Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [19]
Then I was shown to the tunnels.
I won’t forget the feeling I had when I first stood at the observation window and peered into the twilight beyond. At first all I could make out was a color, a deep blue glow chilled at intervals by white lights shining up from the floor. It looked like the coldest dream you ever had. Then I began to discern shapes in the gloom, and movement. When I realized what I was seeing I shivered, a spasm so elemental that it wasn’t visible on the outside. For a moment it was as if I was back in a different place altogether, and it was all I could do not to run. I should have trusted that intuition, and made the connection, but of course I didn’t.
The representative from the company stood behind me as I watched, and told me that each of the three tunnels was eight feet wide and eight feet tall, and housed forty spares. Experience had shown that it was best to keep them warm and humid, and he tapped the indicator panels at the side of each door. These I had to check every two hours, even though they were computer controlled. The instruction was repeated, and I turned to glare at the representative to show I understood. Our eyes met for the first time since he’d arrived, and I could tell what he felt about me. Distaste, primarily, together with boredom and a little amusement. To him I was merely a new component of the Farm, a replacement part, ranking in importance well below the electrified fence.
I hoped he couldn’t read what I was feeling for him, because as I turned back to look once more through the window I felt my hands tightening in the pockets of my battered coat, and heard the sound of blood singing in my ears. Perhaps it was from that moment, from within a minute of seeing the spares for the first time, that I knew I would not be quite the caretaker they were expecting.
Or maybe not. At the time I didn’t really know what I felt about anything. I couldn’t do joined-up thinking for long enough to finish a paragraph I could understand. It’s always easy to look back and assume a purpose in one’s actions. At the time I suspect I had about as much purpose as a streak of shit along a wall.
The man left eventually, once the opportunities for patronizing me had been thoroughly exhausted. As he got into his company car he looked at me over his elegant spectacles, and snorted quietly to himself. I realized that I’d probably only said about ten words in the entire time we’d been there. He pulled slowly out of the compound, the gate shutting automatically after him.
Inside, I emptied the bag my friend had packed for me and stowed my few belongings in places that seemed sensible. This process took all of five minutes. Then I shakily made a pot of coffee, took it to the table in the center of the room, and prepared to wait out the rest of my life.
A week after I arrived, I received a parcel from Phieta, the woman who’d brought me there. It contained some more clothes, a couple of paperbacks, and a large quantity of Rapt. No note. I never heard from her again.
It was three months before I got my first call. I just sat in the main room for most of that time, staring into space and periodically frying my brains to dust. Now and then I’d go out into the compound. The view in front showed a gradually sloping hillside, dotted with trees, that eventually led to the outskirts of Roanoke. You could see points of yellow through the trees at night, proof that—somewhere in the distance—life was going on. I wished it well and hoped it would stay the hell away from me. I soon found I couldn’t enjoy the sight of the steep hillside behind the compound as much as I should. There were far more trees in that direction, and at that stage I still occasionally thought they moved and distrusted their leaves. Sometimes I thought I could see blue light coming out of fissures in the rock, beams of blue sunlight piercing up toward