“Containment of a custody robot is not allowed. Release me at once.”
“I’m trying to, you annoying, flying, piece of--”
The knot released and a waft of burnt engine grease charged from the bag, followed by a furious yellow tin can, waving his flailing arm around like an irate cheerleader wielding a broken baton.
“It’s against protocol. Forbidden. Disallowed…” the old hoverbot protested.
“Henri,” Michael cheered, “you’re OK again.”
“I guess we’re high enough for him to start drawing power from the Autonoma power grid,” I explained, glancing upward to the high ceiling.
Above us, two floors of balconies overlooked our position, each flanked by iron bars about five-foot-high, with their flaking white paint clinging to the rusty surface underneath. Behind them, heavy, grey doors sat ajar and rusty pendants, suspended from the joists, shielded their oversized yellow bulbs with rusted shades. Even from here, I could smell the dust burning on the hot glass.
“Is this a prison?” Michael asked, scanning his surroundings.
“No,” I replied, “of course not. Why would there be a prison underneath an Amusement Park?”
He glared at me.
“This is the Autonoma Facility,” the old tin can piped up.
“Hey, Henri,” I shouted into the flying tin can’s painted on eyes, eager to stop the idiot from blurting out a history lesson that I knew would distress my little brother.
“Yes, Subject?”
“Does that door lead to Gate 13?” I asked.
The old hoverbot hesitated, turning in the direction indicated by my outstretched finger.
“Gate 13?” Henri replied.
“Yes, Gate 13. The way you told us we could get out of here,” I retorted.
“Get out?” the old hoverbot repeated.
“Yes, out. Away from this place forever.”
“You can’t leave. Autonoma was made for you. There are protocols. Procedures. Rules to follow.”
With the old hoverbot distracted listing all the reasons we couldn’t leave, I instead planned how we were going to tackle this stage in our daring escape. A rusty blue metal door with the words, ‘no admittance under any circumstance’, stenciled on its surface seemed a good start.
I approached, looking for the handle, to find the lock broken off and the lever absent. I pushed and the door collided with the frame. Wrapping my fingers as best I could around the side of the door, I dug my nails into the indentations in the paint on the door, scars from someone else’s own attempts. Despite the burning sensation in my nails, as they were pulled backward, I edged the door open, feeling my little brother brush against my leg.
“No,” I insisted, “wait here.”
“Why?”
“I’ve just got a feeling. Wait here.”
Michael stared at me for a moment and stepped back.
“I’m just going to take a look,” I explained, turning back toward the narrow gap, slipping past the door, and balancing on the threshold. Below, I could see the Dr.’s office, with the silk rose in the untouched vase on her desk. Opposite, the grey door had ‘arrivals’, stenciled in black paint above it, and I’d have wagered it led to another welcoming dock or at least some way out of here. Getting to it, however, seemed pointless. It was twenty feet wide and a fifteen feet drop straight down into Hartwick’s office, but I could see from here the door had been welded shut from this side. The smeared handprint on the wall did little to build optimism.
“Well?” my little brother asked, as I shut the door behind me, returning to his side.
“There’s always a way out, right?” I replied. “Well, it’s not that way.”
Michael smiled, perhaps content to know I had been listening to him all along.
“I guess we better find the right way out then,” I declared, walking toward the center of the room, as Michael returned another smile, and I reciprocated.
As my little brother skipped to the dusty outlines of a tennis court, kicking at the tattered remains of the net, I approached the first of the smaller rooms to the side.
Behind the rusted white bars sealed shut by the decay, a single chair sat facing away from me. The varnish on the wooden frame had peeled and cracked, but the plastic of the fake leather of the seat looked intact. The metal cuffs riveted to the arms were rusted, and I doubted the hinge would budge an inch. Most of the paint had peeled from the walls and ceiling, creating a thick blanket of flakes on the floor and the overturned speaker. The sight of the copper wires protruding from the back made the wound in my hand itchy, and I backed away from the bars.
“What’s this?” Michael asked, as I turned to see him holding up a tennis racquet.
“It’s for hitting a tennis ball,” I explained.
“Why?”
“It’s a sports game. You know what tennis is. Stop playing daft.”
“But there’s only one,” he replied.
“The other’s probably buried under all the dirt.”
“No, I’ve checked.”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“No, I guess not,” he responded, his tone dejected.
“Tennis is an excellent way to preserve muscle function,” Henri chimed, hovering closer to Michael to inspect the racquet.
As Henri recited the positive benefits of exercise for both mind and body, I turned my attention to the other rooms running along the wall. Most lay under the same blanket of decay and ruin as the rest of the facility, some with the inclusion of a series of television screens all aimed at the chair.
The last of the rooms, however, had a chair tilted backward on a concrete base. As well as the handcuffs, there were restraints for the ankles. Screens faced the chair, forming a bubble around the viewer, while speakers lined the floor. It looked almost like a crude attempt to emerge the subject, but with the thick wooden frames, and curvature of the glass, it was impossible to hide what I was looking at.
A glimmer of an image flashed across the screens.
“Alex,” echoed around my ears like a whisper carried in the wind.
