Chapter Twenty-Two

All she was aware of as she groggily faded back into consciousness was the pounding ache in her head, dull but insistent. For a moment she simply stayed where she was lying, breathing in, trying to assess what damage had been done. Her neck hurt from where the chokehold had pressed her carotid arteries closed, but her windpipe appeared safe. She tilted her body, feeling around her, finding herself on the hard mat of a small cot. Natural light spilled in from somewhere, cutting through the bars of the cell she was in. From nearby, she heard shuffling, and she froze. She was not alone. For a moment she laid still, playing dead, trying only to listen and observe, but she had already given herself away.

“There are a lot of people in the world today who kill thieves on sight,” said a voice. “There are people here who think we should kill you now.”

She sat up, trembling a bit, and looked around. The cell was professionally made, an artifact from a previous era. There was a sink and a toilet, though its bowl was dry, and the cot was bolted in place. It was unusual for such a facility to remain in such pristine condition. Fading light seeped in from a window, itself barred shut. On a bench nearby sat a middle-aged man, large and muscular, his black hair greying at the temples. He was dressed in the work coveralls she had seen before. Knitted into the collar of his particular set was a simple gold star. His hands were worn and calloused but were free of the soot that she had seen on most. He rose from the bench and walked over towards the window.

“When our people found this base, decades ago, these rooms were something of a mystery,” he said. “It was my mother who figured it out, from the documents that had been left behind. Soldiers would come back to base drunk, they’d fight, they’d talk back to their commanders. This was a holding cell.”

He turned and squinted at her through the bars

“My parents were among the first wave of people who reclaimed this place, after the troubles,” he said. “My father helped build the powerplant. He helped stoke the fires. He was one of the first to work on building the wall. I stoked the fires too. And I was one of the last to work on the wall. In time my children will help keep the fire.”

He shook his head at her.

“And you’re here stealing from us.”

“No, I’m sorry, I – ” stammered Haojing.

“Please,” he said. “Stop. We’ve been losing scrap and tools. I don’t know how much, but every day there’s less and less. And we caught you in the shed.”

The light continued to die outside, casting long shadows in the brig. He walked over to a dangling lightbulb, hanging from the ceiling, and pulled its chain. The light was bright, but flickered in and out incessantly. She shivered in the chill of the unheated room.

“I just – I wanted to get inside, trade, find something to eat,” she said lamely.

He snorted.

“And you thought you’d find a trader in a tool shed?” he said, clutching the bars between them. “How did you get in? Who did you bribe? And with what?”

“I didn’t bribe anyone,” she said, flailing. “I hid among the workers coming in from the lumber yard.”

He pursed his lips and stared at her for a moment, studying.

“Well then I know you came to steal from us,” he said. “The toolshed is clear on the other side of the complex from that entrance.”

He got up and paced around, looking agitated and unsure.

“Please,” she said. “Just let me go. I’ll leave and never come back.”

He looked at her for a beat, then shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

The light, which had flickered consistently, snapped off entirely. The ambient light outside the window dimmed too. Her captor sighed, shuffling in place restlessly. For a few minutes she sat in the darkness awkwardly, just waiting, hearing him breathe and pace. Finally the light clicked back on, though it still flickered.

He sighed again and shook his head.

“This isn’t what I’m good at,” he said. “I never wanted to make these decisions.”

He reached into a nearby desk and pulled out a plastic water bottle, passing it to her through the bars.

“I have to figure out what we’re going to do with you tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

He headed towards the door. As he passed, he stopped at the dangling light.

“On or off?” he asked.

“Um, on please,” she said. He nodded and wandered away.

She uncapped the water bottle and sniffed it. She had smelled cleaner in her life, but all in all it was fine, and she drew a healthy sip from it. As she did she took a moment to get her bearings. Someone had wrapped the cut on her hand – not particularly well, but she appreciated the sentiment. The sky was now fully dark outside and she could still see the flickering signs of artificial light. Straining to listen, she could hear dim noise of a crowd not too far off, along with random clamor in the surrounding environment.

