Chapter 14

Nick

15-12-2019

6 hours after Chapter 11

Nick opened his eyes and looked straight into a fierce light. He groaned and closed his burning eyes again. He tried to set his mind straight, including the memories of what felt like the last few hours. A jab in his neck. Injection. Moonlight fading, inaudible voices, and then this. Here. Whatever this was. Humid, cold. Except for the fierce light, the room was dark. Nick couldn't see how large the chamber was, as he couldn't see what was behind the lamp. The light dimmed, not enough to make the rest of the room visible, but just enough to give Nick's eyes a bit more rest.

'I would like to know your name,' said a low, raspy voice, coming from the darkness behind the light. 'A name, so that I can address you properly.'

Nick tried to look past the light once more, but still remained blind. The stone walls around Nick were riddled with green mould. The humidity had done its job, allowing fungus to grow and multiply along the small spaces between the barren red bricks.

'Your name. Please.'

'Nick.'

Was this a mistake? What if this the first step to allow whoever it was behind the light to manipulate his mind?

'Nicholas... it's a nice name.'

The last time Nick heard his full name, it had been said by his mother. She had always used his full name to show that she was serious or angry about something.

'Tell me, Nicholas. Based on what you are seeing, can you tell me where you are?'

'We're underground.'

'How do you know that for sure?'

'The air is thick.'

Nick heard the man grin. The light switched off and a machine started to rattle loudly. Metal screeched, and bright sunlight started to seep into the room, forming the people in front of Nick into cold, anonymous silhouettes. Nick was glad to feel the fresh air again.

'Your observation was correct. Your conclusion, however, not so much.'

As some of the people standing in front Nick turned and walked into the sunlight, he could see them as more as silhouettes. They were ordinary people, just as he was. Men and women who raised their hands above their heads to avoid being blinded by the sun.

'Nicholas, we are regular people; not the maniacs for whom you saw us at first,' said the man. He walked up to Nick and rested his hand on one of Nick's shackles, which had been tightened around his wrist in order to restrain any wild move.

'I want to let you go, and I want to talk to you about important matters, but I'll need to be able to consider you as an ally first. A man is only as good as his word, and therefore, I only ask of you to promise me, that you do not do anything stupid when I release you from these chains.'

Nick nodded slowly, still on his guard for the unexpected, but also submitting.

'Yes, I promise.'

Nick heard a click. The shackle fell off his left wrist. The man then stepped behind Nick and loosened the right shackle as well. Nick rubbed his painful wrists and stood up. He turned to the man. The sunlight shone upon his face. He was old, something between the sixties and seventies, but didn't look frail yet. His face was still ambient with life, and carried the look of ambition.

'Come, let me bring you to the room where we stored all of your possessions,' said the man. Nick followed him out of the building, which turned out to be a house, and led him onto the street. The people there stared after Nick as he walked by. It grew a little on his nerves.

'Why are they staring at me?'

'Because you've given us hope.'

Nick stopped walking, and looked the man in the eye.

'Hope?'

'Come on, let's talk when we get there and return your things.'

Nick and the old man waited for the guy who would return his things, standing at the counter of the bar in the empty pub down the road.

'Oh, by the way, you know my name now, but I don't know yours. If I am going to cooperate with you, I'll need a name.'

The man looked at Nick for a second, then nodded.

'My name is Florian.'

'How big is your group? What parts of this area do you use, or possess?'

'Good question. We mainly use this street and its buildings for everything we do. This pub is open in the evening. We have a supply dump up the road, and the house which you woke up in is a residency home for children.'

'You decided to place a prisoner in the garage of a children's home?'

'Well, we didn't have many other options, as we're... well, let's just say, we're a little divided in two groups.'

'Hmm? What, like a civil war or something?'

'Nah, just a bit like two different classes. Let's just be clear that I still have full leadership. My word is law.'

'Tell me about the "classes".'

'Well... hm... how do I explain this... first off, we have this street. The people are reasonable, civil, we take care of the children and try to find useful people, like yourself, along the way, and ask them to join us. Then, there is the "lower" class. They're a little wilder than us, and a bit more reckless, and less civil.'

'And they're led by this Flox guy? I heard his name come up when your little hunting party captured me.'

'Who? Oh... yes, their leader is Flox, but he still answers to me. That's why you're here. If I hadn't stepped in, you would have ended up like the other poor sod, whom they captured as well.'

'Oh, what happened to him?'

The man barged through the door and put the box on the counter.

Florian turned to the box.

'Ah, your possessions. We just took everything you had on you and in your backpack and put it all in here.'

Florian opened the box and the man behind the counter returned to the back. Nick and Florian then both proceeded to take everything out of the box and lay it out on the table.

'You really kept all of my stuff. Why ask me for your help when you can just blackmail me instead?'

