The Girl Who Ran

by Nikki Owen

  She emits a small sigh, bosom rising then falling. ‘You have no choice, Subject 375. Project Callidus needs you.’

  ‘How do you know that number?’

  ‘Because I am here to see you back to our family. Our nickname – Cranes, remember? We represent peace.’

  ‘You are not my family.’

  She smiles and it confuses me – there are creases fanning from her eyes.

  ‘Doc, don’t listen to her.’

  Chris thrusts his head forwards. ‘The Project is over. The British government has all the information on the entire programme. It’s no longer a secret.’

  The smile remains on her face, but now her eyes droop downwards, making the creases deepen. I try to decode it, translate what it means. Eye creases with a smile mean happiness, doesn’t it? So, is that what she feels upon seeing me? Content, whole? If so, why?

  ‘Leave us the fuck alone,’ Chris says now, moving forwards a little. I feel his warm, moist fingers link between mine; I surprise myself by not pulling away.

  ‘The Home Secretary – she has an email,’ he continues. ‘An email with all the files stretching back thirty years on every twisted little thing the Project and MI5 have done.’

  ‘You mean this email?’ The old woman’s words are cashmere soft as she slips her hand into her pocket, pulls out a phone and holds it aloft with the full email and file sent to Harriet Alexander when we were in Madrid.

  Chris shifts forward, looks. His mouth hangs open. ‘What the fuck?’

  The woman switches her gaze to Chris. I do not move. The old man in the carriage ahead is absorbed in his newspaper. The young woman has earbuds in connected by a thin white wire to her phone. In her lap open at the page is Orwell’s dystopian novel.

  ‘Mr Chris Johnson,’ she says, ‘the way you encrypted that email to the UK Home Secretary, well, you gave us a hard task to decode it. If you are game, we are very interested in acquiring your special… services. Better to have you onside than off.’ She smiles. ‘Still, we found you all. Eventually. But of course, we did have a little help.’

  ‘Fuck you.’ Chris spits at her.

  She glances down to the saliva on her gilet, then points her gun to Patricia’s head and looking at me, says, ‘I’ll make the choice for you now really very easy: come with me or I kill your friends.’

  Chapter 10

  Goldenpass railway line, The Alps, Switzerland.

  Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 25 hours and 01 minutes

  ‘Doc, don’t listen to her,’ Patricia says, her voice shaking. ‘She doesn’t mean it.’

  The woman thrusts the gun towards Patricia’s head. ‘Oh, but I do.’

  Outside, the landscape flies by in grey and black and yellow, pinpricks of lights glowing in the distance against the slopes of the white mountains, flickering as the wooden chalets and guesthouses and bars switch on for the evening.

  I look at the woman and feel disgust, anger at the sight of her. ‘Leave.’

  ‘I’m afraid I cannot do that.’

  ‘You know I have been trained,’ I say. ‘You know what I am capable of.’

  ‘You think I am on my own?’ She shakes her head. ‘We are everywhere, subject 375. They are waiting for you, so we can either make this easy or hard.’

  The air feels clammy. I catch sight of the dead family, the innocent little boys and their father. I can’t let anyone else die. I uncouple my fingers from Chris and prepare.

  ‘You do not. Touch. My friends.’

  She exhales. ‘I did warn you.’

  She aims the gun.

  Engage. My hands launch into action.

  Whipping up, fast and around, I slam the heel of my palm straight into the woman’s throat, throwing her off course, sending her stumbling to the side. The old man ahead, now looking up, hangs his mouth open and stares; the young woman still reads Orwell, oblivious, earbuds and music plugged in.

  I lock the old woman’s head with the hook of my elbow and kick her feet out from under her. Patricia gets hit by a fist, staggers back, as Chris blinks, shaking his head, muttering ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck’ as the train begins groaning, lurching forward again.

  The woman squirms; I crush her neck tighter.

  Chris rubs his cheek over and over. ‘Ask her… ask her if anyone’s tracking us.’

  ‘Is there a tracker on us?’ I demand. ‘Where is the signal transmitting from?’

