Deep Yellow (33 page)

Meren paced around the
room, rubbing her chin.

"I will go to this
Paris place, find the key, and when you are sober follow me there.
Meet at the large metal tower."

Brell's hand lost its
grip, and she slowly slid her back down the side of the cupboard.
As she sat on the floor, the tears came. She wiped her nose and
face on her sleeve.

"Meren, I’m useless to
you. I’m a no good drunk and substance abuser, to be exact. Intox
and Deep, now there’s a mix. I can’t go with you, at the moment,
let me sleep here a while, I’ll follow you.” She hung her head,
then looked up. ”Sewing circle! Ha, ha." She laughed and cried at
the same time.

Meren stood over her,
hands on hips.

"Come on, Brell, still
time for you to sober up. Come and find me in Paris, we will do the
exit together. Never know, Williams may have a soft spot for
us."

"Yeah, yeah, you must
go. I am no help to you now. One of us must get through. Beat that
fragger Carac." Brell moved her hands, emphasising each word. "Will
you do that for me?" She turned towards Meren.

"For you, Brell, yes."
Meren ordered a coffee from the autochef and put it next to Brell’s
hand.

"Now, go. Go. Give
them hell," Brell said.

Meren bent down, put
her hand on Brell's shoulder, and kissed the top of her head. She
had run out of things to say.

"Love you," Brell said
softly.

Meren turned around.
Brell continued to look at her, eyes red, blue skin flushed, but
smiling.

"Love you," Meren said
as she placed her palms together and bowed. With that, she left the
room. Brell hung her head.

***

As Meren slid into the
seat of a transporter, she didn't want to think of Brell vulnerable
and drunk up in the room. As they agreed, she would go to Paris,
find the key, and wait.

Meren put her foot
down and accelerated away, steadily driving in the direction of the
pier. She had picked a larger transporter, one used for carrying a
small group of people. Blue in colour, with windows all the way
around and a large circular symbol on its side. She picked up a
ring of flowers, left on the passenger seat, and put them on her
head. Checking what her head covering looked like in the rear view
mirror, she pressed a button on the console, and Inhab-47 music
started playing.

The light, happy music
was certainly different from the Jayzan flute and reed ensembles.
The song was something about letting people go to San Francisco. A
large passenger vehicle trundled down the middle of the road,
people were walking around smiling, and the sun shone. Turning up
the volume, she rested her arm on the window edge and was seventeen
again.

***

Carac became
increasingly restless and frustrated in his attempts to solve the
clue. The risk of going into the wrong world and not being able to
leave it again was too great. He inhaled the sea air whilst walking
up and down the pier. The countdown continued silently overhead
like a heavy weight pressing on his chest. The nearby tower, which
he had previously seen up the hill from the main road, could have
been checked by now.

The magician continued
with his act, Carac had lost count of how many times he had heard
“Abracadabra.” He felt like punching the man, holo or whatever it
was.

What the fraggle
daggle. Must be kidding. Meren was trying to skulk up the pier. The
ring of flowers perched on her head was not the best type of
disguise, plus there wasn't that many bald-headed women wearing a
skirt and blouse. The way she moved was graceful, elegant, and
different from others. He jumped on the stage and stood by the
magician, trying not to listen to the act. It provided good cover
as Meren continued to walk slowly along past his position. He
quickly thought of his options: attack, torture, follow, or ignore.
Attack and torture would be the approach he would prefer in this
no-rules world, but following might be more productive. He jumped
lightly off the stage and followed behind her.

Meren's attempts at
trying to stay incognito were not the work of a stealthy thief. She
had reached the bridge by trying to blend in with people walking
back and forth. Carac followed discretely by also using the groups
of people. However, when she reached the prison, he knew he had to
make a move. She must have a location in mind, but which one? Could
he take that chance?

Having not received
any clues, that he had noticed, anyway, he changed tack. As Meren
walked lightly through the cellblock corridor, he quickly
approached her from behind and placed an arm around the front of
her neck. She attempted a back kick into his shins whilst pulling
at his arm. Carac just laughed.

