Episode 4 - When the Sleeper Wakes
Dreams that were terrible realities at the time, left vague perplexing memories.
Strange creatures, strange scenery, as if from another planet. There was a distinct impression, too,
Of a momentous conversation, of a name - he could not tell what name - subsequently to recur,
Of some queer long-forgotten sensation of vein and muscle, of vast hopeless effort, the effort of a man near drowning in darkness.
A panorama of dazzling unstable confluent scenes. (H.G. Wells, “When the Sleeper Wakes”)
Episode 4 - When the Sleeper Wakes
The morning sun is already paling down, when Natalya opens the back door of her tribe’s house to call for her cat. She’s only had the little devil for a few weeks, raised it herself, with milk and everything. She got it for her birthday, at the party Sniper threw for her. One of the inivted tribe leaders, Moz, brought it.
Natalya remembers Moz most vividly of all of them. She remembers her leaning in, handing her the kitten herself, their hands touching when she stroked the little animals fur. “She doesn’t have a name yet.” That’s all she said while Sniper was still present. “Won’t take one. Little beast.”
“Then why are you giving her to me?”, Natalya remembers asking, remembers the weird feeling of Sniper giving her a kiss on her earlobe, like she’s his property, while her hand was still touching Moz’s, remembers it like it was a minute ago. The electricity, the intensity of the moment...
“You can learn from him.” Moz leaned in closer, her lips almost touching the spot Sniper kissed. “He wouldn’t put up with a boyfriend who does that...” Her long fingers traced the thin material of Natalyas dress, right where her ribs were bruised. Natalya didn’t wince, didn’t shrink back into her seat. She felt hypnoticed by Moz’s dark eyes, by the three glasses of various drinks she’d already had at this point. How did the other girl know? As often as their paths may have crossed before, Moz had never talked to her before, in her entire life.
Natalya steps out the door, making sure her top covers everything, checking her reflection in a window. When she was younger and still living with her orthodox parents in a part of the city that was solely inhabited by Russian immigrants, Sniper was just Mark, the guy who never came to math classes, who smoked on the school grounds and once stole and wrecked a teacher’s car. Natalya, the sweet daughter of her strict parents went to school, studied, went to ballet, practiced, went to church every Sunday. And after church she sneaked out to meet Mark. He was her form of escapism, the thrill she’d been searching, he made her feel alive.
Now he just makes her feel like trash. She wonders who’d told Moz about it... it can’t be that obvious, can it? She always coveres it in make-up, concealed it with clothes - and Sniper is so sweet to her in public!
“Come here, Lucifer!” Natalya let her hands wander over the tiny cats fur, smiling to herself. Sniper might accuse her of a lot of things, searching for excuses for what he did to her. What he doesn’t know is that she has been cheating on him ever since the party. A new escapism, a new thrill, better and stranger than any one she had found before. Revenge, and sweet indeed.
The good-girl boredom, the morals, all of it is just a surface, and Sniper knows that much. It’s why he can’t control his anger, why he calls her a hippie, a whore. If he only knew...
“Nat!” Sniper’s voice is hard, almost like an order. Everything he says sounds like an order. “Come in! Our visitors want coffee!”
Visitors? She walks slowly, hestitates in the kitchen door. A couple of Mozzies are sitting around the big dinner table. Carefully avoiding Moz’s eyes, she moves towards the gas cooker, fills some water from bottles into a pot and begins to heat it. She realizes there’s no more coffee in the kitchen and leaves it for the storage room, feeling like everybody is staring at her bruised body, like she’s on a platform, a deer in the headlights.
She almost jumps at Moz’s voice: “Got any spoons in here?”
“Pol’noe dermo!” Feeling guilty for the cursing a moment later, she starts pulling out boxes, looking for the coffee. “There’s no spoons in here, I don’t know what gave you the idea...” She looks up carefully, sees that the door behind her is open. Sniper can see in. Everybody can.
“You’re aware that you’re nothing but his doormat, right?” Moz throws a quick, mildly interest look around, then steals one of the choccolate bars from a box. Natalya can’t help but to stare at her quick fingers - thief fingers. Moz chews on the chocolate, pulls a face when she discovers it’s way past it’s expository date. “Sonofabitch!”
“I could’ve told you that.” Natalya takes the chocolate from her hands and puts it away.
“Fuck! Why don’t you throw this shit out?”
