Greyson
We’re in a crate, disguised as rubbish. Its edges dig into my arms and across my shoulders and I hunch right tight as a ball. There isn’t much space and, though I’m fair scrawny, there’s still quite a bit of me. Bryn doesn’t seem to like sharing her space. Typical of a mid-leveler. I wish she’d glitching turn off her modes’ light. In such a bitty area, it’s blinding even with my eyes shut and it’s hard to make out Bryn’s face beneath the modes’ shadow. And it isn’t like they work anymore. Mine were shoved elbow deep in a pocket soon as I was able (alongside those wristbands I made and kept, cos damned if I was going to give them to Bones, the manipulative bastard). Without Zipper, my modes are as useable as if Bones’ surge had worked after all, and I’m as disconnected as Bryn.
I didn’t coma-fy last night at all, ushered from one hiding place to another before being boxed up. It must be early morning by now.
Despite all the times I moaned about Zipper weighing too much, she’d been a constant comfort and a shield against everyone else, especially after Ma was taken. Seems I’m not meant to have both.
Zipper.
My gut twists-tight.
I can build another. Her eyes could match and she wouldn’t get stiff when the temperature shifts. Pa could’ve kept her designs and I could find an old backup of her so she’d be pretty much herself. Yet the idea makes me fair uneasy. Would she be the same?
Bryn’s all sympathetic-like, but what’s she know? She’s had friends all her life. At school she was always with that boy with the slick-sleek hair or the girl who has a fascination with pink. I’d watch sometimes, imagining I was there with them too. Even now she mentions them as if they’re her family. So-and-so this, and what’s-his-name that. For the last hour and a half we’ve been crammed in this box, waiting, she’s been going on and on and on about them as if I glitching care.
“Oi, I’m talking to you,” Bryn hisses and I crack-snap my head up, slamming it against the crate’s roof. I check if I’m bleeding before scowling darkly at the girl across from me.
“What?” I grumble. My arse’s numb and my shoulders ache and I try to rearrange my limbs into a comfortableness, except it’s like trying to fold an origami crane out of wood in the dark. I kick Bryn by accident and don’t apologise.
“What’s wrong with you?” Her voice’s condescending, treacle-thick with pity, and just as sickly. My frown deepens until my face aches.
“What’s it to you?” My voice sounds raw. Bryn studies me for a sec, chewing on her lip.
“Sorry,” she murmurs and gives me a soft smile. My anger drains away and my eyes sting. I drop my head to my knees.
“I didn’t realise she meant so much to you.”
I don’t answer.
“Tell me about her?”
While she’s as far from me as she can get in a crate the size of a freezer box, her warmth is so comforting I interlock my fingers to stop from reaching out. I sniff heavily, wiping my cheeks against my knees and look up.
“What’s the point? She’s gone.”
“But you’re going to see your mother again,” she says. “That’s something, yeah?”
The crate shifts.
There’s movement outside, someone swears-sharp and a machine beeps before our crate shudders.
“I don’t know about this anymore,” Bryn whispers. Her face, streaked in shadows, is drawn and her fingers dig into her elbows as she hugs herself. “We could be wrong.”
The fear slams into me so hard I almost choke. Bones’ plan’s a viral risk. How he got a Mediator on his payroll, I dunno, but he’s disguised us and smuggled us into the rubbish dump on L8, wishing us luck. As if luck’s got any say in this glitching madness!
“It’s okay,” I say, stretching out my legs to brace against the opposite wall.
“I really don’t want to do this,” Bryn whimpers. I wrap my arm around her real tight as our crate lifts, my fists clenching as we’re jostle-jerked into position. I imagine the winch suspending us, hovering like some fat-bottomed bug, over a chute oozing fumes and darkness. At the end of the drop’s the un-manned recycling plant. Even I’ve not ventured deep enough to find it, but they say the furnaces run fierce-like non-stop since lift off and nothing’s wasted. The bots keep it going – sorting, burning, crushing, melting – and pipe up molten metal, liquid glass and malleable plastics ready for recasting. Foodstuffs, before and after chomping, make for compost. Everything from tram wheels to pee is recycled. It isn’t like we can just pop down to good Old Earth and get a top up.
“It’s okay,” I repeat, hoping to sky I’m not lying. Thing is, I’ve no inkling what’s going to be waiting for us at the end. Furnace, acid bath, compactor …
There’s no warning. I can’t even breathe in enough to shout. Bryn doesn’t have a problem and screams as we free-fall. What made me think I could glitching trust Bones? Am I completely disconnected? Where was my so-called survival instincts when I agreed to being disguised as rubbish and tossed into the guts of the Triumph?
Bryn doesn’t take a breath, she just screams and screams and screams as we tumble. I press myself against the sides with both hands and her head slams into my chin, clacking my teeth together. I taste blood.
