Chapter 56: The Stranger
Ten days later Elliot was still acclimatising to his new surroundings. He woke up, tired as usual. Even the Professor’s brilliant filtration couldn’t block out one hundred per cent of the fumes from the sewer. “Tomkins, get down here,” Stanislas instructed him. Elliot duly climbed down off his bed.
Stanislas was standing next to Dorothy and Clayton, both of whom were unhappy with him. “Tomkins, you go with Dorothy and Clayton and rustle up some food for us. The fresh air will do you good.”
“You’re taking a risk, Stanislas,” Clayton objected. “I agree,” Dorothy quipped.
“I know he’s recognisable,” Stanislas declared, “but we have to integrate everyone into the entire group. Everyone should feel important, valued and useful.”
“Stanislas, you talk like an idealist but we don’t exist in an ideal world.” Dorothy responded in frustration. “This will be your Achilles heel. If we take risks, everyone’s livelihood is at stake including Elliot’s. He’s useless. He can’t defend himself, He’s weaker than any of us and worst of all, most people will recognise him.”
“He goes,” Stanislas responded in a strong and forthright manner.
“I don’t mind,” Elliot interrupted. “If it’s too much of a problem I can stay behind. I don’t want to be a burden and I have no issue with being undervalued as long as it means that I’m alive.”
Elliot looked at Dorothy with her knife in a holster around her waist, her bow and arrow over her shoulder and her fit body. He on the other hand was weak as she said, had no survival skills whatsoever and no ability to blend in or change identity. He was wearing a shirt and trousers that were too big for him and stained with dirt.
“Shall we put it to a vote,” Stanislas responded, feeling assured that he would have the majority of the votes.
“Ok Stanislas,” Dorothy responded, “but don’t say we didn’t warn you. Come on junior. Let’s go.”
Elliot followed, Dorothy and Clayton out of the room.
“Just try not to be to conspicuous kid,” Clayton said
The sewers were just as smelly and rat infested as Elliot remembered them. What made it worse was that they spent the best part of an hour making their way through them. Eventually they saw a glimpse of daylight. Lead by Dorothy they ascended a small winding stairway that led to a manhole cover. Dorothy lifted it up a fraction and had a quick look around. Once the coast was clear, she removed the manhole cover and climbed out. She was followed by her two colleagues.
The manhole was located at the back of an abandoned building on the edge of the city, not far from the forest. Slowly and quietly they made their way to their destination under cover of trees and bushes. Very little in the way of conversation passed between them.
Before they had reached the forest, Dorothy spotted two rabbits, both of which she killed with arrows from her bow. It was Elliot’s job to carry the dead animals in a sack over his shoulder. When they reached the forest, Elliot witnessed Clayton killing a fox with nothing other than a knife. The weight of the fox in the bag caused sweat to drip from Elliot’s brow.
They were almost ready to retreat back to camp when they spotted a man in a clearing. It looked as though he had injured himself in a snare. “Help, help,” he whispered when he saw them. Clayton started to remove the snare from the man’s foot as he grimaced in pain. It wasn’t a particularly bad injury compared to what could have been anticipated.
“I don’t want to go back there,” the man said in a low yet tormented voice. “They beat me and tortured me. I am not a changeling and they wouldn’t believe me. Please help me.”
The man was almost in tears and his hands were shaking. He had relatively long, dark curly hair and light blue eyes. He looked to be in his late thirties, with a rugged complexion. The distraught man had bruising on his face and arms. He was wearing a prisoner’s uniform that appeared to be quite conspicuous. Elliot wondered how he had made it this far without being detected. They were probably fifteen miles from the army base.
“I came from Terra. There were rebels there also, but there was a clampdown and the rebel community were crushed their also. I was working as a waiter in Terra but the authorities must have mistaken me for a rebel and that is why they arrested me. I’m no rebel but I’m no enemy of theirs either.”
Dorothy and Clayton had heard rumours of rebels from Terra causing trouble for the authorities but in all honesty they did not know whether these stories were true. Terra was more than a hundred miles away and none of the rebel activities were reported in the media as far as Dorothy and Clayton were concerned.