Florian frowned at Nick's question, and as they grabbed the small boxes of pills and other utilities and threw it all in Nick's backpack, he answered.

'Are you familiar with the classical times, Nick?'

'Romans and Greeks? Not in particular, no.'

'There is a famous philosopher; Socrates. I believe you will have heard of him.'

Nick nodded.

'Socrates had an amount of students. One of them was named Xenophon. He was a soldier, a mercenary, a military man. He also wrote about the characters of different generals and rulers in different historical accounts. There's a quote, which says "Willed obedience always beats forced obedience." And that is why I'd rather have you brought to our side willingly, than blackmail you with all of your items.'

'All of this Latin and Greek, and Classical stuff, is it common in your group? One of your men had an inscription on his mask. Carpe Noctem?'

'Ah yes, it's taken from Carpe Diem, a quote from Horace, a Latin poet. Instead of the "Seize the day", it means "Seize the night". A silly pun. But yes, our group is traversing through a Renaissance. We use the wisdom of the Classical Age to our benefit, as we once did. It's necessary in times of chaos, like these.'

Nick lastly grabbed the radio and placed it at the top of the backpack, before zipping it up and throwing it on his shoulder.

'Your items will be another thing to talk about. Come, let's go to my little office, then we can talk about everything there is to talk about.'

They walked up the icy road, into a large, worn building. Florian's office was more of a bedroom with a desk, one chair on each side. There was a dirty bed in the corner of the room and a small nightstand with a lamp. Florian flicked on the light.

'You have electricity?'

'We've connected different generators in the area to concentrate electricity into this street. At night, we even have some street lights which still work. This was one of the first parts of London to adopt green energy, so there's solar panels and small windmills on the roofs, which we can also use.'

Nick dropped his backpack and grabbed his iPod.

'You think that you can charge this?'

'You have a cord? I think we might have a few chargers lying around.'

'Yeah, of course.'

Nick was about to start digging in his backpack, but Florian stopped him.

'I want to talk first.'

Nick looked at him and nodded, as he dropped back into his creaky wooden chair.

'What is it you'd like to talk about?'

'Well, as I said earlier, you give the people on that street hope. Look at your things. Pills with vitamins, protein, all of the other crap that you need to survive, plenty of drinking water, batteries. A goddamn crossbow. A portable radio, set to a fixed frequency, marked with a blue stripe. Be honest with me, Nicholas, you are not from here.'

Florian's eyes were fixed on Nick's. There was a tense silence between the two men, as Florian anxiously awaited an answer.

'Florian, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm just another survivor. These pills are scavenged from a pharmacy, the batteries too. The radio is marked from before all this. I'm not what you think I am. I'm not a saviour for your people.'

Florian covered his face with his hands, and let out a deep, defeated sigh. Stress was clearly a large factor in this man's daily life. Nick felt sorry for him. Florian stood up and walked to the corner of the room.

'A small country cannot contend with a great country.'

He turned and looked at Nick.

'The few cannot contend with the many.'

He reached for the back of his pants.

'The weak cannot contend with the strong.'

He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Nick. With that, this situation changed drastically in Nick's mind.

'Our cooperation would have lasted, but now I realise that you are of no use to me. You're just another mouth to feed, and we cannot have that. I could, however, use your things for the good of this community. That doesn't require you in the picture,' said Florian with a cold voice.

Nick raised his hands. He needed to improvise. Fast.

'Okay! Okay. I'll help you. I'm not gonna waste my own life for this stupid operation anyways,' he said.

Florian frowned.

'I'm on a mission to reach Downing Street. 10 Downing Street. I need to retrieve the original emergency protocols.'

Florian lowered his gun. 'Do you have an extraction planned?'

'That would attract too much attention.'

'So what then?'

'I go to the wall. There, they let me back through.'

Florian nodded.

'Then we do that. Contact your man. You will lead us through the wall, and into freedom.'

Nick nodded, thinking only about the next-level shit he just got himself into.

'However, before we go to work, I'm going to show you who your allies are,' said Florian. The nice old man whom Nick had got to know, had disappeared.

Florian gave Nick a room, which wasn't even all that bad. Nick had slept in many worse places. He flicked on the radio, waited for the static to lower and then spoke into the mic.

'Rory? Rory? Come on, it's urgent. I need you, man.'

Two seconds later, which had been the fastest time there had ever been a reply, Rory's voice sounded.

'Oh man, you're still alive? Where are you? Are you still in their camp?'

'Yeah. Listen, Rory, please tell me that you've been working on something to get the hell out of this city.'

'Uhm... maybe. Why do you ask?'

'The only reason I'm talking to you now, is because I've told these people that I can get them out.'

'You what!? Are you mad?'

'I was looking into the end of a barrel, alright? I needed something.'

