The Fifth Room

by A J Rushby

  With a dip of his head, Marcus leaves.

  As the door closes behind him, I think about the other students he’s just visited. About Lauren and Andrew. About Steen.

  I’m quite sure Lauren is going to say yes. She might even forgo her own experimentation in order to do so. She’ll see the offer as her real chance of winning this. Andrew, I’m not sure. He seems more reasonable than Lauren. Less … desperate.

  And Steen—I know Steen will never agree. Despite the fact that his own experiment isn’t going well, he’ll say no.

  He’ll say no because he thinks it’s wrong. Wrong because Ryan hasn’t authorised this experimentation. Wrong because his family haven’t been made aware of his death. Wrong because it isn’t self-experimentation.

  But me …

  Well, I think we’ve now established that Steen and I are different people with different views of the world.

  And while part of me, like Steen, says no—that this isn’t right—there’s also a small part of me that says yes.

  I look down at the tremor in my hand again then, which isn’t going away.

  As Marcus pointed out, this is not an offer that has been made before, or is likely to be made again.

  It could be life-changing for my career. Much more so than the research I’m doing now, which looks like it might not be as successful as I originally hoped.

  These are all good reasons to agree to the experimentation. All good reasons to say yes.

  As I stare at the door, a picture of my lunch in London pops into my head again. Of my dad sitting across from me. This. This is the moment Dad had been warning me about. He knew that the Society would push me to this point. He didn’t know it would be now and he didn’t know what it would be about, but he knew it was going to happen. Just as it had happened to him. He knew I’d have to decide if I was in or out. That I’d have to ask myself who I really am. The only problem is …

  I have no idea what the answer is.

  ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE HOURS AWAKE

  At eight o’clock I make my way back to the meals area, my stomach churning—sick with anticipation. I still don’t entirely know what I’m going to say. What my choice will be.

  Lauren, Steen and Marcus are already in the room when I arrive, sitting around the dining table as before. As I take my seat, I notice Steen is staring at a spot beside Lauren and it’s then that I notice her pump on its stand is no longer with her. My face drops as realisation hits. It’s no longer with her because she’s stopped her drugs two hours ago. She’s getting a head start on all of us. Preparing to experiment on Ryan.

  Andrew enters the room. It doesn’t take him long to see what we’re all looking at. He sits down slowly, his eyes, like ours, glued to what’s missing in the space beside Lauren.

  Despite the fact that Steen isn’t looking at me, I continue to give him sideways glances in the hope that he will. I desperately need confirmation of what I think I know—that he’s not going to do this. And even though he doesn’t look at me, I feel the current of energy running between us. I wonder if the others can feel it too. It’s almost palpable.

  When Marcus finally speaks, I jump, I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts.

  ‘Perhaps you should go first, Lauren,’ Marcus says.

  She doesn’t hesitate. Not even for a second. ‘I would like to say yes to the Society’s offer. I will discontinue my own experiment and experiment entirely on this fifth student.’

  Unbelievable. And yet, exactly what I expected.

  ‘Very well. Andrew?’

  My head whips round to look at Andrew. Still bandaged, but again, camera-less. Now I truly suspect his experiment isn’t working out as planned. His hands clasped before him on the table, he takes a moment to respond. His gaze moves from Marcus to mine and then Steen’s before he looks back to Marcus again. ‘I …’ he begins, then swallows hard. ‘I would like to continue with my own experiment and do a small amount of testing on the fifth student, if possible.’

  My entire body feels numb. Emotionless. I continue to stare at Andrew’s hands, twisting upon themselves.

  ‘Steen?’ Marcus says.

  I wake up then, my head snapping up to look at Steen.

  ‘Please,’ he answers, ‘Miri first.’

  Marcus hesitates, then nods. ‘All right. Miri?’

  Breathe. Breathe. In and out. In and out.

  I look over at Lauren, who’s grabbing at this opportunity with both hands.

  I look at Andrew, who’s unsure, so is hedging his bets and doing both his own experiment and taking up the Society’s offer.

