Lenth looked back across the huge commons. “Six was good at hiding in tight little spaces. I was hoping he wouldn't be as good in a wide open place.”
If Lenth's stare across the commons was one of awe, Leena's was one of quiet disdain. “I think I know enough hiding places to get us a good start.”
As she led in front of Lenth, he watched her stride and compared her to Karen. Karen walked with confidence and ease. Leena walked with confidence as well, but it was more determined motion. Maybe it was just that they were walking up an incline. Maybe it was the stress of the situation.
Lenth looked at the occasional drawings made by Citizens, like the ones by the elevator. This was one of the things that Citizens did instead of work. The pictures ranged from simple shapes, to crude portraits, to cruder sexual illustrations.
Leena turned her head from time to time, looking around the ramp and down in the commons.
“I should keep a better eye out for Six, too,” Lenth said.
Leena looked surprised for a moment. “Huh? Oh. Yeah, Six. Him too.”
“Him too?” Lenth asked. “Who else are you looking for?”
She shrugged. “No one special. Just habit. No one messes with me since Mike became leader, but then again, it might make me a target for anyone mad at Mike for whatever. But most people are pretty okay with him. Oh, look out; there's a loose chunk right here.” She tapped her foot on a piece of the ramp as she kept walking.
Lenth took care to not step on the hazard, but his stride slowed. Then stopped. “Is that how it works up here? Really? People just...kill? What Six did doesn't seem to even have anyone that upset!”
Leena turned halfway around and looked at Lenth with a sad smile. “You're cute, kid. People mind if they get killed, but it's not like it's unheard of. Your buddy, though, he's made an impression, I'm sure. So much violence, and no real purpose? Yeah, that's going to unsettle folks.”
“I don't get it,” Lenth said, resuming the climb.
Leena shrugged. “Most people who get killed—they had it coming. Or at least there was a reason of some kind. People feel safer if they keep their heads down and don't piss others off. Some jerk like Six starts causing problems with no reason?”
A little surge of paranoia struck Lenth. He looked around and down off the ramp into the commons. “Do you mean...you're always in danger of getting attacked? Everyone is? By anyone?”
“Ha. No one lives forever,” Leena said, continuing on.
“Yeah,” Lenth said quietly as he followed, “and then they become plant food.”
Leena stopped. “What food? Citizens don't eat dead people. We eat the food that Messenger brings.”
Lenth shook his head. “So, Leena, what do you do with people when they die?”
Leena continued up. “We send them off with Messenger. He brings them to be with Actual.”
“To be with?” Lenth asked.
“To live again, with Actual. Actual is not like us.”
“He is separated from us,” Lenth said, remembering Contact's words, “as separated and above Messenger, as Messenger is from us.”
Leena smiled. “You know all about it, then.”
What made Lenth think for a moment that a Citizen would be happy with the truth: that they were taken to be composted, to help produce food? If they felt that Providers were beneath them, it seemed like an obvious choice to believe that their dead went up to some singular unknown. To Actual. Did they even know what death was?
Lenth looked to the centre of the commons, where the great elevator shaft reached the ceiling. Actual was allegedly above that. How far? Was that ceiling Actual's floor? Or was Actual some unknown distance farther up? Lenth took a moment to take in the elevator shaft.
Where it met the floor, or specifically, the structure where he came out of the elevator earlier, there were remains of something. It looked like a collapsed attempt at making some kind of...ladder? Staircase? Either way, it was just mostly just a pile of debris around the elevator shaft. It looked like it had been there for some time and had been raided for materials.
At the top of the shaft, about a dozen lines of thick cabling dangled down. Some attached to the various ramps along the upper potions of the room. From the tiny bits of damage in the ceiling, Lenth wondered if the cabling had once been secured snug and flat along the top.
They reached the uppermost platform on the ramp. One of the dangling cables was attached on the outer edge of the flooring. Five huge windows wider than an arm-span stretched from the floor to just overhead.