“Grab something!” I yell and she shrieks as we twist-flip real brief upside down, crashing and scraping against the chute wall.
“What! Grab what!”
My knee collides with something soft and I wince as Bryn groans.
“Use your feet against the floor!”
“What floor!”
We fall, to our deaths, to a sizzle-crushing end, to … WHOOSH! My head snap-cracks against the crate lid and I see coloured sparks. Ringing fills my good ear.
We bounce, once, twice. I grab Bryn with one arm and manage to wedge us firm-like in a corner. My modes are crunching beneath my hip, a sharp edge, maybe a lens, is doing its fair best to saw its way through my pocket.
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“Have we stopped?” Bryn asks, heaving in long, steadying breaths. The crate shakes. We’re moving, swaying sideways, but we aren’t falling any more and, honest, that’s all I glitching care about. Well, that and Bryn’s heaving chest against my side. Another jolt and touch down.
“Hello in there!” Someone yells and pound-pounds the side.
“Yes! We’re here!” I call back and there’s more rocking and a screech-creech of metal on plastic, and then fresh air! The crate’s seal grind-hisses as it breaks, the rubbish glued to the outside flaking off like dry skin, and a slither of light sears through the crack like a laser beam. A crowbar wedges itself in the gap, levering to and fro, the plastic flexing and creaking.
It’s incredibly noisy. Not as intense as the bustling markets of L8, full of thousands of folk and the screech and roar-bellow of engines, but it’s still loud. Here it’s a steady rhythmic whoomp whoomp of the station’s propulsion blades.
“Anyone hurt?” The same voice shouts as the lid’s pushed off and I untangle my limbs slow-like, with a grunt. Bryn’s shaky beside me, her hands clenched white around the crate edges. I’m busy waiting for the painful stabbing of pins and needles in my legs to fade to help.
“A little bruised,” Bryn speaks up, voice hoarse, “but nothing serious.” Yelling’s the only way to be heard and I sign automatic-like to confirm we’re both in one piece.
We’re in a warehouse packed with grease-streaked crates stacked as far as I can see. In its centre’s a core like the real one above, except it isn’t as thick and it’s got no lifts. Naked light bulbs hang every few feet, swaying as the whole place shiv-shudders, and rumbling conveyor belts zip off in all directions, covered in things the station above hasn’t any use for no more. It’s bare any effort to tune out the thump-thudding of engines above my head.
Hands reach out, guiding us from our temporary prison and I check out our rescuers. The voice belongs to a giant. Almost seven feet tall, broad across the shoulders yet lean everywhere else. His eyes are a startling blue. I don’t long-linger, instead settling my gaze on his equally startling red hair brushing the heavily cabled roof. Around his neck hangs a breathing apparatus. In fact, they’ve all got them. They aren’t using them, but their mere presence has me feeling breathless.
He’s surrounded by others – men and women – none wearing modes, and garbed like normal folk, not like the refugees I’d imagined in rags and dirt. They shove and joke about as they check careful-like each link of a giant net before resetting it, stretching it across two steel, flexible arms. A catcher’s mitt. Bryn and I were plucked from certain death by a massive catcher’s mitt.
“It’s the fair best we can do,” the giant says with a shrug, catching my glance, “considering the alternative.”
“How you know which ones to snatch?” I ask, studying the open hatch in the side of the waste chute. It’s edges are rough and blistered like it was cut by a hammerhead wielding a blow torch and the whole thing shakes as something big, and I’m hoping non-live, goes past unchecked to the recycling facility.
“By sound. We can hear you screaming.” I dunno if he’s kidding or not. He’s only a few years older than us. What did he do to be Evicted? “The snatch station’s staffed 24/7 and we’re glitching good at what we do.” The equipment’s reset, ready for the next catch.
“Well, we’re grateful,” Bryn inserts and I nod, hoping my question wasn’t rude. “My name’s Bryn Morgan and this is Greyson …”
“Ward,” I say as Bryn hesitates.
“A fine pleasure to meet you both.” The giant then turns to his crew, shouting, “Col, you’re in charge! Flynn, keep your ears peeled.”
“As bananas!” A lanky, scruffy looking man acknowledges, wearing headphones twisted askew, one ear-cup by his neck, the other pressed against his right ear.
“Is the air bad here?” Bryn gestures to the breathers hanging around the man’s neck.
“Some spots. Life support is pretty jury-rigged down here, but don’t worry. You’ll get your own soon enough.” Our rescuer drapes his arms over our shoulders and tugs us towards a conveyor belt empty of rubbish. Bryn looks uncomfortable. Whether its cos of the man’s arm or the heavy-like heat and grizz of this place, I dunno. Probably both.
