Ribblestrop (42 page)

“Millie! I can hardly hear you—where are you?”

“I've found him. He's down here. Over.”

“They're down there too, Millie—I tried to say, they were using the lift. They're down there, wait for us—”

“He's all right, I think. They've gone. I'm going to see.”

“No, wait, Millie! We're on our way, stay—”

She snapped the radio off, set it to one side, and entered the room. Crablike, she scuttled in and waited for her breathing to slow down. She could see Anjoli's cheek, shining wet with tears or sweat. It had to be him, no one else had hair swept back like that.

“Anjoli!” she cried, in a hoarse whisper. “I'm here.”

Oh, the crying was louder now and it was the loneliest sound in the world. It was desolate, tired, and abandoned, as if he'd been crying all night. It was so full of longing that it moved things in Millie's guts she never wanted moved again. “I'm here,” she said. “It's me—Millie! Be quiet, Anjoli, please!”

She came past the first robot. It was wearing a surgical mask. There were tools on its tray, bright silver in the candlelight. Little picks and knives and tweezers, but she didn't want to look. She glanced up and the second one seemed to be staring at her, over an identical white mask. Cotton wool and towels were piled on that tray.

Millie forced her eyes forward and focused only on Anjoli. He was bound by his wrists and his ankles, and there was a complicated scaffold holding his head still, drawing it backward. His eyes were wide, bigger than ever, and they were filmed with tears and they weren't focusing. His lips were slightly open too and he was breathing evenly. Deep shock, perhaps?

She put her hands against his face and pushed his hair back. He was warm to the touch. “Anjoli,” she said. “Have they hurt you? Have they done anything?”

He stared past her, he didn't know she was there—but the sobbing started again, louder now. It seemed to come not from Anjoli, but from the walls and ceiling. Even as Millie looked up and around, the sobbing started to echo and take on a demented quality, more like mocking laughter.

“He can't hear you,” said a voice.

Millie swung round, and there was Miss Hazlitt, and she too was laughing. She was wearing a white coat. Millie had never seen her in a white coat before. A tape rewound and she heard her own voice, loud and demanding: “
Excuse me, miss? Excuse me?
” Then she heard Ruskin, asking a question, and the laughter of a whole classroom full of children.

“Oh, Millie,” said Miss Hazlitt, sadly. “Surely you didn't think it would be that easy?” Her voice was different. It was deeper.

“
Welcome to our school!
” said the voice of an orphan. Children were still giggling in the background. “
We hope you will enjoy . . . we hope you . . .”
The voice dissolved into giggles, and she could hear the manners and civilization class—desks banging, feet stamping. As she stood there, stunned, lights were flashing on. They had generators, of course they did. Monitors were coming
on in bright blue and above—on a big screen—there were images of a school corridor, a dormitory. Millie saw children running, walking, fighting . . . “
Can I help you, sir? Are you looking for the office?
”

Millie spun around and around, not sure where to look. One of the robots was straightening up, offering its tray of tools, and she saw long needles. There were men and women emerging too, in those funeral suits she'd seen from above . . . seven, eight—two men in uniform who looked like security guards. She recognized the bowler-hatted man and the one with the ugly mustache.

“Recordings make the process easier,” said Miss Hazlitt. “It's part of a re-education program. Listening and watching while we stimulate the brain cells that remain; it's a process we're so close to perfecting.”

“What have you done to him?” cried Millie.

“Such progress! And we're so close to a breakthrough. Your friend's had the mildest shot of nerotaxodil. He's probably dreaming of you, Millie.”

“You're not touching him!” cried Millie. She put herself between the chair and Miss Hazlitt. “You leave him alone!”

“I've given him two grams, it's the mildest of sedatives. The last thing anyone wants at this stage is trauma.”

Somebody said, “Three minutes,” but Millie didn't see who. Miss Hazlitt had moved to another of the robots and was pressing its neck. The security guards were blowing out the candles and some of the men in suits were arranging chairs. “Who are these people? What are you doing?”

