Free What Lies Below by Glynn James Page A

his imprisonment was to be long term.
    His second regular visitor was the old man that lived in the
shack at the edge of the swamp, and his were the least expected of visits. The old
guy checked Jack’s leg every day and muttered to him about mushrooms quite a
lot, or other junk that he had found, as though it may be of interest to Jack.
Then he just left. He only ever stayed maybe ten minutes at most.
    Jack liked the old man, apparently named Haggerty, for some
reason, even though it became obvious to him during those visits that few
Junkers did. Jack thought that Haggerty had an honesty about him that was
refreshing. Oh, not a kind of non-lying honesty. Certainly not. Jack suspected
that half of what Haggerty said was a lie, or simply misleading, but when it
was time for him to go, there were none of the formalities that even the
Junkers used. No hello, no goodbye. Not even a nod. The old man simply stood up
and left, often cursing at someone nearby to get out of his way, even if they
were nowhere near him.
    And then there was the third visitor. Ryan.
    The boy came half a dozen times, during the daylight hours,
and often sat there at night until he was scolded by one of the Junkers and
sent to bed. From Jack’s ‘cell’, which had once been some sort of shipping cage
for animals, he could see the building that was Ryan’s home in the distance,
poking up towards the clouds.
    Jack couldn’t believe it was an actual spacecraft of some
kind. They never made real ones, he’d thought, and had believed that his whole
life. Sure, there were the Ark ships that left every year, he remembered that
much from his youth, but they were built in orbit, or something like that, built
next to a space station, a kind of building that hung in the air, high up outside
the atmosphere, in space.
    Jump shuttles rocketed up into the sky hourly from the Inner
Zone. He’d even seen them in his earlier years, on the few occasions he’d been
close to The Wall. They burst up into to sky with a roar and then gradually
vanished into the clouds, the roar of the ascent diminishing over a few minutes
until all that was left was a plume of fumes dissipating in the sky.
    But no, Ryan insisted that the metal monstrosity leaning
against the rock outcrop was, in fact, once a ship that had flown in space.
    They talked about a lot of things, he and Ryan. And when the
boy left to sleep, or eat, or do his chores, Jack felt both relief and joy as
well as guilt. It was as though they had never been apart. The boy chattered
and chattered, bringing him more drawings that he had done, entire books full
of them. They had a lot of scrap paper in the Junklands, as well as card and
other materials scavenged from the mountains of trash, so much so that Ryan had
two dozen or more wads of sewn together paper with his own drawings in. The
paper alone would have brought a fortune in barter in the Outer Zone, but it
was a common material in the Junker town.
    But, with all these visits, Jack wondered if he would be stuck
in the cage for weeks, or even months.
    They don’t trust you, you see. Not Ryan, he will always trust
you, it seems, even after you let him down so badly. He doesn’t think you did,
and you’re lucky for that. Very lucky. He could have been angry with you and he
wasn’t. No, it’s not his trust you’re missing. The Junkers don’t trust you. And
why should they?
    But things were different today. Jack could sense it. He had
the ability to pick up on such things. Jack looked up from the dirt to see
FirstMan strolling towards the cage, with that ever-confident swagger he used,
and Jack’s spirits lifted. Even if FirstMan was trying to conceal it, Jack had noticed
the ring of keys hanging from the tall man’s belt.
    Hope.
    There was no greeting like there usually was. FirstMan just jumped
straight into the conversation that he wanted, like they had been talking for
half an hour already.
     “I apologise for keeping you in such a fashion but we have