by Peter Tylee
“Ah, look, here she is now. You see, I told you.” It was Esteban. He snapped his fingers at her. “Come here and meet the others properly.”
Jen unwillingly obeyed, not knowing what else to do. As she drew closer, she stubbed a toe on a coffee table because she hadn’t yet reacquired fine motor co-ordination.
Esteban was flapping an arm at the man who had driven the land cruiser, the one with the thick jaw and strawberry hair curling around his ears. “This is Frank Albert Hansen.”
“Hi.” He tipped is beer bottle in mock salute.
“Junior?” Jen asked, remembering his name through the thick haze clouding her mind.
Esteban laughed, highly amused.
“I hate it when people call me that,” he grumbled in protest.
“Don’t worry about offending him,” Esteban interjected. “Most of the time he deserves it.”
Jen jotted another mental note.
“The quiet one next to him is Adrian Miller.”
“How do you do ma’am?” Adrian asked politely. It was the first time she’d seen his face, even though it was through blurry eyes. He was thinner than Junior and his neatly cropped hair was almost jet-black. It contrasted with his pallor and made him look seedy. And nobody ever mentioned his sail-ears anymore – classmates in primary school had teased him relentlessly until he’d punched one kid’s front teeth out. He’d fostered a ruthless reputation ever since and people whispered warnings about him behind his back.
He’s surprisingly polite for a killer.“I’m fine thanks.” Jen had no idea why she was being so genteel in return.
“If you need anything, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do, okay?” Adrian looked genuinely concerned.
Why?She couldn’t even begin to fathom. He must be the one who took off my shoes.“Okay, I will.” Jen replied in stunned civility. She earmarked him as someone that might assist her escape. He was certainly more courteous than the others.
They were all impeccably dressed, though Adrian was the only one who hadn’t loosened his tie. Their suits looked expensive, probably personally tailored.
“What do you intend to do with me?” She wanted to hear the answer while Adrian was there to see whether he’d demur.
Esteban answered as offhandedly as he could. “Why, my dear Jennifer, you’re the bait.”
“For Dan?”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
“And then what?” Jen asked with dread expanding in her throat. She understood Esteban’s vindictiveness, but she couldn’t fathom the others’ motives.
“Well that’s when the fun really begins.” Esteban grinned like the maniac he was. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time?“This doesn’t really have anything to do with me, does it? This is all about Dan.”
Esteban nodded. “Yeah, that’s a fair assessment. The fact that you’re a Cameron is just a bonus.”
“And what if Dan doesn’t come?” He doesn’t owe me anything, does he?
“Then you’ll be here for a long, long time,” Esteban replied. “I wouldn’t worry though, he’s knows we killed his wife.” He had the temerity to say it without looking uncomfortable. “So he’ll come.”
Then you don’t need me for bait.Jen began to understand the broader picture. Oh, shit… I’m not bait.That was merely how they intended to keep her placid. I’m the entertainment once he arrives.Of course! What’s the best way to torture him? Tell him they’ll rape and kill me, and then make him watch it.
“Why must you insist on playing these games?” It was Adrian, as Jen had hoped, championing her cause. “Just kill Sutherland and get it over with. You should’ve finished this back at his farm.”
Esteban shook his head. “And spoil my fun? No, not yet.” He hasn’t suffered enough.If he had his way, he’dgrant Dan Sutherland eternal life. Then he could think forever about what had happened to his wife and what was soon to happen to Jen.
Jen had heard enough. Time to find a way out of here.She didn’t intend lie back and await her fate. She turned and walked away, ignoring the calls of “Good night!” from the three brutes toasting their success in the lounge room.
There were several corridors, nodes and perhaps a hundred rooms in her prison. Because, despite its opulence, it was still a prison. It reminded her of a maze, and many of the halls looked hauntingly similar.She was beginning to wonder whether she’d ever find her room again when a feminine voice lured her into a darkened room. “Excuse me.”
“Me?” Jen asked, hiking a thumb at her chest.
“Yes, come here… quickly.” Her voice was hushed and scared.
Jen obeyed, willing to trust anyone from her own gender in such dire circumstances.
“Are you new here.” It wasn’t a question. “I’m Claire Robinson.” She had a thick, pretty accent that Jen couldn’t place. She wondered how her slurred Australian accent would sound to foreign ears.
“I’m Jennifer Cameron.” There was a momentary pause where neither woman knew what to say, finally broken when Jen asked the inevitable. “What’re you doing here?”
“Same thing as you,” she replied huskily. “I’m a prisoner. They removed my chip as soon as I arrived and without it there’s no escape.”
“How long ago was that?”
Claire thought for a moment before answering, “About two and a half years I think, maybe a bit longer. I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no way out. We’ve all tried.”
“We?”
“There are twelve women down here, thirteen now including you. We’re underground, deep underground. Somewhere near Baltimore I think. The only way in and out is by portal.” Claire had a resigned note in her voice, a desolation that was already beginning to infect Jen. “Without a chip we may as well be on the moon.”
Jen’s mind reeled as she struggled to take everything aboard. She wished she could see the woman she was talking to. “Can I turn on the light?”
