The Rainbow Maker's Tale (23 page)

“Do you know where you’re
going?”

“Yes, thanks.” I was confident
in both my knowledge of The Clinic and the blueprint I’d looked at.
The next part would be the most difficult.

“Thanks for your help…” I
backed away from the counter, heading in the direction of the
lifts.

“Kerry,” she filled in for
me.

“Thanks Kerry, I’ll see you in
a few minutes.”

“Great,” she grinned at me,
just before I turned around.

At the bank of lifts I pressed
the number seven for the floor I wanted and waited for the lift to
arrive. A few moments later, the white doors swished softly open
and I stepped inside.

As the doors closed behind me a
computerised female voice advised: “Destination Level Seven,
Biochemistry and Development Ward.”

It was a bit of a leap, but I
knew that Mother worked regularly in Biochemistry and that the labs
were usually covered by other Medics during the night, so I was
expecting to find someone there with access permissions similar to
hers. I just hoped my hunch was right.

As I entered the lab my mark
triggered the scanner at the door. I looked around and at first saw
no one, until a quiet cough drew my attention towards the back of
the room. A young Medic was working alone at a long white bench, he
held a pipette in one hand and a small test tube in the other. The
inquisitive cough and the way he was staring at me now made it
obvious that I’d disturbed him. He was probably only a couple of
years older than me, but his dark blue suit clearly showed that was
a fully qualified Medic.

“Can I help you?”

I kicked my feet into moving
forwards, reminding myself that I had come here for a reason.

“Yes, hi, I’m Balik.”

No response. Cassie was right –
we
do
turn into our parents once we start working with them.
It was surprising this guy hadn’t already eloped, there weren’t
many young people that stayed here for more than a year or so after
successfully completing their placements…although it was the ones
who left before placement that surprised me more.

“I was looking for my mother, I
needed to ask her something.”

“You didn’t message her.” It
was a statement, not a question.

“Er, no.” I agreed.
Wow, you
sound like a real idiot
. Get your brain in gear and lie better!
I stepped closer. “I was just passing on my way home and thought I
would stop in to see her.”

“It’s quite late – she must
have been on the day rotation and finished already.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, taking
another two paces forward to join him at the bench. “What are you
doing?”

“Hormone sampling for some new
babies, just checking the levels are all OK. It’s standard
stuff.”

“Interesting,” I noted, leaning
forwards to peer into the test tube rack as though it was
particularly intriguing.

“It’s standard stuff.” He
repeated.

“Sure,” I stepped away from the
counter, pushing my hands deep into my pockets, disguising the fact
that I’d just lifted the man’s Medic pass off the clip on his suit
belt. “Well, thanks anyway, I’ll head home now.”

He didn’t even bother to say
goodbye as I walked from the room. My main focus was on trying to
keep my steps as normal as possible, even though I wanted to run as
fast as I could. When I turned at the door to look back, he had
already returned to work.

I pressed my hand to the panel
and the door opened, registering my leaving with a quiet beep. By
the time the door slid shut I was already in the emergency
stairwell, jumping down the steps.

I jogged down the stairs until
I came to the ground floor. I hadn’t bothered with the lifts, as I
already knew from using them a few minutes before there was no
option to take you to the basement levels. No doubt there was only
a service lift to this area, and I’d never used one in The Clinic
before, so it would just have made things harder to look for it
now. The stairs were good. I had seen the markings on the blueprint
and knew that they went to the lower levels from where I stood now.
Taking hold of the handrail, I began my descent more slowly this
time.

As I came to the bottom, the
last step opened out into a small square space with blank walls.
The lights were dimmer here – not the bright white of the upper
levels – and I squinted to try and make out my surroundings. I knew
there had to be a door here, but nothing was immediately
visible.

Having stared at the blank
walls for a few seconds, I realised that the one place I hadn’t
looked was behind me. I dropped down onto the landing and walked
back on myself. Through the dim light I saw a doorway, concealed
beneath the closed treads of the stairs I had come down. This was
it.

