2 cobra 8

 

Chapter 8

 

We didn’t forget to discuss the third potential task.  Tarquin was getting a little antsy, because he wanted Ichiro wiped out, and these were the elimination rounds.  The sixteen of us would be whittled down to eight for the final task, which, you guessed it, was to be dropped in sub freezing conditions in our underwear with the only task being to survive as long as possible without  using the squawkbox to call for help. No such thing as three useful items here! No watches, no med kit, nothing but your boxers, socks, and boots.

I wanted to kill Ichiro on the eve of his triumph; but common sense prevailed.

And my very survival in New York could indeed be the best way to kill him.

I asked Tarquin to find  our anticipated relative drop positions.

I had Willow schmooz into Oppenheimer’s plans, as well. Not that I didn’t trust Tarquin; I trusted him completely.  I just didn’t trust Oppenheimer, as an organiser of the whole farago of nonsense, who already hated me anyway, not to have come up with his own ideas.

And yes, of course it was my fault that he hated me. I’d just grown sick and tired of being pushed around for the sick entertainment of the public.

I am a professional; but there is only so much humiliation a man can take.

 

We checked back in, and got a full medical work-up to see if we were fit enough to go on. I had my earbud inplanted for this; Willow was going to use the Trid drones to guide me to Ichiro once I had dealt with my pursuer; and, of course, disrupt the ones on Ichiro and me so there was no feed of me killing him.  I’d be a fine assassin if I was seen on Prime Time killing my target. I have to say, it gave me a greater appreciation for the ubiquitous nature of drones. I’d keep a better lookout from now on! What Willow could do, and how invisible she could manage to be, had impressed me.

 

We all passed the medical; Dave might have entered on a whim, but he was fit enough, having used gym work to deal with his frustrations. We were each asked to say something to the watching public, and being seeded sixteenth, he went first.

“I have to thank my ex-wife, Norah Hartley, for me being here, because she forbade me to have anything to do with anything like it,” he said. “Thanks, Norah, you can give some other bloke diseases, and I’ll be blowing any winnings I make on a new car.”

It was a hard act to follow, but most of us muttered something about the pride of our local communities.

“I do this for Kemo Sabe,”  I said, unanswerably.

 

 

Oppenheimer examined our chosen items.

“No torch?” he said.

“I have a light on my watch,” I said. “The human eyeball adjusts well to near total darkness if permitted to do so.”

He grunted.

My knife was standard kit; most of the others had one.

“Chalks?” he said.

“I don’t trust you bastards to mark the way properly; I want to make sure not to get turned around in some rocky labyrinth,” I said. He bristled at my comment.

“The way is marked out with luminous paint,” he said, coldly.

“Well, just as well I’m going for low light,” I said, beaming fatuously. “I hope you warned the guys with powerful torches that it would be less easy to see in the light.”

He humphed, and turned to my third item.

“I doubt you’ll have a chance to use it,” he said.

“We have to be given some sort of start,” I said. “Taking any train anywhere could delay any pursuit whilst whoever pursues me gets a ticket. Giving them a season ticket would be cheating.”

He could not dispute this.

We were sedated, something I had to fight with myself not to resist and break the bones of the doc administering it. I dislike losing control.

I am fairly resistant to poisons, and of course, any drug is a poison in sufficient quantity, and I let my upgraded liver handle it. I might have been hallucinating, but I was pretty sure, as I fought to stay semi-conscious, I heard the doc say, ‘I dare not give him too much, but he should stay out long enough to be out of the running. Now release my family, you bastard.’

If I wasn’t hallucinating, Willow would have picked that up on the sub-dermal mic she had on me.

I swear she’s more paranoid than I am; and that’s a compliment.

My consciousness was... well, I can only describe it as swimmy. You know how it is when your mind wakes up after a deep sleep, and for a few moments you can’t move any voluntary muscles? Well it was like that.

I hated it, and if, when I came fully to, Mr. Oppenheimer had been sitting in front of me, he would have been a dead man.

I came to fully in total darkness, after a hazy period, tied hand and foot. My hands were behind my back, but I managed to lean over to one side to puke until my toenails came up with it. It felt that way, anyway. My liver doubtless arranged that as a way to purge any remaining poison.

I called Mr. Oppenheimer and the doctor a few names that they would not be transmitting. It wasn’t so much the slurs upon their sexual predilections that would get me beeped out, as my ambitions to eviscerate them through the nostrils with a crochet hook, tie them up in their still living guts, and lower them an inch at a time via the toes into a pool of piranha.

