The Scrubs (7 page)

Chapter Four

The Rules Change

“Governor,” a lab-coated man with a receding hairline shouted.

The technician raced over to the burnt out console where O’Keefe and Cady were still sitting.
 
Sweat beaded the technician’s forehead.
 
Both men stopped their conversation to watch the man running towards them.
 
Cady noticed the guards in the gun nests focus their aim on the technician.

“What is it, Bennett?” O’Keefe asked.

“Mr.
 
O’Keefe, sir, you’d better come over to the Rift.
 
Something’s happening.”

Cady stood to gain a better look at the Rift, but the Throne obscured his view.
 

“Like what?” O’Keefe demanded.

“It’s changing,” Bennett replied.

 
O’Keefe brushed Bennett aside and marched over to the Rift.
 
Cady and Bennett fell in behind him.
 
The governor’s stride was impressive and Cady struggled to keep up.

O’Keefe shoved the crowd congregated in front of the Rift aside.
 
Cady squeezed through the gap left by his boss to see the source of everyone’s excitement.
 
The view through the Rift had changed.
 
Instead of the fixed view of a field that Cady had witnessed earlier, they could now see Keeler standing at the edge of a pond.
 
A dead woman, with sewn lips and throat, rose silently from the surface on the backs of dozens of mutilated corpses.
 
The collective gasp from the technicians killed all previous chatter.
 

Keeler seemed to be in conversation with the dead woman, although she never moved a muscle.
 
Cady’s mouth turned desert dry.
 
He turned to O’Keefe.
 
He found it hard to tell what emotions were playing across his face, but they seemed to be a mix of shock and wonderment.
 

“Are we recording?” O’Keefe demanded.

“Y…y…yes,” someone stammered.

What made the images pouring from the Rift all the more disturbing was the lack of sound.
 
Being robbed of the dialog only added to the sinister and abhorrent nature of what had been created in the North Wing.
 
Disgusted, Cady wanted to turn away, but couldn’t.
 
He, like everyone else, was glued to the Rift’s silent movie.
 
O’Keefe was right.
 
This breakthrough wouldn’t just mean the end of the video game industry; it would reinvent the entire entertainment industry.
 

“What’s going on?” Cady asked.

“We’re seeing movement.”

“You’ve never seen that before?”

O’Keefe shook his head.
 
“It’s normally just a fixed view of where the Rift opens.
 
That’s why we’ve tried to get the inmates to record their adventures.”

“Why’s it happening now?”

“Who knows?”
 
O’Keefe snapped.
 
“I think our Mr.
 
Jeter has been holding out on us.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re seeing this because Jeter wants us to see this.”

O’Keefe turned away from the Rift.
 
He shoved the technicians aside and clambered up the side of the Throne with an agility that defied his stature.
 
He put his mouth conspiratorially close to the inmate’s ear.

“Hey, Jeter, have you been holding out on me?” O’Keefe asked with a playful, teasing tone to his voice.
 

Jeter’s features tightened.
 
Cady guessed the sociopath was grinning under his muzzle.

“That’s not playing fair,” O’Keefe said.
 
“I thought we had an understanding.”

Jeter chuckled.

O’Keefe grabbed the feed tube which was shooting the green fluid into Jeter’s nose.
 
He folded the tube over on itself, cutting the flow off.
 
Jeter stiffened the second his supply ceased and the Rift flickered as if someone was tampering with a TV aerial.

“Jeter, you can hold out on them,” O’Keefe snarled, “but you are never to hold out on me.
 
You got that?”

“Sir!” Cady shouted.
 
“Stop that.”

“Relax, Cady.
 
Don’t you fret about Jeter and me.
 
We’re old friends.
 
We know how the game is played, don’t we, Jeter?”
  

Jeter bridled against his bonds and a low growl left his lips.

“You seem to be more worried about losing reception than you are about Jeter’s health,” Cady said.

O’Keefe fixed Cady with a chilling stare that made him swallow.
 
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” O’Keefe agreed.

Cady stood fast.
 
Not that he cared much for Jeter’s well-being considering the misery he’d brought to others, but he couldn’t intervene—yet.
 
He wasn’t here to prevent events or steer them onto a new course.
 
That was Saunders’ job back at the Home Office.
 
He was here to bear witness.
 
He was a recording device to be used at a hearing.
 
Let O’Keefe hang himself and take a few others with him.

“Now, Jeter.”
 
O’Keefe opened his fist, releasing the feed tube, letting the liquid wormwood flow back into the inmate’s nose.
 
Jeter settled back into his Throne.
 
“You want to tell me what this is all about?”
 
O’Keefe pointed at the Rift.

Keeler was walking across the backs of the corpses toward the dead woman at the center of the pond.
 
Everyone stood transfixed by the scene playing out in the Rift.
 
Cady managed to tear his gaze away.

“You know what would be great?” O’Keefe said.
 
“Sound.
 
I’d love to hear the conversation between Keeler and that lovely dead lady.
 
Can you give us something to go with the great pictures?”

Jeter released a guttural gurgle that sounded more animal than human.

Cady couldn’t stand it any longer.
   
He launched himself at the Throne and tore up its side.
 
The guards in the gun nests bristled.
 
Nervous fingers brushed against feather light triggers.
 
