by Claire Merle
Water grew over Ana like a second skin. She kept her breathing steady and light, determined not to inhale deeply.
But when the time came, her body involuntarily closed her airways and she sucked in her breath. Fuly immersed, she tried to relax. Pockets of oxygen in her lungs quickly burnt away. Pressure built in her head.
Let go, breathe in, she told herself. But she didn’t. Her head began to feel like it would explode. She thought it couldn’t get worse. But it could. It did. The pain widened and deepened. Fog seeped around the edges of her mind.
She tugged against the bars holding her feet and wrists.
Metal bit her skin. Her muscles sucked up the last vestiges of remaining oxygen.
She gasped for air. Water poured down her throat. Into her lungs.
I don’t want to die. Please. I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die. Please. I don’t want to die.
Panic. Thrashing. Trying to scream.
Her thoughts became indiscernible shapes. Like objects covered in snow. Everything muffled. No visibility. No horizon. Whiteout.
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Ashby
Ashby had spent the last forty-eight hours supplicating Charlotte Cusher to meet with him like he was a bloody door-to-door salesman. Not today. Today he had a letter from the Secretary of State for Health, officialy permitting him to oversee Emily Thomas’s mental rehabilitation.
Today Ana was coming home with him, one way or another. Screw the Board and their three-month discharge procedure. He’d fight his way into the compound, use the Paralyser, immobilise everyone in a twenty-metre radius if he had to. Hel, he could get the place closed down in a shot. A simple cal to Felix Post on the Mental Health Investigation Committee would do it. Ashby knew the rumours – missing attire, meagre meals, government funds lining staff pockets while the children went barefoot. He’d chosen Three Mils for Jasper precisely because of its reputation for easy admittance and patient neglect.
Ashby’s saloon car, driven by Jack Dombrant, turned into Sugar House Lane. Barren wasteland lay on either side of the road up to the old tidal mil. Metal rattled beneath the wheels as they drove over the cattle bridge.
beneath the wheels as they drove over the cattle bridge.
Ashby gazed at the gloomy landscape. When he’d realised Ana had sneaked 317
out into the City, he’d never in his wildest dreams thought she would wind up here.
Four days ago, Jack had informed him that Ana was staying with a crowd connected to the Enlightenment Project. Ashby had scarcely believed it. Then they’d connected a flutter of activity from Ana’s interface to travel tickets purchased by Lila Aimes. It had taken almost a day, but they’d traced Lila Aimes to Bromley-by-Bow train station.
A team had searched al the local CCTV cameras until they’d found pictures of Ana looking God-awful and doing the most bizarre thing Ashby had ever seen –
entering Three Mils of her own free wil.
Since then, he’d been applying pressure on Charlotte, pooling his resources, puling in every favour he could think of to get Ana out. Charlotte, the bitch, hadn’t even come to colect Emily Thomas’s psychiatric file when Ashby had delivered it in person to the reception. And she hadn’t responded to any of his requests to see Ana/Emily.
The car puled up at an iron gate. A security guard approached. Ashby lowered his electric window and produced his permit.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the guard said leaning in. ‘Power cut. Should be back on any minute now.’
‘How long’s it been out?’
‘Ten minutes,’ the guard said. ‘They’re working on the back-up generator.’
Over the last decade, despite a continual decline in national power consumption, the power surges and blackouts were steadily getting worse. Ashby took out his permit and held it up before his interface. Down the right side of the 318
white card a list of hospitals and clinics he was associated with appeared. He touched his finger to the Three Mils header. An icon spun beside the header as the computer began searching. He unzipped his case, took out his pad, and linked it up to his interface. A moment later, he had the Three Mils home page on his portable screen. He typed in his six-digit pass code. The mainframe opened, providing him access to everything on the database, from financial records to staff log-in times.
The records had cut out at 10.04.24, almost fifteen minutes ago. He checked the file for Emily Thomas.
She’d been logged into a tank at 10.02.42. Less than two minutes before the power cut.
