The Adjusters

by Taylor, Andrew

  “Are you okay?” he asked Fox as they sped out of range of the gun. “Are you hit?”

  “I’m fine,” Fox said, crawling over the passenger seat into the front. “Can you drive?”

  “Just about,” Henry replied. “Is he following us?”

  Fox looked through the open back window. “Not yet… No, wait… Here he comes!”

  Henry checked out the passenger mirror. Sure enough, Trooper Dan’s cruiser was approaching at high speed.

  “Try to outrun him!” Fox exclaimed. “Put your foot down!”

  Henry gritted his teeth as they flew around a corner, almost going off the road and into the trees in the process. “I’m going as fast as I can without killing us!”

  Henry could hear the roar of the pursuing car and didn’t need to check the mirror to know it was right behind them. He suspected that Trooper Dan’s vehicle had a few speed modifications that weren’t strictly by the book. A second later the cruiser impacted the back of the patrol car. Henry just managed to hold it on the road.

  “See if you can get anyone on that,” he said to Fox, indicating the police radio.

  She picked up the handset and started speaking into it, asking for any response. Henry checked his mirror, seeing the trooper coming again. This time he swerved to the side, avoiding most of the impact. One thing he didn’t want was for Trooper Dan to pull alongside them where he could fire off a clear shot.

  “I can’t get anything on this!” Fox said. “Malcorp must be blocking the signal for miles!”

  “Keep trying!”

  Ahead, the road straightened out somewhat. On the left, the moonlight illuminated what appeared to be a quarry between the trees – a giant wound in the earth, evidence of the industry that had been in the area before Malcorp arrived…

  Bullets ripped through the hood of the patrol car, almost causing Henry to brake in shock. For a second he thought it had been Trooper Dan, but then he realized that it couldn’t have been. They’d been hit from the air. The helicopter! In his effort to concentrate on the road and their pursuer, Henry hadn’t heard the whir of the blades. He looked up as the chopper passed overhead, coming round for another pass. One of the Malcorp security guards was hanging out of the back with the machine gun in his arms.

  “Dammit!” Fox said. “This isn’t fair!”

  “I know,” Henry said, coming to a sudden realization. They’d never escape both the trooper and the helicopter. It was time for drastic action…

  He threw the wheel to the left, sending the patrol car down a wide dirt road that ended after a few metres with a large gate. He didn’t slow for a second, smashing through the gate and carrying on in the direction of the quarry.

  “What are you doing?” Fox demanded as they sped down the road, passing giant mounds of rock and sand that stood amid decaying buildings. The place was deserted. “This is a dead end!”

  “I know,” Henry replied, sending the car round one of the mounds and then weaving behind another. For a moment he lost sight of Trooper Dan in the mirror. The helicopter was still back over the road, no doubt waiting to see if they tried to double back. He looked at Fox.

  “You need to jump out when I say,” he said. “I’ll try to slow as much as possible. Then you need to stay out of sight and get away.”

  Fox shook her head vehemently. “There is no way…”

  “Listen!” Henry said. “They’re going to catch us! This way one of us can get the story out there. Understand?”

  Fox’s face fell, but she nodded. “Henry…”

  “No time!” he said, as he drove the patrol car behind another mound of sand. Trooper Dan had collided with a different mound and lost ground. He hit the brakes. “Jump out. Now!”

  Fox didn’t need telling twice. She pushed the door open and leaped out, hitting the ground moving and bending her knees so she rolled into a crouch. In his mirror, Henry watched her run for cover and find it as Trooper Dan’s cruiser heaved into view.

  “Okay,” Henry said to himself. “Let’s see how fast you can really go.”

  He put his foot to the floor. The engine of the patrol car screamed and it jumped forward at a startling pace. Passing out of the little mountain range of sand piles, Henry hit a relatively straight dirt track that took him between two of the larger buildings on the site. Beyond them he could see the edge of the quarry – a two-hundred-metre wide indentation in the ground.

