Chapter 11 – by Tei/Disk
"You know what this means, right?" Tab said. "It means that it wasn't Scorn or Kell."
"You're making assumptions, fuzzball," Yo-Yo said. "I'll bet you lots of yen that if we checked on them now, they'd both be gone."
"There's no way for us to get to the hospital or that house in time, they could beat us there by taking backroads." Piranha crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm sorry, but I just don't see us finding them guilty on this one!"
"These fences are too high to jump over from anything but the telephone wires, but even then we'd be able to know someone was on them from anywhere on the ground!" Yo-Yo clenched a fist. "They haven't gone up there yet. I'm gonna go peak on our Love Shocker lady. You guys can--"
"Stay here on guard duty? Yeah, yeah, not a problem...leave us out of all the fun why don'cha..."
"You'll be okay, just keep an ear out for wire-grinders or something."
---
Garam hated to leave her like this, but she needed the rest. He brushed golden locks of hair from her face with a sigh.
"I'm sorry, Gum. I gotta go do this—you're not well. Get some sleep, you've been a total mess, huh? I'm gonna...I'll go to the park and sort this entire thing out before you wake up, you'll see."
He pulled the blanket up over her body. She shifted and groaned, her helmet fell over her eyes. Garam smiled and got up.
"God, I wish I felt more confident..." He sighed and headed out of the Garage.
---
Yo-Yo stopped in front of the old house with a hand resting against the splintered, rotted wood door. His breath rose and fell like lumps of bricks—he was sure he was right. He was sure.
"Then why'm I hesitatin?" He murmured. He closed his eyes and willed everything to just disappear when it was all gone...Slate, Beat, Cube, Combo, Mew...they'd all be back once he opened them. He'd be back at the skate park. One of the Noise Tanks would've knocked him silly, and he'd wake up with the sun shining in his eyes. It'd all be allright.
He opened his eyes and sighed. The rough wood was still beneath his hand. Splinters dug into his fingers. He pushed the door open and stepped inside; there was Kell, sleeping in the far corner. He checked on her; her breath was heavy, she wasn't faking. With a sigh, Yo-Yo walked back out and closed the door behind him.
"It wasn't her," He murmured. "It had to have been the renegade."
He turned and went for the hospital next.
---
"He hasn't moved one little bit?" he asked.
"Not at all," the doctor said, looking at his clipboard. "He's still feeling the effects of the painkillers. He'll be wide awake in a few days for sure, but now he's nothing but a giant ball of lethargy."
Yo-Yo stared at the prone Scorn with a derisive sneer.
"Gum was right," He muttered.
"Hmm?"
"I said, 'Gum was right.' Gum's our sister, she said this guy'd be outta it for a while."
"This guy sure has a lot of siblings...the guy that brought him here said he was a brother." The doctor coughed. "He had an Australian accent and none of you look the same. Oh...we've got to set up some IV tubes now, so if you wouldn't mind..."
"Got'cha. I'm outta here."
---
Garam came to the entrance of the park and glanced around—nobody. Not a soul. No Yo-Yo, Tab or Piranha. No Noise Tanks, no Poison Jam, no Love Shockers, no renegades, nobody. He half-expected a tumbleweed to roll by. He kept glancing up at the sky, expecting gray to ice over the blue. Come on, it was the stereotype for a ghost town, why did it have to be sunny now? He skated through the park, his wheels scraped and clacked against the dry ground. He checked every bowl, every pipe, every grind rail.
"Empty." He ran a hand across his scalp. "Totally empty."
"Mmm...not quite..."
Garam whirled to face the speaker—a voice of gravel in a cement mixer. Nobody was there.
"Okay, don't bullshit around with me," Garam said. "I know you're there. I don't like playing games. Get the hell out here now so we can settle this man to man."
"Cliches now? How...droll."
Garam whipped his head about, but still there was nothing. He clenched his fists.
"Who...what are you?"
"You remember what the girl said a few days ago?" the voice said. "She said that this park hated her. It spoke with a voice, right to her mind, it hated her."
"Yeah...?"
"Well, I do. I hate her. And I hate you, too..."
Quite suddenly there was a flash of movement, and all was quiet once again.
---
"Wake up...come on, wake up already!!"
"Help me...Gum!"
"Wakey wakey, Gum-chan! ...Hell-OOO?"
"Gum...please! Help...I need...ack..."
Gum screamed and sat bolt upright. Yo-Yo smirked.
"About time. Where's Spidey?"
"Garam? He—oh geez, I don't know!" Gum brushed her fingers across her cheek. "He and I were tagging, but then we came back here, and...wait, what are you doing here?"
Yo-Yo growled. "You were right. You were mother-fucking right!!!"
