As Yourself Read online

untouched by the glow of the hanging light, was a jagged, black hole. The ceiling did not look like the earlier ceilings, built by the Neishoe Corporation. It was one continuous, smooth grey surface of stone, stretching out all directions into the night.

  This ceiling, Hedwig decided, was not a ceiling. It was the bottom of a foundation – the foundation of a spectacularly ancient structure.

  Otto reared up and around and saw the man sitting on the ladder.

  “Of course,” said Otto. “You’re the man waiting to help us.”

  The man finished his whistling. He looked at Otto and Hedwig.

  “I’m the man waiting to hold the ladder,” said the man to Hedwig. “Don’t know why I’m waiting at all. But I do what the Company tells me. If they want to bring in a different kind of help, it’s their business, not mine. The Company’s choices are none of my business, just like other people’s choice of company is none of my business. Except as it pertains to yours truly, you understand.

  The man waved vaguely upwards with his hand.

  “Now, you’ve seen the hole,” he said, “and I’ll be seeing you.”

  The man got up from the ladder and walked off down the stairs.

  “So, aren’t you going to hold the ladder?” said Hedwig.

  “No,” said Otto. “He isn’t.”

  “Oh,” said Hedwig.

  Hedwig watched the man go. Otto peered into the dark hole in the ceiling above. When the man was gone Hedwig looked at the hole too. He didn’t say anything for a long time and neither did Otto.

  “I’ll hold the ladder for you,” Hedwig said.

  Otto grunted. The ladder was not made for humoles. He climbed it one step at a time. On the top step, Otto stopped and looked into the black of the hole. His light showed nothing. Otto took a deep breath and clambered up.

  “Can you, uh, see anything,” said Hedwig.

  There was no answer and Hedwig thought for a moment that he was alone.

  “Wherever I am, it’s big,” said Otto. “My voice echoes. The floor is secure but uneven. The hole seems to come up through the surface of a ramp. That’s about all I can tell from here. Come on. I’ll help you up.”

  “Yes, right,” said Hedwig.

  He gave the ladder a little shake to check for sturdiness, and climbed it slowly as Otto had. Hedwig reached the top step.

  “Otto?” Hedwig said.

  “Right here,” said Otto. “You can make it.”

  Hedwig did a little hop and clutched at the side of the hole. Otto grabbed him by the shirt and pulled up; Hedwig came up out of the hole too easily. He and Otto stumbled backwards. Hedwig tripped and fell into something solid. He heard a crumbling sound and brought his flashlight up. It was a wall, built from the same stuff as the foundation. There in the base of the wall was a crack, widening. Hedwig put his hand to the wall. It moved towards him. The wall was falling forward onto him and Otto.

  Hedwig grabbed a handful of Otto’s fur, yelled, and pulled as he ran. Otto got the message and followed as fast as he could. The great grey wall hit the floor with an overwhelming sound and loosed a wave of stony dust. Otto and Hedwig tumbled over and behind some kind of counter. The cloud rattled over their heads dropping chunks of grey. They heared a rumbling, scraping, grinding noise. Otto and Hedwig closed their eyes and covered their ears.

  The sound stopped. Hedwig took his hands from his ears. Otto undid his front legs from around his head. Hedwig stood, and coughed. He and Otto remained behind the desk as the murky cloud settled. They made their way carefully out. Hedwig turned and shined his light on the desk.

  “Help Desk,” he read.

  “You’re making it up,” said Otto.

  “That’s how it translates,” said Hedwig.

  Hedwig turned back around and followed Otto’s gaze. As the air cleared, it became harder and harder to deny. Otto and Hedwig, slowly, walked as close as they could to the spot where the hole in the floor had been. The big grey wall had fallen, and it had slid down the surface of the ramp and settled partway down, held in place against another wall that was only just standing. The fallen wall lay flush against the surface of the ramp, and it completely covered Otto and Hedwig’s only way out.

  “Mm,” said Hedwig.

  “We’re sealed off,” said Otto.

  “So, ah, someone will be here soon to dig us out?” said Hedwig.

  “I wouldn’t say soon,” said Otto.

  “But, we’ll be safe waiting here until then?” said Hedwig.

  “Probably,” said Otto.

  “Probably?” said Hedwig. “If the air is good, you mean, all sealed up like this. Why don’t you, ah, dig us out?”

