by Phil Cocker
short corridor made of varnished timber and glass sections that linked the lower and upper schools.
Tom stopped and turned. “Ah, no can do mate. Mum is picking me up here to take me for tea at my Nans.” He held his hands out apologetically. “Soz!” He pulled a sad face, held it for a second to make sure Eric understood before turning to sprint down the corridor to his next lesson.
Eric stood there for a couple of minutes, lost in his thoughts, wondering what to do with himself, as he’d had automatically thought the pair of them would be interrogating the internet for more information. He was unaware that the last few pupils were drifting off to their respective lessons, apart from one.
“Mr. Peterson?”
Eric was whipped back to reality as he heard his name. He knew the voice an slowly turned around to face the one person he’d started to forget, John Armer.
“You’re still here then?” Eric asked, hiding his anger.
“Circumstantial evidence and hearsay I believe they call it.” John Armer smiled to show his delight at not being caught for his part in the attack on Eric. He leant in closer and whispered. “But we did have fun scaring you half to death.” He sniggered a little as he stood upright, towering over Eric. “You should have seen your face when you saw us three dressed as hoodies.”
Eric’s fingers curled up into balls, his knuckles whitening as his fists grew tighter, the red fire of anger swelling through his veins.
“And after all of the bleating you and your mate Tom “The-Snitch” Barratt had said about seeing us to Bolshie Borand and her new freaky friend Jolly-japes Jackson, we still managed to get away with it.” He snorted a laugh. “If only Higgo hadn’t tripped up over a chair, then maybe I’d not be here,” He moved a little closer to Eric. “Right in your face.” He was now only millimetres away from Eric’s nose.
Eric was fighting the undeniable urge to simply swing his already curled right fist round and punch him with all his might, but knew that would get him instantly expelled. With all that anger wanting to burst out of him, Eric could hear his Dad’s words in his ears. “First, always try to walk away. Second, if you can’t stop a fight from starting, always make sure you end it.”
Eric knew that he had to walk, as the second option wasn’t possible against someone with the strength and ability of John Armer, and also the consequences of his actions, whilst still on School grounds..
He turned to head off to class, but a strong hand gripped him by the shoulder and span him back round to face the bully.
“I’ve not finished with you yet, Peterson.” John spat the syllables of his surname into Eric’s face.
The anger welled up inside him.
“Go on.” And John tilted his chin to one side, jutting it out a little. “Give it your best shot.” He waited a second. “’Cus it will be the last thing you do on this planet, I can promise you that.”
They stood face to face for a few seconds.
“Go on wimpy boy.” John sneered and taunted him. “Think you’ve got it in you?”
Another few seconds passed as Eric’s anger rose higher and higher.
He finally pulled his right shoulder back; his fist was clenched so tight that his finger nails were digging into the palm of his hand.
John Armer’s eyes lit up with the excitement of the impending strike, knowing he’d win the overall battle that was about to start.
Eric tensed the right arm and quickly brought it round and up.
John closed his eyes, not flinching in any way, his chin still stuck out, leaving it wide open as a very easy target.
Eric also brought the other hand up on the other side of John Armer’s head. As both fists neared their target, he flashed open his hands, and clamped the palms onto each cheek. He then leant forward and kissed him fully on the lips.
John Armer pulled back in shock, staggering into the wall.
“See ya later handsome.” Eric called back to him as he dashed away down the corridor, a huge grin on his face.
Outside, at the far end of the long school driveway was a black MPV. The tinted windows hid the occupant who had been watching everything through a long telephoto lens. The camera jiggled slightly as the holder sniggered. “You’re more like your Dad than you realise Eric Peterson.
Control Subject.
