The Basement
My thoughts came back at no defined time. I cannot tell when I started thinking again. It started off as just abstract sounds and sentences that I later thought to make no since. Then I began thinking intelligently while weaving in and out of the dream-speaking. Once I was finally in control of my thoughts, they were not peaceful for long. I remembered the massacre at the peace rally; those must have been the "black arms" the Scientist said were at the Chancellor's expense. They both wore the uniform gray with red. What good would come from silencing that particular group of people? It would be a waste of their guns. Unless they were speaking something he did not want to hear. Why should the Chancellor not beat them down? He most clearly has the power to.
I felt that I was laying on my back with my spine digging uncomfortably into a wooden surface and my limbs were all pushed away from each other. My body was still limp as if I were dead. Heat was on my front.
But why would any respectable leader want to destroy his lands? His kingdom was in pieces and all his people were so discontented I could literally feel it when I came close to them. He is going to need to fight these machines some time or another so why do I not see any perpetration? Those people should be put somewhere safe, not be killed. What good could come from shooting potential soldiers? This Chancellor was no king I aspired to become.
My thoughts scattered as my hearing came back. I could hear creatures far bigger than I shuffling about in small stone place. Metal things occasionally clanged on each other or something like glass. The feet were heavy like the marchers and scuffed around on a dirt floor covered with small rocks. Voices rose and fell every now and then. One had bad lungs and crackled hoarsely.
At the same time came the smells of the place. The first thing I noticed was the poisonous stench of smoke. It was a sort of smoke that I could not name at the time. Then was the smell of sweat. Two specific man smells hit me: ragged skin coated with dirt and alcohol on bad breath. I could smell some sort of food, meat and spices. The last scents I noticed were to very different varieties of smoke: one of them was from a burning fire and, though I could hardly detect it, the other from a gun.
Finally, my eyes opened and focused. Above me was a bright yellow lamp shining in my face and making me hot. It took me a while to be able to ignore the brightness of the lamp. Above me was a wood roof with huge, thick supports running across. Spires of wood ran down from the ceiling. The walls were made of normal rocks all plastered together. I could see the tops of stacks of boxes along with a few cans. A furnace was burning to keep the place warm. It was a trashy place, like the Scientist's workshop. But the smell of food that drifted around smelt delectable – worthy to be given to a king.
I wish I had a stomach, I thought as I turned my head away from the light.
When I turned my head, I could see one wall with boxes lining it. An elongated arch of a window was up very close to the ceiling. The yellow glow out outside came in from it and grass was blowing around. I was in a basement.
I flexed my front to get myself to sit up, but I didn't move. When I moved my hands to push, I found my wrists bound by poking rope. My ankles were tied as well. I was stretched out upon a wooden table. After tugging to free myself, I lifted my head as much as I could over my chest. Before me were five or so gray men, smoking cigars, sitting at a table with a light over it, enjoying a dinner. And in a chair separate from them was the Chancellor himself, dining on fine meat. Like that, my appetite was gone.
Had he seen me? I needed to hide: run. I pulled my legs but the tethers were firm and I could not pull free. I couldn't let him find me. What if he already knew I was there? He had to have, or I would not have been lying in the middle of a table, splayed there like an animal pelt. I squirmed my body around, twisting my spine. He was sitting only a few yards away.
One of his men looked at me with great pale eyes. I writhed move violently.
"It looks like it's working now," He said, "It looks as if it knows it's held down. Quite advanced – it must have been made by the enemy."
The Chancellor turned his ragged head toward me. His stare froze me with my back coiled and my eyes peering over my chest. He just grunted in acknowledgement and turned back to his supper. The tobacco smoke made by breathing irregular. The other men keep observing me while I wriggled desperately but the Chancellor let me be - at least until he had finished leisurely enjoying his meal.
Once he stood, the others were up as well and the all gathered round me, with him in the center. I curled my back and turned my head away, opening my eyes to the fullest. My limbs tried to curl in and the ropes became tight.
"What purpose do you think a machine like this serves, sir?" Asked one of his men.
I felt the Chancellor's tattered finger go under my back and make my torso stick out toward him. He felt along my spine and jabbed his fingertip into my pelvis. While he had his finger under me, he ran another finger down my front. He let it rest on my middle for a while, feeling as I hyperventilated. His finger slid out from under me in an instant and my back fell down onto the wood. He held my face with his thumb and index and made my head go left, right, up and down. Then he let me go, satisfied.
