Children of the Pipes Chapter 2: The City of Scott

The Boy fought through the crudely imitated forest for hours upon unbearable hours, inhaling the billions of rust particles that swam about him with every breath. The labor became somewhat more bearable once The Boy made a point of refraining from habitually checking his watch.

After a while, he lost his sense of time in the absence of stimuli. Hours passed in a moment. He found himself returning from his inner musings only as he stumbled forward in the absence of the supportive pipes he had been feeling for. To confirm that the exhaustive trek had truly ended, The Boy allowed his flashlight a faint murmur of light and peered squinting into the darkness. Once The Boy had determined that the black that he inspected was empty, he took his compass from his left pocket. The Boy also produced a small, wrinkled map covered in gently curving lines.

After several minutes of carefully considering and comparing these two objects, The Boy, frustrated, forcibly stowed them. Navigating towards Scott by the compass system was childsplay due to the imposing generator constructed above the city that reliably drew the needle towards it. Despite this, it would still be possible to get himself lost; for even childsplay was often finicky and unreliable when speaking of underground navigation by way of the compass.

Knowing the unreliability of the practice, it was often difficult to convince oneself that the invisible path they had constructed wouldn’t lead them to their death in the unknowably vast wastes. The Boy, like most, was always burdened with this great anxiety of being lost and without hope in the frigid blindness. Being a frequent traveller though, he had learned to suppress it over time. Silencing his doubts, The Boy struck out (in what he estimated to be the correct direction) through the impersonal landscape.

The Boy was imaginative, and often fancied strange thoughts. He entertained one as he walked. What if the immense underground passages was the stomach of some great beast? Before he could toy any further with the idea, his mind was abruptly shifted into relevant thought by a distant pinprick of light.

This light, only a halo of a suggestion of a glow, was as instantly recognizable to The Boy as the roar of speeding cars would be to a lost hiker. The Boy was relieved beyond belief to see that distinct light, as this tell-tale sign of society always dispelled his gnawing paranoia. Increasing his pace, The Boy hurried towards the city of Scott.

Approaching a city was always the worst part of travel to an impatient soul such as The Boy. Since the light given off by a major city was visible for many miles, it often took hours to reach the source of the light once it became noticeable. The Boy’s characteristic impatience made this time unbearable. Sometimes he was most anxious during this portion of his travels, thinking that the universe would cruelly wait until he was within sight of his destination before dropping a piece of the ceiling or a group of cannibals upon him. Letting his eyes sink to the “earth” he tread on, The Boy occupied himself by flitting his flashlight to and fro until he reached Scott.

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It took several hours for the city of Scott to finally crest the horizon, but when it did it was immediately recognizable. Even from such a distance, The Boy could distinctly make out the form of the giant structure that towered over the city. It was a magnetic generator, perhaps the last to function in the world. Magnetic generators were used in the old days to generate huge amounts of electricity at the cost of little fuel. They emitted large amounts of magnetism, causing any nearby compass to point towards them and not the poles. Driven by the pioneering spirit, the city had formed around the generator, and once the small township had invested years and many resources into repairing the generator, it exploded into a city.

Scott was by far not the largest city in the Heat Belt, and being towards the end of the warm region that was optimal for growing mushrooms and other crops, relied heavily on imports from warmer cities like Thompson. What Scott had become though, was the optimal destination for those who seek a quiet, comfortable lifestyle. Scott’s main exports were everyday, domestic goods, but it wasn’t unheard of for an introverted master artist or genius scholar to set up shop in the small city.

The Boy pumped his legs with renewed vigor, dragging the city ever closer, spurred on by his excitement to discover what large sum was connected to the gizmo that buoyed gently in his pocket. Soon, his efforts carried him past the boundary that separated Scott from whatever nameless region lie beyond.

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To an outsider, the sight of an underground city would be remarkable. Wood and glass were almost entirely unavailable to the residents of the underworld, and were substituted by whatever material made up the surrounding space. Scott resided in a large, mostly flat area sculpted almost entirely out of smaller pipes about a foot wide or less in diameter. As such, the buildings that constituted the city were mostly constructed out of pipes. Whether they were glued together, welded together, or (more commonly) simply lashed together with wires, the unique workmanship and creativity that went into construction with such an unconventional set of materials would have been fascinating to any man of culture or science. This remarkability, being the norm for them, was lost on the residents of the city.

