“You alright?” Micah said as soon as the guards had left the room.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Oh, and by the way, there’s a camera in here and they can hear everything we say.”
Micah looked around, finally pointing to the corner of the room where a small, mirrored panel was set high up in the wall. Alex gave himself a mental kick for not noticing it earlier.
“So where did they take you?” Micah said.
Alex sat on his bed. “I had an audience with Harvey Boot.”
Micah’s eyebrows rose as he sat down. “Really? How did that go?”
Alex gave him the Cliff Notes version of his intensely disturbing conversation with the head of Omnav, careful not to show his true feelings about the whole thing, i.e. that Boot was several sandwiches short of a picnic.
“Well that sounds... interesting,” Micah said when he’d finished, obviously meaning, Boot is out of his mind.
“My thoughts exactly,” Alex replied. “I will be giving it some serious thought.” Into how we can get out of here and stop this lunatic.
“Sounds like a wise thing to do,” Micah said. His eyes conveyed his true meaning, which was, I’m with you all the way and I will follow your lead because you are so much more intelligent than I am and I’d be lost without your guidance and heroism.
At least, that’s what Alex got from them.
The door to the cell room opened and Beardy ushered Hannah in, followed by the three other doctors who had been taken from the Sarcester lab with her. Frobisher brought up the rear, pushing a catering trolley ahead of him.
Alex got to his feet. This could be their chance. Standing in the centre of his tiny space, ready to explode into action, he willed the guards to open his cell.
Dr. Pauline Stine, her tall, usually regal frame hunched and tired, gave him and Micah a hopeless glance as she was led to her cell and locked in with a tray of food from the trolley. Dr. David Cranbourne seemed to perk up at the sight of them, flashing them a smile as he walked to the cell next to Pauline’s. Dr. Lawrence Vincent’s expression simply changed from surly to grumpy. Someone not trained as Alex had been in noticing nuances in behaviour might have thought it hadn’t changed at all.
Hannah gave Alex a dazzling smile. She started towards the cell next to his, but Frobisher walked up behind her, wrapping one arm around her chest and pulling her back against him.
She yelled, struggling. “Let go of me you brainless ape!”
Micah leaped to his feet.
Alex threw himself at his cell door. “Get your hands off her!”
Frobisher drew his gun and pressed it to Hannah’s temple. She immediately stopped struggling.
“Walker is now going to give you your meal,” he said, fixing his gaze on Alex. “If you so much as twitch, I will put a bullet through her brain.”
“You won’t kill me,” Hannah scoffed. “You’d be Boot’s next guinea pig before you could blink.”
He seemed to consider that. “You’re right. So I won’t kill you. I won’t harm a hair on your head.” He looked straight at Alex and smiled. “I’ll just take you into a nice, quiet room and do what I’ve been wanting to do to you ever since your cute little arse walked in here. You might even enjoy it.”
Fear flashed across Hannah’s face. Rage so intense he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even speak, burned through Alex. He clenched both fists.
Beardy/Walker shot Frobisher a sharp look.
Hannah swallowed and drew herself up to her full height. “The human penis is a strange thing,” she said, her voice only quavering slightly. “It’s designed to be flexible and strong, but it is also full of highly sensitive nerves which make it remarkably vulnerable. You see, all those nerves run to a ganglion at the base and just the right amount of pressure applied to just the right spot in its erect state can create an excruciatingly intense pain quite unlike anything else. Grown men have been reduced to tears, those who don’t pass out straight away.” She twisted her head to look up at Frobisher. “I know exactly where that spot is.”
There was complete silence as every man in the room winced. Alex wondered how perverted it was that he was slightly turned on.
Frobisher’s sneer melted from his face. He nodded at Walker. Alex couldn’t tell how effective Hannah’s threat had been, but the huge man’s bravado had undoubtedly taken it down a notch. Walker pushed the trolley to Alex’s cell and placed a tray on the floor outside the door. He darted glances at Alex, unable to hide the apprehension on his face as he unlocked the door and nudged the tray inside with his foot. Alex stood perfectly still, his eyes on Hannah, suppressing his urge to grab the man and rip his head off.
The door to Alex’s cell safely locked again, Walker moved on to Micah, following the same procedure. Finally, Frobisher let go of Hannah and she ran into the cell next to Alex.
Locked in with a tray of food, she screamed at Frobisher’s retreating back. “Coward!”
He didn’t look back as he walked from the room.
Alex sat on his bed against the clear wall separating them. “Are you alright?”
Hannah pushed her bed from the other side of the cell so it touched the wall between them and sat on it, crossing her legs in front of her. “I’m okay. He just scares me a bit. He’s kind of big. They’re all freakily big. Do you know how rare it is for a man to grow over even six foot two? And every one of the security guards in this place is far bigger than that. It’s statistically impossible for it to be coincidence. They must have been hired from all over the country, unless south Yorkshire puts something in the water to make all the men around here grow ridiculously huge. Why are you smiling?” She began to smile in return.
“I just missed you,” Alex said.
Her smile grew. “I missed you too.”