“Because it’s chocolate. We used to use it for trade. You know, until your favourite friends jammed a new monetary system down our throats.” She smiles at Moz, half expecting her to start rambling about the Mall Rats again. Bray this, Lex that, and so on. An unexpected silence follows.
“When are you gonna dump the loser? My offer won’t stand forever”, Moz reminds her, her voice sharp and full of hate. For Sniper, his macho friends who know exactly what’s happening here, for her parents who taught her obedience in the presence of a man, all of them.
“You know I can’t!” It pains her to say no. All she longs for is someone like Moz, who could protect her like a lionness, if she just let her. Someone who’d give her some peace of mind... But she’s still too ashamed. It’s just... it’s so wrong! If she left Sniper, he’d know right away. And then? What would he do to her then?
Moz’s eyes are narrow, and darker than ever. “You mean you’d chicken out like a little bitch?”
Sniper leans over, banging his empty cup on the table. “Nat! Nat, where’s our damn coffee!?”
---
She opens her eyes at 29. she forgot what comes after. It took her some time to count this far, and she’s not sure she did it right. The sun is blending her; she blinks. Charlie will know the answer, Charlie went to kindergarten before the virus, two whole years, from four to six. Mouse doesn’t know how old he is now, or how old she is herself, for that matter. Which is sad, since that means they won’t have birthday cake again, like mum made it. With cream in the middle, and her name on top of it. On the chocolate frosting, in whichever colour she chose.
“I’ve counted and now I don’t know the numbers anymore!”, she yells, only to warn Charlie that she will be starting to search for him sooner. “I’m coming now, do you hear me? Charlie?” Oh, right, he won’t answer of course! Mouse presses her hands in front of his her mouth to supress a giggle. So silly! Of course he won’t answer, that way the game would be much too easy!
The little girl starts tip-toeing through the old house, careful not to stand on one of the floor boards that make the loud noises. Charlie can never remember them, but she can. It’s why he always let’s her go first, to follow, observe. Watch out for her. Mouse smiles to herself. It’s sunny outside, she’s playing hide-and-seek and they still have apples. It’s a beautiful day.
She only notices the masked men in uniform, when they walk on the wrong floor boards. She feels scared, like something really cold is holding her in one place and keeping her from breathing or moving. Mostly because they have no faces. They have metal, where their faces are supposed to be. Shiny, shiny metal.
She breathes as quiet as she can, crawls into one of the kitchen cabinets and waits. Eyes closed, fists closed, she waits, hears their steps, their voices that don’t sound like voices, but like mechanical replicas of it. Sharp, accurate, cold. Like metal.
“Charlie, oh Charlie”, she wispers and hopes with all her heart that they won’t find him.
---
Ved feels pretty stupid, leading a group into the Horton Bailey Hotel to make sure it is clean enough for his leaders. What will he do, if it isn’t? Give his friends dusters? Vacuum cleaners with batteries? Just tell Ram the “city leader” is a construct of his own fantasies?
The guards, various beefy guys with clubs (Clubs! Hilarious!) try to stop them at the main entrance. “Who are you?”
“We’re everything we wanna be”, he tells them, smirking at their various face paintings and weird helmets. “Tell your boss, our leader accepts her invitation for tonight’s meeting”, he repeats Jay’s orders through gritted teeth. “He wants to know what he’s getting into. We’re just here to talk to your leader.”
“And why should she talk to you?” The woman that steps out of the shadows must be their city leader, Ved assumes. Not black, which was his first guess at the name “Ebony”, but definitely hot! He loses track of his own thought, staring at the older girls body in a really scandalous black bikini, her skin and hair still dripping wet...
“My eyes are up here”, she growls at him, holding her towel like she’s gonna use it as a weapon any time soon. Her eyes muster him with mild disgust, which makes her both annoying and hotter to him. “Who sends little kids to the city leader anyway, doesn’t he have you in a grown-up version at home?”
“My brother is Ram’s general”, Ved informs her, standing up as straight as he can, in order to show that he’s at least taller than her. “He doesn’t bring messages, he’s got more important things to do.”
”But you do!” It’s not a question. She walks backwards into one of the other hallways, grinning at him in a way that suggests that their uniforms aren’t that impressive to her. “Tell your coward boss if he doesn’t come, we’ll live!”