'Alright Nick, tell me everything.'

Nick told Rory the entire story about Florian and the group of people, Flox and his Burners, the area and the community.

'Wow... alright. Tell them that they need more people. A lot more people. Tell them to go out recruiting and saving people, and that they're going to have to wait.'

'What are you working on, Rory?'

'I'm working on a glitch. At least, I'm observing one. A tiny glitch in the coding compatibility of the targeting systems in turrets on the wall.'

'Well, I don't really know what that means. How much time do you need to make it work?'

'Uhm, well, maybe, if everything goes well, 3 years.'

Nick couldn't believe what he heard. In him too, hope had sparked, as he had been talking to Rory. Now, it had been dimmed again.

'3 years? Fucking hell.'

'Yeah.'

When Nick opened the door of his room, he saw Florian standing against the wall down the hall.

'And?'

'You're going to need more men. More people. Lots more.'

'Where do you expect to find them? This city is dead.'

'We'll have to round up everyone. Look everywhere. Make everyone join our cause.'

'Some people out there enjoy this side of that wall.'

'I know. I do too. And yet here I am, helping you.'

'At gunpoint, yes.'

'What was it you wanted to show me? Something about my allies?'

'We're going to a little party.'

The sun had just descended beyond the horizon. The last orange colours remained in the sky, but darkness was already consuming the air. They walked up the street. Nick had the first opportunity to read the street name. Pratt Street. Where the hell was this? As they walked further up, crossing an intersection, Nick started to hear drums, and loud rock music. They crossed into another street. Camden street. This was Camden. Nick noticed that all of it was empty. All of the people were at the party, then. The music became louder and louder as they closed in to the party. Behind a small iron fence with a broken gate, there was a large patch of icy grass and a few trunks of chopped trees, lots of people surrounding a large fire, dancing wildly on the fast-paced music. The grass faced a house. There were all sorts of people. Men, women and children, both looking savage and civil, everyone was there. Nick looked out for the man they named Flox, maybe standing somewhere on a podium of sorts.

People played drums around the fire, pacing up with the music. Some looked almost tribal. There were people with mohawk hairstyles and tribal war paint on their faces, sticking out their tongues at others as they jumped around and danced wildly.

Florian turned to Nick. 'You wondered what happened to the other man, who was taken on the same night as you were.'

Nick nodded, still observing all of the chaos on the grass.

'In this community, we suffer from two shortages.'

Nick watched as two men extended a pole from the roof of the house which faced the grass.

'To sate both shortages, we hold these parties.'

They tied a rope to the pole and tightened it carefully as the chaos and fun and noise down below never decreased. Children hopped happily around with the adults, and parents carried them on their shoulders.

'One shortage is entertainment. To keep the peace, the people here need to be happy. To achieve that, we must entertain. We must give their minds some relaxation, a chance to let it all out.'

The crowd of at least 100 people started to cheer loudly, as the two guys on the roof raised their hands and punched the air. Everyone was in a state of ecstasy.

'The other shortage is food. The people here would starve to death, if we could not provide them sometimes, with enough to fill their stomachs.' The bonfire roared loudly. The people cheered and clapped as plastic plates and forks and knives were thrown down on them from the rooftop. They caught them with greed. Nick's eyes widened. The children and adults danced with their plates and forks and knives, as a man who was tied to the rope was put on the edge of the roof.

'My name is Florian Lox. I am the leader of this community, and I will do whatever is necessary to keep it alive. This is what happens to the people who are of no use to us.'

The man got a rope tied around his neck. With a scream, he was pushed off the edge. As he reached the end of the rope, the force of the fall broke his neck. His twitching body hung above the bonfire. A standing ladder on wheels was pushed through the crowd like a parading spectacle, decorated with colourful lights. Florian had a large grin on his face as he walked away and left Nick at the entrance. Moments later, as the ladder approached the hanging and burning corpse of the man, Florian's voice was heard through loud speakers.

'Are you hungry!?' sounded his raspy voice, with a certain unleashed wildness in his tone.

The people, child and adult alike, cheered loudly. 'Yes!!'

'Are you vegetarian!?'

'No!!'

'Then we have just the meal for you!!'

They cheered and clapped as a man climbed up the ladder to the corpse with a large butcher's knife. He jabbed the corpse into its leg, and the boiling, cooking blood dripped out.

'We've got gravy!'

The crowd laughed and held up their plates.

'Don't fight for it, there is enough for everyone! What do we say!?'

'Fighting leads to waste!' cheered the crowd. As the man started to carve into the man's body, ripped off chunks of flesh and threw them into the crowd, Nick turned away from the horror. He walked back to his room in one of the many houses in the street. He was hungry, but he believed he'd never be hungry enough to eat a piece of that.