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[almorganfiction]

Up Top - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - In My Defense

 The Kazzam’s yelling faded into the distance gradually. Once it was almost inaudible Maggie signalled to stop.

‘We’re safe. Take a rest,’ she ordered. Gulliver and Maple sat down with their backs to a chimney. Po stood staring off in the distance in the direction they’d just come from.

No one spoke for a few minutes until Maple sheepishly broke the silence.

‘So… How far away is the Market?’

‘A billion miles away for you,’ Maggie hissed. ‘You’re not coming.’

‘They moved th’ market?’ Gully mumbled.

‘Hang on.’ Maple stood up suddenly.

‘No protests. You are not coming,’ Maggie repeated.

‘But I’m going that way anyway!’ Maple protested nonetheless.

‘Then go. Go now.’ Maggie made a shooing gesture.

‘Why though? I know I screwed up but I fixed it, didn’t I?’

‘Fixed it!?’ Maggie exploded. ‘You basically gave away everything we had!’

‘Well, not every- I mean, it’s not like-‘ Maple had a rare difficulty finding words. ‘Those bags aren’t that nice, you could probably-‘

‘Those bags are our currency! Without them we’ll starve!’ Maggie sounded hoarse. ‘I don’t know how it works down there but up here nothing is handed to us.’

Maple shifted his feet awkwardly.

‘I know I should have kept quiet but I had to try something.’ He stood up straight. ‘Someone had to step up.’

‘I did,’ Maggie said with a growl. She glanced briefly at Po.

‘Yeah, you did! Why was that, though?’ Maple turned to Po. ‘You’re supposed to be their leader. How come you froze up?’

Po said nothing. Maple felt a little guilty throwing him under the bus.

But then again, he thought, surely I don’t deserve all of the blame?

‘That’s besides the point,’ Maggie said without looking at Po. ‘No one would have needed to step up if you hadn’t opened your mouth to begin with.’

‘I didn’t know your rules!’ Maple was making substantial progress convincing himself it wasn’t his fault. ‘You could have just told me before hand that you aren’t allowed to harbour people from below!’

You know, he’s got a point, Maple thought in third person.

‘Perhaps the error’s on you for not reading the context clues, no?’ Maggie retorted. ‘Why did you think I was keeping your true identity a secret!? You could of saved us the trouble if you’d been just a little bit analytical!’

‘Could have,’ Maple corrected. Maggie mistook this for agreement.

‘But you didn’t.’ Maggie sat down. She pointed her finger. ‘That way is to the market. It’s the tallest building in Old Town. You’ll see it. Walk around if you want to keep your head. Or go up. I don’t care.’

‘Look, is there anything I can do? I’ll come back after the wedding, help you find more bags?’

‘That’s not how it works. We only have a small window to trade with the Market. If we miss it, we don’t get rations.’

‘I don’t get it.’ Maple’s voice softened, it sounded much less defensive. ‘What’s so important about these bags?’

‘They’re supplies from the war. Sometimes information.’ Maggie’s words became emotionless. Purely functional.

Maple sat down next to her.

‘Maggie. Listen. The war is over. It has been for a hundred years. I don’t know what’s going on up here but whatever’s in those bags can’t be important enough to rule all these lives.’ Maple sighed deeply. ‘Come down. You’ll see. You don’t need this wild goose chase to survive.’

Maggie turned away. Po stepped in front of Maple and finally spoke.

‘You should come with us,’ he said. ‘Our journey to the Market, although fruitless, will you show the truth. You believe we are being fed lies but the mole doesn’t know it’s raining until he peeks up from beneath the ground.’

‘So you think I just haven’t noticed there’s a war?’ Maple asked, confused.

‘No,’ Po chuckled. ‘I think you look like a mole. Come.’ Po stood up and started walking towards the Market. Maple turned to the others who were silently agreeing with Po’s observation.

‘What are you gonna do about the food?’ Maple asked.

‘Yer. I dun wanna starve,’ Gully grunted.

‘Well you won’t have to, remember?’ Maggie said. ‘No matter what, the Chief always gets special rations.’

‘So you could share those, right? It’s not all doom and gloom, then?’ Maple asked hopefully.

‘No. Eating the Chief’s rations is a big no-no.’ Maggie hadn’t warmed up. She didn’t protest Po’s endorsement of Maple but she clearly didn’t agree with it either.

‘Have “big no-no”s ever stopped you before?’

‘I suppose not.’ Maggie held back a smirk. ‘Come on then. Po seems to want you along, and I’m not one to argue.’

Maple thought to himself that this last comment was not entirely true, but he was not one to argue. 

[almorganfiction]

Up Top - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – Flight

 The axe wielder hesitated just long enough for Maple to speak up again before he could sever Maggie’s hand.

‘Hold up! I have something!’ Maple shouted.

‘No. This is happening. Shut it,’ Maggie hissed back at him.

The man with the axe turned to Chief Kristopher and cocked his head.

‘Let him speak, Karl,’ Kristopher said with a nod. ‘Maybe he’ll let slip even more useful information.’

‘No I won’t. Well, technically I will but this time it’s on purpose.’ Maple spoke confidently. ‘I’m offering you information.’

‘Ok then, what have you got for us?’ Kristopher asked.

‘Bags,’ Maple stated.

‘You must know we’re already going to take your bags.’

‘I know that, but we’ve got a list of other bag locations, don’t we Chief?’

“Chief” Maggie stared at Maple. She seemed to have hit peak anger. She nodded. This was a relief to Maple, who wasn’t sure if there really was a list or that Maggie would remember that she was pretending to be the Chief.

‘So how about that?’ Maple continued.

Kristopher turned to his gang, several of them nodded in approval. ‘Fine, we’ll take that and the bags you’ve got now, then we’ll let you go.’

‘Sounds fair to me, what do you guys think?’ Maple asked his companions.

Po flashed him a helpless look. Gulliver nodded, although Maple was sure he had no idea what the question was. Maggie shrugged with her free shoulder.

‘Great, you’ll have to get the list from my friend there,’ Maple caught himself before he called Po by his real name. He improvised a pseudonym that would work with the theme of “Raven” ‘Nevermore, you’ve still got the list, right?’

“Nevermore” nodded, thankfully realising right away that the name referred to himself. Kristopher untied him and held out a hand in which Po placed a folded sheet of paper with the words ‘BAG LOCATIONS’ scribbled in thick black crayon.

Kristopher took the list. Maple crossed his fingers, hoping he wouldn’t open it and see that it was just a list of co-ordinates, useless without the map. Of course there was no chance they’d hand over the map with the location of their home base.

‘Perfect, Kaitlyn get all the bags from their bags and separate them into a bag of bags and a bag of non-bags. We’ll be kind and let them keep their supplies,’ Kristopher ordered with a smile.

‘And we have your word that you won’t rat us out to the Market anyway?’ Maple asked.

‘My word? You can have more than that.’ Kristopher held out his hand and stuck out his little finger. ‘I pinky swear it.’

‘Oh, right, ok sure.’ Maple held back a smirk. He looked around to see if anyone else found this funny. Everyone looked dead serious.

Picking up on Maple’s confusion, Kristopher said, ‘you shake my pinky with yours as if your shaking hands.’

‘No, I know that,’ Maple assured. ‘It’s just… a bit silly isn’t it? Kids’ stuff, surely?’

Kristopher shook his head. ‘A pinky swear is a binding contract. If I was caught breaking it, my own gang would have no choice but to kill me on the spot with an ice pick.’

‘And you’d stick to that, right?’

‘Bits of me would.’

‘No, I mean the pinky promise. You wouldn’t just let it slide, or pretend you never made the promise at all?’

‘Never!’ Kristopher looked insulted. ‘The pinky promise was the very first rooftop law and as such it is sacred! By the teachings of Pinkus the Brain, it shalln’t be broken’

‘Alright,’ Maple conceded, brushing off “shalln’t”. ‘Let’s do this then.’

They locked pinkies.

‘I, Kristopher of the Kazzam, the gang of showmanship and pizzazz, first gang to discover the battery operated alarm clock, gang of the silver dish soap bottle, founders of-‘

‘Is this necessary? I kind of have somewhere to be today,’ Maple interjected.

Kristopher scowled. ‘Yes. Yes it is. Now I have to start over.’

The whole declaration turned out to be longer than Bohemian Rhapsody – by word count and length of time.

‘And I, Maple of the… below… people, inventors of the digital scale, electronic cigarette and video-game movie tie-ins, swear to pass on the list of bag locations to the Kazzam,’ Maple declared.

‘Excellent! Karl, release their Chief. They are free to go.’

Karl released Maggie’s arm. She snatched it away the second it was free. The rest of the gang released the lassos.

‘This is a one time offer, of course folks!’ Kristopher said as the Wingspans and Maple grouped up together and turned to leave. ‘Because I don’t think you’ve got anything else I might want now that I have your- wait, what is this?’

Maple and his companions turned. Kristopher was holding the list out towards them.

‘These are just co-ordinates! What am I supposed to do with this!?’ His flamboyant persona had completely disintegrated. His natural voice was a whole lot deeper.

‘Oh,’ Maple smiled sheepishly. ‘Well I never swore to give you the map as well.’

Kristopher growled first, then smiled. ‘Then I suppose,’ he began, ‘that I never swore we wouldn’t kill you.’ His voice had returned to “normal”.

