The Hourglass

by Donaldson, Casey

  “Hey doc,” he said as the doctor came out of his office. “I’d appreciate some of those pain meds now.” The doctor walked over quickly and gestured towards a spare bed. Finn sat down on it gratefully. As the doctor pried Finn’s hand away from his ear Sarah slipped into the office unnoticed. Even Talbot and Dalton were watching Finn with interest. She wondered if Finn had done anything extra to his ear and if so how bad it was. She would find out later anyway. Hunkering down low, so that she would not be easily visible if someone glanced towards the office windows, she slid the fake cabinet drawer aside. The keypad stared back at her, expectantly. With shaky fingers she drew the list out of her sock, where she had stashed it, and entered in the first code. The light stayed red. Nothing. She entered the second and hoped that there wasn’t a limit on the attempts. If an alarm went out she would be screwed. The third number was also a bust as well, but Sarah was relieved to see that there was no change to the safe, nor was there any audible alarm. A silent alarm was of course a possibility, but this was a prison ship. The status quo was old technology, or rather, no technology. Money was better spent on the war effort. There were only three more number combinations on the list. Apparently the ship ran on such a tight schedule that there were hardly any significant dates in mind, and the doctor’s past and personal details were a mystery to nearly everyone. She glanced out of the window to see that the doctor had got out some suture material and was now injecting Finn’s ear with anaesthetic. Sarah blinked. She hadn’t thought that his ear was that bad yesterday. What had he done to it? Her legs were starting to hurt from crouching down, which brought her attention back to the task at hand. The last three numbers all failed. She spared another quick glance out of the window and then desperately punched in some common combinations that people are always advised never to use, but which they commonly do. She tried the first six numbers in row, the numbers in reverse, she tried odd numbers and even ones. She even tried the numerals that made up pi. It was useless. She closed the fake drawer, stuffed the list back into her sock, made sure that she hadn’t left anything else behind and slipped back into the main room. Finn, the only person who seemed to notice her return, gave her a hopeful glance that died almost as soon as he saw her expression. She understood the look of despair and disappointment that swept across his face. Not only was their future not looking great, but he had just maimed his own ear for nothing. Sarah started tidying up the doctor’s equipment while he cleaned off the remaining blood around Finn’s ear before he applied a bandage. There were two small, neat stiches in place. It looked only slightly worse than yesterday. Sarah guessed that he had picked the scab off so that it had bled again. She passed the doctor a roll of tape that he was looking for.

  “Oh, good work, um, Sarah,” he said, oblivious to her absence just before.

  Sarah forced a smile in reply. She only had tomorrow now to retrieve the transfer document, and she was fresh out of ideas.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Justin

  That afternoon two soldiers appeared at the infirmary door. Sarah nearly dropped what she was holding when she saw them, and Talbot and Dalton stopped talking mid-sentence. She had never seen Covenant soldiers on the ship before. The doctor strode out of his room.

  “Ladies,” greeted the doctor.

  “Doctor, um,” the soldier’s eyes flickered down to a report she was holding. She was tall and muscular and incredibly fit. “Doctor Stanton. We’re here to pick up Justin Weatherall.”

  “What?” said Sarah loudly, forgetting herself. Everyone turned to look at her and she blushed. The doctor turned back to face the soldiers.

  “He’s here.” He walked over to where Justin rocked, unfazed on the bed. “Handle him gently and he won’t be any trouble. Make sure you hand him over to Doctor Spitle personally.”

  “Where are you taking him?” asked Sarah, knowing that she shouldn’t draw attention to herself in front of the soldiers but not caring.

  “He’s going to work on the farms,” replied the doctor shortly.

  “But I thought the farms weren’t accepting new people?”

  “They do when I recommend them,” said the doctor.

  “Will he be able to work?” she asked.

  “He shows remarkable improvement when outside,” replied the doctor irritably, “being outside on the farms should hopefully return him to his normal state. I decided that the ship would only aggravate his condition.”

  “He’s not going to get experimented on?”

  The doctor gave her a confused look. “No, of course not.” He saw her disbelief and a look of scientific acumen settled across his face. “He doesn’t react to stimuli normally. He would be a terrible test subject,” he elaborated. “The farm is the best solution for all involved.”

