3

The words had slipped out of his mouth without warning, and Sarah didn’t know whether to be shocked or pleasantly surprised. She felt a mixture of both. On the walk back to the Package Area she discussed things quietly with him. It was difficult to hear what he was saying – what with the children pouring through the tunnels – so they decided to leave the conversation for a later date. Only when they reached their workroom were they able to fully hear one another, but by that point Teslaface came in with the dollies and told them to get packing. After doing that, they followed him up to the Afterburner room, and from there they didn’t really have a chance to talk at all. Which was a shame, because this hypothetical fight had been on her mind ever since. She would have to wait until later to get the full details.

By three o’clock in the afternoon, Sarah was helping Chip with the Afterburner, doing the same monotonous job over and over again, and her hands had been hurting something fierce. She shook her palms a lot, bringing Chip up to the date on what she was planning to do – everything with the keycard and the fight. When he asked about what she was planning to do with the keycard, she told him about the 01 DOOR and how she believed there could have been a way out in that area.

Smoke billowed from the exhaust pipes on the scuttle and Jade eddied round the hatch, churning with each whip of fire. Sarah flipped it open, waggled the hash inside, shut it, and Chip pumped the lever. The dark-green liquid squeezed out the stopcock and filled up the vial, just like last time, and the time before that, and before that….

Chip swapped the vial for an empty one. He was still wearing the welding mask, and his silver jumpsuit had been splashed with green. “That’s a good idea,” he said with obvious sarcasm. “Go in, ya find out there’s no way out, and then, y’know, you sort of sit around and wait for one of the guards to find you and, I dunno, kill you? Great idea, Sarah. Gold star if you ask me.”

“I’m serious.” She shut the scuttle just in time to stop a wad from shooting out. She backed up and grabbed another strongbox from the dolly, not a care in the world.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Chip. “I told you we wait for your sister. That’s all there is to it. Got it?”

“But there’s no time for that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“My friend told me what they do to us. Once we're, you know... useless to them.”

“You made a friend?” he said. “Already?”

She carried the strongbox over to the hatch, giving him a weird look. “Yeah,” she said suspiciously. “I made a couple. People here are nice.”

Chip snickered, gripping the lever. “Yeah? That’s cute, kid. Doesn’t change the fact that you should wait for your sister and – ”

“No!” replied Sarah, suddenly feeling hot. “Grimes said that Mr Steel said he doesn’t need us alive. He said he could kill us and sell our organs on the black market.” But she was aware that was only half the truth; Grimes Teslaface had made no mention of Chip at all. Still, she felt he would be more inclined to believe her if she added his name into the mix.

“Christ you have a dark imagination,” said Chip, craning his neck.

She furled her brow. “What? I'm not lying!”

“Relax – ”

“Grimes said so,” she repeated. “He said Mr Steel didn’t need me alive… and Andy said that once they’re done with us they kill us. He said he saw it happen, and he said he saw it happen to another boy called Billy.” She was aware that she had gotten the story wrong. She left out the part about Billy trying to escape. That would have probably dissuaded Chip even further.

Chip filled up another vial, went back, and popped it in the case. He sighed. “You keep doin’ this. You keep thinkin’ that the world is a movie, but it’s not, kid. They don’t care about your sister and they don’t care about you. You know why Glitch wants your sister so bad?”

She shook her head. Her mouth widened into a perplexed ‘O’.

“’Cause she’s worth a shi – ” He paused. “She’s wanted for a lot of money. People didn’t even know her full name till Glitch came around and sniffed her out in the city.” He grabbed another vial and set it under the stopcock. “He wanted to set her up so the police could catch her red-handed. He would get the money for his effort into making the city a better place, that greedy b-word.” He tapped the scuttle hatch.

Sarah opened the hatch, dumped the Jade inside, and closed it. “How much is Luna wanted for?”

“According to Ricky-Licky Steel: a million dollars.” He pumped the lever. Then, in a lower voice: “Like he needs that much money.”

“But Luna’s a good person,” said Sarah.

“No she’s not,” said Chip. “Your sister’s a criminal, Sarah. Look what she did to us.”

