The Memory Thieves

by Darren Simpson

  Cyan raised the hammer again. “You really want to test my profile today, Doctor?”

  Scowling, the doctor backed away.

  After throwing a glance at Mr Banter – who was staring at his leg and waiting for the drug to kick in – Cyan ran past filing cabinets and through the white-tiled room.

  The moment he hit the corridor, he heard Dr Haven shouting at Mr Banter. “It’s empty, you oaf! He used it on the professor! Pick up your own and get that boy!”

  “Ruby!” cried Cyan, desperate to find her. He was sprinting for the lift when he spotted a chair wedged against a door just ahead. He kicked it aside and pulled the door open to see Ruby getting up. She was in a room full of storage boxes, leather-strapped beds and more chairs.

  “Cyan!” She ran to the doorway. “Dr Haven! He found me and jammed the—”

  “No time!” Cyan pulled her into the corridor.

  Dr Haven was strolling towards them, with Mr Banter lumbering by his side. While the doctor’s expression was calm and unruffled, Mr Banter glared through his glasses at Cyan. Those thick lenses only magnified his fury. His fists bulged and clenched at the ends of his trunk-like arms.

  “Come on!” Cyan yanked Ruby’s arm, but she didn’t move.

  “Wait.” Ruby was looking at Mr Banter, her pupils searching his muscly bulk. She slipped her hand from Cyan’s, pressed a palm to his chest, then began walking away, towards the director and orderly.

  “What are you doing?” shouted Cyan. He stepped forward with an arm outstretched, but Ruby was beyond reach.

  She didn’t even look back. “There’s no getting away,” she said. “We’re better off handing ourselves in.”

  Cyan watched helplessly, his face crumpling in despair.

  Ruby gave Mr Banter her arm. Dr Haven looked smugly on. “At least Ruby sees sense, Cyan. Your pointless gallivanting merely delays the inevitable. It’s a waste of—”

  “Go!” It was Ruby. She’d yanked the card from the clip on Mr Banter’s waist and, with a flick of her elbow, sent it spinning through the air. “Get it, Cyan!”

  Cyan didn’t need to be told. He bolted along the corridor, slid on his knees and plucked the card from the floor. While twirling to sprint back the way he’d come, he glimpsed Mr Banter ramming his needle into Ruby’s neck.

  Cyan continued to run. He could hear Mr Banter catching up behind him, pummelling the floor with his heavy feet.

  In a half-skid, half-stumble, Cyan launched the trolley he’d passed earlier and sent it speeding towards Mr Banter. It slammed the orderly’s legs and sent him into a stagger, before being smashed sideways into the wall. Squeals of twisted metal filled the corridor.

  The trolley had bought Cyan a few seconds. Still gripping Mr Banter’s access card, he faltered by the corridor lined with residents’ cells. But Mr Banter was charging at him again and – seeing that the corridor led to a dead end – Cyan made for the lift, jumped in and slammed the button.

  Mr Banter was almost upon him. The lift’s doors were closing, but they wouldn’t shut in time. Panicking, Cyan lobbed his hammer into the corridor. Mr Banter threw himself aside, barely dodging the whirring steel.

  The doors continued to close and – through the narrowing gap – Cyan saw Ruby unconscious at Dr Haven’s feet, and Mr Banter snarling and charging, storming bull-like towards him.

  Mr Banter’s face, still closing in, writhed red with rage. But the lift’s doors met and – though they rang with pounding fists – the face was gone.

  While the lift ascended, Cyan pushed Mr Banter’s card deep into his pocket. He leaned with his forearms against the metal wall, taking huge breaths to steady his trembling.

  When the doors parted, Cyan sped past Dr Haven’s office and burst into the foyer. The space was bustling with residents in red, and Cyan saw two orderlies chatting to one side of the handless clock. Their conversation stopped abruptly as they pulled their lockets from their trousers.

  Cyan waved his arms at them. “Don’t do it!” he yelled. “Whatever Dr Haven says, don’t do it!” He pointed frantically at the corridor behind him. “There’s an extra floor! He’s keeping residents locked up – the ones you thought were sent away! He’s using us for experiments!” He gestured feverishly at the residents who’d stopped to stare.

