16.

 

Winston went back to find chaos. Pained cries and moans of fear filled the container. Desperate nurses and orderlies worked with the patients to treat their wounds and calm them from the trauma of the event.

“I sure hope you’re not contagious,” Winston mumbled to himself, squinting disapprovingly at a patient on a gurney who twitched uncontrollably.

“Nurse? Nurse?” Winston called out to a felinoid woman dressed in a crisp white uniform with a few spots of blood. She looked up from checking the portable life support equipment and came over to Winston.

“Who are you? The pilot?” she asked.

“I am. Who’s in charge?” Winston demanded.

“I...” she looked around the container, packed full of people in various states of trauma. “I didn’t see Doctor O’Chaudry get on. He’s our clinic administrator. He might be anywhere. So many people were hurt by falling debris, nobody’s where they should be. Most of the people we managed to get on here were hurt in the rock storm.

“Nobody’s contagious?” Winston asked.

“Contagious? No, sir. None of our patients are contagious,” the cat lady reassured. “We isolated the dangerous patients in the last two containers like you requested. They’re all confined so you won’t be able to get in there without an armed guard.”

“Why’s that?” Winston asked.

“For your safety,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s where we put Basement Three.”

“What’s so special with Basement Three and why do I need to be kept safe from what was in there if no one’s contagious?” Winston said sharply.

Her cat eyes went wide and ears planed back in shock at his question. “Excuse me, but I must go,” she muttered quickly.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, lady!” Winston blurted, scruffing her as she turned.

“Let me go,” She yowled, showing fangs.

“Not till you tell me what you meant. And if you scratch me, I’ll lay you out,” Winston threatened, balling up a fist.

She hissed in anger, unable to break his grip before giving in. The other staff watched, unsure of whether to get involved. Winston’s threatening glare gave them pause.

“That’s the secure ward where we keep the criminally insane. We’re a psycho-pharmacology clinic. We do end studies for beneficial psychotropic drugs as well as conditioning therapy for those deemed too dangerous to the Imperium and other tribal governments and kingdoms.”

The hair on Winston’s neck and arms stood up.

“Everyone? As in every patient onboard? Is insane?” Winston asked in a subdued conspiratorial tone.

“Almost. Most aren’t dangerous,” the nurse said, then added more seriously, “Except for the ones from Basement Three. But they’re sedated and restrained. Nothing to worry about.”

“Now… if you’ll excuse me,” The nurse took the opportunity of Winston’s shock to jerk free. She walked backwards a few steps, growling, then turned to aid another injured patient.

“Cheis,” Winston whispered.

He scanned the room. No one was panicking anymore or showing much emotion. The orderlies and nurses had regained control and were checking patient vitals. Despite the relative normalcy of what was an impromptu ER, it wasn’t right. Winston bolted from the container back to the Sierra Madre, as if insanity was an airborne contagion. He leapt across the gap and sealed the door.

“Bubby? Bubby!” he commed. “Got your ears on mench? Bubby!” his voice cracked.

“I hear ya, Hoss,” Billy Joe drawled back.

“Listen, I need you to find the doctor in charge back there. Goes by the name O’Chaudry. I have to keep my hands on the tiller. Bring him up and stay forward of container eight.”

“Why?”

“Just do what you’re told!” Winston slapped off the comm and put his head in his hands, his body trembling from stress due to the complications his passengers would probably cause.

When he looked up, a green comm notification from Mother pulsed. He tapped it open.

“Winston, I don’t know what’s been going on with you and Billy Joe, but congratulations. You are now financially secure for a while. The payment processed out just fine. When you’re done offloading, return the containers to the Consolidated Freight yard in Terezad in the Rusi Archipelago. They will waive the container charges if you do that move for them. Please confirm ASAP, and we can talk in realtime once you are on site there. Mother out.”

Winston frowned for so long his head hurt. He couldn’t take these containers loaded up with crazy people… criminally crazy people into that xenophobic police state. He was stuck between his conscience and cash. If he brought them to Terezad he might be stuck in an uncomfortable spot for a long long time as they tried to sort out the nutters he just dropped on their doorstep. Of course, the late fees and any damage to the containers would be a painful sting if he went right back to home base in Pseudomaha. Tolerable, but painful. Plus he’d still have to explain himself. What the purg was he going to do?

A rapidly pulsing comm alert popped up. Mother, priority one. He tabbed it open.

“Winston! Comm me! I just heard there was a Black Void event in that zone. Are you okay?” Mother broke off for a moment in an Dataoid form of pacing and began muttering to herself. “Oh I’ll never forgive myself. What have those idiots done now? Nothing was supposed to happen. Simple job. What went wr-” the transmission cut off.

So Mother had known where they were going, and possibly more. Winston hit record.

