by T. K. Malone
“I knew your brother, you know; quite well actually. Quite…” Charm put his finger in the air. “Quite the wasted talent, but a great debater. And you, a DJ. Your mother must be so proud.” He patted Connor on the knee. “Except she’s dead.” He pulled out a lighter and lit both their smokes. Pausing, he took a great draw and then exhaled.
What he’d said finally sank in. “What?” Connor exclaimed.
Charm sat back on the bed and drew one leg up, crossing it over the other. “Forgive me, my mouth runs away with itself sometimes. Now, to what’s happening…happened. I take it you’re conversant with the mechanics of a nuclear strike, pre-emptive or otherwise. Don’t take any note of the politicians, the result is much the same.”
“I, er—”
“Boom, flat, gone, that sort of thing,” Charm went on to say, unabated, “and that’s you just about caught up. Clipped and succinct—not often you get that from me—normally. I’m quite the orator some say. I like the sound of my own voice too much. Do you think that? Do you, Connor Clay?” Charm uncrossed his legs and stood. “Now’s the time for questions, my boy. Right now.”
For a moment, Connor was too taken aback by the man to say a word. Where had Sable gone? Usually, she’d be hovering on the edge of his consciousness, ready to be drawn in when needed, but now it was as though she wasn’t there. He searched for her, although his mind was actually filled with just one question: how could this man profess to know him? Connor hadn’t the slightest recollection of knowing him personally.
“What is this place?” he finally asked.
“This? What does it look like?” and Charm glanced around the room, but then slapped his forehead. “Duh, you’re confused, aren’t you? This is a holding cell, a processing room, call it what you will. Temporary at best but necessary, very necessary. Take yourself, for instance. Are you truly ready to be released?” He pointed at the door. “Out there, it’s quite fragile. Most folk who survived are still in shock, still wondering where their lovely apartments have gone, where their work colleagues went to, their friends. Rage…well, their rage is festering, bubbling and gurgling below an otherwise tranquil-looking meniscus.” His face swooped down to hover just in front of Connor’s. “And it would take only one pin to prick it, or one prick to… No, no, that doesn’t work. It would have been rather clever if it had, though. So tell me, Connor, are you that prick?”
“Am I what?” Connor said, trying to make eye contact with Charm but shying away.
“A prick,” he boomed, his spittle dousing Connor. “Are you an agitator like your brother?”
“I work for the government. I work for The Free World.”
Charm straightened and backed up, until he was sitting once more on the bed opposite. “Yet you visited him. Refresh my memory, but wasn’t it illegal for a gridder to go off Grid? Wasn’t that illegal? Yet you did it— even made a habit of it.”
“He was my brother.”
“Zac was a wastrel, a wastrel who pedaled illicit booze, smokes, propaganda, you name it—him and his biker friends were all culpable, all sold it. And you, a model citizen, still visited him.”
“He was all I had.”
Charm cocked his head. “Was your government not enough? You were favored above most with the cushiest of jobs. Were your grid friends not enough, your lovers insufficient? Why, Connor, why did you go and see him?”
Connor stared at his feet, at his soft boots—canvas of some kind, not unlike his jumpsuit. Finally, he looked up, searching out Charm’s eyes. “I loved him.”
Charm held Connor’s stare. “Past tense, Connor; past tense; that’s an important step. Tell me—if everyone you ever knew was dead, could you accept that?”
“No.” What was this man doing? Where was his compassion? Connor thought.
“But you must. You must be able to, because…”
Connor felt it, he always had, he just didn’t want to admit it. “No.”
“Yes, Connor, yes,” Charm insisted.
“Yes,” Connor quietly said, his eyes dropping away, and in that moment he knew he could. He could accept his old life was now no more. He could, because he’d done it before.
“Yes,” said Charm, springing up from the bed and pacing up and down. “Yes, Connor. You know it, understand it, but you hide from it. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He stepped out his cigarette butt. “But you do, don’t you?”
Under the intensity of Charm’s ensuing stare, Connor nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t fit in,” he whispered.
