“Uh, I suppose I could…” he answered, hesitantly.
Morgan shook her head emphatically before he could finish his sentence.
Okay, no more sarcasm, he won’t understand it. “No, you really can’t. You don’t want me to escape, fine. Untie just one hand and give me the tray.”
“But with one hand free you can untie the others…”
Morgan sighed again. This was taking too long. And her body had decided. She needed a bathroom first.
“Which is why they told you to wait here while I eat,” Morgan added, cutting him off.
“How did you know they said that?”
“I’m psychic, didn’t you know?”
The poor boy actually took a step back from Morgan. She couldn’t see his expression, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it was fearful, at least for a moment.
“Really?”
“Of course not. I just assumed whoever sent you here wasn’t stupid.” Though sending you might make me reconsider that assumption.
“Fine. I’ll untie one hand.” He stepped closer, but stopped with his hand hovering over Morgan. “Um… which hand do you want to eat with?”
Well done, Morgan thought, that actually was a relevant question.
“I am right-handed. But never mind that. You’re going to untie me completely first.”
“I will not!” he said, indignant.
“You will. How else are you going to take me to a bathroom?”
“Oh.” Morgan could practically hear him blushing. “Couldn’t you just eat first?”
“No, I cannot.” Morgan resisted the urge to roll her eyes again, accompanied by a head shake. “Come on now, this isn’t that complicated. Take me to the bathroom, let me eat, and then you can leave me alone and get back to whatever it was you were doing.”
The lad started with her legs, untying them slowly, glancing up at her every few moments as if convinced she was going to try to attack him. Morgan probably could have head-butted him if she tried hard enough, but she failed to see what that would accomplish.
Some revolutionary. He’s scared of everything. That might be useful for me.
If anything he took even longer to untie her arms, slowing down noticeably again after the first one was loose.
Morgan let out a quiet grunt of annoyance.
“Time is important here,” she said, reaching up to finally scratch an itch on her ear that had been bugging her for at least an hour, sighing as this caused him to recoil back. “I’m not going to hit you. I mean, I should be afraid of you, really, so you being afraid of me is just silly.”
“No one is afraid of me, that’s silly.”
Morgan sighed, massaging her aching forehead with one hand
“Really? And here I thought you were one of the hardcore revolutionaries that is going to overthrow the government of an entire world?”
“That’s different.”
“How so?” Morgan asked.
He had finally finished with the last knot, and Morgan got to her feet.
Or tried to, at any rate. She started falling, her weak and numb legs giving out from under her.
After a moment’s hesitation Lanky reached out to grab her. He wasn’t quick enough, and Morgan collapsed onto the floor, thankfully missing the chair and table both.
“Are you all right?” Lanky asked.
Looking up Morgan saw he was actually rocking back and forth, one hand halfway extended to her.
Not sure if he wants to help me or get back out of the way, huh?
Taking a calculated risk, Morgan pulled off her blindfold before answering, and before trying to get up.
“Hey…” Lanky protested.
“I’m tired of bumping into things and falling down,” Morgan forcefully said, cutting him off.
“You need to put that back on.”
“And what? Eat blindfolded? Use the bathroom blindfolded? Don’t be ridiculous.”
Now that she could see him, Morgan guessed Lanky to be somewhere in his late teens, more or less her own actual age in fact. He looked younger and even softer than the other men had been.
His hair was little more than a short blonde fuzz, and he was pale enough that Morgan wondered if he had ever been outside. Though he was still nowhere near as pale as most of the miners had been back home.
Morgan was startled by his eyes, momentarily freezing as she looked at them. They were the same blue of the Old Lady. In fact, Morgan was relatively confident that they were related, siblings perhaps, given that the Old Lady didn’t seem old enough to be his mother. But where hers were somewhat cold and hard, his were soft and kind.
They sat there staring at each other for a moment longer, until Lanky started blushing again.
Because this is just what I need right now, Morgan thought, snapping out of it and grabbing his half-heartedly offered hand.
She gave himself a moment to register that she had before she hauled herself upright.
Fixing an errant strap on her dress Morgan gestured to the door with her chin.
“Bathroom?”
Lanky turned away from Morgan, awkwardly shuffling towards the door.
“Right. This way.” He waited just before the door. “You need to walk in front of me.”
Morgan indulged in another eye roll. His back was to her anyway.
“Right,” she said, echoing him.
The bathroom ended up being only two doors down in the long hallway that Morgan hoped represented the majority of her captor’s base of operations.
He opened the door, gesturing for Morgan to enter, the doorknob still held loosely in his hand.