  The orderlies exchanged baffled glances, then opened their lockets to check the messages on their screens. When they looked again at Cyan their gazes had hardened. A sudden resolve seemed to tighten their shoulders.

  More orderlies were marching into the foyer. Cyan saw the glint of open lockets in their hands. Their expressions were steely and serious, with eyes that scanned the residents before settling on Cyan.

  Ms Ferryman – with her own locket in hand – entered from the corridor to her office. She saw Cyan. A look of worry wrinkled her brow.

  Cyan stepped back with his palms rising. “Please!” he cried. “If Dr Haven’s telling you to grab me, don’t listen! He’s experimenting on us all – hiding sick residents! Everyone’s in danger! Please believe—”

  “Nonsense.”

  All eyes looked past Cyan, and he turned to see Dr Haven at the foyer’s edge. Mr Banter was beside him. The orderly looked less rattled now – placid and professional.

  “Orderlies.” The director spoke loudly, but with a tone as serene as his smile. “Be so kind as to ignore Cyan’s ravings. The poor boy’s having an episode of mania. He’s showing severe symptoms of delusion. Keep your distance and block the exits. Mr Banter will sedate and remove him.”

  Several residents were in Mr Banter’s way. They shuffled awkwardly on their feet. Some stepped timidly aside, with their gazes shifting back and forth between Cyan and the director.

  “I’m telling the truth!” wailed Cyan. He looked with pleading eyes at Ms Ferryman, then turned to the residents closest to him, a couple of whom had backed away. “They’ll knock you out and make you forget!” His voice broke. He could feel the spit spraying from his lips. “Don’t let it happen! Fight them!”

  Some of the orderlies exchanged glances. Residents looked at each other; a collective murmur began to rise.

  Dr Haven had to shout over the voices. “Everyone move out of Mr Banter’s way! Cyan is dangerous and liable to hurt someone!” The doctor’s eyes scoured the foyer. Some jittery residents were trying to flee the scene, pressing against the orderlies blocking all exits. But a faltering crowd was still in Mr Banter’s path.

  “Fine!” barked the director. He shook his fist in the air. “Orderlies: standard protocol! Round them up – all residents – and put them to sleep! Mr Banter: take Cyan!”

  Mr Banter shoved residents aside and began to move. He was drawing closer to Cyan, with Dr Haven walking just behind.

  Cyan twisted to and fro. He saw an orderly by the revolving door. Others were guarding the staircases and corridors. There was only one way to go: deeper into the throng.

  He pushed his way through the crowd, which became increasingly unsettled when Mr Banter started tossing children aside like dolls. When the orderlies took out their needles, the tumult only got worse.

  Cursing and barging, and with Mr Banter closing relentlessly in, Cyan kept searching for a way out. Something caught his eye: an orderly had left his post to grapple with a resident; the stairs to the upper rooms were clear.

  While Cyan bounded up the spiralling steps, a cold laugh followed from below. “You’ve trapped yourself!” yelled Dr Haven. “I’ll order a reconfiguration and fill the framework with staff! There’s nowhere to go! Stop this foolishness!”

  Cyan kept climbing. He heaved at the bannister and – after losing his footing – scrabbled the rest of the way on all fours.

  When he hit the upper rooms, he heard beeps from lockets. The shuffle was coming.

  He bolted through a door into a hallway and saw two bewildered residents climbing into snugs. Deep sounds reverberated through the floor and walls. Distant squeals. The grind of cogs and pulleys.

  Cyan jumped
instinctively towards an empty snug but skidded when its rear opened up. A technician climbed out and dropped into the wooden hollow. He grimaced at Cyan, with his arms rising to grab him.

  As Cyan backed away he heard something else over the hum of the walls: pounding footsteps. He glanced backwards and saw Mr Banter through the door’s window, charging towards him with his fists clenched.

  Cyan ran. He barrelled from one room to the next, darting in random directions and praying Mr Banter wouldn’t brave the shuffle. But even when the walls began to move, Mr Banter kept coming.

  The floor beneath Cyan’s feet slid to the right, while the door ahead coasted left. He veered in a sharp diagonal line; Mr Banter’s hands just missed him as he leaped through the gliding door into a bedroom.

  Mr Banter was quick for someone his size. Whenever Cyan hurled himself through a gap between shifting walls, the orderly made it through too, just a hair’s breadth behind.

