by M L Sparrow
“What ya doin’ ‘ere?” His voice is high, scratchy and offensive to the ear.
For a moment I consider turning tail and running, but then I think, What harm could it do to answer? It’s not like the boy could pose a reasonable threat to me, especially not with Ludo at my back. He might even be able to help me.
“I’m looking for something called a typewheel,” I admit and the boy tilts his head enquiringly.
“What’s that?”
“It’s an integral part of a typewriter.”
“Whaa?” His face screws up in confusion.
“Look, I’ll show you ,” I turn towards Ludo, “maybe you’ve seen it. Ludo, can you find me a picture of a typewheel, please?”
“Searching typewheel,” Ludo responds and a second later a picture pops up on his screen. Regarding the robot warily, the boy’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but he edges forward nonetheless to peer at the picture.
“Ah,” he exclaims excitedly after a moment, drawing back with a huge grin that displayed one missing front tooth, “I’ve seen that, I know where it is!”
“Really? Could you take me? It would save me a lot of time.”
“What’s in it for me?” The look he shot me couldn’t be described as anything other than ruthless, “You got anything valuable…? I’d settle for the robot.” My mouth gapes open in shock. Were all kids this mercenary, or were Ghetto kids just a special breed?
“I’m not giving you the robot, but…” Considering it, I take off my Eye-Net, plunging myself into momentary darkness before my eyes adjust. Holding it out to him, I say, “You can have this.” It’s expensive, but being the President’s daughter means it won’t be hard to get my hands on another one and it doesn’t have any personal information on it, so I feel safe handing it over. Snatching it from me, the boy backs away as he studies the devise. “Do we have a deal?”
Glancing up at me, he looks vaguely surprised to see me still standing there. For a moment he appears to be considering running away, his eyes flitting back and forth, but then he nods firmly, his shaggy hair bobbing. “Deal.” Spitting on his palm, he holds it out for me to shake, but I wrinkle my nose and shake my head in denial, which makes him cackle meanly as he pulls back his hand and wipes it on his trousers.
The boy leads me further away from the relative safety of the fence and deeper into the dump. Without my night vision glasses, I trip and stumble, struggling to keep up as he weaves through the garbage with the swift efficiency of someone who has made this journey a million times. Despite the darkness, now lit only by a tiny slither of moon peeking out from behind the murky clouds, I can see dilapidated structures in the distance. The Ghetto was a mix of old concrete buildings, with little shacks, created from any available material, wedged between them and filling almost every available nook and cranny. Catching my toe on something sticking out from the pile, I fall forwards and have to put my hands out to catch myself.
“Hurry up,” the boy yells and I glance up, tossing back a curl which had somehow escaped its fastenings, to see him standing a way in front, watching me struggle, “I ain’t got all night.”
Gritting my teeth to bite back the angry words that are trying to punch their way out, I swallow them back before calling, “Is it much further?”
“No.” And yet, despite his answer, we have almost reached the buildings before the boy stops and turns to face me. For the last few minutes I have been wondering if this was a mistake; I am absolutely certain the typewheel wasn’t this close to the buildings. I should have just taken the time to find it myself using the map. Opening my mouth to inform him that I’m going back, I snap it shut and spin around to face Ludo when he emits a sharp, startling bleep.
“Threat detected.” A brief pause. “Multiple threats detected.” Heart racing, my eyes dart around, trying to see what he does. For a moment I can’t find anything, but then shapes begin to detach themselves from the night. In an instant we’re surrounded.
Chapter 3
“Step back,” Ludo orders, even as he takes a large step forward, putting himself between me and the men who’ve appeared, their stances menacing. The boy has disappeared – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I’d been led into a trap.
Ignoring the command, one of the men stalks closer – he’s short and wiry, with a maniacal gleam in his eyes and a sharp grin. “Well, well, well, what do we have here? The President’s daughter! I never thought I’d see you around these parts. Did the wittle Princess get bored of her palace?” His words were a slow, thick slur that sent shivers down my spine.
