39. Black Hole
Black Hole
Dylan
“I’m not leaving without Talia,” Dylan said into her comms.
“I’m on my way,” Sacha said. She heard the shuffling of his feet, the shutting of a door and shortly afterwards the crackling of a lift coming to life. Sacha was leaving the Airbnb.
Isaak didn’t answer, and it made her worry. She looked around, then looked at her phone, hoping he might have sent a message instead.
The heavy-set woman was upon her. “ChainMail?” Her jaw was square cut, a perfectly symmetrical head on a stone-hewn body.
Dylan shifted on her feet, rubbing her boots together, stopping when she realised the fidget. She steeled herself for what was next. “Who wants to know?” Her voice was strained, palms sweaty.
The woman pushed the gold-blue badge attached to her tank top at Dylan’s face. “I’m security for the Night of Entertainment, Miss. Now answer the question. Please.”
“Does ‘security’ have a name? I don’t see one on that badge.” Dylan tutted, crossing her arms. Playing it confident.
“It’s Jewel, if you must know,” the woman grumbled. “Now answer the damn question.”
Around them, the crowd started dispersing. Some people wondered aloud what had happened to the volunteer, if he was okay backstage, but most didn’t seem to care, resuming whatever banal conversations they were having before Astrid had wheeled out the Sleeper.
“Well, Jewel, do piss off.” Dylan’s fists were balled at her side.
Jewel stared at her, face going red, the muscles of her arms noticeably tensing before Dylan’s eyes. She leant in closer and landed a palm on the wall with a thud, right next to Dylan’s head.
“You had your chance. Now come on.” She grabbed Dylan’s arm and started to drag her.
“Let me go, you brute!” Dylan protested. Her heart, which had been in her throat, fell down to her stomach. She looked around desperately for Talia, for anyone else who might step in to help her, but in the sea of uninterested faces, there wasn’t much sympathy.
“She’s one of them,” said one of the people staring as they walked by.
“A natural-born vegan.” They followed it with a spitting sound.
Talia was nowhere to be found. The murmurs amongst the crowd persisted.
Most agreed she was likely stirring up trouble.
And so Jewel was able to forcibly drag her along the length of the whole gallery, through a sea of bewildered, nodding, and nonchalant faces.
They made their way to a room off the side of one of the many corridors in the building.
On the way, she saw neither Talia nor Astrid, and the potential implication of that sent her insides twisting.
There was no Isaak in her ear, and she didn’t want to talk to Sacha directly, lest muscle-bound Jewel over here felt like tearing her to shreds for it.
Her Apocalypse Revolt training would help in a fight but Dylan wasn’t sure she’d win against pure muscle and brawn like this woman.
“Sit down,” Jewel barked, her voice hoarse, pushing Dylan towards a wooden chair in front of the desk. “Tell me everything. What are you doing here?”
Dylan – whose dress had been ripped down the side as she was towed along by the head of security, exposing more of her legs than she intended – tried to keep her cool.
“Sit!”
“Okay, okay…” Dylan sat down on the mid-century modern chair.
It was then she noticed the whole room they were in was done up MCM – angular furniture, clean lines.
The table between them was decorated with an organically shaped vase, but with no flowers or plants.
The decor clashed with the rest of the building, which leaned hard on Victorian design, with polished wood balustrades and dark, curved pieces of furniture.
“You know what I’m doing here. I’m from The ChainMail.”
“Bullshit!” Jewel slammed her fist on the table and the vase fell over onto its side. Some of the woman’s spittle hit Dylan’s face. “I reached out to them, and they’ve never heard of you. Didn’t even send someone here.”
“Oh, you got connects there? Doesn’t surprise me…” She scratched the side of her face with her middle finger.
Jewel grabbed her hand, pulling her arm.
“Ow!”
“Who sent you?” The veins on Jewel’s temples throbbed. Over a layer of polished makeup, sweat dripped down her face.
“No one sent me, bitch.”
Jewel twisted Dylan’s middle finger in response, using the pain to push her forward and splay her across the desk, ignoring her shouts of pain. The struggle caused the vase to roll off and shatter on the floor.
“I was curious,” Dylan said between gasps, her breathing heavy. “Someone said there’d be a show tonight. Cool tech. I wasn’t—” She stumbled over her words, Jewel keeping the hold on her hand strong. “I wasn’t disappointed… Ah!”
The woman let go of Dylan’s hand and sat back down, her face turning strangely calm. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.” Dylan rubbed her hand and wrist.
There’s gonna be hell to pay for this.
“Dylan, what the fuck is going on?” Sacha, buzzing in her ear. Good timing. “Fucking hell… Isaak’s in the cab, unconscious, drooling. He’s taped up somewhere.”
“No!” Fuck.
Isaak taped in? He hasn’t learned anything. The fuck was he thinking?
Jewel lit up. “No what?”
Dylan shook her head and tried to pass it off. “Nothing…”
“I’m coming in,” Sacha said through the comm.
Dylan smoothed the dress down her legs, and sat up straight on the chair, keeping her mouth shut. The bouncer frowned, arms crossed. They sat in silence for a few moments, until the door burst open.