Given the way he’s fidgeting I’ll bet they told him not to let me out of his sight. He acts like he’s never seen a woman before. Then again, aside from the Old Lady, maybe he hasn’t? Still… Morgan thought to herself, before deciding she didn’t care beyond how it could be of use to her. So she quickly stepped past him, added a wholly insincere “thank you,” firmly grabbed the door, and pulled it out of his grasp as she shut it in his face. Even better, there is a lock, Morgan noted with a brief burst of happiness as she engaged it. Now that she could see it better, this place looked more like an office than a secret lair. Lanky had started stammering something at the door. Morgan had no intention of opening it, but she also didn’t want to needlessly antagonize him, so she just said nothing. Glancing about, Morgan turned on the sink faucet. It wasn’t exactly loud, but neither was Lanky, so claiming she hadn’t heard him hopefully wouldn’t be too hard to believe.
Of course, if luck is with me, it might not matter, if he’s put me in a room with a window, Morgan thought.
She wanted to start searching immediately, but there were other priorities to consider.
That done, Morgan washed her hands slowly in the sink, taking a good hard look at the bathroom.
It wasn’t anything fancy. Certainly not unusual for what had to be a mass-produced model of bathroom. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be useful.
No windows, unfortunately, nor a bathtub or shower.
Opening up the cabinets beneath the sink yielded some more towels, tissues, and random items, but not much else.
Pulling them out Morgan knocked experimentally at the walls and floors, looking for any hatches, openings, things like that. There were none, at least none she could find in the quick search that was all she had time for.
I guess this is a bust. Living on a spaceship’s spoiled me, she thought, giving one last look around the room. She thought she could rip the towel bar off the wall and use it as a club. But she still didn’t know how many thugs her captors had working for them or where she even was. She glanced at the sink, the water still running. Lanky had moved up from stammering and stuttering at the door to light knocking. She was just about out of time. She needed an excuse for the water running so long.
Shrugging, Morgan grabbed a towel and let it soak it in the sink while she stripped. She used it to wash off her body the best she could. She had showered whe
n she’d changed out of her skinsuit, which couldn’t have been that many hours before. But with everything that had happened she had gotten quite dusty and grimy.
That done, she soaked her head directly in the sink, drying her short hair off in one towel before wrapping it up in one of the clean towels, and getting dressed.
Taking a deep breath to center herself, Morgan unlocked the door and opened it, catching Lanky in mid-knock.
“You aren’t supposed to be alone,” he said, more apologetic than angry.
Morgan just gave him a look until he dropped his gaze and stared at the floor.
“There’s no way out of that bathroom, now is there,” she said, stepping past him and gesturing back into the room. “Surely they didn’t mean for you to sleep in the room with me too, did they?”
That got another blush from Lanky.
Rather than wait for him to finish stammering and actually say something Morgan spoke first.
“Back to the other room so I can eat. That’s next, right?”
Lanky just nodded. Morgan didn’t wait for him to say so, but stepped in front of him and started back towards the other door.
Maybe he’ll get used to me being in charge, Morgan thought with a small bit of amusement. It’s too bad the stakes are so high. Messing with this guy is almost fun.
The food had gone cold, of course, and would have even if Morgan hadn’t deliberately ‘wasted’ time in the bathroom.
Morgan didn’t care. Now that she was at least somewhat refreshed, her hunger had come back to the forefront. Probably once that was taken care of she’d realize she was completely exhausted.
Morgan had lost track of time, but she was pretty sure she’d been awake for at least twenty hours. Now, she was fully capable of pulling all-nighters and working the next day, but all the adrenaline was wearing off, and that was exhausting all on its own.
One thing about the food did bother Morgan though.
“There are no utensils.”
“Of course not. I don’t want to get stabbed.”
Morgan gestured at the food, grimacing.
“Not exactly a sandwich I can pick up and eat, is it?”
“I can just take it away…”
Drat. Lanky is starting to assert himself. I had better lay off a bit.
Morgan shook her head, and picked up a chunk of the food, which she still hadn’t managed to identify.
It was some kind of meat, from the taste of it. Not from something she was familiar with. Definitely not something she would willingly choose to eat again, given how greasy and tough it was. At least it was protein.
Lanky stared at her the whole time she was eating from his position standing near the door.
There hadn’t been utensils, but there was a napkin, which Morgan used to wipe off her hands as best as she could when she finished. There were still some crumbs on her dress, but she would just have to live with that. She could have taken the towel off her head and used that, but she had other plans for it. She also didn’t want to draw Lanky’s attention to it. He seemed to have forgotten she had it, and he couldn’t take it away if he didn’t remember it was there.
“Are you done?” Lanky asked.
“Yes.”
“Come on then.”
Morgan looked at him through narrowed eyes.
“Where are we going?”
“You want to sleep in here?”
“Of course not.”
“Then come on.”
He took her deeper into the building, still with Morgan in the lead. The long hallway finally ended, linking on to a short cross hallway that led to another that went back the way they’d come. The short hallway was just about long enough that Morgan assumed it was the width of the rooms adjoining each hallway.
What an odd building layout. Why not put the intersection in the middle, or right near the front? Morgan couldn’t think of a reason to lay it out that way, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
It did mean that getting to their destination – which was all the way at the end of this new hallway, so presumably sharing a wall with the room that led out to where the shuttle had landed – took a couple minutes.
