‘Is this . . .’ I look down at my bandaged knee, ‘really necessary?’
‘Was it necessary for you to burst into our top secret facilities?’ says Smith. ‘You think that because you have some special abilities, normal rules no longer apply to you? That you are suddenly the highest authority, answerable to no-one, above the law?’
‘Um, as the kettle in this situation, might I remind you, the pot, that you’re currently torturing me in some off-the-books black site, rather than arresting me and letting me speak to a solicitor? You want to talk “above the law” . . .’ Shame I couldn’t properly work ‘black site’ into the kettle-pot analogy, but I forgive myself on account of all the torture. It doesn’t matter anyway, Smith’s smile is gone and the barrel of his gun is against my left thigh. ‘You’re going to tell me where the girl is.’
‘Has this ever even worked?’ I ask. ‘Torture? Has it ever yielded positive results?’
His eyes flicker. ‘It has in the past.’
‘Oh. Well. That’s OK then.’
‘Where is the girl?’
‘Last I heard,’ I say, ‘she was sitting on a beach, earning twenty per cent.’
BLAM.
The same routine. Pain. Bandage. Some kind of injection. ‘Why do you keep patching me up?’
‘Because I don’t want you to bleed to death,’ says Smith, as though I’m stupid. ‘Yet. You’re tough, I’ll give you that, but not that tough.’ He stands back. ‘I can make you a deal.’
‘Really? That’s very nice of you.’
‘Tell me where the girl is,’ he says, ‘and I’ll kill you.’
‘Not the most enticing deal I’ve ever heard, if I’m honest.’
‘If you don’t tell me where she is, you’re going to suffer the same fate as your friend Lauren. I’ll plug you into our machine. Living death.’
‘You’re going to do that anyway,’ I say, my vision clouding and unclouding.
He smiles because he definitely is going to do that anyway. ‘Correct.’
‘Why do you want her so much, anyway? I mean, she’s great company and all, but . . . she’s just a little one.’ Does he want her for her power? Are they going to plug her in?
No.
They’re not.
Not ever.
So grit your teeth, kiddo.
Do it for her.
Smith doesn’t answer my last query, he just motions to an unseen individual. ‘Give him one hundred volts.’
We try electricity for a bit, which is a whole new, exciting world of not fun. Through the pain, insofar as I can form proper thoughts, I’m actually kind of impressed with myself. I imagine Miss Stevenson from school pinning a medal to my chest, a gold star for being the world’s bravest drama student.
Why Miss Stevenson?
Why not? Have you ever been tortured?
Well, yeah. I’m being tortured right now.
Well, exactly. So you should know that logical thought processes are not necessarily forthcoming.
Fair enough.
Who am I even talking to . . .
Me. Yourself.
But if you’re me, and I’m yourself, then WHO WAS PHONE.
It’s coming from INSIDE THE STANLY.
Haha.
Ha.
I’m so screwed.
‘Where is the girl?’ asks Smith.
‘The Dragon Tattoo Parlour,’ I say. ‘Mos Eisley. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Old Trafford. Get knotted, you anus.’
Haha.
I said ‘anus’.
More electricity, and I black out again. When I wake up Smith is nodding. ‘I’m impressed,’ he says. ‘I really am. I never would have thought that someone your age could stand this. But it’s finished, Stanly. Tell me where she is.’
‘Noooope.’
‘Tell me. I can offer you some relief.’
I snigger. ‘Phrasing.’
Smith grimaces, reins himself in, then speaks again, calm and thoughtful, as if working out how to approach a tricky piece of DIY. ‘You’re right-handed, aren’t you?’
Coincidentally, this is the moment that I realise he’s holding a chainsaw.
‘Woah,’ I say, lapsing into a kind of squashed Texan accent. ‘Woah, woah. Hold on there, sport. You want to be careful with power tools, they can be kinda tricksy, y’know, could have someone’s eye out . . .’ At which point it stops being funny.
