by Paul Teague
She’d never worried about exercise or fitness before, but now it was going to be her only friend as she plotted her escape. Slowly, painfully, she began to stretch and move her legs. Then she moved her arms. It felt amazing to have that freedom of movement once again.
Nat worked through her pain to begin the exercise regime that would eventually lead to her freedom. She was scared at first, not sure how long the stasis lasted. When would the doctor be back? She didn’t know, but she needed to stay alert.
It turned out they’d left her for almost a week at a time. Nat counted six days. She was completely alone for six whole days.
On the first few days she’d return to the pod at 6 a.m. in case the doctor began his work early – like a vampire returning to the coffin before sunrise. She’d wait, perfectly still, for a couple of hours, then venture out once again at about 10 o’clock. At the slightest noise, she’d wait for the camera to begin its sweep across the room, then position herself back in the pod in case somebody had returned to the lab.
Bit by bit, Nat gained strength and confidence. But it was two steps forward and one step back every time. They’d leave her for six full days before resuming their tests. Then she’d have to endure twenty-four hours of tests once again.
It took her another three months to firmly establish her new routine. Every time she left the pod, she’d have to force herself through the excruciating pain after the experiments.
But her strength and resilience was building all the time. Every six days she’d get a little stronger and a little braver. And, like a timid mouse venturing beyond the walls of a pantry, she eventually got the courage to explore beyond her cell.
That was when she discovered what all of this testing had been about.
Chapter Four
Mission
Simon received a message from Magnus via his Comms-Tab. He was to remain in Quadrant 1, ready to team up with James. They’d need to make their way to the top level and get to the bunker entrance. From there, James would need to repeat whatever process he’d used to get Amy, Nat and Simon into the bunker in the first place. Then he’d have to blow up that mobile mast.
Magnus had relayed the same message to the other bunkers. Xiang and Viktor would need to assign the same task to security team personnel in their own bunkers. Although their bunker teams had not yet had their Neuronic Devices hijacked, it made sense to pre-empt that possibility, and disable the means of sabotage. For Magnus and Viktor, based in rural locations, it was not so problematical. There was one main mast which was serving each bunker. For Xiang, located deep below Beijing, there were multiple masts to deal with.
The drones may well have damaged some of them, but to defend each bunker from an assault via the neck devices, the mobile networks had to be taken out. Simon decided to keep the information about the bunker layout schemata to himself for now – he wasn’t quite sure what it all meant. This spherical construction was worrying him, but he didn’t know yet how it would all fit together. He captured some images via his Comms-Tab but didn’t share them. They could wait for later, until he had some more information.
He was about to leave the Operations Centre when the main console where he’d been working previously hummed into life. It was his boss, Doctor Pierce, on the screen. ‘Dan, are you there?’ came his voice.
Simon hesitated, then decided to make himself known. A quick analysis of his situation told him that he could only get closer to the truth by talking to Doctor Pierce, he couldn’t end up in much more danger.
‘It’s me, Simon ...’ he began. Then Doctor Pierce’s face appeared on the screen.
‘Press the green button, third along,’ Doctor Pierce continued. ‘Give me a visual on you.’
Simon did as he was told, and a two-way video channel opened.
‘Authenticate yourself please,’ asked Doctor Pierce, and Simon placed his hand on the panel on the desk.
This was standard Global Consortium procedure. Once satisfied that it really was Simon, Doctor Pierce visibly relaxed.
‘I’m not even going to ask how you got there Simon,’ said Doctor Pierce, ‘but I’m really pleased that you are. We desperately need a man on the inside. There are so many unexpected things happening today, I need some people I can trust.’
‘But can I trust you?’ Simon thought to himself.
‘What’s the mission status?’ asked Simon, deciding to get whatever information he could.
‘Quadrant 1 has been sabotaged,’ Doctor Pierce explained. ‘This should be impossible, but it’s happened. The power should have come on in the bunkers much earlier, but I think it was sabotaged to enable some re-routing of essential channels while we were at our most vulnerable.
‘The drones are causing extensive damage – my projections indicate that Quadrant 3 will be the first to suffer structural damage, then Beijing will be second. There’s already very extensive drone damage to the city above ground, simulations suggest over sixteen thousand lives lost or at risk so far.’
Simon frowned. This was destruction on a massive scale. Below ground, shielded by the bunkers, it was easy to forget the world outside.
‘Kate has activated the Troopers, Simon. Once they’re set loose it’s going to be extremely difficult for you to get ahead of this thing.’
Doctor Pierce hesitated and looked earnestly into the camera.
‘Simon, we’ve reached a critical point in this operation. If the Troopers control the Quadrants, there’s very little any of us will be able to do.
‘I have to warn you though that you need to be ready ...’
Another pause, as if he was deciding whether to share the information or not.
‘I’ve initiated Unification Simon.
‘I need to explain what it does.
‘You only have forty-five minutes until it’s all over.’
