Lynn, Chapter 00

Lynn
Prologue

Lucas Hall really had nothing against market halls in general, but he hated this one. Yet he rushed through it almost every morning, straight through without looking to the sides. He did that simply because it was a damn good short cut. It really shouldn’t be. It should be just as easy to just walk around the building, but they had closed off so many streets around here the last year for street repairs, repairs that obviously were never finished. You would lose at least half an hour now if you did not go through here.

He used the short cut mostly in the mornings because it was then that he was in a hurry. Towards noon he had usually given up and headed home and was in no hurry at all. So, in the afternoons he usually never used this short cut. Today was an exception. Today he had almost been promised work… sort of. He wanted to get home as soon as possible and sit by the phone in case there would be a miracle and they would actually call him.

He creaked open the heavy gate to the market hall and stepped inside, feeling the same unease that he always felt when entering this place. Automatically he looked down, hunched, and walked faster. The ceiling arched high above him, the building’s complicated iron frame work was laid bare under the roof and there were big round skylights where confused pigeons made lots of noise. Light beamed through the glass and formed an exact but skewered shadow pattern of the web of iron above. It had reminded him of a cathedral when he had first seen it, but now he didn’t look up anymore.

There was a long broad walkway at the middle leading straight through the whole building to a similar gate at the other end of it that he had to follow in its entire length before he was out from this cursed place. Walking at a normal pace that would take about two minutes, but right now it would probably take a little longer. In the mornings, the place was mostly deserted, but now there were a great deal more people in here. You could not rush on, as you would most surely bump into someone . Then you would have to stop and ask someone’s pardon and he didn’t feel like talking to anyone.

The place wasn’t overly crowded; he guessed business was as bad here as everywhere else. He looked down and straight ahead as he walked; he knew what was along the walls. He didn’t need to look at the rows of niches and the bars in front of them. Needed not look at the poor bastards crowding those niches.

His thoughts were on other things. He was thinking he ought to use his last money to pay the telephone bill. He was already late with it and finding a job would not be any easier if he didn’t have a phone. So he was thinking of such things, practical problems and trying to ignore everything else around him. But sure, he heard it.

It wasn’t exactly a loud shout. It was more like a loud whisper that barely carried over the noise of customers talking, pigeons cooing and the echoing of footsteps, but he did hear his own name spoken almost beside him. Heard it but didn’t react to it. It couldn’t have been him someone wanted to talk to. No one could know him here and Hall wasn’t that uncommon a name. But then he heard it again, a little louder this time, something very desperate and pleading in the voice. He still didn’t think it had anything to do with him but he couldn’t help halting and turning at the mention of his name. He turned his head discreetly as if to not appear too obvious, in case it would turn out to be another Mr Hall standing right behind him now talking to whomever had called out his name.

And he caught the gaze of someone immediately. He stared, bewildered at first, unsure if it was really the one who had been calling his name and what was it anyway? A man? A woman? He couldn’t tell right away. The, whatever, was in any case pale, very fair-haired and quite small. A child? It was embarrassingly obvious that it was he/she that had called out to him and that it, strangely enough, was him that he/she had called out to. It was uncomfortable not only because it was strange, but also because this person, unfortunately, was on the wrong side of the bars.

He leaned forward and looked closer. It seemed to be a boy after all and this boy waved at him eagerly with small movements, as discretely as he could. The boy’s eyes fluttered in all directions, apparently as afraid of losing his attention as he was of getting it from one of the many guards working here.

Lucas Hall wanted instinctively to turn and flee, and to just keep on walking and pretend he had not heard. Besides, there really was no reason to why he should care about the poor sods in here. But he had already showed very clearly that he had heard, understood, and he could not bring himself to just turn his back on the poor creature who looked more and more desperate by the second, while he stood there, hesitating.

"Please Mr Hall!" he cried out in a strange mix of a shout and a whisper as he jerked the bars that held him in. They didn’t even shake, these cells were so sturdily built. Lucas took a step in each direction, then sighed deeply, annoyed, and went over to the barred niche. It had only been a few steps and now here they were standing in front each other, the bars between them… a whole world between them…

At least he was curious by now. How the hell could any of these human goods know him by name? Lucas stared at him and the boy averted his eyes, unable to meet his gaze. There was something about him that he did recognise, but he couldn’t place him.

