city of anarchy
chapter thirteen
Hermes plunged upwards into darkness. The feeling of gasping energy, the cocktail of thrill and confusion that he had first felt so acutely soaring through the sky as the world collapsed behind him, now coursed through his body--a brief jolt of this was all his legs needed to erupt into action, all his arms needed to grab hold of the railing and heave him up the stairs, all his head needed to direct him away, as far away as possible, from the madwoman with the chainsaw. Rational thought was momentarily suspended, all the reasons why melting for now into insignificance.
The world and its rules had been very sharply simplified.
The ten seconds was up. Avgi came after him, her eyes glinting in the light before she entered the darkness with him. The chainsaw let rip an extended roar, as a beast might give a warning cry to all those around it, but with a metallic, rusty edge giving it life in a particularly malicious, lifeless way. It was under the hideous control of someone who knew exactly how to use a chainsaw psychologically, dealing the kind of horror that clung straight to the spine and caused juddering paralysis in the brain.
It was like a dream, or a nightmare. It was like his improbable flight; like being backed against a wall with a gun aimed at his head just before the world exploded all over again. It was more real than anything else he had ever experienced.
The roar of the chainsaw cut off abruptly. Hermes could then hear only his own breathing and the pounding of his own limping steps. And still the more reflective part of his brain floated there with that now familiar sense of detachment. He might have laughed, had the shock of the chainsaw not stolen his breath for other purposes.
There was something disturbingly methodical about Agent Avgi's approach. She did not call after him, letting the chainsaw speak for her, and she advanced in a steady but solid, unrelenting sort of way. When Hermes cut left into whatever floor it was--something like twenty, probably, as his legs had started to burn with the effort--and paused in the corridor trying to quieten his breathing, another hair rose on the back of his neck for every step that Avgi made and every increment in chainsaw volume that came with it.
He was a little dismayed to hear its growl maintained at the stairhead where he had made his exit, and to sense movement at the open door as Avgi stepped through in a decided alteration of direction. How she knew, for the door had already been open when Hermes got there, the boy could not fathom--but he made to move in the opposite direction, bent low instinctively as if his body were expecting the chainsaw to fly over his head at any moment.
He felt the way with his hands, galloping like a monkey. The limited light afforded him in the stairwell was no longer present, and Hermes found himself in a complete, sightless blackness.
The chainsaw had been silent for some time. This was not comforting, knowing that Avgi was somewhere not far behind him. Still crouching, he remained absolutely still, listening as hard as he could to squeeze some sound, any indication that Agent Avgi was still there, from his surroundings.
He rose cautiously to his feet again, spreading his arms out as if to keep balance--as if to stop himself from somehow tumbling into this darkness; as if the floor and the walls might decide to trick him, to throw him backwards and straight into some abyss of nonsensicalness or, worse, that evil machine's rotating jaw.
Slowly, he reached out to his side and felt for the wall and where it stretched away down the corridor, all the while his eyes trapped wide, his pupils dilated, searching for the slightest details. He felt the edges of a doorway, dug his fingers into the crack between the frame and the door itself, slid his hand down to where he thought the handle should be and tried it with a soft rattle. It was locked.
He followed the smoothness of the wall to the next door, likewise locked, and the door after that: the same. He considered making his way back to the stairwell, back down the twenty or so flights of stairs and out of the building, never to look back. He had always suspected Agent Avgi's instability, and now, after having the chance to calm down a little and let his rational self back into his head, he was left with no doubt in feeling that his suspicions had been correct.
It was as if she had heard his thoughts, and the chainsaw came to life behind him, mingled with the most horrific, tortured scream he had ever heard. The effect was like a machine gun to his heart: he gagged on his own startled gasp, his mind went blank, and his limbs all moved reflexively in different directions.
Hermes dropped to the floor, heard the chainsaw follow him and, despite the darkness, managed to dive in between her legs and scramble away on the other side.
Avgi brought the machine to rest again, turned neatly, and the psychotic game of cat-and-mouse continued.
