Utopia: A Dark Thriller: Complete Edition

by Adam Steel

  Ellie returned to her duties. It had felt good to have some time off to move in with Jon Li. She had almost forgotten what it was like to relax. There were a few letters marked private and confidential on her desk. She always dealt with those first before her clinic.

  She slid the drawer of her desk open without really thinking. There it was – in its hiding place. She looked down at it and gently moved some papers out of the way. Her hand touched its silver slender body. The tip of the letter opener was sharp. There you are my little friend. I think it’s time we had a little talk don’t you. You have been my reliable companion for years now. Always there when I needed you. Ready and willing to do the deed. See. The thing is. I don’t need you anymore. I have him now. You understand don’t you. Things have changed now. He’s cured me. He’s set me free. Yes you heard me, he’s set me free and I just don’t need your help any more. Our little understanding is at an end my reliable friend. It’s time to say goodbye. Ellie picked up the silver letter opener and (with one swift movement) tossed it into the litter bin, where it scratched against the metal sides. Its dying cries fell silent in the bottom of the trash bin. Dead. Gone. You can’t hurt me anymore, she thought defiantly.

  She pushed the letters to one side. They can wait. Things are going to be done differently from now on.

  Her clients came and went, until the clinic was over, and before she knew it, lunch time had arrived and it was time to go and meet Irene. As she passed the reception, she over-heard Edie on the switchboard gossiping to someone. Ellie chanced to look back at the fish tank. The angel fish had already started doing its evil deed on the neon tetras.

  When Ellie got up to the staff restaurant it was busy and noisy. She looked around the milling crowds of green uniformed staff for any sign of Irene. There was none. She sighed, Typical Irene, late again, she thought. Ellie collected a tray and loaded it with a cup of coffee, a cup of tea and two pieces of hot apple pie with cream. She headed for an empty table near the window, where she set the tray down, and waited. Ten minutes later, she had already eaten her apple pie (minus the cream) and there was still no sign of the elusive Irene. Ellie ‘huffed’ and fished her Info-Pad out of her pocket and thumbed it on. A message appeared on the screen.

  It read: “Synchronisation complete. Low battery recharge now.”

  She ignored the message and tapped Irene’s number in. There was no answer, only the messenger.

  ‘Irene. Where are you? You haven’t forgotten again have you? I’m waiting at the restaurant and your pie is getting cold,’ she said, irritated with the messenger.

  ‘Coming!’ an exuberant voice shouted.

  Ellie looked at the Info-Pad in confusion it wasn’t until she looked up and saw Irene had appeared in the canteen doorway that she understood. She was waving frantically at Ellie. Instead of coming straight to the table (where Ellie was sitting with Irene’s portion of melted cream, on cold apple pie) she gate-crashed the queue of staff, who were in line to be served.

  ‘S’cuse’ me, pregnant woman coming through!’ she said absently, and grabbed a banana from the counter.

  The people in the queue looked at her with disapproval, but their looks were wasted on her. She hurried over to Ellie and slapped the banana down on the table. The banana caught the end of the teaspoon and catapulted into the air. It landed in a nearby woman’s lap. Ellie put her head in her hands and hoped that the woman who was now shrieking did not realise which direction it had come from.

  ‘Sorry. I’m a bit late. Got tied up with stuff,’ Irene said, smiling broadly at Ellie.

  Ellie looked at her, and even though she despaired, she smiled. Irene, you’ll never change, she thought affectionately.

  ‘Bananas are good for the baby,’ Irene said, pushing the cold apple pie to one side.

  Ellie raised her eyebrows.

  ‘You didn’t sound that well when we spoke the other day Irene,’ she coaxed, as she eyed her friends manic expression.

  Irene was pulling the skin off the banana faster than a rabid monkey.

  ‘Morning sickness getting any better? You haven’t started taking anything again. Have you Reenie?’ Ellie quizzed, recalling Irene’s sullen sounding voice a few days earlier, and her seemingly ravenous appetite for bananas.

  Secretly, she worried that Irene had started smoking, or drinking, or visiting the pharmacy again, or maybe all three.