“No!” Claire reached out to stop Jen from flipping the switch, the briefest touch enough to silence any protest. “I sometimes use this when the dark gets too much.” She fumbled for something. “One of the others gave it to me. She has a nice master and he sometimes smuggles things for her.”
Jen only understood parts of what Claire was telling her. She was drowning in the flood of information and couldn’t process it fast enough to clasp the whole meaning.
It was a battery operated lamp and it cast a muted orange hue about the room, just enough for Jen’s struggling eyes to see who she was talking to. Claire had a beautiful face to go with her pretty voice and the warm glow accentuated her feminine chin and high cheekbones. She was slender, but too thin for the word willowy – there was nothing graceful about her slight frame. Jen thought she’d look healthier with another ten kilograms. A white halter left her arms and much of her back bare, and squeezed her breasts together to show ample cleavage. Esteban made her wear it; he liked seeing her flesh ripe to burst from her clothes.
Claire noticed Jen staring at them. “I hate them.”
Jen blushed.
“They drugged me one day, during my first month. And when I woke up I had two massive melons where my breasts had once been.” She looked sad. “A cosmetic surgeon is a member of the Guild. They’ve done it to all of us, I suspect you’ll have yours done soon too.”
Jen frowned. “The Guild?”
“You don’t know?” It had been part of Claire’s reality for so long that it hadn’t occurred to her outsiders might not understand. “God… how can I explain something like the Guild?” She sat on her bed and invited Jen to sit next to her. “It’s like a brotherhood of the powerful, all men. Most are in upper management or on the board of directors for a giga-corporation. They help each other out and use their combined influence to annihilate anyone who stands in their way. It’s profane, but they live by the motto of the musketeers – all for one and one for all.” She cast her eyes to the floor. �
�And they use women as sex slaves and little else.”
“Do you mean this is a secluded mingling place for rich people?” Jen was outraged and not a little confounded.
“Yes.”
“How many members?” Jen’s amazement seeped into her tone.
“I can’t be sure,” Claire said, shrugging so hard her breasts nearly leapt out. “It’s a global network and they don’t all come here, but there must be several hundred.”
“And Esteban, Adrian and Frank are in it?” In hindsight, it seemed like a stupid question.
“Yes. Relatively new members from what I can tell. Some of the others have been here longer than I have and said Esteban came about four years ago. I think he met his friends at college, an exclusive college where the Guild scouts for potential members.”
“Where’s everyone else?”
Claire cuddled her lamp like a child clutching her favourite doll. It made her appear vulnerable and scared, and Jen didn’t think she could be older than 23. Even younger then me.
“It’s nearly midnight so most of the women are asleep or waiting in their chambers for their masters,” Claire explained beneath lowered eyelashes. “But most of the men have gone home. Only a few spend the night here, most have wives and families.” Despite her misery, Claire had compassion to spare for the other woman in the Guild – or the Grave as she thought of it. It was underground and she would die there, and that was grave enough.
A stone of sadness settled in Jen’s chest. I wish there was something I could do, she thought despairingly. “Where’re you from? Originally, I mean.”
She summoned the courage to smile, though it felt empty. “Texas,” she replied with a glimmer of pride. “And you?”
“Australia,” Jen said, trying unsuccessfully to reflect Claire’s smile. “And I’m going home.” Fear and determination waged war in her mind, each pulling her in opposite directions.
A tear of hopeless recognition sheened in Claire’s eyes. “I knew you’d try, everybody does.”
“What about air shafts?” Jen asked. “They have to ventilate this place somehow.”
Claire shook her head. “One girl tried. She shinnied into a duct and found a shaft, but a grate was welded across the junction. And there were sensors… they disciplined her but cutting off her hands. She didn’t live long after that and nobody’s tried since.” She swallowed bile. “Her name was Heather… she was only sixteen.”
Jen recoiled but didn’t intend to give up yet. “Then there has to be a sympathetic ear somewhere in the Guild. A male one.”
Claire had clung to hope for three months before finally wilting. She knew from experience that the breaking point was the hardest. Hope was a divine gift while it lasted, but it blinded people into believing things that would never happen. All the women in the Guild’s Baltimore bunker eventually lost hope and passed through a period of suicidal depression before finally accepting their circumstances. It was painful to watch, Claire knew. One of her friends had hung herself with bed sheets, and another had locked herself in the bathroom, smashed a mirror and sliced her wrists and neck with the shards. It hadn’t worked; she hadn’t cut deeply enough to sever an artery and the glass had been too slippery with blood for her to finish the task. But it had left her hideously scarredand in the end that had been her ticket out. The Guild wasn’t interested in flawed specimens.“We tried that too,” Claire warned. “It doesn’t work. The Guild’svery selective when recruiting new members. They’re all psychotic… or so ambitious they’re blind.”
“Fine. Then I’ll go through the portals.”
“Without a chip?” Claire raised an eyebrow.
“Oh no, I’ll get myself a chip.” Jen clenched her jaw and entwined her fingers tightly around the sheets on the bed, screwing them into balls of repressed rage.
