Spider in the Corner of the Room (The Project Trilogy) (21 page)

After one second, it flashes up: full system access. I am in.

I start with this room. If I think it’s made of sweets, then I’d better be sure.

I look around, swaying slightly, my eyes seeing double. I
blink, open them wide; it helps, but only a little. The room still dusted with sugar, I decide to see at least what I can uncover. I take on the picture frames first. They house three paintings, all in a row. Upon first glance, they are made of liquorice and butter icing, and there is a sprinkling of frosting over the top. I inch out my hand. My fingers touch the edge of the first painting and it feels wet, sticky. I begin to investigate it when a stab of pain in my stomach jabs me. I stop, let it pass. Then, inhaling, I continue. Bit by bit, I peel the edge off the first frame. It comes away with ease and I keep tugging when something makes me halt. My palms are sweaty, so I wipe them on my trouser leg, then steer my hand forward until I feel the liquorice in my finger. And even though my logical mind says that my brain is playing tricks, still it feels real, smells real. I pause and listen for any sound of Kurt, but no buzzers vibrate from the corridor, no footsteps echo on the tiles.

The liquorice frame is smooth. Each line of it spans the width of the canvas, but there is something on the end, by the edge. A flush of heat races to my face. I pause, wait for it to subside and recommence. Pulling a little, it becomes clear that the liquorice to the left of the frame is loose, as if it has already been torn off. As if something has been placed under it.

Feeling a kernel of panic, of uncertainty, I pause before investigating further, exhale hard. The frame is bumpy. I glance to the other two pictures and see that they are smooth, untouched. I reach out and, taking the end of the uneven liquorice, one millimetre at a time, begin to peel it away. It is welded down, but eventually it starts to give. I
pull back, examine it. At first, it is difficult to detect, but then I see it.

Black, minute, but definitely there.

A camera.

And that is when I realise that I can hear Kurt’s voice.

The handle is turning. Moving fast, I press the liquorice back into place as much as possible then shoot to my chair.

But before I can reach it, Kurt is already entering the room.

I
can see Kurt’s hand on the door.

Darting my eyes left and right, I spot a crop of marshmallow flowers and, grabbing a handful, I thrust them into my mouth.

Kurt stops when he sees me. ‘What are you doing?’ His mobile phone hangs from his hand.

‘I am eating marshmallow,’ I say. Liquid dribbles down my chin.

‘Maria, there are no marshmallows in here. Is that sick down your chin? Are you okay?’

I touch my face. He’s right. I have been sick. And I realise with a vicious shock that it’s not marshmallow in my mouth, it is vomit.

Kurt begins to walk towards me when a voice bellows from his phone. He must still be on a call. He stops, glances to me, then puts the phone to his ear. ‘Yes?’

Immediately, I wipe my chin, my breath ragged, vision smeared. Sweat trickles from my brow and I dab it with
the heel of my hand, but it does no good. A wave of nausea rises from my stomach and the room begins to sway, a gentle rocking motion, like a boat bobbing on the sea.

Kurt watches me. ‘It’s happening,’ he says into his phone. ‘I’ll call you back.’ He slips his cell into his pocket, stands and stares.

‘What is happening to me?’ I stumble. ‘What did you do?’ But the room is spinning and I cannot get the words out. I slap my hand to my chest and force myself to speak. ‘You have to help me.’ Another wave of pain hits. ‘Help me!’

But Kurt does not move, does not call anyone. Instead he just watches and waits.

‘What have I taken?’ I say. And then I understand: this cannot be happening in real life. It must be a flashback of some sort, a dream, a nightmare, perhaps, all of it happening in my head. ‘Wake me up!’ I yell, my voice feral, untamed. ‘Wake me up!’

I try to take my pulse on my neck, but my arms are weak and it is impossible. Heat gushes round my body, and the smell of the sweets and marshmallow and chocolate make the nausea worse. I focus on the room, focus on jolting myself awake. I slap my face, spit on the floor, try to walk, but everything surges, throwing me from side to side, thrashing me against an invisible wave, against a heaving tide of nausea.

I crash into the wall, sliding down it. My arms are limp, my legs are useless. Kurt is nearer now, his arms crossed over his chest.

‘Who are…you?’ I say.

‘I am your therapist.’ His voice is soft, a gentle coo.

‘No,’ I manage to say, shaking my head, his image
blurred, distant now. ‘No.’ My eyes dart up. And then I see it: the camera.

But Kurt must trace my line of sight, because he says, ‘Ah, you found it.’ He picks up the tiny camera. ‘I wondered how long it would take you. They have to have some way of watching you from where they are. They need to see exactly what is going on with you.’

My pulse rockets. I do not understand what he is saying, whether this is all a dream. My temperature is rising, sweat popping out all over my limbs, my skin. My blouse is drenched, my hair is damp. ‘Help,’ I plead, and then I slump to the left, my cheek skimming the wall as my head thumps on the floor.

I lie there, blinking, washed up, motionless. My whole body is paralysed, saliva dribbling from my gaping mouth. I can see the room at an angle. The legs of the chairs, the corners of the tables, but only just, like shadows in a dark alley.

‘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?

To quell the bile that threatens to erupt, I try to get clues—any clues—as to where I am, but when I move my head to the left, pain sears me, burning like a cigarette into skin. I press my lips together hard, clench my fists, wait for it to subside. Five aching seconds pass and finally the pain bows a little, enough of a gap for me to carry on. I dart my eyes round fast. To my left is a small window. Sun shines in through the glass, so I know it must be daytime, but where? The rest of the van, inside, is white, medical equipment running along the sides—bandages, medicines. But other than that, this is not an ambulance, it is too sparse, too unequipped.

I go to take another look at the medicines when then I hear it: breathing. I stay very still, frightened, scared at who it is, at what they will do. There is no one I can see here in the back of the van with me, so it must be someone in the driver’s seat. Kurt? I want to shout his name, but the tape
on my mouth is too tight. Whoever they are, they must not realise I am awake.