The other Kazzams sprang into action, some pointed their spears, others started to twirl their lasso’s. Maple wondered if more had shown up at some point as there seemed to be about ten of them now.

A spear whizzed past Maples head.

‘Run!’ Maggie ordered the rest of the Wingspans.

They did. Their shoes clattered along the roof-tiles. No one was keeping an eye out for traps anymore.

The Kazzam gave chase. Maggie grabbed the spear off the ground and threw it back at them. The one named Karl swerved to avoid it and tripped into the Pit of Numerous Spikes. He wailed in considerable pain.

A lasso flew towards the Wingspans but went way too high and hooked around a chimney of the higher building to the left. Maggie pointed up the rope.

‘One at a time. It’s not very sturdy,’ she instructed.

Gully quickly climbed it onto the other roof.

Po went next, a spear missed him by a few inches as he climbed over the edge,  the spear landed with a clatter at the bottom of the rope. Maggie nodded at Maple.

‘You go first,’ he insisted. ‘I caused this.’

‘No, you go. I’ve got an idea.’ She picked up the spear. The Kazzam were almost upon them. ‘Listen to me. Go.’

‘Okay, good luck.’ Maple gave her a nod and climbed as quickly as he could.

Another lasso came towards him. This time it met it’s mark, tightening around his neck. He felt a hard tug pull him downwards and saw that it was Kristopher who had roped him.

Maggie slashed the rope with the spear, freeing Maple from the pull, although the rope was still tight. He made it to the top and loosened the noose, gasping for air.

When he looked down he saw Maggie halfway up the rope. She had one arm curled around the rope and the other aiming the spear. The Kazzam were at the bottom, eight of them all a few feet away.

‘Give it up!’ Kristopher called, erroneously. ‘We’ve got you!.

They closed in around the bottom of the rope.

‘Are you coming down or do we have to topple you?’ Kristopher closed his hands around the lasso.

Maggie wrapped her legs tightly around the rope and hurled the spear down towards them. It missed all of them, piercing the roof tile at their feet.

The Kazzam panicked for a second but quickly noticed none of them had been hit.

‘Ooh!’ Kristopher exclaimed in his sickeningly enthusiastic voice. ‘False alarm, guys. You might as well come quietly, Po.’

‘No. Not a false alarm,’ Maggie said with a smile. ‘You really should keep your eyes on the ground around here. People like to leave traps.’

There was a click and a whir from where the spear had struck. A colourful explosion erupted from the hole, setting the Kazzam ablaze.

Maggie hurried up the rope. It was burning up from the firework. She hopped over the top and joined the others. The sounds of screams and people stop-drop-and-rolling echoed from below.

‘Move along,’ Maggie ordered.

[almorganfiction]

Up Top - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – Kaptured

1 Hour, 32 Minutes

One of the masked figures pointed a razor sharp spear at Gulliver’s neck as the others continued chanting (cha-sam, cha-sam, cha-sam). He cleared his throat overdramatically.

‘Ladies and gentlemen! I am Chief Christopher of the Chasm!’ He paused for his company to give him a brief applause. ‘It looks like we’ve caught ourselves some geese, all ready to cook. Chief Gulliver of the Wingspans what do you have to say for yourself?’ He spoke like a game show host.

‘Not got the foggiest, really,’ Gulliver answered, looking down at the spear.

‘Alright then, should have known from the very start that you’d be a dead end, perhaps your team mates have brought the wisdom with them instead.’ He looked at Maple. ‘Ceri! If you’d be so kind as to point your weapon- are those nun-chucks? They look fan-tastic! Yeah. Just threaten Mr Suit over here.’

One of the masked figures waved makeshift nun-chucks around awkwardly. They were made up of led pipes and a metal chain. Maple didn’t step out of line, but it was more to do with the spear at Gulliver’s throat than the threat of blunt force trauma.

‘So,’ Christopher addressed Maple, ‘I see no feather, you’re not with these guys, are you? I can’t tell what you’re supposed to be. Ah, I bet you’re with the Magicians, you can’t trick me that easily!’ He smiled sinisterly. ‘Making alliances now, are you? You should know that’s not allowed.’

‘No,’ Maple defended himself. ‘I’m actually from-‘

‘He is with us,’ Maggie jumped in. ‘I told him not to keep the feather in his pocket but he didn’t listen. Dropped it down below.’

‘Doesn’t look like a bird to me,’ Christopher murmured suspiciously. ‘Isn’t that your theme?’

‘He’s a penguin, of course,’ Maggie improvised.

‘Oh yeah? What’s your name “penguin”?’

‘He’s named after the sound a penguin makes.’

‘A honk?’

‘Absolutely.’ Maggie cursed herself for thinking a penguin made a whoop sound, which would have made a better name than- ‘Honky. Honky the Penguin.’

‘Well well, I suppose that does make sense. I’m a little disappointed, to be frank, I thought we might have caught you breaking rules,’ Christopher said, the tone of suspicion lifting from his voice. ‘Right then, I don’t think we’ve got anything of interest here, just hand over your goods and-‘

‘Hang on!’ Maple shouted, much to the dismay of his companions. ‘That’s a terrible name! Down below “honky” means-‘ Maple stopped himself suddenly, about six syllables too late.

Chief Christopher raised his eyebrows. ‘Aha!’ he cried, making Gulliver flinch and shield his head. ‘Down below? My ears are not deceiving me, are they? You have brought me something most interesting!’

Maggie glared at Maple.

‘Carl!’ Chief Christopher pointed a finger dramatically at one of the others. ‘We’re taking this further. If you please, take Caitlin and prepare the Pit of Numerous Spikes. Everyone else, round ‘em up!’

Two of the Chasm underlings ran back the way they came, the rest twirled their lassos. Chief Christopher kept his spear at Gulliver’s neck.

A lasso landed around Maple and tightened, tying his arms to his sides. The same happened to Po and Maggie.

‘And, if you could just tie yourself up,’ Christopher said, handing a rope to Gulliver. ‘Then we’ll be ready to go!’

As Gulliver tied himself up, the two Chasm members who had run off came back carrying an child’s paddling pool. They placed it down on the rooftop and threw in a handful of spiky metal objects that Maple vaguely remembered being toys called ‘Jacks’.

‘Here it is folks! The Pit… Of Numerous Spikes!’ Chief Christopher announced, arms stretched out. ‘Now begins the interrogation, we’ll play a game of trivia for it! Loser gets dunked in the pit! Are you ready, folks?’

Christopher beamed at them. Nobody said anything.

‘What’s wrong guys? Not digging the concept? You don’t look scared or excited.’ This wasn’t entirely true, Gulliver alone was both, but the rest were unimpressed.

‘Well,’ Maple said, risking speaking out of turn again. ‘It’s just not that much of a threat, I mean it’ll hurt but… it probably won’t hurt a considerable amount. I stepped on a plug once, that really hurt. Maybe a kiddie pool full of plugs would-‘

‘There is a plug, it’s how they let the water out.’

‘No, an electric plug.’

‘That would electrocute everyone in the pit, though.’

‘Not if there’s not any water- that’s not the point, I’m just saying little spiky toys aren’t much of a-‘

‘Yeah I’m gonna stop you right there and double down a little. How about instead of dunking you in the pool- uh, pit- I just chop off a hand for every wrong answer? (No passes either, I mean seriously, house rules just drag out the game for everyone).’

Maggie gave Maple another lethal glare. Maple was sure that’s what a spider’s eyes would look like if you mashed them all into one pair. He continued speaking anyway, knowing if he kept digging he’d possibly dig a hole deep enough that he could just start a new society of underground people who weren’t trying to cut off anybody’s hands.

‘Well, cutting off our hands doesn’t really fit your theme,’ he advised. ‘Dropping us into something- that does.’

‘What do you mean, exactly?’

‘You’re the Chasm. You drop people into stuff, like chasms.’

‘Chasms?’ Christopher thought for a moment. ‘Oh! No no no, we’re not Chasm with a “C”, we’re Kazzam. With a “K”. Two “Z”s’

The Wingspans broke out in a hushed “ohh” of realisation. Chief Kristopher continued.

‘Did you think this entire time that we were all about dropping people from high places? Wow, now that I think about it, we do that quite a bit. Nah, we’re all about show business. KAZZAM!’ He performed a crude, quite embarrassing jazz hands as he said this.

‘Well, to be fair it was Chief Po that said-‘

Maple’s eyes widened suddenly. The look on Kristopher’s face made it clear to Maple that this time he had dug himself into a cave filled with poisonous snake-bat hybrids.

‘Chief Po?’ Kristopher asked. ‘Now that brings up even more questions.’ He leaned and stared at Maggie. ‘You must be the Chief, then. Seems to me that you’ve been taking the lead.’

Maple glanced at the real Po but he was staring down at his feet, refusing to engage.

‘That’s right,’ Maggie said confidently. ‘What of it?’

‘Oh my good friend, I do believe you know full well what of it!’ Kristopher boomed. ‘Perhaps you should be our contestant for this evening!’

‘It’s not the eve-‘

‘Please! No speaking until you’re ready to answer my questions! Starting now, any wrong moves will lose you an appendage!’

Kristopher theatrically pointed a finger at Maggie, his other hand raised into the air, fingers splayed.

‘Question number uno!’ He pulled his hands in and started reading off an invisible card. ‘True or false: it is against rooftop law to declare a chief who is not the eldest of the gang.’

‘True,’ Maggie answered.