  Suddenly, Trooper Dan’s cruiser smashed into the back of Henry’s car. Henry was thrown against the wheel. Ahead, the edge of the quarry loomed closer. He tried to turn, but the steering had locked out. He hit the brake… But the cruiser slammed him again and stayed there, pushing him down the track…

  The patrol car flew through a warning barrier and the road ran out a second later. Trooper Dan’s vehicle came to a halt with a squeal of brakes. The patrol car carried on, unstoppable…

  Over the edge and into space…

  Half a kilometre back down the track, Fox staggered from the hiding place she’d found behind one of the sand mounds. From her elevated position she’d seen everything: the pursuit, the patrol car pushing the cruiser, and finally Henry’s car sailing off into the quarry. An explosion lit up the night sky as the car hit the bottom, a hundred metres down. By the quarry, she saw Trooper Dan get out of his cruiser and walk to the edge to admire his handiwork.

  “No,” she cried. “Henry!”

  She stood for a moment, lost. Henry was dead. Trooper Dan had killed him. Her first instinct was to run down the hill screaming…to attack the man who had murdered Henry…

  But she had to escape. To tell the world. Save her mom and Henry’s mom and the coach – if they were all still alive.

  Somehow, she managed to get her legs working and started running between the hills of sand and rock, back in the direction they’d come. If Trooper Dan thought she’d died in the patrol car as well, then he’d call off the search.

  She had a chance…

  A howling wind rose, sending rock dust and sand flying. Fox shielded her face with her hand and tried to struggle forward, but the wind became a gale, forcing her back.

  The helicopter rose over one of the mounds and began to descend before her. With the shock of seeing Henry slide into the quarry, she’d completely forgotten about it. Fox considered trying to run back in the other direction – but Trooper Dan was there. And the security guard leaning out at the back had his machine gun trained on her as the chopper landed. Defeated, she raised her hands in the air.

  A slim-looking guy in a white lab coat emerged from the helicopter and ran over to her, grabbing her arm just as Trooper Dan’s cruiser roared up and came to a stop before them. The giant cop emerged. Fox saw that his bandage, formerly white, was now soaked red with blood.

  “Where d’you think you’re taking her?” Trooper Dan demanded, shouting above the noise of the helicopter blades. “She’s mine! She owes me!” He held up his injured hand to prove his point.

  The white-coat didn’t let go of Fox’s arm, but he did tense a little. “The boy’s been neutralized. We’re taking this one back for adjustment. We need to find out who else she talked to.”

  “What about me?” Trooper Dan yelled. “Take a look at my goddamned hand!”

  “We’ll fix you up. But first you need to clean up that mess you left back on the road. No more mistakes.” The white-coat reached into his pocket and produced a bottle of pills that he tossed to the trooper. “These will keep you going until you can get back to Malcorp for treatment.”

  With that, the man started pulling Fox towards the chopper.

  “Hey!” Trooper Dan called after them. “You boys can grow me another hand, can’t you? Right?”

  The white-coat merely pushed Fox into the back of the helicopter and climbed in after her. The machine rose swiftly into the air.

  Fox pressed her head against the window in the back. She had a bird’s-eye view of the burning wreck of the patrol car at the bottom of the quarry as they headed no
rth, back to Newton… Back to Malcorp…

  They’d failed… Henry’s sacrifice had been for nothing.

  For a moment when Fox awoke, she thought she was back in her attic bedroom above the coffee shop. Maybe it was the firmly pressed sheets of the bed she was lying in. Or the brightness of the room, which reminded her of the early morning sun that used to stream through the skylight.

  It only took a second for the illusion to be shattered. She saw the bare white walls, steel door in the corner and observation window in one wall and realized that she was somewhere in Malcorp. The room smelled like a hospital but looked like a prison cell.

  She rose to a sitting position and tried to swing her legs out of bed, but found they weren’t obeying her commands. Leaning back against the pillow, her head spun.

  The door clanged open and Fox tensed, although she knew she was in no position to do anything. Malcorp had her.

  “Hello, my dear,” John Mallory said with a smile as he appeared in the doorway. “So nice to finally meet you.”

