2020-02-28 - spike - Trapped again Part two

Author: spike
Title: Trapped again. Part two.
Date: 28 February 2020

Chapter 12
Eric groaned as his senses slowly returned.

Every muscle ached. His head pounded. He lay on… His hand brushed the smooth surface as his eyes snapped open.

He lay on the floor in an empty white room. He looked around in shock as he forced himself to his knees and then to his feet.

“What the fuck?” The walls were a featureless white, the floor and ceiling the same. There didn’t seem to be a light source but the whole room was lit anyway. But…

“Ah shit. So, karma bites me on the arse yet again, does it? Where’s the bloody door? At least we gave Kray a fuckin’ bed and a pot to piss in!”

Then he looked down at himself. He wasn’t sure what they were made of, they didn’t feel like cotton, but… Just a loose white top and a pair of elasticated white trousers. Very thin material. They almost looked like hospital scrubs.

“At least I’m not naked and in shackles this time. I suppose that’s something.”

He spent the next half an hour stretching and god did he need it. As he got some exercise his headache receded and he began to examine this room more closely, first just by looks, then by feel. There was something different about one of the walls. Almost indistinguishable by sight, but a small section of it felt different.

He wrapped his fist on the wall and then on the slightly different section. The wall, the sound you’d expect from tapping plaster, the other section made a satisfying hollow boom.

“So, that must be the door.”

There were no handles, windows, peepholes or flaws. Apart from a very thin seam between it and the wall, he would’ve totally overlooked it had he not felt around.

He leant against it as he looked again at the empty room. “So much for good fuckin’ faith.” He turned and pounded. “Oi! Shit-for-brains! You said I’d be provided with everything I needed! There’s not even a fuckin’ loo in ‘ere! What about a bed?! Do you all sleep on a bloody floor?”

Nothing.

For the next he didn’t know how long he paced, he did push-ups and sit-ups, he returned to his corner to snooze. He lost all sense of time.

He awoke to a desperate need to pee and returned to what he assumed was the door to pound on it some more.

“I need to pee! I need to use a toilet, now!”

Still nothing.

“What do you expect me to do? Piss in the fucking corner?!”

Again, no response was forthcoming. He held it in until he was dancing on the spot before rushing over to the far corner from the one he slept in. He pulled his pants down and let rip.

A loud klaxon sounded followed by a computer voice. “Class two hygiene violation. Twenty demerits.”

He looked around in shock. “So someone’s paying attention? Or something! Get me out of this room!”

No response.

“Computer, get me out of here.”

Still nothing.

He sighed. “Computer, how do I avoid a hygiene violation when there’s nothing to piss into?”

Again, no response.

“Fuckin’ ell!” He returned to his sleep corner and curled into a ball.

Again, he awoke and this time, he began to worry. He was thirsty. So thirsty it hurt.

He sighed. “So, that’s your game? I die in the cell and no more problem, is that it?” he muttered under his breath. “I know how to handle this. Looks like it’s survival mode. Next time I piss, I drink it. No more exercises. Just settle down, conserve my energy. Reduce the sweat.”

From then on, that’s just what he did. Three more snaps awake, two more urinations, this time into his cupped hands. Each time the klaxon sounded and issued him with more demerits. He shook his head in disgust as the taste grew stronger, further indicating his dehydration. Each time he felt worse too. His strength left him, his head pounded so severely he could barely even think and he swore he saw bugs in his cell that vanished when he blinked.

“Halushi… Fucshsh. If shomthn don hapn soon…” He closed his eyes and concentrated to control a tongue that felt like cracked leather. “I’m dead.”

Again, he curled into his corner.
* * *
It was a while before he became aware enough to notice things had changed.

He was lying on something soft. His head lay on a pillow. He tried to roll over but his hand tugged on something that prevented his movement. He tried again. He legs were stuck too but at least the headache was gone.

His eyes flickered open to the familiar featureless white ceiling. He looked around. A drip stand sat next to the bed, a tube snaked under the covers. One thing was certain. This wasn’t the same room.

Shelving units lined the walls of this place. A quiet repetitive beep emerged from a screen that hovered on the other side of the bed to the drip showing graphs and charts. Then a line shot across one of them accompanied by a beep when a peak appeared. A heart monitor? He blinked to get a better focus. Sixty beats per minute. He studied the rest. Hydration level, low, but judging by the graph next to that statistic, it’d been critical when he was hooked up.

