Organ Music (3 page)

‘How did you get in?' asked Harley.

‘I've been waiting for you,' she answered. ‘I knew they'd bring you here.'

‘No, but how did you actually get in?' Harley persisted.

‘Oh, I can come and go,' she answered carelessly.

She was still wearing her big, round, dark glasses, and still hugging the long black jacket around her, almost as if she were cold. This made David register how very warm it was down here. For all that, the girl seemed to be shivering. Her bare legs vanished into high, black, laced Doc Martens.

‘Just tell us,' said Harley. ‘How do we get out? I mean, supposing we have to.'

The girl smiled. She had very white teeth, pointed and foxy. ‘How did you get in?' she asked, mimicking Harley, but not unkindly.

‘We got into a car which – which wasn't ours,' Harley said.

‘Oh, that car!' the girl replied, nodding and taking a packet of chewing gum from her coat pocket.

‘We sort of borrowed it ... well, actually it borrowed us,' said David, watching her pop a piece of gum into her mouth. She wore black leather fingerless gloves, and she did not offer the packet of gum to either of them.

‘Wow! Isn't technology wonderful,' she said. It wasn't a question.

‘Is the door behind you unlocked?' asked Harley. ‘Is that the way out?'

‘In the end it is,' the girl said. She spoke in a careless voice, but there was something strange about her expression. Then she opened her mouth but, though she seemed to struggle to speak, no words came. ‘I-I-I-I ...' she stammered, then stopped. ‘I don't seem to be able to tell you much,' she said at last, blinking rapidly and speaking easily once more. ‘You'll have to guess.'

‘Do you work here?' Harley asked, while David stared at her, puzzled at what someone so street punk could be doing in this high-tech place.

‘I do, at present,' she said. ‘I'll be moving on when I finish my assignment.'

‘What is your assignment?' David asked, but Harley cut in over him.

‘Why can't you tell us much? Is it top secret or something?'

‘I just can't,' she said. ‘There's some law against it. I have to fight laws all the time just to be here – laws of nature, that is.'

‘Can you answer
any
questions?' David asked her.

‘Yes, if you ask the right question, that is. Anyhow, you're halfway there, whether I answer it or not,' replied the girl.

‘Do we just have to sit here and wait?' Harley said irritably.

‘Are you bored?' she asked.

‘No,' said Harley. ‘But that's not the point.'

‘Because if you are bored, you should find something to entertain yourselves with.' Her head turned a little so that her dark glasses appeared to focus on the television set in the corner. ‘Why not watch a soapie?' Her voice was light, almost playful, as if she were giving riddling instructions. ‘Better than nothing!'

David moved over to the set, then glanced back at her. She nodded once. Encouraged, he pressed the button that said Power. The screen sprang to life.

The image that formed was not in full colour, but neither was it in black-and-white. The shadows and darker details were various shades of blue.

What they saw was one of those empty, curving corridors, perhaps the very one along which they had walked only ten minutes earlier. They stared expectantly, but the corridor remained empty. No doors opened. Nothing happened.

‘Bor-ing!' said the girl half-chanting. ‘Change channels.'

‘How?' David asked, but as he spoke he saw a remote control on top of the set, snatched it up, and clicked the single button.

Immediately the corridor faded, but other shapes came crowding through it as it disappeared. The new scene seemed familiar. Ten blue and white people were moving in a complicated reel through a room filled with equipment. And, there on the screen, David could make out whole ranks of similar screens, crossed and recrossed by blips, undulating lines and tight scribbles of light.

‘That's like a – a hospital, isn't it?' Harley said. ‘Some sort of an operating room.'

‘It could be a tree hospital,' suggested the girl. ‘What do you reckon?'

‘Tell us, then, if you're so smart,' said Harley. He and David both looked from the girl to the screen, then back to the girl once more. She frowned and opened her mouth but for the second time she choked, and no words came.

‘Find out for yourselves,' she said at last, stepping back with an indifferent shrug. ‘It's your funeral. Just take it easy with the, with the – with the drinking.' Then she laughed as if she had made a joke.

David pressed the programme selector a third time. The image on the screen faded as another came through it, and to begin with he could not understand what he was seeing, though at the same time he felt he knew it well. Two figures were standing and staring at a screen. The backs were familiar, and surely the chairs – that table spread with magazines... David spun around to check the magazines on the table beside him. Harley yelped.

‘It's you!' he cried. David looked quickly back at the screen, but, as he turned his head, the image on the screen turned too, so he did not – could not – meet his own eyes.

‘It's us, isn't it?' Harley said, whispering now, and shivered.

David found he was shivering, as well. ‘There must be a camera somewhere,' he said, staring up at the ceiling. ‘Look!' He pointed up at a corner. ‘That black thing like a round eye. They're spying on us.'

