Stone Seeds Read Free Page B

wall. He feels disoriented.
    He doesn’t know what he is, what or who. For one long moment he’s not anything at all.
    It has taken less than three months in the dark to unravel Antek.
    He draws his arm across his forehead, wiping away the seam of sweat and filth gathered in his eyebrows. He sees the guard’s boots under the door again. And then he hears voices.
    â€œIs he fully erased?” First guard.
    â€œYes.” Says the second guard. “They did three reboots in a row. The Egg Boy is submissive now.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    Small pause. “Aye. They … We think we can control him.”
    Antek hears the sound of the door being unlocked. He’s pulled up to his feet.
    â€“––––
    The air is fetid in the stairwell. Antek feels the proximity of bodies in the cells beneath him, smell comes up through the steel grating under his feet. Somewhere in the dark, faces softly rise to gaze at his boot-soles. Blink, blink, as the light filters in. Whispers, soft sliding sounds. Then a long hiss, sshhhhhh. Antek doesn’t look down. The shuffling has the quality of bodies densely packed. Small sounds of chain-metal on damp stone tile. Then the scrape and clink as one prisoner strains against his portion of chain. Sound of gentle groans. And a hissed reproach, coming up through the grating.
    He knows the prisoners will assume he had bought his freedom by naming names.
    For a long strange moment, Antek can’t recall if he did.
    He looks down at his hands.
    Bound in a web of strong white tape.
    The guard on Antek’s left side lifts a knife and unwraps him. “You is trussed up like a critter on the general’s feast table, Antek.” Slow look. Antek looks away from him. Blinks.
    There’s a soft breeze from outside running down Antek’s face. Cools the dirt-sores a little. Back of his neck, where the iron collar once bit home and doesn’t now.
    There are two doors. Square of light around the exit, on Antek’s right side.
    Antek thinks how it would be to make it to the top of the staircase, half turn. Put his hand on the latch, just once. Feel the warm, rusting metal. He cannot imagine getting any further than that, but he has a sudden longing to hold on to the handle. To feel the wind blowing hot and sharp through the key-hole, the high pitched whistle of it round the hinges. Sunlight under the door.
    A hot pulse of air rattling the door in its hinges, makes the guard on Antek’s left side flinch and half raise his baton. Antek flicks his eyes toward him and then back to the door. Blank-eyed prisoner stare. ‘Six steps between here and the exit.’ Antek thinks. ‘Just three bounds.’ It might as well be a hundred. Antek glimpses the possibilities of making a bolt for freedom, then rejects them, one by one. Freezes there by the bottom step. “Go.” The guard on Antek’s left side. Soft hiss. Then a gentle push. “Come on, Antek. Go on home.”
    Shove from the right.
    It takes Antek a moment to understand the words. Then for his feet to reconnect with his mind. An upside whack to the head from the first guard, right side. Antek can’t tell if the guard used his baton or his fist. Pain is running down Antek’s right ear. He’s unsteady on his feet.
    The world moves soundless, strange around him.
    Blink and blink.
    Antek raises his shoulder. He presses it against the hurt ear. The sound comes back slowly.
    â€œGo.” The second guard says. Gripping Antek’s right elbow. Holds him up. Another impatient shove from his right side. And the voice on his left. Low voice. “Before they change their minds again, Antek.”
    Antek puts his foot on the first stair, pauses. He doesn’t know why. In a bit realises that he’s waiting to be stopped. Antek glances at the white-lit corridor behind him. He’s left black boot tracks down the tiles, like a child’s scribble.
    They had