Urbis

Something nudged Crispin in the ribs and he woke with a start. An elderly woman was leaning over him, poking him with a walking cane.

“You can’t stay there,” she said. “Else they’ll be taking you away with the rubbish.”

Crispin goggled. Behind her, small animated machines were tipping large metal drums into the back of a truck.

“Thank you,” he said, struggling upright. He inferred what she was saying from her gestures, for her speech sounded strange to him. He was about to say something else, but she had already gathered up her two overflowing bags and was shuffling hastily down the street. He watched her go. Unselfconsciously she stopped at one of the bins that the robots had not yet reached, and rummaged around in it. Disappointedly she shook her head and shuffled on.

Crispin felt cramps in his stomach, acute hunger pangs, and his mouth was sticky from dehydration. He had to eat and drink. The options appeared to be begging or stealing, and from what he had seen so far, stealing seemed to be the more promising of the two.

He directed his steps towards a main market, where stores were just beginning the day’s business. He wandered into a covered mall that offered a bewildering variety of merchandise, mostly unrecognisable to him. He was hoping for a simple stall where he could simply filch something while the stallholder was looking the other way, but there was no such thing to be seen.

He passed a window full of TV screens and stopped with a jolt when he saw his own face staring back at him as if from a mirror. He realised that in the light of day he was bound to attract attention. His lank reddish hair was hanging in tangles, his beard was similarly matted and unkempt, and his clothes were very different from those of the people around him, and they were caked with dry mud. He could not hope to do anything serruptitiously: when he found something he would have to simply grab it and run.

He wandered into a supermarket, where, as he had guessed, he was observed with suspicion by staff and customers alike. He strolled around for a few minutes, trying to look inconspicuous. He watched a robotic shelf filler making its way down the aisles, and another that cruised through the shop announcing the day’s best bargains with a flurry of flashing lights. From a distance he watched a woman take meat from a slicer-dispenser. All the time cameras watched him from the ceiling.

At last he saw something he recognised. Bread. He was aware of an overalled figure hovering close by, pretending to be preoccupied with a clipboard but watching like a hawk. Imitating another customer, Crispin took a loaf from a shelf and sauntered towards a checkout.

Then at the last moment he vaulted over a counter and ran. The doors of the supermarket slid obligingly open for him and slid equally obligingly shut behind him, delaying his shouting pursuers, but not for long. As they raced after him, their cries alerted two Security men approaching from the opposite direction, who ran towards him. He darted down an intersecting avenue of the mall, leaping over a little train of automated delivery carts, and burst out into the open air.

He turned to the left and continued running, Security men and supermarket employees gaining on him all the time. And then arms grabbed him and pulled him sideways into a dark passageway, nearly pulling him off his feet.

“This way,” urged a youthful sounding voice, and he followed a shadowy figure down a long echoing flight of steps. Mingled with the clatter of their footsteps, Crispin heard the sound of lapping water, and felt moss under his hand as he reached out to steady himself.

“Jump in,” said the voice, and before Crispin could even stop himself he was lying in a boat. “Cover yourself with the sacks,” the voice instructed, and Crispin obeyed. He heard the sound of an engine starting, and the boat moved, the water slapping rhythmically against its sides. Shortly, light filtering through chinks between the piled sacks under which Crispin lay concealed indicated that they were out in the open.

“Whatever you do, keep your head down,” hissed the voice. “There’s filth on the bridge up ahead, and they’re looking this way.”

Crispin remained motionless. A brief interval of darkness indicated to him that they had passed under the bridge. Then he sensed a slight shift in direction which gradually became more pronounced.

“It’s okay, you can come out now,” said the voice at last.

Crispin emerged from hiding and looked around. Sitting in the stern of the boat was a thin youth of about sixteen, wearing a greasy sweater, ragged trousers and a faded bandanna round his neck. The boat was progressing slowly along a noisome canal with high walls, above which tall buildings rose on either side. The water was a dismal shade of brown, dotted with creamy patches of foam, dead fish, and all manner of flotsam and jetsam. Behind the youth, Crispin could see a broader body of water which the boat had just crossed, its wake still visible on the surface.

“Name’s Marlon,” said the youth. “Marlon Summers. What’s yours?”

