Wild Thing (10 page)

'Those are the inmates.  The system keeps an eye on them and alerts me if they do anything dangerous to themselves.'

'Oh.  Do you have windows for Uncle, and me?  And the Director?'

Mr Shanahan laughed.  'No, only for the inmates.  The patients.'

'Who's that one?' she asked, pointing to the man who was in the four pictures.  She noticed that whatever he did in one, he did in the others, just from a different angle.  He must have four cameras in his room.  She wondered why.

At her question, the man looked around, like he'd actually heard her.  He looked a bit worried all of a sudden, she thought.

'Ah, best if you don't know, Sara.  He's very dangerous.  A very powerful mage, and completely loopy.'

At her sideways-tilted look, he added, 'He's mad.'

'Where are they?  I haven't seen them.  Are they in some of the empty rooms?'

He blinked.  'Oh, you mean the unused offices?  No.  And I don't want you to go looking for them, either, you understand?  Stay away from them.  They're dangerous.'

But she knew the in-mates were all locked up.  So how could they be dangerous?  Aloud, all she said was, 'Uh huh, I get it.  You don't want me to look for them.'

'Good.  I don't want your Uncle tearing strips off me.'

Mr Shanahan often said weird stuff like that, so she just smiled, and told him she and Faith were going to patrol the lake now.

She wondered where the
in-mates
were?

She figured B2 probably meant basement level 2, and maybe the W, E, and NS meant compass directions.  So probably the in-mates were kept in the basement.  That seemed a bit mean.  They wouldn't have any windows to look out of.

She wondered how she could visit the man with four cameras, without the computer thinking it was
unusual
?  That was a problem.

In the afternoon, as she tracked muddy footprints across the polished floors, from the corner of her eye she noticed the door onto the stairs leading down, and remembered the man in the basement.  Taking off her shoes she tiptoed over, then noticed another problem: the door was locked.  But it had a ’lectronic pad of numbers beside the lock, and she smiled as she thought of a sneaky solution.  It shouldn't be too hard to convince Uncle to buy her a small telescope, not if she explained she needed it to help hunt the unvisible monster.

The next day, waiting for the delivery drone, she considered shooting its propellers to get the telescope sooner.  She and Faith discussed the idea as they paced back and forth at the front steps, but in the end they decided it'd probably be better not to.  But the instant the drone docked with the delivery box and deposited its package inside, she raced up to her Uncle's office so he could go and get it for her.

It had been kind of fun playing with the telescope, but having to lurk around inside, out of sight while she waited for her Uncle to visit the basement, almost drove her mad!  Luckily, she had her “unsurprising training” for the computer to do, so every now and then when it got just too boring to take, she'd sneak off to the cupboard where she had all her equipment hidden.

She'd chosen the upper level – deserted and unimportant – for the training. Each session was exactly the same: she'd stop at the end of one of the upper corridors, carrying the very old and broken cleaning bot into view of the security camera.  Then, with a long stick she'd taped to it, she'd push the bot down the corridor till she figured it was clearly in view of the camera.  Then she'd wait forever, to be sure it'd been seen. 
Then
she'd walk up, all serious, with a big frown, and put her suitcase down beside it.  She'd painted the suitcase red, glad she'd brought her paints and drawing stuff with her from, from…, well, anyway, she was glad she'd kept her stuff from when she was little.

Then she'd push and poke the disk-shaped robot, and turn it over, and say “hmm,” in a very serious voice, too – not because the cameras listened, just because it helped her Pretend properly.  Then she'd open her case and get out a screwdriver and one of her coloring pencils, since that kind of looked like a ’lectronic fixing-gadget too.  She'd poke at the bot like a repairman would.  After a while, in full view of the camera, she'd “Humph” – with both shoulders – and put her tools back in her toolbox, fasten it shut and then look down at the bot like she was real cross, hands on her hips like she thought it was misbehaving, before finally picking it up and stomping off.

