Motorplex

A great many ideas were contributed by my friend Red and, starting this chapter, my friend whose pen name is Lust_Demon!

Manager Tony had to be Directory Assistance's dad. Mike wasn't sure that was her name, of course, but it was all he had to go on as she escorted them from Front Desk. He fussed after her, looked a little like her now that he could study them, and tucked a little backpack over her shoulder as he told her to "drain the registers". It wasn't out of the question that she was maybe a niece or a younger sibling, but if she was this coddled by the guy in charge? She had to be a daughter. If these people had gone full tribal, then she was probably in the line of succession, too. She carried herself like she was even while she held open doors for Mike and Chuck. Most tellingly, Mike noticed, was that even before she got close to the box maze, the normal folk and vesters were making a wide, clear road for her.

"You are now entering a restricted area," said Directory Assistance. Marcus and Madge fell into step behind them while Quintessa and the other Mike stayed behind. Directory Assistance, compared to Quintessa and Marcus's clear tones, spoke in mumbles and barely above the din of the crowd. He only really picked out her words because they were familiar. "Calls may be recorded or monitored. Please wait while I transfer you to your department."

They set out on a long hike. The Motorplex had been a mall in the days before Deluxe. Mike could see it in the broken escalators and recessed lights, sunken into the few chucks of ceiling that hadn't been punched out. Mike's idea of the mall was neater and more compartmentalized. The Motorplex's shops were all a messy tangle of small goods and foods constantly traded from shop to shop. The normal folks poured into stores with shoes and came out with towels, then took those towels to another store for baking tins. Mike couldn't make sense of what had value and what didn't, and when he checked over his shoulder for Chuck's input, he only got a shrug. Ms. Directory Assistance sometimes stepped into the lines of normies and directed them to other shops while she checked in with the blue-vesters behind the counters. It usually amounted to her pointing at something they liked and them just giving it to her. Draining the registers must have been how the Manager family collected their cut.

"Hey, why doesn't she have a nametag?" Mike asked Marcus.

Marcus rolled his eyes and growled with a loud, obvious distaste. "Manager in training. Admin privileges."

He snickered. He could relate to that feeling. Everybody knew that one little spoiled snob that got away with too much. Mike considered telling them about the Duke of Detroit, but... no. Not until he and Chuck made a good first impression. He kept up the small talk. "So no nametag. What's her name?"

Ms. D.A. Came back with a surprise: a polished jeweled necklace with tiny blue stones inside. She held the trinket up to Mike and grinned wide. Her teeth were severely yellowed. It wasn't an uncommon sight to see crooked teeth in Motorcity, as dental perfection was a very Deluxe kind of thing, but most people took enough care of themselves to keep their teeth clean. Mike forced a smile.

"Trade-in offer..."

"Nah, still shopping," Mike said gently. "Not quite what I'm looking for."

Little Manager huffed and tucked the necklace away. He didn't have anything to trade in for as it was.

They kept climbing up flights of stairs onto other floors with more and more stores. Most of them were built out of whatever home and garden supplies had been available in the mall, things like decorative bricks and scrap lumber. The floors were near uniformly plywood that buckled tenuously wherever he put his feet. Chuck shivered when he walked, and by the third floor, was starting to look a little seasick. He might not have been if he kept his head up while walking, but Mike could see it. Chuck had been keeping his comm screens tiny, trying to hide them in his palms while he tapped away at them.

"You holding up back there, buddy?"

Chuck closed his screen and looked up to Mike, his cheeks a little paler than when they started. "Not really. Something about this place makes me-" He stopped mid-sentence and gasped, and all the color came back to him at once. "Look! Electronics!"

Mike eyes followed where Chuck pointed. One little store with a near-intact sign that read "Abbag s" stood not too far away. Wires and shiny metal plugs hung from its ceiling, and the tell-tale gray of electronics plastic was distinct across the multicolor neon lights.

Chuck nearly bounced with joy. "I could build us a hot spot and get messages through to Dutch! This is perfect!"

"Trade-in offer!" Little Manager took Chuck's elbow in her tiny hands and pulled hard. Chuck yelped and pulled hard, but her grip stayed. "Sale in electronics, limited time offer for managers only."

With a little chuckle, Mike took Chuck's other hand and tugged. Little Manager let go with no small amount of disagreement. "Thanks, but we have nothing to trade in. We'll get you some electronics when we get out of here, Chuck."

"I don't need them when we get out of here," Chuck hissed low. "I need them to get in touch with Dutch now."

"We don't know the exchange rate here," Mike whispered back. "Let's save our budget for the important stuff right now."

Chuck's face went red, and Mike could feel Chuck's muscles tensing through his arm. "Oh, so only the things you're worried about are important."

Mike's smile dropped. "Are you mad at me?"