‘They call it “monitoring”,' said the girl. ‘It sort of suggests they're taking care of you. And they will take care of you, too – if you're not more careful than they are, that is. Watch out for any – ' she seemed to struggle again, ‘any – hospitality.'

The last word came out almost violently, as if the word she most needed had choked her and she had to say something else instead.

David pressed the button again.

This time they were looking into a large, tiled room lined along two walls with a continuous flow of stainless-steel sinks, and taps and steel refrigerators. Two steel tables stood in the centre of the room, but without the crowding of expensive equipment they had seen in the operating theatre. The third wall, only partly visible, seemed to be lined with steel drawers, all tightly closed. In one corner, David got the impression of an area screened with plastic screens, like something he had seen before. However, before he could organize his memory, the screen went blank, then filled with flickering snow.

‘Hang on!' said Harley. ‘Let me see that room again?'

‘It's switched itself off,' said David, pressing the button over and over.

‘Override command,' said the girl. ‘Old Doctor Fabricate's trying to come through.' And she chuckled a strange, dark chuckle.

A very different sort of picture began forming on the screen. They were now seeing, in full television colour, an office with a big, well-ordered desk and a well-ordered man sitting behind it.

‘Good evening,' said the man. He spoke with an accent, but David could not guess what country it suggested. ‘I am Doctor Fabrice. I think you were told to expect me. Now, listen carefully, because I am going to tell you what to do next.'

Dr Fabrice was looking at them with severe scientific attention.

‘I know you must be alarmed by your situation, but you have no cause to worry. In two minutes the door to the left of this screen will slide open. Go into the room beyond. You will find clean clothes adjacent to the shower. You will then move into the antiseptic environment we need to maintain, so after you have showered, please put on the uniforms provided.'

‘I'm not dressing in any uniform,' Harley muttered.

‘Failure to comply with this ruling will result in coercion,' Dr Fabrice went on, in a voice without emotion. ‘After you have gone through the process of disinfection, you will be interviewed and appropriately classified. Do remember that you are here entirely by your own choice, and be cooperative. Cooperation will be to your advantage.'

The screen went blank once more, and one of the doors opened invitingly.

‘I suppose we'd better go,' David said. He turned to look at the girl and was filled, once more, with the peculiar feeling of having missed out on something – something important.

‘When we saw ourselves on that screen ...' He hesitated, and she raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Where were you?' he asked her. ‘You were right beside us, but the camera didn't pick you up.'

‘Oh well, maybe I know enough about this place to keep out of the reach of cameras,' she answered. ‘There are spots in every room the cameras miss. Or maybe I have a secret skill, and just don't show.' And she laughed to herself.

‘What's your name?' David asked, looking back over his shoulder even as he stepped through the door.

‘Quinta!' she said. ‘What's yours?'

The door slid shut before he could answer. There was no going back.

Quinta!
thought David.
Where's Quinta?
That was the graffiti on the wall in Forbes Street.

‘Harley...' he began, and then fell silent.

They were confronted by a series of four shower alcoves which made David feel as if he were a sheep about to be dipped against his will. Anxious to seem mature and responsible and to impress any cameras that might be watching them, David and Harley both undressed, folding their clothes neatly, something that neither of them did at home. Naked, they moved into separate shower alcoves. But, as they entered, shower doors closed behind them, clicking and locking in what was now a familiar fashion. Warm water smelling of disinfectant shot down on them so briskly it was like being bombarded with pins. When the showers stopped, what had appeared to be the back wall slid aside. First Harley, then David, came out – dripping and trembling – into a tiny room, tiled in blue and white, and without a single window.

There came a hiss, as a warm, greenish spray fell from sprinklers in the ceiling above them. The room smelled of another kind of antiseptic.

‘They're disinfecting us.' Harley was outraged. ‘What's going on?'

‘He told us we would be disinfected,' David replied. ‘That Dr Fabrice, I mean.' His voice sounded calm, but his head was spinning with amazement.
Quinta
, he was thinking.
Quinta!
She had, apparently, disappeared from Forbes Street. Her name had been written up there.
Where's Quinta?
the graffiti had asked over and over again. Could she have taken that car just as they had? How long had she actually been here?

A door hummed open. Yet another pale blue room. David glanced at the corners of the ceiling. Yes! There was the round, black eye of a camera. Someone was watching – still watching; someone was monitoring them. Pale blue towels and clothes were laid out on a steel bench.

‘Dresses!' Harley was outraged.

‘Gowns!' said David. ‘Hospital gowns. At least they're blue, not pink!'

‘I'm not wearing a thing like that!' said Harley. ‘It'll show my bum.'

