Filaria (21 page)

The inevitable plummet, the white angel, even the distant dirigible, all vanished as Deidre shut her eyes. Pain and horror mingled inside her, magnified by the image of the girl’s tumbling body.

One last shriek made her jolt awake, disturbing her from that comforting place to which she’d been travelling, so she could glimpse, through rolling eyes before finally passing out, where they were headed. Oblivion did close in at last, leaving her unconscious, unfeeling, bleeding her life out, but the awful image of Mingh straw’s death plunge had been replaced by another, an almost redeeming vision, for Deidre had seen, in that final instant, a hole piercing the sky, beyond which appeared pale and beautiful blues like none she could have ever imagined. Coming through that aperture, a calm shaft of light had enclosed her body, pulling her, with the black angel, upward along its axis. A luminous spear had been thrown down to pierce the world. Angel and girl rose towards an impossible, celestial opening.

Gears within gears. Cogs and wheels. Whirling thick shafts, crooked, grinding, hissing steam, throwing off blue sparks as the din rose to a deafening pitch and then fell to a low, throaty moan. Sweat prickled Mereziah’s face and ran down into the collar of his already damp uniform. On the catwalk’s wobbly chain railing his palms were slick. His lungs ached from exertion. Needles of pain jabbed the length of his left arm. His knees creaked and cracked and knocked together.

In this ethereal place, the air was hot and pressing and he felt old, certainly, and out of shape, but truth be told the primary reason for his growing discomfort was the proximity of Crystal Max, who was walking, in all her tempting glory, directly behind him. Mereziah could no longer deny that he was suffering a ludicrous, juvenile crush. Crystal had become the manifestation of his illicit and suppressed desires. Physical want was another ache. He needed a companion. He
needed
her. In these strange, autumnal days, in this strange setting — before he fell dead to the bottom of the world — he needed to be with Crystal Max.

Where, he wondered, was the dignity in this?

A greasy piston, pumping heartily up and down in its housing, goading him rudely with its motion, loosed a burst of pressurized steam toward his face, and Crystal Max said loudly, directly into his hairy ear, her breath as hot as the steam, “Where the fuck are we, old timer? Any theories?”

For maybe the tenth time he wondered what her scent might be. Lingering on her skin, insinuating, burrowing deep into his dried out old sinuses; it made him dizzy. “I believe we are, in fact,
inside
the actual — ”

“Do you know where you’re going or don’t you?” She pushed him between the shoulder blades, so hard that he stumbled. “Where are you taking us, old timer? Where the fuck are we?”

Us
. Taking
us
. Crystal was right. He winced to be reminded of the plurality. There were twelve in the entourage, all following Mereziah at his own slow, pained pace, walking single file along the catwalk. A dozen people, suspended high above a roiling pit of steam and moving parts and mysterious machineries both seen and unseen,
following
him.

His stomach roiled.

These shaky catwalks had been underfoot, in some form or other, for hours now. For the love of his departed parents, Mereziah had never seen or imagined anything like this place. Not in his hundred years of living. Crystal was right again: where had he brought these people? Hissing and howling, misty, steamed, the environment was surely lifted right out of a fever-driven fugue. Wide areas opened, at times, big enough across for all of them to sit in a circle, if they so chose, or narrowed to skinny trails that forced them to turn sideways. Dead end paths, multiple junctions, drop offs. Catwalks twisting upon themselves so further passage was not possible. Catwalks gradually turning upside down.

At least he could see the exterior of the great shaft, still visible, serving as vortex to their travels. Pale, wrinkled, it seemed rather sickly looking from the outside as they corkscrewed slowly upwards around it. Once or twice, the group had no choice but to take a path that meandered some distance from the shaft — where he had lived his entire life — so to Mereziah it appeared as though the group were suspended above insubstance, with neither end nor beginning in sight, without anchor. These times, he felt like he was floating, utterly adrift.

Hurrying as fast as he could go, he hoped to escape both the girl and his thoughts, but whenever he glanced over his shoulder he saw those twelve faces, bobbing along after him . . .

