by Ethan Cooper
Immediate relief. The spasms fade like an exhaled breath, taking the static with them. The next second, I’m crying. Each tear hurts, burning, as if my body can’t really spare the moisture right now, but it’s a pain I can embrace.
The loss of the shock and static is similar to what I felt when I hit both on my broken toes against the floor; it’s such a welcome bliss that I’m not really feeling anything normal. The ache of an empty stomach. An unquenched thirst. The bold fire of two broken toes. I need to leave this room, and I can do that now—even if I have to take this entire chain and that damned rod with me—but I’m allowing myself a few moments to revel in my success. Let my body fall backward until I’m flat on my back, my knees bent, my feet resting on their heels to keep my toes off the ground.
I’m going to survive.
Awareness of pain returns to my body, and with it comes all sorts of other sensations I’ve been missing. My ankle itches underneath the shackle, right where I’m unable to scratch. A hand through my hair confirms my hair is oily and matted to my scalp, neck, and cheeks. I have cuts and bruises all over my body. It’s cold in here, gooseflesh rising across my skin. I can smell the sour stink of my unwashed body. Sweat mixed with urine. The worst is my breathing, which is weak and raspy, as if each breath is filtered through a wall of mucus.
But I’m alive, and that’s not nothing, dammit.
I’m going to survive.
Idly, from my reclining position, I grab the rod. It’s remarkably light, and the thought that it was able to keep me prisoner in this room is sickening.
At the bottom of the rod, where the threads are, there are tiny black marks. Looking closer, I can see that the marks are numbers. There are eight of them.
(took you long enough angel amazing you)
(survived this long)
The pulse dagger with the reversed power module.
The removable rod.
The combination to my shackle.
All here. The entire time. Fuck, I’m stupid.
The only person holding you prisoner is yourself, Syl. You can leave whenever you want.
Calamity Carl’s words are a taunt on repeat in my mind the entire time I’m dialing in the code to my shackle. The sound it makes when it unlatches and falls to the floor is the most beautiful sound that’s ever entered my ears.
I think it takes ten minutes to stand, but I’m up, trying to maintain my balance without touching my little toes to the floor. Now that I’m erect again, I’m clutching onto the pulse dagger as if letting go of it would somehow cause me to instantaneously drop dead. Wish I had some shoes. And a shirt.
I’m standing there, just like that, shivering, about to take my first step toward the room with the sink and the shower, when the elevator door slides open and Calamity Carl returns.
44/Escape
Unknown/Unknown
“That took almost forever,” Calamity Carl says. “I was watching the entire time. Did you know that?”
“Yeah.” My voice is an aborted croak. The room is threatening to flip upside-down on me, put me back on my butt. Can’t stand here like this, need something to steady myself. I take hesitant steps toward the marble wall. Even the slightest pressure on either of my little toes causes an involuntary recoil. If it was just one toe, I at least could have favored the other foot. With two broken toes, I’m forced to raise them as best I can, and walking is awkward. Not gonna be running anytime soon.
“You look terrible. Did somebody hurt you? And you’re all exposed. You should put on a shirt. What happened to the one I gave you?”
“I broke it.”
“You should take better care of the stuff I give you.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know it wasn’t designed to hold my body weight.” When my fingertips touch the marble wall, I sigh, bringing one hand forward until it’s flat against the cool, smooth surface. Using the wall to lean on, I shuffle into the room with the shower. There’s a small sink and a circular mirror above it. I know the shower uses real water, and it looks like the sink does too. Duck my head down. The water is a blast of cold against my dry lips. At first, I’m just lapping at it, but then I’m sucking it down as fast as I can. My throat isn’t prepared for any of this. I’m choking, but just as quickly, I’m back at it. My stomach groans.
“You should probably slow down,” Calamity Carl says.
When I turn from my task, water streaming down the side of my face and off my chin, to see his form filling the doorway, something inside me shatters. Swallowing the last of the water in my mouth, I go upright, the pulse dagger flaring to life in my hand.
“You should be careful with that. You could hurt somebody.”
I direct the tip of the dagger toward him with one hand and wipe water from my mouth with the other. My steps are unsteady, and every time I put a foot down there’s a flash of throbbing hurt—as if the floor is biting me.
Calamity Carl backs up as I advance, his hands coming up, palms open toward me.
“I want to hurt somebody,” I say, lunging forward, sending the pulse dagger in a sweeping arc.
Calamity Carl swivels to one side, using one hand to redirect the course of my arm, then he grabs my wrist, yanking me along his body. I’m forced to go where he leads, an agony-filled stutter-stepping where I can’t avoid coming down on my broken toes. He lets me go. I turn to face him, brandishing the pulse dagger out in front of me. Given the ease with which he avoided my attack, I’m surprised he didn’t disarm me.
(his cute)
(little toy)
Glaring, breathing hard, it’s all I can do to keep standing. My amateur attack took a lot out of me, and I don’t have a lot left to give. I have limited reattempts.
“The test is over,” I say. “I passed. I’m going to leave now.”
Calamity Carl’s voice is strong and bold, but it’s also still a tinkling, bell-filled whisper directly into my brain. “Just because you’re still alive doesn’t mean you didn’t fail. It means you’re being stubborn. You have to accept the results. I’m here to help you with that.”
