The Detachable Boy (7 page)
A
S SUDDENLY AS
it had started, the floor stopped moving. We had ridden underground on a sort of giant lift. The engine revved and the truck lurched into motion. I ran, jumped on the back and hung on for dear life.
The truck and I and were soon thundering along a smooth, flat-bottomed concrete pipe some distance below the surface of the desert. I watched fluorescent tubes strobe past with a growing sense of unease. Where were we going? How long could one underground tunnel be? How was I going to get out of here?
The truck droned on at high speed for several minutes before it began to change down through the gears. I remembered all the action adventure movies I’d ever watched and decided to get off the truck just before it arrived at its destination. Just a couple of cool steps into the shadows. Unfortunately, I misjudged the speed of the vehicle, and fell. I came apart like a Charlie Potato Head thrown from a moving car window, my limbs rattling along the tunnel like garbage. My head skipped and rolled under the truck into a brightly lit loading bay and came to rest face-up at the feet of a man dressed in a shiny black suit.
He didn’t seem surprised at all. He looked at me as if he played soccer with people’s heads all the time. He spoke into his wrist.
‘We have a security breach in Bay Thirteen. I repeat, security breach in Bay Thirteen. Lock it down.’
Lights flashed. Sirens wailed.
My head moaned.
M
Y HEAD WAS
carried in a rough fabric bag and emptied through a clear Perspex door into a small cell. The rest of my body was dumped on top and I fumbled through my clothing and cobbled myself together as quickly as I could. The Perspex door snibbed shut and locks slid home on the other side of the thick plastic.
I banged at the clear wall. ‘Let me out! You can’t lock me in here . . . I didn’t do anything! Hey! Crystal! Crystal!’
‘They can’t hear you,’ came a croaky voice. ‘Might as well save your energy.’
I turned to see the face of an old man poking from beneath a grey blanket on one of the two bunks in the room. Had he seen me reassemble myself ? Too bad if he had. I was too angry . . . too frightened to care. The only other fitting in the room was a stainless steel toilet without a seat.
‘Pardon?’ I said.
‘The walls are shock-proof, bullet-proof, acid-proof, pizza-proof, laser-proof and explosive-safe . . . oh and sound-proof. You may as well save your energy for more important things, like sleeping.’ With that, the old man rolled to face the wall. ‘Do me a favour will you, Sunshine, and tuck my blanket in. I’m freezing here.’
‘What?’
‘Make yourself useful and tuck me in. I’d do it myself only . . .’ The old man sat upright and punched his stumpy wrists at me. ‘They took my hands!’ he wailed. ‘The scumbags took my hands!’
A detachable. I’d finally met another person that officially came apart at the seams. He flopped back onto his bed and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. It was as though I’d met a relative I didn’t know existed.
‘Who took your hands?’ I asked, and pushed the grey blanket around the old man’s shoulders.
He snuggled deeper under the cover and sighed. ‘Those folk in the shiny suits.’
I went to the door and watched the guards – pale-skinned men in black vinyl suits like the guys who’d bagged me after the accident. Probably just like the men who had taken Crystal. They wheeled trolleys along the hallway. Some of the trolleys were stacked with plates of food, some carried linen, and some were loaded with large sacks that wriggled like Boy Scouts stuck in sleeping bags. I recognised those sacks.
The old man appeared at my shoulder. He gave me a fright.
‘Scary, isn’t it?’ he whispered.
‘What is this place? What do they want with us?’
‘They call it the Hive,’ he said, and held out his right stump. ‘I’m Wilkin Meadows.’
After a moment of feeling a bit yuck about doing it, I shook Wilkin’s stump. ‘John Johnson.’
‘We’re a long way underground and if you ever get to look outside that door without your head in a bag, you’ll understand why they call it the Hive. It’s just cells like this as far as you can see, filled with poor coots like you and me who were nabbed by those suits. Hundreds of us. Probably thousands.’
‘What will they do to us?’
‘Dunno. I’ve heard that they’ll pull us apart and sell us as spare parts. You know, a leg to a war veteran, an arm to someone mangled in a car accident.’
‘That’s awful!’
‘I’ve also heard we’ll get our heads scrambled.’
‘Scrambled?’
‘You ever noticed when you rest your head against someone you can read their thoughts?’