The tanks were automatic. They ran on the main power grid like everything else. Ashby began to calculate. Forty to fifty seconds for the tank to fil up, thirty seconds under water, forty to fifty seconds to drain totaly . . . He rubbed his locked jaw. It would have been close. He exhaled, trying to relax. Could have been worse though.
A distant siren disturbed his returning calm. He glanced out the rear window. Though he couldn’t see anything, he could hear the siren approaching.
Jack reversed the car and puled over on to the grass.
A battery-powered ambulance emerged on the horizon, kicking up dust. Ashby alighted from the car, leaving the passenger door dangling in the wind. He strode to the outhouse where the security guard now peered from his buletproof window.
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.
‘It’s here,’ the guard said into his interface mic. With a loud clunk, the steel security door released. Using his 319
shoulder, the guard thrust open the usualy automated door so that the steel back hit a magnetic wal grid. The door stuck in place. At the same moment, brakes squealed, and a whiff of burning tyre filed the air. The passenger side of the ambulance opened. A paramedic jumped out.
‘The power’s down,’ the security guard said, trailing the paramedic to the rear of the ambulance. The paramedic mounted. From inside the ambulance he grabbed a medical kit with defibrilator, oxygen masks, and other resuscitation paraphernalia. ‘You’l have to come through the security booth,’ the guard explained.
‘Get someone to help you bring the gurney,’ the paramedic caled to the ambulance driver. ‘If these gates don’t open we may have to get her back through security.’
Ashby noted the gender reference. He nodded at Jack who now stood beside the saloon, and the Warden swept in to help the ambulance driver. Meanwhile, Ashby folowed the security guard and the paramedic.
The paramedic looked experienced and controled; his The paramedic looked experienced and controled; his resuscitation gear hung on his shoulder as though it were no weight at al.
The security guard stepped aside to alow the paramedic through the security outhouse, then attempted to close the door. Ashby shoved his arm in the way. The lock had to be bolted down manualy and he refused to budge.
The guard gave in at once. The three of them ran the length of the narrow security building out on to the other side of Sugar House Lane. The guard pointed down a driveway to a cluster of warehouses facing the river.
‘Stage D,’ he panted. ‘Second left.’
‘Is she out of the water?’ the paramedic asked.
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The breathless guard shrugged.
Ashby began sprinting. His hard soles slammed the tarmac, jarring his knees. He was used to running, but in trainers. He swung second left and saw stage ‘D’, the first studio in a long row.
‘This way,’ he caled to the paramedic behind him. The loading access shutter hung three-quarters open.
The two men entered the dark stage. Daylight reached in ten feet before dwindling to grey. Light also shafted in from the loading access on the opposite side, at the furthest end of the stage.
‘Cavalry’s arrived,’ a voice said. Ashby looked around and saw an orderly leaning against the stage entrance, smoking.
smoking.
‘Over here,’ a younger voice caled from thirty feet away, where the doors opened on to the river. The paramedic jogged into darkness and dropped his
kit by one of the tanks. Through the murk, Ashby could make out a nurse bent over a prostrate form. The paramedic took over, checking vitals, inspecting the limp body before him.
Ashby sidled closer. He stopped a few feet away. Sweat beaded on the palms of his hand, under his arms, in his hairline.
‘Unavoidable, I’m afraid.’ Charlotte Cusher’s brittle voice cleaved the air. Ashby startled. He hadn’t been aware of her lurking nearby. Charlotte rubbed her neck.
‘The girl was in the tanks when the power went down.’
The paramedic thumped down on the girl’s chest. He instructed the dripping wet nurse to continue giving mouth-to-mouth; then he removed a defibrilator from his kit.
‘The ties have to be very secure,’ Charlotte continued.
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‘Not easy to undo. At least not when they’re two foot under water.’
‘She was the only one under when the power went out?’
Ashby asked.
‘She was the only one in the tanks at al today,’ Charlotte replied.
Ashby grew stil. No, this girl couldn’t have been the only one. Because that would mean . . .
‘But she was immersed over three minutes before the power went out,’ he said. ‘She couldn’t have stil been under water.’
