“Boss, I don’t like what I’m looking at here. Whatever’s underneath all that weed and slime is mad as hell!”
“Stay cool, people.”
“Could it be one of the freaks, messing with our minds?”
“Why don’t you go and find out, Butch.”
“Me? Why me? It’s always me!”
“Because then I don’t have to listen to you whinnying like a lost pony!”
“But Boss—”
“Do as I say!”
As the guards continue to bicker, betraying their fear and confusion, Yoshi turns to his friends and whispers, “It’s OK.”
“How can you say that?” asks Scarlett, her eyes locked on the wailing beast.
The pond is little more than a puddle now, exposing this tortured creature from the deep. Its face is streaked by muddy silt, like some kind of tribal war paint. As it fights to be free from the weed through which it has risen, all that can be seen are two angry eyes.
“I just can’t believe what I’m seeing,” her sister offers.
Yoshi thinks back to the lessons he learned in the bunker, and begins to understand what’s going on. “It’s a weapon of mass delusion,” he tells them, and just prays that he is right. “By playing to the crowd, it’s less likely that anyone will dare to question what’s going on. We should use the opportunity to get away before someone braves speaking up.”
“We really should make that move now,” breathes Livia, her attention still locked on the abomination below. “Everyone is watching it, so if we’re going to leave let’s make it right away.”
Yoshi is set to creep under the guards’ noses, only for this beast from the deep to stop thrashing and face the audience on several galleries. A hush falls over the atrium, but instead of roaring some more, it clears its throat and, in a voice suited for the stage, asks: “Is Yoshi in the building?”
The guard closest to the boy, the twitchy one called Butch, comes alive in response and shouts, “Here he is!” Yoshi peers over the balcony. This time, he sees a familiar face behind the muck. “Go to him,” Butch whispers, clearly sold on what’s happening here. Yoshi glances at the other guards. If any of them have doubts about what’s going on, their gullible colleague has just made it harder for them to speak up. “He’s come for you,” Butch whispers to the boy. “Sacrifice yourself!”
“If I go,” says Yoshi, playing to the crowd himself now, and jabs a thumb over this shoulder, “my three friends here come with me.”
“Don’t lay down demands!” Butch hisses. “Just do as it asks!”
“Nobody is going anywhere!” This is the guard Butch had called boss. His uniform is no different to the others, but his baseball cap sports seven stars of rank across the bill. The look on his face tells Yoshi this charade might be over sooner than he had hoped. “Aleister will be here any minute now!” he bellows. “If he finds that order has broken down, we’ll all be fired. Butch, I don’t intend to tell you again. Get down to the lobby and eject this idiot from the premises. It’s no monster. Be a man and admit you were fooled for a moment. Just look at what’s freaking you out here. It’s some skinny toerag badly in need of a clean up.”
The monster in question acts hurt all of a sudden. He points at himself, looks over his shoulder just to check the guard hadn’t intended to insult anyone else. “You didn’t want to say that,” he declares, shaking one foot after the other to lose the clinging weed. “You really ought to apologise, or face the consequences.”
The girls glance at Yoshi, seemingly unimpressed, but he knows just what’s going on. This beast may have revealed his true nature, but in doing so he’s continuing to draw the guards in. Cautiously, Yoshi begins to size up their escape routes. “We’ll go on my word,” he whispers to Livia and the twins, still watching the dripping-wet figure below and wondering how far he might take it.
“Don’t push me,” the beast warns the boss guard. “I’ve seen a lot of sewage on my way here, followed by an unexpected downpour when I spun the hatch just now. Nobody told me I’d find two tonnes of murky water on top of it. My brief was to make a surprise entrance. I didn’t expect the surprise to be on me! So, sir, if you’d care to show some politeness at least, we can leave here without anyone getting hurt.”
The guard chuckles for a moment. He clears his throat to regain control, but it’s no good. He guffaws loudly, his eyes shining in a bid to keep it together, and then laughs so hard that those guards around him swap goofy, nervous glances.
“What’s so funny?” asks Livia, as the laughter quickly spreads. “There’s no excuse for bad manners.”
“Never mind that.” Yoshi gestures for the girls to follow him. “Let’s go!”
The boy moves lightly on his feet, using the commotion as cover. Nearing the stairs, he glances back to check the others are close behind. When he faces forward once more, he only has time to gasp before crashing into something solid that’s just blocked his path. It’s the boss guard. A man who is laughing harder than anyone else, but who must have been watching their every move. And now here he is, still chortling away, but with one strong hand clamped around the boy’s arm.
“You should stick around,” he tells Yoshi, still cracking up at what seems to him like one lame attempt at a rescue bid. “You’ll miss the best bit, when this clown gets ejected from the premises. It’ll give you a taster of the kind of kicking we have in mind for you.”
Below, the so-called swamp monster is mashing through the puddles left in the water feature. “You leave them alone!” he warns, jabbing a finger accusingly. “My friends will be joining us at any moment. And they really don’t like it when people pick on me, or anyone else!”
The boss guard rocks back on his heels at this. He’s seriously tickled, even if his crack team of security professionals appear more baffled than anything else. They’re laughing along with him, but really do so just to fit in. For they’re also swapping nervous glances with one another, plainly unsure what’s going on. All in all it’s a grand distraction. Whatever they make of this uprising through the slime and the weeds, sheer bravado is what has disarmed these guards so effectively. Yoshi wriggles in vain to free himself from the security chief – the only guard to lose himself to laughter and yet maintain his authority – while the girls look on in despair.
