by Adam Steel
‘Okay. I’ll try,’ Aya replied and held out her shaking hands.
Ellie cleaned the wounds on Aya’s hands, using the sterile dressings from the medical kit. The bits of glass were difficult to remove from Aya’s cold hands. She winced with pain, as each one was teased gently out. Ellie rubbed some antiseptic ointment, cleaning the worst cuts and then bandaged Aya’s hands.
‘Feels better,’ Aya managed.
‘Good. We need to take care of him now,’ Ellie said nodding at Jon Li.
‘I’ll try, but I don’t know about medical stuff...that kinda stuff…not like you,’ Aya said apologetically.
‘Doesn’t matter. Do what I say. We’ll fix his face first. He’s lost a lot of blood,’ Ellie said and rummaged in the bag.
‘That’s a huge bump. Is he concussed? Will he come round?’ Aya asked, looking at the bruise on his forehead, which was turning an ugly shade of blue.
‘He’s unconscious. He hit his head when we crashed. I can’t tell how bad it is. We’ll do what we can while he’s unconscious. At least he won’t feel it,’ Ellie said.
‘Shine the torch on his face.’
The torch light flickered back and forth, in Aya’s trembling hands.
‘Keep it still,’ Ellie said.
Ellie carefully teased out the large piece of glass implanted in his cheek. Blood spurted out, as the jagged glass eased out from the flesh. She put a pad on the wound and held it down tight and stemming the flow of blood. Good job he’s unconscious because this would hurt. He’s going to have scars after this lot. We should be in a hospital, not here. Jon…please be okay,’ she thought despairingly. Ellie repeated the process of removing glass, cleaning the wounds, and holding the cuts together with bits of tape from the medical kit. When she had removed every visible piece from his face and head, she turned to Aya (who was looking as though she might be sick).
‘We’ve got to get his shirt open,’ Ellie said, bending over Jon Li.
Ellie was thankful that he was still wearing his suit jacket. She doubted that the glass would have punctured the thick material. It was the thin material of his shirt that she was worried about. She could see that the blood-stains were slowly spreading across his chest.
‘We’ll have to cut it off. I don’t want to pull it, because there could be glass stuck through the shirt as well. Pass me the scissors.’
Aya dug into the bag, and pulled out a pair of long-handled, hairdressing scissors.
‘These do?’ she asked, holding them up in the torchlight, and remembering with some horror, what she had previously used them for.
The image of Ajit, with the scissors wedged in one eye, was firmly etched in her mind. Max had pulled them out, and the eye had come out with them. He had flipped it off, and washed the scissors off, before shoving them back in Aya’s bag. He had muttered something about them being most useful at the time.
‘Thanks. Hold the torch over his chest,’ Ellie ordered.
Ellie began cutting at the shirt across his chest, and carefully prised open the blood soaked shirt. The smell of blood, rain, and fear sickened her. She was worried that if she found any large pieces of glass imbedded in his chest, then it would be beyond her to help him, and it made her feel very alone with the responsibility of his life. Suddenly she stopped. Panic raced through her body and she froze. What…What the hell is this? It can’t be! It can’t be true! It can’t be! The light of the torch reflected on something silver. It was a mason’s key, and hanging from a chain around Jon Li’s neck. The alien object seemed to shine out at her as though it was cursed and she recoiled in shock.
Aya saw it, dropped the torch, and shrieked. Max came running into the room. He had expected to find, that Jon Li had died.
‘What? What is it?’ he demanded to know.
Aya picked up the torch, and pointed it at Jon Li’s chest.
‘Look! Look! See what he’s wearing? He’s one of them! He’s one of them!’ Aya shrieked.
Max stared at the silver key which was resting in the hollow of Jon Li’s neck. He leaned very close in. The bloody object pulsed up and down with each heartbeat. It was as though it had taken on a life of its own: an alien life that would be the death of Jon Li as surely as if it was a cancerous tumour growing in his throat.
‘What the fuck is this?’ Max swore at Ellie.
Ellie cowered. Her eyes were wide and full of confusion.