"I've only watched you get us deeper and deeper into a situation we can't back out of for the last two hours, but no, I'm not mad," growled Chuck, "I'm-"

Little Manager wrung her hands and loudly smacked her lips together. It made Chuck shudder, and Mike could see the reflexive winces of disgust go over Marcus and Madge's faces. "How may I direct your call?"

Mike shrugged. "Anything in automotive?"

Chuck groaned like he was deflating and pulled himself out of Mike's arm.

"Automotive..." Little Manager was lost as soon as the word left his lips. Marcus and Madge were searching each other's faces for answers with no success. Chuck was rubbing his eyes through his bangs. "Auto-motive... housewares?"

"No, no, automotive, for the cars."

That got him more blank looks. Chuck nudged his ribs. "Maybe try something else. It might have been so long they forgot what cars are."

Mike forgot sometimes, that cars weren't really a thing outside of Motorcity. He opened his mouth, ready to chat, but Chuck was turned hard away from him. His urge to talk died fast, and his lips thinned. "Hmm. Help me out, buddy."

With a tight, clipped shrug, Chuck guessed, "If they don't know the word, it might just be stuff they never use at all... maybe it's on clearance or something."

It seemed like a good lead. Mike asked Little Manager. "You got a clearance rack?"

Little Manager outright sneered. "Clearance."

Mike sure didn't miss that snide tone in her voice. He chided, "Hey, we're not all made of money."

She smacked her lips again and ran her tongue over her teeth loudly. With a put-upon sigh, she waved them towards- oh joy, thought Mike- more stairs leading up. "Clearance section, fifteenth floor."

Little Manager and her licky-lips lead them up a hell of a lot of stairs. Her takes from the side stores were getting smaller and smaller the further they climbed, whether from lack of goods to trade or her unwillingness to carry any more weight in her backpack. Mike counted about eight long rickety flights before his legs started to ache, and the licky-lipped manager-in-training was gasping for breath and dropping to the floor by the ninth. Marcus and Madge didn't look much better, but to Chuck's credit, he had barely broken a sweat. These long scavenging hikes were their thing, after all. A little thought weeded into his mind before he could censor it: normally, they were supposed to be fun, too.

Mike took the chance to look around. The vertical add-on floor was a little better lit than downstairs. Big incandescent bulbs shined out of floodlights, all to light anemic little planters were the normies were growing veggies. The walls of boxes were stable and low here. Chuck could relax a little here; Mike saw him relax his shoulders.

"Well, that kind of makes sense..." Chuck leaned against a bench while he made his observations. "The hot commodities stay down on the low floors where they can be easily traded. The areas farther from the central trading hub do agriculture. Maybe this is where the food comes from. This is kind of amazing... little cultural microcosm, all indoors on one little bitty island."

Mike huffed out one little laugh through his nose and rested his hands in his pockets. "And you thought we were in danger."

There went Chuck's casual attitude. He snapped right back into a defensive hunch and crossed his arms tight. "We might still be. All that's changed is now we have a better idea of what we're dealing with."

"Which means," Mike countered with a little more venom than was maybe necessary. "That we're equipped to handle anything that happens here. And nothing's going to happen, because everybody here's been nice to us and we're not in any danger."

"That's because we got in with the ruling class by some freak accident, Mikey!" Even on the edge of panic, and when wasn't Chuck on the edge of panic since they got here, he was keeping his voice surprisingly low. "Haven't you been checking out the locals? Have you noticed how they always walk with their heads down and avoid looking at the ones in vests? And they're constantly flinchy and scared? Something's up in this place that we're not seeing."

Mike sighed. "Or you're projecting. You're flinchy and keep your head down all the time."

That got him a snarl, and Chuck shot back, "That's because I know if I bring any of this up, my 'best bro' will put me down in front of everybody and make me look like an idio-"

"That's enough." A line had been crossed- not even crossed, stomped on and kicked hard. Mike felt that jab physically, and he crossed the space between Chuck and himself fast and closed it hard. He pressed two fingers hard in the center of Chuck's chest and kept that pressure there. "Look, pull the 'play it safe' card all you want, but all you've been doing this entire time is telling me that I'm the idiot for bringing us here."

"Because you brought us here too fast," said Chuck, pushing back into Mike's space. "With no planning, no gear, no back-up-"

"You are my back-up."

"Oh gee!" Chuck threw up his hands and started to raise the volume. "Could've fooled me, for all my input you've been completely ignoring-"

"I've been 'ignoring' all the not-so-subtle jabs that you don't wanna be here." Mike matched him for volume, and while he didn't have height on Chuck, he could still feel him shrinking when he pulled out the Leader Voice. "Every single little comment, Chuckles, about how much you hate going on these missions with me-"

"I wouldn't hate it," shouted Chuck, "If for once in your life you actually gave a damn about my safety instead of just dragging me along like- like BAGGAGE!"