  ‘No. I’m fine. Really…Fine. See? I‘m even eating healthy food now,’ she said through a mouth full of banana.

  Ellie nodded in agreement and sipped the last of her coffee while Irene tipped three sachets of sugar into her tea and started stirring it rapidly.

  ‘Did you see that news article in the Utopic? You know the one about the teacher who got murdered down in Sector Seven?’ Ellie said, changing the subject.

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers Ell. Half of it’s made up, just to sell more copies,’ Irene said cynically, scowling through a face full of banana.

  Ellie changed the subject again.

  ‘How’s work going down in Oncology? Busy are you?’

  ‘Well. No actually. Things have gone a bit hay-wire,’ Irene said.

  Ellie looked at her puzzled.

  The words “hay-wire” and “Irene’s work” seemed to go together quite nicely she was thinking.

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’ Ellie asked, sipping the last of her coffee.

  She hoped it was not Irene getting involved with another of the doctors.

  ‘Well... When I got in work today I was told that one of my clients, a woman, had died, over the weekend,’ explained Irene.

  ‘Well that’s not surprising is it? A lot of your clients have very serious illnesses. Some are bound to die?’ Ellie said.

  ‘I know…but this was different…it wasn’t anticipated. I thought that it was something that I might have missed. You know what I’m like Ell.’

  Ellie nodded, she knew all right, scatter-brained.

  ‘So I double checked the system to see if her meds were all okay,’ Irene responded.

  ‘And?’ Ellie said. You never check anything Irene. What the hell are you on? She thought.

  ‘And, I couldn’t find anything wrong with my treatment programme.’

  ‘Well then, at least it wasn’t your fault, so that’s a good thing, right?’

  ‘It is and it isn’t, because it threw up more questions than answers,’ Irene said.

  Ellie looked perplexed, ‘How? What do you mean?’

  Irene looked unsure. She was fiddling with her serviette, folding it over and over again until it looked like an Origami design. Ellie watched her fingers, subconsciously twisting the serviette.

  Irene started to talk again, ‘I guess it’s just a coincidence, really, but when I went to the kidney dialysis unit to check on one of my other long term clients.’

  Irene paused.

  ‘What?’ Ellie asked again. Christ Almighty this is bad. If she’s checking up on clients, then she must be ill or something, Ellie thought.

  ‘That’s when it all got very strange.’

  ‘What got strange? Who was it you went to see?’

  ‘Nicholas Oggwell,’ she said.

  ‘Who on Earth is Nicholas Oggwell - and what’s was so strange about his case?’ Ellie said.

  ‘Nicholas Oggwell. My client. He wasn’t there anymore, and neither was the ward he was on, or the usual staff. It had been closed and there was a notice on the unit saying that the few remaining kidney transplant and dialysis clients, had been transferred to hospitals in other Sectors,’ Irene replied.

  Ellie thought about her comment. She didn’t recall seeing anything about ward closures, or transfers, in the weekly updates.

  ‘I haven’t heard anything about that. So what?’ Ellie replied.

  ‘…Well. I checked the system again. Someone had recorded that he had been transferred to the Blair Ridge facility in Eden. I can’t understand why! The notes said that he had suffered from a severe
psychotic episode during his treatment on the ward, and that he became so violent that he had to be heavily sedated and removed to Blair Ridge for further psychiatric assessment. I only saw him a few days earlier and he was fine. He was getting better. Then suddenly he’s a raving nutter. I thought it was a bit odd that’s all,’ Irene said.

  Ellie thought about that comment. Irene rarely ‘double checked’ anything, let alone chase up progress reports on clients. Irene was always too busy doing ‘Irene’ business to bother with such formalities. Now she was worried about her. Perhaps she was having a nervous breakdown, maybe from the withdrawal of all her usual props.

  ‘I see. I think you need to get more sleep Irene. You’re looking pale,’ Ellie said cheerily.

  ‘Oh don’t start that mothering stuff again,’ Irene huffed.

