Untitled Eerie Indiana fic, part 10
Title: Untitled
Author: Froodle
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Claim: Eerie Indiana
Prompt: 7, Lose
Characters: Mars, Dash, Simon
Word Count: for this part, 1906
Rating: PG13, though sadly only for language
Summary/Warning: Where else would you go searching for a lost past in Eerie? Also, not even SLIGHTLY finished.
Part Ten
“Well, this is great,” said Dash bitterly, after the two Radfords had disappeared into what looked like a converted steam tunnel leading straight up to the hidden ceiling.
“You were the one who wanted to come here,” Marshall reminded him, trying to bend his legs far enough so that he could wipe his nose on his knees. The bleeding had stopped, but the dried blood on his face was itching.
“Funnily enough, neither of you brought up the possibility of being eaten alive or trapped down here filling in forms for eternity,” Dash snapped back.
“How would we have known that?” Marshall demanded. “It’s not as if we get regular newsletters letting us know what’s happening down here!”
Dash turned his ire on Simon. “Seventeen times, you said! Seventeen times and you failed to notice the crazy people-eaters hiding in the shadows? I thought you two liked to think of yourselves as professional weirdness investigators!”
“At least we’re here now,” Simon said quietly.
“I know we’re here!” Dash exploded. “Haven’t you been paying attention? We’re stuck down here and that is the whole problem!”
“Then instead of complaining, how about you shut up and concentrate on trying to get loose?” The acid in Simon’s voice shocked the two older boys into silence. Heads lowered to avoid eye contact, they focused on following Simon’s advice to avoid the quiet becoming too awkward.
The heavy nets weighing them down made it slow work, but the rough hemp rope they were made from proved ideal for rubbing the ends of the duct tape restraints loose. It was sweaty, frustrating and frankly embarrassing going, but eventually they managed to get their legs free. Still seated, they had enough leverage to wriggle out from under their respective nets. Getting to their feet with their hands tied behind their backs was more of a challenge; thankfully their captors by their own admission had little experience with live “inventory” and as a result, their knotwork left something to be desired in terms of tautness and general security.
“What about those two?” said Marshall, gesturing at Charley and Ginny. Ginny had remained unconscious since their initial encounter with the Radfords, and Charley merely stared at them with vacant eyes as they stood over him. “We can’t just leave them here.”
“Yes, we can,” said Dash, getting some of his previous testiness back now that he could move about freely again. “In case you’ve forgotten, they ate a guy as a delicious mid-morning snack. While he was still alive. I’m okay with leaving them here for the Radfords to deal with.”
“He’s got a point, Mars,” Simon agreed.
“I can help you,” said Charley. The shock of hearing him respond at last made them all jerk back. “I can help you,” he said again. “Untie me. I’ll take you to what you’re looking for.”
Dash started forward but Marshall blocked his way with an arm. “What do you think we’re looking for?” he asked.
Charley sneered. “Not you,” he said, then switched his gaze to Dash. “You. You want to know who you were before all this.” Dash said nothing, but his normally pale skin blanched even further. “You need to talk to the Intangibles,” said Charley. “The last three Codes in the Bureau are for things that cannot be seen, tasted, smelled, touched or heard. The Claw network doesn’t stretch that far, and those Radfords never leave their Areas.” He smirked. “You’ll never get there without help.”
“I don’t need help,” said Dash, but the protest sounded feeble even in his own ears.
Charley shrugged. “Then leave us here,” he said. “We’ll be taken back to Area Five and locked away again, and you can go back to the Topsiders and never know what happened to your past.”
Dash pushed Marshall aside, crossed to where Charley sat, tied and taped and netted on the floor, and kicked him in the side. Without his hands free to balance himself, Charley listed violently to his left, then fell over.
“Dash!” said Marshall.
“Stop it!” said Simon.
Dash ignored them both, placing one booted foot on the tender spot on Charley’s ribs, and brought all his weight to bear on it. Charley gritted his teeth and tried to move away, but he was hampered by his bindings and could only squirm feebly.
