Fragments (20 page)

I’m tossed face-down onto the smelly sofa, arms wrenched behind my back. I can’t breathe. Lots of people seem to be yelling at the same time so none of it makes sense. Something is grinding into the base of my spine as my hands get tied. A knee. But I feel weirdly distant from what’s happening to me. I think I just tried to stab that man. Did that really happen?

The buzzing in my ears comes back. I think I might be sick, face down here. I’ll choke. Pure terror blasts through the numb feeling and I shake uncontrollably. If I could crawl out of my own skin right now, I would. If I could choose to die, I would.

I don’t even recognise myself in this girl who just tried to stab someone.

I’m flipped back round the other way like a rag doll. The back of my head thumps against the hard wall above the sofa. I’m looking up at the bloke I attacked. He straddles me, his weight pushing down on my bound arms behind my back. It
hurts
. His eyes are beaming hate, but fear too. I recognise it now, when anger is a thin layer over what’s really there.

‘Who the hell
are
you?’ he snarls. There’s spit at the corners of his lips. A livid purple spot seems to shine from his forehead. All the details of his face are too brightly lit.

Cal, just behind him, stares down at me with an expression that makes my guts curl into a tight knot.

I almost
murdered
someone. But it was like I had no choice. I
had
to do it. Like it was the thing I’d been born to do.

But already that powerful feeling is hard to grasp, like a dream that slips away when you wake up. I squeeze my eyes closed, confusion and shock pumping through me.

‘Who sent you? Are you a CATS’ Eye?’

There’s no point in lying any more.

I nod slowly.

Cal makes a sound; it’s part groan, part gasp. Then he stumbles backwards, his eyes wide and round.

I hear the crash of the front door shortly afterwards.

The other man roughly cuts off my tracker watch and takes it away.

Shortly after, the door opens and closes. More voices fill the hallway.

I keep re-living how it felt with the blade in my hand. I was seconds away from being a killer. Seconds. Tears rise up inside then and I hide my face in my knees. I’m not looking for sympathy. Probably wouldn’t get it now anyway, even from Cal. He had everything taken away from him by the people I work for.

Worked
for? I don’t know what tense to use. I don’t know where I belong. I wish I could crawl away and hide under a stone. It feels like what I deserve. Stuff that seemed so clear cut this morning is cloudy and blurred now. I was so
sure
. How can I have been so sure I was right?

‘Here, drink this,’ says a rough voice. I look up through bleary, sore eyes into a bearded face I recognise. It’s Nathan. I flinch. He always did look permanently angry and now is no exception. He should have little devil horns and red eyes, considering how I’d been seeing him and his kind for the last six months. But all I see is a tall, skinny bloke with a beard and a T-shirt with a rip in the sleeve. Not a devil. Just an exhausted-looking man.

He’s holding a cup of water. I eye it with suspicion.

He tuts, loudly. ‘It’s only water. We don’t do things the way your friends do.’

I lean in and take a sip, avoiding his dark, angry eyes, which seem to jab holes in my skin.

He stands up again and I glance around the room. The guy I tried to stab is sitting on the opposite sofa. Nathan stands back, regarding me. A pretty woman with blond hair swept into a curly ponytail comes into the room. She does the eye skewer thing too.

‘Where’s Cal?’ she says.

‘Gone for a walk,’ says the man whose name I still don’t know, despite the intimacy of having almost taken his life. ‘Needed to clear his head, as you can imagine.’

‘I can’t believe he brought someone back here!’ says the woman, her voice rising in fury.

‘He knows her,’ says Nathan quietly. ‘She’s special to him.’ He pauses. ‘Or was.’

The words do exactly what they were intended to do. I close my eyes, wincing, and lower my head again.

‘Are you sure you’re all right, Dan?’ says the woman.

‘Yeah. I could tell something was weird about her,’ says the bloke I tried to hurt. ‘Still took me by surprise, though.’

‘When I think what could have . . .’ The woman bites off the end of her sentence. I don’t know if Dan is her boyfriend but I don’t blame her for hating me. I can almost feel her self-control in not going for me. I almost wish she would.

‘The question is, what are we going to do with her now?’ says the man called Dan. ‘She knows this address. She’s a liability. Best thing would be to chuck her in the Thames.’

‘Stop it,’ says Nathan sharply. ‘We’re better than that, remember?’

The tiny sliver of kindness in his voice reaches inside me.

