2016-08-04 - spike - Trapped 4

Author: spike
Title: Trapped 4
Date: 04 August 2016

Chapter 8

The days became colder and colder as Yi-erwu continued his lessons and training. For the first couple of weeks after their arrival, the new slaves were taken as a separate chain gang to his brothers. The commandant had obviously decided not to sabotage his best workers’ quotas with disruptive new slaves who were regularly seen on the flogging frames for showing reluctance to work and inability to meet theirs.

This left time most days before their arrival for Yi-erwu to practice his shifting and walk with different brothers to somewhere much more pleasant. He was just sorry he could only take people from the first three bunks, the chains wouldn’t allow the others to reach him but their excitement grew with each passing day as they saw his speed increase.

During work, he didn’t let his plans and hopes get in the way and kept up his frantic workload, his restraints often needed readjustment on a weekly basis as he grew stronger.

As it got colder still and the new slaves were finally allowed onto the Siyisan chain gang, there was a change to the routine.

Portable heaters were placed in each cell and upon stripping out of their work gear they began to be issued with a second suit to sleep in and boots to walk through the snow offering some protection from the cold. Their work suits also changed becoming much thicker, quilted with an additional waterproof poncho and the boots were now fur lined. On the coldest days they were even issued with a base layer, gloves, socks and a hat.

Even the flogging frames were no longer seen in the square. They’d been moved inside to both protect the equipment from the increasingly extreme weather and to prevent the slaves under punishment from dying or suffering from frostbite.

As he shambled across the snow covered square in his warm work clothes for another shift in the mine, he realised with a shock he must have missed his birthday and now be fifteen years old. He measured himself against the truck as he climbed up, he’d grown again too.

He seated himself with his brothers and realised with dismay the ex-guards filing in were going to be seated directly opposite. No more conversations on the way to or from work in English. By now though, he’d begun to feel confident enough to chip in to the chitchat between his brothers in Chinese. They would correct him when he pronounced something wrong or made a tonal mistake and his Chinese grew even stronger.

The ex-guards opposite looked at him suspiciously though, muttering amongst themselves. He managed to overhear their conversation.

“Isn’t he meant to be retarded?”

“That’s what I heard, he couldn’t speak 3 months ago”

“I’m going to report the lying cunt”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, he’s their best worker, from what I heard from the guards who worked their details, he put more effort in than all the rest put together. He’s the reason they have such a high quota. If you screw this up for us and have us in that fucking frame again I WILL kill you”

Yi-erwu looked at this slave and smiled. Then looked at the one with the attitude with murder in his eyes. Did they say THREE months? Had it really been that long?

The truck left the camp by the west entrance and crossed a bridge over the stream.

When Lingjiu had said “It’s either cold, very cold or fucking cold” he hadn’t been kidding. Even though Yi-erwu hadn’t seen a thermometer in months, he knew some of the signs. When you drive past a waterfall that’s frozen solid, you know the temperature is nothing to joke about.

The mines were one of his favourite assignments now, it got hot down there which was far better than the bitter cold on the rock breaking detail or road building. Peat cutting had been put on hold until the spring as it was frozen solid and no-longer worth the manpower for the small returns. There was also his continual chance down there to get the lay of the land, note all the nooks and crannies he could hide in and spot ideal places for a cave in to conceal his escape.

Unfortunately, this week he was on loading duty, shovelling the coal into the trucks to be delivered and his restraints were getting on the tight side again anyway, they’d need loosening soon.

Another three months passed before he finally got the chance he’d been after. All his requirements appeared to come up almost at once. He could now shift views reliably. It still took five minutes but it was an acceptable time, check, he was put onto cart duty. He marked that off, check. But his restraints were getting to the point of adjustment so again he bided his time. That night between food and toilet his team was taken to the processing centre for application of the hair removal cream and his restraints were again loosened, BINGO!

By now he was able engage in vibrant and detailed conversations in fluent Chinese, he was surprised how quickly he’d picked it up. As they lay in bed that night he whispered to Lingjiu in Chinese.

“Everything’s coming up roses...”

“What?”

“All my requirements are being met! Five minutes to shift, check, restraints adjusted, check, mine cart duty, check. Time to put the plan into action tomorrow. I won’t do it straight away, I’ll go back and forth a few times, find the safest place for the cave in. The tunnels are a bit of a maze so there’s bound to be a place that won’t seal anyone off from the surface where I can kick out a few props before I shift”

“Are you SURE you want to do this Yi-erwu? Now, in mid winter?”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m warm enough in my work clothes, you remember the sun? It keeps things above freezing even in winter most of the time. It’s rare it ever gets as cold as our warmest days here. That day I nearly died of exposure? They consider that “fucking freezing” there. Here it’s positively balmy. I’m used to it now. Four months ago I would’ve never considered getting used to those temperatures but now?”

