by Nikki Owen
‘My surname’s Johnson, by the way,’ Chris says, as he goes to move. ‘You know, cos you like names, so I figured, well, you could know all of mine.’
‘Johnson,’ I say. ‘It is a patronym of the name John, which means son of John. It is a surname of English origin, yet also an American name meaning Jehovah has been gracious.’
He smiles. ‘Yep, that’s right, Google.’
Balthus steps forward. ‘Okay. It’s time to go.’
The door ahead is open wide, rain from the broken clouds pouring in, and the Abbot is gesturing us over and we start to run.
‘Please hurry,’ the Abbot whispers as we reach him. ‘There are people at the door. We cannot hold them off for much longer. You must go.’
Reaching into my rucksack, I hand out no-contract cell phones. ‘These are non-traceable and all preset with each other’s numbers to remain in touch should we get separated.’ Every one takes them silently and I am about to explain at speed how encrypted text messaging works when there is a series of shouts in the far distance and a loud, deafening crack.
‘Holy shit,’ Chris says, eyes wide, ‘was that a gunshot?’
‘This way,’ the Abbot now gestures. ‘Quick!’
The shots ring loud in my head now as we are plunged into a shower of lights towards the exit where the car engine growls up ahead. We all run, no words spoken, just a rapid rhythm of breath, the escape vehicle forty metres away, and we are near now but I trip slightly and tumble fall, and when I look down I see my shoelace is undone.
‘Come on!’ Patricia whispers, her arm waving me over.
A shot of annoyance and fear whip through me simultaneously. I can’t leave it undone, the lace, loose, out of place like this, but if I stop and fix it, it will waste us time. Shots ring out again from somewhere in the monastery and I flinch and try to focus. I calculate the bullets’ distance from us using the echoes and vibration movements that bounce off the cavernous stonework, and determine that the people shooting are two, perhaps three hundred metres away. I look at Patricia then to my lace.
‘Take this!’ I throw my rucksack to my friend.
‘What? Doc—’ It hits her and she stumbles back a little like a backstop catching the ball in a baseball match.
‘It has the USB stick in it,’ I say. I drop to my knees.
‘Hurry!’ Balthus urges up ahead.
My fingers work quickly on my lace, but something bothers me, a small chink somewhere, a thin sound that vibrates from outside, but I cannot determine its location. I inch upwards. The lights around me are bright and the noises loud and I am sweating from my arms, from my neck, my cheeks, but that is not it, that is not the problem.
A loud crack rips into the air.
We all drop to the ground.
‘They’re shooting again,’ Batlhus yells. ‘They’re shooting! Everyone run. Quick. Maria!’
How did they get here so fast? We sprint across the courtyard. It is hard to hide, the bulbs floodlighting across the ground, blinding our line of sight, bouncing off the sheen of the polished stone walls that line this section. Shapes and shadows fly left and right as we sprint across the expanse of ground, cold air slapping our faces, my lace only loosely tied, and I am acutely aware that I am behind the group. There are two vehicles I see now and we run past the first car, and I am unsure why until, as we pass it, I see the two rear tyres have been shot and deflated.
Up ahead, the Abbot ushers us to another door at the rear, this one huge, almost three metres in height, wood thick as a tree trunk. It booms open into a secondary vast cave-like space beyond and I can see it, the space, and I spy the glint of what must the metallic bonnet of another car behind, a four-by-four vehicle, and I am not yet there, but then a thought enters my head and I stop. I cease running and stand alone, chest heaving as I watch my friends run on.
Balthus halts. ‘Maria, what are you doing? Come on!’
The Abbot is just ahead, Chris near him, Balthus by Patricia, my rucksack on her shoulder, USB stick in the front pocket, when another shot sounds, the noise hammering in my head, but I ignore it, clench my teeth.
‘The Project are here,’ I say, my voice raised above the noise.
‘I know,’ Balthus yells. ‘So move.’
‘No.’
‘Doc,’ Patricia shouts, ‘what are you doing?’