“This is your final warning,” Ludo’s voice, by contrast, is like music to my ears, “step back or I will shoot.” With those words a rectangular hatch in his forearm springs open and what appears to be the barrel of a gun rises from it as he extends his arm; except that it’s not a gun loaded with bullets, but rather a Taser. A red dot appears on the man’s chest.
From behind us, a cool, ruthless voice says, “Destroy it.”
Immediately, Ludo’s alarm begins to go haywire, “Weapons detected…” A bright flash of red light blinds me, accompanied by the rat-ta-tat of gunfire. Yelping, I drop to my knees and hunch over with my arms wrapped around my head.
It’s over in an instant.
Having been tightly clamped shut, my eyes slowly peel open when silence stretches on. A pair of shoes and denim covered legs stand in front of me and I cautiously follow them upwards. He’s tall, that’s the first thing that comes to mind, but not particularly well built. Though he has broad shoulders, there isn’t enough meat on him to bulk him out and his clothes hang from his frame, his cheekbones sticking out at sharp angles, throwing his face into shadow. The man holds out a hand. I don’t know what possesses me, but I take it, let him pull me to my feet, meet a pair of blue eyes several shades lighter than my own. They are so pale that they look almost silver in the moonlight.
“Miss Beaumont,” he addresses me politely, but the look in those cold, gleaming, gun-metal eyes makes something inside me quell. His is the voice that preceded the gunfire. Panic grips me and I tear my gaze from his, swinging around to see Ludo sprawled on his back, his eyes lifeless, sparks of electricity jumping from the wires which are exposed by the gigantic holes riddling his chest. Disbelief coursing through me, my mouth gapes open. I’d never though Ludo would be that easy to take down.
Blinking as reality sets in, I turn slowly back to the man standing not two feet from me. Rage bubbles up inside of me as I looked up into his impassive face; he doesn’t care. Without thinking, I lunge at him, fist swinging forward of its own accord. I’m actually surprised when it makes contact – the jolt of pain that shoots up my arm is inconsequential. Elated, I draw back my other hand, but he catches it as it nears his face, long fingers shackling my wrist.
“I think one’s enough,” he says calmly, grabbing my other hand when I swing it at him. Unable to tear them free, I let out a frustrated, feminine screech of outrage, which gains me nothing except a raised eyebrow and a look of vague amusement. Wanting to wipe that expression off his face, I kick his shin. Hard. His ‘oooff’ is almost silent and the tightening of his lips near indiscernible, but the humour slips from his face.
“You barbarian,” I spit the words at him like bullets, “you monster. Look what you did! No wonder you’re in the Ghetto, you’re too thick to do anything but sift through garbage.” Someone chuckles and I swing my head around to glower at them. The little man who had mocked me earlier is lying on the ground, jerking sporadically, having obviously been hit by Ludo’s Taser before the robot was taken out. My eyes skate over the wreckage and dart away again, unable to bear looking at it for too long.
“Shut up, Jay.” The man holding me begins to bite out orders in a clipped tone, “Help that idiot up, then get rid of the robot. Kit, you’re with me.”
Logically, I didn’t expect them to just leave me here, but it still comes as a bit of a shock when the grip on my wrists transfers to my arm and a teena
ger, who appears to be a couple of years younger than me, appears to flank my other side.
They tow me forwards and I dig in my heels, not that it helps, screeching as I thrash, “Let go of me, you bastards. My dad will have your head for this! I swear to god…”
Swinging me back around to face him, my captor stoops to my height, stopping only when his face is invasively close to mine. His whisper is more of a hiss, “I really don’t wanna have to knock you out, but I will.” Held in his steady gaze, my resolution to fight fades as my mind finally gets a handle on just how much trouble I’m in. My lower lip begins to tremble and the back of my throat and eyes burn. For a moment I think I see a softening in his face, but I must have imagined it, because a second later he’s dragging me down the garbage heap towards the buildings.
“Yo, Sin, what do you mean by ‘get rid’ of it?” one of the men calls out, halting our progress.
