The Shift of Numbers (10 page)

Tim looked down the corridor to see Richard with his hands aloft, his surrender frozen in the flashing lights. As he looked to his right
,
a frenzied roar from Carl’s direction filled Tim’s ears and he saw
,
as a series of still pictures
, Carl raising his gun and
pointing it in Richard
’s
direction. This time he didn’t need any time to react or even to think about his actions. On autopilot he had drawn his
own
gun and had watched himself slam the handle against Carl’s
head. As he connected,
the emergency lights stayed on, bathing the corridor in a dreary, tired
,
red light.
Glancing quickly down the corridor
,
he saw Richard running, scared for his
life, towards the fire escape. I
nstinctively
,
he raised his gun.

“NOOOO, don’t shoot him,” c
ame a shrill voice from down the corridor behind Tim. He turned quickly to see
Richard’s
fiancé
e
running towards him waving her arms franticly. By the time he had turned back, the fire escape door was shutting and the emergency lights had failed again.

*

J
oan had had an exhausting day. A
busy shift at work
,
coupled with constantly thinking about the doom
about to engulf her
and Pete’s life
,
had left her feeling numb. As she shambled down the long corridor out of the factory past t
he delivery bay, 1 of the guard
s she had kn
own for a long time stopped her

“You all right, Joanie? L
ook like you could do with a drink.”

“Oh, I think you
’
r
e right. B
ut you know me and m
y Pete don’t touch the stuff,” s
he said tiredly.

“Well
,
I’ll probably see you tomorrow
, my dear. J
ust get this load signed for
and I’m off home myself
.” He motioned to a pile of small canvas bags on a trolley behind him and handed over a clipboard through a metal draw
er
to another man who was stood behind a small
bullet-proof
window in the wall. The face behind the glass nodded and slid the clipboard back to the guard who turned and
walked away. Almost as an afterthought,
he turned his head to say goodbye to Joan. Then the power went.

In total darkness
,
Joan stumbled and heard the guard trip and fall, swearing loudly. Trying to grab something that wasn’t there
,
Joan screamed and fell. To her surprise
,
she landed on something that wasn’t as hard as the concrete floor. She felt around and disc
overed she was on the trolley. W
ithout thinking
,
she put 1 o
f the canvas bags into her handbag. T
he
noise of the zip
was
covered by
the
swearing
o
f the guard
. Joan crawled away from the trolley as quickly as she could, all her other senses heightened by the adrenaline flowing quickly
through her, pumped by her ever-increasing heart
rate.
Pangs of guilt and hopelessness quickly followed, and a certainty t
hat she would be caught and sent
to a cold prison cell.

Before she could think any more
,
an ear-splitting siren went off along with some
more
light. She lay on the floor and closed her eyes wishing the world away, playing at being unconscious.

After 5 minutes, an eternity to Joan, all the workers from the factory started making the
ir
way outside. Someone gently shook her u
ntil she opened her eyes and le
d her outside by the hand. She noticed that a large portion of the workers had angry shocked faces and a couple had fresh bloodstains on their clothes.

“A few honest men are better than numbers.”

Oliver Cromwell

The blackness of the moonless night came as no surprise
to the
Scientist
. He had come equip
ped with night vision goggles. B
eing army issue they let none of the green light he could see leak out
into the cold windy night. But h
e had never worn them before and
he
found them uncomfortable and difficult to use.

He had made his way up the dirt road as quietly as possible and now found himself facing Bill’s barn door. The battered wood and corrugated iron reflected the alien shad
es of green light differently. T
rails of a luminescent world passed over his tired eyes. The sun would be up in 2 hours
.
“D
o it and do it now,
”
he told himself. “T
hen you can retreat and watch as vengeance whispers into his ear.
”
 

He opened the door as softly as possible, crouching down to enter, watching the floor for any objects that could make a noise and give away his position to his prey. There were none. Closing the door behind him
,
he quick
ly saw what he was looking for. I
t was parked almost directly in front of him. He removed the goggles and turned on a dull red flashlight
to
ill
uminate
the tractor. He quickly and decisively placed a small magnetic device under the fuel tank. Replac
ing the goggles, he made his way
outside.

