Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

‘It’s me,’ I hear Kurt say, and I know he must be on his phone. ‘Yes, you better send them in now. Let’s get her up there and tested before the drug wears off.’

My mouth dribbles, but I will myself to talk, speak. ‘You…have to…help me.’

I hear Kurt take a step towards me. ‘I am helping you.’

I want to ask who he is sending, but I am beginning to drift in and out of consciousness. Or is it back to consciousness? Returning to reality? And then, in front of my eyes, I see Kurt’s shoes. ‘Please,’ I try now, desperate. ‘What is happening? I don’t understand.’

He crouches down, his eyes level with mine now. ‘You should know what is happening. You have the answers in there.’ He jabs my forehead with his finger.

Saliva pools in my tongue. ‘I don’t know what…what you mean.’

He tuts, hard, loud. ‘Yes, you do. Don’t you realise that yet? I know what you’ve already discovered. It’s been part of the plan all along, a test, a test for you.’

‘No,’ I croak.

‘Yes!’ he shouts. ‘Jesus.’

‘No, no,’ I say over and over, muffled, spitting out dribble, bile.

He stands now, quick, sharp. ‘Dr Andersson was right about you,’ he says. ‘It’s a pain in the ass being your handler, even if you can help blow Al Qaeda away.’

My eyes go wide, my brain, even in its paralysed state, still computing. ‘Why…? Why Al Qeada? I can’t help you.’

‘Yes you fucking can!’ And he kicks me hard on the side of my head, then freezes. ‘Shit! Oh, shit.’

Pains vibrates through my skull. The room sways, the blood in my head rushing to the spot where a lump is already forming.

Kurt squats in front of me. ‘Fuck. Are you okay? Shit. I didn’t mean…It’s just…We’re on the same side, but you keep on saying…I lost my temper.’ He lets out a breath. ‘Shit.’

I try to speak, try to ask him what is happening, but the room keeps swaying and, as hard as I attempt to avoid it, a black swell fills my sight and everything-Kurt’s face, the sweets, the door to the room-all fade away.

I click straight on the internet browser then stop. The realisation hits me: I don’t actually know what I am looking for. Stalling, pausing for breath, I lean back, think. What should I do? Who am I searching for? If MI5 are involved, if what Bobbie said is all true, then what? I cannot simply saunter into a secure website and effectively knock on the door. Can I?

I wipe the sweat from my palms, registering my rise in pulse, my brain knowing that already my blood pressure will be elevated, my heart rate will be intensifying. I am scared. I recognise the emotion, but at the same time, there is a sense of urgency in me, of energy that seems to be pushing the fright aside, like a battering ram. I haven’t felt so alive in such a long time.

A stomp of boots wakes me out of my thought pattern and I listen, breath hard, chest taut. Finally, the sound passes. Pausing to steady myself, I face the computer screen and let my brain kick in. A word walks into my head: Callidus. Bobbie said that Callidus, this Project Callidus, is part of MI5, that they thought I was safe in prison.

I search the internet for the term ‘Callidus’ and hit a brick wall. Just definitions, ones I know already, Latin terms and descriptions. I sit back, track my thoughts. Bobbie said the answer is in my notebook. I flip the pad open, examine it again. Still I find no message from Bobbie, no hidden meaning anywhere, so what did she mean? Why did she direct me here? I leaf the notebook pages and try to clear my mind, attempt to take in everything I have scribbled, my head fast, prison still, even now, in this office, affecting my Asperger’s, my skills, my acceleration. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all, because it begs the question: will I always be this way? Brain wired, dancing on the edge of crazy?

I force my eyes back to the notebook and try to focus. For some reason, my brain locks on to one page in particular. It is thick with unfamiliar codes, each of them number heavy, sitting side by side with algorithms and thought patterns. I stare at them until the etchings begin to merge into one, my sight blurring, swirling round and round until: smash! I sit up with a start. I have used these codes before. But how? I swallow hard. Desperate, I shut my eyes fast, willing an image, a memory-anything-to appear.

Slowly first, then quick, like a torrent of water, it appears: my university professor. There was a challenge one day, a mathematical one that he asked me to do. I questioned, at the time, why he wasn’t requesting any of the other students to perform the calculations and he replied that none of them were as fast as me, none of them as accurate. I recall completing the test for him in a few minutes and he thanked me, made a phone call, relayed the data to someone via email.

My eyes fly open. He was my handler. My professor was my handler and he was asking me to hack into a computer website. A shriek escapes from my lips and I slap my palm to my mouth. I glance at the door. I wait, one heartbeat, two. No one is coming. Slowly, I lower my hand as I realise that my university professor made me hack websites. And it wasn’t simulation as he said it was, it wasn’t for advanced mathematical practice: it was for the Project. For Callidus.

My hands won’t cease shaking. The lies, deceit. Why? Why them? Why me? I sit, staring for two, maybe three seconds, when I remember that Balthus will return anytime soon. My brain, reluctantly first and then at speed, engages. I thrust aside the anger that spurts up and I make myself scan my notes. I examine the patterns first, just like I did at university all those years ago. I trace a finger over them. One, two, three encoded methods-they are all there. Yet these patterns are encrypted, protected by myself. Slowly, I pick up a pen and begin to decode them.

I close my eyes and start to imagine my fingers on a computer keyboard, imagine codes on a page. It is hard, but after a few seconds pass, the instinct returns. How I solved the challenge that day in the dusty university office-it returns.

I open my eyes, swallow, nerves slapping me. Because it means I can do it. Was that the answer in my notebook Bobbie meant?

Feverish, I find myself being able to decrypt my note patterns. I decode the method first, scribbling it down, every detail, every step. Done, I flop back, look at my frantic notes. And that is when I realise what I am staring at: a full procedure on how to anonymously hack a website.

I barely breathe. I am a doctor, a plastic surgeon. How do I know how to do this? I gulp hard, inhale, then check the time. I have to keep moving.

With unsteady fingers, I begin to tap the keyboard, start searching for something on Callidus-anything-that will give me a clue, when the door unlocks and starts to creak open.

My head flies up. Balthus. My pulse rockets. How did time move so fast? I shut the screen down, stand, rush to move, but it is too late.

Balthus is standing in the doorway. ‘What the hell are you doing at my computer?’

I open my mouth to speak, to explain, when I stop. Because there is someone by Balthus’s side. Someone I know. Someone I thought I could trust.

Harry Warren.

I awake to find myself in a van.

It jostles along what must be a road. I cannot move or speak, my mouth gagged, my wrists bound, brain groggy. There is a stench of vomit and bodily fluids, and no matter how much I try, no matter how hard I attempt to steady my breathing, I feel out of control, hysterical, peering into the edge of an abyss. Attached to the trolley I am laid out on is a heart rate monitor. It bleeps and I stretch my eyes to it as best I can. It is professional, hospital standard. Why am I hooked up to this? And who did it?