The Adjusters (24 page)

“No, please, don’t,” grey-hair pleaded as Henry jabbed the syringe gun into his side and pressed the trigger twice. The surgeon yelped in pain, struggled a little, and then lay
still. Not wasting a moment, Henry grabbed his ankles and dragged him over to the other doctor. Second by second he felt the strength returning to his arms and legs.

“Is he dead?” Gabrielle asked.

“Just stunned,” Henry said, tossing the gun back on the trolley. “Nice tackle. You play football?”

“I have older brothers,” she replied and produced a pile of clothes from a locker, which she held out to him. “I think I found your stuff.”

“Thanks,” Henry said. Gabrielle turned her back while he got out of his hospital smock and dressed quickly. Then they turned their attention to the unconscious doctors.

“How long will they be out?” Gabrielle asked.

“I don’t know.” Henry had been wondering the same thing. “We need to tie them up.”

Gabrielle started looking around the room. “How about this?” she said, going to another locker containing shelves of surgical gear. She grabbed rolls of rubber tubing and held them
up for Henry to see. “I think they use these for making tourniquets. They’re really strong.”

“Great!” Henry said, taking one roll from her and using it to bind grey-hair’s wrists behind his back. Gabrielle was right – the tubing was like a giant, unbreakable
rubber band. He tied the man’s ankles too, before securing the other doctor. Gabrielle handed him a thick roll of surgical tape to cover the men’s mouths. If they did come round any
time soon, they wouldn’t be calling for help.

“Let’s get out of here,” Gabrielle said.

Henry made to follow her, but then the glass tank the doctors had wheeled into the theatre caught his eye. The liquid inside was a yellowy colour, but there was something floating inside the
murk. At first he thought it was a squid, but then he saw that it was more spider-like, with a round, flat centrepiece from which eight thread-like legs extended.

“What is it?” Gabrielle asked.

“I don’t know,” Henry said. He stepped forward and pressed his face to the glass. On closer inspection he saw the thing floating inside wasn’t an insect, but some kind of
machine. The “body” was no bigger than a dime, while the “legs” were each as long as his little finger. Was this an implant of some kind? The thing that allowed Mallory to
control all the kids in Newton? And were they going to put it inside
his
brain? He reached out and tapped the glass. The thing twitched…its legs moving… A wave of nausea rose
in him…

“Are you okay, Henry?” Gabrielle asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Henry?”

Gabrielle’s voice brought him back to the moment. He reached up and, flipping a latch, opened the lid on the top of the tank. A thick, musty smell assaulted his nose.

“What are you doing?” Gabrielle asked anxiously. “Don’t touch it.”

Henry looked at her and then back at the spider-like thing floating in the tank. He knew one thing. “It has to be destroyed,” he told her. But how?

The answer was sitting on the instrument trolley: a handheld electric saw. Henry snatched it up and pressed the button on the side. The circular blade began to whir as he hurried back to the
tank. He tossed it, still whirring, into the liquid. There was a crackle and a flash as the drill sent a burst of electricity through the tank. The legs of the spider-like implant jerked and then
went still. It floated to the bottom of the tank and lay there, followed moments later by the saw.

“That should do it,” he said quietly.

Gabrielle’s hand slipped into his as one of the doctors moaned in his sleep. “Can we go now, Henry?
Please?
”

“Yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He grabbed her hand and they ran from the theatre along corridors, Gabrielle leading the way.

“There’s an elevator up ahead,” she said. “We’re two floors down.”

Gabrielle used her stolen key card to get them inside the elevator, pressing the button for the ground level. The car rose swiftly and the doors opened a second later onto another unfamiliar
corridor. She led Henry to the left, where a set of double doors blocked the way. Henry tried the doors, but they wouldn’t open. Instead of a card reader, there was a fingerprint scanner on
the wall.

Gabrielle pushed the doors uselessly. “These were open before!” she cried.

The sound of heavy footsteps along the corridor made Henry wheel round. Someone was coming. They were trapped!

“Guards!” Gabrielle said, panic in her voice. Henry looked round for a way out, or at least something to fight with. His gaze fell upon a ventilation grille set
into the wall at floor level. It was big enough for them to fit through.

“Quickly!” Henry said, pulling the grille away from the wall with some effort. “In here!”

Gabrielle slid into the ventilation shaft and Henry followed, pulling the grille back into place behind them. The footsteps of two security guards approached the locked doors. In the shaft, they
held their breath as one of them touched a finger to the scanner and they passed on through.

“We can go through these vents to avoid the door,” Henry said, looking at the shaft stretching ahead. It was wide enough for them to wriggle through on their stomachs. The going
wouldn’t be easy – but at least they wouldn’t run into more guards. He looked round at Gabrielle, who was lying behind him. “We can make it.”

She smiled at him bravely. Henry started crawling along the shaft, looking for a way out. Through the next vent he heard the sound of two male voices.

Henry pressed his face to the vent and peered into a room filled with equipment that looked like it belonged in a recording studio. Two technicians were seated at a deck filled with control
dials and sliders. Monitors in front of them showed audio data arranged in blocks of sound.

“What is it?” Gabrielle whispered.

“Some kind of recording facility,” Henry whispered back.

One of the technicians placed a pair of headphones on his head and nodded to the other. “Let’s get the Friday broadcast finished,” he said. “Mallory wants the theta wave
pattern increased.”

“That could be dangerous,” the other technician said. “We’re already seeing signs of psychosis in the older kids.”

The first technician shrugged. “He’s the boss. And he said he wanted more obedience.”

“Okay then,” the other replied, pressing a button. A track began to play softly in the background. Henry recognized it immediately – the strange version of “The
Star-Spangled Banner” Malcorp High broadcast at the beginning and end of every week. The technician adjusted something and the sound became even more distorted.