The world around Eugene was spinning. He had left the black plain of asphalt and stumbled into the first street that would take him; his desperate run had slowed to a lost, meandering gait, and he rotated on the spot, peering anxiously into every dark corner that might present a new threat to his life.
For the moment he did not choose to fully register exactly what had happened. Once he'd started running again, the first thing his mind had done was to flee from realisation, and as of yet he had not managed to catch up with it. Now, in his gyrating disorientation, the buildings on either side formed entrapping silhouettes against the pale blue-whiteness of the sky, a sky that he looked up to pleadingly, not comprehending.
His curly black hair fell into his eyes and his tearful gaze fell back to the street. As viciously as his heart was beating at his head, and as frayed as his nerves had become, some calming familiarity was returning to his surroundings: he did know this street--it was one he used every day--and he cried out in astonishment that his feet had taken him so far without his having known earlier.
The outburst earned him a few dubious looks from passers-by; the day had reached its climax and he was not alone on the streets. Eugene viewed these people with renewed fright, like he had only just noticed that they were there. He felt them surrounding him, and their inconsequential movements in the corners of his vision spooked him into motion again: the familiarity of the street was undercut by a sudden mistrust, one that made him feel nauseous, and even as he broke once again into a run he could not quite ground himself enough in geographic certainty to entirely find his feet. He almost ran straight into a car that had been waiting patiently for him to move out of the way, and very nearly had to slide right over it as it finally pushed forward in a fit of its blaring horn.
He staggered back from it in jagged, drunken steps and found the support of a wall, something again that he took fright in as soon as his back had touched it. Holly's urgent imperative, to get away and find somewhere to hide, still rang in his ears, now merged in his memory with the same hysterical note of the explosion. His expression bearing all the anguish of his present situation, he clutched at his head and wrenched it in the direction he needed to go. Eugene knew of only one place where he could hide--his apartment, home--and, oblivious to the equal dangers he would likely face there now that he had been made a target, he continued, unthinkingly, to make his way towards it.
Hermes felt his entire grip on reality falling away from him in bits as he ran. He collided with the opposite wall, pushed off again and raced in what he could only guess was the way back to the stairwell.
Avgi revved the chainsaw to let him know she was still there. She strode towards his position, swinging it from side to side in menacing sweeps.
Hermes nearly fell into the stairwell when he found it. He then spent an excruciating amount of time, single seconds stretched out into infinity, searching for the rail.
The chainsaw erupted again with terrifying proximity. Hermes spun around, lost his footing and his balance, fell into that dark abyss--and hit its hard edges several times before coming to a solid, painful stop.
He groaned. He had fallen a single flight of steps and now lay sprawled, on his back, at the base. Nearly his whole being urged him to get up again and run, but there was a pain running up and down him that refused to be overcome, a pain that filled a world of already limited senses, and instead he was frozen into place and forced to accept Agent Avgi's descending presence.
This close, he could hear the chainsaw's angry wheeze, its spinning malice sliding evilly and metallically beneath the noise of the motor. Hermes couldn't see a thing, but his imagination vividly filled the darkness, sending each sound spiralling into horrific dimension.
So it was he felt Agent Avgi tower over him and raise the chainsaw above her head. He felt the chainsaw descend, spitting invisible sparks of malevolence. He felt the spinning blade rip through the air inches from his head. He felt himself vacating his mind; even in the dark, he closed his eyes.
The chain ground to a halt. Agent Avgi stood there for a moment longer then knelt beside him, her eyes wide in the darkness, sensing his cowering figure. 'Whatever happens, Hermes,' she said, with an unnatural quietness, 'even if the whole universe threatens to fall to pieces around you, you must never lose your head. Do that and you fall to pieces with it. This is your first and most important lesson.'
Hermes reluctantly opened his eyes. It felt, once again, like he was only half able to wake from some dream, a feeling expounded by the permanent pitch-blackness. He felt Avgi move and sit beside him against the wall.