“What do you know about me?” hissed Dash.
Charley looked at him through eyes slitted against the pain. “Nothing,” he said. Dash pressed down even harder and he gasped. “Nothing!” he said again. “But inside the Intangible Three is the only place you have any chance to find what you’re looking for.”
Dash removed his foot from Charley’s ribs. Charley breathed a deep sigh, and Dash kicked him in the stomach. As he lay on the floor and retched, Simon and Marshall pulled Dash away from him.
“He’s lying,” said Dash, breathing heavily. “I can find it on my own. I don’t need your help!” he screamed at Charley. When Simon and Marshall tried to hold him back, he shook off their restraining hands. “I don’t need anyone’s help,” he added.
“Okay,” said Simon. “Maybe you don’t. But I do.” He turned so that he was addressing Dash, Marshall and Charley simultaneously. “Ginny told me I belonged here. The Radford from Area Five told that boy I shouldn’t arrive for another five years.” Unaware he was doing it, he squared his thin shoulders. “I want to know what that means.” He looked at Charley. “If we untie you, will you help us?”
“Ginny too,” said Charley.
“No way!” said Marshall. “She is off the weirdness scale even by Eerie standards.”
Charley laughed, and it turned to a choking wheeze part-way through. “You’re not in Eerie anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he said.
“She stays,” said Marshall firmly.
“Then so do I,” Charley shot back.
“Just leave them both here,” said Dash.
“No!” said Simon. He whirled on Dash. “What do you think our chances are of finding anything in a place this big?” he demanded. “This is my eighteenth trip down and all I’ve done so far is explore a tiny portion of Areas Two and Three! Without someone to show us the way, we really will end up lost down here forever, in which case we might as well just wait around here for those two Radfords to come back, load us onto the Claws and send us down to Area Five to officially become part of the inventory!” He stamped his foot. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult?”
Dash said nothing, clearly taken aback by this outburst. Normally Mars would have taken a moment to be quietly smug at seeing him so discomforted, but he was too busy being shocked himself to properly savour the moment.
Simon didn’t give them a chance to recover. He tugged the net off from over Charley’s head, then dropped into a crouch beside the prone boy and began picking at the edges of the duct tape immobilizing his legs.
“We’ll let you and Ginny come with us,” he said softly. “You help Dash find what he came for, you help me with what I need, and we’ll do our best to help you in return.”
The tape began to come loose. “Can you keep your friend under control?” Charley wanted to know, shooting a dark look at Dash.
“You provoked him,” said Simon. “I’m sorry he hurt you though.”
Charley sniffed. “Not much of an apology.”
“You haven’t been much of a help!” Dash flared up. Marshall grabbed his arm, just in case, but he made no moves to further violence.
“Can you keep your friend under control?” asked Simon, nodding towards Ginny.
Charley shrugged. “We’ll find out, won’t we?” he said. Simon gave him a disapproving look and he sighed. “I’ll try,” he said. “It’s the best I can promise. Things with Ginny are… complicated.”
“Complicated like pregnant?” asked Mars. When the other three stared at him incredulously, he flushed. “There was a girl in Syndi’s class,” he explained. “Every time my parents talked about ‘her situation’, they went on about how it was ‘complicated’.” He made little air quotes with his fingers to emphasise his point.
“No,” said Charley. “Not pregnant. Just-”
“Bugfuck crazy?” supplied Dash nastily.
Charley shrugged. “It’s as good a description as any,” he conceded. The last of the tape came free with a sticky tearing sound. Charley sighed in relief and maneuvered himself to sit cross-legged, leaning forward to give Simon easy access to his bound hands. “Don’t touch her,” he warned them. “Once I’m free, I’ll wake and untie her myself.”
Mars shrugged. “Suits me.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” Dash muttered. “Come for your personal history, leave with an entourage of man-eating lunatics.” Simon glanced a rebuke at him and he raised his hands in a backing-off gesture. “I’m playing along,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.”
