2020-04-22 - spike - Trapped again Part seventeen

Author: spike
Title: Trapped again. Part seventeen.
Date: 22 April 2020

She was tall, brunette and not bad looking in her a snappy business suit. The guard pointed and she marched forward, pulled out the chair, sat and stuck out her hand.

“Rish Randell, National Enquirer. You’re Eric Unknown?”

“That’s the name they decided to give me, yes.” Eric smirked at the hand. “What do you expect me to do with that? Grab it in my gob?”

“What? It’s considered polite to”

“I’d consider it extremely impolite to draw attention to your interviewee’s shortcomings, personally. Look behind me.”

She stood and peeked over the desk. “Shit! Sorry.”

“First time you’ve interviewed a black, I take it.”

She sighed, nodded and sat again. “Why would anyone want to hear what… well… Think of the victims and their families.”

“I understand. Even agree. But I only had one victim and he only suffered from a few lost computers and an injury to his hand. Not a particularly severe one either.”

“I saw the surveillance. That’s why I’m here. To get the full story.”

Eric sighed and nodded. “This is going to take ages, isn’t it?”

“It might. Who are you? How the hell did you do that? And why did you claim the citizenship tag wasn’t even invented where you’re from? It’s used globally.”

“In spite of what the police forced on me, Unknown isn’t my name. My name is Eric Siyisan. The only reason I managed to retain Eric is because my sister told me off for what I did to the shop assistant in Manchester before we stole those computers. I suppose I should count myself lucky. Probably would’ve ended up being another John Smith otherwise. As to where I’m from, this is going to take a while.”

She nodded.

“Right… When I was seven, I started seeing what I thought at the time were ghosts. People out of place. They’d walk through solid objects or walk around things that weren’t there. At fourteen, I encountered Marty, a man who could do what I can. In fact, seeing him for the first time… I suppose you could say it gave me the final push I needed to be able to do it too.” He grinned at the doctor. “Could you put the computer on the table, sir.”

“Very well.” He did so.

“Computer, bring up the tree.” The tree of time appeared in thin air as usual and Eric nodded at it. “Can’t point this time, but this world’s one of the outlying branches. There’re only two worlds I’ve been to that’re further and in one, humanity hadn’t even evolved. There’re still din… Gargantua there.”

“Living, breathing gargantua? When Professor Birt published some images, the scientific community scoffed! They were all so distant, and he only managed to capture a few shots of what he called an avian lizard.”

“One of them things flew right overhead on our arrival. Didn’t get a good shot of it because it was too dark until it was too far away to get a good picture, but we did get something else. We returned to that world before jumping back to ours. Computer, stegosaurus images.” A gallery of photos and videos appeared. “Swipe through all you like… It’s the only recording of such things possible, now. That world’s so far out of reach it’s an unimaginably distant.”

She did so and stared in awe at the things. Huge lumbering lizards with scales that shifted as they moved, producing every colour imaginable. “Rainbow beasts… I think that’s what I’ll call ‘em. Why stegawatsits?”

“Just a language difference. A difference in scientific terminology.”

“You said on your arrival, so, clearly, that isn’t your place of origin?”

“The world I was born in… Similar to here but nowhere near as technologically advanced.”

“Any idea why?”

He nodded. “International rivalry. Countries keeping themselves to themselves or even fighting between each other. Yours pooled their resources. Ours…” He sighed. “Wars and lots of ‘em.”

“What? Even now?”

“In the world I call home now, there’s trouble in some countries. Civil war in Sierra Leone for instance, but globally, it’s not too bad. My birth world, however, is a different matter. There’s usually a minor war between someone or other there along with terrorist organisations worse than your retros.”

“Sierra Leone? What…”

“Damn I wish this was loose enough. It even hurts to try to shrug after a while. West African nation, near the face bit of the continent, if you… Well… I don’t know what they called it before or what you call it now, but somewhere around there. Probably doesn’t even have the same capital city for it here. Freetown?”

She shrugged. “Computer, analyse and report. What he said.”