“She doesn't understand,” said someone, kindly. The inspection lamp above was on now and its light was blinding.

“There's no reason why she should,” said someone else—a woman's voice. “Millie, you're part of a very special secret.”

“One that must be
kept
,” said a man. “Having come this far.”

“We have clearance, old boy,” said the man with the mustache.

As he spoke, Miss Hazlitt's cell phone chirped. She keyed in a number and said, “Everything's signed, we're ready to go.” She
looked at Millie and smiled, the dentures huge and white and far too smooth. The face looked older, as if the makeup had been wiped away to reveal something stony, even dirty. “This has taken years, my dear. You'll never know how long the future takes to construct. Inspector!”

Millie swung round but even as she moved she felt a hand on the back of her neck. She hit blindly and kicked, but a hand caught her wrist and her right arm was wrenched up behind her. Twisting, she lunged with her left, but that too was caught and twisted so she couldn't breathe. He knew the maneuvers, he'd done this so many times. In a moment Millie was tripped onto her face and a huge, heavy knee rested on her back; the air was driven from her lungs, and her face was pressing into the rubber floor as she coughed and retched.

“I've been waiting too,” said Inspector Cuthbertson. He too was breathing hard, and he smelled of the lake.

“Let me go,” she whispered. He had all his weight on her, his hands were squeezing, and she could feel her sinews being torn apart. Was he laughing? She could hear laughter, but her oxygen was going. “Please!” she cried, with the last mouthful of air. “Just let us go, please!”

“Don't break her, Percy,” said Miss Hazlitt. Her voice was so cold. “I was just trying to explain, trauma can complicate the injection process, and as she's volunteered, I think we need to give her the best possible chance. We haven't run tests on you, Millie, so to some extent we're flying blind. You'll be what's known as a
parallel study
. Raise the boy.”

Someone was wheeling a trolley, she could hear the rumbling of castors; then a bell was ringing, and the floor shook as more trolleys were wheeled around her. It was the robots again: they were the nurses. As Millie twisted and looked up, she saw one adjusting a dial; another rolled forward slowly. It had a gun in its hands.

“Nobody's going to hurt either of you,” said Miss Hazlitt. She was checking a screen, as a third robot passed her a tiny glass tube.
“In a very short while you'll be back at school . . . eating your breakfast. You'll be different people, though. That's for sure.”

Another bell rang and something started to bleep. The noise was sharp and penetrating.

Millie gulped some air and thrashed on the floor. She tried to kick but the hands that held her simply lifted her up, and the two guards in uniform were helping so she didn't stand a chance. She found herself on a trolley, and thick restraints were going over her shoulders, chest, ankles, thighs. There was something in her mouth and a bright light in her face. One of the robots was moving, bringing the tray low, close to her ear: Millie saw scissors of all different sizes. Sightless eyes locked onto hers. She tried to scream.

“After this, child, you'll be so cooperative. You'll give. You'll work! And, who knows, Millie?”

“
I like to clean my shoes
,” said a child's voice, clear over the speakers.

“Maybe your father will want you back.”

Millie managed a howl, and the thing in her mouth was pressed deeper.

“If we turn you into a good citizen . . . Look at me. If we burn the revolution out of you, you might find a family that wants you. Don't you want to stop fighting, Millie?”

Miss Hazlitt looked down over her and raised her hands to her head. The tight curls of hair were shifting under her fingers, as the children's voices bleated on: “
No! That's against the rules!
” The woman's scalp was moving and suddenly, like a bathing cap, it was sliding to one side, revealing the mottled, gray skin of old age and a tangled mess of white hair.

“This is about transformation, my dear.” The teeth were working loose and saliva dripped. Miss Hazlitt reached between her lips and out they came, handfuls of teeth, so that the skull shrunk and the cheeks flopped in. The makeup cracked like paint on rubber, and Millie was gazing into the eyes of a very old man. “What you're listening to is the language of cooperation: ‘
I do as I'm told
,' ” he said, as a child said the same thing. “My name's Jarman,” he said.
“Miss Hazlitt is no more, not until tomorrow. Shh, my dear, you have to relax now: everything changes. We can all be transformed!”