"Don’t you recognise me Sir?", the boy asked unsure and pleading. He seemed afraid to hear the answer. A cold "no" would probably destroy him right now. Lucas didn’t say no but he couldn’t say yes either. Something was familiar about him, but from where? When? No, he couldn’t recall. It was probably evident in the expression of his face that he couldn’t remember. The boy gave up a despairing sob and fell in a heap on the cold cement floor. "Please Mr Hall, please remember me…", he begged and Lucas began to think it would be a hell of a lot easier to remember if the boy just told him who the fuck he was. But he didn’t seem to be in a state of logical thinking right now; he seemed taken over by some anxiety. Not very strange, Lucas thought, how many people broke down mentally here every day?

There were three more men in the cell and one of them leaned forward and tugged at the boy’s arm. "I told you so, didn’t I? You stupid little fuck!" he spat contemptuously, but the boy did not look up or answer, just shook the hand from his arm. Just leave, Lucas told himself inside his head but instead he crouched beside the boy and tried to get in contact with him again through the bars. If he didn’t get to know him, he would probably walk around, turning it around in his mind for the rest of the week. He didn’t need that. "You do look familiar but… tell me your name then!" The boy sprang to life; he looked up and started rambling as if it was his sole chance of living (and considering where they were, maybe it was?)

"I’m Lynn Sir… my name’s Lynn! Amahana Lake… Craig Summers?" Oh… yes, it all came back to him now. Lucas rose and gave up a whistling sound. He should have known right away, but it had been four years and he had only been there for six months. Besides, he hadn’t exactly been socialising with the servants of the house. He would never have recognised 95 percent of them even if they had told him who they were. He remembered Lynn though. Craig had had him at his heels quite often and Lucas had spent quite some time with Craig.

Craig and he were the same age and Craig was a bastard really, typical spoiled rich upper class brat. But they had had some fun. When he left they had promised to keep in touch but of course neither of them had kept that promise. He had not heard from Craig Summers once since coming back to Flora.

"Yeah, I remember you now, sure I do." The boy smiled relieved and cast a smug look at his condescending cellmate who just sniffed back at him. "You look different though." Lucas really thought so. He remembered Lynn as a slender and short boy with hair like gold and a face like a girl. He had not smiled often, he remembered. Craig had had him subdued worse than a well trained dog but when he had smiled he had looked like an angel. The Lynn sitting here on the cement floor looked older and more angular. Skinnier than a scarecrow he was and a hell of a lot dirtier than he had ever been back then. The long hair was matted and filthy, greasy and knotted and had lost its shine completely. The smile revealed a missing canine tooth, knocked out? Most probably.

"What in the world are you doing here?" he asked, not that he really was dying to know. The mystery was solved as far as he was concerned and all he wanted to do was to leave. It was sad seeing him here, sure it was. It was sad on the whole seeing these human wrecks. He didn’t even want to look at them passing through here. He absolutely did not want to know any of them but it seemed now he did anyway. And he could sense very clearly that Lynn wanted something and he suspected what it was and he couldn’t, just couldn’t.

"Master Craig sold me," was Lynn’s answer to Lucas’s spontaneous question and he looked utterly bitter. Lucas was not surprised. He remembered Craig saying often that he would sell him and he had said that he didn’t care what happened to him. "Why?" he asked before he had time to stop himself.

"He… he found someone younger Sir," the same bitterness in his voice, "someone that wasn’t as worn out as me, he said…"

Lucas didn’t know what to say. He looked worn out now, yes, but he didn’t think that the life at Amahana Lake was the reason. "When was that?" he continued, stalling for time. Soon he had to tell him that there was nothing he could do for him and that he had to go.

"Maybe a year and a half ago Sir… I can’t really tell… being taken to one place after another I don’t really know anything."

Lucas nodded. "You are a long way from Amahana I can tell you that." He felt sorry for him, he really did. He had probably been sold and bought countless times by now by countless wholesalers before ending up here to be sold for private use. He had probably lost all sense of time and space a long time ago. He probably had no idea even in which town he was. He did feel very sorry for him, but what the hell could he do?