To the left hand side of the
door was the standard keypad. I ran my fingers across the panel,
navigating to the correct screen and then inputting Father’s
maintenance access code. A second later, the light in the panel
changed to white and the door slid open. I looked around for a
scanner, but there didn’t seem to be anything at all here – perhaps
they never expected anyone to tamper with the systems? No scanner,
meant no way to trace who had been here. “Perfect,” I grinned and
stepped through the opening.

On the other side of the door
was a service corridor. The passage was darker and smaller than the
ones in The Clinic above, not much different to the ones I’d seen
in areas of the engineering sector – my trips there had also been
courtesy of Father’s pass codes. There wasn’t time for comparison
though, I needed to get in and out as quickly as possible – I was
pretty good at lying, but there would be no way to explain my
presence here if I got caught.

Moving swiftly down the
corridor I glanced at the doors and closed rooms either side of me
as I passed. The air felt thicker in the narrow passage as I went
deeper, and I detected a faint chemical smell to it that felt less
pure than I was used to in the station. I recalled that the first
three doors on my left were to access the main engineering
equipment that ran The Clinic’s air and thermocontrol systems. That
would explain some of the smells.

A dozen more paces along, I
stopped. On my right was a door with a sign beside it that read:
Room B.19. There was no description alongside, but I knew this was
the right place, just like the blueprint had shown. The swipe
access was also there – just like on the plans – the other doors I
had passed had keypads or no additional security features at
all.

With a slight thrill of
excitement and trepidation, I slid the stolen card through the
reader and watched in awe as the light turned from red to green.
The door clicked very quietly and I turned the handle, swinging it
open into darkness. After a moment of hesitation I stepped into the
black and waited for the automatic lights to come on.

* * *

At the top of the stairs I
paused, to wipe my sweaty palms down the outside of my daysuit and
re-adjust my bag. I had taken several packages of pain relievers,
as well as muscle relaxing injections, before nerves got the better
of me and I had found myself bolting for the storeroom door whilst
stuffing the contraband into my bag.

You need to calm
down
.

If I walked out into the main
entrance hall right now I would look crazy: my heartbeat was
erratic and, even though I’d only run up a flight of stairs, I
could barely breathe.

Leaning against the wall, I
closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe more slowly. In through
the nose, out through the mouth, I intoned silently. It didn’t take
long to calm down then, although I was still ridiculously excited
with what I’d managed to pull off.

It’s not over yet, I reminded
myself.

“Let’s go,” I muttered, pushing
away from the wall and opening the door. The entrance hall was
completely empty this time, except for Olivia’s friend – Kerry, I
recalled – at the reception desk. I headed in that direction,
fixing a smile on my face as I drew closer and she looked up from
the viewing screen.

“Hi!” Kerry beamed as I drew up
to the desk.

“Hello again.”

“I was just speaking to Olivia
– she couldn’t believe you were back here so late.”

I gave her a sheepish smile and
a shrug. “It was a wasted journey, Mother had already left.”

“That’s too bad,” her head
tilted to the side, as if she was giving me sympathy for some
terrible accident.

“Not to worry, I’ll head home
now and see her.”

“OK.”

“Oh – I found this on the floor
in the corridor.” I pulled the swipe card from my pocket and placed
it on the reception counter.

Kerry picked it up and looked
at it for a few moments, and I wasn’t sure she realised what it
was.

“It’s a Medic pass,” I
prompted. “Someone must have dropped it – I found it on Level
Seven.”

“Oh, right. Thanks. I’ll hand
it in and we’ll get it back to the right person.”

“Great!” I smiled, genuinely
now. Every piece of my plan had fallen into place. “Thanks for your
help Kerry, it was nice meeting you.”

“You too,” she nodded. “I’ll
say hi to Olivia for you.”

“Sure,” I agreed, not really
listening now. I was already thinking about getting the medicine to
Cassie, and I left The Clinic in my own happy little haze.