“Where am I? Hospital? Sick bay at the police station?”

“Voice detected indicating a return to consciousness. Doctor Conrad informed.”

“So, hospital then?”

The computer gave no response.

“Computer, am I in hospital?”

Silence.

Eric sighed. “Fuckin’ ell. Every computer I’ve encountered since I got here’s been as helpful as a fuckin’ chocolate teapot.”

He lay there. He waited, not that there was anything else he could do. He watched his heart rate blip. He watched the hydration level indicator slowly increase.

A while later, a door slid open. “So, the pile of shit’s finally awake, is he?”

“What do you mean, pile of shit? That’s gratitude for you!”

“Gratitude? What do you mean, gratitude? You want me to thank you for murdering a hundred people? For kidnapping and probably murdering a prominent neurosurgeon. You want me to thank you for bombing five city centre computer stores and”

“Woah, there! Where the hell did you get all that bollocks from?”

“Bollocks? What do testicles have to do with anything?”

Eric sighed. “Look, where I come from, we have a much wider variety of expletives. Swear words. Many of them, you lot consider very archaic or inappropriate because you’re much more open about your sexuality. You don’t see anything wrong with buggers, cunts, twats or wankers but back where I’m from, they’re rather effective insults. So are fuckers, but you lot feel the same way about them.”

“What do you mean, Unknown… Where you’re from? What did you mean, where did I get that from? Your charge sheet of course.”

“I knew it. They’ll try to pin anything on me. Has the trial date been set yet? I’ll prove every single one of those charges false and myself not guilty in no time flat.”

“Trial? What do you mean, trial? Just where do you think you are?”

“Hospital judging by the equipment? Maybe police sick bay? Dunno. Why?”

“Why would you think that? The trial was held four days ago. That’s how long you’ve been here. And you’ll remain in this prison for the rest of your life for the crimes you were found guilty of!”

“Prison? How the hell am I in prison? I never stood trial! You’re the first person I’ve spoken to since that shit head of a police officer arrested me!”

“Computer, full trial details of prisoner 50095223.”

The screen flickered off the medical monitoring and text replaced it.

“Ah… Here we go… Your attempted suicide meant the trial could be held in absentia. According to this you admitted guilt to all charges by refusing to answer during your questioning.”

Eric stared at the screen in horror. “Fifteen counts of murder? eighty-five more in relation to explosions? Could you lower that screen a little, so I can see it? Those are fake charges for a start. And how could I answer anything when I was either unconscious or slowly dying of thirst in an empty room? If anyone attempted murder it was them! They shoved me in with nothing. I wasn’t given food or water the whole time I was there. Ended up drinking my piss to survive!”

“Your refusal to activate your cell is no concern of mine.”

“Activate? Activate what?”

“Your cell. It’s only empty like that because everything in it’s held in sterile conditions until there’s an occupant. Everyone knows that!”

“And just why would you expect me to know that? Look… Do you have access to their video evidence?”

“Video? What… I’ve never heard that word before.”

Eric sighed. “Surveillance, then. I don’t know what you call it but we call moving pictures with sound on a recorded medium, video.”

“As a prison doctor, it can be useful to see what the police get up to with a new inmate, so, yes.”

“Well, bring up the events leading to my arrest. And please, lower that screen so I can read it. I can’t exactly sit up, strapped down like this.”

The doctor nodded, stretched out his hands as if gripping a picture frame and lowered the screen so it was level with the bed.

Eric chuckled. “There. That top murder charge. That’s proof I’m telling the truth. They tried to fit me up with every unsolved crime this century by the looks of it. The top five are pretty much impossible.”

“Which… Why? Murder. One Benedict Clark of Bromley, South London. Stabbed to death with a kitchen knife. No DNA evidence, no fingerprints and for some reason, no surveillance footage. And you admitted to it?”

“Look at the date, doc.” Eric sighed wearily. “Damn, I’d forgotten you used a different calendar, but Unoary? That’d be January to us, in 2000? Kitchen knife? If they’d said I prodded him in the eye with my rattle it might’ve been believable. I was born in August”

“August?”

“I don’t know what you call it. Eighth month? Maybe… What, Octust?”

“Octilus.”