“Sierra Leone was a British Crown protectorate until it was granted independence by the newly republican British Government in the year eighteen seventy-six. On gaining their independence they shunned the colonial name imposed on their land, and instead named it Nova Liberdade, meaning New Freedom. As many of the citizens were the descendants of freed slaves, they considered the name to have a weight to it.”

Eric chuckled. “I like finding out other changes to a timeline. Thanks for that.”

“So, it’s still a crown colony?”

“Oh, no… Independent. Britain lost a lot during the world wars We both still have a monarch though. Henry the ninth for mine, Elizabeth the second for the other. Anyway, the middle of that tree… What I call home. About halfway between there and here, the world I grew up in.”

“Can you…”

“Of course.” Again he issued the commands and photos and videos sprang up, of his world and his old one.

She gulped as she continued. “And now you’re here? For life.” Another swipe. “For nothing?”

“For helping you people, you mean. OK, I stole a few grand worth of computers.” He noted the blank look. “Thousands worth, then. I freely admit that. More than paid for it with what I left in return, wouldn’t you say? Especially considering the fact I came back here to leave even more. Mission accomplished by the way. But noooo, oh no. I don’t have a chip. I don’t have any form of identity. That must mean I’m a retro. A terrorist. Can’t let me get away with having the audacity to exist without their permission so I become a prime target for their petty-minded vindictiveness!”

“Do you know why you became a target?”

“I just told you why.”

“It might be part of the reason, but I don’t think it’s the whole one. What were you thinking? Talking to them like that?”

“And just how would you expect me to talk to them? They’re just people. I was perfectly reasonable with them. I even showed my good faith by allowing him to bloody well taser me and that nearly ended up with my death! What could I have possibly said to them that’d make them want to kill me and then shove me in here for life?”

“Everyone knows you’re supposed to talk to them like”

Eric couldn’t resist interrupting. “Like they’re royalty? Like they’re above everyone? They’re public servants, not fuckin’ public oppressors! They have one job, maintain law and order and it seems most of them are too incompetent to do even that, judging by all the unsolved crimes I got dumped on me! You have access to the most amazing technology. More advanced than any other world I’ve encountered and I’ve still got a bloody charge sheet longer than the Magna Carta! Bet if we supplied the police back home with the kind of equipment you have available, they would’ve solved every single one of them in a month.”

She recoiled in her seat. “You’re not supposed to say things like that!”

Eric glanced at the doctor. “Not more sedition?”

“No. You’re safe. The police are, as you said, public servants.”

Eric grinned. “What are they going to do? Arrest me? Deny me a fair trial? Send me to prison for the rest of my life? Oh, wait… They already did. Well, until I get my retrial and I know for a fact the next time I see a courtroom after that, it’ll be the ones who arrested me in the dock!” He could see she still looked uncomfortable. “And I don’t mind you quoting me on that. Everything I just said about them. As I said before, they should be held to account. They should be held in high regard, true, but at the same time, they have to be held to higher standards of behaviour. One of them breaks the law and they should be treated much more harshly because they’re in a position of trust. You can quote me on that too.”

She looked around as if trapped.

Eric sighed. “I thought you were meant to work for a reputable news source?”

“I do!”

“Well reputable ones publish difficult stories. Please… Don’t be all wishy-washy about this. Say it like it is! You must agree they’ve got too high and mighty about things if they think they can get away with what they did to me? I know for a fact they’ve been arrested which means they didn’t get away with it. It’s about time things changed, starting with the public’s attitude to the police and the police’s attitude to their bloody jobs!”

“And this is how the police are seen where you’re from?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. You walk up to a policeman back home and ask him for directions or the time, he’ll be more than happy to oblige. He’d see it as his duty. Here, they’re more likely to arrest you for looking at them in the wrong way.”

“Let’s change the subject… How did you find this world, if yours is so distant?”

“Purely by accident, believe me. There’s an element, a very rare, heavy element. We call it omnium. I first encountered it about… ooh… Well, it was over four years ago. It came from a cluster of meteorites that struck in several worlds. Most of them came down in the north-west of England and North Staffordshire areas. I was the only one who saw it. Right place, right time. It came from god knows which world originally, flew directly overhead, crashing into a world within walking distance. I collected samples and it didn’t take long to realise it was special.”

