41. Buzz
Buzz
Dylan
Think, Dylan, think.
The blackout. That must have been Sacha. She lifted Talia and dragged her out of the room, kicking her high heels off.
Talia moaned.
“Can you hear me?” Dylan said gently. “We’re getting out of here. Come on, come on, lean on me.”
The moaning stopped and her friend went quiet, her form weighing Dylan down.
She scanned the dark corridors. People were rushing to exit the building, but there was no sign of Astrid or Jewel. She held the phone torch in front of her, retracing their steps to the grand gallery room.
Lights from outside filtered in through the windows, providing a glimpse of a path to the main hall. It was empty now and darkness bathed the art displays.
After struggling through a few more corridors, she made it to a door leading to the staff area.
There was someone on the other side.
“That better be you, Sacha…” She took a deep breath and pushed the door open. It gave way to the kitchens, metal surfaces everywhere.
“Dylan! Talia!”
Sacha was standing there, a set of jumper cables trailing over the ground next to him. Electricity sparked from a panel on the wall. The blackout.
He moved Talia off Dylan’s shoulder and onto his. “They put the Sleeper on her? Fuck. We have to get her to Elodie.”
“I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t do anything.” Dylan took a heavy breath. “What the fuck is going on with Isaak?”
“You’ll see… Come on.”
They exited the building. The streets around them were chaos. Some of the guests ran past them, others gathered on the pavement by the front door, and some were getting into their rented auto-cars in a hurry.
They carried Talia, as sneakily as they could with the Crypterra Sleeper device firmly encased on her head, to the converted taxi. Sacha had driven it around the side.
As Dylan opened the sliding passenger door, she saw him.
Unconscious, drooling, head resting on the window glass.
“Isaak, fuck!”
“We don’t have time. Secure her on the seat next to him.” Sacha got in the driver’s seat as Dylan looped the belt around Talia’s frame, her hands moving as fast as she could, her friend’s expensive dress ripped and scuffed like hers.
“Done,” she confirmed. “Drive!”
The engine revved as he sped away, cutting corners and running through red lights.
Dylan looked across the seat at the pair of them, unconscious, thoughts tumbling through her mind.
Was Isaak trapped in there, or just taped in, rushing ahead like usual?
And would they be able to free Talia in the same way they’d freed him?
A sense of loss and despair gripped her.
Why would he tape in on his own? After slipping on the Sleeper, putting himself in danger so recklessly, it was unbelievable that he’d go and do it again.
Though not surprising, in truth. Was it a death wish, or did he truly think she didn’t care for him?
Despite everything they’d been through together…
Sacha drove fast, hitting every kerb there was to hit.
“Sit tight!”
He swerved hard to the right. Dylan shifted forward.
Talia’s and Isaak’s unconscious bodies moved like rag dolls, arms and legs floating in the air with each of Sacha’s reckless manoeuvres.
Dylan let her own arms go limp, the seat belt holding her in place.
Everything was slow motion. Nothing else mattered but getting Isaak and Talia somewhere safe.
Sacha glanced in the mirror, then turned back to look behind them as though he didn’t believe what he’d seen. “Holy shit!” He kept accelerating, his breathing fast.
Dylan turned. Behind the car, a threnody of drones were swooping in to give chase. Their gunmetal bulk weaved by streetlights, lamp-posts, and parked auto-cars, lit by the gloom of the neon night.
“You have to stop them!” Sacha eyeballed her through the rearview mirror.
“Me? What the hell can I do?”
He gunned the taxi down the road, expertly avoiding pockets of late-night traffic. “Take my phone—”
“Fucking look at the road!” she yelled, grabbing the phone from his outstretched hand. “Now what?”
“Aim it at them. Fuck—” He stepped on the brakes to avoid an auto-car coming at them from the side, the three passengers nearly flying off their seats in the back. Talia’s and Isaak’s heads slumped forward then flew back as Sacha quickly got back up to speed.
The drones were closing in. No time to lose.
She aimed the phone’s camera at the three drones. Augmented reality tagged them with Crypterra logos. “They’re Crypterra tech. It’s Astrid.” She could hardly breathe.
“See the big red button?” Sacha asked.