“No,” Charm softly said. “Neither a gridder nor an outside—a carnie—how could you?”
“Why did you save me?”
Charm made to reach out to Connor but thought better of it, hesitating where he stood before opening the door. “Why indeed,” he said, and left.
13
Connor’s story
Strike time: unknown
Location: unknown
Lights glared down on Connor. Banks of lights like those that lit the Free World Park of an evening, or once had. Flood lights, except they were somehow imposing, glaring down at him, analyzing him. Connor walked the perimeter of what he thought was some kind of loading bay, except the ceiling was high, like a hall, and balconies jutted out on three sides. The forth appeared to be filled with what looked like a pair of enormous doors, what he guessed were thick concrete. Beneath each balcony was a scattering of other doors, set in plain walls around a green painted screed floor, an olive military green, around which he shuffled, his chains chinking and chafing on his wrists and ankles. A single guard stood in the center of the chamber, the nozzle of his gun following Connor’s plodding progress.
Confusion reigned in Connor’s mind. Questions like why was he the only one here? and where was Sable?, along with what the hell was going on? They all went around and around in his mind as he too struggled around and around the olive green floor.
Molly had never come back, nor the Turtle fellow. As for Charm, he’d mashed Connor’s mind and left him a quivering wreck on a hard bed in a stark room. When Connor had most needed help, he’d had his soul laid bare and trampled upon. And then this; just as he’d fallen asleep he’d been dragged from his bed without explanation, just for this. And on he trudged.
Was this any way to offer comfort, to heal someone after the trauma of absolute loss? Sweat blanketed him like a clammy coat, dripping from him, running into his eyes, searching out and stinging his chained wrists and ankles. Did he deserve this? Was this the price to pay?
“Is that better?” the now familiar voice of Josiah Charm rang out from one of the doorways on the other side of the hall, and Connor stopped ambling and stared at the man. “No, no, keep going, all the way around until you get to me,” the bastard called.
Connor made to shuffle a beeline toward him, but the guard raised his rifle and swept it around the perimeter, and so Connor hugged the walls until he finally reached Charm.
“There, Connor, a decent stretch of the legs will be good for you; just the ticket.”
“What are you doing to me?”
“To you? Keeping you sane, Connor, that’s what I’m doing,” then Charm turned his back on Connor and looked over his shoulder. “This way.”
“Where are we going?”
“To bed, Mr. Clay, to bed. That’s the problem with a subterranean hideout, it’s very difficult to keep track of time, very difficult indeed.”
Like the route that had brought him here, the corridor Charm led him along was devoid of decoration, just green-painted concrete broken by the occasional door. Silently at first, Charm sauntered ahead, a kind of swagger to his gait only the carefree could pass off, Connor shuffling along as best he could in the man’s wake. When he chanced a look behind, Connor realized the guard hadn’t followed, yet he felt no freer.
Then, when he did eventually speak, Charm’s voice made Connor’s heart skip a beat.
“Level three—that’s where we are. I
t’s the smallest one, a sort of basement really. We only built it as a contingency, in case things didn’t quite go to plan.” He stopped, briefly spun around, and then walked on. “‘Plan’; not quite the right word. We’ll get there, though, Connor. I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite like the idea of you in that cell.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” Connor asked, now panting.
“Ah, here we are,” and Charm stopped at a door and pushed it open before walking in. “Now, don’t expect the luxuries of your own apartment, but it should be a little better than that holding cell.”
“Where is everyone?” Connor said as he followed him in.
The room he entered was only slightly larger than the cell, awash with the drab olive green that dominated everywhere else in this godforsaken place.
“Spartan, I’ll admit,” Charm said as he paced to its far side, where he reached into his pocket and brought out his handkerchief, to dust down a small table and chair. “Please, sit…on the bed if you would,” and he glanced up at the ceiling. “The rooms above are slightly better, but I’ve a mind to keep you all to myself for a while. I feel we ought to get to know each other a little, seeing as you seem to have forgotten all about me.”
“But I haven’t; I don’t know you, only what you are,” and Connor dropped onto the bed, exhausted.
