the_tiresias_reels

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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 | AUTHORITY: WIPO | AUTHOR: E GALEANO | DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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“I have never killed anybody, it is true, but it is because I lacked the courage or the time, not because I lacked the desire.”

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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 | AUTHORITY: NETWORK | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION | DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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Denise Babcock is humming to herself, folding the laundry in the living room area of her flat. As she's stacking her skirts in neat piles on the paisley-upholstered couch, the television plays splattery scenes of some Robot with claws that whirl like propeller blades. The volume's turned low, just background noise, to keep the place from getting too lonely.

Across the room, the doorknob jiggles and Denise tenses, fingers tightening on the blouse in her hands. It relaxes her some, though not entirely, when the door opens to reveal Terry. “You're home early.” Concern carves heavy lines in her face. “What's wrong.”

The woman in the doorway seems grey, in spite of her bright-coloured attire. She gives a small laugh, but it's not genuine – the sort used in desperate attempt to drive away a sob. It doesn't do anything to stop tears from escaping her eyes when she blinks, splashing down her cheeks.

She abandons the blouse in a heap and goes to embrace her wife. “What is it?” she tries again. “What's happening.”

Terry pulls away and lifts her bright glasses, so she can dab at her eyes with the back of one hand. She gives another sad laugh, a bit less miserable than the first, and leads Denise towards the kitchenette. Only after they're both sitting down, Terry says, “I think I got sacked.”

“What?” Every terrible possibility floods her mind at once. The ratings unexpectedly plummeted. Terry went too far and rubbed someone high-up the wrong way. Ebenezer finally got himself killed. “You think? What happened?”

Terry's chair scrapes against tile when she stands and she moves towards the oven. “I'll tell you over tea.”

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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC| DATE OF REVIEW: 05.04.2098 | AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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The lift comes to a halt with a jovial bing. Haccadine pulls the door aside and steps into the barn, taking stock of the place. It's filled with– not junk, exactly, because it would all be useful and important to someone, but right now they have no need for it. Wood carvings, scant frames that hint at some greater, Goldbergian plan, huddled clusters of crates upon crates and, hanging from the rafters, strings of dried herbs. He moves quickly down the length of the barn, scanning for any hint of military hardware.

There's a group of boxes at the back – sturdy, plain, bigger and older-looking than some of the others. He pushes aside a bicycle, swings himself over a workbench; sawdust coats his feet and hands. The boxes are labelled, black letters stencilled onto the side of each one describing its contents. Here, 'TYPE 56'; there, '.257'. Squeezing down one side, he spots a simple 'C4' and stops. Setting the tip of the crowbar under the lid of the box, he eases it in as far as it will go and then pries upwards. Wood groans.

At the far side of the barn, the lift does too. It departs, called back towards the halls. His teeth set. With a dull, splintering crack, the top of the crate comes away and he throws it aside, reaching in to pull aside a swathe of faded tan packing material. It's what he's after, alright – carefully arranged rolls of an off-white, puttyish material, along with detonators. Faint and far down the shaft, a bell rings. He begins packing the explosive into his satchel as the lift ascends.

Ebenezer wrenches the door open and staggers out into the barn. “They know,” he calls out, eyes darting about, searching for Haccadine. A few steps deeper into the building brings the man into view, still gripping the crowbar. Ebenezer halts in place. “You can't-you can't go. They know you-you're coming. You can't go.”

Haccadine's head turns slowly. “How do you know they know.”

He spits out a lie, “Zol-olotisty heard them say so.”

“Right.” Haccadine folds the top of his backpack over, securing it and hefting the lot onto his shoulders. He stands, picking his way calmly back towards Ebenezer.

He doesn't move out of the way. Haccadine looks him squarely in the eye for a moment, then jerks his chin. “You see that camera over there?”

“Yes.” He doesn't break eye-contact with Haccadine to look. He doesn't have to. He knows where it is.

“Smile.” Haccadine's fist drives into his stomach, forcing the air from his lungs. He doubles up, gasping, and a shove tips his stiff-legged balance straight over. Ebenezer bounces slightly as he hits the barn's wide-hewn floorboards Ã¢â‚¬â€ all of his weight is concentrated on his gunshot wounds not once, but twice. He lets out an awful yelp as his glasses skitter away. Trembling, he forces himself to roll onto his side. Haccadine looks down at him for a moment and then, satisfied he's not going to get up any time soon, turns and leaves.

“There!” Ogilvy shouts, out of the car like a shot. It's been three hours, crawling up and down the streets in the sector, and several supposed sightings. The driver thinks she's crazy – he's not seen a hair of any dog anywhere. He glances down at his watch when she doesn't return in ten minutes, twenty, thirty, but the car just keeps getting pulled forward with the mass of people.

