by Nikki Owen
I hesitate, my gaze flipping between the door and this woman whose eyes never light up. There is a feather-like quality about the way she moves, a delicate, eggshell film to her limbs and skin.
‘You are coughing up blood,’ I say after a moment, the air cold, the distant sound of boots on tiles marching somewhere in the building. ‘You are not well.’
She leans back on a desk made of white Formica. ‘I have stomach cancer.’
I say nothing. I want to ask for data, reel off a series of in-depth medical questions, but something tells me that right now, I need to be quiet.
‘I was tested on, just like you. I don’t have Asperger’s or anything, but when I started out at MI5 and worked with the Project, they asked for volunteers, so I said yes. Daniel told me not to, but I thought, why not? They know what they’re doing, right? The service cares for us, cares for the people who work for it?’ She laughs, but not light or lemony, this is a deep, chalk scratch of a laugh, a rough slice of tree bark. ‘They said the drugs were to help the brain, to help people focus and work fast.’ She looks straight at me. ‘To help people like you.’
I stay close to the door. ‘I know of the Project’s conditioning programme. These drugs are to help us be better, perform better. They are giving me Typhernol now to help me remain calm. To ensure—’
‘These drugs are killing you.’
The air, the breath from my lungs, the flash of lights on the computers to the side – it all halts. ‘You are lying.’
‘My God, I wish I was. The blood, the stuff I’m coughing up? That’s the cancer the drugs they gave me years back caused. I know you found a file in Hamburg about drugs they were giving your adopted mother, Ines Villanueva.’
I grip the edge of the table. ‘She was my adopted mother.’
‘Yeah, well, that piece of work who was selling you and your adopted dad down the river for drugs to stop her cancer, she was the only one they worked on. After that, they began to have the opposite effect.’
My brain begins to make connections. ‘You did not have cancer before the medicine?’
‘No. The drugs gave it to me. And now I’m going to die because of them – and so will you.’
‘No. No, you are wrong.’
The woman turns and, walking to the filing cabinet, opens the top drawer. I watch, my heart racing, torn between truth and pretend, between what to believe and what to ignore.
Opening a blue file, subject number 209 locates a sheet of paper with black ink on neat lines. ‘It’s ironic that, given the Project watch everyone and track what they do online – and were nearly closed down because of the NSA prism scandal – they choose to keep their most confidential and secret documents on paper so they can’t be hacked.’
My nerves rising, I watch now as the woman brings up a file marked Subject 375.
‘Here you are.’
She slides across a document that contains everything about me since I was born. It is extensive. I track it and each time I take in a word and a detail, my heart rate rises and a worm of worry grows in my stomach. ‘Why are you showing me the data?’
‘Because of this.’
She flips the document to the last page. ‘You’ve noticed, right, that you are the oldest around here?’
I swallow. The worm of worry burrows into me deep now. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, this is why.’
I read now page upon page of analytical detail about me and my medical state: heart rates, drugs administered, oxygen level tests, dexterity conditioning, IQ levels, mathematical ability, speed and accuracy. But its only when I get to the end, does my sight become milky and vomit swells in my throat. ‘I could die before I am thirty-four?’
‘You are the oldest here,’ Abigail says, ‘because you are the only person the conditioning testing – and drugs – has not killed so far. Everyone before you – everyone – has died. Including this woman.’
She hands me a photograph now and immediately I recognise her. ‘It is his wife.’ My voice shakes as I struggle with what is happening.
‘Dr Carr’s wife. You know her?’
‘No, I…’ I stop, blink. ‘I… I saw her in my mind when I was in the sensory chamber.’
‘That place? Oh, Jesus. Don’t tell me – Dr Carr told you that you had to forget all your friends and that the Project are your family now?’
I nod, numb.
‘And let me guess, he told you your mind had made up what you saw in the chamber, right?’
I look at the words on the document. ‘I have been changing,’ I say now, more to myself.
