2020-03-09 - spike - Trapped again Part six

Author: spike
Title: Trapped again. Part six.
Date: 09 March 2020

Again, they scurried away or turned their backs as he approached. He didn’t care anymore. He just marched up to one of the tables in the centre of the halo of empty ones.

At one, one of the seats had been vacated so he made his way there but put on an act as he did so.

He glanced around nervously, sidled up, gulped and took a deep breath before speaking. “Is… I’m sorry… Is this seat taken?”

“So this is our newest arrival.” The one furthest from him looked him up and down. He was on the old side, grey hair, wrinkles… “You’re going to be useful to us. You’re new, we’re not, so from now on, you do what I say, just as these do. Sit.”

Eric’s eyes widened. His shoulders sagged and he nodded. “OK.” He sat.

“OK, sir. Say it.”

“Sorry, sir. OK, sir. I thought that was only the guards and the computers, sir.”

“We’re in control here. Not them. You say sir to all blacks. You see those over there?” He pointed at the other blacks. “The one in the middle with his back to us… Go and give him a message.”

“Yes, sir. And the message?”

“Punch him in the back of the head.”

“Seriously?” Eric smirked. “I’ve seen the tutorial y’know. Sorry about the act, but, who could resist. I’ve got nothing to fear from you.” He lowered his voice. “I know what happens. You’re not a fuckin’ lion, even if you thought you were out there. You’ve been declawed. You’re nothing but a helpless kitten like the rest of us. One bruise on any of them from you and it’s” he lowered it even more, “eight.”

“You’ll do as I say. It’s not you who I can make suffer. Every single one of us knows people outside.”

“So?”

“So? What do you mean, so? I could have your family killed with the right message!”

Eric chuckled. “Then I truly am untouchable. You’ve got nothing. Don’t know why you even bother with the hard man image. I’ve met people like you before. Friendship’s much more powerful than fear. You should try it sometime.”

“What do you mean, untouchable? Everyone’s got someone.”

“And I’d challenge you to find them because what the police did to me… You’ll never even know my name. Let alone anything else about me.”

“I know you’re a northerner.”

“The north’s a big place. Can you identify the accent so well you can even say Lancashire or Yorkshire? No? Didn’t think so. What city? York? Manchester? Salford? Sheffield? Maybe I’m from somewhere more obscure like Todmorden or Robin-hood’s-bay. You’ll never find out.”

“You’ll do what I shitting well say!”

“I suppose I could try that lot over there instead, but I’m here now, so, you have a choice. Either you try being reasonable or I stand on this chair and shout at the top of my voice, “the blacks are powerless, I don’t know what you’re afraid of.””

Three of them recoiled in their chairs. His eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare! You’re black too!”

“Yes, but unlike you, I don’t know anyone, yet. If you’re going to be an idiot about it, I’ll just have to settle with making friends with them. You on the other hand… How many would turn on you the moment they learned about block eight? You’d be hiding in your cells for the rest of your lives. Now that’s a threat. I can see it in your eyes. The idea terrifies you.”

The one opposite Eric collapsed into a fit of laughter. “Oh shit. You’re a good one. You did better than I did on my first day. I almost went through with it. The only thing that stopped me was the threat of eight.”

“That was a test?”

“Of course. Why would we want to mix with anyone so cowardly they’d do what a complete stranger told ‘em. So stupid they’d condemn themselves to hell just for the sake of a punch in the head?”

“And if I had done it?”

“Anyone that stupid deserves eight.”

Eric sagged in his chair and grinned. “Eric. Pleasure to meet you. You played right into my prejudices. I was as scared of you lot as the rest of them until the induction. I’ll admit, I half expected the old do what I say, bollocks.”

“Err… What? What do”

Eric held up his hand. “Sorry. My parents spent a lot of time in the Canadian wilderness before I came along. They mixed quite a bit with Americans across the border. Picked up a far more colourful selection of swear words and so did I, from them. Most of Britain now… God, it’s like… It’s like our language had a full frontal lobotomy. There’s so much more expression when you’ve got a wider selection of expletives.”

“God? You don’t seriously believe in”

“No, course I don’t. Just another expression. Oh dear god! Jesus fucking Christ! Oh hell! Sod off, you absolute cunt!” Eric shrugged. “Certainly better than blood and shit.”

“They… They just sound weird.”

“You’ll get used to them. Might even start to use them yourselves eventually.”

