by Jem Tugwell
‘It hurt you for her to be gone.’
He nodded.
‘Really, you chose her for me.’
I had found his laptop in the car where Zoe had put it and forced him to unlock it. It rested on the floor by my feet, as I picked it up, I clicked a button. I turned the screen so that he could see it.
‘Is that any way to treat someone you love, Three?’
The file I had opened was labelled ‘Best of Karina’. It was a complete coincidence that I had a file with the same name. Both files had Karina doing everything she was told, but Three’s file was full of vile depravity from his study’s bedroom. Mine was full of Karina singing and brushing her hair, being my perfect little Barbie.
Despite him getting the answer to the last question right, I pushed the knife in. Three had made Karina a sex object and abused her. That wasn’t right. It required punishment.
He screamed and I enjoyed the harsh undertone in the sound.
‘Do you see the correlation, Three?’ I allowed him space to answer.
He said nothing, but he couldn’t look at me. ‘I’m only repaying some of the suffering you inflicted on Karina.’
I pushed again. ‘And all the others.’
I waited as the scream echoed in the cage.
‘Next question. Number three for Number Three,’ I said, pleased with my little joke.
Three didn’t appreciate it, and I let him subside and moved the knife to a different spot on his arm. ‘Why didn’t you stop Two?’ I said.
I could see that he knew something had changed. This question wasn’t one he had to guess the answer to; he knew it, but tried to bluff anyway.
‘Doing what?’
‘Don’t give me that. You know what – taking the purity of iMe and corrupting it. Making it control us.’
He looked at the knife and said, ‘I tried, but look at what’s been achieved. No more obese Britain. No more crime.’
His scream was longer this time because I pushed a bit harder and a bit deeper.
‘You ruined us by taking away our sense of self-responsibility.’ Deeper still.
The end of the knife shone a rich red. I wiped it clean on his shirt before moving it.
‘You pretended to stop him, but secretly you worked with him. You and Two made yourselves powerful.’
I pushed.
‘And rich.’
I twisted.
‘Now it’s time to pay.’
I engrossed myself in the game for a while. I was levelling the playing field for the games. Four had lots of cuts. Now so did Three.
One of the proximity alarms sounded. I looked at the monitor.
‘Oh good. They’re back.’
73
DI Clive Lussac
We burst back into Emma’s house through the rear door and into her kitchen. The two Uniforms who had been searching the gardens followed us in.
‘Any sign of her?’ I asked them.
They both shook their heads and dropped their eyes to the floor.
Zoe’s bruises had spread, mixing some greens, reds and dark purples into her gold eyeshadow. At least the blood on her shirt was drying. ‘You OK?’ I asked again.
‘I’m fine,’ she said with exasperation in her voice, but her eyes told a different story as she worked her HUD. ‘Emma’s signal’s still not showing.’ She bent and examined the shiny fronts of the kitchen cabinets where I had sat. ‘Emma’s here.’
The marks I had made were smeared, as if someone had run a finger mark across them to check the damage.
‘There must be something,’ I demanded of the Uniforms.
‘No sign anywhere,’ the taller Uniform said.
‘No one in the house. We checked outside. Nothing. Nothing useful from the drones either,’ the other agreed.
I shook my head in frustration. ‘Shit.’
Zoe was staring into space. ‘The garage isn’t as deep as the house. I’m going to take a look.’
‘Just a sec, Zoe.’ I held my hand up to ask her to wait as Bhatt’s ID flashed up. I took the call and updated her.
I heard a slight buzz and three rapid clinks as the fluorescent tube-lights in the garage buzzed on.
As I hung up, I turned, but Zoe was gone.
Emma Bailey
I could see on the monitor that Four was on her own in the garage and she was looking straight at the hidden entrance. Perfect.
My heart was racing like I'd run a mile. I found that the chair game did that to me; it flooded my system. Now I needed to focus on getting Four.
I checked the monitor again – she was at the entrance, her head tipped to one side as if she was thinking hard.
Come on Four you can do it. Work it out and come in.
I picked up the spray and shook the can. The contents sloshed around and I could feel that it was nearly full. It would really sting with all her cuts and bruises. I put my mask on to protect mine.
From the cage, the hazy outline of the door to the garage was just visible ahead. I edged along the dark passage towards it, sliding my back along the wall, trying not to make a sound. When Four worked out how to open the door, I would be flooded with light from the garage; picked out like someone caught in a searchlight. Yes, but if I stood next to the door, my back against the wall, facing in, then I would be hidden.
***
The door started to move. Come to me. I tensed, waiting to strike.
As the door opened wider, the light from the garage flooded into the passage. An elongated shadow projected onto the floor. The shadow paused and then moved. I could hear slow, wary movements. The shadow’s head moved left and right. I couldn’t quite see her, but I could hear plenty of rapid breathing. My finger depressed the trigger of the can, moving it to take up the slack in the mechanism.
I jumped out in front of her, grabbing her arm with my spare hand, pulling and spinning her through the door and into the corridor so that she faced me. More panted breaths and a gasp. I smiled, adjusted my aim and pressed the trigger. A perfect mist cone of liquid squirted out of the can nozzle and into her eyes, nose and open mouth. Her scream bounced along the passage.