‘Not really, no,’ I said, but the more I thought about it, the more I remembered. When I was little, and scared, I sometimes slept in Nick’s bed. I had strange dreams. If our heads rested together during the night, I had Nick’s dreams. I know they were Nick’s dreams because they were often disgusting and a bit demented, like my brother in his waking state. Also, when I snuggled with a dog or a cat or a guinea pig, I could hear the animal’s thoughts and flick through its memory like files in a filing cabinet. While that might sound cool to begin with, I can tell you there are things animals think about that humans are just not meant to understand. Rolling in poo, for example, licking your own bottom and sniffing each other’s private parts are things humans just aren’t meant to think about in any great detail. So the whole memory-sharing thing seemed normal to me. Gross at times, but normal. ‘Actually, yes, I do.’
‘Well, in this establishment, apparently they join your head to a stronger head and mash your memories. Chop them all up so you don’t know if you’re Arthur or Martha. Get in there and mess around until . . .’
‘Okay, I think I get the point,’ I said. ‘Why would they do that?’
Wilkin shrugged. ‘So you don’t know where you’ve been, I guess. So you don’t go looking for your lost hands.’
He looked at his stumps. ‘Who’s Crystal?’ he asked.
‘Crystal’s my friend. She was kidnapped. They brought her here.’
‘She comes apart, then?’
‘No. She’s Normal.’
‘Normal? Never heard of a Normal person in here, other than the guards of course.’
‘Well, she’s here. She’s the reason I’m here. She must be here somewhere. I’ve got to get out. I’ve got to save her.’
‘Look around you, John. You won’t be getting out of here without help, will you? Unless . . .’
‘Unless what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Unless what?’
‘Well, I had this idea . . .’
Wilkin Meadows whispered his plan into my ear.
While it was risky, it was a plan.
‘Do you think it will work?’ I asked.
Wilkin shrugged and rested his stump on the back of my hand. ‘It’ll have to.’
‘Your accent,’ I said. ‘Are you from Australia?’
Wilkin nodded. ‘Born and raised in Upper Cumbucta West and as soon as I’m free of this place, that’s where I’ll be going. Home sweet home.’
Wilkin chatted about his life outside the Hive. He told me the sorry tale of his journey into custody that began with him trying to save a dog that was about to be hit by a car in a lonely Melbourne back street. The dog was saved but unfortunately Wilkin went under the front wheel and fell to pieces. The dog ran off in fright – with both Wilkin’s hands hanging on for the ride. Unfortunate also for Wilkin was the fact that the car that struck him was carrying two men in vinyl suits, not unlike the car that had run me down. They bagged him and the dog and sent him off to the Hive handless, no questions asked.
‘It’s as if they were hunting me,’ Wilkin said. ‘As if they’d followed me for days, months even, just waiting for the chance to run me down.’
That was not a comforting thought. It was easy to imagine the accident that started this whole mess not being such an accident at all. ‘You know, they could have been hunting me, too. I thought it was an accident but . . .’
‘Shh! Here he comes,’ Wilkin whispered. ‘Are you ready?’
My limbs shook. ‘No . . . I . . .’
The guard was at the door with a stainless-steel trolley.
‘You can do it, John. I believe in you,’ Wilkin whispered. ‘Fists of fury.’
I stood awkwardly on my wonky foot and pushed my head hard onto my neck. Wilkin hooked his blanket over his stumps as if he was preparing to make his bed.
The guard unlocked the Perspex door and entered, carrying two trays of food.
‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Tonight we have our chef ’s specialty . . . a selection of nuts . . . and bolts seasoned with broken glass. Ha! Do enjoy.’
‘Now!’ Wilkin barked as the guard laid the first tray on his bed.
I wound up and threw both my clenched fists with all my strength. Like rocks of flesh they spun through the air directly at their target – the guard’s head.
The guard ducked.
My beautiful hands – those fists of fury – thudded uselessly into Wilkin’s outstretched blanket.
Wilkin wrapped the hands and grinned at the guard. ‘Did you see that, Mr Paulson?’ he sang. ‘That young fellow had a go at you. I wouldn’t stand for that. Send him to maximum security.’
My stomach turned. I’d been hoodwinked!
The guard straightened. ‘Come on, old man,’ he growled. ‘It’s a small cell and there are only the two of you. Give him his hands back.’