Ved stares at the guards, who have managed to shoo some of his men back outside. Stupid shooting ban! He could have them on the floor in no time, if he had premission to use a taser, or even better, a real gun! “Tell your leader, we’ll get in here either way”, he informs one of the guards in his most authoritive voice. “And while you’re at it, mention that Lord Ram doesn’t take mockery lightly.”
They exchange looks, grinning goofily at each other like the stupid doormen they are. “What makes you think that was Ebony?”, one of them asks Ved in a weirdly triumphing way. Like he’s the stupid one, like he’s really just some messenger of Ram’s.
Ved bites his lip, making a gesture towards his legion that it is time to draw back. He’ll have no other choice than to ask Jay for tactical advice. Again. And they’d get things done so much faster, if they just went by his methods...
---
Ellie looks up from her computer desktop, when she hears the giggling and rolls her eyes annoyed at what she sees. It’s like Tally and Andy can’t be productive, unless you keep them on the shortest leash possible!
Shaking her head, she turns back towards her article. The photos are in their place, the text is typed, but it still doesn’t feel right. The headline, it’s all in the headline. People need to read it and want to read the whole article, like they do when they decide to read a book or not. Like people used to look at movies in the cinema, and songs in the record store.
She smiles to herself, tipping in the letters “What your city leader doesn’t tell you”, a nice bridge towards the other articles that don’t feature Alices confession, but the facts Tally and Andy discovered about the so-called “Technos” and some observations on how the Mosquitoes used to work for Ebony and the sheriff Ebony appointed for an interestingly long amount of time. Too long to take the election seriously? Well, she’ll let her readers decide.
Cloe’s voice almost makes her jump. “You can’t print that!”
Ellie curses silently, until she’s regained balance on her chair and glowers at the younger girl for scaring her like that. “Why not, what’s wrong with it?”
“What’s wrong with it is that you basically say what Bray and Amber said. And that means she could kill you, if she ever read that!” Cloe has her arms crossed and there are lines on her forehead, concentrated, stubborn lines that suggest that she really means what she said.
“Not if she wants everyone to know it’s true!”, Ellie answers, chosing not to look at Cloe’s accusing face.
“Well, maybe you could think about the rest of us, instead of just doing your own stupid thing!”, Cloe yells back at her. “She could have all of us killed, if she wanted! The Guardian said she freed him, Lex said he said that she gave him a weapon, so she basically killed Ned AND Amber’s baby! What makes you think she won’t kill more people? She was a Loco, Ellie, and Locos-“
“I thought it was the ambilical cord”, Ellie interrupts her. “I thought the baby would have died in any place. I thought we couldn’t blame Ebony for that!”
“Leave Ellie alone!”, a younger, male voice yells. Andy and Tallie have come into the room. “She’s trying to find out things about who killed Ned! Why are you stopping her, are you on their side?”
“No, she’s not, she’s bringing us all in danger!”, Cloe yells at them. “Why don’t you see that, why do none of you see that? She’s gonna get us all killed!” She bursts into tears, leaving the room with hurrie steps.
“Don’t listen to her”, Tallie reassures Ellie, who seems more uncertain about her article now. “She’s just hysterical, like Salene was. it’s her way of coping.”
“Yeah, she’s just a stupid girl!”, Andy joins in, but soon realizes that he’s made some sort of mistake, when they both glower at him.
“I don’t know, you guys, I think she could be right.” Ellie looks at her articles again, her heart heavy, when she reads over the Orwell references, the subtle hints instead of out-loud accusations, the lists of evidence she’s covered in it. It could’ve been a brilliant article! She wonders if she should ask Alice about it.
“You’re just gonna drop it, because she’s a little cry-baby?”, Tally asks her incredulous. She exchanges another look with her brother, this time they seem far less on her side.
“Yes, you’re stupid, too!” They both nod, running off with grim expressions on their freckled little faces.
Ellie sighs, looking after them. She almost doesn’t notice Jack walking by, until he shyly greets her.
“Where they giving you trouble again?” So much for a conversation starter! Jack curses inside, quickly puts a smile on his face when she looks up. You’re an idiot, Jack! An idiotic idiot of an...
“You’re implying they’ve been giving me trouble before.”
“Yeah... no... I meant them and, er, Cloe. - Don’t be hard on her, okay? She’s been crying almost every night since she came back, KC’s really worried about her.”
“Yeah, she’s crying now!” Ellie rolls her eyes and turns back to the monitor. She can see Jack’s reflection on her article, can see his colourful shirt and the tube of hair-coloration in his hands. “Going back to red?”
