Prisoner of Glass (14 page)

“Okay, don’t rub it in.
 
Breakfast.
 
I’ll tell you over that slop they feed us in the morning.”

THEY PLAYED PANTHEON CHESS while Elspeth finally spilled everything about the Order of the Black Dove and Ione to James Card.

“Jesus, Elspeth,” Card said.
 
“You really
have
been holding out on me.”

“I’m sorry!
 
I didn’t
mean
to find the secret door, and the secret passageways and all these people people in them.
 
It just sort of … happened.”

“Yeah.
 
Well …”

“Well, I’m telling you now, which should make up for it.”

“I don’t buy the nanotech cover story.
 
It doesn’t ring true.
 
Remember, I have a nose for this sort of thing.”

“But I saw it!
 
I was
inside
the Panopticon!
 
I’m telling you, it was all real.
 
I fell — you must have heard about that …”

“About the guard that fell to his death yesterday?
 
Everyone knows about that — even I saw it.”

“Well, I came back to life — because those nanotech things put me back together.
 
That’s proof right there, as far as I’m concerned.”

James Card moved his Pantheon piece and noodled with his sour soup.
 
“Nope.
 
That David character is hiding something.
 
I can feel it.
 
He’s fibbing to you.”

“I think he’s got a crush on me.”

“Oh, he most
definitely
has a crush on you.
 
But he’s also lying to you.
 
Simple as that.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“I think you should tell me how to open a secret passageway in my cell so I can —”

“Not every cell has one!
 
Yours doesn’t, I checked.”

“Okay, well if I can’t come play with you and the Order of the Whackadoodles, then you should tail this David person when he thinks you’re gone for the night.
 
See where he goes.
 
He says he’s a prisoner, right?
 
Well.
 
Have you ever seen him around the prison
during the day?
”

That got her.
 
She stopped for a moment, and then said:
 
“Well, no … but there are a thousand other people here.
 
It’s possible that —”
 

“Nuh uh.
 
What cell is he in?”

She shrugged.

“Right.”

“Okay.
 
Point taken.
 
Your move, by the way.”

David moved his Loki-knight into position, thinking to take her Isis.
 
But a few moves later, his Odin was pinned down in the corner.

“Okay.
 
Now that’s weird,” Elspeth said.

“What is?”

“The Pantheon Chess board … it’s in the exact same configuration.
 
Again.
 
These games all end exactly the same.
 
How can that be?”

“Huh.
 
Yeah, you’re right.
 
So tell me, gentle giant: how does your nanotech theory explain
that
?”

Elspeth had to admit she had no answers.

“Just follow David,” Card urged.
 
“Do it.
 
Do it
tonight
.”

IT TOOK HER the full day and part of the night to come to the decision to follow David.
 
But James was right: something was fishy here.
 
She would wait until the end of the night, when the Order cleared out of the tunnels and made their way back to their cells for the morning count.
 

If David was really a prisoner, he would go back to his cell.
 
If not …
 

Well.
 
She would see just where it was that he went to.

It wasn’t hard to separate him from the others in the Order.
 
She flirted with him harder than she had ever before, giving him little looks and smiles.
 
She asked him to show her the digs and escape tunnel projects, which he did eagerly.
 
All of this put the two of them far, far away from anyone other prisoner by the time morning rolled around.

“Well then,” David said with a gooey smile.
 
“I guess … that’s it for tonight then.
 
Time to get back in our cages.”

“Yeah,” Elspeth said.
 
“Let’s do this again tomorrow night.
 
Okay?”

“Sure, sure!” David replied.
 
For a moment it looked like he might try to lean up for a kiss … but Elspeth stepped away before he tried to go that far.
 
“Well.
 
On my way then.
 
Good night!”
 
He waved goofily.

“Good night,” she said, and turned and walked away.
 
She waited only a moment before doubling back and following him through the stone labyrinth at a safe distance.
 

THE DOOR opened.
 
A shaft of light poured out, as if David had opened a portal to heaven.
 
He gave a quick furtive glance around — and ducked through.
 
The door snicked shut neatly behind him, its lines vanishing perfectly in the rock.

Interesting
, Elspeth mused.
 

There was another tunnel system
inside
the tunnel system.

Quickly, before someone else came along, she followed.
 
Up close, there was absolutely no trace of the door in the rough-hewn rock.
 
She had expected to see a thin line, something, anything.
 

But there was nothing.
 

She pushed on the moss-covered nub of rock, as she had seen David do.
 
The portal opened, and she stepped through.

There was a brightly-lit tunnel here.
 
It was not made of roughly hewn rock: instead, it was constructed of steel and immaculately clean with a textured black rubber floor.
 
She followed it a short distance until it opened up into a wonderland.

She beheld an underground cavern made of delirium and slices of sheer happiness.

As her eyes adjusted to the dazzling light, she realized that she was looking upon some kind of luxurious living compound.
 
Bright colors and rich grasses and trees and flowers of every size and shape abounded.
 
Living quarters filled the landscape, each built in one of a number of different architectural styles — Queen Anne cottages, Victorian mansions — each bespeaking long, indulgent hours in the design and construction thereof.
 
The sounds of children playing, their squeals of laughter, were everywhere — she saw packs of them running happily.
 
Fields filled with rich crops of every variety swept the hillsides — she could smell the rich aroma of peat and loam and vegetation.

She had to blink to believe it.
 
This
was what was buried beneath the Glass Prison?
 
This — this Munchkinland?
 
This Genesis Cave, this Garden of Eden?

