When she finally found him she was relieved it wasn’t by flipping one of the half-conscious shapes along the sides. He was sitting on his own against a graffiti and rust covered garage door, looking tired but otherwise unharmed.
He got up in a rush when he saw her, grabbing her arm hard. “What the hell are you doing here?!” Jin looked over his shoulder. “Hurry, let’s go before anyone sees us.” He pushed her away from the main street and kept shoving until they were out of the there altogether.
He slowed but Frey grabbed his arm when he was about to confront her. She nodded up the road towards the Volvo, trying not to let her fear show.
Jin’s lips were cracked and there was dry, yellow spittle at the edge of his mouth. But his eyes still seemed clear. Sensing her urgency, he closed his mouth again and fell in behind her.
Frey stayed silent until they had both doors firmly closed. She was just about to let her tears flow and admit what had happened to Tim, what she’d done to him. But the words froze in her mouth as she took in the cars interior.
This was where she had taken Tim.
Could she guarantee this place was safe? Knowing that the answer was no, she closed her mouth again. There was no place where she could be sure no one saw them, no one was listening.
The burning sensation pressed against her eyelids. She couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t put him in more danger than he already was…
Frey blinked up at him, for a moment worried the tears would come anyway but the burning subsided until it was only a dull aching at the back of her throat.
She didn’t have to ask him if he’d started to take the Yellow Pill.
He sighed and looked away from her eyes. “Frey. There’s something I should’ve told you a long time ago, but I guess I was scared how you would react,” he said. He was silent for some time, his thumb rubbing at a loose part hanging from the steering wheel. “My mum took it while she was pregnant.” He laughed but it sounded empty, hollow. “I found out after she died and, well… you know the rest.” This time he was silent for so long that Frey wasn’t sure he would continue. “Not everyone have to becomes like that Frey. That’s when they don’t know how to dosage it, how to maintain the-“
“Please stop,” she said, trying to keep the anger from her voice. “I’m not listening to this.” She massaged her temples hard, an old habit she would picked up from Father Patrick, refusing to look at him.
“Frey…”
“Are you even listening to yourself? You hearing what you’re saying, Jin?”
“You wouldn’t understand-“ He began, his hand making a dismissing gesture.
“No, I don’t, and that’s because I chose not to chew froth.” Frey stopped herself before she could say more, before this developed into another fight. She had just wanted to talk to him, to see his face, to hear his voice.
Her hands came away from her temples. You are still living with that girl? The tall one?” She asked.
“Ah… Well… No. Not really,” he said.
Talk then turned to small things, like how was the food hunt going? Any new friends or newly discovered buildings? Still no sign of a door in The Wall? The latter was a this they’ had started years ago, when both had remarked that there were no entry or exit built into The Wall. As the years progressed with still no sign of an entry or exit, the game turned less fun and more frightening.
She told him about the building. Jin would be able to get a good trading for the computers. He was thrilled to hear about it, and already started to plan when the two of them could ramshackle the place.
Frey kept smiling the whole time. But by the afternoon her smile faded and she said she had to go.
Words and warnings were stuck in her chest and Frey had to swallow to keep them there. She couldn’t put him in danger by saying the wrong thing. Instead she hugged him tight having to force herself to let go. The sound of his heart stayed with her as she moved away.
You could always find him in his room before dinner, writing his diary. Why he bothered, she had no idea, but if it gave him some peace of mind, then by all means. It also kept his limited knowledge of language honed, he always said.
She stood in front of his window, looking down on the street.
“What is bothering you?”
Frey wanted to tell him. She longed to do so, but that could mean the next disappearance would be Father Patrick, the one person all these kids depended on. No, she could never risk that. “I’m just tired.”
“You know you are always welcome here, Frey. This is your home too.”
She smiled and went over to embrace her old teacher, mentor and in many ways, Father.
“You need this more than us.” He said, slipping something into her pocket.
“You… you take care, you hear?” She said, eyes burning, not thinking of anything else than their embrace at the moment.
Father Patrick held her until she stopped crying. Then she turned and left the room, without looking back.
Darkness covered the sky like a blanket. With her heart racing and her hood up to cover her face, she made her way from one group of homeless to the next, staying close to the main road. It didn’t take long before she realized this night would remain starless as well. The fact made her even more anxious. She shoved her hands deep in her pockets and turned to join another night fire two blocks away.
Soon the night limited her vision to grey and black contours. Lengthening her strides, she walked quickly towards the next bend, seeing the flickering light. The streets were almost empty, only a few shapes lying in the gutters, fast asleep.
Frey almost sprinted the last bit, imagining a glimmer from a lens at every turn. When she finally reached the bend she saw that no one was standing around the fire…
Shapes lay sleeping in random places as if they had just laid down on the spot and gone to sleep.
It wasn’t the fact that they slept that made the small hair on her arms and neck stand at an end, fear rise inside her like a cold tide… It was the way they were sleeping.
