The Switch (10 page)

Somewhere an alarm went off and the boy who had been doused in the mauve steam was carried away, his skin a mass of bright spots. A girl was led into the telephone booth in his place. Tad whimpered. The cream was less cool now. He could feel it burning his skin. But he was too weak and giddy to cry out. He twisted around on his bed, looking for Marion Thorn.

And then he saw a door open and a man step out. The man was far away, high up on a gantry, and Tad wasn’t sure at first if he was imagining things. It had to be the cream that was doing it to him. It couldn’t be true.

But then Marion Thorn approached the man. The two of them exchanged a few words and Marion laughed. The man took out a cigar and lit it. And suddenly Tad knew.

He was looking at the man behind ACID, the man who had set up the Center and who ran it.

Sir Hubert Spencer.

He was looking at his father.

It was as if Tad
had been plunged into freezing water. The strange, dreamlike state that the cream had thrown him into was suddenly shattered and he was wide-awake, struggling with his thoughts, trying to make sense out of what he knew to be true.

The products in the Center. He knew what they all were, and had known from the moment he had been brought in.

The boy under the lamps was coated in grapefruit-and-aloe suntan oil. The girl with her feet in the bucket was testing coconut corn remover. The girl in the green foam was trying out a cucumber-and-kiwifruit bubble bath. The boy in the shower was being sprayed with body lotion made from different types of seaweed, while the one in the telephone booth was being subjected to a beetroot-and-banana body rub.

They were all products sold by Beautiful World. He had been seeing and smelling products like them all his life.

Beautiful World.

 

 

 

 

But they were tested.
On children!

Tad was horrified. A sudden bleeping made him turn his head and he saw that the machine he was connected to had speeded up. It was a heart monitor—of course! He watched, fascinated, as his heart, beating rapidly now, sent huge peaks across the screen. But at the same time he forced himself to calm down. The doctors had loosened his straps, believing him to be in a trance. If any of them looked at the machine, they would know otherwise and he would be strapped down again.

Tad lay back and closed his eyes. Gradually the heart monitor slowed and quieted. Could it be true? Beautiful World, owned by his parents, was taking kids off the street and using them as laboratory rats to test the safety of their products! And the charity that actually went out and found them—ACID—had also been set up by Sir Hubert and Lady Geranium.

But that was impossible. That would make them . . .

Monsters.

Tad took a deep breath, then opened his eyes again.

The heart monitor had almost exploded and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Sir Hubert Spencer had climbed down a metal staircase and was heading straight for him, Marion Thorn at his side. Now it took every ounce of Tad’s will-power to bring himself back under control. He had to pretend to be drugged. It was his only chance.

“He’s just over here, Sir Hubert . . .” Marion’s voice reached his ears. Not trusting himself, Tad closed his eyes once again. Suddenly he felt the presence of the man standing right next to him.

His father.

His enemy.

No . . . !

“So this is the boy?” A wisp of cigar smoke crossed Tad’s nostrils. “A nasty-looking piece of work. What’s he testing?”

“The moon fruit, Sir Hubert. B/341.”

“Any adverse effects?”

“It’s much too strong, Sir Hubert. As you can see, the subject is virtually unconscious. There’s also a little burning around the ears. Do you see?”

Tad felt Marion’s finger drawing a line down the side of his face. How he managed to stop his heart from giving him away he would never know. As she withdrew the finger, the bleeping quickened again and he groaned, pretending to be having a bad dream.

“The little viper broke into my house, you know,” Sir Hubert snarled. It was his own father, talking about him! But it was as if Tad were hearing his voice for the first time. “I don’t want to see him again. Do you understand me?”

“Absolutely, Sir Hubert. We’ll be testing that new microwave sauna for the first time tomorrow morning. I’d have said that Master Snarby was perfect for it. What do you think?”

Sir Hubert laughed. “Let me know what happens,” he said.