Eric described his first breakthrough, the ability to communicate via radio with different worlds. He described the appearance of the other Greg, from a world he’d been beaten by the bully rather than fled into slavery and the soldier who’d shot and killed a very nearby version of himself. He described his conversation with the bigot Colonel Mitchell and the appearance sometime later of Martin, the maths professor from Harvard who’d been enslaved and the state he was in when he was discovered. How they cured his gangrenous wounds and how Martin began tutoring Tad. Then, the fright, the radio silence when it became clear their old masters had also had a strike and knew far too much about how to use the element. The recovery of one of their senders when a soldier appeared in a nearby world and his subsequent stalking of his sister and brother-in-law around London.

“But… What was the point? You said the police were better there.”

“I also said they don’t have any technology. They’re just more dedicated to their job, but even before I ran into the first soldier, they nearly walked right into a few knife-wielding ruffians. I dealt with them, heard about an event in Eastham that’d resulted in quite a few deaths and had all the hallmarks of sender use including leaving a burnt-out sender behind… I went to the Royal Institution. That’s a institution dedicated to the natural sciences, by the way and told them what the device they had could do, what to look out for and we ended up capturing two of their soldiers. Both of them carried bombs. Weapons of mass destruction the like of which you can’t even imagine.”

She stared at him in horror. “Bombs are bad enough… What does mass destruction mean?”

“I’ll get to that. They also carried radios so, we recruited a couple of people from the institution who were fluent in Chinese to monitor their channels and issued them with an ultimatum. We
had their bombs and if they didn’t leave our world for good, we would use them against them. It seemed to work at first. Two nights later, they deployed one, armed and set on a timer. I tried to disarm it. I failed. That’s what threw us into that swamp by the Thames. The world of Garganua and that’s where we encountered Medeline.”

“I’ve heard of her…”

“When the police found her banging on a jeweller’s back door, naked?”

She nodded.

“My doing. Anyway, that’s how we found your world. It was too good an opportunity to miss. We caught the maglev up to Manchester and stole those computers because… Well… They’re amazing! Nothing like that in any other world. You have no idea how useful they can be. But in return, I selected every medical website capable of receiving postings from the public and uploaded everything I had on antibiotics to them. This time, I had more data on a variety of medical subjects to pass on. I did that yesterday.”

“This is going to be a long one…”

Eric sighed. “Might be longer than you think. There’s someone else here. I’d like you to mention him too, because he’s had it far worse than me, so far.”

“Another… Someone else from your…”

“Yes, and not just anyone. Check your news archive for about the same time I stole those computers. I can’t remember the exact date and you use a different calendar. Naked in Buckingham Palace grounds. He was another victim of the bomb and more than that… Everything he said was the truth. We only have King Henry now because King Philip was in residence at the time of the displacement. He’s here. And I don’t just mean in this world, I mean in this prison. I can take him home! Offer this as a suggestion. Which is preferable? Keeping him at the tax payer’s expense to serve the rest of his sentence or exile? Never to return? I can assure you, once he’s back in my world, this world will never see him again.”

She nodded. “Just… How… What did you mean, weapon of mass destruction?”

“Ah… Yeah… The whole of London to a radius of forty miles was affected. Every living thing, plant, animal, even fungus or bacteria… Wham. Gone. That’s how I ended up ‘ere the first time… It’s how Philip did too.”

“Forty miles? And what? The whole area, wiped clean of anything living?”

Eric nodded.

She gulped. “Where was the centre? Where did they put the bomb?”

“Trafalgar Square.”

“And you say there’ve been others? The one that threw your friend to you?”

Eric’s eyes widened. “That’s a bloody good point. I know for a fact more poor sods landed in my world from Greg’s so the same might be true here. You might want to check on that. Manchester’s one was smaller, fifteen miles, but someone from there might’ve been thrown here. There, the centre was a park in Oldham. No idea if that even exists in your world though, so I don’t have a handy point of reference. The big one… Woooo… Could be anywhere on the globe, that search. It happened in the second month of the year after my theft, if that’s any help. After Philip was found in the palace grounds. If you do find some… Talk to them… Tell them I’m willing to talk to them too. If they appear to be of Chinese origin… Doctor, could you pull down my shirt?”