“Use your head, you got a brain for a reason,” the man – Sin – shoots back. “Take it apart and sell it for scraps, bury it, hide it somewhere no one will find it, I don’t care, just make damn sure it don’t come back to bite us in the arse.” Looking down at me, he narrows his eyes and adds, “While we’re at it we should frisk her.”
In the next instant, hands are roving over me, thorough yet impersonal. Though I had been disheartened, now all my indignation comes roaring back to the surface and I slap away the hand skimming my thigh.
“Get your filthy hands off me, you pervert.”
“That’s not very nice, darlin’,” he admonishes, finishing his search despite my protests; pulling my toolkit from my pocket and examining it quickly before shoving it into his own pocket. “I have to say I’m disappointed; you always seemed so charmin’ on TV.” Cursing loudly, I strike at him again and fail. Tutting mockingly, he shakes his head, “I bet Daddy wouldn’t approve of that kind of language from his little girl.”
Just for that comment, I do it again, stomping hard on his foot and jerking away in his moment of distraction, only to be caught against a thin, rangy body. I could probably get away from the boy, if given a moment, but the ringleader doesn’t give me time. Coming up behind me, sandwiching me between them, his large hand wraps around my throat, fingers pressing down. There’s a brief moment in which I feel my head spinning before everything goes blank.
Consciousness slowly intrudes, revealing a small, rectangular room with earth walls and dimly lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, with additional light seeping in through the cracks in the floorboards of the room above which create the ceiling. There are no windows. The only furniture was the cot on which I lay, covered by a thin, musky smelling sheet.
Disorientated, it takes me a few long, hazy moments to regain myself and realize why I’m here, in an unfamiliar room which smells like damp. Sitting up, attempting to reign in my panic, I take several deep breaths in a fruitless effort to calm myself before swinging my legs over the side of the bed and touching my toes to the floor. Someone had removed my shoes and jacket, as if they were concerned by my comfort even as they dumped me in this hellhole, and, though I’m still wearing my socks, I can feel the concrete floor beneath my feet, gritty with dirt.
The sheet slips away as I push myself up off the bed, doing a second sweep of the room in case I missed something the first time around, shivering more from bottled up fear rather than the cold. My boots are stood neatly by the end of the bed, with my jacket draped over the bedpost. Grabbing both, I zip my jacket all the way up to my chin and lace my boots tightly, before heading over to try the door. It creaks when I yank on it, but doesn’t open. I try again and again without success, ending up sweating and panting from the effort, leaning forward to press my forehead against the rough wood.
Once I have regained my breath, I turn to face the room, leaning my shoulders against the door to prop myself up. Tears of frustration build in my eyes, but I blink them back; I refuse to be reduced to a blubbering mess this early on. My emotional breakdown can wait a while, until I know how permanent my circumstances are. Voices from above draw my gaze upwards, distracting me. Dust falls from the squeaky boards as people move around in the room directly above. They’re talking in hushed voices, but if I strain I can just about make out what is being said. Holding my breath, so that the sound of my own breathing, obscenely loud all of a sudden, doesn’t interfere with my eavesdropping, I stand still as a statue, fearing that any movement may somehow alert them to my being awake.
“What are we going to do with her?” someone asks and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re talking about me. Knowing that my fate is being decided only makes me listen even more intently.
“We could ransom her,” another person suggests, “I bet Beaumont would pay a fortune to get her back.”
“Yeah, but then he’d hunt us all down and we’d all swing.” That was true, because my dad wouldn’t let them get away with it; he’d want to make an example out of them, to warn off anyone with the same ideas, to show his enemies that any threat to me wouldn’t be tolerated. However, the swinging part was a bit of an exaggeration. Though the death penalty was practiced – reserved for people who committed the most heinous crimes, like murder – they didn’t do anything as antiquated and barbaric as hanging criminals, they were simply administered a lethal injection, a practice which had been around hundreds of years, even before the mass rise of technology.