“Dog ran through here.” Three blocks away, Ogilvy's crouched, lifting up the bottom edge of the plastic tarp wall, talking to a pair of tall white leather boots of a stall-trader.

Spandex's laugh fills the tent, and Ogilvy's hand slips from the tarp. But the trader's voice is deeper and huskier, more like Zolotisty's. “Nope. Only one bitch come through here all day, and she's just a lonesome old gal.”

As she stands, the women size each other up. Neither seemed surprised by the other – not the seller by an expensive Suit in her tent, nor Ogilvy by the 1960s mod costume complete with giant round sunglasses, blonde bob wig, and PVC cap.

“You like this hat? I've got another in red, but.. no.. you look like a more discerning buyer. Someone who prefers custom. I can get you anything,” she says, gesturing to the tent walls covered in hats. “Even dog..”

But Ogilvy's staring at her mouth. Confident, quirky, she thinks, watching her tongue play with the small gap between her two front teeth. Maybe too obvious. “Take your glasses off.”

Ebenezer's first good lungful of air comes out in a barely-audible croak, “Zo-Zolotis–” It's broken off by a cough that empties his lungs and he's got to gasp his next breath, only to cough it away too. Belligerent, he allows his organs a bit more time to recover before trying again. “Zolotisty.”

He practices the message in his head as he draws another slow inhale. “C-couldn't-couldn't stop him. I couldn't.” His spectacles aren't visible anywhere within his short line of sight, but he thinks he can remember in which direction he heard them clatter away. When he shifts his position, a sharp jolt of pain quickly helps him decide to wait a bit longer before trying to move again.

He allows himself to spend a breath on a groan, but the one following it's for Z again, “He's g-going-he's going to die. Going off to die.”

Zolotisty tried to tell him that he shouldn't follow Haccadine, that he couldn't get back to the tunnel if he did. Even if he could teleport, like Zolotisty can, he wouldn't know remotely where to go. He doesn't know where the tunnel is, just that it is. Clenching his teeth, he shifts again and finds it easier than his last attempt, though still not in the least bit pleasant. Slothish, he half-crawls, half-drags himself closer to the wall. His spectacles materialize out of the blur, just within arm's reach when he stretches. He takes a moment to scrub the dust off the lenses with the sleeve of Elias' borrowed shirt before putting them back on his nose.

The Tech crew knows he's not lost any more. He told them himself when he went to the Grotto and contacted the boat. No doubt, they're watching him now. They know exactly where he is. It's almost funny, he thinks, to be worried about a thing like that. Of course they're watching. They've been watching since he arrived naked and defenseless in NewHome. Bracing himself for another surge of pain, he grabs onto the shelves on the wall and shakily, clumsily pulls himself up to his feet again. With a hobbling step, he makes his way back to the lift.

They're probably all going to die. That's what he told Zolotisty, back in the tunnel. Dex is half dead already, Haccadine's heading out to get himself euthanised. It's only a matter of time before the Network comes to tidy up the rest. Perhaps they won't kill him. At the very least, they'll demand answers to difficult questions. Maybe, unlikely, he'll just get a bill like they gave Z. The lift lurches to a stop and he shambles out, into the Hall, towards the bathroom. Thankfully, no clanmates are lingering around to witness him in the state he's in – only watchful cameras.

Sooner or later, they'll come, he's sure. And when they do, they won't find him dirty, half-naked, and weaponless like a fresh Rookie. His weary legs don't want to keep him upright long enough for him to shave, shower, and change out his bandages, but he stubbornly remains standing. It takes a bit of bracing against the wall as he walks to get him from the bathroom to his bedroom. There are clean clothes waiting there for him in his wardrobe: pressed, starched, creases razor-sharp. In spite of his trembling hands, he does up his shirt-buttons right and he ties a proper half-windsor knot in his necktie. He insists on putting on sock-braces and tying his shoelaces in neat bows, even if he's got to lay on his side on the bed to do it.

Three each of sharp pencils and sharper fountain pens are arranged in his breast pocket. It's a shame he left his borrowed handgun behind in the Lucky Dip. A shame he's not got any knives like Dex's, but a pen can do a fair bit of damage, he knows, embedded in an eye or an artery.

Exhausted, mentally and physically, he falls down onto the bed again. Though his glasses press uncomfortably into his face when he rests his head on the pillow, he doesn't remove them. Discomfort doesn't keep him from dropping deep into sleep.