"Huh?"
"God damn it—a Noise Tank disappeared when we went back to the park. Went into the full-pipe and didn't come out. You know what I did then? I told Tab and 'Rhana to stay put and watch out for any high-grinders. You know the phone lines always buzz when people grind 'em and that's the only way to get outta the park without usin' the exit."
"What's your point, damn it?! Why are you yelling at me?"
"FUCK!!" Yo-Yo charged at the map in the glass case and kicked at it, spraying the car with shards. "Fuck fuck fuck!! I went and checked—Kell's still in the house, Scorn's been doped ever since we left him there! It wasn't them!"
"I knew it!" Gum said.
"But that's only two we don't have to blame, what about Onishima or the other Rudies?" Yo-Yo whirled. His fingers dug so tightly into his fists that scarlet tears trailed down between his fingers. "Gum, god damn it, Mew is gone!! Beat and Slate and Combo are gone, how can anyone take mother-fucking Combo without makin a riot?!"
"I don't know. It wasn't Kell or Scorn."
"Glad we're on the same page! Gum, whoever—whatever's been doing this got muscle. Come on—we gotta figger out what's going on with all this!"
"We'll get Kell first," Gum said, climbing to her skates. She rolled over to the closet and shuffled the contents around. She came out with a decent outfit. "She'll hate us forever if we keep her in that Poison Jam suit."
---
Gum, Yo-Yo and Kell stared over the skate park.
"Empty to the last drop," Kell murmured. Gum elbowed her.
"It's four. The Rudies all wouldn't just be—be gone at a time like this, would they?" Yo-Yo asked.
"No, they wouldn't," Kell said.
"Tab and Piranha now, too..." Gum glanced at Yo-Yo. "Everyone else, just..."
"Gone? I noticed."
Tracer sidled up next to Yo-Yo and leaned against the rail. Weariness was almost a visible aura around his body, it seeped out of his joints and spoke long tales in body language. Thrash came up behind him, her perpetual scowl worsening at the sight of Kell.
"What are you two—" Gum began.
"I went off to check on her," Tracer said, hooking a thumb at Kell. "Found the refrigerator in the way, managed to move it with some help. We got Thrash and the other two out, and she and I sat down for a little chat whilst the other Poison Jammers retreated to the park. By the time we got here, we saw that GG—the one with the Spider-Man fly goggles—skate in here. He started shouting at himself, and then it just went silent real quick. We looked inside, and he was gone. So was everyone else."
"Garam...?" Gum blinked. "No, you must'a seen someone else...Garam wouldn't inspect this place alone."
"He did," Thrash grunted. "I ain't the smartest in the world but I never forget a face, especially a GG face."
The words reached Gum, but slid through her ears without registering. No, Garam wasn't gone, he was probably still out tagging somewhere...somewhere...oh God...
Gum scowled and turned away. Don't cry, she told herself. Don't cry. Not in front of them. They don't deserve to see me so weak.
A silvery tear spilled down her cheek. She sniffed—great, no use stopping it now. She turned away and hugged herself tightly.
"Well, what do you think we do, Aussie?" Yo-Yo asked.
"We've gotta figure something out that doesn't involve us getting snatched by whatever's going at us."
"It's gotta be tired if it just cleaned out the entire park," Kell said. "Maybe we should go now while it is."
"That's pretty smart thinking. If you weren't a Rudie you'd make a damn good cop."
They turned their heads to see Onishima standing with his six-shooter twirling on one finger.
"Oh, please go away," Thrash said. "I wanna rip your spleen out and eat your prostate, but I'm just not in the mood."
"Listen, punks...I know we've never seen eye-to-eye, but something you guys have been ignoring is that my people were down there with yours, and now they're all gone. I wouldn't be captain if I didn't watch out for them." He scuffed the toe of his boot on the concrete. "Be—besides, my daughter...my daughter was..."
"Your daughter was a renegade, Cap'n. I happened to be good friends with her." Tracer smirked. "She told me quite a few things, that was one of them."
"A Rudie?" Yo-Yo said.
"Yeah. A Rudie." Onishima spit the word like a vile poison.
"Look, this is important now," Kell said. "Shorty, how much forces you got left? If we can—I dunno, distract this thing with a tank or helicopter..."
"Nothing like that." Onishima shook his head. "It's best if we did detective work now and tried to blow shit up later."
"Oh, that works for this case but whenever it comes to dealing with Rudies, 'detective work' gets flushed down the shitter, huh?"
---
"This entire thing circulates around this damn pipe." Gum placed her front wheel inside. "Everyone who disappeared went in here, or was at least nearby."
"Do you think it could take all of us at once?" Onishima asked.