‘Well, judges, what do we think?’ Kristopher turned to the rest of his group. They started clapping.

‘No, you’re supposed to show the placards- ugh, forget it.’ He snapped back into his presenter persona. ‘Congratulations! That is indeed the correct answer! Take a look at the crowd! They love you!’

The other Kazzam members held up placards with green ticks on them.

‘No, no that’s not… that was- that-‘ he groaned quietly and then bounced back into a wide grin. ‘Moving on then! Question numero trois!’

‘That’s not-‘ Maple started, he saw Maggie eye him angrily but couldn’t help himself. ‘Two is “deux”.’

‘Deux?’ Kristopher questioned.

‘Yeah, deux.’

‘Don’t “yeah, duh!” me! You aren’t exactly in a position to be giving attitude!’

‘No, no I was just saying-‘

‘Question number two!’ Kristopher bellowed. ‘Do you have any idea how much trouble the Wingspans will be in when I tell the Market they’re harbouring a Belower!?’

‘Quite a lot,’ Maggie stated through gritted teeth.

‘Quite a lot indeed!’ Kristopher declared, almost abandoning the game-show pretence entirely. ‘Now then, are you ready for the final question? All or nothing!’

‘Yes.’

‘Here it is! Buzzers at the ready, folks!’ He smiled sickly. ‘What, if anything, will the Wingspans give to the Kazzam to keep their dirty little secrets? Try not to dawdle now! Time’s a-wasting!’

There was a long pause. A few seconds dragged out tenfold. ‘You can take our supplies. We’ve got three sacks full of bags.’ Maggie offered.

‘Oof! That’s a wrong answer! We can already take whatever you have. Tell you what, we’ll let you off that one, what else you got?’

‘What do you want? We don’t have anything else.’

‘She’s using a hint, everybody! Let’s see here… how about… you tell us where “Wingspan Alpha Base 1-Omega Colin Position Delta” is situated? No hints this time!’

‘We can’t tell you that. Who knows what you’d do?’

‘Oooh! That’s definitely a wrong answer! Judges, one of you has a sharp enough blade to cut through bone, right?’

‘Fine. Do it. I’m not betraying my gang.’ The situation didn’t seem to phase her. She spoke as if she was telling a fast food employee that there were no straws left.

‘Give it a few centimetres and you might.’

One of the “judges” brought over a rusty axe head.

‘How nasty!’ Chief Kristopher chuckled. ‘Now, untie one of her hands. Let’s say the left, don’t want her completely out of the game!’

‘I’m left handed.’

‘Oh well! I guess this is a bit of a setback, in that case.’

The “judge” loosened the ropes and freed her right hand. She didn’t correct him. He pulled her over to a nearby chimney and rested her hand on it, the wrist just hanging over the edge.

‘Viewers be advised, this is most certainly not going to be pretty. On my command.’

The “judge” raised the axe head about a foot above Maggie’s wrist.

‘Ready.’

Maple turned to Po. He was now looking the complete other way.

‘Set.’

Gulliver had turned pale. His eyes were fixed on Maggie’s arm.

‘Chop!’

[almorganfiction]

Up Top - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The K-Line

1 Hour, 47 Minutes

Maple impressed himself with how easily he made it over the bridge and back to grab the bag. He even did it with minimal quivering, a detail he alone seemed impressed by.

Three crossings later he managed not to tremble at all.

‘Now,’ Po said to the group as they walked along the roof of an overpriced fast food “restaurant”. ‘Here-on out we’ll have moved beyond the K-Line. Be on your guard.’

‘What’s the K-Line?’ Maple asked, scanning the map.

‘You won’t find it on the map. The location of the line changes frequently as land is lost and won. It’s the territory of the Chasm. They’re a ruthless group, watch they don’t catch you or you’ll be hoisted from your ankles.’

‘I wus left dangling fu’ weeks!’ Gulliver croaked.

‘It was one day. You spent the whole time pretending to be a bat,’ Maggie corrected dryly.

‘Why’s it call the K-Line?’ Maple asked.

‘Not sure,’ Maggie answered. ‘Our last Chief, Chief Stork,  came up with it. Well, she was the one before last. She never told us what the K stands for. Doesn’t matter.’

‘In short,’ Po continued, ‘watch your step. You can see where the traps are by faint white crosses that have been chalked on so the Chasm can avoid them.’

Unfortunately, Maple wasn’t listening to this, instead staring across the cityscape trying to imagine what it would look like to a bat. More or less the same but the other way round, he decided, having recently had some upside-down experience himself.

 1 Hour, 42 Minutes

 ‘When’ve I ever lied t’ya before, eh?’ Gulliver grunted at Maggie. Maple had just tuned in to an argument they were having about something. He was sort of tuning in and out. There were a lot of interesting birds around.

‘-then there was the time you stepped in my food and told me an antelope did it! Or the time you told me you’d seen a great auk by the food storage so I would fetch you a drink! Or when you told me the surface world is full of people who think the earth is flat! Or the time-‘

This had been going on for a while. It didn’t stop for a while.

The group crossed from building to building with ease. Mostly. Maple had got the hang of walking across the net-bridge and could finally do it standing up, although he needed to pass his bag to one of the others first and had to sing the words to Every Breath You Take in his head to distract himself, not realising that they were actually the wrong words (“Every bun you bake, I’ll be watching you”).

‘Maple!’ Po called, right into Maple’s ear.

‘Ow, right here, man. What is it?’ Maple replied.

‘On the map, are we on rooftop N-12?’

Maple squinted at the map and, there was indeed a small “N-12” sketched into the building. Maple nodded.

‘Excellent. If you would, confirm for me which of these lanes is between N-12 and O-12.’

Maple examined the map again and pointed down at one of the lanes. There were several rude words graffitied on the wall so he didn’t think it was rude to point in this case.

‘Thank you. Gulliver, come with me, we have a pick-up down here. You two stand watch.’ Po and Gulliver disappeared down into the lane, climbing gracefully down the drainpipe.

‘Gulliver’s surprisingly good at that,’ Maple remarked.

Maggie sat down, pulled out a book and started reading.

‘He told us to stand,’ Maple advised.

Maggie turned the page.

‘Cars of the 1950s,’ Maple commented, referring to the book. ‘Sounds like an interesting read.’

Maggie flicked back a few pages to cross reference something.

‘I didn’t think you guys go down to the surface at all, do you do that a lot?’

‘Only for pick-ups.’ Maggie looked up from her book. ‘It’s not all the way down. Usually they’re tucked under a ledge.’

‘What’s a pick-up?’

‘Stuff for the market.’

‘Oh right. I guess that’s another “ask no questions” thing.’

Maggie looked back at her book.

‘Listen,’ Maple said. ‘I’ve got to ask: what’s with this war Po’s on about?’

‘What’s with it?’ Maggie repeated, looking up again. ‘As in, why is the chief so desperate for news about it?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ he lied. He could see it was no use arguing about the war with Maggie, either.

‘Our old chief, Chief Stork, she brought a lot of news to us about the war. So did all the other chiefs, minus Gully, although he wasn’t chief for very long. Chief Po isn’t bringing as much news to us. It’s frustrating him.’

‘Gully was a chief?’

‘For a week. He stepped down after we urged him to. Don’t tell that to anyone. Roof law dictates the oldest in a gang should be the chief, but everyone could see Gully wasn’t fit for the job. He forgets he’s meant to be the chief too. Don’t bring it up in front of anyone.’

‘What happened to Chief Stork?’

‘She died,’ Maggie answered abruptly. ‘Fell ill. The market hospital took her in but she didn’t get any better. She died there.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Maggie returned to her book again. A minute passed in silence before Po and Gulliver returned.

‘Got it!’ Gulliver beamed a crooked toothy grin. ‘Any trouble, y’lot?’

‘Nothing,’ Maggie answered, packing her book away. ‘Let’s move.’

Maple grabbed his sack from the floor. He started to walk towards the next building but as he took a step forward, the roof slate came apart. His foot fell through.

‘It’s stuck!’ he yelled. Up to his shin had gone through the tile.

‘Shush!’ Maggie hissed as quietly as possible. ‘That’s a Chasm trap. Try and pull yourself out.’

Maple did and found that he wasn’t actually stuck at all, in fact his leg came out incredibly easily. ‘False alarm,’ he whispered, relieved.

There was a click from the hole. A mechanism whirred inside. Something shot out of the gap and into the sky, then exploded with a loud bang.

‘That’s no false alarm,’ Po said. ‘It’s a regular alarm.’

A chanting started to rise in the distance.

“Cha-sam cha-sam cha-sam.”

‘Gulliver, our blades are in that sack,’ Po stated in a hushed urgency.

‘Ah, see, now thissus goin’ ta make me sound a bit of an idyut,’ Po said sheepishly.

Masked faces appeared over the roof tops.

‘Elaborate. Now,’ Po demanded.

‘Well one’a the blades came out ‘is sheath ‘n’ ripped a hole in th’ sack. Fell out.’

‘One less blade is fine, Maple probably never had real fight anyway.’

‘Hey! I had a fight with a cat once, it was-‘

‘Naw, but,’ Gulliver kicked his foot sheepishly, ‘then I thought “well we don’t want tha’ apnen again” so I wen’t ‘n’ chucked the rest of them out ‘s’well.’

Po stared at Gulliver with a crimson cloud washing over his face as six figures in black masks and capes surrounded the Wingspans, wielding makeshift weapons and lassos.

