The Adjusters (36 page)

Fox and Jennifer Ward had just about given up trying to find a way out of the holding room, when they heard the sound of running footsteps from the corridor outside.

“Someone’s coming,” said Fox.

“Get behind the door.” Jennifer pushed Fox towards the corner of the room. “When the door opens, you slip out while I keep him talking.”

Fox nodded and pressed herself to the wall. They could hear fingers punching in a key code, followed by locks clicking. The door swung inward and a harassed-looking guy in a white coat stepped
into the room.

“We have to get you out of here right now,” he said urgently.

“What about my son?” Jennifer demanded, trying to keep the man’s attention from the corner where Fox was hiding. “I want to know what happened to him.”

The white-coat stepped forward to grab her arm. Henry’s message hadn’t penetrated the basement of the medical centre, but word had travelled fast across the complex, sending the
staff into a blind panic. “No time! The FBI is coming and I need you to tell them I’m not one of—”

Wham.

The white-coat pitched forward and hit the ground as Fox brought a plant-pot down on his head. The remains of a rubber plant scattered the carpet around his now-unconscious body.

Jennifer looked at Fox and smiled. “That worked.”

“What was he saying about the FBI?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Jennifer said, kneeling beside him and snatching the key card from his belt as Mary and Coach Tyler came to their side. She stripped the coat
off the unconscious guy and slipped it on. “We’re all getting out of here, okay?”

An alarm began to sound in the corridor outside. “Is that for us?” Mary asked.

“I don’t think so,” Fox said. “Something must be happening.” She looked at Jennifer Ward, who nodded at her.

“Henry,” they both said together. Suddenly Fox shared the woman’s certainty – Ward wasn’t dead. He had come back for them – wishful thinking maybe, but it
made her smile.

Fox helped her mom into the wheelchair and pushed her across the room. “Are you okay to walk?” Jennifer asked the coach as he shuffled to the door.

“Just watch me,” he said, cradling his broken arm. “What’s the plan?”

Jennifer looked around. “We get to ground level, find a car and smash the hell out of this complex. If anyone stops us, I’ll say I’m a doctor transporting you out.”

“What about Henry?” Fox asked.

“He’s here somewhere,” Jennifer said. “I’m going to get your mom and the coach to safety and then go looking for him.”

“I’ll be coming with you.”

Jennifer Ward opened her mouth to argue, but saw the determination in the girl’s eyes. “Okay. Let’s get moving.”

She moved to the door, stuck her head out and, after a quick check, beckoned for the others to follow. They slipped out as a group, Jennifer marching at the front with the confident air of a
doctor who had every right to be walking around inside the medical centre. They reached the end of one corridor and passed through a set of doors into another, with turnings branching off to left
and right.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Fox asked as Jennifer led the way forward without breaking her stride.

“There’s got to be a lift here somewhere,” she replied as another set of doors to the left flew open and a female nurse came running towards them. For a second they all tensed,
but the nurse went running on by.

“What’s going on?” Jennifer called after her.

“Whole place has gone nuts!” the nurse yelled over her shoulder. “Forget the patients! Save yourself!”

With that, she was gone. Jennifer looked at her companions. “Whatever’s happening, it’s going to give us the cover we need to get out of here.”

The doors flew open again as someone else pushed through…

Trooper Dan.

“Run!” Fox exclaimed, pushing her mom’s chair towards the opposite end of the corridor.

Trooper Dan quickened his pace on seeing them. As they reached more doors and went through into another, almost identical corridor, he was hot on their tail.

“Keep runnin’, girl!” he yelled after Fox. “I can keep this up all day!”

Fox met Jennifer’s eyes as they raced down the corridor to the next set of double doors and realized they were thinking the same thing: for all they knew they could have been running ever
deeper into the facility. As they made the next set of doors, Jennifer grabbed hold of Mary’s wheelchair while Fox held back, allowing the others to go through. Rather than following, she
pulled the doors shut and slid the emergency lock into place. Jennifer and the coach appeared at the window on the other side.

“Keep going!” she called through to them. “Get my mom out of here!”

Ignoring their protests, she turned round…and faced Trooper Dan, who had stopped halfway up the corridor.

“It’s me you want,” she said, meeting his insane eyes. “Not them.”

Trooper Dan cocked his head on one side and studied her. “Well, you are just about as brave as a young girl can get, ain’t you?” He raised his left arm, showing off the hard
metal of his new hand. “I’m gonna kill you slow.”

Fox broke from her position, throwing herself at the nearest door as Trooper Dan ran at her. The door flew open and she staggered into the darkness of one of the labs…

The Malcorp complex was already in chaos as Henry emerged from the substation. Several of the lodges were on fire, casting flames high into the night. A buggy screeched past
with one of the security guards trying to hold the wheel as two kids Henry recognized from his French class clung onto the front. The buggy veered off the road and all three ended up sprawled on
the grass. The security guard got to his feet first and started running along the road as the kids began to tear the upturned buggy apart with superhuman strength.

“Oh, my god,” Hank mumbled, appearing at Henry’s side. Somewhere in the complex there was a muffled explosion. “What are they doing?”

“What they’ve been ordered,” Henry replied. “They’re smashing up Malcorp.”

“When are they gonna stop?”

Henry gave him a look. “When there’s nothing left. Hey, Hank, maybe you should just get out of here. And lose all of those Malcorp badges, huh?”

Hank stared down at the logos on his jacket and hurriedly removed it. “What are you going to do?”

Henry looked towards Mallory’s house, which was all lit up in the distance. “I’m going to finish this,” he said, and started running.

“Hey!” Hank called after him. “Do you think I’m gonna get in trouble when the FBI get here?”