“I’ll be sad to see you go. Warn the others but of course try to keep those bastards out of it. That middle one really wants to see you flogged”

“I know, I overheard their conversation a while ago, the taller one nipped it in the bud, I think. Said I was the best worker and if he did anything that got him put in that flogging frame again, he’d kill him, and I believed him. Actually quite like that one, I may even rescue him too if I ever manage to get phase two into operation”

“And if you never do?”

“I’ll not abandon you, believe me. I managed to identify the exact location where this room is, I can get into here any time I want to visit, at night of course, after lights out. I can even make food deliveries, it won’t stay long, but it’ll be enough to give you a taste of one of the things to look forward to. We’ll see. But with luck, my slavery ends tomorrow. Believe it or not, a part of me is actually going to miss this life. I’ve changed and grown so much here. It’s made me the man I am. But there’s a better life waiting for us all.”

The news whispered down the bunks and each expressed concerns or regrets. They’d all miss him but they all vowed to continue with their workload to try to make up the slack. He’d noticed they’d all grown more muscular since his arrival, he couldn’t believe he’d been such an inspiration to them.

He lay down on his bed, second thoughts already creeping into his head. “It wasn’t really that bad here?”, “Could he really succeed?”, “What if he failed at the last minute?” but he steeled himself. It was something he had to do. Lingjiu and the others had saved him, his life, his mind. Without them he would’ve withered with despair and probably died on the flogging frame. He would never let them down.

He fell asleep.

The next day the plan finally came into operation. Yi-erwu pushed his cart back and forth all morning, careful to note every detail of the route, the locations of every junction and their exits, the weakest props, the most sagging ceilings and the locations of every slave and guard in his part of the mine. He also noticed the odd broken and abandoned tool along the route and selected a sledge hammer which he hid under the cart between the wood and the frame.

Again, their quotas were being exceeded and as a final gift to them he waited until the last load was due to be delivered before enacting his plan.

As soon as he found the right spot, he stopped, placed himself in such a way that he could still knock out the props while being in the corridor, grabbed his sledgehammer, shifted views and knocked them out with as much force as he could muster.

The ceiling began to creak and groan immediately alerting a nearby guard. The guard rounded the corner just in time to see the ceiling come down burying Yi-erwusiyisan under tons of debris. Yi-erwu stepped aside as the ceiling came down, shifted his view to normal and wandered down to the exit, noting the mine workings were still in operation. He crept from nook to cranny until he got there. Then hid and allowed himself to drift back.

Two guards were standing at the entrance. Leaning against the entrance would be a better description. He listened for a while, smirking at their attitude.

“What the fuck did those idiots have to go and do that for? God I wish I could get my whip on them one more time, teach the bastards a lesson.”

“Who?”

“Oh, you know.” he nodded towards the mine. “Them. Getting so caught up in a whipping they ignored the commandant. They would’ve been here if it weren’t for that.”

“Ah. THEM. Yeah, hate this job. So fucking boring. Not to mention cold. Gimme a whip any day of the week compared to this. As for them, I’m glad they got the collar. Especially him.”

“Ah, Yilingwusiyisan, y’mean?”

“Yeah.”

“I saw you spit in his face that morning! Wondered what that was all about. What did he do, forget to return your drill?”

“It’s personal!”

“Oh god. Not the wife!”

The guard nodded. “I knew something was going on. Finding underwear under the bed was a big giveaway, but it was when I went home the previous evening with you’ll never guess who got the collar just now… She looked positively grief stricken when I got to his name. God I relished that whipping that morning after that came out.”

“That explains a hell of a lot. Hope we get another whipping soon. It’ll warm me up if nothing else.”

Yi-erwu shifted again and inched back keeping an eye on the guards so he could approach them unseen.

“I love it when a plan comes together” he smirked to himself as he snatched both tasers and then shambled down the corridor into the sunlight. Once he knew he was safe he stopped and gently rotated the corridor in the right direction and began the long shuffle home.

He hadn’t realised just how far he’d run until he tried shuffling back, hobbled by a two foot chain between his ankles. He concentrated on the feeling of the world, comparing it constantly with the one he remembered until he got so close he could almost smell it, then he stopped.

It wasn’t time to return to his world completely yet, he needed to contact Greg and get provisions, clothing and bolt cutters to get these chains off first of all. Then he could finally for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, put on some real clothes again. But he also realised his absence would have had some serious consequences. By now, he must’ve been in the local or even the national news as missing presumed dead. He daren’t show his face if the first thing he ran into was a man calling the police with a sighting.