Moments later, nudging him again, Crystal broke into his reverie by hissing, “I don’t understand what this old bag is saying. Can’t you get her to shut up?”

Sweating, pressing on, always pressing on, despite growing protest from his limbs and aching heart, despite his almost desperate mental state, Mereziah had never even heard the squalling. But he did now: the noise rose above the general din in a wavering language of gibberish he could not understand or ignore again.

He turned to look. Ever since being carried down from the giant pod, the loud and rather round lady in question had been prone to these fits of hysteria. But old bag? Had Crystal really said that? The woman was elderly, certainly, but nowhere near as old as him.
I’m positively ancient by comparison
.
How old
, he wondered,
do I seem to her
?

Probably didn’t help matters that after bringing Crystal out of the opening in the shaft wall, he had stood, bent at the waist, rasping and wheezing for a long time, trying to catch his breath while she rubbed at his back.

The others had to save themselves.

Crystal mentioned that the screamer was virtually silent when trapped inside the pod, so Mereziah was forced to consider that the lady must be having a breakdown. He also feared the outbursts might attract attentions of the mysterious giant soldiers, who he imagined were lurking out here, hiding in the thick steam or behind the next bank of toiling machinery.

Others in the group were grumbling now, pleading or demanding that the old lady fall silent. Mereziah’s gaze fell upon Crystal’s beautiful sneer, drawn to it. With effort, he looked away, at each of the scared, angry people in the dubious parade. Halfway back, the screaming lady — her own eyes pained and wild — had paused, at least, for now, to gather breath. Behind her stood the dark-skinned man who had carried most of the others to safety while Mereziah had been wheezing and coughing; at the very end of the line waited a half-dressed brute with narrow black eyes and a set of symmetrical scars on both cheeks.

Most of these people spoke a different language than Mereziah. One — a dusky woman in a veil — had not spoken a word the entire time. The array of faces caused Mereziah a stab of professional embarrassment, both from his ignorance of their cultural origins and from his now growing wish to rid himself of their dependence upon him; part of him wanted to learn about these people while another malicious part fantasized about pushing them all (except for Crystal Max) right off the damn catwalk.

He needed to rest. Honestly, where in the world were these ideas coming from? Unpleasant and meandering thoughts, the results of being in
love
? Were lust and want sicknesses to infect his brain?

The screaming, which had started up once more, didn’t help matters.

On the move again, Crystal Max announced, “Lookie there, more moss.”

And, suddenly, an idea occurred to Mereziah.

The moss
. On Crystal’s recommendation, they had all begun eating the strange growth — some gobbling more than others, for they were
hungry
— since first coming across some, shortly after emerging from the slit in the shaft.

“Be wary,” Mereziah said, stopping in his tracks, looking down at the catwalk and mists far below. His belly rumbled. He cleared his throat. “Listen people, I cannot sanction consumption of this, uh, this matter.” He tried to shout but his voice sounded feeble. He turned, arms out. “I think that eating this plant is the reason why some of us are in such distress. And perhaps it’s the reason why I feel so . . .” He let his voice and the thought fade. Then to Crystal he urgently added, “Did she eat the most? When we found these plants previously? Crystal, is this some kind of
drug
?”

Crystal Max laughed. “Listen to yourself!” She bent to gather more of the tiny plants once more, which grew in dull green patches at the side of the catwalk. Though it looked like piles of damp dust, the moss, as Crystal had called it when she set eyes upon it, tasted surprisingly good. Still, consumption of the plant might just be the reason why his thoughts were so degraded, and why the large lady had gone insensate.

His gaze drifted across the smooth, inviting curves of Crystal’s twin buttocks. Lingering there. Her pants were torn and he saw a grimy patch of her pinkish flesh.

“Please,” he whined, squeezing his eyes shut to stave off temptation. “
Stop
.” He reached out, to grab her arm.

Crystal shrugged him away. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?” Licking the powder off her grubby digits, she looked at Mereziah with a defiance that set his heart pounding.

Several others in the group, he saw, were also stooping to scrape at the catwalk.