  ‘I can’t understand the systems notes on him, that’s all. That guy was as mild-mannered as a mouse. I can’t imagine him ever being violent. Besides, why didn’t they let me know they were taking him to Blair Ridge. He was my client after all. The least they could do was send me the details of the transfer. Instead I had to go digging around in ISIAH’S system trying to find it myself. It took me ages. All I got was a load of computer rubbish that made no sense. You know how I hate using technical stuff,’ Irene said and grinned.

  Ellie looked at her hard. I’m going to have to phone Aunt Audrey, again, she thought. She was thinking that Irene needed to see a counsellor and fast.

  ‘Hummmm,’ Ellie said, ‘I see.’

  Irene started again, ‘Do you remember that story Bridget told us: the one about the nut-job who tried to kill Mason Royale: the one who was up at that new facility Blair Ridge?’ Irene said.

  Ellie pulled a face, ‘Yep. I’d have a job to forget that story. What of it?’

  ‘Nicholas Oggwell was on one of the very early drug trials. Way back, years ago. Do you supposed it backfired or something. You know. Bad side effects. It wouldn’t be the first time would it,’ Irene said and raised an eyebrow.

  Ellie looked intrigued.

  ‘Go on,’ Ellie said.

  ‘I knew about his history. I’ve known him a while. He had kidney cancer. He had one of his kidneys removed and he was on dialysis waiting for a transplant. He was in remission and he was doing really well, considering all he had overcome. He was a quiet young man - never complained about anything. He was really introverted.

  He told me that he had been born shortly before the Day of Reckoning, but like a lot of babies at that time, he had been orphaned when his mother and father had been murdered by one of the gangs at that time. He said that they found him abandoned in his cot in a dreadful state and that he had been taken in by an aunty who didn’t want him. I gather that he suffered a lot of abuse at her hands, until she died when he was just twelve years old. He ended up on the streets and into the usual trouble, stealing, and the like. He had no one. When he got to about sixteen years old he was arrested for stealing food. They sent him for treatment in one of their early experimental programmes to correct his mental state,’ Irene said, while sipping at her tea.

  ‘Sounds to me like you might be right. Maybe he was inherently unstable. I would forget about him Irene. He’s not your concern any more,’ Ellie offered.

  ‘True. Once a nutter - always a nutter - I guess,’ Irene said and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Quite,’ Ellie finished.

  ‘Oh, there was one other thing about all that stuff with the ward. I sent an inquiry to Mackenzie down at the morgue. I wanted to ask him about my client, the woman that had died over the weekend,’ Irene began.

  ‘Oh him. He makes my skin crawl,’ Ellie replied.

  Irene agreed and continued, ‘Mr Mackenzie said that he had not processed my client through F.R.E.D. He said that my client had been taken to another part of ISIAH for a post-mortem. Something about F.R.E.D. undergoing calibration. I hope one of the tech’s accidentally ‘calibrates’ F.R.E.D. so that it drags the bastard inside and gives him a dose of F.R.E.D magic. It would serve the miserable old git right.’

  Ellie laughed lightly, ‘I know what you mean,’ she said. At least she hasn’t lost her sense of humour, that’s a good thing, she thought. ‘What were you bothering him for in the first place,’ Ellie quizzed.

  ‘I was just wanted to make sure that my client’s autopsy report didn’t have anything negative relating to her treatment. That’s all,’ Irene said absently.

  Hormones can do strange things, Ellie thought.

  ‘O. K,’ Ellie finished.

  She was also thinking about how she was going to get Irene to a Doctor for tests.

  ‘Anyhow, that’s enough about work. God Ell. You know how I hate talking about work. I’ve got something much better to talk about,’ she said dismissing her clients without a second thought.

  Irene was rummaging through her latest new designer bag for the scan of her precious little Irene Junior and the two of them spent the rest of the lunch break discussing the scan and Irene’s plans to have her growing baby enrolled into the most prestigious art college in Eden City. Irene eventually left to do some more nosing about regarding Nicholas Oggwell. “In a strange way I miss him,” she had said. “He made me laugh. Maybe I’ll ask around - try and find out what made him go nuts, maybe it’s the hospital food?’ she had said, while she had eyed up the sugary sludge that had been at the bottom of her tea. Ellie had nodded quietly: deep in thought.

