The Girl Who Ran

by Nikki Owen

  After four more minutes of eating, drinking and silence have passed, a low siren sounds to indicate the end of lunch. Along with the other subject numbers, I gather my plate, cup and utensils and place them in neat rows on the grey plastic tray, stand and file into the line ahead to place them in their slot. It is then that I see her, subject 209, two metres ahead and leaning against the corner of the wall where the serving area juts in as a jetty to the main room. I stare. One second, two, three pass until, joining the line of subjects beside her, number 209 files out and exits by the door.

  I step forward, one foot deliberately in front of the other, careful not to be too quick as to cause alert and, as discreetly as I can, brush against the wall were the woman had stood. There is something there. I look around, heart smacking hard and check the surveillance camera trajectories then, cautious, I risk a glance to the wall.

  There is a message in Morse code. Simple, short dashes and dots are etched into the plaster, tiny, barely detectable, made with what must have been a fork. Fast, I read it, translate the code to words and, just in time, suppress the gasp that threatens to sneak past my lips as I interpret what it says: Trust me.

  My back snaps straight, conscious that my hands have adopted a slight shake, my brow puckering with tiny beads of sweat. Without allowing myself to think anymore, without convincing myself to do otherwise, I move, disappearing into the swell of subjects, then I take an unregulated turn to the left corner and along a corridor with white walls and pink, peppered low lights.

  Pushing back a sudden flash image in my head of Patricia’s bound and broken body, mixed with the image of one, lone gunman and multiple towns and villages, I hustle forward, head up, shoulders back, feet striding forwards, strong, purposeful.

  Towards room 17.

  Chapter 25

  Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

  Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 02 hours and 57 minutes

  ‘Mam, you’re not safe here. We need to get you out.’

  Patricia and I blink upwards at the SAS solider who towers above us and blocks out the light. My eyes dart to my surroundings, to the mud and the ice, and for a second I feel as if I could burrow deep down inside the earth right into its core and never again come back out.

  ‘How can we trust you?’ I shout, the helicopter blades beyond still whipping a light wind in the air and sending tendrils of frost spinning in tiny droplets of ice into the skin on our hands and faces.

  ‘Mam, we have direct orders from the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom to get you to a safe place immediately.’ He ducks a little under a sudden loud blast of noise from the helicopter engine. ‘I have been instructed to tell you that an organisation named the Project are here and are aware of your location. If you and your friend here do not come with me and my colleagues, you cannot be protected.’

  I look to the man, to Patricia, to the leaves that spin in a tornado above our heads. Noise, chaos, panic and fear, each of them banging against my skull, loud and violent.

  ‘Doc!’ Patricia shouts. ‘We have to move. They will protect us!’

  I am acutely aware of the danger I am in, only I don’t know who the main threat is.

  ‘I can protect myself!’ I yell, but before I can get out on my own, I find I am being lifted from the ditch, the thick, brown hands of the man in hammocks under my armpits as he hoists me up and over.

  ‘Get off me!’ I shout. ‘Get off me!’

  I keep yelling, my whole body desperately attempting to recoil at his touch, at his foul metallic smell mixed with aircraft oil and dirt.

  I hear Patricia explain to the man about me, one to one, and I tumble forward into the road, gravel scraping on my cheekbone, as I topple down, the man letting me go, my head hunched into my knees as my lungs try to refill themselves and my brain attempts to recalibrate after the assault to my senses. I wonder if she speaks that way to him, if she tells him about me because she knows him.

  There is the helicopter engine roar, winds slicing through my skin, shouts, knives of leaves in the air, and at first I cannot see Patricia, but then I spot her five metres away. She seems to be talking with a different SAS officer, his frame dressed head to toe in black, a little further away where the helicopter sits.

  What does it mean? Under the fire of sound, I watch them, curious. They are talking a lot, Patricia animated, hands flying outwards, and I try to decode her body actions and language, but even though my head works hard, none of it means anything to me, and so instead I pull myself up, check my rucksack is not ripped, and search inside to feel for the safety of my notebook and of Isabella’s old photograph of me and her, of the picture of my Papa. Satisfied they are all present and correct, I look to the solider who pulled me out and yell out my words.