At least, Lenth thought at first that they were windows. Once, they most certainly were, but the glass was gone. Only tiny bits of glass remained in the corners of the frames. By that token, it was maybe more remarkable that the frames themselves were mostly intact. They were a little dented here and there, and a few had rust creeping up from the floor. Leena stepped right through into this not-so-private environment and looked around.
“Welcome to my place! Well, Mike's place. Whatever.”
She walked past a thing that she called a sofa, that had one end held up by a nondescript hunk of metal with nondescript vents on it. Trying to guess the ripped-up sofa's original colour was difficult.
Leena went over to a sink and filled up a metal cup from the faucet. Then she picked up a dull knife and took her water over a rusty bit of a window frame. She scraped some of the rust off into her cup and stirred it before taking a swing. “There's other cups over there if you want.” She retrieved a new headband from under the sofa to replace the one that she'd used to bandage someone earlier.
“You drink rust?” Lenth asked.
Leena shrugged. “Didn't feel like water, didn't think the dizzy stuff was a good idea right now either.” Lenth didn't feel like asking about dizzy stuff, but the term made him think of the 'sleep smell' he'd been subjected to from time to time over the years. He picked up a cup. It was, thankfully, pretty clean. He poured himself half a cup and downed it.
“We got a shower here and everything.” Leena's tone edged on flirty, as did her hip swagger. Leena noticed his obliviousness, and it derailed her intent to educate him. “Ah, we came here for the hurty kind of pokey, didn't we?” Leena waved Lenth to follow her as she put down her cup. Lenth did the same.
The next room over was fairly large and badly lit. In one corner was a small doorway that led to another room. The middle of the room was a semi-organized pile of blankets, presumably with a mattress underneath. The far wall displayed a selection of items.
Tools, mostly. Lenth wasn't familiar with tools in general, but it seemed obvious that some were modified by Citizens, maybe by Mike.
A ball-peen hammer had a few nails attached to the head. A claw hammer had its claw battered down to be sharper than the original design. A heavy pair of gloves with barbed wire wrapped around them had a metal plate attached to shield the forearms. A set of crude spiked 'iron knuckles' hung near those. Some longer tool had lost its original working end, and the metal shaft had been hammered down into a blade, like a medium-sized sword.
Several more items filled out the display, but Lenth was drawn to the largest item, a sledge hammer. It stood on its head, handle sticking up. He knelt next to it and felt along the handle, picking it up with a bit of a grunt. He looked at Leena, who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Like it nice and big?” she purred with a sultry smirk.
Lenth heaved it up with both hands. “People fight with these? Seems kind of stupid. By the time you get it swinging, the person you're trying to hit would like...not be in that spot anymore.”
“That was supposed to get a reaction out of you,” Leena said.
“Huh? I answered.”
Leena unzipped her top past the navel, and arched back to nudge out a bit of cleavage. It was a motion she'd done many times in the past, but this time she did it with no seductive smoothness. Just quick, blunt, and almost clinical. “Okay, a girl unzips in front of you, alone in a room with a bed
. What does that make you think?”
“Oh. Oh! I'm sorry, I'll pick a better weapon and leave so you can get changed or whatever. Gabe taught me about privacy,” Lenth said apologetically, turning back to the weapon display.
Leena clenched her fists and shrugged. “It's no fun telling you I'm not interested in actually fucking you when you don't even take the bait!”
Lenth dropped the sledge hammer where he'd gotten it from and turned back to Leena. “I'm confused.”
Leena shook her head. “Yeah. Yeah, don't worry about it, I'm just wasting your time anyway.” She flicked her hands dismissively at the weapons. “Go ahead, pick what you want. Don't rush on my account.”
“Well, hold on, what's 'fucking', and why would I do it to you?” Lenth asked.
Covering her mouth and reaching out with her other hand to some imaginary audience, Leena turned about the room until she faced Lenth once again. “Sex!” she yelled. “Fucking means sex! Have you heard of sex?”
