Tunnel Walls

Chapter Four

It’s been a couple of weeks now. A couple of weeks. The words sound strange because the notion of that amount of time passing without even seeing my family is strange. I’ve been spending the majority of my time in the lab with Artie and occasionally we’ll sit in a peeling-green painted room where the word ‘AR BKS’ are written across the top, gaps where there had obviously been more letters. I haven’t actually left HQ yet. I don’t know what I was expecting when I came, whether I thought that within days I would be running around wearing balaclavas and painting messages of revolution on the walls of the tunnels but I am instead in a lab, watching a self-proclaimed genius at work. The mysterious Puck joins us occasionally but hardly speaks; Artie explained to me that her and Puck have an almost constant dialogue through the chip and that’s one of the reasons that Puck doesn’t voice her thoughts out loud very often. I still find her lack of conversation strange, disconcerting even. 

She sits with her back to the wall, or stands in a similar fashion, her jaggedly cut copper hair longer on one side than the other. Two days ago she glanced over at me and I saw a faint scar running from her right ear across her cheek, revealed as her hair shifted a little. I haven’t asked her or Artie about it, about the scar that snakes its way around the top of her neck, circling the ear that should be there but isn’t. The next day I saw it again: she pushed her hair back slightly, revealing the scar that runs down her cheek also branches out along her forehead, veins of pain, memories, spreading out like cracks in her skin. I know what it’s like to have something you’d rather forget, someone even, permanently tattooed into you, physically and emotionally.

In her silence she sometimes twirls a knife in her hand seemingly absent-mindedly but I know that to deftly spin a blade like that she must be concentrating on it pretty hard. And I’m even almost starting to get used to her too-big jacket hanging off her slender frame, masking her fragility which is an inherent trait in people.

“So what exactly is it that you’re working on in here?” I ask Artie. It’s just the two of us in here today.

“You know those chips I told you about?” I nod. “Well it’s a newer version of one of them, one that can work over much longer distances.” She turns back to the microscope – I was right about it being a microscope – and continues to stare intently at the tiny device secured onto the device’s shelf. “I just need to extend this part and connect the loops and then–”

“I love hearing about your work, Artie, but I have no clue what you’re on about.” She looks up at me then with surprising happiness and moves away from the table. Before we have a chance to continue the conversation the sound of feet on the stone floor echoes around the room.

“Morning.” It’s a man’s voice. “We haven’t had much of a chance to talk yet, Luca. I’m Tim.” He holds out his hand for me to shake and I comply, only slightly awkwardly. “I think I’ve already introduced myself but just in case.” He winks at me as he says this. “Anyway,” he leans back casually against the wall, “you should join us on the next food collection. We could do with another pair of hands and eyes out there. Zed says that you’ve been helping out Artemis with the lab work. She’s pretty incredible right.” He looks at her with admiration. 

“You know Luca’s never fought anyone before?” Fighting? I thought we were just getting food.

“Hey,” I think Tim must’ve seen the panic which spread across my face. “There probably won’t be any fighting. There isn’t usually. We just want to be safe, make sure you can protect yourself.” At least that’s slightly reassuring. “Puck’ll be able to give you some lessons, teach you basic defence.”

“She’s on her way.” Artie says, obviously summoning her friend through the chip.

Artie and I walk in quiet silence over to the store room which she explains is where Puck will be. When we walk in and after my eyes have adjusted to the dimmer light I see Puck leaning casually against the wall, fiddling with something in her hand. She walks over to me and passes me something from the inside pocket of her jacket. It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen so far, a plain plastic box. She places her small hands over mine, guiding my fingers to a switch I hadn’t noticed at the side and puts a gentle pressure on my fist. It takes me a second to realise that she’s indicating for me to press the switch, so I do.

I feel a few thin trickles of electricity fly from one barb at the end to the other, it makes me flinch and take a step backwards. She lets go of my hand and the electricity stops. Puck smiles at me with another completely new look on her face.

“This is for you,” She explains, “If you ever get into a fight, you press this up against someones skin, or as close to them as possible and shock them with the electricity. It knocks them dead out, I don’t recommend you trying it on yourself. Or me.”

“How come it didn’t knock me out just then, when I pressed it?” 

“I adjusted the settings so Puck could show you, I’ll change it back later.” Artie adds from her position at the side of the room. “Puck, don’t you think you should teach him how to actually defend himself?” Upon hearing this, Puck puts her knife down on the table, having pulled it out from her pocket to teach me God knows what; when she turns back to me her fists are raised to just in front of her face and I copy her stance, assuming that that is what I’m supposed to do.

“I need to teach you how to fight properly.” She rolls her shoulders back and puts her hands into small fists. “If you’re up close to a Solid,” A what? I guess Solids must be the city guards or something. “You want to be defensive. They’re strong.” She shuffles her feet apart slightly, “You want to have your legs shoulder’s width apart so you’re balanced.” I mimic her position, despite my anxieties, I trust her advice. “When you hit them, go for the face.” She throws her right arm towards me and I duck. 

“Good reactions.” Artie says under her breath.

“What if they try to hit me?”

“Do what you just did. Duck.” Now I throw a punch her, my right arm shooting towards her face. She moves quickly to the side and kicks me in the stomach. She moves her feet back and bends her knees slightly. “You want to hit them hard enough to knock them off balance so you can get your knife.” She puts her hand in her pocket and when she pulls it out I expect there to be a blade in her hand but there’s nothing.

I feel a shooting pain run up the side of my leg as I kick out at the object in front of me, moving my whole body forwards. I stumble as the same leg hits the ground and I feel something shatter inside of it, my hand jerks out to catch the floor before my face does and I hear a laugh behind me.

“Is that the best you can do?” I grab her hand, smiling, and pull myself up, putting all of my weight on the foot that doesn’t feel like it’s been trampled by a train.

“Better than you, Artie.” I grin at her. She seems to be enjoying watching me first get pummelled by Puck and even by inanimate objects.

“I won’t deny that.” She smiles at me and I see the girl that was forced to grow up to quickly. The girl who came here when she was way too young for a reason that I don’t know. She looks happy but at the same time, I think she’s sad. “They always say I’m crap at all that fighting stuff.”

“I’m sure Puck will protect you.” 

“She always does.” Artie looks at Puck with complete respect and admiration, the same way Puck looks at her.

“That’s probably enough for today.” Puck says quietly and then walks out of the room. Artie sighs under her breath and picks up a knife from the table to give to me. 

The weight of the knife feels good in my pocket, it makes me feel safe. I walk round to the old bathroom two rooms down from ‘AR BKS’ and lock the door. I stare at myself in the mirror. Somehow, I look older. It’s only been a couple of weeks but everything feels different. My hands have small cuts on them from the knives and my muscles ache from Puck’s training session. I pull off the T-shirt I’m wearing and stare at my chest in the mirror, mainly at the scar. I don’t like to look at it. It’s raised from my skin and I can feel the bumps as I run my fingers along it. It cuts jaggedly along my chest and I start to to think that maybe I’m more similar to Puck than I first thought, both with scars that we would rather not explain and both with stories that we’d rather not tell.

There’s a shower in the corner and I pull off the rest of my clothes before getting into it, letting the water run over my hair and down my back. Washing away the dried blood from my fingers and clearing my head. When I turn it off I quickly dry my hair and body. Without looking at myself in the mirror again I pull on the clean clothes I brought with me and wander back to my room.