by A J Rushby
And … there it is. The shields come up. Whose experiment is going as planned? Whose isn’t? One thing’s for sure—Andrew and Lauren are hungrier to take this competition out than Steen and I are.
‘Looks like it’s working so far,’ Steen replies.
Just then Lauren comes in, her expression stormy. Her left arm in a sling, she drags her pump on its stand in with her right hand. I’m facing the doorway, so I see her before the others do.
‘Um, hello …?’ I ask her. She looks far from happy. Even less happy than she had in her lab this afternoon, and that’s saying something.
‘I think we should all watch a movie now,’ she says pointedly, her eyes flicking up to the right—to the camera on the ceiling. She stalks on over to the TV, selects a movie and stands in front of it, turning the sound up louder and louder.
‘What the …?’ Andrew looks between Steen and myself.
Whatever this is about, she doesn’t want what she’s about to say to be overheard. Or recorded.
Steen leans in and says a few words to Andrew, who shrugs.
Meanwhile I push my chair back and head on over. Lauren and I wait in silence until Andrew and Steen are with us.
‘Well?’ I turn to her, my back to the camera.
She looks at each of us with her dark eyes. ‘What is it that you’re not telling me?’
I glance over at Steen and Andrew, who look as confused as I am. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There is something going on here.’
I tense.
‘I’m not stupid. There are no renovations,’ she scoffs, with a f lick of her good hand. ‘Now, what do you know?’ Her expression is hard.
It’s only then that I work out she’s not talking about Steen and me—she’s talking about the fifth room.
I exhale with relief and her eyes shoot over to focus in on me.
‘Look, I don’t know what you …’ Andrew starts, but I shake my head at him.
‘See? See! You! You do know something.’ Lauren is on to me in an instant. ‘You asked to see inside that lab, which means you know something. You knew even before we were down here. And you were with me the other day when we heard that sound. Something dropping onto the floor.’ She steps forward, closer towards me. ‘What do you know? Tell me. Right now.’
‘Can someone please explain what she’s going on about?’ Andrew is looking from one of us to the other. ‘Because I have no idea.’
‘She’s talking about the fifth room,’ Steen says, catching on. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘What?’ Andrew still isn’t following.
‘Of course I am,’ Lauren spits. ‘What else would I be talking about?’
I try to keep calm. ‘Andrew’s mostly been in surgery, remember? Or in his lab. Or had his eyes taped closed.’
‘But you. And you.’ Lauren looks at Steen and me in turn. ‘You both know something. I see you looking at each other.’
‘We don’t … I …’ I force myself to pull it together. ‘I heard the same thing you did in there. That’s all.’
Steen looks at me. ‘You didn’t say you heard anything. What did you hear?’
‘Nothing. Just … noises. Someone dropped something. I didn’t think anything of it. There are supposed to be people in that room, remember?’
‘Aren’t they renovating in there?’ Andrew still looks confused.
‘Supposedly,’ Steen replies slowly, his eyes fixed on me. ‘But I noticed some food being delivered to the room, which seemed weird. Funny that you didn’t say anything.’
‘You think something else is going on in there?’ Andrew glances around the tight circle. ‘Like what?’
‘What do you think, genius?’ Lauren looks at him like he’s an idiot. ‘Another experiment. Another student. One we don’t know about.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they lie to us about another student?’ Andrew asks.
Steen’s brow creases. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s something really risky they don’t want us to know about. Maybe it’s dangerous. Or infectious. There could be plenty of reasons.’
Andrew thinks about this. ‘I did think it was kind of odd there was no fifth student. I mean, the application said there are always five. At least that’s what it suggested. And I’m doubting they were short on applications.’
We all nod, agreeing with him.
‘So you’re claiming you don’t know anything else?’ Lauren finally says.
I snort. ‘You don’t believe us? If they’re not telling you about what’s going on in there, why would they tell us? If they’re lying to us, they’re lying to us as a group. And they’re doing it for a reason.’