I’m sure the organisers of the game show have had worse threats.  And by including the doctor, it made sure nobody could associate me with the rescue of his family doubtless occurring at that moment.

There were sharp enough rocks to work on the ropes, which would doubtless cause contusions, abrasions, and any other medical –sions which you could think of.

So sod that for a game of soldiers. I managed to get my hands underneath my butt and my legs through the circle of them. All that tai chi and yoga pay off in the suppleness stakes. I wondered if my contortions were being filmed on infra-red by the drone which must be accompanying me.

I stuck my tongue out at it.

Now I could put on the tiny light of my watch, which was like a flare to me; but I could see the knots, and get my teeth to them. That would give me some rope. I did not care how long it took; cutting them on sharp rocks would take longer, and so would cutting them with my little knife when I could get it out of my sock.

I quickly untied my hands and rubbed my wrists.

“Way to go, Oppenheimer,” I said. “Let’s hope your heavy handedness hasn’t left anyone with nerve-compression injuries. Or is it just because I’m one of those who resents you interfering? Or maybe you have been paid to kill some of us. Am I paranoid? Am I paranoid enough?”

Maybe it was crazy to sound off, but I do not like underground places, and I could almost feel tons of rock pressing down on me.

With my ankles free, I rubbed them hard too, and a bit ostentatiously. My knife was still there.

So was the concealed one I had not declared. I could see the drone in the light of my watch and checked my second knife by feel and concealed from the camera.

I checked my watch for the time.

I had been out for a couple of hours; unless I had been out twenty-six hours.  Which I thought unlikely.  My bladder wasn’t full enough, and I hadn’t peed myself. Which as I had tanked up beforehand, I should have done. Feeling foolish, I checked the date as well. I must still be woozy not to think of it.

It reminded me, however, that it would be a good idea to relieve myself and get rid of anything my liver had also been removing to pass to my kidneys.

“A stream, autumn gold

Caught within the feeble gleam

Brings satisfaction,” I said.

Well, other people immortalise their doings with haiku.

My dick was now immortalised on Trid feed.

As it has no distinguishing features, other than being in as perfect working order as the rest of me – and treated like the rest of me with walnut juice – there was nothing to identify me using it.

Sebastian would have swooned with joy. I hoped it offended Oppenheimer.

 

I surveyed my surroundings. I was in a small, roughly circular cave. There appeared at first sight to be no way out.

I felt my heart rate and breathing increase, and panic swept me.

Logic dictated that somehow they got me in; therefore, somehow, there was a way to get out. Unless someone had collapsed a tunnel to entomb me.

I did not wimper.

I do not wimper.

If I was entombed, there was enough air here, if I did not waste it, for at least a day round, and by then, Willow and Tarquin would have taken Oppenheimer apart to find out where I was to rescue me.

I examined the cave again.

The arrow ‘this way out’ was well up on one wall.

I made my way over to the arrow, and lo and behold, not easy to spot from where I had been left, there was a narrow way out.

My mind went onto overdrive.

I was desperate to get out of this place.

I had to go through somewhere even narrower.

If someone had set up explosives in front of and behind me to trap me in a narrow tunnel, I would go insane before I died.

And suppose I got stuck?

I did some breathing exercises to force myself not to hyperventilate.

I have never been so scared in my life.

The rock wall was climbable.

I stepped well back and used two strides and a good push-off step to jump.

My fingers caught the edge of the hole, and I pulled myself up, using the rough wall to help me.

The drone pushed rudely past me; they wanted to film my face, I suppose. Or to set off explosives ahead.

Damn, Rick, don’t think like that.

It was a crawl space, and I did whimper. I turned it into a snarl.

Well, if any of this was being filmed, anyone who knew who I was, now knew my weakness.

That could not be helped.

My ear crackled.

“Rick? Rick, love, can you hear me? Say something to say you can,” said Willow, urgently.

“Fucking stupid game,” I said.

“Good,” said Willow. “I’ve been fighting to get a frequency I can contact you on, without interfering with the drone. Now, you stay calm, love, I have the map of the cave you are in. As the crow flies, you’re no more than a hundred yards from the way out. And this passage opens out in about ten feet, there’s a slight curve to it.”

That was actually remarkably comforting.