Astrid strode in. Behind her, Talia was a nervous wreck, fidgeting with her hands, body shivering. Goddess dammit. Astrid had got to her too. Could this be going any worse? Fear was a black hole, and Dylan was sliding down it in freefall.
“Sit,” Astrid said.
Talia sat on the chair next to Dylan.
“Restrain her, will you?”
“You can’t do this to us!” Talia wrestled as Jewel forcibly sat her down and tied her arms to the chair. “Stop this!”
Jewel raised a hand, threatening to slap her if she didn’t stop moving.
“Release her,” Dylan told them. “She doesn’t know shit.”
Astrid’s eyes lit up. “Oh, is that so, Miss ChainMail?” She turned to Jewel. “Leave us.”
Dylan looked at Talia, wrists ziptied to the chair. Her eyes were wet and red, lips shaped in apology. In response, Dylan gave her what she hoped was a reassuring nod.
The bitch-in-chief leaned against a wall, next to a painting – a New Impressionist rendition of a pastoral scene, with a dark and glassy tower looming in the distance, looking out of place. The Seat of the First Kingdom. A new tower erected in London, rising far higher than the Shard.
Astrid’s eyes darted between her and Talia. Sweat gathered on her forehead. The calm and composure from when Dylan met her in the gallery was gone.
“Did your show not go as you expected?” Dylan fished. “What happened to your volunteer?”
“Oh, Nicholas? He’s fine… He eats meat, you wouldn’t like him. What I want to know is how this happened.” She waved at them. “You two squirrelling into my private event.”
“I told you already. I’m just curious for cool tech. I heard you were going to have some cool shit to show.”
Astrid sighed. “I hate it when people lie to me. The question is what do I do with you now…” She tapped her fingers on one hand, the series of big white-gold rings adorning them dancing.
“Oh, I know…” She grabbed a box from a large cupboard.
“I could give you a ride on the Sleeper!” There was a glee in her voice that both terrified Dylan and made her want to punch her.
Astrid knelt down, putting her face right next to Dylan’s. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Since you’re so excited about new tech?” A smile to light a fire plastered on her face, her voice sibilant and shrill.
That turned Dylan’s insides. Astrid was disgusting.
Astrid went to the door, opening it a crack and calling out. “Jewel, fetch me another Crypterra Sleeper. I’m taking both of them in.” She shook her head. “And before you say anything, yes, I’ve thought of the implications! Now, you dumb piece of meat!”
Dylan heard Jewel shuffle away, muttering something inaudible. She exchanged a glance with Talia, who was visibly shaken. They’d both seen what happened to Isaak when he was under the influence of the device.
Fear gripped her.
“Did you know my father was interested in the human psyche?” Astrid lifted the helmet out of the plain white cardboard box, and began taking the device out of the foam and plastic packaging. It looked ready to go on sale.
“Why the fuck would I know that?” Dylan shouted. “Just stop. You don’t know who you’re dealing with—”
“Oh, shut up!”
Astrid backhanded her across the face, rings like a knuckle-duster. Dylan’s skin sang in pain.
“I know precisely who you are, Dylan Colt.” There was so much implied in how she spat out her full name. “What your parents did… We have so much to thank them for.”
“Like the agreement between the Revolt and the Tech Kings?” Dylan retorted. “That benefitted you, huh?”
Astrid laughed. “That’s far from the biggest achievement of your merry band of green earthers.” She lifted the Crypterra Sleeper above Talia’s head.
Talia struggled to get out from under her. “Get off me, bitch!”
Dylan jumped up and tried to grab the device. They wrestled for it.
Astrid’s pupils went red as she bared her teeth. The metallic sound of gears and motorised servos came from her arms, and one shove from Astrid slammed Dylan to the floor.
“You’re modded?” All of her years training with the Apocalypse Revolt had taught her that there was little she could do against strength-enhancing bio-mods.
Jewel rushed in at the sound of the commotion. She grabbed Dylan and held her down.
“Fucking VEGANS!” Astrid forced herself onto Talia’s lap, hiking up her black silk dress, and revealing a whole garden tattooed on her legs.
Vines and plant leaves were popular among the people of the Apocalypse Revolt.
She must have been one herself, just like Dylan’s parents.
And somewhere along the way, after the Dark Year, after the compromises made with the technofeudalists, Astrid had lost her belief in the struggle, and joined up with the enemy. Earth traitor.
BOOM.
A blast shook the room.
Everything went dark.
Talia screamed, until she suddenly stopped.
“Jewel! Get us out of here!” Astrid shouted.
Dylan stood up and groped around in the dark. She found Talia, the Sleeper now mounted on her head. “No. No!” She lifted her, pulling Talia’s arm over her shoulder and around her back, her muscles doing the work they were trained to do.
As she made her way towards the door, bony, large-knuckled fingers grabbed at her arm, the skin cold.
“Let me go!” Dylan shouted, one hand pushing Astrid off of her, the other holding on to Talia. “Come on!”
There was a commotion and then the room was still. She lost track of where Astrid and Jewel were. “Fuck…” Dylan pulled out her phone and used it as a torch. The other women were nowhere to be seen.
She tried to make sense of the device on Talia’s head, looking for a button or lever to pull to set Tal free. Come on, come on.
But there was nothing obvious. The device was firmly locked on, and continuing to pull at it would only hurt her.