  Cyan caught glimpses of red, white and grey; residents and staff, gawping from their snugs. He headed up a spiral staircase, felt his stomach hit his lungs when the room lurched downwards.

  An unfamiliar voice, gruff and deep, came from below. “I’m going to enjoy this, Cyan!”

  Cyan glanced down. He saw Mr Banter grinning around the corner of the stairway, and almost stumbled with the shock. “You can talk!”

  Mr Banter guffawed, his laughter huge and thick against the squeal and din. “I can do more than that! You’ll find out soon enough – when I get my hands on your tiny little neck!”

  Cyan gritted his teeth. His legs were tired and aching; his throat was gasping and raw. Topping the staircase, he threw himself at an opening to the left, but a rising wall caught his chin and knocked him back towards the stairs.

  A chink in his vision; his glasses were cracked.

  Mr Banter appeared and lunged for him, but Cyan managed to stagger and dodge. He shouldered a door that rose into view, then jumped through it onto a floor that was lowering away.

  Cyan vaulted an unmade bed. Something smashed above him and a downpour of shards hit his head. He saw broken chunks of vase by his feet, then peered backwards to see another vase in Mr Banter’s hand, raised and ready for throwing.

  He dodged to the right as it shattered to his left, but his manoeuvre sent him bouncing off shelves and knocking over plants.

  Looking backwards again, Cyan glimpsed a plant pot rolling across the floor. Up ahead he saw a wall plunging through the floor, with another wall following from above.

  He dived through the fleeting gap into the next room, then twisted to see Mr Banter trip against the plant pot. The orderly’s grin vanished and he fell towards the room’s edge. His arm reached through the gap between the disappearing wall and the one still coming. Cyan saw the plummeting wall meet his elbow.

  There was a loud, fleshy crack. Cyan winced and kept moving, but reeled when the room he was in lifted and pushed his stomach against his pelvis. He floundered on a rug, no longer knowing which way was up, left, down or right, until the room stopped with a jolt. A flash of sky caught his eye – one of the sanctuary’s deep, circular windows.

  He ran towards it, but stopped at the cusp of the room he was in. The outer wall and its window were separated from Cyan by a room’s worth of empty space.

  “No-zone,” breathed Cyan. He looked down to see a bedroom beneath the cube-shaped emptiness, with its window directly below the one he was facing.

  “For Jonquil,” he breathed, leaping into the no-zone. With a sliding ceiling skimming his hair, he plummeted into the room below and crashed onto its bed. Rolling off its mattress, he stumbled to the window, then began shuffling crablike to the right, to keep the window within reach while the floor slid left.

  He jumped into the cavity and – after fumbling at the latch – slammed open the window and thrust his head into cool air.

  Cyan almost wailed with relief; he was just two floors up, not far from the sanctuary’s hangar.

  He slipped while lowering himself onto the window frame below and fell with a thump onto sandy flagstones. But he was up immediately, limping as quickly as he could towards the sanctuary’s front. The clouds raced with him. Angry gales sent sand hissing against windows.

  When he took the corner he spied someone ahead: a shaded figure, squatting in the nook where the marble steps met the ground floor.

  Keeping low, Cyan hobbled cautiously closer, then realized the figure was Teal, hunched up with his knees tucked beneath his chin.

  Cyan increased his pace, slid to his knees and gripped Teal’s elbow. “Teal!” he gasped. “Did you hear?”

  “Hear what?” Teal peered up the side of the stairway, in the direction of the revolving glass door. His eyes bulged with panic. “I was coming in from the harbour. Saw through the door…” He clutched the hand Cyan held to his elbow. “Have you seen what’s happening up there? Orderlies are piling up on residents. Stabbing them with…things!” He glanced again towards the doorway. “What’s going on, Cyan?”

  Cyan squeezed his eyes shut, pushing away the mental image of what was happening in the foyer. When he opened them again, he saw Teal put a fingernail to his teeth. He could feel him quaking beneath his blazer.

  “It’s…a long story,” panted Cyan. “But basically…Dr Haven’s a psycho. He’s been using us all as lab rats for a dangerous experiment.”

  Teal spat away some fingernail. “What? That’s some sort of joke, right?”