So he decided to stop off briefly in this nearby world, steal a car, somehow get some money, drive down to Failsworth and phone Greg.

The sun had long since set when he finally found a likely candidate, it was an old banger but that was all the better for him, easier to break into, easier to hot wire. He’d seen it done on the TV loads of times, but it took about 5 different tries connecting wires ripped from the ignition. Then there was the matter of driving, he kangarooed down the road for a bit until he got it into the right gear and mastered clutch control, steering was surprisingly awkward but eventually he made it onto the main road to Manchester and dumped the car by the canal.

Then he looked around, noticed the pub by the pole, barged in.

He shuffled over to the bar as the barman was serving someone. There were a few in there and they stared at the odd sight.

“Bloody hell! Look at that!”

“Fuck me! You hear about these S&M things going on but it’s the first time I’ve seen one like this out in public!”

“I’m calling the police, this isn’t right.”

Yi-erwu smiled, reached across the bar and opened the cash register before anyone could stop him.

“OI! Stop that!”

The barman rushed over to grab him, but he grabbed a handful of pound coins and drifted a little before the barman got close enough.

He shuffled out of the pub he’d just drifted into scaring the shit out of all the patrons before crossing the road entering the phone box.

“Now for the tricky bit” he muttered to himself as he dialled Greg’s mobile number for the first of many times.

“Owdo, Greg”

“Mike! Brill! You sound a bit odd. Fancy going to see The Force Awakens?”

“Sorry, you are not the Greg I am looking for!” He let out a snicker, that one came out of nowhere.

He shifted a little and tried again.

“Oh, owdo Mike, sorry, my mum’s ill, can’t come out tonight”

and again

“Fancy hitting the skating rink in Altringham? My dad said he’d give us a lift”

and again and again.

* * * * *
Greg was sitting at his desk, miserable as usual. He hated maths homework with a passion and ever since Mike had vanished he’d had no-one to help him with it.

His iPhone rang, he looked at the number but didn’t recognise it. He signed and answered.

“Owdo, Greg”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Mike, listen, I need your help!”

“Oh hahaha, fuck off you moron!”*click*

He was getting tired of these prank calls, ever since Mike had disappeared people had been phoning pretending to be him. He’d even fallen for it a few times, the impersonation was so close.

It rang again.

“Look I’ve told you”

“Canal world!”

“What?”

“Canal world, Great war ending in 1951, canal world!”

“Mike, my god you sound different!?”

“I said it was me!”

“Fuck man, we thought you were dead! You’ve been gone over six months!”

“Six? Really? I thought it was more like five! Listen, I need your help, I’ll tell you everything when you get here. DON’T TELL ANYONE PLEASE! Especially not my family, I’m not ready to see them yet, I’ve been through a lot.”

“What happened?”

“Look, I said, I need your help, I’ll explain everything when you get to where I first showed you another world, right? I’m almost there right now, just a short walk away, and bring your dad’s bolt cutters”

“BOLT CUTTERS?”

“Just bring them, Oh, and nick a few of your brothers clothes and a jacket, a bag would come in handy too, and a sleeping bag. And some chocolate, oh god yes, bring some chocolate! I’ll see you when you get there, it’s only ten minutes walk away”

“Anything else m’lord? A ming vase perhaps? Maybe a limousine to take you home?”

Yi-erwu sighed. “Just bring them”, The phone disconnected just as Greg was readying another witty comeback.

He grabbed his backpack, rushed downstairs to the garage, scrambled around for a few minutes before locating the bolt cutters, then rushed upstairs again. He was about to open his brother’s bedroom door when he heard music inside.

“Bugger, trust him to be in!” muttering to himself, he went back into his room to dig out his sleeping bag.

Why the hell would he need a sleeping bag? Oh well. He rushed downstairs to the fridge.

“MUM! Have we got any REAL chocolate in? There’s only penguins in the fridge!”

“Go to the shop then! Or make do!”

“I don’t have time, the shop’ll be shut in five minutes!”

“Like it or lump it!”

He grabbed the packet and put it in the bag. There were only a couple in the pack anyway.

Then he had an idea, he dialed 141 and the landline number, let it ring a couple times, answered it and called up to his brother.

“John! Phone!”

Putting the handset down, he put his phone on mute, ran back upstairs past his brother coming down and grabbed what he needed from his brother’s room.

Then he went out.

* * * * *

Yi-erwu waited in the phone box pretending to chat on the phone for another five minutes attempting to hide his manacles and face as people passed by, then when everything was clear he shuffled down the steps and along the towpath as fast as he could manage, vaulting over a fence to get to the clearing.

