Sean Black - Lockdown

Eventually, they reached a room that Lock vaguely remembered passing on his way with Mareta to the medical area a few hours earlier. There were no gurneys inside, just an examination couch, a desk and a chair. Richard Hulme sat behind the desk.

The guards lifted Lock up on to the couch.

‘I’ll be quite safe,’ said Richard.

The guards didn’t budge. ‘Sorry, Dr Hulme, we have our orders.’

Lock wondered how much either guard knew about what had happened in the lead-up to his appearance in Mareta’s cell. He doubted Brand would have trusted all but his closest confidants with the knowledge of Josh’s kidnapping, or Lock’s role in trying to track him down.

‘He’s fully restrained,’ Richard shot back.

‘Like we just said, we’re here to ensure your safety,’ the second guard replied.

‘And I appreciate it. And if you get your rocks off seeing me giving a grown man a full medical, including a prostate check, that’s your business.’

‘Prostate?’ said the first guard.

‘He’s going to shove his finger up my ass,’ replied Lock.

The two guards traded a look.

‘He is in restraints,’ the second guard said, not relishing the thought of what was going to be happening in the room. ‘OK, we’ll be right outside, but leave the door open. If it closes we’ll be coming through it.’

Once they were alone, Richard began the examination, starting with a visual assessment. ‘You took a real beating.’

‘I’ve taken worse,’ Lock lied.

Richard leaned in closer as he checked Lock’s ears for signs of bleeding. ‘You think there’s a camera on us?’ he whispered. Then he drew back. ‘Are you experiencing any pain?’

‘I think that’s safe to assume,’ Lock said. ‘But as long as it’s low level, I think I’ll be OK.’

Richard took the hint and dropped his voice as he continued the examination. ‘Listen, do you know the procedure for this test?’

Lock shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

‘In your case, yes. I’m going to give you a placebo but I want you to act as if you’re having a violent reaction right after I give it to you.’ He raised his voice again. ‘Could you raise your arms for me?’

‘What about the others? Are you going to test them too?’ Lock asked as Richard placed a stethoscope against his back.

‘I’m hoping to test you first.’

‘It’s too risky. Especially now they’ve got Josh here.’

‘They can’t blame me if the vaccine doesn’t work.’

‘You don’t think it’ll work?’

‘No, I think it will, but I’m not going to play God with these people no matter who they are.’

‘You might not have a choice, Dr Hulme.’

Josh lay on the bed reading a comic, one for boys his age. Not like that horrible album. He’d already worked out that if he looked at enough other stuff he could push those pictures out of his brain. But he couldn’t seem to get rid of the smell of the place where he’d been kept. It was everywhere.

He glanced up as his dad walked into the room. ‘What was wrong with that lady?’

‘She got hurt in an accident.’

‘It looked like she’d been shot.’

‘She had. But like I said, it was an accident. That’s why you should never pick up a gun if you see one.’

‘Had she been bad?’

‘Yes, but that’s not why she got shot.’

‘Was Natalya bad?’

‘No, not really.’

‘A little bit?’ Josh looked up at his father, registering how tired he looked.

‘She trusted the wrong person, that’s all.’

Mareta was sleeping when Richard arrived to check on her, her breathing slow but insistent. He reached out for her hand, shackled to the bed. Her fingers folded into his as she woke. Her hand felt soft and warm.

‘How are you feeling?’

Her pupils dilated and contracted, struggling to find focus through a curtain of morphine. ‘Yani?’

Was Yani her husband? Her son?

‘No, it’s Dr Hulme. I came to check on you.’

‘My leg, did you save it?’

‘Yes, but we need to get you to a proper hospital.’

‘You know what I did to that man?’

Richard had caught snatches from the guards of how Brand met his end. Each retelling was more gruesome than the last. ‘It’s not my job to judge you,’ he said.

‘I had to do it,’ she whispered. ‘He was going to kill me. I had no choice.’

He studied her face, the olive skin, the calm brown eyes, the high cheekbones. ‘Are you comfortable? Is there anything I can get you?’

‘Maybe some water.’

Richard crossed to a sink at the far end of the room and filled a beaker from the tap. He helped her sit up and put the beaker to her lips. She took tiny sips then sank back into the pillows.

‘Thank you.’

Then she tried to reach out for his hand, the cuffs rattling against the bed frame. The tips of her fingers traced a circle on his palm.

‘Help me. If I stay here, I’ll die.’

Cuffed and shackled, Lock was wheeled through an airlock and into the testing room. Red air hoses hung from the ceiling at intervals of six feet. The two bio-suited guards who’d brought him in made a final check on the restraints.

Lock lifted his head in time to see them go back through into the airlock. Another man in a bio-suit was coming the other way. On his back was a respirator. Richard Hulme looked like the world’s most unlikely astronaut.

Lock noticed that Richard’s hands were shaking as he laid out everything he would need on the bench. Swabs. Sterilized syringes. He crossed the room to something that looked to Lock like a super-charged temperature-controlled beer cooler which was plugged into the wall.

Richard opened it, took out the first of twelve aluminium vials, then closed the lid again. Lock knew that the vaccine had to be kept at a constant temperature. Richard had told him that. A tiny red heat marker on the label turned blue as soon as it moved more than three degrees above. On this vial there were two heat markers. The second had been placed there by Richard to denote that the contents were saline solution.

Richard rolled up Lock’s sleeve. Lock had attended enough executions in his life to know that the person about to die rarely exhibited any great hysteria, either because their mind was already gone or because they’d received a little something to level off their mood before they got into the chamber.

Lock didn’t like needles. Never had. So he looked the other way as Richard dabbed at a vein on his arm with a sterile swab. A near comical precaution, given the circumstances. If Lock was going to die he doubted a lack of hygiene would play any part.

A clear screen ran the length of one wall. He could see Stafford watching him. As the needle slid in, Lock gave him the finger. It was what Stafford would expect. And if Stafford was looking at him he wouldn’t be too focused on Richard.

It seemed to be working. With Lock strapped down and plenty of firepower between the two men, Stafford smiled, waving four fingers in a goodbye gesture.

Richard finished filling the syringe. He tapped the barrel to force out any tiny bubbles of air.

As the needle pressed against Lock’s skin, Stafford stepped forward and pressed a button on the console in front of him. He leaned forward to speak into a microphone. A speaker on the wall inside the testing room relayed his voice. ‘Change of plan.’

‘But. .’ Richard started to object.

The airlock hissed open and the two guards rolled another gurney in. The man on it was of indeterminate age, his skin weatherbeaten, the rest of his face almost entirely obscured by a bushy beard. He was muttering to himself. The guards pushed the man’s gurney level with Lock and left. Richard shrugged his annoyance and reached for a new needle.