Her eyes look at the three of us accusingly as if she might still be able to squeeze some more information out of us.
‘Look,’ I continue, ‘it’s obvious you’re desperate to win that prize, but—’
Lauren cuts me off here, dragging her stand forward until she’s right in my face. ‘What would you know, little princess?’ she hisses, her eyes darker than ever before. ‘What would you know about anything?’ She pulls back to look at Andrew and Steen as well. ‘You with your fancy educations that your parents are paying for. Your parents who are undoubtedly doctors themselves.’ Her eyes flick to me with this, because she knows for a fact that my father is and my mother was. ‘Do you know what my father does? He drives a truck. You have no idea what I had to do to get to where I am today. No idea what I had to sacrifice. What my family had to sacrifice.’
Seems like it’s time for her to tell me what she really thinks.
‘I knew I couldn’t trust you.’ Her eyes remain focused tightly on me. ‘Any of you. I knew it would have to be this way.’
Steen gives her a cool look. ‘Of all the people here, you’d think Miri would be the one who’s cranky and paranoid. She’s the sleep-deprived one.’
‘I’m not paranoid.’ Lauren glares at him furiously.
He shrugs.
As for me, I don’t know what else to say. I’m sure everything she just said is true, but what am I meant to do about any of it? It’s a level playing field where we stand right now. We’re here because of what we’ve achieved. Not our parents. It might be much, much harder for some than others to get to this point, but you get invited to join the Society of your own accord and your application to experiment stands for itself. Here, you bring only yourself and your ideas. Self-experimentation doesn’t care about your past or your family, and we’re not plotting against Lauren, whatever she might think. We don’t owe her anything. I don’t owe her anything. I stare her down. ‘Well, Andrew’s just sacrificed his brain and Steen’s …’ I pause, realising it’s not going to sound all that great, ‘putting his appendix on the line. So I guess you’d better stop worrying about the fifth room and run off and be brilliant with your anaesthetised arm if you want to win, hadn’t you, Lauren? Or whatever your real name is.’
Lauren opens her mouth as if to say something, then closes it again, scowling. She pulls back further still, taking her stand with her. ‘If you see or hear anything else. Anything. I want to know about it.’
‘Of course, your highness.’ I curtsey as best I can in my scrubs, continuing the royal theme. She shoots me a dirty look but says nothing else, turning and wheeling her stand from the room.
Andrew looks at us thoughtfully. ‘So, take me through what you saw again?’
Another thirty-six hours creeps by in a haze of drugs and testing and assessments and meals and biding my time while everyone sleeps. Andrew continues testing with his camera, Lauren hides out in her lab and doesn’t come out for meals, Steen’s appendix hangs in there.
It’s quarter past six in the morning and no one else seems to be up. I’m sitting on the bench in front of the ever-changing pictures of famous medical art. I’m staring at daVinci’s The Vitruvian man when Marcus approaches.
‘Oh, hello,’ I say, on guard. I’ve been trying to hide the fact that I’m starting to feel a bit depressed. The
endless cycle of testing and the long nights when everyone else sleeps are beginning to get me down.
‘Everything all right?’ He comes over to sit down beside me.
‘Sure. Fine,’ I answer him, my eyes flicking back over to The Vitruvian man.
‘The nights aren’t getting too boring for you?’
‘Not really,’ I lie. ‘I’ve been reading, watching a few movies, coming out here. And there’s always another round of drugs and testing in three hours to look forward to.’
Marcus smiles. ‘Good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour.’
We both watch as the picture changes.
‘One of my favourites,’ Marcus says. ‘Rembrandt van Rijn’s The anatomy lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp. I love it especially for its flaws. Look.’ He gets up to point at the exposed forearm muscles. ‘The flexor compartment should originate at the medial epicondyle, not the lateral epicondyle.’
I get up and go over to take a closer look. He’s right. ‘Bit late to fix it now, I suppose,’ I finally say.
