by Nikki Owen
I am outside door of subject number 21. I am outside Isabella’s room.
Chapter 23
Weisshorn Hospital, Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 03 hours and 07 minutes
Thoughts hit my brain fast, one after the other. My real mother. The fact that Chris is now, potentially, just metres from her. I text, but my fingers are shaking.
‘Breathe, Doc. That’s it. Breathe.’
I do as Patricia says and, slowly, as my hands return to a steady normal, I manage to input the message to Chris.
What is your plan?
At first there is no answer and, even though Patricia inhales in steady, rhythmic patterns by my side, I begin to worry. From the sky, a black kite swoops down and plucks a mouse from the ground.
Finally, Chris replies.
I plan to enter her room
Negative. Too risky
The cursor blinks. Patricia runs a hand over her scalp. ‘Jesus, this is… this is nuts.’
I look back to the screen. Chris is typing.
Do you want to know if your mom is here? I can check for you, I can see if she is alive.
This is it. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for and yet, now it is here, all I feel is worry, worry for Chris, for his safety, worry that everything we are doing is being tracked.
I text back. Patricia, watching me, has a frown fixed on her forehead. ‘I don’t like this,’ she says. I don’t reply.
Do it. Enter the room. I tell Chris.
I hit enter and exhale. Sweat pools now in my armpits and behind my knees, but the air cuts through my clothing in a breeze that whistles through the mountains. I shiver, clutch my coat to my chest and, while I await Chris’s next response, turn my attention to the electronic map. Alarms now disabled, I ensure that any activated triggers in the area where Chris hides are turned off, then, recalling when Chris had to do the same for me at the hidden Project facility in Hamburg, I make certain that in the control centre of the hospital, to any onlooker observing the alarm system, it would simply appear at first glance that all is working as it should be. There is a lot in life we can be made to believe if it is packaged correctly.
‘Is that him?’ Patricia leans in as, on the screen, we see Chris’s small black dot enter the subject 21 room.
I watch, barely move.
Finally, after three seconds, Chris sends a message.
Sorry: no sign of Isabella. Have checked the first wall of the data system and now all codes linking to her subject number have been erased. All of it. There’s only one reason they’ve done that: THEY KNOW WE ARE HERE! I am getting out now! You have to LEAVE!
I read his words, fear floods in. They know we are here.
‘Go,’ I say. ‘Go!’ We scramble fast, tumbling back into the bush then hauling ourselves out again. Patricia helps me up, her soft fingers linking under mine as my head aches and my nose throbs where the blood desperately pushes from somewhere inside to rush out, and we run. Only when we finally reach a crop of tall trees that bow together in the middle providing a cave of cover, do we stop.
Patricia breathes hard. ‘D’you think they could be watching us?’ She glances around, eyes darting everywhere, and I do the same, suddenly very aware of our exposure, of our close proximity to the hospital, but most of all my mind is on Isabella. She is not there. No record now exists of her, no data is now available. Her life has been erased, simple, easy, as if irrelevant to the Project entirely, because, when it comes down to it, that’s all that we are now in this world of technology and power-hungry governments: numbers that can be eradicated with one click of a button. The sense of loss is so big, so unexpected that for a moment, I feel strange, as if all my life I’ve been asleep and I’ve just woken up now only to realise that all the people who matter to me are gone.
‘We have to help get Chris out,’ I say, as I try to grasp onto some kind of logic, pattern, protocol and routine.
‘I’m sorry about your mam,’ Patricia says.
‘They knew we were here. How did they know?’
‘I… the Project…’ She jitters in and out until finally she exhales and shakes her head. ‘God only knows.’
‘God has nothing to do with it.’
I watch her, her nails now at her mouth, teeth biting down on them. What does it mean? Is she cold or nervous? I take out the tablet, switch it on fast. There’s another message.
A box, singular and green, blinks now on the screen.
S.O.S.