  “I wish it was.”

  “But Dr Haven…looks after us.”

  Cyan pointed at the top of the stairs. “Is that what he’s doing up there?”

  Teal bit his lip. His spectacles were crooked on his nose. “Oh, man…”

  “It’s okay,” said Cyan, doing his best to reassure Teal. “There might be a way to stop him.”

  “Really?”

  “I just need to get to the lift. If I can reach it, I might be able to end this. The foyer’s rammed with orderlies, though, including one who’s guarding the entrance. I don’t know how to get past them all.”

  Teal gaped at Cyan, until his brow began to sink. “Hang on. How come you know all this stuff? Is it something to do with…you and Ruby being so weird lately?”

  Cyan’s lips clenched. He gave a meek nod.

  “So you’ve known about Dr Haven for, like, a while or something?”

  “I…guess so?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Cyan was flinching. “I’m so sorry, Teal. We weren’t sure how you’d take it.”

  Teal’s trembling eased off a little. He narrowed his eyes. “And why’s that? Because I stress about stuff? This is worth some serious stressing, Cyan.”

  “Yeah. It is.” Cyan put his hands on Teal’s knees. “Listen. There’s something I want to tell you right now, in case we’re caught and forget everything.”

  “Forget everything?”

  Cyan took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Teal, for all the times I made fun of you – for all your worrying and stuff. Honestly, I really am. I never thought about how hard it must actually be for you.”

  Teal didn’t respond. His eyes were set on Cyan’s face.

  Cyan went on. “I know now. I know how your worry goes deeper than you realize – how it comes from sadness and fear and things you don’t even know you’re feeling.”

  Teal’s trembling had stopped. He stared open-mouthed at Cyan. “What?”

  Cyan tightened his grip on Teal’s knees. “You had every right to worry, Teal, and making fun of it was the last thing we should have done. We should have asked you about it. We should have talked to you. But this place…” He glared up at the sanctuary’s cold face. “This place doesn’t like that sort of talk. That’s why it’s so dangerous – why we all need to get away from here.” His eyes went to the marble steps. “But we can’t. Not unless I get to that lift.”

  Teal pushed Cyan’s hands from his knees. His tone was hurt but his face looked stern. “What if I help?”


  Cyan stared at him. “You think you can get to the lift?”

  Teal huffed. “No way. I’ve got no idea what that lift’s all about. Whatever you’re planning is probably dangerous and stupid and that’s your territory.” He glanced to one side. “But I’m thinking…maybe you can reach the lift if everyone’s distracted.”

  “Distracted?”

  “I could run in the opposite direction, towards Ms Ferryman’s office. I won’t get far, but it might be enough to keep everyone’s eyes off you.”

  Cyan frowned while giving this some thought. “You know what? That might actually work. They all think I’m in the upper rooms too; they wouldn’t expect me to go through the front entrance.”

  His gaze rose, with something like awe, to Teal. He was beginning to regret ever doubting him. “You really want to do this?”

  “No. Not in a million years. But it’s that or…something way worse, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So let’s do it. Before I realize it’s a terrible mistake.”

  After wiping his sweaty palms against his trousers, Teal groaned and got up. His voice was hoarse. “It’s Teal time.”

  Cyan almost smiled, until he saw how Teal was trembling again. Mouthing a silent thank you, he skulked behind him and crouched at the bottom of the steps. He watched his friend ascend.

  Teal paused by the revolving door, turning for a last look at Cyan. His wire glasses were wonky, but the eyes behind them were fiercer than Cyan had ever known.

  After taking in a breath – a breath so deep and long that it straightened his back – Teal barged the glass door and entered.

  With the wind whipping behind him, Cyan followed on all fours. The hem of his blazer slid along marble steps, and when he neared the top, he peered through the spinning glass. He caught sight of Teal in the foyer, sprinting to the right with his arms flailing, bellowing something Cyan couldn’t hear.

  All eyes – including those of Dr Haven, who was standing with Ms Ferryman by the staircase – were on Teal.

  Cyan made his move.

  Ignoring the pain in his ankles and thighs, he stooped and ran, first slinking through the still-spinning door, then darting to the left, past some wrestling staff and residents, straight to the corridor that led to the lift.