Charlotte’s cold eyes glittered. ‘Perhaps you should wait outside. Visitors aren’t supposed to be on any of the stages.’
She held out her arms, palms upwards, as though to usher him away without making physical contact.
Ashby sidestepped her and strode to the girl. The paramedic rubbed the charged defibrilator pads together, getting them ready. Slim calves with chipped pink-varnished toenails, poked out of a towel. The nurse bent over the girl, breathed air into her lungs. When she puled back, Ashby was waiting. But the shock hit him hard.
Lifeless eyes stared from a bruised, swolen face. Gone was his daughter’s beautiful hair, her soft, pale skin.
Raw, dry patches mottled her forehead. Her lips were cracked, her hair limp, short, mousy. It hardly looked like her at al.
He filed with a sense of self-loathing. How had he let this happen?
‘Clear,’ the paramedic said. Ariana’s body jerked, flexing up, head tipping back. Then it flopped level again.
‘Nothing,’ the ambulance driver said. Ashby hadn’t 322
noticed the driver arrive, but the man was now crouched over Ariana. Jack and the driver must have brought the gurney up to the stage already. He glanced around for Jack and saw the young nurse, relieved of her duties, sitting in a crumpled heap. ‘Clear,’ the paramedic repeated. Ariana’s body convulsed. The driver laid two fingers on her throat, shook his head.
‘How long was she under?’ the paramedic asked.
Charlotte Cusher folded her arms across her chest.
The ambulance driver pressed his mouth against Ariana’s blue lips, breathed into her.
‘Around a minute,’ Charlotte said.
The young nurse sat up. ‘One hundred and thirty-two seconds,’ she corrected, wiping away the snot and tears from her face with the back of her hand. ‘Fifty-two before the power cut out and then about a minute twenty, while I was undoing the straps.’ Charlotte shot her a nasty look.
The nurse’s bottom lip trembled, but she wouldn’t be silenced. ‘I couldn’t quite reach, you see,’ she sniffed.
‘My arms aren’t very long, and I had to hold my breath each time and go under to reach down.’
‘Fifty-two seconds!’ Ashby shouted, as he watched the paramedic now pressing forcefuly and rhythmicaly against the centre of Ariana’s chest. ‘It’s supposed to be thirty.’
‘We’ve got to get her to hospital,’ the paramedic said.
‘The first time, thirty had no effect on her whatsoever,’
‘The first time, thirty had no effect on her whatsoever,’
Charlotte argued.
‘What’s happening with the power?’ the ambulance driver caled out.
Ashby turned and saw the security guard had appeared 323
in the entrance and was standing beside Jack. The guard raised his arms and shook his head.
‘Could take us a couple of minutes to get back through with her on the stretcher. It’s too long.’
‘Too long?’ Ashby echoed.
‘We’ve got nothing,’ the paramedic said, resetting the defibrilator. ‘Two minutes without oxygen on top of what she’s had already . . .’
‘You need to bring the ambulance up here.’ Ashby latched on to the problem like it was a life raft.
‘Charged.’ The paramedic pressed the paddles against Ariana’s snow-white chest. ‘Clear!’ Electricity buzzed through the machine. Her body jerked up and then thumped down. ‘Clear . . .’ the paramedic said, getting set to go again.
‘Give me a minute,’ Ashby said. ‘I’l get the ambulance to you.’
The paramedic nodded.
‘The engine’s running,’ the ambulance driver said.
Heart thumping in his chest, Ashby loped towards the rol-up gate. ‘Jack, let’s go. You,’ he pointed at the security guard, ‘you’re with us.’
‘Ashby?’ Charlotte triled behind him.
He leapt out into the bright morning and bolted towards the security outhouse, Jack beside him. The guard ga-lumphed behind them. ‘Move it!’ Ashby shouted. But with the biometric ID panel deactivated, he realised he didn’t need to wait for the guard to go through security.
Jack shoved back the heavy door and Ashby pushed into the control room.