"Okay where are you
going, where is the key?"

She continued to
struggle and tried to bite his arm. Quickly pulling her sideways,
he shunted her into an open cell, throwing her on the bed, blocking
the cell entrance.

"Where?" He held the
cell bars whilst standing in the entrance.

"Bangkok," Meren said,
thinking fast.

"Too quick a reply.
Where?"

"If you let me up,
I'll show you."

"Where’s the blue
bitch?"

"Drunk. She probably
won’t wake up before the end."

"So it’s just you and
me, then?"

Meren made no
reply.

He tipped his head
backwards and glanced along the cell corridor. Empty. Taking a
breath, he stared into the distance and exhaled noisily.

"You’re not going to
start fighting now, are you?"

Meren shifted back on
the hard bed until squashed up against the wall. Carac approached
her, and as he bent down, she kicked out with her feet, hitting the
tops of his legs. Carac started laughing, scooped her legs aside,
and slapped her across the face. He then leant in towards her.

"A nun, a new
experience, I suppose. Now, where is the key?" he said quietly in
her ear.

***

Brune swallowed a
stomach acid pill. He was watching statutory offences against
women, being committed right now on a live beam show, in a place
not far from where he sat. The inmates turning to ash was
interesting but he had seen terminations and deaths up close as
part of his normal Police Corps duty. He felt helpless to do
anything. The Association gave permission for the Holo Beam Company
to terminate convicted prisoners on an entertainment show as long
as there was no protracted torture. It also allowed criminal acts
and behaviour between the prisoners. All that matters was that the
audience and workers were safe from the convicts. Despite his
personal thoughts about what was happening, like millions of
others, he could not stop watching.

***

Meren could feel and
smell the hot breath on her neck. Trying to shrink back into the
wall, she turned her head away and tensed, ready for the attack. He
started to kiss her neck. She attempted to punch and push him away,
but he grabbed her right wrist and pinned it across her chest. Her
left arm was squeezed against the cell wall. He then positioned his
body weight in an attempt to hold her legs down with his right
knee. Meren kept her eyes open defiantly and steadied her breath as
she considered her next move. Best to relax and pick the right
moment.

“Where is the key?”
Carac said slowly between breaths.

With her legs pinned
down, she could not move. Most of his weight was now on top of her.
Shifting onto his left elbow, his right hand started groping around
her neck, then he ran a trembling hand down past the side of her
breast to her stomach, his fingers sliding and grasping through her
clothes. Then his hand stopped, his head went limp and lay on her
shoulder. Meren held her breath. His body moved backwards, head
bumping down until it finally knocked into her shoes.

After watching the top
of Carac’s head disappearing down the bed, she looked up and saw
the unmoving face of a security bot standing in the cell doorway.
Its head moved around back and forth, locked eyes with Meren and
then strode out. She sat up and, through the bars saw Carac being
dragged along the floor by a netted cord around his ankles. His
body was completely limp. Two bots then hoisted him up and walked
him off along the corridor.

She slowly got up,
adjusted her clothing, and stood in the cell entrance. All the
security bots had gone. The prisoners in the adjacent cells were
murmuring to themselves. Becoming more alert, whilst burying any
thoughts of Brother Marchantte from years ago, there was no time
for introspection. Straightening up and focussing herself, she
performed a breathing pattern whilst imagining her golden light.
She felt ready.

Reaching the Living
Room, she chose the first door on the right and pressed the menu
button. A “location select” option appeared. She pressed Paris.

***

Technician 22 had his
reply ready for the expected message from Mayleth.

Calculated risk.
Looks less suspicious being detained. Sufficient time left. Can get
an update message to him
.

He knew from working
with the Police Corps that they had a tactic where an undercover
officer was arrested on purpose to extract them from the scene,
without revealing their identity. Drug undercover operatives did it
all the time.

Whilst being detained,
vital information may come through from audience data zaps. It all
pointed to Paris, so it would be certain that Meren would find the
key. However, she wasn't the fastest challenger, and would dither
about waiting for Brell. That's when Carac would act.