“Yes! Do I press—”
“Fucking press it!”
The car whipped by a row of parked vehicles, accelerating down a residential road.
Sweat on her forehead, praying to the goddess this would work, she pushed the button. There was a loud thunk, and a metallic arm extended outwards from the cab. It rose like a crane, and shot out three projectiles.
They homed in on all three drones.
“Whoa! You could have told me! Fuck!”
Two of the drones exploded on impact, but the third one was propelled towards the back of the taxi.
“Get out of the way!” Sacha shouted.
He yanked the steering wheel to the side, and pulled back the handbrake, spinning the car into a screeching halt.
A ball of flaming metal and plastic flew past the window of the taxi and hit the street beside them with a loud bang.
Dylan wiped her nascent tears. She looked over at Isaak and Talia, her insides a mess of worry and fear. She coughed, the smoke of the destroyed drone seeping in through the door.
“Are you okay?” Sacha asked from the driver’s seat. “How are they?”
A rush of relief hit her in the chest. Isaak’s eyes were open, pupils blown wide.
He blinked like a sleepy cat. Impossible to read his thoughts.
He was a sweating mess, and he looked awful.
But he was awake. Talia looked the same as before, the LEDs on the Crypterra Sleeper lit green.
She let out a reflexive cough because of the smoke, but she was otherwise still unconscious.
Dylan took off her seat belt and went to sit next to Isaak.
“You okay, boy?” she asked tentatively, trying to sound as gentle and accommodating as possible.
“Astrid,” he growled. “Fucking Astrid!”
“Calm down. It’s okay. We’re here…”
“No, you don’t understand. She’s got them!”
She placed her hand on his head, massaging his temple, trying to get him to stop shouting. “Who? Who does she have?”
It was like he was tuning in and out of an unknown frequency, words coming out of his mouth in a jumble. “Sleptigrades. Sleptigrades… We’re killing them…”
“Isaak Powers, slow down and let me help you!”
He went limp in her arms, and she held on to her boy for dear life. Sweet, reckless Isaak. She swept aside the black locks of hair stuck to his forehead. It was a cold sweat, his skin clammy. He’d passed out again.
She looked over at Talia, sitting still, her breathing steady, her eyes hidden by the contraption on her head. And she quietly despaired.
“We’re headed to Elodie’s, now that you got rid of the drones,” Sacha shouted from the front. “She’ll know what to do.”
“Sure…” All breath had left her lungs.
They drove through London’s neighbourhoods, trading the posh roads of the West End for the commercial and hip districts of East London.
Their route gave her a view of Tower Bridge, its royal decorations fallen into disrepair after the former King was deposed by the Twin Queens of the Tech Kingdoms. Her heart tugged, the danger of the situation coming to a head for her.
“Time I meet your patron saint of tape, Isaak.”
As they drove past the hip, renovated buildings done up with palm trees, and the high-rises in the distance with exposed red-brick walls, the preserved aesthetic from before the Dark Year and the boutique custom goods shops, Dylan knew they were getting close.
It was the middle of the night.
“We’re here.” Sacha’s voice was broken. “I’ll buzz Elo.” All the energy and nervous excitement she’d known him for had completely drained from him. He drove up a ramp into the parking garage of the Royal Car Wash, a derelict ten-storey building.
The interior looked no better than the outside. Some of the graffiti was interesting and visually appealing, and there were plenty of Apocalypse Revolt logos. Old layers of art covered with more layers of graffiti and scratchings, subsumed over time by a heavy coat of dust and grime.
As the van turned a tight corner around several poorly placed columns, Dylan spotted a woman waiting for them.
Her hair was a neon-green buzz cut, and she was wearing a transparent-blue Mackintosh jacket and piss-yellow jogging bottoms. Her shoes, chunky Skechers, were white with a peeling line of red plastic. A sight to behold.
Sacha pulled up in front of her and got out of the car. Elodie met her at the sliding door. Isaak was conscious again but too winded to talk or walk by himself. His eyes darted from Elodie to Dylan, and he was wheezing.
“So we finally meet?” Elodie said, smiling at her.
“Just a couple of weeks ago Isaak was here asking me for some more tape.” Her voice was grating, with just enough of a French accent to betray her background.