They ate their meal more or less in silence, other than Micah’s comment that it was better than what passed for food in the Sarcester Porter Street police station. Although Hannah was putting on a brave face, the doctors were subdued. Even in the middle of the eater outbreak in Sarcester, they had been much more animated. It was as if their spirit had been broken.
When they’d finished eating, Micah stretched out on his bed again and closed his eyes. Hannah yawned and lay down, facing Alex. He did the same, lying on his right side, his arm bent beneath his head as he gazed at Hannah no more than a foot away on the other side of the polycarbonate wall. She gave him a sleepy smile that made his stomach quiver.
“So what are you two doing here?” Dave said from three cells away.
“We’re here to rescue you,” Micah replied.
“So how’s that going?” Pauline said.
Micah cleared his throat. “Our plan may have hit a minor hiccup.”
“What, you mean getting captured wasn’t part of your plan?”
“We are currently rolling with the punches. It’ll work out.”
Alex didn’t know if Micah really believed that, or if he was just saying it for the benefit of the others. Alex believed it. He had to, for the sake of the woman gazing into his eyes.
He asked her the most pressing question on his mind. “Can you really do that to a man’s, you know?”
“Not that I know of, but I tried to make it convincing. Do you think he believed me?”
“I think we all believed you.”
Dave’s voice came from beyond her. “I believed you, and I know everything there is to know about human anatomy.”
Hannah looked suddenly serious. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have come. I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t want you to be hurt.” Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away, wiping at them with her knuckles.
Alex’s gut twisted. He couldn’t take it when women cried and Hannah crying felt ten times worse. With everything in him he wanted to smash his way through the cell wall so he could hold and comfort her.
“Don’t be afraid. We’ll get out of here, I promise. It’ll work out.” He tried a smile. “If anyone can do it, we can.” He leaned forwa
rd and lowered his voice. “I’m kind of a superhero you know.”
Hannah put her hand over her mouth, stifling a delicate snort, her wet eyes smiling above her fingers.
“He thinks he’s Superman,” Micah said from the cell behind him. “Which fits if you consider the ridiculously garish costume with the underwear on the outside. I, of course, am Batman. Black costume, all those muscles. Altogether cooler.”
“And pointy ears,” Alex said.
“Even the ears are cool.”
Alex rolled his eyes, making Hannah smile even more. “If you say so.”
“I’ve always thought I’d like to be a Green Lantern,” Dave said.
“What on earth is a Green Lantern?” Larry said.
“Are you kidding me?” Dave was incredulous. “You can’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Green Lantern. A Green Lantern has a power ring that gives them all sorts of powers, the best of which is the ability to construct any object with the power of their mind. The things are always green, but it’s still cool. Plus, Green Lanterns can fly.”
“I wanted to be Wonder Woman when I was a child,” Pauline said.
“Wonder Woman,” Dave sighed.
“I always had a deep appreciation for the Wonder Woman costume,” Larry said.
Dave sighed again. “Oh, yes.”
“She also had super powers and was a strong, independent woman,” Pauline said.
“That too,” Larry said.
Dave sniggered.
“Men.” Pauline managed to imbue the single word with thousands of years of female exasperation.
“The scientific aspects of Spiderman and Iron Man are intriguing,” Larry said. “When I was a child...”
Alex was only vaguely listening to the doctors’ enthused discussion on the appeal of being various different superheroes. Hannah was gazing into his eyes in a way that made his heart feel like it was going into arrhythmia.
She silently mouthed, “Thank you.”
He flattened his left hand flat against the barrier between them. Hannah pressed her right hand to the other side and, even though they weren’t touching, he swore he could feel her warmth tingle through his skin.
At that moment, even thought they were in a room with four others, it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
21
Alex was woken by the sound of tapping. As his brain reluctantly hobbled towards consciousness, a voice joined the annoying sound.
“Alex? Alex, wake up!”
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Hannah, blinking drowsily. Sleep crusted her eyes and the crumpled pillow had left indentations in the skin of her cheek. She was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.
“Alex!” a voice hissed.
He lifted his head to glare at whoever had woken him. The glare changed to surprise. “Sam?”
In the cell next to him, Micah was sitting up. Alex saw Claire standing at the slightly ajar door, peering through the gap at the corridor outside.
“How do I get these doors open?” Sam said.
Alex sat up, his brain finally getting itself into gear. “The panel on the wall. Just try every button, although not if it’s red or labelled ‘alarm’.”
Sam nodded and ran to the panel. Alex pulled on his shoes and stood. In the cells along from him, the others were sitting up.
“Get ready,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear him. “We’re getting out of here.”
There were general sounds of surprise, but everyone pulled on shoes and, in Dave’s case, trousers, and stood. Random doors slid open and closed around the room as Sam played with the controls. Finally, Micah’s cell door opened.
Sam looked back at it and grinned. “Got it!”
A few seconds later, all the doors were open and the group was gathering by the door.
“How did you get in here?” Alex said.
“Well, we found this remote control toy car in the pub, so we stuffed my t-shirt into it, then we sent it...”
“No, never mind,” Alex said quickly. “Tell me later. We have to go before they get here.”
“It’s clear,” Claire said, her voice sounding nasal. She glanced back at them to reveal her nostrils stuffed with bits of tissue. “It was the only way to stop the sneezing,” she said with a small smile.
