Sleepless

by Louise Mumford

  ‘She sold it then.’ He sighed. ‘I guess I didn’t leave her much choice. Where’s Max?’

  Ethan shook his head at Thea, but she answered anyway.

  ‘At the Centre. We’re at the lighthouse. Max hid you away because you …’ She suddenly felt embarrassed at calling him crazy. Even though he was. ‘You tried the tech on yourself and it kinda messed with your brain.’

  ‘But she’s trialling it anyway?’

  ‘Yep. They think they’ve worked out the problems.’

  ‘They haven’t,’ Ethan interrupted. ‘What you’ve created could probably destroy lots of people, like it destroyed Ted. How does that feel?’

  ‘Ethan!’ Thea shoved him.

  ‘What? In two minutes he’s probably going to go back to thinking we’re goldfish or something. What does it matter?’

  Moses hung his head so Thea couldn’t see his expression.

  ‘How long have I been gone?’ he whispered. ‘How long have they kept me drugged?’

  The video diary had been date-stamped and the final entry had been the previous summer. She kept quiet.

  ‘I should never have tested it on myself, but I’m not mad … not anymore, at least. They didn’t need to keep me locked away. You can help me, set me free. I could talk to her, help stop all of this!’

  His eyes shifted warily from Thea to Ethan.

  ‘Is there some way we can destroy it?’ Thea tried, despite Ethan rolling his eyes.

  Moses laughed, a harsh, raspy sound.

  ‘Destroy my tech? It’s beautiful.’ Moses slammed his palm against the side of his head a few times. ‘I wanted to make us gods. We could have been better than AI, the human machine, super-charged …’

  ‘Yeah well, now you’re cuffed to a radiator and I’ve got the key.’ Ethan came towards him and Moses flicked a wary glance his way. ‘Life sucks.’

  Moses started to scrunch up his blanket in his fist. ‘Wait! If you take me there,’ he said, stretching out his sinewy neck, ‘to the Centre. I’d help. Everyone … needs … to … hear … the … truth.’

  He blinked and shook his head, his last few words slurred, his eyelids drooping.

  ‘See?’ Ethan said. ‘Useless. He’ll be asleep soon anyway. Leave him.’

  Useless. Thea wasn’t so sure. As she watched his chest rise and fall peacefully, she also wasn’t so sure that he was really asleep, there was something tense about his shoulders and jaw. Could they believe what he said? Not mad or dangerous – but drugged by Delores so she could steal his technology? She kept thinking of the Moses in the video diary, the one at the start. He would have helped them. Somewhere inside his shattered brain that Moses must still be there.

  Ethan didn’t look convinced.

  Thea went for a shower in the bathroom at the end of Moses’s room, even though she had to pick her way through snow and the fallen roof to get there. The soap was old and cracked, and she didn’t look too long or too hard at the plughole.

  She felt better when she stepped out, fumbling for the towel. She wasn’t tired, despite the fact she’d had no sleep again last night. Those old exhausted days that had felt like a bruise seemed so long ago, though she would have gone back to them now in a heartbeat. The gritty eyes, pounding head, furred tongue and dizziness would have been better than … this. The feeling that her brain was being continuously doused in water so freezing it made her eyes sting.

  Too awake.

  What kind of society would it be if everyone always got a perfect night’s sleep? Thea wondered. All those bright-eyed people skipping about, being polite to each other, being considerate and patient and making calm, measured decisions. Freaky.

  She quickly dressed and it was when she sat on Moses’s bed to put on her socks and shoes, lost in a utopia of well-slept citizens, that she noticed the little lumps in Moses’s pillow.

  Little round, tablet-shaped lumps.

  They tumbled into her hand when she shook them out. His old sedatives. Whoever had been giving them to him before they arrived had clearly not checked that he had been swallowing them because here they all were. Thea realized that for the whole time he had been with them in the lighthouse Moses had been steadily getting more and more alert.

  Something fluttered in her stomach.

  She ran back into the kitchen to tell Ethan … only to find him unlocking Moses.

  Chapter 36

  ‘Ethan?’ Panic gave an edge to her voice.