  I look at Steen, who won’t return my gaze, but stares at a point on the table in front of him.

  I think of Ryan. Of his body kept alive by a multitude of machines. Kept alive specifically for the benefit of the four of us.

  Go on, the devil on my shoulder says. Go on. Say yes. You can’t miss out on something like this. On such an amazing offer. Two students have agreed. You can agree too. Take the opportunity. It won’t come again. He’s only getting what he deserves. What he did to others.

  I close my eyes for a moment.

  I see Ryan. I see him talking to me about my mother in that lab, asking me out, not thinking for a second about how I might feel. I remember how he’d stalked me because I’d said no to him.

  I should do this.

  I should.

  I open my eyes again. ‘No,’ I blurt out, before I can change my mind. ‘No, I don’t want to. I’ll continue on with my own experiment.’ I don’t look at Lauren or Andrew, not caring what they think. I look only at Steen.

  Who now looks straight back at me. Surprised.

  He’s surprised I’ve said no.

  ‘Steen?’ Marcus says.

  Steen doesn’t register his words for a moment. Then he shakes his head and glances over at Marcus. I see beads of perspiration at his hairline. He’s really not well now.

  ‘No,’ he answers. ‘I’ll also be continuing on solely with my own experiment.’

  Marcus nods decisively and stands. ‘That’s everyone. Miri and Steen, you will carry on with your experiments as per usual. Andrew and Lauren, you will have until five o’clock tomorrow afternoon to submit a document outlining what your experimentation on student five will involve. I will come around to each of your labs shortly to discuss any limitations owing to the experimentation student five has already performed on himself.’

  I stand. ‘I …’ I begin, not quite sure what I want to say.

  ‘Yes?’ Marcus answers.

  Everyone’s looking at me. ‘I’d like to see inside his lab.’ What I really want is to see Ryan, but I think he’ll immediately reject this—or the Society will—so I try asking for second best instead. I know Ryan won’t be there. He’ll be in the small ICU that Marcus told us was attached to the two theatres. I guess I just want to see his lab in order to work out what his experiment was and what went wrong. I know that if I ask Marcus he won’t be able to tell me. Seeing inside his lab is the only chance I’ve got of finding out the truth.

  Marcus’s eyebrows rise. He glances around the four of us—at me standing up, at the other three students, still seated. ‘All right. I don’t see why not. I have access to that area now. If you’ll come with me …’ He pauses for a moment. ‘I have to warn you though, it hasn’t been cleaned up yet.’

  That works even better for me, I think.

  Silently the four of us follow behind Marcus. We exit the meals room and then walk the few steps it takes to turn right into the corridor that leads to all the labs. With a swish of his card, the door to the fifth room opens.

  Chaos greets us.

  Not caring if I’m being rude, I push past Marcus and Lauren with my shoulder and enter the lab area. Everywhere I look, packets are open and thrown upon the f loor. I pick my way through them to stand near the examination bed in the middle of the room, which is haphazardly off-centre.

  I look around.

  Next to me is the abandoned resus
cart, drawers open, half its contents missing. IV fluid packets are strewn across the benches. There’s a yellow sharps bin lying on its side on the floor. Empty ampoules are scattered here and there on any and all surfaces. They’re all standard resuscitation drugs that don’t give me any clues. Nothing that tells me what his experiment might have involved.

  As I hear the others close in behind me, I move around the bed as something else catches my eye—a large clear plastic bin that holds syringes, some with blood in them. Beside it, spots of blood have dripped onto the floor.

  I bring my hand to my mouth and continue around the room. Looking. I don’t know what for. For vestiges of Ryan’s life, I suppose. To see the last moments of it now he’s gone.

  I’m staring at some items flung onto one of the stainless steel benches when I notice it. The edge of an ID card, sticking out from under an empty laryngoscope packet. I push the packet aside. It has Ryan’s photo on it, but someone else’s name: Matthew, it reads. It’s been cut off its lanyard, only small pieces of the fabric cord that we all wear remaining.