The old man laughed and there was laughter fluttering round the room on enormous wings, the echoing laughter of children. The smell of cigarette and perspiration was unbearable as he leaned hard on the trolley, coughing and chuckling. She recognized him now—she'd seen that hair from above, and Sam's stories of wartime research were clicking into place with the precision of dominoes falling. The lessons, the cameras, the tapes, and the medicals. Miss Hazlitt's slow, insectlike movement along the corridors, locking doors, touching the children with those long slim, fingers—easing himself in, and edging others out.

He'd put on glasses now, with great, buglike lenses, an inch thick. His posture had collapsed into the skinny, hunched thing she'd observed from above, a man in his nineties.

“
I must tidy up my room
,” said a child. “
I want to do good things! No—that's against the rules, I mustn't!
” There was a robot at the old man's elbow, hypodermic on its tray; from one of the steel sinks a second robot came slowly forward, bearing a pair of plastic gloves.

Jarman reached behind Anjoli and took the gun from the third. But as he brought it close, Millie saw that it wasn't a gun at all, it was more like a pen or a soldering iron. The old man raised it and took off its cap. There was an electrical flex attached to one end and at the other there wasn't a nib. Jarman was holding a drill.

“You ought to be proud,” he whispered. “You children really are pioneers—like the Wild West. Speed seven, I think. We don't want to set him on fire.”

There was a squeal of metal and out of the drill came a long, fine sting. It grew in length and Jarman moved a dial so the squeal rose into a scream.

“Everyone ready?” he said. “We'll do the boy first. It's just five little holes, Millie. I'll create perfection, with just five little holes.”

Back in the headmaster's study, the chainsaw screech of grinders had obliterated hearing and the children were working by sign language. Asilah had done the locks on the grille, slicing through steel. They hauled it back and played flashlights into the well of the lift shaft. Black cables ran down into an impossibly deep hole. The flashlights illuminated black space and nothing more, but nobody hesitated. They all had gloves so, led by Sanjay, they leaped for the wires and slid down, down, down into the inky darkness.

Their boots gave good friction, but the journey was long. It was as if they were going to the center of the earth. Israel landed first and started to help the others onto the top of the lift car. Instinctively now, they worked in silence.

Tomaz had found the trapdoor in the roof and had it open: the hatchway was small. There wasn't room for many. Asilah dropped through with Sanjay, and then they helped Sanchez. In the jumping flashlights and the crush of boys, he had his gun out. He stared at the lift doors. Another metal grille and a second door that looked like thin steel. Asilah waved his hand and Podma swung the grinder down toward him. Eric guided it through the hatch.

*

Meanwhile, at the main gate, Ruskin kept the van idling. He was getting more used to it now, and while the orphans clambered out
of the back and chained up the entrance, he and Sam successfully maneuvered the vehicle around.

“Where did they learn this, Ruskin?” said Sam, wonderingly.

“I think a lot of it is instinct. Asilah was giving the orders and it all seemed to come naturally. Do you want to drive back? How's your eyesight these days?”

“Black and white still.”

“I'll do the gears, you have a go at steering.”

As the boys swapped seats, Israel finished wrapping the gates in chain. Vijay lit the burner and in seconds had the pressure right. The rods melted in crackling bolts of lightning, and in less than a minute the chain was spot-welded into an unbreakable mass: the gates were sealed. They dragged everything back into the van and Sam dipped the clutch.

“Go!” shouted Vijay.

“First gear, Sam: go!” yelled Ruskin.

They reversed three meters and slammed into a gatepost. There was a blast of car horn and Ruskin wrestled with the gearstick. The van shunted forward this time, in a huge kangaroo leap. They stalled.

“Easily done,” said Ruskin. “The clutch is more delicate than you think.”

“I think there's someone behind us,” said Sam.

Everyone turned to look out of the rear doors, mashed as they were. A pair of headlights shone dazzlingly bright, glinting through the shattered glass. You could just see the little lamp on the roof.