by G R Matthews
“Mr Hayes,” Bojing said, stopping by one of the cube doors. “This one yours is.”
“You really shouldn’t have,” I said. “A cheap hotel would have sufficed.”
“How long you be funny for we will see, Mr Hayes. You stole from the Sio Sam Ong. Not wise that was,” Bojing smiled. He opened the door and waved at the men behind me.
A shove on my shoulders hastened my entrance and, before I could turn, the door was slammed shut. A solid clunk and several clicks followed, the door being locked and secured. A prison by any other name.
The room was small, as long as it was tall. I could lay down on the thin mattress they’d thoughtfully thrown on the floor and there was a sink with a single tap in the corner. Toilet facilities were limited, a bucket at the end of the mattress. Light came from above. Far above. My ceiling was wire grill through which I could see the ceiling of the warehouse and its bright lights.
I considered trying to kick the door down, but it wouldn’t be that easy. And where would I go? No language. No suit. No chance.
Chapter 10
As mattresses go it wasn’t too uncomfortable and the water was fresh and cold. All in all, I’d give it two stars for accommodation. I hadn’t tried room service, but I was prepared to bet it wouldn’t be up to my exacting standards. If I could find the suggestions box I’m sure they’d appreciate my list of improvements.
With nothing to do, walking a circle had become boring after five minutes, I lay down on the mattress and waited. Staring up through the grill, I counted all the lights I could see. Then I counted them again just to be sure. I was tempted to carry out a third count, but decided to keep my interest levels high by tackling the challenging task of counting all the gaps in the grills. Sure, I could have counted both sides and multiplied the results, but where is the fun in that.
The subtle whir of an electric motor distracted my count and I lost my place. In the top corner, above the grill, the camera turned a little. I gave it a small smile and a wave, hiding my irritation at its intrusion.
I’d got to two hundred and thirty seven when the door opened.
“Food,” a man’s voice said, the accent stretching the ‘oo’ and truncating the ‘d’ .
“But I didn’t order anything,” I said.
“Food,” he repeated.
“Well, if you insist.” I rolled off the mattress and clambered to my feet. I could always come back to the counting. In fact, I was sure I would.
The Asian man stepped back from the door and beckoned me forward. The shoulder holster with its handgun wasn’t used as a threat, just a statement of fact. He hadn’t drawn it, hadn’t pointed it at me. He didn’t need to. We both knew there were other guards and that they had guns too.
“Food,” he said again, and pointed towards a large table at the end of the cubes. It already held a few other guests and more were joining. I counted six men, none of them had dressed for dinner, three women and two children. The last was a surprise. Both were girls. One I’d guess to be around Tyler’s age, she had that teenage look of knowing everything. The other was maybe four or five years old. She clung to the hand of the older girl and looked worried. I checked around as I walked. They didn’t appear to be with any of the adults. In fact, they chose to sit at the far end of the table away from the others. Judging by the faces, it was an arrangement that suited everyone.
“Food,” my helpful waiter said, jabbing a finger at a bowl and large pot set on a small table guarded by another holster clad employee.
Sidling over to the table, I lifted a bowl from the small stack and held it out to the guard. He didn’t move. Apparently it was self-service. With a shrug, I lifted a ladle full of food, slippery noodles and strips of something in a murky soup and slopped it into the bowl. A spoon from the tray and my meal was ready.
Those who’d already served themselves were sat at the table eating away. Slurps and sighs, not of satisfaction but of hunger sounded from every taken seat. Between the adults and the two girls were four empty seats. Who was shunning who I couldn’t say, but given the language barrier I wasn’t expecting witty repartee or intellectual stimulation during meal time so I chose a seat across from the girls. Out of everyone, I figured these two would give me the least amount of trouble and were unlikely to stab me with a prison fashioned shiv.
It would be fair to describe the food as warm. It tasted of something bland and that was probably, upon reflection, a good thing. There may have been fish in there somewhere, might have been sea vegetables but it could have easily been dishwater. Ignorance truly is bliss when you are hungry.
“Hi.” I tried a smile to go along with the greeting.
The teenager me looked up from her bowl and returned my smile with a sneer. Quite a good one too. The younger girl looked at me with wide eyes full of curiosity.
“My name’s Corin,” I said.
There was a shout from one of the guards. It was my turn to look up and I added a shrug to make it clear I had no idea what he had just said. I could guess and when he raised a finger to his lips, let it fall a little, dragging it across his throat. I got the message.
“No talking,” the teenager whispered.
I nodded and lifted another spoonful of soup. The metal had touched my lips when it registered that she’d spoken in my language and not hers. Here was someone I could talk to. If the guards would let me talk and they didn’t seem inclined to. Still, it was worth a try.
“I’m Corin,” I whispered when the guard had moved down to the other end of the table.
She looked up and raised an eyebrow at me. “No talking.”
“Why are you here?” I’ve never been one to follow instructions. Not from those in charge or those who weren’t.