  Fox watched without saying a word as he entered the room and sat on the end of the bed. Despite all her protests against Malcorp and research on the man, this was the first time they’d met in the flesh. He was taller and better built than she’d expected. And despite everything she knew about him, there was something strangely personable about his manner. The play-act of a ruthless man, she reminded herself.

  Finally she said, “What have you done to me? I can’t move my legs.”

  “Oh don’t worry about that,” Mallory said dismissively. “Just a temporary side effect of some pre-operation drugs we gave you.”

  A chill went through her at the word pre-operation.

  “Okay then, what are you going to do to me?” she said, trying to keep her voice strong when she felt anything but.

  Mallory smiled at her. “We’re going to make everything better, Fox. And not just for you. For your mom as well.”

  “My mom’s here?”

  Mallory nodded. “Yes, and don’t worry, we’ve been taking very good care of her.”

  “I want to see her.”

  He held up a hand. “All in good time. You know, she and I have been having some very interesting chats while you’ve been running around the countryside causing problems. She told me all about her condition. Multiple sclerosis is a terrible—”

  “Don’t you talk about her!” Fox cried. If she could, she would have leaped from the bed and pummelled Mallory’s smug, grinning face with her fists.

  “Calm down,” he said. “I was merely going to say that after the adjustment process, she’s not going to have to worry about that any more.”

  Fox blinked twice at him. “What?”

  “I’m sure you know that MS is caused by demyelination of the axons of the brain, affecting its ability to communicate with the spinal cord. Your mother’s adjusted brain won’t have that problem.” He spread his hands like a magician performing a trick. “No more MS! Ever. She’s going to be able to walk again, Fox. Now, isn’t that good news?”

  Fox had no answer. Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped them away.

  “Don’t you see?” Mallory said, leaning forward a little, eyes sparkling with passion. “We’re trying to help here. Eradicating brain diseases, mental problems. Making the brain a more efficient application. All you’re fighting is progress!”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?” Fox said.

  Mallory nodded.

  “But what about my mom after you give her a new brain?” Fox asked. “Who will she be?”

  “Why, she’ll be all better!”

  “No, she won’t. I don’t think she’ll be my mom at all.”

  Mallory snorted. “Nonsense! She’ll be perfect in every way—”

  “A perfect copy that you control,” Fox snapped. “And what about Henry? Can you bring him back?”

  Mallory looked down at the bed sheet. “I would have preferred it if he hadn’t been killed, but he forced my hand. After he escaped Steve – my best soldier – I had no choice but to resort to Trooper Dan.” He looked at Fox almost apologetically. “Dan was one of our first adjustments, you know. When we arrived in Newton, he had a somewhat different attitude to our plans. He was quite a vocal opponent of our operation here. He had a habit of sneaking around our facilities, looking for clues, just like you and your friends.”

  “So you adjusted him,” Fox spat. “And now he’s insane.”

  Mallory shrugged. “We’ve found that adjusting an adult brain leads to certain…instabilities. We think it’s something to do with the maturity of the system. Our adolescent adjustments have been by far the most effective.” He patted her on the knee through the covers. “But don’t worry, we’ve come a long way since Dan. Your mom is going to turn out just fine, I’m sure.”

  He rose and walked back to the door.

  “Please,” Fox said, disgusted by the pleading tone in her voice. “Don’t do this. We don’t want this!”

  Mallory looked back at her one last time. “People never want things that are good for them, do they?”

  He closed the door.

  The old man was dozing in his seat by the gas station window when the sound of the truck horn blared through the night. He woke with a start, eyes falling instinctively on the clock on the wall opposite. Almost 5 a.m. Who was making such a commotion outside at such an hour? He rose irritably from his chair, thinking that he might just refuse to serve them for disturbing his sleep…

  The truck engine howled as its driver floored the gas.

  The old man pressed his face to the glass just in time to see the vehicle, a twenty-tonne quarry truck, speeding down the road towards the pumps. At the very last second, the brakes squealed and the vehicle swerved, but not before it completely demolished the big board showing the gas prices out front.

