The Glimpse (30 page)

with his back facing the yard and whose body sagged under some heavy weight. Ana struggled to untangle the image, her mind stil floundering over Tamsin. She caught a slither of white flesh. Then a handful of long hair. An extra arm.

She choked on her own breath. The heavy bulk was a girl

– a barely conscious girl. And the boys were . . . they were raping her. The picture burnt itself on to Ana’s retina. She held out an arm to stop herself from faling. A hand coiled around her waist.

‘They’re—’ She wanted to tel Tamsin what she’d seen, but she couldn’t form the words.

Tamsin dragged her from the wal. ‘Better move it,’ she said, leading Ana to a throng at the edge of the smaler said, leading Ana to a throng at the edge of the smaler courtyard. ‘Breakfast is on a first-come-first-served basis.’

A bel rang. The crowd pressed forward. Carried on the wave, Ana let the tears of anger and shock slide down her face. She didn’t know how much more of this madness she could take. How on earth could Tamsin be here at Three Mils? How could Jasper not know who she was? How could boys do something like that in a place where the girls were patients? They were supposed to be safe. The nightmare had no limits; it was as wide and black as the space between stars.

*

After breakfast, orderlies corraled patients into a giant, white-padded room with an arched roof. Three horizontal structural beams strung out across the ceiling.

Metal poles hung from the beams, rigged with a dozen flatscreens. Ana shuffled towards a group of patients huddled beneath one 273

of the screens and discovered that the accompanying sound became audible from a metre and a half away.

Otherwise, the padded wals muffled the quiet drone.

A long, eye-level window ran along the left-hand wal of the old rehearsal studio. Instinctively, Ana crossed to it and gazed out. A cobbled street lay directly below.

When she pressed her nose to the window she could make out the blue security door which she’d entered by.

Dannard had been right. Inside Three Mils the real world was lost. The blue door might as wel have been a porthole linking two different planes of existence.

Ana searched the drawn, sickly faces of boys and girls Ana searched the drawn, sickly faces of boys and girls coming in from breakfast. If Jasper had queued for a morning shower he could stil be a while. She moved away from the window, entering the nearest screen’s sound radius. A news report filtered through her awareness.

‘The Right Honourable Dr Peter Reed,’ an anchorper-son was saying, ‘Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, formerly Secretary of State for Health, was kiled yesterday evening close to his home at the southern boarder of the Hampstead Community.’

Ana stopped and cocked her head at the image of a sep-tuagenarian government minister. ‘The Wardens are looking for Cole Winter, who is wanted for questioning about the murder.’

A police-arrest photograph of Cole from a couple of years ago filed the screen. His shoulder-length hair hung in straggly clumps. Dark stubble made his face look gaunt and menacing.

Ana stared at the haunted eyes. Her arms hung limply at 274

her sides. She felt the blood drain from her face. Felt herself plunge headfirst into fear.

‘Cole Winter,’ the reporter continued, ‘a disciple of Richard Cox, the mastermind of the 2036 Tower Bridge bombing, was seen leaving the crime scene. Mr Winter had personal ties to Dr Reed. He is considered dangerous and should not be approached. If you have any knowledge of his whereabouts please report it to the Warden’s hotline.’

The screen image cut to a mountain of smoky rubble.

‘The colapse of the US Middle East peace process has resulted in another night of heavy bombing over the eastern coast of the United States.’

Ana couldn’t move, couldn’t even twist her neck away from the flatscreen. The reporter’s words floated around her meaninglessly.

‘Another 20,000 are estimated dead and a further 140,000 reported missing. This is the third air raid since the colapse of the peace process last week . . .’

She sucked in deeply.
There are people who will hide
him,
she told herself. For al she knew, the Crazies in the City hated the Wardens and wouldn’t contact the hotline.

Cole could just hole up somewhere until things settled down, then go to the Project. As she grew calmer, her train of thought shifted. If the whole of London’s Wardens were on the lookout for him, he couldn’t possibly risk going back to the Forest Hil flat. He wouldn’t be there tonight. He wouldn’t know she hadn’t made it out of Three Mils.