“Please can you help me?” he asked again, reaching out to Dorothy. The hardened young woman didn’t appear to want to take on another liability but she knew what Stanislas and the majority of her colleagues would want. Against her better wishes she knew that she could not turn down the opportunity to help another endangered human being or changeling for that matter.
“Don’t worry,” she said reluctantly, “We will do what we can to help you.”
“I am grateful,” the man said aloud.
“How did you escape?” Dorothy inquired out of curiosity.
“A security guard helped me. He was such a decent guy and he’ll probably be punished for what he did, perhaps even executed.”
“Stay still,” Dorothy insisted as she produced a scanning device from her person. She used the scanner to scan for bugs or tracking devices. After a thorough search she found nothing whatsoever.
“What is your name?” Dorothy asked.
“Clement,” the man responded.
“Clement, Can you put weight on your foot?” Dorothy asked
“It’s bleeding,” the wounded man responded. “I wouldn’t want to risk it.”
“You have no choice. There are only three of us and we have plenty to carry. Either limp on it or stay behind until we can get help.”
“O.k.,” the man conceded reluctantly. He clearly didn’t warm to the possibility of waiting around for the authorities to find him.
The group of four made their way back, to where they had come from, looking out all the time for signs that they might be discovered.
During this time, nobody talked. The more discreet they were, the less likely they were to be caught.
Once they reached the manhole, Dorothy instructed Elliot to run on ahead and look for help to bring Clement to safety.
Dorothy wondered whether Clement was genuine or not. “How did they come to arrest you Clement?” she asked, prying for more information.
“They don’t need much of a reason to arrest you nowadays. In my case I think it was because a neighbour took a dislike to me. The neighbour obviously said that I was a rebel sympathiser.”
Elliot wasn’t very familiar with the location of the base camp. He prayed to god that he didn’t get lost or die from inhaling the fumes from the sewer. Eventually, after a couple of wrong turns, the young man managed to locate the rebel headquarters.
When Elliot arrived at the main room of the rebels base he was out of breath. He was also stressed. There was something about Clement that he didn’t trust. His instinct told him that Clement was faking it. The injury could have been worse. His clothes seemed relatively fresh. They didn’t look like the clothes of a man who had been outrunning savage dogs for several hours.
“What is it?” Stanislas asked.
“Clayton and Dorothy found another fugitive. He’s wounded. He’s at the far exit.”
“Myself and Jesse will take care of it,” Stanislas declared, putting his hand on Elliot’s shoulder.
“Stanislas,” Elliot addressed him, “Just for the record. I don’t trust him.”
“Just for the record,” Stanislas replied. “I didn’t trust you either.”
The group eventually returned to headquarters. Clement was given a low lying bed and his wounds were cared for by Alexis.
Two weeks after Elliot arrived at the rebel camp, Dorothy seemed to have mellowed a little on her stance. She and Stanislas had returned with some food that was divided out between them from their hunting trip. While the fugitives had friends in the city who would give them food and other supplies, Stanislas insisted that they should not rely on their friends as much as possible.
Unusually, Dorothy sat down beside Elliot.
“Tell me about this woman friend of yours soft boy,” she pried.
There was that phrase again, that got under Elliot’s skin. He didn’t like being called “soft boy”. He even tried doing five push-ups every day but his muscles were still no match for Dorothy’s.
“I don’t think I mentioned a woman friend,” Elliot responded.
“Almost every night you wake me up muttering her name in your sleep,” Dorothy informed him. “Sylvia, I do believe.”
Elliot was a little embarrassed by this. He couldn’t control what he said in his sleep. Part of him wondered if she was exaggerating.
“That’s not true,” he declared in an attempt to deflect his humiliation.
“Does she have a wart on her nose?”
“No,” the young man insisted.
“Was she attractive?”
“Yes of course.”
“Well then, it’s obvious she wouldn’t fall for a guy like you then. So it must be a one way street.”
“Maybe.” Even Elliot held out some remote hope that Sylvia would reappear in his life and want to carry him across the threshold.
“I’d say she’s better off,” Dorothy suggested, playfully. “A guy like you would run away from the slightest sign of danger. What happened the last time you saw her?”
