The Second Adventure: A Cat Called Britain (A Caper in Time Part 1)
by Evan Forman and Michael Robertson - 22.12.14
"Come on, Sarach. Look, if you
just think about this logically, this isn't a new thing, right?
Hospitals usually have backup generators. Where is she anyway?"
The young woman in cheap office clothes and heaving shoulders
sucked up a string of mucus. Alvus handed her another tissue,
which she dropped onto the rising pile of crumpled white balls
on the table. Her breath shook and she blubbed, "what about St.
Kainsach's? They'll have power, right?"
Alvus' eyes searched the air for answers and drew blanks. "Look,
everything'll be okay. These things happen more often than you'd
think."
On the other end of the canteen, Chel sat alone with her cold
metal fist supporting her cheek. She watched the steam fade from
a plastic cup of watery coffee. She'd nearly died this morning
and almost killed a man this afternoon. She was tired. She
wanted to go to bed now.
She looked up at the clock.
8:44.
One. Two. Three. Four.
8:45.
"Five seconds," she thought. "Just have to do
that...twelve...one hundred and twenty...sixty, seventy...a
hundred and seventy more times and I'm out. Fucking hell."
She toyed with the cup, tilting it side to side and watching the
foul drink slosh from side to side.
She sighed and got up off the hard plastic bench. "Course
they don't have one at St. Kainsach's. That's like five minutes
away. They keep actual patients in there? God."
8:45 and ten seconds.
She fumbled for the empty pocket where her cigarettes were.
"Aw, for fuck's-"
"Hi Chel!" some young face beamed.
"Hey" She half-smiled as they passed and let her face hang limp
the second he was gone. "Who was that? Maybe...new? Wouldn't
have thought hiring babies was an effective strategy for
building a disciplined workforce but, yeah, fine."
8:45 and twenty seconds.
"And she would be pretty like you and I would always tell her
how pretty she was and show her how to do makeup and stuff."
Dhacadali yawned, her head on Chel's lap and curled up on a sofa
that wasn't here.
"What if it was a boy?"
"He would be pretty like you and I would always tell him how
pretty he was and show him how to do makeup and stuff."
Back here, in this room. She walked past the plastic table with
the plastic benches fixed with steel bars that had a man sitting
on both sides; and the plastic table with the plastic benches
fixed with steel bars that didn't have a man sitting on either
side; and the plastic table with plastic benches fixed with
steel bars that was covered with empty cups and colourful
sweetie wrappers abandoned in a rush; and the plastic table with
the plastic benches fixed with steel bars that had been wiped
clean of any traces of people having ever sat there at all.
8:45 and thirty seconds.
She put her hands on Sarach's shoulders, which were barely
recovering now from their little earthquake. "I'm sure she's
just fine, hon. Try not to worry yourself too much." She looked
at Alvus, raising her eyebrows and nodding towards the door.
"Me and Chel have to go now. Okay?" She nodded behind a tissue.
"Okay. Just remember, I'm always here if you need someone to
talk to." He smiled reassuringly at her, and stood up and walked
away.
8:45 and forty seconds, said another clock at the end of the
corridor.
The cheap wooden door cushioned shut behind them. "'I'm always
here if you need someone to talk to'?"
"What?! I was only being nice!"
"Her mother's just died, Neas. Stop being 'nice'."
"You don't know that!"
"Shithole like St. Kainsach's? Heart attack didn't kill her,
it'll be the fee that finishes her off."
He stopped walking and faced her. "What the fuck's even up with
you, Chel? You've been weird all day."
A pause.
"Tired, is all."
8:45 and fifty seconds.
"Hagar!" They turned in unison as Enos jogged to catch up with
them, huffing and wheezing as one of his worn boots whistled
with each step. "You're the scariest bitch in this place-"
"Thanks."
"-I was wondering if you could help, we've got someone in for
questioning downstairs and he's just..."
She sighed and started to head down the stairs. "Yeah, fine, why
not? It'll be a lark. Come on Alvus."