‘Chief Gulliver!’ one of them called. ‘How lovely it is to see you!’  

[almorganfiction]

Up Top - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: To the Market

2 Hours 15 Minutes

 Maggie shoved a large, folded sheet of paper in Maple’s face.

‘Oh, thank you,’ Maple said politely. ‘It’s very pretty, great job.’

‘It’s a map,’ Maggie stated. She spoke like she was giving instructions even though she wasn’t (she also spoke like she was giving instructions when she was). ‘Unfold it.’

The paper opened into a detailed map of the city’s rooftops. At the bottom was the Wingspan’s base, labelled “HOME”, two buildings above that was where they were currently stood (thankfully the first three buildings were connected so Maple didn’t have to attempt another jump just yet). In the centre was a large building labelled “MARKET”, Maple knew this to also be a market down below.

Several red crosses were scattered around the map, Maple guessed they were the doors Po had mentioned, maybe a few other hazards as well. There was another symbol marked in a few places on the map that he couldn’t work out, it looked like a scoop of soft-serve ice cream, one of them was right on top of where Maple was standing.

‘Hey, what’s this symbol here? Looks like a-‘ Maple was interrupted as an onslaught of bird droppings pelted the area, several landing on him.

‘Aha,’ Maggie replied. ‘“Air Hazard Areas”. A lot of birds fly overhead. Watch the skies. We’ll cross over to the next building so we’re out of the Hazard zone and wait there for the Chief.’

Chief Po and Gulliver had stayed behind to arm the traps at what they called “Wingspan Alpha Base 1-Omega Colon Position Delta”, which was really just a flashy name for intimidation purposes.

‘It’s a short jump, think you can make it?’ Maggie asked, scanning the area for hostiles.

‘I think I can manage a small hop across- oh boy is that barbed wire?’ Maple stared at the alley below. Suddenly the jump didn’t look so short.

‘On five now, we’ll go together.’

‘To be honest, three of you is probably enough, I’ll just go back, you don’t need-‘

‘One.’

‘One, exactly! One of you is probably enough even!’

‘Two.’

‘To… go to the market of course, what else?’

‘Three.’

‘-‘s company, four’s a crowd!’

‘Four.’

‘For going to the market. I mean, are you even paying attention?’

‘Fi- hold on, the Chief is here.’

Maple yelled a battle cry, trying to psyche himself up to jump before realising neither of them were jumping. He looked around and saw Gulliver walking towards them with two large sacks over each shoulder. Chief Po followed close behind.

‘Ey, uh, whatchu lot stopping on a poop roof for? This idiot not fancying another jump, is’ee? Ya shoulda seen ‘im the last time he tried to jump! Right off the edge he went!’ Gulliver cackled loudly.

‘That explains it.’ Maggie said. ‘Pass him one of the bags, Gully.’

Gulliver handed Maple one of the sacks, it was pretty light, but from the feel he could tell it was clearly filled to the brim with something.

‘What’s in the bag?’ Maple asked, directly to Maggie so as to get a clearer answer.

‘Bags,’ she replied.

‘Ok sorry, what it’s the bags?’

‘Bags,’ she repeated.

Maple pulled the string on his bag and looked inside. Sure enough there was about 50 small, colourful bags, each seemingly hand made.

‘These are really nice, what have we got them for?’ Maple asked, again directed at Maggie.

‘Delivery,’ Po answered instead, joining the group. ‘We do business with the market.’

‘Are they handmade? They look like they might be worth a lot,’ Maple asked.

‘They’re worth quite a sum to the market, indeed.’ Po approached the edge of the building. ‘Onwards,’ he commanded.

Out of his bag he pulled what looked like a grappling hook crossed with a net. It unfurled revealing that it was almost exactly that. It was a narrow net with a grappling hook on either end.

‘What’s that-‘ Maple began but was interrupted by a loud, metallic clang as Po wedged one end of the grappling-net tightly into the gutter on the roof’s edge.

‘Stand back.’ Po started to spin the other hook and hurled it over the lane. It caught the parallel gutter making a narrow bridge across the alley.

‘Um, hey!’ Maple turned to Maggie accusingly. ‘You knew we had this and you still wanted to jump?’

‘I wanted you to jump,’ she shrugged. ‘To test your character. You didn’t pass.’

‘Would you like to go first?’ Po asked Maple, gesturing at the bridge.

Maple envisioned the long, slow crawl across the gap. He saw the bridge turning over and depositing him face first onto the metal barbs below. ‘No thanks, you go first.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Po hopped on to the bridge, standing upright. He strolled forwards, not even using his arms to balance.

‘The building to the left here’s just put in a skylight,’ Maggie said casually as she joined Po on the bridge.

‘Mark it off then, we shall not have a repeat of the Red incident. I shall be forever haunted by the look on his face as he fell. I wonder if he’s still down there.’

Once they reached the end, Gulliver gestured at Maple to get on the bridge. ‘You go next, arite? I’ll follo’ afta ya.’

Maple put a foot on the rope, applied a bit of pressure and immediately pulled back as the bridge wobbled. He knelt down and grabbed it with his hands, steadying it before bringing his knees forward and starting to crawl. He shut his eyes tight.

 Two minutes of embarrassingly slow crawling passed, Maple was sure he was almost there. His body had gone mostly numb, half from anxiety, half from the cold. He opened his eyes to check how far from the end he was and saw that his nose was almost touching-

‘A brick wall?’ He looked down. The drop below him was endless, eternal. Universal. He started to feel dizzy. He looked up and there was the floor. ‘Oh. I appear to be upside down.’

He looked down again at the sky, tilted his head a bit and saw the end of the bridge.

‘Guys!’ he called. ‘I think I need you to pull me up, only, I’m not so good upside down. I was upside down for a whole bus trip once because I dropped my suitcase down the toilet. Well sort of, it was more near the toilet but my foot was in the toilet, so-‘

A gust of wind caused Maple’s feet to slip. He dangled by his arms, his legs a couple of feet away from the barbed wire.

“This is it. My death. I always thought it would happen in an aquarium like Uncle Eric’s psychic said it would, but he was wrong about the mortgage crisis so I guess he could be wrong about this. I mean, I doubt I’d even die if I fell. I’ll just get mangled on the wire and arrested. What if the prison is in an aquarium? Either way, this is it for me.”

Maple’s arms started to tire. He relaxed his legs and they swung forward. They connected with the wall. His feet met a narrow ledge.

“No,” he thought. “I can do this.”

Maple let go with one hand and grabbed the drain pipe a little to his left, his other hand and both feet working hard to keep him up while he moved. Once he was steady he grabbed it with his right hand, tested his weight on the pipe and started to climb.

‘At last!’ Po bellowed as Maple clambered over the top of the roof, panting like a dog at Wimbledon.

‘At last!?’ Maple yelled. ‘Where were you?! I was about to fall to my death down there! Or my mangle-ation. Mangling. Mang- I could have been mangled!’

‘Oh, you were fine. You’re here now are you not?’

‘Yeah, here alright.’

‘And you best get used to it, there’s many more roofs to go.’

‘I think I’ll be alright as long as there’s no more barbed wire. I mean, really? A barbed wired wall in the middle of the lane? All it was doing was stopping people from walking through the lane! Just spiteful, really.’

‘No more barbed wire on our route,’ Po reassured.

‘That’s good.’

‘Although,’ Po added. ‘You did leave your sack over the other side. We do need you to go back and retrieve that.’

Maple looked back, Gulliver was holding two sacks and laughing, probably at Maple’s expense.

[almorganfiction]

Up Top - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Wingspans

2 Hours, 40 Minutes

After about ten minutes of being dragged along the rooftops Maple could hear voices. He listened close and assessed the situation.

“Interesting,” he thought. “Whoever is speaking (or is it whomever? I remember Miss Eerie taught us the difference but Eddie the Mole was shooting elastic bands out the window and one of them landed on a car and the driver didn’t even notice-) no, focus now, what can you see? There’s a few people. It’s a gathering. A secret rooftop gathering and a man who caught me in a net…

It’s a black market! He’s going to sell me! This Po guy is a slave trader! He’s not a chief of anything!”

‘I am Chief Po of the Wingspans!’ called Po, the chief of the Wingspans. ‘You have been brought before me by our scout and security supervisor, Gulliver. On his travels he has found you and claims you say you’re from the surface world. Is this true?’ His voice was sophisticated and firm.

‘As far as I’m aware.’ Maple called back, still in the net. ‘Although I can’t guarantee his name is Gulliver, but I guess you’d know that. Can I come out now? I think I’m allergic to nets, my heart is thudding really fast and I feel a little anxious. Might be anxiety actually.’

‘Not yet,’ Po bellowed. ‘We must know you’re not a spy.’

‘A spy? I don’t even have any spy skills. Tell me to sneak somewhere and I won’t even be able to do it-‘

‘True thar is!’ Gulliver interjected.

‘In fact,’ Maple continued. ‘Last Thanksgiving- we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but that’s what day it was- we were having a family meal, a turkey dinner I think- wait a second, were we celebrating Thanksgiving the whole time and no one told me? Thanks mum… Anyway, I had to go to the bathroom but Uncle Eric was in the hallway and I didn’t want to hear another fake Vietnam story so-‘

‘Just let him out Gulliver! I shall see by looking at him.’ Po shouted over Maple’s story, although Maple kept talking for about a minute before he realised he was being let out.