“The tattoo? You think some slaves from there might’ve been thrown here too?”

“Distinct possibility.”

The doctor did so, showing off the tattoo over Eric’s heart.

“If they’re bald and have a tattoo similar to that, I may be able to offer them a new home if they don’t like this world. If they have an attitude of superiority, hair and no tattoo… I don’t want anything to do with them. They’re the ones who enslaved me. Chances are, either way, they may have only been able to speak Chinese on their arrival.”

She smiled. “This isn’t just going to be long piece, it could end up being serialised! Blood and shit, this is a good one.”

“Just… Don’t wimp out, please. No matter what you fear the police will do.”

“After everything else you’ve said, don’t worry. I won’t. This could even get me a promotion come to think of it.” She stood, extended her hand and then snatched it back with a blush. “Thank you. I may be back. Go into some of the details of your other… err…”

“Adventures? I’d be glad to.”

She made her way back to the door and Eric stood. “God, I know not to ask how long that was but…”

“I know. Let’s get you back to your cell so you can finally get out of those things.” The doctor gestured and they made their way back to the cell block.
* * *
The beep, the clatter as the metalwork fell to the floor, Eric stepped out of his cell entrance and stretched. “God, that was a long one. And you say I might have to spend days like that? For the trial?”

Conrad nodded. “Any time in view of the public. You know that. And trials can take weeks, depending on the number of witnesses and amount of evidence.”

“Weeks!?”

“Murder trails especially, which yours will be, along with rape, terrorism, all the rest.”

“But those are all easily disproved!”

“You can bet they’ll try their hardest to find something to use against you, so be prepared.” The doctor gathered up the restraints and stepped out of the alcove. “Only way they can get out of the charges against them if you think about it.”

Eric sighed and nodded. “Cell, my schedule’s been disrupted again. What’s the next item on the agenda?”

“Gym.”

“Can you inform me when that is no matter where I am?”

“Affirmative.”

“Cell, inform me when it’s time for the gym, I’ll be in the assembly hall. Close and lock.”

“Reminder set.” the door slid shut and the familiar boom issued from it.

Eric glanced at the door and then the doctor. “I take it that boom’s used to replicate the old-style cell door slamming shut is it, sir? Just to emphasise you’re locked in?”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t make a sound when the thing unlocks before inspection.”

The doctor chuckled. “I can’t say I’d ever thought of it. I suppose it would have a strong psychological impact.”

“Oh, it does, believe me. The cell door slam’s worse though. I’d better get down there. Lots of practice to do before Gym, sir. Can’t do it after.”

Back down in the communal area, he scanned the tables and smiled. “Might as well.”

He made his way to the blacks. Cerol was with them again.

“Cerol. Fancy practising with me? Figured we might as well do it together, and not just us two.”

“Who else?”

“The other two good ones, so far. Greuder and Williamson. Work together, we’ll progress faster and leave those other crap’eds in the dust.”

“That’s a bloody brilliant idea. I’ll get Williamson. Greuder’s still a bit nervous around me, so you get him.” She pointed. “He’s over there.”

Eric chuckled, headed over, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed towards the gym.

“What? You missed it this time, again.”

“Want to practice?” Eric held up his flute. “Four of us now with high test scores. Let’s keep it that way. Work together, we’ll all improve faster than doing it separately. Might end up being able to jump to grade two while that lot still have trouble figuring out how many sixteenths a dotted quaver has.”

His eyes widened. “Is… she going to…”

“You’re safe. She said you were still nervous when she’s nearby. Don’t be. Think of us as a gang, if you like. Or club. Or whatever, but we all want this to progress. She proved a point. The point struck home much more firmly than her knee, didn’t it?”

“Where?”

“Assembly hall. I’ve been granted access by Ditton. I can’t practice in my cell.”’