Immediately, I pull up the map, fingers flying frantically, at the same time ripping open my notebook.
Patricia looks. ‘S.O.S? Doc, what’s happening?’
I ignore her, concentrate, then patch through to a line that gives us more security in communication, but when I try it, test it out, the signal is jammed. ‘This does not make sense.’
I try again, link it all up once more, checking and rechecking with the instructions in my notebook, but still it does not work.
Another message comes in. I read it and go cold.
I think they know your actual location.
Patricia once again bleeds pale. She hugs her bag to her chest and whips her head left and right.
I go on autopilot and instantly scan the area. No guns, no officers, just an eerie quietness that drifts in a white mist of silence where, in the midst of it all, even the birds have fallen still. Clear for this second, I next switch my eyes to the map. Chris is moving at speed and even though I try to disable the alarms as he goes, it is hard to keep up, but I do it. I stop them all from triggering and revealing his location, but, as I am about to deactivate the last and final section, the whole system dies.
Patricia leans in. ‘Doc? What’s happening?’ There is a crackle to her voice, a trace of a wobble.
The screen is now black, empty. I tap it once, twice, then over and over, but still it does not work and a deep feeling of dread rumbles towards me, an earthquake of fear. I lean back, hidden from the hospital by the trees, and rack my brain data, frantic to make any connection, anything that could help. ‘He was near the exit,’ I say, thinking aloud.
‘Yeah, but where? Doc, we’d better go. They could be looking for us.’
But I continue thinking. ‘He was at the rear of the building, the same place he entered into at the side.’ I close my eyes, bring up a map of the internal hospital in my head and slot it next to one of the exterior area of the grounds. ‘There are cameras,’ I say, eyes still shut, the picture of it all in my mind as if I could touch it, ‘sensors and surveillance. Even though the tablet system is down, all of it should still be disabled. But the power on the screen over the course of the next three minutes’ And then it hits me: what is wrong.
‘How did they know to cut out power?’ I say.
Patricia swallows. ‘Hey?’
‘The power to the tablet, to it all – it cut at a precise time in proceedings. How did they know to cut the power?’
‘I… I don’t know, but… but Doc, let’s get our things and go. Chris’ll be here soon, I’m sure, and we can get out of here away from God knows who, and—’
There is a ferocious roar in the air. The fir trees thrash, the crocus petals are ripped from their stems and thrown to the snow. Birds scatter in huge dark swarms of panic, marmots duck under mounds of earth, and the pebbles and grains of dirt mix with the ice cold snowflakes and whip our cheeks.
‘What is happening?’ Patricia shouts.
I look up but the noise roars so loud, it is almost impossible, the air sounding as if it is being ripped in two by a thunderous apocalypse. We grab our bags and, I don’t know how, but we manage to escape the frantic, see-sawing trees and stagger to a clearing where leaves and stones and blades of ice collide. I drag Patricia with me, the two of us running then falling, running then falling, as the thunder in the air grows louder and louder.
We stop by a thick tree trunk, cowering, the boom above turning into a rhythmic whirr.
�
�Doc!’
‘What?’
I look up to where Patricia is now staring and my heart slams against my rib cage so hard, I fear it will break out entirely.
For there, in the sky of blue pools and white wool-spun clouds, flies a black military helicopter and it is about to land ten metres in front of us.
Chapter 24
Weisshorn Hospital, Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 03 hours and 02 minutes
‘Run!’ I yell.
My palms are rammed hard on to my ears as, to the right in a clearing by the trees, the helicopter roars as it lands, firing off leaves and stones and dirt and worms in every direction, pelting the air with multi-coloured snow and debris and noise.
I spot the road, the one to the side where we came from. ‘This way!’ I shout.
Crouching, we sprint as best we can. I count every step. I know how long it will take us to reach the road and if we do, there is a ditch there where we can slide into and crawl along and escape. We keep running, feet stumbling every other second as, just a few metres beyond, the helicopter cements itself firmly on the ground in a clearing of grass where all flakes of snow have been blown away to nothing. But for the whole time in my head runs one question: how did they know?