The two of them walked away. Left to himself, Tad let out a great sigh and listened as the heart monitor once again resumed a steady pace. Even as Sir Hubert had been speaking, he had resisted the temptation to cry out, to try to explain who he really was. It would have been no good. He was sure of it. Sir Hubert wouldn’t have listened, and it would have destroyed the one chance he had to get out of there.

The straps were loose. He was wide-awake. And nobody knew it.

Cautiously, Tad looked around. Sir Hubert and Marion Thorn were already some distance away and there was no sign of the twins. It must have been getting toward the end of the night, as the chamber was emptying. There were certainly fewer staff than when he had arrived.

Tad knew what he had to do. The very mention of a microwave sauna had been enough to conjure up the most horrible images. He had to get out of there before he ended up like a TV dinner and he had perhaps only seconds in which to do it. Marion Thorn would be coming back to check on him. So would the twins. It had to be now!

Tad slipped one arm out of the straps and quickly unfastened the buckles on his chest and neck. Finally he bent double and freed his ankles. So far so good. Nobody had seen him. There was a cloth nearby and he used it to wipe off the moon-fruit cream. Marion had certainly been right about one thing. The skin on his cheeks was puffed up and sore. The cloth felt as if it were made of steel wool. Now, how did he get out of here? There was a door at the far end of the chamber—Sir Hubert and Marion had just passed through it, but the thought of running into the two of them was too horrible to contemplate. Then there were the elevators. But Tad remembered that they had no controls. He wouldn’t even know how to call them and anyway they were too far away. That just left the metal staircase that Sir Hubert had taken. It had to be the right way. The chamber was underground. Tad had to go up.

Tad checked again that no one was looking, then pulled the heart monitor off his chest. That was his only mistake.

The connections were no sooner free than the machine began to scream, sending an alarm signal that could be heard from one side of the chamber to the other. Everybody turned. The twins appeared from behind a screen and began to move toward him. At the far end of the chamber a group of security guards ran forward, looking around to see where the disturbance had come from.

Tad swung himself onto his feet and took off. The first of the twins reached him and grabbed hold of his arm. Tad twisted out of his grip and pushed as hard as he could. The twin was sent flying into a shelf of bottles that collapsed all around him, glass smashing and liquid splashing out. The twin screamed. One of the bottles must have contained acid. As Tad watched, the man’s shoes began to dissolve.

Some of the other children were sitting up now, shouting encouragement. But the second twin had figured out where Tad was heading. The man, twice Tad’s size, had positioned himself at the bottom of the stairs.

“All right,” he began. “Don’t move!”

There was a trolley loaded with bottles and test tubes, and as the second twin edged toward him, Tad grabbed it and propelled it forward. The trolley slammed into the man, glass falling and shattering all around. The twin was caught unprepared. The side of the trolley thumped into his stomach and at the same time his foot slipped. With a great shout he lost his balance and fell, crashing down onto his back. Tad leaped over him and onto the first step.

The other children were cheering him on, their cries echoing around the chamber. But the fastest of the security men had already reached the stairs, just behind Tad. Halfway up, Tad suddenly wheeled around and kicked out. His foot caught the man on the chin, knocking him over the banister and onto a work surface below. The security guard fell with a great cry, smashing into a row of test tubes and a Bunsen burner. The burner was still on. The jetting flame came into contact with the spilled chemicals and there was a satisfying
whumph
as a sheet of flame mushroomed to the ceiling. Immediately a bell began to ring. The sprinkler system switched on and suddenly Tad found himself climbing through a tropical storm. He was grateful for the water. It would add to the chaos. And it would wash the last of the cream from his face.

Tad reached the top of the stairs. There was a short corridor, then a door. He scrabbled for the handle, almost crying out with relief when it turned. Not daring to look back at the chaos he had left behind him, he jerked the door open and ran through, colliding with some sort of secretary who was just coming in. He didn’t apologize. The woman fell in a shower of graphs and typewritten sheets. Tad leaped over her and ran down a wide, softly lit hallway.