Sarah glared at him with stricken eyes, her face angry and hurt. She couldn’t believe that Luna’s own friend who worked with her for more than a year would say something like that. She expected it from someone like Pip, who didn’t know her that well, but from Chip? “Luna’s not a criminal,” she said gravely.

“Yes she is!” he said, loud enough for his voice to overmask the busy machine. “We all are!”

“No she isn’t!” she cried, squeezing the strongbox until her hands ached. “You said she would save us! That’s not what criminals do! Criminals are people like… like Mr Steel!”

“The world ain’t like TV kid,” said Chip. “Criminals come in all shapes and sizes, and your sister isn’t much better than these jerks. You know how she got money?”

She nodded. “By hacking.”

“Yeah?” he said, laughing that squeak of a laugh, lifting his welding mask so that she could see his red eye and bloody gauze. He had a bit of ginger stubble where there would normally be flawless skin. “Guess what, Sarah: she stole all the money from helpless clerks and businessmen. Some of them had to shut down, and guess what: some of the people ended up on the street like you used to be.”

Her eyes widened, horror-struck. “That’s not true! Luna wouldn’t – ”

“Really?” said Chip. “Are you that fucking oblivious? What do you think she was doing at the hotel?”

She took a moment to respond. This had been the first time Chip swore at her. Softly, she said, “Stealing the gauntlets… but…”

“If she stole the gauntlets, things would have worked out different for you,” he said. “You’d be out of the city and you’d be far from home. Luna would be higher on the criminal list and you’d have to flee the country. She ain’t no fuckin’ hero, and she ain’t no good sister. She’s a thieving, selfish piece of shit.”

“Shut up!” Sarah shouted, dropping the strongbox on the grated floor and pressing her wrists against her temples. Her eyes shone with spite. “Shut up shut up shut up!”

Chip let go of the lever and approached her quickly. “Calm down!”

Another voice shouted across the workshop, slightly subdued by the roaring engines: “What is it?” It was the mysterious nice man, and he was pacing towards them with a faceful of concern.

“Nothing,” said Chip, pulling his helmet down and moving back to the scuttle. “She just started shouting. She has autism.”

The mysterious man stopped, his face frozen in a confused rictus, his hand on the black-and-yellow-striped balustrade bar. “You want a break, hon?” he said, looking at her with compassionate eyes.

Sarah’s face shifted to one of utter surprise. It was as if her mouth had been a makeshift desk and someone had loosened the screws on each corner. She didn’t expect him to say anything like that, not someone working under Mr Steel’s name, not someone who was possibly at risk of getting killed, like Teslaface and perhaps all the other guards down here.

“Huh?” was all she could say.

“You want a break?” he repeated, snappier than the first time.

Sarah was still taken aback, unsure of what to say, unsure if the question was rhetorical or not. She stared at him without realising.

“Sarah,” a voice said from behind. Chip, of course. That asshole. She looked at him, holding the same face. “Take a break, go on. You could hurt yourself.”

“C’mon,” said the mysterious man. “I’ll bring you to the bathroom.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and guided her away from the scuttle machine. The other men in the facility were staring at her, and on the far side she saw Andy popping Jade in the scuttle and giving her the same emotionless glare as always.

Together, Sarah and the mysterious man left the industrial workshop and entered the octagon-shaped tunnels. Her feet padded along the metal floor, sore and ice-cold. The lights on the ceiling dimmed the farther they walked, turning from white to sunset red. The pipes on the walls bent at a right-facing corner and led into a single sliding glass door. When they walked through, Sarah saw a room that, for once, didn’t smell like ozone or tiger piss. It was very much subtle with a lavender aroma. The walls looked as though they were made up of multiple pieces snapped together, like a jigsaw puzzle, bearing vertical LED lightstrips which did little to combat the dark. There were multiple bathroom stalls, sinks, and electric hand-dryers. Perhaps most notable of all was the pill-shaped window on the opposite end which showed nothing but black. She wasn’t actually sure if it had been a window at all, but rather a decorative feature put in for… decorative reasons.

