The Adjusters

by Taylor, Andrew

  Henry gave him a smile and took a step forward, noting with satisfaction that Steve tensed. Despite all his nastiness, he was nervous. But why?

  “Word of advice,” Steve continued, pulling himself up a little taller. “If you want to fit in around here, don’t go asking questions that you know are going to make people uncomfortable.”

  Henry frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I don’t have a clue but perhaps you’d like to explain…?”

  Henry stopped dead as something caught his attention in the dive pool behind them. A younger kid had just gone off the board, but there was something all wrong. Something in the way he was falling – tumbling rather than diving. A cry split the air as the kid spun gracelessly and smashed into the water…

  Everyone around the pool watched in shock as the kid sank into the water, arms and legs outstretched. Unmoving. The kid touched the bottom of the dive pool.

  “Where’s the lifeguard?” Henry said, looking around wildly and not seeing one. Beside him Steve and Blake were watching the kid in the pool with dumbfounded expressions. All around, other kids had stopped to look but no one was doing anything.

  “Someone’s got to help him!” Henry said to Blake, who looked at him with a confused expression, as if at a loss what to do. Steve was staring at the water with eyes wide, his earlier aggression gone.

  Shaking his head, Henry looked round at the other end of the pool and yelled, “Coach!” Then, kicking off his shoes, he took a breath and dived into the pool.

  He entered the water perfectly and kicked away powerfully with his legs, angling down towards the bottom of the pool where the kid was resting. It took just a few seconds to reach the boy, who was several years younger and slightly built, which would make getting him to the surface easier. However, Henry knew from a life-saving class he’d taken the year before that the actual act of getting a person in trouble out of the water could be extremely dangerous for the rescuer. In a panic a flailing limb might knock you unconscious, or they might struggle and drag you down too.

  Henry swam round so he was behind the kid and placed his hands under his shoulders. His lungs were starting to burn and this only got worse as he began to pull the stunned kid up from the bottom of the pool.

  Come on! Henry thought, gritting his teeth and looking up. The dive pool was necessarily deep and the surface looked a million miles away.

  They rose, metre by metre. The kid was like a lead weight trying to drag him back down again, but Henry wouldn’t give up. Using all his strength, he kicked his legs even harder…

  And with a gasp of relief, broke the surface. For a moment he merely floated there, getting much needed oxygen into his lungs. Then, checking the kid’s head was above water, he began to swim on his back towards the edge of the pool.

  “What happened?” Coach Tyler said, reaching down to pull the kid from Henry’s arms as he made the side.

  “Bad dive,” Henry said breathlessly. A sudden wave of exhaustion swept over him. The coach quickly grabbed his arm to stop him going under the water.

  “That’s it,” the coach said as Henry pulled himself out of the pool with his help. The other kid was lying on the floor, breathing but barely conscious. “Call the school nurse!” the coach yelled at a stunned-looking girl. She went running to the office and the man turned his attention back to the half-drowned boy. “It’s a good job you were here, Henry. I sure as hell didn’t see any of these other champs jumping in to help.”

  “Maybe you should do some life-saving lessons,” Henry said, looking around and noticing that Blake and Steve were no longer by the side of the pool. In fact, it seemed they were no longer in the building. While he’d been saving the kid’s life, they’d just walked away.

  “What’s the matter?” the coach asked from the kid’s side. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” said Henry, shaking his head in disgust at the other two boys. “I’m just fine.”

  “You’re a hero,” Jennifer Ward said as she scooped another spoonful of pasta into his bowl at dinner that evening. As usual when something happened to her son, her answer was to start piling food onto his plate. “I don’t know what that coach was thinking. Where was the supervision?”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Henry said. “He was called away. Accidents can happen in a few seconds, Mom.”

  “All the more reason to keep your eye on the ball. And what about those other boys not even jumping in to help?”

