Michael Sullivan - Hollow World

Ellis hesitated.

“I’ll tell you what,” Warren said in his old, barfly-friendly voice and clapped him on the back. “I’ve been working with Yal to build a still. We’ve made a few quarts of this awful moonshine from corn—you know it’s not just for fructose syrup anymore.” He winked. “Tastes like gasoline, but does the trick. What do you say the two of us go get loaded like that time when we snuck the Kool-Aid rum punch into the Bob Seger concert at Pine Knob. They don’t need me here. We can take a few bottles and hike up to the old Rouge River. I know a spot, a hill that looks down so that you can actually see old Detroit. The city ain’t there no more, but you can see where it used to be. You can see the Detroit River and a smidge of Canada where the Ambassador Bridge once was. We’ll get hammered on corn juice and remember the old days when we used to be rusted gears bound for the trash bin. C’mon, Dex has a book around here of pattern variations. It has pictures. We can pick out what we want our future brides to look like.”

Ellis felt boxed in. Warren was right—what could he do?

Fact is, people aren’t the same. You’re smarter than I am. I’m stronger than you are. These are facts.

Ellis couldn’t argue with facts. Warren had aged about a decade beyond Ellis, but he’d had work done too. Maybe a lot of work. With his broad chest, thick arms, and a neck the size of Ellis’s thigh, Warren looked like the football star he’d once been. And even if he could subdue him, Warren was right, Ellis was outnumbered. If they all joined forces, and there was no reason to think otherwise, they would overwhelm him easily.

You’re smarter than I am. These are facts.

“What do you say, Ellis?”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d prefer to drink alone,” he replied, feigning frustration and not having to act too hard. “You say Yal knows where this battery acid is?”

“Yep. Strong stuff. Don’t kill yourself. We just got done putting you back together.”

The distance between the Menlo Park complex and the Firestone Farm hadn’t changed, but the trip back took forever. Ellis jogged a lot of it and discovered Wat hadn’t been joking. He was hardly winded. He might actually be able to do a marathon if his leg muscles weren’t still fifty-eight years old.

Warren had him trapped. Maybe at one time there had been a dedicated portal booth back to Hollow World from the village, but just as cellphones had turned public phones into ugly, broken-down eyesores, the Port-a-Calls had made portal booths obsolete. Without a portal maker he couldn’t get back to Hollow World, and if he couldn’t get back, he couldn’t warn anyone.

There had to be a way to communicate, but Ellis hadn’t ever seen a Hollow World cellphone. Still, when he had first woke up on Pax’s bed, Alva had said she had contacted Pax, and that Pax had replied . So, communication was possible. Maybe the Port-a-Call was multifunctional like a smartphone. Any way he looked at it, Ellis had to get his hands on one.

Yal was still busy cooking, shoving new splits of wood into the burner through the top of the big iron stove. No one else in the kitchen—hopefully no one else in the house.

“Master Ellis.” Yal grinned at him.

Yal was wearing the standard nineteenth-century white-shirt, black-pants ensemble that everyone at the farm favored. Yal kept the top two buttons open, revealing a V of skin. Nothing else was visible, causing Ellis’s hopes to sink.

Peggy—who hated carrying a purse—always used to complain how women’s clothes never had any pockets. She constantly misplaced her keys and wallet. For a time she kept her license and credit cards in a little plastic pouch that she wore around her neck like a security badge. It worked until she lost that too. But in a world where clothes were optional, Ellis imagined Peggy’s onetime solution would be commonplace. Hal had worn Geo-24’s Port-a-Call that way…maybe a lot of them did.

“How’s dinner coming?” Ellis asked, clapping Yal on the back and leaving his hand on the cook’s shoulder near the neck. He pretended to give Yal a friendly rub while using his thumb to feel through the shirt for the bump of a chain or strap.

Nothing.

Pax always kept the Port-a-Call in a vest pocket. Maybe Yal did too.

How much does Yal know? Will he fight me or obey his master ?

Ellis spotted the cast-iron fry pan sitting idle on the sideboard. One solid hit with that and Ellis wouldn’t need to worry about winning Yal’s cooperation. How ironic that just a few minutes ago he was fuming about Rob beating Yal with a little stick.

Let’s call that plan B.

“Yal?”

“Yes, master?” Yal halted fueling the stove in order to give undivided attention.

Yal… the name finally triggered a memory from his first meal in Hollow World. “Yal…you’re a cook,” Ellis said stupidly.

“Yes, master.” Not surprisingly, Yal looked confused.

“No, no. I mean you were a real cook, before coming here, weren’t you? I ate…something called a minlatta—I think?”

“Minlatta with tarragon oil sauce,” Yal said. “That was one of the last patterns I designed.”

“It was wonderful—really wonderful.”

Yal tried but couldn’t suppress a smile. Ellis imagined Yal didn’t get much praise around the farm. “Thank you. That’s very kind. Cooking is a lot harder without a Maker.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ellis said. “I can boil potatoes, but I wouldn’t have a clue how to boil water with a Maker.”

Yal shrugged, but the smile was still there, and Ellis saw his chance. “Yal? Do you have a Port-a-Call?”

“Me? No. Master Ren collected them from all of us during the initiation ceremony.” Yal glanced down at the white bandages still on the stumps of his missing fingers. “It’s part of our commitment to the farm.”

“How do you leave then?”

“We don’t.”

“I’ve seen Pol and Dex leave.”

“Well, if Master Ren wants us to go do something, he provides us with a POC, but we have to give it back afterward. No one leaves without Master Ren’s permission. I think Pol is the only person who has one all the time. That’s because Pol is always jumping back and forth.”

“Where does Master Ren keep the devices he takes from everyone?”

Yal shrugged. “In his room maybe?”

Ellis abandoned Yal to his boiling pots and went up the farmhouse stairs. He found it easy to locate Warren’s room—it was the only one locked. He tried kicking the door like in the movies, but either modern-day doors weren’t built very well or they were all props because all Ellis got out of his kick was a sore foot. He might have broken a toe, but the pain wasn’t that bad.

He had to get through the door, find a Port-a-Call, figure out how to use it, and get back to Hollow World in time to find someone to ring the alarm and send in the cavalry. Somewhere in the shadowy corners of his mind were questions: What cavalry? What alarm? And who exactly could he get to ring it? One of the things Ellis liked about Hollow World was its lack of central authority—its lack of any authority at all. No one tells anyone else what to do, he remembered Pax saying, as if the very idea of giving or accepting orders was inconceivable. Now, however, that was a problem, but it was the next problem. Small steps , he reminded himself. He also remembered to slow his breathing to avoid hyperventilating.

He ran back down the steps, drawing a look from Yal, and spotted the fireplace poker. He picked it up and with a reassuring smile at Yal, he raced back up the stairs. Once again he thanked the ISP for his new and improved set of lungs, even though his leg muscles and injured toe were not so pleased.