”Might as well make the introductions. I’m Col, that” he pointed to the one between them at the end, “is Wall, Neb, Don and the miserable gobshite at the end with the grey hairs, Howard. Old fashioned name for an old fashioned ex-mob boss. He’s the one who’s been here longest so it’s a good idea to stay on his good side. Isn’t that right, How?”

How nodded. “Why couldn’t I have met you when I was free? What was it… Oh dear god? Might as well try that myself… Oh dear god, you would’ve risen high in my organisation.”

“Thanks. I admit I was much more of a loner. I’ll teach you the lot if you like, later.”

“What did you mean, what the police did to you?”

“They’re petty minded vindictive twats when they catch you messing with their little toys. They don’t like that one bit. They erased me.”

“They what?”

“They wiped me out. Everything about me, poof. Gone. See for yourself.” Eric looked at the table itself for the first time. There was a panel at each end so he placed his hand on the nearest. “Personal profile.”

They all stared at what popped up, their mouths agape.

How pointed… “The name…”

“Unknown. And not the database entity that can be changed. The bastards deliberately hard locked it, they spelled it out and fixed it permanently. It’s my name now, for the rest of my life. Eric fuckin’ Unknown. I started hating it almost immediately. Don’t have much choice than to get used to it. Everything else about my life, gone. Family history, work, medical records, money, driving license, everything, gone. When I found out I was black and I’d be here for the rest of my life after that little revelation, I actually breathed a sigh of relief. I wouldn’t want to face a life outside with nothing.”

“But… All the details on that… They’re still unset apart from your name, aren’t they?”

“Yes. I imagine they’ll question me about some of them so they can fill them in eventually, but it won’t help with anything else. Outside, I’m literally mister nobody now. I only started having doubts about this,” he tugged on his tunic, “when I saw I had a fucking sword of Damocles hanging over my head.”

Wall shrugged. “What’s a sword of Damocles?”

“I can help you there.” Howard chuckled. “I’ve never heard block eight described like that, but it is a bloody good description. The story goes, that in the times of ancient Greece, a beggar named Damocles arrived at the palace begging for food. He was invited inside and the king, in his generosity, allowed him to sit at his right hand to eat. Damocles said something incredibly foolish at that table.”

Col grinned. “I wish I was in your position.”

How nodded. “The king chuckled to himself, offered Damocles a bed for the night and the chance to breakfast with them the next morning, but when that morning arrived, Damocles found the king sitting on the chair he’d taken the night before. The king pointed at the throne and said “you sit there.””

Col butted in again. “And above that throne, dangling from a single horse hair, hung a huge and very sharp sword. Damocles had no choice but to obey… Let’s just say, he didn’t enjoy that breakfast.”

Wall looked at all three of them. “I don’t get it, what was the point?”

Eric grinned. “He asked that, too., after he was off that throne. The king replied. “Do you still want my position? That’s how it is for me, every single day. One wrong move and I’ll end up with a dagger in the back. That’s block eight to us.”

“And you say you breathed a sigh of relief to be black?”

“I also said that was before the induction. Trust me, I’m just as terrified of block eight as you lot. If it wasn’t for that threat, I might start to like it here. That wasn’t all the police did though.”

Col pointed at the screen. “What could be worse than that?”

“Hell of a lot. They nearly killed me, for one. Only got out of the prison hospital a few hours ago and then there’s this.” Eric placed his hand on the panel again. “Charge sheet.”

As the list of convictions scrolled up the screen, How’s eyes widened. “No-one can do all that and not get caught!”

“Someone who doesn’t exist, can. They’re not mine, they’re fake. They just emptied their unsolved crime database into me. Look at the top one. Six month olds do not go on rampages with kitchen knives.”

“What the hell did you do that got them so riled up?”

“I said. They don’t like people messing with their toys. OK… When I was a kid, we’d go out into the countryside to play a lot.”

“What do you mean, countryside?” Wall looked at Eric with a sneer. “There isn’t any shitting country!”

“There is where I’m from. Plenty of moorlands up north for one thing. That land’s totally unsuitable for the cultivation of food. We found a dump of old electrical gear there. Must’ve been there decades judging by the size of the stuff, and that was when I was nine.”

“So? What’s so special about obsolete”

“Simple. I went back there the next day, alone, and salvaged all the components. A lot were useless but the rest, I figured out how they worked. They weren’t computers, these things, they were much more primitive. Discrete components rather than chips. There were chips there but the identification labels had weathered away. I didn’t have a sensor or computer to figure those out, so I left them. I figured out how the rest worked, what they did. Made my first couple of two way radios that didn’t use the computer network that year.”

