Sky City (The Rise of an Orphan)

by RD Hale

  A bright light dazzles my vision as the entangled carnivore struggles to break free, unable to do any significant damage. Indistinct figures cut through the glue to separate us and when my pupils adjust I realise the rescuers have only delayed my execution.

  'We have one of the leopards... and it looks like we may have ourselves a fugitive.'

  Chapter Nine

  Prison

  Glue-coated wrists cuffed, my sliced body is flung into an armoured transport along with the still struggling leopard which is roughly as large as I am. The only body parts clearly visible are the blood-tinged claws of one paw and a speckled tail. Drained and stunned I sit motionless in the corner of the cage. Lacerations on my left shoulder and chest are bleeding, though not too heavily and I will need a mirror to fully inspect the damage.

  If my mortal enemy breaks free from hardened resin this vehicle will become a bloodbath but its feeble efforts make that prospect unlikely. We are both exhausted. A bare eyeball catches light and we stare, equally helpless in our moment of crestfallenness with mutual understanding.

  After a short journey the van stops, doors slide open and masked guards say: 'Get out, now.' I follow their order and they blast my torso with a high-pressured hose which dissolves glue and scabs, almost knocking me off my feet in the process. Slime drips from shredded clothes as I am dragged into a large complex with a towering mining conveyor close by and recognition of the workcamp is utterly demoralising due to the reputation which precedes it. Bottom levellers are never released.

  Entering the main building we follow a corridor and I stare at the tiled floor until we reach a room where X-rays and cross sections of organs cover the walls. Tables and shelves bear medical apparatus, there is an open cabinet full of bottles and several wheeled beds. A male and female wearing white overalls look straight through their prisoner as if I am nothing; a subject no more important than the creature they captured, but at least they should patch up my claw marks.

  'Sit on the bed, kid… Doc, we have another one for vivisection,' the guard growls.

  'W-what?' I whimper

  'This kid's a suspected kidnapper. Found him wrestling a leopard,' the same guard advises.

  'Relax boy, he's trying to scare you. We don't vivisect anybody here... unless they misbehave,' the doctor states reassuringly.

  A guard removes my cuffs as his colleague points his phaser like they are the ones under threat. The nurse grabs a pair of scissors to cut my top which she peels from blood-encrusted skin and I do not have a clear view of my wounds but the claw marks seem deeper than initially envisaged. She, who would be attractive if her eyes were not so cold, cleans dry blood from my shoulder with a damp cloth and then does the same to my foot.

  'There are at least ten lacerations here, none of them life threatening. Not many people fight a leopard and live to tell the tale! You must be a tough kid. You'll need to be in this place,' the doctor says.

  The nurse squeezes a tube of glue and it burns as she fills each of my wounds, pushing the edges of skin together to seal them shut. She applies bandages to glued areas and places a syringe into my arm to extract a blood sample. When she finishes her handiwork I glance submissively at the guards, hoping they will let me stay in a hospital bed until I am healed up. Surely they can see I will be no good down the mine in my current condition.

  'Particles in the glue should speed up the healing process. You'll be as good as new within a week. In the meantime no fighting wild animals. And believe me there are plenty of them in here,' the doctor says.

  'Is he good to go, doc?' a guard asks, standing inches away.

  'Yup. Take him away, boys,' the doctor replies.

  'Okay kid, you're gonna fit in here. From one zoo to another.' The guard's laughter grates like the dragging of a concrete slab.

  Grabbing the scruff of my neck, one of the guards shoves me along corridors to an interrogation room and the door slams behind us. Agitated body language suggests they are itching to beat me to a pulp, even though I have just been given medical treatment. And already I am mentally crumbling. After a day of being hunted and shot at, surviving a terrorist attack, coming face to face with mutants, wrestling a leopard, losing the thing that matters most in this world and finding myself in here, I am not sure how much more I can take.

  'Take your clothes off, everything.'