He’s stepping forward.
I’m stepping backward.
The room seemed so big before, when I was shackled and couldn’t reach anything. Now that I’m untethered, able to move around freely, it seems like there’s nowhere I can go to avoid my predator. I stumble, my back impacting with a window. The moment I touch it, all the windows go transparent. It’s night out there, the only light of any significance comes from the ghostly glow of the moon through a large hole in the haze.
Calamity Carl stops in front of me, one gloved hand an oppressive weight on my shoulder before I can even try to dodge.
His touch almost crumples my knees. I don’t go down, but God I want to.
bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!
Static, clear and loud, filters through every cell in my body. Feels like I’m actually vibrating. Can he feel that? It leaves me gasping for breath, waiting for the final blow that I know is coming because I can see him drawing a fist back. This is it. No more second chances. Tried my best to survive. Didn’t.
When it happens, it happens fast.
Calamity Carl’s fist, like a bullet, it’s target: my head, a truly vicious burst of static, and then Ms. Automatic Me is back, stepping into my body, wearing me like I wear a skinsuit, completely possessed, wholly under her control, ducking, spinning, pulse dagger grip reversing as I move, the sound of Calamity Carl’s fist as it hits the window, a clamorous static in its own right, a million shards fill the air as I pivot on my heel, my vision blurry with horizontal streaks, my own blue strands like a mask across my eyes, arcs of white light as the pulse dagger slashes across Calamity Carl’s body, bolt of white hot pain in my toe as I anchor my heel against his, burying the pulse dagger into a gap in the armor near his shoulder blade, then leaning in with my shoulder, pushing off with my other leg, a spike enters my shoulder, something cutting into my bicep, pushing regardless, pushing him forward, pushing him toward the outside, the wind e
ntering the room through the broken window is icy, carries with it the smell of smoke and decay, Calamity Carl toppling outward, nothing to grab that would stop his motion, can hear his voice chiming in my head, but it’s lost in the noise, several precious nanoseconds of exultation when I realize that he’s really going to fall out of the room, quickly replaced by utter terror, realizing that the pulse dagger is caught on something, won’t come away from his body, and the death grip I’ve got on my weapon isn’t going to release.
When he goes, he goes quickly.
And I go with him.
45/Defeat
Unknown/Unknown
BLINK.
(you finally)
(escaped)
BLINK.
Tumbling, the world a mess of shadowy blocks broken by streaks of light. The static is gone, which means I can hear the wind rushing in my ears, the hammering of my heart, and the tinkling of bells as Calamity Carl laughs.
BLINK.
The automatic me; she’s gone too.
BLINK.
(don’t worry)
(it’s not)
(the fall)
(that hurts)
(it’s the)
(sudden stop)
(at the end)
BLINK.
I want to scream. Mouth opens to do just that, but I can’t make any sounds right now. Left my stomach back in that room way back up there. We’re high, so very high. Our tumbling slows as Calamity Carl extends his arms.
BLINK.
The building we fell out of is a looming presence off to one side, each dark window marking another few meters closer to that sudden stop. Below us, I can see a cloud engulfing the building. Though I can’t see through it. If there’s another building anywhere under there, then this express elevator ride is going to be cut short.
BLINK.
The cloud swallows us.
BLINK.
I know that we’re only in the cloud for a couple of seconds, but my mind tells it’s much longer. Calamity Carl twists an arm back and pries the pulse dagger out of his back. My fingers are still curled tight around it. For some reason, he lets me keep it. Not entirely sure what he does next, but when he’s done, he’s reoriented himself so he’s under me, and we’re facing each other as we fall. He must’ve retracted all his spikes and blades because all of me is up against all of him and I’m not in an incredible amount of pain right now. Then again, it might just be my body concentrating on more immediate things.
BLINK.
Calamity Carl’s voice in my mind: “Why didn’t you let go?”
I don’t know. I couldn’t.
BLINK.
Coming out of the cloud, our positions are reversed
And I’m face down.
Eyelids snap shut reflexively.
Can feel his arms around my belly, and across my shoulders, securing me tight up underneath him. The air tears right through me. I’m shivering as we plummet. Eyes open to watch. Can’t stop watching. Have to watch this. We’re falling between two buildings now. I see flickering lights in the street and people walking. A hovercab or two, still operational, parked on either side of the street. We’re going to make a nice impact splatter right between the two of them.
“This is going to hurt,” Calamity yells in my ear.
bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!
Boom! The static returns.
Mixed in with the roar of wind in my ears, is a high-pitched whine. The street below—closer than ever, probably have another three seconds—wavers, as if I were looking at it through water.
Some instinct tells me I should blink. I don’t. I can’t.
Everything collapses in on itself, and for a second, the ground appears to jump up to meet us. There are explosions, which must be the sounds of my bones breaking as my body and the street collide. There’s heat. There’s cold.
bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!