‘How?’
‘Headaches. Nosebleeds.’
‘Performing tasks faster?’
‘Yes.’
She sighs. ‘God, they’ve really done it with you, haven’t they?’
‘Done what?’
‘With you, the training’s worked, the conditioning on you. This Dr Carr, he set the whole Project up with his wife back in the seventies after their daughter was killed in Tehran in an attack.’
I think back to the sensory chamber, to the memory, and the discussion between Black Eyes and his wife. ‘She died, too.’
‘Yep. And looks like it’s driven him forward ever since. I found files, accessed stuff they thought was safe, but I managed to get in. They are trying to use you, Maria, don’t you see that? And this is just the tip of the iceberg.’
Iceberg. Why is she saying iceberg? I stand back, hazy, confused, sick. Will I die before I am thirty-four? ‘I am thirty-three. It… it is my birthday in two days’ time.’
She lets out a breath, long, slow. ‘Look, I don’t know what’ll happen before then, but they’re watching you. All the changes going on with you, the nosebleeds and stuff. If you get past thirty-four, it means the conditioning has worked, and they’ll want to know why. You’ll never get out of here.’
I look at the four walls, at the lock on the door. How long has there been a lock on my life? I think then of the train journey, of Chris, of the eye on his computer screen in Montserrat and how we found the ticking clock: it was counting down not only to my birthday, but to the day I may die.
‘How… how long do you have left to live?’
She pauses. ‘One month now, maybe two?’ She exhales, long, heavy. ‘I don’t know.’
We both stare at the file, at the books and the lights and the black screen by the keyboards. I trace with a solitary finger the details about me on the paper of ink and offline data. My birthday, my age, what I have seen, all connected to a number, one number, subject 375 – a number that, at one touch of a button can be made to disappear forever.
I look at this woman, this subject number who says she wants my help. But do I need hers? Is this what my life has been leading up to? To die now for the Project? For the greater good?
‘You said you accessed information the Project thought was safe,’ I say now. ‘Classified Callidus information that is highly protected. How did you hack into it?’
‘Because I had someone help. Someone you know.’
‘Who?’
She smiles now, and this time, small creases fan in thin lines from her eyes. ‘Chris. Chris Johnson.’
Chapter 29
Secure location, Whitehall, London.
Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 0 hours and 18 minutes
We are led to a room of mahogany and birch. The door is shut behind us and I notice one small window on the wall. Instantly, I recognise the space from the video feed Chris hacked into on his tablet in Switzerland, yet now I am here, what dominates my mind is not my surroundings, but Patricia and her betrayal.
‘Patricia was working for the Project,’ I murmur aloud, oblivious to the stare Harriet Alexander throws me, not knowing at all what it could ever mean.
She pours me a glass of iced water and instructs me to drink. I do so, the liquid cold down my throat, awakening my brain to where I am, creating an alertness, but one that is tinged with a sadness and confusion I cannot place.
> ‘Why don’t you sit down?’
I lower myself into a chair made of wood and brown cloth and see, on the table, a computer and next to it a picture of the Home Secretary and Balthus. Immediately, I reach forward and pick up the frame, staring at the image of the man who was my real father.
Harriet Alexander observes me. She reclines in a high-backed leather chair that smells of fruit pastels and lets out a small mew. ‘It’s a shame when we don’t get to spend time with the people that really matter to us.’
Uncertain what she means, I keep my sight set on the picture. Balthus’s strong jaw, tall height, straight shoulders, deep tan and dark hair. Basque, like me. Like Isabella. I take out my notebook and pen, record the photograph in a fast sketch then lie it next to the grainy picture of my birth mother.
The Home Secretary blinks at the image then clearing her throat, looks up. ‘I am sorry you had to find out this way about your friend, about Ms O’Hanlon.’
I give the photograph one more gaze then return it to the exact spot from where I took it. I feel numb, a boat lost at sea about to capsize, hull flooding with water that has nowhere to go but down. ‘Everyone lies,’ I say after a second, mind set on Patricia.