Lenth nodded and pointed at Leena. “Yes! I have. I leaned all about it, but I don't think creating children right now would help. Having more people helping me find Six would be good, but I also learned that children take a long time to grow inside—”
Leena screamed in exasperation, leaving a silent void.
After a moment, Lenth rallied his courage to speak again. “I'm pretty sure I remember being one, and it was a long time to—”
“Hush,” Leena said flatly, shaking her head.
“And I've seen some children recently in the Provi—”
“Just. Just stop now, Lenth.”
“Leena. Have you done sex?”
She put her hand on her forehead and nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah. Yeah, Lenth, I seem to remember doing sex a couple of times.”
“Oh! So where are your children now?”
Leena squinted at Lenth. “When I first met you, I said I needed to educate you. I had no idea how bad it was. Just pick a weapon already.”
Lenth waited for Leena to say something else, but she only answered his stare by pointing forcefully at the weapons. He turned and looked at them again.
“What should I take?”
“Something you won't hit yourself in the face with. Just...what looks easy.”
Lenth walked up to the crude swords. He grabbed the contoured plastic handle. It felt nice in his hand, but when he waved the thing in the air, he grimaced.
“If I run into Six in a small space, I won't have room to swing something like this. I guess I'd be better off with a smaller knife.”
“What does Six use?”
“Well, I've only seen him use knives.”
“Wouldn't it be nice to be able to reach him before he gets close enough to use a knife on you?” Leena asked.
Pointing the sword forward, he tried to visualise using it in battle. He poked forward a couple of times, wiggled it, and slashed it sideways. “Okay. But it's still not good for crawlspaces.”
“Then take two things from the wall.”
“I can do that?”
Leena shrugged. “I don't think Mike'd mind. And if he does, fuck 'im.”
Lenth's eyes widened. “Fuck him?”
“Not like that,” Leena rolled her eyes. “The word is also used when you don't like something, or like, disrespect it.”
“I'm starting to think you made that word up.”
“No, no, everyone uses it, and I even read it in a book and everything. I thought people were stupid when they were using it for both things until someone showed me in a book. It's a pretty versatile word, but for some reason, you're not supposed to use it a lot.”
“You seem to use it a lot, Leena. Do people get angry?”
Leena threw up her hands and laughed, “Fuck 'em!”
By the time Leena's amusement had faded, Lenth was already considering his second item. He'd grabbed one of the gloves with the barbed wire and the arm guard. He put it on his left hand. All of the wire's barbs were on the back of the hand, so he could still make a fist without serious problems.
“Huh, I thought you'd at least go for a knife,” Leena said.
“Knives can get dropped.”
“Well, those little spikes aren't going to do much damage, Lenth. I mean, it looks tough and stuff, but it's not too practical.”
“I also like it for the arm guard part. Hey, maybe I could take both gloves, then have the sword in one hand, and a knife in the other!” Not hearing any protests from Leena, he did just that, grabbing a twenty centimetre serrated kitchen knife. It was the only item from the wall that he took which was not modified in any way. He stood in front of the weapons rack, facing Leena, and posed, holding both of his weapons out to the side.
Leena smiled quietly and took in the sight. “Hmm, Lofu, that's not a bad look on you,” she said.
“All right then. I guess I'm as ready as it gets. You had an idea where Six might go?” Lenth found that the knife could sit snugly between the wires on the right glove, freeing his left hand for other things.
Leena went to the wall, and opened a box that Lenth had ignored. From it she took a belt, which carried a slender machete, and a flask. She put the belt on, as well as a pair of leather gloves. They were thick enough to provide some degree of protection, but were old and held together by duct tape. “Let's go.”
“Oh, do you want to trade gloves? I have a lot of stuff, and...”
“Nope, I like these. Just don't get clumsy with your spikies, Lofu.”
“Please stop calling me that, Leena.”
Leena shrugged. “All right.”