A kaleidoscope of colors, splattered onto the tunnel that is my vision, stretching into infinity. Something’s pushing me through that tunnel and whatever lies at the end of it. The colors run together, hurrying by till they’ve become a searing white light that’s too intense to look at. I shut my eyes. The pain comes a second later. It’s like I’m being pinched in a hundred places at once. The heat and cold has followed me into this place, both cooking and chilling my body at the same time. I’m shivering, but I want to take off all my clothes.
Try to take a breath. Can’t. There’s nothing to suck in. Open my eyes to see that I’m in an infinite expanse, broken only by pinpricks of light. Is this space? Am I in space?
The pinpricks begin to grow in size, millions of them, expanding till they begin to merge, until the light swallows the darkness, leaving only pinpricks of black on an endless field of white. The points of darkness are gone.
I scream into the white.
bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!
I hear two dull explosions, then my eyes are truly open, and oh yes, the world is back. I’m spewing the contents of my stomach—water, stomach acid, and strings of saliva—onto the floor.
Whole body aches. Not like before. This is something different, as if I’ve been torn apart and put back together, but not all the way. Nothing feels the same.
A quick glance.
I’m back in the room at the top of the building, back in my prison.
“Fucker,” I say. He’s not in my field of view, but I know he’s here. “You teleported me back here!”
“I told you it would hurt.”
“How many years did you just take off my life? How the fuck do I know if everything’s back where it should be?”
“I saved you.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather be a red splotch on the street than in this room with you.” Not true, but it felt pretty good to say it.
I stand up. Shivering, I’m cold, covered in a fine sheen. I guess that’s what happens when you fall out of a building, plunge through a cloud, go from this world and into…wherever it is you go when you’re teleported, then relocate a couple thousand feet upward, back into the building you fell out of.
Turning to face Calamity Carl, who’s standing between me and the elevator, I wipe water from my forehead so it’ll stop dripping into my eyes. When, I try to step around him, he blocks me.
“Well, some things you get attached to,” he says. “And no matter how hard you try, you just can’t bring yourself to let go of them! Do you know how that feels?”
I look down at the pulse dagger, which is still active in my hand.
(use it)
The blow—Calamity Carl’s fist to my cheek—takes me to the ground.
bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!
The automatic me returns. I have a chance of surviving this as long as she’s here, as long as I surrender myself to her control.
Pulse dagger weaves a deadly dance, but Calamity Carl’s foot sweeps my thigh, spinning me around. Sparks fill the air—I caught the edge of his boot with the blade.
“Naughty girl,” Calamity Carl chides, and he’s got his hand around my ankle when he says it.
Nothing I can do to stop him from slinging my body across the floor. Have enough momentum to carry me all the way to the other side of the room, my slickened skin lubricating my passage across the low-friction, neoplastic surface. I hit the far wall, cushioning the collision as best I can with my shoulder and my arm.
Don’t get a chance to recover because Calamity Carl is right there on me, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet. I watch the pulse dagger cut through the air where Calamity Carl’s head had been a second before. A second slash, this one aimed for his groin, misses as well.
I see the second blow enough in advance that I get my forearm up to deflect some of the force, and my head was leaned back, but his fist still catches me in the side of the head, just above my ear. The shock of the blow stuns me, but he doesn’t let go of my arm. I just know he broke skin with that one; things are warm and wet there. I’ve sprung a leak. His arm’s cocked back again. It’s blurry. The static is a constant, waverin
g hum.
“Gonna bludgeon me to death? You sadistic tarokk fucker,” I say, words slurred, my tongue not able to fully articulate the syllables.
“Blue,” Calamity Carl says, extending a finger from his clenched fist so that he can wag that finger at me. “To bludgeon you to death, I’d have to be holding something in my hand. I’m hitting you with my first, which means that I’m beating you to death. You freed yourself, but too late to pass my test.”
So, after all I’ve been through, this is what it comes down to: being beaten unconscious. Compared to this, being shocked to death seems elegant.
His third blow misses, sailing over my head because I let my knees go slack. My feet are planted, so when he recoils, drawing his fist back and pulling me back up for another punch to the face, I straighten my legs and come up close to his body, bringing the pulse dagger with me. The blade goes right where the automatic me wants it: underneath that silly mask of his. It goes up in there easily enough, the glowing blade disappearing behind that glossy-smooth surface. I get it in all the way up to the hilt. This isn’t me doing this. It’s her. I’m just along for the ride, like I’m jacked into Cyberspace and seeing it play out virtually in front of my eyes. Fascinated and horrified, I watch as my wrist turns, twisting the blade of the pulse dagger. Oh God, she’s trying to pry his mask off.
Calamity Carl’s smile cracks in half.
The only sound from him is a grunt.
The bottom part of the mask begins to fall.
Crumpled, uneven flesh. Exposed, gleaming bone. A grin, formed of jagged, broken teeth.
That’s all I get to see before the ceiling lights go black. The red lines on Calamity Carl’s armor wink off.
A stiff hand, right between my breasts, and I’m stumbling back, each step punctuated by a sharp stab of pain when my toes touch the floor. I don’t lose my footing, but only because the window’s at my back.
Fuck. Lost the pulse dagger.
There’s just enough light for me to get a fix on Calamity Carl’s position in the room before the moon goes dark behind a thick layer of clouds.