  ‘Tell me again why you are here!’

  He repeats almost word for word what he said just moments earlier.

  ‘And what does the Home Secretary want with me?’

  ‘Mam, I just need you to come with us. We need to return with you to London.’

  At this point, Patricia hurries over, ducking under the whirr of the nearby helicopter blades. Her five fingers spread out on her thigh and even though I want to go to her and fan out my fingers, too, something stops me. What – fear? Doubt?

  Patricia halts, looks to the SAS man then to me, cups her hands around her mouth, ‘Doc,’ she calls, ‘they just want you to come in!’

  ‘Come in where?’

  ‘Doc, I’ve spoken to the solider – the Home Secretary’s asked for you personally.’

  ‘I do not understand. Asked for me personally?’

  ‘She wants to see you.’

  Prickles run up and down my skin. Why do I feel lost? A boat drifting from its moorings? ‘Why does she want to see me?’

  A beat. ‘It’s something to do with Balthus and… Isabella.’

  No. No, not her. ‘Is… is she safe?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ A tornado of leaves thrashes past in a roar of noise, scrambling any coherent thought in my head. ‘Doc, they aren’t sure yet what’s going on, but… it’s best we go with them’— more leaves, engine blasts, flying snow and spinning vegetation debris— ‘we don’t know how near the Project are.’

  Uncertainty, a lack of pattern to the events, losing Chris, the noise and chaos and utter fear, not knowing what or who to believe. I don’t like it, find it hard to process and I start to stamp my feet. At first it’s just mild, but then as the rhythmic movement takes hold, I stomp faster and faster, big thumps of my boot prints in the snow.

  Patricia watches me, but says nothing as, ahead, the SAS officers wait, checking their watches, guns held tight across their bulletproof chests, scanning the area.

  ‘Mam,’ the first soldier calls to me now, cutting across the air of ice that hangs heavy. ‘We have detected an imminent danger. We need you to come with us. Now.’

  I cease stamping, glance to the blare of the helicopter, look at Patricia.

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘What about Chris?’ I say, ignoring the officer.

  ‘Mam!’

  I turn, irritated. ‘What?’

  ‘Get down!’

  Gunfire rips out from the right side of the clearing. We roll out, diving by a small wooden fence decorated in trinkets of ice, snow and slashed petals of torn confetti.

  The soldiers fire their weapons and I wince, hiding from the noise until the officer who pulled me up gets shot in the shoulder. He cries out, rolling halfway back down towards the road. I look at him, at Patricia, at the air suddenly filled with grey smoke and charred leaves, and, without thinking, with subliminal Project training kicking in, I fling myself to the soldier grab his gun and open fire.

  ‘Sniper at ninety degrees left,’ I shout to the others as, near the ground, Patricia crawls, head down, through the dirt towards the injured man.

  I shoot fast and hard, not recalling any time that I have been trained in this weapon or even used it before, yet still my fingers and my brain re
gister instinctively what to do.

  ‘Doc!’ Patricia yells. ‘There’s one to the left!’

  I spot an armed figure on the top of the hospital roof. I shoot, aim straight at their head and watch half in horror, half in strange satisfaction, at the anonymous body wavering then toppling backwards into the bowels of the hospital building. I scour the area for Chris, frantic to see him somewhere, anywhere, but all that’s visible are leaves and smoke and the stench of bullets and gunpowder.

  ‘Mam, let’s go!’ a soldier yells.

  Before I can object, I find myself running towards the helicopter, stopping to help the injured officer, hauling him up towards us, another officer running over, as, to the left, the helicopter engine revs.

  ‘What is his status?’ the soldier shouts above the roar.

  ‘Shattered shoulder blade.’ I do a fast assessment, check for blood loss and extent of injury. ‘Give me your belt!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need your belt!’