Once he was there he began pulling up sods of grass and dug a trench with his bare hands long enough to lie in and deep enough to allow him to bed with reeds. Work really had made him stronger, his hands harder. This was where he would have to sleep tonight, he had no intention of drifting back home only to be captured again and executed as an escaped slave.

When he’d finished laying the reeds and lain down in it to attempt to drift, Greg turned up, poking his head through a bush.

“Mike? Are you there?”

“Here. Now don’t get freaked out.” He stood up.

“Fuck me, what happened to you?! You’re so much bigger! You look like you could flatten Barker with a slap now!”

“Work. Six months of hard labour in a post apocalyptic Chinese slave camp”

“You’re kidding me!”

He held up his chains “Does this look like I’m kidding?”

Greg entered the clearing, ran up to him and gave him an enormous hug, “God I’ve missed you!” there were tears in his eyes.

“Oh god, if you’re going to start crying...”

sniff “OK, so what happened!”

“Barker happened. That’s what started it anyway. He got me cornered in a dead end. Actually him and his cronies corralled me into it. He demanded I tell him how I got away from him, I told him I’d hidden in the drain pipe alcove and then he said he’d seen me disappear on the common. He must’ve been hiding behind the shed when I shifted that first time”

“Yeah, it was all over the news for weeks, CCTV footage caught them chasing you in there, then a few minutes later them all running out terrified with Barker coming out a little later clutching his hand. It was in plaster for weeks! There never was any sign of where you’d gone though, so me and Angie knew you must’ve shifted”

“Anyway, long story short, he was in mid punch, I was terrified, I was pressed against a brick wall but somehow fell backwards, turned, ran in a panic. It wasn’t til I’d calmed down I even noticed I was running down the corridor, when I did I slowed down and noticed something interesting up ahead. Had an explore, got tasered by some chinese soldiers and when I woke up, found myself in bed in these (he rattled the shackles) chained to a ring in the floor”

“Why hadn’t you drifted when you got knocked out?”

“That had me in a panic for weeks, finally accepted that I would never get home again and became what was expected of me. Worked my arse off, made some great friends in the other slaves in my cell… Hell, they’re not friends, they’re brothers and I love the lot of ‘em. I’m going back”

“Not for good?”

“No, not for good and not now, I have too much to figure out. I know now that this thing” he pulled out one of the tasers “Stuck me there, maybe it was just the electric shock, maybe it was something more complicated, but somehow, it reset me, that world is my home plane now, it’s where I’ll drift to when I sleep”

“Fuck! what’re you gonna do!?”

“Find out what it did to me, find out how to get it to do the same thing for another world and rescue the lot of them, that’s what I’m gonna do! And I know the perfect world to put them! In the meantime until I can somehow reset myself back to this world, I am stuffed, I’ll have to sleep here”

“In a ditch? That wasn’t there before”

“No, I just dug it while I was waiting for you”

“What with?”

“These of course”

“You just dug a two foot deep six by three trench with your bare hands in twenty minutes?”

“Six months of hard labour and a healthy diet will work wonders. If It wasn’t for the whippings and the open sewer for a toilet I might’ve even been tempted to stay”

“Even with those?” he touched one of the manacles tentatively.“Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

“I’ve been wearing them for six months, I imagine it’ll feel weird NOT to wear them now, but they have to come off, somehow. I’m still growing, they’ve been loosened a dozen times since I got there and now there’s no means to loosen them any more. Had to wait until the day after they were loosened again to make my escape. Just to give me a couple of weeks to figure out how to get them off”

“What’re those symbols?”

“My name”

“Mike Reynolds?”

“No, Mike Reynolds is dead to me, I’ll let you still call me that if you like, but I’ve bonded with those men in that cell, we all share the last 3 numbers which we all see as a family name. My name is Yi-erwusiyisan, Yi-erwu to everyone in the same cell. Did you bring everything?”

“What does that mean?”

He sighed, pointing at each character on his collar in turn. “Yi, One, Er, Two, Wu, Five, Si, Four, Yi, One, San, Three, now did you bring the stuff?”

“Yeah yeah, hang on” He went back behind the bush and grabbed a bag with a long handled tool poking out of it.

“Excellent, once I get these chains off I can put on something that won’t stick out like a sore thumb here, otherwise I’d just be stuck with these.”

Greg’s eyes narrowed for a moment, “You’re not telling me you’ve worn that suit for the entire six months?”

“Course not, most of the time when we weren’t actually on a work detail we were naked. First day there on the flogging frame I nearly died of exposure!”