  Otto smiled.

  “Help us humole,” Otto said. “Dig humole dig.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.” said Hedwig.

  “A joke,” said Otto. “I’m a horrible digger by humole standards. But compared to you, I’m Aleksy Stachowitz.”

  Otto raised a paw and tapped it against the fallen wall.

  “This is solid rock,” Otto said. “I can’t dig through it.”

  “Oh,” said Hedwig.

  “But…” said Otto.

  He circled the blockage, examining closely.

  “I do have an idea.”

  Otto walked around the grounded wall to the other, still upright wall against which it had come to rest.

  “See this wall?” Otto said.

  “Yes?” said Hedwig.

  “This wall is the only thing holding our collapsed wall there in place,” said Otto. “It’s also barely standing. If this wall wasn’t here, the collapsed wall would slide down the rest of the ramp, out from on top of the exit.”

  “You don’t want us knocking over a second wall?” said Hedwig. “I, um, know next to nothing about the architecture of buildings this old, which is more than anyone else knows by the way, but I do think walls are typically built for a reason. This, you know, this is the foundation of the building. One wall is already gone. Is knocking down a second something we want to risk?”

  “Not the whole wall. Just this section here,” said Otto. “To me it doesn’t look like this part of the wall is holding up anything.”

  Hedwig ran his flashlight over the wall. Near the top, entire sections were missing. Otto was right. This part of the wall wasn’t doing any good at all.

  “So we, uh, chisel away that part there,” Hedwig said, pointing with his flashlight, “we separate this useless part of the wall from the working part, and then we hack at the base until it falls. When it does, it and our old collapsed chunk there will just, you know, slide the rest of the way down the ramp and we’re free to go.”

  “You’ve got it mostly right,” said Otto.

  “Mm. I only got some of it wrong, you mean,” said Hedwig.

  “First,” Otto said, “We don’t dig until the wall falls over. There’s no telling which way it’ll fall, and if we’re in the way when those things slide down the ramp they’ll pop us like zits. We dig until the wall almost falls over, until it’s ready to fall over, and then we get out of the way and wait for the job to finish itself.

  “Second. It isn’t we. It’s me,” said Otto. “There’s no reason for both of us to dig.”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to stand off on the side twiddling my toes while you get crushed,” said Hedwig. “And you uh, you can’t dig and watch the wall for cracks at the same time. I need to be right up there next to you with my flashlight, so we know when to get out of the way.”

  “Just make sure you do get out of the way,” said Otto.

  Otto and Hedwig walked around to the back side of the half-demolished wall. Hedwig found a broken off piece of metal on the ground, a sort of rod. He picked it up. Otto and Hedwig started in on the wall, Otto with his claws and Hedwig with the metal rod, holding the flashlight in his off-hand. They chiseled a vertical line, to separate the ragged, useless portion of the wall holding the blockage in place from the possibly vital, weight bear
ing section. Otto and Hedwig hacked the line deeper. A crack shot out, across and down the side of the wall to its base. Hedwig stepped back. Otto froze where he stood.

  “The wall could collapse now,” said Hedwig. “Before, uh, we start on the base. It could fall when the bad portion comes loose from the good.”

  “It could. But I don’t think it will,” said Otto. “If we don’t separate out this part of the wall, the whole thing could fall at once and bring the rest of whatever this place is down on top of us.”

  Otto chopped at the wall. Hedwig joined him. They heard a snap and the wall tumbled towards them. There was no getting out of the way. Hedwig closed his eyes, not wanting to feel what was about to happen to him. When Hedwig opened his eyes the wall was still standing. The bad portion had broken free of the good and settled into the ground so that it leaned towards them now. The wall still looked solid and it still held the blockage in front of the hole.

  Otto laughed. Hedwig rolled his eyes and sighed.

  Slowly, they chipped at the base of the wall. Every few minutes they stepped back and examined their work, judging how deep was deep enough, how much was too much, and what was the point they could count on gravity to finish the job? Hedwig wanted to stop before they even started, but refused to acknowledge it; he knew there was nothing rational about his opinion.

  Otto didn’t speak until long after Hedwig had given up any hope of going through life uncrushed.

  “That should be enough to do it.”

  “Are you sure? Because, you know, we could always dig some more,” said Hedwig.

  Otto and Hedwig got well out of the way, and observed the wall by the light of their flashlights.