Four’s arms thrashed as she fought the pain. I waited for a fraction of a second, gauging the windmilling arms. I moved but mistimed it, and Four’s fist smashed into my head where the hammer had hit. The white shock of it stopped me. Stars burst in my head. Groggy and sick, I hesitated until my vision cleared, then pushed her hard in the chest, my palm flat. It sent her staggering backwards, stumbling over like a rag doll. I closed and disguised the entrance again and went after her.
Four was clawing at her closed eyes, trying to ease the burning. Trying to get the spray out of all those cuts and her mouth.
Her coughs racked her body, and she looked close to hyperventilating. I needed her easier to move, so I edged around her body and knelt by her head. My fingers hooked into that frizzy hair, and I jerked her head up towards me and then slammed it down. She grunted and slowed a little. I lifted her head again, seeing a small red smear on the floor and slammed it down again for luck: mine not hers. She groaned and the thrashing stopped.
I rolled Four onto her front and taped her hands and elbows. Just like I’d done to Mary. I tingled with anticipation.
We can start.
I frogmarched the groggy Four into the cage.
‘Zoe,’ Three wailed.
Something in the effort of dragging her had shifted something in my head and I had to wait for the patterns of ultra-bright lights in my mind to fade. They left a pulsing ache.
‘Don’t feel too sorry for her, Three. You’ll be competing against her for your life.’
I wanted it to be a fair fight, so I cleaned Four’s face and bathed her cuts to get the residue of the spray out. She seemed calmer and blinked her head clear.
Three was already prepared against the left side of the cage and all the straps were ready to lift him into the air. Mentally though, he looked broken, like he wouldn’t fight, but when his lungs st
arted to hurt, I was sure that nature would win and it would be game on.
I wanted to see their eyes.
***
It didn’t take long for me to get Four in position. She faced Three with her back to the right wall of the cage. My cameras were ready. I wanted to see it live, but if Five found the entrance too soon, then I would have to be happy with the recording.
Four looked around the cage. Her face said that everything now made sense to her. As if all the little pieces of information she had had magically slotted into place.
It wouldn’t be a perfectly even start. I couldn’t lift and then release them both at exactly the same moment, but Three needed to pay and I really wanted to see Four versus Five, so I started with Three. He was already balancing on tiptoes, battling for his life when I lifted and then released Four.
Any chivalrous thoughts Three may have had were gone from his eyes by the time Four was fighting hard to survive.
I settled in to bask in the glory of the game.
DC Zoe Jordan
I could feel my calf muscles screaming, starting to cramp. I shifted my weight on my feet to try and ease them, but that drew the strap tighter around my neck. I couldn’t die like this. There was too much I hadn’t done.
My pulse was racing, and my breath ragged. Breathe. Slow and calm.
It helped for a second and then my toes started to give way. I winced as I forced them up again and looked across at Art. I could see his legs shaking. He was staring at me. A weird look I couldn’t read.
I focused on keeping my weight off my neck.
I had to hang on. Not to beat Art. Just to survive.
But I was losing. My strength was failing. The muscles in my legs howled, and my whole body twitched and shook.
I squeezed every last drop of strength into my legs, but I couldn’t hold it. I had to drop my weight.
The strap caught my throat.
74
DI Clive Lussac
I heard a scream.
‘Zoe, where are you?’ I span away from the Uniforms towards the open doorway.
I was hoping for her normal ‘here, Boss,’ but was met with silence. I stood as still as possible, playing a living statue, listening hard. It was as quiet as a grave and I hoped that it wasn’t a premonition.
‘Zoe?’
I tracked back to the garage and stepped inside, but it looked the same – still immaculate with its shiny worktop and cupboard doors, neat tools hung up in a line. No sign of Zoe.
I called over my shoulder to the Uniforms, ‘Check the house again and find DC Jordan.’
‘Zoe?’ I could hear the frantic edge to my voice. I kept stretching my hands, hoping to get the tension out. I needed logical thoughts, not to be lost in a whirl of pointless worry that wouldn’t help Zoe.
I shut my eyes to see if I could drag up a mental image from before. Something doesn’t look right; something is different.
‘Footprints,’ I said.
The garage floor was concrete sealed with grey paint that had a soft sheen. I got a bit lower and looked along the floor. Small, faint footprints – each one a vague patterned scuff on the gloss.
‘Zoe came in by this door. She’s got grippy soles and it’s damp outside on the grass. They’ve left a mark.’ I was muttering to myself, trying to make my thoughts more solid.
My eyes followed the trail, and my arm tracked the movement between the worktop and a tall double cupboard. Zoe’s shoes must have dried, as I couldn’t see any footprints leaving. So where did she go?
I started at the worktop, dropping to my haunches and opening a cupboard. It was neat as expected. Different cleaning chemicals ordered by type and size. Everything aligned, labels facing front and at attention.
I went over to the double cupboard and opened it, but was disappointed to find only a mop and bucket. What am I missing?