“The Space Station was being attacked. I couldn’t find her. She’s either dead or captured. I don’t have a clue where she is. If she’s captured she probably wouldn’t last very long. I’ve heard that Kylon methods are quite brutal.”
“So I was right,” Dorothy responded with a hint of coldness. “You left her behind. Next thing you’re going to say is that you loved her, but you left her behind because you had to put yourself first.”
Elliot was hurt by this suggestion. He didn’t see the situation being as simplistic as that.
“I did love her but she didn’t love me and it’s not as simplistic as me leaving her behind,” he objected half heartedly. “I think that as time passed by, instead of getting closer together, we drifted apart.”
There was a realisation in Elliot’s mind that Dorothy was probably half right. He could have tried harder to save her. He could have looked for Sylvia himself and not simply relied on others to do it for him.
“I guess men and women have a different concept of what it means to love someone,” Dorothy responded dismissively.
“Who did you love?” Elliot asked aloud. He wasn’t sure if this was a sensible or a foolish question to ask.
“There were men in my past, but right now, all I care about is survival. I’ve never met a man who was worth risking everything for. All of them let me down.”
Part of Elliot wondered whether Dorothy’s tough exterior façade was reflective of how she was on the inside. Maybe there was a man for her and she got hurt too many times. Maybe deep down she was far more sensitive that she allowed other people to see her.
“There must have been one who was better than the rest,” the young man suggested.
“Don’t pry soft boy. If I have to eat any more rabbit in the next week I think I’ll throw up. No offence chef. The cooking’s excellent and it’s better than rat but there’s only so much I can take.”
It seemed evident to Elliot that Dorothy wanted to change the subject. She seemed to feel comfortable prying into everyone else’s private lives other than her own.
There were times when Elliot felt he should leave the group for different reasons. The main reason he stayed was because he thought it was what Ackbar would have wanted. Even if Elliot wasn’t a vital component of the group, he felt that it was some small thing he could do in the battle against tyranny. The other group members were now softening their tone towards him. With each passing day he felt more and more welcome and he was starting to earn their trust.
A few days later Elliot ventured up to the surface with Dorothy and Stanislas. The fugitives had a safehouse in the city. It was partly a store and partly a dwelling house owned by Jebel and his family. Elliot was wearing a baseball cap over his head and had the collar of this coat turned up.
Jebel was a very friendly man and unusually, he and his family were very happy to help the rebels out in whatever way they could. He and his wife Imelda were of Pakistani descent. Elliot assumed that part of the reason they helped the fugitives was because of the way Jebel and his family were discriminated against by the authorities.
The storeowners were in their forties and had two young girls of six and eight years old. Both Mala and Putika, the youngest were very well behaved and treated everyone they met with respect.
Dorothy and Stanislas were engaged in conversation with Jebel, when a customer entered the store. It was a young woman dressed in a robe with a shawl over her head. She looked exactly like Sylvia. Even he was a little unsure if it was indeed Sylvia until she addressed him.
“Hi, Elliot,” she greeted him with a warm hug. “It’s great to see you. How are you?”
This greeting came as a welcome surprise to the young man. He had anticipated a dig in the ribs or a stamp on the foot, for abandoning her in the Space Station. Perhaps she had mellowed over time.
Although Elliot knew it was wrong, the second thing he thought of was; are you single? Thankfully the more mature part of Elliot’s brain censored this particular thought.
Sylvia hadn’t changed, except for the fact that she appeared to have more colour in her cheeks and that she looked more attractive than he remembered.
“What happened to you?” Elliot asked. “How did you escape the Kylons?”
“Well, you know me too well. I’m very resourceful. I managed to escape with six or seven other people. We found our way to Badu, another planet with very bad cuisine. I was there for two months before I found my way back to Earth. I’ve been here for two weeks. I saw all the news reports about you and figured you were in the area. Knowing you, you’d leave a trail a mile wide and so I found you.”
Elliot was incredibly excited. It was one of the happiest moments of his life. Suddenly, Dorothy approached Sylvia, held a knife firmly to her neck. “Who sent you?” she asked in an aggressive tone.