  Her eyes are wide. ‘I don’t… I don’t know what… what you mean…’

  The train races on towards Interlaken station. I squeeze the woman’s throat. ‘Did you send her? Did you send the woman who was your intelligence officer’s girlfriend to give me the book message? His legend name was Kurt. Real name: Daniel.’

  She chokes. ‘What? No. How did she…? Her eyes drift one millimetre after another to the right until they land on Patricia. ‘Her.’

  ‘What?’ Patricia’s eyes are wide. ‘What? Doc, why is she looking at me? “Her”, what?’

  ‘We will always find you,’ the woman croaks. ‘The next station…we will… we will be there. The Project is your only family. The only one you can truly trust… There’s no escape.’

  I look again to the dead boys and their father ahead. Papa and Balthus are gone, but somewhere, my own mother could be alive and, if I find her, I could find answers. Answers to the Project. Answers to who I am meant to be. Answers that could end the whole nightmare.

  ‘Open the door,’ I say fast, gesturing ahead to Chris.

  ‘What?’ He glances from the lock to me.

  ‘I said – open the door.’

  She moves, the woman, tries to slip from under me. I tighten my grip.

  ‘Doc,’ Patricia says, ‘you’re going to hurt her!’

  But I ignore my friend’s cries and instead find myself solely focussing on the task in hand. ‘Before the lock light turns red,’ I say to Chris, ‘open the door and jump. They are waiting for us at the next station. We have to get off now and find answers.’

  ‘Jump? I can’t jump!’

  ‘You have to. The Project are waiting for us.’

  ‘Doc,’ Patricia says, ‘this is crazy. Let the woman go. Maybe… maybe she can help us.’

  ‘No,’ I say to her. ‘They will kill you. I cannot allow that to happen.’

  Chris swallows, pulls at his collar. ‘I… I can’t do it.’

  ‘Yes you can. You surf, you snowboard – this is easy.’

  ‘Right.’ He gulps, nods frantically. ‘Right.’

  ‘Doc, can we stop for a minute and think about this?’

  The woman squirms in my vice. ‘There is no time.’ Ahead, the old man shuffles forward, his head craning forwards.

  Chris looks over. ‘What about the locking system?’

  I gesture to the crease of the door. ‘There is a manual override.’

  He crouches a little. ‘It… it seems to be on green.’ He bends forward just as the train lurches, sending us crashing to the right. The woman falls on top of me, rolls to the side and my arm flies out as I see her hand searching for her gun. But Chris spots it, gets there first and, grabbing the weapon and hauling himself up, points it straight at the woman.

  ‘Stay,’ he pants, ‘the fuck. Still.’

  I look at him, sweat glistening on his face, shoulders heaving. He leans over and gives me the gun. I take it.

  ‘Thank you,’ I hear my voice say. Patricia glances between us both.

  I grab the woman back in a vice and feel the train slowing down. I look at Patricia. ‘Are we approaching the station?’

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘I need you to look.’

  Fingers trembling, she pushes down the window. A cold wind whips in and licks my face.

  ‘I can see it,’ she says. ‘It is tiny, though, Doc. Far away still.’

  I turn to Chris. ‘Have you unlocked the door?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  I check the carriage. The Orwell reader is on her cell phone now talking rap
idly. Nerves jangle. Is she with the Project, too?

  ‘You… are one… of us,’ the old woman says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ She swallows. ‘Maria, that is your name.’ She smiles, one with eye creases fanning out. It unsettles me for a second. Why is she smiling at me in that way? ‘I remember you when you first came to us, when your mother, pour soul, handed you to us.’

  My grip loosens a fraction. ‘You know my real mother? You have met her? Is she alive?’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman says, her neck slipping beneath my palms. ‘I saw the other one who came to take you – Ines.’

  ‘Doc?’ Patricia calls from the window.

  ‘None of them care for you like the Project does,’ the woman continues, faster now. ‘Th—There is work we must do. And that includes ensuring you are okay. You…’ A cough. ‘You have felt different, recently, haven’t you?’

  ‘What?’ How…?

  There is a sudden blast of air, sharp, cold.

  ‘Maria!’

