Nikki Owen - The Girl Who Ran (The Project Trilogy)

The woman who brought the spiked coffee to me.

‘She is with the Project,’ I say, remembering. ‘She is the girlfriend of a Project officer that Balthus killed. She… she was at Montserrat Abbey when the Project took me.’

‘No shit,’ Chris says, ramming his head to the window. ‘Fuck.’

I grab 1984 from Patricia and scan page 97. At first, there is nothing obvious of concern, no code jumping out, no immediate message.

Chris scans the page too. ‘See anything?’

I search. ‘There are words.’

‘Yes, but anything… unusual?’

A whistle blows and I jump, instantly clicking my tongue at the noise. On the tannoy, the conductor announces that there are cows on the line, which are finally moving and the train’s departure will be in one minute’s time.

‘Doc, you’re clicking – you okay?’

I let out a quick breath, count to ten, try to think straight. ‘There is nothing here,’ I say to Chris. ‘The words seem normal.’

Chris reads the page then stops. ‘Wait. What’s that there? I’ve read this book, like a hundred times before – that line shouldn’t be there.’

I re-read. ‘You are correct,’ I say, amazed. ‘There is an extra line.’

Patricia looks. ‘What?’

Together, Chris and I examine the page in front of us.

‘There’s a code,’ he says after a few seconds, voice low, eyes locked on to the book.

‘Where?’

He goes to take the book but I am clamped to it. ‘Can I… can I have it for a sec? Thanks. It’s difficult to see, but if I angle it…’ He rotates the page ninety degrees.

I spot it – the code in the letters. The whistle of the guard, the bark of the tannoy must have stopped my brain from working at it before.

Patricia bends in. ‘What is it?’

‘There’s an extra sentence at the bottom of the page,’ Chris says. ‘Exactly the same as the one above it.’

‘Not exactly the same.’ I trace the prose, mind firing now. ‘Here. It angles differently and there are three extra letters.’

Chris narrows his eyes. ‘And two extra numbers.’

I begin decrypting the code, as does Chris, his mouth murmuring the numbers we see. But I go fast, more rapid than ever. I grab my notebook and tearing it open to the area I need, tracking fast the data that I have recalled in the past, I decipher the hidden code in Orwell’s novel, catching my breath at the rate at which I work. Chris’s lips move along the indecipherable words and numbers, his mind analysing, as Patricia looks on, glancing from time to time to the platform bookstore in the near distance then back to us, before slipping her phone from her pocket, checking it, slotting it back out of sight once more.

I examine the last section of the page, reading, re-reading, but it’s only when Chris mutters two elements of a code we both deciphered from the files held within the Project facility in Hamburg that the idea forms.

‘The code you just relayed,’ I say. ‘It connects.’

He wipes his mouth, eyes flying over the numbers. One second passes, two, three until he pulls his head up and mutters, ‘Jesus.’

‘What?’ Patricia says, glancing between the two of us. ‘What?’

‘It’s a warning,’ Chris says.

‘Huh? A warning? A warning for what? Doc, what does it say?’

My eyes stay on the code, decrypting it again to be sure, but still, no matter how much I wish to deny it, the message is the same.

‘It says the Project knows where we are.’ I close my eyes. ‘It says they are waiting for us at the next station stop at Interlaken.’

The train starts to pull away and pick up speed.

Deep cover Project facility .

Present day

‘This is an anechoic chamber.’

Black Eyes nods to a white-haired officer as he opens a door. The officer presses a green button and one hundred and seventy small LED wall-lights ping into life in a room that stretches in a long, tubular shape like an airplane cockpit of a space.

I place one foot inside. When I inspect the initial area, I see that each light throws a soft blue glow on my skin, face and hair, and when I twist my arm around to reveal the spongy underbelly beneath, a kaleidoscope of tiny rainbows dances along my skin in drunk, swaying circles.

‘Please walk in,’ the officer says.

I hesitate, then step forwards and the door behind me immediately whooshes shut, a draught of air sealing it behind me. I whip round, startled, and frantically scan the door, its metal whiteness a cold block of ice that freezes out the world from me, from these lights and sounds. A shiver breaks out all over me.

‘Walk three steps forward, please,’ the officer’s voice instructs over an intercom.

‘What is happening?’

On the curve of the wall there is a small, square window with a deep blue rim and, through it, I see Black Eyes. ‘This is the next stage.’

There appears to be two sections of the chamber. I move my feet into a different space where the light is almost gone. My pulse pounds. When I look once more through the window I see the officer. Worry shoots up my spine.

‘Stop there,’ the officer orders.

I halt. Unsure what is expected of me, I shift slightly to the side.

‘I said, stop!’ he shouts.

I instantly freeze, staggering at the loud volume assault. Black Eyes’ voice swims in, ordering the officer not to yell.

‘Maria,’ Black Eyes says after a fraction of silence has passed, his fingers, from the window, still clasping the file where Patricia’s head lies, ‘this is a place that can help you. Take a breath, calm down.’

I feel a strong urge to run away as fast as I can, to pound down the door with my fists, but manage to stay put.

‘You see,’ he continues, ‘we have found that subject numbers sometimes need assistance in… controlling their feelings, their reactions to situations. Although, as I’m sure you are realising by now, you, my dear, are… well, unique.’

As he cranes his head and speaks directly to the officer, my brain sparks somewhere at something Black Eyes just said. Other subject numbers . I don’t move, fear and uncertainty preventing me from barely breathing as I aim to think straight in this strange environment, attempt to locate what alarm is being triggered inside my mind. Why does the phrase other subject numbers suddenly tweak something in my mind, something distant, a hazy recollection of an event not long passed?

‘Maria? Are you ready, Maria?’

‘I think so.’

‘Good. Then let me tell you what will happen next.’

Goldenpass railway line, The Alps, Switzerland .

Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 25 hours and 20 minutes

With Interlaken Ost Station fifty minutes away, Chris grabs all his equipment, fingers shaking, and shoves it in his rucksack. Rising into the aisle, his full head height skimming the ceiling of the carriage, he rolls his shoulders and turns.

I zip up my rucksack. Legs jigging in my seat at the nerves of what’s ahead, I afford a brief glance to the window. The early night air descending on the mountains has produced a low mist that merges from yellow to deep blue then black, and in the fields that yawn wide into the elbow of the valley below, the petals of the spring crocuses bob on the heads of their stems and sway in the breeze of the train as it rolls on by.

‘Right,’ Chris says, eyes to the left and right. ‘The hard drive’s erased. I’ve copied everything we need onto a file. I’ve tried using a signal blocker thing I have, but it’s not working, so we’ll try that later.’ He looks up to the far door of the carriage then back to our table. ‘How we gonna do this? I mean, why would this book woman warn us if she works for the Project?’