The Adjusters (20 page)

“What makes you think I’m playing hooky?” Henry asked as she examined her hand and exchanged two cards of her own.

“Well, you’re here at 2 p.m. on a school day.”

“You got me.”

“You’re right I got you,” she said, laying her hand down. Four aces and three kings.

“I’m no good at card games,” Henry said, scratching his head. She’d beaten him four times in a row.

“Neither am I normally!” Gabrielle exclaimed, scooping up the cards and shuffling them. “I mean, I used to get beaten every time before…” Her voice trailed away
and she was silent for a moment. Her hands stopped shuffling the cards.

“Before what?” Henry asked.

Gabrielle looked at him in confusion.

“You said you used to get beaten all the time before something,” Henry pressed. “Can you tell me what you meant?”

Gabrielle gave a little giggle. “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” She looked down at the cards in her hands and started shuffling furiously.

“What do you remember before you came here?” Henry asked. “To the medical centre, I mean.”

She shrugged and started dealing the cards. “I was pretty crazy, I guess. I ran away. Took drugs. Shall we play?”

Henry picked up his cards and examined his hand. “What kind of drugs?”

“Huh?”

“What kind of drugs were you taking? Where did you get them from?”

Gabrielle’s face darkened. “Why do you want to go asking me nasty questions like that? I thought you came here to make me feel better…”

“Did you ever meet my friend Christian?” Henry asked quickly, changing the subject as the door opened a crack and the nurse peered in, checking on them.

“Christian?” Gabrielle said, brightening again as she organized her cards. “I think I met him once or twice. Kind of an outsider, don’t you think?”

The door creaked closed. Henry smiled and exchanged a couple of cards. “You could say that. He disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Gabrielle laid down a six and picked up another card.

“After Saturday night when we broke in. He hit his head on some glass and I haven’t seen him since.”

Gabrielle watched him as he laid down another card. “Perhaps they brought him here.”

Henry looked at her sharply. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, he was injured, wasn’t he?”

“You’ve seen him here?”

“No, I haven’t seen him,” Gabrielle said, a note of annoyance rising in her voice. “My, you ask some persistent questions! I thought you were coming here to make me feel
better, but all these questions are just making me feel upset.”

Henry reached out and touched her hand. “I do want to make you feel better. But I just want to know what happened to my friend. And to you. You seemed so terrified the first time we
met…”

“When I was on drugs.”

“What drugs?”

She sighed in annoyance. “Well, if you must know…” She laid her cards face down on the bed. “You know something? I really don’t remember.”

“And I bet you don’t remember where you got them from, right?” Henry said, sensing he was onto something. “Or what you did when you took them?”

Gabrielle shook her head slowly, eyes fixed on him. “Can we talk about something else?
Please?
”

“Okay,” Henry said. “Tell me about Fox.”

Gabrielle brightened. “Oh, we’ve been friends since kindergarten. She’s great. Do you know her?”

Henry nodded.

“How is she? How’s her mom?”

“She’s good,” Henry said. “Her mom is still sick.”

“It seems so long since I saw them. Not since…”

“Not since you ran away,” Henry finished for her. “Do you remember why you ran away?”

“No, I…”

Henry took the photo Fox had given him from his pocket and laid it between them, where the cards had been.

“Oh,” Gabrielle said, her voice small as she reached down and picked up the photo of her and Blake and the others. “That really seems a long time ago.”

“You were all friends.”

“Yes, we were.”

“But something changed,” he pressed. “Blake didn’t want to talk to you any more. So you started asking questions around Malcorp.”

Gabrielle shook her head. “I don’t remember…”

“And that’s when you started to get scared. Fox told me you were scared.”

“That was just the drugs making me crazy. I started believing some strange things.”

Henry said carefully, “Gabrielle, I think you’ve been told that you had problems you didn’t really have. I think you found out some things about Malcorp that made you
frightened and that’s why you ran away.”

“But everyone says…”

“They’re lying to you.”

“My mom and dad?” she said incredulously. “The doctors? Mr. Mallory? You know, for someone I only just met, you claim to know an awful lot about me and my family.”