‘Where is the girl?’
‘She . . . is . . . somewhere. In the world . . . place. Probs.’
He revs it. The noise is rusty, eager, like a Rottweiler desperate to be let loose. ‘Where is the girl, Stanly?’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to know anything else?’ I ask. Inside I’m panicking, but my mouth can only manage a kind of detached, lethargic drawl, which I guess works with the whole nonchalant angle, although it’s probably not going to inspire Smith to put away his chainsaw, and oh my good Christ he’s actually going to use a chainsaw on me. This is what I get for leaving Wales. ‘I could tell you where some other girls are, maybe,’ I say. ‘I know where . . . dunno . . . at least three completely different girls . . . might be. Locations. Yeah?’
He revs it again and gets it going properly, chugging, growling. ‘Where is she? This is the last time.’
I look at him, trying to focus. ‘Last orders,’ I mumble. ‘Mine’s a JD and Coke on the rocks. Hold the rocks. And the JD. And probably the Co—’
He brings it down.
It feels weird.
There’s a redness that reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python.
Someone, possibly me, is telling me to not look down . . .
Someone else, probably Smith, is asking me where a girl is, some girl or other.
A girl?
Like I’ve got time to know where any girls are right now.
What a berk. What a silly man Smith is. He really is.
I wish I could talk.
I’d say all the words I knew that described him.
I’d tell him about all the things I’ve heard about his mother.
I’d . . .
I’m . . .
I’m standing in the corner.
I blink. There I am, in the corner of the room, fully-dressed, smiling. I’m flickering like bad reception, but I can see myself. And I’m fine. It’s . . .
It’s the pain.
But . . . no. I recognise the smile. I can see it in my memory, through the crimson blur of blood and bullets. I can . . . it’s . . .
Stanly.
Stanly smiling . . . with my mouth . . . with my face . . .
Smith’s voice. Shouting now. ‘I’m losing patience! Where is my daughter?’
Stanly smiling with my smile.
And . . .
What does he mean? My daughter . . .
I can speak.
‘She’s mine,’ I say.
The other me . . . can he speak?
‘I’m afraid she isn’t, Stanly.’
She . . . I . . .
Why am I looking at myself?
Smith: ‘Wait a minute . . . no. No! He can see it!’
I can speak with Stanly’s voice. Through the horror, I can speak. ‘No,’ I whisper.
‘For Christ’s sake, you’re supposed to keep the damn thing under control!’
‘No.’ Louder. ‘No.’
‘You—’
‘She’s MINE!’ I bellow, in Stanly’s voice. My brain expands. The Stanly in the corner explodes, flying apart like broken glass, glowing fragments filling the room, a blinding flash. Morter Smith flies backwards, hitting the wall, and I can feel the pain wriggling back inside my body like worms escaping into the dirt, burrowing underground, spilled blood returning to ruptured veins and arteries. I flex the fingers of my right hand
. Still attached. I move my leg. No pain in the knee.
All in my head.
I’m lying on my back. This isn’t the White Room. This is somewhere else.
All in my head . . .
I sit up, broken straps falling away from my wrists and ankles.
Right.
Now I’m CROSS.
Chapter Twenty-One
AN ALARM SQUEALS, cutting my head in half. I blink. Reality? Is that you?
No-one’s listening.
Hahaha.
Hmm. Don’t like the sound of that laugh.
I look around. I’m on a low metal table in the centre of another square room, although it’s smaller and grubbier than the White Room. The floor and ceiling are dark grey, as are all but one of the walls; the other is transparent, with a door at one end, and I can see what looks like a control room beyond, with banks of computers and monitors and some white-suited technicians scrambling to their feet. Morter Smith is there, slumped against the wall, unmoving.
OK.
I slide off the table and my eye catches something, a flicker at the edge of my vision. Lying on the floor by the head of the table is a shimmer. It’s twitching. I don’t think it’s dead . . . it’s not vanishing like the other one . . .