Yi-erwu grabbed the tool and stood in the ditch “Excellent, this should do the trick”. He placed the jaws of the bolt cutters on the link nearest his left ankle and cut. Then did the same with his right. He stretched his legs, moved them about in ways that had been impossible for half a year. “Oh god that feels good.”

“But how did you get the stuff on and off over those chains?”

“Clever bastards the Chinese. Watch.” And he proceeded to undo the lacing down each sleeve of his suit and pulled it over his head. Then he removed his trousers too.

“Errr, what the FUCK is that?” Greg pointed at the tattoo.

“I already told you, Yi Er Wu Si Yi San” he said again pointing at each character on his tat.

“Your dad’ll be livid! You know how he feels about tattoos!”

“Well it’s not like I had any choice in the matter is it, now will you please get these fucking chains off!”

Greg took the bolt cutters off Yi-erwu and attempted to do the same, cutting the link closest to the cuffs. He struggled with all his might until finally there was a snap and the chain fell away.

“Was I REALLY ever that weak?” Yi-erwu grinned

“Cheek, if you want to do the other one yourself feel free.” as he spent another couple of minutes cutting through the final link. The chain fell into the ditch before it could drift away. Yi-erwu folded his slave clothes, turned and placed them in the ditch too forming a pillow and put the two tasers next to it.”

“Oh FUCKING HELL MIKE!”

“Will you please stop saying Oh fuck! Now what?”

“Your back!”

“I know I am, what have we been talking about for the past half an hour?” Yi-erwu laughed.

“No, your back! It looks like you’ve been dragged over barbed wire or something!”

“Remember I mentioned whippings and flogging frames? Well what do you think happens? Do they just walk up to you and gently tickle you with the whip? First time, first DAY there it was twenty and that drew blood.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Nah, I’ve not been flogged for months, it’s fine, all healed

About a month after the twenty we were all sentenced to one hundred by a sadistic bastard of a mine foreman, couldn’t bare to see slaves content to do their job, decided to knock us down a peg by arranging an accident. Fortunately the camp commandant yelled ZHAN! (halt!) at around 60. A few continued whipping and he ended up snatching the whip off one of them and using it on him.”

“Sixty lashes? What did you do? Kill someone?”

“Mine cart tipped, dumping its load. And he arranged the accident to happen.”

“One hundred lashes for that?”

“Said he was a sadistic bastard. He got his though. We’d been the best work crew for the past 3 weeks, tripled our output, more than doubled the quota for our entire hut a couple of times. Next day the commandant did the worst thing imaginable to that foreman”

“Execution?”

“He wishes. He has his very own rather unique collar, shackles and manacles now, along with the tattoo and compulsory lack-of-hairdo.”

“What’s special about it?”

“Huts are like families, right? Each hut has four rooms, you hardly ever see the slaves in the other cells but the ones you’re with in your cell, you eat together, you work together, you sleep in the same cell, you even shit together. You’re never apart and almost always chained to something but you work for each other, not just for yourself. Cos you know if there’s a cockup, everyone suffers”

“So?”

“His name now is Linglingyisan, Ling means zero, you know what my name means now, but not the significance. The last three digits, four one three mean hut four, camp one three. If I hadn’t escaped that is exactly where I would’ve spent the rest of my life, that cell in that hut in that camp. Linglingyisan means slave zero, hut zero, camp one three. He is literally nothing now. To anyone. The entire camp was arranged to see this, it wasn’t just some private punishment, he got it in full view of every slave, guard and site foreman, you should’ve seen the look on his face. The commandant was giving a severe dressing down and he was staring at him right cocky, like “What are you gonna do, fire me?” type cocky… Then he saw the collar…”

“I suppose I’d be terrified if I knew it was meant for me.”

“Oh it wasn’t just the collar he was scared of, it was those numbers, there is no hut zero, he knew he would be spending the rest of his life in solitary when he wasn’t put to work.
He knew that no slave would ever EVER acknowledge his presence. The cheer when the commandant issued the sentence was deafening. He was the most unpopular foreman attached to the camp. Without those other men in that cell I would’ve died in the first week, probably. Then the commandant sentenced him to the same flogging we’d been sentenced to the previous day. Must say, he put on quite a show for us, think it must’ve been 80 lashes before he passed out. Lingjiu said it was the best day of his life, seeing that.”

“Who?”

“My brother” Yi-erwu said proudly “My mentor and my best friend! He saved my life on more than one occasion, he taught me everything I needed to survive, for one thing, English is forbidden there, get caught speaking in English and OW! He taught me Chinese, important bits first like numbers so I could name any slave I saw, then commands I had to obey. Zuihou wu hen zihao de shuo wo hen liuli.”

“What?”