I glance to where the gunshots fire then turn back to my friends. ‘The facility from my flashback was a Project one. Raven pointed me to a file, one that can give me answers.’
‘Maria, no,’ Balthus says, ‘it’s too dangerous.’
‘I have to go.’ The volume is getting louder now and dust whips up in tornados in the air, spiralling my senses. ‘The only way I can get to the file is to be there. Is to be inside the Project.’
Wind and rogue rain slice now across our faces, and Chris’s hair flicks into his eyes and cheeks as he brushes it out of the way.
‘You know my email, my details,’ Chris shouts. There is another gunshot, this time closer and he ducks then wobbles to a stand. ‘When you are in there, find a phone, get to computer, set up a proxy and contact me, okay? I’ll see what I can dig up in the meantime, see what ice I can hack.’
‘Ice,’ Balthus mumbles. ‘Ice … Ice!’ he shouts. ‘Maria, I remember now!’
‘What?’
More bullets crack into the air. We all duck.
‘Remember when you were at the villa and you told me about your flashback with the woman you named Raven?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘I said it triggered a memory in me, but I couldn’t quite figure out what. Well, I remember now, when Chris said ice. Ines, your mother, when you were in Goldmouth she phoned me and she was babbling. She was ill, it was when she was taken into hospital after visiting you, do you remember? And she was talking on and on about a place called the Ice Room.’
I force my ears to work over the din. ‘Did she say where it was?’
‘No, but she said that if you wanted to keep secrets then you had to go to the Ice Room and that … and that the room had a computer in there that wasn’t connected to a server. I don’t know, it may be nothing.’
Mama. She thought she was taking me to a help centre, not the Project. Maybe she overheard something and, when she was ill with the cancer and worried about me being in prison, she repeated it to Balthus, to my papa’s old university friend.
The Abbot now, his black cloak flapping by his feet, urges them to move, the shots so close that they feel only metres away.
‘Doc,’ Patricia shouts, ‘be safe.’ And she raises her hand and I go to do the same when there is a loud crack and a searing, hot pain shoots through me. I fall, screaming out as a fire rips into my body as, ahead, I see two sets of boots halt in front me and my brain goes into overdrive. Have I been shot? But I know how that feels, a bullet, the explosion of gunpowder in my body, wet, cold, sickening, but this is different. It must be a dart, a dart loaded with something.
‘Doc!’ Patricia yells.
My friend! Not my friend. ‘Run!’ I shout. ‘Patricia, run!’ Except, I am not shouting, am unable to, because my mouth has become numb, spit drooling from the edges of my lips, my body and legs paralysed. I try to gain some sight, a visual, but all I see are shadows that sway separately at first then, as the sedative from the dart takes hold, the shadows blend together until they forge one large veil of black.
Chapter 24
Undisclosed confinement location—present day
My brother reads from my journal and I listen very hard. The timer by my side ticks and he will not tell me how long I have until the drugs speed into my system again. I do not move. The rope in the semi-darkness cuts into my wrists and ankles now, but as he talks more, as he reads out the words that sit on the pages of my mind, I start to recall fragments of events that have happened until now.
He pauses talking and, reaching into the box beside him, unhooks the lid and pulls out two bags of popcorn and one silver fork. He replaces
the lid in one move, careful so my journal remains on his lap, then holds the popcorn bags and fork in the air and smiles.
‘You still like this stuff, right? And look! I remembered you used to like eating popcorn with a fork so your fingers wouldn’t touch your mouth.’
In the oppressive gloom, I can just about see that the popcorn packets are red and yellow, and on the edge and top and bottom are faux-gold strips that tail the brand name writing which reads ButterPop. The light bulb above swings over the packets as Ramon shifts his crate forward now, the torch he was holding now placed flat on the dirt floor so it shines outwards in a funnel of straw yellow.
I blink. The light is bright and my eyes are becoming so accustomed now to the dark that when the bulb shines, my lids flap until they stream fluid.