  The two soldiers stood Justin up. Once they realised that he would follow their guidance meekly they relaxed a little and escorted him out, pausing to hand the doctor a document as they passed. Sarah waited until the soldiers had exited the room before she turned to face the doctor. She pictured how relaxed and happy Justin had been as he had sun-baked on the deck on their second day. He would like working on a farm. “Thank you.”

  The doctor blinked in surprise. “He is more use to society working the farms then taking up resources on the boat,” he said, a bit embarrassed. He coughed and then walked back into his office.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Update Report

  That night at dinner the Queen sent over three of her girls to escort Sarah and Finn to her table. One of the girls was Heather. She was grinning.

  “What have you guys done?” she asked, not bothering to hide the excitement from her voice. “Because she is royally pissed off.”

  “If she wanted you to know, I’m sure she would have told you,” replied Sarah. She was too stressed out to worry about being diplomatic or to deal with Heather.

  Heather blinked at her, stunned. “She trusts me.”

  “If she trusted you, you wouldn’t have to ask those questions.”

  Heather’s face turned a mottled shade of red. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

  Sarah didn’t bother to reply. They had reached the Queen’s table by now. Heather pushed Sarah forward from behind so that she stumbled the last couple of steps.

  “Sit,” said the Queen quietly. She didn’t need to be loud. She knew she had their attention.

  They sat.

  The Queen motioned for the others to go away. They did so, Heather more slowly than the others.

  “Heather?” said the Queen.

  “Yes?” said Heather eagerly, turning back quickly.

  “Piss off.”

  Heather turned scarlet and loped away. Sarah would have enjoyed her embarrassment if she wasn’t feeling so terrified herself. The Queen was playing with a small steak knife. Sarah wondered where she had got it from. She had only ever seen blunt, plastic butter knives in the cafeteria, except for that one incident with the shiv. A quick glance around the room only increased her fears. All of the guards were conspicuously absent at their end of the cafeteria. They were up the other end, their backs turned to what was happening. People had cleared out from the surrounding tables.

  “Sarah, Finn, where are my transfer papers?” She said it politely, pleasantly. Sarah felt she would have been less scared if she was yelling.

  “We still have a day,” said Finn.

  “You have as much time as I tell you.” The words were sharp. Finn flinched as if she had slapped him.

  “We have his signature,” said Sarah, trying to save the situation as much as she could.

  “What is the point,” said the Queen delicately as she reached out and gently held Sarah’s hand, “of having his signature,” she placed the tip of the knife in-between two of Sarah’s knuckles, “if we have nothing to use it on?” She spun the knife gently around so that the tip dug in enough to draw out a droplet of blood. Sarah grimaced at the pain but didn’t draw her hand away. She knew it wo
uld be worse if she did.

  “Stop,” said Finn, his hand hovering slightly off the table as if he wanted to swat the knife away. “We’ll get you the papers.”

  “And how will you do that?” She dug the knife in a little deeper. Much to Sarah’s shame she let out a little squeak. This time she tried to pull her hand back, but the Queen’s hand tightened around hers, holding it steady and firm. The Queen’s strength was surprising.

  Finn ran a desperate hand through his hair as he tried to think. “We’ll get him to open it for us,” he said eventually.

  “And how would you do that?” repeated the Queen. Much to Sarah’s relief she didn’t twist the knife in this time.

  “Get me an envelope,” said Finn. “I’ll write something on the outside. We’ll convince the doctor that he needs to put it in his safe. Before he closes it we’ll distract him, then use the distraction to get your papers out.”

  “That’s a terrible plan.” She twisted the knife. Sarah bit on her lip to stifle the yell. She tasted blood.

  “It’ll work,” said Finn hurriedly, both hands slightly raised off the table. “I swear, it’ll work.”

  “Have you done this before?”

  “Yes,” replied Finn sincerely, staring at her eyes.

  The Queen appraised him. After a moment the pressure of the knife disappeared and Sarah was able to pull her hand away. She hugged it to her chest, careful of the wound.

