The kitchen was empty and the door that should let her out of Dunheim was firmly closed. She knocked on it, wondering if Iris might hear her from the other side. After ten seconds she knocked again, and then a few seconds later just kept knocking until her knuckles were sore. She pressed her head against the door, listening intently, but there was only silence. She knocked with her other hand, just in case, but finally she had to make herself walk away.
Then she searched under her laptop, under the desk, checked the kitchen, the toilet and the other room, going through everything slowly and methodically even while her brain was screaming that she needed to find it, find it now! I can’t LEAVE without it! I have to find it! She noticed her hands were trembling when she had to move something, and her chest was tight with fear and dread. What if she couldn’t find it? Did Iris ever come looking for people, or were they just left in here forever? Was this some kind of trap? Maybe Iris wanted her left here; perhaps Iris had come in and taken the card back. Maybe Jenna had told her to?
For some reason thinking of Jenna calmed her thoughts a little. Obviously Iris wouldn’t have locked her in here and Jenna was her friend.
Well, she’d thought Jenna was a friend.
She took a step back from where she was obsessively examining the crack between the steel wall and the concrete floor in case the card had somehow gotten trapped there and looked back at the laptop. She could email Iris couldn’t she?
The wave of relief that washed over was dizzying and she actually swayed on her feet. She tried to make herself walk sedately but she hurried anyway, sitting down and quickly tapping out an email to Iris and hitting the send button. The email window disappeared and then her cursor changed from a little white arrow into a spinning colourful beachball. She frowned at it and waited. Ten agonisingly long seconds later a dialogue box popped up: Send failed.
She tried again, and again, but the mail refused to send each time. She pulled up Dave’s messaging window and tapped Hi? into that.
Hi came the immediate response.
Are you having any troubles sending emails? she messaged.
No. Why, are you?
Yes, I’m trying to send a message to the receptionist at Doorways; I’ve got a bit of a technical problem with the office she sent. Can you email her for me please? She added Iris’s email address and waited.
Hmm, did you type that right? It’s been bounced back saying it doesn’t exist.
Ashley’s stomach tightened into a knot. It had to exist, or where on earth was she?
Definitely right, she sent after checking it twice. Ok, I guess it’s a problem with their mail server then
Anything I can help with?
No, it’s fine, don’t worry
She stared at the screen, seeing the little thumbs-up emoticon appear from Dave’s side. It really wasn’t fine but there was no point getting Dave worried about it. She could worry just fine all by herself.
Her mind churned with thoughts about how she was going to get out of here and what would happen if she couldn’t. She felt frozen in place, her fingers motionless over the keyboard, and the lights seemed too bright and the room almost unreal. She made herself stretch her fingers out, but her hands didn’t look like hers anymore.
Someone came in, she thought suddenly, her agitation ceasing as she recalled the click of the door opening. But I didn’t hear them leave… maybe they’re still here, somewhere in Dunheim?
It was ridiculous, she was sure, but it felt like her only chance. She went back into the other room and made herself check all the windows, willing one of them to be open. The windows were double-glazed in steel frames; there was a faint white dust on most of the sills that hinted they were infrequently cleaned — and that no-one had touched them. Then, to her surprise and excitement, she realised that one of the windows wasn’t a window at all but a door. There was another recessed, mostly hidden, handle on the left-hand side and when she pressed on it it clicked and the door swung open. A breath of cold air washed over her, but it didn’t smell unpleasant. A clicking noise like the chirruping of mechanical crickets surged and then faded away again; soon she realised that this was a periodic, rhythmic sound like the steady breathing of robotic lungs.
Maybe this was the click I heard, she thought, ignoring how desperate that thought had to be. She stepped out, and then stepped straight back again. I don’t want to get locked out, she said to herself, but her stomach was still turning from the sight of the drop below. There was only a narrow rocky ledge out there and then a fall into lightless depths.
She looked around for something to wedge the door open and decided to go and get a chair from the other room. So long as no-one came in while she was out there and decided to close the door, she’d be fine. And she would just have to not get too far from the door.
She dragged the chair through, pushing open the door between rooms with her hip as the chair proved too heavy and unwieldy for her to just pick up and carry, so her back was to the door as she re-entered.
“Please don’t leave the door here open,” said a familiar-sounding voice. “The… um, denizens I suppose, of Dunheim can be a bit unfriendly. Think of this as being more like a safari park, would you? Look but don’t touch.”
Ashley dropped the chair and one leg narrowly missed impaling her foot. It clanged as she turned round.
“Iris!” she said and nearly sat down on the chair she’d been carrying; the sense of relief was overwhelming and threatened to turn her legs to jelly. “Oh thank goodness you’re here!”
“I’m not Iris,” said Iris. The red hair was identical and the face looked the same, but perhaps this Iris held herself a little differently. A touch more in-charge and less deferent.
“You look exactly like her,” said Ashley. A voice in the back of her head warned her she was being rude. “I mean that in a good way,” she said, and inwardly cringed at how lame that sounded. “I mean, I— I’m sorry. Can I start again?”
“I suppose so,” said not-Iris. She looked amused, which Ashley took to be a good thing.
“I lost my keycard,” she said. “And I needed to find Iris to try and get it back. And… well, if you’re not Iris you look a lot like her and you’re the first person I’ve seen in here today, and you seem to know what you’re doing and—“
“Enough!” Not-Iris held her hand up. “You lost your keycard? How?”
Ashley turned the chair around, sat down, and related her story of needing the toilet and hearing the click of a door. She was expecting sympathy, but not-Iris’s face gradually adjusted into a scowl.
“You were told not to leave the keycard unattended,” she snapped when Ashley’s word trailed off in the face of obvious disapproval. “And you still did!”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Ashley.
“Oh good,” said not-Iris, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “I wonder what horrors you’d unleash if you did mean to.”
“That’s a bit strong, isn’t it?”
Not-Iris shook her head. “Dunheim is home to some fairly unpleasant things,” she said. “Iris must have thought you were sensible enough to trust in here, and you go and do this.”
I didn’t mean to didn’t seem to carry much weight, so Ashley sought for something else to say. Only one thing seemed appropriate. “I’m sorry,” she said as sincerely as she could. “What can I do to make up for it?”
“Nothing, really,” said not-Iris. “Iris will have to sort it out. It’s her problem now. You should apologise to her, not me.”
Ashley opened her mouth and then closed it again. She wasn’t completely certain but it looked like not-Iris was pleased that she hadn’t spoken.
“But you can’t apologise if you can’t get back through the door.”
Ashley felt hope rising in her chest again. She held her tongue a little more.
“So I’ll go and sort you out with a new keycard. I’ll be half-an-hour or so. Maybe a little longer. Don’t go anywhere.” There was a flash of a smile. Then it vanished. “And don’t go letting anything else in.”
No comments:
Post a Comment