The Chief pulled Maple up by the arm. The two were flanked by guards with pointed sticks, aimed at Maple’s neck. Both guards were wearing feathers pinned somewhere on their person one in a black shirt, one in white.

Po leaned in close. He was dressed like a skinny cartoon image of Julius Caesar only instead of a white robe it was black and the crown was made up of black feathers.

‘Interesting adornment. Black coat with white undergarment- quite smart. A rope around your neck? Peculiar,’ Chief Po said, examining Maple’s tie. ‘Say, you’re not a member of the Knots, perchance? I won’t tell if you let it slip.’

‘I’m awfully confused,’ Maple answered. ‘I’m not with anyone. I mean I am with someone, I’m getting married today. They’ve closed the city off so I came up here to-‘

‘Why?’ Po demanded. ‘What’s happening below?’

‘I dunno. A bomb threat, I think. Kind of a stupid move on my part I’m realising but-‘

‘Ah. A bomb. I see what’s happening here. You’re attempting to tempt me with news from the war. Well, valiant effort but we’ve got news enough as it is.’

‘News? What war? What are you talking about?’

‘You’ve missed your chance to backtrack now. I heard your offer of fake news. Olive, Maggie, escort him to the cages.’

The guards moved in on Maple. Gulliver stood behind him. Nowhere to run. Maple knew the only other option was to talk. Talk and talk and talk until he figured out a better plan, or failing that just talk forever.

‘Wait!’ Maple shouted. ‘I am a spy! But not from who you think.’

‘No?’ Chief Po looked intrigued. ‘Who are you from?’

Maple thought hard. “Gulliver. Maggie. The Wingspans. The way they’re dressed. All of them have feathers. I get it. So maybe the way it works up here…”

‘The Forest! That’s our gang’s name. Yep. We’re all named after trees, see? That’s why I’m called Maple.’

‘I did not know that was your name,’ Chief Po said, unimpressed.

‘You didn’t?’ Maple scowled. ‘Then why did I- Well never mind that! The important thing is I’m not here to harm you in any way, I’m just spying for… non-harmful reasons. Just to make… alliances. In fact-‘

‘You’re from the surface,’ Po stated.

‘What? No I’m from The Woods-‘

‘Forest.’

‘-and I’ve been sent here to look for help. Our tribe is being threatened by a gang called the… Grasshoppers… they’re making us give them food and if we don’t have enough by the time the last leaf- wait a minute why am I trying to keep up the lie?’ Maple shook his head to clean out the cobwebs. ‘Yes I’m from the surface. What finally clued you in?’

The Chief pointed at Maple’s shoes. ‘We’ve no mud up here yet your shoes are covered in it.’

‘They are?’ Maple looked down at his feet in distress. ‘Axel’s gonna kill me.’

‘You can stand down now Olive, Maggie. See to it Gulliver is rewarded.’ The guards nodded and hurried off to catch Gulliver who had gotten bored and wandered off. ‘Now, we shall talk.’

‘Gladly. Any chance you’ve got a change of shoes?’

 2 Hours, 35 Minutes

 The Chief’s home was a grey tent the colour of the roof tiles. A taller building provided the back wall of the tent and, as the settlement was between two slightly higher roofs, Maple’s captors were well hidden from the people below.

‘What about windows? Don’t they ever see you?’ Maple asked Po as they entered his tent. ‘There’s some really high buildings in cities these days.’

‘They see us quite often. I imagine we’re nothing more than an anecdote to them, if they’re not too busy to remember us,’ Po replied, opening a tin of beans and pouring it out onto a piece of slate.

‘What about the rooftops with doors on them? Don’t- oh I’ve eaten thanks- don’t people come out and spot you?’

‘We mark those on the maps and avoid them. We lost a good man once. He was captured by a Belower and detained by your policies men.’

‘You mean police men- and women! Although policies officer isn’t a bad name.’ Maple watched in disbelief as Po slurped the entire tin of beans from the slate with no cutlery.

‘So,’ Po said, wiping his mouth with his hand. ‘You surely must have real news. This bomb, is it a threat to us?’

‘Well it might not even be a bomb, to be honest.’

‘I see. Any other news from the war?’

‘Right, see, this is where I’m confused. What war?’

Po exhaled sharply. ‘What war you ask? Come now. The war. The very same war that’s been going on for the last 100 or so years.’

‘The hundred years war? That ended like hundreds of years ago. Everyone got in an ark and they set it on fire. I think.’

‘No, not the hundred years- well in a way yes but not that one. It’s a grand, epic war. You must be familiar. The Great War?’

Maple’s brow descended hard. He opened his mouth to speak but, in an unprecedented turn of events, couldn’t find a single thing to say.

Po waited a moment, expecting something at least from Maple but carried on if only to fill the silence.

‘Surely you’ve noticed the constant conflict down on the surface world?’ he asked, frowning a little himself.

‘World War One- The Great War, I mean, ended a long time ago. We’ve had a sequel since then and I’ve gotta say they really topped the first one, higher stakes, much more memorable villain. Have you not noticed that there’s been no fighting down on the streets?’

‘No fighting? You jest! There’s several skirmishes a week down there, mostly weekends by nightfall, but-‘

‘There’s not a war! Those are just kerfuffles!’

‘Call them what you wish-‘

‘Why do you think the war is still going? Where are you getting this information?’

Po stared deeply at Maple. ‘Look, you may not be a spy but you are still a stranger. I can’t divulge to you our sources. I think it’s best you leave soon, It’s a shame, I thought I’d finally be able…’ He sighed. ‘I thought we might have something here, but you’re just peddling propaganda. I’m sure you yourself believe it too.’

‘Believe it? I live down there! Trust me there’s no war!’

‘That’s enough now!’ Po commanded. ‘You’ve been a fine guest considering we trapped you in a net and I’d like to continue thinking of you as such. No more talk of the war, then. You have your reasons for denying it, but I am interested only in the truth. Now, perhaps you’d like a drink before you go? It rained last night so-‘

‘Chief!’ a woman’s voice called from outside the tent. As she entered Maple saw it was the guard in the black shirt, a black and white feather was pinned to the strap of the satchel she wore. ‘Just got word from the market. Today’s our day. Short notice, I know, but there’s something going on down below that’s causing them issues.’

‘Today?’ Po asked. ‘As in, now, Maggie? We’re undermanned. Ken is away  working on bags and Goosey’s been missing for weeks.’

‘I know that!’ Maggie snapped. ‘I live on the same rooftop as you, you know! We’ll have to bring Gulliver along.’

‘It’s just not possible. We can’t take all of us, we need someone to stay here, that leaves us with three. I’m not comfortable crossing the K-line with three.’

‘We’re low on food. Very low,’ Maggie pleaded. ‘It’s not been our turn for weeks. What about that guy?’ Maggie pointed at Maple who pulled a face that would fit nicely on a poster with the caption “Who? Me?”.

‘A stranger guarding our worldly possessions?’ Po scoffed.

‘Well, leave Gulliver behind. Take the stranger,’ Maggie suggested.

‘Gulliver!? Guarding our worldly possessions!?’

‘Oh fine, Olive then. Bring the stranger and the idiot. Then that’s four. It’s not a strong four but it’ll do.’ She paused. ‘If you agree, of course.’

Po thought for a while. He stared at Maple.

‘How about it?’ He finally spoke. ‘A journey to the market, Maple?’

Maple checked his watch quickly. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve got time.’

[almorganfiction]

Up Top - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Time Constrained

 ‘Old cities are strange. They’re old, but not actually old. There’s these beautiful, old buildings that look from the top like these aged Victorian structures, passionately crafted by an architect who could quite easily call themselves an artist. Rooftops of slate that shine silver in the sunlight. Sculpted faces or creatures above the window arches staring down and whispering of a long gone era.

From the bottom it just looks like a vape shop.

‘There’s churches repurposed as bookies (which are almost themselves a relic) and libraries repurposed as corner shops. Ever bought a six-pack from a library? Well, no I suppose. Cities have to evolve. I’m not saying they should stay the same no matter what. That wouldn’t make sense. It’s just strange to see. Right?’

A pair of eyes blinked back at the question, below them a mouth hung slightly open, the tongue inside deciding it would rather stay at home.

‘Anyway, I’m Maple. Yeah that’s my real name,’ the architectural enthusiast, henceforth referred to as Maple, continued. ‘My mother was a tree hugger, although she never actually hugged trees, that’s just what they used to call hippies, after they were called hippies but before they were called- well, actually I don’t know what they’re called. I mean there aren’t hippies anymore, I guess. The hippies won, really, all love is legal now, else I wouldn’t be here today. My fiancé’s a man, see, so we both are, although maybe to your generation that’s not out of the ordinary, it is for my lot, I guess you’ve grown up with it though, well, maybe a little bit.’

The unwilling audience of one gave another blink, followed by an absent minded gurgle.

‘See what I mean, though? I’m not all negative about the world today! I’m a bit young to be like that, not as young as you but still young enough to go rock climbing every second- no- third weekend. Axel (my fiancé) likes to say, every single opportunity he gets, that if I could rock climb out of bed then I might actually get somewhere on time. Jokes on him, because I came here with hours to spare! Enough time for a drink even. Coffee though,  Axel doesn’t like me drinking any alcoholic drink that isn’t a primary colour. You’ve learnt those by now, right?’