Charm placed a key on the table. “But you do. You do know me, personally, you just don’t remember.” He pulled up the chair and sat. “There, both comfortable now. But…you’re not really, are you? Comfortable? Not all chained up like that; how could you be? Do you want the key? Want to rid yourself of the chains that hold you?”
“Please,” Connor muttered, now perched on the edge of the bed.
Charm threw him the key. “Now, you just behave yourself. A level head, that’s what you need. A level head. Cigarette?”
Connor bent and undid his leg shackles. What would Zac have done? Would he have just followed Charm’s orders, or would he have fought? Though he knew the answer, Connor couldn’t help but think it a futile one. Charm was so obviously in charge and the place a prison, a prison within a bunker, a prison within a prison. He looked up and plaintively said, “Please.”
Lighting a smoke for himself, Charm bent and slid the packet and a lighter across the floor.
“So, what do we know? What do we do now? Oh, and it’s Doctor Charm.” He leaned forward a little. “You can call me Josiah, though, when we’re alone, but Doctor Charm in public.”
“What happened to Molly?”
“Molly Hunter, eh? Did she tell you she was an imposter?” Charm let the smoke drift from his lungs, his face betraying subtle rapture, as though he’d enjoyed the very taste of his last words.
“How can she be an imposter?”
“Did she tell you she got a call? A high-level call to be at a rendezvous by such and such a time?”
Connor nodded.
Charm grinned.
“What she didn’t tell you…omitted to tell you…was that the call wasn’t for her. You see, Molly Hunter had a friend, and her name was Paxtone. Both are eminent microbiologists—micro farmers, and infinitely valuable at this time…” He scratched his head. “What would you call it? Post-bang? Post-boom? I suppose it’ll be called post-apocalyptic. Boring. Boring. Boring. Rambling again, Connor, I’m rambling. I did warn you. Now, where was I?”
“Molly Hunter? Paxtone?”
Charm perked up. “Ah, yes, Caitlyn Paxtone—a very timid creature. Brilliant, I tell you, but raise your voice an octave and…” Charm scrunched himself down, a mock scream plastered on his face. “Anyway, the message was for Caitlyn, not Molly, but Molly being Molly, da, da, da.” He swished his head from side to side.
“Answered the call,” Connor whispered.
“Answered the call, exactly.” Charm pointed at him. “Answered the call for her timid friend, assuming it a drill. Got on the bus and woke up here. She drove Tuttle mad with her demands, futile given the circumstances. Drove him mad with her demands to be taken back. Not that Byron Tuttle could do anything about anything—he’s a brilliant man but he doesn’t own a time machine.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Why?”
“Yes.”
Charm got up, stubbed his cigarette out on the table top and walked over to the bed, where he hesitated before looking around at the room. “Not a bad place. A little kitchenette—it’s basic, but it’ll serve. Behind that door is a shower room. And that screen there…” and he pointed to something Connor hadn’t noticed up to that point: an olive green screen set into the olive green wall. It was sizeable and oddly out of place in this stark room.
“That, Connor, is an ITS—an Internal Television System. When I fire it up, all around this little complex screens just like this will burst into life, and do you know what they’ll show?”
“No.”
Charm went over to it, tapping it with his knuckle. “You, Connor; they’ll see you. That’s why I’m telling you this. That’s why you’re here. You’re my ITS man.”
Connor threw his spent butt down, already craving another. “You want me to go on that? Why?”
Charm’s expression of enthusiasm clouded over, became stern, as though Connor’s lack of understanding annoyed him. It was only fleeting, though, and he soon composed a more languid look of forbearance. “What do you know? Truly? Anything? We’re in a bunker, Clay, a damned bunker. What with the selected citizens and my own little army, we’re a good few hundred, all told. Now—and this is the bit where you may learn something—what keeps folk in check, Connor?” He tensed, his arms straight down by his sides, his hands bunched to fists. “And if you say ‘happiness’, I swear I’ll—”
“Fear,” he muttered, for Zac had already drummed the answer into Connor’s head.