Greuder jogged over to the nearest lift, calling “I’ll see you there.” over his shoulder as he went.
* * *
If anything, the assembly hall was even bigger than the gym. Row upon row of hard plastic seats, at least five hundred in total, with a central aisle that led to a raised stage at the end.

“So, what does this place have going for it apart from the space?” Eric looked around for a panel. “Is there something like the tables or screens we can use?”

Cerol shrugged. “I suppose there has to be something. Only ever been on the receiving end before, never been up on the stage.”

He nodded and they made their way to it. There were chairs up there, but little else.

“I wonder…”

“What?”

“Hall, can you access home spaces and display things on stage?”

“Affirmative.”

Cerol leaned in and muttered. “Well, you might be from a backwards world, but you seem to have a handle on computers. How did you guess?”

“Well, the gym, the trigger word is gym, the cell, it’s cell, the tables, it’s table… Figured it was worth a try. Hall, open the book The flute: an introduction and display it before the four chairs we sit on.”

Greuder chuckled. “So, what did you have in mind?”

“The book has all the fingering tables along with all the notes… Let’s get the scales mastered before we hit the class. If we’ve got time we could even try bringing up a few simple tunes from later in the book, see if we can do it reading sheet music.”

Williamson sighed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself too much, Eric. We want to keep up with you from now on.”

“OK… Just scales for now… In the meantime, what did you three do, before this?” Eric tugged on his tunic.

Grueder grimaced. “I already told you what I”

“Not the crime, before that. Jobs? Life?”

Williamson shrugged. “Why? What difference does it make?”

“Might as well get to know each other. All I know so far is we want to play the flute and Grueder got totally shafted by the system because he wanted to save the Natterjack toad. You know one of my pass-times, carpentry.”

Grueder grinned. “OK. I’ll bite. Ironic really.”

“What was?”

“I’m a security… Was a security consultant. It was my job to find the flaws, both physical, electronic and code. There’s always something…”

Williamson chuckled. “So, what flaws are there here?”

“For us? There aren’t any. I went over one of these prisons with a fine-toothed comb along with a few hundred others. If you want to find a flaw in the system here, you need physical access, and I don’t mean the satellite systems like the tables, cells or this hall… They’re just proxies to the main computer at the heart of the prison. We’d never get close.”

“Damn! If you could…”

Grueder held his hand up. “Let me stop you before you say the E word. Even mentioning that’s likely to get another five years dropped on you. Attempt it, and you’d fail. What’s more, when you recovered from the tranq darts you’d find yourself wearing what he is.” He nodded at Eric. “There is no E word from here. It’s impossible.”

Cerol smirked. “I wouldn’t’ve suggested the E word… Maybe adding a few locks onto my privileges wouldn’t’ve gone amiss though.”

Grueder grinned. “Nice idea, but no. Voice commands only and those are heavily regulated. You can’t override access or issue any kind of privilege escalation to the computers around the prison. Even the governor’s office is locked down tight.”

“Really? Even the governor?” Eric sat and a screen appeared. “So who does get to change things, then?”

“Outside, there’s the government and the prison authority, inside these walls, no-one.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised. No E word, no worries, in my opinion.”

Williamson stared at him. “What do you mean, no worries?”

“Think about it… If all you did here was think about E-ing, where would it get you? How would you feel when you realised it was impossible? Now you know it is, you don’t have to think about it anymore. Imagine how depressing it’d be if you put years of your life in here trying to find a way? Wasted, the lot of it.”

“But it’s a complete waste of my life as it is!”

“Doesn’t have to be. Why did you book yourself onto this course? It could be a whole new life for you outside when you are released if you get good enough. Even if you didn’t join an orchestra, you’d still be a bloody good flautist. Could still make money doing it. What did you do?”

“Me? Media star on Freespace. Fifteen million subscribers, to this, all for a bloody twenty-second prank!”

“Oh god…” Eric chuckled. “OK… What was the prank?”

“All I did was go into the local megamarket, open a tub of ice cream and lick it.”

“You… What the hell did you do that for?”

“I thought it’d be funny!”

“The fact you’re here means you didn’t do the decent thing and buy it.”

