Season 03 - Episode 19

‘single flash good’

Ty is following his new best friend through a box transit system. The tunnels feel familiar except that the belts don't move. The rollers are all seized and rusted and the rubber belts are decaying. It's strange but Ty doesn't mind, he's just glad to not be alone anymore.

He follows the little red light through the maze of tunnels. He doesn't know where it's taking him but he has come to trust the scurrying, metal creature completely. Sometimes it races away ahead of him, but always comes back. Sometimes it leads him to more mushrooms or to places good for sleeping.

Now it leads him to another hatch, scrambling up the wall to sit above it, waiting for Ty to turn the handle. He wheezes and strains but eventually manages to put enough effort into his skinny little arms to twist the handle and open the hatch.

He climbs out and looks up, groaning with disappointment as he finds himself at the bottom of another, apparently infinite stairwell. His metal friend however, scurries away from him across the floor, drawing Ty's attention to a large opening in the wall.

The opening is blocked by a solid turnstile of heavy, interlocking bars. Ty approaches it and gives it a shove but it is locked. Peering through the bars however, he lets out a little cry of excitement. On the other side he can see the top of a staircase.

A way back down!

His metal friend is dashing about in little circles, trying to catch his eye. Dragging himself away from the view. Ty sees that the creature is circling a large heavy bolt. He takes a step to the side to stand immediately in front of the bolt and examines it.

“You want me to open this?” he asks uncertainly.

A single flash of the little red light says yes so Ty sets about sliding the bolt. It is huge and heavy and old and stuck but after several minutes of panting and pulling it begins to give. Eventually it slides free so abruptly that Ty staggers backwards and almost falls. He quickly shoves at the bars, which do now move, but to his dismay, only turn towards him.

He can't get through.

He thinks he might cry but then movement beyond the bars catches his eye. It is gloomy on the other side but as he watches, Ty sees another tiny metal creature, identical to his new friend, scurrying up the wall beside the stairs coming up from below.

The creature stops then curls its legs, biting into the wall, fixing itself tightly in place before falling still. The red light on its back pulses slowly. Turning away he sees that his friend has moved part way up the stairs on this side and is doing the same. He hurries over to it.

“Hello?” he cries desperately. “Are you ok? What are you doing?”

There is no movement and no response, no matter what he says and he feels his lower lip begin to wobble. Just then he senses movement behind him and spins round in shock. A third little metal creature is waiting, dancing just like his friend did when they first met.

“Is it you?” Ty asks, wiping away a tear.

A single red flash.

Ty's relief overwhelms his confusion and he follows his new, new best friend back through the hatch into the tunnels. They crawl on together for several hours more until the creature leads him to a warm little corner beside a vent and they curl up together. Ty strokes the creature's back with the tip of his finger as he thinks.

“I thought you were alive,” he says. “But you're not, are you?”

A double flash.

“Now I think this might be a tool,” Ty continues. “And that really, you're a person, far away from here, controlling these little things. Is that right?”

A single flash.

Ty thinks for a while more.

“Can we still be friends?” he asks then, holding his breath.

A single flash.

“Good!” he says happily.

“Hello?” calls a voice nearby. “Is there someone in there?”

Ty twists in panic to see a pair of eyes looking through the vent.

©  a d a m   b y f i e l d , not to be reproduced in any form without written permission