Devolution

Another slow hour passed without mollifying 3’s rage one iota. Surely that dope of an agent had to have been stirring, fishing for a reaction with the most obvious bait he could think of. He couldn’t really believe that 3 was involved in the murder of his own father and the father of his best friend. Replaying the agent suggesting that to him and the stupid look on his face, made 3 rumble inside all over again: volcanic stirrings. He knew he would have killed the damn fool if he had more time.

With no outlet for his anger, 3 roamed the small room in circles, deliberately slamming into a piece of furniture every now and then smiling as it cartwheeled across the floor.

Eventually his erupting ire collapsed into a more controlled anger, and he began to think about what he had done to the agent with his hoverchair and what he was doing now with it and how he may be able to escape with sheer force. Once free, he certainly had the speed to effect a getaway, but he didn’t know where he was within this building nor even where the building itself was situated in the city.

Continuing to circle the room, 3 slowed as he worked through the problems he faced in attempting to escape. First it was clear to him that these agents, whoever they worked for, meant him no good. They were holding him hostage for information most likely, or as leverage in some sort of negotiation with a third party. If he felt initially that they were going to help him, protect him, or reunite him with his friends, he no longer held any such delusions. Based on the way he had been treated and the length of time he was forced to wait alone, it was reasonable to assume they would try for as long as they could to extract the information they were after from him and after that certain period of time, either with or without success, they would kill him. He had to escape.

He tried to remember what he had seen of the building on his way in, and further what landmarks may have entered his memory during the trip from Central rail terminal.

There was a park, and a taxi stand but that didn’t offer any help as it could have been one of scores of similar locations around the city. As hard as he tried, 3 could not even remember in which direction they had traveled, but the journey had lasted maybe fifteen minutes. That was useful even without a specific direction. What else? 3 continued circling the room like a vulture waiting to land and devour the carcass of some other animal’s kill.

What else? A fifteen minute radius from Central rail terminal and then an underground parking lot. A security coded gatehouse manned by robots, and then up twelve floors in the elevator. Was it twelve? Yes and the elevator opened directly at the door of this room. 3 stopped dead at the door, and looked through it with his imagination seeing the elevator doors unguarded, and he shivered involuntarily with hope and excitement.

Deciding he had enough information to get out of the building at least, and then once on the street he would have the cover of sidewalks swollen with pedestrians, and streets overflowing with transport, 3 turned his attention to how to break out of the room. He stared at the window; a hard enough charge would get him through the glass, lacerated and bloody for sure, but that was acceptable. The problem was being twelve floors off the ground because his hoverchair could only elevate at a maximum height of two meters and the fall from the twelfth to the first floor would at best totally disable him and at worst, kill him.

Next he tested the walls, nudging them gently with his chair feeling for give and testing the materials. It took very little pressure to crack the front wall and the door appeared very flimsy. Perfect, he could easily bust through but what if there were guards waiting just outside? If he could slide quickly into the elevator and close the doors, he might avoid them. 3 began to circle the room again, feeling agitated, frustrated because of course the elevator doors would be closed, and he would not even have enough time to get them open before he was captured again or killed. Again the planned route led to his death, which was something he was trying to avoid at all costs.

More thought, more circling. 3 was losing his nerve and he knew it. He could feel it slipping away like bath water down the drain after the plug had been yanked out. The fierce wild anger he felt before had infused him with bravery, but now as time passed he calmed down and began to feel once more like a frightened boy, out of his depth. Powerless and alone at the mercy of adversaries whom he neither knew nor understood.

He needed to be goaded again, insulted, falsely accused, to have that stupid agent brought back in to sit with him and annoy him by his very presence there in the room. He needed a catalyst.

As 3 was floating, considering his plight, the door opened and in walked a tall man in a grey shirt.

‘Move back to the center of the room please. We need to talk.’

‘Talk about what? Letting me the hell out of here?’

The grey shirt smiled one of those cold and mocking smiles that they all seemed to have as he righted one of the chairs 3 had knocked over, brushed it off and planted himself on it. 3 looked at him then at the door now closed, then back to the agent.

‘Your friend Joshua has now been taken into custody, so we have all three of you and it remains for us to see which of you will begin to cooperate first. Obviously any signs of willingness to help and be less obstructive by any one of you will result in that person receiving more favorable treatment.’

3 ignored him.

‘We just received news,’ continued the agent in an indifferent voice, ’that inspector Jacobssen has died from injuries sustained in the attack on him at his hotel room.

‘That’s bullshit,’ spat 3. ‘I just saw him on the webnews.’

‘Old news my young friend, I’m afraid. We set up a ten hour delay on that VDU. The latest information is that Jacobssen is dead.’

Not knowing what to believe, 3 sat there in stupefied silence. Nothing they had told him had been verified and proved right by anyone or anything besides themselves. They wanted him to talk and were pushing as many of his buttons as they could think of to get what they wanted. He remained silent, looking out of the window at the messy sprawl of Sydney.

