Aurora - Blood Moon Tribute Pt. 10

The young man let out a long, heartfelt sigh. Giving up the ghost, his life-force swamped by a tide of terminal euphoria. When Ally tugged his boots off, the dying trooper made not so much as a peep, nor did he flinch when she dis-masted his trousers. Leaning over him, unable to hear much over the racket of her own pounding heart, the grimy little angel put her ear to his lips. The young lad was barely breathing, fast asleep in La-la Land. He'd be okay.

Ally dressed methodically, first jamming her slippers into the chord at her back. They'd been through a lot together and when she got home, she'd have those and her slip framed and hung on the wall. The stolen uniform, several sizes too big, was hardly a fashion statement, but in the one-size-fits-all rank and file, it was an odds-on bet no one would notice, let alone care.

Bundling her hair up, she pulled on the Kevlar pot and tightened the chin strap. Picking up the weapon, with no idea what made it go, she scuffed through the sand towards the front of the prison.

Ally took a peek around the corner, long enough to see a sizeable crowd milling around, scores of prisoners, all of them male, under the watchful eyes of a few dozen troops. She took another quick look. Many of the jailbirds were strolling about, enjoying the great outdoors, most of them smoking, talking and laughing under floodlights outside the wall. An air-conditioned tourist coach laboured into view, like the ones Ally had seen parked on the perimeter, then came to stop and the doors hissed open. Troops disembarked, herded into a scrum by shouting officers, and when the last pair of boots hit the dusty ground, prisoners in green stormed onboard, fighting each other for a place on the freedom ride, those in the vanguard filling the seats, the rest piling in until it was standing room only. The brothels in town and the sly grog dens would be jumping tonight, and many a score was about to be settled.

Under cover of the pandemonium, Ally edged around the corner, staying close to the wall. The main gates were open- a rare event- troops going in, prisoners coming out, to the tune of sporadic gunfire. A handful of old salts in the ranks of the wardens were making a last stand, some for the fun of it, some reliving previous uprisings, others still fighting in the name of the now-deposed king. A few would die, most would surrender, and be back on the job when it all blew over. Sizing up a side-gate, Ally put her head down, but had hardly taken a dozen steps when a hand came out of nowhere.

A glaring officer, full-time military, sent to babysit Rashiid's rich-kid militia, dragged Ally backwards by the scruff of the neck and shoved her unceremoniously into the ranks of a squad. The one that had just de-bussed, and was now being sent to storm a watchtower. Its task; absorb as many of the enemy's bullets as possible. Those who had ammunition were free to shoot back, the entire magazine if need be. The rest were under orders not to return, until the holdouts surrendered or ran out of rounds.

Ally looked over her shoulder at the officer who stood, brandishing a pistol, ready to shoot any volunteers who had second thoughts. One or two of her squad-mates flicked the small, effeminate newbie a disparaging glance. The bad-tempered, gun-waving major's bed warmer by the looks, on punishment detail for some minor infraction. Conduct unbecoming, such as insufficient enthusiasm for being bummed. Serve the little bastard right, the squad mates thought. On his hands and knees in the officer's digs while the rest of them were outdoors, training.

The squad shuffled across a ten-meter no-man's land, then down a long, vehicle-friendly ramp into a massive subterranean space. An underground world easily the size of the prison's entire footprint, if not larger. Propped up on concrete columns, two metres thick, the place was a veritable hive, an ant colony, with squads of militia hurrying here and there in counter-flowing streams. Some heading in, others heading out, many laden with loot and souvenirs- computers, ash trays, pot-plants and trophies. Any little knick-knack to serve as a memento of battle, right down to framed family portraits plucked from the desks of prison hierarchy.

Led by its self-appointed officer, a well-to-do, handsome young man reeking of moneyed entitlement and sickly perfume, Ally's little band of brothers, and one undercover sister, wound its way towards the epicentre of the catacombs, right under the central admin block. Here, a quartet of elevators gave access to the floors above, backed up by the obligatory fire stairs behind a single, solid door.

Penny, the Brit, often dined out on the story of being evicted from hospital, by the commandant, with her wounds and fractures barely healed. Held together with wire and sticky tape or so the story went. Prisoners were forbidden from using the elevators, so she'd made the agonising journey using the stairs, on a wobbly pair of crutches, a journey so harrowing that, by the time she reached her destination, even the wardens were crying.

