by G R Matthews
Three Times the Trouble
by
G R Matthews
Chapter 1
I ran.
They were behind and I wanted them to stay there. Preferably further behind with every step.
Ahead, the inhabitants of the Box and the customers of the downmarket stores didn’t care. None of them moved out of my way. None of them looked up except to shout a curse as I barged past or bounced off bodies more solid than my own. I did my best to avoid the small children who clung on to their mother’s or father’s hands.
Underfoot the deck plating flexed. If it had been good quality, if the city owners and builders had cared about the Box dwellers it would be firm and rigid. I’d heard of Boxes in other cities where the floors had given way, collapsing down onto the level below. The death tolls had been mere estimates, gathered and judged only by the wailing of women missing husbands, children wandering lost, or men staring at empty hands with guilt filled eyes. I knew that look.
Such is existence in the Boxes. You struggle to survive and few mourn when you escape into death.
A left turn, a sharp ninety degrees like every turn in the Boxes. Simple planning, simple building, low costs. More shops and more people. There were shouts from behind. My pursuers were not as interested in looking after the people they barrelled through. They weren’t trying to make friends and I certainly wasn’t planning to introduce them to my small, almost non-existent social circle.
It was difficult to avoid everyone, but I did my best, only two ‘fucks’ and an ‘arsehole’ followed me down the next passageway. Sticks and stones wouldn’t break my bones, but three men chasing me would definitely be using something a lot heavier to accomplish that aim. Back when I’d done my service in the forces, training to use the Fish-Suit, we’d had to pound the racetrack as part of our fitness regime. It hadn’t really been a racetrack, more a path around one the various sub bays that marked the outer perimeter of the base, and we’d have to run with a full pack. I’ve no idea why. My first instinct and it has served me well over the years, is to drop everything I was carrying when trying to escape. I’d found out early on that I move a lot faster when I am not weighed down with a lot of kit. During training, I’d usually been right at the back. Never far enough behind to be punished for my lack of pace, nor fast enough to get noticed by the instructors. A solid just below average was my goal.
Now I was going for an Olympic medal in the hundred metres, two hundred, eight hundred, three-k and marathon all at once. The desire to survive can do that to you. It pushes you beyond your limits, makes you burn your way through all those carefully hoarded reserves of energy. I’d pay for it later. The later the better, and preferably when I was sat in Tom’s bar with a beer in hand or tucked up in bed with just the memories of the last whiskey upon my tongue.
It was better than waking up in a hospital bed swaddled in bandages and drinking my meals through a straw.
Another corner, a right hander and a small hop, without breaking stride, over the bulkhead seal on the floor. The little raised lip of metal that would separate the inhabitants of the Box from death if there was a leak was a trip hazard. How the design ever got past health and safety was beyond me. The law of double effect maybe? The evil of a few thousand dead against the few thousand broken legs, twisted ankles, snapped wrists and concussions. Someone had probably had to make the tough call in the end.
More shops and a few bars nestled amongst them. Bright lights proclaiming the brand, the franchise, the delights offered within or just the name of the owner, you either knew what they sold or you didn’t. They probably figured if you didn’t know, you couldn’t afford it and were, therefore, a time waster. Early evening was not the best of times to be chased through the streets of my city, but sometimes you don’t get the choice. Stupidly, I’d had the choice and made the decision. I stand by it. It was the right one.
My destination, my escape route was just a few corners away. It was fool proof. Well, it was foolish but effective. I’d used it before. Which isn’t strictly true. I’d had it used on me before. If my pursuers knew about it, it wouldn’t help them much. They were welcome to follow me. I didn’t think they would. They weren’t that brave.
It doesn’t take much in the way of bravery to threaten a mother and child. Not when you are built of more steroids and energy shakes than any human body should be able to consume in a lifetime. They had necks, of that I am sure. I couldn’t see them on account of their enormous shoulder muscles that promised to rip the seams of their t-shirts. If they’d bought clothing of the proper size they wouldn’t have had that problem. My advice would probably have fallen on deaf ears or been ignored by the shared brain cell.
Down in the Boxes there were no security guards. Not on patrol or wandering amongst the populace, making friends or safeguarding the community. They only came here in great numbers and wearing full body armour. Here you looked after yourself, your family and close friends. Everyone else was either out to get you or just another victim in waiting. I hadn’t grown up in the Boxes. I’d had a family outside of them. That was gone, but I still hadn’t learned the lesson. My great failing, I got involved. I’d come into the shop to buy tonight’s meal.
“You owe us,” the biggest one said, pointing the stuffed sausage of a finger at the tiny woman and her son who couldn’t have been more than five or six.
“We paid,” she wailed in return.
I took a look around. The shopkeeper had vanished and the rest of the place was empty. It can be like that. Many Box dwellers have evolved a fine sense of survival. The three bruisers had the woman corralled against the chiller cabinet at the rear of the shop and were blocking my access to the beer.
“Excuse me,” I said, all polite and shop basket in hand, “would you mind passing me a six-pack?”