We get to the road. But the problem is that it exposes us here, no fir trees for shelter, no bramble bushes and fat crocus bulbs to hide behind.
‘Doc! What do we do now?’
Patricia is shaking. It feels as if one flick of a finger could snap her in two.
I look ahead. The helicopter door is opening, one foot then two dropping down.
‘Run!’ I say. ‘Now, to the ditch.’
Mouth hanging open, Patricia turns as the pair of us dash to the side and taking one huge jump, hit the edge of the road where the mud dips down into a wet, ice-filled ditch. We roll to a stop.
Patricia’s teeth chatter. ‘Where… where are they?’
My brain is firing in every direction as I try desperately to get a handle on what is happening. I cannot stop thinking of Chris. He is trapped out there somewhere or, worse, still imprisoned in the hospital where the Project could be, and the thought of it, I find, worries me immensely.
I ignore the stab of pain that shoots through my shoulder bone, and scan what I can of the area.
The helicopter blades have slowed now to a more listless dance in the air, but there is no one at first that I can see. The helicopter cabin empty, I switch to examining every inch of land I can to see what the danger is.
‘It must be the Project,’ Patricia whispers, shaking. ‘What have we done?’
I try to focus on what I can observe, but Patricia’s words filter through to my thought pattern. What have we done? We. Plural. More than one of us. What if the tracker being in our presence is the result of more than one person?
‘We have to escape from here without being seen,’ I say.
‘How?’
I slip out the tablet as silently as I can. There’s no signal. That’s odd. What have we done? ‘I require your cell phone.’
Patricia immediately snaps still. ‘Why?’
‘I require it in order to contact Chris.’
For one second, she hesitates then fumbles to her bag and passes me her cell. I start to use it, then for some reason stop. There is something unusual about the phone, and when I attempt to communicate with Chris, it fails. I hesitate, fear slowly spreading inside me. Is this the moment? Is this the moment now that, despite what Chris said, I actually mention the tracker and our worries about it?
‘I am not totally certain why it is not functioning,’ I decide to say. ‘However, I think there could be on it a…’
I am cut off by a voice that booms down at us from the road. There is a man one hundred and seventy-two centimetres in height, black military fatigues, bulletproof vest, machine gun across his chest, towering above us.
‘Dr Maria Martinez?’ he calls. ‘This is the United Kingdom Secret Air Service. I need you to come with me.’
Deep cover Project facility.
Present day
I file into the canteen hall with other subject numbers, collect my lunch and sit.
I chew on a forkful of food and take in my surroundings and think. While the zone is large, filled with people and plates, the noise is muffled. Walls thick as cotton wool shelter the perimeter where soft booted feet shuffle on a brushed tiled floor, and above our heads from a high, insulated ceiling hang gentle low lights that cast paint smear colours of yellow and orange across the plastic faces of the quiet subject numbers that move on by. No one looks at each other, no small talk is made. The note from subject 209 sits heavy in my pocket.
The lunchtime food we are served is bland. White seals of chicken smothered in a saliva foam lie anaemic on the plate next to insipid string beans limp and washed up on the side, with a pre-weighed amount of pebble potatoes, boiled and laid neatly in a line. None of the foods touch one another – all order, routine, regulation fully adhered to and monitored.
I eat. All the while, I keep my eyes down, my mind consumed with the note in my pocket, with the battle in my head of what to do. Do I perform as it asks? Do I go to room 17? But it is out of routine, against protocol and, above all, it is risky. The woman who wrote it did so for a reason, but what is that? She was Kurt’s girlfriend. His real name was Daniel and I know he worked for MI5 initially then switched to the Project full time because his brother was killed in Afghanistan, but what about her? Why is she here now? Is she like me, with Asperger’s? Is she too being conditioned? Why would she say the Project are not who they say they are? So many questions fly around my head and threaten to overwhelm me, that I have to focus on my plate, count every item on it then re-count until, finally, the panic surge subsides and my brain once more can think in a calm manner.