“I said by the end I’m proud to say I’m pretty fluent. That’s why I have to go back. My name is Yi-erwusiyisan and my brothers need me. That became a little matra I’d mutter to myself when I felt myself tiring or when I was being whipped, it gave me the strength to keep going or endure it. And now it’s more true than ever. I’m not going to rest until I get them out of there.”

“So what now??”

“Now? Suppose I should get dressed” Yi-erwu had forgotten he was naked while they spoke. “Did you bring your brother’s clothes? I asked for his for obvious reasons, I’ve grown too much to fit into anything of yours now”

“Yeah, jeans, t-shirt, hoody and jacket are in the bag.”

“Thanks” he reached in and his hands touched something distantly familiar. “Oh god… You remembered.” He pulled out a penguin. He smelled it, he licked it and finally took a bite “Oh god I’d almost forgotten… Oh my god that’s good!”

“It’s only a penguin!”

“Look, when you’ve spent the last 6 months eating nothing but foul tasting wallpaper paste, this is the food of the gods, mate!”

He wrapped up the rest of the chocolate for later and dug back into the bag for the clothes, pulling out the sleeping bag too. Laying it on the bed of reeds.

“Aren’t you cold? It’s fucking freezin tonight!” Greg rubbed his hands together for warmth

“Cold? Feels quite warm tonight, there isn’t even any frost on the ground. You want cold, try there, I said I nearly died of exposure on the flogging frame on my first day? That was the beginning of August if I remember right. Yesterday was FUCKING cold, waterfalls frozen and everything. It never gets warm there. As Lingjiu said, it’s either cold, very cold or FUCKING cold.”

“Any idea why?”

“Nuclear winter’s my best guess”

“Nuclear winter?”

“Before I got captured I was exploring. The whole town was in ruins, nothing alive apart from a few sickly looking weeds. I found an old newspaper from 1982. Seemed to be the last one published, cos it was still in a plastic wrapping, only thing I could make out was something about a nuclear standoff between Russia and the USA. They did it! There, they really did blow it all up.”

“Where do the Chinese come into it then?”

“Simple. They weren’t involved in the war. They didn’t get nuked. And there’s billions of them. They swept the world, took over completely a few years after the bombs dropped”, He took off his boots, careful to keep them in the trench, pulled on the t-shirt and jeans and started unzipping the sleeping bag.

“You’re seriously going to sleep rough tonight?”

“Every night until I get these things worked out. I can’t afford to allow myself to drift back there uncontrolled, if they caught me and saw my tattoo I’d be executed on the spot. Besides, I’m not going to let my mum see me like this! She’d have a heart attack!” He rubbed his hands across his scalp, he still liked that feeling.

Greg spotted movement in the bushes. “Awww. Look… Rabbit!”

Yi-erwu grabbed a taser “Where?”

“There, in that bush. Shhh, it’s coming out… I didn’t know there were any around here.”

Tentatively, a grey rabbit appeared out of the bush and started nibbling on a weed… Yi-erwu shot it with the taser. The spiked wires shot out, stuck into the rabbit’s side, there was an agonised squeal and the rabbit lay still. The wires withdrew back into the taser. Almost immediately the rabbit vanished, he followed it and watched its direction down the corridor, straight back to home.

“FUCK!”

“What the HELL did you do THAT for? It was only a rabbit! You’ve changed man!”

“Look, it WAS only a rabbit and if there’s one thing we know about rabbits, it’s there’s loads of them. If it hadn’t appeared I would’ve been asking you to use this thing on ME soon and I didn’t want that cos it FUCKING hurts. I was hoping the electric shock might be the key, might stick me in whatever world it was when I was shot by it, but look, the rabbit’s gone. It’s drifted to my new home. That means two things to me!”

“What are they?”

“One, the most important one. However this works, it does change your home world. As this taser was made there, maybe copying it here will make one that will move things AWAY from there TO here. That’s the slaves freed straight away. Maybe it’s even more simple and changing the battery will do the trick, I don’t know yet.

Two. Revenge! I’m gonna do to Barker what he did to me, the fucker!”

“You’re going to send him THERE?”

“Don’t tell me he doesn’t deserve it. He’s a coward and a bully. I want to show him what REAL bullying is. Don’t worry, I doubt he’ll be there as long as I was. I should’ve figured these things out by then. Science geek, remember. Besides, who better to use as a guinea pig?”

“I had almost forgotten, you’re so… muscley now you look more like a cage fighter than a geek.”