I placed my hand onto the rusted gate to steady myself and it swung open. Without a sound, the bars disappeared from my view, and I found myself drawn toward the chair. No, not drawn, pushed, by a weight behind my shoulders. I felt for the duffle bag, convinced the weight of it was pushing me over, though the thud of dropping the bag echoed through my mind as the metal gate slammed shut behind me. I did not turn to open it, I couldn’t. I fell into the seat, wanting to call out to Michael, but my words were muffled.
The television in front of me flickered and Sulloman glared back.
“Reconditioning,” he barked, his face contorted in a rage so fierce I could almost see the red of his cheeks on the screen. The image oscillated as a series of static lines scrolled across the glass. The television next to it lit up.
“They keep shipping them in,” Sulloman sneered, “and I keep cashing those checks.”
The screen switched off.
“A minister is coming,” he declared on another screen, as more flickered. “Why won’t they leave me alone?” he asked. “Ignorance. Irrelevance. Assurance.”
His face occupied every screen like a video diary all playing at once.
The screens fell dark. The cuffs across my ankles and wrists slammed shut, locking in place.
The red decayed Autonoma logo I last saw in the park, before everything started to go wrong, appeared on each of the displays. The image scanned across the glass, forming a single logo across all the screens.
“Keep going,” a voice I knew I recognized, but couldn’t put a name to, declared through the series of speakers on the floor. “They know where you went. They know what you did. They know where you are. They will try to bring you back. They will try and undo what you have done. They do not want you to know about the truth. You must discover it before it’s too late, before they find you. Find Gate 13. Find the Truth. Remembrance. Acceptance. Vengeance.�
��
The screens returned to their thick, green, decaying, lifeless stasis, and I was free to stand from the chair, though no matter how much I stared at the screens, none of what happened was explained to me. I left the room unhindered as the flakes of paint on the gate were dislodged by my wake, fluttering to the floor.
“That’s not how you play,” Michael insisted, standing by the net. “The ball has to bounce first.”
“Negative,” Henri responded.
“You can’t just keep saying that,” my little brother replied, flustered.
“We should probably keep going,” I declared, shouting across the pair of them, keener than ever to leave whatever was happening to me behind. “Probably through here I think,” I shouted, pointing to another door, collecting the duffle bag. “I can’t see any other way out of this place. What do you think?”
Michael turned toward me, throwing the bat to the floor, and stomped toward me. “Stupid hoverbot,” he mumbled, “doesn’t even know how to play bounce-ball.”
As Henri followed Michael toward the door, I glanced back to the screens of the last room.
Lifeless, broken and forgotten by time, I was starting to doubt I even sat in the chair. A heavy sigh escaped my lips.
‘KEEP GOING’, typed across the screens, fading to nothing.
Chapter 23
The Gatekeepers
Kicking at the debris littering the green arrows painted on the floor, I led my little brother and the flying tin can into the next corridor. I stopped to glance into a small hatch in the metal door to my side to another room filled with screens, speakers, and a single chair.
“What’s in there?” Michael asked, standing on his tip toes trying to see, pushing me aside.
“Nothing much,” I replied, trying to forget the last set of screens. “Just a chair and some televisions.”
“Televisions?” he asked, enthused. “What’s on?”
“What do you mean, what’s on?”
“What’s on the screen? I want to see,” he insisted, jumping on the spot to try and reach the hatch as Henri positioned his painted-on eyes at the opening.
The flying tin can backed away and turned to face Michael. “This facility no longer possesses the capabilities to recondition the--"
“Recondition?” I asked.
A pause. “Apologies. I do not understand,” the old hoverbot responded.
“You said recondition,” I replied. “Why did you use that word?”
“What does it matter?” my little brother asked, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “It’s just a word.”
I bit my tongue. Even if I told him what I saw, he’d never believe me. I didn’t believe it myself. Besides, he’d have a million questions I didn’t know the answer to. I had to keep going.
“Come on,” I declared, stepping forward onto another dusty green arrow. “I’ve had enough of this place.”
On the opposite side of the corridor, a metal door with no hatch gave little away about what lay behind, as a red bulb contained within a metal cage sat idle above the door. I tried the handle. It was sealed shut.
“What’s in there?” my little brother asked.
“How should I know?”
“Oh,” he replied, his defeated tone echoing about the forgotten corridor, as I carried on.
“Oh great,” I declared, throwing my hands up toward the rusted, white gate blocking our path.
“I’ll try,” my little brother announced, puffing out his chest.
I flashed him a sarcastic smile, stepping back, as he rubbed his hands together. Panting and groaning, he pulled at the rusty handle.
Snatching my focus, the words stenciled above the door beside me, ‘RECONDITIONING SUITE A’, seemed somehow more familiar than they should. I looked away, afraid to evoke another episode of ‘when did my mind leave without me?’
With little else to look at, besides Michael’s puffed out cheeks turning red and the backside of a smelly, old hoverbot, I found myself staring at the closed hatch in the door. Curiosity got the better of me, and I reached for the latch.
“No,” I muttered, pulling my hand back.