  I hesitate and the guard growls every bit as animalistically as the leopard I earlier survived, but this brute - who is covered head to toe in armour - is even more intimidating. Such behaviour is to be expected of an instinctive predator but not a person designed with compassion and free will. He steps forward with menace and I do not know what he gets out of this posturing, other than sheer kicks. Maybe he is not human under there, at least not in a recognisable sense and even obedience may not be enough to be shown mercy.

  'Take your clothes off or I'll break your fucking legs.'

  In a state of subdued anger, dejected by the knowledge the guard intends to do as he claims, I obey, removing my one remaining trainer without undoing the laces. The movement is painful but I hurry, fearing I may antagonise his lack of patience if I am too slow. Peeling these filthy trousers I look back at my captors, vulnerable and degraded; I never realised bottom levellers had any dignity to lose but I was wrong. I used to be so lucky.

  'And the watch... Step through here.'

  I remove my proudest possession and step through a basic, grey device like a door frame without the door. The other guard drones, 'He's clean,' and I am given a set of orange overalls and boots to wear which are a little large but at least seem sanitary. The most dreadful of transformations is completed as I lace up my second boot to officially become an inmate. I have parted company with the outside world for the final time and I so desperately want to put on ordinary clothes and return to my slum-dwelling life, but I am ordered to: 'Sit down.'

  I hunch on a steel chair and one guard sits with limbs spread dominantly at the opposite side of the table as the other guard stands militarily poised at the door. The sitting guard is wearing a helmet with snakes etched into the temples and a green-tinted visor, which he removes to reveal dark eyes with no visible irises and a spectacular moustache stretching to his earlobes. The standing guard leaves his helmet on and stares through his visor as I brace myself for interrogation, feeling delirious. If I do not answer his questions very carefully I am dead, but that may be preferable.

  'Right boy, I have some questions. If you don't want to spend a very long time in here, I suggest you co-operate.'

  'As if you're ever going to let me out,' I whisper.

  'What did you say? I suggest you remember who's in charge here. We patched you up. We can unpatch you just as quickly... What have you done with the kids?'

  'What kids?'

  'Ana King and Zain Gilfoid.'

  'Oh... er... no idea what you're talking about.'

  'DO NOT PLAY GAMES WITH ME! Two students disappeared and you obtained one of their identities. I want to know what you were up to. And what you have done with them. I hope for your sake they're alive but if you don't tell me what I need to know I'll presume they're dead and things will get even less pleasant for you.'

  'I found their Citicards. I've got no idea what happened to the kids.'

  'You found the cards and then you stumbled across contacts which were a perfect match for their eyeprints? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU KIDDING?'

  'I extracted their data from the cards, then I used it to create contacts. It's not rocket science.'

  'Who are you? Where did you come from? And who do you work for?' The guard slams gloved hands on the table.

  'I'm just a kid from the slums who fancied a trip to the city.'

  'And who is the girl?'

  'What girl?' My shoulders shrug the tiniest bit.

  'This girl.'

  The other guard activates a holoscreen fixed into the wall and plays footage of teenage rebels marching from Nimbis College as a brief smile punctuates the nervousness of Mila's
face. We naively thought we had gotten away with our treachery and the sight of her invokes a sense of bitter irony. A reminder that the happiest moment of my life came right before the worst. Tears fill my eyes as it dawns she may have been captured or killed.

  'Th-that's a girl I picked up from the slums. I was trying to impress her. I've only known her a few days.'

  'Tell me, if you're taking a girl on a date why would you take her to a college for the afternoon? Science geek is she, this slum girl?'

  'We were just curious, went wherever the wind took us.'

  'Here's the situation: two Level Two students have been missing for a week and are presumed dead. If they don't turn up, you and the girl are the only suspects for their murder. You know the public execution you witnessed yesterday? How would you and your little girlfriend like to be next?'

  'Fuck you. We didn't kill anyone. We're not like that.' My voice breaks under distress.

  'Maybe this will loosen your tongue.'

  The other guard opens a medical box and pulls out a syringe, then he marches over to snatch my wrist as the vicious needle catches light. The thought of a chemical invading my blood-stream is horrifying, even though I do this willingly every time I smoke or pop pills because I know the game is going to be given away by this mind-altering poison. I sit submissively as the guard stabs my arm and almost immediately the room distorts and quivers.

