Authors: H Ryder
H proceed toward X collected canter.
Walking around the back part of the building, which looks strangely exactly like the front and side parts I try to remember where the wall opens into the underground room. I spot a caged bulkhead light fixed to the wall at a lower that normal height off the ground, then I remember. I pull my key card out of my jean back pocket and swipe it over the light randomly. A tiny led flicks on in green I hear a series of short bangs and pops. The grouted spaces between the slabs of pavement and the bricks of the wall begin to fall away, I can hear stone on stone grinding onto each other. Slabs sliding and twisting as the moving pieces of the puzzle form the top part of a long staircase just as before. I look nervously around, I needn’t have worried, the place is completely deserted. I move into the darkness quickly, and descend, hearing stones grating on stone above and behind me closing the doorway and the darkness replaces the light. As the last puzzle pieces are in place tiny flush-finished round spotlights appear on each step, and light up in turn as if anticipating my speed of descent. It seems like forever my climb down, the air gets cleaner and warmer and I begin to smell a familiar scent. He has been here. Daniel. Hoping there’s a promising finality to my search, whether we’re through or not, I just need the closure. I learned that word from Dr Shrink.
Hear, repeat as needed.
I open the huge riveted metal door at the bottom of the staircase, it’s like the type you might find on a submarine wreck already rusted, but it’s just a film set fakeness. It opens easily on oiled hinges again that’s not the impression it gives the intruder a deliberate misdirection, it’s another illusion. I enter the room,
its dark, not like before. I try to remember a light switch on the wall, I swipe the screen of my phone to create a little torch light, it dimly lights a sphere around me that moves with a shimmer as I move. I have to swipe several times before I spot what could be a switch set flush in the wall just inside the door. A designer would put the switch somewhere easier to find. Everyone thinks they can be one, but something developed by the
real thing
? You can tell the difference, is all I’m saying. All designers reading this will be nodding emphatic agreement, and quite rightly so.
I touch it and the room springs to life, lights and the hiss of fresh air being pumped into the sealed room, the air conditioner is working thankfully, I do like fresh air.
Slowly I walk around the vast room, I don’t remember it being this cavernous before but then Daniel was here with me and my attention was not the space around me, but the man in front of me.
A stir of arousal begins deep inside as I recall being here with Daniel. Its then I realise the extent of my worry for him, because I really miss him. The faint hint of his cologne still lingers here, from how long ago I can't tell, if Quincy were here he'd make an educated guess, and no one would believe him.
I notice a few things arranged differently, some bed pillows, a remote for the sound system is left at a casual angle on the low table, Daniel would never have left it like this, everything perpendicular. I begin to feel disquisitive, damn those 'Spidey' senses. I pick up the device, and it looks like one of those technical calculators only people studying pure maths might use. Way too many buttons for a TV and speakers, even a system as sophisticated as Daniels. Some of the symbols are strange too, crossed axes, an eagle, a globe, a ship and a compass. Why would anyone need these symbols on a remote device? I sit on the sofa and think, my brain is making pathways between the ‘known’ and the ‘unknown’, clues, evidence, facts. I check my own phone for inspiration.
PF: “It’s Sunday, and you’re not at home with your wellies on, where are you?” OK miss Marple
TC: “Long story” where do I start?
PF: “Sounds interesting Tharie, can you talk?” You’d think I’m crazy.
I look around the underground room I’m in, suddenly wonder what this is all about, and how many years mine and Daniels lives have moved along a parallel path, a path that converged, and now we connect, but where is he?
TC: “All the time to talk later honey, I’ll phone you” she is my tether, the one person that holds me down to earth, her and Mum, they stop me floating away.
PF: “OK babes, I’ll drop it until later, try to stay out of trouble this time eh?” good girl.