Because no proper civic planning had gone into the layout of the city, the roads seemed to flow around and past the lopsided establishments and homes in a seemingly random manner. There was only one uniform quality between the many winding paths, and that was that they all eventually found their way to the market at the center of the city.

Similarly to the other cities of the underworld, Scott had begun as a modest village, and gradually expanded from there. A key asset in the survival of any expanding village was it’s market, and so it was often one of the first buildings to be created. Since villages naturally expanded outward, archaically compacting structures onto an already crowded mass of buildings, the market would often become the center of a city. In some cases, the market’s central position would make it a focal point of the culture and economics of the city. Many desired a life nestled against the vitally pumping urban heart of the city, making market-view property intensely contested among the higher classes.

The Boy would head for the market, as it was usually a good place to start when searching for directions. From there, he would find someone willing to purchase the strange little device from him for large sums of money.

As he approached the market, The Boy thumbed the cylindrical device in his pocket. He pondered what he would buy when he sold the device. The Boy felt like breaking free of his usual rule for paydays: save a third for later, spend a third at the market, and gamble a third away that night. With such a large sum he should be able to live off a much smaller portion of it, and as such could afford to gamble away more of it.

The Boy knew that he was close to the market as the density of the people on the street began to increase. Towards the outer reaches of the city you would occasionally see someone leaving or entering their homes, but closer to the center there was much more general transit and commerce.

The people in the town, it should be said, were dressed rather eclectically. Some wore what would be considered “normal” clothes of the early 21st century (jeans, sweaters, etc.), and others wore leather jumpsuits more in the style of the late 21st century. The more eye-catching of the bunch, however, were the ones wearing clothes that had been modified or repaired after mankind had taken to the underground.

Sometimes clothing was made to be a hybrid between original and found articles, intentionally or through repair. The original garments from the surface were modified with machine parts that came from the surrounding area. A dress with nuts and washers sown around the collar, a jacket reinforced with dissected pipe, any article of clothing could be made to fit the style.

Very little clothing was made completely new. The people of the underground had no materials to fashion their own fabric out of, and mostly relied upon already made clothing found in underground storage. Usually these newly manufactured clothes manifested in the form of many plates fashioned together or interlocking pieces that resembled chainmail. It struck The Boy as looking more like armor than regular clothes, and he could not imagine that it was comfortable. Both of these factors contributed to the entirely metal coverings being reserved only for the very poor.

The rich were identifiable by their relative cleanliness and the complexity of their clothing, and even then to no great degree. No style was reserved exclusively for the rich, as it had not yet been decided which was more prestigious: the implied finite quantity of the unaltered pre-collapse clothing, or the display of local craftsmanship that was the modified clothing. Some even wore the entirely metal clothing, attempting to make a statement of some kind.

When The Boy finally arrived at the town centre, the noise was deafening. Densely packed stalls were advertised by enthusiastic owners. Busied browsers struggled to communicate, elevating the general noise level higher and higher in order to be heard. Colorful decorations contested for the customer’s attention, and if one let their mind wander, they’d find themselves thoughtlessly magnetized towards one of the fragrant food stalls.

The Boy was at first greatly excited by the dramatic change from utter silence to the roar of commerce, but as he grew accustomed to the commotion it quickly became more obnoxious than titillating. Shoving his way through the moist crowd, The Boy occasionally struggled to lift his head above that of others to see what wares were being bartered for. Being particularly short, The Boy often had difficulty with crowds.

He was terribly hungry, and once he had conquered the route to the nearest edibles vendor, he bought a large fried mushroom from a very small and greasy man.

“You know about anybody who’d be interested in some old electronics?” The Boy asked the greasy man in a brief moment between frantic bites.

“Like used junk or surface-times stuff?” the man queried as he drew a new item to fill the space on his display that the purchased item had left.

“Surface-times,” The Boy clarified.

