Esther nodded, crossing the office and reaching for her jacket and keys. “Agreed.”
Shade looked at the boys and gave one of his cold grins. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you are our new and unofficial nightwardens.” Then he rubbed his hands together. “We’ve got work to do.”
Preston tried not to think of Dad. He’d be starting his night shift—which meant he’d have gone back to the flat to change his shirt and get something to eat, checked his son’s bedroom, and found it empty. And if that was the case, he’d be calling anytime now, frantic and furious. That’s why Preston had switched his phone off. Mace, with labored reluctance, had done the same. Alice felt closer than she had for days; he couldn’t bail out now.
Shade drove them hard. The first shift, through midnight and into the small hours, was backbreaking: box file after box file of paperwork needed moving into a small side room and stacking, to be locked away. The place was untidy and disorganized, that was for sure—cluttered with three or four years’ worth of chaotic paperwork.
The three of them toiled wordlessly for the most part, and the boys understood their place. Shade was mute and remorseless, working with frantic energy, checking his watch regularly, eyeing the rolling news. Preston thought about everything the wardens had said. Phrases snagged in his head. He thought about shutdown. He thought about dormant valves, about Frankie out at Blackstone Edge, and whether that was the same moorland his dad had driven him across once. He thought about transit records and if he sees what we’ve been up to … This was a bigger operation than Preston could have guessed. And there was something here the wardens badly wanted to hide.
As the first two hours neared their close, Shade wiped his forehead and leaned back against his desk for a break. They’d made good progress; a teetering pile of stacked boxes half filled the stockroom. Preston and Mace watched the nightwarden warily and continued to work.
Shade ran a hand across the stubble on his chin. “So listen,” he said in his gravelly voice, his bright eyes on Preston. “What brought you to M.I.S.T.? You mentioned a friend?”
Preston nodded, still shuttling boxes. He was too tired to work out what story to tell. The truth would have to do. “You’ll have seen her in the news, I bet,” he said. Alice had only made it local so far, but as they’d worked, Preston hadn’t been able to help gazing up at the BBC coverage on the wall-mounted TV, half expecting to see her face. It was covering Manchester’s preparations for the election season, speculating about Armstrong’s potential challenge for the leadership of the New Conservatives and latest round of spending cuts; economic correspondents in gray suits, their mouths moving wordlessly, the volume down. “She’s called Alice,” he continued. “She’s been missing for three days. It’s in the papers.”
Shade grunted. “Seen it. I’m sorry. I know how it feels.”
Preston clenched his teeth. He seriously doubted it. “You do?”
Shade fell silent, staring. It took Preston a moment to work out what had his attention. It was the empty desk. “Yeah,” Shade said eventually. “I do.” The desk had been kept tidy, sure. But maybe it hadn’t been used for a long time. Either way, there had been a third member of the team. And whoever they were, it sounded as if they too were missing.
Mace put down a box of papers. “Mr. Shade,” he said, a glint in his eye, “do you know anything about the Ellwood kid? That was round here as well.”
Shade raised an eyebrow. His meaning was clear. Mace stooped for the box and carried on working. “That was a few months ago, right?” Shade said slowly as the boys moved back and forth, finishing the last of the boxes. The filing cabinets were almost clear now. Shade was booting up, getting ready to start on the IT system. He spoke as he worked. “The politician’s kid that went missing. Nah, I don’t. I spend—as you’ve gathered—a lot of time looking after the M.I.S.T. buildings. I don’t get out much.”
Preston thought about the word in Alice’s notebook. Maybe she’d planned to explore the compound but hadn’t had time. “Are you a security guard, then?” he asked. It was a gamble. Shade might shut him out. But there was something about him, Preston figured, an adrenaline-fueled panic and a deep fatigue, that had put him in the mood for talking.
Shade shrugged, tapping his keyboard. “Sort of. Like I said, nightwarden.”
“What do you look after?” Mace asked, tucking the final box of papers away and blowing the hair from the eyes. “Is it to do with the machine?”