“Bringing in Mallory’s message,” the other tech said, clicking a mouse to add another audio file under the main track. Henry strained to make out Mallory’s voice speaking
on the track…

“
…you love Malcorp…love and respect your parents…your teachers…the employees of Malcorp…you will not question anything we do…you will obey
without question…you love Malcorp…you will obey without question…
”

“Taking it down to sub-audio level,” the first tech said and Mallory’s voice faded out. “Increasing the theta wave frequency by fifteen per cent.”

“Okay,” replied the second tech. “Now shut it down before it gives me a nosebleed.”

“Yeah.” The first tech nodded, rising from his seat as he cut the audio. “I need a coffee.”

In the ventilation shaft, Henry looked back at Gabrielle. “That music. They’re using it to control the kids in the complex. There’s a subliminal message running through
it.”

A sudden scratching sound came from further down the shaft. Gabrielle started. “Do you think there are rats in here?” she said. “I want to get out.”

Henry nodded and led the way further along the shaft, looking for another vent that they could climb through. Turning a corner, he came to a grille that looked into a darkened room. With just a
little pressure, he managed to pop it out and slide it to one side. The room was silent as he slipped out of the shaft and turned to help Gabrielle. They stood up behind a low counter and looked
around – the room was a lab of some kind. The main lights were off, but illuminated dials and read-outs glowed from equipment laid out on workbenches. Looking around, Henry could see it was
some kind of production facility – complete with glass vats full of the spider-like implants hanging in suspension.

Got to record the evidence,
Henry thought. He remembered his smartphone, which was still in the pocket of his jeans. Useless for making a call within the complex, of course, but perfect
for collecting evidence.

Gabrielle tugged on his shirt. “I don’t like this,” she hissed. “We need to go.”

Henry looked back at her. “We will. Let me just get a couple of shots.” He held the phone up to the vats and snapped off some photos of the floating implants. He had to smile. Fox
was going to go crazy over this.

“Someone’s coming!” cried Gabrielle, grabbing his arm and pulling him back. They ran behind the counter and ducked down just as the lights in the laboratory flicked on
blindingly full. Gabrielle squeezed herself back into the vent and beckoned for Henry to follow, but the sound of a familiar voice from the doorway made him pause. Moving to the end of the counter,
he peered round the side and saw Mallory enter, along with a group of men and women in suits. He was addressing them as if they were on some kind of tour. Several of the guests were decked out in
full military uniforms, as if they were high-ranking commanders of foreign armies.

“Henry!” Gabrielle whispered. He looked round and held up his hand. He needed to see what was going on. From the vent opening, Gabrielle gave him a desperate look, but she stayed
where she was. Waving at her to stay calm, he turned his attention back to the room…

Mallory strode into the middle of the area and gestured for his guests to assemble in a semicircle along one wall. He waved a hand at the equipment and the giant vats.

“This is the main operations area,” Mallory said proudly. “Two years ago we began experimenting on rats, developing a neural modification system that allowed us total control
over their central nervous systems. Motor functions. Behaviour. Learned skills. We achieved complete control. Stage two was work on primates, followed by stage three: human subjects. As I’m
sure you can appreciate, there’s a massive leap between controlling a rat brain and that of a child.”

The group erupted into conversation. Mallory allowed the chatter to go on for a moment, then silenced them by raising his hand.

“I know you have a thousand questions,” he said, “which is why my staff will be on hand for the rest of your stay to take you through the process – including my head
physician, Dr. Chancellor.” He indicated the doctor, who had appeared in the doorway of the lab. “She’ll be able to explain the technicalities of the adjustment process from a
medical-scientific perspective – within reason. We’re not going to give away all of our secrets, of course. You can also get a look at some walking-talking test subjects at our high
school. Our staff don’t just work here, they’ve been among the first to sign their kids up for neural adjustment.” He laughed and pulled a cigar from his pocket.
“We’re not in the business of making new people. We’re in the business of making
better
people. Does anyone have any questions?”

One of the men, a short guy with a hard face and small, round glasses walked from the group towards the implant vat. He tapped the glass, making the spider-machines wriggle, and looked round at
Mallory. “I want a better look at one.”

Mallory nodded at Chancellor, who crossed to the tank and removed the lid. With a pincer tool, she carefully reached inside to retrieve one of the implants.

“We call it the SPIDIR,” Mallory said, as the doctor removed the dripping implant from the tank.

“SPIDIR?” asked a man in a green general’s uniform, complete with a chest full of medals.

“Stands for Skills/Personality/Intellect Direct Instruction Receptor,” Chancellor said, holding out the machine for the man to see. As he reached to take it from her, she held it
back. “Please. It is very delicate.”

The short man looked at Mallory, who sighed.

“Why don’t you tell our guests how it works?” Mallory said to the doctor.

“The SPIDIR is embedded into the brain matter of the subject,” Chancellor said, holding up the implant for everyone to see. “The central receiver” – she pointed to
the round “body” section – “is linked in to the central cortex. The receiver picks up instructions and information from us sent via theta wave technology. The information is
transported from the central receiver to the ganglions…” She indicated the eight dangling “legs”, which were wriggling madly in the air. “These ganglions link into
each of the major sections of the brain.”

Beside the counter, Henry angled the phone so the camera was focused on the action and pressed
record
. The video of Mallory should get someone in the FBI or the CIA or at least the police
interested. What they were saying was incredible. This SPIDIR device had clearly been implanted in the brains of every adjusted kid in Newton – controlling their actions at the whim of
Mallory and his doctors…adjusting their personalities and moods…