A cup of mint tea did nothing to lift my mood. I was trying really hard to get things into context, and having found one girl that killed herself down here and another that had come close I had to stay in control of me, if not the shitty situation I was in; no, the shitty situation that WE were in. 'Problem solve you fuckhead,' I snarled at myself as I walked around our earth prison.
I went to my car and pulled branches from around it and some of those that had broken when it had been lowered or dropped. Inside the car I looked for anything else that I could use. I thought about whether the car would be a warmer shelter than the tent, and looked to see if I could push the windscreen back in, and I figured I could, at least enough to block a draft.
As I looked around for anything else that might make our life more practical, there was the rear view mirror and I just popped it off and stashed it in with the wood. I took it back and dumped it close enough to the tent for me to grab it.
That tiny act of rebellion to whoever was running this helped to focus my mind; "What I have here," I thought, 'use what you have here,' and my mind went to that large green bag at the back of the tent. How do you knock out someone for long enough to drop them down a hold in their car? Even more so, how do you knock out someone there already so they don't hear it?
With me dropping the wood, Emma woke and popped her head out from under the tent flap smiling.
"Hey Harry," she grinned, her breasts cleavaged and looking hot by her folded arms she rested on, "Aww you've covered up, that's not fair."
"You don't want fucking again surely?"
"I could be convinced," she said biting her bottom lip, "you are bloody good at it."
"I think you should go easy for today," I said, "you had some pretty intense treatment down there, I think we'll give you a few hours off."
"OK," she said, "I must confess I do feel a bit road worn down there. Tea?"
"Yes please," I said. The sun dropped and the hole was thrown into the shade so I put on my T-shirt and trousers. So did Emma.
We drank our tea and I guessed it was about two in the afternoon. I slid into the tent next to her and took her in my arms,
"Let's have a bit of a nap Em," I said. "When we wake up I'll check the snares and the fish traps." We'd performed for them and by my guessing they owed us.
"Oh damn, do I have to sleep with you again?" I nodded. "OK, you've convinced me." Pulling the flap down on the tent. I reached a hand into my paramedic bag and felt for what I knew to be there.
Time passed; I fought off the feeling of sleep that threatened to creep over me. Then I smelled something funny. Feeling even sleepier I erred with caution and pulled the oxygen mask out of my bag, flicked the knob and put it over my face. I raised the flap the tiniest bit and saw a thin pale mist hanging in the air. It was entirely the wrong weather for this kind of mist and I was happy that I'd guessed right but scared as to what might happen next.
I shook Emma gently; nothing, totally out cold, but still breathing gently. I stretched across and under cover of the mist pulled the car mirror free of the wood pile and pointed it back into the clearing.
Then there was the most noise I'd heard in days. It was the starting of an engine!
I steadied my breathing and wondered how long I could hold my breath if they came into the tent. I looked into the mirror and saw a bright yellow cage lower into the centre of the clearing across from us. It contained three men, two of whom were carrying tool boxes, the third looked like he was armed. All three were wearing oxygen masks with small tanks like mine.
"Check our actors," said the first in an south English accent and in my mirror I could see the security man coming towards us. I took a deep breath and hid the mask under my blanket. The flap opened.
"Both out cold," said the voice, and it sounded Eastern European. He shook Emma by her leg, then kicked my foot. "Yes, sound asleep." He stood up, then lifted the side of the tent and came forward, I crept an eye open and I saw him lift the blanket and feel around for Emma's tits. He giggled.
I was beginning to fear that I'd have to take a breath,
"Leave the merchandise alone Viktor," growled a voice that sounded like it came from a radio and the tent flap fell. I put the mask to face just in time and exhaled. I drew a lungful of clean clear oxygen and got back to watching what was going on outside via the mirror.
The two with tool boxes were messing around with the tree directly opposite the mouth of our tent, I was right, they couldn't see what was going on and were putting in a camera so they could. Bastards.
There was a crackle from the radio, the same voice, which sounded refined English,
"We're turning off the anaesthetic, so you have ten minutes before you have to come out. Find the power outage, sort the new camera and get the hell back up here again, make sure you put the rabbits in the snares..."
"OK boss," replied the security man. I looked closer at him, he was wearing a Taser gun like the police carried, to incapacitate not kill, and more importantly, one shot. But he did look like he could do similar with his fists. Shit.
I watched where the new camera was fitted. It was in a tree not ten yards from the mouth of our tent. It was in a hole in the wood and looked like it was covered with a camouflaged mesh.
"Power on," said one of the technicians, "Raise the tent flap, let's check the view." I held my breath and hid the mask again. The flap came up, "how's that?"
There was the crackle of a radio,
"...Yeah that's fine I can see in there quite nicely..." it was the same voice from before.
I crept an eye open the tinest fraction and saw the camera, shit it was filming me! I couldn't get back to my mask without giving it away. I wanted desperately to know where the power cable was as well; if I could knock that out that they'd have to come down again. My breath was getting too close, and I was breathing out slowly to try and make it last longer.
Eventually I gasped and figured that at least I knew where the fucking camera that would be watching us was. I breathed in;
Nothing happened.
OK I felt a little dizzy but perhaps the gas had dissipated to an extent that if I wasn't out cold I probably wouldn't be. I saw the technician push something against the tree, it must have been power to that camera, it was camouflaged as a vine and invisible! Very cleverly done, the camera was hidden in the bough of the tree as well.
The radio crackled again,
"...will you have time to get a microphone into the tent? We can't hear them in there..."
"Not really boss, not that they won't find in any case. We have about seven minutes to check the main cable," the voice took a deep breath, "look, we'll come back one night next week and fit one, Viktor is changing the gas tanks so we can get another couple of shots in." He shouted across the clearing, "You sorted that gas tank you dumb fuck?"
"Kiss my ass," came the reply, "I change the gas tank while you still fuck around with the camera."
The radio crackled again, "...just get on with it, you have four minutes, don't forget to put the tent flap back down."
"The mad professor seems really pissed off about something this afternoon?" said the first, "Don't see why, the actors have finally started performing and the new management seem happy at last."
"Insane bastard," said the second, "I think that twat actually thinks these poor bastards enjoy being down here."
They ran to the centre of the woods and started to scrape with a shovel then a hatch was lifted and one of them dropped down.
"Done!" screamed the voice, they dropped the hatch, flattened and stomped the earth down and head off to a "get back on the lift!" from the Eastern European.
As the sun started to set, the motor on the lift started and the crane lifted the yellow cage out of the clearing and the motor shut down as fast as it had started. I could hear voices.
It was clear someone was being paid in cash and it wasn't enough. The words, 'damned microphone in the tent' and 'we'll see you on Tuesday' came across the air as if getting further away.
Well that was that. It was a well organised scheme at the least. I put my mask back into the bag and turned off the oxygen. I was going to be needing it.
I decided that I would come round as expected and within three minutes of hearing the voices stop I was raising the tent flap and looking quite tired. I'd seen enough people come around from anaesthetic after all.
I threw open the tent flap exposing both Emma and I to the outside world I tried hard not to look at where I knew the new camera was. I climbed out of the tent, stoked the fire and walked to the stream to fill the cups.
Emma stretched, and looked bleary eyed at me.
"Your lovemaking really tired me out," she said "I slept like a log."
"No sleep like after sex sleep," I said leaning back to kiss her lips. She beamed her big wonderful smile at me again. I made a play of kissing her face, cheeks, and neck, "they gassed us," I hissed in her ear, "a heavy anaesthetic by the look." She looked quizzically at me, "I was on oxygen, only just got away with it. Smile at me..."