“Think about it! Do you remember anything about what happened while you were on the run? Do you remember—”

“No,” Gabrielle said, cutting him dead. She collected up the cards and laid them on the bedside table. “I don’t want to talk about these things.”

“Why not?”

“Because they make me feel bad, Henry! Confused! And I don’t want to be confused any more. I just want to be normal – like everyone else. My mom says I’m going to get
good grades now and be able to go to college, just like she always wanted me to… I think you’d better just leave.”

Henry didn’t move. “I need to know, Gabrielle. I’ve been here just over a week and this place is starting to drive me crazy. Almost to the point I don’t know what to
believe. But I know one thing.”

Gabrielle met his eyes. “What?”

“We’re all in danger,” he said seriously. “Mallory and all the rest of them are lying to us about something. Christian has disappeared and I have to find him. You got
close to the truth – perhaps closer than anyone. That’s why they had to catch you and bring you back here.”

Gabrielle shook her head. “Trooper Dan rescued me. Drove me back here. Mr. Mallory was waiting to see me with that doctor…”

“Chancellor.”

“They took me downstairs…”

“Downstairs in this building?”

“Yes, I think so. Down in some kind of an elevator. A big elevator…”

“Go on,” Henry encouraged. If there were floors under the medical centre, then that was probably where Malcorp undertook its real business. And it was there that its biggest secrets
lay.

“I can’t,” Gabrielle said, rubbing her forehead. “It’s too hard and it hurts.”

“Open your eyes!” Henry said. “They’ve done something to you! They’ve done something to all the kids in this place!” He tapped the picture of Blake.
“They changed your boyfriend and you ran away before they could change you too. Now they’ve got Christian and I’m next on the list.”

Gabrielle reached round the side of the bed and pressed the call button for the nurse three times in quick succession.

“What are you doing?” Henry asked.

“I want you to leave, right now,” she said, picking up the photo and thrusting it at him.

“Gabrielle…”

“Now! Before I have you thrown out!”

Henry left the photo on the bed and got up to leave. As he walked to the door, he paused and looked back. Gabrielle was staring at the wall to avoid eye contact with him.

“You said you wanted to be normal,” he said. “Well, I think it’s normal to be afraid and to make mistakes and to not be the best at everything.”

Gabrielle didn’t look at him. The door opened and a nurse appeared.

“It’s alright,” Henry said, brushing past her. “I’m leaving.”

Trooper Dan had parked his cruiser at Romero’s Point, a scenic lookout to the south of town that gave a fantastic view of Newton, as well as the sprawling Malcorp complex
that grew like a circuit board out of the unspoilt woodland. He kneeled by the danger sign attached to the safety railing. It had been put in a few years before after a couple of drunken kids had
almost fallen into the valley one evening. In his arms he held a scoped rifle that he used during duck-hunting season.

Although today he wasn’t hunting ducks.

Leaning forward so that the railing supported the barrel of the rifle, he looked through the telescopic lens at the picnic site two hundred metres below. There were two tables with benches and
an ancient gas barbecue that looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. A trash can by the car park spilled over with rubbish; it hadn’t been emptied in months.

A movement caught Trooper Dan’s attention and he angled the rifle round, picking up Fox as she cycled across the car park, right on time for her meeting. He kept the scope crosshairs on
her as she leaned the bike against one of the tables and looked around, like she was expecting the reporter to emerge from the trees. After about a minute, she took a seat on a bench and removed a
cell phone from her pocket, checking for a message from the reporter. The cop knew she’d be out of luck there.

Feeling his trigger arm getting a little stiff, Trooper Dan shifted his grip on the rifle and then re-aimed at the girl’s skull. From this distance she wouldn’t even hear the gunshot
when he pulled the trigger. To anyone standing nearby it would seem like her head had just decided to explode for no apparent reason. The girl stood up and began to pace around impatiently, looking
left and right, no doubt suspicious that the picnic spot was a lonely, deserted place to meet. Trooper Dan smiled as he tracked her, keeping the crosshairs in position, enjoying the feeling of
having complete power over her life and death…

Except…
What was it Dr. Chancellor had said?