  I don’t know why, but my back to the camera, I pick it up and slip it in my pocket.

  I turn just as Lauren asks the question that’s on all of our lips. ‘What was his experiment?’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ Marcus replies. But there’s an edge to his voice. One I’ve heard before.

  Wait. He doesn’t know. He honestly is in the dark with this as much as we are.

  So many lies.

  I begin to feel dizzy again, as I did when I’d had my talk with Marcus. The room swims before my eyes for a moment. I lean against a bench hoping no one notices.

  ‘Can we see him?’ Steen’s voice has some fight in it. It’s as if, like me, he knows Marcus will never agree.

  Marcus pauses.

  ‘Have you seen him?’ I ask. I doubt that he has. Whatever Ryan was doing in there, it was top secret and I’m starting to guess that only a few people knew the truth about it. And Marcus wasn’t one of them.

  ‘No,’ Marcus says slowly. ‘Not yet. But I can ask.’ He gets out his phone and sends a quick text.

  A reply comes back immediately and Marcus raises his eyebrows as he reads it. ‘Apparently we can see him. Briefly. If you’ll follow me.’ He starts towards the lab door.

  I’m more than surprised. But now I’ve got what I wanted all along, I’m suddenly unsure. I hang out at the back of the group, reluctant to join in.

  We head out into the corridor and turn right at the end. We pass by the two theatres and Marcus pauses outside the door down the very end. I notice that he doesn’t swipe his card, but knocks. So he doesn’t have access to the ICU either. He really is nothing but a go-between.

  Someone opens the door from the inside and Marcus ushers us in.

  I take a deep breath in the corridor before I enter, the clinical smell filling my nostrils, the room wiped clean of all humanity.

  It’s the tiniest ICU I’ve ever seen, with only two beds, though it’s obviously well equipped. And there is Ryan in one of those beds. Ventilated. Quickly I scan his body to look for clues—what’s happened to him? What’s he been up to that’s led to this? But his body is covered by a blanket, including his arms. Only his face is visible and it’s unmarked. I find I can look at him for only a moment before my eyes well up with the realisation that I chose correctly. Whatever I felt about Ryan in the past, whatever he’s done research-wise, whatever dodgy deals he’s cut, no one deserves a death like this—the Society has facilitated him in reaching this point and now they’re discarding him like trash.

  Scared I’m actually going to cry in front of everyone, I bite the inside of my cheek hard and turn my eyes to a spot on the blanket that’s covering him and stare at that instead. It’s all I can do in this room to keep breathing. Again, I concentrate on inhaling and exhaling, trying to ignore what’s in front of me. I just have to get through this moment in time. The room is completely silent bar the whirr of the machinery keeping Ryan’s organs running. For us. Inhale, exhale. When I realise I’m breathing in time with the ventilator, it sickens me, and I force myself to change my rhythm.

  And all the while, no one says anything.

  Because what could there possibly be to say?

  ONE HUNDRED ANDTHIRTEEN HOURS AWAKE

  I return to my lab, looking at the time on the wall clock as I pass through.

  I have just over half an hour until my next round of testing.

  I go straight to my bedroom, take Ryan’s ID card from my pocket and stick it in the middle of the book that’s on my bed, and push it under my pillow.

  I sit down on my bed then and, unbidden, my face crumples and I begin to cry ugly, fat, horrible tears.

  I hate crying. Hate it. Hate the headache that comes afterwards. Hate letting myself go.

  I don’t even know why I’m crying. I don’t know whether it’s about seeing Ryan, losing Steen from my life yet again, the drugs and the long unbroken days, whether it’s sheer loneliness or about my mother. Because it had been the thought of her that I’d had to keep pushing from my mind when I’d seen Ryan’s lab and his body in the ICU. Seeing that frantic mess of struggle. Did my mother die in the same sort of surroundings? Is that what really happened to her? Maybe it wasn’t a lab fire at all, but something like this? Something completely different from what I’ve always thought? A stroke? A cardiac arrest? Did she also push the limits of self-experimentation too far? A lab fire in Kenya of all places is just so terribly … convenient. No autopsy. No questions.