I buzzed the door intercom at
Cassie’s apartment and waited. It was hard containing my excitement
– I was feeling very proud of myself and wondered what Cassie would
make of my present. It felt like I had waited ages, and was just
about to press the panel again when the door slid open.

A slightly dishevelled looking
Cassie stood in front of me. Her hair was wet, and looked darker
than usual, hanging around her shoulders in thick lines. She had
obviously showered and looked better for that, although I could see
the lighter scratches on her face more now. I wondered if I had
woken her up. She was wearing a long-sleeved sleepsuit and looked a
little bleary eyed. I beamed at her.

“What are you doing here?”

It wasn’t exactly the greeting
I’d been hoping for, but it made me sure that I had just woken her
up. After everything she’d been through today Cassie was more than
entitled to be a bit grumpy – she was probably in agony with her
shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’m not staying,”
I promised, holding out my hand to show her the small capsule of
pink tablets I’d brought from The Clinic. “I just brought you
these, I thought they might help.”

“Thanks,” Cassie murmured,
reaching out for the packet.

I was quite surprised when she
didn’t say anything else. Surely she recognised the tablets from
our work at The Clinic? Wouldn’t that seem strange to her? She
didn’t look at me again, and I wondered perhaps whether my gift had
scared her. What if she had recognised them and was worried about
what I’d done to get them?

This wasn’t how I’d planned it
at all. I was hoping Cassie might have hugged me or done something
so that I might have been able to give her the muscle relaxant
injection I’d brought for her.

Sneak injection?

At first I couldn’t believe I’d
even thought it, but in the next instant I’d already convinced
myself it was exactly the right thing to do. Judging by Cassie’s
reaction to the tablets she’d be even more concerned with how I’d
managed to get a syringe and high-strength, opiate-based drugs.

Cassie wasn’t even paying
attention to what I was doing when I made my decision. I leaned in
quickly, dipping beneath the damp curtain of hair she was trying to
hide behind. If she was shocked by my sudden closeness, she was
even more surprised when I pressed my lips to her cheek a second
later. Thankfully, she didn’t move and at that same moment I slid
the thin needle into her shoulder and depressed the plunger.

Colour immediately appeared in
two rosy spots on Cassie cheeks and I could almost feel the heat
coming from her skin. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I whispered, leaning
into her body for one brief – but fantastic second. My lips were so
close to her ear I could have kissed it too, and her neck and…

Not today, I told myself firmly
and snapped away, taking the empty syringe with me, unnoticed. An
apartment corridor had never felt so long, as I ran away from
Cassie.

You kissed her!

I don’t think I’d ever heard my
mind scream before – certainly not in that excited, slightly
feminine tone, at least. Yes, I’d kissed Cassie; but I’d also
injected her with drugs without her knowing. It was for her own
good, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t see it that way if she
ever found out.

I turned as I reached the
staircase, wondering if Cassie might actually be angry with my
unexpected show of affection, deceitful as it was. The expression
on her face – a giddy grin – suggested that she was anything but
annoyed. When she got caught watching me her face flamed brighter
red than it had when I kissed her. I couldn’t help but grin myself,
and feeling suddenly brave shouted out to her. “You didn’t say
goodbye.”

Cassie bit her lip and I knew
she was trying not to giggle. Sucking in a deep breath, she held my
gaze as she called back. “Goodbye Balik!”

I smiled to myself as I dropped
out of sight into the staircase. She might have tried to show me
otherwise, but I
knew
my kiss had had an effect on
Cassie.

* * *

Leaving Cassie was almost
unbearable. I turned back on myself several times in the moments
after I’d left, thinking I would go back and check on her. I must
have looked mad, spinning in small circles every few paces.

Of course Cassie’s not alright
– you idiot! You almost got her killed!

Yeah – the judgmental inner
monologue didn’t do much to make me feel sane either. Inwardly and
outwardly crazy, that was me! What would you expect from a guy who
spent more time talking to himself, than other people?