“Mother, Winston. We’re fine but we have some complications. Unable to return containers to the requested location directly. Please relocate to a hub in this zone for real time comms.” Winston provided an out of the way tugstop where they might talk privately. “We’ll be there in eleven hours. Winston out.”

“Hoss?” Billy Joe said through the intercom. “Door’s locked. Care to open it up? I have someone who needs to talk to you,” Billy Joe asked.

“Is it this O’Chaudry guy?” Winston asked.

“No.”

“Are they sick?” Winston winced.

“What? No,” Billy Joe said, mildly confused.

Winston unlocked the door and Billy Joe came in with a woman who gave a frightened whimper at crossing the gap between container and tug.

The two entered the cab.

Billy Joe guided a woman dressed in modest, neo-victorian mourning dress very refined black clothes that spoke of breeding and deep wealth. They were.

“Hello,” the woman greeted him once she regained her composure and held out her hand. “I’m Doctor Amanda Junker.” She was older than him, but not elderly.

“How do, Doctor Yoonkur?” Winston pronounced the unfamiliar sounding name carefully. “Are you in charge?”

“No. I am... or rather was, a visitor at the Bonavitae clinic. Here to see my brother-in-law,” she explained holding up a visitor’s badge.

Winston looked a question at Billy Joe who shrugged in return.

“Don’t blame him, sir,” she said politely, “I intercepted him and asked him to bring me to you before you met Dr. O’Chaudry. You may not know, Bonavitae Pharmaceuticals is not what it seems.”

“Ma’am, I already know it was an asylum of sorts. Worse, I think they might still be doing some very bad things,” Winston hazarded.

The doctor sighed, nodding. “There are patients here that ought not be, and that’s why I came to talk to you.”

“Your brother-in-law is here against his will?” Winston asked delicately.

“Yes. He’s an archaeologist, and a few of his discoveries angered some of Xiao’s courtiers and they had him committed. ‘For his own good’, of course, and to protect society from his crazy ideas.” She gave a small laugh. “As if knowing the past was a crazy idea.”

“From your tone, I assume you were trying to free him?” Winston said.

“I was,” Doctor Junker admitted without hesitation. Almost strident in the proclamation.

“Does your husband approve of your efforts?”

“Yes, he approves,” she said then paused, clenching her jaw a few times. “Or rather, he did approve... is the more accurate statement. I’m a widow.”

Winston was caught short at what to say. “I’m sorry for your loss?” he stammered.

“Sixty one months we tried. Then after his passing I alone strove to get Quentin out of the hands of these brain butchers.”

“Now don’t tell me that your husband died under mysterious circumstances digging into evidence to rescue his brother?” Winston said, giving a disbelieving sidelong glance and smirk.

“It would make a good novel if that were the case, wouldn’t it?” she laughed grimly. “But, no. He died of natural causes. But for the sake of Quentin I used a small portion of my late husband’s fortune to provide for him in this place. Bribes to keep him safe and his mind undamaged by what they call therapy. It let him have a few luxuries that kept him grounded. As if books and art could be called luxuries.”

“So your brother-in-law is a little...” Winston spun a finger around his ear with a cuckoo whistle.

She didn’t react to his callous implication.

“You would have a hard time keeping your sanity if you were locked up, gaslit by the staff and medicated like a schizophrenic,” her voice was colorless. “I keep the worst away from him. Thankfully that bastard, O’Chaudry, is a corrupt one. Bonavitae was Quentin’s oubliette and I was the only person left who kept his memory alive. He’s a cipher to the Dream now. His enemies have purged all his data from the cloud network and disassociated or scrambled what remained till truth and lies became indistinguishable. His accomplishments on record have been re-attributed to others academics and intellectuals. In this manner, poor Quentin has been effectively written out of existence and would have died of neglect long ago if not for me maintaining my vigil.”

Winston had a distinct image of the good doctor standing on a widow’s walk of a large weather-beaten house on the edge of a skyland, looking out over a vast empty sky, candles burning in the windows below.

“What would you propose I do?” he asked.

“Let us off somewhere. Anywhere I can hire transportation, or something else to get us home,” Doctor Junker pleaded.

“If he’s a patient, I think the guards would mind, don’t you?” Winston pointed out

“This may very well be his last chance. The local patient records did not make it off the skyland and are surely destroyed, The data link went down when the black void imploded so nothing was sent, and he is already a ghost in the data clouds,” she wrung her elegant black clutch purse in her gloved hands. “If he is reintegrated into some kingdom’s or tribe’s surveillance system, they will re-commit him and I don’t know how I will track him down again. I’m certain he will vanish, this time for good.”

Winston looked at her, unsure if she was telling the truth or some sort of sociopath spinning a tale.

