DUALITY /#Wattys 2021

Chapter 11

Ridley stayed quiet the next few days—she measured days by the times the overhead lights turned off—observing her cell, observing her routine, nursing her headache. The food vendor came twice a day. When she reached in for her meal, a force field blocked her hands, and a sultry, feminine recording said, "Please deposit your used dishes and tray." When she approached with those, she was able to put them inside the machine and retrieve her meal. Once she tried to hold back a fork; the machine placed a second force field over her meal and repeated, "Please deposit your used dishes and tray," until she put her fork in with the rest of her dirty dishes.

As her headache got better, she spent her time poring over the walls, looking for any signs of a hidden camera, and jumping to kip herself up on the overhead pipe. She could get up on the pipe without hitting her head if she took care. And it was a good thing, because she discovered that she could hear when the food server came down the hall—it had a squeaky wheel—but she could hear it only just before the door opened. If she was going to hide on the bar in enough time not to be discovered climbing up there, she'd have to jump and kip. She tried clambering up there from the hand-and-knee hanging position, but it took far too long. Without a timepiece, she had no way to anticipate the food vendor, and she could only cling on top of the pipe for so long.

She imagined that once the machine registered that no one was taking the food tray, someone would be in to check on her. Then she would make her big swing down, dismount into the hallway, and escape.

Someone had been to check in on her already. A man garbed in a gray bodysuit with armor across the chest, armed with a laser rifle, stood guard at the door, while a medic and an assistant examined her. At first Ridley assumed this had to do with the fight in Devane's chamber in the sky. She told them about her headache, and when they ignored that completely, not even offering her an aspirin, she got angry and stopped speaking to them.

The next day they came back, questioning whether she had taken in everything on her trays, and drew a sample of her blood.

"Miss Faircloth. Eat and drink everything on your trays, and you will be allowed to leave," said the medic. Ridley turned her face to the wall.

When she turned on the tap the next morning for a drink, she thought the water tasted a little odd. She cupped it in her hands; it looked okay. She drank a little more. No—something was definitely off. She took a careful whiff of what water remained cupped in her hands, but she didn't notice any odor.

She bent down to observe the stream of water against the perfect background of the white porcelain sink and saw that it wasn't quite clear—it had that red-amber tinge to it.

Then she remembered that she hadn't left the tumblers of amber-red liquid on the trays. One had arrived with every meal. She had poured them down the sink, rinsed the tumblers carefully, and used them to drink water instead.

They were wondering if she had drunk the liquid or not. They suspected she hadn't, and they were drawing her blood to see whether or not she had. Now they knew she hadn't, and here the stuff was, piped into her sink.

Why was it so important that she drink the liquid? What was supposed to happen when she did?

The little hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She needed to get herself out of here sooner rather than later. If they really wanted the stuff in her, they'd force it in. She didn't want to find out what would happen after that. Not only that, but if she couldn't drink the water, she'd soon die of dehydration. And she didn't want them taking her to some facility and putting IVs in her.

She decided that the dinner hour, not the morning, would find the Guildhall less populated and offer fewer people around to block her escape. She'd wanted to wait until her head felt better, but she had a feeling the Guild would never serve her plain water again. Whatever happened, she'd rather run out of here than be carried out.