Stephen Leather - Once bitten

Terry wasn't stupid, I knew that she already knew why I was there, she was just talking to cover the sign language, that it was the silent conversation which was the real one, but I still flushed and the spoken answer was an embarrassment. "This isn't just a social visit, Terry. W-H-E-R-E You could help me with some research I'm doing." A-R-E W-E?

She frowned, and I realised she'd probably assumed that I knew the location of the prison. She had no way of knowing that even after all this time they didn't trust me completely and that it was only after I'd agreed to be drugged that they'd even let me inside the place.

"What sort of research?" she said frostily. M-A-R-I-O-N.

"It's for a paper I'm working on."

"What sort of paper?" P-R-I-S-O-N.

"For one of the clinical journals. I'm doing some research into ageing and its effects on thought processes."

"Another computer program? Like the Beaverbrook Program?" I-L-L-I-N-O-I-S.

I nodded. I knew about Marion Prison, all right. It's the super-maximum security facility built by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons to replace Alcatraz. Only the worst of the worst end up there, and all of them are kept in virtually permanent solitary confinement. At least two were cases that I'd worked on. Really bad cases. God knows how she expected to get out if they were keeping her eighteen levels below the prison. I'd seen pictures of the facility, surrounded by a double thirtyfoot- high fence and bullet-proof watchtowers. It was escape proof.

She sneered, but her hand continued to talk. It was hard to keep the two conversations separate in my head, I kept wanting to answer her sign language verbally and vice versa, and I was occasionally stumbling over my words and stuttering and I had to force myself to keep looking at her face and not down at her right hand. She seemed to be having no problems, though, her voice sounded perfectly natural and now she was letting her anger show.

"So that's what you're after is it? T-H-E-Y W-I-L-L. You want to come up with a program that will pick out people like me?" R-E-S-C-U-E M-E.

"Something like that." W-H-A-T T-H-E-N?

"And what do I get out of it, Jamie? T-H-E-N Y-O-U Have you asked them that? Early parole, maybe? A-N-D M-E. They'll let me out in two thousand years instead of two thousand five hundred? T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R What can they offer me, huh? They're never going to let me out, you know that. They're going to pick and probe at my mind and take samples and prod me and try to find out what makes me tick. They started from Day One, you know? F-O-R-E-V-E-R. They analyse everything, my urine, my shit, they take blood samples every day, tissue samples when they want it. I've had more than one hundred spinal taps, Jamie – and they hurt me every bit as much as they'd hurt you. Ever had a spinal tap, Jamie? Have you?"

I didn't answer, I couldn't. The contempt in her voice was like a slap across my face and I wanted to hug her and pick her up and tell her that it was all right, that I'd help her and that I loved her. But still, on the shelf, her right hand spoke to me.

"They've taken liver biopsies and pieces of my kidney. W-I-L-L Y-O-U They'll start scraping my glands next, then they'll want samples of brain tissue. H-E-L-P They're going to take me apart piece by piece to see if they can find out what makes me tick. M-E? It's going to be a death of a thousand cuts, Jamie."

"I thought you couldn't die," I said. O-F C-O-U-R-S-E.

"Not in the way you and your kind, die, no. My cells live forever, but that won't do me any good if they're spread out across a dozen laboratories, will it? I L-O-V-E I mean, it gives a whole new meaning to I Left My Heart In San Francisco, doesn't it?" Y-O-U.

"I'm sorry," I said lamely.

"Sorry!" she spat, getting to her feet. "You're not fucking sorry, Jamie. You're here to help them. You're here to pull me apart, just like them. OK, so you're not going to use a scalpel or a test tube, but you're every bit as much a butcher as they are. You make me sick, you really do."

The door behind her opened and two guards came in, one carrying my Toshiba, the other with an assault rifle at the ready, his finger on the trigger. The man with the computer carried it over to the booth at the far side of the room and placed it down on the shelf in front of the glass. He kept a wary eye on Terry as he flicked up the screen and pressed the switch on the back which powered it up and automatically booted the program.

"You expect me to run through one of your sick little computer programs, is that it, Jamie?" she yelled down the telephone. The two guards backed away and left through the door. It closed silently behind them.

"Calm down, Terry," I said. W-H-E-N "They've told me that if you co-operate, they'll allow you W-I-L-L to see your friends. T-H-E-Y C-O-M-E?" Not true that, they'd told me that she'd never again be allowed to be with her own kind. She'd know that,too, but she'd also know that by working through the program would buy her more time with me.

"They said that?" she said, frowning. S-O-O-N.

"If you co-operate," I said. I W-I-L-L "This research is important, Terry." W-A-I-T.

She looked at me through the bullet proof glass and I tried to read her jet black eyes. She smiled and flicked her hair out of her eyes. "OK, Jamie, I'll do it." She put her telephone down and shuffled over to the computer. She looked down at the keyboard, her hair falling across her face like a veil, and tapped at the keys with one finger. I walked along the line of booths so that I was standing opposite her, but she didn't look up as she tapped away. She continued to sign as she worked, small hand movements that she shielded with her body. T-E-L-L T-H-E-M N-E-R-V-E

G-A-S H-E-R-E, W-I-L-L N-E-E-D M-A-S-K-S. A-L-S-O T-R-A-N-S-P-O-N-D-E-R-S EM B-E-D-D-E-D I-N O-U-R N-E-C-K-S. M-U-S-T B-E R-E-M-O-V-E-D.

When she'd finished she stepped back from the computer. She picked up the telephone in front of her and I did the same. "There you are, Jamie. I hope they keep their side of the bargain."

"I hope so, too," I said. I signed carefully. T-A-K-E C-A-R-E.

She smiled. The door opened behind her and two more guards appeared. "It looks as if it's time to go," she said. She replaced the receiver and turned her back on me as two of the guards moved either side of her. A third guard switched off the Toshiba and picked it up. Terry didn't look back as she left the steel tomb. I realised I was still holding my receiver in my hand and that I was gripping it so tightly that my knuckles had whitened and the tendons were stretched taut beneath the skin.

That was the last time I saw her. I was escorted back to the upper level and a man in a white coat gave me another injection and when I woke up I was back in my own home, the Toshiba on my desk. That was this afternoon. I was groggy for an hour or so then I ran her responses through the latest version of the Beaverbrook program. When I'd scanned through the results I took the car and drove to the bank and opened the safety deposit box and took out the manila file. It wasn't so much the case notes that I wanted, it was the picture. I wanted her picture on the desk while I waited. I kept checking the rear view mirror all the way home but I couldn't see anybody following me. There was certainly no red pick-up truck, but then I guess he'd be unlikely to keep the same vehicle for ten years, wouldn't he?

So, that's it. Now I just wait. I sit here at my desk and I wait for them to come to get me. It won't be long, I'm sure. The only question is, who will get to me first. Her friend, who has obviously been following me for ten years, waiting for me to go to her, or the men in suits. And what will happen when they get to me?

I pour myself a drink with shaking hands and lift the glass to my lips. Some of it slops down my chin but I manage to swallow most of it. As I put the glass down the lightning flashes and I nearly drop the glass. My nerves are shot to pieces.