The humming stopped. Dibbuk glanced around. There was nothing. Not a sound left when she woke up. Was she awake?
She looked for some sort of evidence that she was still there. There was none. Not a trace. The darkness of the void was all that she could comprehend in the space around her.
'What was that voice? Monkey. That's what Blaithin had called the voice in the darkness. But that hadn't been the voice I'd heard before. This last one had been crass, angry, evil even. Filled with hatred and venom.' Dibbuk thought, leaning down to feel the sand beneath her feet.
Now there was nothing. No cart. No ants. No Botu, no Blaithin. No Dibbuk. No Harvel. No Yiddek. No mum or dad. No Boris-Valka.
The only thing she knew was there was the ringing of the bells. And at the moment there were more than there had been before. Millions to be not quite exact. Most, again, were faint, but a few more than before were loud. Excruciatingly loud.
* * * * * * * * * *
Captain Lier unhooked himself from the line. This was a new type of screwed up. The orange substance running through the surrounding earth was not entirely foreign to him. He'd seen it before, poking through in dark dilapidated tunnels in his youth. It had been a very long time since he'd been this deep in the system.
Wicksomme and Mary lowered themselves down behind him as he moved deeper into the cavern. Lier picked up a couple of buunchal wrappers that were lying on the ground before the mouth of the cave. They were still slightly sticky with sugary preservatives.
"Well, seems she didn't have time to think about environmentalism." lier commented, pointing his flashlight down the length of the tunnel.
"Can't say I blame her. I personally wouldn't want to spend any more time down here than I had to. That being said, can we get the fuck on with this?" Mary said, helping Wicksomme unhook himself from the cable.
"Yeah. Alright. No need to sit around with our thumbs up our asses eh?" Lier agreed, placing one of the wrappers in his pocket.
"No sir, I don't think there is." Wicksomme commented, staring incredulously back up the cable. Scores of yards above them clinking sounds could be heard originating from the rest of their party.
"Boy, if you don't hurry it the fuck up I'm gonna kick you down this god forsaken hole meself!" Don complained, pausing to take a sip of thisky from his flask. It was currently his only solace from the grim venture they might be embarking on. He could tell from the weight that it was beginning to run dry.
Merely a yard below his feet Selby propped himself against the wall, his knees shaking so violently you could have written a samba with them. If it hadn't been the heights that were giving him pause, it would have been the orange rubbery substance his boots were embedded in that would have stopped him. He could feel it sucking at his legs with every short drop.
"Sorry. Sorry. I just... I need a minute." Selby explained, attempting to control his breathing. He was remembering exactly the thing the voice in the dark had showed him.
It hadn't been dizzying heights. It hadn't been death, or danger. It hadn't been that nightmare he normally had about being in a cafe near his parents house with the man in the wheelchair and the three geese. It was a moment.
A moment he was getting closer and closer to having to accept had happened. A moment that he needed, deep down to have never happened. Years ago his mind, his life in fact, had changed.
Selby had lived his entire life with absolute certainty. Every moment of every day had been without question. And then that moment had changed him. And Harvel was at the end of it all. He was at the end of a deep, dark, enclosed part of Selbys existence that he never wanted to admit was there.
For some reason he believed that at the end of this cord was that part waiting for him. Waiting to be uncovered and laid bare to the rest of the world. To Harvel, somehow. To...To her.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Harvel sniffed at reality. Something was wrong, something below them. Deep underneath his feet he felt a synapse light up as if it were on fire. It had been there before but now it blazed with an intensity closer to that of his own node within the brain that was the city. It was a familiar node as well, like he'd known it for his entire life.
"Harvel? You went and spaced out again? We've got to get up the ladder." Yiddek asked, snapping his claws in front of Harvels vacant face. Harvel looked at him. For a moment there wasn't much else there but the same detached look he'd had for the last minute or so.
"Oh... Oh no. I've only gone and forgotten. We need to go down Yiddek." Harvel said, realization flickering across his face. Yiddek stared at him and then the ladder quizzically.
"Uh no Harvel, we have to go up. There's a ladder, see?" Yiddek explained, guiding Harvels hands to the rungs. He considered that his brother might be losing significant cognitive function with each passing second.
"Huh? Ladder? Oh yeah that too, but after that we need to go down." Harvel accepted, pulling himself up a few feet away from the flow of the storm drain.
"Just get up there and we can talk about it, okay bud." Yiddek said, watching to make sure Harvel didn't lose his grip. On either the ladder or reality.
Harvel pulled himself up into an alleyway deep in the neighborhood of Mistrook. Mistrook didn't actually stand for anything. It was just one of those names that you ended up with when large development companies built large subdivisions for high end sale. It could have just as easily been named Highland Crest, or Eagle Heights and it would have been the same neighborhood.
Lemmy was already shakily attempting to place his key in the manual lock, as Parker and Aldon loomed impatiently behind him. Yiddek squeezed through the manhole and out into the open air. The five of them stood stock still, the only sound being the AVs passing over them and the nervous clinking and scraping of Lemmy's keys.
"Once we get in there I'm going to get you some help Harvel, okay?" Yiddek said, placing his hands on Harvels shoulders. There was a tone there that twanged a string in Harvels brain. He tried to block out the flow of excess information swimming around his brain for a moment and be present.
"I'm sorry, do you think I'm simple or something? You keep talking to me like I'm five years old." Harvel asked, letting a piece of him bob up to the surface. Yiddek looked dumbstruck. There it was, the old Harvel, back for but a moment.
"Uh, no I just-" He began
"No, he thinks you're dying. You've been going in and out for the last thirty minutes like you have dementia or something." Parker answered, rolling her eyes hard enough to interrupt Liberums rotation.
"Oh, well I probably am, but that's not important. Yiddek we have to get Dibbuk. She's really far down." Harvel explained, pushing his thumbs into his eye sockets. It was the only way he could get his mind to stay present. It was like his nerves were being pulled in every direction all at once.
"What? Not important? Harvel I don't understand, and Dibbuk should be down there, it's her job." Yiddek explained, pulling Harvels hands away from his face. Harvel pulled them back in, pushing harder.
"Yeah, what do you mean? Our AV got blown up to get you here alive, my favorite gun too. So, you had better be joking when you say your life isn't important." Parker growled, grabbing one of Harvels wrists. Her irritation getting the better of her, she attempted to yank his hand away from his face.
It wouldn't budge. Parker tried again, her muscles straining like steel cables. Harvels forearm didn't move, it might as well have been made of granite. In her disbelief, Parker kept trying to pull away his hand.
Harvel let his arm pull away this time. Perhaps a bit too quickly as Parker lost her balance mid tug. As if it were reflex he clasped his hand around hers and held her steady. Harvel made sure his eyes were actually open as they locked with hers. Even without the pain of pushing his fingers into his eyes, he could be present in this moment.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. How can I make you see? How can I put it to make it cle-" Harvel started, then everything went dark for a moment. Like a frozen slice of time shaved off and left there for him to admire.
Alone, there, for but a moment, yet if felt like an eternity. He no longer knew how long he'd been there. Then he was back, and Parker was back, and Yiddek. The whole gang was back together again.
"The uh, door is open now." Lemmy said, pointing to the now open doorway that Aldon was disappearing into. Parker and Harvel locked eyes for a moment again in complete beautiful understanding. Then she turned her head and vomited.