Fiori was looking away, watching the spectral cars and the people. Gazing at the sleek tubes that would never leave them to an unaccompanied existence.
“Milo.”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to tell me everything you know that can help me find a way out. I mean everything.”
They discussed it all again as they toured the city. Two ghosts, invisible to everyone else, leaning towards each other in heated exchanges. Johnson found he was still unsatisfied.
“There must be something else. Something unusual that you’ve never made sense of. Something the last disconnect passed to you that doesn’t fit with everything else.”
Fiori was quiet for a while before speaking again.
“It’s probably nothing useful, but–”
“But what? Tell me.”
“Why don’t I show you instead?”
Fiori led him to the stone monument in the centre of town. The monument stood at the centre of a pyramid shaped plinth. The plinth possessed four levels, each diminishing in size and upon the uppermost and smallest level, a large statue looked precariously balanced. It was a representation of a naked man climbing. He had no ropes or equipment and much of the detail was taken up with the sculptor’s attention to the rock face. It was practically vertical and the naked man was striving to find the next finger hold. It was obviously well beyond his reach.
Johnson had passed the statue a thousand times and never once stopped to inspect it. He had been able to see it from his floor of the office block and had even eaten his lunch in its shadow on warm summer days. Now he looked at it with new eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“It was so obvious, I forgot.”
Johnson glanced back but the man seemed perfectly serious.
“Read the inscription,” said Fiori. “That’s what I brought you here for.”
Johnson knelt down to inspect the polished granite, where the inscription had been chiseled and read it aloud.
“’This city was founded by souls who searched fearlessly for the knowledge necessary to scale the tiers of every aspiration. They pressed on; strove upward believing only that there was a summit to be attained. They ascended, not knowing what they would find, not knowing if they would survive. This city was there reward. May we all have the courage find the next tier.’ Jesus, Milo, this is it.”
“It’s a lie, Robert. This city was built by people who want to live without risk or danger. It doesn’t even have a name.”
“You’re wrong. The ascending platforms, the metaphor of the man climbing; it all adds up.”
“To what?”
Johnson grabbed Fiori by the shoulders and shook him.
“This is the way out, Milo.”
“The statue?”
“No, what it symbolises. We have to strive for the next tier.”
“But what does that mean?”
“It means that if you really want to leave, you can never give up.”
Johnson turned away from Fiori and began to walk back towards the house where his family still lived. His head buzzed with the implications of the statue’s message and he found he was on the verge of running. In his excitement he didn’t even try to get out of the way of the tubed people on the street, instead he walked though them. Fiori had trouble keeping up.
“Hold on, Robert. What are you going to do?”
“What don’t we need to do now that we don’t have tubes?”
“Eat.”
“And what else?”
“Sleep?”
“Right. I need to get some rest. I need to dream.”
“You think you can dream your way out of here?”
“I don’t think I can, I know I can.”
“You won’t be able to sleep. It’s the stupidest idea you’ve had so far.”
“Maybe, but at least I’m having some ideas, Milo.”
At the corner of the block where Johnson’s house was, Fiori stopped trying to keep up. Johnson was at his own front door before he realised. He stopped and waved to the man who had woken him up from the dream of the tube. Fiori waved back and shouted,
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“No, you won’t.”
Johnson struggled with the handle of his front door and finally managed to get in. Angelina came into the hallway to investigate the open door. He could tell by her face that she half hoped it was him returning after his disappearance. She looked
right through him and out the front doorway onto the street.
“Matthew, Rebecca?”
The calls came back from the living room where the kids were playing on the MEC.
“In here, Mom.”
“How many times do I have to remind you to make sure this door is closed properly?”
“We
“You may think you did but you didn’t.”
She slammed it shut and locked it.
Twilight crept over the city and then night. In the Johnson household the remaining three members of the family ate Pizza for dinner and then, bored with Spider Hunter, they took turns at Narco Cop until it was time for the kids to go to bed. When she was alone, Angelina took the gin bottle and a glass and sat on the sofa swigging the warm aromatic spirits until she was drunk enough to sleep.
Johnson followed her up to bed. She brushed her teeth half-heartedly and lay down in bed having taken off only her slacks. He lay down beside her, his insubstantial body making almost no impression on the mattress.
He closed his eyes.
Chapter 14
The light hurt.
It invaded his entire head even through his clamped eyelids. He tried to raise a hand to shield himself from the glare.
His arm moved a few inches before stopping. He tried again, harder this time and became aware of some kind of cuff or strap around his wrist. He moved the other arm and then his legs only to find that he was completely restrained.
“Take it easy, Officer Johnson. We’ll have you out of those in just a second.”
He heard the sound of metal against metal at the end of what he assumed was the hospital bed he was lying in. A medical chart being replaced? A gentle hand loosened one of his wrist restraints and he felt its fingers settle firmly onto his pulse.
“How are you feeling?”
“Blind.”
“That’s normal. It’ll pass very soon. Any other problems?”
Johnson concentrated on himself and his body for a moment, even though all he really wanted to do was look around and see where he was.
“Thirsty.”