  I look... at these men... friendly... they need to know... I will help them... and everything will be okay...

  'Now for the truth. Who is the girl? How do you know her?'

  'The girl? Ah, you mean Mila. We've known each other since we were little. We met at school and ran away together. She's the most beautiful girl in the world. I lov-'

  'Bloody hell, cut the crap. What were you up to? Who do you work for?'

  'I work for no-one but myself. Just your typical outlaw. I do what it takes to survive but I'm one of the good guys really. I help people where I can. Actually I'm more like a super hero… Yeah a super hero. I can't fly or anyth-'

  'FUCKING HELL! This kid's lost it. Just tell me, what have you done with the kids?'

  'I haven't done anything with the kids. I've never met them. I was just pretending to be them. The city's amazing don't you think? That dolphin game, have you ever played it?'

  'EE-NEUR-FF!' The man's voice distorts as his face blurs into a smear and I giggle and giggle as he says weird, funny things.

  'Thiis kiid's terlling the truuutth, you cawn't beart the druugg.'

  'It juust doesn't add urp. Wee neeed to briing in the girrl. Lert's get this little barstaard to the cells.'

  On wobbly legs I stand... feeling a little dizzy... But wooziness fades as the guards escort me through sterile corridors and doors which are too sturdy to be plausibly breached. As each one slams I feel additionally trapped like they are hammering another nail into my coffin.

  We reach hundreds of stacked cages with captives crying, groaning and talking to themselves. I avert my eyes but cannot help glimpsing the dirty white dwellings of my new home, bare apart from bunks and yellow-brown toilets. An inmate with a straggly beard grips bars and tilts his head, clenching teeth as he glares with bulging, bloodshot eyes.

  'Fresshhh meat,' the inmate hisses.

  One cell looks exactly like the rest but a thousand times worse because this is my cell and the horrifying box suffocates before I have even set foot inside. An enormous man can be seen through iron bars, lying on the bottom bunk with hands behind his head and torn off sleeves reveal biceps the size of footballs. They are locking a boy up with a monster and solitary confinement would be infinitely preferable, but such a request would just provoke one of many inevitable beatings.

  'Anguson, we have a cellmate for you.'

  As the cell door opens I size up bars which are just a couple of inches too narrow to squeeze through and a sense of hope-crushing resignation overcomes this body which is no longer mine. The guard kicks the backside of his unconvicted captive who is now less than worthless and I stumble into an impersonal corner of bedlam. My spine jerks, stretching glue in my wounds as the door slams shut and freedom and hope abandon me. I do not have the strength to reason with, or fight my cellmate if he turns hostile.

  'I'll leave you two love-birds to it,' the guard grunts.

  The prisoner tilts his head, revealing an unkempt handlebar moustache and a jawline which looks like it masticates bricks for breakfast. His war-torn glower is instantly recognisable and my eyes, which can no longer differentiate between the real and imaginary, open wide in star-struck astonishment.

  'Sydney... Anguson.'

  'What do you want kid? A fucking autograph?'

  Climbing the ladder, I lie on the top bunk to catch up on much-needed sleep but fretful thoughts of Mila creep into my mind. They want to bring her in, which means she has not been captured, but she may be dead and I may never know the truth. Muscles around eyes ache with exhaustion but I fail to drift into unconsciousness as a symphony of creaking springs and groans are interspersed with screams of: 'Let me out!' and snarls of: 'Shut up!'

  Batons of patrolling guards clank along bars and the amplified creak of a cell door is channelled along the corridor of despair. The words: 'Get out of bed,' are followed by heavy thuds and gasps which ease into pathetic whimpers. I picture a vicious inmate, who would never allow himself to be pushed around, reduced to submission as he is beaten. Subduing the instinct of self-preservation because capitulation is an act of self-preservation.

  'Do as you're told or next time we won't be so lenient on you.'