Cooper finds himself smirking at the company car as it peels away, hell-bent on getting out of the area. But the feeling's mutual as he remembers how he's dressed – they didn't even give him time to change, and his NewLinen suit is about as nondescript as a neon yellow 'pick me' sign. People won't even need to try to mug him for his clothes– the most common tactic is to just walk by and before you realise what's happened, the entire back or sleeve has been cut off and the thief's lost in the crowds.

He rushes up the wide steps of the long defunct Telecoms building that now is home to more flats than there were ever cubicles.

He locks the door to the flat behind himself and rushes for the phone to call his sister. He hasn't taken off his jacket, though it should be hung on the second hook on the rack right now. He chews at his perfectly manicured nails while the phone rings.

“Where the hell were you?” he blurts, as she finally answers after the sixth ring. “I mean… sorry, just…” There's no way to cover this up. “Totally stressful week. I might be getting fired, and… yeh, thanks. Thanks. I don't know. I'll find something, don't say anything to mom and dad yet. How you and the kids doing anyway? … No, can't tonight, how about Sunday? I'll cook.”

It's mid-morning by the time Haccadine finds a clearing suitable for his purposes – close enough to the landing point that it won't take him too long to reach it, but not so close as to arouse suspicion. He takes a wide circle through the area, turning back and cutting once more through the clearing as though lost. Perfect. Not too many cameras, plenty of cover. Satisfied, he heads towards a bent, gnarled plane and drops his pack at its base, kneeling to unhook his canteen. He sits, back resting against the trunk, and takes a long pull from the canteen.

Slowly, he lets his eyes rise until they meet the blank, gaping stare of a camera, half-hidden in the branches of the tree opposite. Wait. He lets the canteen drop from his lips, fingers fumbling to replace the cap. His jaw tenses. Then, snapping his arm back, he hurls the canteen up; it misses the camera, bouncing off a branch and landing in the scrub.

“Fuck you,” he snarls, hauling himself to his feet. One hand gropes inside his jacket for his gun. “What's your big fuckin' hangup with stuffin' your noses into everybody's business? Chrissakes, you bloated jackoffs– Just leave me the fuck alone!” He raises the gun, takes careful aim and puts a bullet straight through the camera's lens. Lips peeled back over his teeth, he turns and pretends to search for the next. It's only half an act; the anger's still not far from the surface.

“Jesus fuck, why did we go out to eat!” Lacey, still in her work clothes, crosses the flat in four huge steps. She yanks one of the drawers out of their tiny desk, plucking out a fat folder of bank statements and legal documents. Rifling through, she finds a copy of her employment contract and all its associated NDAs. “Stupid!” She laughs aloud, panicky, marveling at all of it. Spend months trying to get into a camera booth, then weeks trying to make everyone happy with her stupid fucking contestant, and the shoe drops anyway. She's not even sure she's been sacked.

“Going out to eat doesn't matter either way, lovie,” Rob says. He's slouched so far down on the couch that his chin is flat on his breastbone, forcing him to stare at his belt buckle. Pinging his fingernail off of his beer bottle, he watches Lacey skim through her contract. “It's the Network. They would've fucked you over sooner or –”

“Rob. Please. Give me two minutes.”

He falls silent. The cat watches them from the windowsill, hunched, shoulders jutting from her back like little pyramids. “We'll find money,” he tries a moment later.

“Robert.”

The NETWORK agrees to pay to EMPLOYEE a non-transferrable, one-time only sum equivalent to projected wages through the remainder of the quarter payable in the STANDARD UNIT, subject to appropriate and required tax withholding; in no way does this mean that the EMPLOYEE should consider himself / (herself) employed at NETWORK CLOSECASTING LLC during this period; severance pay is further subject to eligibility requirements based on the number of quarters EMPLOYEE has been employed at NETWORK CLOSECASTING LLC in their current titled position. This eligibility requirement shall be equal to four (4) full quarters. EMPLOYEE understands and agrees that the payments made by the EMPLOYER described under SEVERANCE PAY represents compensation and that, therefore, the EMPLOYER will withhold from the gross amount of this payment all taxes and other appropriate and/or discretionary deductions that it would normally withhold from the earnings of EMPLOYEE, and that the EMPLOYER will report the gross amount of those payments to governmental agencies as earnings of the individual to whom net payment is made as done in the past.

The words begin to blur. Lacey laughs aloud again, then looks at their bank statements, their bills. It all seems so darkly humorous that she can't help but make gimme fingers at Rob's beer.

The clearing is filled with the roar and whine of a Scrambler's engine as it bursts through the undergrowth and sloughs to a halt, tyres digging furrows into the soft, loamy earth. The tech on board kills the engine, removing the keys from the ignition and tucking them into a pocket on his vest. His eyes dart towards the treeline, then to the rearview mirror; a brief glimpse of the camera mounted just behind and above him. He puffs a shaky breath through chapped lips. The radio crackles.

