Chapter Four
After I got back and slept off my adventure with Tina, I woke to the twilight and looked up to thank the stars for calling me home. The Children were especially giggly that night, and I could practically hear them singing those ridiculous songs the human children used to sing to me when I was small. “Larissa! Larissa! Tiny bush girl, Larissa!” Of course, at that moment it felt like a compliment more than anything else.
I dragged my tank and ovular plastic out onto the sand. I knew the tank fit on my back, but I didn’t know what to do with the strange, clear oval or the two black pieces. I picked up the clear piece and looked through it and saw that it was a bit opaque. Then, suddenly feeling very silly, I realized it went around my head so that I could look through the small window. I shook my head, laughing at myself. Of course, my eyes needed something over them so I could swim and see. I could hardly find Black Feather without any vision.
The thought of Black Feather’s name made my heart jump all the way into the sky. As soon as I thought of him, it was if he were there beside me and holding me as I walked across the Nothing to my little well. I decided I would do a test swim and just look around so that I could make a plan. In my dream, Black Feather had insisted I look underneath; today, I would do just that.
I made it up the hill and looked up at the stars. Once I was underground, I wouldn’t be able to consult them anymore. I took a deep breath and put my plastic eyes on, then slipped out of my clothes. I had to keep them dry so I could warm up after I got out of the water. I looked at my last two pieces of gear and inspected them a little more closely.
They were heavy, stiff plastic and each had an odd-shaped hole on the narrow end. They were identical and a bit awkward. What did I do with these things?
Curious, I stuck a big toe into one of the holes and felt how open it was on the inside, much more so than it appeared. I wiggled my whole foot inside and found that it fit, though the plastic sucked on it a bit. I moved my foot up and down and almost fell on my face; having my foot extended to such a ridiculous size made me feel as if my toes were no longer my own. I looked down into the well and thought about how these long, thin feet would move in water, how they could paddle and push. I fought my way into the second one, then flopped my way up to the well.
Sitting on the edge, I looked down into the clear water. It was cool but not freezing cold, and it felt nice against my skin. I had never considered swimming in my water source before that moment. It felt a bit scandalous to jump into the same water I drank, but I supposed the time had come.
Without any further preparations, I slipped into the water and let myself sink down. Right away, I knew I had done something wrong. I couldn’t see at all, the space around me was completely dark, and I couldn’t breathe. If it had been possible, I would have slapped myself for my thoughtlessness. Of course, it was dark; I was underground. What had I expected? And where was all my air? Why wasn’t I breathing with the tank on my back? I quickly kicked my legs so that I rose to the surface and then burst up into the night with a gasp. I needed to start again.
I took my tank off and looked at it again. It had a long hose with a round apparatus at the end. Also, the tank had something wrapped around it: a black band with a small bulb. I put the round thing in front of my eyes, but instantly saw it wasn’t meant for looking through. Then I thought about breathing, how air moves and how it might travel from a tank to a person’s lungs.
I shoved the thing in my mouth and found it fit perfectly. But I still had no air. I looked at the tank again as I chewed on my new mouthpiece. There was a dial with numbers and the word ‘Pressure’ stenciled onto it. The needle on the dial was pointed straight at zero. I turned a metal valve and the needle jumped up as air hissed out of the tank and into my mouth.
To my complete delight, once the air was flowing, a small light glowed from the top of the tank. The black band was holding a mini light bulb activated by the air. I quickly got everything on again and slipped down through my little hatch in the Earth.
The second time I descended, I looked around and was shocked at what I saw; the Earth upside down. Here, rocks hung down from the top and soft, blue water sat low as if the sky had stepped down to take a day off. I pointed my light in what I hoped was the direction of the large rock I’d found and saw it there. It was like a big pyramid hanging, its peak pointing at the ground. I took note of all the things around me as my air burst out of my mouth in big, forceful bubbles. There wasn’t much to mark my path beyond the pyramid, so I decided my second swim would be to the point and back. With that, I rose to the surface and spit out my mouth piece. I pulled myself up and turned the dial so the flow of air stopped.