Lynn could probably sense that he was about to leave. He got increasingly more desperate and pulled himself to his feet along the bars, reaching his hands out to him through them. "Please Mr. Hall, can’t you buy me? I won’t be any trouble, I swear…"

Lucas waved his hands in front him and shook his head. "I can’t Lynn, I just can’t. I couldn’t afford it and…" Oh this was hard. Really it was, very uncomfortable and awkward.

The poor boy was crying by now. "They will kill me Sir!" He burst out as if in a final desperate effort to convince him. "I swear!" Lucas wondered how true that could be when suddenly Lynn got quiet and threw a worried glance over Lucas’s shoulder before lowering his gaze and backing away from the bars.

Lucas turned to see what had scared him and nearly bumped into a man standing right behind him. Damn, he thought, shit. He knew he should have left right away. Now he had been spotted by one of those slimy salesmen and he would undoubtedly be all over him in any second now with all those slimy salesmen’s moves and talk. The man smiled. Nothing sincere about that smile, Lucas thought. "Are you interested in the gelding?" he asked and smirked and smiled even wider. There seemed to be a lot of insinuation in that smirk and Lucas felt like punching him in the nose. "Well… no I can’t say that I am…", he muttered and cursed inside. Why couldn’t he just say a firm no and then just leave? "He says you are going to kill him." Lucas suddenly blurted out

The salesman turned his hypnotic salesman stare away from the supposed customer to stare angrily at the goods in question. "What the hell are you opening your mouth for, you little piece of shit!" he screamed and hit the bars forcefully with the baton in his hand. The bars clang and sang and Lynn jumped a foot in the air and almost fell over the others sitting right beside him on a crude bench. He looked scared enough even though he must have known the baton could not have hit him.

"So it isn’t true then?" Lucas asked and surprised himself with his ability to sound both demanding and authoritative. He also got the attention back from the salesman at once.

"Well… you know…. Business is bad and with such a one as him…. Jesus, our usual clientele isn’t looking for this type of thing… you know, luxury toys! And if some rich brat were to waltz in here anyway then they sure as hell wouldn’t buy a damaged specimen like this…" He pointed all the time condescendingly at Lynn with the baton, but then he seemed to think he might have been too honest here. He sure wouldn’t get him sold like this. "Well, not that there’s anything wrong with him really. He’s healthy and all, obedient and silent… well most of the times anyway," he added and gave him another angry look, "unusually healthy I would say for such a one as him. You know it’s inevitable that they get weaker when they are cut but they’re not meant for hard work anyway. But you know, they are supposed to look so damn perfect to suit those pushy careerists or those spoiled rich kids."

The salesman snorted contemptuously and Lucas thought that the salesman couldn’t know right now if he made a total fool of himself. What if he was a really rich customer? He had to smile at his own thoughts though. It probably showed from afar that he had no means to speak of. The man’s talk annoyed him but he didn’t interrupt him. He would probably get to a point, sooner or later. He hoped sooner. "Well, he’s been here for far too long. We’ve had him for over two months, that’s far too long." The salesman got a very worried expression. It had to be very plain looking at him that he was a very troubled man and what a catastrophe this really was. "It’s not like we run some sort of hotel here, you know, we can’t keep them here that long. Do you have any idea how much it costs us just keeping them? There has to be a turnover."

The salesman looked Lucas firmly in the eyes. "I wasn’t going to kill him, he’s exaggerating. What I had planned to do was to take him to Future Lab. And I was going to do that tonight, as soon as we close up here for the day and that’s that!"

Lucas turned to look at Lynn and met a face totally stricken with horror. Maybe Lynn had heard rumours about what they planned for him? Well, now he had it cruelly confirmed. "You can’t really mean that!" Lucas was upset. Everybody knew Future Laboratory Corporation used humans as guinea pigs. There had been occasional demonstrations against it. There had been some lobbying to try to enforce a law against it. But things stayed the same. The truth was that few cared to bother really. This society was so imbued with injustice and cynicism. Few really cared if someone like Lynn got tortured to death in there if it meant new drugs to cure their illnesses. Future Lab made big bucks from all the diseases flourishing in this gigantic cesspool of a city and they could afford to laugh at the few who protested openly.

