The Bottle Stopper (8 page)

“I can't do this,” she said.

Maeve walked up the hall, and hovered outside the door to the shop. She listened for customers; she'd been punished before for walking in while Lou was haggling a sale. She reached out and touched the handle, taking a last glance back towards the storeroom, before turning the brass globe in her hand.

She swung the door open and stepped through. Uncle Lou was stood by the window, staring at her.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “It can't be next door. Your friends there are either dead or disappeared. Guess they didn't like you very much.”

“I need more plant cuttings.”

Lou frowned. “You were out yesterday getting some. What are you up to?”

He moved quickly, and grabbed Maeve by the wrist. He wrenched her arm up above her head and marched her back to the storage room.

“There. What's that?” He pointed at the basket of cuttings. “Trying to sneak off somewhere? I need bottles on my shelves. I'll teach you to be so damn bone idle.”

Lou lifted Maeve over to the barrel, and thrust her head down into the cold stench. Her mouth filled with it, and her stomach lurched at the horribly familiar taste.

Maeve clawed at Lou's hand on the back of her head, but he only pushed down harder.

Bubbles poured from her mouth as she filled up with the water. They slowed, and finally stopped. She felt her consciousness slip, drifting out of her body. She closed her eyes. Maybe this was the best escape after all.

Through the encroaching fogginess, she felt Uncle Lou release her, and she felt her body hit the floor. Her hip, her shoulder, her head.

Maeve woke choking on her own sick. She placed her hands on the cold stone floor, and pushed herself onto hands and knees. Her head throbbed as she retched, and her vision was dusted with spots that swarmed like flies.

The door to the storage room was shut. Maeve crawled over to it, reached up and turned the handle. It was locked. Uncle Lou had left her for dead, and simply locked the door.

I wish I had died. And stunk, and stunk, and stunk.

Kneeling up, Maeve pounded on the door. She heard Lou's footsteps shuffling across the kitchen floor.

“Uncle Lou!” she cried out.

His hand hit the door. “About time you stopped sleeping,” his voice said.

“Let me out.”

“You can come out when every one of those bottles is filled. Not before. I will not have laziness in my house.”

Maeve sunk to the floor. She looked at the pile of bottles. She looked at the basket of cuttings. Fuelled by hatred, she knelt on her cushion and worked fast. She picked through the basket for the hemlock, pushing the leaves into the cheapest bottles. The administration might not care what happened on The Floor, but its residents certainly looked after their own.

20

Kerise hopped up onto the narrow sideboard, curling her legs underneath her. She shifted slightly, and rolled her shoulders. She tugged at her jacket, and finally decided to remove it, depositing it on the floor.

“I don't know how you can work in here,” she said.

Tale looked up from her screen. “What's wrong with it?” she asked.

“No windows, no air, that incessant hum of your computer. And it's so hot.”

“That is the heat of enterprise,” Tale said. “And of revolution. Come on, give me a break, I built this thing from bits begged, borrowed, and stolen. It's a bit of a dinosaur, I admit, but have some respect.”

“I suppose it has its uses.” Tugging an overstretched hair band from her wrist, Kerise tied back her thick, dark hair.

“Without it, we'd be searching for this article by hand. Fancy tackling those lot?” Tale gestured at a pile of storage boxes, piled haphazardly into one corner of the small room. “Be glad I digitised the back catalogue.”

“Fair point.”

“And you should be proud. This is the only computer The Hope has outside of The Compound.”

“That you know of. There could be several underground magazines working to undermine the administration's authority.”

Tale shrugged. “None as good as Asteria.” She pushed her small, square glasses back up her freckled nose. She looked back at the screen, and held up her forefinger. “Hold on, hold on, here's something.”

Tale's head disappeared behind the monitors. Her hand appeared, gesturing in Kerise's direction. “Just printing it out now.”

Kerise jumped as the machine next to her whirred, clicked, and juddered. Bit by bit, it pushed out a sheet of paper. Kerise picked it up, snatching her hand away as if the printer might bite it.

“I hate all these machines. I always feel like they're watching me.”