‘Yes.’ Marcus chuckles. ‘Three hundred years or so. Still, the composition is beautiful.’
Something tells me Marcus might be the kind of person who immediately sees the flaws in everything. Including me. I wonder if he sees them in the Society as well?
He turns to look at me once more. ‘No questions? Suggestions? We do like to try to keep everyone happy.’
I go to open my mouth to say no and then hesitate. ‘Well, there is one thing I wanted to ask about.’
‘Yes?’
‘I was wondering about … boundaries. How do you stop people going too far with their research? Moving too far from what they originally stated they would be doing?’
Marcus nods. ‘A good question. For a start, all of our experimenters are chosen by a panel, not just by one person, although the president does have the final say. This means that we are all looking at the experiments and the applicants from different angles and specialties and all seeing different places where problems might occur. Sometimes experiments that could possibly stray into other areas aren’t chosen for that very reason. As for stopping people going too far, we are always able to withdraw the help of our support staff. We’ve never had to ask someone to leave.’
And what about the experiments that you hide? That you don’t tell anyone about? I think to myself. Are those held up to the same standards? ‘I heard that one of the youth experimenters died,’ I wind up saying instead.
Marcus sighs. ‘Did you? Yes, that’s true. As it turned out he had an underlying heart condition no one was aware of. It was most unfortunate, but it wasn’t because his experiment was extreme in any way.’
I wonder if that’s true or not. I’m not sure what to believe any more. Not sure about anything where the Society is concerned after seeing Ryan on that plane.
‘Almost six-thirty.’ Marcus checks his watch. ‘I was hoping to catch the others before breakfast. So if you’ll excuse me.’
‘Of course,’ I say.
But as I watch him go, all I can think about is that day in the restaurant with my dad and how I wish he’d been willing to tell me so much more.
SIXTY-FIVE HOURS AWAKE
I take my time over breakfast and still no one appears for me to talk to. With another hour before my next round of testing is due, and going a little insane owing to lack of human company, I find myself knocking pathetically on Steen’s lab door.
When no one answers immediately, I turn and start back for my own lab again, sorry I left it in the first place. I’m halfway there when Steen’s door opens and he appears. It looks like he’d been asleep.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you up. I thought … I just wanted to see how you were going.’
‘Come on in.’ He waves me into his lab, yawning.
I hesitate. ‘Do you think we’re allowed?’
‘I don’t see why not. We were in Lauren’s and Andrew’s labs yesterday.’
‘With Marcus.’
He points up at the camera on the ceiling. ‘I’m sure they’ll tell us if it’s a problem.’
‘Well, okay then.’ I’m still not sure, but I step inside his lab anyway. It’s much like mine in many ways, but with some different equipment.
Steen comes back inside and the door slides shut behind us.
‘You …’
‘So …’
We both speak at the same time.
Steen gestures towards me to go first.
‘So, um, how are you feeling? Are the cells working?’
He nods. ‘I think so. I definitely feel much better after the injection.’
‘You look better.’ I step forward to take a closer look at him. The colour has definitely come back to his face and he doesn’t seem so sweaty any more, or as if he’s in as much pain. ‘I’m happy for you.’ A thought comes to me and I laugh. ‘Lauren probably not so much.’
Steen nods. ‘That was pretty crazy. What she came out with, I mean. Where did that come from?’
‘I guess it’s just been a hard road for her. Some of us might want to win that prize, but she needs to.’
Silence falls over the lab.
‘Anyway …’ I take a step or two towards the door. ‘I just wanted to see if you were all right.’
Steen reaches out quickly and catches my arm. It’s the one with the cannula, and he accidentally pulls on it.
‘Sorry,’ he says, checking it’s okay. ‘It’s only … Now you’re here, I’ve been wanting to speak to you.’ He drops my arm again, turning his back to the camera on the ceiling. He tilts his head towards the bedroom where we both know there is no camera.