His wondering about whether or not the grey shirt would persist was answered shortly by his departure. Watching his back as he walked to the door, 3 heard a voice within, compelling and urgent, ‘Now!’ it said. Go now!’

3 accelerated towards the door smashing into the grey shirt’s back and knocking him to the floor, as he glided over the top of him and made straight for the elevator doors. Slowing a little to make sure the sensors caught him, 3 was aware of the guards reacting quickly to him but he had the advantage of speed and surprise. The two automaton guards followed him but the elevator closed, blocking their entry apart from one arm which poked through. 3 rammed the arm from the side and snapped it off allowing the door to close.

‘Ground! Ground!’ he called.

An alarm was sounding from the control panel of the lift and was accompanied by a flashing red light. 3 ordered the ground floor camera view and saw more guards assembling in the foyer to meet him. Fighting the panic and the nausea it carried, 3 continued his descent. He watched the numbers counting down on the display panel and in eight seconds he had reached ground.

When the doors slid open he was ready. Yelling at the troop of guards and grey shirts not two meters away from him, he unleashed a mind bomb and sent them reeling and staggering. Clutching their heads and their ears, they fell about the foyer like drunks leaving a pub at closing time.

He glided quickly through them, hitting one or two on the way and sending them sprawling and flying. The exit doors were in shutdown, locked and non operational. He was stuck, saved for the moment at least by the time he had bought with the use of his mind weapon, but that was not permanent and he could not use it again until some hours had elapsed.

Looking around, he spotted a steel chair and went to pick it up. Next he glided back to the elevator doors and turned to face the exit booths. Aiming at little to the left of the exit doors, he accelerated, quickly reaching full speed with the chair in front of him held in his hands. A meter before the glass wall, he stopped dead and released the chair from his grasp. Glass shattered and scattered all over him and all over the floor as the chair went through, quickly followed by 3 in his hoverchair, bleeding from a few minor cuts but otherwise okay.

3 stopped and looked back at the shattered glass wall, and the guards inside still crawling and rolling trying to recover their senses. It looked like they were suffocating on the air which dived through the broken glass of their enclosure. Pain reminded 3 of what was going on. He looked at his arms and noticed the cuts and the blood and received a sudden call to action. Must keep moving.

The problem for 3 was to put as much distance between him and the guards, who would be fully recovered in five to ten minutes time, as possible while trying to gain his bearings and work out first of all where the hell he was, and then secondly how to get to the police station.

Desperately searching the street for some familiar landmark, he found nothing so for no other reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time, he turned left and headed towards an old sandstone building, that he could see, two or three blocks away. He accelerated to the highest speed he could while needing to maintain some lateral control to avoid collision. Unfortunately for more than a few pedestrians, 3’s state of mind was such that he was not able to concentrate properly on controlling the speed or direction of his hoverchair.

‘Sorry! Sorry!’ he called almost continually in response to the abusive comments and dirty stares of hot indignation he was receiving from people who were being either hit or forced quickly out of 3’s path. He was aware of attracting too much attention but he was too frightened to care. The crowd seemed to swell in front of him, like seaweed massing with the tide near the shore in a thick tangled mat. His progress was inevitably slowed because he really didn’t want to injure anyone.

Risking his recapture but choosing to avoid hurting or possibly accidentally killing someone with his wild flight, 3 slowed down to conform to the speed of people traffic flow. The panic he felt kept rising in his chest and threatening to blow out of his mouth, but somehow he held it all inside.

The old sandstone building he had seen was now only a block away and he took some reassurance from this before remembering he didn’t know where he was or where he was going. Without realizing it, 3 was picking up speed again and paying less attention to what lay in front of him. People’s faces were blurring as their expressions raged and their mouths cursed him.

Then he heard a loud voice way above the din of the street. ‘Watch out!’ A warning but moments too late as 3 slammed into the side of an information kiosk. The plastic wall of the kiosk yielded slightly before succumbing to the strain of the impact and cracking. The crowd gasped at the sound which reminded some with long enough memories of a gunshot. 3 spilled out of his hoverchair, as it fell to the pavement, dazed and hurting. When he tried to push himself up to a sitting position he found his left arm unresponsive, and on closer inspection saw a splinter of bone poking out of his baggy skin just below the elbow.

Someone touched him, making him jump and yelp in pain.

‘Are you all right?’ A kindly voice among a chorus of concerned inquirers.

Gazing up into a circle of friendly faces peering down, 3 felt another hand on his back. Another gentle voice said, ‘Stay there. We’ve called an ambulance for you. Don’t move. Try to stay calm.’

‘Help me back into my chair please,’ said 3. ‘I need to go. I’m being chased. I need the police. Help me up.’

No one moved.