Regarding the tank, I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t that big. Would I be able to get very far with this limited amount of air? Diving underground is no joke; that was what Alex had said. I hadn’t paid too much attention in the moment, but then I could see that he had been trying to warn me. I suddenly had visions of myself as a dead body floating around in the water beneath the Earth where no one would ever find me, even more trapped than Black Feather.
I took off my ridiculous feet and walked back to my little hovel in the desert. The Children watched me silently but shined brightly as I walked. I made a little pile with my things and then got down on my knees to have a talk with the Earth.
“How can I travel beneath you without being swallowed whole? Please, dear desert, you have been my home. Use your dust and heat to keep me alive, I beg you. I must get to Black Feather. I must. He is lost without me.”
The Earth stared at me in my nakedness, and I picked up handfuls of dust and poured them down on my head and over my face, rubbing the sharp, hot dirt into my skin and then going for more. I sacrificed my cleanliness for filth as I spread the dry earth into my face and down my arms. Finally, I knelt down to it with my forehead on the ground and thanked the desert for giving me a place to live, for teaching me so much. Finally, I curled into a little ball on my side and fell into a sleep so deep I may as well have been underwater once more.
If I dreamed that day, I can’t recall the images. There were no more visions of Black Feather calling to me, but when I woke up in the twilight, I felt a pressing sense of urgency. Maybe I would die, but I would die working to help someone, adventuring under the Earth and on a mission. I couldn’t conjure a more meaningful death than that.
I gathered my things and quickly walked to the waterhole. I stripped, struggled into my floppy feet, and turned on the air for the tank. That time, I made sure to keep the pressure very low, just enough to get the light glowing. I slipped it on and put in my mouthpiece and finally my plastic eyes. I didn’t bother with dangling my legs in the hole, I just said a quick goodbye to the stars and then slipped under the Earth in a single move.
Underwater, I pointed myself toward the upside-down pyramid and kicked. I reminded myself to move fast, but not too fast; I couldn’t get too tired. I had to be able to get back up to the surface if I didn’t find any passageway into the base of Bachmann’s mountain. Right, left, right, left – I kicked steadily and sturdily, not letting myself slow down. I had to get there, and I had to keep control.
I swam to the tip of the pyramid and stopped. I glanced behind me and saw a soft glow coming down from where I had entered the water. I said a quick prayer and then left that ray of hope behind me and pointed myself toward a big column in the water that I assumed was the base of a mountain.
When I reached it, I saw something. It was like a hatch or the door to a safe. I did my best to keep breathing, but I was panicking. I had been underwater too long, and my head felt as if it were being stepped on by a massive beast. I told myself it was now or never and resigned myself to the pain. I pulled the lever on the hatch as hard as I could. It made a big, metallic creak and then swung open slowly. Inside, the path was small and narrow and filled with darkness. I gulped and swam into it.
All around me, the sides threatened to push in and trap me, but I managed to squeak through. At one point, I felt the water fall away, and for a moment I was in a dry tube. I quickly turned off my air and gulped in the breeze I felt coming through my cylindrical space. A breeze! I was almost there. I crawled forward on my hands and then heard a deafening rush behind me. Too late. I realized the water was rushing back, and I had just turned off my air.
With a roar, the water took over my whole body and slammed me into all sides of the tunnel. I pinged around all different sides, and my head took a blow from one of them. At that moment, everything went black.
I was sure I had died. Surely the deep, black space I found myself in was death. I could hear voices calling to me, calling me home. I turned toward them, but they were still far away. I crawled a little closer, and their cries became louder. “Larissa! Larissa!” I wanted more than anything to join them, but a light beyond their shapes was growing and hurting my eyes. “
Wait,” I called as they began to slip away. “Don’t go!”
They rushed away from me, shrinking away from my grasp faster than I could open my eyes, sit up, and scream.
“I’m alive. I’m alive!”
My huge, gulping breaths made quite a racket in the dark, quiet space. I looked around and saw only black, but slowly the place took shape.
I was underground, in some sort of stone room. It was a cave, but a cave that had pipes running through it and some sort of doorways lined up on either side. No, not doorways. I reached out to the nearest one, and right before my eyes a metal bar materialized just as my hand passed a certain point. I snatched it back before it could be trapped between the bars, but it was close. I held it to my chest and looked around again, this time with less shock and two eyes that could see.