She took another spoonful of soup and ignored me. The young girl looked between the both of us and tugged at the older girl’s sleeve. The teenager snatched her arm away and glared at the small girl which provoked a sad face. Tyler had done that when she was young. Pouted and complained. Turned on the tears and wails at the drop of a hat. Turned them off the same way. Sometimes it worked and sometimes I was stubborn. My wife complained that she was always the bad guy, always having to tell Tyler off. You find your own way of parenting. In the end, neither of ours had kept Tyler safe.
I watched the little girl tug the teenager’s sleeve again. This time her hand received a gentle slap and a shushing noise came from the older girls lips.
“Corin,” I whispered to the little girl and pointed at my chest.
“Ko-lin,” she said back.
“Close enough. What’s your name?”
Her eyes widened and she tilted her head quizzically.
“Corin.” I tapped my chest again and then pointed at her.
“None of your business,” the teenager said and turned to the little girl, speaking in their own language. A rapid and quiet sing-song of notes were exchanged between them.
I noticed none of the guards told them to be quiet, but the conversation ended when the teenager snatched up their bowls and dragged the girl away from the table. From the corner of my eye, I watched her deposit the bowls and speak to one of the guards. He nodded at her and led both girls across the warehouse floor to a cube bigger than the others. He locked the door after they’d entered and returned to his station.
Interesting. Prisoners, but not like the rest of us. Well, me really. I had no idea what the others were in for, but I’d bet they’d all had the same lack of trial by jury I’d been exposed to. That they’d fed me boded well. Clearly they didn’t want me dead. Not yet at least. Not until they’d found their precious sword. The problem was I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t know and I had the impression that wasn’t going to be the answer they were looking for.
“Sleep.” My talkative guard returned and gestured towards the cubes.
“Thanks, I am little tired tonight. Can I set an alarm call for eight?”
His hand twitched towards the holstered weapon.
“Too early?
Nine would be fine. I just don’t want to miss breakfast.” I put my spoon back in my bowl and therefore totally missed his hand speeding towards my head. I felt it though. It had been a slap, not a punch. You don’t punch the skull with bare fists, that’s a sure route to broken fingers, but an open hand can do a fair amount of damage. I took the hint, shut up and followed him back to my little hovel. When he had locked the door I called out, “Hold all my calls.”
One day my mouth is going to get me in serious trouble.
Chapter 11
“Tell us what you know,” Bojing barked at me. I gave him a tilt of the head, enough to know I understood the sentence, but trying to convey I wasn’t totally sure what he meant.
Next to him, the interrogator in chief waited a moment and when I didn’t speak he gave more commands to the translator. I could hear the shuffling of feet behind me, the guard they’d brought in to make sure I didn’t try anything.
“The Honourable Chen commands you tell us,” Bojing said, his eyes narrowing. There was a condescending look in them, it had been there since they’d walked into the room and sat down at the metal table opposite to me. Now though, a small flutter of fear was visible in those dark pupils.
“Everything?” I asked.
“Yes,” the translator said.
“I don’t know where to start.”
It was the translator’s turn to give a quizzical tilt of the head. Chen made a noise, not quite a grunt, not quite a note, maybe a word. I’ve no idea. I still couldn’t make head nor tails of the language and since they’d taken my Pad I had no chance. Instead, I smiled. Nothing more annoying when you are trying to get someone to do something, giving a command, trying to be serious, than the person gives you a smile in return. Tyler used to drive me up the wall by smiling whenever I told her off.
“Honourable Chen commands you beginning to start at,” the translator said. “Pleased if you speak clearly for the recording. Sword where is it?”
“Of course,” I answered. “The beginning he says. Right, I can do that. The beginning. Okay. Well, here goes.”
Bojing leaned forward as did Chen, perhaps he understood more than he’d let on so far. Or perhaps he was demonstrating that feature of our existence we all share, the desire to fit in, to mirror other people. If the translator had heard something of interest, maybe he wanted to too. I let the quiet hang for a moment, a fish dangling on a sharp hook, drowning in the air.
“I’m not quite sure when it really began. I don’t think anyone is,” I started and took a deep breath before launching into it. “In the beginning there was nothing and then there was the big bang and suddenly there was everything.”
The look on the Bojing’s face was priceless though I expected to be paying my own contribution towards the cost very soon. He started to translate as I continued to speak.
“It was a few billion years, give or take, before the first stars formed and, bear in mind my schooling wasn’t the best, a long time after that the planets formed. Now, as I understand it, the sun wasn’t even in the first generation of the stars, but came around much, much later.” I hadn’t even got to the formation of the earth when Chen’s hand connected with my face. There was no point trying to dodge, all I could do was roll my head to take the sting out of it.
I stayed in my chair and stared into Bojing’s eyes. Chen said something and the translator flinched. The interrogator, as Bojing had introduced him, had emotionless eyes and a moustache that I’d only seen in very old martial arts clips from the pre-flood. They’d had subtitles, but even then the actual plots had made very little sense.
“The Honourable Chen worried is you might not in possession be of the right attitude.” Bojing’s face split into a smile, I don’t think he liked me very much, as he continued. “He wishes you to be educated in this matter.”
“I’m not much of a reader,” I answered. There was the salty taste of blood in my mouth and I probed my teeth with my tongue. They were all still there as far as I could tell.