‘I thought you said he just worked for them. He’s one of them!’ Max spat in a loud and angry voice.
‘He can’t be! I don’t believe it! There must be an answer. When he wakes up, he’ll tell us. Jon wouldn’t betray us. He wouldn’t!’
‘He ain’t gonna get the chance to wake up. Get outta the way and let me finish him now,’ Max said, trying to pull Ellie away.
She folded her arms over his neck, protectively and the silver key touched her face. She thought that it whispered to her mind.
“Traitor. He’s betrayed you all. He’s one of them - has been all along. You were just too stupid to see it. Him and Royale. Together. A mated pair.”
Shut up! It’s not true! It’s not true I tell you. He loves me. He wouldn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not my Jon. You’ve got it all wrong, she thought back at the key.
Ellie was sobbing into Jon Li’s chest when she replied, ‘If you shoot him, then you’ll have to shoot me as well!’
Aya was crying and pleading with Max not to shoot either of them. Max let go of Ellie and backed off.
‘If he wakes up…he’d better have a damn good reason for wearing that thing, or he’s a dead man! You hear me?’ Max shouted.
Ellie shook her head and held Jon Li tighter and Max stomped back into the living room and resumed his watch.
Aya looked on, as Max sat motionless by the window. The torch light, coming from Aya’s hand, flickered back on the bed.
‘We should leave him. He’s one of them. We’re not safe with him,’ Aya whispered. She stared at the key around Jon Li’s neck.
Ellie turned on her fiercely.
‘We don’t even know why he has it. I trusted and helped you with your partner back at the hospital. I’m telling you he would not betray us,’ Ellie stated firmly.
Ellie sniffed and sat back up, looking at Aya.
‘He’s nuts, that man of yours. Why do you stay with a meat-head like that?’ Ellie asked.
‘Cause I love him,’ Aya said, and shrugged. ‘That’s why I won’t abandon him. You two leave if you want, but I’m staying with him.’
Ellie finished cleaning up the remaining few fragments of glass that were embedded in Jon Li’s chest. She pulled a clean towel over his chest, as though she was trying to hide the key. It shone out – mocking the pair of them.
“Don’t touch me or you’ll die,’ she imagined it to say.
Ellie crawled on to the bed next to Jon Li, and with her arms around his battered body, she rested, but never slept, just in case Max came back again.
Aya went into the room where Max was keeping watch. She sat down on the floor between his legs. From where they were sitting, they had a good view up the deserted street. They watched the vague flicker of orange lights, which appeared all over the deserted and darkened city. Skyscrapers loomed further out, like ugly shadows of doom in the blackness. Distant calls and crashes echoed through empty buildings. Every now and then, something scuttled between the buildings in the street below. Aya got into Max’s arms, as close as she could and together they sat and waited out the few remaining hours until dawn and hoping that the raggedy figures wouldn’t come back.
Chapter 36: Unwelcome Guests
The Wastelands: North of Coney City
Early Hours: Saturday 28th July
Ellie watched over Jon Li by the faint torchlight. His chest rose and fell softly. His face was a mass of bruises, blood stains and strips of plaster. The ugly swelling on his forehead had risen to twice the size that it was when they had heaved him from the wreck.
She whispere
d in his ear.
‘Jon, wake up Jon. Don’t leave me alone. Please, Jon, come back.’
Her tears trickled onto his chest and she placed her head over his heart and listened.
“Lub Dub…Lub Dub…Lub Dub…” it beat steadily.
As long as she could hear his heart, she knew that he was still alive. She looked up at his sleeping face, and then down to where the key had settled in the dip on his throat. She tentatively walked her fingers towards the key.
“Don’t touch me. I told you. DON’T touch me!” it seemed to growl at her.
Her cold fingers touched the key. She expected the silver object to feel as cold as ice: heartless, but it wasn’t. It felt hot. It had sapped the warmth from his body. It was as though it had sapped some of his life into itself. He twitched and she listened again to his heart. For a few seconds she could hear a change in his heartbeat.
“Lub Dub...Lub Dub...Lub Dub…”, it beat faster and more fearfully.