Cady snatched a fistful of Jeter’s rancid prison issue shirt.

“Do it.
 
Don’t play games.
 
Tell him what the hell is going on in there.”

“Woohoo, Jeter, I think you’ve got a fan,” O’Keefe mocked.

Jeter turned to Cady.
 
Although Jeter was without eyes, Cady felt the killer’s sightless gaze peel away at his flesh and bone until his soul was left bare.
 
In those briefest of moments, Jeter extracted everything about Cady—his fears and dreams, everything that made him the man he was, and that scared him.
 
He realized Jeter was more powerful than these fools believed.
 

Cady changed his mind.
 
He didn’t want to know what was going on inside the Rift.
 
Keeler wasn’t worth saving.
 
He had taken his chances already and lost.
 
Cady saw no point in sacrificing himself.
 
He released his hold on Jeter and looked away in shame.
 
A blind man had stared him down.

Jeter chuckled.
 

“Don’t feel so bad,” O’Keefe said.
 
“He has that effect on everyone.”

Cady tasted the sourness of vomit at the back of his throat.

“Okay, Jeter,” O’Keefe said.
 
“You want to keep what’s happening to yourself, that’s fine.
 
I’m sure you’ll tell us when you’re good and ready, but just remember who’s giving you all the sweets from the sweet shop for free.”
 

O’Keefe patted Jeter on the shoulder and climbed down.
 
Cady followed the governor, all the while making sure he didn’t look at Jeter.
 

“Someone want to tell me what’s happening?” O’Keefe asked.

“Keeler is on the move again,” Bennett replied.
 
“The Rift seems to be tracking him.”

“Is there any way we can get sound?”

“I don’t know,” Lyle, the technician who’d kitted up Keeler with the electronics, said.

“Well, I suggest you try.”

Lyle frowned and scurried back to his console.

“I suggest everyone get back to their posts and do what they are supposed to do.
 
Nothing can be learned if the only thing you people are doing is watching.
 
Start earning your salaries.”

The crowd dissipated, O’Keefe’s point ringing in their ears.

“And what do I do?” Cady asked.
 
“What’s my job?”

“Not to be out of my sight.”
 
O’Keefe cast an appreciating stare over Cady.
 
“He got to you, didn’t he?”

Cady tried to qualify his shame, but he couldn’t explain away the way Jeter had made him feel.
 
The man had opened him like a surgeon with a scalpel.
 
There was nothing to defend.

“Doesn’t he get to you?” Cady remarked.
 

“No more than any other caged animal.
 
But over time, any animal can be controlled.”

“You think you can tame Jeter?”

O’Keefe smiled and directed a glance at Jeter.
 
“Maybe not.”

In the Rift, they watched Keeler proceeding to run uphill, across a field waist deep in some kind of natural barley or wild grass.
 
The slope and the grass hampered Keeler’s strength and progress.
 
He fell on several occasions but something was driving him to continue.
 
The Rift tracked him while maintaining a healthy distance behind, slowing when he slowed and speeding up when he sped up.
 

Cady turned to face Jeter.
 
Earlier, he had thought the killer’s contorted features had indicated his rage at his predicament, but he’d been wrong.
 
He now recognized the twists and folds in his flesh for what they truly were.
 
A leer.
 
He’d seen the leer before, on the face of people hiding a secret that was only moments away from being announced.
 
Something was coming and Cady hoped there was enough firepower in this room to contain it.
 

“Do you want to tell me why you brought me here tonight?” Cady asked O’Keefe.
 
“If you knew I was working for Saunders, then keeping me in the dark made sense.
 
If all I had were suspicions, the Home Office couldn’t work against you, so why let me in and show me this?”
 
Cady flung an arm in the direction of the Rift, Jeter in his Throne, the bamboozled technicians and the armed guards.
 
“I would have thought the last thing you’d want me to know is this.”

“Two reasons, Cady.
 
I have no doubt you’ll scurry off to blow your wad in front of Saunders and he’ll lap it up with glee.
 
Knowing him, he’ll want to know more and authorize additional funds to keep this project going.
 
If they know I’m getting results, they won’t give a shit how I do it.
 
Who do you think authorized sending in Lefford and Allard?”
 

Cady understood everything now.
 
That bastard Saunders was screwing him.
 
He hadn’t been sent to the Scrubs as a spy.
 
His role in tonight’s proceedings was as an impartial observer.
 
O’Keefe could feed the Home Office a line of bullshit that they would be forced to accept unless someone uninvolved corroborated the accounts.
 
The Home Office wasn’t interested in shutting the project down.
 
They wanted to make sure their money wasn’t being wasted.
 
He had no doubt that his report back to Saunders, regardless of how damning, would funnel more cash O’Keefe’s way.
 

 
“And the second reason?” Cady prompted.

“I told you how much this project is potentially worth.
 
I’m offering you a piece of the pie.”

“You’re planning to make me a partner?”

“Why not?
 
Civil Service doesn’t come with too many perks.
 
If the Rift comes off, you’ll be able to retire early to do whatever amuses you.”
 
O’Keefe let his offer hang.
 
“Besides, if you say yes and become part of the solution and not the problem, I know I don’t have to worry about you.
 
I’ll know you’ll be on my side and anything that happens to me will happen to you.”