For a moment she was overcome with claustrophobia and felt the bars pressing against her like she had been pushed right up against the cage. All of her life she had found her world limited and provincial even as she wandered miles from home. With so much of the world gone even the run of the country felt like roaming a quaint neighborhood and she had chafed again and again at life in a world that was physically vast and terribly empty. In the jail cell now she felt the horrible crush of her psyche made literal and all she could do was stare at the bars that held her.

It took only a few minutes to decide on a route of escape. The cell was steel and in strong condition, but the wall it was set into was not. She could see signs of a leak in the ceiling above, the tell-tale dirty spots where water had poured down the plaster wall. The plaster was lightly cracked in places. She decided to take a chance that it was worse than it looked. If they came back, she would be found out, but it was hard to see how her position could have gotten worse if she was.

Forty minutes of desperate effort and she had removed a leg of the cot. The bolt had been welded over but with its age, her persistence, and reserves of strength that came from being caged she had broken the weld. Haojing knew she lived in a world that came pre-broken and so was always willing to probe for its weaknesses. She painstakingly turned the bolt, slowly rotating it in either direction until the corrosion and paint and grime that held it in place gave way. By the time she had freed the leg from the ground her fingertips were raw and her hands ached with effort, but with a practiced and unhurried perseverance she continued. The leg could raise a centimeter or so from the floor where it had once been bolted. It was enough. She began methodically to rock the leg back and forth, moving it the tiny distance she could. As she went on, pushing it rhythmically, the leg had a little more give, and a little more, and a little more. Her muscles ached and her palms went numb, but at last she felt the weld give way some, and she could wrench it further and further in its space, and finally she was sure the weld had given entirely. Then, again, to a screw, this time one that attached the leg to the cot. She struggled to grasp it with bleeding fingertips, but it gave much more easily than the first, and with a few more minutes of effort, the leg of the cot was in her hand.

She sat on the floor for a while, breathing heavily from the effort. She allowed herself a brief moment to rest, clearing her thoughts of her fear that her escape attempt would be discovered. She rose and used her makeshift tool to probe the plaster. She initially tried to cut into the wall closest to the bars, but found she could get no purchase on the smooth surface. So she moved the end of the cot leg over to a preexisting crack a couple feet over from the bars and dug in. With a little effort a chunk broke off, and then another, and in a short while she had a real hole in the wall. She decided it was doable. She winced at the effort to come, then set at the hole with gusto.

For over an hour she worked, gradually enlarging the hole until it was a large gash, moving its border farther and farther towards the edge of the cell. At times the plaster came out in thick chunks, giving way easily, and she felt sure she would be out before she knew it. At other times, she worked inch by grudging inch, sometimes collapsing in exhaustion. The entire time she started at every noise, sure she would be discovered, but no one ever came. Finally, deep into the night, she reached the edge. She worked quickly, anticipation building. When she realized how deeply into the wall the bars were set, her heart sank, but there was no choice but to press on.

The work was faster than she had feared; as she dug deeper into the plaster it became more brittle and showed more signs of deterioration. After another half hour she had hollowed out a space about four feet tall and six inches deep. Deeper than that and she hit the metal mesh that structured the wall. She vainly banged away at it but the combination was too sturdy. She set about to clear more of the plaster between the bars and the mesh, giving herself every bit of clearance she could. Her entire body ached with effort, and she knew should could not go on much longer. Finally she surveyed the gap in front of her.

It did not seem large enough for her to fit. Her arm passed easily through, and she felt she could wedge her shoulder in far enough, but the thought of getting her head and hips past was truly frightening. For any human of a more average size it would have been out of the question to try. But after all that work, her whole body pummeled with effort, and with her fear growing that she would be found out and punished for what she had done, she had to try.

For a moment she simply studied the angles and tried to envision the best means of escape. She settled on putting her left leg through first, then stuck her arm out of the hole and began working her shoulder through. It was slow and uncomfortable work, but in time she had two limbs out of the cage. She paused for a moment, sick with fear over the next step, the blew her air out and pushed. She wedged into the space, contorting her body into a gruesome shape as she drew up her hip and lowered her shoulder. She slowly rocked her hip until it was well stuck into the space. Finally she knew she would have to commit with her head. She sucked in and out a breath, then pushed.