“Can you see me?”
The voice floated over to where I was standing, but I had no idea where it was coming from. The echoes in the cave were so cacophonous that I couldn’t get my bearings. I shook my head no, but the speaker couldn’t see me either.
“Larissa? Is it you?”
“Yes!” The answer bounced off the walls and repeated “Yes! Yes, yes, yes…” I had to cover my ears for a moment until it died down. Perhaps whispering was the better option; I tried it. “Yes, it’s me.” This time a hissy little, “‘Smee, ‘smee, ‘smee…” snaked around the space. A hand drifted out into the passageway in front of me, and I knew it instantly – Black Feather.
I ran up to his space and, remembering the invisible bars, stopped just outside the boundary of his cell. I mouthed the words, “Are you okay?”
He shook his head no, then looked over to the other end of the hallway. “Hide,” he mouthed, and I quickly ran back to the other end where I could stand in the shadows. Stupidly, I left my diving equipment there on the floor, but there was no time to go back and get it.
Pressed up against a rock wall, I listened as a heavy door was unlocked with a loud CLANG and then pushed open by at least two men. The two grunted with the effort, telling me that the door was probably stone like the rest of the place. They made it through and then came down the metal stairs. The two walked lazily, took their time as they talked, and clinked down step by step.
“I’m telling you,” the first one said, “Harper couldn’t have been the informant. She’s on total lockdown, and I have it on good authority that she’s too scared to put one toe outside the palace. No way did she leak anything.”
The other chimed in with, “Yeah, but if it wasn’t her, then who? I mean, Harper’s snuck out before, made friends with shifters even. It could easily have been her. That group of wolves knew right where to go. How’d that happen?”
“Well, you’ve got me there. Hey…” A pause, and my heart took the opportunity to try and escape from my chest. “What’s that?”
Footsteps and the echoes of footsteps moved toward me. I pressed my still-naked self up against the side of the rock, with my head to one side. ‘Please…please, no…’ God heard me and stopped the guards about halfway down the hall where I heard a booted toe kick my air tank.
“What in Bachmann’s name is this?”
“Who knows? Stuff washes in from the underground source sometimes.” The second speaker yawned, already uninterested in my stuff. “Is it wet?”
“Yeah. You’re right. Must have come through the pipe. Weird.”
“What’s weird about it?”
“Not every day we get someone’s random stuff in the pipe. The nearest community is the shifter compound, and they don’t use our water.”
The two fell silent as I silently berated myself. How could I leave such a huge piece of evidence out where two guards could casually come across it? Not a smart move. A flashlight turned on, and the beam swept the air next to my hiding place.
“Anyone there?” Approaching footsteps. A second beam. “If someone’s there, please show yourself, or we’ll be forced to shoot.”
My fear took over, and I felt a ripple go through my body. My shoulders widened, my jaw squared, and I felt a lump plot into my throat. Without another thought, I stepped out of my hiding place and faced the guards with my hands curled into fists.
“No one’s shooting me.”
“Whoa! Man, what is going on?” The two lowered their flashlights and relaxed. One informed me, “You are completely naked!”
“Yes.”
“You want to tell us what you’re doing here?”
At this moment, I played my part of Stranger in the Prison very bravely, but all the while my heart was still certain that it wanted to fight its way out of my chest. I begged it to be quiet, but it didn’t listen. “I’m testing some new technology for President Bachmann. The suit they made me didn’t fit, so I had to go like this. Sorry to surprise you.”
The two looked at one another and then me, then burst out laughing. “Oh, wow! You might as well have been a ghost!” They bent over and laughed harder, slapping one another on the back. One of them approached me and grabbed my wrist.
“Hey, man, thanks. It gets so boring down here. We needed this.” Tentatively, I laughed with them, unsure if the whole act was a ruse or sincere. The man holding my wrist gave me a little tug.
“Tell us how this thing works. Hey, Tony, get this guy some clothes.”
“Sure thing.”
The second man, Tony, trotted up the stairs, and I was left with the first one. “I’m Alan. What’s your name?”
