The Altonevers (23 page)

“
Watches” Anna corrects the
girl.

“
Oh right,
watches.”

“
And what are those?”
Monswabba asks.

“
To tell...time?” Cider
says.

“
Time, and what is that?
Are you mad or something. A little bit maybe?” Monswabba says to
the girl, who shares his baffled sentiment with a shrug.

“
Okay, alright how much for
the metal?” Cider asks, Anna thinks this clever and smiles behind
his back.

“
For the metal, oh I don’t
know. What types of metal are they?” Monswabba asks.

“
Silver, gold and steel and
bronze, mostly silver though,” he answers.

“
Silver is a dog,” the
clerk says, popping a bubble with her gum.

“
Silver's good metal,” he
says.

“
No, silver is a dog, this
is pale gold,” Monswabba says.

“
Whatever, there's a bunch
of ‘em, so how much for the lot of em?” he asks. The fat man looks
over the chunks of metal and their bands, peering into their
ticking faces.

“
Why are they making that
noise?” he asks.

“
Thats how they tell time,”
Anna says.

“
And you understand what
they’re saying?” the clerk asks. Anna can't help but giggle at the
auctioneer and the girls ignorance to something so simple to her,
as a watch is.

“
What is it saying?” the
girl asks.

“
No, hahaha,” Anna
laughs.

“
You have to look into
their faces,” Cider says holding a watch up to their curious
gazes.

“
Ahh...whatever. I'll try
to sell them as something, come back in three days,” Monswabba
says.

“
Come back? but we have
nowhere to go,” he says.

“
That's your luck I guess,”
snaps the clerk, “what do you expect when you come in with scrap
like this.”

“
Give them one of the safer
rooms, the girl looks meek to the rabble that frequent this place.
But know that it's coming out of whatever I get for
these...things,” the auctioneer says.

“
I can handle myself
thanks,” Anna snaps confidently.

“
You’re welcome,” the girl
says handing Cider a rusty key with its room number scratched into
it.

“
How did you get these
anyway?” The drooling man asks looking to Cider.

“
I came across them by
chance,” he replies to the fat man, who then casts a last puzzled
look before he waddles back to the musical scrapings of his
fork.

“
Where is our room?” Anna
asks.

“
Third floor, first door on
the right,” the clerk replies, “enjoy your stay,” she adds to Cider
with carnal eyes.

“
Enjoy your stay,” Anna
mimic's the girl as they walk off to the elevator.

“
If he's looking he must
not have what he wants,” the clerk says.

“
I'm not his,” Anna snaps,
the sound of those words from her sting at his ego.

Ting! announces the elevators arrival,
and worn wooden doors slide open with a mechanical clunk to a wood
paneled box.

“
Ladies first,” he
says.

“
You think she’s a
lady?”

“
Are you
jealous?”

“
No, just...tired” she
huffs.

“
Right, adorably
tired.”

“
I have a
headache.”

Ting! the doors slide closed on the
two standing next to each other though looking miles apart
elevating to their floor.

Rabbits are red

Another mundane room of a
hole in the wall hotel, though this one feels more like the
stifling subterranean atmosphere of a cave. A film of sweat coats
the inside of the room and their skin. They spend most of their
time wandering through the wide halls and narrow streets in search
of anything resembling an InterAlto station. Finding nothing but
stagnating air entombed by cement pillars. She begins thinking this
is a prison for its inhabitants. Halls and homes alike have vaulted
ceilings spread through the structures like veins and organs. The
minds and souls of this society persist primarily indoors, in the
halls and the few open spaces outdoors, otherwise only on the
catwalks and walking the street when between places Pockets, they
call the vast caverns, at the whim of the pooling winds
pressurizing them until they pop.
She sits
idly stuffed in their stuffy room not wanting to move to draw
anymore sweat from her pores. Watching the still windows never move
or even shake, the only things in view unless you go to the ground
levels, to be in the shadows. The two prefer the it down there,
miles down, where there are more places to be and people to meet,
though they’re all very paranoid and reluctant to speak about
getting out of anywhere when asked.

“
Did you see how many
people were out today?” he asks as he lathers his face for a
shave.

“
Yeah and everyone was
talking about the wind, something about it opening paths up to
higher places,” she says, speaking over the running
faucet.

“
Could be our way out,” he
says.

“
Or closer to it. How are
we gonna get...somewhere else?” she asks.

“
I dunno,” he spits into
the sink, “yet.” He usually shaves and showers up from a waking
stupor as she takes to her usual perch of peering from the window’s
sill to the Alto outside. To soak in the scene and new stimuli of
each Alto she’s new to. Seeing nothing but bricks and windows and
staggering heights below and the bottom’s of other structure’s
suspended high above them. One of the many, many, window curtains
rustles suspiciously drawing her to them like small prey peering to
a noise in the bushes It rustles again, opening more, and she sees
a blue room and half of a kitchen table for a second. Then the
curtain’s torn away from the glass, showing the tan hands of a man
preparing a meal on his table, skinning and chopping carrots. She
looks to see if Cider’s out of the bathroom yet, though he’s still
humming happily and shaving with eyes on the mirror. She drifts
back to her view through two windows, seeing a muscular man dressed
in light brown fatigues frantically running in and out of her line
of sight.

What's that guy doing? she thinks,
then vainly leaning closer for a better look. The man returns to
view though she can’t see his face, only seeing a strong hand
raised and holding a butchers knife like a guillotine over a
squirming.

“
RABBIT!” she yells, as the
blade comes down, reddening the table and cleaving the white hare’s
head with an echoing chop that screams through her unnerved
ears.

“
What? how'd you know
Vivian calls me that ?” Cider asks nearly nicking his
nose.