They were scattered all over, not to the sides or in the smaller alleyways where they could keep warm easier. It was as if someone had clubbed them unconscious.
Suddenly she felt her eyelids starting to droop.
The thought snapped, her mind awake, her consciousness coming back as if someone had slapped her. She turned and ran.
Her hood flew off and she could hear the sound of footsteps, a lot of them, following. No grunting or complaining could be heard from her pursuers, and somehow that was worse than anything so far. The only sound was her pursuers light steps and softly clicking gear.
Frey just forced her legs to run faster, feeling her heart move up to her mouth as they closed in.
The black shape of a masked man suddenly stood in front of her, and she couldn't prevent barging straight into his chest. Everything he was wearing was as black as the night sky. All this Frey had time to register before he lifted his gun and drove the end straight into her forehead.
The pain was immense. She felt like being sick, but her stomach wouldn’t let her. She was moving and her shoulders hurt. Her head was spinning and her tongue felt too big for her mouth. It took her four tries before she managed to keep them open. She blinked at the strangest view she had ever seen…
She saw Slum City, but she saw it from above…
Slum City was somehow beneath her feet and she was moving away from it. Someone was pulling her up towards the dome.
Just as the thought was passing through her head, a strange buzzing escalated in her ears to then quickly fade as she passed the shimmering layer of the digital dome. There was a strange grayish tint to it, but otherwise it was perfectly see-through. Frey felt herself go very still. It seemed impossible, but the sight was there…
Her eyes darted from side to side while her mind tried to shut down again from the concussion. Underneath her dangling feet she could see The Wall. That black menacing wall that had loomed over her for her entire life. On th
e outside of The Wall and of Slum City were people…
Human beings together with computers and mechanics like she had never seen before, lined in perfect rows. The sight reminded her of a computer ship. Structured chaos.
Electricity seemed to be everywhere. White clad people walked around down there, smaller than the smallest ant. There were rooms and glass everywhere that twisted together in a mad vortex of light and advanced machinery.
Someone grabbed her around the shoulders and she felt her feet making contact with something stable.
She screamed, and fought the hands trying to hold her emptying her lungs until something connected to the back of her head. She didn’t have the time to see what it’d been this time.
This time her stomach did allow her to puke. Stomach fluid dripped from her mouth, and hands tipped her to the side. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the burning light.
There were two white clad people helping her to not suffocate. They were in a hallway, with her on a hospital bed. A white one. White walls, white people, white roof…
There was an elevator and a long corridor to the left and right. There was no sign of the men clad in black.
It took her some time to maker her mind recall what the thing pressing into her side was, the memory of Father Patrick giving the weapon back to her forcing its way through the tumult.
Frey breathed out, spitting the last of the foul bile from her mouth. She then let her mind and instincts take over, feeling the adrenalin pushing the pain away as blood pumped into her legs, hard and fast. She curled up with a moan.
As the voices came closer, demanding to know where she was in pain, she kicked out, pushing one body into the other before ramming the taser into the females stomach, the shock going through them both.
Frey scrambled off the bed, head swimming as she ran towards the light and the door. She ducked her shoulder in and braced for the impact of shattering glass. She stumbled outside, the doors sliding open smoothly and silently.
The light inside was nothing compared to this… She was blind as the force from her run brought her straight into someone. Her body reacted before her mind could, ramming the taser into the new threat.
She stumbled and fell, scraping her knees on the hard metal, fumbling at nothing a few times before managing to get up. The burning started to take shape, the white glare dulling to allow her to see.
Frey looked up towards the brightness of true daylight.
The sight of the vast city stretched before her in all directions, bathing in golden light and with a sky so blue and clear it couldn’t possibly be real. Her mind stood still. She wasn’t even breathing.
It’s another city…
What she was staring at dwarfed Slum City and everything she had ever experienced. Frey saw colors she didn’t know existed. Everything was so bright, light seeming to be everywhere.
“Find and kill her!”
The voice snapped Frey back to reality and she pressed away from the railing, sprinting along the balcony of the strange building, shouldering open another one. The corridor looked exactly the same as the other one. Frey pushed past a confused woman holding sheets of glass. They went flying, crashing into the floor in a shower of sparkling parts while Frey barged on.
Trying not to fall and break her neck, she ran down some stairs for two levels before pushing back out from the stairways. There was no one in sight and Frey fumbled at a nearby door, slipping inside pressing her back to it while trying to calm her breathing.
Piles of dirty laundry filled the room, towels, robes, sheets and more in big piles along the sides. She soaked it a stained towel, wiping sweat and vomit form her face.
The clean-faced people out there were burnt into her eyes like the brilliantly white rays of the sun.
Frey took deep breaths. Her heart still wouldn’t slow as she pulled out a stained robe. The white collar was high, almost covering her dirty bandana.
Frey set her pace as fast as she could without seeming to run, with her heart seeming to have repositioned itself to her throat. There was another bed standing parked at side of the corridor. She grabbed onto it while passing, shoving it before her.