***

Carac woke up, mumbled
something, and started rubbing his eyes. The weird, screechy music
playing in the background did not help his headache. A security bot
sat on a chair, arms folded, feet up on a desk. More importantly,
Carac could see a live screen of the Challenge; no sound, but it
was of himself in his cell, looking at the screen, watching
himself.

Meren stood in the middle of a short, narrow
cobbled road with white brick buildings lining each side. Large,
illuminated lamps hung on metal stanchions above high arched
doorways. Behind her, the end wall of the holo world, and
stretching ahead, a large open square area with a tall stone column
at its centre. In the distance, a tall metal structure peeked out
above some taller square-shaped buildings. First thing would be to
get a bearing; the column definitely looked like the obelisk on the
computer images.

Reaching the end of
the road, she stopped and glanced back. Although Carac was in gaol
for thirty minutes, she presumed he would be coming after her.
Walking forward, a whole scene started to play out.

A large noisy crowd
entered the square from her left. People were waving their arms,
singing, and jostling each other. Flutes were blown, and drums
banged at differing rhythms. Most of the men in the crowd were
wearing drab-coloured long jackets with wide sleeves, loose fitting
white shirts, and shoes with buckles. Their trousers didn’t reach
their ankles. Red, white, and blue coloured sashes crossed their
chests. The women had long dresses, bodices, and white caps. The
crowd parted at the same time that the cheering and shouting grew
louder. A wooden horse-drawn cart appeared, the white horse pulling
it unfazed by the crowd noise.

Intrigued by the
spectacle, Meren had temporarily forgotten about the countdown.

A portly man, dressed
in a white shirt and trousers, with a receding hairline, stood
inside the cart. Crowd members walked on each side, jeering and
shouting at the occupant. A second cart just behind the first
contained a woman wearing a plain white dress and white cap. The
lead cart made its way slowly towards the other side of the
obelisk, the crowd swarming around it.

Meren strolled around
the crowd towards the obelisk. The symbols on the tapering sides
were picture like, matching the close-up images Brell had shown
her. She moved her gaze to the gathering crowd in the square. A
tall narrow wooden contraption, set in the middle of a square
staging area, rose above the heads of the crowd. Uniformed men
holding long wooden poles kept the rowdy people back from the
stage. Some men wearing three-cornered hats, stood on the scaffold
stage, and as the cart approached, a loud bang of drums rang out.
Meren focussed on the wooden contraption; it had a heavy looking
blade of metal at the top of the structure, presumably held in
place by a mechanism at the side. As the portly man went up the
scaffold steps, Meren started to walk away, realising that this was
an execution. Similar to the Tower, but with a fiendish gravity
device instead of an axe. The man and woman had travelled in
separate carts, and the crowd reaction became heightened around
them. He appeared to be a very prominent man. A king?

The Obelisk and the
King are here
.

It fitted perfectly
with what she had seen. The crowd became silent, save for the drums
and then a huge cheer roared around the square. Meren had seen
enough, and did not look back; it was time to find the key. Ahead
of her, she could now clearly see the metal tower. It had four
large legs, fabricated out of a series of criss-crossing metal
lengths, which intertwined upwards into platforms. Lights adorned
the tower’s peak. It was similar to the towers on Wrax, which she
passed through once on her way to an outer world community.

Look under the
Tower.

Pleasant smells of
cooking wafted around, making her hungry. The single sun shone a
beautiful yellow colour and the air smelt fresh. Green trees were
dotted around near to the stylish low-level buildings. It reminded
her of a meditative scenario she once created to deal with the
tedium of the Sanctuary.

Halfway along a
bridge, which traversed a river, she noticed the people walking
around were similar to those in the other holo worlds. Also, they
were wearing different clothing from the crowd at the obelisk. She
could hear voices speaking with a different accent to that used in
San Francisco. Small transporters were driving around, fast and
very near to each other, horns blaring. No sign of security bots,
though. She took a wide-brimmed hat off a holo woman walking
nearby.