Closer up, she looked like she was in her late thirties. She put out her hand to shake Dylan’s.
Dylan shook it and climbed out of the cab, using Elodie to stabilise herself.
“How is the man of the hour?” Elodie asked.
Talia was sitting right there, strapped to the Sleeper. It felt like an insult that Elodie only cared about Isaak, when all four of them had risked their lives.
Sacha stood to the side, arms crossed, letting Dylan take the lead.
“He’s… getting there.” She frowned. “But Talia is—”
“Ah, yes… Astrid’s Crypterra Sleeper.” She examined Talia, from top to bottom, as if she might be able to come to some diagnosis that way alone. She turned to Dylan, and the look in her eyes turned Dylan’s blood cold. “I am sorry. We’ll do all we can. Sacha, help my boys. Come on, Miss Colt.”
“What? What’s going on?” Dylan asked, looking back as Elodie pulled her away. Two men dressed in black with similar PVC Mackintosh coats went into the van and wheeled Isaak out with Sacha’s help. She tried to struggle away towards him.
Elodie held her in place, sharp fingernails poking her arm. “It’s fine, Miss Colt. It really is. They’ll bring Isaak and your friend to us.”
Who was this woman, ordering Sacha around like a servant? Dylan tried again to escape her grip but Elodie’s bones were like titanium. No budge, no give. She led her towards a lift, large and metallic, stickered and graffitied to the high hells.
“Isaak never mentioned you had… associates.” She glanced again at the men busying themselves around the black cab.
“That would be because he didn’t know,” Elodie said, her eyes dead ahead.
“You were using him…” Dylan said. “Just like Astrid was.”
Elodie tutted, pulling her into the lift.
“Not at all. I empowered him.” She clicked the button to go up.
The doors shut with only the two of them inside.
“He was lost. And in the beginning, when the Tapeworld made its way to me, so was I. Then Astrid sent him to me.” She looked out through the small glass window, little glimpses into London visible between spray-painted rough walls as the lift made its ascent.
“What is she to you?” Dylan asked, fed up of these women trying to control her and Isaak.
Elodie blinked and looked at her, marvelling at the wonderment posed by such question. “Sometimes I wish I knew. I thought we were friends, but… Until Isaak showed up at my door with the rolls of tape… I’ve already said too much.”
Elodie went tight-lipped. In the silence, Dylan realised how quiet the lift was, far too high-tech for a building with this state of outward disrepair. Nothing was what it seemed.
Dylan thought of him. Of his pink-brown lips. “What are those guys doing to him?” she asked, Elodie’s sudden silence making her anxious.
“They’re just bringing him up.” She smiled. “The stretchers wouldn’t fit in here.” Then she leaned nearer to Dylan. “We’re not bad people, dear.”
Dylan shrugged. “Don’t call me ‘dear’.”
Elodie only nodded. When they reached the top floor, she walked out of the lift, taking Dylan through a black polished door, trimmed in gold. That was definitely out of place in a building like this…
The room on the other side was a rectangle cut into concrete, pure minimalism on display. Another door opened further inside, and the two men entered pushing Isaak on the stretcher. He was awake.
“Isaak!”
The two men left again, presumably to get Talia. Dylan would have struggled to describe them, had she been asked. Black clothes, and… just men. She tried to remember their faces and just couldn’t. There was something oddly bland about them.
She ran to Isaak, knocking into Elodie’s shoulder in the process.
“Careful!” Elodie said, only sounding half annoyed.
Dylan smiled. Whatever awful shit Astrid had put Isaak through, he was awake now. She wanted to kiss his beautiful mouth but… he was speaking. It didn’t seem right to stop him.
“She’s got Talia.”
“I know,” Dylan said. “She forced the Sleeper on her. Did you see her in the Tapeworld?” She knelt next to him, their hands interlacing in an automatic gesture.
“She’s in there,” he said. “In Astrid’s tape-space. Where I taped in to. She… Astrid was playing with her.”
Dylan’s whole body shook. She couldn’t stand the feeling of seeing someone she loved go through pain. Talia. The dread of potentially losing her shook her to her core. Isaak was a mirror of her own pain and sorrow, shivering as he tried to explain what he’d seen.