“These ones are harmless. We're completely off the network here, so no one can spy on us.”

“Either way, I'd rather not look at a screen all day. I'd always be wondering who might be looking back. It's weird to think that just sixty-odd years ago, everyone was addicted to their electronics. Always staring at screens rather than talking face to face.”

“Until the administration turned them all into microphones and video surveillance. Watching our every move.”

Kerise looked at the printout in her hand. “This was the first story, when we picked up on her. Have you got the one covering her arrest?”

“Just looking for it now.”

“There's a picture of her with Maeve here. She must have only been about, what, four years old?”

Tale pointed at the printer again. “Here it comes.”

Kerise grabbed the warm printout and looked it over. “Oh yes, this is it. 'Selene Richards was removed at gunpoint for unspecified crimes against the state. Her six year old daughter, father unknown, was torn from her arms to be left in the care of her uncle, known as Jean Louis Benedict Ricard, the proprietor of an apothecary shop on The Wall. Selene's whereabouts have remained unknown. It is not known whether she is alive or dead.' Is there anything else on her?”

“Hold on,” Tale replied. “Hmm, only one small article a couple of years later. Some woman claimed she was receiving psychic messages from Selene. But she wrote into the magazine anonymously, and never replied to the appeal for her, so nothing could ever be verified.”

“Do you think her original letter is still around here somewhere?”

Tale tapped her monitor. “It's not on the system. You could try looking through the boxes, or Denver might know. He's got a scarily accurate memory for exactly what and where everything is in this mess.”

Kerise braced herself against the wall and leaned forward. “Denver!” she screamed.

Tale winced. “Can't you go and get him? It is way too early to be yelling like a fishwife.”

As Denver appeared in the doorway, his toothbrush protruding from his mouth, Kerise grinned smugly at Tale.

“It worked,” she said. She turned to Denver. “Apparently, some woman once wrote to Asteria claiming to be receiving psychic messages from Selene Richards. Do you know if that letter's still around?”

Denver chewed on his toothbrush. “Possibly. I've got a few boxes of old Asteria letters. You prepared to dig through some dusty old boxes, Kerise?”

Kerise hopped down to the floor. “You know me, I like to know everything about a situation before I get into it.”

“Never be surprised,” chorused Denver and Tale in unison.

“Yes, alright,” Kerise snapped. “But when I have a knife to a guy's throat, I need to know he won't have a gun against my stomach.”

“I'll grab those boxes.”

“I'll give you a hand.” Kerise followed Denver into the corridor, and down to, if it were possible, an even smaller, more packed, less airy room. The boxes were stacked floor to ceiling, threatening to topple, and rid the planet of them both.

“Do you ever throw anything away, Denver?”

“You never know when things might come in handy.” He winked as he disappeared into the maze of boxes.

“I still think we should just go and grab Maeve before she does something crazy.”

“You know what we decided,” Denver's voice said. “The majority ruled we wait. See what her plan is.” He reappeared with a shoebox in his arms. He handed it to Kerise. “Keep your distance. You're just there to watch her.”

“I know, I know. But whatever she's up to, she bought a book on poisons, so it's not going to be something good. I just want to get her out of harm's way. We can't risk losing her.”

Denver disappeared behind the boxes again. “She hasn't shown any signs of having inherited Selene's abilities. We're really only still watching her out of curiosity. Is she that important?”

“Abilities or not, she's the only link to the most powerful psychic we've ever known. So, yes, she's important.”

21

When Jody Kelley walked into the apothecary shop that morning, he had a bad case of diarrhoea. He bought a large bottle of medicine—it was a common occurrence, and best to be prepared for next time—and asked to use the toilet. When he was refused, he crouched under the shop's front steps to release his bowel. He had little choice about it, but it also left him with a satisfying sense of vengeance.

Stopping by his house in Hole Street to drop off the medicine, he set off to his job at The Burnt Scroll. He was the chef there, and today there was a wedding party, so he really didn't need the added complication of a toilet trip every ten minutes. Plus, he didn't want his boss finding out. Weddings meant good tips, and she'd be sure to send him home if she knew he was ill. She usually sorted her staff out with medicines from her sister. But he needed a quick-fix today.