She bent over, passing her head through her legs and forced herself to breathe. Her face tingled feverishly.

How was she ever going to get out of here?

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After a moment, she staggered back to the window. She had to try speaking to Jasper again and jog his memory, so they could figure out what they were going to do.

Minutes dragged by as she waited for him to come in Minutes dragged by as she waited for him to come in from breakfast. Finaly, as the orderlies divided the patients into groups to herd them back to their respective studios, Jasper appeared. Seeing her approach, he warded her off with the sign of the cross. Whatever decisions had to be made, she realised, whether she should confess to the psychs who they realy were, or find some other way out, she couldn’t count on Jasper.

She was on her own.

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22

The Tanks

Back in the studios, the atmosphere sparked with tension.

From snippets of conversation, Ana gathered they would soon be free to roam the inner compound. They were waiting for the orderlies to colect those few who would be taken off for morning therapy.

A bel rang and boots tramped through the yard. The scarred orderly and her usual dour companion entered Ana’s dormitory. The orderly read six names, ‘Emily’s’

included, from a clipboard. Five girls edged towards her, holding out wrists and they were shackled to a link of metal chain.

Stunned, Ana rose. She stepped forward, the fear around her palpable. Most girls kept their eyes lowered.

The scarred orderly jangled a pair of cuffs.

‘We’re not going to be having any trouble today, are we, Emily?’ she said.

Ana held out her wrists, arms weightless like in a dream.

The metal hoops crunched down on her hands, linking her to the other five patients.

The chosen girls skittered across the yard like leaves blown in a gust of wind. They passed through the grey building with toilets and shower facilities to a back door.

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The door led out of the compound into a wide cobbled walkway; the walkway Ana had looked down on only an hour ago.

The line of girls bunched up, grinding to a standstil.

Though no one looked at it, Ana knew they were al conscious of the blue gate lying in ful view beyond the reception.

She lowered her eyes and squeezed her shackled hands into fists. She would divulge her true identity to whichever psychiatrist they were now taking her to. She would make them listen. She would be persuasive. Her father could end any one of their careers. What would one day’s difference make to verify her story when their job was on the line?

They crossed a cattle bridge to a cluster of warehouses.

A river ran alongside the thirty-foot-high studio wals.

From time to time, a girl ahead stumbled or tripped, yanking Ana’s arm from its socket.

The scarred orderly stopped and detached Ana and one other from the group. They stood before an entrance of a other from the group. They stood before an entrance of a loading bay with a roler-shutter half open. The second orderly took up the other four girls and tussled them away.

The girl beside Ana stopped crying and began to shake.

Ana gazed at her feet, tinged blue from the cold. Liquid trickled across the dirt path towards her. She looked at the girl, and saw the girl stood in a puddle.

The scarred orderly laughed. ‘What doesn’t kil you makes you stronger,’ she said, lighting a cigarette and pushing them towards the accordion-like studio entrance.

‘It’s time. Hurry up.’

Ana obediently ducked under the roler-shutter and 278

found herself on a dark, concrete stage fifty metres long and half as wide again. The girl tumbled in beside her, letting out a cry of terror. Five glass tanks lined the sparse stage, lit up internaly like they were in an aquarium. The shutter clattered down. The studio disappeared into pitch-black nothingness. Except for the eerily glowing tanks.

Ana wrung her hands together until the bones cracked.

She closed her eyes and set herself the task of finding a logical answer to what was going on.

Tubes traveled in and out of the tanks. A metal frame, like a bed, had been welded to the bottom of each man-sized casing. And each one had its own control panel on a separate pedestal.

A century ago, the psychs used to strap their patients into baths and douse them with icy water. It had become baths and douse them with icy water. It had become popular again recently when a respected psychiatrist

‘proved’

it successfuly altered chemical imbalances in the brain.

Or perhaps the tubes pumped gel into the tanks and this was a new form of ECT, administering electric shocks to al zones of the body. Ana began to shake. Either way, she was totaly screwed.

‘We haven’t got al day,’ a voice said.

From the furthest end of the stage, a figure strode towards them silhouetted by the closing door through which she entered. A petite nurse folowed.