‘Not on your Nellie, smelly. I’m hanging on to these feelers for safe keeping.’
The guard placed the remaining tray on the end of my bunk, and shook his head.
‘You should shift me to another cell,’ Wilkin protested. ‘That’s an idea, eh? It’s dangerous in here. C’mon.’
The guard shrugged, and locked the door as he left.
I felt the rage bubbling in my joints – a good anger that fortified my body and made me feel huge. At least I hoped it was rage bubbling in my joints. There’s nothing worse than breaking wind at a tense moment and blowing both your legs off.
Wilkin dug through the folds of the blanket and emerged with my hands attached to his own stumps.
‘Now, don’t try anything silly, John. You wouldn’t want to take a beating from your own hands now, would you?’
I stood in the middle of the cell and puffed.
Wilkin clapped and pranced and shadowboxed, beckoned me with my own fingers.
He looked stupid. He looked more than stupid. He looked silly.
I giggled.
‘Wot?’
He looked ridiculous.
I chuckled.
‘Wot? I’ll have you!’
He looked pathetic.
I couldn’t hold it any longer and I opened my mouth and laughed out loud.
‘Stop it!’ Wilkin screamed. ‘I’ll pound you. I’ll pound you into a mess with your own flipping hands!’
I shifted the tray of food on my bunk with my wrists and lay down. I folded my arms behind my head and laughed quietly at the ceiling.
I only had to wait for the opportune moment.
The guard was right. This was a small cell.
A
LL
I
NEEDED
to do to stay awake was think about Crystal. I wondered how she’d coped with being carried halfway around the world in a bag. If she was stuck in a cell by herself, she would be lonely. Lonely and hungry. I hoped the men in suits realised she ate twelve meals per day. With snacks at twenty-minute intervals.
I lay motionless on my bunk waiting for Wilkin to begin snoring. It wasn’t a chainsaw snore, just a little bubbly snort on the in-breath that told me for certain he was asleep. I slid off my bunk and crawled across the floor. At first I was just going to reach under the blankets and take my hands back, but I had a sudden and mischievous desire to join heads. I wanted to know if it was real, if I really could read minds, and I wanted to know how much – if any – of what Wilkin had told me was true. I gently lowered my forehead against the greasy grey hair at the back of the old man’s skull.
Instantly, Wilkin’s memories were my memories, but Wilkin had only named himself Wilkin a minute before I’d been thrown into his cell. Previously he’d called himself Jack Queen, and before that he was known as Ace King. Before that he was called Harold Potter but that was a ridiculous name. There was no dog rescue in Wilkin’s recent history; in fact he’d lost his hands – and the rest of his body – in a game of Texas Holdem poker with a scary-looking individual named Al Burman who appeared as a gangster in more memories than I cared to look at. Al knew someone who knew someone else who traded in limbs. He’d sold Wilkin to the highest bidder.
It was the memory of Wilkin’s truck ride into the Hive that made me catch my breath. It had been dark for the entire journey – as though he, too, had been transported in a bag – but in the memory, I could hear people whimpering and moaning. As the engine died, metal locks clanked and light streamed into the image – the bright lights in one of the subterranean loading bays.
Slumped in the corner, her wrists and mouth bound with yellow tape printed with the word ‘fragile’, was a tallish girl with shining brown hair.
Crystal.
I watched through Wilkin’s eyes as she and several other people were shunted along a pedestrian tunnel with a large letter ‘E’ painted above the door.
In my excitement, I jerked my head from Wilkin’s and accidentally thumped the old man in the face with my wrist.
I froze.
Wilkin snuffled, rubbed his nose with the palm of my hand, and sighed.
I rejoined heads and sent messages to my hands, encouraging them to detach. They obliged, and so did the rest of Wilkin’s body. Feet, arms, legs, head and torso separated, and still Wilkin didn’t stir.
I grinned. I collected my hands and distributed Wilkin’s body parts around the cell before climbing back into my own bunk.
The wailing of a siren woke me with a fright. I sat up and realised it wasn’t an alarm but Wilkin’s head howling.
The head looked at me. ‘What have you done?’
I waved – with my own hand – and smiled.
One of Wilkin’s arms flapped uselessly on the blanket at the foot of his bed, stirring up dust but otherwise making no headway.