“Is there a problem?”

“No.” He hesitates a moment further and then swings himself out of the Scrambler. Pulling his ladder and toolkit from the rack, he turns, heading towards the first of the repair jobs.

Pulse pounding in his chest, Haccadine rises to his feet and strides forward, raising his gun toward the tech. The man half-turns, mouth opening in the beginnings of a shout, and his finger tightens on the trigger.

Gunshot.

The impact spins Haccadine back, a sudden punch to the chest with a burning poker. He drops, stunned, as the chatter of automatic gunfire starts up, bouncing off the trees. One hand gropes blindly in his pocket. As it closes on smooth plastic, there comes another stab and he feels something shatter in his leg, feels it right up in the roots of his teeth; he jams his finger down on the button as hard as he can, and disappears in a flash of white light.

Even after the long drive out past the old ring road to what was once the suburbs, Monroe's still going to be three hours earlier than his shift was due to finish. He convinces the driver to drop him off a block away from his house because there's no way he's going in early. He'd either have to tell her the truth, or make up some lie about being ill, both of which will still result in an inordinate amount of worry and fuss thinly disguised as non-stop lecturing and unanswerable questioning like, 'How could you let this happen!' As the car drives off, he pulls up the hood on his jacket and hunches his shoulders, as if his mother has access to the feed from the CCTV mounted on the lightpost on the corner. He turns left, and heads to the local high street to find some of his mates to kick around with until he's due home.

His friends are surprised – and happy – to see him. “Agman, man is ball-sacked by cunters,” he explains, and they circle close while he re-creates his day. Godard and Ogilvy and himself, in one of their big executive production rooms, were discussing 'creative direction' and things got more heated and he, in a fit of frustration, called them a couple of grannies and Godard punched a red button on a control pad on the table and three goons appeared to throw him out. His mates don't buy a word of it, but they laugh and play along.

“Fret-not, man. Always spot in the gully for Monroe,” one of the girls who seems to be the leader, says, clamping her hand on his shoulder.

“Loves my pozzie, Shanks, but man's got his retirement fund right here,” Monroe says, twisting away from her and indicating his backpack. “Brought home a souvenir. Man be making Zolodex Sex Films, the Monroe Cut. Gonna be ka-ching and bling, amiright.”

“Them two?!” a younger boy says, standing up on his toes. “Get a slappy lass… like.. like, Johnson?” He looks to the others, checking that he's picked someone they currently like.

“Agman, Bloo, you thick as my dick! She hasn't even done it yet!”

The playful arguing and teasing and speculation about the show continues until they tire of it and turn to another favourite topic: their next scheme for making a bit of money.

Monroe's mobile phone rings, playing a muddy bass remix of the Island's theme tune. “Monroe,” he says, straightening his back and lifting his hand to the others to be quiet. “The Roasted Lamb? Yeh, yeh, man knows it. Remind me–” He fumbles in the front pocket of his pack for a pen and writes an address on his hand. “Yeh, meet you there.”

His friends all exchange looks.

“Lass from work. Been hard-on for Monroe since she first laid eyes.”

The leader grabs his wrist to read the address. “In the eighth? You haven't the croons to take a shit there, nawmean.”

Monroe snatches his hand away. “Bitch is buyin'. You hear? Beast wants me.” He checks the time on his phone and holds up his fingers to hush his friends again as he dials home.

“Hello mum, it's me. Yes, of course everything's fine. The producers have asked me to work an extra shift, so I'll be– I know. I know. Yes. Overtime, yes. Okay. … Fish-sticks, please. Yes, mum, I ate lunch. Yes, I'm wearing… Love you, too, mum, don't wait up.”

Like hell. She'll be watching that door until he walks through, no matter what hour.

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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED | DATE OF REVIEW: N/A | AUTHORITY: N/A | AUTHOR: UNKNOWN | DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0 |
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Z sits straighter in bed, jostling Dex. Ears spaded, she listens to Haccadine pulsing loud and clear, practically skirling. Pain is unmistakeable from one person to the next; it's horrible to listen to, almost as bad as tinfoil. “Shit,” she says quietly. Then Dex stirs.

Elias knows better than to allow Zolotisty to feel crowded when she's showing her stress and fear so plainly. He's left her alone, gone to sit quietly alongside the canal with his cup of tea and Dex's copy of Eduardo Galeano's Book of Embraces. He leafs through, though he's not reading so much as he is wishing that he had access to better medical equipment, better supplies. “Spandex?” he hears Z say, and he looks up, though he can't see them. He rubs at the stubble on his jawline, carefully closes and sets the book aside, and rises with a symphonic crackle of his joints.