  “Don’t disappoint me,” said the Queen. She didn’t have to finish the rest of the threat. They knew what would happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Envelope Plan

  The next morning she walked into the infirmary with an envelope in her hands. Somehow the Queen had managed to find her one overnight. One of her lackeys must have been saving it. The warden didn’t trust prisoners with anything electronic, and so they had to resort to the incredibly old-fashioned process of physically writing letters if they wanted to get word to home. Inside the envelope was the order form that she had stolen only a few days ago. Finn had been practicing with it ever since she had first handed him the piece of paper, and he was now confident that he could mimic the scrawled signature blindfolded. If their plan worked, the doctor need never discover that it was missing. To her surprise the doctor was in his office, having not yet emerged to start his morning rounds. Slowly, thinking through her next steps carefully, she walked over to the sink and filled a cup with water. Holding the full cup with one hand and the letter in the other, she made her way over to the office and knocked quietly.

  “Come in.”

  Sarah opened the door and slid through.

  “I was told I was to give this to you for safe keeping,” said Sarah, holding out the envelope in front of her. The doctor didn’t take it. He simply frowned at it, as if it was something unpleasant.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, Sir. I was just told to tell you to keep it in a safe place until the Warden can collect it later.”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense. Why doesn’t she just keep it herself?”

  “I’m just doing what I was told,” said Sarah, pleading now as if she was afraid of getting into trouble if they found out that she didn’t do her job.

  The doctor sighed, exasperated. He snatched the letter out of Sarah’s hands.

  “The Warden, you said?”

  Sarah nodded. There was a moment where Sarah could practically feel him deciding on where to put the envelope. To her immense relief he turned around and crouched down to the fake cabinet drawer that held the safe. This was by far the weakest link in their already highly unlikely plan, but the doctor was carrying out his part perfectly.

  “You can go,” he ordered over her shoulder. She could hear him mutter to himself as she left about how busy he was and how his time shouldn’t be wasted by stupid, inconsequential things like this. The soft sound of the safe hissing open hit her ears as she walked out through the office door. Without hesitation Sarah walked straight towards a mobile stand that contained medical equipment and tipped it over. By this point she was so tense and the crash was so loud and jarring that she didn’t have to fake her shocked reaction. The hand not holding the cup flew to her mouth automatically and she stood stock still, as if worried that by moving more she would make things worse. The doctor slammed his office door open in his rush to get out and see what had happened and Sarah spun around, the movement causing her cup of water to spill all over the Doctor’s shirt and pants. She stood there, shocked, with one hand still raised to her mouth.

  “Argh! What the hell happened?” demanded the doctor angrily, wiping specks of water off his face.

  “I’m so sorry!” she squeaked. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She dropped down to her knees and started picking items up. The doctor joined her.

  “You stupid girl,” he snarled. He knocked the now empty cup out of her hands, making Sarah flinch involuntarily. “I’m going to have to clean all of this. I don’t have time for that. Not today.” He paused as he picked up one of the special lights he used to look in people’s eyes. The lens was cracked across the middle. He leant forward and smacked her across the face with an open palm. The force of it pushed Sarah back on her behind. The pain came a second later and she felt tears well up in her eyes. The doctor sighed and rubbed his temples wearily before standing up. “Clean it up,” he ordered, his voice flat. He walked back into his office, slamming the door behind him. The force of the slam made the door bounce back open a sliver, but he didn’t notice. Through the window Sarah could make out that he didn’t sit down at his desk, but rather passed straight through the other door to his personal quarters.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” asked Talbot, amazed. “Accident my ass!”