Ellie propped herself up on one arm. She put her hand under her head, and with trembling fingers, she lifted the key away from his chest. The platinum felt alien to her touch. It was like nothing she had ever felt. A static charge ran through her fingers. It hurt.
“Drop me! Put me down. Your skin burns me. You don’t have the right to touch me. YOU are not Mason,” it appeared to squeal at her.
She was startled by the way it seemed to transmit thoughts to her mind as though it might be telepathic. The torchlight spelled out the letters F and E for Freedom and Equality. She looked at them in a different light. She thought that they spelled only Fear and Evil. From her prospective, Utopia was full of FEAR and EVIL run by the masons and the key was one of a brood of eight sinister creatures which would have to be destroyed.
She thought about the reasons why he might have been wearing a mason’s key. She knew that he worked closely with Mason Royale and that he hated Mason Katcher. Was that just an act? A careful act to fool her! she had questioned. Perhaps he’s planning to replace Katcher. Maybe Jon and Royale were in it together all the time! Perhaps Max was right. He loves me. He wouldn’t. Not with her! She remembered how Royale had reacted to him at the Masquerade Ball. It was all too familiar. Suspicious thoughts crept in and out of her mind and she tried her hardest to mentally argue his defence. He hadn’t betrayed them. He was trying to help them. He loved her didn’t he? But the key! Why did he have the key? What was he hiding from them? He had said nothing about his conference up in Eden, nothing about where he had gone when he had left his penthouse. When he had returned, he had looked so afraid. But he had returned with the key! Was he on their side or with the Masons? Max would surely shoot him if that was the case. He must have gone back to Fin-Sen, she reasoned. He would have had nowhere else to go, unless - he already had the key when he returned from Eden? She tried hard to recall his behaviour when he had first come home. She couldn’t remember clearly. It could have been hidden under his suit, she thought. She couldn’t be sure. She did not know what to believe. Her mind was a flood of confusion.
Jon Li moved and muttered something barely audible and she grabbed the torch and shone it into his face. He winced in pain. He was waking up.
‘Jon? Jon! Wake up!’ she urged and shook him gently.
He groaned and his eyelids flickered.
‘Shush, Jon. Quietly,’ she said.
Ellie crept to the doorway and looked into the other room. She could see that Aya was asleep and sitting down on the floor against Max’s legs. Max was resting against the wall and his eyes had almost drooped closed. She thought that the side effects of the pain relief that she had issued him must have been slowing him down, and in a way that was good. Ellie worried about how much worse his anger might become when he had fully recovered.
The first glow of dawn was on the horizon when she closed the door to the bedroom and went back to Jon Li: kneeling down on the dusty floor beside him.
‘Jon. Can you hear me?’ she whispered.
She thought that if she could warn him about Max’s threat then he would have a chance to explain about the key before it was too late.
‘What…What happened?’ he groaned.
His hands went to his head and face. ‘My head,’ he winced. He groped at the cuts on his face.
‘We were ambushed. You were hurt. Can you remember anything?’ she pleaded.
‘I remember the car flying up a ramp or something. What the hell was that? Where are we?’ he asked.
‘Shhhhhhhh. Quiet. I don’t want Max to hear you. Max said that he thought we were somewhere in The Wastelands. We’re in one of the old cities. It’s derelict. There were people: horrible people. They attacked us. Max shot at them. We don’t know who they were. They’re not like us,’ she said in a hushed voice.
‘People?’ he mumbled.
‘Yes. People, and they’re living out here,’ she answered.
Jon Li closed his eyes and sighed.
‘Then it’s true. There are people here. They said there were no people outside Coney,’ he whispered.
‘They lied, Jon. They lied about a lot of things. Don’t you remember what happened before that? You said you were going to find out the truth about what we were saying for yourself. Remember? Where did you go? What did you do?’ she queried.
He struggled to remember everything. Slowly, details began to surface from the murky depths of his mind. When he recalled what he’d seen he drew a sharp breath in and looked into her pale face.
‘You won’t believe me. No one will,’ he muttered in despair.