Harrap studied his screen, carefully, and thoroughly. All of the 9 individual readings all gave him the same answer. He’d asked all his fellow scientists to secretly give a blood sample to him, so that he could test them all and find out what it was Fink had been secretly injecting into them every night. Without the medical testing device the despicable Porter had been using, Harrap knew that it would be a lengthy process, as he didn’t know what he was looking for. The only thing in his favour was that he’d been sleeping at his desk for a few nights. He’d rigged a simple sensor alarm sender to the door circuits and hid the corresponding receiver under his watch. This alarm woke him up with a gentle buzz whenever the door opened. At first he’d been taken unawares by the buzzing, but he’d got used to it enough to not cause anyone to notice what he was doing. By doing so, he’d acted as if he’d been asleep until Fink had finished injecting everyone else, and then woke up.
Fink’s routine helped, as Harrap was the last to be injected. After a couple of days, Fink would creep up to the Chief scientist and see that he was sleeping. He decided not to chance injecting Harrap first, as he might wake up, and then he’d not be able to inject everyone else, but continued to inject the others first, as he was safely behind the curtain that hid the sleeping area from the workstations. Unfortunately, every time he came close to Harrap, Fink’s final victim always woke up, juts at the wrong time.
Harrap’s plan worked very well, and thus, after a few days, he had become the control subject.
He tested for various toxins and poisons in all his team, and then in himself, but they all came back blank. He’d had a close call when getting more samples of blood from his team, and was nearly spotted by a guard delivering their evening meals.
The only problem was that by staying at his workbench, he was getting less sleep, and was increasingly tired. This made him conscious of the fact that he might make a mistake, or miss some important element that was common in everyone.
By the fifth evening, Harrap sat at his workstation rubbing his eyes, before taking another long swig of an energy boosting drink he’d concocted. He rolled his head round a few times and blinked before re-reading the screen. The latest batch of tests had also come back blank. He was missing something, something very simple, and was concerned that he’d missed it due to his lack of sleep.
Crane, his assistant, came over to him. “You need to rest, or you’ll be no good to us.” Placing a supportive hand on his mentor and friend’s shoulder, he continued. “Go on, I can keep going with the tests while you grab an hour or two.”
“I can’t.” Harrap replied dejectedly. “I need to be here so that we can keep me as a control subject.”
“Please just go and rest.” Crane pointed to the sleeping areas at the end of the laboratory. “We’re all feeling fit and well, and can cope admirably while you sleep for a while.”
“What?” Harrap asked.
“I said that we can cope.” Crane replied.
“No, no.” Harrap said. “Before that, you said that you were all feeling fit and well.”
“Yes, we are, we’ve been saying that the last few days, since we perfected the virus that the stress levels must have dropped and we’re feeling so much better.”
“That’s it.” Harrap jumped off his stool. “Well done Crane.” He shook his bemused colleague’s hand.
“Are you OK?”
“Never felt better.” He then chuckled. “Well, actually, not as well as you lot, but that’s it isn’t it.”
“I’m sorry, but you’ve lost me.” Crane shook his head, bewildered.
“Watch.” Harrap tapped on the keys of his compu
ter and a series of results and graphs grew on the screen. “This is how healthy you all are. I’d been looking for things that were harming you, but it isn’t that at all.” He chuckled again. “This is so lateral I would never have thought of it.” He shook his head and took another swig of his drink. “You’re all feeling a lot better because they’ve been injecting you with something that’s been boosting your system.”
Crane studied the results carefully. “Yes, I see.”
“If we extrapolate the increasing performance levels, and their outcomes.” Harrap tapped away again. “Then we find that…” He stopped mid-sentence as the screen started to flash amber, then quickly turned to red.
“What’s happened?” Crane asked.
The door swished open and Harrap’s alarm buzzed under his watch.
Fink walked in, a smug look on his face. “Well done Harrap.” He continued to walk around the workstations, and headed towards the Chief Scientist, applauding as he walked. “I always took you for a simple yes man, but you do have an aptitude for breaking down these puzzles and finding the true answer.”
“What’s going on?” Crane asked, hoping for an answer from either one of them. “Why has it all gone red?”
Harrap’s anger was a raging inferno inside, but he tried his best to hide it from everyone. He turned to his colleague and friend, with very sad eyes.. “We’re all going to die.” He took a deep breath. “And you and the others will