The salesman was maybe not going to kill him with his own two hands but to take him there was to sentence him to death as surely as if he had. A slow and drawn out death it would most surely be too…

"Well… you know…" the salesman hesitated but didn’t avert his firm gaze. "He’s not staying here one more day, that’s for certain. One way or the other… he’s going to go! This company has an interest in profits, nothing else, and Future Lab pays good money." Lucas thought that maybe he was bluffing. Not that he thought what he had said about Lynn being hard to sell wasn’t true, but the Future Lab thing was probably just something he said to make him feel sorry for Lynn so that he would buy him. But he couldn’t be sure. Who knew? These slave-traders were cold-hearted bastards for sure. Dealing in human flesh year after year must make these poor creatures nothing else than goods to them. Pieces of meat worth money.

Lucas recognised a sales trick when he saw one. He wasn’t stupid; the sales man thought he had spotted a good heart and tried to take advantage of it. Why else would he relate his plans so openly? It didn’t necessarily mean that the plans were a lie though. Lucas looked at Lynn again. He still looked absolutely petrified and seemed about to fall to pieces anytime now.

Damn, he thought, damn, damn, damn… "Ahh… what the hell. What do you want for him?" he blurted out sulkily and hoped his voice told the salesman that just because he had given in didn’t mean that he hadn’t seen through his coarse tricks.

"Six hundred!" was the man’s speedy reply.

Lucas backed away and shook his head. "Oh no, oh no… six hundred? No way!"

The salesman looked almost pissed. "That’s a hell of a good price. Have you any idea how much I could take for such a one? At the right market and in mint condition he would be worth double, even thrice as much."

Lucas still shook his head. "I can give you four hundred," he said and started sweating already at the thought of letting go of that much money. He couldn’t afford this, really he couldn’t. How much money had he left in his account anyway? Not more than 750 he thought and there was no new money in sight. This was madness.

"I cannot possibly let you have him for four hundred," the salesman was immovable, "I said six hundred and that’s well below the margin as it is."

Lucas cursed inside. "It’s a bit too much," he said as calmly as he could.

"The hell it is. Look I’m trying to be a nice guy here. Future Lab will give me 800!" That last comment hit home. A terrified sob from within the niche helped convince him as well. Lucas felt pissed, almost bitter.

Why were all the burdens of the world to be put on his shoulders? Why was he supposed to suddenly be burdened with the decision of this pitiful slave’s life or death? To hell with Craig Summers, he thought in a desperate attempt to try and find someone to blame. Why couldn’t he have kept the boy even if he did get a new one? Amahana Lake was a damn big estate, there had to be a thousand places on it where he could have put him so that he didn’t have to see him.

Lucas’ own situation wasn’t very good right now that was true. But at least he didn’t risk being pumped full of viruses and then spending a few pain racked years naked in a glass cube with wires sticking out of every orifice possible until he wouldn’t be of any more use and got those tattered veins shot full of poison instead. It wasn’t Lynn’s fault that no one cared… He sighed deeply.

"All right… six hundred it is then." The stern expression on the salesman’s face changed into sunshine in an instant and he turned as suddenly into Mr. Shiny And Helpful. "Good, splendid! You won’t regret it. Shall we step into my office? Do you want to pay in cash or in credits? State Points maybe?" Lucas cringed and turned quite embarrassed. "Well, to tell you the truth… I’m quite unable to pay you today… I thought maybe you could hold him for me till tomorrow?"

The salesman slapped a hand over his forehead and shook his head. He looked like it was only with a large effort that he didn’t throw a fit of anger. "Yes, of course, that’s what they all say. I’ll be here tomorrow! And then you never see their faces again and in the meantime you have turned other customers down… I’ll tell you what kiddo. I promise you one thing. I won’t take him to Future Lab until after closing time tomorrow. But if you haven’t turned up by then I will take him. And if there would happen to be another customer interested in him before that, you’re screwed. I won’t hold him for you and that’s my final word on the matter!"

Lucas nodded. That agreement was all right by him. In fact he hoped there would be another customer. He would be quite relieved if someone else bought him actually. He didn’t want him really, just couldn’t stand the though of the poor sod dying like that. Let someone else save him though, by all means, he wouldn’t mind. Though if he had been here for two months it was not very likely that he would be gone tomorrow. "OK, that’ll be fine." He said and gave Lynn a smile that he hoped was calming and encouraging and then he told him he had to go.

At home he spent the rest of the evening wondering what the hell he had just done. And the damn phone didn’t ring either…