Back in the present. This is, essentially, the prologue again, with changes made for continuity's sake, and a little more from where the prologue left off.
Chapter 85
I’m standing on - or, to be more accurate, I’m suspended over a trapdoor set into the cold, gray floor. What lay below it I can only imagine. Likely it’s a deep pit, or probably some painful grinding machine that will first terrify me as I hang over it and then destroy me as I fall into it. I’m pretty much beyond feeling horrified at the way things went for me. These last few hours I was so brave. So intrepid. So strong. So foolishly overconfident. And now I’m paying for it.
It doesn’t matter anymore. The others are safe.
And the place is going to go any minute, unless someone noticed what I did.
The similarity to Abe’s predicament years ago
no not years weeks maybe days who knows how long he’s been at it
is uncanny. My arms are tied up above me, so I can’t chant or move around. Funny, considering I’d be shot if I tried anything like that. But I screwed up … it’s amazing how being captured made me revert to old ways of thinking; I’m feeling like a slave all over again. Even after all I’ve been through.
I stand silent, not daring to even cough. I’m filled with the certainty that any movement, even a blink, will bring instant death. I nervously await the final word from Vladimir.
“Well, boss?” his slig crony grunts. “What d’ya say? Drop ‘im?”
Vladimir stands tall. I risk craning my neck upward to see what sort of expression he wore. His eyes are glowing a malicious orange, and he shifts the butt of his smoldering cigar from the left of his mouth to the right. What could he be thinking? After all, it’s just another expendable mudokon. Just waste him.
But I find myself surprised at what he said. “Okay, maggot,” he begins in his falsely soothing voice, “why don’t you tell me what you thought you were doing. In ten words or less. If you can even speak properly,” he added as an after thought. He and the slig were amused by this, and chuckled a bit.
I am surprised, of course. Who’d ever heard of a glukkon demanding answers from some mudokon chump? No one, that’s who. So, needless to say, I don’t know how to react. Therefore, I do the most natural thing in the world: I reply. In my creaky voice, and through my haphazardly sewn lips, I speak in low tones. “I wanted to save my brothers from your wicked plans. Sir,” I quickly add, lest he order me beaten for insubordination.
Vladimir raises an eyebrow (or the muscle above his eye, as glukkons have no true “eyebrows”) and shifts his cigar again. Those good old Lungbusters; never a gluk without one. “Really? What ‘wicked plans’ are you talking about, worm? What have you heard?”
A lump rises in my throat and I force myself to swallow. “I am allowed to speak freely, then, sir?”
Vladimir looks peeved, but he nods and says to go on.
I clear my throat; some lengthy talking will be required. More than I’m used to doing, at any rate. “I was in the stockyards of Zulag Four, feeding the flits to the slogs and friets, when a few sligs marched up to me and started to drag me off.”
“Is there a point to this, vermin?” He spits this last bit.
I gasp at the sudden ferocity in his voice, and start to stutter. “Y-yes, y-yes there is, s-sir. I-I j-just feel it necessary t-to tell you what h-h-happed prior to th-the incident. I-is that fine, sir?”
The glukkon appeared as though listening to me was a most unpleasant experience, like a chore he could not avoid and so was making sure everyone could read his contempt for what he was doing.
What he says is, “Fine.”
After trying to calm myself down (and failing; my shoulders were sore from the way my arms were tied), I begin again.
“They … they dragged me to the room where the animals are prepared to be chopped. I thought that I was being reassigned … but it turns out I was the one being cooked. Apparently, you glukkons were looking for a money-saving way to get food for the other working mudokons. Anything to save a buck or two, of course, so—”
The slig abruptly steps forward and smacks me across the face. A brief flare of pain rises in my jaw, but I ignore it. I’ve experienced more pain and physical torment in the last few days than most mudokons experience in a lifetime. No, unless that slap had been lethal, I wouldn’t worry myself. And look what I learned! I suppose I should keep my remarks about glukkon frugality to myself.
I take a breath and continue. “Well, as the sligs tried to ‘sedate’ me, I felt the urge to fight back. My captors were unarmed, so I had and advantage, what with mudokons being both naturally stronger and with my frequent … heavy labor.”
I brace myself for another blow; the thought of pissing off an important glukkon in my final minutes has its merits - not to say I hadn’t already pissed him off more than any other glukkon had been pissed. Unless you counted Lulu. After what Abe did to him … and to think I just missed the show …
Anyhow, no blow comes; they seem to agree that mudokons are much more fit than gluks and sligs, and so I continue.
“I left the two guards lying on the ground and ….”
And what? I have to be careful what secrets I let slip to this glukkon. It doesn’t look as though I will walk away from this meeting, so I can’t reveal any of the mudokon secrets I have learned over the past few days. Should I go into detail about my little adventure outside? Or skip it?
Skip it. Time to bullshit.
“Even though you sent sligs after me, I escaped through the plumbing and into the water. I nearly drowned. I made it to shore, fled for the woods, and regrouped for a few days before coming back.”
An outright lie. I can’t tell him that mudokons can be revived. That would be bad news for all of us.
“I returned this morning and managed to sneak the mudokons out through the main exit.”
I have no other ideas. I don’t know if the glukkons know that we have bird portals, so I don’t think I should tell them.
Vladimir coughed. “What about that monster you turned into to kill the Board members?”
I don’t have an explanation for this. I grope through my mind … “I looted the armory and had bombs with me. While in the woods I taught myself how to throw rocks with great accuracy. I don’t think there was any monster involved; I threw grenades at everyone.”
Vladimir appears to believe me. I don’t think he wants to believe mudokons can change into such beasts.
“After sabotaging the boilers, I was captured.” I end abruptly. I don’t know what else to say.
Vladimir begins speaking, but his words are blurred … my vision shifts, and I am seeing something else … a
[VISION]
the control panel i adjusted was not switched back to normal. the sligs that caught me were too excited to bother. the terminal is unattended and still blaring it’s warning.
[/VISION]
vision of the boiler room. I feel a little more at ease: even though I’m about to die, at least I took the factory down with me.
Vladimir gives the slig the order to open the trapdoor. It reveals a blender-like, spinning blade. I gulp, and feel sweat on my brow.
This does not look good for Dante the mudokon.
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