  “Shut up Talbot,” said Sarah, the tears disappearing from her eyes as quickly as they had come. She quickly gathered all of the remaining instruments and dumped them back up onto the tray. Then keeping an eye on the door leading to the doctor’s quarters, which was firmly shut, Sarah slipped through the office doorway, biting her lip in anticipation. The fake cabinet was still open, and so was the safe. Sarah couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that had actually worked. She felt like high-fiving herself. Her timing was perfect. She crouched down quickly and opened the safe’s door wider. It mostly contained papers. Her envelope was sitting on the top of the pile. She ignored it and concentrated on the rest. If Winter was to be believed, the document she wanted was a pale pink colour. She used her thumb and forefinger to flip through the pile of paper quickly. A flash of pink caught her eye and she went back through the papers one by one until she found it. She drew it out of the stack. The words ‘Medical Transfer’ were printed in bold across the top. Still with her heart in her mouth, she folded the paper neatly and stuffed it in her sock. She couldn’t believe it. Finn’s plan actually worked. The sound of the doctors voice reached her and her whole body stiffened. The voice was directly behind the door that led to his private quarters. The phone must have rung before he could have gotten changed. He would walk through any second now. Her heart beat madly in her mouth. She glanced around quickly, panicked. The office door was too far away. He would see her if she tried to make a run for it back out into the infirmary. As swiftly as she could she ducked behind the edge of the desk that was furthest away from the doctor, grateful that the sides of the desk were solid. At the same time the doctor’s door creaked open. She held her breath, waiting for him to cry out and demand what she was doing there, but it didn’t come. He continued to talk to whoever it was on the other end of the line. His footsteps led to the office’s main door, which remained open. Walk through it, wished Sarah. Walk through it and leave the office. She could slip out behind him if he did. Instead he closed the door and then headed back to his desk. He rounded it on the side opposite to Sarah, for which Sarah blessed everything that she could think of. Crouched down and moving softly, she rounded the desk in direct opposition to him. There was a pause and th
en she heard the sound of the safe being pushed closed. The chair creaked slightly under his weight as he sat down. Sarah was now facing the door that led out to the main section of the infirmary, her back against the doctor’s desk. She could make out Talbot peering in at her with a look of horror on his face. She shook her head at him angrily and he looked away, realising that he would only draw attention to what was happening if the doctor happened to look up and notice his expression. She was surprised that the doctor couldn’t hear her heart beat in her chest. It thundered in her own ears. When he still hadn’t moved after a minute she felt herself calm down enough to tune in to what he was saying on the phone.

  “No, Sir… no, that shouldn’t be an issue… Yes I have the list here… Yes, ages fourteen to seventeen, all in peak condition, if you can call the teenage body that.” He chuckled. “Ah, no, Sir, that was a joke. Sorry. They are all perfectly healthy specimens… There are always more prisoners on the mainland who can fill their place on the factory floor… Only the Warden and the senior guards are aware… Yes, they’re ready for tomorrow.” The doctor cleared his throat nervously. “Ah, Sir, may I ask what the experiment will involve?” There was a long pause as the doctor listened to the person on the other end of the line. “Oh. But surely that would leave them unable to-” he was cut off abruptly. “Yes of course, I’m sorry, it’s not my place to question the Hourglass group, and can I just say that I greatly appreciate the opportunity to help out.”

  The next minute was spent in exchanging polite platitudes and Sarah tuned out as the full realisation of what she had just heard hit her. This was what the Queen was trying to avoid. It wasn’t just some event that would inconvenience the Queen. The whole ship was going to disappear into some experiment that was clearly so unethical they had to kidnap the subject. People in her apartment block used to tell her horror stories about the experiments done in the name of the war effort, trying to scare her with a spooky story. She never really believed them until now. Fourteen to seventeen, she thought. That’s me. That’s me, that’s Finn, and Marland. But April is safe. She’s only thirteen. She realised that the doctor had stopped talking. There was a thud as he dropped the phone onto the table. One of the drawers slid open and a biscuit packet crinkled. She wondered how long she would have to stay there, crouched against his desk. What if he noticed that she wasn’t outside cleaning? He was munching loudly now. A sharp pain shot up Sarah’s leg. She winced as the cramp intensified but she was too scared to straighten it out in case the doctor noticed or she made a noise. Outside the window Talbot’s eyes occasionally flickered to where she was hiding and then away again. He was clearly trying not to draw attention to her, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Just as she was certain that the doctor was sure to notice what he was doing, the doors to the infirmary opened and Finn walked in to collect his daily pain medications. The chair creaked as the doctor stood up to go out to meet him. Sarah tensed and then moved quietly and quickly to her left, gambling that the doctor would walk around the same side of the desk as he had last time. If she was wrong then she would run into his knees. Her luck stayed with her. The doctor passed the desk on the side opposite to her, striding out through the door to meet Finn. Sarah stood up, her cramped leg screaming at her in pain, and slipped out through the door behind him before he could close it properly, her heart in her mouth. The Doctor’s back didn’t waver. She took in a deep breath, realising for the first time that she had been holding it. The Doctor hadn’t noticed. Finn, however, had. He drew the attention of the Doctor even more firmly to himself by talking. Still behind the Doctor’s back, Sarah lifted the edge of her pants up slightly, revealing the pink piece of paper tucked into her sock. A small smile played across her lips. As soon as Finn saw it she covered it back up again. Finn couldn’t help himself either, he grinned.