Mortal Lock (34 page)
Authors: Andrew Vachss
Tags: #Collections & Anthologies, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #General
FADE TO BLACK
(Characteristic) Humming Sound in the blackness, then:
OPEN ON INT: Gathering Hall
This time the podium is empty. A very tall, very slender, pale-skinned woman makes her way to the front. Her most striking feature is spiky jet-black hair streaked in red slashes. She turns to face the audience
.
WOMAN
(bowing slightly)
My name is Tech. I come before you to speak from the Book of Connection.
FADE OUT as she beings to speak …
OPEN SLOWLY TO …
EXT: Wide shot of what had once been a city close in on windowless brick building. Remnants of signage indicate it was once a factory of some kind
.
INT: Open space on the top floor of the factory
.
A young woman with long, straight blonde hair is speaking into what looks like a jury-rigged microphone.…
YOUNG WOMAN
I hope you get this, Lynny. The cyber-link up here is real old, three or even four spans. We don’t have generators like you do. But we have panels that store energy. Big ones, too. Most of them were broken, but there’s quite a few good ones left. Besides, there aren’t many people up here, so we usually have power, but it doesn’t last.
I know that sounds crazy, but I’ll try and explain. Anyway, if you’re listening to this, you know I made it.
Nobody thinks much about Outside. I mean, not really. It was too many spans ago. I heard that some of the Ancients were even born Outside, but I never believed it—people just don’t live that long.
CUT TO:
Shots of the destruction of newspaper office, government hunter-killer teams executing individual journalists, bloggers being cyber-tracked by government agents (of all races)—uniformed soldiers ripping them from their computer terminals. World leaders banning news broadcasting, demonstrators mowed down by soldiers who act as emotionlessly as if harvesting wheat. Finally, even graffiti taggers being “sprayed” with machine-gun fire
.
Finally, scenes of total planetary destruction, progressing in a loop from jungle combat to urban guerilla warfare to ICBMs. Show a radically shrinking Arctic ice cap to rainforests disappearing. Humans end up fighting with the crudest of weapons
.
YOUNG WOMAN
The Rulers say it was the Terror that brought us all Underground. They said that people couldn’t
live Outside anymore. If that’s true, they must have known it was coming, because it took a long time for Underground to be built. I guess most of the Originals died while they were still digging the tunnels.
I don’t know if you ever think of me, Lynny. I left when you were only Year 4. I know you cried. You yelled that you hated me. But I
had
to go.
I don’t know if you even think about Outside, but I
always
did. I got up to Learn-Rite/Seven before I had to go to work, so I had plenty of programs. But none of them ever said what the Terror was. They just said that Outside had something in the air. Like chemicals, or even radioactive stuff. All the programs say that; I was only in Learn-Rite/Two when I first heard it.
If it wasn’t for the Book Boys, I never would have heard anything else.
CUT TO:
ON A TUNNEL WALL:
THEY TEACH US LIES ABOUT OUTSIDE
IF THEY TOLD THE TRUTH, THEY’D ALL DIE
YOUNG WOMAN
(into the microphone)
That
was the truth, sister-of-my-spray. There’s nothing wrong with the air up here—at least not where I am. The only thing is, I don’t know where I am, not exactly. See, there
is
no Outside.
I mean, it’s not a … destination. It’s not a
place
you can go to, like going to the Medical Tunnel. It’s … too big to see. Or maybe even imagine.
The Travelers come through here all the time. They come to trade. Some of them trade stories.
SHOW:
Various individuals passing through clusters of destroyed buildings. Some carry sacks, some a musical instrument, some weapons … not invaders, mercenaries looking for work
.
Transactions taking place
.
A Traveler standing before a few dozen seated people, clearly narrating a story, complete with hand gestures
.
YOUNG WOMAN
They tell us, in some places, it’s warm all the time. And in others, believe it or not, it’s cold all the time. And where I am, it’s both. Not at the same time, but at different times. It’s about three slice-turns for each change. When I got here, it was very warm. Hot, sometimes. Then it got cooler. Then real cold. Then warmer a bit. Then it was back to where it was when I got here.