  Chris has wrenched open the door, the snow and peppered green mountain grass flashing by faster and faster. ‘I’ve done it! Should we go now?’

  But I can’t stop thinking about my real mother. ‘Where is she? Where is my Isabella?’

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘Maria!’ Chris shouts.

  The door, the train, everything is flying by at speed – wind, snow, leaves.

  ‘We will find you,’ the woman says now. ‘There’s no point in running away from who you really are. You… you can’t trust these people.’

  Patricia, Chris. ‘They are my friends…’

  ‘Maria, if we’re gonna jump,’ Chris says, ‘we have to do it now!’

  ‘Doc?’ I look at Patricia. ‘We need your help!’

  ‘What? Yes. Yes.’ I hold the woman down with one hand and unloop the belt from my trousers with the other. Patricia helps me use the belt then to handcuff the woman to a metal bar by the toilets.

  Done, I pause. ‘Do not hurt her,’ I say to the woman.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Isabella,’ I say. ‘My mother.’

  The trees and outbuildings beyond are smeared in a painter’s palette of colour. I secure my rucksack to my back. Chris and Patricia are staring wide-eyed at the ground spinning beneath the open door.

  ‘Doc,’ Patricia yells above the roar of the wind, false hair flapping against bright pink cheeks, ‘do we have to jump? Is there no other way?’

  I glance to Chris, his broad shoulders, sunken dark face. His eyes are watering where they flicker at the fast air. He opens his lips to speak, but an alarm sounds. I flinch at the unexpected shrill.

  ‘You okay?’ Chris shouts. ‘It’s just the alert, because we’ve opened the door.’

  I nod at him. ‘We have to jump,’ I say above the noise. The woman is still tied up, but for how long? I shove away the screech as much as I can and we prepare to jump. One hand, two, each of us sizes up the land racing below our feet.

  ‘Patricia first!’ I say, my voice carried away by the outside howl. ‘I will jump last.’

  ‘No!’ Chris shouts.

  ‘Yes. I have to make sure the woman does not come near either of you.’

  Chris hesitates, hair flying every which way, then finally, he nods. The train judders, wind and debris roar. I smell the pine-soaked scent of mountain air, the slick grope of engine oil, the cold pinch of ice-cold running rivers.

  ‘One!’ I yell. I look to Patricia. ‘Go!’

  She hesitates then jumps. Her body rolls down the embankment, collapsing in on itself, her scream following her.

  ‘Two!’

  ‘I can’t!’ Chris says.

  ‘You have to!’

  He swallows. ‘You must jump too, deal?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Holding on to his bag straps and looking once more to me, he does not say a word, but his eyes are the size of plates, hands shaking, teeth clenched so tight the vessels in his neck protrude, great long blue balloons of veins bulging out from beneath the tan of his skin. He throws himself off the train and disappears out of sight.

  I move next. My fingers grip the side rail, the woman’s gun in my other hand, head desperately trying to deal with all the aspects of the loud situation. One step I take, two. My feet inch towards the edge, brain acutely aware how fast the ground is moving, how much speed the train has picked up, how my friends are there, waiting. I go to jump when something grabs my ankle.

  I look down. The old woman has freed her self and has hold of me.

  I try to kick her off, but she grips me tighter, her fingernails digging into my leg. I slide over but she rolls with me, her arms, fat and strong wrenching me down, and the gun slips from my hand and away. I try to smack her skull hard into the metal rail nearby, but before I can, she punches my side, bearing onto me, her face, mouth, peppermint breath showering onto mine. I cough, thrash my head from side to side. The gun lies just to my right.

  ‘Don’t trust anyone,’ she hisses. ‘She is not your friend.’

  Her mouth is so close to mine and I can barely breathe.

  ‘Remember that, Maria, yes?’ I wriggle a leg free, flex my quad muscle. ‘Only trust the Project. We’re on your side. We need to check that you are okay.’

  The train is set on its course. The Project could be waiting at the station. With one huge force, I kick the woman hard high in between the legs, my shin making direct contact with her pelvic bone. There is a crack. Pain radiates through my leg as I scramble up and snatch the weapon, stumbling towards the open door, securing my rucksack on my shoulders. A guard from ahead is racing up the carriage now, his palms slapping each seat rest as he goes. The old woman yells, ‘Help!’ in French and German, then turns her attention back to me, and it’s in that split second that I make the decision I am trained to do.

