work. He’s the kind of guy who knows where a lot of bodies are buried. And not that you would, but if you wanted to build a house up above, out in the Wasteland, he could tell you where not to dig, where not to lay your foundations.
Yeah, need to get Angel out before the Magician shows up.
A whole bunch of images flash up on the large screen of the theatre. Images of the Wasteland, of the consequences of war. Images of the Sun and of a thousand mushroom clouds.
Pictures of the Last Great Wars.
Explosions.
Burnt corpses.
These all flash up on the big screen. And Angel is being electrocuted. Her screams are the soundtrack to this sick movie.
I need to get her out of here.
Need to do it right fucking now.
Another explosion erupts in the theatre. More pictures and images of the Last Great Wars. The War for Land, for Food, for Water. Nuclear explosions. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Images of bodies, of people with their skin melting off and of bodies that had been completely charred and cooked. Each time something horrific comes up on the screen, the goons shock and electrocute Angel. A million volts of lightning flow through her body, causing her muscles to flex and extend and spasm uncontrollably, causing her tendons and ligaments to strain on the verge of snapping.
I know the feeling.
I know how painful this is.
Need to make a move.
The noise in this beautiful theatre is cranked up to maximum. Bombs and warheads and gunfire. The screams of people dying and killing.