Numbers 3: Infinity (13 page)

‘Is the heat part of the tests?’

‘No, there’s a fault in the central heating system, I told you. But we must continue the tests. Please sit with Mia.’

I do sit on the bed, but not because he’s told me to. My legs are starting to feel wobbly. I’m sweating all over and it’s hard to breathe. Mia’s showing signs of distress too: thrashing her head from side to side, moaning. The spots of colour on her face are getting brighter. I’ve seen them before. This is getting dangerous.

‘What is the temperature in here?’ I ask.

‘Thirty degrees.’

‘Thirty! For God’s sake, that’s enough. Open the door.’

‘It’s the same everywhere.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Mia’s straining at the straps. I touch her face. It’s red hot. I look round the room for some water, anything to cool her down. There’s nothing.

‘Can you bring us some water, please?’ I can hear the panic in my voice. I know I should be keeping calm for Mia’s sake, but I can’t. Alarm bells are screaming through my body. ‘Doctor Newsome, can you bring us some water?’

‘We’ll be with you very soon.’

‘No!’ I scream. ‘We need it now!’

My breathing’s out of control now, coming faster and faster, but I’m getting more light-headed.

‘Try and keep calm, Sarah.’

I look at the bank of monitors near the bed, a battery of traces moving across the screens, with numbers and counters of all sorts. They don’t mean a thing to me, except one number. On several of the screens there’s the same number: 35 degrees. I watch as it changes, and, yes, it changes on every screen. 36 degrees. We’re being cooked in here.

Mia starts to cry, not a hearty full-on yell like she does if she’s fallen over or hurt herself, but a thin, watery noise. Her cheeks were very pink before, now they’re mottled – livid red blotches sitting on pale, almost alabaster skin. She was moving around a few moments ago, showing her discomfort. Now, she’s gone very still. Her eyes are glassy. The changes in her are all happening very, very fast.

‘Oh God. Doctor, help us, please. Mia’s overheating. Please, help us.
We can’t let her overheat.’

I start scrabbling at the buckles on her straps. I should
have done this to start with. I shouldn’t have let it go this far.

‘Don’t touch the straps, Sarah. We’ll be right with you. Keep her on the bed. Keep as calm as you can.’

‘I need to get her out of here.’

I’ve undone the strap round one of her arms, but my sweaty fingers keep slipping on the other buckle and my strength has been sapped by the heat. I can’t do it.

‘Stay where you are. We’ll be right with you.’

One more glance at the monitors – 41 degrees.

The room’s spinning around me. I can’t keep it together. I keel over onto the mattress next to Mia. The baby’s squirming inside me, pushing against my stomach and my ribs. Saliva floods into my mouth – I’m going to be sick.

I move my head and spit onto the floor. I can’t see any more. The room’s gone black. I’ve got my left arm across Mia. I can feel her even if I can’t see her. And I can hear her.

‘Mum-meee.’

It’s a thin, reedy noise, like an alarm bell in my head. It brings me round. I open my eyes and the room comes back into focus. I lift my head just in time to see her eyes roll back into her head and her body go stiff.

‘Oh my God. Oh my God. Somebody help us! Help! Please help!’

She starts to convulse, arms and legs twitching against her restraints, head jerking.

I can hardly breathe. I try to hold onto her limbs.

‘Mia! Mia, come back to me! Mia!’

The jerking gets more violent. It’s terrifying, but I can’t do anything to stop her. All I can do is watch and try and keep her from harming herself. Then her whole body goes stiff. Her eyes are still open but I can only see the whites. I cradle her face in my hands.

‘Mia. Mia. Can you hear me? Mia. Mia!’ It feels like she’s gone, like her body’s empty. ‘Oh God, no. Please, please, please.’ I slap her face. She gives a little moan and her eyes roll down and just for a moment she sees me again, I know she does. ‘Mia, don’t leave me. It’s not your time. Mia, stay with me. Stay with me.’

She’s pale now – the blotches have gone – a pale, stick-thin girl lying on a bed much too big for her. Her eyes close and her arms and legs go limp.

The door blasts open bringing a rush of cold air. Newsome and the whole team of staff sweep in.

‘Stand back, please.’ They jostle me aside and I stagger backwards. My body’s got no strength left in it. My back hits the wall and I sink to the floor.

I don’t know if my daughter’s alive or dead.