“Done,” said Simon, as the final coil of rope slipped free from around Charley’s wrists. Charley sighed with relief and rolled his shoulders to ease the tension there.
Dash pulled up one of the office chairs and sat backwards in it. “Okay, you’re untied,” he said. “Start helping.”
Charley responded with a sneer that Dash himself could have been proud of, and twisted a little so he was looking at Simon.
“The first thing you need to do is look up your name in the card catalogue,” he said. “There’s a corridor to your right as you go past the desk - the third room on the left is the Name Index.” When they looked blank, he sighed. “It’s where all the inventory’s listed alphabetically by the name of the person who lost it. Look it up, there should be a card for everything you’ve ever lost, abandoned or forgotten in there. The index card will tell you what it was, when you lost it, what Code it was filed under, and whereabouts in the Area it was stored.”
“What about Dash?” said Mars. “He doesn’t remember his name.”
“I can speak for myself, Teller,” Dash said.
“Not without being a massive jerk, apparently,” Mars shot back. He returned his attention to Charley. “So the index won’t be any use to him, right?”
“The Name Index won’t,” said Charley. “We can try to look it up by Code, but it takes a lot longer.”
“What about dates?” said Simon. “The Radford for Area Two said the Bureau files things chronologically by the date it was lost.” He looked at Dash. “We can use the date you first woke up in Eerie.”
“February second, nineteen ninety-two,” said Dash instantly. He shrugged, registering their collective surprise. “Waking up freezing cold in an alley next to a Dumpster filled with rotting Chinese food and having no idea how you got there is something that sticks in your mind,” he said.
“The Date Index is the twenty-fourth door on the right, in the same corridor as the Name Index,” said Charley. “The indexes are quite large,” he added unnecessarily.
“Show me,” said Dash, but Charley shook his head.
“I intend to be here when Ginny wakes up,” he said. “I’ll wait here while you look up the information you need. Believe me,” he added. “Even going through the Index will probably take more time than we have before the Radfords come back. You don’t want to waste any of it arguing.”
Author: Froodle
Disclaimer: Still not mine
Claim: Eerie Indiana
Prompt: 7, Lose
Characters: Mars, Dash, Simon
Word Count: for this part, 1906
Rating: PG13, though sadly only for language
Summary/Warning: Where else would you go searching for a lost past in Eerie? Also, not even SLIGHTLY finished.
Part Ten
“Well, this is great,” said Dash bitterly, after the two Radfords had disappeared into what looked like a converted steam tunnel leading straight up to the hidden ceiling.
“You were the one who wanted to come here,” Marshall reminded him, trying to bend his legs far enough so that he could wipe his nose on his knees. The bleeding had stopped, but the dried blood on his face was itching.
“Funnily enough, neither of you brought up the possibility of being eaten alive or trapped down here filling in forms for eternity,” Dash snapped back.
“How would we have known that?” Marshall demanded. “It’s not as if we get regular newsletters letting us know what’s happening down here!”
Dash turned his ire on Simon. “Seventeen times, you said! Seventeen times and you failed to notice the crazy people-eaters hiding in the shadows? I thought you two liked to think of yourselves as professional weirdness investigators!”
“At least we’re here now,” Simon said quietly.
“I know we’re here!” Dash exploded. “Haven’t you been paying attention? We’re stuck down here and that is the whole problem!”
“Then instead of complaining, how about you shut up and concentrate on trying to get loose?” The acid in Simon’s voice shocked the two older boys into silence. Heads lowered to avoid eye contact, they focused on following Simon’s advice to avoid the quiet becoming too awkward.
The heavy nets weighing them down made it slow work, but the rough hemp rope they were made from proved ideal for rubbing the ends of the duct tape restraints loose. It was sweaty, frustrating and frankly embarrassing going, but eventually they managed to get their legs free. Still seated, they had enough leverage to wriggle out from under their respective nets. Getting to their feet with their hands tied behind their backs was more of a challenge; thankfully their captors by their own admission had little experience with live “inventory” and as a result, their knotwork left something to be desired in terms of tautness and general security.