Shade’s eyes grew cold. He ran his tongue along his lips. His shoulders had dropped a little, as if he was closing up. One too many questions. “I’ve got work to do, boys.”
“The valve, I heard them call it,” Preston said. “I went down to the basement and I saw it. I saw them lead a whole line of boys into it.”
Shade stared at the screen before him. His fingers had stopped moving on the keyboard. “The valve,” he said. His voice sounded as if it might break.
“What is it?”
Shade gave a bitter laugh, hit a key, and pushed back on the casters of his chair. “Complicated question,” he said after a pause. He was uneasy, exhausted—Preston could see it around his eyes. He steepled his fingers together, thinking about what to reveal, thinking—Preston guessed—about the triple dose of Sleeptight he’d administer at the end of all this. “It’s a Kepler valve,” he said eventually. “And, yeah, I look after it.”
Preston and Mace looked at each other. Mace gave a shrug, his face flickering with awe and excitement. “What’s a Kepler valve?” Preston asked. When Shade didn’t answer, he pressed on. “It’s as big as a bus. What does it do?”
“It’s a prototype. I’d have got it smaller eventually.”
“You built it?” Mace said.
Shade nodded, lips pressed tightly together. “I built lots of them. And now I spend my life chained to them. Keeping an eye on them in case they misbehave.”
Preston thought about the shuddering kid, the chatter of his teeth. Surely there was a connection; the valve and the boy. “Does it kill people?” he asked quietly.
“Sometimes,” Shade said. His voice sounded hollow. “But mostly it’s worse than that.”
He looked as if he might say something more, but then his eye was caught by the rolling news and he scoured the desks for the TV remote. When he found it, he boosted the volume.
On the screen, an overweight man with side-parted gray hair and a bulbous nose was talking. “Armstrong,” said Shade bitterly, placing his hands on his hips.
Preston recognized him. He was one of the group he had seen hurrying across the parking lot in the rain, the one who was here to see the valve and begin an inspection. The footage on the TV screen had evidently been captured earlier in the day—Armstrong stood before the Houses of Parliament in a raincoat and a gaudy tie.
“I don’t think I’m being particularly controversial when I say that our current prison system isn’t working,” he was saying. He had an oily voice. His chin wobbled as he spoke. Across the bottom of the screen, his name appeared: Christopher Armstrong, Justice Secretary. “Its ability to deter crime has been significantly weakened. Crowded and outdated accommodation is a major issue. Wandsworth, Wormwood, Armley, Strangeways—these Victorian-era prisons clearly aren’t fit for purpose. Radical solutions are necessary if our prison system is to be the deterrent it was before the previous government dismantled it. We need to be tougher on the kind of crime that matters to the British public.”
A question was asked. Preston didn’t catch it—Shade was jeering noisily at the screen.
Armstrong continued. “No, that’s not the case. Whichever way you look at it, crime is going down. A fifteen percent decrease in robbery. A similar fall in domestic burglary. Our policies are working. Yes, we accept there is still a way to go. Yes, we have to make further savings. But today’s figures are encouraging; they give us a clear indication that this government’s tough stance on crime is working.”
The clip ended and a news anchor turned to a
studio guest.
Preston found himself remembering the tagline on M.I.S.T.’s website. Technological prototyping and development for criminal justice, it had said. That’s why Armstrong was here. The government’s justice secretary here in Manchester—it had to be connected with M.I.S.T.
Preston thought about DNA databases again. Valves.
Shade cut the volume and tossed the controller onto his desk. “We have to make further savings,” he said, repeating Armstrong’s words. “He can say one thing to the cameras, but it’ll be another story tonight. Esther’s right. He’s closing us down. It’s getting too dangerous, with the conference coming up.”
“Is shutdown bad?”
Shade closed his eyes, managed a nod. Preston watched him: a tired man, trapped by something—circumstances or science, maybe—beyond his control. He almost felt sorry for him. Then the radio hissed and crackled. Shade picked it up. “Esther,” he said. “That you? Go ahead.”
