Down in the Underworld

Chapter 22 - The house that Cal built

Cal resided in the large house in the North dome. It had once been a three masted tall ship, but somehow he’d managed to drag it into Royale and mount it on strange curved scaffolding. The ships masts had long since been removed, and the ship itself was now used as the foundation for the geometrically incorrect house that rose out of the ship’s old bones. Lady knew the house well. After all she had lived there for a time, but not even she knew all its secrets. Aside from being difficult on the eyes, the house was also heavily fortified. Perhaps it was Cal’s natural paranoia at work, but generally speaking, if you’re the Mayor, Lord and Commander of a pirate outpost sooner or later someone is going to make a play for your shit. To date Cal had been lucky that such hostile takeover bids had been low key and easily shut down.

As Lady led everyone on through the back streets, the worst of the destruction seemed to be masked here. Occasionally she thought she saw eyes watching her, peeking out from behind closed curtains or through a crack in a door. The feeling was eerie.  The fear palpable. But at least it looked like their might be survivors who could rebuild the city. Trudging on, and trying not to let the desolation get to them, Lady, Fury and their crew eventually arrives at the gates that led to Cal’s house. They were clearly locked shut, and as they got closer, the ominous black barrels of the turret guns mounted at regular intervals around the perimeter turned slowly to point at them. As they all looked up at the house now, it seemed OK. There was a little damage here and there but overall it looked to be in pretty good shape. For a moment they were hopeful. Taking a deep breath, Lady looked back at her friends.

‘What do you think?’ asked Cato.

‘I’ll try the intercom,’ Lady suggested, stepping up to the gate and pressing down on a small white button, ‘Cal? Cal are you there? It’s Lady!’ she called out.  

Then she waited. They all did. Standing awkwardly, shuffling their feet and waiting for an answer. Feeling slightly foolish as everyone did when they waited for someone to answer the door and perhaps weren’t sure they had the right address. After a few seconds Lady tried the intercom again, and this time she got a response.

‘Lady?’ came the weak voice of Cal over the speaker, ‘can you let yourself in? The code is still the same.’

‘Of course, are you hurt bad? You sound terrible,’ Lady replied, but her question was met with the slight crackle of the speaker, and then silence.

Lady frowned. This whole situation really sucked. Lifting her hand to the screen next to the intercom she typed in the code from memory, and watched as the gates immediately cranked open. With a scrape of metal on metal, they spread wide enough to let the crew in, while the guns above continued to follow them as they walked forward into the property. Keeping close together, everyone followed Lady as she made her way up a short path towards a spiral stair case. As they went they noticed signs of a light skirmish. Laser burns marked the walls, while here and there small chunks of masonry had been blown away. Heading into the belly of the ship that supported the remaining house structure, Lady hurries them all through the labyrinth of hallways, calling out to Cal as she went.

Passing numerous rooms, she was heartened to see there were more survivors who had managed to seek refuge inside Cal’s fortress. Some of the townsfolk had even set up temporary hospital rooms, and inside medics were busy treating the wounded and terrified alike. They nodded to her small party as they past, most of them knew Lady from her time at Royale, while the others were too focused on the horror at hand to question these newcomers.

Eventually Lady began to get frustrated. They’d been through 3 floors and it felt like most of the house io Cal wasn’t in any of the places she’d expected him to be at all. Not his panic room, office, boudoir, the library or the bar room. Where could he be? Slowing down finally, she charged into the next room where she recognised someone and asked them where Cal could be. The answer was not good. No one knew. But he had to be somewhere right? after all it was he who had told her to put the code in for the gate. Lady was getting worried.

Stopping in her tracks she turned to her crew and suggested they split up and look for him. Then reaching into a small bag hanging over her shoulder, she grabbed a handful of what looked like small black watches, and handed them out to everyone. They were portable commlinks, so they could keep in touch. 

‘Put these on,’ she ordered, ‘and if you find Cal tell me where you are, and we’ll come find you, OK?’

‘Yes Commander,’ they replied in unison.

‘Does everyone know how to use them?’ 

They all nodded solemnly.  

‘I have a feeling he’s in real trouble so be thorough, but be fast.’

‘Sure thing, and don’t worry, we’ll find him,’ Fury reassured her before taking Phoenix and Hera and running off back the way they had come.

‘Isn’t he going the wrong way?’ asked Deadeye.

‘No, you can get to the East Wing of the house that way, now Deadeye you’re with me, Cato you take Fizz, do you know where you need to go?’

‘We’ll figure it out,’ said Fizz. 

‘Take those stairs there, and when you reach the top turn right, that’ll take you to the upper floors and then the roof.’

‘Got it boss, come on Fizz,’ said Cato and together they took off at a run.

‘Now we go this way,’ said Lady and they kept on towards the rear of the house.