“What about those two?” said Marshall, gesturing at Charley and Ginny. Ginny had remained unconscious since their initial encounter with the Radfords, and Charley merely stared at them with vacant eyes as they stood over him. “We can’t just leave them here.”
“Yes, we can,” said Dash, getting some of his previous testiness back now that he could move about freely again. “In case you’ve forgotten, they ate a guy as a delicious mid-morning snack. While he was still alive. I’m okay with leaving them here for the Radfords to deal with.”
“He’s got a point, Mars,” Simon agreed.
“I can help you,” said Charley. The shock of hearing him respond at last made them all jerk back. “I can help you,” he said again. “Untie me. I’ll take you to what you’re looking for.”
Dash started forward but Marshall blocked his way with an arm. “What do you think we’re looking for?” he asked.
Charley sneered. “Not you,” he said, then switched his gaze to Dash. “You. You want to know who you were before all this.” Dash said nothing, but his normally pale skin blanched even further. “You need to talk to the Intangibles,” said Charley. “The last three Codes in the Bureau are for things that cannot be seen, tasted, smelled, touched or heard. The Claw network doesn’t stretch that far, and those Radfords never leave their Areas.” He smirked. “You’ll never get there without help.”
“I don’t need help,” said Dash, but the protest sounded feeble even in his own ears.
Charley shrugged. “Then leave us here,” he said. “We’ll be taken back to Area Five and locked away again, and you can go back to the Topsiders and never know what happened to your past.”
Dash pushed Marshall aside, crossed to where Charley sat, tied and taped and netted on the floor, and kicked him in the side. Without his hands free to balance himself, Charley listed violently to his left, then fell over.
“Dash!” said Marshall.
“Stop it!” said Simon.
Dash ignored them both, placing one booted foot on the tender spot on Charley’s ribs, and brought all his weight to bear on it. Charley gritted his teeth and tried to move away, but he was hampered by his bindings and could only squirm feebly.
“What do you know about me?” hissed Dash.
Charley looked at him through eyes slitted against the pain. “Nothing,” he said. Dash pressed down even harder and he gasped. “Nothing!” he said again. “But inside the Intangible Three is the only place you have any chance to find what you’re looking for.”
Dash removed his foot from Charley’s ribs. Charley breathed a deep sigh, and Dash kicked him in the stomach. As he lay on the floor and retched, Simon and Marshall pulled Dash away from him.
“He’s lying,” said Dash, breathing heavily. “I can find it on my own. I don’t need your help!” he screamed at Charley. When Simon and Marshall tried to hold him back, he shook off their restraining hands. “I don’t need anyone’s help,” he added.
“Okay,” said Simon. “Maybe you don’t. But I do.” He turned so that he was addressing Dash, Marshall and Charley simultaneously. “Ginny told me I belonged here. The Radford from Area Five told that boy I shouldn’t arrive for another five years.” Unaware he was doing it, he squared his thin shoulders. “I want to know what that means.” He looked at Charley. “If we untie you, will you help us?”
“Ginny too,” said Charley.
“No way!” said Marshall. “She is off the weirdness scale even by Eerie standards.”
Charley laughed, and it turned to a choking wheeze part-way through. “You’re not in Eerie anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he said.
“She stays,” said Marshall firmly.
“Then so do I,” Charley shot back.
“Just leave them both here,” said Dash.
“No!” said Simon. He whirled on Dash. “What do you think our chances are of finding anything in a place this big?” he demanded. “This is my eighteenth trip down and all I’ve done so far is explore a tiny portion of Areas Two and Three! Without someone to show us the way, we really will end up lost down here forever, in which case we might as well just wait around here for those two Radfords to come back, load us onto the Claws and send us down to Area Five to officially become part of the inventory!” He stamped his foot. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult?”
Dash said nothing, clearly taken aback by this outburst. Normally Mars would have taken a moment to be quietly smug at seeing him so discomforted, but he was too busy being shocked himself to properly savour the moment.