The question was met with another blink and a small amount of vomit.

‘Maybe not then, to be honest they’re pretty simple- like there’s only three of them, I don’t suppose you’ve learnt to count-‘

‘I’m back,’ a woman in a white blouse with a faint orange stain said, picking up her baby from his pram. ‘Thanks for watching him- oh, you’ve thrown up on yourself now, have you?’

The baby gurgled again and flung his arms in the air triumphantly.

‘No problem, he’s a great listener,’ Maple said with a friendly smile. ‘If I might suggest one thing to think on- one small thing, and I’m not a parent so, you know, grain of salt and all- perhaps next time don’t leave your baby with a total stranger. My great uncle was left with a total stranger once and they found- what was it? Oh yeah- they found that red wax you get from edam cheese all wedged in his nose, turns out the guy they left him with thought there were alien fumes in the air and wanted to protect my uncle. Uncle Eric was forty three at the time, so goodness knows how it-‘

‘Yes yes, thank you,’ the vomit-mother interrupted, hurrying her baby out of the coffee shop indignantly.

 Maple’s phone rang, he picked up in less than a second.

‘Hey Axel, how’s it going? Just met this mother and you wouldn’t believe what she did. She-‘

‘Stop, stop. Stop. We have three hours. Where are you?’ Axel asked sternly.

‘You know Richards Bar and Petting Zoo? Well, the coffee shop across the street just started doing this latte with these weird chunks of-‘

‘Why?’

‘Well, like I was saying they’ve started doing-‘

‘Why are you there now? You have 3 hours to be on the other end of the city. Do you know what “non-refundable” means?’

‘Yeah, of course, like the bouncy castle my uncle rented for his-‘ he paused. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Three hours Maple, you have a whole city to get through.’

‘Yes sir! It’s a straight line to the church, Axel. I’ll be there, I just need to go through the city centre. No need to be afraid.’

 ­­3 Hours, 10 Minutes

‘I’m afraid you can’t go through the city centre today,’ said the long yellow tape that stretched across the entire street, and then some.

What it actually said was “Police: Do Not Cross”, meaning “po-lease do not cross or we’ll have to detain you”, rather than being a warning telling police officers not to cross- them being the only ones actually allowed to.

It wasn’t just the one street, either. The next street, and the next, next street, and the next, next, next street were all cut off- and the next four after that. In both directions.

Basically, almost all of the city was cut off.

‘It’s a bomb threat,’ suggested a passer-by, looking at the crowd of evacuated citizens.

‘It’s a movie shoot about a bomb threat,’ corrected a second passer-by.

‘No, it’s Superman,’ offered a third ‘wiser’ passer-by. ‘They’re filming the new superman movie. I think.’

All of these suggestions were wrong in some ways, but also a little bit right.

Maple didn’t care about why the tape was there. He just needed to get through and to the church. Which was not possible without breaking the law and the tape, unless he ducked under it in which case he would only be breaking the law- which wasn’t so bad except that he would definitely get caught.

Unless…

“It is a straight line. Maybe a few small alleys to jump over but as long as I can get up there without being caught,” Maple thought, conjuring plan which he left purposefully vague for dramatic effect.

He scanned the buildings around him and saw a small lane between two identical chain coffee shops, just outside the cordoned area. After checking from afar that no drugs were being taken and/or sold in the lane he snuck in, unnoticed thanks to the commotion from the crowd, and stared up at the buildings he was standing between.

“This is the worst idea I’ve ever had,” he thought. “So I’d better have it now.”

Maple picked the building he would be best camouflaged against and started to climb, quickly rising, grabbing ledges and pipes as handholds and footholds until he was stood on the rooftop, staring at the city around him. A flock of birds flew into the air and started to circle the building, hoping the intruder would soon leave so they could get back to doing nothing.

‘Amazing!’ Maple exclaimed, surveying the top of the city, sitting on the roof ledge. ‘This is the city. This is the good stuff right here, and no one ever sees it. If only they knew the beauty of it.’ He smiled, unknowingly resting a hand in an unhealthy coloured blotch of bird poop. ‘Gorgeous.’

 Maple’s peaceful trance was interrupted by a buzzing from his phone.  It was an alarm accompanied with the text: “THIS IS AXEL. I KNEW YOU’D GET DISTRACTED SOMEWHERE SO I SET THIS ALARM. YOU HAVE EXACTLY 3 HOURS, GIVE OR TAKE THE SECONDS IT TOOK TO READ THIS, I ESITMATE 7. YOU HAVE 2 HOURS 59 MINUTES AND 53 SECONDS, APPROXIMATELY”

‘Okay then,’ Maple said to himself (and the one pigeon that had been too brave or too lazy to fly away). ‘Let’s do this.’

He started a run in the direction of the church. The next building was higher up by quite a bit but there was a balcony that he could land on and a few sturdy looking pipes.

He fixed his eyes on the balcony and readied his hands, the downwards slope of the rooftop gave him the momentum he needed. He resisted the urge to close his eyes and readied himself for the leap. The edge approached rapidly, he reached out his hands, envisioned the jump and with a triumphant cry he slipped on a patch of moss and fell off the roof.

 Only, he didn’t hit the floor. There was a net of fine but strong thread, the colours camouflaging it unless you were up close. It supported his weight with hardly any trouble, which was good. It also seemed to be pulling him upwards and closing in around him, which was bad.

Pretty soon Maple was dangling in the air in a net-trap, staring at the empty street below. Something was dragging him onto the rooftop above the balcony.

 2 Hours, 54 Minutes

A figure with a Robin Hood cap complete with feather opened up the net and started down. It was a man in a filthy white bathrobe cut off at the knees and grey gym trousers. His face was old but his body was somewhat young and agile.

‘Gotchya ya clumsy idiot!’ He shouted in a rough, deep voice that sounded almost satirical. ‘Ya aint no Cryptid, I know. Naaah, not with that weird outfit and no stealth skills. Tryin’a get over the boundary wus ya? Who ya’ wiv, the Legumes? Go on, spill the beans. Who you workin’ for?’

Maple stared on in an amazement appropriate for someone who’d just been caught in a trap by a crazy man on a rooftop ranting about beans.

‘Speak up will ya’? Else I’ll just slide ya’ back down to the streets. Let’s see ya’ get on down there any betta’, eh?’

‘Right, right, okay, sure,’ Maple started, figuring he might as well take the opportunity to talk to someone who actually wanted to listen. ‘I just climbed up here because the street-‘

‘Whassat?!’ The robed man exclaimed. ‘Climbed up?! Like you wus down there to begin with? Nah, that’s a lie I’ll bet. We’ll see. We’ll test out your little story, I’ll show ya to Chief Po, he’ll know if that story’s true. He will.’

‘Right, well lead the way I guess,’ Maple tried to stand, excited to meet someone else willing to listen but the crazy man closed the net again and started dragging him painfully across the roof. At least he was still moving towards the church.

[almorganfiction]

Pillars

I was somewhere between asleep and awake, in that state where your mind touches on strange thoughts that fade once you tip into either consciousness or slumber. My mind tipped into neither and instead entered a state of deep and complete unawareness.

At first there was nothing, for how long I'm not sure as I had no perception with which to measure time, instead everything came as a sequence of events. Next there was seeing; only seeing. I saw darkness, not pure darkness but a black waterfall flowing all around me.

Next there was sensation as I felt the warmth of the water running over my body. This was followed by emotion. The warmth of the water opened up a warmth in my soul, I felt a calmness deep inside. Then a pinprick of blue light appeared in the distance.

The light grew larger and brighter until it filled the entire space around me for a moment before vanishing in a brilliant flash, the warmth and calmness vanishing with it.

The light was replaced with nonsensical shapes that surrounded me, ominous shapes that filled me with an overwhelming dread, a dread stoked further by my inability to understand where or what I was. The abstract shapes slowly took on a recognisable form of marble columns with indentations running parallel up their entire lengths.

I looked around to try and get a sense of where I was. It seemed to be some gigantic temple filled with nothing but marble columns so tall that in place of a ceiling was a black void, the same black void surrounded me as the temple seemed to be infinite in both height and width.

I wandered among the pillars, choosing a random direction and sticking to it, hoping to see some sort of change ahead, slightly anxious that I may be wandering the identical halls for eternity. After a few minutes of wandering the change came in the form of a distant green glow. As I walked closer more colours began to appear until a whole spectrum of coloured lights lay in the distance before me. I started to run towards the green lights, the columns flashed past me, out of the corner of my eye I saw that the columns were leaning in towards me, following me as I dashed down the marble halls. They seemed almost fluid in motion, bending and curling all around me.

I outstretched my arms and ran with my fingers brushing the pillars. An electric flash of purpose- for here purpose was an emotion in its own right- jolted up through my fingers in straight to my heart each time my fingertips connected with a pillar. Each pillar I touched curled and twirled with delight leaving behind me a trail of elegant swirling columns. As I looked back I saw my footprints were pools of light, glowing brightly, emitting golden beacons that reached high into the sky like rays of sunshine. I didn't spend too much time looking back, though, as I was fixated on the green light before me, excited by its friendly glow.

Soon the green light was all around me, I couldn't see where it was coming from although it seemed to be from the air itself. The light reached inside me and spread through my body, starting in my eyes and travelling through my nervous system, first to my brain and then leaving through my fingertips, creating a circuit between me and the emerald glow in the air.

