by Greg Krojac
Michelle found Buzz’s relaxed attitude to danger unsettling.
“Okay. I get it. You like the adrenalin rush. But don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
“Don’t worry about me, Michelle. I don’t set out to die, and I don’t do anything to speed my death up. But if it happens, I just see it as a new life about to start. And I certainly won’t do anything that might get you killed. Not if I can help it.”
The two of them started walking towards the prison. HMP666, like all prisons, had minimal security. The inmates were a no flight risk, due to their being kept in stasis and attempts to release prisoners were virtually non-existent. Not knowing about the brutally humiliating registration process, the British public had accepted that this method of incarceration was humane, and anyway it was used only for minor offences. To the public, the punishment was the inconvenience to the prisoner’s life. A prisoner who was sentenced to five years in stasis, and who had young children would miss out on five years of those children’s’ lives. That was quite a severe punishment for a parent and hopefully an effective deterrent.
Michelle heard a voice in her earpiece.
“Michelle? Can you hear me?”
“Yes. And you’re supposed to say ‘do you read me’.”
“I’m off duty Michelle. I’m not going to stick 100% to comms protocol. I have your electronic signature so I can keep tabs on you. Who’s the kid? I assume you’ve got a kid with you, or a dwarf maybe.”
“His name is Buzz and he’s going to help me get my sister back.”
“Okay. Give me a couple of seconds to register him into my system. It’s a prototype and we’re not supposed to use it yet, but I designed it so I think I deserve a few perks. Right - all done. About fifty metres to your left there should be a drain inspection cover. That’ll lead you into and underneath the building. Once inside I’ll guide you to the stasis chamber where Caitlin is being held.”
Michelle and Buzz quickly found the drain cover.
“Found it, Adam.”
“Once you’re inside, make sure you turn right. That’ll lead you to the prison.”
Together Michelle and Buzz heaved aside the cover and peered into the darkness. Michelle picked up a nearby stone and dropped it inside. The splash as the stone entered the water inside was almost immediate.
“Good. Not too far a drop. What can we expect to find, Adam?”
Buzz exaggeratingly palm-fisted his forehead.
“Are you serious? It’s a drain. We’re gonna get covered with shit and piss, albeit a bit diluted because of the water. We might find ourselves fighting off rats too.”
Adam tried to be positive.
“You three can take a nice warm shower when it’s over. Don’t worry.”
The pair dropped into the shaft and true to Buzz’s prediction found themselves knee-deep in water and excrement. It wasn’t the ideal way to enter the building, but needs must when the Devil drives. The drain cover was a little out of reach so they had to leave the entrance open, but this might be prudent anyway; they may have to leave by the same route - quickly - although Michelle hadn’t really considered a detailed exit plan. That’s why she persuaded Adam to help (not that he needed much persuading).
The moon was almost full and temporarily illuminated the darkness of the tunnel. Michelle pulled two adhesive LED lamps out of one of her breast pockets and handed one to Buzz.
“Stick it onto your forehead and it’ll switch on. We need to be able to see where we’re going. As soon as we move away from the shaft it’ll be pitch black.”
“Why is it sticky? Why not have a headband?”
“Headbands can fall off. This won’t.”
The pair stuck the lamps to their foreheads and the tunnel was suddenly illuminated. But they were not alone.
A couple of feet away there was an indent in the wall and they could see a large rat staring right at them.
“Don’t worry Michelle. He’s probably more scared of us than we are of him.”
Sure enough, the rat decided not to hang around and jumped into the water, doggy-paddling its way into the darkness. Michelle’s earpiece spoke again.
“Right. I’ve had a look at the schematics. If you keep going ahead for about one hundred yards you’ll see a fork in the tunnel. Take the right hand fork. That’ll lead you close to the stasis chamber room.”