'I'm going to be honest with you, Hermes,' she continued. 'We're running a little low on Agents. You've proven that you are one reckless, unpredictable son of a bitch...and possibly this might be just the kind of recklessness we need.'
Hermes turned to her in the dark, his eyes as round as saucers, trying in vain to gauge the sincerity in her expression; to determine if he really had just heard this veiled proposition.
'You screw your head on a little tighter and I believe you'll be an asset,' she told him. 'Just know that I'll be keeping my eye on you.'
Hermes stared. He wondered what would happen if he refused: whether Avgi would put him back in Secret Room X, or whether he would be free to wander his life aimlessly just like before. Neither option really appealed.
'I'll do it,' he said, then wondering if he should have thought about it more.
'Good,' replied Avgi, before he could change his mind. Torchlight clicked on and her face appeared, still half cast in shadow. 'Welcome to the team, Agent Hermes,' she said, and passed the torch to him. She hefted the heavy chainsaw over her shoulder. 'Lead the way out.'
Holly irreverently shoved a person aside. Whole clotted reams of people moved in a slow but steady flow against her as she elbowed her way up the street. She fought her way as inconspicuously as she could to the other side of the road, the fallen woman having created a small island of the kind of attention she did not want.
She cursed to herself for not having thought to arrange a meeting place. Now she had no idea where Eugene was, or if the police had already got to him. Worse than that, the people all around her felt like a seething, living wall that was stopping her from doing anything about it, and might at any minute produce one of those black-clad figures she had come to fear so much.
She identified yet another black mop of curly hair bobbing amongst the crowds, made her way fiercely towards it and discovered only at the last second that it did not belong to Eugene. The latest failure turned startled at the feel of Holly's hand on his shoulder, and the look of abject disappointment that suddenly transformed her face from the desperate hope that had greeted him.
The man escaped back into the sea of people like a lousy, unwanted fish. Holly turned to move on, but stopped as the tide suddenly parted for a large, loud truck, flashing red, that was barging its way forward. It was something she saw with dread, stepping aside to let it pass, the moment seeming all too similar to the day's earlier scene.
The crowds closed in again, pouring into the narrowing gap. Holly scanned the line of buildings in the direction of the asphalt industrial park, the place she had been working so happily before any of this had happened, and the place she was now zigzagging towards in her urgency, distracted by all the false glimpses of Eugene that passed her by. She looked for another telltale sign of rising smoke that would mark Eugene's demise; couldn't see one, but the fire engine was definitely heading in that direction.
Feelings of despair started to set in. Then, in no more than an afterimage of her hopeless looking, she thought she saw him again. But just as she tried to move again, the swell of the crowd pushed her back. She struggled against it; she had already lost sight of him--had done so as soon as she had seen him--and now used her shoulders as well as her elbows to pull herself through.
And there he was again, weaving with noticeable uncertainty between the traffic a little way ahead. This time she was sure it was him.
'Eugene!' she called out. Every face but his seemed to turn to her--he was slipping away.
'Eugene!' she cried. He rotated, glancing about, looking horrified. 'Eugene, over here!' She pulled her arms free of the pedestrian crush, her only defence against their passive onslaught, and began to drift away from him. She waved madly regardless. Eugene noticed her then, but only as some strange apparition, and he looked back at her retreating figure accordingly.
Holly made a loud noise of exasperation and with the full force of her upper body she hit the crowd like a battering ram. Those who got the brunt of it were met with no sympathy, having loudly berated Holly's obstruction of their path; the rest fell back in a slow, gradual, dim sort of way and eventually Holly emerged on the other side of this persistent knot of people to find Eugene, thankfully, still stood waiting for her.
She lurched forward and embraced him tightly.
'They blew it up,' he said, returning the embrace weakly. 'They blew up everything!'
'Eugene, we can't stay here! We have to get somewhere out of sight! It's the police; they did it! They did all of it! I don't know why, or what we've done for them to come after us, but we have to hide! We never should have trusted them!'