“Lar-Larry. I’m Larry.” The two of us shook with our big, manly hands and then walked over to the tank.
“So,” Alan said, “tell me all about it.”
I walked Alan through the basics, explaining that this was something I myself was still mastering. “The only way to really test it is to use it. No one else was willing to go into the underground water because, well, it’s dangerous. So, I went.”
“Wow,” he breathed, shaking his head. “You weren’t scared to swim underground?”
“I was, but I was also really excited to try it, you know? Anything could be down there.” Tony appeared beside me with some random items of clothing in a box. “Oh, thanks.”
“No problem. These are all from former detainees, so I can’t be sure what’s in there. We strip anyone who comes in as soon as they get here, so it’s all fairly clean. Just a bit mildewy.” He held up a few different pieces, and I grabbed some basic pants and a t-shirt to slip into as well as a pair of shoes that pinched a little. As strange as it felt to wear new, men’s clothing, I kept my mouth shut.
‘Be Larry,’ I told myself. ‘They want company, be a good guest. This could be helpful.’
We made small talk, and I pretended to hear something further down the row of cells. “Hey, everything okay over there?”
“Yeah, don’t worry,” Alan told me. “These cells are so efficient there’s no escaping. See that little red box on the side of that cell?”
He pointed to a little apparatus attached to the wall on a nearby cell, and I moved to take a closer look, but Alan pulled me back. “Hey, careful! If you activate that sensor the bars will lock you in. We can’t let you out. Only the president’s top guys are authorized to take someone out, and we are not the top guys.”
“Not yet,” Tony said, squaring his shoulders. “Any day now, we’re gonna get that promotion and get our own blue rings. We keep this little jail running perfectly every day. We won’t be level black for long.” He and Alan nodded at one another, clearly proud of their accomplishments. As far as I could tell, the jail seemed to run itself. The two of them didn’t even need keys to open anyone’s cell. The men toyed with something on their fingers – rings. With a closer look, I saw that each had a small, basic ring of black obsidian on his thumb.
‘How typical,’ I thought to myself. ‘Bachmann likes to decorate his little workers. And what’s more, he wants to let his prisoners see what looks like a clear path out and all the while remind them that they’re trapped. Disgusting.’ Outwardly, I focused on thanking Alan.
“That was close! Thanks. You guys are great. Next time I talk to any of Bachmann’s staff, I’m going to recommend you for that promotion.”
The two of them patted me on the back and handed me back my things. “No problem.” Alan looked down at my tank’s dial. It was nearly empty. I hadn’t turned it off when I’d washed up in the jail, and my air was gone. “Looks like you might have a problem.” He put his finger on my dial’s big ‘E’ and said, “It’s empty.”
“Yes,” I took a breath. Did he think I was an idiot? “That’s part of why I’m testing it; to find out just how much air we need to go both directions. So far, no luck. I can only make it one way. Anyone in the palace have compressed air?”
The two looked down and scratched their heads. And then kept scratching them. In the eon it took them to think about it, I thought of several possible people we could ask for help with such a thing, but nothing seemed to be coming to them. I thought of Alex and asked, “Maybe a mechanic? Someone who works with the president’s cars?”
“Maybe,” Tony said to himself, his word echoing as “Abee, abee, abee…”
“I don’t think I can walk all the way up there without an escort. Could one of you go with me?”
Again, this caused a miniature crisis. The two friends and colleagues had to really consider my question before giving me a tentative “Yes?”
“Thanks, Tony. You guys really are the best. I am gonna talk the two of you up big time.” That cemented their confidence in me, and the two of them smiled again, now clear on the plan and the rewards of its potential success. The thought of me singing their praises to random palace workers seemed to put them over the moon, and Tony threw an arm around my shoulder.
“Right this way, Larry. We’ll get you the best air there is.” I waited for him to laugh, but Tony seemed to genuinely believe that high-quality air was an actual product. I glanced at Black Feather as we walked out. He was on the floor of his stone cell, pretending to be asleep.
I left him behind and ascended the stairs into the lion’s den – President Bachmann’s palace. My footsteps made a soft clang as we went up, and I listened to it echo off the walls over and over, like a chain rattling or cell door slamming shut.