by Nikki Owen
The man removes the directory from my lap. I try to steal a glance to the window where the singing was, but the man grips my chin and directs my face to his. ‘Eyes front,’ he says. His fingers smell of petrol.
‘Now,’ he says, letting me go, ‘tell me all the details you memorised.’
I recite everything, a hundred per cent accurate. He turns to an opaque screen to his right and nods.
And it goes on. Next, he gives me a computer language to learn called Ruby. He tells me that it is a high-level scripting language, and he allows me three minutes to master the basics. I do it in two. When I tell him I have finished, he says, ‘Close your eyes.’
I hesitate, look at the guards’ guns. I close my eyes.
‘Can you see in your head everything you just learned?’ the man says.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Now open your eyes.’
I do as he says. He taps something into his laptop then turns to me.
‘Why are you keeping me here?’ I ask.
He snaps on a pair of latex gloves, but says nothing.
‘Did you hear me. I said why—?’
He punches me on the left cheek. ‘Try to deflect them,’ he says.
I clutch my face, my cheekbone reeling from the shock. ‘Why did you—?’
‘I said deflect!’ And as I see his fist hurtling towards me, I instinctively flick up my arm; his fist hits my radius bone. It pulses with a dull pain.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Now stand.’
I do not move. My body is frozen.
‘I said stand!’ He pokes me hard in the stomach. I get up.
‘Okay,’ he says, ‘deflect.’
This time I somehow make myself ready. He tries to punch me on the head, stomach, arm—I stop every one of them. He follows me around the room, kicking at me, slapping, punching, but I move fast, faster than I ever knew I could. He orders me to stop, but I want to keep going. I feel a sudden rage within me, an anger at him for hitting me, hurting me. He goes for my head, but I dart to the left and he tumbles. I feel on fire now, alight, ready to burn. I turn for him, screaming, everything pouring out of me, all of it. I jump on him, punching his head, his torso, anything. Slam, slam, fuck him, slam. An alarm sounds. A door whooshes open followed by the sound of boots, but still I punch.
‘Who are you?’ I scream at him, hair wild, eyes ablaze. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
I raise my fist again, but two arms hook underneath my shoulders and drag me away.
‘No!’ I shout, but they wrench me back, out of the door and into the other room, the white room with the bed and the monitor and the vials of blood. I struggle, but they throw me to the bed and strap me down. And that is when I see Black Eyes. He enters, his head cocked, his fists formed, a woman in a white coat by his side.
‘I said we would not be nice if this happened.’
‘Fuck you,’ I say and spit at him.
Black Eyes smiles and turns to the woman in the white coat. ‘Strap her down, give her one dose of Versed, get her returned to London, then meet me in my office.’
And he turns and walks away as the woman prepares to inject me with the drug.
My eyes go wide at the sight of the needle. ‘No! No. No.’
The needle punctures my skin and the drug courses into my vein. ‘No!’
The effect is instant. Heat rips through my blood, courses through my muscles, my bones, nerves. I scream. My limbs feel as if they will explode, my head feels as if it will split in two, my skin prickles as if it were on fire.
I scream and scream until the drug takes over, sedates me, and everything white in the room decays into black.
I don’t now how long I scream for.
When I stop, when I look up, shoulders heaving, breath ragged, Balthus is holding the phone, ready to call in the guards; Harry is stood by my side.
‘Maria,’ Harry says, ‘please. Please, calm down.’
I gulp. I swallow back the snot, the spit, the nausea. ‘She’s lying. Dr Andersson is lying.’
Balthus sets down the phone and walks over until he is just one metre away.
‘Stop!’ I say.
He goes still. ‘Maria, Harry and I just want to help you.’
I shake my head. ‘No. No you don’t, otherwise you would believe me and not Dr Andersson.’
‘Maria, Dr Andersson is a trusted physician.’
‘Bobbie Reynolds says Dr Andersson is with MI5, that she is my handler.’ The word ‘handler’ lodges in my throat, threatening to constrict it, kill me off.
Harry sighs. ‘Maria, hear what you are saying. My dear, please.’