Michelle was relieved that Adam had agreed to come on board. Without his input, they’d have had no idea which fork to take or what to expect when they arrived. Progress was pretty slow - walking or running in water always is – but the benefit was that they remained clean above their knee-caps. That is, Michelle was able to stay mostly clean. Buzz was up to his waist in excrement and water but it didn’t seem to bother him. He grinned at Michelle.
“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. This is nothing.”
***
A few minutes later Adam told them to stop.
“You should be right underneath a staff bathroom now, Michelle.”
“Should be or am?”
“By my reckoning, you’re underneath a toilet bowl in the third of four cubicles. Got your grenades?”
“More than I’ll need, hopefully.”
“Good. Place the grenade right above your head.”
Michelle told Buzz to move back five metres. There was no undue pressure to use a short fuse so she set the timer for twenty seconds, allowing herself plenty of time to leave the kill-zone. She pressed the red button and sloshed her way back to where Buzz was standing. He grinned again.
“I hope nobody’s taking a dump at this time of the morning.”
“If they are, they’re going to get a nasty surprise.”
“Yeah. They’ll shit themselves good and proper.”
The grenade activated and a hole opened up where the ceiling of the tunnel and the floor of the toilet cubicle had been. Buzz gave Michelle a leg up and she clambered into what was left of the bathroom floor. She pulled Buzz up behind her. They looked around. All was quiet. There would certainly be a skeleton staff on patrol but they were nowhere near the stasis chamber at the moment. The prison had been built in Victorian times and updated every so often, but with hibernating inmates unable to escape, the security systems hadn’t been deemed necessary to be state of the art. As often happened, money for improvements had mysteriously found its way into the wallets of the staff and the administrative authorities.
Michelle was about to open the bathroom door but stopped herself.
“Adam? What about the video surveillance cameras?”
“One step ahead of you, my dear. I’ve disabled them already. And I’ve disabled the monitoring program that checks for malfunctions. Just call me Mr Wonderful.”
“Thank you Mr Wonderful.”
Michelle and Buzz stepped out into a spacious chamber full of stasis tubes which were separated at regular intervals by blue monitoring boxes.
“Michelle?”
“Yes, Adam.”
“Look for a blue box with the number seven on it.”
There were probably four dozen such boxes so Michelle and Buzz decided to split up. After a few seconds, Buzz called out.
“Michelle. It’s over here. Box seven.”
Michelle rushed across to where Buzz was standing, pointing at the box.
“Found it, Adam.”
“Well done. Count eight tubes to the right. That should be tube 0864-7. That’s Caitlin’s tube.”
Michelle sprinted over to tube 0864-7.
“Adam?”
“Yes, Michelle? Have you found Caitlin?”
“Adam… she’s not here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
06:15 Monday 28 October 2069
Michelle and Buzz frantically checked the other tubes in the stasis chamber. Michelle was almost panicking, something which was completely out of character. Buzz tried to calm her down.
“Michelle, calm down. Panicking won’t get us anywhere. Take a few deep breaths.”
; Michelle took those few deep breaths.
“Yes. You’re right. But where the hell can she be? It’s not like she could have let herself out of that tube. Why would she be out of the tube? The whole point of stasis punishment is that the prisoners are unconscious until the end of their sentences.”
Her earpiece offered some advice.
“Michelle. Is there any additional information that you might have regarding Caitlin’s position? Anything at all? Did Philippa say anything?”
“Oh my god, yes! She said that Marcus had been systematically raping her.”
“Shit! I don’t like to say this but maybe that’s what happened. Maybe she’s been removed for Marcus.”
The thought of her sister being raped by that disgusting bastard made Michelle feel physically sick. She grabbed hold of Buzz’s arm.
“Come on Buzz. She’s not in here. We need to find her.”
The door to the stasis chamber was locked, but it proved no match for a disruptor grenade, and the two rescuers found themselves in another open space with six doors facing them. Buzz said what Michelle had been thinking.
“Bloody Hell, Michelle. She could be behind any one of these doors.”