  “Goddammit!” the old man cursed, reaching for his shotgun from under the counter. Nobody smashed up his forecourt and got away with it…

  The truck gears crunched and the engine whined as the vehicle went into reverse, backing round fast towards the shop. With a cry, the old man threw himself back. Somehow the driver managed to stop the truck before it flattened the building. Still, the back smashed into the window, shattering it. On the floor, the old man screamed as he scrabbled around for his fallen shotgun.

  “YOU. INSIDE THE SHOP.” A male voice from the cab blasted from a loudhailer set onto the side of the truck. The volume was turned up so loud, it sounded like the voice of god.

  The old man got slowly to his feet, hands in the air. He didn’t reach for the shotgun.

  “CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

  “Yes, I can hear you, dammit!” the old man yelled back. “I ain’t deaf!”

  “I NEED YOU TO DO SOMETHING FOR ME.”

  The old man stuck his chin out indignantly and yelled back, “You almost ran me over!”

  The driver gunned the gas to show he still could if he wanted to.

  “Okay, okay!” the old man yelled, waving his arms. “What do you want?”

  “CALL THE FBI. TELL THEM TO GET TO THE MALCORP COMPLEX NEAR NEWTON. THERE’S A SITUATION.”

  “What kind of situation?”

  There was a pause as the driver thought it over. “TELL THEM A TERRORIST SITUATION.”

  The old man snapped his fingers. He knew it! “Terrorist situation? Sounds like you need Homeland Security more than the FBI.”

  “JUST CALL THE FBI.”

  “Or the CIA—”

  “JUST CALL THE FBI.”

  “What number?”

  There was another pause. “DO YOU HAVE THE INTERNET? GOOGLE THEIR CONTACT NUMBER.”

  “The what...and do what?”

  A sigh echoed through the loudhailer. “Just call the operator and say you have a terrorist situation on your hands.”

  “Who are they?” the old man asked. “I saw some guys with beards pass through here just a couple of days ago…”

  “JUST DO IT.”

 
; The engine roared and the truck pulled away from the gas station, headed in the direction of Newton. Still stunned, the old man snatched up his shotgun and ran to the telephone behind the counter. With a trembling hand, he picked up the receiver and dialled the operator.

  “Alright, alright,” he said as a woman answered. “Shut up and listen. I’ve got a goddamned terrorist situation on my hands here…”

  Time passed in the windowless room. Whether it was minutes or hours, Fox found it impossible to say. Her head was still fuzzy and for a while she fell into a kind of doze, all the while willing herself to get out of bed, to try for some kind of escape plan... But she was just too exhausted.

  Finally, the door opened again and a male nurse entered with a wheelchair. He threw back the sheets, lifted Fox out of the bed and placed her in the chair. She tried to struggle, but the nurse was too strong. He informed her coldly that if she caused any trouble he’d give her another injection of sedative. She played it cool after that – the last thing she wanted was to be knocked out again.

  The nurse wheeled her down long corridors that gave the impression they were in some kind of underground facility. Finally they came to a door marked Pre-Op Lounge.

  “Mom!” Fox exclaimed as the nurse pushed her through.

  Her mother was sitting half asleep in a similar wheelchair on the other side of the waiting room, which was empty except for a couple of sofas and a television in the corner. As the nurse closed and locked the door behind her, Fox struggled from her chair and walked across the room, feeling shaky on her legs.

  “Thank god you’re alive!” Mary Layton said as she threw her arms around her daughter.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Fox whispered. “We couldn’t get away.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll find a way out of this. And don’t think for a second I’m going along with anything that crackpot Mallory told me. I’ve just been playing for time.”

  Fox smiled with relief at her mom’s words, though she found it hard to share her confidence. She turned her attention to the other side of the room, where the coach was lying on a sofa in a semi-doze. His broken arm was in a sling. Beside him sat a younger, smart-looking woman. Fox could tell instantly from her face that she was Henry’s mother.