“How?”
“I’ll rip it from someone’s spine.”
And she looked so furious that Claire wondered whether she might actually be able to do it.
*
Saturday, September 18, 2066
18:14 Sydney, Australia
Dan had forgotten the mountain of electronic forms required to requisition a departmental vehicle. By the time they were dodging potholes through seedy Sydney streets, Simon’s fingers had cramped due to the number of times he’d typed his name. Traffic wasn’t a problem, even in Sydney it hadn’t been a problem since portals became vogue.An occasional red sports car laid rubber as it screechedaround a blind corner, but mostly pedestrians were the concern. With fewer cars on the streets people wandered wherever whim took them.
Simon had insisted on using the car, he didn’t want PortaNet logging the location of the safe house. Besides, it was standard operating procedure and Dan hadn’t told him they were all unchipped.
Dan was thoroughly lost. He watched the decaying city flash pastfrom the safety of the unmarked police car. He wasglad Simon knew where they were. The best he could guess, they were approaching Blacktown. But that was an extremely rough guess and it could’ve just as easily been Campbelltown on the other side of the sprawling city. There weren’t any street signs worth reading, they’d peeled and faded due to lack of funding for road maintenance. But it was clear Simon wasn’t navigating toward a prosperous suburb. Dan doubted he could’ve found a poorer slum if he’d tried and he could feel the discomfort radiating from Samantha and Cookie on the back seat. They were staring wide-eyed at signs of street riots and gang warfare. The older parts of Sydney had become war zones for street hoodlums who were too poor to integrate properly with society. Their parents couldn’t afford portals so their families had been castrated from society decades ago. The government, recognising the problem, had petitioned PortaNet to install public stations in poor suburbs to boost the underclass’s chances of economic survival. But by then it was too late, the rich had moved to the country and flocked to Australia’s golden beaches, and those with money had fled the poor suburbs. Slums like Blacktown and Campbelltown simply didn’t have the population to interest PortaNet in spending millions installing and maintaining a public station. So the families with the most need received nothing but a kick in the teeth as they spiralled into a cesspool of violence and crime that the police didn’t have the personnel to do anything about.
It was therefore the perfect setting for a departmental safe house. Who would suspect the police would trust a key witness to the most dangerous suburb in Australia?
“Well, here we are.” Simon pulled into the drive of a dilapidated weatherboard house. Its beige paint was cracking from too many Australian summers and litter was piling up in the front yard next to mounds of canine faeces.
“No.” Cookie’s mouth was agape.
“Yep.” Simon pulled on the handbrake and switched off the engine. “Welcome to your new home.”
“You must be kidding.” Cookie didn’t feel safe to leave the car, let alone spend a night there. “I think I’ll take my chances in a hotel.”
Simon grunted. “Suit yourself.”
“No,” Dan interrupted. “This looks perfect.” He was the first to step from the car and waited patiently by the door while Simon fumbled with the keys, looking for the sequence that would unlock it.
The dilapidated weatherboard was just a façade. Inside it looked sturdy enough to survive a mortar blast. Thick reinforced-concrete walls and a titanium vault-like door helped ease Samantha and Cookie’s nerves. Someone had spent much time and effort ensuring the house was secure. After all, in this neighbourhood there was no such thing as too cautious.
“You see…” Dan was pointing at the various security features to make them feel more comfortable. “Nobody’s getting in here without you knowing about it. Not unless they ram the wall with a tank, and even then you’d have long enough to duck out the back.”
“There are only three ways in and out,” Simon explained. “The front, the back, and the portal.” He showed them how to operate the locks. When he turned the handle they listened to the comforting sou
nd of massive bolts sliding home inside titanium-reinforced concrete.
The furnishings were scant but adequate and Cookie was pleased when he found a digital television he could use as a monitor and a network access socket for his computer.
“Right.” Dan was eager to get moving. “You two stay here. Don’t open the door for anyone except us, don’t let anyone– even us – through the portal, and most importantly, don’t go outside for anything. And Cookie, keep rummaging through UniForce’s network and see what turns up. Right now we know squat, so anything you can find is a bonus. Okay?”
They both nodded obediently. Samantha said, “Okay. But what’s the long term plan?”
“Uh…”
“We can’t stay here forever, right? What’re we going to do? Where’re we going to go?” She was the type of person that needed a certain measure of stability in her life, and in tumultuous times needed a plan on which to cling. She’d never been good at improvisation; she wanted to know what tomorrow would bring and wanted to prepare for it.
Dan stalled his answer. “Well, that depends…”
“On what?”
“On whether Jen’s alive. If she is, then you’ll stay here until I get her back.” He glanced at Simon, silently imploring him to keep Samantha and Cookie safe for that long. “But if she’s… not alive,” – he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘dead’ – “then we’ll have to plan where to start a new life. I’ll help you set up wherever you want to go, so maybe you could start thinking about it in the meantime.”
Samantha wasn’t stupid, she knew Dan would try to exact revenge for what Esteban had done whether Jen was alive or not. “And what if you don’t come back?”
An awkward silence suffocated the room. Nobody liked thinking about those things.