  He unloops what I need and, moving fast, cowering in the wind that now whips back up, lashing great big scars into the calm of the early morning, I secure the leather up and around the limb to secure the injured area and prevent any further blood loss. Satisfied all is okay, I allow the patient to be led to the helicopter, and turn to Patricia.

  I look at the helicopter, then back to the area of trees near the hospital where Chris should be. ‘We cannot leave him.’

  Patricia shakes her head. ‘Who?’

  ‘Chris.’

  She ducks as the blades rotate faster. ‘We have to go! They’re shooting at us. It’s going to be okay.’ She shouts louder. ‘It’s… it’s going to all be over.’

  I hesitate – what does she mean? How is it going to be all over? I glance back, search again for Chris, battling against the onslaught of feelings in my head as I sense Patricia close by me amid the noise and chaos, and I feel confusion, anger and sadness all at the same time. Is the Home Secretary there to help me, like Patricia says? Can Harriet Alexander really help eliminate the Project finally, after all this time has passed, after all these deaths – family, friends, subject numbers?

  ‘Mam,’ the soldier calls, ‘we have to leave!’

  I breathe in. Trust, friendship, a sense of who we really are. I glance to see Patricia’s five fingers hover on her lily-white skin, her warm smile, and think back to when I first met her at Goldmouth prison, how kind she was to me, how gentle. My friend, my first true friend. How could I think anything less of her when nothing is certain, when nothing in this mad world is ever as it seems except her. She took a risk by associating herself with me; now it’s time for me to return the favour.

  ‘We need to check for tracking bugs,’ the soldier yells to us once we clamber aboard the helicopter. ‘We need all mobile phone and electronic devices.’

  Patricia shifts back in her seat. ‘W—why?’

  ‘Routine check, mam. This is a high security situation.’

  I hand over my phone, plus Chris’s tablet. When Patricia passes across her cell, her hands are shaking.

  Aided by a colleague, the soldier begins to dismantle the items. Patricia is jigging her leg. I watch it in the roar of the helicopter blades and engine, her boney knee jutting up and down. Does she need to use the bathroom? Does she have a muscle spasm? Or is she stimming, as I do, to ease the pressure of some internal anxiety? I continue to observe her, curious, concerned, as the soldiers pull everything apart, craning my neck every other second to see through the window for any sign of Chris, when one of the soldiers snaps up his head.

  ‘Sir?’ he says. ‘I think we’ve got something here.’

  Everything feels as if it is standing still. The air falls cold, the howl of the helicopter fades, the sweat of the soldiers, the engine oil and closed-in tin can space, the lights and switches and controls, the too-tough leather – all of it evaporates away as my eyes lock on what has been discovered in Patricia’s phone, small, black, barely visible, but still clear and real and utterly devastating: a tracker. A single black transmitter tracker of a make that I recognise immediately.

  Hands shaking, Patricia so still she seems a waxwork model of herself, I rip out my notebook and tear to a page where a sketch sits from my deepest drugged memories. Frightened now, I force my eyes to look to the device on the page, until finally, I lift my sight to Patricia.

  ‘It is made by the Project,’ I hear my voice say. I keep my vision locked on Patricia. ‘It’s made by Project Callidus.’

  Chapter 26

  Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

  Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 02 hours and 51 minutes

  The officer turns over the tracker in his fingers. ‘It has a code number.’ He shows it to me. ‘Do you know it?’

  ‘Doc, please! I can… I can explain.’

  But as she tries to talk, she is stopped by the officers as they each sit by her side. Door slammed shut, the helicopter rises, engine ripping and thundering into the sky. A single tear rolls down Patricia’s cheek. ‘Doc, I can explain. It’s not what it seems.’

  I feel a black mist dropping a cloak over me as I check the tracker code and tear at my notebook, flipping the pages fast. When I find what I need, I am trembling so much, it is hard to speak.