An annunciator between the elevators began to count down. At the bottom, after a short pause, the doors rattled open and the squad crowded in, while the lift's previous occupants, 7 troopers or more, fought their way out, complete with two stretchers bearing the bullet-riddled bodies of their comrades. Waiting for the doors to close, Ally took a knee, head down, and pulled a bootlace undone, then tied it again, slowly, meticulously, like a child just learning the art. Almost vibrating with tension, waiting for someone to notice her or notice her missing, and hold the elevator while she hurried to join them, Ally listened to the doors shut. Then up they went, the entire squad, all the way to heaven, via a quick stop on the very top floor, for a hefty dose of martyrdom at the foot of a watchtower.

Oddly isolated in spite of the noisy crowd, as if she'd somehow turned invisible, Ally backed up to the fire door, feeling for the handle at her back. Better sense told her she'd already come too far, while dogged obstinance said she hadn't come far enough, as, with a push, the door gave way behind her, and with one last look at this new-age Dante's inferno, she slipped into the stairwell and made her way upwards.

Nearing the second floor, with 6 flights behind her, Ally heard the door above boom open and saw 5 or 6 militia burst into the stairwell. They came barrelling downstairs, and with hardly time to press her back against the wall, she watched them storm past, slack-jawed and wide-eyed at the violence they'd just witnessed, casting the diminutive militiaman in the oversized fatigues not so much as a second glance. Rattled, Ally hurried past the broken-down door, then let herself out on the floor above.

Vaguely unnerved by an odd sense of familiarity, Ally rounded a corner and walked straight into a road block, outside what she instantly recognised was the hospital. Crowding the hallway, wardens and medical staff stood like mourners over a naked body, laid out on a yellow stretcher, lowered to waist height. A tall, handsome male looked up from the midst of the gathering- Iqbal, the doctor, dripping sweat from performing strenuous CPR, stem of his ivory cigarette holder clamped in his teeth. He looked at Ally, nonplussed, then tilted his head, and in the local language asked, "Don't I know you?"

Ally fumbled the weapon, fingers all turning to thumbs. Eyes narrowed, she channelled every last atom of pent-up hatred into her glare, for who the man was, for who these people were, for everything she'd been through, for all they'd done. "I ought to put a fucking bullet in you."

"Miss Alana?" the doctor frowned, then his face split with a grin. Behind him, one nurse was busy stiff-arming the patient's sternum towards his spine, while another held a blood bag aloft, squeezing hard. "Miss Alana. What a surprise."

Ally raised the rifle, with no idea whether the thing was even loaded, and no intention of using it anyway. "You sent me away to get raped up the ass."

"I assure you, Blake, such a thing is not within my power. I suggest you air your grievances with the brigadier."

"Maybe I should just fucking kill you instead."

"As you wish." the doctor said, holding out his gloved, bloodstained hands. "Go right ahead and send me to my reward. But you better be quick. This man here has just gone into arrest. A bullet has hit something vital and he's rapidly bleeding out. His abdomen is hard, I suspect the liver, but you'll have to open him up to find out." He thumbed over his shoulder at a second stretcher down the hall. "And that other man has a sucking chest wound. You'll have to seal it off then perform a double thoracotomy. But you'll have to do it here, the surgery is full."

Ally stared at the doctor, grappling with conflicting impulses, but she could no more shoot this asshole than fly to the moon.

"Well, Miss Alana? What are you waiting for?"

"I've come for my friends. Bayo, Yan. The English girl, Penny."

"Bowman?" the doctor asked, genuinely surprised. "She is your friend?"

"Where is she?"

The doctor gave her an appraising look. A diminutive Western woman, and guest of His Majesty, somewhat comical in her military garb. Last known whereabouts; the Blood Moon island. Last known assignment; show girl, white meat for the delectation of the common soldiery, knuckle-dragging peons who could barely read or write. And somehow she'd escaped. And she'd come back. To the prison. Where a battle was raging. For her friends. Verily, a fool and a heroine in one little glaring package. "Why, Miss Alana. Miss Penny's where she's always been."

"If you think I came here to play games, Iqbal. How do I find her?"

The doctor turned his head without really looking away, and spoke in a low voice to his staff. A blood-spattered nurse, a tiny little thing, in blue scrubs, mask and paper bonnet, raised her hand. The doctor handed her a swipe card then looked at Ally. "Nurse Jafeerah will take you to her."

Ally curled her lip. "If she tries to fuck me around. I'm warning you. I'll kill her first then come back and kill you."