They turned, all at the same time. It was strange. Almost alien-like. Their heads didn’t rotate, their whole body did, at the waist. I think those shoulder muscles must have hindered their necks.
“Fuck off,” said the leader.
“No thanks, I don’t like that brand. The brewery puts some strange stuff in the vats if you ask me.” I smiled. It was nerves not bravado.
The muscle man on the left rolled his shoulders and a small avalanche of implied threat cascaded down upon me. Subtle. I really didn’t want a fight. For a start I was hungry. Secondly, I would lose. I’d seen their type before. Back in the service. The soldiers so jacked up on drugs and the need to prove how manly they were by hurting others. Small penises. Had to be.
“Little man,” the one of the right rumbled, “you’ve made a big mistake.”
“You don’t approve of my dinner choice? Algae burger not your thing? Perhaps you’d prefer a baby or just candy stolen from a small child?” My right palm was getting sweaty hanging onto the plastic covered handle of the shop basket. “Pass me my beer and let the lady and her child go.”
“You got a death wish?” the leader said.
“So my psychologist told me,” I answered. I stared him right back, noting that even his eyebrows had developed visible muscles. My heart was hammering in my chest and I could feel everything south of my belt retreating back to safety. “She also said that I am sucker for a hard luck case, have no sense of my own safety, and an occasional paladin complex, and no I’ve no idea what the last one meant either. Now, my beer, the lady and the child. I don’t know what you’ve got against her, and I don’t too much care. What I do care about is my beer and the fact that three grown men,” I could afford to be generous as the phrase ‘small dicked, drugged up, brain dead, school yard bullies’ which I wanted to use would probably not endear
me to them, “are terrifying a small child. You have business with her, fine, but don’t drag the child into it.”
“Last chance,” he said in return. “Fuck off.”
I swung the basket right at his head.
Chapter 2
I was still running.
If I’d thought it through properly, I wouldn’t have swung the basket. It gave him too much warning and the lead thug raised a thick arm to protect his skull. A wire shop basket doesn’t have much weight behind it and even adding mine it wasn’t going to do much damage, but every little helps. My impromptu weapon bounced off of him and I let it go, clattering to the floor. My dinner made a bid for freedom, skidding across the floor a few metres before coming to a halt.
There was little else to do but back away down the aisle. They followed me. All three of them. Down the same aisle. One after the other. They couldn’t had done anything more to help me out, or the woman and child behind them. I couldn’t see her face, but I could guess from the squeal and rapid patter of feet that she had realised an escape route had opened up and taken her chance. She’d jumped out of the frying pan and left me in the fire.
I cast about for something else to use as a weapon. The bruisers weren’t running down the aisle at me, they were stalking me. Confident and using their bulk to intimidate me. Playing to their strengths. Either side of the aisle, on the shelves, were cans of food. I didn’t bother reading the labels just threw them as hard and fast as I could.
Their arms went up and the cans bounced off rock hard muscles. Even so, the lead bruiser groaned and winced in pain. He’d have his own collection of bruises to nurse tomorrow. My best bet was to have a few heavy cans to hit their skulls. No matter how hard you worked out, how many steroids you took, there was no way to build a cushion of muscle on your head. And they knew that, or least the one at the front did, since there was little chance of hitting his friends as they followed close behind. That didn’t stop me trying. Back up a step, grab a can and throw it. Repeat.
It slowed them down, and gave the woman and her child time to make good their escape. It gave me time to think and all that appeared in my mind was an image of me in a hospital bed with casts covering every extremity. And then I ran out of missiles.
The aisle had come to an end and behind me was the door to the street. I could turn and run, but they would follow. I’d seen a fair few clips over the years. Ones from the pre-flood and after. I enjoy a good action movie as much as the next person and one thing that happened a lot in any chase was the hero, or villain, depending on the film, would pull things down on their pursuers. Anything to make them trip, to slow down, or hold them up. Boxes or some sort of trolley on wheels were favourites. In some films a vehicle would back out of an alleyway into the path of chasers. There was no chance of that happening here, today or any day. You could drive through the streets, but vehicles in the city were restricted to slow moving electric carts or the monorails that only serviced selected areas.
Still, if it worked in films it must work in real life. I grabbed the units that made up the aisle. Six shelves tall and stacked with produce, cans, boxes, wrapping and other items of a household nature. All that weight falling on you would do a lot of damage.
“Watch out,” I shouted and started to pull the shelves down upon them. I saw the lead thug turn in the same way a glacier makes a fast right-hand corner and reach towards the shelves. Grunting, I put all my weight and strength behind the effort. With the shelves collapsing on them, I would have an easy escape.
Except, clearly, the store-holder had seen the same clips I had. In response, he had bolted the shelves to the floor and I made absolutely no headway with my plan. After a few seconds of screaming arm muscles and a twinge in my lower back I gave up.
The bruiser swivelled towards me. I shrugged and his brow furrowed. It might have been that a stray thought, lost in the void behind his eyes, had made itself known to his conscious mind or maybe he just had wind. Either way it was a pause and gave me a chance.