“Why? The net’s far more efficient. You probably had trouble talking to someone two streets away!”

“It reached the far end of town and it wasn’t monitored by the network. We could talk freely. Enough fun for a couple of nine year olds playing cops and robbers. I did it because it was fun, but, we got into trouble. Only a slap on the wrist and a don’t do it again that time.”

“Trouble? Sounds harmless enough.”

“Seems it interfered with police frequencies. That was my first clue. I went back and collected the chips later, never knowing if they might be useful. They were. I remade my radios, but this time, I didn’t include a transmission circuit. Reception only. I wanted to find out what frequencies I’d interfered with. Drone frequencies. When I realised what I had, I made improvements. Ended up a few years later with a gadget that could track any drone within a mile.”

Wall sagged in his chair. “What I could’ve done with that… Why didn’t you sell ‘em?”

“Oh, I sold ‘em. Didn’t know any big criminals willing to pay thousands for one, but I got a couple of hundred for my first. Word got around pretty quick and all the time I was making improvements. The big one for me was how to crack their encryption so I could see what the drone sees.”

“Now that is impossible.”

“I know, but I found a workaround. The camera. Its signal’s amplified before it goes to encryption and it works off a different frequency than they use to transmit to base. I found I could tap into any drone within about a hundred feet and see what they saw. I also had a jam button. It’d knock them out of the sky. Continued sellin’ em and then, I got a message from what I thought was someone big here in London. The scanner said there were no drones near the abandoned factory they’d chosen, so, I went in, expecting to be paid ten grand for my latest model.”

“And the slime were waiting for you?”

Eric nodded. “I managed to get away but they sent drones after me that weren’t affected by my scanner. Cornered me in a park. What came next is when they nearly killed me and fitted me up for all those fake crimes. I don’t know where they got it. I’d never seen anything like it before. It looked a bit like a gun but instead of bullets or darts, it shot too barb ended wires into me. Oh, they read out the charges first. Sedition, terrorism, blah, blah, blah. Then they shot me with it. Electrocution. The thing pulsed so much power into me I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even think and it knocked me out for hours.”

“So it was the shock that nearly killed you?”

“No, it was waking up in a blank white room with no food and water for three days that nearly killed me. While I was unconscious though, and I know this happened because the doctor grabbed the surveillance footage, was me, sitting upright in a chair as the bastard read all those charges at me and said “yes.” to each one while I sat there, silent, eyes open, no-one at home. Refusal to answer is an admission guilt. I wasn’t even conscious to hear the questions.”

“But the white room… It’s just a police cell. We’ve all spent time in them. Why didn’t you activate it?”

“I couldn’t. That shock thing… It’d fused my chip completely. It didn’t work anymore, no matter how loud I shouted activate. Obviously they replaced it with this bloody thing before they shipped me here.”

“So, you’ve never even killed anyone? Just sedition and a bit too clever with your hands?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you what I used my drone scanner for. My dad died in a car accident five years ago. When I found out it was the battery he’d had recently fitted that exploded, that the thing was substandard second hand crap the techie charged full price for… Well… The explosion didn’t kill him, but the electronics in the car going haywire and crashing it into a tree did. My dad’s bracelet sent us an alert and I got there before the police and saw the state of that battery. So, I stalked that bastard of a technician for weeks. Got his movements down to a fine art. He liked walking in the country too and there aren’t many drones out there. I deserve to be one of you, believe me.”

“What did you do to him?”

“By then, I’d managed to pay for a few gadgets of my own. Healing device included.”

“But they’re too dangerous for public use!”

“It was a payment for one of my scanners and I didn’t care how much harm it might do. I lay in wait for the bastard, brained him with a rock, strung him up to a tree branch, staked his legs to the ground and only then did I use the healer on him, just so he was awake for what came next. Oh god, the satisfaction. I stared him in the eye as I cut all his clothes off and burned them in front of him. The look of terror as I gripped him by his bollocks, ripped them off and stuffed them in his mouth while he was screaming before taping it shut. I hung around watching him choking on his own balls, slowly bleeding to death and dying from hypothermia. Then I just left him there. I think they found him a few days later. It was a remote spot.” Eric sighed. “It’s such a shame, really.”

“What is?”