Henri spun around and glared at me with those ridiculous painted-on eyes. I stared back, raising an eyebrow. The old hoverbot hesitated for a moment and turned back to watch my little brother hanging by both hands from the rusty handle.
Once again, I found myself drawn to the hatch. Born of boredom, and a short attention span, I released the latch and it collided with the metal door. My little brother paused, looking to see if the lock had released.
“No,” I shouted toward him, “that was me.”
“Oh,” he replied, frustrated.
“But, please, do carry on,” I instructed, a mischievous grin spreading from the corner of my mouth.
Michael stepped back, spat into both hands, and launched himself at the gate, clamping onto the handle.
I returned my attention to the hatch. Inside the larger room, another single chair, complete with the restraints for both the ankles and wrists, was tilted backward on a wooden platform. A half-dome of screens hung above it, suspended by a lattice of metalwork, while more speakers formed a semi-circle across the floor. The middle screen was missing, and shattered glass was speckled beside the chair, while the remains of the rest of the television was visible inside the arms.
“Would you like me to unlock the gate?” Henri asked, snatching my attention.
“Wait? What?” I asked.
The old hoverbot hesitated, spun to face me, and repeated himself.
“Well, yes,” I replied, heavy on the sarcasm.
“Very well,” Henri responded.
The echo of the lock releasing resounded about the corridor, and the rusty gate swung open with Michael attached to the handle.
“I did it!” he declared, a wide smile filling his face, lowering his feet to the floor.
“Yeah,” I replied with forced enthusiasm, “you did it. Well done.”
He didn’t seem to pick up on the insincerity, instead, he wiped the rust from his hands onto his A.M.I. top and marched through the open gate. The old hoverbot followed, and I reached out to grab his casing.
A curse slipped my lips as I retracted my scolded hands from the hot metal. Henri paused and resumed his pursuit of my little brother.
“Wait a minute,” I insisted, blowing my palms.
The old hoverbot hesitated and turned to face me.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
The painted-on eyes stared through me as I waited for a response. “I do not understand--”
“How did you unlock the gate?”
“All the facilities within Autonoma are automated and all custody bots must maintain all components of this facility. It is imperative we have access to all functions for restraint and containment. Our creator requires all bots perform all tasks with diligence…” Henri continued, as he spun his painted-on eyes forward and resumed his pursuit of my little brother, chatting away to himself.
“He wants to try a personal project,” the familiar tones of Mr. Sulloman announced, echoing about me.
I glared into the open hatch of the room with the half-domed screens as one illuminated with his face addressing the camera.
“As long as he does it on his own time and my margins do not suffer, why should I care?” the inflated face remarked. “They tell me he lost more than anyone in the explosion. I say pish-posh. I lost an entire facility. He can always have another child. I cannot just build another power plant. I refuse to become a bloodied stain in the Quincunx’s empire.” Mr. Sulloman’s face contorted with contempt, spitting the words. “Still, he promises me this personal project of his will bring me the retribution I deserve. A confession of guilt. With that, those busy bodies from the ministry can no longer call my means cruel or unnecessary. They will finally see the brilliance to my plan. They will finally understand my greatness. They will finally see Autonoma for all her glory.” The jowls of his face wobbled as he st
ruck the table with his fist. “Mayer, Tang, they’ll all see.” Lines of static flashed across the screen.
“Are you coming, Alex?” Michael shouted.
“Yeah. I’m coming,” I replied, watching the screen fade to black.
The next gate unlocked, and my little brother strained to pull it open, digging his feet into the tiled floor and using both hands. I reached forward to help, and he flashed me a scowl.
“OK, OK,” I replied, “I won’t help.”
“I don’t need,” he paused to groan, “your help.”
‘OBSERVATION’, was stenciled in black paint above the door next to me and this time it didn’t bring with it an air of familiarity. I was glad of it.
“There,” Michael declared with a heavy pant, as Henri scuttled through. “Open.”
“Thank you,” I responded with forced sincerity as I passed by.
“You’re welcome.”
The gathered dust and debris littering the floor swirled and fluttered aside, as the old hoverbot proceeded along the corridor toward the next corner. Pushing past me, Michael skipped along after him.
I watched the flakes of paint settle on the next green arrow as the unwelcome feeling of misplaced familiarity returned. Ahead, another thick metal door, this time a dark green, bore a label I did fear I recognized, ‘SUBJECT A’.
The door was ajar, and I could see from here the lock had been broken off. I hesitated, wanting to know what part of me lay behind the door as much as I feared it. Nothing so far had brought me answers, but what if this was another missing part in the puzzle? I needed to look, though I didn’t want to; or did I?
A comfy sofa, television, and the video game machine from my more recent memories of my bedroom were inside the room. Why were they here? Why had someone recreated almost every stage of my life so far? What was this place? I mean, really, what really was this place for? Was someone going to bring me here before it was abandoned?
Approaching the television stand, I ran my fingers across the top of the pile of dusty game cases, leaving a trail. ‘Dodge ‘em, Maze Craze, Video Pinball’, I remembered the cases well, though the colors had faded on the spines.
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