“Well, my friends, the name’s Rayburn, and I’m going to be your guide today,” he grins and, with little effort, shoves us onto the rumbling belt system. He moves as if he’s real comfy in his own skin, not just a piece of flesh his brain resides in when he isn’t in the Cyberinth. His steady grip keeps me from hurtling off and my stomach churns as stacked crates rush past us in a blur.
“Keep your knees bent. It helps,” Rayburn says, laughing, and I try to copy him, stance wide and the right foot slight forward from the left. I can’t help wobbling. Bryn’s kneeling, one hand wrapped around Rayburn’s boot for support, and grinning. She’s enjoying this!
“So what sends you both to our little corner of the universe, eh?” Rayburn asks. Even though he’s grinning, all friendly-like, his eyes say something else completely.
“Usual reasons,” I shrug. “You?”
Rayburn’s voice booms so loud I suspect them in the snatch station can hear him despite the racket. “No reason’s usual. Me? The fun-police kicked me out after some old school scavenger hunts I organised through the lower levels.” He pauses, as if expecting us to recognise his work, so I give him a nod and he continues, touching a rubber armband imprinted with the words GO NAKED. “Well, the game’s number one rule was no modes.” He tap-taps his bare forehead. “They didn’t like us switching off, so I had to go.” He mimes something being dropped, whistling as his hand falls before making a splat noise, his fingers splaying out.
I really am going to be sick.
“Hey, don’t forget the old huff-puff, my friend,” Rayburn says shaking my shoulder. “You’re safe here. No one’s turned away, no matter what you’ve done.”
“But we haven’t done anything,” Bryn explains. “Not really.”
“Is that rightly so,” Rayburn says and I can’t reckon what he’s thinking. I wish Zipper was here. “Well, Admin’ll sort you, no fears, my dears!”
We travel long enough for me to get used to leaning into corners, my legs screaming from the tension. The narrow passageway ends abruptly, opening up into a wider space beside a platform.
“This is us!” Rayburn yells and, tugging Bryn to her feet, he steps off the path, dragging us with him. The suddenness of steady ground makes me sway-stagger forward a step before Rayburn rights me. It still feels like everything’s moving. After a few deep breaths it passes and I look about. Across a concrete wall’s an arrow pointing towards a doorway and Rayburn ushers us along into a dim-gloom corridor. The floor’s paved in uneven slabs of dark, scuffed tiles, a mixture of rubber and plastic that bounces me on one step, jolts the next.
At the end of the corridor are a set of thick, semi-transparent plastic doors that shush-slide open as someone else comes in. I catch a glimpse of a familiar world before they glide shut. Rayburn’s arms are around our shoulders again as we reach the door and it opens.
What had I imagined? Something dark and dank, perhaps. Cramped, too, and stuffy. Full of criminals and anarchists and rule breakers. A place struggling to survive off the leftovers from the station above.
Nothing like this.
This is a hustle-bustling community beneath soft flickering lights. The roof isn’t high like on the other levels (I’m tempted to jump and touch it), though the space’s huge and spread out. We’re in a market with stalls everywhere. The closest is selling fried vegetables (real veggies!) and my mouth waters. Beyond is more and more stalls full of all kinds of people. Young and old, fat and thin. The outfits are eccentric, a fashion-fusion in a collective melting pot that make my eyes want to bleed from the sheer noisiness of colours.
The place’s a winding labyrinth, still shaking from the force of the engines, though it’s quieter here, like the eye of a storm. Well, not quieter as such. I relax without meaning to. This is fair familiar. The close quarters, the crowds, the cacophony of noise.
“Where are we?” Bryn asks.
With a sweep of an arm, Rayburn grins, “Welcome, my new friends,” he roars, “to the city of the Evicted, the forgotten, the lost. Where there’s no levels, no ranks, no pasts. Here, everyone’s equal. Welcome to Undercamp!”
And then I see her.
Ma’s tucked behind a work desk covered in spools of thread, multi-coloured pin cushions and neat piles of old clothes, unpicked and the panels divided by vivid colour. There’s a lightness about her, even with the few pins tucked between her lips and the furrows between her brows as she focuses on the outfit in her lap.
“Ma,” I hush-whisper then speak it then yell it and she’s looking up. I worry she’s going to swallow those pins, but she spits them out, drops her work on her chair and she’s right here. My arms wrap tight around her, her arms around me, and I breathe in. She still smells like detergent and cotton, but instead of her starchy uniform, she’s in a yellow-pale dress over tan trousers and her hair is loose and floats about her head in a fine halo of curls.
“I’d lost you,” I murmur into her ear and sink my face into her shoulder, a breath-shudder rippling through me.
“I’m sorry, Greyson. I’m so sorry,” Ma soothes.
“Well,” Rayburn booms. That man got no other setting? “I heart family reunions!”
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