I put my phone away, there’s only two bars of signal down here, and its low on battery, I’m getting anxiety about that, and my brain suddenly makes a connection. I stare at the wall, brains are funny that way, well mine is. There are dark wide spaces on certain parts of the wall which look like the grouting has fallen away, I’d failed to notice before. What kind of room is this? Everything else looks well maintained and in its proper place.
The device is quite heavy in my hand not at all like a usual remote, and looking again at it I decide to try it, I point the sensor of the handset at the TV and press the globe button.
Immediately a muffled bang sounds and there’s a whirring as the huge flat screen comes out from the wall on hydraulic arms like shock absorbers. When it reaches about three metres from its original position flush into the wall. It stops.
A down the centre line to X, halt immobility salute. That's better.
I hear a series of clicks and hums, and the whole screen begins to flip over, counterbalanced on the arms holding it in place. I stand still frozen to the spot, amazed, what is this place straight out of an Asimov? Desperate now to press more buttons, I check again to see if I could find a bottle of Jack Daniels, but sadly fail to find any. There’s just red wine, and I’m not in the mood for red. The noise stops and what was a screen becomes a massive mac monitor. Touch screen with all the icons lined up at the bottom ready to work. The screen-saver is the eagle and ship as I swipe the little email icon as it jumps up and down indicating there’s mail waiting, a window opens up and it’s clear straight away this is Daniels mail. I know his password (don't ask me how). Two new messages waiting, and all yesterdays have been opened, though there’s no way to tell whether it is him that’s read them, I am hoping it is.
There’s one from me:
Dear Daniel,
where are you?
Tharie Charles: Denim Developer, Milk&Honey.
...and another...
I am worried I haven't heard from you since Japan I have called both numbers and left messages. I really need to see you, to explain. But you’re not here and I don’t know who to talk to.
Where the fuck are you?
Tharie Charles: Denim Developer, Milk&Honey.
I feel a little guilt reading his mail, mostly work stuff, but yesterday there’s one read mail, timed just after he drove away that morning leaving me standing in the street:
Dan,
Do as you promised and there won’t be a problem. I’m watching you and her, she’s not safe.
Dr.GP.
Doctor? Who was this person? And who is
she
? I am vaguely aware the hairs on the back of my neck are prickled as it occurs to me she could be me. Suddenly a glass of red seems like a nice idea! The jeans! No they're safe upstairs. I pour a large glass, sit back on the sofa, and think. I swallow hard, yum, that tastes good, and try to calm myself. Looking down at the unit in my hand I decide to press another key, the crossed axes. Straight away a crack sounds from beside me and the low heavy and immovable looking wooden table top separates from its legs and raised above on 20mm metal screws from the posts. As they rotate, the top raises up slowly with a low-level humming, and stops just short of the ceiling. A ker chunk! And the area beneath the table begins to drop including legs and cross beams which double as a rail, if I am right, and I usually am, about what’s about to happen. Take another slurp of wine, set the glass down somewhere the table has gone, no take it with me.
The platform keeps going slowly, a dim light emanates from the tunnel it’s leaving and it occurs to me it could be a lift to another floor. I grab my bag, keep the remote in my hand, and glad I’m an Asimov fan, jump on the slowly descending science fiction platform, sip the wine, just another day. Thankful for the non-slip rubberised paint on the floor, I stand central on the platform with my arms and elbows locked tight to my body. But actually the space could take probably 5 people down. I know I have guessed correctly when my eye line passes what must be the floor from above or the ceiling from my destination below. In the semi darkness, lit only from above the shaft of available light welcomes a room just like the one I have left, without the bed. In here there is a running machine, and bike and a battleground elastic fenced boxing ring, with the eagle and ship logo in resin on the floor of the ring. Daniels work-out room? Silent except for dripping water somewhere off into the darkness. The sound echoes around the space, I judge to be even bigger than the floor above. I note with a large degree of satisfaction my travelator has remained down here for me, and not automatically returned upstairs, but I still have the remote in my hand. I press a key that looks like the sun and the end becomes a powerful torch, I find a switch exactly as before and the lights pop on. This isn’t ambient light its bright white illuminating every corner from square tiles set in the ceiling.