“We’ll start with the first door on the left and work our way along. We’ll open the doors carefully because if we go in hard we risk alerting whoever – if anybody – is behind the other doors.”
The first two rooms were storage rooms, filled with cleaning materials and old computer equipment. However, the third door seemed to be the entrance to some kind of viewing gallery. Michelle and Buzz crept in and were horrified at what they saw on the other side of the viewing glass. A naked Caitlin was bent over a table, whilst Marcus – himself naked from the waist up – was just about to unfasten his trousers. Michelle threw caution to the wind and smashed her way through a door that separated the gallery from the interview room, pointing her pulse gun at a surprised Marcus. He grabbed Caitlin and held her close in front of him, using her as a shield.
“Fuck me, Michelle. Can’t a guy have a shag in peace, nowadays?”
“How do you know my name?”
“It’s pretty obvious who you are. Caitlin has a sister called Michelle and there is a definite family resemblance. Are you a good lay too?”
“Shut up you bastard or I’ll shoot you.”
“What? And risk killing your delightful sister? And she is delightful, absolutely chock-a-block with delight.”
He was right. If she tried to shoot Marcus he only needed to make the slightest movement and she could kill Caitlin.
Marcus backed against the nearest wall, his hostage held close to him, and attached something to the wall behind him.
“Tell you what. I’ll give you Caitlin and you can let me go.”
“What makes you think I’ll let you go?”
Without warning, Marcus suddenly ran straight at Michelle and Buzz, who was standing just behind her. As he got close enough he pushed Caitlin with such force that Michelle nearly fell over as her sister fell into her arms. Marcus took the opportunity that his sudden movement had provided. Just as he was pushing Caitlin at her sister, a small hand-grenade that he had dropped on the floor behind him detonated and removed a portion of the wall behind him, leaving an escape route. He sprinted towards the gap and disappeared into the bowels of the prison. Her ears still ringing from the explosion, Michelle would love to have followed him but the priority now was her sister. Buzz was about to follow him but Michelle stopped him.
“Leave him, Buzz. We need to get Caitlin out of here. She’s the priority now.”
“But we nearly had him, didn’t we?”
“Nearly.”
“So, which way now?”
“Back the way we came, I suppose.”
“Back to the bogs?”
“Yes, we’ll go back to the bathroom and get back into the drain. I’ll be alright helping Caitlin. She can walk – after a fashion – but she needs help.”
“I can help you carry her, you know.”
“I’m sure you think you can, but you’re not tall enough really, are you?”
Buzz looked himself up and down.
“I suppose you’re right.”
The three of them retraced the steps back to the bathroom. All was going well until they turned a corner and saw two prison guards facing them, pulse guns drawn. The guards knew that at least two of the three people facing them weren’t supposed to be in the prison; Caitlin they immediately recognised as the woman who had earned them money in the ‘Rape Sweepstake’ as Caitlin’s sexual abuse had been nicknamed. They set about changing the pulse-guns from ‘stun’ to ‘kill’.
Michelle's hands were full, guiding a groggy Caitlin along the corridor. She couldn’t do anything without dropping Caitlin to the floor but Buzz didn’t waste any time.
He grabbed Michelle’s pulse-gun from the waistband of her jeans and hurled himself at the two prison guards, shooting one dead and knocking the other off balance. Buzz and the surviving guard ended up rolling around on the floor, the guard surprised to be fighting with a young boy who may have been just a boy but seemed determined to kill him. He had already killed his colleague.
“Get off me, you stupid kid. I’ll kill you if I have to.”
“Then you’ll have to kill me then. ‘Cos I’m gonna kill you if you don’t.”
The pulse guns went off simultaneously. The guard died instantaneously, but the pulse gun that shot Buzz was still set to ‘stun’. Michelle looked on in horror. She knew that even though the setting was ‘stun’ a shot fired at point blank could sometimes be fatal. Buzz winked at her and whispered.