  Later that day, Ellie was on her ward rounds, and she was mulling over what Irene had told her about Nicholas Oggwell. She recalled a conversation between two nurses in the staff restaurant a few weeks earlier. They worked in the kidney dialysis unit and were talking about how empty the wards seemed the last few months and they put it down to an increase in donor kidneys. They also mentioned that kidney dialysis equipment was being under used and moth balled. Ellie was thinking that it might explain the closure of the unit so before she went home that evening, she went out of her way to go up to the kidney dialysis unit. It was eerily quiet. One entire ward had been closed, just as Irene had told her. A sign was propped up outside the double doors.

  It read: “deep cleaning in progress please do not enter”

  Ellie thought about the notes on ISIAH’S system, concerning the case of Nicholas Oggwell. What puzzled her, was not the fact that Irene had told her that he had been recorded as being transferred to Blair Ridge for treatment, but that now, when she had checked his file, it had been marked:

  [ACCESS DENIED]

  Chapter 16: Jack in the House

  C.U.R.E Station: Sector Two

  Friday 13th July

  Aya walked down the CURE station steps where she worked, towards the waiting limousine. She would have been glad to be leaving work if not for having to go home. The last five weeks had been hell and it had gotten much worse since the Masquerade Ball. After she had fled Jack’s office, and Sector Seven, she had been forced to come up with an excuse for not having Aarif's’ ring or being home on time. She had ditched Gringo’s jacket and taken a deliberate nose-dive into a hedge. She had pretended to have been mugged. She had even convinced a passer-by to take her to hospital to reinforce the charade. From there she had called Mada.

  She had turned on the mock-tears when Mada had arrived.

  “Mum, I’ve lost Aarif’s beautiful ring!” she had wailed, “Someone stole it!”

  Mada had been outraged. She had demanded that Aya go to the CURE. Aya had managed to convince her that she had already filed a report from the hospital: which of course she had not. She had spun a tale about a man who had jumped her from behind and no, she didn’t have a description. Aarif had found out soon after. He had profoundly apologised to Aya for allowing her to walk the streets alone.

  He had said that the ring was worthless compared to her beauty and safety, and how he would now make her security his ‘top priority’. Aarif had seen straight through the flimsy facade. Aarif was no fool. His words had been well rehearsed, sugar-coated, but all false. S
he had seen his anger. She had seen that he didn’t trust her. He had insisted that she quit work immediately, so that he could ensure she was at home and safe. She had managed to convince him, and Mada, that dropping her job would be embarrassing and that it was always good to work with the ‘little people’ and set an example. Aarif had had to grit his teeth and agree. He had commanded Ajit to look after her. The next day she had been taken to work in one of Aarif's’ limousines. Ajit had sat next to her saying nothing: arms folded. That was how it had been for the last five weeks. Aarif would not allow her out of his sight for a moment. When he was not watching her, Ajit was, and when she got home, Mada took over. Every day the limo, and Ajit, would be waiting for her outside of work. He would take her directly home. Every morning he would be waiting to escort her to work.

  “For your protection,” Aarif had said.

  She knew better. Ajit was there to protect Aarif's’ investment. To stop any further embarrassment to his master, and to ensure Aya complied.

  Arriving to work in a limo had caused a stir. The questions had come thick and fast.

  “Who’s that man? Where did you get a limo? Aya dearest, what have you been hiding from us?”

  Aya told them only what she absolutely had to. The limo belonged to her suitor. Yes, he was lovely. Yes she was happy. Almost all of it was lies. Even Commander Betts had congratulated her and accepted her notice. He had been pre-occupied of late because another body had been discovered in Sector Seven down in the docks area – apparently killed by knife injuries again.

  The Daily Utopic was all over it (as they were with the Marseilles bust) and Betts was besieged in the conference room before Aya could get to him.

  “Is this retaliation for your arrest of the Marseilles gang?” they had bleated at him.

  He had offered them a string of “no comments”.

  Despite the press gang invasion of the station, Aya had managed to get her notice in. She had requested to stay on a bit longer, on the quiet.

  “I feel it’s my duty,” she had said. “This job has meant so much to me. Can I work a long notice?” she had asked.