Cusher
. Ana’s hope shriveled. Cusher hadn’t listened to a word Ana had said in the shower interview.

‘Hurry up,’ Cusher admonished. ‘No need for false mod-esty.’

Neither Ana nor the girl beside her moved. The door at 279

the back of the studio sucked shut. A dim red light came on at either end of the stage. Pumps skittered across the hard floor. The nurse reached them and breathlessly began to disrobe the girl beside Ana. The girl submitted at once.

When the nurse reached for Ana, Ana slapped her hands away.

‘My name isn’t Emily,’ she said, wrestling to keep her high-pitched voice steady. ‘There was a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here.’

supposed to be here.’

‘Good God,’ Cusher sighed. ‘Mrs McCavern!’

A harsh grinding sound folowed by the clatter of metal scraping across metal rang through the studio. Ana flinched. The roler-shutter ascended. Daylight poured through the jaw-like opening. The scarred orderly ducked through.

‘Mrs McCavern,’ Cusher said. ‘I told you not to leave me alone with the new one.’

‘Sorry, Dr Cusher.’ McCavern didn’t sound sorry, she sounded furious. Ana cringed.

‘Get her into tank four,’ Cusher ordered.

McCavern prodded Ana in the back with a truncheon.

Ana stifled a cry as one of yesterday’s bruises flared up.

She tumbled forward to the nearest tank, then limped up the three steps. When she reached the top, McCavern knocked her over the edge.

She fel on to the metal bed-frame, her left side crashing against the sharp rails, her knees scraping the sides of the tank and starting to bleed. McCavern clambered down the short stepladder into the narrow guly beside the bed, cursing under her breath.

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‘Troublemakers don’t do wel here. No, they don’t do wel at al. I’m going to keep a special eye on you.’

‘You’re making a big mistake,’ Ana stuttered.

‘Lie down,’ McCavern growled.

‘My father is Ashby Barber.’

McCavern’s hand twitched towards the truncheon tucked in her belt. Tears sweled in the corner of Ana’s good eye. She lay down on the metal frame, face up.

McCavern leant over her and drew a plastic strap tightly across her chest. Then she pinned Ana’s wrists with metal half-circles and fastened a second strap over her legs.

‘Please,’ Ana choked. ‘Please. My father is Ashby Barber.’

McCavern regarded her for a moment, before climbing the smal stepladder and disappearing into darkness.

Liquid gurgled. Ana heard it slosh below her, gathering in the bottom of the tank. Her chest heaved against the strap. She gasped at the air, starting to hyperventilate.

Blackness edged across the corners of her vision. She was about to pass out when a scream pierced the old film stage.

A split second later liquid oozed around the edges of her feet, calves, thighs, back and neck. She wiggled her toes.

The texture and lack of smel indicated it was only warm water. Ana grew stil, not understanding.

They weren’t going to be shocked with ice, or electro-cuted through specialy designed body gel. It had to be some sort of immersion therapy.

The tension in her limbs unraveled. She slackened her muscles, alowing the adrenalin to work its way out of her.

She tried to ignore the other girl’s screaming and focused on relaxing her feet, then her legs, her thighs, her buttocks, 281

al the way up through her body until she’d almost regained a sense of calm. In a few more seconds, the water would fil her ears. Then there would just be the sound of the pump and the liquid slopping back and forth against the tank wals.

The average person couldn’t hold their breath for anywhere near sixty seconds, especialy not when they were panicking. As Cusher surely didn’t intend to drown them

– Ana hadn’t noticed any resuscitation gear – she would be fine. Stiling her mind, she did her best to evoke herself at home, sitting at her piano, fingers running up and down the keys. But as the water closed over her head, instead she imagined herself descending a curved staircase. It was strange, she could actualy feel her hand trailing along a banister. A door stood at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her way. She reached out. It felt solid, even though she knew it couldn’t be. She twisted the handle. The door swung back and an infinity of stars greeted her. In the distance, suspended on the edge of the horizon, lay a spiral galaxy.

She almost gasped and swalowed water. It was so vivid and beautiful, it seemed impossible that it was only in her mind.