‘Have some food,’ Ramon says, ‘and I’ll continue reading, okay?’
I nod and, following his instructions, open my mouth. He spears three pieces of toffee popcorn with the fork then slots the fork into my mouth, and the snack immediately melts. It tastes good. I cannot recall the last time I ate and when he next pulls out a plastic bottle of water, I gulp the liquid down so fast that some of it spurts back up and Ramon has to come behind me and tap me on the back to dislodge any rogue droplets to ensure I can breathe. While helping me, he knocks the medical stand and the drug bag swings, causing the needle in my arm to pull at my vein, stinging me with a sharp pain that pierces all the way through to the nub of my elbow.
‘Gosh, M, I’m sorry. Are you okay?’ he says now, coming back round to the front.
My eyes land on my journal where he placed it on the lid of the box so he could move. I ignore the needle. I have to keep him reciting my diary entries. ‘Can you read some more?’
He smiles, and to my surprise, I see eye creases fan out on the corners of his face.
I am recalling more and more details now of events past and I don’t want to stop. The urge to ask Ramon again what the Project has asked him to do is strong, as too is the desire to demand that he unties me, takes out the timer and needle, but if I do that, I worry that he will shout and won’t read anything else out and then I would be stuck, unable to get out of wherever I am. I remember now what happened in the courtyard of the monastery. I recall the gunshots and shouts and how I was knocked out, and I know that I deliberately let myself be taken by the Project, but I need to recollect what happened after that. I need to unfreeze something that will give me a clue, a clue that will ultimately convince Ramon that I should not be kept in here or perhaps show me what to do or tell me that help is on the way.
Ramon is reading a section on the Project where Black Eyes was testing me to see if I felt pain. When he arrives at the part where I was stubbed with a cigarette, he stops. I look at him; there are tears in his eyes.
‘M, why did you write this?’
‘I wrote it because it happened.’
He wipes his face dry with a cotton handkerchief. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I thought you would not believe me.’
He frowns. ‘What? You mean this is real? When you said it happened, I thought you meant in your head. I thought this was just a nightmare or a bad dream you had recorded.’
‘No. It is real.’
He slams shut the book and I jump. The sound echoes in my ears, making it hard to focus amid the dark and the confusion, but if he doesn’t read the journal where will that leave me?
‘You know there is a difference between stories and reality, don’t you, M?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why do you insist on making things up?’
I don’t know what to say, am unsure how to act. I have told him it is all true and real and he has read the details in my own writing, but is it that he is now so used to, as the world is, being fed lies that he cannot distinguish any more between truth and deceit, between fact and fiction?
‘I liked reading to you when we were little,’ he says after a moment. ‘It made me feel as if I was looking after you.’
I study his smile and try to mirror it to make him feel comfortable and continue with my journal. ‘Yes. Me too.’
He sighs. ‘Papa used to read to me, after you went to bed.’
Papa …
‘He’d read the classics to me, you know, Dickens, a bit of Shakespeare. It says in your journal here Papa would read Hamlet to you. I never knew that.’
Papa …
‘M? Are you listening?’
I look up with a start. I am sweating, dribbles of it trickling down my temples and when I shift in my seat, the shirt on my back sticks to my skin.
‘Papa read Hamlet to me, yes,’ I say, but I am not fully focused on the words, instead am fixating on the memory it has dislodged in my brain, a memory of finding something, some information Chris uncovered.
‘Ramon, are there date entries in my journal?’
He looks to the pages. ‘Yes, mostly. There are some omissions, but, yes, there are dates, why?’
I look at the gold embossment on my journal, think of Papa and what Ramon said about him and, slowly, like a train arriving at a station, the recent memory comes: Chris found out that Papa was possibly a Project contact, that he was the liaison. It rushes in fast now, the short-term recollection, but Patricia said that the data could be unreliable. Could my journal help? The drugs I have been given here have scrambled my photographic databanks, but my journal could reboot them, help me remember. If the dates in it correlate, if Papa could not have been with me on the journal entries where I was at the Project, could that give him an alibi? Could it mean he is innocent or at the very least not connected to the Project in that way?
