Darren Craske - The equivoque principle

Smaller and far more nimble than his employer, Butter crawled on his hands and knees in the midst of the battle, amazingly untouched, letting the thrashing men around him consume each other. Every now and again he would leap to his feet and kick out when someone came near him. Even though Quaint's plan was working, the tide couldn't flow in his direction for ever. Butter was suddenly grabbed by his anorak's hood and dragged across the oily ground, as the pack of men split into two warring factions. This increased the overall area of the fighting space, and soon Butter was swallowed by the maelstrom of fists and feet.

Trying desperately to elbow his way over to his friend, Quaint clambered on men's shoulders as clamouring hands groped and scratched at him. A bald-headed man dressed in grease-stained overalls got lucky, and grabbed a handful of Quaint's grey-brown curls. The man yanked back with all his strength, and Quaint had no choice but to go with the flow, lest his hair be yanked from his scalp, and he kicked out with his heels against his aggressors as he was dragged onto the ground. As he felt an onset of feet kicking at him-striking his ribs, his legs, his chest-the metal pole was wrestled from Quaint's grasp, but he grabbed hold of one of his attackers, and managed to hoist himself back up onto his feet. Like a sledgehammer to the guts, Quaint landed a satisfying punch on a nearby attacker.

However, his sense of victory was short-lived as he noticed a flash of his Inuit companion's jet black hair, caught in a headlock by a huge grotesquery of a man. His immediate thought was to get to Butter as fast as he could-a thought suddenly marred by the appearance of a limp-haired youth barring his way.

'Come 'ere, you old bastard! You're dead!' he sneered, stabbing a dagger menacingly around him as he approached. 'Let's be 'avin' you then!'

Quaint slapped the youth with the back of his hand, and brought his knee swiftly up into the lad's groin. The young man collapsed onto the ground clutching his privates.

'That'll teach you to disrespect your elders,' quipped Quaint.

Suddenly, Quaint's blood ran cold as he heard an animalistic wail echo around the marketplace. With bizarre fascination, he watched as one by one, the men piled on top of Butter were thrown off as if grabbed by unseen hands, cast aside like toy soldiers. Men's screams littered the air. Pure, horrific, unfettered screams, and in the centre of the thrall, he saw Butter, his tusk-handled knife in his hand. An expression of malice was etched upon his wizened face, making him almost unrecognisable to Quaint. Again and again, the little man sliced around him with his blade like a warrior bred for battle. Blood spots decorated his cheeks and hands, and he was gaining the upper hand. But just as the tide seemed to turn in his direction, it was all over so quickly. Butter lost his grip on the melee as if was suddenly fighting in quicksand. One of the men moved around behind him, and grabbed at his flailing arms, receiving a nasty gash to his arm for his efforts. With Butter promptly restrained, he was soon obscured by a mass of bodies. Unfortunately for him, Quaint was so preoccupied with the sight that he quite forgot his own predicament.

He was suddenly grabbed around the neck by a large pair of mitten-like hands, and wrenched backwards off his feet. Quaint clawed at the thick arm around his neck as a heavy black shroud began to descend upon him. He was finding it hard to stay conscious. His attacker released him, and Quaint sank to his knees, all strength sapped from his body. He was surrounded instantly by at least four men, their blurred, elongated faces leering at him as if he were standing within his own circus's Hall of Mirrors.

'What…d-do you want from me?' he mumbled, wiping blood-spittle from his lips with his white cotton cuff. 'You…c-can't interrogate me…if I'm dead.'

'Who said we wanted to interrogate you?' asked one foe.

'You're goin' the same way as your mate over there,' agreed another.

Two men brusquely pushed through the pack of men with an unconscious Butter in their arms. They cast the Inuit's apparently lifeless body onto the cold, wet ground.

'What have you…done to him?' asked Quaint, staring at the sight disbelievingly.

Whether his assailants answered him or not, Quaint didn't hear. Unconsciousness climbed up his body, coiling its icy clinch around him, and his battered frame hit the wet, cold concrete ground with a sickening thud.

WITH NO IDEA how long he had been unconscious, Quaint was rudely awakened some time later by Butter slapping his cheeks, calling his name repeatedly. Immediately after the spark of life reignited Quaint's hazy mind, a multitude of questions jostled each other in an undulating swarm, all vying to be answered first. Where am I? Why is it so dark? Who were those men? Am I dead? No, I can't be…I'm in too much pain to be dead.

'Boss, please wake!' called Butter through the darkness.

'I'm here, Butter…I'm…awake,' said Quaint hoarsely, his eyes slowly opening.

'I am so pleased you are alive!' said Butter elatedly.

'As am I, my friend.'

Butter squeezed his hand tighter. 'How are you?'

'I've been better.'

'I am so sorry, boss; there were too many in number. They were victorious.'

'Yes,' said Quaint, rubbing at his ribs. 'I noticed that part.'

'I only woke myself a short while ago.'

'Where the hell are we?'

'I…I am unsure, boss. It is so dark.'

'And cold…it's blood-chillingly cold!' snapped Quaint, sitting up sharply. Immediately, he felt his body scream at him, and he clutched at his ribs. 'Guess…I shouldn't have got up so quick…Head's swishing around like a fish in a bowl…and speaking of fish! From the stench of it, I'd presume we're still in the market…in that large metal container we saw earlier. From the sound of the machinery, my guess was spot on. It's an industrial ice box…to freeze the fish solid, ready for transportation,' Quaint said weakly, rubbing at his bruised jaw, and trying to click his arm back into its socket. 'And us too, if we don't find a way to get out of here pretty damn quick. If those bastards out there didn't finish me off, there's no way I'm going to let a bloody ice box do it!'

In the pitch darkness, Quaint struggled to his feet, with Butter helping to support his weight. He limped over to the wall and traced his hands across it tentatively, searching the cold, glassy wet walls for the door. His fingers brushed against a stack of wooden crates, and his nose told him they contained a consignment of fish.

'If this ice box is used to keep the fish frozen, we don't have long until it starts to chill us too. An hour at the most, I'd guess…but then again, who knows how much air is in here. We might have been out of it for hours; we might only get twenty minutes. After the pasting I just received…I'm not exactly at my peak.' Quaint tousled his curls madly with both hands. 'Think, Cornelius! This is a machine. All machines work on the same principle-power in, function out. There must be an external cooling mechanism inlet somewhere, pumping in the vapours. If we can isolate that…maybe we can shut it down before we freeze to death. Then the hard part is getting out before we asphyxiate, because these industrial ice boxes are designed to be completely airtight -double-reinforced metal doors with rubber seals-which only serves to increase our peril.'

'A machine, boss? To make ice?' questioned Butter. 'How silly!'

'We British can't just step outside the front door and pick up a handful of snow to keep our food fresh, you know,' explained Quaint, flapping his arms about him, trying to keep warm. 'We have to improvise artificially…mechanically.'

'Do you think we can make breakdown of this ice machine?'