“That then, but look at the year. I was born in Nineteen ninety nine! That crime? I wasn’t even six months old!”

“So why did you admit to it?”

“Doc… When the policeman read me my so-called rights, I was promised several things which never materialised. I was told that I’d be provided with everything I required to remain mentally and physically healthy. Instead, they nearly killed me by dehydration. They promised me that I’d have the chance to request an advocate to aid me in my defence along with a limited access to a computer for the same purpose. I didn’t get that either. They also said refusal to answer a question was an admission of guilt. Bring up what you can and watch. I bet I was unconscious throughout that so-called interrogation.”

“Unconscious?”

“Just… Bring up my arrest! Please. You’ll see.”

“Computer, gather all the video evidence from police records concerning prisoner number 50095223.”

“Download complete.”

“Play in chronological order.”

A new screen popped up showing Eric, Angela, Quentin and professor Drake materialise on the station platform in Manchester.

“What the hell?”

“I’ll explain later, just… watch.”

They rushed out of the station, down the road and Angela paused.

Eric continued a few steps and looked back. “What is it?”

Angela pointed at a shop they’d just passed. “We did talk about an upgrade on the train, Eric. Look.”

Eric looked at the doctor. “The first so-called crime. Yes, I admit it, I stole a few computers from that shop. We don’t have anything like it where I’m from and I knew how useful they’d be.”

As the doctor watched, he shifted uncomfortably, then jumped out of his skin as the shop assistant vanished leaving behind his clothing. They hurriedly emptied the display case into Eric’s backpack.

“What did you… Where did he go? You disintegrated him? Why did you say so-called crime?”

“The shop assistant’s fine. The gun I used isn’t fatal, it just displaced him by a few minutes. Probably a shock for him, true. Just… Listen to what I say next.”

The professor looked at Eric with distaste. “I must say that was very uncouth. Stealing?”

“Sorry prof. But one thing you learn when you can travel the dimensions… Sometimes it’s necessary and it’s not like I’ll be leaving the world in a worse state.” He tapped his cube. “Begin transfer. Indicate when complete.”

“12,493 datasites identified. 6,503 with the capability of transfer. Commencing. Transfer to all capable datasites will complete in ten minutes.”

“I think the lives saved with that info is worth a few computers, don’t you?”

The doctor stared at him. “That time stamp… Those datasites… You did that?”

“It was the first time I’d ever encountered your world. This world. And after this video ends, it was the last time I encountered it for a couple of years. I returned here two years or so ago because the computer recommended a surgical procedure that was unknown where I’m from. We needed a doctor, so, I came back here to fetch one.”

“And that’s when you kidnapped Doctor Anderson?”

“I didn’t kidnap him! He came willingly and after he’d spend a few months with us, he decided to stay. It wasn’t an abduction. It was a mission of mercy. Without him, a boy in our village would’ve spend the rest of his life as a paraplegic. He would’ve been begging for death. Just… watch.”

The doctor nodded and continued to pay attention to the screen as they ran down the street and hid behind the dumpster, as the police arrived, as Eric told the lead police officer to check the sites for the term antibiotics before vanishing again.

“Where did you go? How can you even do that?”

Eric shrugged. “It’s just something I can do. I found I had the ability when I was fourteen. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about it, including the fact it’s teachable. At the start, there were two of us in the village who could do it. Now, six of us can, and two more out in the world who’ve been doing it for years performing a magic act. We thought the ability was incredibly rare, but… Well…”

“So, any of them could come here too?”

Eric shook his head. “I’ve been here. I know how to get here. When you travel across time the only sense you have is an odd feeling. Took me years to pin it down enough to accurately land on a specific world and as none of them have been here, none of them’d be able to find it. Well, I say none. I came with someone else who could do it last time, but it was still new to him.”

By now, the next video was playing. Eric and Greg appearing out of nowhere in a living room. They sat, waited and eventually, doctor Anderson entered.

“Bloody hell… He’s drunk.”

“I know. But we needed him and he did agree. Had a bit of a rude awakening the next morning when he woke up back home. Flattened his nose on the door.”

“Why?”

“He’d never seen a manually operated one before. Turn the knob, open the door. He expected it to open automatically.”

“But no-one has that kind of door anymore!”