  I try frantically to see her in my mind. To remember the contours of her face. To recall her voice. But I remember so little. Even when she was alive she wasn’t really present. Not like my father. She flitted in and out of our lives. Always away. Always doing something incredibly important. When she was in the same room as me, she looked at me more with amusement than with love, I remember that much. And I danced to entertain her. Not literally—she would never have enjoyed that—but figuratively. I was her marionette puppet, and she had me dance with my mind, which was the part of me that truly interested her. She liked that I was as she was—clever. Ambitious. Always wanting to be the best. To top the class. That’s what I remember about her. Well, that and bits and pieces of the arguments I recall her having with my father, as I listened from around the corner, or in bed.

  My very last memories of my mother involved arguments. About what, I couldn’t entirely remember. All I knew was that there was suddenly a lot of arguing about ‘choices’. Later, I’d thought it had been about her going to Kenya, because I remembered parts of an argument where my dad had spoken about her leaving. But perhaps it wasn’t Kenya they were arguing about? Perhaps it was really about her experimenting with the Society? Here?

  Feeling claustrophobic, I get up and go over to the bathroom where I splash my face with cold water. I stare at myself in the mirror, water dripping. I’ve got to get out of here for at least a few minutes before testing starts again. I need some space. I dry off and run back through my lab, then out the door into the corridor. Then I keep running to my left and down the corridor to the medical art. As I go, I hear a door swish open behind me, but I don’t stop and I don’t look back.

  I sit on the wooden bench and watch the paintings shift and change before my eyes. They’re so beautiful. When the painting comes up that Steen had spoken about when we first entered the bunker, I stand. I hadn’t known it, but it’s called, simply, The doctor. I walk over to get a closer look at the parents’ faces as they worry about their child—at the doctor’s face as he stares intently at his patient. And now I see what Steen was talking about. The trust. The power.

  It makes me question what I’m doing here all over again.

  I’m so intent on the painting, I don’t hear the footsteps. I don’t hear anything until someone pushes me hard from behind. I’m slammed sideways, my head hitting the concrete wall and the edge of one of the digital screens. I gasp.

  ‘I’m not going
to let you ruin this for me,’ Lauren says.

  My hand comes up to cradle my head. It’s wet. When I pull it away, I see blood.

  Lauren, inches from my face, doesn’t even flinch.

  I’m so shocked I can’t speak. My heart hammering inside my chest, I look up at the ceiling for cameras. The closest one is pointed in the other direction—towards the bench seat—while I’m pressed up against the opposite wall.

  ‘You think someone’s coming to save you?’ she spits. ‘No one’s coming. You think they’re recording this? You think they’d make us an offer like this and have it on the record? It’s a free for all down here, if you haven’t worked it out yet. No one’s watching. Maybe no one ever was.’

  I think about how I’d been into Steen’s lab. He’d been into mine. No one had cared. No one had come to stop us.

  ‘You really are naïve, aren’t you?’ Lauren continues, venom in her voice. ‘You think the Society is all about following the rules? You really believe that other youth experimenter died of a heart condition? Come on. The whole point of the Society is to circumvent the rules. That’s why we’re here. That’s what they want from us. So go back and tell Marcus you’ve changed your mind and convince your little friend to do the same.’ She gives me another shove, in the direction of my lab this time.

  I stumble, then right myself and run, my hand on my head again.

  ‘Go on.’ Her voice follows me. ‘Before the Society works out you should never have been invited to join at all and does something about the mistake they’ve made.’

  I don’t stop running until I’m safely back in my lab, the door closed behind me. Almost immediately, there’s a knock and I jump, taking several steps back and crashing into a chair.

  ‘Who is it?’ I call out.

  ‘Steen.’

  I open the door immediately and close it behind Steen again as fast as possible. But before I can say anything, Steen has my elbow and is frogmarching me towards the bedroom in the same manner I’d done to him not so long ago. Except this time, when we get there, it’s me who’s pressed up against the wall and not him.