“As a matter o’ fact, my brother-in-law’s into that useless crap. Here, lemme show you.” The greasy vendor leaned in closer to more effectively communicate the path to his brother-in-law’s residence, which he diagrammed on the metal counter with his finger.

The Boy left with a quick thank-you and a small tip for the man’s help, as was customary in the underground, a place where good directions could save your life. The Boy found a quiet, but very dusty corner of the marketplace. He finished his meal in peace before he made off towards his destination.

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The Boy enjoyed wandering through cities, as the varied structures and sights entertained the imagination. This particular pleasure had to be limited however, since city streets were often very dangerous. Even Scott, the safest of the underground cities, was such by a comparatively small margin.

Against their credit, most buildings weren’t much daring in design, but more so in execution. Many buildings were doomed by their amateur architects to fall quickly into instability, and the ways in which this was countered were often amusing. One in particular had quite visibly gone through dozens of repairs and reinforcements on the leaning side, causing that side to become swollen and lopsided over time. Another had fallen onto it’s side entirely, but life had continued as normal within it, albeit with slightly more difficulty.

The ingenuity of man when given limited resources was always spectacular, and in Scott in particular there was one massive example of this. It was the generator that soared over the city. Long ago the generator had been built of elegant plastics and alloys, reaching upwards into the illusion of a night sky. The people who had set out to repair it had no understanding of the original construction and only the basest of resources. Most generators found beneath the surface overloaded during the events that drove mankind below, melting their key components down into base elements and becoming a useless pile of rubble. The generator in Scott was an exception to this rule. Somehow, this one had survived with minimal damage to it’s inner workings. The Boy’s winding journey was beginning to lead him towards the colossus. The Boy stared skyward with admiration.

It was theorized that the automated systems had managed to partially shut it down during the catastrophe, protecting the more delicate parts of the machine. The repair had not been difficult, and for the most part those performing it had little to no idea what they were doing. The majority of the process had been procuring in-tact parts from other, ruined generators and mimicking their placement as precisely as possible.

The power that came from the generator roared down a colossal wire and to the base of the tower, where it forked into a multitude of smaller wires. These smaller wires were routed shallowly beneath the skin of the city, woven into the metallic earth through the small gaps and slots that it allowed, occasionally surfacing when the way beneath became impassible. These wires were diverted to run into homes, businesses, and wherever else electricity was wanted. The wires themselves maintained the voltages and intensities of the power flowing through them, and to install electricity you only needed to tether yourself to the nearest conduit.

The handling of the electricity had been made entirely safe if you used the appropriate materials, but often foolhardy individuals elected to forgo the process of finding the correct hardware. Instead they would use wires that had been partially sheared of their insulation or ones with strange, unknown mechanisms attached to them. These few quickly learned (or more likely their family and onlookers would learn) that electricity, a primal force of nature, is only to be wooed by those with the proper equipment.

The Boy enjoyed marveling at the immeasurable base powers of the world, and electricity was chief among them. He likened the faint buzz of high-energy cables to the snores of a sleeping giant, immensely mighty, yet somehow comfortingly docile. Several times during previous visits The Boy had climbed up to an operating station that clung to the generator about halfway up (the original control room had been moved, as working conditions beside the damaged reactor were precarious) to speak with the operators and admire the machinery.

With no enforced safety regulations to speak of, The Boy had been allowed to wander around the facility, occasionally being scolded when he interrupted or obstructed someone’s work. He recalled a particularly interesting conversation with one of the operators about the sheer power of the generator. After trying and failing to use many elaborate terms and explanations, the technician simplified his report.

“The generator can make so much power,” he had said, “That even if you attached a million cities just like Scott to it, it would still have enough electricity. It’s like hitching a toy wagon to a car.”

The Boy was now directly beneath the large generator, it’s throbbing hum permeating the air, perpetually rattling all matter that approached it. The Boy rounded the final turn of his adventure, stopped, and recalled the man’s instructions. It wasn’t difficult to spot the house that the food vendor had described, it was, after all, very unique.