Keeping one eye on the girl, Trooper Dan removed his cell from his pocket and called Mallory’s private line. The elevated position on the hill was one of the few places in the area where
uninterrupted coverage was guaranteed.

“Mallory,” the man answered on the second ring.

“I have the girl in my sights,” said Trooper Dan, wondering if Mallory realized how literally he was speaking. “She contacted a reporter and is waiting to meet him. Should I
take her out now?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Mr. Mallory?”

“Not yet. I want to see what she and Henry Ward do next. If she was stupid enough to contact a reporter, I want to find out who else they’ve told.”

Trooper Dan gritted his teeth, looking down the scope at the girl once more. All he had to do was pull the trigger and…

“Are you listening to me?” Mallory demanded. “Take no action against the girl at present. She and Ward are going to learn how to behave themselves.”

“And if they won’t?” Trooper Dan asked. He watched as Fox picked up her bike and started back across the car park. She had evidently got sick of waiting. He kept his sights on
her as she cycled back towards the road. Any second now she would be out of view… Out of his control…

“Then you can do what you like with them,” Mallory continued. “But not until then.”

The girl disappeared into the distance. Trooper Dan relaxed and lowered the weapon.

“What about the reporter?”

“The usual. Cut him loose.”

The line clicked dead and Trooper Dan placed the cell back in his pocket. Standing up, he walked back to the cruiser and laid the rifle across the hood. Then he walked round the vehicle and
opened the back door.

“Get out,” he said.

The reporter, who was lying on the back seat with his hands tied, struggled from the car. He flinched away as Trooper Dan removed the knife from behind his back once more. The cop grabbed the
reporter roughly, turned him around and cut through the rope that bound his wrists.

For a moment the reporter stood dumbly, not even bothering to remove the tape from his mouth. Trooper Dan replaced the knife in its sheath and looked at him without expression. He stepped
forward and flung out his hands…

“Boo!”

The reporter turned and ran, following the railing towards a narrow pathway that led down the hillside. As he ran, he ripped the tape away and began yelling at the top of his lungs, a sound that
was halfway between a sob and a scream.

Trooper Dan walked slowly back towards the front of the cruiser. The headache from that morning had begun to come back, throbbing faintly at his temples, so he removed the bottle of pills from
his pocket and popped two in his mouth. He was only supposed to take one at a time, but that just didn’t seem to work any more.

He closed his eyes and stood there for a while, enjoying the feel of the cool breeze against his skin. Up this high there was always a chill in the air, no matter how hot it got down in the
valley…

Trooper Dan opened his eyes slowly, remembering that he had to do something. Something had to be wrapped up…

Picking up the rifle from the hood he walked back to the railing and looked over. The reporter had made it almost halfway down the hillside, still screaming, not that there was anyone to hear
him. Shaking his head at the sight of a grown man crying like a little boy, Trooper Dan took aim, lining up the crosshairs with his head, and pulled the trigger smoothly…

The reporter’s head burst like a water balloon and his body fell off the path into the surrounding bushes. For a moment it was possible to see his corpse falling through the undergrowth,
but then there was nothing. It probably wouldn’t be found until the following spring, when the walkers came back to the area.

Trooper Dan walked back to his car.

A few seconds later, the cruiser roared away from the lookout at high speed.

Fox pedalled hard back towards town, keeping her eyes on the treacherous turns in the road in case any speeding idiots came round a blind corner too fast. Drivers never seemed
to look out for cyclists…

But more than that, she still felt spooked from the picnic site.

The fact that Richardson, the reporter, hadn’t turned up was one thing. She kept on telling herself that he was just delayed, or that he’d simply decided he couldn’t be
bothered to turn up. Some other story had come up. However, it didn’t feel right. And when she’d been sitting on the bench at the picnic site, she hadn’t been able to shake the
feeling that someone had been watching her.

She was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she didn’t hear the police cruiser until it was almost on top of her…