“The Honourable Chen assures no reading will necessary be,” the translator said.
“That’s good. A clip show, an educational video, some sort of audio instruction?” I smiled, a gesture only slightly ruined by the warm welling of blood at the corner of my mouth. I refused to give him the satisfaction of wiping it away.
Chen stood up, the metal chair scraping over the floor, and left the room without a backward glance. The translator did a double take and stood to follow, only stopping long enough to give me a self-satisfied smirk. The door closed and my instructor, I guessed, the guard who stood behind me throughout, stepped around into view.
“Hi,” I said, and he cracked his knuckles. Clearly, melodrama does not respect cultural boundaries. This was going to hurt.
# # #
I sat at the same table as before, opposite the girls, and the bowl in front of me was full of the same dishwater I’d eaten yesterday. However, I was thankful it wouldn’t need chewing. My mouth hurt and I was pretty sure a few of my teeth were loose. I didn’t bother to hide the wince as the hot liquid touched my split lips. The guards who carried me back to my cube and thrown me on the mattress had at least, perhaps out of kindness but more likely out of a desire not to have to clean up afterwards, provided a towel to soak up the blood.
A stray noodle got caught between the spoon and my mouth. It traced its way, like a burning brand, across my sore lips as I sucked it in. The last of the liquid coating the noodle flicked and splashed over my face. Wiping it away, I took the opportunity to gaze around.
The guards had stayed down the end with the rest the prisoners. I’d not tried to make friends with anyone down there. Most of them had spent breakfast, a gloop of a porridge that tasted nothing like the gruel I was used to, glaring at me. Not one measure of sympathy in their eyes. I guess they’d all been through their own little welcoming ceremony.
“Ko-lin,” the little girl said.
I turned back to her and attempted a smile. My jaw popped, my teeth ached and stab of pain raced through my lips. “Yow! Ow! Ow!”
It almost sounded like their language and the little girl laughed. A strange sound in the warehouse prison. There is something in young children that finds the pain of others, real or faked, funny. I tried hard not to shout or complain. Building a relationship in here was more about finding out information which might be useful later on. If there was a later on.
“Lijuan,” the little girl said and pointed at her chest.
The teenager put down her spoon and shifted in her seat, casting a glance at the guards.
“I am Chunhua,” the teenager said in whisper.
“Corin, Corin Hayes,” I answered in the same whisper. Between small sips of soup, taken carefully to avoid damaging my already hurt jaw, and the patrolling guards we pieced together a conversation.
“How did you upset the Sio Sam Ong?” Chunhua asked. She spoke my language without a pause, halt or hesitation.
“Who?”
“The Triad who run this prison,” she answered.
“Triad?”
“A society, an organisation.” She paused as a guard walked past, turned and headed back to the other end of the table.
“Ah the company,” I said when the guard was out of earshot.
“Company?”
“The business that employed me.”
“You are not a member,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“An employee? No, I work for a company in NOAH,” I whispered. “Yunru’s company employed me to recover an item from a sunken ship.”
Chunhua put down her spoon and sat back on her chair. Her dark eyes, almond shaped, lifted slightly at the edges, stared at me with mixture of surprise and wonder. “You have seen Yunru?”
“She wasn’t happy with my work.” I let my eyes wander the converted warehouse to indicate what Yunru’s unhappiness had meant.
“Yet you live,” she said.
“You sound surprised.”
“Yunru is not
known for her forgiveness,” she said. The small girl, Lijuan, tugged at the older girl’s sleeve and was rewarded with a string of words that seemed to satisfy her. For now. The attention of tiny girls and boys is not renowned for the length of its span.
“Have you seen my face?” I gestured to my mouth and blackened eyes with the spoon.
“Is that not how gwai lo always look?”
“What?”
“Do not all people from your city look like that?”
“Not all of us.” Though me more than most I suspected.
“What did you take from the SHENYANG?” She changed tack without warning.
“A box,” I said without a pause. “It was empty.”
If she was an interrogator, she was good. I hadn’t even thought about not telling her.
“They didn’t want the box?”
“They wanted what was in it.” I tried another spoonful of the dishwater soup, avoiding the noodles. I’d learned my lesson.
“There was nothing in it,” Chunhua stated. “You just said that.”
“Something should have been and that’s why I am here. They want it and I didn’t bring it.”
“You took it from the Sio Sam Ong?” Her accent wasn’t strong. I’d bet she wasn’t a native of this city. Which begged the obvious question. It had been obvious as soon as I saw her and the little girl.
“I didn’t. It wasn’t there. Why are you here?”
A guarded look clouded her eyes and she cast an involuntary glance at the little girl who was stirring her food at ever increasing speeds, giggling as some of it splashed over the side. I let her have some thinking time. I’d shared some information with her, an expression of trust, and it would only be polite if she reciprocated.
I scraped the last of the liquid out of the bowl and guided the spoon past my split lip. Across from me I saw Chunhua reach out to stop Lijuan playing with her food and take a deep breath. She looked up and opened her mouth to speak but no words came forth as her gaze continued on past my face to something behind me.