‘M, are you okay? Your eyes have zoned out a bit.’
I jerk my head straight. I have to figure this out, but the timer ticks to my side. ‘I … I want to hear more from my journal, that is what I was thinking about. I believe it is helping me.’
‘Helping you feel better?’
‘Helping me feel better,’ I say, mirroring his words, ‘yes, but, I think, not having the timer on would help me concentrate on my journal more when you read to me. That would help me greatly. You know I cannot deal with too many noises.’
He sits and says nothing, and for a moment I think he is going to be able to see into my head and know what I am really thinking, but then, without warning, he stands.
‘M, that’s really great news. Yes, of course I can pause the timer. That’s why I am here. I am here for you because I love you. Talking is good.’ He walks to the medical stand. ‘Talking is really good.’
And as he presses a small orange button on the side of the timer face, the ticking stops and the drug stays only in the bag, and in front of me Ramon sits and picks up my journal and begins to tell me all the dates that are documented inside.
Deep cover Project facility.
18 hours and 49 minutes to confinement
I wake up to see that I am lying in a metal bed with my body covered in a cornflower-blue hospital gown that hangs loose on my limbs. Dulled, medium-glare stimulus lights line the ceiling and when I look to the corners of the bed, instead of sharp angles I see rounded corners and a white sheet made of soft, handwoven cotton.
I crane my neck to see some more then wince in pain and flop back. I track back through events. The dart, the monastery, the two people from the Project. I look around, recognise the white of the walls, the blank, empty space, and I know that I am here. I have made it.
I am back in a Project facility—I just don’t know which one yet.
I dart my eyes downwards and scan myself. There are no straps on my arms, no ropes on my legs and when I try to sit up, nothing moves, as if I have been frozen, my muscles temporarily suspended or paralysed. A mild panic begins to rise until I think back to the dart and I remember the sedative, and I calm down. It will wear off soon.
The thought of Papa swims into my head, the information Chris found, and when I contemplate it, I find it hard to cope with the idea that he
was involved with the Project, but people lie, even people you believe you can trust. Somehow I need to find out at what facility the flashback was and see if it matches the one I am at now.
I open my eyes and exhale. Unable to move my head and neck fully until the sedative wears off, I take to flicking my eyes around the room to analyse my surroundings in more detail. White non-climb paint is daubed on every side of the room and at the entrance is a grey door made of metal with a secure air lock mechanism. To my side sits a standard issue medical cabinet containing one drawer and a shelf with no contents, and next to it teeters a small stack of fluffed, white towels. When I scan for light I see there is no external window, instead just the low-stimulus lights on the ceiling above and a prison-like glass panel on the back internal partition.
I begin to calculate the distance from the bed to the door, when there is a sound, a high-pitched beep. I jump. The beep fades and is followed by something else I did not expect to hear: music, old-style music from the 1930s. It warbles, quiet at first then louder, more distinct with a tinny, crackled, effect that echoes in the air as if it’s being played on an old gramophone. When the first segment launches, trumpets dribble out a tune and there is a wail of a woman’s voice linked with jagged jazz notes that slip in and out.
Confused, I shiver, goosebumps springing out all over my body as my eyes take in the corner of a speaker that sits bolted towards the ceiling to my left. The music lurches on and though it is not loud, not booming in my head, the sound still grates my ears, makes the hairs on my arms stand, pricking my flesh with hundreds of tiny warning shocks. It bothers me. I try to trace the jazz notes, gain some order from it so I can think and focus, and am so wrapped up in it that I don’t hear the air lock hiss at the entrance sound and see the door slide open into the room.
‘You can move, you know. You just have to force it.’
The voice startles me and I look up and freeze.
‘Hello again, Maria.’ He steps forward. ‘You took a little while to find this time.’
‘Get back!’