But Henry didn’t look round, running between the trees and past a group of lodges that had been set on fire. Men and women stood on the grass, gazing in shock as their children charged
around the buildings with flaming torches in their hands. As Henry passed, someone grabbed his arm.

“You!” said the man who had grabbed him. “You did this!”

Henry yanked free and rounded on his assailant. It was Christian’s dad. He was standing in his dressing gown and his eyes were wide, terrified. Somewhere in the distance of the complex
there came the sound of a vehicle crashing, followed by an explosion.

“No,” Henry said. “
You
did this.” In the background, his message was still repeating, muffled now by the chaos it had caused.

“Like hell I did!” Christian’s dad yelled back. “This is just the kind of thing we’ve been worried about. Juvenile delinquency…looting… This is what
we came here to escape! And you brought it with you from the city. If Christian wasn’t so goddamned weak…”

“Weak?” Henry said with a shake of his head. “He’s one of the only people round here who was ready to stand up to Mallory.”

“Mallory… We just wanted what was best…”

“Adjusting your own children’s brains?” Henry snapped. “Mallory’s been putting implants inside their heads! Did you know that?”

The man’s face fell, as if he was only just realizing the insanity of the situation himself. “Th-that can’t be right,” he stammered. “Mallory said it was
just…a new educational process…minor hypnotic suggestion…”

“And you believed that?” Henry said with a shake of his head.

The man looked at him helplessly. Henry waved a hand around the complex. “Take a look around!” he said. “You think this is normal? Mallory’s turned your children into
machines waiting to go crazy at the first wrong command.”

Christian’s dad looked at the chaos going on all around and then down at his feet.

Seeing there was nothing left to say, Henry turned to run, but the man grabbed at him again. “Please! Mallory’s got my son…” His voice broke. “We just wanted to do
good!” He looked around the chaos of the complex. “Not this.”

Henry looked at the man and it was impossible not to feel sorry for him. “I’ll find Christian,” he said, looking around the other adults. They looked shell-shocked, like the
survivors of a war. He guessed seeing everything that Malcorp represented being destroyed was pretty traumatic for them. “Get these people to Newton. It’s not safe in the complex any
more.”

Christian’s dad nodded frantically, as if grateful that someone had given him an order. “Okay,” he said. Then he said again, in a pathetic tone, “We just wanted the best
for our kids. You understand that, don’t you?”

Henry didn’t answer. He ran on, past more destruction. In the distance he could see the sprawling school complex on fire. In the light it was possible to make out the shapes of students
running away from the conflagration.
No more French lessons,
Henry thought with no little satisfaction.

He kept on running.

“What the hell is going on here?” Mallory demanded as he walked into the foyer of the medical centre, accompanied by echoes of the destruction across the complex.
“Somebody shut that goddamn broadcast off.” He was flanked by four armed security guards – his most loyal men. As a technician rushed off to follow Mallory’s order, doctors
led by Chancellor were piling computer hard drives, boxes of files and medical records in the middle of the floor.

“We are destroying the evidence,” Chancellor said breathlessly as she started throwing gasoline from a can over the pile of documents and computer equipment. “This operation is
compromised.”

Mallory shook his head. “One little problem, and you start to panic.”

Chancellor threw the can down on the ground and advanced on him. “A little problem! Those kids have gone nuts. The FBI is coming!”

Mallory looked round as the door leading to the elevators opened and Jennifer Ward appeared. She quickly tried to back away, but froze as one of the guards levelled a gun at her. Raising her
hands, she stepped into the foyer, pulling the door shut, Mary and Coach Tyler hidden behind it.

“Well, well, well,” Mallory said. “Here we all are.”

“It’s over, Mallory,” Jennifer Ward insisted. “Give up before this goes too far.”

“Goes too far? I’ve barely even started.”

Mallory nodded to one of his men, who ran over and grabbed Jennifer by the arm roughly, making sure she couldn’t run.

“This is insane,” Chancellor said. “They will put us on trial! We have to get rid of this evidence!”

Mallory gave her a sad look. “But you don’t understand. You and your doctors
are
the evidence.” He looked at his guards. “Take them to the transport
truck.”

Dr. Chancellor and the others protested as the guards shoved them towards the exit. One doctor who put up too much of a fight was silenced with the butt of a rifle in his face. The man went down
on his knees, blood pouring from his nose and mouth, and was dragged along by his colleagues before he was hit again.

“You’re insane,” Jennifer Ward said in disgust as Mallory walked towards her. “You treat people like cattle.”

“Not at all,” he countered. “I actually like cattle.”

Mallory pulled a gun from his coat and grabbed her arm. “And none of this would have been necessary if your son hadn’t kept poking his nose into my business.” As he manhandled
the struggling woman towards the main door, he passed the head guard. “Clean out the rest of the medical centre. We have the head doctors – the rest are expendable. Burn the place to
the ground with them in it. Just make sure none of them get out. I’m offering a million dollar bonus for every man in your team.”

“Yessir!” the guard said with a salute, before signalling his men to move into the medical centre.

“Where are you taking me?” Jennifer demanded as Mallory pulled her outside.

“I’m getting a helicopter, my dear,” he replied, jamming the gun into her back. “And you’re insurance to make sure your son doesn’t cause any more
problems.”

Henry ran around the side of Mallory’s house towards the patio and swimming pool at the back. Here one of the windows had been shattered, as if something had been thrown
through it. That something turned out to be General Aziz, who was crawling on his hands and knees through the broken glass. His face was bruised and bloody and his suit was torn. Upon seeing Henry,
he cowered in fear.

“Don’t hurt me!” he said.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Henry said, kneeling down beside him. He tried to summon up some sympathy for Aziz, but it didn’t come. This was, after all, the man who had
ordered Christian to kill himself just the day before. “Who did this to you?”