Chapter 28: Adam

S
aul’s back. This time he brings a couple of armed thugs with him. Am I going to get a beating? Is he going to kill me now? They cuff my wrists behind my back and shove me out of the door.

‘Right or wrong, you’re going to help me now. You’re needed,’ Saul says, and he barges past and sets off down the corridor at a run. My posse are digging me in the back, pushing me, dragging me along – it’s all bruises on top of bruises. I ain’t in any position to resist.

‘Leave off,’ I say. ‘I’m coming, all right.’

My words don’t make no difference. They enjoy this shit.

We lose sight of Saul, but it don’t take long to catch up with him. We turn a corner and the corridor ahead is full of people running around like headless chickens. They’re mostly piling into one room, and that’s where we go.

To start with it’s difficult to work out what’s going on. It looks like there’s a crowd of people round a bed, so many I can’t see who’s on it.

Saul is shouting at Newsome. ‘What the hell were you doing?’

‘I was doing my job, Saul. The girl changed her number – we were scientifically recreating those conditions to analyse what happens.’

The girl. Mia.

They know she changed her number. How? How could they know that? Then I remember the soldier with the message, putting his finger to his lips.
They could be listening in.
They did listen in – they listened to me and Sarah. That’s the only way they could know.

What have they done?

‘I didn’t agree to that,’ Saul spits out.

‘I don’t need your sign-off, Saul. I’m the Chief Scientific Officer. I sign off all research. This is my project. You’re just
security.’

They’re facing each other, standing nearly chest to chest like two fighting birds.

‘I’m in charge of this facility,’ Saul shouts into Newsome’s face, ‘in charge of the whole place, or are you forgetting that?’

‘What do you know about science?’ Newsome sneers. ‘What do you know about numbers? What are you even doing here?’ His chins are quivering.

Saul shoots me a quick look. I twig instantly.

Newsome don’t know about his number-stealing.

I open my mouth – I’ll shout it from the rooftops, if it helps me get out of here – then I think about Saul’s threats. And I remember. He’s murdered before.

If not you, then who?

I close my mouth. I’m helpless. I can’t tell anyone. And anyway, they’d never believe me. My word against his. What can I do?

‘What do you know about this girl, Newsome?’ Saul’s saying. ‘What has your research shown you? Has her number changed? Or has your scientific meddling killed her?’

Killed her?

I try to shrug off my minders, to get to the bed. As I twist around I notice a figure slumped on the floor. It’s Sarah. I call her name and she looks up. Her face is flushed and shiny, her eyes dull, but they’re still that piercing blue and the number’s the same. 2572075. Even in the middle of all this madness, her number comforts me. Somehow we’re gonna get through this. There’s a happy, peaceful, loving future waiting for us. Difficult to believe it, but that’s what her number’s saying.

And I can’t let that number change. I can’t let Saul near her – but what about Mia?

‘Sarah, are you all right? What’s happened?’

She shakes her head, unable to speak.

Saul grabs my arm and leads me away from her, pushing through the crowd. Some people protest as they’re shoved out of the way. Saul ignores them. And now I can see Mia. Her arms and legs have been strapped to the bed. She’s floppy and pale, and completely still. Her eyes are closed.

‘For God’s sake, what’ve you bastards done to her?’

‘Look in her eyes, Adam. Tell me what you see.’

Her chest is rising and falling – shallow little breaths. She’s breathing. She’s alive.

‘Fuck off, Saul. I’m not doing anything until you’ve untied us both.’

‘Do it,’ he says to the people round him.

My hands are wrenched up my back, while they fumble with the cuffs, but then, suddenly, they’re free. I reach forward, helping the others get the straps and the wires off
Mia. She opens her eyes slowly.

Her eyes are bloodshot, but her number’s the same. 2022054. Mia’s number. Nan’s number. It’s still there.

Once she’s free, I lift her up and carry her over to Sarah. I crouch down on the floor.

‘Is she …? Mia, are you all right?’

‘Mum-mee.’

I put Mia in Sarah’s arms.

‘So?’ Saul’s voice cuts in. He’s standing right in front of us, looking down.

I close my eyes for a couple of seconds, then glare up at him.

‘So what?’

‘Has her number changed?’

‘I’m not telling you.’

One of his heavy boots shifts on the floor – he’s itching to kick me, but I’m not in the mood to give in to him.