Frey forced herself to calm her breathing.
The door to an elevator opened and Frey forced her legs to enter, even as a young woman stood there with a sheet of glass in her hands, eyes glued to it and light playing on her spotless face.
The elevator was huge and Frey moved the bed to the side, looking for buttons. There were none. Instead, blue numbers seemed to float in the air, number four already glowing golden. There was a green circle with no number on it at the bottom. Frey lifted a shaky hand to touch it, praying she was doing it right.
They both jumped as an alarm went off. For one awful moment Frey thought she had pushed something, but the woman looked up towards the speakers with a frown. “Oh, my. It’s the first time I hear that alarm.”
But the elevator moved on, and then pinged to allow the woman to exit on level four.
Frey tried not to hyperventilate as she leaned back against the wall. One closer look at her and anyone would know! She clenched her fists around the beds handles, knuckles going white.
Calm down. Calm down.
The doors opened. Again Frey had to force her feet to move. The place was crawling with black clad guards. They had blocked the entrance, not letting anyone leave.
Frey moved slowly to the left. She shoved the bed up next to a wall and moved away. A flash of green caught her eyes.
The emergency exits signs didn’t moved in Slum City, but they were enough alike that she recognized it. Her hands were shaking as she reached out to touch the glowing square.
“Sneaking around, are we?”
Frey turned, hand going to her chest to grab the taser, only to find it must still be where she changed. The man must’ve thought her gesture one of shock and he laughed at her, wagging his finger in her face.
“Sorry, I just thought the same as you and my mouth got the better of me,” he said and Frey slowly took her hand down, her mind racing. She saw his cigarette package and forced her mouth to form the words.
“I just really have to have a smoke right now…”
The man laughed again and then winked at her, holding his card against some invisible card reader.
“Well, if we don’t want a second alarm to go off, then we better unlock it, hm?” He smiled as he held up the door for her. “Nice touch with the bandana by the way.”
Frey let him lead the way out of the maze, knowing the smell would betray her any minute. The last door admitted them out to a parking lot.
Frey nodded towards the clutches of what was probably supposed to look like cars, trying not to stare. “I’m goanna go get my cigarettes.”
“Truth be told, I really don’t enjoy sharing mine,” he said with a laugh.
In front of her was a park, behind that, a tall fence. She ducked behind a vehicle just long enough to pull the robe off. Quickly, she retied her hair and ran towards the fence.
She was small enough to force her way through, sparing her the time it would take to climb over. Frey continued her headlong rush away from the echoing alarm, sprinting over the open stretch of grass to where some trees were clustered.
The street came so suddenly that she had to stumble to a halt. It was so clean even the gravel walkway looked more white than gray. The grass was cut short and perfectly even, the statues and fountains were immense where they lined the road. There were holographic projections in-between the statues. The people wore white, light gray or other light colored clothing, with not one stain or tear in them.
Frey moved back into the shadows of the park slowly. A woman sat at a park bench, looking at a flat digital glass screen, flicking her finger at it. Hanging over the bench was her trench coat.
Frey moved over, making no sound and reached out, the jacket slipping away as if it had been made of water.
The woman didn’t even blink.
Chapter 6
Frey’s eyes darted over the carefully cut trees, the perfect sculptures of abstract forms lining the white walkway and the clean people. Everyone was strolling around at a slow pace, almost all of them distracted with some kind of digital screen, big or small. That worked very much in her favor.
Another bench provided her with a light gray shawl with white flowers. Her rough fingers snagged at the silk as she tossed one end over her shoulder to hold it in place.
Think I might puke again…
The adrenalin was slowly disserting her, her speeding mind looking for a way out of the park to busier streets. She would be safer among crowds and skyscrapers, but dreaded what kind of sights would be assaulting her. The end of the park was coming up.
It was morning and the sun was shining. She avoided looking in fear that her mind would desert her. She dared not think of anything, least she went insane and ran back on her own free will.
Don’t think, keep walking. Don’t think, keep walking…
But for all her urging, she froze as the park ended.
Holographic projections shimmered in every possible color along walkways and in-between skyscrapers. They ranged from animations to swipe commercials. Beautiful men and women were winking at you, whispering to buy their product.
Railways were suspended in the air high above them, crisscrossing each other, the sides lined with rows of more hysteric advertising.
The buildings were all entirely made out of reflective glass, making the moving and flickering an insane distraction everywhere around her.
Frey snapped her eyes to her feet. A sure way to make people notice her would be by staring. No one seemed bothered by the crazed motions all around them. In contrast, the people didn’t seem to think it enough, since they had their eyes glued to that glass screen. Even the kids had them.
Frey couldn’t move. As much as she was trying to get her feet to step forward, they just wouldn’t obey. The press of people wasn’t as bad as in China Town and yet it felt immensely worse. Maybe because of the sheer size of it all…
The Yellow Pill Page 4