‘Um,’ I say, not sure that’s a good idea. It’s one thing to be in his lab, but in his bedroom …
But Steen ignores me, crossing the lab and heading for his bedroom. ‘It’s like I said before. If it’s an issue, they’ll come.’
I really don’t want to do this, but I do want to hear what he’s got to say. I’m guessing Steen’s finally ready to talk in more depth about what’s happened during my absence, instead of ranting. Not that I blame him for ranting.
My heart rate steadily climbing, I follow him into the small room, which is exactly like mine, only reversed. There’s only so much you can do with a bed, a bedside table and a small wardrobe, I suppose.
‘So …’ I say, when he stops in front of the bathroom door, completely out of sight of the lab area. My ears listen out for Society heavies to come bursting in.
Steen gets straight to the point, his gaze fixed on mine. ‘I want to know exactly what happened. After you left.’
I consider making some kind of smart remark, then exhale, deflating. I owe Steen an explanation. A big one. ‘Well, I went back to my room, packed up the bare necessities and left. I didn’t go home. Not initially, because I knew my dad would try to talk me out of leaving. One of my mother’s closest friends had studied in the UK and I guessed she might have been a member of the Society, so I went to her place and told her the absolute minimum. Within a week she’d managed to find me a place at her old university with the help of the Society and I sort of presented the plan to my dad on a plate.’
‘And he just went with it?’
‘I didn’t give him much choice.’
‘Or me,’ Steen replies.
‘It’s like I tried to explain in Vienna. We couldn’t risk our membership. I’m sure they watch that mail centre. Maybe we wouldn’t both be standing here right now if I hadn’t left when I had.’
Steen rolls his eyes. ‘If you want to believe that, go right ahead.’
A long silence follows.
‘So,’ Steen finally asks, ‘are you happy at university?’
I stare at the floor. ‘It’s different. It’s fine.’ It’s not even close to anything I had at home.
‘Made lots of friends?’
I glance up. Is he asking what I think he’s asking? ‘Um, some. Not many. There are quite a few Americans. Sometimes we do day
trips on the weekends. You know, to nearby towns, villages, stately homes. Things like that. There’s no one … special.’
He snorts at this, as if to tell me that’s not what he was asking and that he doesn’t care.
But it was what he was asking. I know it was.
‘Same people still at school?’
He shrugs. ‘I hang out with Emily a bit. She’s as crazy as ever.’
‘That goes without saying.’ I glance down then and see my right hand shaking very, very slightly. A tremor. That’s weird, I think. ‘Made any new friends?’
‘A couple. No one … special.’ He throws me a look.
Smartarse.
‘And who replaced me?’ I’m interested to know, because Emily has always been vague about this. Some girl, she always told me. She’s not very interesting.
This meant that she was very interesting indeed.
‘Her name’s Freja. She’s Danish, actually.’
Every cell in my body immediately stands to attention. So that’s why Emily’s been so evasive about who took my place. And I can see her already. Tall. Blonde. Hot. I can’t help myself—I smile a tight smile. ‘Well, that’s nice for you, isn’t it? You can have little Danish tête-à-têtes.’
‘That’s French.’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
Steen sighs. ‘You know I can’t control who they replaced you with.’
He’s right and I know it. But it doesn’t stop me from hating this Freja girl intensely.
I consider my next words carefully. ‘Ryan been kicked out yet?’ I ask, fishing for information. I keep my tone breezy.
‘Only because they don’t know what he’s up to, I’m sure.’
‘Mmm,’ I reply, thinking of the room up the hall. ‘Probably.’ I take a step back towards the doorway that leads into the lab and look at the clock on the wall. ‘I’ve got to get going,’ I lie, knowing I have at least another twenty minutes or so, but I have to run before I say something I’m going to regret. ‘Time for another fun-filled round of drugs and testing.’
‘Miri …’
‘Bye.’ I’m out the door in a flash. I don’t want to hear it. I can’t deal with hearing what I think he’s going to tell me—that he and Freja are an item.