Simon didn’t give them a chance to recover. He tugged the net off from over Charley’s head, then dropped into a crouch beside the prone boy and began picking at the edges of the duct tape immobilizing his legs.
“We’ll let you and Ginny come with us,” he said softly. “You help Dash find what he came for, you help me with what I need, and we’ll do our best to help you in return.”
The tape began to come loose. “Can you keep your friend under control?” Charley wanted to know, shooting a dark look at Dash.
“You provoked him,” said Simon. “I’m sorry he hurt you though.”
Charley sniffed. “Not much of an apology.”
“You haven’t been much of a help!” Dash flared up. Marshall grabbed his arm, just in case, but he made no moves to further violence.
“Can you keep your friend under control?” asked Simon, nodding towards Ginny.
Charley shrugged. “We’ll find out, won’t we?” he said. Simon gave him a disapproving look and he sighed. “I’ll try,” he said. “It’s the best I can promise. Things with Ginny are… complicated.”
“Complicated like pregnant?” asked Mars. When the other three stared at him incredulously, he flushed. “There was a girl in Syndi’s class,” he explained. “Every time my parents talked about ‘her situation’, they went on about how it was ‘complicated’.” He made little air quotes with his fingers to emphasise his point.
“No,” said Charley. “Not pregnant. Just-”
“Bugfuck crazy?” supplied Dash nastily.
Charley shrugged. “It’s as good a description as any,” he conceded. The last of the tape came free with a sticky tearing sound. Charley sighed in relief and maneuvered himself to sit cross-legged, leaning forward to give Simon easy access to his bound hands. “Don’t touch her,” he warned them. “Once I’m free, I’ll wake and untie her myself.”
Mars shrugged. “Suits me.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” Dash muttered. “Come for your personal history, leave with an entourage of man-eating lunatics.” Simon glanced a rebuke at him and he raised his hands in a backing-off gesture. “I’m playing along,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.”
“Done,” said Simon, as the final coil of rope slipped free from around Charley’s wrists. Charley sighed with relief and rolled his shoulders to ease the tension there.
Dash pulled up one of the office chairs and sat backwards in it. “Okay, you’re untied,” he said. “Start helping.”
Charley responded with a sneer that Dash himself could have been proud of, and twisted a little so he was looking at Simon.
“The first thing you need to do is look up your name in the card catalogue,” he said. “There’s a corridor to your right as you go past the desk - the third room on the left is the Name Index.” When they looked blank, he sighed. “It’s where all the inventory’s listed alphabetically by the name of the person who lost it. Look it up, there should be a card for everything you’ve ever lost, abandoned or forgotten in there. The index card will tell you what it was, when you lost it, what Code it was filed under, and whereabouts in the Area it was stored.”
“What about Dash?” said Mars. “He doesn’t remember his name.”
“I can speak for myself, Teller,” Dash said.
“Not without being a massive jerk, apparently,” Mars shot back. He returned his attention to Charley. “So the index won’t be any use to him, right?”
“The Name Index won’t,” said Charley. “We can try to look it up by Code, but it takes a lot longer.”
“What about dates?” said Simon. “The Radford for Area Two said the Bureau files things chronologically by the date it was lost.” He looked at Dash. “We can use the date you first woke up in Eerie.”
“February second, nineteen ninety-two,” said Dash instantly. He shrugged, registering their collective surprise. “Waking up freezing cold in an alley next to a Dumpster filled with rotting Chinese food and having no idea how you got there is something that sticks in your mind,” he said.
“The Date Index is the twenty-fourth door on the right, in the same corridor as the Name Index,” said Charley. “The indexes are quite large,” he added unnecessarily.
“Show me,” said Dash, but Charley shook his head.
“I intend to be here when Ginny wakes up,” he said. “I’ll wait here while you look up the information you need. Believe me,” he added. “Even going through the Index will probably take more time than we have before the Radfords come back. You don’t want to waste any of it arguing.”