  Henry took a mouthful of pasta and nodded. “Yeah, it was weird. Like they didn’t know what to do or…” He struggled to find the words. “It was like they weren’t even bothered.”

  At the other end of the kitchen table, Jennifer shook her head. The boxes from the car stood unopened all around. After what had happened at the pool, they’d decided to leave the unpacking for tomorrow. It had been a long day.

  “Well, that coach had better give you a place on the team, that’s all I can say,” she added. “Or I’ll be having words with him.”

  “Mom.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll stay out of it!”

  Henry thought for a moment before saying, “The strange thing was I started asking them about Gabrielle—”

  “Who?” Jennifer interrupted.

  “The girl from the gas station. Blake and Steve acted like they didn’t know her. But I know they were lying.”

  His mother looked across the table at him with concern, before managing a smile. “What makes you think that?”

  Henry shrugged. “I could just tell. That’s all.”

  “You are going to try to fit in here, aren’t you, Henry?”

  He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that it’s important to make friends in a new place… A new school…”

  “You don’t believe me,” he said.

  “I—”

  “You think it’s in my head.”

  Jennifer looked down, choosing her words carefully. “No. But we’ve both had a long day. And then there was the incident at the pool…”

  “They were lying to me before that. Something was wrong, I know it.”

  Jennifer smiled at him suddenly. “Just like your dad. Always a million questions—” She was interrupted by a loud knock on the front door. She rose from her seat, looking positively relieved at the distraction. “Now who could that be?”

  As she went through to the lounge, Henry pushed his plate away. Of course, if something was wrong here, it had to be in his head. He felt angry at her for never believing him. He wasn’t a kid any more. And he wasn’t in the habit of making up stories.

  “Henry, you’ve got a visitor.”

  He turned to see Mr. Mallory standing beside his mother in the kitchen doorway. The man strode towards the table and stretched out his arm like a javelin.

  “Put it there, son.”

  Feeling just a little stupid, Henry rose from his chair and placed his hand in Mallory’s.

  “I hate to think what would have happened at the pool without your quick wits,” Mallory said, looking into Henry’s eyes with great intensity and pumping his hand up and down. “The coach told me all about it. In fact, the coach and I had a very frank discussion about safety at the pool.”

  Henry coughed uncomfortably and pulled his hand free. “It wasn’t the coach’s fault. And someone else would have jumped in if I hadn’t been there…”

  Mallory waved his hand through the air as if dismissing that argument. “From what I heard, everyone else stood around like a bunch of starched shirts while you took charge.”

  Behind Mallory, Henry caught sight of his mom beaming and giving him the thumbs up.

  “In fact,” Mallory went on, “there’s someone here who’d like to say a few words to you.” He turned his head towards the lounge. “Blake! Get yourself in here!”

  Blake ran into the room, coming to a halt a few steps behind Mallory.

  “Well? Get on with
it!” Henry was surprised by the way Mallory’s tone changed completely when he spoke to Blake. It was like he was talking to a naughty five-year-old. Blake practically cowered as he stepped forward.

  “I’m sorry for not helping you rescue Danny from the pool,” he said, looking down at his shoes. “It all happened so fast. I was…uh…”

  “Say it,” Mallory ordered, his voice low.

  “I was a coward.”

  Henry looked over at his mother, who seemed equally taken aback. He’d never heard anyone refer to himself as a coward before. It was clearly something Mallory had put into the kid’s mouth.

  “Do you forgive me?” Blake asked.

  “Forget it,” Henry said, trying to make light of it. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  Mallory reached over and placed a large hand on the back of Blake’s neck. “Well, that’s all settled then. I know you and my grandson are going to be the best of friends, Henry. And you’ll be a good influence on him too.”

  Henry looked at Blake, who had raised his head for the first time since setting foot in the kitchen. Grandson. That figured.

  “Run along and get your homework done,” Mallory ordered and Blake trotted towards the door.