Nathan walks over and squats down in front of me, looking right into my eyes.

‘Kyla, I remember you. And I’m very surprised at what you have become. I need to ask you something very important, OK?’

I nod, a bit bewildered by where this is going.

‘Where did they train you?’

I’m so confused by the question I don’t answer. He continues. ‘Was it Birmingham? Or Cardiff?’

My lips move but no sound comes out. It feels wrong to tell them, despite everything. Like something bad will happen if I let the word out.

‘What?’ he says gently. ‘What did you say?’

‘
Scotland
.’ The word rides on my breath like a sigh.

There’s a pause.

‘Was it a place called . . . Area Six?’

I hang my head and then nod once. I don’t want to talk about any of that.

‘Oh, dear God,’ says Nathan heavily and swipes his face with a meaty hand. He rocks back on his heels and then gets to his feet, huffing a little. ‘You poor kid.’

‘What is it?’ The blond woman asks sharply.

‘I’ve heard what they do there,’ says Nathan. ‘They call it
Commitment Training
.’ He pauses. ‘We would call it brainwashing.’

The word makes me flinch.

‘
Brainwashing?
’ says Dan.

Nathan heaves a heavy sigh and gets up, before sitting down on the opposite chair. He leans forwards and clasps his hands between his knees. He studies me so intently, I feel like an exhibit in a glass case.

‘What do you remember about it?’ he says, ignoring Dan.

I try to find the words for something that’s buried so deep, you’d need a surgeon’s knife to get to it.

‘I know they did something,’ I say shakily. ‘In fact, they did it twice. I don’t really remember too much. The rest of the time we were just taught to do useful stuff.’

He nods. ‘And after this . . .
something
,’ he says, ‘what did you feel about us? About Torch?’

My sight blurs as tears crowd and drip down my hot cheeks. ‘I hated you,’ I whisper. ‘I hated you and I was trained to kill you.’

‘And now, Kyla?’ says Nathan. ‘Do you still want to kill us?’

I look up and meet his eyes then shake my head emphatically, side to side. It’s the truth. I don’t. It’s crazy, but I don’t. How can things have changed so suddenly?

‘Come on,’ says Dan to Nathan, scornfully. ‘You’re not serious about this?’

Nathan looks at him. ‘I’m deadly serious. It might surprise you to know that in the last five years they’ve been reprising and improving some of the basic techniques that have been around since the 1950s.’

‘What sort of
techniques
?’ says the woman. She sounds scornful and I see her exchange a loaded look with Dan.

Nathan grimaces. ‘Sensory deprivation, disorientation. Drugs. Repeated negative imagery. Lack of sleep. The CIA had a major programme called MK-ULTRA for about thirty years. They explored just about every aspect of brainwashing. Even back in the 2010s they were using the drug Sodium Pentothal on Al Qaeda suspects.’

‘Why?’ says Dan sharply. ‘What does that do?’

‘They tried it as a truth drug,’ he says. ‘But it didn’t work that well. The idea was that you got the subject into a raw state with all the other techniques and then opened up their minds with the drug. I’ve heard they’ve developed things a little since then.’

He looks at Dan. ‘There’s a thing called the Box. They keep them in absolute darkness so they are disorientated. Drug them up. Then they bombard them with imagery and give them shocks. It’s nasty stuff, from what I’ve heard.’

Everyone stares at me. Silence cloaks the room.

Those bastards
brainwashed
me?

No wonder I felt so strange for so long . . . like I’d lost a piece of myself and couldn’t get it back. And now? I don’t even know what to feel now, except that I can’t stand all their eyes on me. I’m not on any ‘side’ now, am I? I don’t even know who the good guys really are any more. I stare miserably down at the purple carpet, which is pocked with crusty fag burns and crumbs.

‘So what the hell do we do with her now?’ says Dan after a few minutes. ‘Is she still dangerous?’

I look up and meet Nathan’s eyes.

‘No,’ he says quietly. ‘I don’t believe so. I’ve heard that the effects of the brainwashing are only temporary. That’s why so many CATS’ Eyes get eliminated after they stop being useful.’

Eliminated?

I suck in my breath. Nathan sighs.