"It took down Combo by itself, and made an entire stampede of Jay and Silent Bob-ified Poison Jammers disappear. I'd say there's a pretty fair chance of that happening unless it were exhausted."
"Then let's not dawdle, hmm?" Tracer stepped past Gum and disappeared into the shadows. Gum didn't hesitate, followed him down. The others broke through the shadow and began the steady march.
"Beat said that he lost Matrix in that narrow part of the pipe," Yo-Yo said. "I'll bet that's where this...thing is."
They got there. Water from the previous rain stained the floor. Kell crept forward, glancing left and right, up and down—then she tripped on a small stone, stumbled forward and landed with a grunt.
"Are you all right?" Gum said.
"I'm fine, but—my hand..."
Gum squeezed past the others and Kell. She kneeled beside the Love Shocker.
"Look," Kell said. She drew her hand from the shadows, then stuck it back in, almost up to her shoulder. "There's a hole here. Shorty, gimme the flashlight!"
Onishima passed it along, and Kell shone it along the edges—it was a ragged cut, hidden just between two bends. No matter what, sunlight or moonlight would never fall on it. Nobody would have ever noticed it if they went looking.
"That thing's awful small, I don't think even Beat could have been pulled through it." Gum frowned.
"We don't know that what we're dealing with is a small person, do we?" Tracer asked.
"True, but how could anything that small take out Combo?"
"Will ya stop comparing everything to that guy?!" Thrash grunted. "Besides, Aussie is right—there've been plenty of small Poison Jammers that could take out the toughest sons of a bitch easy."
"Even if this is where this thing lives, how could any of us fit down there?" Onishima asked.
"I don't think any of us can."
"You could," Kell said, glancing at Gum.
"Me? Why me?"
Oh, they'd better not be trying to get back at me for not coming here...
"If you took off your helmet and your skates, you'd be able to wiggle through."
"But—we don't know where this goes, what if I get stuck, or—or—"
"Take this line with you," Onishima said, passing her a coil of rope. Tug on it and start shouting if there's trouble."
"Aren't you the Boy Scout?" She said. She grabbed the rope and proceeded to take off her skates and helmet—she passed them all to Yo-Yo. She kicked her feet into the hole
(You won't come back from this)
Her socks ran across damp stone, not really smooth but not really rough...there were a lot of them. Finding a foothold would be easy
(You'll get stuck and never get out, never never never never)
Gum shimmied forward. Her legs were inside now. This would be a tight fit. Kell shone the light around Gum's legs—there were lots of rock edges jutting out. It'd be easy for her clothes to get caught.
"Don't look," Gum whispered. Her throat was dry, and no matter how much she swallowed it wouldn't moisten up again. The others glanced away. Gum unzipped her dress, peeled it away and tossed it against the far wall. Left in her underwear, she scooted down until she'd been swallowed up entirely.
She climbed down. It took ages, and Kell's light disappeared, eaten by darkness. There were no side-paths, just one long, steep downward climb. The tunnel had a slight right twist to it. Stones scraped her back and stomach and arms and legs, dirty water stained her fingers and face
(You'll never see the others again)
"Shut up," she growled
(They'll forget about you and leave you to rot, to die)
Her rope drew taut. She let out the last bit of the coil and continued down. It drew taut again, and then slack.
"He lost the rope," She whispered. "No..."
Her foot landed on a slick rock. She slipped and landed on her stomach, her jaws clacked together, blood swilled up in her mouth
(Die abandoned and forgotten, alone, nobody to hear your pathetic screams)
She began to slide. The stone became smooth, she scrabbled for purchase on something, anything. She threw out her arms and pushed hard against the sides of the tunnel, then used her feet in the same fashion—she stayed. She waited until the ache in her lungs became dull and her breath returned, and pressure-crawled downward.
The tunnel got tighter, her breath came out in short, panicked bursts.
Oh god Oh god I'm going to be stuck down here in this dank abyss forever and there won't be anyone to save me then—
Quite suddenly, the tunnel disappeared. She slid the rest of the way out and landed in a puddle on her rear. She thanked Yo-Yo for splashing her with cold water once—she made sure she never wore white underwear again. It hadn't been funny at the time, but when—if she got back to the others, she didn't want to give them any more of a free show than she'd be doing already.
Gum rose to her feet. A flickering light hung overhead, dim and yellowed and covered with dirt so that it cast wild, bestial shadows across jutting rocks and iron cages.
Cages?
She looked around her—this entire room was lined with cages, most of them full. Her claustrophobia lifted and the cotton in her ears went away. The light bulb buzzed, water dripped to the floor, people sobbed quietly in their sleep.