“Sneezing?” Hannah whispered beside Alex.
“The synthetic pheromones they’re using to control the eaters make us sneeze,” he said. “I had some antihistamines yesterday, but I think they’re wearing off.” He rubbed at his nose which was beginning to itch.
Micah opened the door and led the way into the corridor, turning to his left.
“No, this way,” Larry hissed, pointing right. “It’s the quickest way to the labs. We can’t leave without our research. It may be the only way to stop the eaters.”
They made their way through the corridors, Alex expecting any second to hear the pitter-patter of size fifteen feet on the tiled floors. It didn’t take long to reach the laboratories and they ran into the glass room.
Dave headed straight for a PC on a desk in one corner, switching it on. “I need a tablet to download everything we have so far,” he said.
Sam grabbed an iPad from a worktop and handed it to him.
Pauline and Larry went straight to a glass fronted fridge and started loading vials and tubes into a square, padded bag.
Alex looked up at a camera in the corner of the room. It was too much to hope everyone was asleep and no-one was watching the feeds. He wished they’d been able to visit the armoury first.
Hannah tossed him and Claire a box each from a cabinet. They were marked with a name Alex didn’t know. “Antihistamines,” she said with a smile.
“Thanks,” Claire said, swallowing two of the small tablets and pulling the tissue from her nose. She grimaced. “Yuck, those are vile.”
Sam immediately ran to a sink at the side of the room and returned with a beaker of water. Claire took the drink and smiled.
Alex made do with swallowing the pills dry and ignoring the nasty taste they left on his tongue.
Micah left his place at the door and walked over to Hannah, taking a deep breath before speaking. “Is there a cure here for people who are already turned?”
She looked up at him, a question on her face.
He glanced at Alex. “We went to my parents’ house on the way here. We found...” He stopped, releasing a shaking breath.
Alex walked over to them. “We found Micah’s sister.”
Hannah put a hand on Micah’s arm. “Oh, Micah, I’m so sorry. It was one of the things we were working on at home, but we hadn’t had any success. Boot gave us access to all the research they were doing here, but there wasn’t anything more than we had. I’m so, so sorry.”
Alex watched Micah’s face fall. He swallowed and nodded, returning to the door. Alex followed him.
“Are you alright?”
Micah took a shuddering breath. “Not really. I feel like I’ve been mourning since we found her. Deep down, I knew there wouldn’t be a cure, but still I hoped that maybe...”
Alex didn’t know what to say. What could he possibly say to make the loss of Micah’s sister any less painful? So he said the only thing he could, and meant it from the bottom of his heart. “I’m sorry.”
Micah nodded, wiping at his eyes with one hand.
“Got it,” Dave said from behind them, disconnecting the iPad from the PC as he stood. “Everything’s on.”
“We’re ready,” Larry said, shouldering the bag of vials.
“We need to go,” Micah said. “I hear people coming.”
Everyone filed out into the corridor. Running footsteps could be heard from the direction of the cells so they headed in the opposite direction.
“Stop!” a voice yelled from behind them.
“Go,” Alex said, pushing Hannah ahead of him with the others and bringing up the rear. Hopefully, they would be less likely to shoot if there was a danger o
f hitting him.
The corridor echoed with the sharp crack of a gunshot.
Or maybe not.
“Don’t shoot them, you idiot!”
Alex glanced back as they skidded round a corner, seeing four men wearing pyjamas and carrying rifles at the far end of the corridor. Their unmistakable size identified them as members of Boot’s security. One of them was Walker; Alex recognised the beard. He wasn’t sure who the others were and he wasn’t staying to find out.
Ahead of him, the group was already almost at the next corner and he sprinted to catch up. Four more guards appeared at the junction ahead of them. The group stumbled to a halt.
“Stay where you are,” one of the guards barked. Alex recognised him as Chester, the man they’d first seen after scaling the fence into the compound. One of those with him was Brian.
At the front, Micah backed away, pushing the group behind him. Behind Alex, Walker and the other guards burst around the corner, weapons raised. The guards had the group trapped between them.
“Don’t be stupid,” Chester said, advancing on them. “You have nowhere to go.”
He was right, but Alex wasn’t ready to give up. He’d fight all eight of them if he had to. “You won’t shoot us.” He nodded towards Hannah, Pauline, Dave and Larry. “Boot needs them. And he wants us alive.”
“He may want you,” Chester said, “but he has no idea who those two even are.” He aimed his pistol at Sam and Claire. “Mr. Boot would want us to do anything to stop you all escaping. And we do whatever Mr. Boot wants.”
The little group all looked at Alex, waiting for his lead. Why, he had no idea. Micah looked angry, as if he was aching to fight his way through. At that moment, so was Alex, but he couldn’t risk Sam and Claire’s lives. He couldn’t risk any of their lives. If they fought, a stray bullet could hit any one of them.
Locking glances with Micah, he shook his head slightly. Micah’s eyes darted to Sam and Claire and even if he wasn’t happy about it, Alex knew he understood.
Twenty-Five Percent (Book 2): Downfall Page 22