  I aim the gun and I shoot.

  The bullet hits her head clean on creating a small, crimson hole. She slumps backwards, dead. Her fur boot-clad feet hanging loose from the wide open door.

  Wind whipping my face, I inhale and with the guard now running after me, I throw myself from the train.

  Chapter 11

  Deep cover Project facility.

  Present day

  ‘So, Maria, the lights will be switching off soon.’ He is not in view of the window, so how can he can see what I’m doing? I look and spot a camera in the corner.

  My pulse rises. ‘Why will you be switching off the lights?’

  ‘To help with the therapy process. It’s okay,’ he says. ‘You’ll find it soothing.’ A pause. ‘Trust me.’

  I hear the clack of his finger where it must tap his file then a shuffle of a seat before his voice slices into the air once again. ‘Sensory deprivation is what you are about to experience, Maria. It is a crucial, advanced phase of your re-initiation.’

  ‘What will happen?’

  ‘You are going to be deprived of all sight and sound, because, you see, Maria, your attachment to your friends, to what you think is your family is too strong, and we need to break that down so you can be who you really are. You are not them and they are not you. We are your family now.’ He coughs, then recommences. ‘We have to strip you back, if you will; we have to strip back everything you once thought you were so we can reassemble you, assimilate you into what we all need you to be, before’— a breath, a heartbeat of time— ‘before it is too late.’

  ‘Too late – too late for what?’

  ‘Never mind that now, you just need to focus on the sensory deprivation chamber. I expect you know all about them.’

  I don’t want to speak about them, want to press him again on what might be too late, but, despite my will not to, despite my fright and uncertainty, the words and explanation trips off my tongue, the information in my head simply too much to be contained within the confines of my skull.

  ‘In 1954, a man called John C. Lilly experimented on the effects of sensory deprivation,’ I say rapidly, the sente
nce falling over itself to be heard. ‘He used a device called a flotation tank, a space that simulates the appearance of an enlarged bath. This device here,’ I say, taking in my surroundings, ‘is not a flotation chamber.’

  ‘No, no it is not,’ he says, his voice echoing across the intercom. ‘This is an anechoic chamber. Our unit is free of water, but, as with the flotation tank, there is no noise in the chamber. The sound pressure therefore, as I am sure you have ascertained, is below the level of hearing. Peace and quiet – perfect for you.’

  I tap my foot. Why do I not feel safe here? Why, if everything is calm and controlled, do I feel I am standing on the brink of utter chaos?

  ‘Flotation tanks are filled with 27.94 centimetres of water,’ I say aloud, hoping the facts will calm me. ‘Water that has been saturated with up to 500 kilograms of magnesium sulphate.’

  When he does not immediately answer, a bubble of fear pushes up inside me.

  ‘You remind me so much of her,’ Black Eyes finally says, his voice low, barely audible.

  ‘Who do I remind you of?’

  ‘My daughter. She was… she was so young when she died. Like you, she loved to play the piano, knew all the composers…’ His voice fades away. When it returns it sounds scarred, cracked. ‘Not in the same prolific way as you, though, Maria. My… my wife was quick, too, supremely intelligent, as you are.’

  I don’t know how to respond. He is not in the habit of discussing anything about himself – no one at the Project is. We deal in numbers, facts, tangible data, not the past, assumptions and emotions.

  Black Eyes clears his throat, the sound ringing in the intercom. I wince. ‘You’ll find that the metal casing,’ he says, his voice flatter this time, ‘is created to form smooth acoustic boards. In between the walls,’ Black Eyes continues, ‘the inner and outer casings, the substantial blocks of them, are fabricated with fibre glass.’ There is a hesitation, a ripple of silence before he speaks again. ‘I thought you’d like to know because I know how much you love details, Maria. You appreciate the more complex aspect of technical assimilation.’ I hear the smallest swallow. ‘My wife was just the same.’