Arcadian's Asylum (18 page)

Was it Doc’s imagination, or was there something about the intonation of that last word that caused him alarm? He decided to keep his peace for the moment, and to keep his face poker-straight.

“Now, come with us,” the man said more briskly, “and you will see something of what we do here.”

“You will be allocated quarters shortly,” the fat woman added in her shrill tones. “But first, it would be useful for you to see something of our work, and the work to which you are expected to contribute.”

“Useful for who?” Mildred asked.

No answer was forthcoming. Instead the three bizarrely dressed people moved off, leaving Doc and
Mildred standing. Figuring that part of the process—whatever that may prove to be—was about working out what was expected from them and adjusting accordingly, they followed without a word.

The trio set them a brisk pace, and it was only a short while before they had navigated the maze of side streets that led to an open space that extended over a vacant lot the size of one block. Around the edges sat a number of men and women of varying age and race, paired on benches across from each other, a table between each of them. The center of each table was carved in dark and light woods, forming a permanent board. The pairs were poring over carved pieces that were laid out on the squares. Although Doc and Mildred could see, as they passed, that the carvings varied from primitive to ornate, indicating that they had been cobbled together or made however was possible. But there was no mistaking what they were.

“Chess?” Mildred couldn’t help but express her surprise. “It’s been a long time since I saw a chess set, let alone see people play like this.”

She realized as soon as she spoke that she had said too much. Doc shook his head, brow furrowed, but it was too late. Their guides to this sector were too sharp.

“You have seen such things? Where? Where else do they play like this? We believed it was only in predark times that people gathered in this way to play chess.” The fat woman was shrill and insistent.

Mildred shrugged. “It was a while ago—shit, where was that? We’ve traveled so much, that—”

“Why do you value chess, of all games, so highly?” Doc interrupted, trying to pull her out of the hole.

“Because of its logical progression. The mental exercise in assessing possibility and chance. The way in which it encourages you to assess the psychology of your opponent, to think in lateral ways as well as logical. It is the perfect mental training.” The thin woman took responsibility for answering, but it was apparent from the way that she was looking at Mildred as she spoke that she was as intrigued as her colleague.

“That’s very interesting,” Doc replied mildly. He doubted, for himself, that a game could fulfill those functions. But their belief was perhaps very telling.

“Don’t think you have distracted us,” the man said softly, “but it can wait. First, we want you to see this.” He beckoned them to quicken their pace and follow.

Threading between the tables and the players, who seemed barely to register their presence, so intent were they on their games, they made their way through to the middle of the open space. While all around was sparse grassland, this center section was made of concrete. It was set out in a series of squares, intersected with zigzag lines. Circles lined the outside of the board-marked ground, and were dotted across the squares and zigzag lines at intervals that seemed at first glance irregular, but were in fact based upon a 2-1-3 dispersal pattern. The lines were painted red and blue, the squares black and white, and the circles were yellow.

The board was square, and at opposing ends were four chairs, raised up to six feet above the ground, reached by ladders. Each chair was inhabited: two men and two women, each with a megaphone. There were sixteen people acting as living pieces, moving on the board at the command of the seated players. The sixteen
people were all dressed in orange, and if they were divided into teams, it was hard to see how they could be differentiated.

“How do they know which belongs to who?” Mildred asked.

“Perhaps they are divided by whether or not they move on the lines, the circles, or the squares,” Doc pondered. He glanced at their guides, who were watching intently. “I suspect our ability to work this out will tell them much,” he added in an undertone.

“Great,” Mildred muttered sardonically, “’cause that guy’s just moved from circle to line, so it’s not that.”

“But what is the aim?” Doc wondered, stroking his chin. “Are they attempting to move the ‘pieces’ from one side to the other?”

“You mean, the players are competing to control the pieces, and that’s determined by the number of places they move before collision?” Mildred pondered as two players appeared to collide. But then one of the seated players directed them to move apart.

“And why do they keep saying that?” Doc wondered.

Mildred hadn’t been listening closely to what the players had been yelling through the megaphones, as it had mostly been distorted instructions. But as she listened closer, she realized that they kept repeating one phrase.

“Have you got it yet?” she whispered. “No, I haven’t. And you know what?”

“Neither have they,” Doc answered with a chuckle. “There are no rules as such, just a set of fluid motions based around the parameters of the board. Each time one of them seems to guess what the other is doing, then
that person changes the rules in order to outfox the others.”

“So it could go on forever,” Mildred said with a shake of the head.

“Certainly until they run out of invention, or the ability to outguess the others,” he said.

“Splendid,” the fat woman shrilled, clapping her hands. “You’ve worked that one out a whole lot quicker than is usual. Now, I think, you should see where you are staying. Please, follow us.”

As their guides led them away from the board, where the orange pieces still moved haphazardly at the behest of the players, Mildred muttered from the side of her mouth, “Ever hear that old saying about the lunatics taking over the asylum?”

“Indeed,” Doc muttered in return, “though in such a case I should feel well and truly at home.”

“No, Doc, you’re just crazy. These bastards are completely mad…and that’s what I’m worried about.”

J.B. FELT HIS HEART SINK and a blackness descend on him. The unwillingness of the baron to detail the sector in which he would be placed had made him expect something that wouldn’t be an easy ride. Considering the overall situation, that was an understatement. And now his worst fear had been confirmed.

As the sec guard marched him through the center of the ville, he recognized the route only too well. They crossed one boundary line into another sector, and for a moment he wondered if his worst fears weren’t to be confirmed, and he would perhaps be billeted in this sector. The hope was soon shattered as the sec contin
ued at the same pace. He watched the sector pass him by, and as they reached a second boundary line, he knew where he was headed.