Esther sounded urgent. “I’m coming in. We’ve got major trouble here. Clear a table.”
Shade blanched. “What’s happening? What’s going on, Esther?”
“Clear a damn table!” she said. “Stuff just got crazy.”
The radio fell silent.
“Jesus,” Shade said.
The next few minutes were frantic. Shade swept a pile of blister packs to the floor and dragged the empty table into the center of the workspace. Preston and Mace followed a series of barked commands, carrying the final armfuls of material as quickly as they could and piling it all up inside the cramped stockroom, clearing a space for whatever the hell was coming.
A matter of minutes later, the elevator sprang into life and began its brief ascent. The three of them faced the elevator doors, breathing hard. Preston felt something suddenly flood his body: fear and adrenaline shaken together. Mace stood ramrod straight, terrified.
“What’s going on?” Preston whispered.
Mace let a shaky breath escape. “Whatever it is, it’s not good.”
The doors opened.
Esther was carrying a body in her arms. The body of another boy.
“Coming through,” she said through gritted teeth. Shade helped her to the table, taking the boy’s legs. Esther laid the body gently on its back on the table they had cleared. It was covered in some sort of tarpaulin and was wet with rain.
Shade said, “Esther, what the hell—?”
“You’re not going to believe this.” Esther wiped the sweat from her brow.
Shade rubbed his eyes. “If Armstrong comes in now, we’re finished.”
Preston found himself inching forward, compelled to look. The body was small, slight—a kid of maybe fifteen, he reckoned—though it was wrapped in such a way that the head and face couldn’t be seen. A pair of boots emerged from the end.
Esther cleared her throat. “Castlefield valve, just after midnight,” she said, her story coming between steadying breaths. “Swear to God—Castlefield valve. Beyond the warehouses and the canal basin. No one around, thank Christ. If I hadn’t been doing a routine check of the tech I’d never have seen the kid arrive.”
Shade ground his teeth. “No way.” He reached an unsteady hand out and touched the covered body at the knee. “They shouldn’t be coming through.”
“How many’s that now? Six?” Esther said.
Shade touched the material again and blinked; Preston could have sworn he could see tears glazing his eyes.
Esther took hold of the edges of the tarp, the tips of her dark fingers flexing delicately. “We need to get these boys out of here. They can’t see this.”
“And put them where? We’ll triple dose ’em afterward. Come on.”
Preston couldn’t tear his eyes away. Mace, at his shoulder, was the same. With a nod at Shade, Esther began to unwrap the body.
It was hard to look at what lay beneath, it being at once familiar and terrible. There was a dead boy there, and he’d evidently been wearing goggles—the same strange full-face goggles Preston had seen on the other kids, the ones that gave their wearer the big glittering eyes of a dead fly. They’d been pushed up askew over his blond hair to reveal his face. He was in his mid-teens.
Shade said, “What have I done?” For a second, it was as if he’d forgotten how to stand up. He had to lean on the table.
Esther began picking away at the boy’s neck, trying to find a way in under the line of the shirt. Her fingers were shaking. “We need an ID,” she said. The silence in the room settled like dust. After a moment, Esther hooked a fingernail around something metallic—it looked to Preston like the kind of dog tag worn by American soldiers—and pulled it free from the boy’s clothes.
She read a series of numbers aloud from it.
Shade stirred, shaking off his silent sadness and moving to his desktop computer. He scrolled through a database, his hand unsteady on the mouse. Mace gave Preston a nudge and directed his gaze at the second of the two TV screens, the one with the lists of numbers. They were the same length as the one Esther had just read out. Identification codes, Preston realized.
Whoever the body was—there were more of them somewhere, all listed on the screens above.
“Yeah,” Shade confirmed. “One of ours. Went BTV five months ago.”
“BTV?” Preston said. The others looked at him.