“All that crap they fitted me up with… I would’ve been proud if he was one of them. Everything they had was in the fuckin’ home counties, though.” Eric glanced over at How. “Do you really see yourself as the boss of us?”

He sniggered. “Oh god, no… That… there is a nice ring to it, isn’t there? We take turns. They do too. You can do it next time. If nothing else it weeds out the morons.”

“I’d be glad to. So… What else can this table” there was a change in their surroundings. Everything took on a greenish tint. “do? Ah shit! Already?”

“Yep, lockdown soon. We have a grace period, but for us at least, not worth taking any risks… I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll introduce you to that lot, then.” Col nodded at the other blacks.

“Thought you didn’t like them. Punch him in the back of the head? If I’d done that, I could’ve killed him if I’d tried.”

“Tomorrow… You’ll see us in the gym. We’ll see just what you’re made of.”

“We could make a competition of it if you like?” Eric grinned. “Shame we’re not permitted anything to bloody bet with. Oh well… I’ll just have to settle for the satisfaction of winning.”

“Cocky. I like that.” Col stood and everyone else followed suit. They headed off in different directions.

Eric made his way to the stairs. Some of the prisoners were taking their time over it. Obviously taking advantage of the grace period. He didn’t want to even risk it. Clearly, none of the other blacks did either.

As he approached, a few of the greys looked up, sprang to their feet and scurried off.

He’d just passed one who hadn’t when he froze, back-pedalled and stared in shock. He pulled out the chair opposite and sat, still staring.

The man was in tears, staring at the table in obvious despair. He wore mid grey.

“Your majesty?”

It barely came out as a whisper. “Don’t mock me.”

“What do you mean? Philip, look at me!”

“Stop calling me that! I’m better now!” He looked into Eric’s eyes, noticed the colour of his tunic and recoiled so violently he fell backwards off his seat. He scrambled to his feet and bolted for the stairs.

“Oh fuck! What the…” Eric stood and followed at a leisurely pace, watching the lost King scurry up two flights onto the first level and along it. He leapt into the open entry and it slid shut. Above the entry, forty-seven.

“Right then. Block three, level one… I wonder…” He rushed back to his cell, taking the stairs three at a time. Up to level four along to his cell, he rushed in and pressed the door. “Open.”

The moment he was in and the door had closed behind him, he pressed it again. “Activate and lock.”

A loud boom issued from the cylinder. It sounded like a deadbolt had be fired into place. At the same moment, the green light that bathed his cell switched back to white.

“So, that’s how it works? Cell, menu.”

“Prisoner 50095223. Select your meal options.”

“Yes, sir. The menu for communications has inmates, can you select cell address rather than prisoner number and name?”

“Affirmative.”

“Good. Food and Drink. Cell, can more than one item be selected?”

“You are permitted one starter, one main, one dessert and one drink.”

“A three-course meal? That has to be a privilege.”

“Three privileges constitute the ability to choose three courses.”

“Mushroom soup, lasagne, lemon cheesecake and hot chocolate, please.”

“First course being prepared.”

“Select communications, inmates and contact block three, level one, cell forty-seven.”

The screen revealed what appeared to be an empty cell, but the camera angle didn’t show the bed.

“What the hell have they done to you, sir?”

There was a yelp and the man shot up in his bed. He looked around in confusion before his gaze fell on the screen.

“Leave me alone!”

“What… happened… to… you? I’m a friend, sir. I know!”

“You know? You don’t know anything!”

“What… happened?”

“I had a nervous breakdown! Delusions! Hallucinations. Alright? My name’s John Smith, not fucking Ph”

Eric held up his hand. “Ah! You can’t fake it. You just used the F word. A word they don’t even consider to be an expletive. You still want to believe what they’ve convinced you is true… Tell me what this nervous breakdown was like! I’ll convince you they were wrong! I’m sorry for treating you like this, but this is important.”

“Why are you doing this!? Why do you… A fff… bloody murderer and god knows what else, even care?!”

“I’m from there. That’s why.”

“From where?”

Eric sighed. “If you won’t describe this so-called nervous breakdown, I will. You saw a bright purple flash over Trafalgar square. I don’t know where you were… In the palace or the grounds but either way, everything started to change. If you were inside, it would’ve just been furniture moving around at first… Outside, the very trees bent and twisted. The clouds danced in the sky. The weather changed way too quickly but the rains never even left you wet. Then the changes became more dramatic, from the London you’re familiar with to one of utter ruin. It got bloody cold at the same time. It was like the entire city had been blasted and burned by one gigantic bomb, but that didn’t last long. Next, no more carts, no more horses. Cars and lots of them. Bright lights, the entire city powered by electricity. Buckingham palace was no longer black due to the reduction of coal use and a bit of sandblasting to remove the pollution.”