‘No, it won't. Well, not quite. And I want to get this over and done with,' David said wearily, though the short gown did make him feel silly and defenceless. The door at the end of the room opened on cue. They walked through and found themselves in the well-ordered office they had first seen on the television set.

The man behind the desk looked at them pleasantly enough.

‘So,' he said mildly. ‘You stole a car and here you are.'

‘We weren't really stealing it,' mumbled Harley.

‘Just borrowing it?' suggested Dr Fabrice. ‘Well, it's all very regrettable, but nothing we can't fix. It will take time. After all, you've pushed your way into a private establishment.'

‘I thought Willesden Forest was run by the government,' Harley protested.

‘Private in the sense that we don't encourage anyone to come here except by invitation,' the doctor said. ‘Work goes on here which must be protected. We do have competitors, you know.'

‘May I ring my mother – just to let her know I'm safe?' asked David.

‘Certainly not,' Dr Fabrice replied calmly.

‘She'll be off her head by now,' David cried.

‘You should have thought of her before you got into that car.' Dr Fabrice sounded bored. ‘However, you're lucky in one way. We don't want to prosecute, but we
will
need to monitor you for a short term. Goodness knows what problems you have brought in with you, and you may even have suffered some contamination, though we are as scrupulously careful as possible. So we must check you out – not that we actually want the extra work.'

‘Contamination? You mean
viruses
might have got into us?' Harley was dismayed. ‘Dangerous ones?'

‘Let's hope not,' Dr Fabrice said. ‘It is just possible, however. I'll give you the appropriate shots in a moment. In the meantime there are a few questions I'd like you to answer. Let's begin with your names and your dates of birth.'

Harley and David answered question after question. What illnesses had they had? Did they have any allergies? Were either of them taking any medications? Did either or both of them take drugs? Were either of them on insulin? Or steroids of any kind? Did they drink? Had either of them ever had any heart disease? Had either of them ever had any injections into the heart? Were there any illnesses in their families – illnesses they might have inherited? Nothing neurological? No kidney or liver malfunction?

The questions went on and on. David and Harley answered and answered until the room faded around them and they wilted in their chairs.

Finally Dr Fabrice rang a bell. A dark, young woman in a nurse's uniform came in pushing a small trolley. She did not so much as glance at the boys. It was as if they did not exist.

‘We need a blood sample from each of you,' said Dr Fabrice. ‘It won't hurt.'

‘What's all this in aid of?' Harley demanded yet again.

‘It's for your own good,' Dr Fabrice repeated. ‘It's not worth explaining. You wouldn't understand why.' His voice was soft and calm, but there was something unpleasant – even insulting – about it, too.

‘We're not stupid,' David said, watching his blood climb out of the needle and into the tube the nurse was holding.

Dr Fabrice glanced at him.

‘Are you not?' he asked. ‘Then why are you here? You were not invited.'

‘Okay, so it was a dumb thing to do,' David said. ‘But everyone does something stupid sooner or later.'

‘A charming theory.' Dr Fabrice smiled coldly.

‘Hang on a bit,' David began, suddenly wanting to argue.

But Harley began jiggling nervously beside him, muttering, ‘Shut up! Shut up!' under his breath. Then he said aloud, ‘We're sorry. Okay? We'll go away and never bother you again – never say another word. Promise!'

‘Of course, I do believe you,' said Dr Fabrice in his wintery voice. ‘Of course, I entirely believe you'll walk away and never so much as
whisper
about anything you may have seen here. Two boys as honest as you would stick to your promises, I am sure. All the same, the foolish rules insist that you sign these forms – legal agreements to remain silent about your little misadventure. This is a research facility, you know. And these are the days of international industrial espionage. So ... sign these forms, and then we can hold you legally responsible for any rumours in the world out there.'

‘Do you think we're spies?' asked Harley incredulously. ‘But we're ... we're just ... just kids.'

‘But many people of your age are well able to communicate – to manipulate computers, for example,' said Dr Fabrice. ‘Sign those forms now and, later, after we have checked with our lawyer, you will probably be sent home.'

‘Probably!' exclaimed Harley.

‘How much later?' asked David. ‘I mean, my mother – please let me ring her.'

‘I'm afraid not,' said Dr Fabrice, watching as Harley signed the pink form without bothering to read it.

Then it was David's turn. As he scribbled his signature he heard Harley yawning behind him, and knew exactly how he felt. It seemed as if they were signing off after a long and dangerous job, free, at last, to feel properly tired, even sleepy.

Dr Fabrice took the forms and put them in a basket on one side of his desk.

‘I can offer you a bed until ... oh, until the morning shift comes on,' he said. ‘I suggest you sleep. Our night staff will wash and clean your clothes for you.'

Dr Fabrice sounded so sure of what must be done.