Elliot was in shock. Why would Dorothy do such a thing?
Suddenly Sylvia changed form, into a changeling that looked rather like Derren Blanchflower, only bigger. It was as if Derren had survived by consuming more and more steroids and spinach.
All his worst nightmares had cumulated into this.
Suddenly Elliot felt his body shaking. It was Dorothy and she was waking him up in the middle of the night. Normally Elliot would be upset at being disturbed at this time of the night, but he didn’t particularly want to go back to dreaming about Derren Blanchflower. He was even starting to see Sylvia in a different light. He was afraid that Sylvia would now be inextricably linked to Derren in all his future dreams.
“On your feet junior,” Dorothy ordered him, “You have work to do.”
“I had a dream about Sylvia,” Elliot said aloud. “She turned into a changeling.”
“So Sylvia’s this girl you’ve been stalking huh? And she’s a changeling? I hope your not that kind of guy. Changelings give me the creeps. You’re not that kind of guy now are you soft boy?”
Part of Elliot didn’t know whether Dorothy was being serious.
“No. It was a dream. I’m not a changeling. That’s disgusting. Well really. It was more of a nightmare.”
“I’m just fucking with you,” Dorothy said barely registering a smile before making her way back to the ground.
It was the first time the male fugitive had seen Dorothy smile at him. It was almost worth waiting for, if only she didn’t follow it with a punch to his delicate ribs.
Elliot got out of bed and descended the ladder. Most of the rebels were asleep. There was only a very dim light in the headquarters. From what little Elliot could see, he saw Clayton and Jesse carrying a cluster of posters and Dorothy carrying a spray can. Elliot didn’t need to be told that they were going upstairs to put posters and spread graffiti in places where they thought they would get noticed.
Clayton, Dorothy, Jeff and Elliot ascended to ground level in an elevator. The elevator was well concealed, in a street shop with no name. Elliot followed them until they reached the open street. They kept right and followed Clayton’s lead. The streets were wet and a little slippery due to moderate rainfall that had by now ceased. It was dark, with only a few lights along the side of the street to light the way. The stars were not visible due to a cloudy sky. About two hundred yards down the street was a homeless man lying fast asleep. This was unusual because the Government had rounded up most homeless men and women and ultimately executed them as changelings.
In the distance they could hear the rare sound of army or police patrols but also the occasional sound of a dog barking. The vast majority of people were in their beds fast asleep.
After another two hundred yards, they turned left and walked until they came across a concrete wall that had been painted over in black by the police. This was Dorothy’s canvass. She took the spray can in both hands and started spraying. She wasn’t the greatest graffiti artist in the world but that wasn’t important. Her message read, “Hypocrites. We are all created equal. What have changelings and those wrongly accused of being changelings truly done against their fellow Americans? This hypocrisy must stop now. It is merely a ploy to keep the Government in power.”
After she was finished the group walked further along the street as quietly as they could, putting up posters at several different locations. After a short while they heard a patrol approaching in the distance. At that point they were positioned on a bridge. There was a narrow set of steps that lead down to a river. All four of the protestors descended the steps and hid from view. Gradually the patrol got nearer and nearer. As they came closer it became apparent that this was no ordinary patrol. It sounded like six soldiers approaching at least two of which were droids. Droids were heavily armoured killing machines. They were impossible to stop other than by hacking into them like any other computer controlled device. They were also more precise shots than humans were. If the rebels were detected they probably would have no chance of survival.
At this point Elliot became aware that Jeff had extracted himself from the group. Elliot didn’t know what Jeff was trying to do. Was he dumb enough to think that he could either distract them or confront them while he was unarmed. Jeff was now too far away for Elliot to restrain him. The young man’s curiosity could not have been any greater as the sound of the patrol marching came closer and closer.
“Over here,” Jeff shouted. “They’re over here.”
Elliot was in shock that Jeff would do something like that. Instinctively, the three remaining rebels made their way under the bridge and along the narrow ledge that bordered the river bed. They ran as quietly and as quickly as they could, hoping that their movements would not be detected. They were most of the way towards the next bridge on the river when the shooting started. Clayton who was the slowest of the three was wounded on the back of his upper right leg. He continued to run albeit at a much slower pace. Elliot dared not look behind. He didn’t want to see how close his pursuers were.