Out of the door and into the street, food forgotten, beer a distant scribble on my wish list. One bright note, I couldn’t see the woman and child. They’d made the right decision and gone into hiding or gone home. Gained another day to work something out, earn some money. Come up with the payment or move to another Box and hope. They were on their own now, just as I was, as I’d been since Tyler died. Since the accident and my crew were killed. Surviving on my own stubbornness.
Under my feet, the floor of the street with its ingrained dirt, its damp puddles that accumulated where metal had been dented or bent by the weight of people, went by. I focused on the important job of running fast. Avoiding people whenever I could. Calling apologies when I couldn’t.
And they had followed, uncaring of the people they hurt along the way. We were in a race and the finishing line was a small square panel a few streets away. At least, I hoped it was.
I reckoned I could outlast them, my stamina from years of dragging Oxyquid in and out of my lungs was pretty good and they’d be using up a lot of oxygen hefting all those muscles around.
One more corner and I’d be there, at the point of salvation and safety, in relative terms anyway. A left hand skid around the bend and I could see it. Up ahead, between two shop fronts and opposite a seedy bar I’d been in once, and that was the reason I’d first travelled today’s intended route.
Behind me, the shouts still sounded. Commands to stop. Orders to get out of the way and the swear words that accompanied the refusals. Curses and cries of pain. They were closing in.
Last time, the only time, I’d been here before, a few fellows, real salt of the sea types, genuine Box dwellers, the kind that didn’t mind mixing a little light racism with alcohol, had taken exception to my drunken refusal to get involved in their high-brow discussion on the relative merits of immigration. They’d become so incensed by my declinations to discourse that they’d picked me up and shoved me down the garbage chute.
It had been a wild ride, cushioned by the beer, whiskey and paint thinner I’d consumed earlier in the evening. I doubt those responsible for my rubbish themed journey had been aware of the clever jets of air that slowed the larger items of garbage which people had thrown away, and me. I think they’d just wanted me gone.
And here I was about to make the same journey out of choice. It had taken weeks to get the smell out of my hair last time, but there was little choice. The only places of safety for me in the whole of the city were my apartment, but letting them know where I lived was not a good idea, NOAH Corp offices, and it wouldn’t enhance my reputation to drag three of the underworld’s enforcers to their door, or Tom’s Bar, and Tom didn’t deserve that kind of trouble.
I stumbled to a halt next to the garbage chute entrance. An opening, square and just large enough for my shoulders. Certainly too small for theirs. A quick check and I saw them barging their way through the last of the crowd. They spotted me, pointing and shouting. I ignored them, took a deep breath, two steps and dived through the hatch.
I fell.
Chapter 3
And kept on falling. Plummeting.
Elbows and knees scraped against metal walls that shaved the skin from my exposed flesh as I bumped and crashed on the way down. I covered my head, tucked my knees in and hoped the jets would kick in soon.
Down, down and down. My route was set and there was nothing I could do about it. I was out of control, in the lap of the gods, and I prayed it wasn’t Triton, he of the pointy stick and unhealthy desire to drown sailors.
When the updrafts began I gave thanks to Eurus, unlucky god of the East Wind. It was the unlucky part that really suited me. The constant flow of air up the garbage tube slowed my descent, and my skin was thankful. Rubbish would still fall, as it did all around me, sensors in the wall gauging the velocity and adjusting the power of the updrafts as necessary. Not many people knew that. I only did because I’d gone and done some research to find out why I hadn’t been killed the first time.
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I’m not suggesting that it becomes a sport or that teenagers seeking the latest thrill go and chuck themselves down the nearest garbage chute, but as an escape route it was hard to beat. The downside was the end to this ride. At the bottom all the rubbish the inhabitants of the Box had chucked away over the past few weeks would gather in piles. Hopefully they’d deposited a lot of soft stuff recently. A few mattresses would be good. I’d settle for some cardboard boxes or even a pile of food scraps.
What I did land in could best be described as a pile of soft, soiled baby products. The stink that rose around me was unpleasant to say the least. I gagged and wished my sense of smell to cease all function. If I didn’t smell anything so bad for the rest of my life I would die a happy man.
The temptation to lay there and recover from the run and the fall was strong, but not as strong as the desire for a shower. Being careful where I put my hands, I clambered up and picked my way down the mountain of shit towards the inspection hatch.
Waste barges, which is where all rubbish went for recycling or disposal, were unpleasant places to work. Most employees, indentured servants and criminals didn’t last long on a waste barge. Illness, disease, cholera, dysentery, radiation and lack of food killed them all sooner or later.
At the bottom of the pile, more rubbish. There was a floor somewhere below it all, but I was never going to find it and had no desire to. All I wanted was a way out. That and a bath, and a beer, and a whiskey. Mostly a bath. Something in here really stank and I was worried it might be me.
There was a door. A thick shield of metal with a wheel in the centre. At times I’ve cursed the work of health and safety officers, their constant drive to remove all risk from the world, to take my choices away, but now I would have let one eat steamed seaweed out of my belly button. I’d never have put a locking wheel on, what is really, the inside of a large bin.