"Then you," he snarled, "Can wait for me back at the garage."

Chuck opened his mouth to get in the final word, but Mike turned fast to Little Manager and Marcus. "Take him back to the front door. He's too much of a chicken to go there himself."

Little Manager's head perked up from the dirty floor. "Item return?"

"Yes, whatever," Mike turned away hard. "Just take him."

With an elated giggle, Little Manager got up to her feet and sent Madge away with Chuck. He didn't look. He could just hear their feet going down the stairs together, silently. Chuck didn't say anything.

"Clearance?" Little Manager wheezed. "Special bulk discount-"

"Whatever." Mike pulled his coat tight to himself. Everything felt kind of fuzzy and weighted right now. He wasn't in the mood to decode their weird customer service language. "Yeah. Let's go."

Little Manager wet her lips loudly and pulled a handful of junk out of her back. "Attention Shoppers! Open hiring period!"

Out of nowhere, a swarm of normal people ran for her, pawing and groveling for the fistful of little whatevers. She clapped her hand against her wrist for a gentle patting noise. "Clearance section, express delivery."

Tossing out the junk, the normal folk grabbed up whatever they could, then tucked their arms under her legs and lifted her up onto their shoulders. Eyes always down, flinching away from Marcus's stern looks, they carried her to the next flight of stairs. One normie's foot slipped against another one's ankle, and both of them swiftly got a no-slip boot to their backs courtesy of Marcus.

Mike's mouth ran dry, and he swallowed hard.

So, by all accounts, Chuck was right about the vesters being the ruling class. They were very, very much the ruling class. So much so that about ten people carried little lickety-lipped manager woman up to the fifteenth floor, up stairs, on bare feet, for some keychains and snack packs of pretzels. Mike's mouth stayed solidly shut as, finally, he really did watch the faces of the people who passed. They all did flinch, and they did keep their eyes low, and now they were even avoiding his gaze like they did Lickety-Lips and Marcus.

By the time they reached the Clearance Section, and Mike laid his eyes on the pillars of tires stacked up to- and supporting- the ceiling, and the piles of parts stacked in airtight plastic clamshells, and the replacement components for speakers that Dutch would love and fuzzy seat covers that Julie would claim and the gleaming novelty rims that Texas could slap onto Stronghorn...

He really didn't care. He would get these back to the garage, sure, but... but he imagined a better ending to this little adventure. He picked up one little piece from the endless pile of junk upstairs. Air freshener. He put it back down. Felt kind of pointless.

"Layaway?" asked Lickety-Lips.

"Yeah." Mike nodded. "I'll be back for it later. I'll bring... stuff."

"Express delivery!" she squealed. She was nearly dancing in joy. This was probably a premium sale for her, getting rid of all this garbage. "Thank you for shopping at Motorplex!"

He was ready to go home. He would call Dutch to send the boat back to pick him-

That weight settled into his gut hard. He kept his hands firmly in his pockets and his eyes on the floor in front of him.

It was a long walk down fifteen stories worth of stairs. Lickety-Lips was carried the whole way down. Mike hurt every step.

By the time he walked out the front door, he was glad to feel the acid fumes cut to the back of his throat. It was like turpentine against a layer of grease, cutting through the oily film that coated his mouth the entire time he'd been inside. Even the low light of Motorcity felt too bright now. He winced as he took a breath and still got a noseful of the Motorplex reek. He would have to wash all of his clothes the second he got home. Twice.

When he finally looked up, there was a pile of garbage where the boat was supposed to be.

He threw himself into the pile in a panic, digging to the very bottom of the plastic-packed pile of car accessories. When his hands finally hit the plastic canoe, he puffed out a relieved breath and sat down hard on his heels to let his heart stop racing. That had been way too close for comfort. Having to sit here waiting for...

… why was the boat still here? He emptied it out the rest of the way. He wasn't sure why, it wasn't like Chuck was hiding under the garbage.

"Chuck?" He stood up and made a circuit around the island. The Motorplex had employees only doors on the back side, but they had long since been boarded up. He even checked to see if they could be opened to the inside. No luck. No sign of him. "Chuck? Buddy?"

He made another circuit, just in case, this time looking out into the acid. He would be able to see him, right? If he'd gone in the water- in the acid- his heart jumped into his chest again. No, he hadn't been that harsh, and Chuck wouldn't have done something like that. Not on purpose- He swallowed hard. "Chuck? I-I'm sorry! Chuck?!"

Back at the boat, he combed over the bottom and found something he'd overlooked. Receipt paper. A very long sheet of receipt paper, and even as he read it, the print was disappearing in front of his eyes. Jacob had said that old paper receipts were made to do that, but this seemed ridiculous. These were hand-written letters on this sheet and they were all fading. He skipped to the bottom.

His total, according to the bottom, was paid in full with...

"1 Shopper: item number 'Chuck'."