He hadn’t found a way out yet. This was some sort of storage area. One side of the hallway was lined with a series of large copper vats, each labeled FACE CREAM, FOOT LOTION, AFTER-SHAVE and so on. A pipe ran out of each of them, running up the wall to join a complicated network across the ceiling. The other side of the corridor contained a row of levers. Tad walked slowly past them. In front of him there was a double door. There was still nobody behind them.

He had almost reached the doors when they swung open and he found himself face-to-face with Marion Thorn.

She must have taken a second elevator, leaving Sir Hubert somewhere on the surface. Then, when the alarm was raised, she must have doubled back. But Tad didn’t stop to consider how she had gotten there. He stared at the woman who had met him when he had been taken to ACID, hardly able to recognize her. Then he had thought her beautiful and kind. Now her eyes were bulging, her mouth was twisted in a grimace of hatred and her hair seemed to stand on end.

“You stay there!” she cried in a high-pitched voice, and to his amazement, Tad saw that she had produced a gun and was pointing it at him. She steadied it with both hands. “If you move, I’ll shoot you in the heart.”

Tad looked left and right. Behind him he could hear the commotion in the main chamber, the jangle of the alarm bells, the hiss of the sprinkler system. He wondered how long it would be before the security guards burst through the door. He knew he wouldn’t get a second chance. If they caught him, he had a one-way ticket to the microwave. His eyes darted left and right. In a split second he had taken in the pipes, the levers, the position of the vats.

“I’m going to enjoy experimenting on you,” the charity worker continued. She was confident now, enjoying her victory. “Sir Hubert warned me you were a nasty piece of work.”

Tad looked down. “Please . . .” he muttered.

Marion Thorn threw back her head and laughed. It was what Tad had been waiting for.

He lunged to one side even as Marion lifted the gun and fired. The bullet missed him, passing over his head and ricocheting off a metal pipe. At the same moment, his hands found two of the levers. He pulled them. Marion aimed the gun again. But she was too late. The next moment there was a rush and a gurgle as two hundred gallons of bright red vanishing cream shot out of a pipe and crashed down onto the unfortunate woman.

Marion Thorn vanished.

Tad looked back. The door burst open and two more security guards appeared, both of them armed. Grateful now for the speed and agility he must have inherited from Bob Snarby, Tad twisted around and ran. There was an explosion and a bullet whistled past, smashing into a pipe close to Tad’s head. A thin spray of pink ooze jetted into the air. Tad ran forward, vanishing cream licking at his ankles, and threw himself through the door.

And he was out! The cold night air embraced him and he ran into it with a sense of exhilaration. Quickly he took in the low redbrick buildings that made up the compound and the tall wire fence that surrounded it. Already an alarm had begun to let out its unnatural wail, and at the same time brilliant spotlights suddenly sliced through the darkness, huge white circles gliding across the asphalt.

Tad ran on, but with every step he found himself slowing down, realizing the hopelessness of his situation. There was no way out of the Center. The gate was too heavily guarded. The fence was unclimbable. And everywhere he looked there were more security guards, some on foot, some on motorbikes, making sure every square inch of the compound was covered.

“Security alert! Security alert!” The inhuman voice rang out across the rooftops. Tad stumbled and came to a breathless halt.

On the other side of the fence he could see houses. In the distance there was a pub. He almost wanted to cry. The real world, ordinary people doing ordinary things, were only a few yards away. But he couldn’t reach them. He would never see them again. There was no way out.

“There he is!”

It was a man’s voice, coming from just behind him. To one side a Jeep suddenly sprang forward, its headlights slanting down. Tad stood where he was. There was nothing more he could do.

And then it happened. At the last minute, just when he thought it was all over, there was the blare of a horn and a London taxi appeared out of nowhere, accelerating toward the fence. Tad watched as it burst through, snapping the wire, and hurtled toward him. Meanwhile the Jeep had also accelerated and suddenly the two vehicles were heading straight for each other in what had to be a head-on collision. It was the driver of the Jeep who lost his nerve. With mere inches to spare, he wrenched the wheel. The Jeep swerved, crashed into a building and disappeared in a pillar of flame. The taxi screeched to a halt in front of Tad and the back door opened.