Spelunking
It happened again.
I woke up not remembering where I was. I took a few moments to focus. Mrs. Lombardy next door was the winning contender in a shouting match with her husband, as usual; that helped bring my focus back. I sat up in my bed and instinctively gazed towards my balcony. I could see Norm in his balcony smoking a cigarette with what was, today, a modified mecha-arm. Norm was always getting his body modified. In my great-grandparents’ generation they’d ink their skin with tattoos, or pierce here and there. Now, people all got their body parts changed out for mecha body parts — we had the technology that allowed us to as well, effortlessly. The newer stuff was pretty dope too; realistic animal body parts, alien body parts, hell, anything you could imagine, dream of or want, even 3D skin — it was the golden age. Some days I’d look up in the morning and not even recognise Norm because of his modifications, until he yelled at some neighbour. In Kanis, you could be anything you wanted to be.
Thursdays were my favourite day. I had the day off, but everyone else got to work. I took the day slow, getting out of bed, heading to the balcony on my 3rd floor apartment to catch the chaos outside with a mug of coffee in my hand, chat up the neighbours, yell at some of them maybe. Thursdays were the best. I put a vest on over my bare torso and made it to the balcony. Kanis. The tiny industrial district of Mo’ra. Ah, the familiarity of it all never tired me. The musty, busy, noisy locality with the hundreds of people all up in their own morning routines. The putrid smells of the sellers in the narrow mud paths below selling everything from underground street food to illegal mecha parts. The bird people — both the ones with born mutations, and the ones who had themselves modified — had populated so much of Kanis, that not only were they filling up the skies with anarchy, but the whole area had a funk that reminded you of them. You couldn’t say it out loud, but bird people did smell, a distinct old, unwashed clothing like stench that came from having wings and feathers I would have thought.
But from where I lived I saw a lot more than bird people. There were all manners of people and things. Kanis was a treasure trove of sights and sounds. You could go spelunking in the morbid alleyways and come up for a breath of air with things you’d never seen or experienced before. The dimly lit strips were tainted with the oddest of everything — people, food, clothes, trinkets, porn — you name it; if it existed, Kanis’ alleyways had the weirdest kind.
Like I said, I loved Thursdays. I’d spend all day up in my balcony looking at every little thing, not a moment to get bored, until the late evening when the industries waned and everyone went home, leaving me engulfed in the silence and darkness. I adored it. I would have very little time to enjoy this transition from madness to solitude. Everyone knew nights in Kanis meant mech-terrorists. If you weren’t careful — or locked indoors — they’d steal your body parts and leave you for worse; sometimes with mods you never wanted. I remember once, Norm had told me crazy stories of mech-terrorists kidnapping you in the dead of the night before you knew it, and selling you after modifying you, to larger inter-dimensional corporations for experiments you couldn’t even imagine. Of course, Norm had a penchant to exaggerate so I laughed it off. Either way, I’m a smart guy, I’d figure it out if it were real. For now, I needed this time though, it gave me the opportunity to observe and reflect. I sat in the broken chair, my legs propped up on the ledge, when I heard a low growl.
A cat.
Cat people were rarely seen in Kanis. Actual cats? Near impossible. It jumped up on to my balcony and sat on my ledge, not far from my legs. It paused, staring at me directly, its emerald eyes screaming unknown truths about the universe. I couldn’t understand what it wanted. I almost felt like the cat wanted to have a conversation. I stared back, hoping for a revelation. Moments passed, but nothing happened. The cat slunk away into the shadows. There was something extremely unsettling about the cat.
Weird
Before I could react to the cat being gone, I felt it. It was unbelievably quick. Mecha-terrorists had me bound in a custom contraption, my mouth strapped in. I could hear myself screaming, but there was no sound. Two of them — modified heavily themselves — carried me off my balcony and loaded me into the back of a van. I felt a sharp sting in my arm, and I began to black out.
—
When I regained consciousness I could tell it had been several days since I had been abducted. I felt locked in, sort of squeezed, into a tiny box. There was no space to move. Complete darkness. No noise. Not even the faintest sound. I was awake for several minutes before I heard something. The first sign of life in days. Strange voices speaking in an even stranger tongue. I tried to listen, to place it. It wasn’t anything I’d heard before, even in Kanis. I could only feel the onset of panic, nothing else.
Those who panic, drown.
I collected myself and waited. It would be several more minutes before anything would happen again. I heard fresh voices.
“*|\\|***|\|||”
“|||\\\ ***\|| |**\\|\|”
They were speaking Echtorian. I wasn’t fluent, but at least I would understand something. So far, I’d gathered something about an exchange and a payment. I felt my box move violently, so I assumed they were talking terms about selling me.
“**\\| |\\\\** |***\||\ * ||\|\|**”, continued one of the voices, which I assumed wasn’t a mech-terrorist
I tried to translate in my head, “ Use…for…it….travel….time…experiment”
HOLY SHIT, A TIME TRAVEL EXPERIMENT? Norm was right! Mech-terrorists ARE selling people to Inter-dimensional corporations!
I had to plan my escape. I would stay extremely quiet, then wait for them to open my box so I can make a run for it. Maybe shout to startle them because they won’t be expecting me to be awake, and that would buy me a little time.
All of a sudden, it was happening. The box I was in was being opened. I stayed silent,my eyes tight shut, waiting for the opportune moment to scream and startle the inter-dimensional assholes.
My moment came. I leapt, and let out the biggest scream I had ever, in my entire life.
“MEOW.”
— — — — — — — — — — —
This is the 3rd in a lockdown writing series. Today’s prompt has been given by Deepika, and the prompt was
“The cat slunk away into the shadows. There was something extremely unsettling about the cat.”
The story HAD to be science fiction, and we also had to use the word “Spelunking” (not just in the title :P)
You can read stories One and Two from this lockdown writing series on my Medium too!