Almost as soon as Dex's good eye opens, she's struggling to get up and out of the bed, but between the lancing pain in her abdomen and the way the room tilts and spins, she manages nothing but one leg dangling over the precipice of the bed. Fog wroggles angrily by her ear, stretching out before settling back down, and Z's face appears overhead, upsidedown but still obviously worried.

“Spandex,” Z says again, gently, trying not to cement the look of suppressed panic already on Dex's face. She wets her lips, flicking her gaze over her shoulder for a moment, as though she'll be able to see Guy in the wall.

The nightmarish feeling of something alive caught in her mouth disappears. “Z,” Dex answers as she looks around the room and then, puzzled, back at her again. Elias rounds the corner in time to see Zolotisty burst into tears. “Z?” Dex tries again, finding some saliva, her confusion and fear compounding.

“You didn't answer before.”

Elias comes to gently scoop Fog off of the two of them, carrying the kitten over to the stovetop to put on another kettle. “Something to drink, Dex?” he asks, peeking in their refrigerator. He takes out a bottle, then goes quickly to find the medical bag he sent along with them after their last medical emergency.

She reaches for Z's busted up face with her good arm, and discovers an IV attached. “Z?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Wha's– Where's– ?”

Z hesitates, doesn't say I think Haccadine's dying. “Haccadine left a while ago. Couple hours. Eben went after him when he went. I killed the one that took you.” She scrubs at her face, smearing dirt and dried blood onto her wrist.

“Cranberry juice is okay?” Elias calls, working at the counter. “How are you feeling, Dex, can you tell me what happened?”

'You tell me,' she wants to say as she fixates on Z's ears– the right split and caked in dried blood and the left jerking and twisting spasmodically. “Wha's–?”

“I hear Haccadine.”

“Trap, no,” because she can feel it already – Z leaving her stuck here unable to do a thing but fret about who's coming back.

“I have to. I hate him but I have to. I'm sorry. Spandex, I'm sorry, I'll come back. I promise I'll come back.” She rubs her cheek into her shoulder; she can feel Elias' surprise.

“Injured?” he asks. Fog has begun to kick irritably. He miaus when Elias lets him down, gazes up at the straw stuck into the glass of juice that's borne away from him as Elias straightens, then leaps onto the bed to investigate Spandex.

Z swallows. “Yeh.”

“I can't treat him here. Basic triage, maybe. Not anything more complex.”

“Trap,” Dex pleads, the word breaking into a sob. She tries to roll over, to get up, but almost vomits with it. Fog hunkers near her hip, huge-eyed as he gazes at her arm. Elias sets the glass on a sidetable, within easy stretching distance.

“He isn't where he was, he moved. Shsh, stop it Ã¢â‚¬â€ stay still, m'sorry. M'so sorry.”

Dex grips Z's shirt and closes her eye shut. If she can find some Improbability, she figures, she won't be so fuckin' useless. But even before she tries, she knows she'll just be a burden. “Fuck,” she says, letting go. The kitten launches onto the IV tube as Dex draws her arm back, then whirls to pounce on the bag.

“Fog,” Z snarls and the kitten's ears go flat. He leaps off the bed and disappears underneath it. Staring for a moment at the bandages around Dex's belly, and the bandages in her arm, and the goddamn IV bag, she takes a shaky breath and eases herself out from beneath Dex. “I don't think I can bring us,” she says, scooting slowly to the foot of the bad. “Back, maybe.”

Panic shoots through Dex's chest. If Z can't make it back, she won't know if or when she's safe.

“All right,” Elias nods. He takes a one-shot teleporter from the table as Z searches for her balance on one foot. She steadies when he goes to support her elbow. “I put an analgesic solution in the juice, it'll help with the pain. Can you reach?”

“Yes, hurry,” she says, meaning hurry to Guy. She resists the need to cling to Z.

Zolotisty looks stricken. “Okay,” she says. “AceHigh, then. I'm back in ten minutes, okay?”

Elias triggers the one-shot, and it clatters to the floor as they disappear.

The instant they're gone, Dex tries to draw Improbability to herself to ping Z, tears flowing freely down her cheeks and soaking her pillow. When it doesn't respond, she tries pleading with it, but it only scatters further away. Your own fault, she realises, which just makes her cry more, unable to gain control of her fear and anger and pain. She doesn't know how long she lies like this, one eye fixed to the ceiling tiles, bawling aloud. At some point, though, it stops and she starts counting.