Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

9

We pulled up in front of a large concrete building that contained few windows and began to park. “If he’s getting the tour,” said Dash, “then shouldn’t we take him in through the back?” “Shit,” said Hummer, backing out of the space, “you’re right. Thanks for reminding me.” “You’re welcome.”

We drove around to the back where a single streetlight provided little illumination. We got out, and then entered the building through a heavy steel door.

The first thing that hit me was the smell of the place; it was combination of that sweaty, metallic, smoky, machine-grease stench of the factory floor and the overly-antiseptic aroma of a hospital corridor. I’d never smelled anything like it in my life.

“You get used to the smell,” said Hummer, clamping a hand on my elbow and leading me through a set of doors on the left. Dash made a beeline for a set of doors on the right—the vending machine area.

We entered a somewhat cramped but well-lit office filled with scuffed wooden desks and chairs that were easily 30 years out of date, the furniture made all the more anachronistic by the expensive state-of-the-art equipment setting on it: 25-inch flat screen LCD monitors on broken roll-top desks, iMacs being used by people sitting in slat-backed wooden chairs held together in places with duct tape, and a trio of huge 50-inch plasma televisions mounted on the walls displaying a slide-show series of maps, as well as images from what I assumed were security cameras; empty streets, empty corridors, empty parking lots.

“It’s impolite to stare,” said Hummer, pulling me toward a door marked Holding Room at the back of the office. Opening the door, he reached in and flipped on the light, then pushed me inside. “Bathroom’s on the right, and there’re snacks in the refrigerator.” He pointed to a rolling metal rack filled with hanging clothes. “Nova’s already had some stuff from the wardrobe put in here, so you can change out of those pissy clothes. Clean yourself up and get a bite to eat. You won’t be in here for too long.”

“Wait a second,” I said as he began closing the door.

He paused. “Yes?” I took a deep breath and summoned what little nerve I still had. “Aren’t I entitled to one phone call?” “You are.” “I’d like to make it, please.” Hummer grinned. “Who have you got to call, Driver?” “That’s my business.” “More like your daydream, from what I understand.” Glaring at him, I made a fist but did not raise it. “I demand my right to a phone call.”

“You’ll get your call, stop whining.” He stared at me for a moment, his features softening a bit. “You’re really scared, aren’t you?”

“…yes…”

Hummer looked over his shoulder, then stepped back into the holding room, pushing the door most of the way closed. “Listen to me, Driver. I don’t know what you did to piss off the Highway People, but it must have been pretty goddamn serious for you to wind up here. The folks who come to this place, they don’t drive in, and they sure as hell don’t leave. Nobody just passes through here, the Highway People won’t let them. But you, you’re getting special treatment. I can’t tell you whether or not you’re gonna leave here alive because I don’t get to make that call, but I can tell you that no one, the Highway People included, has any intention of harming you. Anything that might or might not happen to you will be your own doing, not ours.”

I was still trying to get past I can’t tell you whether or not you’re gonna leave here alive when I heard myself asking, “Who are the Highway People?”

Hummer shrugged. “That’s just what we call them. I don’t know what their actual names are—hell, I don’t even know if they have names. They’ve been around as long as there have been roads and cars. I guess they’re…I dunno…the gods of the road.”

“Have you ever seen them?”

“Once. Right after the accident. They came for me and Dash.” He was staring out at something only he could see. For the first time that night, he looked so much older than his years. “I remember,” he said, “that the windows were rolled halfway down—it was a warm night, Dash had his open and so did I, so when we went over the bridge and hit the water below, these…these swords of water slashed through the interior. I guess that happened because when we hit, we made a mother of a splash, it happened so fast, and we were both panicking because the interior was filling up and we were trying to get our seatbelts undone…Dash’s arms were flailing all over the place and he kept looking in the back seat for something, and I remember…I remember that those first swords of water felt like they’d actually gone in, y’know? Straight through flesh and into the bone. Even though everything was happening very fast and I knew it was happening very fast, in my eyes it was all in slow motion. Getting my seat belt off and then trying to help Dash with his, and that’s when I saw that he was already dead. His arms weren’t flailing, they were just floating, and the reason he was looking in the back seat was because his head had slammed against the dashboard and he’d broken his neck.” He looked back at me. “His head had just…turned around like that, and I could see where a good portion of his skull had been caved in. I undid his seat belt, anyway, and even though we were sinking there was still an air pocket inside, and I tried to get to it, and that’s when the semi that I’d hit came over the side of the bridge and landed on top of us. I felt my back shatter, and then it was dark and cool and quiet, and then a hand gripped my arm, and I opened my eyes and there was this…this shadow floating over me. It had silver eyes, and I knew it was going to help me. ‘Make sure you get my brother,’ I said to it. And it pointed over to another shadow with silver eyes that was pulling Dash out of the car. They swam away so smoothly, it was kind of graceful.