  “See you in class on Monday, Henry!” Blake said as he passed Henry’s mom, who watched him go like he was from a different planet. Henry had to smile at that.

  “Now, first thing tomorrow,” Mallory said, laying his hands lightly on Henry’s shoulders, “I want you to get along to the medical centre to be checked out by my head physician.”

  Henry shook his head. “Really, I’m fine…”

  Mallory’s hands suddenly became very heavy on his shoulders. “But I insist. You put yourself through a traumatic experience. Just a standard medical to make sure everything’s okay.” Mallory glanced round at Jennifer. “And it’s company policy following an incident.”

  “He’ll be there,” Jennifer said pointedly.

  “Excellent,” Mallory exclaimed, moving towards the kitchen door. “Dr. Chancellor will expect you at 9 a.m. Now I’ll leave you both to your unpacking.”

  Henry could have left it there, but found himself calling out across the room, “Mr. Mallory!”

  The big man stopped in his tracks and looked round. A slow smile spread across his face. “You’re going to ask me about Gabrielle Henson.”

  Henry nodded. His mother looked daggers at him.

  “You’re a very astute young man,” Mallory said with a chuckle. “I can see there’ll be no keeping things from you.”

  “Everyone said they hadn’t heard of her.”

  Mallory sighed and reached into his pocket. He produced a fat cigar, placed it in his mouth and began to chew on it without lighting up.

  “Gabrielle and her family are from Newton,” he said. “And Gabrielle, as you might have gathered, is a rather disturbed young lady. Her mental problems are exacerbated by her addiction to several illegal drugs. Very difficult for her family, who are old-fashioned types, to say the least. When we came here, Malcorp tried to help her fit in to our school system – without much success, I might add. I even had our psychiatrists offer counselling, but the girl wouldn’t take it.” Mallory removed the cigar from his mouth and looked thoughtfully at the chewed end. “Then the bad behaviour around town began. Theft. Vandalism. Accusations.”

  “Accusations?” Jennifer asked.

  “Against some of the boys living here in the facility,” he said. “I’m sure I don’t have to paint you a picture. There was nothing to it, of course. Gabrielle was just looking for a bit of attention, I guess. And for a while she got it. Not an easy time for the boys.”

  “Probably not an easy time for her, either,” Henry said, trying to reconcile Mallory’s version of events with the terrified girl he’d met just that afternoon.

  “So you understand why Steve and Blake were a little thrown by your question,” Mallory continued, as if he hadn’t heard the last comment. “We all thought we’d heard the last of her. A couple of weeks ago, she took an overdose and got herself hospitalized. Then she promptly ran out of the facility. Stole a car from town, but didn’t get very far – we found it crashed in a ditch a few kilometres down the main road. After that I guess she just ran into the woods and lived rough until Trooper Dan picked her up this afternoon.”

  “Where is she now?” Jennifer asked.

  “Being cared for by our doctors tonight,” Mallory replied. “I paid her a visit just before I came here. She says she wants to make a fresh start. That she’s going to accept some counselling support this time. We live in hope.” He held up the cigar and laughed unexpectedly. “I used to smoke five of these a day, but I gave up before they killed me. Still like to keep one in my pocket, though.” He put it back in his mouth and clamped his jaw down on the end.

  Jennifer looked at Henry and smiled. “Mystery solved?”

  He shrugged.

  “Goodnight,” Mallory said. “And thank you again, Henry. Malcorp owes you a huge favour.”

  He turned and left through the lounge. Jennifer walked over and put her arms around Henry. “My hero son.”

  An hour later, having helped his mom unpack their bedding and just a few other essentials, an exhausted Henry walked up the stairs to his new room. He’d left Jennifer sitting on the couch watching the late news, but he knew she’d be asleep within ten minutes herself.