Charm puffed out a lungful of air and visibly sagged. “Phew. You got it—you’re not that dumb, really. Yes, Connor, fear; it’s the elixir that will grease the wheels of compliance. And that’s what you’ll do.”
“No,” Connor whispered, “no I won’t.”
Charm was soon bent over Connor. “Yes, Clay, yes you will.” Slowly, he withdrew then went over to the still open door, putting his finger and thumb between his lips and winking at Connor before blowing a shrill whistle. He leaned against the doorframe, his foot up against it, his knee crooked. “I won’t have us disagreeing, Clay—won’t have it. You need more circuits? Maybe that’ll get you to agree. Ah, here they come now…my guards. Marching like bloody Russians. Quite vicious they are.”
“I can’t do it.”
Charm’s laughter rang out and down the corridor as he rushed back to Connor, looming over him. “Oh, but you must,” he said, sounding almost out of control. “You must or Molly Hunter dies.” He sat on the bed beside Connor and picked up the pack of cigarettes, sliding one out and lighting it. Then he shuffled back and rested his back against the wall. “Or she dies, just like Caitlyn Paxtone did.”
“You’d kill her?” Connor asked, incredulous.
“No, Connor,” the man now whispered. “You would. Ah, here we are.” Two guards had appeared in the doorway, both touting machine guns, both with their faces covered. “I whistle and they come.”
“How would I?” Connor finally asked, deflated, feeling sick, devoid of any compulsion to fight back. Twenty-four hours, maybe more, and everything he’d ever known was now gone. Zac, Billy, all gone, just like Teah: there one minute, gone the next. And beside him was this strange man who he was supposed to know, a man who just wanted to persecute him, to humiliate and degrade him. But what choice did he have but compliance? Where was Sable? “How would I have killed Molly Hunter?”
Charm shuffled to the edge of the bed. “How? Indirectly is my best guess. Do you know what Byron Tuttle does…did…is…was?”
“No.”
“Let me tell you,” and he sprang up and bounded over to the table. Grabbing the chair, he dragged it back over and sat before Connor. “Doctor
Josiah Charm—as I’ve already told you—is my full title, but have you wondered what I’m a doctor of?” He waited. “No? I, Clay, am a therapist, a psychiatrist, as well as being a politician.” Prodding Connor, he smirked. “It helps, you know, helps me manipulate—but let’s keep that as our own little secret. Byron Tuttle was Black City’s Librarian, and that makes him priceless.”
“How?”
Charm tilted his head and looked directly at Connor. “‘No’, ‘how’. Are you just lazy or are you really this miserly with words? It makes him priceless because Byron Tuttle was a traitor—at least in the eyes of The Free World. You see, when Byron Tuttle was ordered to destroy each and every physical and electronic version of every book that didn’t comply with Oster Prime’s edicts, he did something very special.”
“What?”
“‘No’, ‘how’, and now ‘what’. You really should brush up on your conversational skills. He read the bloody lot of them and then destroyed them. Quite the literary monster is Byron Tuttle. A literary monster with a photographic memory, and that makes Byron Tuttle quite a valuable piece, too.” Charm leaned forward and picked Connor’s legs up. “Relax, Mr. Clay,” but he could have saved his words, for any fight that may have once tried to spark within Connor had long since been doused, now limp with confusion. Swinging Connor’s legs around, Charm laid him out on the bed.
“So you see, Connor, Molly Hunter is an imposter, and Byron Tuttle a traitor. Quite the mix so far, don’t you think? So, that still leaves the question of why your actions—or lack of—would end up killing Ms. Hunter. Order, Connor, that’s why. Tell me, after a surgical—and this one was very surgical—nuclear strike, how long should one remain bunkered? Is that a word? Bunkered? I’ll have to ask Tuttle. But how long, Mr. Clay?”
“How long?” and Connor stared up at the ceiling, praying that this persecution would end soon. Tiredness was making his mind nothing more than mush, Charm’s constant probing confusing him. He felt almost drunk, as though drugged. “Two weeks,” he muttered.