I focused on the back wall of the cupboard. It looked like the top right corner came forward more than the rest, as if the wall was warped. I put my foot on the cupboard floor, trying to steady myself, and I reached into the back with my hand. The floor slid under my foot, and I almost toppled over.
Kneeling down, I put both hands on the base of the cupboard, trying to move it in all directions and was rewarded when the whole floor slid towards me, still supporting the bucket. When it reached the end of its travels, the floor pivoted away in the opposite direction to the door, allowing access to the back of the cupboard.
The mop and bucket swayed on the false floor, but now it was out of the way I could see a faint footprint on the bottom of the cupboard, the toes pointing in.
Shit. Zoe, are you in there?
Emma Bailey
Movement in the monitor caught my eye.
Five was already in the garage but over by the worktop, not the entrance.
I still had time, so I headed back towards the doorway to the garage with one final, longing glance at the game in progress. It was even so far, with both sets of legs pulsing. Their eyes were locked on each other, each willing the other to fail first.
Five would be wary. He would be wondering where Four was. He was going to be careful but also scared. My bet was that he would be looking at head height and ahead of him, not down low and to the side. So, this time I dropped my bum onto my heels, weight balanced and into a comfortable, familiar squat – feet flat on the floor.
Ready or not, Five.
DI Clive Lussac
I reached my trembling hand into the cupboard.
The back wall of the cupboard popped under my push and hinged in, light spilling into a narrow corridor. I felt like a tomb raider entering a catacomb, and that usually didn’t end well for the robber.
I was unarmed, and I knew that Emma enjoyed inflicting pain. Fear ate at me. I had to find Zoe, but I needed a weapon.
I stepped back into the garage and scanned the walls for something to use. In a confined space there wouldn’t be much room for a tool you had to swing, so I wanted a stabbing tool. Ideally a knife, and I had left Emma’s knife in the car. I couldn’t see another one here even though lots of shiny metal tools glinted back at me. What can I use?
On the far side of the garage some blue handled chisels looked tempting. I chose a narrow one and removed the protective black cap from the blade to test the end. It was as sharp as a razor.
I stepped back towards the cupboard and looked in. If this is a trap, where would I wait? Right by the door would be best, I decided, before my eyes adjusted properly.
I took a cautious step into the cupboard, but stayed back from the corridor, trying to build up the courage to step into the unknown. All my senses strained for some hint of Emma about to strike. I thought I caught a slight movement low down.
I tested the weight of the chisel in my hand again and swooped low, bringing my hand back and then forward in a fast arc, aiming low at where I thought I had sensed movement. The chisel bucked as it hit something and then I heard a cry. I pulled back for a second strike, but I was too slow, and Emma leapt forward and ran along the corridor.
Emma Bailey
I stopped outside the cage. The games were still going on, but I could see from their panicked eyes and wavering legs that the end was close.
I looked down at my bicep and the blood oozing from between my fingers. ‘Bastard. My arm,’ I croaked. I needed to see how bad it was. Relaxing the grip of my hand, I released the pressure on the wound. The chisel’s long, clean incision jetted blood in time with my heartbeat. I squeezed the pressure back on, but it didn’t stop the flow. I was losing too much blood.
He must have hit an artery.
I stepped into the cage, slamming the door shut. I turned the key to lock the door and threw the key on the floor. It skittered across the surface and bumped into the back wall. I slid down the wall to watch the end of the games.
Lussac would have to watch Four die through the bars.
75
DI Clive Lussac
I started after Emma, my eyes smart
ing and watering at something in the air. The light further down the passage pulled me forwards and I jogged alongside a trail of fresh red spots of blood. The room at the end of the passage was simple, with a door, monitors and an office chair. As I passed the chair and stepped through the deep doorway into a second room, my iMe shut off. It was like I wore an invisible Suppressor.
The room I had entered was divided in two by a wall of bars. More monitors on my side, Emma on the other side in a cage that looked like some sort of medieval torture chamber. Against the right-hand wall hung… Zoe.
No.
Zoe’s swollen, red face looked grotesque. Her eyes pleaded with me. I glanced across the room. There was Art. Zoe and Art were both up on their toes, their legs twitching and spasming as they tried to keep the pressure off the noose around their necks. Like Mary.
‘The show must go on.’ Emma was slumped in the far corner, holding her arm that was slick with blood. Where her elbow touched the floor, a red puddle spread across the floor. Emma smiled. ‘You can’t save her.’
I grasped the door in the bars and shook it as hard as I could. The door clanged and rattled against the lock but didn’t open. The noise mocked me. A serenade to my uselessness. I still had the chisel, so I pushed the end into the gap between the door and its metal frame. I pulled back, trying to lever the door open. Crack. I staggered backwards as the blade of the chisel broke.
Emma’s laugh followed me back down the passage. I burst into the garage.
‘Uniform!’ I bellowed. ‘Here. Now.’ I was answered by the sound of two pairs of size thirteens trampling down the hall and into the garage.
‘You.’ I pointed at the taller one. ‘Call the medics. Get them here now. Then Bhatt.’ He nodded.
‘You, look for something to get me through metal bars.’ The other officer looked confused but must have heard my urgency as he turned to start searching.