  ‘This is an activation code,’ I say, a sharp crack across my voice. ‘It…’ I scan the pages, but the words blur. ‘It is… it is a Project code that links straight to the cell and is a number that can only begin tracing its target when it is…’

  Patricia is crying. ‘Doc…’

  ‘… when it is directly activated by the owner of the phone. The phone owner controls’— I catch my breath— ‘controls the tracker.’ I close the notebook, my movements frozen. I slot the book back into my bag and, inch by inch, raise my head – my whole body feels numb. ‘It was you.’ Scratchy throat, a heavy chest. ‘You had your phone. You were using it. I… I saw you. That was when… that was when you must have been activating the tracker.’

  ‘Doc, I didn’t… I didn’t know what was going on, Doc. I didn’t know they would do this!’

  ‘It was a tracker that could only be activated by you!’

  Tears in waterfalls down her face. ‘There has to be a better way than this. There… there has to be.’

  ‘No,’ I say. I shake my head over and over, begin to pound my hand into my leg. ‘No. No, no, no, no!’

  Patricia goes to speak again but a soldier grabs her arm, demanding silence from her for the entire flight. I turn away, destabilized, not knowing what to say, unable to cry or react or yell. I smash my fist over and over into my thigh struggling with the fireball of emotions burning inside me. I blink at the window where the wind whips past the greying sky outside, stare at the white and green windblown ground below, hurt and numb and confused, until, just there I see one solitary figure sprint out, sudden, fast, arms waving over and over.

  ‘Chris!’

  I bolt forwards. ‘Stop! Stop! That is my friend down there! Stop!’

  But the helicopter ascends to among the white, frozen snowcaps of the Alps and pulls away into the ice-blue sky where nothing else sits but one wisp of cotton white cloud and a lone blackbird dancing in the air to its own private tune.

  Deep cover Project facility.

  Present day

  Room 17 is only three metres ahead of me but there is a problem. I cannot be seen.

  Two officers are standing outside the room. They are not guarding the area, but instead are talking, discussing a problem with an algorithm and its dynamics. Each are leaning their sides against the wall, facing one another, locked in what appears intense conversation. They haven’t seen me.

  I slip behind a white pillar and think. The Project makes it very clear that any traitors or deserters will be thoroughly cut free from the Callidus family, no one from inside the covert programme or facility ever acknowledging the deserter’s existence. Subject 209, if she’s to be believed, is a traitor, betraying the Project by implying t
hat they’re not who they seem to be, and yet, for some reason – maybe it’s the increasing memories that keep appearing, the recollections of recent events that I keep remembering – what she says feels real to me, a warning signal somewhere inside me urging me to listen to what she may have to say. I shift from one foot to the other and tap out the Morse code message from the wall. My scar throbs where my finger hits my thumb.

  Each corridor in the warren of areas crisscrossing the Project is equipped with close-quarter cameras that track the entire zone. They are small, barely visible black dots and when I observe them now and count them, seven are instantly recognisable in the immediate proximity. I inhale. I am, as far as I am aware, the only subject who has seen these devices up close, know what they can do, how small and invisible they can be, the cameras skilled in tracking and recording all events without being detected. The last one I saw was fashioned into a house spider. These, however, here at this facility are different, smaller and potentially more complicated, dust specs of black that can easily be dismissed as simply dirt. I regard them, count up to ten and back down again, then begin.

  The trajectory of the viewpoints is what matters. If I am to arrive in room 17 without being seen, then mathematics is the key. It takes me less than thirty seconds in the end to arrive at the ideal route to get to the room, undetected by the cameras, and while even to me, the speed at which my brain can currently work is surprising, there is one more real, less digital problem: the officers.

  They are tall, each of them with short, blonde hair, wispy at the edges, treble clefs of curls licking the napes of their necks. I check my watch. Three minutes until I am to be in that room if the note is to be believed, but if the men are there, if they show no sign of exiting the area, even though I know an invisible route off camera between here and the door, then there is only one way to get into the room: I have to wait and watch for subject 209 to come.