'The police? But--' Indignation crossed his face. 'But they can't do that!' He gripped her shoulders, holding on to whatever remnants were left of his own crumbling little world. 'They can't destroy Impassionate Deliveries! Impassionate Deliveries must live on!'
Holly took his hands and thrust them back at him. 'Eugene, wake up! Angus is dead. Impassionate Deliveries is gone! We have to go now!'
Eugene pulled away. He looked so lost and vulnerable that she almost felt sorry for having shouted at him. She certainly felt sorry that she'd had to say it at all--she didn't want to have to impress it upon herself, let alone other people.
He started to shake.
'Eugene--'
'They tortured me,' he said. 'I told myself it was an easy mistake to make, and that they were just like that and everything would turn out alright in the end, you see? But Angus...Angus is dead! He's...he's dead? He shouldn't be dead, Holly; he shouldn't be!'
'Eugene,' Holly repeated, carefully. 'We need to get out of here before they get to us. We have to find somewhere to hide or they'll kill us too. Do you understand?'
'But we can't hide!' Eugene exclaimed, stepping forward. It was an action that took Holly by surprise. She caught him thinking that he was about to fall, but he was stood upright, as much as he could be, nearly on his toes and suddenly looking around for lurking officers. 'We have to get them back for what they've done! Where are they? I'll kill them!'
Holly pulled him back down to his normal height. 'Eugene!' she hissed, gazing around. She turned back to him and scowled. 'Don't make me slap you!'
'But Holly,' he said, his eyebrows raised in full earnestness, 'what you said to me before, about this whole thing...you said it wasn't right. You said that none of it was right, and that we should do something about it! I should have listened to you!'
'But Eugene, this is different!'
'Yes! Now we're really involved!'
Holly sighed. 'We're not dealing with overzealous thugs now, Eugene! We're dealing with outright murderers! Men who have shown that they can do anything they like to us because they're supposed to be the law and no one will be able to stop them!'
'We can't keep hiding forever,' Eugene insisted. 'And maybe we can't fight them by ourselves, but we can get help! Help from...I don't know, maybe we should go to that Agency building! I mean, they're higher up than the police, right?'
'And how do we know we can trust them?' asked Holly. 'If Commander Brutt can go around doing the kind of stuff he does, they can't be trying very hard to stop him!'
'Maybe they don't know!'
'We can't risk it!' cried Holly. 'We might go into that building and never come out again!'
The two of them lapsed into unhappy silence. Commuters continued to pass them by, some of them offering curious looks. Holly was feeling increasingly restless about staying where they were. 'Come on,' she said. 'We need to get moving. We can decide what to do while we walk.' She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him speedily along. Eugene opened his mouth, but did not object.
'How many copies of the video did you make?' he asked.
'I don't know,' replied Holly, releasing his arm and letting him walk by her side. 'But any copies that were made would still have been at Angus' place. Brutt has the original.'
'Maybe he's trying to cover something up,' said Eugene.
'Like what?'
'I don't know; maybe there was something on that video he didn't want anyone to see. It was from a government building, after all. And you'd seen it, and Angus had made copies, so maybe that's why they're trying to get rid of us. Because they had to be sure.'
Holly stopped and turned to him. The idea sounded chillingly probable. And she didn't like how animated Eugene had become in suggesting it--she almost preferred his nonsensical babbling.
'You think Dorz and that other guy knew about this?' Eugene asked her. 'Maybe that's why they didn't trust the police.'
'I wish they'd been more fucking explicit,' Holly complained. 'They were so preoccupied with being secretive that they could never tell me anything straightforwardly! But,' she added, thinking for a moment, 'Dorz did mention that people had been going missing. Maybe this is what he was talking about. "Tortured and tormented, they say. Something unnatural about it." Those were his words.' She shivered at the thought.
'Who's "they"?' asked Eugene.
'He never said,' Holly told him.