“What happens if I say no?” Winston tested.

“I would offer to pay you,” she countered.

“What if I asked an unreasonable sum? Would you offer something else?” Winston said cautiously.

Doctor Junker searched his eyes. She caught his meaning but it was clear she was unsure if he meant it.

“I… suppose I would look for another way to free him,” she said quietly, her mouth tight, brow furrowed.

Winston gave a loud snort and shook his head. “Good. You have limits and a sense of self worth. Okay, doctor, If it’s possible to free your brother-in-law, we’ll work something out, but no promises.”

She blinked, her mouth opened just a sliver, the words caught inside.

As if to make sure no one forgot about her, the Sierra Madre gave a series of beeps to alert Winston and Billy Joe of a mandatory maintenance warning to one of her inertia compensators.

“Listen,” Winston leveled with her. “I’m screwed with this situation already. These containers you’re riding in? They have to go to Terezad. The type of place that would quietly black bag us and we’d wake up... if we ever woke up... in a slave labor camp someplace horrid a few days later. I need to dump everyone somewhere where they won’t bat an eye at a train load of well-medicated crazy patients accompanied by armed orderlies, nurses and doctors. Now if you can tell me where tha-”

“Nova Tortuga,” she said, not letting him finish.

“You... what?” Winston was shocked to hear such a lady mention that nigh mythical skyland.

“Nova Tortuga. I’m familiar with the place. They have a rather laissez-faire attitude toward this sort of immigration,” Doctor Junker said firmly.

“That’s because nobody sane wants to go there, and those that do are dangerous as behng! It’s as rowdy to this day as it was eons ago when water touched her shores instead of sky.”

“It seems that the Commodore’s press agent is earning his pay if you believe that,” the Doctor said, with a little shake of her head and thin smile.

“What?” Winston was confused.

“All the Commodore’s propaganda about Nova Tortuga seems to be having the proper effect on people like you,” Doctor Junker said with a strong hint of knowing far more.

“Who?” Winston tried to close the gap in his understanding.

“So, are you saying that you won’t go there?” Doctor Junker asked pointedly.

“I’m not saying anything for another 12 hours. Then I’ll have my bearings and decide how to go forward. Till then, go back and stick with your brother-in-law and I’ll send Billy Joe back when the time is right.”

The Doctor gave a sharp nod of agreement “Thank you, Mr…?”

“You can call me Winston,” he said.

“Thank you, Winston. You’re doing the right thing,” she said.

Winston motioned to Billy Joe to take her back. A moment later, he was alone in the cab.

“You say I’m doing the right thing, Doctor, but I don’t know if that’s true or I’m now just one of the inmates,” he griped to himself.

All the stress seemed to settle in Winston’s bones. With a groan he got up and decided it was time to take a rest and recharge.

He sent a text to Bubby.

SIERRAMADRETUG: “Bubby, I’m going to hit the rack for a few. Lock the door when you come back up after you’re done,”

He moaned and shuffled toward his sleeper

SMLOADMASTER: “You got it, Hoss. Things are looking fine. Try to get some real sleep if you can,”

Billy Joe sent back.

Winston let out a weak laugh.

SIERRAMADRETUG: “After what we just went through? Purg no! I’ll be lucky if my nightmares don’t leak into the instance. Nite.”

He stepped inside the sleeper and closed the door behind him.

The smell of sex hit his nose like a fist. Lust overpowered his thoughts and his body no longer obeyed his control. He spun to look for the source, whipped open the shower door and found Holly standing there.

“Two things, flyboy,” she growled, limbic manipulator at full blast, “Firstly, you and your lumper tried to leave me for dead. Twice, and I’m not happy about it.”

The tsunami of lust overwhelmed all his rational thoughts, smashing them and leaving his primitive lizard brain in charge which lurked at the root of all men’s minds. Winston lunged at her with a rutting bellow.

Holly’s foot flashed out, kicking him in the chest. Winston left the floor and flew the two yards away into the wall over his bed. Bonelessly, he fell down half on and off the bed, face smacking the dirty floor.

~~~

“And secondly,” she gloated haughtily over his unconscious body, “You still have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

Holly picked up his body like he was a stuffed animal and crammed him into the bunk. She threw the blanket over him, slipped his simulation rig on his head and turned it on. Wedging herself between him and the wall, she all but vanished from sight. As she settled in, she fired up her internal linkup, and discovered Billy Joe forgot to change the passwords. She chuckled to herself, accessed the autopilot and uploaded new coordinates.

“Kinky dreams, flyboy. It’s been a long and cheisy day,” she whispered, limbic manipulator still on full blast, rattling his subconscious like a mis-calibrated gyroscope, then she drifted off to sleep.