Boy X (6 page)

Large, black-haired monkeys occupied four of the cubicles. They had been pacing their prisons, but the moment Ash and Isabel came in, the monkeys stopped and came right up to the glass to watch. Standing up, the creatures would have been almost as tall as Ash, but they remained hunched, with powerful shoulders drawn forwards. Their sleek hair shone, and each had a grey stripe across its back, shimmering in the eerie blue light. They ignored Isabel, fixing their eyes on Ash.

Close to the door of the lab where the monkeys were imprisoned, two security guards lay face down on the floor, with blood pooled around them. Ash knew they were more of Thorn's victims.

‘Papa must be in one of the other labs.' Isabel's voice was small and quiet. She let go of Ash's hand and moved ahead, her pace quickening as she hurried round the circular corridor, boots clomping on the metallic floor.

Ash went after her, catching up as they rounded the bend and the third lab came into view. What they saw made them stop in their tracks.

Inside, Mum was leaning against a large waist-high glass box with four holes in the front. Her arms were crossed and
her head was hanging as if she were deep in thought.

On the opposite side of the room, an olive-skinned man was standing beside a tall clear-fronted refrigerator filled with small bottles of amber liquid. He wore a pass clipped to his belt, his name printed in small type on it:
Dr Ernesto Vasquez
. Isabel's papa. Close to him, two women were sitting cross-legged on the floor.

They were all wearing yellow protective hazmat suits without the helmets.

Ash came to a halt as if he had run into an invisible barrier. The relief of seeing his mum alive was incredible.

‘Papa!' Isabel shouted, but there was no reaction from anyone inside the lab, so she knocked hard on the glass. ‘Maria? Begonia?'

Ash's mum jerked her head up and caught sight of her son. She looked tired, with hunched shoulders and bloodshot eyes, and her face was glistening as if it were too hot in the lab. When she saw Ash, though, she pushed away from the in-vitro cabinet and hurried forward. The two women got to their feet, and Isabel's dad rushed towards the thick glass wall.

As soon as Ash locked eyes with his mum, he began to speak, letting everything pour out. ‘What's happening? There was shooting and there's dead people, and we came through the corridor in the dark and something weird is happening to me, I can hear and smell things that . . .' He was babbling but couldn't stop himself. It was such a relief to find his mum alive.

Beside him, Isabel was talking to her dad in Spanish,
telling him more or less the same thing, but both Ash's mum and Isabel's dad were shaking their heads and pointing to their ears.

Then Ash's mum made a fist and banged hard on the glass. She held up a hand, telling him to stay put, and reached to the desk behind her. Picking up a tablet computer, she typed something before showing it to her son.

Soundproof. Room sealed.

Ash grabbed Isabel's shoulder to stop her from talking. ‘It's soundproof,' he told her. ‘They can't hear us.'

Isabel stopped and glared at him like she was going to hit him – like it was his fault or something – so Ash pointed at his mum. ‘Look.'

Isabel turned to see the message and stood there, staring at it, not knowing what to do. ‘Why is it sealed? What is wrong?'

‘I don't know.' Some of the relief at having found Mum began to slide away.

Find tablet in other lab.

Ash nodded and Isabel hurried with him to the lab where the monkeys were locked in their cells. The animals stared at him with their piercing green eyes, but Ash ignored them as he searched the room. He finally spotted a tablet computer lying on a pristine white surface next to a glass oven.

‘Here,' he said to Isabel as he grabbed it and rushed back.

As soon as he was ready, Mum typed:
I couldn't wake you. Had to give IV drip. Are you hurt?

Ash read the words, then looked down at his small frame, dressed only in pyjamas and covered in blood. He remembered pulling the needle from his hand and Isabel telling him he had been there for two days. He wanted to ask so many things, but first he had to let his mum know he was OK.

Not my blood.

‘Why is the room sealed?' Isabel leant over his shoulder, pointing at the screen. ‘Ask why the—'

‘I am.' His fingers fumbled, missing some of the letters:
Why s room sealed? Com out.