'But if there are people out there who know about it, can't they help us?'
'How would we find them?' Holly asked. 'Dorz and Russ failed to communicate that.'
'Maybe there's something in that house where they kept you,' Eugene suggested. 'Contact details or something.'
'Well, Dorz mostly made it sound like some rumour he'd heard,' Holly said doubtfully. '"They" might not exist. I don't think rumours keep contact details.'
'Positivity, Holly!' Eugene declared with a strange impatience. 'We must hope that they do! I say we go back to their house and have a look around.'
Holly looked critically at him. 'The place will be crawling with police,' she said.
Eugene folded his arms, an uncharacteristic act. The shock of Angus' death, or the destruction of Impassionate Deliveries, or both, had caused a change in him, morphing his optimism into something more rigidly determined. A part of Holly felt a little concerned that he had recovered from his confused disorientation too quickly--too hastily.
'We have to take risks sometimes, Holly,' he said. 'Or we'll be running away for the rest of our lives!'
'Fine,' she said, still mulling it over. 'Fine. We'll go there.' It was an act of desperation, risky to a ridiculous degree, but she had to concede that she had no better idea. 'But we watch out and we stay hidden, Eugene. If the police are there, we leave. Agreed?'
Eugene gave her a definite nod.
'Alright,' she said. 'Let's...let's go then.'
'We'll get them back, Holly!' Eugene reaffirmed, walking past her to lead the way. 'We'll get them back for Angus!'
She pulled him back and steered him around. 'Wrong direction, Eugene,' she told him. 'It's this way.'
'Yes. Yes, of course.'
Holly had been right. The place was not crawling with police, but from their vantage point on the opposite side of Dagger Road, they could see one officer stationed somewhere vaguely near the front door, though he kept walking in and out of the building; and at least two others roaming about inside, flashes of whom were seen every time the door was opened.
'We should leave,' she said, staying firmly rooted in place.
'Maybe we could sneak around them,' suggested Eugene.
Holly gave him a look, but did not verbally respond.
The two of them were crouched somewhat diagonally to the kidnappers' residence, in a rather pathetic excuse for yet another side-alley. Holly kept glancing behind her; Eugene was shifting restlessly in a way that she was starting to find irritating.
Dagger Road seemed to be abandoned. The street was lined with similar stubby, decrepit old houses, most of them looking like they'd half sunk into the ground. If there were any inhabitants, they were doing their best not to make themselves known. Maybe that's why Russ and Dorz had hidden away here--it had just the right kind of dodgy aesthetic about it to match their blundering escapades.
'They've probably already found if there's any more evidence,' Holly said eventually. 'We really should leave.'
Still neither of them moved, though Eugene continued to fidget. Partly this was because they had both been watching for long enough to feel that any movement now would somehow draw the officers' attention; the other part of it was that Eugene's words had hit home: they couldn't keep running, and Holly was hesitant to abandon what seemed like their only other option.
She scrutinised the house with that now familiar feeling of rising futility and moved a little further forward, still low and hidden, to get a better view. After another short while, her gaze drifted unconsciously down the rows of dreary residence to the rest of the street. It was then that she saw a man standing casually against a lamppost, staring straight at the house in complete blatancy. Spiked hair, bleached blond above tanned skin; pierced ears, bright shoes and slack combat trousers; bare, folded arms covered in tattoos of tribal design--he was definitely not a police officer. And he was nodding incessantly, like he was listening to some internal tune with a horrifically irregular beat. There was a mad glint in his eye, a special kind of madness that radiated from him as he turned to Holly, with a hideously permanent grin, and winked.
Holly crouched back in alarm, but then nearly rose to her feet as the bizarre apparition, nodding crazily all the while, made a very deliberate move towards one of the other side-alleys, walking slowly backwards, grinning at her.
'Who's that?' whispered Eugene, crawling up behind her.
'I don't know,' replied Holly. Then, glancing a few more times at the house, just as the strange man disappeared from view, she got up and ran after him.