For a sickening minute she was sure she was entirely stuck, her head completely immobile in the space. She gasped in fear and pain, panic rising inside her. She came a moment away from screaming, crying out to her captors to come and free her, when finally, with terrible effort, her head began to slide forward again. The plaster tore at her hip, gouging it, and she felt blood running down her leg. With one last hideous expense of effort, she pulled the rest of the way through, feeling her ribs buckling inside her. As she finally came free, she felt flat on her face on the other side of the bars, only her right leg still stuck in the crawlspace above. She wrenched her foot out, breathing heavily. She was free.

Unsteadily she rose to her feet. She cast a look at the water bottle inside the cell, wishing she had had the presence of mind to pass it through first. She glanced around at the brig from the other side. She saw nothing of obvious interest, and stifled her urge to search through the desk for anything useful. She crept up to the door, keeping her body low to see if any guards sat on the other side. But the room ahead was empty.

She found, in fact, that not only were there no guards in the rooms ahead, no one had bothered to lock the doors. The rooms she found were chaotic and messy, old files piled on the floor, furniture haphazardly scattered around. Bits and pieces of the building had been scavenged, wood ripped from doorframes, piping pulled from walls that had been exposed. At one point, she crept past another cell, its occupant a snoring man dressed in the worker coveralls. Finally she came to a staircase and followed it down.

She emerged into the moonlight. It was hours past midnight, but the sound of activity came from all around. She was struck with indecision about how to press forward. If she crept around, sticking to the shadows, she might avoid any scrutiny, but if she was caught she would surely look guilty. But absent their uniform she was unsure if simply walking around like she belonged would work. By instinct, she resorted to the shadows and hid as best she could as she moved forward, avoiding the piles of refuse that lined the street, taking advantage of the flickering light.

After a couple dozen yards of creeping, opportunity presented itself. In a small office building, an older, portly worker lay sleeping in a reclining chair, feet up on the desk in front of him. He snored loudly. On the chair hung a large overcoat in the same color scheme as the coveralls. Glancing around her furtively, she approached him. The light in his office left her exposed, so she had little choice but to grab the coat and pull. After a moment of resistance, it slipped off the chair and into her arms. She froze for a moment, but the sleeping worker just went right on snoring. She glanced around her, then threw the overcoat on. It was immense on her, like she was wrapped in a blanket, but its warmth and protection made her feel less afraid.

It wasn’t more than another minute or two before she first encountered a small group coming towards her. They were talking loudly, laughing as they went. As she passed she nodded weakly towards them. They didn’t appear to notice her at all. As they wandered away, she spotted the main gate to the forest, still teeming with workers dragging in vast trunks, about 100 meters away. They must have worked through the night. With the number of people pouring in and out, she realized it must be a shift change, and she hurried forward.

Halfway towards the gate she spotted the tavern. A raucous crowd was gathered in a short, open-air building, quite similar to the bar in the settlement outside of the wall. Despite the late hour the space was full, of men and women alike, most wearing the same coveralls she had seen so many times. They were younger, as a rule, than the patrons at that other bar. They were filthy with soot and they laughed boisterously to each other. The glassware was inconsistent; some clutched thick steins, some drank from dented canteens, a few from old tin cans. The light inside flickered incessantly, and as those coming off of their shifts walked in, others stumbled out, some collapsing in the street, one or two vomiting against the wall.

Haojing knew she must hurry, and the gate and the external world beckoned. But as she stood in front of the bar, studying, she felt rooted in place, gazing at those faces, feeling their warmth, taking in the human scene. There had been no adolescence, in her world, no high school social life, no undergraduate revelry. She ached with loneliness and was terrified of meeting someone new. Friendships shifted as quickly as the landscape; you knew people and you knew them and one day they were gone forever. Distrust dissolved slowly and affection died easy. It looked like everyone at the bar had been going there for years.

At last she felt compelled to walk. She headed towards the throngs, and fell in step easily with a group heading out the gate. She glanced at them as they shuffled outside, staring surreptitiously at faces, so many different human faces, their worn clothes, their weathered hands. As they passed the gates, she fought back her instinct to bolt straight away, and followed the disorganized lines as the pressed towards the trees. Workers broke off into groups and headed towards different work stations, and she took the opportunity to head towards a line of trees behind a pack of men, then dipped away, and then she was hidden from view, and she was gone.

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©2019 Fredrik deBoer
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