“When I said worlds and dimensions, doc, I wasn’t kidding. I’m from a world very different from this one. So different you… Actually, that’s an idea. Can you grant me voice access?”

“What?”

“To your computer? I tried asking it something and it ignored me. Can you grant me access?”

“But prisoners are forbidden the use of general computing equipment! The only control they have is in their cells and those are only to bring up entertainment, adjust environmental settings and request menu options!”

“Please. If I say anything at all inappropriate, you can lock me out again. I promise I won’t attempt anything… well… illegal?”

“This is a very unusual case. Alright. I’ll allow it. Five minutes. Computer. Grant voice access to the prisoner present.”

“First off… I know you don’t eat meat here, doc. Is all agriculture put towards growing food?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are any other crops produced? Apart from food crops?”

“Not that I know of. No. Why?”

“Computer. Is there a scanner within range of the garments I wore during my arrest?”

“Affirmative.”

“Connect to it and analyse those garments. Show the results here.”

The screen that had held his list of charges changed. This time a list of chemical names appeared along with images of everything he’d been wearing.

“Computer. Analyse any DNA present and determine their origins.”

“Human DNA detected matching prisoner number 50095223. Other DNA indicates biological origins of garment fibres and residual contamination.”

“List those origins. Use English names rather than Latin species designations.”

The doctor stared at the screen. He looked at Eric. He looked at the screen. He pointed, his mouth agape. “Cotton? Flax? Sheep wool? Horsehair? Leather? Cowhide? How the shit could you be wearing sheep wool? We haven’t… Sheep have been… And as for horses… ”

“I ride a horse. A bad-tempered black stallion called Satan. Well, I say bad-tempered.“ Eric sighed. “He’s fine with me. Suppose it stands to reason I would’ve picked up a few hairs. What did you mean? Sheep have been… They’re extinct? Horses too?”

“Apart from a few in zoos as curiosities, yes. Certainly not enough of them to produce garments such as the ones described there. Oh, the incredibly wealthy can afford the odd pair of gloves but...”

“Another question for the computer before you lock me out again… I was told my computer would be unlocked for the trial but obviously, they didn’t examine the contents. Computer, has the computer I had on me during my arrest been unlocked? If so, can you connect to it and download everything? Actually, skip the public domain archive, just download everything else.”

“Download will complete Download complete.”

“Bring up the tree.”

The tree appeared and Eric nodded at it. “That’s where I come from. One of those branches in the middle. That’s how time works. Each of those branches is an alternate history. The place where it forked is the point in time something changed between them. And that’s how I knew about antibiotics. That’s how we appeared out of nowhere on the station platform and where the shop assistant vanished to. Other worlds.”

“You could be responsible for saving the lives of millions!”

“I know. And this is the thanks I get. All that shit-head of a police officer cared about was the theft of those computers and the so-called kidnapping of Cal Anderson, but the reason I’m here now is because of Cal. He’s made a few breakthroughs while he’s been with us and asked me to deliver them to his boss. One Bren Van-Holder. I need to see him. I need you to be there too because one of the files on this computer is the one Cal created for Doctor Van-Holder. It contains medical information. Then, my mission’s complete. Hopefully, he and you can help me get the hell out of here and retrieve all the equipment the police confiscated. I need to get home!”

“What does your home look like? If it’s so different?”

“OK… Computer, Manchester one, Kidsgrove, London one, Glasgow, play.”

The doctor’s eyes almost popped out on stalks at the sight of hundreds of horse-drawn carts, traps and carriages. “Those… Those have to be mechanical… There aren’t that many horses in the world!”

“Look closer, doc. I’d point but… Look at the ground. Look at the horses’ backsides.”

When one of the horses raised its tail and dumped, the doctor gulped. “Oh god, that’s revolting! And you claim to live there!?”

“More, I love it there. This world, hell on earth for the likes of me.”

“Why? We live in comfort. We have every convenience at the”

“That’s why! I work for a living, doctor.”

“So do I! What do you think I’m doing now?”

“I mean real work. Hard manual labour. Look at that.” he nodded at the screen again. “The people there wouldn’t know a computer if it fell on their head. There are nowhere near as many machines there. Here, even the buildings are built by robots. I happen to be an accomplished builder and carpenter. You don’t even work on wood here anymore, do you? Look at my hands. Do these look like the hands of someone who’s never put their back into hard labour? Every single skill I possess is redundant here.”