I wriggled as fast as I could, pushing the drone out of the way.  I wanted to be in that wider section before anyone did any detonating, or so I was buried deep enough to die quickly.

I found myself in a passage I could stand in, which crossed the ‘T’ of the crawlway.

I took a moment to compose myself.

The abused drone crawled reproachfully out of the hole.

“Still functional? Good,” I said. “I’m a little claustrophobic. Sorry.”

It wasn’t the drone operator’s fault, after all.

The arrow was right across from where I came out, and pointed to my left.

I followed it. I trusted Willow to tell me if I was going the wrong way, if someone had labelled things backward to lead me inevitably to the [cue scream of despair diminishing with distance and muffled splash] fall of a ledge into an underground lake. However, such macabre thoughts did not seem to be fulfilled by reality, so I continued making my way along the passage with cautious haste.

To do them credit, when this passage ended with a sudden drop, they had put up a barrier to stop anyone going over. I did not, however, test it by leaning on it. The cavern was huge, and from what I could see was filled with stalactites and stalagmites. And yes, of course I know the difference; c for ceiling in stalactites, g for ground in stalagmites.  Or, alternatively, stalactites hold ‘tite’ to the ceiling and stalagmites ‘mite’ grow up to reach them.

My thoughts really were burbling that much in my terror.

There was a narrow, steep path down from where I had emerged, heading for the floor of the grotto with its display of unrestrained limestone exuberance. There are people who pay to come to places like this, and look at the magnificent display nature can put on when it has spent thousands of years leaking gently with added mineral content.

I did not like the look of the path at all. It was narrow, slick with damp, shiny limestone, and rearing up beside it were a veritable dragon’s maw of stalagmites.  I got out the rope which had been used to tie me. They had been generous; for having had the patience to undo it, rather than cut it, I had close on twenty feet.

I could add my scarf and my webbing.

That would give me twenty five feet. I looked over the barrier. It looked no more than twenty five feet straight down.  I had the choice of climbing down a rather thin rope, or of using it as a safety line, tied to my belt, to help me down that horrible slope. I tried the railings, cautiously; they seemed secure.

I decided to use the path with the rope assist. If I slipped, I would be pulled to dangle, hopefully without raking myself on the wicked, sharp stalagmites. I checked the railing for sharp edges; the uprights were circular section tubular steel and seemed sturdy enough.  I did a round turn and two half hitches  on the main upright. Yes, that’s going round and round again, and two simple hitches on the standing part of the rope; the more weight you put on it, the tighter it pulls. I attached the  two pieces of rope with a simple reef knot, and tied the rope to my silk scarf using a sheet bend.

Oh please. You must know what a sheet bend is; it’s used to join two ropes of different size or weight.  I made a loop with the corner of my scarf, and then it’s a question of the snake comes out of its hole, passes round the back of the tree, and back under its own tail.

Well, if you don’t know it, you belonged to the wrong clubs when you were kids.

I attached the webbing to the opposite corner of the scarf, passed the webbing under my belt and secured it. And then I started walking backwards very slowly, not for Christmas but for freedom.

I had to slither the last few feet, but that was no problem.  I moved out into the cavern, and followed an arrow on the bottom of a monster stalagmite; and I saw light ahead. It was almost blinding, and was  between two more massive pillars, where stalactite joined stalagmite, with side excrescences of almost filigree delicacy in a Hans Rudi Geiger sort of way.

No, it wasn’t a cave exit.

Well, it was; but in the roof.

My comments were scatological.

I was going to have to climb the much qualified pillar.

I hope they were paying plenty to whoever administrates these places for the potential vandalism I would wreak on this thing which had taken more thousands of years to form than I cared to even imagine.

By that point, however, I was more interested in not becoming permanently encased in limestone myself as my body turned to soap in the damp atmosphere and then became part of the scenery.

I was glad I had good gloves and good boots.

It was slow and nervous. Fortunately the pillar was sufficiently intricate to make the climb fairly easy, but for the dampness and the slick limestone. But foot by foot I clawed my way up the forty feet or so to the ceiling where the opening was.

And I rolled out onto short, soft grass with a moan of relief. Hands helped me up and past a barrier to stop stray tourists falling down the hole.

“Good time, Mr. Silverheels,” said the front man assigned to me.  “Here’s the doc to check you over.”

He came towards me, opened a case, and took out a hypodermic.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said.