02:27 Quadrant 2: Balaklava Bay, Crimea
I’m very uneasy about what we did with the submarines, but I keep thinking it through, and I have come to the conclusion that Viktor handed over joint control to Magnus and Xiang so we have a fail-safe in place – he can’t act alone. I have to stop worrying this particular knot, the missiles from the drones are shaking this base at regular intervals now, they won’t let us forget what our primary objective should be.
Magnus wants us back in Quadrant 3, he needs James back in Quadrant 1. Mum wants to go with him. They’ve got to blow up a phone mast just outside Quadrant 1.
Simon only has one protective mask, so it’s decided that James should go as he has opened the main bunker doors already. He can’t fully recall what he was doing at the time he rescued Mum and Nat, but he dredges his memory and believes that he can work out what to do from the training he received prior to entering the bunker.
Mum isn’t happy that he’s going alone, especially after all he’s been through, but she sees the logic in it. James arms himself and heads for the lift. His plan is to meet Simon at the Operations Centre on Level 3 and they’ll make for the blast doors of Quadrant 1 together.
Viktor has suggested that we place armed guards at all known Transporter areas now, and that’s agreed by everybody. We know that Kate has assembled some kind of army in Quadrant 1, but we don’t know yet what her plan is or what she intends to do next. If we can blow up the mast, we may never need to find out, as Magnus is sure we can disable the neck devices that way.
I suggest that Viktor, Xiang and Magnus search their Level 3 areas – in Quadrant 1 there was lots of equipment there. If Simon has some protective visor for whatever lies beyond the blast doors, I’m betting there’s something similar in those areas. That’s if their Quadrants are equipped the same as Kate’s of course.
We’re deciding on the next course of action to take when there’s an urgent message from Xiang in Quadrant 2. I’ve not seen her like this before. She struck me as quiet and even a little shy on our first meeting. Now she’s assertive and straight to the point.
‘Dan and Nat, I must talk with you and your paren
ts as soon as possible, it’s extremely urgent.’
Nat and I look at each other. We suspect Xiang has found something from the tests that she’s been running and we’re not really sure that we want to learn the results.
‘Viktor and Magnus also need to be present.’
‘What’s going on?’ asks Viktor, but he doesn’t get a reply.
‘Just get to Quadrant 3 as soon as you can,’ replies Xiang. ‘Our lives depend on it.’
Ally
The days for Nat were long and tedious. She would exercise as much as possible, every day gaining strength and confidence. But she soon realized that this was just prolonging her imprisonment. She had to step beyond the walls of her jail and venture outside. There must be a way for her to leave this place.
She had long periods just standing in the pod, allowing the tubes to feed and nourish her – she had no other source of food. She could see from her reflection in the partition glass that she was looking stronger and more muscular now, so she made an extra effort to appear weak and more helpless every time they moved her back to the operating table.
It was the same every seven days. The medical team would arrive and set up their equipment. Doctor Pierce would take his position through the glass partition, snapping at the other staff, intimidating them, belittling them, even using a taser device on them at times and generally creating a horrible, threatening environment for everybody.
One day, one of the men in his team dropped a vial of whatever it was they were injecting into her, right in front of the pod. Nat watched, motionless and fearful, as Doctor Pierce stormed through into the room. He threw the man onto the floor, screamed at him and grabbed a syringe from the operating table ready to plunge it into his temple. The man was terrified and in fear for his life. The other staff just put their heads down and carried on, not daring to intervene.
Doctor Pierce wouldn’t stop. He had pure hatred in his eyes. He just kept shouting at the man, who assumed a foetal position on the ground so as not to intimidate the doctor any further.
Nat thought he was unstable. The way he responded to a simple accident was completely out of proportion. When it was all over and Doctor Pierce had returned to his own office, the man cautiously stood up, leaning on Nat’s pod to steady himself as he did so.
Nat hardly dared breathe. His face was level with hers. The man looked completely broken. This was Nat’s chance. He wanted to be out of this place as much as she did. Whatever the deal was with Doctor Pierce, handing your notice in was not an option.
She took a leap of faith. If she had gambled incorrectly, how much worse could things get? They’d just make sure that she was in stasis, figure out how she’d blocked the electrodes. When you do the worst thing imaginable to somebody, you don’t really have many places to go when it comes to threats. And Nat knew that they needed her alive. She was there to be a lab rat for Pierce.
As the man drew level with her, she moved her eyes to meet his. They looked at each other for a fraction of a second – nobody could have seen it. But he caught Nat’s glance and he knew that she’d seen what had happened. He knew too that if she’d worked out a way to beat that terrible man and avoid stasis, she could help him too.
So he gave a small nod of confirmation. Nothing that could be detected on the cameras if anybody was even looking. In that moment Nat had found herself an ally. A man who’d come to this country illegally to try to better himself. A man who’d studied as a scientist in his own country only to be sold as a slave abroad, caught in a role from which there was no escape or release. A man who had every bit as much reason to hate Doctor Pierce as Nat did.
Together they could form an alliance which might finally get her out of this place. An alliance which would ultimately give her the opportunity that she needed to take her final revenge on the spiteful torturer.