The doc turned Eric’s hands over in their restraints. “Heavily calloused. Bloody and shit, Unknown…“

“You keep saying that. What do you mean?”

“What?”

“What do you mean by unknown? You just seem to be inserting it into sentences randomly. Is that another weirdness about this world or something?”

“I… But it’s your name!”

“It bleedin’ well isn’t. My name is Eric Siyisan.”

“Your name according to this and every database on the planet is Unknown.”

“Well, you’re wrong. That’s wrong and it has to… Can you change it?”

“Not that I know of. We’ll talk about that later. Now, your hands. Don’t they hurt?”

“Of course not. Why would they? Callouses are the body’s natural protection. Everyone who does real hard work gets them. I’ve not had a blister since I was fourteen.”

“How do you explain scarring on your back?”

“That’s a whole other story. Let’s get back to the important stuff for now. My arrest? And pay close attention to what I say.”

The doctor nodded, instructed the computer and they watched as Eric walked down the street, telling his computer to locate Van-Holder.

The drone was even better at spotting the hidden cops than Eric had been. He’d only spotted four. There were eight lurking behind various bushes.

The conversation with the arsehole, the brief zap with the taser followed by the arrest speech and the full-on tasering.

The moment Eric was down, the rest of them broke cover.

“You do not dictate terms! You do not tell me what to shitting well do! You are a terrorist and a plague on humanity!”

Another one appeared behind Eric. “Good job, lieutenant. The arrogance of the man! You’re right, he’s a bloody vector!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Sooner he’s tried and locked up the better. I’ve consulted all known databases. As far as they’re concerned, this… this virus doesn’t even exist.”

“What do you mean? He has to!”

“No record of him whatsoever. No chip. No identity. We might as well dump every single thing we have on him. He deserves no less.”

“But what about that footage? It’s genuine. It’s ours!”

“Shit on him, lock him up and throw away the key. We can clear years off our unsolved database and there’s no-one to complain about it. Let’s get him to the station and locked up.”

“Yes, sir! Totally agree by the way. He had the nerve to talk to me as if we were equals! No-one talks to us like that!”

With that, six of them picked Eric up by his limbs, manhandled him down the path and into a waiting van.

The drone footage ended and another video began.

Eric sat there, in a chair, eyes open but unresponsive and the officer who’d been bossing the one who arrested him entered the interrogation room.

“Are you aware of the murder of Benedict Clark of Bromley? No answer? So that’s a yes then. Did you do it?… Another yes, excellent. Now, did you also murder Ally Benton? Yes? Good. Ban Dillon? Another yes.”

The policeman ticked off each item on a very long checklist after asking about each and left the room.

The footage ended and the next began. Eric in his cell.

“This one’ll take a while if you want to watch it all. I know it takes about three days to die from dehydration, but other than that I lost all sense of time, so you might want to skip anything when I’m not talking.”

“Good thought. Computer, do as he says.”

The doctor watched with growing concern. Then, the trial itself began.

Even that was utterly bogus as far as Eric was concerned. As he watched them listing the charges, the refusals to answer and the judge announcing each was guilty as there was no-one there to mount Eric’s defence, he muttered under his breath. “Fucking cunts.”

“This is more serious than I imagined. You’re right, you’ve been thoroughly”

“Shafted?”

“I beg your pardon…”

“Why, what were you going to say?”

“Parbroked.”

“Seems you have a few I’ve never heard of. What’s that mean?”

“Really? Vomited on from a great height.”

Eric nodded with a chuckle. His eyes widened. “Doc… if they…”

“What?”

“Are all the videos safe?”

“Oh, blood and shit! Good call. Computer, triple lock all recently downloaded surveillance footage. And distribute it to every secure prison computer, also triple locked.”

“Done.”

“And triple locking?”

“The files are immutable. Impossible to alter or delete unless three codes are entered. As I locked it, my code unlocks the first layer.”

“And the other two?”

“Prison governor and court order. Wait there, I’ll get your uniform.”

“Funny. Where else would I go, strapped down like this? Besides, I thought the police had that!”

“Prison uniform. You’re going to be here a while. I’m sorry, but these things take time.” He rushed out of the room.

“For fuck’s sake, I’ve been here a week too long as it is!”