"What I can make of it," Said he "is that it must be some sort of spying drone. It appears to be disguised as a toy."
He bent toward me a bit more, looking troubled.
"Look at its chest," a gray man said.
"I see that. It looks to be breathing. I can't imagine why the machine would go through that kind of trouble for those mechanics. What kind of purpose would that serve? If it was powered by that somehow, then I would think it was a waste of-"
I found I could not control myself and let out a pitiful wail in desperation. My cursed voice still couldn't make the noise I wanted. What came out of me was a crackling high pitched squeal that should come out of no man.
"Free me!" I screeched.
"What was that?" Asked one of the gray men.
"Some sort of alarm," Answered the Chancellor coolly.
"Shouldn't we be concerned? What if its calling machines that are hidden here?"
"Hm."
He lifted a fist above me before one of his men broke in abruptly.
"Don't damage it. We still need to take a look at it."
The Chancellor's hand loosened and he placed it over my face as if he were smothering me. I had no real lungs so I did no need to breath to make a cry, but his hand certainly muffled me.
"The speaker's in its mouth. Stick a gag in there and let's open it up."
He gave off such a troubling heir that a dark study for weakness was just as much a part of his life as breathing and sleeping. He held me firm but didn't keep eye contact. He seemed detached, almost bored, with what he was doing. After he let me go a wad of cotton was jammed down my mouth and taped in place. I could still cry all I wanted, but the gag kept me from making enough sound to be heard. The Chancellor finally looked at me while his men picked up any amount of horrible equipment I could only assume they would've tortured me with. His gaze troubled me. He was thinking and his face gradually came closer. A finger pressed me in the chest hard and slid down to my groin.
The Chancellor became distracted when his men arrived back with a multitude of sharp things. As he leaned up, he removed his hand from me. He picked a tool and lifted it over the light and pressed it close to my chest. I held my breath as the men around him gathered closely in excitement. I was staring the Chancellor in the eye shaking my head desperately. After seeing me do this, he hesitated and pulled the knife away. I let out my breath and then sucked it back in when I saw the chiseled blade flying back down at me.
I screamed, twisted and crawled across the table. Then I stopped myself. I could move!
The Chancellor had cut my left side free with once swift, precise swing of the knife. Everyone's jaw hung loose, including mine, except the Chancellor's. He seemed to be the only one knowing what he wanted. With a turn of his mighty head, he looked to the men.
"My friends, you may leave this place now. I hope you enjoyed your dinner for it the last fine one we will know until this war is ours. Upstairs with the whole lot of you. Don't leave all at once – that's an order. It would draw too much attention to this place if you all went out. And try to keep a level head. You aren't in your ranks for nothing."
"What about the machine?" Asked one.
"I'll see he's attended to. Now go up and close the door behind, will you?"
Without so much as a word against his favor, the small group of men headed out, each one giving me a look as they passed. Their marching headed up the stairs and the door came shut. I heard the clomping of their crushing feet as they loitered upstairs.
I looked back at the stone-faced human. Barely even giving me an instant to think, he made a command quite clear;
"Turn over."
And before I knew what I was doing, my back was facing him and my face on the table. For a moment, my pride told me to flip right back around in defiance but then I realized that this huge man was best listened to. I felt a nail tap my upper back as if he were pointing to a spot on a map. He tapped me a couple times and grunted. His hand slid under me and fingers wrapped around, leaving my head and legs out. With a slash, the other two ropes were cut from me. He carefully stuck his pinky into my mouth and pulled the cotton out. A rank waft of meat, smoke and whisky hit my face as he sat and moved his eye close.
"You were one of those in that scientist's notes; what are you?"
I felt choked by his smell and then I tried to speak, but my voice betrayed me again. I couldn't form good words. Seeming to have no tolerance for this, his jolted his hand with me in it. My voice bubbled up again and this time his hold tightened into a fist around me, making me wheeze, and he slammed me into the table below. While I stupefied by the hit, he must have lifted me again, because then next thing I remember was his eyes again.