He was shivering uncontrollably. Ellie held him and tried to reason with him. His face was plagued with guilt.
‘Please Jon. Tell me what happened. Max knows about that key you’re wearing. He would have killed you last night if I hadn’t stopped him. He thinks you have betrayed us. You’ve got to tell him it’s not true. Tell me how you got it. What have you done?’ she whispered anxiously.
He put his hand on the evil platinum creature that hung around his neck and looked at Ellie. There was terror in his eyes. She was staring at the key and she could have sworn that it winked at her.
“I have him again. He’s mine. All mine. You Lose,” it seemed to mock.
He looked into her frightened eyes and tried to explain.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you. All of you. But what I’ve done,’ he paused and shook his head, ‘there’s no going back. Ever,’ he said, and bowed his head.
‘What. What was it Jon? What have you done?’ she said, holding his hands in hers and looking into his solemn face.
‘I-I,’ he began to explain.
The door burst open and he stopped dead. Max was standing in the doorway holding a pistol. The early morning light silhouetted his soldier figure.
‘He’s awake?’ Max demanded angrily.
Ellie looked guilty.
‘Well. What’s he said?’ he hissed at Ellie.
Max was talking straight over Jon Li’s head. He was thinking that Jon Li wouldn’t exist a whole lot longer, unless he had a good explanation of why he was wearing a mason’s key. Aya stood behind Max rubbing her eyes.
‘What is it?’ she yawned, and moved closer to take a look at Jon Li.
‘It’s Li, and he’s got some serious fuckin' explaining to do, that’s what,’ he grunted.
Max stepped into the room and hovered over the bed. Ellie got up and interjected between Max and Jon Li.
‘Wait! Don’t do anything stupid Max. We’ve got to hear what he’s got to say. For Christ’s sake! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see he’s been injured?’ she bleated in a firm, but frightened voice.
‘Get outta the way. It’s him I want to speak to. Li! - I’m waiting,’ Max said impatiently.
Jon Li swung his legs off the bed and held his head in his hands. Ellie turned and put her arm around his shoulders to steady him. Jon Li looked up straight at Max. He could see that Max wouldn’t believe him no matter what he said. Aya tugged on Max’s arm and loo
ked at Ellie.
‘Let him speak Max. We don’t know yet. At least give him a chance,’ Aya pleaded.
Jon Li tried to meet Max’s unflinching gaze.
‘You were right,’ he said quietly.
‘The Key Li. Where did you get the key?’ Max spat grimly.
He was in no mood for flattery.
A noise of breaking wood and glass came up from the floor below. It caused them all to freeze in place. Aya turned around and looked at them with a frightened expression on her face.
‘Shush. What’s that?’ she said.
Max held his hand up to signal them all to be silent. They heard the sound of shuffling and crunching footsteps coming up from the floor below.
‘What do you think it is?’ Aya whispered to Max.
‘Someone’s down there…in the shop,’ he replied in a hushed voice and clicked off the safety on his pistol.
Ellie looked fearfully at Jon Li.
‘Who are they?’ Jon Li whispered.
‘It’s those people. The ones who attacked us last night. They’ve come back,’ she replied, in a tiny frightened whisper.
Aya put her hand to her mouth and her eyes widened.
Jon Li tried to stand up. He reached out to try and stop Max before collapsing back onto the bed.
‘Wait! We should try to talk to them, you don’t understand,’ he breathed.
Talking made him wince because it opened up the cuts in his face.
Max checked his gun and pushed Aya further into the dingy bedroom. He glared down at Jon Li.
‘Good luck with that. I’ve had about enough of your bright ideas. Just…stay here…all of you…and shut up. I’m gonna check it out. I’ve got to get to the rifle,’ he said in a hushed voice, while gesturing at his rucksack.
The rifle was lying next to it.
Aya and Ellie moved behind the bedroom door, and inched it closed, as quietly as possible. Ellie peered out through a tiny crack. She could see Max creeping silently towards the window. Her heart was thudding. Aya was holding Ellie’s arm and breathing in rapid, shallow gasps. Her tiny hands were trembling.