She did that several times each day for the whole next week, and no one said anything, not even Mr Shanahan.  So she figured the computer had decided it was seeing a cleaning bot break down, and had also worked out that she was a repair girl who fixed broken cleaning bots.  So the next day, she'd visit the basement.  She bet the G man was in B2, since B2 was deeper under the ground.

At the door to the basement levels, she stretched up and entered the code that she'd watched – through her small telescope – her Uncle enter.  It hadn't been too hard to sneak up behind him, and peep round the corners to watch what he used at the first door leading down.  And it got specially-easy when she saw that he'd just changed the last number of his code to a “1” when he got to the “B1” door.  The trouble after that, though, had been that by the time she'd done all her repair-girl stuff, Uncle was gone from sight, so she didn't get to see the code he used for B2.  She'd chewed her lip, but decided to try changing the last code number to a “2” and see if that worked – and it did!  She wished she and Faith could've gone on the adventure together – that'd be so much better – but Mr Shanahan always knew where Faith was, and it'd be pretty hard to explain how
Faith
could've been opening the security doors.

She pushed the loneliness down.  At least she could tell her all about it, after.

She sneaked down the stairs and into another corridor.  From not far ahead, maybe just around the next turn, she could hear her uncle's voice, and also someone else replying.

She itched to creep up and just take a teensy-weensy peek around the corner.  It was the hardest thing she'd ever done,
not
doing that, and instead sneaking away to try the secret entry codes on her own, later.  But Miss X was always patient, and it wouldn't kill her to wait till her Uncle had left.  Probably.

She'd retreated all the way back up to the ground floor and then hid down the corridor to wait for him to come out.

It took for
ever!

In the end, her Uncle did eventually leave – and didn't see her.  He just went straight up the stairs to his office instead.  And so she snuck straight back down to the basement, all her equipment ready and all the secret door codes memorized.  But when she stepped round the corner of basement level 2 and into the corridor with the cell doors – her cleaning bot under one arm and long stick and toolbox in her other hand – she straightaway saw a big problem.  Each room had just one small window, and it looked like the
bottom
of each was just about the same height as the top of her head!

At the far end of the corridor, where it ended in a “T”, there was a chair that looked just the right height for her.  But she was sure the grown ups didn't stand on chairs to look inside, so the dumb computer'd probably tell Mr Shanahan someone was doing something unusual.

For a long time she just stood there, breathing hard, before finally turning and stalking away.  Eyes narrowed, she stomped off down the corridor, remembering everything that Mr Shanahan had said about how his computer worked out what was unusual.  It helped him do his job more easily, he'd explained when she'd asked why there were so few windows on his screens.  She knew there were lots more security cameras than that, from the number she'd counted in the game she'd made of finding and counting them all.

So three days later – three days of dragging chairs down corridors to closed office doors, then picking up her bot – which she'd named “Bork” – and holding it up to the window for no reason at all except to get the stupid dumb computer used to seeing repair-girl step up to windows on a chair – she was back in corridor CorrEB2 and pushing Bork down toward the first window.  She left it for a good long time, then walked up to it with her toolbox and did her cross-at-the-bot fixing-examination.  No alarms or anything went off, which she took as a good sign.  She tromped down the corridor thinking serious and grumpy repair-girl thoughts, before dragging the chair back down the corridor to the first window.

The chair was almost broken, the thick navy-blue padding squashed flat, like a
really
fat person had sat in it for a
really
long time.  One back leg was bent and had a crack, but she reckoned it would be good enough.  And if it did break, she'd bring her own stupid chair next time!

Placing the chair by the first door, she picked up Bork and stepped onto the chair, holding him up next to the window and excitedly looking inside-

And the stupid room was empty!

Grinding her teeth, she kept “examining” Bork, then got down, dragged the chair down to the next room, and repeated her charade.

This room had the woman who'd been scratching her arm, though now she was just lying on her bunk, asleep.

So, she examined Bork some more for the pesky computer, then dragged her chair along to the
next
door.