Shortly after arriving at work, the stomach ache began. He shrugged it off as a by-product of his loose bowel, and put it down to a good sign that the foul medicine was doing its job.

But then he found himself running to the bathroom to vomit, and as he pulled the chain, Jody realised that his hand was shaking. In fact, his whole body was shaking. His legs, unable to support him any longer, gave way, and he fell to the floor, convulsing in a pool of his own shit and piss.

Luckily for Jody, he was unconscious when his lungs and heart gave up working.

Unluckily for Faith Wallace, the young barmaid, she was the next person into the toilet. As the stench of Jody's emptied bowels hit her, she vomited on the floor. Little did she know at the time, but this was the beginning of a long, and vicious spell of morning sickness that would, eventually, force her to leave her job.

In addition, the happy couple getting married that day were left with no party, and nothing to feed their guests. There was no refund given. They went their separate ways five years later, although that can't be attributed to this particular event.

Meanwhile, at the other end of The Floor, Mayra Hahn's husband had just bought her a bottle of medicine. Mayra didn't have anything wrong with her, other than an acute case of frigidity, brought on by her husband's lack of romantic tendencies. To him, a proposition of sex consisted of grabbing her crotch, and winking at her. This was often done while she was otherwise engaged; cooking, cleaning, redressing after a trip to the toilet. No one could blame the poor woman for being less than willing.

But the apothecary had assured Monty Hahn that his medicine would make his wife's legs open like a well-oiled swing door.

He slipped the medicine into his poor wife's morning tea. The tea itself was foul stuff, although she insisted on drinking it on the claim that it helped her to keep her figure. Monty couldn't work out who she might be keeping it for.

He brought her tea to her in bed, and returned to the kitchen to find something for breakfast. He settled down at the enormous kitchen table—they had six children themselves, who had gone on to bless them with twenty three grandchildren so far—to enjoy his own cup of tea and the morning newspaper in peace.

After completing the crossword, Monty crept up the stairs to see if his wife had changed her rigid view on copulation. By halfway up, he could hear her gasping. Afraid that she'd started without him, he ran up the rest of the stairs so as not to miss all of the action.

Monty found her lying on the bed, her eyes and mouth wide, and her ample chest heaving. Mistaking this for an act of foreplay, albeit unusual, Monty hurriedly undressed. As he was desperately coaxing his sceptical penis into life, his wife's heart stopped.

Monty never forgave himself, and his hands only ever entered his underwear when he was emptying his bladder. Even in death, his wife managed to dissuade him from one of his favourite pastimes.

22

Harris rolled off the woman, and lay next to her, breathless. He was certainly beginning to feel his age.

The prostitute propped herself up on her elbow, her large breasts dropping to one side. She walked her fingers up Harris' chest.

“Mmmm, that was good,” she said.

Harris lay back and closed his eyes. He was too set in his ways to try something new, he should always stick to what he knew he liked. He hated the sexy talk, the women who pretended they were interested, or turned on. He liked his usual women, the ones that made jokes through it, and left straight afterwards because they knew he needed to rest.

“Want to go again cutie?”

Harris winced. He especially hated the pet names.

“No can do,” he replied. “I'm not as young as I used to be.

The prostitute coughed. The phlegm crackled in her throat. “I bet I can get you going again.”

Harris pushed himself up to sitting with a groan. “I doubt that.”

She coughed again. Harris climbed off the end of the bed. “Are you alright?”

“It's just a cough, nothing to worry about. I took something for it this morning.” She coughed again. It was getting worse.

Harris backed away. “Are you sure?” He grabbed his habit off the floor and pulled it over his head.

She coughed, not even covering her mouth this time. “I'm fine, really. Don't get dressed, come back to bed. You have such a great body.”

Harris laughed. “You get yourself dressed.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out some credits. He dropped them onto her stomach. “I need something to eat.”

As he pulled the door closed, she started coughing again. She was absolutely hacking, almost vomiting each time. Harris shook his head.