And I’m so frustrated I want to scream: as usual, she’s homed in on the one thing I won’t talk about: my friends. I breathe deeply. ‘You must know by now how wrong the system you are part of is. But in case you don’t, I’m going to show you.’ I need to shock her, to make her help me. It was the only way I could think to do so.
I pull the camera out of my pocket. ‘You know how I said I may have come from an orphanage? I went to look at the local one, don’t know why.’ I shrug. ‘It’s not like I was going to recognise a place I left when I was a baby. It is isolated, fenced in. I snuck in close, and this is what I found.’ I open the camera folder, project the image of the small Slated boys.
Her intake of breath is sharp. ‘These children, so young? No. Slating is not for them. Who would do this? Where is this place? Tell me,’ she demands, her face coldly furious.
‘Lorders have done this, and they are doing it. There were about fifty children I saw.’ I glance at my watch: 7:51. ‘The other thing I found out is that this JCO, the mother of the woman who raised me, had something to do with the AGT and having me taken. Please. I’ve told you all I know about it. I have to leave at exactly 8 am or I won’t be able to get out. Tell me what you know.’
Dr Lysander is silent a moment, thinking, and I don’t press. She finally nods. ‘I told you before. You were on the hospital records as Jane Doe. There was no mention of being classified; no other information as to your origins at all.’
‘But there is something else?’
‘Yes. A few curious things. Remember when you saw your records on the hospital system? Where the hospital board had recommended termination; it said I overruled.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t have the power to overrule the hospital board, and in any case, never tried to do so. It happened at a higher level: somebody made sure you were kept alive. Also there was more interference and care at times; the longer stay in hospital, and the Watchers you had at night, are examples. They were above the entitlement of assistance. Someone was meddling, and it had my curiosity.’
‘Is that why you took special interest, why I was your patient?’
She inclines her head. ‘That part of the motivation followed. There was an initial reason, as I’ve told you before.’
‘That I remind you of someone you used to know, someone who died in the riots.’
‘Yes,’ is all she says, but something else crosses her face in that moment, for seconds only, then is gone.
‘When you changed my brain chip number on the computer to make it untraceable, was that at the request of someone above?’
Her lips quirk. ‘No. That was entirely my own moment of insanity. The Lorders are more interested in you than they should be. I made it harder for them.’
‘One other thing. My memories: there were things from my childhood coming back when I was at the place I was raised. I was left-handed to age ten, then forced to change, Slated as right-handed. Could my memories be coming back because my handedness was changed?’ This was Stella’s theory, and asking about this isn’t on the list of reasons why DJ got me in here, but last night I knew I had to ask. I may not get this chance again.
She’s thinking again. Finally nods. ‘It’s possible that the only inaccessible memories from your Slating were those associated with being right-handed. Others may be suppressed, but accessible in the right circumstances. But this is conjecture. To my knowledge what happened to you hasn’t been attempted before, so who can say?’
I’m about to ask her more when her eyes drop to my wrist. ‘Kyla, your watch says 7:59.’
I bolt up and run for the small doors at the service hatch at the back of her room just as my watch changes to 8:00. ‘I’m sorry we can’t talk longer,’ I say, and wrench the doors open, then curse: the car isn’t there, and what is between me and the doors on the other side is a chasm that drops far down into darkness. Then the opposite doors open; hands are there to help, and I launch myself across to them. One ankle bangs painfully against the door in Dr Lysander’s room as strong arms drag me across.
‘Where was the orphanage you visited?’ Dr Lysander says urgently as I’m pulled through on the other side.
‘Cumbria,’ I say back quietly as the doors close. Unsure if I should or shouldn’t say, but there is the trade, as always: she answered another question. So must I.
As I pull myself to my feet the mini lift whirrs into action, a car in motion is heading this way. That was close. My ankle hurts and I bend down to check it; a small cut.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Just a nick; I’m fine.’
I follow him back down the hall, listening as he explains what to say if anyone says anything, then we get on the lift. There are other staff on it but they smile, nod, and no words are spoken. They get off at another level. We go back to the van in the car park.
‘Sorry, but you’ll have to stay in here, very quietly, until my lunch break. There is some food for you on the seat.’
He opens the door, I get in, it shuts behind me. I change back into my own clothes, then find a sandwich and biscuits wrapped up and eat hungrily while I think through all that was said.
Hours later the van driver returns as promised, and takes me to a rendezvous with Aiden. On the return to Oxford I tell him what Dr Lysander said, hoping he or DJ will make more sense of it than I did.
Why would some faceless higher-up capable of overruling the hospital board and everything else they’ve done be bothered about me? I can’t answer the question, but deep in my guts I’m sure of one thing: it can’t be good.
Dr Lysander didn’t know what they are doing at that orphanage, that is very clear. I go cold inside, afraid what she will do with the knowledge. Will she end up in even worse trouble than she did the last time, all because of me?
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
* * *
‘Ben came looking for you last night,’ Wendy says. ‘So I’m guessing you weren’t with him all night long this time.’
‘I wasn’t with anybody.’