She almost dropped Bork when she looked inside, because she'd found the G man!  He was standing in the middle of his cell and slowly moving his hands in sweeping patterns, facing away from her.  She stared, wishing he'd turn around, and suddenly he stilled, and very slowly, did just that.

She smiled, and waved.

And he
freaked out!
  His eyes went
huge
and his mouth dropped open, and he instantly did some weird thing with his hands and fingers, and suddenly he was encased in a glowing dome, so bright it hurt her eyes.  He'd just made a magical protection circle!  And it was
much
brighter, and much thicker than any circle she'd seen on the trids!  She could see his mouth move, and peered forward, squinting, trying super hard to hear what he said, or read his lips.  “Meh”-something “S”-something-short.  Merry sand?

She smiled again, and waved again, and he paled – she could actually see his face go even whiter, which was pretty cool: she thought that only happened in books.  And he kind of staggered back, like his legs could barely hold him up.

Then her own eyes went wide at a sudden awful thought, and she twisted around on the chair in case something was sneaking up behind her.

But the corridor was empty.  It was just
her
there, and she looked back round into the small room.  She waved again, trying a smaller smile and just wiggling her fingers, and said “Hi, my name's Sara.”

He said something, and did another wriggly thing with
his
fingers, and suddenly a huge bolt of flame shot straight toward the window!  She almost fell backwards off the chair in shock.

But nothing happened: in fact the flames stopped like there was a sharp wall a hand's width in front of the window inside the room.  All the space between the thick glass and his glowing dome blazed, on and on, until suddenly the flames just winked out.

Inside the cell, the man simply stared at her, blinking, while she stared back.  Suddenly she realized, even if
she
hadn't done anything unusual, probably
he
just had, so she quickly hopped off the chair, dragged it back to the T junction, and hurried off, Bork under one arm and her red toolbox in the other.

Wincing the whole way, since she was sure she was going to get into
so
much trouble, she was already trying to think up some excuses.

But by the end of the day, when no one had said anything – not Mr Shanahan, not even her uncle – she began to think that no one had noticed after all.  Which was pretty strange.  It must of meant that Mr G often made super protection spells and cast fireballs right there in his cell.

But then, Mr Shanahan had said Mr G was mad. 
Loopy
.  She'd giggled, thinking about it at dinner time, and almost choked on her orange juice.  Her uncle had looked at her strangely, but she just said she'd remembered a funny cartoon.  She knew he was bored by cartoons and if she wanted to avoid a whole series of weird questions, it was best to keep Uncle bored.

But she could hardly wait till the next day!

-

This time when she stepped up on the chair, Mr G flashed around almost straight away, and again the huge glowy magic circle went up.  But this time he didn't look so scared.  In fact he looked pretty cool.  He'd wrapped a sort of ghost-fire around his hands, though this time he didn't actually shoot it at her.

Which was
probably
good.  She smiled, and waved, and this time his eyes just narrowed.  His lips moved, and she was sure he was saying M-something.  “Many sap?”  But she couldn't hear even a whisper, through the thick glass.

She wondered if she could open the door, but it had a metal plate with buttons with numbers on them, and she figured you needed a code.  She pointed down at the lock and very clearly and slowly said 'Do you know the unlocking code number?'

His mouth fell open, but after a second he made a sort of sweeping gesture and the too-bright magic dome vanished like he'd switched it off.  He walked right up to the door, then, but kind of on his toes, like he thought she might be about to trick him.

She considered lunging forward and shouting 'Boo', but thought maybe that wasn't a real good idea.

He made more funny wriggly motions with his fingers like Uncle sometimes did when he did magic, and the man's lips moved, and suddenly she could hear him.

'Who are you?'

'I'm Sara.  Who did you think I was, yesterday?  You were real scared.'

'I-  never mind.  How did you get here?  How did you get past the walls?  Why are you here?'

She tilted her head to one side.  'Uh, I didn't see any walls-'

At that statement he jumped back and cast his protection circle again, and she winced as the bright dome once more sprang up around him.