The slice is way above us. You can see it when it gets dark. It gets dark, and then it gets light. Every day. Not like home … I mean, not like Underground.
Anyway, sometimes the slice is round, like a ball. And sometimes it’s so skinny you can barely see it.
Things …
change
up here, Lynny. One Traveler even told us there aren’t any Rulers anymore.
Nothing happened to him when he said that, so maybe … maybe it’s even true. But I’ll have to wait until I see that one again. If I do, then I’ll know for sure he was telling the truth.
I sure hope so. Otherwise, there’s no way to really know anything—there’s no Book Boys here.
She pauses, checks a soft red light on a makeshift console. It throbs weakly, like the pulse of a man struggling to live. She looks out the broken window to a sundial on the ground. She nods grimly, as if she understands she will not have much more time
.
YOUNG WOMAN
You should be in your Year 12 pretty soon, Lynny. I don’t think things have changed
that
much. People still wonder about Outside, don’t they?
Wondering, that isn’t the same as thinking. If you
think
about it, there’s only two things that could be true. Either everyone the Rulers put Outside died because the air was so bad … or they didn’t die at all.
Remember what I said about the air here? I always thought
that
was a lie. I mean, if the Rulers wanted to kill someone, why wouldn’t they just do it right there, instead of sending them away? Then I thought, maybe the Rulers were scaring us for our own good. Maybe the Terror was still here, and they wanted to protect us.
Now that I know the air up here is safe, either the Rulers are lying, or they just don’t know the truth.
Unaware that her actions are underscoring her words, she takes a deep breath. Holds it for a long time, then exhales very slowly before she picks up the microphone again:
YOUNG WOMAN
Cain was my boy, Lynny. When the Drover came to our sector, he said I had to go to the Sex Tunnels. I was just in my Year 14. Cain told the Drover they can’t make you go until your Year 16, that was the Rule.
The Drover told Cain the Rule had been changed. Cain stabbed him and the Drover died.
The camera shows the above as the young woman continues to narrate over it, as if it were a silent movie. The drover is wearing a cattleman’s duster, with a thick leather strap over one shoulder, to which rings are attached. Cain is wearing a crew uniform, a snow-white jacket with a red lightning bolt across the back. His hands are empty as they argue: the knife appears in Cain’s hand so quickly that it is obvious he has used it many times before
.
YOUNG WOMAN
Cain had to go in front of the Video-Counsel. It turned out the Rule really hadn’t changed at all—the Drover was lying. But they said Cain should have put in a Dispute Ticket. Cain told them, by the time the ticket was processed, I would
be gone. They said that didn’t matter—killing is against the Rules. So they put Cain Outside.
SHOW:
A teenage boy and girl standing before a video screen. On the screen:
UYUT77-KJ09
OUTSIDE
RB11L-M331
SEX TUNNEL AT YEAR 16
YOUNG WOMAN
That’s when I decided to go, Lynny. If I just stayed around and waited until my Year 16 to go into the Sex Tunnels, then what Cain did, it was all for nothing. I figured if they can
put
you Outside, there had to be a way to
get
to Outside, too.
I couldn’t go out the way they took Cain. That way is guarded. And there’s always a crowd of people standing around, waiting to see if anyone comes back. They all want the first person to come back to be theirs. Nobody has ever come back yet, so the crowd is big, really, really big; I saw it for myself. I went there when they took Cain. Some actually
live
there now. Just waiting.
So I just kept walking, until I was out of the Charted Zone.
I can’t tell you where I went after that. Or who I stayed with. I can’t take a chance that the Rulers might be listening. They haven’t found the channel to Outside yet, or they would have closed it off.
Listen to me, Lynny: The Rulers lie. Cain
didn’t die from the bad air. He didn’t die from the Terror, either. I know this for sure. Because I found him.
You know what we have, Lynny? A baby. Our own baby.