“I had my drone positioned and everything. Followed the idiot who did and my fans were screaming with laughter. Not all of them though. Someone complained.”

“You seriously think that’s funny? You know how obsessed everyone is with hygiene!”

Greuder’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit… I thought you looked familiar. He’s not telling the whole story. It was the height of a bloody outbreak when he did it. That mutated strain of tetanus from a few years ago and they hadn’t come up with a new phage to defeat it at the time. Worse, it was transmissible by contact, you didn’t even need a scratch. Everyone was paranoid as Brennan about it. Ten years for being a bloody moron. You lost half your subs overnight, didn’t you?”

“Bioterrorism charges and they got them to stick. And when I do get out, I’m ruined. I’ve lost everything. I made millions before that. They confiscated the lot. Proceeds of crime.”

“And you… You thought that was funny!?”

“I was trying to compete with other prankers! My main rival spent a whole week coughing in people’s faces and recording their reactions!”

“Which prison’s he in?”

“He never got arrested! I don’t even know why. He was way worse than me.”

“Don’t suppose it’s occurred to you he might’ve been the one to complain? Were his pranks open to all or a select few when you did it?”

“I… but… Oh shit…”

Eric shrugged. “I like what someone said to a friend when he was put in a similar situation. See it as part of life’s rich tapestry. An experience few get to… well… experience. You could make good when you get out, y’know. Use this.”

“How?”

“Instead of pranks, prison stories. Flute music perhaps, if you’re good enough. Should be by the time you get out. Promise to donate half your earnings to charity, maybe? Flute and felons? Something like that?”

“But I… I’ll have to start from scratch! Do you have any idea how long it takes? How hard it is to get even a hundred thousand subs?”

“But you managed it. Did they take away your whole online presence or is it still there, languishing, unused?”

“They deleted all my content, but it’s still there.”

“Well then… Seems to me when you get back to it, you might already have a few million unwary subscribers.”

“But, he just said, half of them left that same day.”

“How many people are utterly lazy bastards? How many just forgot you existed the moment more new content stopped appearing? Probably millions. They’ll suddenly get hit by a lot of new stuff once you get out and they might’ve grown up enough by then to appreciate your change in attitude.”

“Grown up? Them?”

“What age range? Think, Williamson! Pranks? Sounds like the stuff teenagers are into. Most of them are likely to have kids of their own by the time you get out.”

“Blood and shit! He’s right an’ all!”

“Just… If you expect to get any… I dunno… ooomph out there… No-one needs to earn millions to live comfortably, so, follow the other suggestion too. Half your earnings. Charity. Be a philanthropist. You might see this as paying your debt, but see it differently. In here, you’re a burden. Pay your debt when your back out there. It’ll only help in the long run. Tell you one thing… Your rival might still be doing the same old crap when you get out. Only way to beat him is to do something better.”

Williamson nodded with a grin. “What about you?”

“If I told you my story right now we’d never get any practice done… Conference call after food tonight. I’ll tell you a lot of it then if you like.” Eric nodded at Cerol. “She knows a very small part of it… What did you do before this?”

“I got stupid and greedy. What would you do if you were an idiot with access to a synthesiser, a master’s in organic chemistry and a need for a quick cash flow?”

“Drug dealer?”

“I designed them. No government testing. You tell me an effect, I’d design the product. Want to feel unbearably happy? See fairies? Expand your consciousness? Some weirdos even wanted pain. Any drug made to measure and personalised. Then the greed kicked in…”

“I know for a fact, that kind of tech can custom make anything… let me guess… Addictive?”

She sighed. “More addictive than even I envisioned. They’d literally do anything to get more, and I mean anything. It was too much for me after one of them killed to get what she needed and I couldn’t figure out how to undo it. I needed help and the one who I asked, did help… But the moment they’d been fixed as much as possible he reported me. I don’t blame him, either. Quite a few of my victims are in this prison. Different cell blocks though.”

“Well, I said it before, I’ll say it again. As far as I’m concerned, what happened outside, stays outside. I won’t judge. I’ve done a few questionable things myself, after all. Let’s get to this.”