Eventually the three of them made it to the next bridge without any incurring any further injuries. They turned right, down a street and opened the nearest manhole cover they could find. They entered and closed it after them.
They found themselves in a narrow and low sewer. It was only about four feet in height from top to bottom, so all three of them had to stoop their heads and crouch on their knees.
“That man was your fucking friend,” Clayton said, turning to Elliot in an angry and aggressive manner. “Are you one of them? Are you a traitor?”
“That wasn’t Jeff,” Elliot objected.
“You’re a liar. A total, devious, two faced liar.” Clayton responded furiously as he pinned Elliot back against the wall.
It was a sign of Clayton that Elliot hadn’t seen. He was normally incredibly calm and collected but now he was positively seething.
“The real Jeff would rather cut his own arm off, than be a traitor. He’s not the nicest person in the world, but he’s no traitor.”
“Who was it then, if it wasn’t Jeff?” Clayton responded, in disbelief.
“Clement,” the young man suggested.
“Clement? He was asleep when we left.”
“Did you see his face?”
There was a moment, to Elliot’s relief when Clayton started to doubt himself and to question his beliefs.
“We’d better, move before those droids find us,” Elliot suggested
“Ok,” Clayton responded, “follow me,” as he started in the general direction of the base camp.
They made their way along the sewer tunnel for five minutes before they came to a taller tunnel with more room. Clayton stopped. “One of us better go back to base camp. The other two, to the woods. I know these tunnels better than anyone, so you two should go that way,” he said with a pointed finger, “and I’ll warn the others.”
They didn’t have time to argue.
Ten minutes later, Clayton arrived at rebel headquarters. To his relief, it had not been raided yet. “Everyone,” he said in a loud voice, “we have to move now.”
“It’s nearly five o clock in the morning,” Jeff responded in a crusty voice.
Clayton, looked at Jeff in shock. He then turned to Clement’s bed and approached it. It looked like there was a body underneath the bed clothes but he wanted to be sure. He pulled back the covers, to reveal two pillows. Clement wasn’t there.
“Did you kill him,” Clayton asked Jeff
“Sometimes I struggle for sleep and sometimes I go for a walk in the middle of the night. Right now I’m tired. If it’s ok with you I’d like to get some sleep.”
By now, virtually everyone in the base camp was awake or half awake. “There’s no time for that now. We have to go. This place is going to be raided. It would appear that Clement has betrayed us. It would appear that he was a spy. Everyone, we have to head for the camp in the hills.”
No sooner had he said that than the sound of the elevator going up could be heard. “We only have a minute,” Clayton declared. “Come on, run.”
Some seemed reluctant to run or hurry, particularly the older ones, including the Professor and Alexis. “I’m too old to run,” the Professor declared. “Take the others to safety. I’ll try to stall them as much as I can.” As he said this the Professor appeared to take a rigid stance s dig in defiance.
“No one gets left behind Professor. No one,” Clayton insisted. He was desperate not to lose a vital member of the group and a truly great human being.
“Except for those that don’t want to keep running anymore,” the elderly genius declared. “You’re wasting your time. Take the others and go.”
“Yes. You go,” Alexis intervened as she stood beside her old friend. “My hip isn’t what it used to be. We’ll do what we can at our end.” The two other individuals over sixty, a man named Davis and a woman named Belinda, stood next to the Professor, without saying anything.
This clearly went against everything that Clayton had preached but there was absolutely no time to argue.
The elevator had reached the top. It was only a matter of time now. “Ok, everyone else,” Clayton said aloud, “follow me as quickly as you can. Jesse will take up the rear.” Hurriedly the other members of the group gathered together. Some were screaming and crying in a frightened manner. Clayton used hand gestures to try and get them to calm down.
Knowing that every sound they made could give their location away, they managed to reign in their emotions as they formed a queue. In less than a minute, the majority of the occupants of the rebel base had fled down the tunnel.
Alexis, Belinda, Davis and the Professor faced the door that the government forces were trying to break through. It was only a matter of seconds now, they thought.