One of the largest cables that ran from the generator hung, and came to earth, at the site of the building. The cable itself was approximately 4-5 meters in diameter, coated in black rubber, and was evidently immensely weighty. The building was built around it, and was cone shaped, in order to keep the monumental mass anchored in place. Were the cable free-hanging, and had an earthquake provoked it to swing wildly, it would cause untold destruction. The building was also where the large, high-powered wire that hung from the generator was adapted into smaller, more manageable wires that spilled out of the side of the place. The wires that splayed out of the side of the house and burrowed into the ground towards their destinations, making them appear as the roots of a very strange tree.

The Boy approached the building, and as he did electrical buzzing from within joined the throbbing of the generator to form a symphony of humming. He knocked on the door and took a few steps back. Out of learned habit The Boy would never stand directly before a door after he had made his presence known; it was common for a knock to be replied to with a succinct knifing or blow from within. He waited a few moments, then stepped forward again and knocked rigorously, stepping back again. A somewhat large man answered the door this time, his eyes flitting about behind grimy lenses and a pencil stuck in the crevice of his ear.

“What do you want?” he asked brusquely.

“I’m here to sell-” the man turned away from The Boy, slamming the door shut. “Hey! Hey, listen to me!” The Boy hammered on the door, “I’ve got some surface electronics and I was told you’d be interested!” The man, breaking the impression that he had already left the entryway, opened the door once more.

“Show it to me,” the man said. He motioned with his hand as The Boy fumbled with the device, “Come on, come on.” When The Boy finally did produce the artifact, he grabbed The Boy’s hand that held it and leaned in closer for a better view. After a brief lookover of the device, it’s glow nearly invisible in the bright lights of the city, the bespectacled man released his grip on The Boy’s hand and pushed his lenses back into place. “Come in,” he said, turning and walking into the building.

When they entered the place The Boy saw a kitchen piled with many dishes and a living room with a rocking chair and a single table. The building was evidently the man’s residence, and The Boy presumed that he was kept there to maintain 24/7 surveillance on the machinery that transmuted the power from the generator. The man was busying himself with a teapot on a portable electric stove on the kitchen counter. The Boy guessed that he wanted to make the exchange seem more dignified by offering him tea or coffee at some point down the line.

“So, how much do you want for it?” the man said as he flicked the stove on.

“50 dollars,” The Boy said. The Boy bit his bottom lip, erecting his most pristine facade of calmness. 50 International Dollars was a large sum (For reference, it was enough to buy 2,500 of the fried mushrooms that The Boy had recently enjoyed), but it was only an arbitrary number. The man had the upper hand in this negotiation, as The Boy had little to no idea what his goods were worth.

“Hmmmmm,” the large man said out loud.

“150,” The Boy adjusted. The man was not a good bluffer, his melodramatic pondering was in an effort to convince The Boy that his offer was within the outer reaches of reason. The abrupt shift in the large man’s expression told The Boy that his intuition had been correct. The man paused to think again, but this time it was genuine.

“That’s all I can afford, no more.” The man met The Boys gaze and they both acknowledged that a deal had been arrived at. The man extended a hand towards The Boy, expecting the object of their transaction.

The Boy stepped away from the man, “No, not until I see my money, and in quarters, not dollars.” The large man motioned for The Boy to follow him, which he did reluctantly. 150 was a huge amount, and far more than enough for some to consider killing rather than paying it. The Boy hadn’t detected any indicators that the man whose house he was in was violent, but The Boy found it difficult to believe in the good nature of the common man when in the balance hung enough money to feed a family for years.

The ever-so-slightly grimy collector drew The Boy up a flight of stairs and into a cramped office. The colossal cable ran through the room opposite to the door, and a seat for visitors was placed against it. The desk was immediately to the right of the door as they entered. The Boy navigated around piles of equipment that cluttered the room towards the chair facing the desk, and the collector slid into his desk. The collector sighed as he leaned backwards in his chair.

“Ok kid, I’ve got a deal for you. Since neither of us wants to hand over our goods until the other does, how about I give you 10 bucks? Yours to keep, even if I don’t buy what you’re selling.” The Boy immediately and quite rudely extended an expectant hand to endorse this idea.