Leaving Mike's den, they headed back down the ramp for a bit, then took a lateral path that branched off about half way down to the ground. It looked to be headed to another window/opening like Mike's den, but Leena stopped at a metal grate that Lenth didn't notice until they were right beside it. Drawn around it were random-looking lines, some going up and down in a wiggly way, and some in various sizes of spirals.
“This isn't the most likely spot, but it's likely enough,” Leena said as she picked at the edge of the grate. Where screws had once held it in place, there were now only thread-less rods, easily accessible.
“It's a small space,” Lenth said. “Six might like it.”
Leena put the grate aside. “Okay. Stupid things happen in here. If you smell shit, get away from it. Head back here if you need to. If I start talking stupid, get me back here. If you see anything stupid, get back here. Got it?”
“Sounds stupid,” Lenth said with a smirk. “What do you mean 'smell shit'?”
“Some people save crap and let it sit in a sealed container. Then when it gets old enough, you can sniff it, and it messes with your head for a while.”
Lenth looked down into the crawlspace and grimaced. “Please tell me you're kidding.”
“Nope. And if anyone's in there sniffing, be careful. They might be seeing things that aren't there, and...they might get stupid.” She crawled in first, and Lenth was suddenly faced with curves that made him momentarily forget that he was about to crawl into the realm of shit-sniffers.
It was dark inside, but not pitch black. His eyes adjusted to the minimal light. They were in a four-metre by eight-metre metal-walled room of sorts, only a metre or two high. “I think I smell it.”
“That's nothing. Don't worry unless it's a bit more stomach turning.”
In the left corner, a pile of blankets shifted and a face popped up. “Are you real?” asked the man.
“Yeah, man. Waiting to see stuff?” Leena asked.
“Yeah. I saw you guys carrying weapons and thought I might have started seeing stuff. I don't think I let this batch sit long enough. I'm not getting much out of it.” He opened up an opaque jar and inhaled deeply from it before closing it again. “Yeah. Smell's not quite right either. I still have my old one. Maybe it still has a bit left to it.” He started rummaging in the blankets for his back-up.
“Hey, before you break it out, answer me something, okay?” Leena
said, holding her hand up in objection.
Container in-hand, the man stopped before opening it. “You guys aren't interested? I mean, I'll share—”
“No, no,” Leena said, trying not to sound condescending, “me and the Lofu here are looking for another Lofu. A bad one who got all killy and stabby. He'd probably have blood on him still.”
The man opened his eyes wide and stared at Lenth. “Killer Lofus...woah. No, I haven't seen anything like that. And I haven't gotten a good sniff yet today, so I'm pretty sure of that.”
“Thanks. We'll leave you to your 'fun' then.” She nodded to Lenth and they headed back the way they came, soon out on the commons scaffolding paths again.
“Is he going to spend all day in there?” Lenth asked in a hushed tone.
“Probably. Until he gets hungry or something.”
“Sad. And gross.”
“Gross, sure,” Leena said, going ahead on the walkway again, “but why sad? I'm sure he'll get a good sniff eventually. Happy, happy,” she said mirthlessly. “I've tried it a handful of times in the past. It's okay, but yeah, after a while it's not so amazing, and just gross.”
Lenth couldn't put his finger on what made it sad, outside of the disgusting factor, but it certainly wasn't the kind of thing he'd grown up with under the direction of a Rubberman.
“You get everything from the Providers and Units,” Lenth said, hoping to fight the idea of Lofus being 'lesser'. “Fresh air, clean water, food... I guess if you don't have to work for it, you have to fill the time somehow.”
“Sniffing, art, games, fucking, dizzy water. Yeah, it's pretty good overall,” Leena said. “Aside from violence, rapes, that kind of thing, being a Citizen is great!”
Lenth staggered and stopped. “Violence and what?”
Leena stopped, and still facing away from Lenth, lowered her head. She scoffed lightly. “I guess you wouldn't know,” she said softly, “given your...lack of experience.”
Rubberman's Cage Page 16