The DollHouse

Chapter Fifteen

A/N Ok, I'm about to upload all the final chapters for the book... In one way, they're a little rushed, though in one way they're not. I'll explain why at the end.

Sure enough, it feels like only a few hours later that we are woken by a banging on the cell door, which is unlocked, unlike the cells around the main hall.

"Breakfast duty," a man yells and keeps walking. I can hear him hitting cell doors further down the corridor.

"So, you were right," I mumble, half asleep.

"That was never in question," Nick says, sounding far too awake for the hour. I wonder if he has slept at all. I hear him get up and start moving around. "Come on," he says. "You don't want to be late."

I jump out of bed, landing badly and wincing at my stiff joints. Since there is nothing in the cell apart from bunks - no sink, no clothing - there is nothing to do to get ready. Nick opens the door and I follow. I watch him as we walk, noting that he is very alert and no where near as flippant as he usually is. I wonder if this is what he is usually like, or if he is assessing something.

"What am I going to do if we're separated?" I mutter quietly, noting that the corridor is mostly empty. Only a few Lessers are emerging for breakfast duty, and Danny's man has moved on. "I don't know where anything is here."

"You'll learn quickly," Nick says.

I've been paying as close attention to the surroundings as is possible with everything that has been going on, but the corridors all look so similar I haven't had much success in remembering any locations. When we arrive at the kitchens, I think I could make my way back without help, but I wouldn't want to be tested.

The kitchens are larger than I had imagined, since they are made to feed several thousand Lesser. I suppose it never occurred to me that they would be self-contained in the Undercity, but now that I think about it I can't imagine a company above ground making meals for Lessers. There is so much I never thought about. Although they are clean enough, the kitchens are as dank as the rest of the Undercity seems to be. Pipes make steady droplets along the walls and floor, and the metal benches are wiped clean but with years old stains still evident.

I am quickly given egg duty, which means scrambled eggs for three hundred. It is only three hundred, rather than the thousands of Lessers that must be down here, as I quickly discover that the kitchens divide the work evenly amongst them. Luckily, I can do scrambled eggs.

For the next twenty minutes, I can think about nothing but eggs. Crack the egg, whisk the egg, cook the egg. Crack the egg, whisk the egg, cook the egg. Somewhere, this is definitely being used as a legitimate torture device. Hours of eggs.

Nick is busy frying bacon, so I have hardly spoken to him. I've given up trying, since it only draws attention to me anyway. Besides, the kitchen has become so stifling hot from the cooking that I can hardly breathe. What's the point in talking? There is no conversation that I could possibly have with him that would clear the sensation of dread and unease that has steadily increased since Jules was taken.

That is probably the most unfortunate point of this work: it is so monotonous that it can't distract you from your thoughts. All I can think about it my own discomfort and Jules. And once you've got the hang of discomfort, there isn't all that much you can think about it. Now that things are at a lull down here, Jules is far more prominent in my mind, so my thoughts continue to go round and round, wondering if he is alright. I hope that whatever this M-group is, it is far away in another city.

I pick up the giant soup tureen of eggs and make for the door. The pile jiggles and looks about as appetizing as the slop they serve at the school cafeteria. But no one complains to me, so maybe it is as good as they're used to. Out in the dining hall - a gigantic cave of a room covered in wooden tables in various states of stability - the tables are lined with people, all behaving far too raucously than should be possible so early in the morning. It makes me realise two things: one, they have probably been up all night, and two, the people in the kitchens were... different. Quieter, meeker. Nick seems to think we played it right last night, and ended up in Danny's good books, but I'm starting to wonder if everyone who isn't straight up one of Danny's boys isn't actually on probation. Or something close to it, at least. It seems far too clear cut, this division of labour. But then, Nick did predict as much.