The doctor raised his hand. "That will not be necessary." he said, then spoke to the nurse, who quickly closed a medical pack that was spilling its contents on the floor. She gave Ally the pack, and a pretext to be running around loose in the prison. "I'll need them both back," the doctor said, "my nurse and the equipment, as soon as you get there."

"How do I get out again?"

"That is your problem, Blake." the doctor said, turning back to his patient, waving the question away. "I cannot aid and abet an escape. Now, please, I'm very busy."

Mask under her chin, the little nurse beckoned and they set off at a fast walk, every now and then breaking into a jog. Pack clutched to her chest over the assault rifle, Ally was about to complain about the weight till she realised this tiny scrap of a girl would have to carry it back.

They hurried down hallways, at first just vaguely familiar, past open doors and the odd, ransacked office. Through several double doors, then out on a landing, where Ally suddenly smelt that old, familiar smell; sweat and sewage, the acrid tang of unwashed humanity. The nurse led her to the top of a stairway, a well-trodden path to the underground cells. Fossicking around in her pocket, she pulled out the key the doctor had given her, but when she slid it into the pad the door, already unlocked, swung open.

The nurse spoke to Ally in a quiet little voice, gesturing with her head at the gate, then back in the direction they'd just come. It was clear she wanted out of there, but Ally shook her head, then transferred the weight of the pack to one arm and grabbed a fistful of the nurse's blue scrubs. "Oh no you don't, Tinkerbell. Iqbal said, you're taking me all the way."

The nurse looked at Ally with big, imploring eyes then gestured at the floor. Heaving a deep, exasperated sigh, Ally bent and dumped the pack at her feet. "There?" she curled her lip, "Happy now?"

Straightening her shirt, the nurse smiled a sweet little smile and gave a nod.

Ally heard voices in the cells as they made their way downwards, but they were hushed, with none of the raucous zoo impersonations she recalled. Everyone seemed to be keeping a low profile, and for very good reason. No women were included in the mass repatriation- actually just a jailbreak on steroids, aided and abetted, as the doctor would say, by revolutionaries. And now, with the prison un-manned and presently in chaos, frightened, defenceless, abandoned by staff, the female prisoners were particularly vulnerable, targets of opportunity for the heavily armed troops roaming the wings.

Down one level, then down another, to the ground-floor cells. Ally looked through the well-familiar iron bars, at the hard wooden chair where Aisha used to sit, warming the seat with her little round bottom, whiling away her 12-hour shifts. Her eyes began to well as the nurse gave a nudge and the gate swung slowly open. "Two more flights, Nurse Nancy, okay?" Ally said, smearing her eyes. She held up 2 fingers, then pointed down. "Two more flights, then you can go back."

The nurse shrugged, then nodded. Ally found herself thinking that it didn't make much difference, if her unwilling guide came all the way downstairs or not. If the good doctor had called the head-kickers then they were already on the way and she was never getting out of there in any event. But they, the nurse and she, had a deal. Two more flights, forty steps, 80 for the round trip and her job was done.

The doors to most the cells stood open. When Ally paused at the bottom to gather her wits, the nurse tugged her sleeve and held up her hands. Briefly wondering if she should take the girl hostage- reaching the block, after all, was barely half way- Ally saw the doctor in her mind's eye, bent over the naked patient on the stretcher. She gave the girl a pat on her little blue bonnet. "Thanks heaps, Jasmina." she whispered, "Sure you don't wanna hang around for outbound leg? It's gonna be fun."

The nurse nodded, smiling, hand over her heart, then turned on her heel and hurried away.

Ally watched her all the way up to the landing, where she rounded the corner and disappeared. Feeling suddenly bereft, Ally listened to the nurse's footfall echo into silence, then turned on the spot, getting her bearings. The underground cell block was quiet as a tomb, only the stench remained- the inimitable stink of incarceration- permeating the concrete and steel. Ally set off weapon-first... if things turned ugly, she could always use the barrel to poke someone in the eye. When she passed the open door of the very first cell, the female inmates inside took one look at the scruffy, pint-sized intruder, then scrambled to their feet and fled into the ablution block. Same thing happened with the neighbouring cell, where the barred-door had been tied shut, top and bottom, with prison clothes. Heart in her throat, Ally crept the length of the long concrete walkway, to the door of T-cell, her erstwhile home.