Gum walked around the room—Love Shockers, Noise Tanks, Poison Jammers, renegades, Keisatsu. All here. She passed by that Love Shocker that she'd seen Kell with more often than the others—Akina, her name was? She was thin and shivering, her shirt was missing.
Wait—didn't someone say that the Poison Jammer saw someone wearing a Love Shocker shirt? And Akina had been one of the first to disappear...
The next cage held—
"Oh god, Beat!!" Gum kneeled down in front of the cage and poked his shoulder through the bars—he stirred, groaned, shook his head. "Come on," she hissed, "wake up you lazy bastard!" She couldn't help grinning. He was alive! He was okay—and if he was, then the others...
"Mmm...Gum? Oh geez, Gum, did he get you too?" Beat ran a hand through his hair. His headphones and goggles rested at his feet. "Nice undies, by the way."
She giggled despite herself. "You're alive. You're really alive!"
"Yeah, kinda wish I was dead, though...this has been hell, Gum-chan." He stared at her with pleading eyes. "I haven't eaten or drank anything since before Cube and I came back. Every time, I see that damn chimera come back down here with someone else—someone new, someone I know or don't know. How many are left, Gum?"
"Not a lot," she said. "Me, Yo-Yo, Tracer, Thrash, Kell and Onishima. And Scorn, but he's kind of stoned on painkillers..."
"Onishima? What happened to Scorn?"
"This—what did you call it, a chimera?—was trying to get Mew, I guess, and he was there and tried to stop it...I'm doing this based on assumption, mind you. The chimera probably thrashed him, which explains some of his more bizarre wounds. And Onishima's kind of in a similar boat to the rest of us...he's looking out for his people and the citizens of Tokyo."
"Glad to hear it." Beat rolled his eyes. "Rudies don't count there."
"Look, where's—where's the others? Is there any way for me to get you outta this?"
"Don't think we haven't tried. You'll need some serious tools to cut through those padlocks. Even Combo couldn't break 'em, and the chimera doesn't keep keys. The rest of us're scattered around here somewhere. If you're looking for Garam, he's right next door."
"Gum-chan, is that you?"
"Wha...Gum's here?"
"Yeah, she is! She's here, we've been found!"
Rudies and Keisatsu began to wake up and cheer. They'd been found indeed, they were saved by a girl in her underwear! Gum blushed and ducked behind Garam's cage. Amongst the cheering, she and he managed to talk quietly.
"Are you all right? What were you thinking in coming here all alone like this?!" Gum whispered, tears spilling down her face.
Garam grinned. "I wanted to solve this mystery for ya. I just couldn't let you suffer."
"You idiot." She grinned back.
"YOU!"
Very suddenly, all noise stopped, every voice hushed. Footsteps drew near, but where were they coming from?! Gum braced herself against Garam's cage. She reached out and grabbed a metal pipe lying on the ground.
And then it emerged, and Gum had a brilliant flashback.
The Golden Rhinos have been silenced forever thanks to the GGs, but the Keisatsu and the Rokkaku Group are still digging deep into the bowels of the operation that only Goji's most trusted men knew about! Toji Rokkaku was disgusted by a lot of the loathsome creatures Goji'd been creating down there--that's right, creating! The Golden Rhinos' scientific end had a branch dedicated to the creation of chimeras, man-made hybrids of many different species! One of the cages they found deep below the Rokkaku Tower's remains was empty...
The chimera was male; he only wore some tight blue jeans, so identifying wasn't too hard. His skin was shiny and unnaturally gray, its hair was stringy and purple. He was small, barely over five feet tall and very thin.
"You're the chimera!" Gum cried. "That escaped one from the Rokkaku Tower, the one Professor K talked about!"
The chimera continued to walk toward her. Every step concealed weariness, but barely. Kell was right—he was tired from all the work he'd just done. Gum clenched the pipe and hurdled Garam's cage; she swung with all her might. The pipe crashed full into the chimera's face.
Nothing happened.
"My skin," the chimera said, "is made of stone."
Gum dropped the pipe and ran. The chimera bounded after her, but she had the advantage—she wasn't bone-tired and she was on an adrenalin rush. She ran through thick clouds of shadow, leaving the Rudies and Keisatsu behind. Her toe stubbed a risen rock and she tumbled across some stairs; ignoring the pain, she hauled herself up and ran.
It was an eternity before cool breezes of fresh air began to whip around her. Above, moonlight shone down through a drainage grate...and quite suddenly, it all made sense.
Gum shoved through the grate. It clattered against the wall with a bang. She scrambled out and it slammed closed again. She was in the full-pipe again.
"Get out of here!!" she yelled. "It's coming after me—move it, get out of here!"
Ignoring the biting chills of sudden evening, Gum ran.