It’s an unnerving place, like a hospital ward, I check my phone again, still no bloody signal. I’m on my own down here, I’m not scared, when you’ve jumped an obstacle big enough to walk under without bowing your head on a pony, very few things scare you any-more. True bloody story people.
I look around, what the light reveals is a sparse gym, a shower room similar to upstairs. There is a cabinet set into the wall with sliding mirrored doors. I look at myself, I haven’t eaten or slept since Daniel disappeared and I look paler and thinner than usual. Do I want to open these doors, this is Daniels private space? I gulp down the rest of the red, nice. I use the flat of my hand to press down and with a friendly little 'click' sound the doors open smoothly. Inside it’s a wardrobe with black Prada shirts hung at the top and RANDom denim folded underneath. It feels like I’m peeking through the keyhole, looking at things I have no right to be. On the floor in a very neat row are several pairs of pointy shoes and boots all black leather. Just in case I wonder? I flick through the rail and catch his smell. Tom Ford, Black Orchid.
The sudden sensation of a painful ache absorbs me, smells do that don’t they? They immediately link you to a person, time or place. Where is he? I pull a handful of shirts to my face and smell them, then suddenly a strange joint in the woodwork at the back wall of the unit catches my eye, and I see a semi concealed doorway in the wardrobe. Who is this man? Jason Bourne? No, he drives like a girl! My belly fluttering wildly with nerves and my chest is tight. I push the panel and it opens easily with a click! A hiss of cold bitter tasting air sweeps over me and I shiver at a blast of very chilled air escaping. I step through like a classic old child's novel only instead of another land beyond I see a white, brightly lit small room with an undressed mattress on the floor. But the thing that catches my attention, which my eyes can’t leave is the sight of a beautiful man, naked except for his Rolex, strap fixed thanks to Baby Chris, laying as if asleep on the ticking stripes of the mattress. Covered in tattoos.
Daniel.
Bloody hell, I
really
need tea now!
Chapter fourteen, still Sunday
:
27thoctober2013, mustang
I step backwards before the door snaps shut behind me as it suddenly occurs to me this might be designed as a one way journey, had I really watched too much crime drama? Maybe, but what I have learned might save my bacon, and I don’t even eat bacon. I jam the door open with the pointed toe of a shoe, shoving it hard under the gap at the floor, and hear the protest of the motor as it repeatedly fails to return the panel back to the closed position. Satisfied that I had fixed that problem, if only temporarily, I tiptoe to the body in the centre of the floor as if he were sleeping. I notice because I’m looking hard, tiny shallow movements in his chest that relieve my brain, he is alive. As I approach, a hiss of vapour escapes from the ceiling above. My instincts tell me to cover my mouth and nose, like I do on the Virgin flight ready to land at Delhi when they spray a fine mist of antiseptic over the passengers, I don’t like it at all. I am quick to respond, so if I have breathed any of this gas in it won’t be much. The mist dissipates quickly and I feel instantly sleepy and a little sick.
Suddenly I comprehend, Daniel is being kept unconscious here, in this sterile white cell , tiled floor and ceiling all matching, not sure why that’s important. I touch him he is chilled like a bottle of Chianti. The jammed door behind me repeatedly protests loudly at not being able to fulfil its ultimate job of preventing escape from this side of the wall. Quickly I think, I grab Daniels arms, he feels so cold, and with all my strength, honed with much hay bale lifting and strong horse stopping, I drag him into my parka so I can slide his inert body across the short space and out the back wall of the closet. It works, the old khaki cotton twill slides brilliantly across the slippery tile. I fight the feeling of nausea and fatigue and focus to drag Daniel through the door, just as the shoe I have stuffed there becomes dislodged and the secret door slides back into place behind us.