8:46. Just fourteen more times.
Alvus led the way through the door with the bootprint in its
face. Chel trailed behind listlessly. He stopped when he saw the
suspect. "Mr. Dion, would you like to sit back down?"
The finger tracing the vertical crack in the mirror slowed to a
halt. The young elf's head rotated around to Chel. It stared,
and he stepped back from the mirror, dramatically slumping in
the little metal chair, all while staring at her. "So..." He
turned to Alvus, brushing a coiled thicket of golden hair out of
his cool blue eyes. "...to what do I owe the pleasure? Where did
the fat one go?"
Alvus swallowed, visibly uneasy, and sat down at the table with
a file in his hands. "Officer Lonn had to take a call. He
thought that perhaps you'd be more cooperative with me." He
opened up the paper document. "And her."
Dion put his feet up, wearing black boots and tan breeches which
draped down from the table to the moss-green blazer and tightly
folded arms. "Ah, yes. I'm familiar with Cyber-Dyke. The lads
speak so highly of you."
Alvus glanced at Chel, to see if she'd react in any way. He
continued. "You're here in connection with an incident on
Wednesday, if you didn't know already, which resulted in the
death of one of the human labourers on your fa-"
"She's even a rather pretty thing, now that I see her in the
flesh. It's a shame she had to choose such a staid profession.
Look at the fucking weapon of an arm she's got there. The mind
quivers at the thought of a semi-circle of country club boys
taking turns with an arm that never tires!" He grinned with a
row of unnaturally white teeth.
Chel slowly meandered around the room the whole time. She had
her arms folded, and didn't show any outward emotion. She didn't
even seem to notice Sagallie, only watching him by looking in
the taped-up mirror from the corner of her eye. Alvus looked up
from the document to see if Dion had finished before returning
to the file. "...the death of one of the human labourers on your
father's property between 10 and 11pm. Can you tell us anything
about that?"
"Well!" He clapped his hands chubby hands together. "I CAN tell
you that we treat all of our animals as ethically as possible,
within the framework of..." He leaned forward and tapped his
fingers on the table "...as someone in the business of upholding
the laws of our fine country, you'd understand that sometimes
one must be cruel to be kind."
"What about this particular instance?"
"In such a particular instance as this, it was about ten or
eleven o' clock at night, and I was taking in a relaxing evening
walk to clear the lungs and soul when I discovered in the
bushes, that one of the surreptitious little things had escaped
from their living quarters! Now, having seen me and and become
consumed in a panic of primal instinct, they pounced through the
shrubs in an attempt to silence the alarm I'd cause. However,
many an afternoon of sparring had paid off, and I was able to
wrestle him to the ground and call for help. Luckily, the
poacher whose father had hired to cull our recent horde of
rabbits was around to hear my cries, and come running to my
rescue." He took his feet off the table and leaned forward.
"Now, surely you know the laws regarding fugitives as well as
any self-respecting keeper of men. So, regrettably, it was clear
to both of us that we had to...put the beast out to pasture. It
was all very quick, I assure you. A shotgun tends to have such
an effect."
Alvus sighed. "Mr. Dion, they were found with rope marks on
their wrists and multiple lacerations across the back and
chest-"
"The signs of a well-trained servant, and a strong guiding hand.
Cruel to be kind."
"The body was found the next morning by your mother's nurse on
her way into the house, there were shards of glass from a
champagne bottle embedded in the soles of the feet. They had
three cracked ribs and were severely malnourished. It wasn't the
gunshot that killed them, it was exhaustion. Could you explain
that for us?"
Sagallie scratched his face and stared at a spot on the wall.
"Well, first of all I contest the notion that they were starved.
Most farmers or landowners are miserly little men who only feed
their animals enough to meet the bare minimum standard, barring
a visit from the inspector. But I, personally, make it a mark of
pride that all of our livestock are fed more than enough for
them to thrive and live happy lives. Why, we practically fatten
them up, you know." He paused, his narrow tongue flitting across
the surface of his lips. "Especially the breeders. That's very
important. Keep them...healthy. Squishy."