I spear a vegetable, slotting it into my mouth, chewing five times before swallowing and drinking water. I keep to my routine. Five chews, then water, followed by five more grindings of teeth on the next mouthful; if I am being watched, I cannot break my regulation pattern.
Abigail. Her name, the woman’s. It means father’s daughter. I think about the word, father, what it truly means, but all I know is that while you can have a biological link to someone and share their DNA, until you really get to know them, that link may as well be made of chains, chains that can be uncoupled so each person drifts far away from the other, never able to speak to the other or understand who that person really, truly is.
I finish my meal and check the clock. Soon, it is the time the woman stated in the note for us to meet. I scan the room and try hard not to stim, not to tap my leg or hum. Lines of subject numbers are sitting in regulation Project attire: black combats, black t-shirts, overhung with slates of grey, sleeveless, thick cotton jackets. Some talk – numbers, code breaking and such – others simply sit, motionless at times, staring straight ahead, only every twelve or thirteen seconds feeding themselves, all of them so young, and me, the eldest. I shiver. Nothing feels quite right.
I touch my pocket and think of the woman’s face. Clear skin, nut-brown shoulder cut hair, muscles taught and trained. I think of the memory of the Orwell book that contained the warning, the one from the train from Zurich. She alerted us to the Project awaiting us at our next station stop, so is that a good thing, that she helped us? Is she on my side or is this simply another lie, another game by the Project to test my loyalty to them?
I watch the subjects, their ease of movement, the way in which their conversation hinges on logic and mathematical certainty, and I find it comforts me. No nuances or hidden messages for us to misinterpret – the only hidden message we have is code, and that’s one we can crack.
Clinging on to the comfortable safety of routine and regulation, I decide then to ignore the note, indeed to report the woman to Black Eyes, when my food, as I eat it, arranges itself on the plate to resemble a diagram and my mind slips to something that alters the course of my t
houghts: the Voronoi diagram.
My brain immediately goes to the book again, 1984, to how Patricia dropped it when we saw the police, and to all that has happened since that moment. Pip, pip, pip, one after the other, the pictures of what occurred at Lake Geneva start to roll across my brain in a movie reel of a show that, until now, I had not fully recalled. Chris trapped in the hospital; the helicopter and the chaos and the deletion of all records that Isabella Bidarte ever existed. I sit straight up, the room swaying a little from the recollections, aware that I may be acting odd. For some reason, I think to the last time I had my injection of Typhernol.
Careful not to draw any attention to myself, I remember, for the first time in a while, the image of Patricia lying beaten on the floor of a room within these very Project walls. Why? Why did they beat her up? The thought starts to move slowly in my head then faster and faster, a Wurlitzer of questioning. She is the enemy, that is what Black Eyes has said of her, but, really, truly, why? Could this woman, this subject 209, tell me more, enlighten me on what I should do? Friendship, closeness, Patricia’s five fingers of kindness that calmed me when I was distressed. The thoughts come to me and tap me on the head, reminding me, somehow, that I am not yet done with the people in my life, and again I find myself asking the question: why?
I touch my pocket where the note sticks to the inside fabric. What harm could it do to simply ask some questions, to hear what this woman has to say? If it is a test, then I will handle everything correctly, and if she is a traitor, I will inform. The course to take here is simple.
Isn’t it?
I scan the area to plan my next steps. The only way I can get to room 17 is if I break routine, but that will be difficult. Every day here, our timetable is set, marching, as we do from place to place inside the cave of the Project facility, mostly glued to computers and laptops and acres and acres of detailed data. It is hard. I check each subject number for any faces familiar to me as the woman was, but nothing registers. No one speaks, no one looks up. If I am to get to room 17 without being detected, I will have to be quiet and quick.