  His bedroom was as lavishly equipped as the rest of the lodge, with a large bed, a brand-new PC workstation and mini home-theatre system. There was even an electric guitar and amp in one corner. Henry didn’t play, but on picking up the sleek, red and white Stratocaster, had decided that if he did nothing else while at Malcorp, he was going to learn.

  It was only as he undressed and reached for the light that he noticed the envelope – it was stuck to the outside of the bedroom window with a piece of tape. Frowning, Henry opened the window and looked out. Someone had climbed the sloped roof of the lodge – a lot of effort to place an envelope on his window. He reached round and pulled it off the glass, opening it as he returned to his bed.

  Inside the envelope was a handwritten note:

  Heard about what you did at the pool. Sorry for being weird before – didn’t know if you were one of us or not. Meet at “Full of Beans” in Newton, 7 p.m. tomorrow – Christian.

  We need to talk about Gabrielle Henson.

  Henry sat back in bed and was about to crumple the note, when he noticed something else scrawled on the other side, as if an afterthought.

  PS – If you go to the medical centre, don’t let them scan your brain.

  He shook his head and thought about tossing the note in the bin. Christian was crazy, even by the standards of everyone else he’d met that day. But right now he was one of the few people Henry knew in Newton, and that had to count for something. He folded the note and laid it on his bedside table.

  “You should see the equipment they have in that lab. Absolutely cutting-edge stuff, not like the last place I worked. They must have spent millions…”

  Henry was barely listening to his mom’s words as she drove them to the medical centre in the buggy they’d been assigned the following morning. Despite his exhaustion, he hadn’t slept well last night. His head had been spinning with thoughts of Gabrielle, the story that Mallory had told him and Christian’s strange note.

  “Hello!” Jennifer said, leaning into his ear. “Is anybody in there?”

  Henry gave her an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. I’m still half asleep.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re worried about the medical exam?”

  “No!” Henry paused. “They’re not going to need a blood sample, are they?”

  Jennifer laughed. “Just like your father. Scared of a little needle…” Her voice trailed away, as it often did when she started thinking about her husband. Henry reached over and touched her arm.

  “It’s okay, Mom.”

  “Yeah,” she said, brightening. “And I can’t see why they’d need
blood. You’re clearly as fit as a fiddle.”

  “I don’t see why they need to do this test at all. Can’t I just—”

  “No,” Jennifer said firmly. When he gave a groan of frustration, she added, “Come on, kiddo. Do it for your old lady, huh? Mallory insists and I need to keep on his good side.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Who knows, you might get a pretty young nurse.”

  Henry shot her a look. His mother smiled back at him innocently.

  “And afterwards, you can walk back to the lodge and unpack the rest of those boxes.”

  “You’re not hanging around?”

  “Have to head over to the lab. Start getting things organized.”

  Henry nodded, the beginnings of a plan starting to form in his mind. Once he was dropped off at the medical centre, he’d walk into reception, wait around until his mom drove off and then slip out. It wasn’t that he minded going to the doctor, it just seemed so unnecessary – especially on his last free day before starting at a new school.

  The buggy rounded another set of anonymous glass and metal buildings and the medical centre appeared before them. It was located on the highest point within the Malcorp complex, on a hill covered around the base with thick trees. Beyond the trees it was possible to see a high fence encircling a windowless, concrete building – a stark contrast to all the others in the complex. A gravel driveway ascended through the trees to an open gate in the wall.

  “That’s different,” Henry said as the buggy ascended the driveway. “You’re going to work in that place, Mom?”

  “No!” Jennifer replied, sounding relieved at the fact. The featureless façade of the medical centre was decidedly uninviting – like a vault or mausoleum of some kind. “The IVF lab is on the other side of the complex. And it has windows.”

  They reached the end of the driveway and pulled up in front of the main entrance: a set of wooden double doors over three metres high. Closed-circuit TV cameras on either side of these doors scanned the buggy as they stopped. One of the doors opened a crack and a tall, thin man with slicked-back hair and a spotless white coat emerged from the building.