I took a step toward one of the columns, leaving behind a brilliant green footprint even brighter than before. I pressed my palm to the column. The green light flowed from my hand into the marble surface. The column reacted immediately with an excited shiver as the white marble was turned green, its ridges transforming into waves. Beautiful jade crystals sprouted from the green marble creating a wondrous coral reef of lush, green light. The green light jumped out of the column and into the next, spreading its wonder from pillar to pillar until the entire world around me was file with joyous green monoliths.

I ran amongst the emerald pillars, watching them dance as I leaped by. An orange light lay resting in the distance, beckoning me with its subtle yet powerful glare. Despite its distance it only took me a few steps until the orange glow was all around me, working its way from my eyes to my fingers. It burst out in a cascade of brilliant illumination just as the green light before it and just like the green light it electrified the air around me, igniting every particle with a glorious, orange blaze.

I placed my hands on another pillar which was then pierced by the orange light. The orange mixed with green, creating orange veins which curled around the pillar, sprouting honey coloured flowers just as the green light had created its crystals.

The veins of orange were overlapped by the green spreading out to reclaim its territory, but both colours seemed to find a harmony, losing and claiming ground on the column with perfect synchronicity, the orange spreading like rivers and the green spreading in pools.

I watched in awe as the orange blaze leapt from the pillar, enveloping the next, creating another matrimonious dance, bounding through the pillars until every column was both green and orange. I watched as the orange light continued to spread into the distance. Excitement filled me as I spotted a blue glow in the distance.

I made it to the new blue light in just three short strides. Just like before the blue light created a circuit between me and the air. I tried the pillars again. This time the blue light squeezed into the marble, creating spirals of blue loop-de-loops, rolling through the column. Sapphire tree branches grew from the blue spirals, reaching high into the air. Once again the coloured light jumped from pillar to pillar, blue overlapping orange overlapping green overlapping blue.

I made it my mission to bring as much colour to the temple as possible. Soon, yellow rings rippled through the columns, bringing with them sprouting golden clouds.

Purple bolts zig-zagged through the colours accompanied by amethyst pyramids.

Red waves brought crimson obelisks.

The strange temple became a walk-in kaleidoscope. I wasted no time in gleefully running through its halls, leaving behind a rainbow of footprints, dazzling and everlasting. Then came something new. Then came the sound.

As I galloped across the marble floor my ears suddenly picked up the sound of my footfall, loud and alone. Until then I hadn't noticed how quiet the temple was, I hadn't notice how strange it was that such a large space would be completely devoid of sound.

The introduction of sound filled my imagination with endless possible wonders. I approached one of the kaleidoscopic pillars and knocked it with my fist, expecting a heavenly chime or some sort of ethereal noise. The sound that came from the pillar was a dull clunk. It was the sound of someone knocking a marble pillar with their fist. Disappointed I pressed my ear to the pillar hoping to hear the subtle sounds of the vibrant colours shifting amongst themselves but there was no sound coming from the column at all. It seemed that sound in the temple was exactly what you'd expect. It was just sound.

The unremarkableness of sound in the marble halls didn't hold me back, however, as I decided if the sound itself must be ordinary then it was my job to make it extraordinary. Once again I skipped through the columns, this time releasing a deep howl into the echoey halls. The pillars quivered around me as I passed, turning to face me and looking on as I disappeared down the infinite corridors.

I closed my eyes, held out my arms and burst out with a flurry of childish laughs. I listened as my laughs resonated among the column, a long drawn out echo returned. I kept my eyes shut so I could soak in my reflected laughs. I ran for what felt like miles until I hit one of the pillars and fell to the floor.

I lay motionless, shocked that it was even possible for me to hit the pillar in the first place as I'd had no trouble keeping my direction at all before the collision. I slowly opened my eyes and the sight before me elevated my shock. A grey marble ceiling lingered about ten feet above me, connected to it were the columns but not as they were when I closed my eyes, they were now devoid of wondrous shape and colour and perfectly still. They weren't even the same white marble as when I first came to the temple. They were grey. Not light grey. Not dark grey. Grey.

I stood up and looked behind me, they grey columns evoking a desperate need to feel the coloured lights again but all I saw was a never ending darkness framed with grey pillars. I reasoned that it must be another direction that I had come from but every direction was completely identical. I looked up at the ceiling, hoping it may slope upwards, revealing the direction I had come from but it appeared to slope downwards in every direction.

I picked a direction and started to run. I let out another laugh, trying to recapture my joy, but now that the light was gone my laughter returned sounding forced and carrying an obvious longing. I resigned to walking in silence, except for my hollow footsteps, the vibrant footprints from before also missing.

I walked until the ceiling sloped to just about two feet above my head. In front of me the slope showed no sign of shallowing so I determined I must be moving further away from where I started. I turned around, hoping to undo the claustrophobic descent of the ceiling but to my surprise the ceiling once more sloped downwards in every direction. I lost my initial route and picked another at random, running desperately toward the darkness. Every time I stopped to look around I was surrounded by downward slopes. I thought about stopping but the thought of giving up and never finding the light again was near agony to me. I walked and walked and walked until the ceiling was inches away. Nothing else had changes, not even my hope for finding the light. Finally the ceiling became so low that I had to stoop.

Once again I stopped to look around. I stared into the identical halls, arbitrarily picking a direction. The temple started to fade.

I didn't wake from the temple into my bed, instead I fell into a deep sleep filled with regular, hazy dreams, far less vivid than the columns. When I woke I remembered the temple clearly. It seemed odd that I could fall asleep if I was already dreaming but I was sure the temple could not possible have been real.

I dressed for work.

[almorganfiction]

A work of art

Today’s story was inspired by a piece from Deviant Art user t1na (Martina Stipan)

I will link the piece and the artist’s page at the end of this post.

‘It’s a pretty picture, I’ll give you that, but it’s not real enough,’ the man in the grey suit and white collar said, rubbing a leaf between his thumb and forefinger.

No more than a year ago the image of a man in a three piece suit, complete with tie, clip, and pocket square, stood in the middle of a thick forest, ankle deep in a gentle stream might have seemed ridiculous. Nowadays it wasn’t uncommon to see the same sort of man or woman wandering in all sorts of strange places, ancient castles, distant planets, underwater trenches.

‘You’ve got the lighting down, yes it’s much better than your last project, that mountain top you did   for the leper- sorry, the man with leprosy- well it was fine and all but it just felt so… dim.’ The suited man stepped out of the water on to the river bank, his trousers and shoes completely dry. ‘I mean, he paid for it anyway, didn’t know any better I suppose, but still, we could have lost his commission entirely.’ The suited man rested his hand on the shoulder of a young woman- the woman he was addressing- in a white coverall that hid everything but her eyes.

She signed the words for ‘so what’s the problem with this one?’ but the suited man was looking at the small rowboat that lay in the still water that was being fed by the river. He pushed on it with his foot and watched it bob slowly for a few seconds.

‘Yes, right here, see?’ the man said, turning back to the woman in the coverall. ‘The consistency of the water is all wrong, no one’s going to want to spend the rest of their life here if the water’s wrong. I don’t see why you couldn’t have used a pre-set; you’ve made it feel like paint. This is due at the end of the day, yes?’ The coverall woman nodded. ‘Right then, that’s enough time to sort out the water and polish up the rest of it. You’ll have to get some overtime in, stay late to get this sorted, I’ll be back in a few hours when you’re finished. See you then.’

The coverall woman signed ‘I can’t stay tonight, I’ve got to look after my sister’ but the suited man had his back turned to her as he opened an invisible door and stepped out of the forest, although she doubted he would have cared either way. In frustration the woman sent another sign after the man that wasn’t officially sign language, but she was sure he would have understood it nonetheless.

The woman in coveralls turned to look at her work. ‘Well Dad is going to kill me,’ she thought. ‘Not much I can do about it now though, he’ll just have to miss his concert.’

She pressed the palm of her right hand with her thumb, a holographic panel appeared hovering over her hand displaying various symbols, she tapped the one that looked like a wrench and the panel transformed into a wrench itself, identical to the symbol except in three dimensions. She pointed the wrench at the water and another panel appeared, this time filled with boxes displaying numbers and words. She hit the box that said “dissolve” and watched as a dozen red lasers appeared from invisible projectors, running lines over the small lake, the water disappearing on contact with the beams leaving behind an empty riverbed.

The wildlife in the lake carried on like nothing had happened, small fish swam back and forth in the air that had just been water. Aquatic weeds floated and swayed with no regard to gravity. Miss Coveralls heard the sound of the invisible door opening and turned around to see a man in coveralls of his own stepping through. ‘Alright there Sue? Are you getting a lift home with me or not?’ he asked looking around the forest as he spoke. ‘Bloody good job you’ve done in ‘ere, mind you. You know your water’s missing though, yeah?’

‘I’m so sorry Peter,’ Sue signed, ‘I forgot it was your carpool today. I hope I didn’t keep you long, they’re making me stay late.’

‘That’s alright, can’t be ‘elped really, can it? What does this one mean again?’ Peter asked, copying one of Sue’s signs.

Sue signed the letters “H”, “O”, “P”, and “E” and repeated the sign for “hope”. Peter copied the letters (accidentally opening his Holopanel on “E”) and then made the sign for “hope” back at Sue.

‘I don’t know how you remember all that,’ Pete chuckled as he closed his Holopanel. ‘I best be off anyway, see you tomorrow, yeah?’