Balthus steps nearer again and I move back, unsure, unsteady, every inch of my body feeling as if it’s on fire. Burning.
‘My father said something was being done to me. He talked about reports, codes, data on me from a hospital in Scotland.’
‘No, Maria,’ Balthus says. ‘You spoke about this to your mother, didn’t you?’
I halt. How does he know what I talked to her about? ‘Were you listening?’ I say. ‘Did you bug our table in the visiting area?’
‘Maria,’ Harry says, his voice a soft coo, ‘Ines told us what you said.’
‘What?’ My hands begin to rake through my hair and, as much as I try, I cannot stop them.
‘They agreed with Dr Andersson’s assessment of you.’
‘What? How could they? I have Asperger’s. They know that.’ The visiting area, when Mama was taken ill—I saw Ramon talking to Dr Andersson. That is what she was speaking to him about. ‘She is plotting against me,’ I say, frantic. ‘They all are.’
‘Come sit,’ Harry says.
But I don’t, instead I watch Balthus and my eyes bolt to his desk. To my notebook. And that’s when the solution becomes clear. ‘I have it written down!’ I begin to stride to the computer.
Harry steps forward. ‘Maria, stop.’
But my sight is locked on my notebook, on the laptop. I feel like a rabbit caught in a hole and the only way out is to dig a new one. I shove past Balthus, grab my writing pad, hold it aloft, flap it in the air. ‘It is all in here. Bobbie said the answers were in here and she was right. I can do things with computer and codes, things I don’t even recall learning.’
‘Maria,’ Balthus says, slowly, carefully, like my name has gone nuclear, ‘your mother told us you may say this. She said you are obsessed with writing things down and that you create links, fabricate connections that don’t exist. She said you have a journal at home that you have been doing the same thing with for years.’
I drop my hand as he speaks. My journal. Of course. ‘Then if I obsess over facts and writing them, if I have done this for years, using my journal as my mother says, an obsession in line with traits of someone with Asperger’s, why is it that Dr Andersson can suddenly diagnose me with schizophrenia when every other doctor before her has never mentioned it once?’
Neither man speaks. Harry goes to open his mouth then closes it. I have hit a chord.
‘If you don’t believe me, if you don’t think I am telling you the truth, then there is only one thing left for me to do.’
‘What?’ Balthus says.
I sit in front of his laptop and open my notebook. ‘I have to show you.’
Chapter 22
I peel open my eyes and gasp as I awake in the interview room.
The sun is glaring through the window and I am sitting in my chair. I blink, trying to get my bearings, my breathing rasped, my palms clammy, mouth dry. My suit is on and my blouse is buttoned. As if I never left.
A flush of heat hits my head and I touch my scalp. The door swings open.
‘You’re awake.’
Kurt is standing in the doorway, holding his cell, tapping the screen. I drop my hand to my side, my mind a fog, a stew of faces and voices and rooms. I shake my head. A dream. Was that what it just was, with Black Eyes and the white room and the tests? It must have been. A dream or a nightmare, because I am here now, not there, not in
a van or on an aeroplane. I try to recollect what it was all about, but I cannot recall much—just shapes, sounds, smells—but it seemed so tangible, so real, like the hair on my head or the nails on my fingers. Like I could touch it. Like I was there. And yet, here we are, as normal, me sitting in the chair, Kurt talking. And then I remember: we switched rooms, but events are hazy and I can’t remember where or why.
‘You’ve been asleep for over an hour,’ he says, entering the room.
I glance at my sleeves. Crumpled. My arm stings at the wrist, numb at the top, but I don’t know why. I must have slept on it. ‘But we went to a different room, didn’t we?’
He smiles. ‘Yes, for a brief moment, but then we came straight back here as you were tired. That’s when you fell asleep.’
I watch as he sits down, slipping his mobile to the table. There is a flask and two mugs already set in front of him. Kurt unscrews the flask and looks to me. ‘Coffee?’
I say nothing. I do nothing. I feel as if I am suspended mid-air. Taxis beep in the street below. The muslin of the curtain floats up and down. Life is carrying on as normal. And yet I don’t feel part of it, as if it is all continuing without me. ‘Why was I asleep?’ I say.