“Yeah, and I’m proud of the work it took to get me like this. When I first planned my escape I didn’t even consider returning here but then I realised there were things I needed. Certainly didn’t want to return home to my birth family, I have a real family that I REALLY care about now. That’s why I said Mike was dead to me. It was only when I accepted my slave name and what it meant that I gained the strength to carry on there. Now it’s more a part of me than Mike ever was. He was a wimp, weak. I’m ashamed I was ever like that now and I’m never going back to it.”

“You’re really serious about this aren’t you.”

“More serious than anything in my life and when I rescue them and fix them to that canal world, I’m going with them, help them build a proper life for themselves. I don’t want to even see my old family again but I must. There are things in the house I got from Blackpool, that cube, that tricorder thing, the clothes we stole from the line and the horseshoe I used to get back there, besides which, I will need Marty’s help and that bedroom is the only place he knows to look for me. Has he made an appearance in the past six months by the way?”

“Angie says he appeared a few times, she told him what’d happened. Maybe he’s out there looking for you as we speak?”

“I doubt he’d find me even if he searched for a thousand years and he knows that. It’s too big out there. Hell, it took about twenty attempts to get here! I was stood in a phone box shifting minuscule amounts and phoning you, most of the time you just wanted to go out skating or to the pictures to see the force awakens or whatever, it was only when you acted like someone was playing a sick joke I realised I must finally be home.”

“Is it really that difficult?”

“Look, for the first month or so I was there I thought I’d lost the ability completely. I’d totally given up, I was a slave and I was there for the rest of my life. I learned to live with it and eventually learned to embrace it and my brothers. It was only when I was under the whip taking those sixty that something happened that change it, I saw the corridor, just as I had when Barker tried it on in the alleyway”

“So, why didn’t you leave then and there?”

“For one thing, I was still bound and stretched out on the frame, couldn’t move an inch, all I could do was stare down there and change the direction of the corridor to face here and just look… That was on lash number 33 by the way. I realised then even if I somehow managed to hold the corridor when they let me down I’d be in no fit state to escape and I’d still be chained to my brothers so it would’ve been impossible. Besides which, they would’ve been punished again. I shifted willingly for the first time two days later. It took half an hour. I took Lingjiu with me for a little walk. He felt warm sunshine on his back for the first time in his life. I practised every day between work and Chinese lessons and sleep, finally got it down to about five minutes.”

“You can do it properly now?”

“Yes, but fine tuning things is still tricky, I know the feeling of “home” or where-ever I want to go, but unless I have a physical object to lock onto, I’ve got no idea if I’m in exactly the right world or not, that’s why it took twenty attempts phoning you. There are probably twenty yous out there right now arguing with twenty mes about a phone call I made.”

Greg laughed at the idea.

“Anyway, I must’ve spent the last hour telling you what happened to me! What happened here? I take it Barker got put in prison did he? You said there was footage of him chasing me into the alley?”

“Oh, they arrested him of course, and his cronies, but after a couple of weeks they had no choice but to drop the charges. They couldn’t find a trace of you, they even completely dug up the alleyway. He’s out and back in school up to his old tricks again”

“Excellent! Have you still got that old Nokia? The one you used to say was the best thing ever until you got your iPhone?”

“It’s still in my room somewhere, why?”

“Can you bring it tomorrow? I’ll probably need to borrow some money off you too, nicking pound coins from a pub to pay the phone box was one thing but I don’t think otherwordly coins that vanish the second I let go will work on a bus”

“What are you planning?”

“Simple, you just keep an eye on Barker from a safe distance, tell me which way he’s leaving school and I let him see me. I doubt he’ll be able to resist. He wanted to know how I vanished on the field that day… I’m gonna tell him… EVERYTHING and then I’m going to show him first hand what I’ve been through cos of him. I’m not going to do it until he’s in Oldham though. I might even lead him back into the same alleyway. Yes… I like the irony… ah no, CCTV, you said… Have to pick somewhere less surveilancey.”

Greg could see the gears working in Mike’s head, he was really going to do it.

“Greenfield. I’ll stay on the bus all the way up. It’s the only way to be sure.”

“Why Greenfield?”

“That’s where the camp is, zap him in Oldham and there’s a risk he might be taken to a different camp, then I’d never find him and he WOULD be there for the rest of his life. No idea where or how many there are, I’ve only seen camp thirteen, think I spotted a couple of slaves with different last numbers in the mine though. So what then? Barker, arrested, dropped charges, it’s been six months, there must be more than that!”

“I think you can guess the rest, there’s been enough missing kid stories to know how they pan out. Massive media surge, every newspaper for a couple of weeks, TV, then they get bored with it when no-one reports any more news on the subject and it all dies down again. Your face WAS splashed over all the tabloids and TV News channels in September though.