The collector sat up from his chair and pushed it backwards (for a chair to slide easily was a non-reality in a world where floors consisted of many trenches between stitched parts) in order to access a cabinet. From this cabinet he procured a bag of coins. He handed the coins over to The Boy. Once he had counted them and determined the value to be correct, The Boy proceeded to uphold his part of the exchange.

The collector, once he received it, examined the details of the cylindrical object finely. He was clearly determined to let no aspect of the thing escape him.

“You know kid, if this is the real deal, it’d be real great luck that you showed up when you did.” The man halted in his examination to peer at The Boy from across the desk rather intently. Unnerved by the plump man’s shift in demeanor, The Boy hurried to continue the conversation.

“What’s it for?” he asked. The Boy was only speaking to avoid a silence, though a quiver of genuine curiosity was present in his tone.

The man across the table’s expression changed slightly at the sound of The Boy’s curiosity. He could tell that it was genuine and it resonated with him. “An important project of mine,” the man said, shifting in his seat and placing the object onto his desk. His eyes were now firing their strange energy directly into The Boy’s. “Tell me,” he asked quietly, “Would you mind keeping a secret?” The Boy was now firmly discomforted. Even so, he managed a mumbled acknowledgement in a tone some degrees quieter than the collector’s. “It’s a map.”

The collector gently twisted the ends of the cylinder in opposite directions. The spiraling bands that ran down the tube came apart along their glowing seams as the man bent the metal open. The Boy reached out to prevent the lunatic from destroying his valuable property, but stopped short when he discovered the contents of the tube.

The cylinder was designed to be twisted open. It was revealed that within the tube intertwining strands of light flowed from one end of the cylinder to the other. The bands of wavy glow went undisturbed by their exposure until the mechanism reached it’s apex. Once the collector had finished the rather graceful opening of the device, a rectangle formed within the beam of light. Numbers and figures flitted across the face of the shape, denoting conditions in nomenclature unknown to The Boy. Eyes full of amazement, The Boy looked up into the amused expression of the collector.

“How’s it a map?” The Boy asked the collector.

“Here, I think you’ll understand this better.” The collector clicked in one end of the tube, revealing it to be a button. The rectangle shifted, wavered, shrunk back into the beam, and emerged again bearing an image more recognizable as a map. After another few moments of wondrous gazing, The Boy returned his attention to the collector.

“What kind of map is it?” The Boy asked earnestly.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have time to answer all your questions,” the collector said as he quickly closed the device. “Here’s your money. You can leave now, but I’d invite you to watch this next part, if it works this time.” The man, finding stashed bills in an unseen compartment underneath the desk, tossed them to The Boy and left the room. The Boy paused before following him.

It seemed likely that this was some form of elaborate trick, but he really wanted to know what was going on here. This conflict was a common one for The Boy and an elemental component of his character; a tug-of-war between his natural curiosity and his learned cautiousness.

The Boy pocketed his payment and followed the collector. As The Boy left the office, he caught sight of the collector rounding a corner at the far end of the hallway. The Boy strode swiftly down the corridor in pursuit, side-stepping a pile of stray mechanical pieces that obstructed the path.

The man was out of sight when The Boy entered the next portion of the hallway, but a gently shivering door betrayed the collector’s whereabouts. The Boy entered this room to witness the greasy man already spreading his attention across a patchworked, jumbled assortment of knobs and switches installed into a desk.

“Sit down,” he said, pardoning a hand from it’s labor to lazily wag his visitor into a chair that had been swept from the desk to accommodate The Boy. The Boy, now content to be an observer, dutifully seated himself. He quietly waited for the collector to finish his meticulous work. The Boy had been reduced from his earlier position as a negotiator to the place of an observing child (though the collector’s patronizing attitude wasn’t exclusive to the latter) in a matter of minutes.

After a moment of patience, the collector stepped back from his controls and placed his hands on his hips, quite pleased with what he had done. After his moment of celebration, he returned again to his work in an effort to assure himself that he had indeed followed the correct procedures. The man turned to The Boy, offering a sheepish smile. “Here goes,” he said as he placed a finger on a conspicuously red lever. After a moment of inconceivable suspense, he flicked his finger downward.