“I remember looking back at the car and…seeing our bodies still trapped inside. What was left of our bodies, anyway. It took me a long time to understand the process, how it was that our bodies are left behind—at least, for a while, and….” His words trailed off as he smiled to himself, then blinked, and—remembering his duty—pointed toward the bathroom door once again. “Get yourself cleaned up.” “I’m sorry,” I said. Hummer paused at the door once again. “What the hell for?” “I’m sorry that you died. It must have destroyed your parents, losing both of you at the same time.” He shrugged. “We never knew. That’s part of the price for being Repaired.” He closed and locked the door behind him.

I went into the bathroom (which had a shower), cleaned up, found some clothes that fit (the underwear was new, still in the sealed bag), and was putting my shoes back on when I noticed that some of the clothes remaining on the rack were damaged; rips and tears that had been stitched up, dark stains on some that didn’t quite come out in the wash, and some with hand-sewn, hand-lettered labels; property of s. wilson, DAVE’S PANTS, This Jacket Belongs To: JASON.

I wondered if the clothes I’d just put on had similar labels sewn into them, then just as quickly decided that I didn’t want to know.

I heard a slight, soft whirr behind me, and turned around. A security camera mounted in the corner nearest the bathroom door blinked its red light and adjusted its position.

They were watching me, big surprise.

I walked toward it, and with every step I took the camera shifted its position to keep me in view.

“So these clothes,” I said. “I’m guessing they were, what? Taken from the bodies and repaired, as well? Is that what all these are? Dead men’s clothing?”

“Yes,” said a voice behind me.

I spun around, nearly tripping over my own feet.

“Easy there, Driver,” said the nightmare in the doorway. “Mustn’t hurt yourself. Think of what it would do to our insurance deductibles.” It laughed and rolled forward. “I’d shake your hand, but as you can see, that’s somewhat problematic.”

It—he—wore no shirt and had no arms or legs, and sat in an electric wheelchair that was guided by one of those attachments that enables the user to steer by using his or her mouth. As he rolled closer I saw that he wasn’t sitting in the chair at all—he was attached to it by a series of clamps that were soldered into the frame of the chair and disappeared into his flesh at waist level. The skin at the entry point was swollen, red, and crusted at the edges with dried blood.

“My given name is Henry,” he said. “But everyone here calls me Daddy Bliss.”

A series of three curved iron pipes curled out of his back and down into the wheelchair’s battery. Every time the chair moved, these pipes shuddered.

“I do apologize for not dressing appropriately—one should always look one’s best when greeting a new visitor—but you caught me during one of my quarterly tune-ups.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude. You know—staring at you.”

Daddy Bliss nodded, giving me a close-up view of the matchbox-sized rectangles with electrical wires implanted in his skull. The skin of his exposed scalp was also crusty and red where it joined the metal. It was impossible to see where or to what the scalp-wires connected because they hung down his back, mixing in with a bundle of other wires that were held together by plastic clamps. What I could see—too clearly—were the two clear plastic bags that dangled from the metal IV pole attached to the right arm of the wheelchair. The tube from the first bag—a catheter—snaked downward and then up into his penis, which was hidden behind one of the metal waist-clamps. The bag was filled not with urine but a thick black liquid, and as I stared, I realized that the liquid wasn’t going into the bag, it was flowing downward, into him.

“Motor oil,” he said. “It seemed to me you weren’t about to ask, so I thought I would get right to it.”

“Motor oil?”

“A highly…specialized brand, mixed with my own blood but, yes, motor oil nonetheless. The second bag contains a liquid protein supplement that helps keep me both alive and regular.” To illustrate this last point, his bowels groaned, and something moist and heavy dropped into an unseen container housed within the wheelchair’s lower casement.

I was glad I couldn’t see it.

“My apologies,” said Daddy Bliss. “But I had Thai food for dinner, and it always goes right through me. But don’t worry, the casing is quite solid, you can’t smell it.”

“Do you ever get out of that chair?”

“Oh, goodness gracious me, no. I would lose my mobility, silly boy. Do you have any more questions along these lines?”

I thought of Dash, Hummer, and the foundry worker and said, “Why haven’t you been repaired like the others I’ve seen?”

“It’s a question of compatibility, my boy. Just as the human body will reject unacceptable organic tissue, the same goes for iron, steel, aluminum, plastic, any man-made alloy or other such material…it’s a question of trial-and-error. Some of us have been able to be Repaired almost immediately, while others—like myself and Fairlane, who you’ll be meeting later on—have to make due with more…primitive results.

“For myself, I made the decision long ago to not attempt any further Repairs. It’s an excruciatingly painful process, despite the advances we’ve made, and each member of our ever-growing family is given the right to say ‘No more’ at any point in that process. The younger ones—like Dash, Ciera, and our resplendent Sheriff Hummer—are strong, and willful, and can deal with the pain of a full Repair…which is why they can interact more openly with the outside world. Any more questions at this point?”

“Nassir.”

“Sir, is it? So respectful. I like that right down to the ground. Yes, I do.” He bit down on the guidance device and turned the chair around. “Come along, Driver. There’s much to show you, and time is not exactly on our side.”

He rolled out the door and I followed.