  Lying in purgatory I wonder when it will be my turn for this warm reception; fully awake with eyes closed for desolate hours until light burns through my eyelids. I open them, wanting time to stand still as dread creeps into my muscles because I am now a goldfish in a bowl full of piranhas. There is no escape and I do not know how I am going to adapt. I picture these freaks snatching meals from my hand and shanking me if I dissent or worse, taking a shine to their new play thing. Maybe I can become a piranha myself or maybe I can keep a low profile; both thoughts seem unlikely and I curl into a ball as a sickening siren blares.

  Enemy Mine

  'EVERYONE UP. TIME FOR BREAKFAST!'

  Following the unwelcome click of the lock, a prison officer who is way too strident for such an early hour, swings the door open. I wait in futility for him to walk to the next cell but he lingers to ensure all slaves are accounted for. Sitting up fully clothed, I struggle to compel myself to climb down from the refuge of my bunk. I just want to spend today in bed, confined to the cage which will keep the monsters out, rather than in.

  'Anguson, you're teaming up with the little guy today. You'll take him into the mines and show him the ropes. If he does a lousy job, I'll take it out on the both of you.'

  'This way, kid. Hope you like gruel,' Anguson mutters and he leads me through corridors to a crowded mess hall.

  I struggle to see how I can fit in, or where is safe to sit amongst scar-covered brutes who seem way beyond reason and eagerly waiting to exploit; every one of them muscular due to the gruelling labour they endure. Sneering and snarling suggests these groupings are not friendships so much as tentative alliances to aid survival; each convict ready to topple the man next to him to climb the hierarchy. I can only hope my cellmate offers protection.

  'Quite the freak show, isn't it?' Anguson asks.

  We grab trays and join the breakfast queue which quickly builds behind my suddenly undersized, childlike frame. Praying none of the prisoners want to talk I tensely wait; expecting the worst from their bullying fists and elbows. When someone nudges into my back, my skeleton jumps out of my skin and all street-learnt lessons of masking fear are forgotten. A crook with a dead eye, lop-sided jug ears and no front teeth says, 'Boo!'

  'Shut the fuck up, Clegg,' Anguson snaps but his protective words do little to put me at ease. We reach the service area and a clammy-faced man, who is wearing sweat-stained whites, splodges gloop into
a bowl which he dumps onto my tray.

  Grabbing a plastic spoon I join Anguson at a long and jam-packed table with my head hung low to avoid eye contact as inmates lick their dishes clean. A prisoner's elbow encroaches on my personal space so I hunch inwards as I stir, staring at the bits of red and brown in the greenish gruel. I do not want to know what this stuff is.

  'Are you going to eat that, kid?' Anguson stares with optimism lingering in his face. Starving only minutes ago I grimace at my 'breakfast' and suddenly I have never felt less hungry. Despite never having had the privilege to be choosy about what I eat, I would not feed this stuff to a dog. 'Okay, slide it across.'

  The cage fighter wolfs my food down in a few mega-mouthfuls, bearing a contented expression and I am tempted to notify the guards I am finished but I have no desire to draw attention so I sit on edge amongst the world's most unpleasant company as they inflict ear-ache by conversing so enthusiastically. Anyone would think they are happy to be in this shithole of a canteen, but all I want to do is leave. At least no-one will bother me in the mines, I hope.

  'Believe me, kid, after a day in the pit you won't be so fussy. So what do they call you?' Anguson asks.

  'Arturo.'

  'What you in Bronzefield for?'

  'They say I'm a kidnapper.'

  'And you're innocent, right?' A grin reveals chipped teeth within Anguson's broad jaw.

  'Yeah.' Tensing arms, I rest palm on hand with a long outbreath. 'I'm innocent, alright.'

  'Me too.'

  Anguson laughs psychotically and the rest of the table join in, banging fists as plates rattle. Sitting completely still I tell myself to loosen up and act like one of these scoundrels who were once slumdogs like me, but I have somehow forgotten how to interact.

  'You lucked out kid, having me as your cellmate. No-one will fuck with you. Not until I decide I don't like you... Then you're fucked,' Anguson kindly explains and again the men laugh.