“Beyond the valve,” Esther said. Shade glared at her. She cleared her throat and stuck her chin out, defiant. “Well,” she said, looking back at him. “They’ve seen it all now, haven’t they? They may as well know.”
“Know what?”
The two nightwardens didn’t reply. Shade’s shoulders had rounded and dropped—he was eaten up by some dark feeling Preston couldn’t understand.
Only Esther’s gaze had softened. She retied her hair with long fingers. “Jonathan,” she said gently, “these boys are with us now. You’ve tried to lose them and they’ve come back. If the Castlefield breach is what we think it is, we’ve got enough trouble. Armstrong’s here. Might be better if you just level with ’em.”
“Beyond the valve?” Preston repeated. “What does that even mean?”
“It means,” Shade said firmly, “through the valve. Into it.”
“Into that box?”
“There’s a place”—Shade examined his fingertips, choosing his words carefully—“inside the Kepler valves,” he said. “Beyond them.”
Mace drew back, his face wrinkled in thought. “Inside? Like a room?”
“Something like that.”
“And this boy’s been in there?”
Esther nodded. “Yeah,” she said. She gave them a hopeless smile. “But the thing is this: Once they’ve gone in, they shouldn’t be able to get back out.”
“Then why go?” said Mace. “You’d have to have some sort of death wish.”
Preston felt a sudden and swift gathering of sense. The M.I.S.T. buildings and their mysterious mission statement: Technological prototyping and development for criminal justice. Armstrong—the justice secretary. What had he said on TV? Radical solutions are necessary if our prison system is to be the deterrent it was …
This wasn’t about DNA databases or criminal records. This was about punishment.
This was about prison.
“Oh my God,” he said. He’d gone cold. “Who do you send beyond the valve?”
“The kid’s bright,” Shade said, a dark twist of sarcasm in his voice. “I’ll give him that.” He licked his lips. “Of course you don’t choose to go into the valve if you can’t get back. You get sent there. We send you there.”
Mace put a palm across his forehead. “What? It’s a prison?”
Shade gave a bitter laugh. He pushed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, his mirth dying. “I wanted to change the world,” he said. “Instead I invented a prison.”
Preston looked at the screen. The numbers—the lists and lists of six-figure numbers—were prisoners. Kids. There were dozens and dozens, close to a hundred, surely. H
e wiped the fatigue from his eyes. “This is going to sound dumb,” he said, his head feeling oddly light, “but how can all those people fit in a metal box in the basement of the building next door?”
There was a long and uneasy pause. It looked as if no one wanted to answer.
“It’s not big enough,” Preston clarified pointlessly.
Esther tried a smile but gave up. She inflated her cheeks, let out a long breath. “Kepler valves are bigger on the inside,” she said.
For a moment, Preston felt like laughing at the joke.
But the room was silent and the faces were cold and sober.
“We were working on particle acceleration,” Shade said later. “My brother and me.” He was drinking vending-machine coffee from a plastic cup. Esther was next to him on the sofa. Preston and Mace were warming themselves with drinks too. It was close to three o’clock, early Tuesday morning. “Esther had come over from Penn State to help us bring the project in on time. There were two big Kepler valves over at the university back then, see—a team of fifteen physicists working with us on it. Then, one day, the whole financial system seized up—the stock markets crashed and our funding dried up. Investment in CERN was the only thing anyone could budget for; suddenly we were yesterday’s news. Then, to top it all, the valves started misfiring and we didn’t have a particle accelerator, we had … ” Shade wiped his lips, shook his head at the memory. “We had something else. We’d made something else.”
“What was it?” Preston said.
Shade smiled. “An elevator. A shuttle. A teletransportation system. I dunno. Start asking details, kid, and we’ll be here way past your bedtime with a flipchart and a Magic Marker. Skip it, unless you fancy four hours with a calculator talking Gödel space-time. Some things are better left alone.” Shade faltered. He looked at the half-wrapped figure of the dead boy, then at the empty desk.
Preston turned and examined the desk too. He had to ask. “Who does it belong to?”
Lifers Page 6