The building shuddered. The hanging lamp that illuminated the room, now swaying gently, fluttered, then extinguished. The noise of straining and popping electrical equipment dominated the ear as sparks flew from the control panel. As suddenly as the commotion had burst into existence, it faded away.

The Boy and the man stood still, listening for any hints of the resumption of the cacophony. No indications of the kind came, and the duo would have proceeded to engage once more had the unexpected not occurred.

From downstairs, a clang of metal was heard, immediately proceded by the instinctually recognizable quick patter of footsteps.

“Shit!” the man exclaimed as he fled the room. The Boy soon followed suit.

The man dashed into the room opposite, but The Boy, unfamiliar with the residence, knew not what the man had in mind, and decided to seek another hiding place. The Boy danced nervously on the tips of his toes as he searched his understanding of the place for a fit spot. An image of the wedge-shaped office came forth, and The Boy thought of the tight space behind the large wire.

The Boy sprinted to the room, contorting as he hopped about the stacks of paper and into the spot he had visualized. As he squeezed into position, a parade of unspoken curses drove past his mind’s eye. He was only just barely hidden by the cable so that a search to any degree of carefulness would expose him handily. He heard a commotion in the hallway as he finished settling himself, and perceived from the racket that multiple invaders were present.

The Boy closed his eyes and tried to relax as the unseen dangers stampeded down the hall, fearful that his frantic breathing would give him away. He was distinctly aware of the smell that emanated from the huge wire that he pressed against; a chemical and bitter smell that made his mouth taste sour. His heart pounded in his chest as he experienced and electric mixture of dread and excitement.

Down the hall, The Boy heard the a door smash open, intensifying his fear. He also began to wonder if the heating he felt was his perception or the wire he pressed against.

One by one, the rooms were violently opened and searched, gradually growing nearer and nearer. It was now quite clear that the heat was not of his imagination; as he pressed against it, the immovable cable was growing warmer and warmer.

He listened intently. The intruders, who were methodically working their way down the hallway, were quite near now. He heard another door slamming open, quite close this time. It was difficult to tell, but the fugitive guessed it to be the room adjacent to his or the one after that. Now sweating from both the radiating cable and the stress of the situation, The Boy poured his focus into maintaining as still as was possible.

The opening of the door startled The Boy, despite his mental preparations. Two sets of booted feet entered the room. They seemed to have slowed the pace of their search considerably; realizing that they’d have to conduct a thorough search of the premises. The Boy’s breaths became shorter and shallower, and his heart began to throb more powerfully. From the orderly manner of their search, The Boy felt safe in assuming that these men were armed and organized. Should he be discovered, their overwhelming numbers would easily crush him and any escape to be conducted in the winding, narrow corridors. He swallowed nervously and accepted the fact that he simply could not be found.

Many papers loudly fluttered through the air as the burglars callously trundled through the piles of documents that littered the room. From this noise, he could tell that they were gradually working their way towards the corner of the room that The Boy resided in, examining the tightly packed bookcases and desk as they went. Dread overtook The Boy and he suppressed the urge to bolt.

The cable’s intense heat was becoming unbearable, and it took the remaining portion of The Boy’s focus to not cry out or pull himself from the wire. He bit his lip and pulled in his stomach to minimize his contact with the source of his misery. He was waiting for a miracle.

The men came closer and closer, and The Boy could feel his own mortality. Would this be the room he died in? The Boy, though he often coerced himself to avoid the subject, thought of what would happen once he died. He had never involved himself in religion past admiring the elaborate churches, so he knew little about any potential afterlifes.

Recalling some snippets he had gleaned through the years, The Boy knew that eternal torment and being reborn as an insect were both possibilities; both not very desirable in his mind. Filled with terror and faced with a death that he saw no escape in, he lamented his disinterest in anything spiritual. As the soldiers finished their approach, The Boy prepared himself for a short, violent scuffle succeeded by eternal void.

The Boy had wedged himself between the wall and the cable on the side where the space was tightest, thinking himself more secure for it. From this position, The Boy could see the shadow of one of the men. Obvious in this shadow was the outline of his armament: a rifle of middling size. The Boy’s heartbeat lurched as the highlighted figure extended a hand towards him.