  He didn’t respond, but kept crouching at Moses’s feet, fiddling with the shackles. Moses looked at her though, his gaze clear and attentive. He smiled bemusedly and raised his eyebrows as if this was a joke they were all in on.

  ‘Ethan?’

  Cold water dripped down her neck from her shower-wet hair. Ethan casually glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyes glassy.

  ‘One mission objective located and secured.’ He wasn’t talking to her; it was like he was talking into an imaginary headset. ‘Other hostages still not found.’

  He pulled the shackles away and Moses sighed with relief, rolling his ankles round and round and flexing his toes.

  With mounting horror, Thea watched Ethan reach for the wrist cuffed to the radiator.

  ‘No!’ she yelled, her body acting on instinct.

  She ran the few steps to him and was about to try and yank the keys from his hand, but Moses was quicker – and nearer. With a grunt of effort, he kicked his feet up hard, right into Ethan’s face, connecting with such power it snapped Ethan’s head back. As he toppled backwards, clutching at his nose, Moses delicately plucked the keys from Ethan’s hand.

  But it wasn’t only the keys he’d taken from Ethan.

  Moses pointed a gun at her.

  It was the gun Ethan had taken from the security chief, Len. There was another one somewhere, the one from the guard who had been standing outside the lighthouse when they first arrived, but Thea had no idea where Ethan had put that.

  ‘Sorry,’ Moses said, still pointing the gun at her. ‘I don’t even know if this thing is loaded. I like you. I think. Both of you. But this is my chance. I need to speak to Delores.’

  It had to be loaded, Thea thought with dismay. Why would Ethan have bothered having the gun on him if it hadn’t been loaded?

  ‘You’ll have to uncuff me,’ Moses said. ‘Can’t do it while holding a gun.’

  Thea was suddenly hyper-aware of everything. Ethan, on his hands and knees, retching and trying to get to his feet, the scrabble of his boots against the wooden floor as he attempted to stand up. A sound outside, like the crunch of snow on tyres, but it couldn’t have been that. The tiny jangle of the keys in Moses’s hand.

  ‘Now!’

  She moved around Ethan and gingerly took the keys from Moses, that sour smell of rank, unbrushed teeth engulfing her as he breathed on her. But his face, when he pushed it closer to hers, softened surprisingly for a moment.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you. I just have to get to the Centre.’

  Thea opened up her hand and showed the tablets to Moses.

  ‘Ah. You found them. Not the cleverest of hiding places but I didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘How long have you been off the sedatives?’

  ‘Long enough for them to wear off. Mostly. I’ve done enough sleeping. I’m not dangerous—’

  ‘You hurt Rosie.’

  Moses’s face crumpled. ‘I thought she was a guard, I thought – I don’t know – I was confused, and I just wanted to get free. But I’m not confused anymore. If I can talk to Max, she’ll listen to me. They shouldn’t tamper with the tech – you know what it can do, don’t you?

  Thea nodded. Dreams. Control. Then out of control: hallucinations and finally an empty shell of a person. Unless Moses had fixed that? Thea looked into his eyes. They were bloodshot and puffy, but clear. She felt she could see a person in them, not just a scramble of neurons and some medication. He definitely wasn’t an empty shell.

  ‘See?’ he said, reading her thoughts. ‘I can talk
to Max. I know her … or, at least, I knew her. I loved her. She loved me. I can help. I could try to stop all of this—’

  ‘Destroy it?’

  He almost flinched and there was a definite pause before he answered, ‘Maybe.’

  Was “maybe” good enough? Thea looked at the handcuff key in her hand. She thought of dreams and madness, of dribbling wrecks and sleepless soldiers. Ethan groaned nearby.

  Thea thought of the Moses she had seen in the video diary – the one with the messy desk and kind eyes, who joked with Ted and pulled Delores in for a kiss. That Moses would have helped.

  But was that Moses in front of her?

  She could only spin the roulette wheel and hope for the best.

  The handcuff clicked apart almost on its own.

  Moses pulled his hand free, immediately heading for the door, the gun forgotten in his hand. Thea watched him go. He probably wouldn’t get far. None of them would. What did it matter?

  Ethan had other ideas, however, and swayed to his feet. Whether he was still in the grips of a hallucination, or whether he just wanted to pummel Moses for getting free, he staggered, but then launched himself at the older man, fury personified.