Your mum was the worst hit, she didn’t seem to stop crying for weeks. She’s convinced you’re dead. Think she’s only just beginning to come to terms with it now. Angie says she’s left your room exactly as you left it though in the hope you’ll return.”

“Thank fuck for that, I had a set of clothes stuffed under the mattress to stop them drifting along with a couple of other things, and I’d made a hole in my desk to stick the cube. The cube’s hidden though, she wouldn’t’ve spotted it if she’s leaving the room alone. The rest of the stuff’s buried under a flagstone in the back yard. I already lost the commbadge, that was taken to the commandant’s office when I was stripped and shackled”

“Your sister’s been consoling her saying she’s convinced you’re still alive, but your mum just thinks she’s sugar-coating it, just saying it to make her feel better. Spoken to Angie a few times since you disappeared.”

“And my dad?”

“Dour as usual, he did go on a major poster sticking campaign during the first month though, wasn’t a lamp-post in the whole of Greater Manchester without your face on it. Must’ve cost him a fortune in photocopying.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake! The last thing I want is to be famous or recognisable.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. You’ve changed so much they’re more likely to think you’re his older brother. Look” he pulled out a poster. “The most recent photo your dad could find of you was from 2014, when we went to Alton Towers. You’d not changed that much from this when you disappeared but now! I would’ve walked straight past you in the street.”

Greg grabbed his iPhone, snapped a picture of Yi-erwu and showed it to him. “look at yourself now!”

Yi-erwu laughed at the photo. He hadn’t even thought, he was still covered in coal dust apart from the white patches where the dust mask, clothes and helmet had been but behind the coal dust he could tell he looked older, heck, he could probably even pass for drinking age in a pub without being challenged.

“Take it that poster was the one splashed all over the media too?”

“Yeah.”

He sighed in relief.

“So what about those? Why can’t we just take my dad’s angle grinder to them?”

“There’s something electronic in them, told you they loosened them, they had some gadget, hold it near, push a few buttons and pop, loosened a notch, I’m not prepared to take the risk of shorting something out inside that makes them tighten again. There’s a release mechanism, but from what Lingjiu said, it’s on the inside. The only way to reach it is to remove them.”

“How? It can’t be removed without the release mechanism and the release mechanism is the only way to open them? Doesn’t make sense!”

“It makes perfect sense, but it wouldn’t be good for me. They’re meant to be worn for life, that’s how they were designed, only when the head, feet and hands are removed will they come off and release mechanism allow them to be opened… And only then so they can be put on someone else.”

“SHIT! THAT’S SICK!”

“Life is cheap, as a slave the only value you have is the work you do, the moment you can’t do it you’re no use to them any more and then” he made the finger across the throat gesture. “Oh, they’ll put the effort in if it’s just a broken bone but if it’s something that can’t be cured or old age it’s up to the great big slave compound in the sky.”

“No wonder you escaped when you did!”

“Nah, I had no fear of that. I ended up being one of the best workers on the camp, I was safe. Could’ve kept it up for another 30 or 40 years no problem barring accidents and illness. I told you the reason I escaped. My brothers need me, remember.”

He put the jacket on and zipped it up, pleased that with the collar raised, it mostly hid the metal of the collar beneath, the sleeves reached down far enough to cover the manacles too. “How do I look?”

“Pretty normal actually, apart from the dirt… I’ll bring a baseball cap tomorrow, cover that chrome-dome of yours. Can still see some metal from the front though.”

“What time is it now? Come to think of it, what DATE is it now?”

“The time? About 11pm, in fact, I’d best be getting home! School tomorrow! It’s Sunday, 21st of feb. Only just finished the half term break, you have damned bad timing.”

“At least I missed valentine’s day, always hated that.”

“You missed your birthday and Christmas too”

“I know, weird thing, it doesn’t bother me a bit. OK, Drop by in the morning before school… Oh yeah, bring a blank envelope and a pad and pen… I want to leave a message stuffed into barker’s pocket for the commandant”

“What’s it going to say?”

“I’ve got a few ideas but I’ve not decided yet, have you got google translate on your phone, I’ll probably need that too… It does do English to Chinese doesn’t it?”

“I thought you said you were pretty fluent”

“Understanding, spot on, speaking, pretty good, but the writing? Have you seen how many symbols they use? I know ten!”

Greg got his phone out and checked. “Ah, I’ve not got it on, never seen a need for it. I’ll download it when I get home and tell you in the morning”

Yi-erwu climbed into the sleeping bag. “I’ll see you about… 7 OK for you? I’ve been getting up before dawn for the past 6 months.”

“Sweet dreams”

“This is my first night’s sleep as a free man, of course I’ll have sweet dreams! Night Greg.”