“For a good cause, Michelle. A new life about to start.”
Buzz’s soul left his body and set off on its search for the next adventure.
***
Caitlin was beginning to become more lucid and was able to walk through the tunnel just holding Michelle’s hand to steady herself.
“This place smells like shit, Michelle.”
“That’s because it is shit, Caitlin. But it can’t be any worse than the gunk that they had you covered in for the past few weeks.”
“Well, if that stank I never knew about it. Where’s your little friend?”
“Buzz? He sacrificed himself to save us.”
“You can’t mean that. He was just a kid.”
“But – and I know it’s a cliché – it’s how he would have liked to go. Doesn’t make losing him any easier, though.”
A couple of minutes later the drain opening was in sight. The sun was toying with the idea of rising and, as well as a few rays of the new day’s sunlight, Michelle could see that a torch was being shone into the darkness. That’s all they needed, someone investigating why the drain cover wasn’t in place. A voice called out nervously.
“Michelle?”
Michelle was confused. The only person who knew her exact whereabouts was Adam, and there was no way he could be there. If whoever it was knew her name, hopefully, they were a friend. If not, there wasn’t a lot the two sisters could do about it, except stay in the drain for the rest of their lives. The two women had no other alternative but to leave by the drain opening.
“Who are you and how do you know my name?”
“My name’s Iain. I’m Adam’s brother. I live just outside Salisbury and he asked me to come and fetch you.”
Michelle looked at her sister.
“We have no other choice, Caitlin. Let’s just hope he is who he says he is.”
The two women clambered out of the drain, dripping waste effluent on the ground, Michelle standing in front of Caitlin in an effort to maintain a modicum of her sister’s modesty. Iain offered them a couple of towels to wipe themselves down with.
“Sorry I don’t have a portable shower so you can rinse yourselves off, but it’ll get the worst off. Where’s the young lad?”
Michelle explained for the second time how Buzz had sacrificed his life to save theirs. Iain offered his condolences and opened
the back door of the van.
“There’s some more towels in the back of the van. Caitlin can cover herself with them until we can get you both rinsed off. The main thing is to get away from here.”
The sisters climbed into the van and Iain closed the door behind them.
“Where are we going? I mean, we should pick up your bike too.”
Michelle directed Iain to the place where she had left the motorcycle.
“Um…you’ll have to switch off the camouflage.”
She did so, and the motorbike mysteriously appeared. Iain pulled out a ramp from the van and loaded the bike into the back, strapping it down well so that it couldn’t move and injure the girls.
“There’s a small lake – well, more of a pond nearby. You can wash yourselves off there. It’s only a few miles away. And then you can put on the fresh, clean clothes I’ve brought with me. We’ll soon have you feeling human again.”
Caitlin gave a sigh of anticipated pleasure.
“That can’t come soon enough for me.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
14:19 Monday 28 October 2069
Marcus Gallagher stood outside his main research facility, looking at the gaping hole in the main door of the complex. His arms were folded and his eyes were full of rage, his ire further compounded by the events at HMP666 earlier that morning whilst the research complex was being attacked. To be honest, it was quite possibly the worst day of his many lives. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a bad day. Not only had he lost Caitlin, but he’d arrived back at his prime research facility to find it had been attacked and he had lost valuable equipment and data. The dead security guards were expendable. But worse than everything, so much worse than everything else, was that the capsule containing the Pindar’s soul had been stolen… by children! And he was angry at himself too. His arrogance had allowed this to happen. He had relied too much on technology to provide security at the facility. The automated defence system had been so state-of-the-art that he had found it inconceivable that it could be bypassed. He had completely ignored the fact that his principle adversary, the Businessman, was easily able to finance both countermeasures and innovations that could leave the Illuminati at a disadvantage. His ego hadn’t allowed him the humility to think that perhaps he wasn’t as all powerful and invincible as he had believed himself to be. He may be a clone but he still possessed a human soul and the accompanying human frailties.