Trolley hit floor with a crash, lying on its side, the rattled Danny feeling undignified, straps holding him in place. Did these things happen to other people? He couldn’t believe they did.
Behind him, Teena was having difficulty unbuckling even his ankle, having engaged its binding in a tug of war. Unable to see her, he imagined her – foot on trolley, leaning back, heaving at the strap, purple-faced, as though trying to uproot the world’s biggest pumpkin.
The world’s biggest pumpkin just about summed him up for having ever moved into this madhouse.
She was getting nowhere. ‘Unph. Perhaps I was a trifle overzealous applying your tethers – unph. Still, better safe than sorry.’
Her tugging jostled the trolley across polished tiles, jolting Danny’s eyeballs in their sockets, making him see two mind machines, two Xeta Guns, two lift doors, two everythings. ‘Just get some shears,’ he demanded.
‘Ah.’ She stopped tugging, panting. Danny’s vision began to return to normal.
‘“Ah,” what?’ He already regretted asking.
‘In order to guarantee you wouldn’t escape and hurt yourself, I used Obdurite-laced leather.’
‘Obdurite?’
‘A metal compound of my own design.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I haven’t yet invented anything that can cut through it.’
‘And how long will it take to invent something that can cut through it?’
‘Twenty-three years.’
‘Jesus, Teena!’
The trolley rattled. She’d claimed a seat on its topmost edge. He was hoping she’d fall off and injure herself. ‘There was a fifty-fifty chance you’d regain consciousness in a disturbed state,’ she claimed. ‘The strength, not to mention insane cunning, of the disturbed individual is notorious. They may have ten times the strength of a normal person.’
‘Is that why you can punch so hard?’
‘This is no time for sarcasm.’
‘Then what is it time for?’
‘Lateral thinking. I can’t break the straps. I can’t smash this trolley, it also being made of Obdurite. My Man Who Does has a way with straps but is overseas on a government mission. No one knows where he is, or when he’ll be back, least of all himself.’
‘Government mission?’ he asked.
‘Uh–huh.’
‘Why would a cleaning man be on a government mission?’
‘There’s all sorts of messes need clearing up in this world, Gary.’ She returned to the matter at hand; ‘I can’t melt this trolley. I can’t freeze then shatter it. I’m not yet ready to space warp things. But I hold several doctorates in insane strength.’
‘Surprise me, why don’t you?’
‘No ordinary lunatic could snap these bonds. It’d take an Edward Hyde type figure, the twisted product of a pharmacological transformation gone hideously wrong. If I baked you a Mr Hyde pie – of course there’d be no cure but…’
‘Teena?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Keep tugging.’
‘You’re right.’ Clatter. She stood. ‘Anything I can fasten, I can unfasten. Besides, how could the world’s finest mind be outfoxed by a few bits of metal?’
‘I’ll spend my dying day on this trolley, won’t I?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ She tugged. ‘Won’t be long.’ Clatter, gut-busting strain, rattle, rattle, clatter, kick, punch.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ Crash, she gave the trolley one final, frustrated kick, nearly putting Danny’s back out in the process. ‘What am I doing?’ she demanded neurotically. ‘I can’t free you. I can’t help you. I can’t help anyone. I’m only a girl. I’m not even a woman, for Christ’s sake.’ Pat pat pat, she paced irritably, behind him.
‘Teena?’
‘What?’
‘You okay?’
‘Hunky dory.’ She didn’t sound hunky dory.
‘That pie you ate?’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s not affecting you in some way?’
‘And why should it do that?’ She paced on. ‘It wasn’t my enemy was it?’
‘But I’ve been thinking. Unlike me, you never had amnesia. So, if it couldn’t restore your memory, what would it do?’
‘Because you’re a genius.’
‘Don’t patronize me,’ she fumed. ‘I was always the thick one. You know that. I know that. Everyone knows that. You all laugh at me behind my back. It was always my sister who got all the praise – Little Akira. Little Akira. “We have a new addition to the family, Tinashta. Be nice to little Akira, Tinashta. And never forget the sun shines out of her perfectly appointed backside.” God how I wish I’d tested the fucking pies on her instead of on some rabbits, tied her to that table and …’
‘Trolley,’ he corrected her.
‘Big difference! I wish I’d tied her to that trolley and rammed those pies down her know-it-all throat, one by one by one, till she was stuffed so full and so fat no one’d look at her. I love bunnies. Bunnies don’t steal the only boyfriend you ever had who wasn’t scared of you, leaving you with a drink problem that needs eighteen months’ therapy to sort out. I need a fag. I need a spliff. Get me a gin. Oh God, my bunnies, my bunnies, what have I done to you, my bunnies?’ Clumpf.
‘Teena?’
No reply.
‘Teena?’
‘Doors?’ Danny wriggled desperately like a salmon fighting the flow, trying to manoeuvre the trolley round to face Teena. It rattled and juddered, going nowhere.
After regaining his breath, he tried again, only managing to overturn the thing completely. It crashed down onto him, knocked the wind from him, and slid down the slope. It halted at the ramp’s base, pinning him to the floor, further from Teena than ever.
‘You wanted something, Mr Daniel?’
‘What’s wrong with Teena?’ He panted, trying to move but failing.
Somewhere behind him. Doors’ probe light clicked on, hummed for moments that stretched to breaking point, then clicked off.
Silence.
The silence between stepping off the Grand Canyon and hitting the ground below.
‘Doors?’ Danny saw only the stippling of the nearest floor tiles. Perspiration trickled down one side of his face, his heart thumping.
‘Oh dear,’ said Doors.
‘What is it?’ asked Danny.
‘I’m afraid Miss Rama’s dead.’