‘What is even back here?’ asked Deadeye, ‘it feels like we’ve been all over the main parts of this crazy house.’

‘Yeah, well she’s still got some secrets behind her walls, even I don’t know where everything is, Cal built this place like that Winchester broad, there’s hidden passages and secret rooms, staircases to nowhere … all sorts of stuff,’ Lady explained.

‘And Cal could be anywhere?’

‘Yeah, and I think he’s hurt bad, he didn’t sound good.’

‘Well, by the hand of Bowie we’ll find him.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence Deadeye.’

‘Gotta stay positive right, now where too?’ he asked.

Lady closed her eyes and tried to remember the layout of the house as she knew it. Where they used to hang out most, the rooms Cal liked best. Then she had it. The conservatory. He had to be there. It looked like the most fragile part of the house, with its glass roof and walls, but they were built from the same stuff as the dome. A nuclear blast wouldn’t get through it. Plus, you could only find the entrance if you knew where it was. Behind an armoured bookcase. He had to be there. It’s where he would feel safest, especially if he was injured. He would also have had access to the intercom from there.  

‘I think I know where he is,’ Lady murmured, opening his eyes and tapping Deadeye on the arm, ‘come on!’

Together they raced through the house, thundering along the wooden hallways, until finally they reached the bookcase. They were close enough to touch it, but Lady knew what was coming next. Grabbing Deadeye, she pulled him down to the floor with an undignified jerk as the spines of several books opened and shot poison spikes at them, just like Indiana Jones had faced in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Back in the day, they’d both had a thing for Harrison Ford, though Lady had always wondered why Cal modelled himself after Lando Calrissian. There wasn’t time to dissect that now however as Lady reached up from their position on the floor and pulling down one of the books revealed a small screen. Tapping in another code, she waited for the spines of the books above them to close again before she heard the latch of the door click and she was able to push the door open. The chill of the room hit her like a slap in the face. It shouldn’t have been freezing in there. What was going on?

‘Damn that is cold!’ exclaimed Deadeye, stating the obvious.

‘This room is not meant to be refrigerated, if Cal is in here then ….’ Lady trailed off, ‘you got your gun?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, be ready to use it, I don’t like this,’ said Lady pulling out her own gun and holding it up near her head, movie-style.

Each of them had a Meg-54 hand gun. They were pretty much standard equipment in the Underworld. They fired a high intensity laser bolt, which could be set to kill, stun or destroy. They could also be customised, and any Underworlder with their salt had spent a good deal of time making the Meg their own.  

Pushing the door open wider, Lady led the way as she stepped inside the conservatory. The windows had misted over from the cold inside, and the pot plants looked like they were struggling in the frosty air. Moving to her right along the wall, Lady looked from side to side, her eyes wide open, taking in everything, while her pulse raced with adrenalin. Somewhere off to her left she heard a tiny click and jumped out of the way wildly as a laser blast hit the wall next to where her head had been only a second before. Dropping back down to the floor, Lady looked over at Deadeye in alarm, but he was fine, just pissed off.

‘For fucks sake!’ he hissed under his breath.

‘I know right,’ Lady agreed, before hazarding a guess at who was firing at them, calling out above the roar of the silence, ‘Cal it’s me, Lady! Hold your fire!’

More silence followed, before a low moan came from the direction on the blast.

‘Cal! I’m coming over, don’t shoot us, you crazy son of a bitch!’

‘Should we call the others? I reckon we’ll need Hera’s help here,’ said Deadeye, grabbing Lady’s arm before she sprinted off.

‘Good one, you go back out into the hall and call them, leave Cal to me,’ ordered Lady, staring at Deadeye intently.

‘But don’t you need me?’ asked Deadeye sceptically.

‘I’ll move faster on my own,’ Lady said sagely, before nodding at Deadeye and moving out towards the low groaning sound.

As Deadeye turned back towards the door, Lady set off in a crouched run towards the back of the conservatory. It was still freezing. What had Cal done in here? Searching frantically among the plants and furniture, she eventually found him, but something was very wrong. He was sitting in an awkward position, leaning against a tall stone sculpture, his head lifted up as though someone had him in a choke hold. A dark blood stain had spread out across the right side of his chest, and he was deathly pale. He’d lost too much blood. 

‘Cal, it’s OK,’ Lady approached him slowly, her intuition zapping her like an electric current, ‘we’ve got a medic coming, you’re going to be all right.’

At hearing her voice Cal’s eye’s flew open and he looked at her in wide-eyed panic. Just as he mouthed the word ‘ghost’ at her, she heard the tiny click again and managed to roll her body out of the way of the blast.

‘Damn it all to hell,’ she whispered, but then she saw it. A slight ripple in the air. So their ghost was here and had Cal hostage.