‘Don’t look so fierce, I believe you. Just listen to me a moment.’
‘What?’
‘I know I don’t know you very well, and I know enough about why you are here to know I shouldn’t ask questions. But be careful.’
‘What do you mean?’
She hands me an envelope. ‘Just be careful.’
She leaves, and I rip it open.
Ben’s handwriting: it looks just as it always did.
Dear Kyla,
My scans were good so I’ve been sprung from constant supervision, hurrah! Came by to celebrate last night – where were you?
There is only one way to make it up to me. Meet me at the top of St Mary’s Church Tower: the views are supposed to be amazing.
Don’t keep me waiting again.
Love, Ben
But there is no time specified on it. Maybe he has already been waiting there for hours!
I scramble for clean clothes, which are in short supply. I borrow a top of Wendy’s, leaving an apologetic note behind. Tuck my camera in a coat pocket and slip out of our room, down the hall.
I step out a side door of All Souls and soon find the entrance to the church. Wave my student ID at a warden and get him to point out the way to the tower.
And I start the climb. Stairs in the church, then in the tower, take me ever higher until I reach a narrow spiral staircase. The further I go up the ancient, worn stone steps, the narrower and steeper the way, and despite wanting to be there now I have to slow down, take care.
Finally I reach the top, and step out onto the tower platform, into the cold wind. No sign of Ben. The platform is irregular and narrow, enclosed by a stone railing with more stone curving overhead, almost as if the platform has been gouged into the tower. Hugging my arms around myself I follow the platform all around the tower, ducking into linking tunnels on the way, until I reach a dead end.
No Ben.
Either he was here already, got bored of waiting and left. Or he hasn’t come yet. Why didn’t I ask Wendy when he gave her that note? If he has been and gone I should go look for him. But then what if he comes back, and I’m not here? I decide to wait, and do the circuit again, this time with more of an eye to the views across Oxford, and the gargoyles leaning out with wide gaping mouths as if to swallow buildings below. Finally I huddle against cold stone, shivering and staring at All Souls College. Patches of both quads are visible from here, including the bench where Ben and I sat and spoke.
I’m so happy about Ben’s scans being okay, but then start to think about it. What does that mean, exactly? How could scans reassure Florence and Aiden enough to give Ben more clearance? They might show how much of his memory has been mucked with, but won’t show what he is thinking. I don’t understand. I frown to myself, then my misgivings disappear with the dim echo of approaching feet on stone steps below.
He’s here!
The steps get closer and my smile, wider. Ben said this was our secret, a special place for us. A new special place, for new memories to replace the old.
But then the face that appears in the door isn’t the one I’m expecting.
‘Aiden?’
‘Where’s Ben?’
‘I don’t know. What are you doing here?’
‘More to the point: what are you doing here? You know better, Kyla, than sneaking out without telling anyone where you are going.’
‘What do you mean, sneaking? I wasn’t sneaking! I just—’ I stop. Once I got the note I was in such a hurry to meet Ben that I didn’t think about it. I look closer at Aiden and see what I missed. ‘Something’s wrong. What is it?’
‘Ben’s guard has been found in a cupboard. Dead. We’re hunting for Ben, but he hasn’t been found.’
‘What? Dead? Has something happened to Ben?’
‘Apart from killing his guard, not that I know of. Were you meeting him here?’
‘He couldn’t have done that, it can’t be him. I don’t believe you.’
He shakes his head. ‘Tell me everything you know, and do it now.’
My knees are shaking; I lean on the stone railing. Ben’s guard, dead? That student: the one who could sleep through anything?
‘Kyla?’
‘Ben left me a note. He told me his scans were okay, that he didn’t have to be watched any more.’
‘Lies, Kyla. The scan results aren’t even back yet.’
I hesitate, then pull the note out of my pocket, hand it to Aiden. I swallow. ‘I don’t understand. Why would he lie?’
Aiden reads the note. ‘I don’t know, but nothing I can think of is good.’
‘Did you follow me here?’
‘No. It was a hunch: Florence said you’d asked about coming up here. We need to raise the alarm—’
Bang.
Gunshots? Below, at All Souls: there are people running across the quad. Dim shouting on the breeze.
No. No. This can’t be happening.
I whip my camera out to see better with the zoom. ‘There are figures in black on the exits of All Souls. Lorders.’
‘Do what you do best, Kyla: be a witness.’ His words are bitter.
I’m recording. As Lorders push all the students and research fellows, and those they were hiding, out from the buildings into one end of the quad. Against a wall. They open fire. There is chaos, screaming; some try to run but don’t get far – Lorders guard every exit. But in the midst of it all some stand erect, arms linked: Florence is at their centre. Facing the Lorders with calm contempt as they are shot. There are bodies, more bodies. Red stains the ancient stone, the dead grass of winter. Somehow through it all my hands stay steady, recording; a numb witness, as dead inside as those in the quad.
Then there is silence.
Two figures in black guard one of the entrances to the quad near the bench Ben and I were sitting just days ago. One turns and faces the tower, looks straight at me, as if he knows I stand here, watching. The other slips her arm around his waist. She’s laughing.