Filaria (31 page)

“Excuse me, sir, sorry to be a bother . . .”

Coming hesitantly down the hall toward him was a trio of blond teenage boys, all dressed in clean, grey uniforms. Tran so tucked himself in and snapped up the fastening stud of his pants. The outfits these boys wore were different than either the Ensign’s or the dark gods’ had been, for these were well pressed, nearly pristine, as if they’d never before been worn (though they were damp and stained around the cuffs). Even the three faces had a fresh quality.

“Hello there yourself,” Tran so replied. He held his hand out to shake but when he saw the reaction on all three faces, he decided against the gesture and let his hand fall to his side.

The boys had stopped several metres from Tran so, sizing him up with identical features.

Tran so had the feeling that if he turned his back he would never be able to recall any of their indistinct attributes.

Triplets?

Maybe fourteen, fifteen years old, tops.

“You understand what we’re saying?” the one in the centre asked. “Because we met a girl, a bald girl, back there, who stared at us blankly and couldn’t answer any of our questions.”

“I understand what you’re saying.”

“Thank goodness.” The teens glanced at each other; the effect was as if mirrors had suddenly appeared between them. They turned their wide eyes back to Tran so. The one in the middle spoke again, “Sir, we are
very
sorry to bother you, but . . .”

“Yes?” Tran so Phengh folded his arms. The boys were shorter than he, and slimmer. Though they had shown no signs of hostility so far, he did not trust their unease, their politeness, or their clean uniforms. If they wanted to fight, he was sure he could take all of them.

The one on the right spoke now, talking in the same tone and voice as his comrade: “We need help, sir. It’s important. Crucial, in fact.
Crucial
.”

The one on the left said, “Do you know anything about what’s happened to the floor plan? Or to the infrastructure? In general terms? Do you?”

“Slow down,” Tran so said. “Explain.”

“To the rest of the staff?”

“To management?”

“To anything?”

“Management?” Tran so nodded. “I’m also looking for management.”

“You are?” This appeared to cheer the boys somewhat, for they became slightly animated. Certainly their interest was piqued. “Do you work for the network?”

“No . . .”
The network
. The god of all gods. Once again, maybe this strange place he found was on the path to getting answers. Just as he was ready to cease his search, and go home to Minnie sue, would he discover the truth? Could a hint come from such unlikely sources as these three lost souls? “I’m not from around here,” Tran so said, cautious. “I just arrived. What can you tell me about this network?”

“It’s broken.”

“Kaput.”

“And this is
really
not the scenario we were trained to expect.”

“I have the growing feeling,” Tran so said, “we have all been led astray.”

“Pardon me?”

“Lied to.”

“Lied to? I hardly see how, but . . .” There was a long pause during which the boy in the centre bit his lower lip and more looks were exchanged. “Sir, you may be right. Though it’s not our place to speculate. And the word ‘lie’ has strong connotations . . . Something has certainly gone awry. We don’t mean to alarm you, sir, but it looks like time is running out.”

“Perhaps,” the boy on the right said, “it already has.”

They all agreed, nodding.

“Look here,” the centre boy continued, “this hall — the hall we’re in — isn’t on our map.” He held out a small, flat device, which rested inert in his pink, trembling palm, and exposed a meaningless picture of colour and lines.

Was this, Tran so wondered, proof of what the boy had said, about time running out? Tran so watched the image. Oily colours moved across each other, lines wavered. He had no clue what he was looking at.

“Our world,” one of the boys whispered, returning the device to his pocket, “is falling apart.”

Tran so Phengh replied that this information was not news to him, and, having arrived at the conclusion that the three boys were soft in their collective head, and that they would, in fact, be no help to him, walked away, heading in the direction he had been heading before he’d stopped for the snack. His back tingled in anticipation of an attack, for he still did not trust the youths; the only thing he heard were mumbled consultations.

He did not look back.