The worst was over. Sleep would somehow make the next few hours come and go in less than a second. David and Harley looked at each other, half-nodding, half-shrugging.

Sitting beside his desk, Dr Fabrice had seemed imposing; on his feet he was revealed as short and squat. The boys followed him out into the corridor, and once again music came to meet them. More than meet – it assailed them. To David it sounded like the music that had been playing when they first stepped out of the elevator into this pale blue curve. For some reason it made him think, as it had then, of horror films – of mad, hooded figures sitting in front of double keyboards, with stops and pipes sprouting like alien fungi from solid rock.

Dr Fabrice opened a door. They were looking into yet another room, but this time David saw whiteness: two white beds, so soft and pure that an involuntary sigh of pleasure escaped him at the sight. After the shower, the disinfecting, then the question-and-answer session, he felt soft and pure himself, all natural dirt washed away from his skin and out of his head, and all responsibility passed on. He and Harley let Dr Fabrice herd them into the room, and David, glancing upwards, checked for any lensed eye that might be scanning the room. Yes! There it was, still watching him. But so what? All it would see, over the next few hours, would be two boys sleeping, free of care.

And then Harley cried out in terror.

David's gaze skidded across Harley's gaping face to the bed on the left-hand side of the narrow room. It had been empty. It
had
! Yet now there was someone in it.

A young man lay on his back under the crisp white cover, apparently asleep. David thought, in that first dizzy second, that he was wearing long, fingerless, blue lace gloves, then understood that the hands (folded left over right) were covered in intricate tattoos. His forearms writhed with flowers, naked girls half covered in their own flowing hair, and spiralling serpents. The skin showing between the lines looked yellowish and translucent, the flesh like rapidly clearing water.
If I keep looking
, David thought in terror,
I'll be able to see right through him to the sheet beneath
. The room seemed to fall away, and for a moment he believed, with woolly astonishment, that he was about to faint.
I can't! I mustn't
, he thought, twisting around to stare at Dr Fabrice, standing behind him. For a moment Dr Fabrice appeared to have a ghastly owl perched on his shoulder. Familiar dark glasses were staring at David from just behind the doctor, who seemed entirely unaware of either the young man in the bed, or Quinta, his close shadow.

Harley screamed again. A horrid scarlet had begun pumping up between the man's fingers, spreading over the thin, blue border of the white sheet.

‘Blood!' Harley shouted.

‘Now, then,' Dr Fabrice said, staring at them in irritation. ‘Don't make a stupid fuss. Sleep – just sleep – and we'll wake you for breakfast.'

Behind him, Quinta straightened as if she were a puppet jerked upwards by unseen strings. Tilting back her head, she howled: ‘Run! Run now! There's no waking up! No breakfast! Hide! Hi-ide! Run and hide!'

Dr Fabrice may not have been able to see the young man and the flow of blood, but he heard Quinta – that owl looking over his shoulder. Suddenly he knew she was there. His jaw dropped, he turned; Quinta actually smiled at him as if they were old friends. His eyes were only inches away from her glasses. As David and Harley, acting together, pushed past him, a dreadful sound forced its way out of Dr Fabrice: not just a groan of fear, but the agony of a man feeling his brain invisibly twisting inside his head. First Harley, then David, scrambled past him and out of the room, pelting as fast as they could along the pale blue, curving corridor, even though they knew of no safe place to run to. It was as if they had been practising that fast take-off for a long time, and must make use of it, come what may.

Behind the perpetual music something began screaming.
Someone's torturing a cat
, thought David in horror, but the sound rose and fell too evenly for true pain, always incoherent. He realized he was hearing a siren – an alarm call. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Dr Fabrice crawling on the floor of the blue corridor with his head hanging almost to the floor, as a mechanical toy with a broken neck might crawl. Then he collapsed and lay still. David felt certain that, though Dr Fabrice might get up again, he would never be the same man he had been.

And now David also felt the vibration of pursuit. Feet were running from somewhere, pounding towards them. Grabbing a handle on the nearest door, he twisted it madly. Miraculously, the door opened, and he and Harley leaped sideways into darkness, pulling the door shut behind them. It clicked in such a conclusive way that David immediately knew they were locked in again, and the thought of being locked in this unknown, black room made him giddy with fear. Who knew what was in such a room, sharing the darkness with them? As he sank down on his trembling haunches, burying his face in his hands, he was aware of Harley collapsing beside him.

‘He was dead. That man in the bed was dead,' Harley mumbled. David suspected he might be weeping in the dark.

‘Shhh!' he whispered. Feet thumped rapidly past the door. David put out his hand and touched Harley's arm. ‘He can't have been dead.' He wanted to be sensible and comforting at the same time. ‘Dead men don't bleed like that. I mean, if he was dead his heart would have stopped beating and ... '