“
What? who's Vivian, that
trashy clerk,” Anna sneers.

“
Haha no, a friend. What’re
you yelping about?” he asks, with lather dripping to from his half
shaven face to his shirt.

“
Dammit,” he says wiping it
in more. Anna looks back to the sight of the shadowy figure opening
his own window and walking onto the catwalk toward her. She closes
the window to a chop sounding to her like safety.

“
Oh my god, Cider, Cider!”
she says excitedly.

“
What?”

“
Holy shit, he's coming,”
she says leaping toward the half open bathroom door.

“
Who? What? What is it now?
a monster under your bed?” he says laughing.

“
No at the window, uh the
door,” she says.

Knock! knock! knock! the man’s hand
wraps on the window pane. Cider slides away from the mirror still
lathered and sloppy from washing up.

“
Well, who is it?” he
asks.

“
I dunno,” she nods her
head no when saying “but he killed a bunny.”

“
What does he want?” he
asks.

“
I don't know, I just seen
him through the window.”

“
Come in,” Cider
yells.

“
Are you crazy,” she says
smacking him on the arm, which he answers with a shrug. The man
slides the window open and enters with one yellow boot looking for
the ground. He's a tall man in military pants and a red vest over a
black shirt standing silently, staring with bulging intense looking
lunatic’s brown eyes. A bullet wound healed over is dead in the
center of his forehead, and the blood of the rabbit drips from his
hands. The room fills with the hard jawed man’s overpowering aroma,
of testosterone oozing musk. The silence of an instinctive standoff
continues for almost a minute of intense inner thought.

“
Hey, where'dya get that
watch?” Cider asks.

“
I got them from the desk
clerk,” the man says with a thick accent, replacing y's with j's
and clicking the k's while over pronouncing the vowels.

“
What do you want?” Anna
asks.

“
I seen a little birdie in
my window there,” he laughs a shallow laugh that bellows from his
mouth.

“
Why are you here, friend?”
Cider asks remembering the straight razor in his hand, and eyeing
the bloody blade in the other guy's reddened fingers.

“
Who sent you? why are you
watching me?” the man asks insistently.

“
No one sent us, we’re not
even from this place,” she answers.

“
Are you with the IBI?” The
man in fatigues asks.

“
No, and they’re no friends
of mine, they been my heels for...ever,” Cider says.

“
Oh yeah and why are they
after you?”

“
I'm a bank robber, a vault
knocker known the Altonevers over,” Cider says
boastfully.

“
Haha, good. I’m in good
company then,” the man laughs.

“
And you? what're they
after your for?” Anna asks.

“
Participating in the
revolution they say, but it is them who are guilty. It is the
establishment that has committed a revolution, treason against the
people by establishing a new order of totality. I am Rojo of the
counter revolutionary guard.”

“
Oh that doesn’t sound so
bad,” he says.

“
And what about the
rabbit,” she asks.

“
For stew, for
dinner.”

“
That doesn’t sound so
bad,” she sighs in relief, and the nervous tension of uncertain
intentions flees from of the room. The posture of the three eases
into the comfort of the company of a fellow traveler.

“
And who are you?” Rojo
asks.

“
I'm Cider and this is
Anna,” Cider says.

“
Oh Anna what a beautiful
name,” Rojo says.

“
Thank you,” she blushes
and nods.

“
Come in have a seat. Are
you from here?” Cider asks nodding to Anna “Yes, come in. Do you
know anything of this place? like how to leave?” she asks “Yes sit.
Sit, have some tea or coffee,” she says gesturing to the
couch.

“
Thank you. This is this is
my home, why I fight, but finish yourself friend,” Rojo says
looking to Cider’s one lathered cheek.

“
Coffee is all we got,” she
says.

“
That will be fine, would
you like some salo leaves?” Rojo asks.

“
What’s that?” she asks,
and Rojo answers by moving a glob from his cheek with his tongue
and opening his mouth to show Anna a clump of chewed green leaves
between his teeth. A nose hair singeing smell of mint makes her
blink from across the room. It's the smell of a highly potent
psychoactive plant.

“
Maybe in some tea, later.
The water is boiling either way,” she says.

“
What brings you to this
place?” Rojo asks.

“
We made a wrong turn,” she
says.

“
Nothing you do can be
wrong. You are much too pretty for that,” Rojo says. The two banter
through the polite conversation of a host settling a guest. Cider
hears Rojo's frequent compliments of Anna, each of her flattered
murmurs over the running water needles away at his sense of envy.
His patience is thinning while flossing his teeth faster and faster
until he finally draws blood. Rojo laughs that she calls the IBI,
Ribbit's and frogs, when explaining the circumstances that have
lead the two to here, and now.

“
So what is this place?”
Cider asks, plopping himself next to Rojo on the couch, between him
and Anna who's sitting at her window perch.

“
This place was originally
built as a sort of prison. A labyrinth to contain us,” Rojo
says.

“
Us?” he asks.

“
Yes we of the counter
revolution. You see, they could suppress our actions, but could not
stamp us out. Our furnace hot hearts are forever burning for
freedom, and warming the minds of our brothers and sisters by the
light of liberty. Many of the people are today ignorant even of
their own plight. Anyway, I was hit during a raid, giving me
this...mark,” Rojo points to the wound of his forehead, and they
threw me down here, trapped in this inside out of a place. But I
learned. I learned the battle is not a physical one, it is of the
mind. And a spiritual one of man against the morality of man, to
incite the others, the masses, for their own benefit. Is the only
way, so I took to resurrect the ways that've come before me, of
free speech and the printing press to keep the people’s hearts and
minds filled with debate and question.”