"Just answer the questi-"
"Another matter of principle is that when time does come to put
down a...valued guest of our farm, we do it as gently and kindly
as possible. So your implication that this man was the victim of
some kind of jovial hunting party is just plainly ridiculous. We
don't even automate the process, too impersonal. It costs a bomb
in bullets or gasses or sharpening knives, but it's a mark of
respect for those in our care. I've personally carried out more
than my share of slaughter and let me tell you, they don't even
know it's coming." He drew in a breath. "What I like to do, the
way I feel is best to do it is...I get very well-acquainted with
them. They're like friends to me, I visit them in the barn with
food. And when I come in, they're more than used to me by then.
And if it's a sow I just...put a gentle hand on her, stroke her
a little bit, let her know that everything's going to be just
fine, that it'll all be over in a minute. And then, at just the
right moment..." he raised a hand up near his cheek, in front of
his shoulder "...Slash!" His other hand drew across the air, as
if he were making some dramatic flourish of a cello.
Chel's eyes wandered around the room, but stopped at the sight
of herself in the unbroken one-way mirror: arms folded, her
mechanical index finger circling the tip of her thumb
compulsively. Sitting in front of her was Sagallie, and while
nearly half of the opposite mirror had been destroyed
completely, it wasn't that half that reflected him; and the
thousand other Sagallies smiling in a thousand other chairs
below a thousand other Chel Hagars.
"I'm going to ask you one more time, because your story is
contradicted by every single mark on that corpse. What were you
doing betwee-"
"See, most people would end the fondling reassurances before
they actually slit the throat. Nasty business, it leaves a few
seconds of cold terror for the poor dear to sweat in but the
trick is to make the killing part of the comfort. You'd be
surprised how relaxing the warm, wet slip into unconsciousness
can-"
Chel flicked her finger over her thumb like flipping open a
lighter, and out popped a three-inch switchblade which, with one
swift motion, she buried into Dion's hand.
He cried. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS! I HAVE RIGHTS!"
She twisted the knife that skewered his hand. "DID YOU OR DID
YOU NOT FUCKING KILL HIM?!”
"CHEL WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?" Alvus shot out of his chair
and ran around the table, trying to pull her off of Sagallie but
she'd wrapped her arm around his neck. She tore out of the veins
in his hand and pressed the blade to his throat.
"OKAY OKAY WE ALL CHASED HIM AROUND THE-"
Atair burst into the room. "HAGAR!"
She froze, Dion's limbs wriggling underneath her, and her head
slowly rose to look at him, snarling beneath strands of
white-blonde hair. "Yes, sir?"
"Put the knife away. Get out here."
She looked back down at her Dion for a few seconds. Without
moving her hand from his throat she cocked her metal thumb and
he whimpered as the blade slid back in. She uncoiled from him,
and walked out.
Whether it was his age or his height or intangible adult-ness,
Atair managed to make everyone feel like schoolchildren at the
headteacher's office. Chel leaned against the wall, arms pinned
to her sides, below the tumour of water rot hanging from the
roof tiles.
He paced around with his head in his hand. "What do you think
you're doing? Do you even know who that is? Did the name ‘Dion’
not ring a bell at any point? No? Not even every single poster
or-"
"You literally just watched him admitting to torturing one of
his humans to death. But that's not the fucking worst of it, did
you not just hear what he fucking said about slitting-"
"Chel. Calm. Down. So what if he gets freakishly close and
personal with his animals? Do you think that's actually a thing
worth devoting police time to?"
"Do you honestly think he was talking about animals!?"
"Why do you even care what he does in his spare time? A man in
possession of labourers is entitled to do what he-"
She shot off the wall, her hand around his mouth. "Atair. Do you
remember when I got this arm? Do you remember how I'd sit there
in that canteen and all the men would come to me with their mugs
and fruit and trinkets to watch me crush it with the hand around
your jaw? Now, is that sentence worth finishing?"