Mum put a hand to her mouth, then composed herself:
Get help.

From where? Who? How?

Have you seen anyone else?

‘Why doesn't she answer the question?' Isabel grabbed the top of the tablet computer and pulled it closer.

‘Please.' Ash tugged it back and typed:
Pierce. Cain. Thorn.
He remembered the names as if they were burnt into his brain.
No one else I recognized. Big man. Hulk. 3 others.

Where are P, C & T now?

I don't know.

Think. This is very important. Are they near?

Ash looked at Isabel and bit his lip. He thought about the horrible journey from the lobby to the lab.
Thorn still here. Others gone.

In the helicopter?

Crashed,
he typed in reply.
2 men in helicopter. Don't
know if alive or dead. 1 person dead in corridor. 2 guards dead by other lab. No power. No phones. Shutters down. How can we get help?
Ash was trying to stay calm and give Mum as much information as he could. Mum stared at his words until he took the tablet away and stabbed again at the virtual keyboard on the screen:
Please cpome out now!

Mum pursed her lips and continued to stare. She took a deep breath and finally looked down at her own tablet:
Where did Cain and Pierce go?

I don't know.

‘
¡Madre de Dios!
' Isabel threw her hands in the air. ‘
¿Por qué no vienen a cabo?
Why won't they come out? Give it to me. Let me ask Papa.' She reached towards the tablet computer.

‘Wait.' Ash turned his body to stop her from taking it, then typed:
What's going on? Why is room sealed? Why don't you come out?

When he held it up, Mum stood there, with her tablet in one hand, but she didn't type anything. She just stared at him again, eyes glistening, so Ash went closer to the glass and thrust the tablet towards it, clenching his jaw and furrowing his brow. He wanted her to see that he was scared.

When Mum didn't answer straight away, Ash added something else and held it out for her to see.
Who are Cain and Pierce and Thorn? What is happening to me? What is Kronos?

Mum deflated. Her shoulders dropped and she hung her head like she was beaten. When she looked up again, her
face was bathed in the lab's pale blue light, giving her a ghoulish appearance. She made herself smile, but her eyes flickered and she glanced over her son's shoulder, making Ash and Isabel turn to look behind them.

‘Oh no.' Isabel wilted.

‘What?' Ash asked. ‘What is it?'

‘There.' Isabel tipped her head towards a large console against the far wall. It displayed a complicated array of dials and buttons and blinking lights, but that wasn't what Mum was looking at. She was looking at the four yellow helmets lying beside it.

A connection began to form in Ash's mind, bringing together the hazmat suits without helmets, the sealed lab door and the look on Mum's face

When they turned back to Mum, she was holding up another message for them.

Kronos is a virus. Very dangerous and contagious. Deadly. Pierce and others have stolen it.

Beside him, Isabel took a sudden sharp breath. Her heart quickened in her chest –
ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum
– and Ash heard it as clearly as if someone were beating a drum right next to him. It was the strangest thing; being able to hear her heart like that. It increased his confusion and he could only stare as Mum typed a new message.

Don't know why they want it. But if it is released, millions will die. We tried to stop him.

Millions will die?
Ash read the words over and over.

With trembling fingers, he typed again.
Is it in there with you?

Mum looked away, tears coming to her eyes. She moved the tablet as if she were going to type something, but stopped, fingers hovering over the screen. She bowed her head and her shoulders hitched, so Isabel's dad gently took the tablet from her.

Pierce locked us in here. Released the virus into this room, scrambled lock code. He has only keycard to open it.

Isabel took a step back, a look of horror spreading across her face. ‘
Un remedio. Debe haber un remedio.
'

The world swam around Ash like a liquid dream. He was aware of Isabel beside him; could feel her reaction, hear her heart pounding. He could actually
smell
fear oozing from her pores with the scent of burnt plastic. All thoughts of what was happening to him were gone as he typed once more.

Cure?

Dr Vasquez frowned.
Antiviral is called Zeus. Pierce brought Dr McCarthy here to make it. Now he has it. Took everything. Has virus, antiviral, vaccine, all the research, leaving island.