“I say we let her go, it ain’t worth the risk.”
“She came straight to us, that’s a fine stroke of luck and you just want to let her go? Are you stupid? Or just cowardly?”
“Take that back before I knock your teeth down your throat.” There are sounds of a skirmish and more dust rains down. Hurrying over to the bed, I sit down with my back against the cold wall, curling my legs up under me. Physically comfortable, I tilt my head back, not that I need to in order to hear them because they are now shouting insults at each other, loud enough to wake the dead.
“What’s wrong with you lot?” a voice booms. His voice. Sin. “I leave you alone for ten bloody minutes and all hell breaks loose. Are you children?” His exclamation is met by sullen silence and then everyone starts talking at once, their words blurring and clashing, making them indistinguishable.
“Enough.” Sin doesn’t shout this time, but still his order is heard and heeded, “And we’re not gonna to do anythin’ with her.”
“What?” one of the other men explodes, “So we put our necks on the line for nothing? What was the bloody point of takin’ her?”
Continuing as if he hadn’t been interrupted, Sin clarifies. “We don’t need to do anythin’ with her. As long as she’s here the President and his cronies will be too busy searchin’ for her to concentrate on anythin’ else. It’ll give us time to figure out our next move and we can ransom her later, it’ll work as a distraction and we’ll be able to slip under the radar.”
Knowing their plan is comforting. It’s nice to know that they weren’t going to cut me up and mail me back to my dad piece by piece as some kind of misguided, psychotic political message. Listening to my captors continued murmuring, though the noise no longer forms words when it reaches my ears, I feel myself drifting off to sleep and, closing my eyes, I let it take me.
I awaken in the same position, startled into awareness by the door squealing on its hinges as it’s shoved open hard enough to careen into the wall. Fear works better than caffeine to wake me up and I launch myself off the bed, but my legs, riddled with pins and needles, almost give out and I have to grab at the bedframe to steady myself.
The man in the doorway, a big bear of a man, with brutal scars marring the right side of his face, rolls his eyes, asking bluntly, “Do you need the toilet?” I want to say no, just so that he will leave, but I’m suddenly aware of a pressing need which has me fidgeting on the spot and crossing my legs, so instead I grudgingly answer the affirmative. “Well, come on then,” he says impatiently, stepping back and motioning for me to follow him as he begins cli
mbing the wooden stairs directly outside the door. When I hesitate to follow him, he turns around and snaps, “Are you comin’, or would you prefer to piss in the corner?”
Blushing at his crudeness, I hurry around the bed, not wanting him to change his mind and leave me to wet myself, which I was in real danger of doing. The wooden stairs creak ominously as we climb, but, though they bow dangerously beneath his weight, they hold steady beneath my lesser mass. Reaching the top, we clamber out of a hatch, which he shuts once I am though, supposedly so that nobody accidently falls down into what I guess is a basement, converted so that it could hold prisoners… or hostages. I suppose they were the same thing really.
Leading me down a narrow corridor, with doors lining it on either side, he turns a corner in silence and stops at the first door we reach. Pushing it open with one hand to reveal a tiny square room with a toilet and sink, he moves so that I can step inside without having to brush up against him.
“I’ll wait outside. Be quick.” With that he closes the door, leaving me alone with only my reflection in the grimy mirror above the sink. Obviously this place is missing a woman’s touch; it looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in years. Not that all women knew how to clean; I certainly didn’t, nor did I have any interest in learning, that’s what robots were for.
The door doesn’t have a lock on it so I relieve myself quickly, paranoid that at any moment someone could burst in and catch me with my pants around my ankles, literally. Once I’m finished it takes me several attempts to flush the toilet and then I go to stand in front of the window, the glass reinforced by a lifetime of dirt and neglect. I attempt to create a clear spot to see out, but all I manage to do is smear my hand with black gunk. Grimacing, I look for a towel to wipe it on; finding none I unroll some of the meagre supply of toilet paper and use that, then I use some more to shield my hand as I attempt to pry the window open to no avail.