The Adjusters (15 page)

The grey-haired doc looked at his watch, said something, and the two men moved towards the doors. As they exited, grey-hair tossed the scalpel into a nearby sink.

“That was too close!” Christian said. “Let’s get out of here before they come back.”

“Wait,” Henry said. “I want to get in there and take a look.”

Christian pulled down his face mask and stared at him as if he was crazy. “You what?”

“There’s something wrong. They’ve got that patient strapped to the table.”

“We’re not here for this…”

“We’re here to find out what’s going on, right?”

“I guess.”

“Come on then. I think we can get into the theatre through those doors up ahead.”

Henry rose, but Christian stayed where he was, looking sheepish.

“What’s the matter?” Henry demanded.

“I…uh…don’t like the sight of blood. And operating theatres kind of freak me out… I get sick just watching
House
…”

“Okay, okay,” said Henry, aware that time was ticking away and the surgeons might return at any minute. “Just wait here. I won’t be long.”

Leaving Christian, he moved swiftly to the end of the window and took a door into another corridor that curved round the side of the theatre to the entrance. Pausing to listen for the sound of
the doctors coming back, he opened the door and slipped inside.

The operating theatre was silent and Henry was aware of his footsteps as he approached the table the patient was lying on. There was movement at the window and Henry looked round to see
Christian stick his head up and give him a
make it fast
signal with his hand. Henry nodded and walked slowly towards the table.

As he passed the patient’s feet he said softly, “Hello? Are you awake?”

There was no response. Where the doctor had checked the patient’s wrist restraint the cover was raised, exposing an arm. There was a pattern of injection marks above the patient’s
wrist and Henry was reminded of Gabrielle when he’d met her at the gas station. He’d taken the needle marks on her arm as evidence of drug abuse – but had she merely been a
patient at the medical centre? And what had she been injected with?

Henry moved round the table so he could get a look at the patient’s face under the raised cover. What he saw made him freeze with shock… He blinked twice, trying to process the
image… It was like something from a horror movie…

The patient was a little older than him. The kid’s eyes were closed and his face looked peaceful enough, which was surprising as the top of his skull was missing. The top of his head had
been cut away just above the eyebrows, exposing the delicate grey matter of his brain resting in the skull cavity. A metal frame was locked around his neck and jaw, holding his skull off the
table.

A wave of nausea rose in Henry as he looked over the glistening surface of the kid’s brain, but he just couldn’t look away. Flecks of blood and white bone matter stood out on the
ridged, grey surface…

Henry took a step back, colliding with a metal rack of surgical instruments. The rack went flying and collided with the wall. Scalpels and clamps clattered noisily against the tiled floor.

As if disturbed by the noise, the eyes of the kid on the table flicked open – wide and staring and full of horror…

The kid’s mouth opened and he moaned two desperate words…

“Help…me…”

Henry stood staring as the horrific figure of the kid on the table continued to plead with him for help. The kid thrashed against the bonds holding his wrists and ankles in
place.

“Help…me!”

Moving forward, Henry took hold of the Velcro restraint around the kid’s exposed wrist and tore it open. The kid immediately grabbed Henry’s arm, nails digging into his flesh.

“It’s okay,” Henry said, moving round to the head of the table. “You’re going to be okay.” The kid’s exposed brain had been hard enough to look at
before, but now his eyes were open and he was conscious, there was something obscene about it.

“What…what have they done…to me?” The kid rolled his eyes, as if trying to see the top of his head.

Henry shook his head, not knowing what to say.

“I want…to get up…”

“That’s not such a good idea,” Henry said, looking at the frame holding the kid’s head in place.

The kid waved his free arm around frantically and started screaming. “Let me up! Let me up!”

“No!” Henry said, trying to silence him. “You have to be quiet!”

THUD.

Henry spun as something slammed against the glass observation window. On the other side, Christian was raising his fist to bang the glass again. He mouthed something.

They’re coming!

At that moment, the door at the end of the corridor flew open and a security guard burst through. Christian barely had time to back away before the guard was on top of him. Henry was powerless
to do anything as his friend was rammed against the window. Christian’s nose smacked it hard and he slid down, leaving a smear of blood on the pane.

“Christian!” Henry yelled.

The door to the operating theatre clattered open and the bald-headed surgeon appeared, framed in the opening. He looked at Henry with wide eyes. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing
here?”

Henry backed away, looking around for some means of escape. He noticed a door on the other side of the theatre. By now, the surgeon had snatched up a syringe gun and was lunging at him. Henry
grabbed a table and heaved it towards his attacker. The surgeon went flying amidst surgical instruments, letting out a cry of pain as his hand came down on a scalpel on the floor.

Not wasting another second, Henry threw himself at the door to the rear of the theatre, hoping it didn’t just lead to a cupboard. To his relief he found himself in another corridor and he
ran without thinking.