Another hour or so of more flooded corridors, slogging through more kilometres of muck, he decided that if Minnie sue had died in his absence, he would return to his fishing spot a humbled man, and sit there every day, as before, but never would he resume his attempt at forgetting his losses in life. They were integral to his being —

He saw the three boys again. Appearing from a wide opening in the wall, the trio bolted across, passing briefly from one side to the other, splashing in the shallow puddle there before vanishing into another archway. They looked as lost and scared as when they had first confronted him; they did not see him this time, staring down at their tiny device, arguing among themselves about whatever it was they saw there. Their voices, and the fall of their feet, soon echoed into silence.

As time progressed, the relentless uniformity of his surroundings was not only getting tedious but was also making him think that he might never find another elevating device, and that he was stuck in this limbo of darkness, water, and halls. The only way he could be certain he was moving on was the varying depths of fluids on the floor and the odd patterns it made, splashing up onto the walls either side.

The lights in the ceiling flickered. The floor shook. There was a distant rumbling far above, sending dust and other debris to patter down upon him, and by then he entertained the idea that somehow he had actually died in the ductwork, and had been given a test in the afterlife — temptation, by Sandra — which he’d promptly failed.

Was eternity in this place his punishment, his snide answer?

A hot gust of air embraced him and left him, cold.

Feeling twinges of disconcertion now, Tran so Phengh conceived of a plan to mark a trail as he went, perhaps scratched into the tiled wall, and was thinking about just what he might use to scratch the tiles with when he spotted yet another figure approaching, walking, head down.

He did not call out.

As the figure neared, he saw by the graceful, rolling gait that it was a woman. His heart raced. This might be the beginning of another test for him to mess up. He hoped the woman was unattractive. That would be easier for him.

Soon he saw more details: large, fleshy, bald. Dressed in threadbare rags. He began to feel a little better.

She finally looked up, and saw him. Her dark face, oddly pleasant, betrayed no surprise. She smiled with sad but welcoming trepidation; it was a toothless smile.

“Hello,” he said.

Her skin was blotchy and dry, as if she were diseased, but her eyes, like her gappy smile, betrayed a humanity and warmth that almost made him forget about his concerns. Nonetheless, cautiously, in case he was falling under a spell similar to the one that Sandra’s beauty had cast upon him, Tran so introduced himself. They shook hands. Her grip was cool, firm.

“You’re from far away,” the woman said. This was not a question.

“Yes.” But looking into her glittering eyes, anxiety took a sudden, inexplicable leap inside him. He stammered, “I’m, uh, from, from Hoffmann City. It’s where the water comes from. Above . . .”

Her smile widened. She continued to stare into his face. “I don’t know where that is but we all appreciate the water. I suppose it has to come from
somewhere
. My name is Reena.”

“Reena.” The nervousness, which had stung his palms and roiled in his guts, now consumed him; he tried to force it away, to reason with himself, but to no avail. He took a deep breath. “I came here, came down here, searching for something called the network but now — ” He shrugged and, to his mortification, uttered an awkward laugh that could only be described as part way between a honk and a titter. “I’ll, uh, settle for the nearest exit.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what the first thing is or where the second might be. An exit? From where? To where? Where can you go?”

“Up, of course.”

“Up? Nothing but beasts up there.” She might have been mocking him.

“There are some creatures up there,” he conceded. “But no more than any other place.”

“Is your hair a wig?” she asked. “And your teeth? They’re real?”

“Yes . . .”

Reena seemed impressed. “The world is changing,” she said. “
Rules
are changing. At the best of times I never knew what stories to believe. Then again, I didn’t set out to find out which ones were true, either.”

“I did,” Tran so said. “I set out. That’s exactly what I did!”

“And? Which stories are true?”

“None of them. Not one.”

Reena smiled. “You know, I wasn’t aware that these halls existed, going on and on like this. Maybe they never did before, not until now.”

“Reena, listen, the network is sometimes called the god of all gods. Does that mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. “There are no gods down here. I think there once were, but not any more. But I have to keep moving. See, I’m also looking for something. For someone, to be precise.”

“Who?”

“A friend. He was part of a search party, ironically. Looking for a young girl who had vanished. He set out in our car, three days ago. There’s been no sign of him since. And now I suppose
I’ll
be added to the list of missing people.”