He pours some coffee. ‘You were tired, I expect.’ He screws the cap back on the flask and produces a cup and a smile. ‘Therapy can do that sometimes, especially this kind of intense therapy.’
A fire alarm blares out suddenly from the opposite building. I slap my hands to my ears. Kurt sits back, sips his drink and watches me. I look left and right. The alarm is still shrilling. I stride to the window, heart pounding. The alarm is louder here. I scan the road. There are no fire engines, no evacuations. The alarm stops. Carefully, I lower my hands. Through the bars I see children walking by, laughing, eating sweets.
Sweets.
‘Maria, you need to sit down now.’
I turn. Kurt. He is holding his Dictaphone. The flask of coffee is on the table in front of him. Don’t drink it, I tell myself, but I am unsure why.
Kurt gestures to the empty chair. ‘Sit. Now, please.’
I look at the chair then at Kurt. Something comes into my head. A memory. ‘What is the Banana Room?’
Kurt’s smile drops. ‘I do not know what you are talking about. Sit down, Maria.’
‘You are lying. Why are you lying?’
‘I was reading Dr Andersson’s case notes again while you were asleep. Her diagnosis of schizophrenia.’ He gestures to the chair. ‘Quite accurate now, wouldn’t you say? The paranoia? Please, I will not ask again. Do sit.’
I walk to my chair, thinking everything through, my mind racing ahead of itself. That report by Dr Andersson is a fabrication, and yet, Kurt is referring to it now. For some reason, my eyes fix on the painting of the mountain and moorland on the wall. Different. It looks different somehow, altered from the way I remember it.
And as I take my seat, my gaze stuck on the painting, it pops into my head, fully formed: the answer. My blood suddenly runs cold, a shiver rippling down my spine despite the warmth of the room. The element that has changed, that is different since I first arrived at Goldmouth, is Kurt. Because, just like Dr Andersson before him, Kurt is now trying to purport that I am insane.
There is one conclusion and one conclusion only that I can reach to my horror, to my muffled, silent scream: Kurt is now my handler.
I scan my notebook. Harry and Balthus hover near me but I do not look at them. I need to concentrate, need to show them that I am not mad, that Dr Andersson is lying. A fox. A fraud.
I collect my nerves and examine the codes in my book. They are alien to me, but I force myself to keep searching for something—a pattern, a clue. When nothing comes, I try to ignore the welt in my stomach, the voice in my head that whispers, ‘Balthus and Harry are right,’ and I switch on the computer. Instantly, I perform the password bypass technique from earlier.
Balthus gasps. ‘How did you get in to my secure login?’
I ignore him. Rain has begun to pelt the windows, the sound tinny, metallic against the prison bars, too loud in my ears. The lights are low, the air is muggy. It is distracting, messing with my senses. I lower my head, try to block it out and carry on. I have no option now. I am on this road.
I flip to the page where the hacking code is, the one I decrypted. I pause, look at it. Knowing that my university professor made me do this for real without me realising puts a new perspective on it. If I can hack websites, then the question is, what could be hidden for me to find? Why would I need to hack in the first place? If my professor really was working for the Project, then there was a reason, a truth—and truths are often concealed. The thought makes a lump form in my throat and I ignore the almost overwhelming urge to run and hide somewhere, somewhere from all the liars, and never, ever come out.
‘Maria,’ Harry says, ‘what is going on? Don’t you think—’
‘Wait.’ For some reason I catch myself thinking of Black Eyes. My hands begin to sweat, my legs jitter, but something else happens, too—a sort of rush, an energy, a cognitive thought. I can almost feel the neurons in my brain connecting, calculating, deciphering. How can this be happening to me? How do I know to do this? Read the notebook, my mind tells me. The answer is there.
I flip the pages over, one by one. Details fly past my eyes, my brain registering every single one until I stop. There. A pattern. I search it, scrutinise it. I remember dreaming about the pattern when I first arrived at Goldmouth. I track it now, calculate it. What is it telling me? What?