He calmly took her wrist and pushed her hand away. "Why do you
even care? At all? Have you suddenly gone savage? Do you have
sympathy for the humans? Would you like to set them free and go
back to fucking nature with them, living in forests and wiping
your arses with leaves?"
She was quiet, holding back the jets of fire from her lips,
exhaling smoke through her nose. She stepped back and brushed
the hair out of her face. "No. I do, however, care about basic
fucking decency, and I seem to remember bestiality being frowned
upon in most society."
He looked at her with his copyrighted frown. "Go home, Chel.
We'll talk in the morning." He turned to walk away. "You've
fucking cracked, lass."
She was alone now, Elmire took the waddling Sagallie from Alvus
and escorted him to the nearest first aid kit. Dion looked back
at Chel for a few moments, trying to look threatening while
sporting a puddle of piss all down his trousers. The stillness
was broken by one tube of a strip light flickering into life
above her; and now that she looked up, she could see the
silhouettes of the cockroaches scuttling above the glass.
She'd tried to collect herself over the next ten or so minutes
while she got her things, and failed. Anxiously fiddling with
her keys in her pocket, Chel paced down the silent corridor on
her way out. The steady rhythm of her footsteps was joined by a
quiet stampede which got louder and louder as Alvus and Enos
came running past her. She stopped. "What's happening?"
Alvus ran ahead while Enos breathlessly spun around back to her.
"It's the riot control unit they're showing at the arena. I
think it was supposed to be demonstrating on that John Boss from
earlier? The levitators have gone haywire and just fucking
melted almost a hundred people-"
"Are you coming!?" shouted Alvus from down the hall.
He started running again and disappeared around the corner.
The awfulness was vague enough that she could put it in a box
and focus on the freezing rain on her face and in her hair. She
turned the key in her car which stuttered into life. The radio
began chattering over the crackling sound of droplets hitting
the windscreen.
"Uh...we're getting reports of an explosion just a few minutes
ago at the Dryadoran Amphitheatre. We don't know how many
casualties there are yet, but officials are saying they've yet
to determine the cause, and that civilians should stay clear of
the area which is now being cordoned off by the police. We'll
bring you all the details as soon as we get them." The
microphone picked up the DJ's swallow. "In the meantime-" he
paused, and his voice wobbled. "In the meantime, be sure to stay
tuned to CitySound Radio FM, for all the hottest new tunes and
breaking news live from Dryadora's capital." He sighed, and the
music mercifully covered for him. Strained bass intro, some
primordial drum finds its way into a steady, nervous beat. A
synthesiser hums; there's a sparkle sound effect and then the
bloody tambourines kick in.
She looked at the time on the little screen: 9:15PM.
"I mean, you obviously hate your job so why would you put up
with it as much as you do? It's like I barely even see you
anymore." Dhacadali held her head up with one arm on the table
in the kitchen, which was dark except for two dim lights above
the counter. "That's where you are all this time, right? Do you
go somewhere else? Is there someone else? Because if there
is..."
Chel turned the radio off, and tried to focus on the road for a
few more moments before stopping at a red light. There was a
streetlamp outside, and in the orange glow she inspected a
quartet of purple and yellow bruises on her knuckles which had
stubbornly refused to heal for about two weeks now. She tapped
her fingers on the wheel, pairs of headlights whizzing in front
of her in both directions.
“John Boss,” she thought. “If he tried to escape,
if he was somehow responsible for this, if he isn't dead
already, they'll probably take him to St. Kainsach's. 'Where
they make people better'."
"Or is he not 'people' anymore?"
The hospital wasn't too far from this crossroads, now that she
thought about it. "Turn right, straight ahead, can't really
miss it." Sagallie Dion lurked in her head like something
out of a nightmare, but she was snapped out of her morbid
daydream by a car horn behind her. The light had turned green.
Chel flipped the indicator, and turned left.