DUALITY /#Wattys 2021

Chapter 10

Pain pricked Ridley awake. An ache covered her head like a skull cap with dull spikes.

She opened her eyes to a bright light directly overhead. She put a hand up to her left temple, which felt really sore, and then she remembered—the butler android. Devane. His invitation to join the Guild.

She lay on her back, on something uneven but soft. Slats underneath it made stripes of pain across her back and shoulders. She drew herself into a sitting position, careful not to move her head too fast, and found herself on a simple metal cot with a thin, lumpy mattress. The bed carried no sheets. A flat, smelly, stained pillow lay there.

Scuffed tan walls bordered a cell with an oddly jagged floor plan. Her bed sat recessed into a little alcove. Another alcove on the left in the wall in front of her led to the type of steel cell door familiar to her from her day in the detention center. At least this cell had a sink and a toilet in the corner across from her bed, and they didn't stink. A writing desk and chair stood against the wall next to them. It reminded her of her bunkroom in the gymnastics dorm—except her bed there had been much nicer. But Ridley had the feeling this room hadn't started out as a prison cell; the necessary plumbing had been added after the walls were built.

A pipe ran down the wall and branched to the sink and toilet, bolted in place with metal brackets. Ridley followed it up the wall, where it turned, headed for the door, then bridged the ceiling over the door alcove before disappearing into a rough hole in the wall.

The pipe was just about the diameter of uneven parallel bars.

Ridley slow-motioned to her feet, careful of her aching head, and followed the pipe across the alcove to where it disappeared into the opposite wall. She walked over to the sink and toilet, where the pipe came down low enough to reach, put her hand out, and tried to shake the pipe and pull it from the wall. If it proved sturdy enough, she might be able to jump from the desk, grab the pipe where it bridged the alcove over the door, brace her feet on the door, and kip herself up on it. The metal felt solid and not flimsy. If it were bolted to the walls securely enough, it would hold her weight.

She stared up at the ceiling, wondering if she had enough clearance between the pipe and the high ceiling to kip up without hitting her head. If she didn't, could she bring her feet up, hang from her hands and knees, and curl herself up onto the pipe that way? Ridley imagined herself lying balanced on the pipe above the door. When anyone came in, the cell would look empty. She could grip the pipe, swing down, and do a simple dismount into the corridor over their heads, or plow them right out of her way as she swung down. Then she could run.

After that, she'd just have to use her wits.

She tried climbing onto the chair to see the height of the ceiling over the pipe more clearly, and just trying to step up onto the chair made her head hurt worse. She even felt a little dizzy. If she could escape that way, it couldn't be now.

I wonder, she thought, if I could possibly have a concussion.

She suspected her odds of getting medical treatment here were probably zero.

She took a deep breath. I'll be okay, she told herself. And she thought of Sannah. I have to be okay.

She walked back to her bed and sat, suppressing the urge to take her shirt off and wrap the disgusting pillow so she wouldn't have to lay her head on it again.

A chime sounded at the door.

The steel door retracted up, not sideways—all the way up into the ceiling, Ridley noted. Very important.

On the other side of the open doorway stood another solid wall of metal. Ridley blinked, confused—then she noticed it had wheels. A robot of some sort, too wide to fit through the doorway.

A port opened in its center, revealing a tray on which sat a hindquarter of roast chicken and two servings of green vegetables. Ridley forgot and leaped off the bed, she was so hungry, and her throbbing head reminded her not to move so fast. She stumbled and eased forward, one hand on her left temple, and focused on a serving of green beans and one of peas. There was even a small roll, dark brown, and a pat of butter. A fork, but no knife. A tumbler of red-amber liquid.

The tantalizing aroma of roast chicken and freshly steamed beans almost made Ridley faint. A dark, frosted square looked like chocolate cake, or possibly a brownie. Normally Ridley didn't eat sweets—even if she weren't trying to regain her athlete's figure, they were scarce in Holstonia—but here, she'd better eat all she could, while she could.

She pushed against the machine. A brake held the wheels fast. Gears and servos within clicked and whined as the machine resisted her push and rolled flush with the door. Wider than the doorway, it made contact with a metallic click. The harder Ridley pushed, the more it resisted rolling backward.

Ridley sighed. "Can't blame a girl for trying." She reached in and took the tray. As her hands crossed the threshold into the belly of the machine, she heard a beep, then another as she lifted the tray from its resting place inside the machine. The interior was as warm as an oven. Special handles on the tray protected her from burning her fingers. As the tray cleared the port, a third beep sounded. The food port closed, her steel cell door came down again, and Ridley found herself alone with her dinner.

The aromas made her stomach feel bottomless. Even the brownie was warm, and she could smell the chocolate. She put her tray on the desk and slid into the chair, pulled the chicken leg off the thigh, and bit into it. It was hot, but not enough to burn her fingers. Marinated in some fragrant herbal blend, it tasted delicious. Not what she expected of prison food, if indeed this was still prison. Was she still in the Guildhall, or had they taken her back to the detention center?

Ridley crunched lightly steamed, bright green, buttered beans that tasted as fresh as if they had just come from Rachel's garden. She must still be in the Guildhall, she thought, remembering the luscious-smelling breakfast in Devane's office in the eye of the needle. They had good food here.

She picked up the plastic tumbler of red-amber liquid and took an experimental sniff. Surely they wouldn't be serving her wine in here? It had an aromatic vapor about it as if it might be—wine was another thing people didn't have in Holstonia. Ridley had never tasted it, so how would she know? Then she noticed a note that had been tucked beneath the plastic tumbler.

She put the tumbler down, picked up the note, and unfolded it. It was handwritten.

Do not drink anything but clear water from the plumbing while confined to this building.

The note bore no signature, but Ridley took one look at the uneven scrawl and knew immediately whose it was.

Reb's.