Balthus looms into view. ‘Maria, I think that’s enough.’
But my mind keeps working and the pieces start to fall into place. I find myself decoding the configuration until, just like that, a sentence is revealed. ‘Websites are used as cover,’ I say to myself, a murmur first then louder still. I look up. ‘The website is a cover.’
‘What?’ he says. ‘Whose website?’
‘Dr Andersson’s.’
‘Maria, no.’
‘Yes. It says here, in my notebook.’ I point at it. ‘A pattern, a code. I don’t know why it’s there or how I recalled it, but it is all I have. Websites are used as covers.’
He shakes his head. ‘This has to stop.’ He puts his hands on the laptop, begins to move it away.
‘No!’ I try to drag the laptop back off him, desperate. ‘I have to show you.’ I panic, pull at the screen. If I don’t do this now, what will happen? I will be locked up forever.
‘Maria, let go of the computer.’
But I do not, instead gripping it harder, as if my life depends on it, as if nothing after this will ever be the same again.
‘Maria,’ Harry says, ‘let go.’
‘No.’ And I am shocked at the sudden steel in my voice, weighted, loaded.
Balthus tries one more pull, but the laptop slips from us both, smacking base first back onto the desk, a thick thud in the air.
We both look at the computer, breathing hard.
‘I have to show you,’ I say, trying anything now, anything to help them see, these men who knew my papa. ‘I have to show you. I have to. For Papa.’ I drop my head, beaten, shattered. ‘For Papa.’
Balthus glances to Harry and Harry stares at me, head tilted, then nods to Balthus. Balthus exhales and steps back.
‘Okay,’ Balthus says, just one word, a low growl.
Not wanting to lose my chance, I drag my chair back to the laptop and search my writing pad. The hacking procedure, now decoded, is there. All I have to do is try it.
Step by step, I follow my notes. First, they tell me to access the web anonymously using a proxy. I hesitate initially, not trusting myself, but to my surprise it works. Next, moving at speed, I bring up the search engine and type in ‘Dr Lauren Andersson, Psychiatrist’. My movements are instinctive, frightening. One more tap and a page of search results appears. I scan the data. It is mainly social media links and research papers. Each one of them seems convincing, but there is a website. About Dr Andersson.
I click on the link and Dr Andersson’s face appears. I hold my breath at the sight of her, the milky skin, the iceblonde hair, like she is in costume for a part in a play I do not yet know the title of.
Outside, the rain slams harder against the glass and, steadying my growing disorientation from it, I examine the information. Dr Andersson’s name and profession are listed. On her qualifications page, there is a catalogue of her degrees and courses. I picture in my head the certificates on the wall in her office; they match.
I scan it all, slowly coming to the gut-wrenching conclusion that there is nothing here, the whispering voice looming again, when I see something. There, at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, is a black square, two millimetres by two millimetres, barely visible. I drag my chair as close as possible to the desk and click on the icon, hardly able to contain my nervous frenzy. A box pops up asking for a password. I remain very still.
‘What’s that?’ Balthus says.
I squint at it, unmoving, frozen to the seat. ‘A…a password request.’ Carefully, I look back to my notebook. I close my eyes for two seconds, try to picture sitting in the university office, solving the pretend equation, my professor standing there when all the while he was an imposter. The thought takes my breath away, shoots up bile. I gulp in air.
‘Maria?’
I push back the thought and check my decoded notes. I look to Balthus. ‘I need a USB stick.’
‘What?’ Harry says. ‘Here.’ He hands me one from his pocket.
I grab it, insert it into the laptop, begin to download the hacking tools from the website’s link extract, copying all the executable files. I do it all like I am an expert, not knowing fully what the phrases actually mean, and as I carry on, in the back of my mind, one word swings up and down like a see-saw: Callidus.
I wait for the file to download, anxious, jittery. One second passes, two, three, four, five. Balthus stares, Harry frowns, the rain slams against the window. The wait is almost unbearable. Finally, it pings complete. I let myself breathe out. I find myself flicking open the notepad function and, tracking my scribbled writing, type in the data from the hacking website.