“Easy now!” this boss guard warns Yoshi, recovering his composure for a moment. “You’ll really have to try harder next time.”
The boy looks up into his sniggering face, and hangs his head in defeat. That’s it, he thinks to himself. This show is over. He mouths an apology at the swamp monster down there, who shrugs like he gave it his best shot. Then, much to the surprise of Yoshi and the girls, the monster takes a step back to assist a second figure from the drain hole – a raggedy old lion of a man, looking half-lost but strangely pleased to be here. More so, in fact, as the laughter and uproar sounding from every level falls away to silence.
“Julius!” cries Yoshi, twisting helplessly under the boss guard’s grip.
“What’s with the pensioner?” asks Blaize, with a note of derision. “Is he here to hand out toffees?”
On the bed of the former swamp, overlooked by several floors and illuminated by the ambient lighting like a scooped stage in the round, Julius Grimaldi steps up to address his rapt audience.
“Please forgive my young friend here for kicking up such a stink,” he says, but thinks twice about clapping the swamp monster on the shoulder. “When I asked brave Billy here to spin open the hatch I believed only wires and cables would spill out. Had I known it wasn’t a service hatch, I would’ve asked him to find another point to surface.”
Billy No-Beard rids himself of yet more slime with a pointed flick of his wrists. “It’s the last time I go first,” he mutters, and faces up to Yoshi once again. “In fact,” he suggests, with the hint of a glint in his eye, “why don’t you show us the way out of here?”
“Nobody goes anywhere!” This is the boss guard, who demonstrates he means business by crooking his arm around Yoshi’s throat. “Butch, for the last time, I’m ordering you to the lobby. Escort these jokers from the premises, and have the water feature refilled immediately. If Aleister’s precious ecosystem has been disturbed, it could end up brimming with our blood.”
“Understood, boss!”
Butch heads for the steps that would take him to the water feature, eager to follow orders. He barely moves, however, before Julius cries, “You really don’t want to come any closer, young man. Not if you know what’s waiting in the wings at this moment!”
Yoshi hears this and gives up struggling against the boss guard. If there’s a chance that Julius can outwit the guards then this is it. He checks that Livia and the twins are watching, sees their eyes widen at what creeps from every hallway in the lobby.
“I’m scared,” says Livia. “Really.”
“Me too,” breathes Scarlett. “What are we looking at here?”
“Well?” asks Blaize, glaring at the boy. “This had better be good!”
The mood lamps in the lobby are designed to foreground the water feature and the mangrove around it. They shine in from the surrounding hallways, cutting the walls with slanting light. Looking down from the balcony, it’s impossible to see where each hallway leads. All that can be seen is the beam shining from each one, strong enough to throw down a shadow to forewarn of another presence. Yoshi is just wondering where the rest of the crew might be stationed, when something happens that makes sense of things for him. For as Julius Grimaldi and the Executive Deck Hand turn slowly in opposite directions, so a pack of looming shadows stalk into the light.
“Now,” says Billy, wiping his cheeks clean with his fingertips, “are you going to let Yoshi and his friends come forward, or do we have to unleash the dogs?”
A growl strikes up from one of the hallways next, quickly matched by others.
“They sound big,” a guard near Yoshi observes, and then whimpers when the shadows begin to shape into the pointed ears and pinched eyes of a wild-looking dog indeed. “Very big!”
“Stay calm!” comes the order from the boss guard. “It’s just another illusion,” he assures them, but it’s clear that even he doesn’t sound so certain this time. By now, the lights have revealed an entire pack. They might be hanging back in the darkness, but the shadows on the walls suggest these dogs look set to leap. “I’m a trained handler,” the boss calls out next, clearly hoping that might make them go away. “I didn’t make it to the top in the security business without knowing how to handle big dogs.”
As if in response, one of the shadows appears to rise up on hind legs and walk like a human.
“Those are no dogs!” splutters Butch, backing away from the rail as yet more dark, canine shapes reform against the wall.
“You’re right,” says Yoshi, keen to get in on the act if it means one last chance at escape. “They’re werewolves!”
His claim draws looks of disbelief from the girls, but it’s all too much for Butch and several other guards. They take off in a hurry, deaf to the threats from their superior.
“Werewolves are a myth!” rages the boss guard, furious that so many of his men are deserting their posts. With his nostrils flaring under the bill of his cap, he throws Yoshi to one side and storms for the stairs. “But you two jokers will be history when I get my hands on you!”
“OK, I admit it!” Billy shows him his palms, stalling him at the top of the stairs. “These are not werewolves.”
Julius seems surprised by this admission. Even some of the shadows fall back on all fours, ears pricked and heads cocked in confusion.
“So, what have you got hidden down there?” asks the boss guard, his curiosity beginning to overtake his anger.
“You don’t want know,” warns Billy, though he seems unsure what to add.
Julius frowns. Billy shrugs. The pair look like actors who have lost their lines.
Slowly, the boss guard begins his descent of the stairs. “I do believe you’re bluffing,” he growls, and signals at those who value their jobs to step in line now.
“Let them go!” Yoshi calls out, ignoring this clear chance to get away, but the boss is deaf to them now. Down below, the old man in the patchwork coat and the mud-caked kid beside him look as if they have been struck by stage fright. “I’ll do whatever you say, but don’t hurt them,” pleads the boy, concerned only for the safety of Julius and Billy. They might belong to a crew he’s only just fallen in with, but they’ve also come to mean a great deal to him, he realises with his next breath. “I’m begging you to let them go,” he yells. “They’re like . . . like family to me!”