“Crispin.”

“Unusual name. Crispin what?”

“Just...Crispin.”

Marlon looked at him quizzically. “Suit yourself. What sector are you from?”

Crispin frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand? What sector are you from? What part of the city?”

Crispin said softly, “I am not from your city.”

Marlon looked at him as if he were a complete idiot. “Look, I don’t care, right? If you don’t want to tell me where you’re from, that’s okay. Lie if you want to. It doesn’t matter. But let’s keep it sensible, huh?”

Crispin perceived that he was going to have a problem. The truth about him was as unbelievable to this city-dweller as the helicopter would have been to him if he had not witnessed it with his own eyes. And at the same time he did not know enough to lie at all convincingly. He decided that he would have to try and get by saying as little as possible. He wondered where he was being taken, and why.

The boat continued through a grimy industrial landscape, frequently crossed by bridges, roads, railways, footbridges and aqueducts, sometimes four or five at once, criss-crossing one above the other, and more than once the boat passed through long tunnels. In the middle of one of these, Marlon stopped the engine.

“Look, I don’t like to do this,” he began anxiously, “but you’re a bit strange, and we can’t be too careful.”

“I understand,” said Crispin, not understanding at all.

“So I got to blindfold you for the rest of the trip, okay?”

He had untied his bandanna in the dark. Crispin assented, and he felt Marlon bind his eyes. He also felt him slip an experienced hand inside his tunic and pull out his hunting knife.

“You use a knife?” Marlon gasped in amazement. “You really are strange.”

Then the boat’s engine started again, and Crispin felt its forward motion anew. He wondered whether he was being led into a trap, the proverbial lamb to the slaughter. There was nothing on him to steal. And this Marlon had willingly helped him to escape from the authorities.

Something was pressed into his hand. “Here,” said Marlon. “Some of the bread you risked your neck to steal. You must have been pretty hungry.”

Crispin pressed the bread into his mouth. It was insubstantial stuff, and tasted nothing like any bread he had ever known, but he was hungry, and it filled the gnawing void in his guts. In no time he had devoured half the loaf.

At one point he heard the sound of an engine approaching, shouts of men and a woman, and Marlon’s returned salutation. The sound passed to his right, then the boat was rocking, he presumed on the wash of the other. And then the engine stopped and the boat drifted. There was a slight scraping to the left, and the boat halted.

“Out we get,” said Marlon, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. He put out his left hand and touched wet wood. “It’s a bit of a step up.”

The hollow sound of planking reverberated under Crispin’s feet as he was led from the boat, and the echo of the water suggested that they were once more in an enclosed place. Marlon led him to the left, and he felt cloth brush his face. Then he smelled a musty smell, like brickdust.

“It’s dark in here,” said Marlon. “I’m almost as blind as you. We have to go single file, but it’s straight. No tricks, mind. Remember I’ve got your little toothpick here.”

Crispin extended his arms on either side and touched damp brickwork. He simply followed the sound of Marlon’s steps just in front of him.

After they had gone some hundreds of metres, Crispin heard a rumbling coming from his left. “Stop,” said Marlon. He stopped. The rumbling rapidly grew in intensity, and became a roar. Crispin clapped his hands over his ears. And then, just as swiftly, it diminished and was gone.

“You’ll get used to the trains,” said Marlon merrily. “If you stick around. Now, we’re going to have to pick our way across the rails. Just tread carefully and you’ll be all right.”

Crispin edged forward, probing with his feet before he set them down, and eventually came again to uninterrupted flat ground. As he moved forward he heard the rumbling again, this time coming from the right. The monstrous roaring was close behind him, and it required a considerable effort of will to keep from covering his ears again. He wondered how anyone could get used to anything in such an accursed place.

They moved forward some more, then Marlon halted. “Stairs going up,” he warned. He took Crispin by the arm and led him up some stairs. With his other hand Crispin felt a metal rail which seemed rusty in places. He heard a latch being turned and a door creaking on its hinges. Then a hubbub of voices that was silenced as Marlon urged him forward.

“Who’s this, Marlon?” said a man’s voice, thick with mistrust.

“A waif from the storm,” Marlon responded jauntily.