  They both hit the floor with a slam that reverberated through the soles of Thea’s feet. Moses wailed and wriggled, a blur of flailing limbs, the two of them wrestling on the floor, Thea just standing there. She knew she should be doing something, but she didn’t know what and she couldn’t get her body to move. There was a skittering sound and the gun spun across the floor towards her.

  It came to rest only a few inches away from her foot.

  Just as she bent to pick it up, Moses finally managed to writhe free, making a desperate run for the door as Ethan howled in anger and scrambled after him.

  Moses yanked open the door, a rush of cold air hitting them all, the world outside mostly white. For the briefest second he stood triumphantly on the threshold, the bright light bathing his face, the wind making his pyjama trouser legs ripple. With a guttural yell of glee he barrelled out through the doorway.

  Straight into the person standing on the other side.

  Chapter 37

  It was the beard she recognized. The rest of the face was muffled by a fur-lined hood so big that the face was lost in shadow. But the beard … that was familiar.

  ‘Rory?’ Thea realized she was pointing a gun at him – but she wasn’t going to lower it either, not until she’d worked out what was going on.

  He shoved the hood back off his face with one hand, his cheeks ruddy with the cold, and with the other he held Moses’s arm. Ethan stood, a little shakily, and took a few steps to stand by Thea’s side. With relief, she noted that he no longer had that glassy-eyed hallucinatory stare.

  ‘Rory, how are you here?’ Thea steadied the arm holding the gun, because she was trembling. From the cold, obviously. The gun was heavy, but it was a heaviness that felt good; it was the heaviness of power, of being able to defend yourself. For once.

  Rory came in a little from the doorway, his free hand raised in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘Look, I’ve got a lot to explain. A lot has happened back at the Centre, but I’m here to help you, okay? You’re safe.’ Another figure came out of the cold beside him. Thea tensed. ‘It’s okay, this is Kyle. He’s with me; he’s helping me.’

  Kyle had a bright red scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and very bleached-blond hair, as if he was auditioning for a part in an Eighties tribute band. He pulled down the scarf and gave a smile that hooked up the corners of his mouth in an almost convincing way. Thea moved the gun so it pointed at him.

  Everyone stood there for a few moments, waiting for someone else to say or do something first.

  ‘So, we’ve got a lot to fill you in on.’ Snow fell in chunks from Rory’s boots. ‘Could we maybe come in? And could you maybe put the gun down now?’

  Thea looked at Ethan. ‘Are you okay?’ she said quietly.

  Ethan nodded, his eyes darkly shadowed and red-rimmed.

  Her heart beating so fast it made her feel sick, she took a long look around the room and an even longer look at Rory who had one hand stretched out to her, dark hollows under eyes that she recognized – kind eyes. Rory, she reminded herself, the man she’d been having lunch with for weeks, who staged battles between the action figures on his computer and gave her contraband chocolate.

  She finally lowered the gun, keeping hold of its comforting weightiness.

  ‘Okay then.’ Rory dropped his hand, warily eyeing Ethan. ‘Shall we close the door? Get started? Also …’ He glanced at Moses who he had gripped by the arm throughout this exchange. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Basically. The shit hit the fan.’

  Rory began to recount his tale after he had got over the shock of meeting the real Moses Ing. This mostly involved him becoming extremely wide-eyed and stuttering how much of an honour it was while Moses fell into a stupor once more. Moses reached out and twirled a bit of Rory’s beard, saying ‘shiny’ in a slurred voice, before sleep got him. Rory had looked as proud as if Moses had let him in on the code for Morpheus.

  Thea watched Moses’s eyelids flutter. He was playing possum. If he’d stopped taking them when he was brought to the lighthouse, then the sedatives were pretty much out of his system now. He wasn’t asleep. She could have told Rory that, but Rory was with Kyle.

  She studied Kyle. He let Rory talk but his eyes missed nothing, and she saw them range around the room, like an eagle searching for prey. She was glad she’d pocketed the sedatives and that they weren’t scattered on the floor as clues for his keen gaze to follow.