‘For fuck’s sake, leave us alone, Saul. We need some space, some time.’

‘Time,’ he says, and one of the heavy boots starts tapping on the floor. ‘We’re all running out of time …’ His voice sounds strangled and I glance up. His number sears my mind. 1622029. Time really is running out for Saul.

‘If you won’t tell me, there’s another way I can find out,’ he says. ‘Give me the girl.’

‘What does he mean?’ Sarah’s holding Mia as tight as she can, looking at me for an answer.

I know exactly what he means.

I do see them, Adam. But at the very last minute, the very last second. I see them just at the moment that they leave one soul and just before they enter mine.

He’ll take her away from this room and he’ll take her
number, just so he can find out what it is. He’ll gamble it’s better than his own – that her gifts will be more powerful than his – and he won’t be wrong. He’ll have her number, and she’ll have his.

‘No!’ I shout.

‘No?’ he says, coolly.

‘You don’t need to do that. It hasn’t changed. Her number’s the same. They didn’t swap.’

Behind him, Newsome curses. ‘Damn! Why didn’t it work? We didn’t push it far enough. We stopped too early.’

‘It wasn’t her last day,’ Saul says thoughtfully. ‘It has to be her last day. She’s like …’ He stops and looks round.

We’re all looking at him, Newsome included. I hold my breath. Is his secret out?

‘Yes, Saul?’ Newsome says. ‘Like?’

‘She’s like … an angel of death,’ he says, and as hot as this room is, my blood runs cold.

‘How very … poetic, Saul,’ Newsome says, ‘but we don’t know that, do we? I think we should clear the room, continue the experiment. We bottled it the first time.’ He looks as mad as Saul now. ‘This child changed her number – we have to find out what that means, what it means for all of us.’ His voice is high-pitched with excitement.

‘You nearly killed us!’ Sarah screams at him. Her voice is high-pitched and piercing. I can hear the terror in it.

‘Start setting up the room,’ Newsome shouts, striding towards the door. ‘Let’s go again.’

‘No! No, please! Don’t do that to us again. Please, please. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’ll do anything—’

Sarah’s lost it. Whatever she’s been through has pushed her over the edge and beyond.

‘What do you want? What do you want from me?’

Newsome stops, his hand on the door handle.

‘It’s not you, Sarah,’ Saul says. ‘It’s Mia.’

She hugs Mia even tighter. She’s shaking, almost convulsing.

‘She’s just a little girl.’

‘Does she see numbers, Sarah?’

‘No. I don’t know. She doesn’t even know her numbers yet. She’s only two. Anyway, why would she?’

‘Because of Adam. Like father, like daughter. Think about it, Sarah. It’s important. Do you think she sees numbers?’

‘He’s not her father, Saul,’ Sarah sobs. ‘Not her biological father.’

I feel like the ground’s tipping underneath me. Another gap in my memory is suddenly filled. Two years ago … Sarah was already pregnant when I met her. How could I have forgotten?

Mia’s not my daughter.

Chapter 29: Sarah

I
t’s gone quiet now, and everyone in the room is looking at us.

‘I don’t get it,’ Newsome says. ‘Why does this matter? We’re only interested in the fact that she changed number, aren’t we? She can change. She can renew. She can … live for ever.’

Saul shoots him a look. He’s thinking fast, you can see it in his face. His eyes dart from one person to another, and finally end up on me, but he’s not looking at my face. He’s staring at Mia, cradled in my arms.

‘Yes, that’s right, Newsome,’ he murmurs. ‘But for some reason, she’s only done it once. Your experiment didn’t work. And she can’t see numbers – she’s not like Adam. I wanted both – seeing numbers and changing them.’

‘You
wanted both?’

‘We. I meant
we
,’ Saul backtracks. ‘Think of her power, if she has both.’

‘Do I have to remind you again whose project this is,
Saul?’ Newsome sniffs. ‘I’ve had quite enough of your interference.’

I’ve had enough, too. These people are crazy, out of control, beyond any normal behaviour. They don’t know what they want – but I do. I want out.

‘I’ve told you what you wanted to know. She can’t see numbers. Happy now?’ I direct this at Saul. Then I turn to Newsome. ‘And Saul’s right – she changed numbers once. We don’t know if she can change again, but you’re not putting her through that again. I want to leave this place, and I’m taking my daughter. Adam, are you with us?’