A door crashed open further down the corridor and a man’s voice shouted at him to stop. Henry pushed through a set of double doors to get away. Christian was caught – the best thing
he could do now was get out of the building and tell everyone what he’d seen in the operating theatre. He didn’t know what the hell the doctors thought they were doing, but he knew it
wasn’t right.

And it had to be stopped.

Henry started trying doors along the corridor. The first two were locked, but the third led into a darkened room. He locked the door behind him and looked around. He was inside some kind of lab
full of long workbenches and large, glass-fronted machines. Many of the machines were covered in dust sheets and there were toolboxes lying around, as if the place was being upgraded. Despite this,
it reminded Henry of the time he’d visited his mother’s workplace. A horrible thought occurred to him: could
she
be involved in all this? Did
she
know what was going on in
the medical centre? He immediately dismissed the thought. One of his mom’s favourite words was “ethics”. She was always going on about the
ethics
of this or the
ethics
of that. No way would she want to be involved in anything that was happening at the medical centre…

He moved to the back of the lab and found another side door. He tried the handle… Locked. The main lab door rattled as one of the guards tried to open it. There was mumbled discussion on
the other side – clearly the guards didn’t have a key.
Good,
thought Henry,
that buys me some time.
He needed some kind of tool to force the side door open…

The lab door shook on its hinges as something heavy smacked the other side. The guards were throwing themselves against it.

Henry reached for a toolbox lying on top of a large, cloth-covered object on the nearest workbench…

The lab door juddered as the guards hit it a second time. One of the hinges came loose from the wall with a grinding sound.

As he picked up the toolbox, the cloth slipped down to reveal a tank that was filled with a dark, yellowy liquid. In the half-light, Henry made out several objects suspended in the murk and
peered in to make out what they were… They seemed strangely familiar…

Human brains?

Four of them hanging in suspension. Henry gasped.

The guards hit the door again, but somehow the last hinge held. One of the men on the other side let out a yell of frustration.

Henry grabbed a hammer from the toolbox, went to the side door and slammed it down on the handle twice with all his might. The lock smashed on the second blow.

There was a crash from the other side of the room and the main door flew off its hinges. Two security guards staggered into the room, carried by their own momentum, and collided with a
workbench. Behind them, the grey-haired doctor waited in the doorway.

“He’s there!” the doctor yelled. “At the back of the lab!”

In a desperate effort to buy himself time, Henry grabbed the edge of the tank and heaved it over. There was a mighty crash as the glass shattered, spilling its contents across the floor of the
lab. Then Henry threw his shoulder at the door. It swung open and he tore out into the night. A second later he was running across the gravel.

From behind him, he heard the voice of the doctor cry out: “The specimens! Forget him! Pick them up! Get them off the floor!”

Henry put his head down, realizing that he had come out on the other side of the medical centre. A door clattered open somewhere to his right and footsteps crunched on gravel. A torch beam
flicked through the darkness at the back of the centre. He moved low and fast to his left, following the building round towards the front once more. There was no other way out of the complex. The
surrounding wall was too high to climb on all other sides.

Making the front without being spotted, Henry paused at the corner of the building and scanned the way ahead. The courtyard in front of the centre was deserted and the gates were still open. Was
it some kind of a trap? Surely they had to be expecting him to come this way.

Another torch beam flickered behind him and he broke from cover, heart thundering in his chest…

He sprinted for the gate and flew past, along the driveway and into the cover of the trees, pulling off the surgical gown and mask as he ran. Henry didn’t look back, although he could
hardly believe he’d made it out. Then cold realization struck him – he’d left Christian behind, not just with the guards, but with those doctors. Did they have Christian strapped
to a table already? Were they cutting his skull open even now, ready to remove his brain?

He had to rescue his friend. And he was going to need help…

“Mom!” Henry yelled, bursting through the front door of their lodge. He was breathless from running and covered with sweat. If the guards hadn’t identified
him by sight, then they would have probably got it out of Christian by now – one way or another. He shuddered, thinking of the methods those doctors might use to extract information. It was
only a matter of time before they showed up at the house.

“Mom, Christian’s in trouble!” he yelled again, moving through the lounge, which was in darkness. Something didn’t add up. Henry checked his watch and saw that it was
only 10 p.m. Mom never went to bed so early… And she would have certainly waited up until he got back…

A light was on in the kitchen and he moved towards it, pushing through the swing door. And froze in shock at what he saw…

His mom was sitting at the table, a glass of wine in one hand, laughing as if someone had just told a joke. Her other hand was on the table, almost touching that of a man seated beside her.

John Mallory.

“Henry!” Jennifer Ward said in surprise, pulling her hand back from the table as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. “I didn’t expect you back so
soon!”

Henry advanced into the room. “What’s going on here?” he asked, aware that the question was pretty stupid. It was clear enough what was going on. His mom and the head of
Malcorp were having some kind of wine-drinking, hand-holding date in the kitchen while they thought he was safely out of the way for a few hours.

“You’re covered in sweat!” Jennifer said, rising from her seat and moving over to touch his forehead. “Are you sick?”