That’s all it was.
A shimmer . . .
I look down at myself, at my hands. I can feel the echoes of the pain, the spiders, but there are no scars. I seem to be whole, mostly.
I look at the door and think open.
It doesn’t open.
‘No,’ I say. I try again, but it doesn’t budge. ‘No!’ I look at the table and think overturn. It ignores me, just sits there, a useless object. Like me.
No no no no NO.
A voice comes over some hidden intercom: ‘Stand down.’ I ignore it and stare at the table, concentrating. Why isn’t it moving?
Did they really take my powers?
No. They didn’t. They couldn’t have. Morter Smith didn’t break my restraints for me, did he? He didn’t hurl himself against the wall. It was all an illusion. Psychic wool pulled over all my eyes, inner and outer, the lies of the shimmer. I’m just not concentrating hard enough, my brain still thinks that the lie is real. Got to break it. Focus. Hawk stare. Laser-guided missile. Hyper-aware mega-badass ESP targeting module. Focus. Concentrate.
CONCENTRATE.
The table doesn’t move.
‘FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID TABLE!’ I yell.
The table flies towards the transparent wall and smashes through it, showering the terrified technicians and Smith with glass. The sound of cascading fragments is almost nice, like a slightly de-tuned xylophone falling down a hole. I smile. ‘There we go.’
Two security guards burst into the control room and raise their guns in my direction. I barely even need to think, the table just flies back into the air and pummels both of them to the ground, and I rise and float through into the control room, holding the technicians and the guards down. Several more guards arrive but the barrels of their guns are already bending, creaking, tying around themselves in knots, and the guards themselves are leaving the ground, flying into walls and ceilings, held there, struggling, yelling, helpless. See how y’all like it. I kneel down in front of Smith. He’s alive, but definitely unconscious. I can still hear his words in my head. My daughter.
I’m afraid she isn’t, Stanly.
‘I’m not done with you yet,’ I whisper. Then I stand up and take another look around. There is someone else there, cowering in the corner by a big buzzing console. A boy, maybe my age, in a heavy green coat . . . I stare at him, my dazed brain turning over and over. ‘You,’ I say. ‘From Blue Harvest, and . . .’ I frown. ‘They got you too?’
He doesn’t answer, just looks at me. Frightened . . . but . . . not? He’s not tied up. He’s just . . . there. ‘You’re . . . you’re with them?’ I say. He doesn’t speak. ‘Who are you?’ Still no answer. ‘Do you realise who these people are? Did you see what they just did to me?’
Still he says nothing, and I shake my head, fresh out of patience. ‘Fine, whatever.’ Another set of guards arrive, guns and truncheons drawn.
Guns bent.
Truncheons snapped.
Some legs broken, possibly.
‘Not very nice, is it?’ I say, shooting a quick, disgusted look at the boy, and then at the technicians. ‘Pain? Fear? Profoundly un-fun, wouldn’t you say? Decidedly not bendigedig.’
The technicians look mystified, and I roll my eyes. ‘It’s Welsh for “brilliant”.’ I beckon for effect and one of the technicians rises up from the floor, whimpering. I hold him in the air a few centimetres from my face. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘You’re going to tell me where the empowered are kept.’
‘H-he,’ stammers the trembling technician. ‘I . . . I can’t . . .’ He’s too scared to make sense, gibbering nonsensically.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I’ll find them myself.’ I drop him and leave the room, emerging in a long, bare, white corridor with doors at either end. I close the door behind me, thinking lock. Gratifyingly, it makes a locking noise. I look to my left, then to my right, the insistent mewling of the alarm filling my brain, disrupting my thoughts, grinding, whining.
WherethehelldoIgo . . .
Despite the horrific time I’ve just had . . . or that I thought I had . . . I feel pumped. Buzzing. Like I did the other day. It has to be the shimmer, the after-effect. I feel like Popeye after a six-pack of spinach.
Fun fun fun.