"The Scientist brought me life. I am a part of him but now I am free and I will not do his will," I told him, my voice was cleared but trembling.
"How?" Asked the polluted lungs.
I was quiet for a minute, trying to recall. I felt my ribs jabbed with singers as he tightened his grip on me, not prepared to wait.
"His machine – your machine: he-he used an odd-looking thing to put his energy into me, like he'd done with the mach-"
The table rammed into me again. I felt like I was surrounded in a cloak of needles, digging into my skin and lodging in my joints as they twisted round. Blinded with panic as I wailed and rolled over in his hand, he lifted me yet again to his dark eyes. My wits came back to me and I turned my head to look at him.
"He never told me anything about it."
"I-i-it was a round thing with etchings in it: brown and gold."
The Chancellor grunted musingly for some time, letting me get my bearings after being beat against the ground.
"I remember it now. He wrote about it. I went over his notes personally when we had them taken. I've no time to get it now, but it did say that he used it to give the computer intellect – a sort of uploading of memories onto it. No, not only memories, intelligence. It was given the brain of a human. No, not just any brain, that of a genius. And since the computer has been given an ability to learn, then it's not a wonder it seems to be predicting and conquering us," He rasped.
I jerked my head away from him as if that would do any good. His calculating mind disturbed me. He was no fool. Of course not, then how would he come to power? This man appeared to be a master the battleground: a master of fear and manipulation – manipulation using fear. That was why I answered and obeyed him. If I didn't, I feared the consequences. All this without him ever needing to tell me with words. Those in his presence must have felt just my size.
"I haven't heard anything about you in it. Why?"
"I-I-I c-can't answer that."
The table came at me. The fist around my narrow body came loose and pushed me against the cold wood. The man was leaning over me and pressed his massive weight down. The air was pushed out of me and I could feel my ribs bending in a strange stinging sore. My claws scrabbled the wood.
"Please. I can't. He told me nothing about those notes you have. I'm the very first of-"
"I know that. You have it written on you. Unless perhaps he was trying to throw me off…"
"I know as much as you," My voice started to shrill as my throat became knotted, "I've only been living for an hour, maybe less."
The weight came off but he still pressed me firm enough to prevent escape.
"Why were you created?"
"I can't-"
My throat closed as the poking hand crushed my lungs again.
"Wh-en 'he world is all dead," I gagged out as he let me speak again, "Me and my brothers will die and our energy will bring back life. That's all he told me. Please don't ask how. Because – my head – I can't think. I'm too scared. I can't remember – I really can't."
"Your fear should loosen your lips. Talk, damn you. Or calm down at least."
"N-no. I'm too scared. Fear makes me hold it in. It's all I can think to do. You kept hitting me and I'm so dizzy now. My head is foggy. I'm going blind. The black curtain - my head-. Then people all run but they beat themselves with their feet and ram themselves into pile. All the pink and the red inside is all over the ground. Squealing. N-no way out. No way out."
At that point in my relapse I could only lie and let out wretched shuttering breaths. The world outside my head was slowed and warped, like a bump or a pinch in a carpet in places. Luckily when the scares come on, I can pull myself back to the real world quite quickly. But the Chancellor, apparently not convinced my shell shock was genuine only kept me frozen like that for longer. I really can't remember exactly what he did. Whatever it was, it traumatized my skull and only made me more stupid. He was probably beating me on the table or crushing me. I remember him yelling in frustration but the words I can't recount. I likely wouldn't want to recount them anyway. Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew I had to get out of the episode but the massive man harassing me kept me from getting out. After any amount of time, the Chancellor must have realized that, whether I was faking or not, he would get nothing out of me the way he was going.
As soon as he stopped doing whatever abusive things he was doing, the present world was easing its way back. I glided out of my head smoothly, leaving the past massacre behind me. I felt joyful that it was all done. That was until I tried to move. I was still in his hand.
The gravel and dried mud ground swung back and forth as his arm swayed at the hip. His fingers were around my midsection. I loathed the felling of being balanced on my stomach, but I would have taken it over having my aching rib cage touched. My calves and upper body hung down and swayed bonelessly. He was carrying me somewhere but I was far too happy to be out of the reds of the trampled humans in the past to be worried about that.
Up he lifted me.
Clatter.
And into the weaved metal of a hanging rat cage with me.