“Maybe. I mean I’ve thought about it.” He shrugs. “It’s because of Patsy, you know”, he adds.
“Patsy?”
“Yeah, the crying - Cloe - I mean, she’s lost almost everyone: Patsy, Ryan, Salene, and now Amber, Bray and Tai San. Imagine how you’d feel if Alice was gone!”
“We’ve all lost people, Jack!”, Ellie murmurs, thinking of Luke and his heart-breaking letter. He couldn’t even look her in the eyes... “Life goes on.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that easy.” Jack sits down, playing with the tube in his hands, studying the ingredients that are printed on the back of it, so he won’t have to look at her. “Don’t you miss them? Dal, and... and Danni, and all the others. We don’t even know if most of them are alive!”
Ellie looks at him, this lost boy who is without a best friend in this cruel, strange world. She doesn’t feel pity, she feels respect for Jack, remaining this strong, this caring after all he’s been through. She admires that he still sees other’s pain, still keeps track of all the people that are missing, when she has been living a lie, of suppressed memories, of names and faces that she has accepted she will never see again, and somehow moved on. She remembers the day they took him, and how her whole world broke apart. It seems like memories from her childhood, distorted, in strange colours, without sound. Just single words, smells, a picture or two, and a feeling.
Ellie clears her throat and gestures towards her computer. “Jack, can I have your opinion on something?”
---
“And they thought Moz was you?” Lex shakes his head, grinning at the thought. Not that he would say it out loud, but the comparison isn’t that far-fetched in his opinion. One crazy bitch in a bikini like the other... not that he’s had the pleasure to see Moz out of her cat suit, of course.
“Noone that matters.” Ebony smiles sickly at him in the mirror. Clearly, she and Moz aren’t on best terms right now. Maybe there’s some way to win her back for the Mall Rats after all. If they want her back, that is.
“And when are you gonna tell him? Tonight?”
“I’ll do nothing.” Ebony puts on new earrings, examining her own, stunning reflection. She nods satisfied, pulls out a lip stick. “I’ll welcome him as city leader, he’ll feel stupid, his lackey will pay for the mistake and Moz will have to learn to restrain herself.”
Lex shrugs, getting up from her bed. He doesn’t even know why she tolerated him there in the first place, with shoes and all. Not that he cares. “Well, see you tonight. Hey, can I bring KC?”
Ebony turns around, a truly priceless expression on her face: “KC!?”
“Yeah.” Lex shrugs. “He’s my new vice-sheriff.”
“Oh no, he’s not.” Ebony still looks mildly shocked when she’s looking in her mirror again, this time to find a matching necklace for her diamond earrings. “I’ll appoint a new vice-sheriff for you. In the mean time, just make yourself presentable. And lose the hat! We don’t want them to think they’ve walked into a circus!”
Lex marches out with enraged steps, where KC is already waiting for him.
“And?”, the younger boy wants to know excitedly.
“No chance, buddy. Sorry!”
“What?”, KC splutters. “But... you’re the sheriff! Can’t you just...”
“Tough luck!” Lex puts his hat back on. He really doesn’t get what Ebony’s damn problem with his wardrobe is. The way she dresses this Techno leader won’t have to do a lot of guess work as to how she got the job - not that that’s true, but it won’t hurt to spread the rumor. At least not him... “I have a better job for you, KC!”
---
The Techno stays in perfect pose, when his Commander inspects the unit, but can’t repress the nervosity.
“Did someone see you?”
“Two little kids. Siblings, from the looks of it. They were planning to leave the city.”
“Did they tell you that?”, the Commander asks without even looking at the two kids, shivering in fear.
“No, but they had back packs, and water and food with them.”
“I see.” The Commander steps infront of the children, taking their healthy appearance in account. “Why did you arrest them, the General ordered you to stick with Sector 15 for arrests.”
“They saw the other prisoners, Sir.” The Techno pulls a little black object out of one of the back packs. “They made photos, and one of them spoke of a local newspaper.”
“A newspaper?” Commander Mega smirks at the prehistoric little instant camera. He remembers having almost the same model when he was a kid. “Well, it seems like they already have the required amount of nutrition and water with them.” He looks down at the two red heads, still smiling impassionately. “Take them to the other prisoners. That will be forty. Level one, fulfilled”, he declares out loud, blinking satisfied into the hot midday-sun. It’s been a good first week in the new city, it really has!