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‘Where’s the switch for the gate?’ he caled. The guard appeared, panting in the doorway. He pointed down the corridor to a compartment with a touch screen.
‘It’s al computerised,’ he wheezed. ‘There’s a manual latch, but you wouldn’t be able to do anything. It’s on a pul-ley and weighs a ton.’
Ashby darted into the compartment. He whipped off his interface and used its sharp corner to prise away the control panel. Wires cascaded. He twined them together, then wrenched. The magnetic force holding the gate shut, released.
‘He . . . he’s disconnected the circuits!’ the security guard said.
Charlotte swaggered through the outhouse. ‘What’s going on?’
Jack blocked her way, while Ashby bolted in the opposite direction. He thrust aside the security door and ran to the gate. It had inched back enough to wedge in his hand, but he needed leverage. Sprinting back to the guard, he grabbed the man’s truncheon, then used it to jimmy the door. Once the gap was large enough, he squeezed in and began to push. Al he needed to do was slide the metal ton across its rails. Impossibly heavy work. But he was damned if that would stop him.
Jack came to help. They laid their shoulders into the gate, giving it everything they had until it inched along.
Charlotte emerged from the security building, her prudish face a pool of wrath.
‘Who is she? If you’ve admitted someone that wasn’t 325
supposed to be here, I’l have you charged. I’l have your licence taken away.’
‘I didn’t send her. One of your lot committed her,’
Ashby said. ‘And if she dies, I’l have you kiled.’
The colour drained from Charlotte’s face. She could see he meant it. Perhaps she wasn’t so naïve. Perhaps she knew he could carry out such a threat. He thrust harder.
The roling door gained momentum.
‘We won’t be held responsible for someone that was never supposed to be here,’ Charlotte said. Her voice trembled.
Too little, too late, Ashby thought. When he’d finished with Charlotte Cusher she would be petrified. She would beg for his forgiveness. She would never show such non-chalance towards the life of one of her patients again. If Ariana lived. If she didn’t live . . . Wel, needless to say, drowning would be a blessing in comparison to Charlotte’s last few minutes in the world.
‘Get me the ID she came with and the paperwork to release her,’ Ashby said.
‘You want to
take her into your charge?’ Charlotte asked incredulously. Ashby felt himself swel from his body and mentaly crush the woman before him into dust.
He chucked the letter he’d received an hour ago from the Secretary of State for Health towards Charlotte. Her neck muscles strained taut. The letter fel into the mud by her feet.
‘You have no right,’ she floundered. ‘Who is she? She’s
– she’s . . .’ Understanding flashed across Charlotte’s eyes.
‘No, no, that’s impossible – she can’t be – the news . . .’
The door finaly shifted along far enough for the 326
ambulance to pass through. Ashby rounded the vehicle, swung into the driver’s seat, and yanked the gear lever into drive. Dombrant jumped in beside him. Flooring the foot pedal, Ashby accelerated through the gates. The right wing mirror clipped the outhouse buttress. But he was through.
Within seconds he screeched to a halt outside the tank stage. He jumped down. The ambulance driver and paramedic came rushing from the darkness, wheeling Ariana on a gurney.
Ariana on a gurney.
Ashby flung open the ambulance doors and stood aside, alowing the men to work. The driver secured the gurney.
The paramedic pumped Ariana’s heart, stopped to check her vitals, pumped again.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘There’s a flutter.’
Ashby bit his knuckles, tears of relief burning his vision.
The paramedic rubbed solvent across Ariana’s pale arm and stuck a needle through her raised vein. Then he prepped the tubing of the ambulance IV set.
‘Anyone know if she’s got any drug alergies?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ Ashby said. ‘And she’s in my care now. Take her to the nearest private place there is. Cost is not a consideration.’ The medic stopped for a second, looked at Ashby appreciatively.
‘Let’s move it,’ the driver said. He jumped down from the back. Dombrant got out of the front and returned to the saloon. Doors slammed. The paramedic hung the IV
bag on a hook and looped the tubing. Seconds later, they were hurtling away from Three Mils.
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