There, on a mat, in the far-left corner she once called her own, she saw a dim figure, sitting hunched over a low dark bundle. As she stepped into the cell, a handful of inmates scampered for the dubious sanctuary of the bathroom. Rather than fleeing, the inmate in the corner fell forward over the bulky shape, as if trying to provide it with some sort of protection. From the body-language, poise, and the long black hair woven into a plait, Ally was almost certain she knew who it was. She unclipped the helmet and tipped it off, then slung the rifle over her back, out of the way. She cleared her throat. "Yan?"

A pale face turned towards her. Sure enough it was the willowy Chinese hooker, still hugging the form on the floor. With a shout, she sprang to her feet, closing the distance in a few huge bounds. She hit Ally head on, and spun with her in a tight embrace, keening into her shoulder. "Miss Ally," she cried, "Boss, you come back."

"I said I would, didn't I?"

Yan pushed Ally away to arm's length. "You join the army?"

Ally looked around the cell, brimming with expectation. "It's a long story, Yannie. Where are my girls?"

"Portia, Sophany, Thip go to kitchen. No guards, many girls eat."

"Bayo?" Ally asked.

Yan put a hand to her mouth, eyes squeezed shut, spilling tears. Ally gripped her arms. "Yan? What's the matter? Where's Bayo?"

Tears streaming, Yan shook her head.

Ally gave her a shake. "Stop fucking with me, Yan. Where's my girl?"

"Bayo die."

"Die?" Ally scowled, "What do you mean 'Bayo die'? Pull yourself together, Yan. You're not making sense."

"So sorry, Ally." Yan whispered. "Sonya kill her. Make her on fire."

Eyes bulging, Ally clenched her teeth. "She WHAT?"

Yan gestured for quiet. "Please, Ally, not too loud. Make soldiers come."

Ally dug her fingers into Yan's scant biceps. "Are you serious, Yan? When you say 'Sonya make her on fire'... is that, like, one of your Chinese sayings?"

Yan was shaking her head. "Not just saying, Ally. Bayo stay on your mat, wait for you. Sonya throw gas all over, make her on fire. Bayo die."

Ally's face turned red, almost incandescent with hatred and anguish. She unlimbered her rifle. "Where is that Russian cunt?" she breathed. "Where's Sonya? I'm gonna kill her! If it's the last thing I do, I'm gonna kill that fucking Russian whore."

Yan fought Ally into an embrace. "Ally! Ally! She already die. Pen... Sonya die in the riot."

Ally stood for a moment, weeping into Yan's shallow cleavage. She looked up, her eyes red, tear-snot dripping out of her nose. "Bayo! No! That poor little baby. I told you girls to look after each other."

"Please, Ally. It was dark. No one can see. Until Sonya make Bayo on fire."

Ally looked around, Swiping her nose. "What about Penny? The English girl. The girl with the scars?"

"Penny right here." Yan said, taking Ally's elbow, towing her in the direction of the mat in the corner. The low bundle Yan had been busy protecting was, in fact, a small female figure, curled up on her side under prison rags.

"This is Penny?" Ally whispered hoarsely, hand resting on the English girl's bony shoulder. "What's wrong with her?"

"Penny sick. No eat for too many days. She say she want to die. I am look after her."

Ally gave the English girl a gentle shake. "Penny? Penny, it's me. Alana. Can you hear me?"

Penny's eyes fluttered and barely opened. "Yannie?" she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Are you still here?"

"Pen!" Yan lay a hand on her arm, "Please to open your eye. Look who come."

Penny raised her head, straining under the gravity. Her bleary eyes took in the image in front of her, a dirty white girl with filthy, matted hair, in black fatigues ten times too big.

"Da fuck!" Ally breathed. "I thought I told you to eat your fuckin' greens."

Eyes like saucers, Penny just stared. Her mouth opened and closed, not uttering a sound, as if she'd just seen a ghost and was struggling to articulate her astonishment. "Ally?" she said, when she finally found her voice.

"What a fuckin' memory! Is it true? Have you been on some sort of hunger strike?"

Penny turned her head towards Yan without moving her eyes. "Yan? Am I hallucinating?"

Yan looked at her, frowning. "Shenme? What is the meaning?"

Ally took Penny's hand and placed it on her cheek. "Well I'll have what you're having if you are. Girls. Listen to me. We're getting the fuck out of here, all of us."

Light headed, Penny knitted her brows. "Getting..."

"The fuck out of here!" Ally confirmed. "Yan?"

"We can leave?"

"Only if we pull our fingers out." Ally said and Yan tilted her head. Ally rolled her eyes. "If we hurry. There's a special on. Bust one out, take six... take five for free. Yan. How long to round up the gang?"