‘Let him go,’ Lady growled at the ghost, ‘and perhaps I won’t kill ….’ but before she could finish her sentence another shot was fired.

This time Lady wasn’t so lucky and the blast grazed her shoulder. Screaming out in pain Lady fell to the ground and rolled behind statue. Breathing deeply, she didn’t know what to do. The thing had Cal held pretty firm, she wouldn’t be able to shoot it without possible killing Cal as well.

‘You’ll pay for that! I love this jacket!’ Lady screamed in a rage as she gritted her teeth against the pain emanating from her wounded shoulder.

‘Lady, just leave me,’ Cal managed to whisper.

‘Not on your life!’ Lady called back, as she tried to look around the base of the statue and see where Cal was now.

Her movement was greeted by another blast. Then she heard it. Faintly behind her. The sound of footsteps. Her friends were coming, but they didn’t know the danger they were in. Stabbing at the commlink on her wrist she hissed a warning to Fury and her crew. But it was too late, they were already on their way over to her. Jumping up suddenly, she saw Cal being pulled away towards the far corner. The ghost knew it was outnumbered, and that is was high time it was leaving. Lady knew she only had one chance. Taking a deep breath, she let her whole body relax as she looked for the tell-tale ripple of the ghost’s body against reality. Taking aim while it was momentarily distracted she fired. In less than a second, the shot hit home, and the ghost screeched in agony. The sound was terrible. Lady shivered involuntarily at the noise. The ghost knew it was either drop Cal and make a run for it or possibly get hit worse. It was an easy decision, and as Cal fell to the cold floor, the barely perceptible ripple of the ghost’s body could be made out as it fled around the perimeter of the room, past Fury and the other crew, towards the door.

‘Cal! I’m coming over, is that thing gone?’ Lady called out. 

‘Yes, I think it ran off,’ replied Cal weakly, as Lady raced to his side.

Dropping to her knees, she felt the hard stone floor offering up its bruises. Pushing aside her own pain, she frantically began checking his body for wounds. Thankfully it looked worse than it was, but he was still badly injured and he’d lost a lot of blood. Pulling a med-pack from her satchel she dressed his wounds to stop the continuing ooze of blood running from each one. Moments later Fury and the others joined them.

‘Hera, can you see to Cal?’ asked Lady looking up at them, and now covered in a fair amount of blood herself.

‘What happened to you!?’ demanded Fury, though it was obvious to everyone that he was worried, not angry.

‘That ghost, well I think it was the same one, tried to kill Cal, and shot me … but it got away,’ Lady explained as slowly she got to her feet.

‘Are you hurt bad?’ asked Fury. 

‘Nah, just a graze,’ said Lady brushing off the wound.

‘It looks pretty bad …’ Fury said sceptically.

‘It’s nothing, I’m fine,’ Lady insisted pointedly. She didn’t want anyone to fuss over her.

‘I don’t know what I would have done if …’ Fury said quietly, stepping forward suddenly and pulling her into a hug, careful not to touch her shoulder.

Frowning awkwardly, Lady looked up at Fury as he pushed himself gently away from her. Running his hand down the side of her face, and for the moment forgetting where he as, he kissed her, taking her by surprise. She may have hesitated, just for a second, but then Lady kissed him back. It felt so right and for a moment the world fell away around them and nothing else really mattered.  

‘Hey, it’s all good guy,’ she said, blushing hard, as their first kiss finally ended.  

‘Can we focus up here please?’ asked Hera, but she was smiling as she checked Cal over, ‘OK, so obviously a few holes and some blood loss, so let’s get him to one of those makeshift hospital rooms pronto so I can address these wounds properly, I saw a couple back there that had some decent equipment, one of those will do.’

‘And our boss lady here?’ asked Deadeye.

‘Gimme a look at you,’ said Hera standing up and moving over to Lady, ‘yep just a graze, might need a few stitches, but this stuff should stop the bleeding … sorry but this is going to sting a bit,’ added Hera moving quickly and placing a few drops of a clear liquid in Lady’s wound before she could protest.

‘Muthafucker!’ Lady snapped as the liquid touched her flesh, ‘that is one nasty solution.’

‘I did warn you,’ Hera smiled again, ‘now let’s get Cal downstairs, Deadeye and Fury can you help us out here?’

‘No worries.’

‘Why is this room so damn cold?’ asked Fury, as he helped Deadeye lift Cal to his feet.  

‘That was me,’ shivered Cal awkwardly, ‘I turned down the temp in here, otherwise I would have bled out long ago, hey you don’t happen to have any pain killer on you do you … Hera right?’  

‘Sure do,’ said Hera, delivering a quick injection to Cal’s neck.  

‘Oh yeah, that’s the stuff!’ Cal exclaimed as the drugs hit his system, ‘all right let’s get out of here, this room is bloody freezing,’ he added with a sideways grin.