She sighs. ‘I’m afraid they do.’
A phone sounds and she picks it up. I allow my eyes a search of the room. There are no bookshelves, no files, just a desk and a small window, two chairs, a television mounted to the wall, and a door. No name plate adorns the table, no other images sit in frames by the computer, just a keyboard, screen and phone in an atmosphere thick with dry, musk-perfumed air.
Finishing her conversation, the Home Secretary slots in a breath then looks straight to me. ‘We have a very serious situation.’ Taking a slim, black remote control from a drawer on the desk, she directs it at the television screen, and a breaking news report from a fast speaking reporter comes to life.
‘… approximately thirty minutes ago, a bomb was detonated in the Southbank centre area of London. Initial reports are suggesting up to 300 people could have been killed so far with many more injured. There was no warning and no details as yet as to who is responsible for what is already being called one of the worst terrorist attacks on British soil. The Prime Minister will be calling an emergency COBRA session within the next hour, before which we should expect a statement. As you can see the entire Southbank centre has been shattered…’
Harriet Alexander hits the mute button and the news reporter’s mouth continues to move as, behind her, the now obliterated Southbank arts and music building lies unrecognisable in blasted shards of white rubble on a blood-splattered ground.
‘It’s appalling,’ she says. ‘Appalling.’
I look again to the screen then to her. ‘You are the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom. You should be at the COBRA meeting.’
She nods, murmuring agreement. ‘I shall be there soon.’ She pulls her keyboard forwards and taps out some numbers, the sound clicking in my head and clashing with fresh, raw memories of Patricia and her screams at being dragged away, of her betrayal, all of it merging with news of the bombing and the visceral images on the television screen.
‘Maria,’ Ms Alexander says now. ‘I have something very important I need to talk to you about. This Project Callidus – tell me: how well do you know it?’
‘I have been part of the Project since my birth.’
She glances to the screen where the reporter is now interviewing blood-soaked people as, along the bottom, a bulletin feed reads, ‘ISIS attacks UK.’
‘So you’ll know,’ she says, ‘that Cr—Callidus fights to prevent big attacks such as this.’
For some reason, I feel wary, cautious, but I cannot place why. ‘Project Callidus works to protect nations, using intelligence services to create a safer world. MI5, though, no longer work with the Project as the Project was supposed to cease existence after the NSA scandal. However, the Project carried on without MI5’s support. And now you have begun an investigation to end it.’
She regards me as, at the door, a knock sounds and the aide from earlier enters, presents a file to the Home Secretary, then leaves. Ms Alexander reads the data then looks to me.
‘We have an election coming soon, were you aware of that?’
‘No.’
She leans forward. ‘Many countries have elections due – the USA, Spain. And now a terrorist attack in the middle of it all. It makes everyone very… fearful.’
I do not respond. On the TV, a woman with dark blood scratches on her face is crying.
‘Maria, what would you say to… helping us?’
‘What with?’
She angles her head to the screen. ‘To preventing this type of thing from happening again, this mass murder from overseas terrorists.’
I sit up, eager at the news that at least something good can come out of my bad experience. ‘I am trained. I can assist your government. I can be a witness against the Project in the investigation you have underway.’
She taps the table in front of her then looks up. Her face, before soft, features arranged in a mild smile, is now oddly frozen, fixed. I shift in my seat.
‘Maria, there is no investigation.’
‘Yes – there is an investigation. You said you have started it.’
She inhales, and when she does, her neat suit jacket shifts up her shoulders. ‘There never was going to be one.’
A red flush hits my face. ‘That is incorrect. You said there was one. There is an investigation.’
‘There is no investigation.’
I think about this, confused, worried. ‘We sent you the email. The Project have been blackmailing you. How can you not investigate an organisation that is blackmailing you and your government?’