As Eric spoke, Philip crept towards the screen, his face betraying everything. Confusion cleared. Shock replaced it. He inched to the screen and slumped into the chair, staring, aghast.

“You are Philip by the grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas. King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India and the people who treated you obviously didn’t think anything you said was true. In their eyes, delusions, nervous breakdowns and psychotic breaks were the only explanation for your appearance naked in palace grounds and your claims to royalty. I bet there were a lot of people there too, weren’t there? Maybe even children? In this world, Britain’s a republic and has been for over a century, so it’s just a historic monument.”

He blinked a few times. Tears began to form but he shook his head.

“I described all that! What did you do? Read all my files in the psychiatrists!?”

“Did you leave any details out, sir? I can imagine the next thing that happened, even you would’ve found difficult to admit to yourself.”

“I…”

“I can tell you about that world, sir. I can tell you why it is as it is. I could even go through every single military action the Germans made to win. I stopped at that world on the way home the first time and I know a lot about it.” Eric sighed. “The kaiser was deposed there in the 1950s, sir. Germany’s a republic too and as the British royal family were exiled when they took over, she’s part of the German confederacy. They rule most of Europe. What’s more, the people are happy about it, now.”

“How can you know all this? If it wasn’t a delusion… Why… The technology… Have I been thrown into the future? And you too?”

“Cell, can you do a split screen, one side, this communication, the other, a drawing program using the pad and stylus?”

“Affirmative.”

“Can you send a copy of the drawing screen to the other end of this connection and split his screen too?”

“Affirmative.”

“Cell, do it.”

The picture containing Philip slid to one side, the rest of the screen turned black with a menu bar at the bottom.

“I apologise, sir, for speaking to you like that but I had to get through to you. You’ve been declared dead back home, sir. I… I’m sorry. I don’t know how things work when something like this happens. When a king is lost, a new king takes the throne and the old one returns. By now, I imagine every world it hit’s got a new king. In ours, it’s the former Duke of Gloucester. Peter Henry William Arthur Beaumont. He went for Henry the ninth, sir, and I… I’m a lance corporal, sir. Royal Army medical corps, but my attestation named Henry, not you.”

“I’m still finding… I’m not John Smith? I am Philip? I am king Philip! But there are no kings here.”

“What did you do, sir. To end up in here?”

“Initially? The sheer panic of finding myself naked among commoners. When the police arrived and attempted to cuff me… I don’t entirely remember the whole series of events but I do remember one of them curled into a ball and another with a black eye and bloody nose before I was wrestled to the ground and cuffed. Added to that, I didn’t have this identification… chip, thing. They had nothing on me so that didn’t go well.” He took a juddering breath. “Thank you… I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“My name? I’ve been shafted in a similar way to you, sir. As far as this world’s concerned, John Smith will always be your name, just as Eric Unknown will always be mine. I hope not to be here for life though. I’ll have a retrial scheduled soon and I have the means to return. If I can return home, you can too. This is the third time I’ve visited this world. This time didn’t go to plan. Hence…” he pulled on his tunic. “This.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I’ll explain now, sir.” Eric looked down at the desk. There didn’t seem to be a drawer. Certainly no handle… He slapped himself on the forehead and waved his hand across the left side of the desk. A thin drawer less than two inches deep and three inches long slid open with a beep. Inside, a hollow which contained a metal pen-like thing with a dull tip.

He took it from its resting place and drew a line. “This is how most people think time works, sir.”

The panel behind the table slid open and a tray, bowl, chunk of bread and plastic spoon slid out.

“Prisoner 50095223, cease communication and consume your meal.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Philip, but, I’ve got to end this now. I’ll continue tomorrow, but keep an eye on the screen before lights out tonight. If what I was told is true, there should be something that explains why I’m black. I won’t approach you out on the floor again. You know how everyone reacts to us and the only people who’ll even look at me right now are the other blacks, so, they’re the only ones I can talk to.”

He sighed. “Yes, I just received a similar order.”

“Just remember, you are John Smith. Don’t start trying to claim you’re Philip again. Cell, end communication.”