‘I don’t suppose they made that clear in your,’ he makes air quotes with his fingers, ‘
training
, did they?’ He runs his hand over his beard and blows out air again. ‘The brainwashing is intense and effective . . . temporarily. It can be undone by a bout of sickness, certain medicines . . . possibly even by emotional stress or shocks. CATS’ Eyes are what’s known as “expendable”. I’ve never heard of a one who has worked for longer than a year at most.’

‘What happens after that?’ My lips feel stiff and strange. But I have to know.

Nathan shrugs. Then speaks again. ‘I feel very sorry for you, Kyla, for what it’s worth.’

A flicker of hope flares inside.

‘But I’m afraid it is a risk we can’t take,’ says Nathan. The hope is replaced by a stab of cold fear. ‘We’ll have to move on. Dismantle everything here and find somewhere else. And you,’ he says, looking down at me, ‘can’t stay.’

‘I won’t say anything.’ I sound young and pathetic, like I’m promising not to tell on the person who stole the last biscuit.

‘We’re not taking that chance!’ snaps the woman. ‘I’ll have to take you away to make sure you’re gone.’

I cringe into myself. My tough shell seems to have cracked. I want to see Cal. I also don’t want to see him. I keep remembering his face when he left. Like I disgusted him.

I don’t want to go anywhere with her, anyway. Thankfully Nathan comes to my rescue.

‘She’s as much a victim as Dan nearly was, so I’ll thank you to calm down a bit. Isn’t this what we are for? To try to fight back against a regime that treats people like lab rats?’ He runs his hand over his beard again. It’s like a nervous tic. I remember he used to do this, but not as much. So many damaged people . . .

‘Kyla, will you be expected to check in tonight?’ He’s all brisk efficiency now.

‘No,’ I say quietly. ‘I’ll have twenty-four hours’ grace, because I’m meant to be on a . . . um, job.’

Dan makes a disgusted sound and the woman’s face tightens even further. But it’s clear Nathan is in charge.

I keep thinking about what we learned in History of Terrorism. Can it all have been lies? The words come bursting out of me, unexpectedly.

‘They told me
you
are behind all those attacks. Torch.’

Nathan regards me and sighs heavily. ‘Of course they did.’

We all turn at the sound of the front door opening and closing. Cal comes into the room. The rain must have stopped. Although his hair is still stuck to his face a little and his trainers are darkened around the toes, he isn’t noticeably wetter than he was when he got back here. For a second I have a fierce, powerful wish that I hadn’t come here. Hadn’t found out about any of this. It was better, thinking he was dead. Simpler.

He can’t even look at me now.

‘You OK?’ says Nathan brusquely. Cal looks dazed as he nods. ‘Come on,’ says Nathan, gesturing to Dan and the woman. ‘Let’s give them a minute to talk?’

Cal turns to him. ‘It’s OK,’ he says coldly. ‘I don’t need to talk.’

I catch the eye of the blond woman and wish I hadn’t. Her face is bright with malice. Cal’s words hurt. He walks out of the room and Nathan looks at me and then shrugs.

‘OK, well, I’m sure you’ll understand, Kyla, that we have to take certain precautions. We don’t want you wandering off before we’re ready to let you go.’

He looks at the woman.

‘Tilly,’ he says, ‘put her in that small bedroom at the back. And lock the door please.’

She almost clicks her fingers at me and I stiffen. I’m somehow coming back into myself. She’d better not touch me. I glare back at her, contemplating whether I should just run for the front door but I don’t really have the strength for it. My limbs feel weak and wobbly. The shock of finding out that Cal is alive and then all those feelings being stirred up by him again, attacking Dan and then finding out what really happened to me in Scotland. Losing Cal again. Because I have. I know I have. It’s all too much to take.

I muster as much dignity as I can and follow the woman called Tilly out of the room. I can just see a small kitchen at the end of the corridor where Cal is standing, his hands down on the counter and his head bent. He looks so sad, as though an unbearable weight is pressing on him. I want more than anything to be allowed to touch him but I know I never can again.

My eyes blur with hot tears.

I’m so sorry
, I say, but only inside my head. No one wants to hear it. Being told about the brainwashing hasn’t stopped the feeling of shame that I almost killed a man. Would I have tried to kill Cal too?

I follow Tilly miserably up the bare wooden stairs. The banister is splintery and rough under my fingers. We walk down a short landing past a few rooms and stop outside a bathroom. The door is open and I can see a bath that looks like some horrible green plastic. Better than the bathroom at the squat, but a far cry from the luxury at the flat. Expendable? Is that what I am?