She pauses. A ripple of rain taps at the tiny window. ‘Because there was no blackmail.’
‘Yes, there was,’ I say fast, my head feeling packed in, crammed to the brim. ‘We hacked into the Weisshorn Hospital system and found the entire trail.’
She dances her fingers on the table then, opening a file in front of her, slides an open page to me. ‘Is this the trail you located?’
I read it. Names, numbers, facts and codes. ‘Yes, but…’ I stop. When she said Callidus just before – she had begun to say another word, then stopped.
‘We have very good computer analysts here, Maria. Almost as good as you, but not quite.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘Maria, we knew this terrorist plot threat was high.’
I speak slowly, as if going too fast would detonate everything. ‘The news report said there was no warning.’
‘Yes, well, we have to handle the press as best we can. Handle the… information feed to the public.’
‘That is called lying.’
‘Maria, as you said, everyone lies.’
I look at her, at the TV, at the desk and door. ‘If you were not being blackmailed, then where was the data coming from?’
She exhales. ‘Us.’
I make myself look at her, look at the television screen, but it all merges into one wall of colour. Nothing is making any sense.
‘We needed you back, you see, Maria. So we set it all up. The blackmail trail, the codes. We knew you’d try and see if the Project were looking for you, so, naturally, it made sense to create some injustice for you and your friends to want to… remedy. And we knew you’d want to see your mother, so the link to Weisshorn seemed the right course of action to take.’
I am shell-shocked. How did this pass me by? How did I walk into this? ‘You… pretended you were being blackmailed and because we found the trail, it triggered a trace on our geolocation,’ I say, the logical part of my brain working faster than my emotional one.
‘I think that’s how they phrased it to me, yes. Look, I’m sorry it’s had to happen this way, but we really do need you, and we had to be sure that you could still do what the Project trained you to do. Yes, we know you had help with your computer friend from America, but, Maria, t
he Project have confirmed that you’re still very much operational.’
It hits me then like a punch to the face. The Project. Harriet Alexander is working with the Project. Which means the UK government are on their side, too. ‘Cranes,’ I say, feeling numb, dazed. ‘Before when you said Callidus you initially made the sound “Cr”… What were you going to say?’
But she doesn’t reply, instead shifts in her seat, her fingers drumming the table.
‘Project Callidus has the nickname “Cranes”, which means peace. Only people affiliated with the Project know of it. Which means you have known of the Project for a significant amount of time.’
She inserts a measured breath. ‘Maria, to think I didn’t know of it would be naïve. Of course I knew. Not, granted, for a long time, but enough to know of its… value. Particularly at a time like this.’ She looks to the television.
I work it through in my head despite my distress, fast and hard as, before me, Harriet Alexander sits and watches. ‘You had people tracing me,’ I say, voice low, slotting it all together.
‘Yes. It had to be done, I’m afraid.’
‘You sent someone after us on the train from Zurich, the dough woman.’
‘I don’t know every single operational detail, but yes, I believe there was an officer trailing you.’
‘Was Patricia part of it? Part of the Project’s trace?’
But her sight is distracted by a moving image on the television. ‘Sorry, one moment.’ She points the remote control, turns up the volume. The reporter is talking about the body count.
‘It’s now been confirmed that 335 people have died as a result of the blast. The area is in complete lockdown and nearby hospitals are struggling with the sheer volume of patients. Calls are going out to people for blood donations and…’
Harriet Alexander turns back. She breathes in, smooths down her lapels and, waiting for one second, looks straight to me. ‘Maria,’ she says, ‘we need you to return to the Project.’
‘No.’
‘It has to be the case. I’m so sorry.’
But my head shakes, fear ripples through me. ‘No. Project Callidus is not a good organisation. They kill and lie and they have controlled my whole life. You have to investigate them.’ I can feel my senses firing, my stimming increasing, my leg tapping as my brain spirals at the thought of the investigation not happening, of the deceit that has happened.