Other people have babies here, too. They protect the babies. The Travelers said people learned that from the animals. The Terror only killed the humans, not the animals. I mean, sure, a lot of animals died. But not their ways.
We don’t have Rules here. But there are things you can’t do. Like a contract everyone signs. If we didn’t have one, we would all die. Like, you can’t take somebody’s tools. If you get caught doing that, you have to pay it back double. But the most important thing is about children; they call it the Unspoken Law. You can’t hurt children here, Lynny. It’s not like Underground, even though the Rule there sounds the same. In Underground, you can’t hurt children either, unless you own them. But here, you can’t hurt
any
children, even your own. You can’t have sex with them either, no matter how many credits you have. Not that we have credits up here, but you understand what I’m telling you.
We call ourselves the People. If we catch anyone hurting a child, they have to go away. And they have to leave the child they hurt behind.
With us.
In the beginning, the ones who had to go, the Loners, they kept moving. But no matter where they went, nobody wanted them. So they tried to form a group of their own, like a crew, but then
they started fighting with each other. So now they stay away from everyone.
You can feel them sometimes. At night, by the fire, you can feel them looking down at us.
Every group has its own code. That’s what it’s called up here, Lynny … a code. A Moral Code. That means, you live a certain way because it’s right. Even if there are no Rules to make you.
Some of the groups are called Families. Not spray, like in Underground; it doesn’t have anything to do with your blood. Our Family is called the Warriors. We guard the other Families. That’s our work, like the Weavers and the Builders have their work. We don’t trade, not like the Exchanges in Underground. But we all have what we need because we all have each other’s work.
And I have a name now, Lynny. A real name. My own birth-name plus my Family name. So I’m not Rachel/RB11L-M331 anymore. I am Rachel Guardian now.
One of the old Travelers told us that Outside is just another word for Starting Over. We are Beginning Again, he said.
It’s not like Underground, my sister. Sometimes it’s cold and sometimes it’s hot. There are animals. Big ones, so big they are scary. And some of the humans hunt, too. It’s not quiet and clean and safe, like it is Underground.
But if our Codes win, Outside will be a better place than Underground ever was.
And if we lose, we just die, that’s all. That’s the code of our family: Die Trying.
The ones who get put Outside are the ones who broke the Rules. That means the Rulers are sending us the
best
. I know, some of them aren’t the best. But plenty of them are.
I wanted to go back down into the tunnels and show people the way out, but Cain said if too many people came out at once, there would be an overload. And that would stop our Code from growing. Besides, he was afraid for me.
But Cain’s a man, sister. He’s my man, but he’s still a man. My heart doesn’t have a brain, but it knows what’s right. It’s so easy now, to know what’s right.
This damn tape is almost done. Listen, my sister … sister-of-my-spray, sister-for-real, sister-of-my-Family, sister-of-my-Code.
Listen
now: When we were very small we had a game; a game of counting. Please remember. You could do any calculations in your head. Please remember, Lynny. Remember the time I counted the most cargo crates on the Conveyor? The most anyone had ever counted? Take that number, the number I counted, all right? Now take thirty-one and a quarter percent of that number, and round it off to the nearest hundredth. When you’re ready, go back to the tunnel where you last saw me. Then walk that number of steps times twelve. No more, no less. When you get there, stop! You’ll be in the Uncharted Zone, but nobody will bother you if you
stay
there. Just wait.
Bring food and water. It may take a while, a long while even. But someone will come. They
will ask your name. When you tell them, they’ll lead you to the channel to Outside. Those people are a Family too. My Family. My first Family. But they’re not coming Outside for a while; their work is to Guide.
Come Outside, sister. We’re starting over. Come be with us. Walk into the darkness, and you can come into the light.
FADE TO BLACK
FADE IN ON:
TECH
By this we learn that Connection requires Courage.
She bows again as we …
FADE TO BLACK
OPEN TO INT: Gathering Hall
A Latino-appearing man is at the podium. He is impeccably groomed, very “Latin-lover” in appearance. He speaks with only a trace of a Spanish accent
.