“Well, you’d better put your waif in the meeting room and go and get Bernard,” said the other voice.

Marlon steered Crispin forward. Then he stopped him. “There’s a chair in front of you,” he announced. “Sit down. Bernard will be here in a minute. He’ll want to talk to you.”

There was the sound of a door closing, then a key turning in a lock. Crispin lowered himself into the chair and sat still, wondering if he was expected to remove his blindfold himself.

Moments later he heard voices, muffled slightly by the door, but still entirely audible.

“Marlon, you cretinous little turd, what do you think you’re doing bringing strangers in off the street?”

“But Bernard, he was being chased by the filth.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a set up? How do you know they hadn’t been watching you and set the whole thing up so we could be infiltrated?”

“Trust me, Bernard. I think it’s okay.”

“Oh. And just what makes you think it’s okay?”

Marlon’s voice faltered. “It’s just that he’s so, well, weird. He’s... hairy, and he smells awful. Surely if the filth were going to try and infiltrate us, they’d use someone who sort of fitted in better. Wouldn’t they?”

“Have you checked him for metal?” he asked, still eyeing Marlon suspiciously.

“No,” said Marlon, sounding abashed. “He’s about twice my size.”

“Well, that’s obviously the first thing we must do.”

The key turned in the lock and the door opened. Crispin heard the sound of a number of feet close in front of him.

“Shut the door on your way out, Marlon,” Bernard said. The door closed. “Well, I suppose we can take your blindfold off.”

Crispin felt fingers untying the blindfold, and then he was looking into the faces of three men. Bernard turned out to be a slightly built man with straggly hair around a bald pate, and a moustache. The other two men were taller, barrel-chested specimens whose expressions Crispin found hard to read. One had short black hair and a square, solid face. The other had hair that fell in longer, flaxen waves, and a more oval face. Both were, Crispin estimated, in their late twenties.

“I’m Bernard. This is Charlie, and Lyall.” Charlie turned out to be the dark haired man, Lyall the fair. “Your name’s Crispin, I understand?”

“That is true.”

“Crispin it is then. I’m afraid that since you have arrived here unannounced, we’re going to have to do something which will not be pleasant. I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. If you co-operate it will be as quick as possible. Take off your clothes.”

Crispin hesitated, wondering if he had heard correctly.

“If you don’t,” said Bernard, “Charlie and Lyall will do it for you. And they may not be so gentle.”

Seeing no alternative, Crispin disrobed. When he was naked, Charlie stepped forward and ran his hands lightly but thoroughly over Crispin’s skin while Lyall picked his way through Crispin’s knotted mane and beard. They felt everywhere, from behind his ears to between his toes.

Lyall put his finger in Crispin’s ears and up his nostrils. “Open your mouth,” he said.

Crispin complied. The man expertly ran his fingertip over the surfaces of Crispin’s teeth, his cheeks, his palate and under his tongue, investigating every cavity. He then stuck his finger into Crispin’s navel. He then took hold of Crispin’s penis.

Crispin’s fist flew, but Charlie was faster, pushing his arm aside. A scuffle ensued, with Charlie, Lyall and Bernard all struggling to subdue Crispin. At last Charlie managed to lock him into a full Nelson and bring him to his knees.

“Get on with it,” he yelled at Lyall. “I don’t know how long I can hold him like this.”

Lyall inserted his finger inside Crispin’s foreskin and rapidly ran it around, while Crispin grimaced, his teeth gritted, and sought to shake free from Charlie’s grip.

“So far, so good,” said Lyall. “The last bit now.”

Charlie released Crispin and let him get to his feet. Then he seized him again, locking him in a bear hug, and forced him across the room to a table.

Cursing silently that he was too weak to put up a fight, Crispin found himself slammed face down the length of the table. Charlie was straddling him, holding his arms in a lock. Bernard had hold of one leg, while Lyall fought to keep the other at bay while he parted Crispin’s buttocks to conduct the last part of this strange and most intimate examination.

“He’s clean,” He said.

“Good,” said Charlie. Crispin was released, and stood up.

“I do apologise,” said Bernard. Crispin did not reply. “Well, perhaps you’d care to come to my office and tell us about yourself, Crispin.”