I really hope all these rooms aren’t used. If they have that many men I’m in trouble.
There was no one in the hallways as they walked. Lanky hadn’t bothered with – or had forgotten about – the blindfold that Morgan had quietly kicked under the table while she had been eating. He also hadn’t brought the rope along, so hopefully she wouldn’t have to try to sleep while tied up.
Then again, that also means wherever they’re putting me will probably be locked from the outside. Morgan felt like chuckling. Six of one, half a dozen of another, she thought, recalling a saying she’d heard from Gertrude. Harder to escape the room, but easier to get loose within it. I probably don’t want to try and escape through the hallways anyway.
The room was at the end of the hallway, and looked like a closet of some kind.
Sure enough, when Lanky opened the door Morgan saw a cramped little space, with metal frame shelving on either side of the door, a mattress shoved in between them, a pillow and single blanket shoved on top, and a single bare light hanging from some wiring from the ceiling.
A bucket in the corner with a large bottle of water resting inside completed the room. No windows, no obvious signs of a way out, other than the door, which did lock from the outside.
The shelves were bare, but the dust on them told the story quite plainly. Between the drag marks and voids in the dust there had been tools in there quite recently.
They cleaned it out on my account. Not what I would hope for, but not surprising.
Once Lanky had closed the door behind her Morgan turned and saw that the doorknob had been removed, with a bit of metal hastily welded to the hole, denying her access to the workings.
Careful not to touch the newly-welded plate, Morgan pressed her ear to the door, trying to listen to what Lanky did next.
I didn’t see a chair out there, let alone a cot or even a blanket. So either they’re going to leave him standing out there for a few hours or… yes, he’s walking off now. They’re trusting the door, and leaving me alone. Good. Now to get to work.
Morgan unwrapped her hair, setting the dry towel on the mattress.
Taking the half-step forward to get a good close look at the shelving, Morgan ran her hand along it, looking at its construction, and for weak points. The frame and shelves were a light metal, aluminum perhaps, or an alloy of the same, perfectly smooth, with no obvious connecting pieces or joints.
Nano-fabricated. So much for dismantling it for tools. I’d better not try to pry a piece off just yet. Lanky might still be nearby, and that will be noisy.
Pausing, Morgan looked down at the mattress.
Stepping off of it she lifted it up and propped it against the back wall.
The floor didn’t look to be anything other than a typical tile affair, but there was a small drain in the center, and a couple small air vents to either side.
Lying down with her head near the drain, Morgan pressed her ear to the floor and started tapping different parts.
Nope. There’s the pipe for the drain, and the small ducts for the air, but the rest of the floor is solid.
Morgan repeated the process for the back wall.
She looked at the other two, with the shelves, and sighed.
If she wedged her upper body in-between the shelves just so she could sort of get an ear up against the wall…
Repeating the process for each level of the shelves took far longer than Morgan would have liked, and she didn’t actually manage to check the top two levels. She simply wasn’t tall enough to get her body in there while also keeping her feet on the ground. Worse, it didn’t even get her anywhere. She could tell the walls were not very thick, likely with rooms on either side. But there didn’t seem to be any areas that could be hollow, or spaces to run cables or pipes, anything she could potentially use to escape her c
loset prison.
There was only one place left to check.
While Morgan couldn’t get to wall behind the top shelves very well, the shelving itself did serve as a very handy ladder to get her up to the ceiling.
The center of the ceiling, where the light was hung, was quite sturdy. So was the half of the room closest to the hallway.
The other half, on the other hand…
Jackpot, Morgan thought as the otherwise indistinguishable ceiling tile popped up under her prodding. Not for the first time she wondered what exactly a jackpot was. There were so many saying and phrases she had picked up in the years since she’d escaped Hillman that she simply didn’t have the context for. Then again, it seemed like there were plenty of sayings the natives didn’t know the meaning behinds either, phrases that had been carried along with settlers stretching all the way back to Old Earth.
The space above the room wasn’t large – the tile had popped up easily enough, but it was the same width as the empty space it concealed. Morgan could only push it away or pull it towards herself.
That suited Morgan just fine. It meant the space cut across the building, rather than following the hallways. Morgan thought it should head back to the exterior, where the shuttle was. She nudged the tile forward until the opening was completely exposed.
She hesitated before moving to look into the space. The opening was in the center back of the ceiling, in between the two shelves. She couldn’t get completely under it, and would have to hang onto the opening itself in order to get to where she could pull herself up.
Two thoughts entered Morgan’s mind at that point. The first was her wondering if the opening could support her whole weight. Second, it was too bad she was on Albion and not Zion, since she’d weigh a lot less there. A third thought came right after the first two. At least she wasn’t on Hillman.
Morgan clambered down the shelves, moving the mattress so it was completely under the opening, folded in half to make it thicker. The bucket she stowed on one of the shelves, along with the water… after drinking about a third of it.
No telling how long I’ll be wandering around in there.
There was one last thing to do before she set off.
Black Holiday (The Black Chronicles Book 2) Page 9