She twiddled her thumbs and the mysterious man let go of her shoulder.

“I’ll wait outside,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t take too long, hon.”

She turned. “Wait!”

He faced her again. “Yeah?”

“Excuse me sir,” she said nervously, “but Grimes tells me not to ask too many questions. But… what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?” Her heart was racing, and she was afraid he might pull out a jackknife.

“No worries.” He smiled an irregular line of yellow teeth. “Name’s Apoc, but for bidness reasons you’re better off calling me sir, like you are now.”

She massaged the side of her head. “You’re very nice, sir….”

“I try to be,” he said, turning again.

“But why?” she said, and he stopped midway through the door.

“Well,” he said, “you haven’t really given me a reason to be mad at you yet, have you?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “But I try not to annoy anyone. The other men are really… mean.”

He nodded with a slight chuckle. “That’ll happen when people aren’t allowed leave.”

“You’re not allowed leave?” She remembered Andy vaguely mentioning this.

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” he said, “’cause what do you think would happen if we were allowed?”

She shrugged, not having the slightest of an idea.

He let out a big sigh, got down on one knee, and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “Sarah’s your name, right?” She nodded. “Right, Sarah. I don’t like doin’ this any more than you do. I’m lucky I got put with the adults, because I don’t have the heart to watch you kids bein’ put through such torturous work, like, I mean, have you looked at your hands at all?”

She had. They had so many cuts and stung like hell, but she was getting used to it, slowly, like Andy said she would. “Uh-huh.”

“You’re in a terrible state,” he said. “You’re new, you’re probably scared….”

“Are you going to kill us?” she said, knowing now she could possibly get some confirmation regarding Andy’s claims. Maybe Apoc would bring up that boy Billy Wilson and say he was just a one-time thing, or maybe he would tell her a bald-faced lie, that they would eventually set her free.

He took some time to answer, and in the moment Sarah knew what he was going to say; it had been one of those situations where a person’s face spoke volumes. “What Mr Steel plans to do with you and… everyone else, I dunno. But he has killed people in the past, a lotta people.”

Goosebumps rashed out across her arms. “My sister’s in trouble,” she said, her voice starting to break.

“I know,” he said. “Luna, right?” She nodded again, holding her hands close to her face. “Yeah, I thought so. Christ, that’s horrible. But there’s nothing I can do about that, I’m ’fraid. Mr Steel’s orders.”

She looked down at her feet, understanding. She felt even more hopeless than she did when speaking with Chip. “Will I ever see her again, sir…?”

“Hope so,” he said, standing. “I hope everyone will get to see their families again.”

“How did you get here?” she asked, her curiosity biting again.

“Blackmailed,” he said, pressing his hand on the door rim.

“Blackmailed?”

Apoc paused, looked over his shoulder, took a deep breath through his nose, and spoke to her with a clear expression of regret: “I murdered a man.”

She swallowed – hard. “Murdered?” she squeaked.

A subtle nod. “It was a bar fight and… well, things didn’t end well for him. I was drunk, I slashed his throat. Cops were called on me and I knew I was gonna get life behind bars. They cuffed me and sat me in the back of the car but people came by. Those men you see out there? Those men who looked like they just survived hell? Yeah, them. They stopped us on the road like it was just some normal traffic bit and they killed the cops, drove away with me still in the back, talkin’ ’bout how I was workin’ for them now.

“That’s sort of how it goes for most guards here. We’re all criminals, murderers… some even worse than that. Trust me, I hate it as much as you do.” His face dropped.

Sarah didn’t know what to say. She had had her suspicion that the robot zombies were prisoners too, but now that Apoc told her this, now that she had the actual context, she figured that they were forced to act in such evil ways. Evil people trapped by an evil drug-ring leader. It was crazy to consider.

“Anyway,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it. Just don’t take too long or else, ya know, you’ll be behind schedule and Rick’ll be pissed at me.”

She nodded and Apoc strode away, waiting for her outside. She went to use the bathroom, washed her face in the sink, even took a quick gulp under the tap, and then headed outside, still anxious to learn about the ‘fight’. Now more than ever.