She spied a nearby windmill and her breath caught in her throat.
 
The blades.
 
The blades!
 
She recognized them.
 
They had been made in the prison above with prison labor.
 
She herself had worked on those blades, painting them with that smelly epoxy.
 
At the time, she had wondered what the blade was, what such a thing could possibly be for …

And now, she had her answer.

Anger swelled within her.
 
What did this place mean?
 
Were these people somehow leeching off the prison above?
 
It was too much.
 
It made her want to scream.
 

Before she could stop herself, she marched down the hill, hands bunched into tight fists swinging at her sides.
 

A group of children were the first to spot her.
 
They stopped playing, a splash of alarm rippling through them.
 
She studied their faces: she recognized none of them.
 
And they all had modern clothes, almost expensive-looking clothes: not the rags of the prison.

So.
 
These kids had been hidden here also.
 
And they were nothing like the old-eyed kids she’d run into in the other tunnels.
 
No.
 
These were true children.

She ignored them and strutted until she reached something that looked like a town square.

“Hello?
 
Hello!
 
David!
 
Are you here?”
 
She yelled. “No?
 
Okay.
 
What about Sebastian Cone?
 
I’ve seen your little hidden village!
 
You want to come out and explain what the hell’s going on here?”

Cautious faces peeked out of windows, mostly women.
 
Again, no one she had seen before.

Ah.
 
Women and children, hidden here beneath the hard prison life above.
 
Men started to appear now — men she had seen before with David.
 
They were clearly shocked at Elspeth’s presence.
 
They drew guns.

“Oh please!
 
Those guns are just soap and shoe polish made to look like —”

“Elspeth …” David said.
 
She whirled.
 
David stood there, motioning for everyone else to keep calm.
 

“Now,” Elspeth said deliberately, stabbing a finger at him with her voice quaking.
 
“Now you’re going to explain all this.”

David seemed at a loss for moment.
 
But then a new voice appeared.
 
“Oh, good job, David.”
 
It was Ione, the small Indian girl.
 
“You can stop acting all surprised.
 
I suppose she just happened to stumble on the secret door to the Sanctuary.”

David turned bright red.
 
“I — I — no, it was —”

“Right.
 
That’s what I thought.
 
You fell in love with her, didn’t you?
 
And once she knew about this place, I’d have to let her stay.
 
So presto, you make sure she’s following you, and you go through the Sanctuary door, making sure she sees how to open it.
 
Right?
 
Am I missing anything so far?”

David was silent and blushing for a long moment.
 
Then he said, “Well you’re in love with James Card.”

“That’s not true,” Ione said, blushing now as well.

“No?
 
Then why did you give him a record player, just like he asked for?
 
A secret present from little Sebastian, the girl who can’t grow up.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said darkly, from a place of deep hurt.
 

But Elspeth’s eyes only darted between the two of them.
 
Sebastian?

“Yes,” the child said wearily, answering the unspoken question.
 
“My name’s not really Ione.
 
It’s Sebastian Cone.
 
Well,
Sebastienne
, really, but nobody pronounces it that way.”

Elspeth swallowed.
 

“And this is Sanctuary.
 
Welcome, Doctor Lune.”

SEBASTIAN CONE — the child — sat in the front salon of a lavish, well-appointed home.
 
Elspeth sat nearby, while David brought them both tea.
 

“Don’t think of me as a child,” Sebastian said.
 
“You can get that out of your head right now.”
 
Elspeth nodded.
 
She believed Sebastian.
 
It wasn’t all that hard, really, especially now that the pretense was dropped.
 
The way Sebastian held herself, the cold intelligence in the eyes … none of it was child-like.
 

And then there was the way that everyone deferred to her.
 
Even David.

“Why?” Elspeth asked.
 
“Is it the medical experiments?
 
The — whatever they did to me — that made my finger grow back?”

Sebastian laughed.
 
“Ah yes.
 
That.
 
Why, yes, in a way.
 
It’s all related.
 
Why do plants grow — with no water, no bees, no sunlight?
 
Why do dead people come back to life?
 
Why is a forty year old child sitting in front of you right now?
 
How about why your phone calls end up in confusing conversations with your own relatives?
 
Oh yes, I know about James Card’s mobile.
 
Haven’t you guessed at it yet?”

“Well I was in the Panopticon.
 
I saw it.
 
It’s … some kind of nanotechnology.
 
That’s why they chose me, a doctor, why they —”

“No.
 
No no no no no.
 
First all of all, there is no
they
.
 
Who do you you think
they
are?”

“The guards.
 
The people in the Panopticon, the ones who keep us here.”

“The guards, as you call them, are us.”

Elspeth’s jaw dropped.
 

“Well, not
me
.
 
I’m too short.
 
It’s the men, mostly.
 
Some women.
 
They dress up in those nonsense black armor costumes, come running out of the Panopticon every morning, all gung ho.
 
Make sure everyone stays good and scared.
 
We’ve got an elevator that goes right up from the middle of the village, up into the center of the Panopticon.
 
In fact, you see it from here.”
 
Sebastian pointed out her front window: sure enough, a dark metallic elevator shaft stood not far away, running from the ground all the way up through the ceiling.
 
There was something that glowed orange in front of where the doors should be.
 
To Elspeth’s questioning gaze, she said,
 
“There’s a wall of lava in front of it.
 
Extra protection — just in case any prisoners actually ever are able to get into the Panopticon and take the elevator down — they won’t be able to enter the Sanctuary.
 
It’s a cool Mayan thing, like so much around here …”