  The kitchen had never been designed to have five people squeezed into it, especially one who was now once more cuffed to the radiator. Despite the snow outside, the air inside was a tepid dishcloth. Thea touched her hair that had now dried to a rough, frizzy mess. I’ve got Rosie’s hair, she thought. It was oddly reassuring.

  Rory’s tale was not.

  ‘All hell was let loose the night you guys left. I mean, have you been experiencing the hallucinations?’

  At this Ethan nodded curtly.

  ‘Well, they must have been milder for you guys because you were further away from the Centre, but for us? It was brutal. We weren’t prepared for it at all. The things I saw people do …’

  Here Rory trailed off, staring into the middle distance. He looked as if he hadn’t slept much himself over the last two nights, slumped and floppy like a finger puppet without the finger. Kyle cleared his throat and Rory jolted back to life.

  ‘The lucky ones were the ones who hallucinated something nice … but there weren’t many of them.’ He paused and swallowed. ‘We tried to get them into their rooms. I saw … I saw someone sat in the corner of a corridor and I thought to myself, here’s someone I can help at least. He had his back to me and when I got closer he smiled at me and reached out for my hand. Which was great, right? I could help him.’

  Rory didn’t meet their gaze as he carried on.

  ‘But his hands were all bloody and his smile was filled with blood because he’d got the blunt end of a knife and had smashed out every single one of his teeth. They were scattered on the floor around him.’

  Thea couldn’t stop herself from imagining it. She put herself in the corridor she’d walked so many times to get to her room, so white, so glossy, now smeared with blood. The toothless man smiled up at her, blood running down his chin, holding up his hand to her and in his hand were teeth, rattling together in his palm like dice. She could feel them crunch under her feet.

  ‘I tried to help. I really did. But there was only a handful of sleep techs. We tried to call for backup, but no one came. We learnt later that Delores ordered the first two floors to be put on lockdown until the morning. Cut off, you understand? People got hurt that night.’

  Thea, Rory and Kyle sat on the floor of the kitchen, Ethan still perched on the counter, his face turned to the window, but Thea knew he was listening. The metal barrel of th
e gun was cold in her hand.

  ‘Rosie?’ Thea whispered. In her imagination, the toothless man’s face changed to Rosie’s – it was her bloody smile, her frizzy hair with streaks of red in it.

  ‘Everyone is fine,’ Kyle butted in before Rory could speak. Thea couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Rory redden. ‘But the trial has been stopped, to be on the safe side. Ms Maxwell has stepped down and Aspire, the company that actually owns Ing Enterprises, have sent a team to take over.’

  Moses stirred in his pretend-sleep, muttered something and shifted in his seat.

  ‘Safety is of the utmost importance,’ Kyle continued smoothly, in a voice used to getting attention. ‘There has been a small fire, probably caused by one of the clients in their hallucinatory state, so we are evacuating the island. Clients first, of course.’ He smiled that hook smile.

  ‘And Moses?’ Ethan said.

  Kyle flicked a glance to him. ‘Well, he is a bit of a surprise to us all, but that is a private matter for Ms Maxwell and the company to deal with between themselves.’

  Thea didn’t believe him. Aspire must have known that Delores was parading a fake Moses, surely? She closed her eyes, squeezed her lids shut for a minute, trying to think it all through.

  ‘Thing is, we don’t have much time.’ Kyle stood up and opened the rucksack he’d brought with him. Inside was a box. ‘We need to get the discs off you. Boat’s waiting. We have warm clothes and boots in the truck. You’re getting off the island.’

  ‘Wait.’ Thea blinked a few times, as if that would help her think. ‘That’s it? Delores is being held somewhere and everything is okay now? What about the tech? What it does, what it can do?’

  Rory frowned, puzzled. ‘What do you mean – what it can do?’

  ‘What it can do is now no one’s business except the owner of the tech. Which is Aspire,’ Kyle said. ‘Ing Enterprises have been negligent and foolhardy with it. Aspire is a safe pair of hands, rest assured, Miss Mackenzie.’

  Thea thought of the memory stick in the tiny slit pocket of her leggings. It was a good moment to tell Rory about it. She might not get another moment like it. But there was Kyle by his side, with his sharp eyes and sharper smile.