Ash glanced at his mum, then typed:
Make more antiviral.

Dr Vasquez shook his head. We don't have everything we need. No way to get it in here. Lab is locked.

Isabel sobbed. Her knees buckled and she sank to the floor. Ash knew exactly how she felt, but didn't know what to say to her. He set the tablet to one side and put an arm around her shoulder. Mum had comforted him many times
since Dad had died, sitting exactly like this, not saying anything, because sometimes there isn't anything you
can
say. It might help if there is someone to share it with you, someone to strengthen you, but sometimes you have to accept things for what they are; learn to live with them.

But Ash decided this wasn't going to be one of those times. There was nothing he could do about what had happened to Dad – he couldn't bring him back – but there had to be something he could do to help Mum. There
had
to be.

Dad wouldn't have given up, so neither would he.

‘We can get it back,' he said to Isabel. ‘The cure. The keycard.'

‘How?'

‘There has to be
some
thing.' He wasn't going to lose his mum without a fight, and he began to feel the same things he had felt when he saw Cain attacking her that day after the funeral – all that anger, determination and fear mixing up into a powerful potion that put a raging fire in him. ‘We have to do something,' he said. ‘We can't give up. We have to be tough. We have to be clever.' He wanted Isabel to feel the same fire inside her. ‘You got us to the lab in the dark. You're brave, I know you are, so come on, Isabel, think. What can we do?'

‘I don't know . . . They said they're going to cross the island and be gone. Maybe we could go after them, if—'

‘That's it!' Ash jumped to his feet as a memory of the helicopter popped into his mind. ‘You're a genius. They
can't
just leave the island. They have to
cross
it. We can go after
them. And they're carrying that crate – they'll be slow.'

Isabel shook her head and stopped him. ‘I am sorry, Ash. You are forgetting lockdown. The shutters. We can't get out of here.'

Ash stopped with his mouth open and cold dread rose through him. ‘But there
has
to be another way out,' he said. ‘It doesn't make sense to be able to shut everything down like that.'

‘It's for safety. In case—'

‘A way to open the shutters, then.'

Isabel held out her hands. ‘I . . . I don't know.'

‘Another door? Emergency exit?
Some
thing?'

‘No, I . . .'

Ash fought back tears of frustration as he turned away and jabbed at the keyboard on the tablet computer.
Pierce and Cain crossing island to boat. We could try to stop them but everything locked down. Shutters everywhere. No power but here. How do we get out?

Mum stared at the words, then raised her eyes to look at her son. It was the clearest expression of desolation Ash had ever seen. She would die in the lab, while Ash and Isabel watched. Eventually food would run out, water would run out, and then they too would die.

But Isabel's dad typed something and held it up for Isabel to read.

Use HEX13

‘Is that a way out?' Ash felt a glimmer of fresh hope. ‘Like a door or something?'

‘Yes.' Isabel narrowed her eyes as she thought about it. ‘A
way out.'

‘Then what are we waiting for? Let's go.'

Mum and Dr Vasquez shared a glance before Mum took the tablet.
No
, she typed.
Too dangerous.

We have to do
something
!
Ash replied.

Mum shook her head.

What else can we do? Stay here?

Mum read the words and looked away. He was right. He couldn't stay in the lab and watch her die.

I am Ash McCarthy,
he wrote.
I am strong. I can do this.

Ash put the tablet up against the glass until his mum looked to see what he had written. When she did, tears welled in her eyes. She knew the words and she knew what they meant to him.

I won't lose you too,
Ash wrote.

Mum lowered her head with a heavy sigh. When she looked up again, she met her son's gaze for a second, then turned and spoke to Isabel's dad.

‘What are they saying?' Isabel was watching them intently, trying to read their lips, but she could only make out the odd word. ‘Can you tell?'

‘No. Are they arguing?' Ash thought there were some moments when they might be, and others when they seemed to agree. The two women joined the conversation, coming together so the four of them were standing in a huddle in the centre of the lab.