“Wait!” Mereziah shouted, lifting both hands high over his head. “Wait! I have reason to believe that these tiny plants are the source of delusional thinking, of madness, of, of unhealthy
arousal
!”

He was soundly ignored.

A quiver of anxiety ran through him and he drew a deep breath. “
Please
!”

The large woman answered him with a renewed scream, rising in tone and volume to drown out his own echo before all sound suddenly ceased. Abrupt, complete: the silence was tremendous. Save for the ringing in his head. He stood, stunned.

“What happened?” he said, but he could not hear his own voice.

Crystal frowned at him, and as the world resumed its crashing noise, she yelled, “You don’t look so good!”

“Crystal,” he said weakly, “please . . .”

She took him by the arm. “You better sit down. You look green. You’re all worked up.” Turning to the others — most of whom, glassyeyed, were chewing — she said, “Listen up, people! We’re taking a break. Pops here needs to sit down. He’s not feeling well.”

“Crystal, I’m . . . fine?” But a jab of pain ripped down his left side and, for a moment, breath caught on jagged peaks it made in his chest. Looking at the lovely, dirt-smeared face of Crystal Max, he imagined for a second that it might be the last image he would ever see in this life, so he let himself be directed to an area where he could fold himself into a sitting position and close his tired eyes. Even though he could no longer see the others he knew they were eating, licking, swallowing that moss. No one had taken heed of his warning. Was it possible they followed him solely out of pity? Or to keep an eye on him, since he was obviously the weakest of the group? His uniform, his position as lift attendant, was a sham. Pain and humiliation was the price he paid for his selfish dreams. His job had been to serve. For the betterment of the world. Now, he was an embarrassment to the memories of his dear parents, a burden to the living.

Crystal, crouching, shook Mereziah gently. “You okay, old man? You’re breathing funny.”

“Yes,” he answered, opening his eyes. “I am all right.” He tried to get to his feet but Crystal gently held him down.

“Rest, old man, rest.”

Eventually, most of the discomfort ebbed from him. He began to feel marginally better.

The rest of the group had taken advantage of the break, resting, even lying supine on the platform they were stopped on. Only the veiled woman remained standing, her back to Mereziah as she leaned out over the railing, peering into the steam, towards the shaft they had fled. To Mereziah’s left sat the dark-skinned man who had helped with the rescue: cross-legged, eyes closed, apparently oblivious. Though Mereziah’s mouth was very dry, he wanted to talk, calculating that by asking intelligent questions, by interviewing these people and displaying his acumen, he could help regain the illusion that he was in control. He wanted his authority back, even if he had earlier desired to shrug it all off, because he realized he had little else.

“Black fellow,” he said weakly, trembling, turning to the man who sat, humming softly. Mereziah tried to control his voice, the way his father had trained him to do. “So that, so we can better understand our, our predicament, may I ask you several pertinent questions? Black man?”

The eyes slowly opened. They were hazel and sparked in the dull light. “I have a name. It is Joseph.”

Crystal Max said, “Old timer, I told you to relax. I don’t need you getting into a fight.”

Perplexed, Mereziah turned to her. “Fight? I have no intention of fighting. Why would you say that? There are some things I must know, Crystal. Things important to our survival.”

“Like what? What do you want to know?” Joseph lowered his brows.

“What can you tell me about your abduction?”

“My what?”

“Abduction. When the soldiers came to take you.”

Joseph stared for a long while before speaking. “I work at filter plant number seventy-two. Fixing filtration units that clean the air. All black fellows, as you say, work there. We all wear uniforms. Never seen anyone like me before? You never went there. But you sure breathe our air. All of you. My father worked at the filter plant. My son works there. My wife too.”

“You have a family?” There was a touch of poignancy in these details. Mereziah appreciated Joseph’s commitment to servicing systems of the world. At least they had that in common.

But Joseph seemed irritated. “My family is important to your plan? Important for our survival?”

“No,” Mereziah admitted.

“Uh, do you have any kids, old man?” intervened Crystal.

“No. I have no children.” A lump had formed in Mereziah’s throat. He had never even
held
a child. “Continue, please,” he told Joseph.