‘Help me up! I have to go.’ 3 reached out for his chair with his right hand and ignoring the pain caused by twisting his back and straining it, righted the chair and began to drag himself closer.

No one moved to help him.

‘Help me please. Help me! Fucking help me!’

‘Calm down. The ambulance will be here soon. You’re hurt. Don’t move.’

Listening to the voices, 3 felt for a moment that he might be better off doing as he was told. The pain was excruciating and now the recurrent nightmare of a severe migraine begun to creep through the nerve fibers of his brain. He felt dizzy and nauseous. While battling the urgent attacks of pain, 3 managed to drag himself back into his chair but once there he made no attempt to elevate. Then he heard some other voices coming from beyond the circle of on-lookers, themselves a curious mix of do-gooders and rubber-neckers. Were they friendly voices? How could he tell?

‘Let us through please. Let us through.’

The air was hot and stifling in this cocoon of humanity, but 3 sensed the crowd thinning, offering no resistance to whoever was coming other than a murmur of complaint here and there, and a few words of advice, none of which 3 could hear properly or understand. Were they friend or foe?

‘Who’s coming? Who is it?’

People spoke all at once, a worrying babble which compelled 3 to look for himself. He elevated the chair, raising it slowly-why was it so slow, he wondered. It’s damaged. At two meters, 3 spun around to where the voices were coming from and saw them. Not the white shirts of the paramedics, but the gray shirts of trouble.

3 glided beyond the human beehive at two meters then quickly dropped back to ground level before continuing on towards the old sandstone building. When he reached it, he could barely think straight from the pain and in trying to read the plaque on the wall he had to concentrate to focus through watery eyes.

Department of Education.

‘No,’ he cried out in despair. ‘Stupid fucking idiot. Damn it! Fuck it!’

Gripped by hysteria, 3’s mind swarmed with conflicting thoughts and feelings. He had fled to this building as though it was his sanctuary, his salvation but it wasn’t and he had no idea now why he thought it was. He remembered the kiosk he had smashed into. If he had of been thinking more clearly he could have looked carefully at the map and pinpointed his location and found out exactly where the police station was and how to get there. That was my chance, he thought, and I blew it. Now what do I do?

Looking back to where he had come from, 3 saw his pursuers coming towards him so he turned the corner and parked in the alcove entry to the Department of Education building to give himself a little bit of extra time to work out what to do. He began to shake and felt a wave of bile rocket up the back of his throat which he vomited violently out onto the steps.

‘Shit mate, you look awful. You want a hospital or something?’

Through bleary eyes, 3 looked up and saw a creased gray face framed with greasy hair and a bushy untrimmed beard.

3 coughed to activate his voice while the old man watched him.

‘I need the police. Where’s the police station?’

‘A good k and a half from here I reckon. On foot.’

‘Which way?’

‘Mate, how far do you reckon you’ll get like that?’

3 shook his head and swallowed another mouthful of bile.

‘Here, I’ll take you, eh. In a cab, yeah?’ The old man waited for a reply but 3 simply stared at him unable to comprehend what was going on. Who was this man and where did he come from? Why is he helping me? Am I going to die? No, it’s just shock, isn’t it?

‘Mate. Talk to me. Do want me to get us a taxi?’

Somehow 3 managed a nod which brought a smile to the old man’s face. It was the most beautiful thing 3 had seen all day.

‘Wait there a tick.’

The old man disappeared around the corner with surprising alacrity. Leaving 3 alone again, but before he had time to wonder about the man and whether or not he would return and really help him, there he was, gesticulating wildly to a Premium service taxi.

The driver kept the doors locked and talked to the old man through a partly opened front passenger window. They seemed to be arguing. The old man made a stop sign with his hand and aimed at the driver. Then he shuffled over to 3 and told him to get a move on.

‘You’ve got money, right?’

The old man led 3, after he again nodded the affirmative answer about being able to pay for the fare, to the side of the transport where a scanner protruded from the front passenger door. When he went to pick up 3’s arm to wave the wrist code in front of the scanner, he noticed its condition and quickly withdrew his hand.

‘Shit,’ he said.

‘What’s the delay?’ asked the driver.

‘His arm’s broken.’

‘Does he want to ride or not?’

‘You’re an arsehole. I said his scanning arm is broken. I’m not sure if I can lift it to the scanner or not.’

‘Mate, it’s broken right. Just pick the fucking thing up and wave it in front of the scanner then I’ll open the doors.’

The old man looked at 3 and said, ‘Sorry, I have to touch your arm.’

3 nodded his permission and winced as the other lifted his busted limb just long enough for the scanner to beep and clear the door locks.

The two unlikely comrades entered the rear seats of the taxi and the driver pulled out from the curb, just as a mob of gray shirts arrived at the Department of Education building.

One agent said to another, ‘Quick get our car here. He’ll head for the cop shop or the hospital.’

The other said, ‘My money’s on the cop shop.’