Sue shook her head, eyes on the floor. ‘Doubt it,’ she signed.

‘No? How come? You alright, Sue?’

‘This is my last job. I’m done.’

‘No mate, you’re joking!’

Sue shook her head again. ‘I’m serious.’ She saw Peter’s confused scowl and spelled out the word “s-e-r-i-o-u-s”, at his nod she continued. ‘There’s no art in it. I’m just making someone’s tomb-‘ “t-o-m-b” ‘-from a picture they gave me. Where’s the creativity?’

‘Well, there’s art in that. You get to give someone a good send off an’ all, there’s art in helping the sick.’

‘But what’s the point if I’m not putting any of myself into it?’

‘What part of yourself would you want to put in someone’s final moments?’

Sue sighed deeply, she fiddled with her Holopanel, conjuring a holographic paintbrush. She made a few long sweeping arcs in the air, drawing a holographic rainbow in the distance. She pressed a small panel with a tick on it at the base of the brush and the lasers fired up again, filling in the rainbow in with brilliantly vivid spectrum of colours that weren’t quite the actual colours of the rainbow.

‘That’s nice,’ Peter said with a smile. ‘It doesn’t feel alive enough though.’ Peter conjured his own brush and painted a flock of birds one by one. He pressed the tick and the lasers brought the birds to life, immediately they flew upwards towards the canopy, the mass of wings caused a strobe-like effect in the sunbeams as they flew past, blocking and unblocking the light.

Sue began to smile as she followed the birds in their flight. She removed her left glove held her hand out and admired the effect of the golden light on her skin. When she looked down she saw Peter had created a great, towering waterfall that fed into the river. With her own brush Sue added an Elk which trotted over to the empty lake and started drinking the invisible water. The pair stared at their work for a few minutes in silence.

‘Now that’s a work of art, that is.’ Peter said, grinning.

‘Yeah, I like it.’ Sue signed. ‘I better clean it up. She signed the letter “c-l-e-a-n” and opened the main panel up, hitting the button that said “undo” until everything they had just created was gone. She turned her paintbrush into a hose and started filling up the empty lake.

‘Alright, well good luck Sue, get home safe, yeah?’

‘Don’t worry, I will,’ Sue replied, setting the hose down to free both hands. ‘See you tomorrow Pete.’

‘Alright, see you tomorrow,’ Pete said cheerfully before stepping out of the forest through the invisible door. He looked back for a second and saw Sue holding her hand up to the golden light.

http://t1na.deviantart.com/art/Fragile-694294993

https://t1na.deviantart.com/

[almorganfiction]

Humpback

Today’s prompt comes from Reddit user Nuclear-Sloth.

“ You're the grim reaper, and must arrange people's deaths. You're always given a few starting items, such as a car or a knife, but one day you're given a humpback whale. “

 ‘Yes. Yep. Of course. Yes, I understand that but- No of course not. Yep. Yep. Yeah, yes of course, no don’t put me on hold. No, no, no- damn it all!’ Grim gripped the phone tightly in frustration, just barely resisting the temptation to hurl it into the swimming pool he was sat beside.

A whale.

A god damned humpback whale.

And to add insult to… well, insult, he now had to sit there and listen to whale song through his phone as well. No cheesy piano track for the Afterworld support line, apparently.

The whale in the pool started a song of its own, probably a distress call for being stranded in such a small body of water.

‘Yeah, yeah, you’ll get over it,’ Grim grunted at the whale. ‘At least you don’t have a deadline- a literal deadline- to meet and a bloody humpback whale to work with.’

The whale replied with a short, high pitched drone.

‘Well yeah, I suppose you do have to work with a whale, being one yourself, but you don’t have to kill anybody with one.’

Another cry from the whale.

‘Oh really? You’ve got some sort of hit list I suppose, do you?’

Grim listened for a moment but the whale stayed quiet.

‘Didn’t think so. You know they say never to bull-‘ A voice spoke from the phone, derailing the conversation. ‘Hello! Hi, Grim here. Grim Hovingdon Reaper, I think there’s been some sort of mistake, you see- oh.’ Grim clenched his teeth, if he had any skin or muscles he would have been sporting a deep frown but instead he showed only a skeletal poker face.

‘Apparently I’m number 19,’ he said to the whale. ‘Do you think they’re counting up or down?’

The whale answered with a long wail that raised in pitch at the end.

‘What? You don’t have numbers down in…’ he paused with another invisible frown. ‘Where are you from?’

Another short cry came from the whale.

‘Antartica? I’ve heard of Aquaman, you know. You’re not going to fool me with some made up place, I’m the Grim Reaper.’

The whale made another distressed groan as another voice came from the phone.

‘I’m number 18 now, so we’re making a little progress.’ Grim pulled a white folder from his robes, yanking it free of his ribcage, and opened it up revealing a profile and picture of his contract.

‘So, we’ve got a 45-year-old, 5 foot 4- that explains the huge house- stock broker. No heart conditions, no diseases at all, seems like he’s perfectly healthy, although he is short sighted. Damn it, I was hoping he might just drop dead before sunrise.’ Grim tucked the folder away again. ‘Well, he missed the bus that was supposed to run him over so he’s got to go I’m afraid. We’ve got a few hours yet, maybe I could impale him on one of your tusks, if you’d let me borrow it.’

The whale moaned loudly, the pitch of the cry bouncing back and forth like a barbershop quartet of 13-year-olds.

‘Of course you have tusks! How else would you… would you…’ Grim shut his mouth and turned away, grateful he didn’t have any cheeks to blush with. ‘Still 18, apparently.’

The door to the pool room opened suddenly and a short, balding man with no clothes on stepped through.

‘Mr Five-Foot-Four, in the flesh. All the flesh. One of the benefits of night swimming, I suppose,’ Grim whispered. ‘Not for us, though.’

The naked man reached for the light switch, missing completely and slapping the wall several times instead.

‘Oh, bugger it all,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll swim in the bloody dark then.’

Grim watched the man approach the edge of the pool, covering the speaker on his phone with the sleeve of his robe to keep it quiet.

‘Hmph,’ the client grumbled as his hands curled around the ladder to the diving board. ‘Pool’s awfully dark today.’ He ascended the ladder and stood at the tip of the diving board, flexing his legs, his genitals swinging back and forth in clear view of Grim.

‘Well,’ Grim whispered. ‘At least we know that the size of the carpet doesn’t match the length of the- that the carpet size is… uhh, the size of the- he’s got a large penis. He’s short and he has a large penis.’

The client finished his squats and prepared to dive. He stretched his arms into the air and bent at the knees, Grim wasn’t sure if his technique was even close but he wasn’t going to stop the guy from face planting onto the back of a humpback whale, certainly not for a gripe about his form.

The naked diver did his mandatory test bounce of the diving board and launched himself into the air, this was when Grim changed his mind about the diver’s technique, as he soared upwards  he curled into a ball and spun around, extending suddenly so his body was stretched out, his head pointed downwards. He stretched out his arms and sailed smoothly towards the pool.

Grim suspected he would have made an impressive dive if there was any room for him to land in the pool but instead the diver landed head first onto the back of the whale, his head snapping sharply to the side with an audible crunch. If he had any, Grim’s eyes would have widened with surprise as they watched the clients body fall limp, his jaw did drop, however.

The whale song from the phone cut off and was replaced with an overly cheery voice. ‘Afterworld Support Line, Transitions department, this is Wendy speaking. How can I help you today?’

Grim shook his head in exasperation. ‘You know what, I’m good Wendy, all good here.’

‘Fantastic, Mr Reaper. I’ll just check you’re file here to see if there’s any outstanding clients and- oh.’

‘What? What is it?’

‘Well, uh, this is embarrassing. It seems we’ve made a mistake, you seem to have been given the wrong tool for your last job.’

‘You don’t say…’

‘It says here you were supposed to be using a thumbtack and nails. We’re awfully sorry for the confusion, Mr Reaper. Mr Reaper? Hello?’

[almorganfiction]

Prompted Stories

Here is where you’ll find some of my shorter stories written from prompts posted to r/writingprompts (see link below).

These will usually be shorter and a little less polished than the rest of my work here as they’re mostly just for practice but I’m dragging them out here anyway so I can appear more productive than I actually am.

Enjoy, maybe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/

[almorganfiction]

Alter Hall (Coming Soon)

There exists a field of grass that stretches for miles without a single animal, without a single flower, without a weed, a clover, a pebble or a leaf. Nothing but lush, green grass as far as the eye can see, nothing except for a small cottage that stands atop a mound of grass. Some have walked the fields for hours without a sign of the house, some have set their eyes on the field for only a second before catching sight of it. Some have been drawn to it before they even knew it existed. 

The house is Alter Hall, soon its story will be told.

[almorganfiction]

Stand Alones

This page is reserved for the many stand alone stories I have buried in the depths of my alarmingly seldom backed up computer files.

Don’t panic though (because that would be a ridiculous thing to do) because there are a few very near to completion on the way.

(Disclaimer; this may or may not be a blatant lie.)

[almorganfiction]

An Empty Choice (Coming Soon)

Far below the ocean surface, Marla and Jo are the sole occupants of a facility built for the purpose of observing the marine life on the ocean floor.

The novelty of having the entire complex to themselves wears off when a strange fog surrounds the facility and a pod carrying an unusual, shadowy entity arrives in the docking bay.