“Gah!” it cried, dancing back from the scorching touch of the wire. “It’s hot!” he explained to the other man. The other man, testing the other’s claim, also touched the wire.

“DAMN!” he exclaimed loudly.

“Nobody’d be back there,” one of them said.

“He said to search everywhere,” the other replied. One of them sighed, accepting his task.

“Ok, I’ll go round the other side. You move onto the next room, I’ll be there in a minute.” The Boy heard hastened footsteps and the departing intruder closing the door behind himself. He was in great pain now, but he would have to tolerate it for another few moments. He had an idea. Relief washed over him as he realized that immediate death was no longer a certainty.

The Boy heard a shuffling as the man dropped his equipment and began to inch himself into the crevice. The Boy slowly and quietly worked his way towards the mouth that the soldier had not entered. Once he was nearly out, he stopped. The Boy waited several long, painful seconds as his skin quietly scalded against the boiling rubber, imagining the delightfully cool air he would feel on his skin in just a moment. Then he made his break.

He bolted forward, choosing his steps carefully. He opened the door delicately, and ran down the hall on the balls of his feet. He lacked any defenses, and at any time an armed stranger could round the corner and execute him with impunity. When he reached the living room, he stopped for a moment. Outside, he heard many footsteps rapidly approaching. His fears converging, he searched the room frantically, placing hand on every object he passed as if to index it.

He flung himself into a crevice behind a small table he had found in the corner opposite the door. Compacting himself, he pulled in his arms and legs until it was painful. He entered again the fearful struggle to maintain as quiet as possible.

It was only moments after he had concealed himself that a new party of men burst into the dwelling. They dragged between them the collector, who in turn dragged his feet behind him. They took him to the kitchen, and threw him against the oven with malignant force. Many of the soldiers wore torn, but otherwise civilian garments, but a single, ornamentally uniformed man strode forward. He donned the unmistakable uniform of a Reconstruction Effort officer.

“I charge you with the concealment of valuable resources from the Reconstruction Effort,” he spoke loudly, “Your failure to cooperate and attempted escape through the back window serve as proof of your criminal nature.” The officer spoke coldly, but not in the manner of a sociopath. He spoke in the monotone way one would address an incompetent coworker while in the presence of a superior. The officer drew a small pistol. “The punishment for these crimes is death.” The collector struggled against the men who held him desperately, but was put still by a loud pop.

The two men hoisted the body to the other side of the kitchen, where it’s mass slammed against the base of the counter. A jet of gore came a good distance towards The Boy. The officer, dismissing any importance to the murder, forgot the collector and paced quickly to the stairwell.

The officer leaned his head back and directed his voice to the soldiers still upstairs, “Come on boys, we’ve attracted enough attention for one day, the old moron hasn’t got anything worth hauling back anyway.” Soon after, many men filed down the stairs and into the living room. The Boy had limited vision of the room, but he would have estimated that there were 11 to 14 of them not including the officer. This dozen or so was far too many for the small space, and The Boy shrunk back as one of the soldiers sat down on a nearby couch. The officer paced over to the doorway and pulled it open forcefully.

“All right! Out! Out! Out!” he yelled to the amassed men, swinging his arm in a windmill motion to usher them out of the house. As the men navigated their way out of the place, one passed by the table possessed by The Boy. He placed down a hand to balance himself as he passed, causing The Boy’s entire body to tense up. Had he so much as glanced down, he could not have missed the terrified visage of The Boy.

One by one, the soldiers filed out of the house. When all but he had exited, the officer stood, looking in the doorway and biting his grimy thumb. “Damn,” he muttered, “I guess there’s no promotion for me.” He turned, closing the door behind him.

The Boy, when he had finally mustered the courage to leave his hiding place, surveyed the destruction before him. In the far corner of the room, The Boy could see the drooping mass of the collector resting against the kitchen counter, releasing the penetrating odor of wet flesh. The RE had departed, leaving the residence in a stillness that contrasted greatly with the the yelling and clamor that the visitors had brought with them, and the mechanical commotion before that. The Boy stood still for a while, not quite sure what to do. The whistle of the forgotten teapot pierced the suspended moment.