They crossed the line into the sector where J.B. and his companions had first entered the ville.

The shanty ville seemed even more bizarre and sorrowful now that he knew that it was part of an experiment. At least that finally explained the mix of squalor and cleanliness that had been so confusing. The shambling idiocy of the people they had met was emphasized for J.B. by the way that some of them stared, openmouthed, while others asked one another in loud voices and simple words if he was the man they had seen yesterday, and where were those who had been with him. They were disingenuous in a way that was both alarming and frightening.

Why the hell had he been brought here? What was in store for him?

The sec guard took him through the ville, scouting the area where he and the others had been captured previously. They were headed for another part of the sprawling and ramshackle sector. As they progressed, J.B. looked over his shoulder and saw that a group of dwellers followed in their wake. Like the last time he had met them, they were keeping back, a mix of curiosity and fear driving them on.

They came to a shack that was a little better constructed than the others. It was also better maintained. Where the others looked as though they could be demolished with ease, this one had a more sturdy air. J.B. knew that this had to be where the sector leader was billeted, a feeling confirmed by the way in which the
group at their rear fell back, as if in awe. The sec guard halted, and one of them stepped forward, disappearing into the black maw of the shack’s open doorway.

After a wait in which J.B. wondered what was occurring, he came out. Even though he was trying to keep his visage unreadable, still a faint wrinkling of disgust could be detected. It was even more apparent in the cracking of his voice as he said, “You go in now.”

J.B. looked around. The sec guard had parted to allow him to pass through. Hesitantly, he took a few steps that took him past the sec man who had been inside.

“You be careful,” the sec man whispered.

The Armorer paused, looking at him with something approaching bewilderment and amazement.

“You’ll see,” the sec man added in the same undertone. With which he moved back toward the rest of the guard. They turned and walked away, scattering the sector dwellers in front of them.

J.B. watched them, chewing his lip thoughtfully, then turned to the open doorway. Under the bright midday sun, the doorway lurked like a pitch-black shadow. A ripple of apprehension fluttered in his stomach, and he could feel the adrenaline begin to flow. Purposeful, he stepped into the black.

The heat of the day outside gave way to a more humid kind of heat. The air was thick and sticky with moisture and the smell of burning spices. They were obviously intended to mask the smell of sweat and decay that permeated the atmosphere. They failed. J.B.’s gut lurched, but he bit down hard on the metallic taste that sprung from his throat. He could hear breathing: one,
two…at least three people, maybe four. A woman’s voice giggled, high and nervous. His eyes began to adjust to the gloom, and he could make out shapes, but little more.

“You can’t see. Your eyes are dimmed by more than the lack of light.”

The voice was dull, flat, and yet carried within it an almost mocking undertone. It was coming from the center of the room, and as J.B. squinted through his glasses he could make out the shape of a man, his torso flowing into an amorphous shape. Another high-pitched giggle revealed the reason—a woman was draped against him on one side, for sure; perhaps another, to judge from the symmetrical flow of shadow.

The air was growing heavier, not just from the tension, but also from the musk that was growing stronger the longer that he stood in the shack.

“Give the man some help,” the voice said in the same flat tone. As an almost immediate response, a light flickered on the left-hand periphery of J.B.’s vision and the glow spread across the room. He turned his head and could see that there was a fourth person in the room—an emaciated woman who was far from the first flush of youth. She was kneeling, naked except for a cloth that was wrapped around her waist. Her breasts were empty dugs that hung pendulously as she leaned over the hurricane lamp, flopping against her rib cage with a hollow smack as she sat back on her calves. She looked at J.B. with a hollow stare, then smiled toothlessly. She reached down beside her and picked up a scrawny dog that she clutched to her.

J.B. looked away as he heard movement. The man
had shifted from his position on the ground, rising and leaving the two women who had been draped over him. They were both naked. One was fat, with greasy blond hair that cascaded over her large breasts, but didn’t cover the rolls of fat on her stomach and hanging over her bare pubis. She looked up at the man as he rose, and giggled again. Her expression was as vacant as the sound she made. The other woman was smaller, but was still chubby. She had dark hair, chopped short, and she was looking directly at J.B. with an expression that could have been curiosity, but was possibly lust.

The man was tall and well-muscled. He had a narrow face, cavernous cheekbones and deep-set eyes sinister in the heavy shadow. His eyes bore into J.B. He was naked apart from a brief pair of ragged shorts, his chest tattooed in unfathomable patterns. He was still standing on the rush mat that covered the dirt floor. Behind him, at the rear of the hut and barely visible, was a filing cabinet that seemed out of place in the dirt shack. More in tune, yet unnerving, was the pile of animal skulls that lay against one of the shack walls. Hangings of primitive paintings depicting hunting of animals and men lined the walls.

The man stepped forward so that he was directly in front of the Armorer. He inclined his face downward, being half a head taller, so that he was bearing down, his breath hot on J.B.’s cheek.

“You’re the one they sent me,” he murmured. “Heard a lot about you. About all your people. Don’t know what you can do for me, though.”

“Then why was I sent here?” J.B. asked, trying to keep his own tones as level as those of the man facing him down.

“Well, it could be for any number of reasons. I get to run this sector pretty much how I like, but having said that our glorious leader tends to send me people for whom I have neither need nor desire.” He shrugged. “What can you do?”

“You seem to enjoy yourself,” J.B. answered in a laconic tone, indicating the two women who were still recumbent on the rush matting.