Chapter Five
Quadrant 2: Balaklava Bay, Crimea (Unification: T-minus 27 minutes)
The team was assembled ready to transport over to Quadrant 3 where Magnus was waiting. Viktor knew that now was the time he needed to find an excuse to slip away. This was the point at which he would secure his advantage.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, interrupting the expectant chatter as the group prepared to enter the Transporter. ‘I will need to join you shortly, there is a small matter that I need to attend to first.’
Everybody was more pre-occupied with the forthcoming briefing from Xiang and the latest updates from Magnus to be particularly concerned by this. The main group of Amy, Dan and Nat, along with some of Viktor’s top team, transported over to Quadrant 3.
Viktor moved down to the Operations Centre on the third level, an area he’d had no time to explore fully yet. He knew what he was looking for though. Already there were personnel down here, exploring the hidden levels now that they had access to the SymNodes, courtesy of Kate. They’d secured the visual and breathing equipment that they needed to destroy the mobile phone mast on the surface above them, the security team were sending him regular E-Pad updates on the progress of that operation.
Viktor headed for the main console, used the SymNode to create the required authorization, and typed some codes into the screen. There was a deep rumble throughout the bunker, caused by the latest drone missile strike high above him on the surface. He had just transferred launch access rights directly to his E-Pad.
Wherever he was now, he could activate the submarine drones if he needed to including the fifty which were in his sole control. It was just a little insurance, depending on how things played out next.
Viktor made his way along the corridor to the nearest Transportation Area. As he activated the unit, he heard a lot of noise going on outside, as if somebody was firing weapons.
He hesitated to complete the transportation process and his hand hovered over the main panel, unsure whether to investigate further or leave it in the hands of his security team. He was just about to step off the Transporter when two of Kate’s Troopers burst through the door. Viktor placed his hand on the panel and activated it immediately, just in time to avoid a violent blast of weapon fire.
It looked like he was going to need those nukes after all.
Escape
His name was Dae-Ho and he’d escaped from North Korea. More accurately, he’d been lured by Doctor Pierce from North Korea, targeted for his medical skills, but abused and exploited in exchange for travel papers and a false identity. Threats were made to his family back home if he didn’t comply. The man had no choice but to do as he was told.
He crept back into the lab at night, after the latest round of tests. Nat had been alerted when she’d heard him approaching down the corridor. She’d almost got caught by the camera in her panic to conceal herself once again in the pod. She was relieved to see Dae-Ho enter the room, though they had not had a chance to talk yet. As he opened up the pod to speak to Nat, she blurted out in panic about the cameras.
‘Disabled,’ he smiled. ‘They are on a repeating loop: they look like they’re sweeping the room, but they’re showing an image from an hour ago. We have that long to speak.’
They made their introductions and exchanged their stories. Dae-Ho apologized for what they’d been forced to do to Nat.
‘We smuggled in anaesthetic to ease the pain for you,’ he said, ‘but it’s why Pierce is so angry all the time. It skews his results and just makes him experiment more. I honestly believe that man is insane.’
Nat hated to think what the experiments would have been like without anaesthetic. And she’d seen enough of Doctor Pierce to see how things were in this place. These people were terrified of him – he was a violent and unstable man. Over the following weeks, Nat and Dae-Ho plotted their escape plan.
Dae-Ho and the other medical staff were contained in the same building as Nat. They had no freedom of movement and they were still prisoners. Their living quarters were basic, the food they were given minimal and the sanitation and hygiene limited. However, they’d worked out how to get out of the buil
ding at night and one of their team had negotiated safe passage to the USA in exchange for giving North Korean secrets. Their escape would be coordinated with an extraction of their families from North Korea. It required careful planning and a set date and time over several time zones. They just had to pick their time and their day, and they had to ensure that it was done without alerting the UK authorities. So it was agreed that Nat would be part of that escape plan. She would leave when the others did. Dae-Ho did not tell the others that Nat would be joining them, he felt it best to maintain the pretence with Doctor Pierce as well as they could.
Nat grew stronger. It was almost three years since the accident and she’d been fully conscious for most of the past year, yet she was sick of the experiments, she didn’t know how long she could go on, knowing that escape was so close.
She was almost her normal self now, but however strong her body was the experiments always set her back. Dae-Ho added as much anaesthetic as he dared to, but both were terrified of Doctor Pierce discovering the plan.
It wasn’t long until Nat grew more inquisitive about what lay beyond her room. She wanted to know how much of what she’d seen was real, how much semi-conscious hallucination. As she grew stronger and increasingly confident, and as she began to trust Dae-Ho’s disabling of the security system more and more, Nat ventured beyond her prison. Dae-Ho would leave her early, with sometimes an hour or thirty minutes buffer time still left on the security camera loop, so she had an opportunity to explore.
One night, two days after the latest batch of experiments, she noticed that Pierce had left his screens on in his work area through the glass partition. He must have done this in error, usually the room was cleared out after the tests. But it looked like this was something different. Nat cautiously stepped out of her room, keying in the code that Dae-Ho had left with her. She checked for cameras along the corridor, but Dae-Ho had assured her that she was clear for another half hour yet.