Tran so Phengh looked over her shoulder, where a sudden greenish flare in the distant hall had flickered, leaving red patches fluttering before his eyes. As he tried to rub these away, the lights immediately overhead sputtered and crackled and there was more remote, thunderous rumbling.

“Listen,” he said, when the tremor had passed, “before you go, may I ask you a few quick questions?”

“Questions?”

“Yeah. I want to know . . . Do you think we’re all lost? I mean, does anyone know where they are, in life?” Even as the words fell from his lips, they surprised Tran so; he hadn’t been planning on steering the conversation to any topics metaphysical, no matter how ill-conceived or simple. He put his hand over his mouth and held it there, as if to stop further outbursts from escaping. He hoped Reena might look upon what he’d said in an amused light, but neither of them smiled. To attempt recovery, he stammered through his fingers, “I’m, uh, I’m sorry to hear about your friend . . .”

He found himself wanting to mention his lost son, and his dying wife, but there was no reason to burden this already sad woman with more gloomy news. He cautiously took his hand from his mouth and heard himself say: “To get down here I had to step into a tiny chamber, hardly bigger than my body . . . Just prior to this, I’d spent some time in another small confine, and was reluctant to enter.”

Reena appeared to be growing increasingly suspicious of Tran so. He could not blame her. Wanting earnestly to dispel her notions, to be trusted by her, he continued:

“I had been assured that coming down here would bring me a few steps closer to fulfilling my quest. If I rode inside this strange device . . . Where I come from, in Hoffmann City, we believe that a giant tube, which some people, I’ve learnt, call a lift, or an elevator, accesses the god of all gods. This device I entered travels inside the tube.” He wiped his palms on his pants and took a deep breath. “I think I might have been drugged, or infected. Once inside the device, I whispered my intentions to the walls and we began to move. For the longest time after there was silence. I thought about girls, to be blunt. I thought about Sandra, and about my wife, Minnie sue. The chamber, by this point, had begun to emit the scent of things growing in wet places, at the very cusp of decay. I was in there for a long time. Eventually, I curled on the floor and tried to sleep. Just as I was beginning to think I had trapped myself yet again, that I would never emerge alive from this chamber, it came to a complete stop.”

Tran so still felt anxious. Why this anecdote was so important to relate he was not sure, yet it would make a huge difference, he knew, if he could tell the whole story to Reena.

But Reena, meanwhile, was looking downright wary by this point. What if she walked away? Tran so could not be sure what he might do in that case. Making a motion with both hands, meant to indicate that the point was coming (though he himself was not convinced), he said, “This tiny elevating chamber did not open. I was not at my destination. There was no way to leave that I could see. I tried to get out at first, to force my way out, pushing downwards against the floor, pushing at the walls with my elbows, knees, and feet. Soon I gave up. I curled there, waiting.”

Reena said, “Let me pass. I want to find my — ”

“Wait. Listen.” Tran so took another deep breath, braced himself to catch the woman, should she try to run. “I was preparing to sleep — I was so exhausted — when there came a light rapping on the outside wall. At first I thought I was dreaming but the knock was repeated. It came from a tiny window above my head that I had previously regarded but had not been able to open. Looking up, I saw an old, old man outside, with huge eyes, peeking in at me. I was shocked. He looked at me for a long time and then he said, ‘Attendant here, how can I help you?’”

The look on Reena’s face had momentarily returned to one more benign; evidently, Tran so had her interest again, if not her trust. He pressed on:

“I told this man my destination. ‘All the way down’, I said. And he asked me in his old man’s voice if, when I was there, would I search for his brother? ‘My brother,’ he said, ‘had been by my side for a hundred years and has now fallen to his death. Just two days ago.’ He became emotional, saying he had always disliked his brother, disdained him, in fact, and that his brother was a prude, and a hindrance, but now that he was gone he missed him. He knew he should have said something to his brother when he was still alive but it was
too late
. So I’m . . .” Words faltered. What was he going on about? He tried to calm down but his heart raced in his chest.