Now, left or ri—
Some guards burst through one of the doors, making the decision for me. I think a shield, bending their bullets around me, and shove them all back through the door in a flailing pile before sprinting in the other direction. The floor is cool beneath my bare feet and I tear the next door open with my mind before I get there, barrelling straight through and colliding with a guard. We both sprawl on the floor, struggling. I feel a savage rage bubbling in my veins and headbutt him repeatedly, his face momentarily becoming Smith’s sneering green-eyed death mask, but then I register his bellows of pain, not Smith’s voice, and the rage is gone, and I keep running. Only one way to go. Through another door. Electronically locked or not, they all slide apart without me even needing to concentrate.
Another corridor. Everywhere looks identical.
I don’t even know where I am.
I could be underwater.
I could be in bloody space.
I’m probably not in bloody space.
It’s hard to believe that this is a real place. I feel like I’m in a computer game, with endless corridors and enemies to fight. More guards are closing on me from behind, and as I pass through more and more doors I instantly slam them shut behind me, my feet and heart pounding. A group of guards emerge through the door in front of me and I part them psychically, diving through, rolling, back on my feet, closing the door, now a left turn and—
BANG.
AAAAHASHIIIIIIIIITBOLLOCKSAAAAARGHTHEYSHOTME! The thought manifests itself as a strangled, yelping roar and I take the first door on my left, stumbling into an empty conference room, clutching my shoulder. There is only one entrance, the one I just came through, and I look at it and think lock. There is an encouraging series of metallic clicks and I collapse against the wall, panting. The room is dominated by a big mahogany table and I think that over to the door for luck, then look down at my wound, which is pumping blood. One stray bullet. Just one. That’s all it took. Real pain now, very real, and really extremely incredibly bloody horrible, high and bright, disrupting my vision. I’ve been shot before, a long time ago, although that didn’t last very long, but this is worse.
Right, what do I do . . .
Tear up my shirt?
I’ve got hardly any clothes as it is.
Got to keep pressure on it, though . . .
Could use
the burning trick? Like with the toast? What’s the word . . . cauterise it? I look down at the wound and try to think of fire, of burning, but I can’t, I don’t think I’m allowing myself, I know it’ll hurt too much. Got to think of something else . . .
Unless . . .
I remember the safe at Connor and Sharon’s. A mechanism, yes, and not alive, but I managed to get inside it with my mind and work my will. I’ve been opening and locking doors with ludicrous ease. And Lauren fixed my cut before. I seem to remember her saying she’s done more than that, so it’s obviously possible . . .
After everything else I’ve done?
It’s beneath me.
I sit up a bit, biting my lip, and loosen my grip on my shoulder. My hand looks like it’s been dunked in blood-coloured paint. Or, alternatively, like it’s been gripping a bullet wound, possibly?
HAHA.
Focusing on not passing out, I pull down the sleeve of my papery blue shirt so I can get a proper look at the wound. It leers at me, red and black and dark and wet. If it had a voice it would be the voice of a fat, greedy man.
That’s not a helpful thought.
Concentrate.
Pain is nothing. Disgust is nothing. Just concentrate.
It’s all about the concentration.
I stare at the hole, moving beyond the superficiality of it, the blood and the torn flesh. I let everything else, the situation, the sound of the alarms and the guards banging on the door, fade to an indistinct background buzz, and slowly, almost lazily, I let myself fall into the wound, maintaining as much psychic pressure as possible to stem the blood flow. Won’t be much use repairing myself if I’ve already bled out, that’s science that is, biology mate . . .
I can see the bullet.
Lodged . . . but not too far . . .
Tiny and glistening. So small. How can it cause so much damage?
Because it’s very solid and gets fired into you at an incredibly high speed, and also flesh is weak.
Oh, thanks. Is that science too?
Grip it.
Like you would with tweezers.
Careful, careful.
Got it.
It hurts . . .
Ignore it.
Pull. Gently . . .
Ace of Spiders Page 28