A roar went up from somewhere behind as flashes
of light moved hurriedly past
him, disappearing into the distance quicker than his eyes could move. Leaping behind the barn
,
he felt an instant sharpness in his leg. He remembered news footage of soldiers at war fil
med with night-
vision cameras.

“Gets away from my schickens
, Mr
Fox
…” s
lurred a loud voice into the night. 

“BILL
STOP
THAT
!
” The high-pitched shouting contrasted with the
deep report of the shotgun as Bill
let fly 2 more blasts.

“I’ll haves him.
The ch
eeky little bleeder.
E
at my schicks
, will ya?
”

“BILL, stop that. You don’t
even own any chickens.”

“Carrotsh then…whoopsh
.
”

“Oh GOD, get up will you. If you don’t get up this instant you
’
r
e sleeping out here… Fine. S
uit yourself.” A sound of a door slamming was the last noise the
Scientist
heard. After a while
,
the lights went out and he limped his way up the hill behind Bill’s house to wait for dawn.

The sun had arc
e
d its way over the horizon
,
filling the valley with soft light as he blinked through binoculars at
2 dozen
men walking up the driveway. He stayed focused on them until they reached the main gate of the farm, sh
ifting uncomfortably on a
blood-stained
leg. E
arlier
,
he had roughly bandaged it with bits of shirt.
Not long now
. The men congregating around the gate appeared to be chatting excitedly. Then movement. Bill came into view from behind the barn and walked unsteadily down to the gate. As he approached, loud raucous laughter seemed to get caught by some unknown breeze and lifted up the hill into the
Scientist
’s ears.
They won’t be laughing for long
.

Bill mot
ioned with his arm and the men
followed him
up to the barn. Some of them split
into groups and started walking in diffe
rent directions. About 5 of them
remained with Bill as he o
pened the barn door. H
alf a minute later
,
he returned on his tractor.

Pain shot through the
Scientist as he moved position. H
e was wet and cold. He picked up a small black box with numb fingers and
,
closing his eyes
,
he flicked the switch.
For you sweet brother…

Nothing

Flick, Flick

Nothing

He let out a low throaty roar

In slow motion, Bill climbed down from the tractor, all the while arguing with 1 of his workers about the advantages of a fried breakfast in combating a hangover. His boots crunched on the gravel driveway as he walked in a
semi-
linear fashion towards sobriety and a lawsuit with the manufacturers of his soon to be obliterated tractor.

BOOM

*

T
im knocked on the door to the
Director’s office
with a feeling of
dejà vu
.
While at junior school, he had thrown a snowball with such force that it had missed it
s intended target and struck a
dinner lady on the side of the head. He
had
had to go and see the headmaster.

The door was pulled swiftly open by the
Director
’s assistant who silently motioned him inside and to be seated. In front of him, behind the gigantic desk, gazing out of the
window,
stood the
Director
. Drawing his eyes upwards over the pink satin ruffles on the back of her dress to the back of her head
,
he could just make out that she wa
s shaking her head. Seconds passed
, then a minute. Even though he knew it was a mind game, Tim still began to feel uncomfortable.

“So…” s
he said finally without turning. Tim waited. “What actually happened yesterday?” She turned to look him full in the fa
ce, her eyes trying to burn right through to
the back of his skull to coax out the truth.

“A full a
ccount of the details, ma’a
m?”

“YES!” H
er small fist hit the desk.

“At approximately 4.15 yesterday we pick
ed
up the sus…”

“I
really
don’t care. Tell me about what happened in the corridor.”

“With Carl?”

“
Yes
,
with Carl
,
you idiot
.
”

“I had suspended the interview with Richa… subject 6741, due to Carl
’
s behaviour. He lost it and…”

“Again, I
really
can’t see ho
w this is answering my question.
”

“It has some bearing on what happened afterwards.”

“Go on
,
then.”

“He lost control in the interview and hit the subject. I suspended the interview and began walking, along with Carl and the subject, back to the cells.”

“Why was the interrogation not carried out in the cells
?” s
he interjected with malice.

“As you were aware, Richard was only just released from hospital and under the influence of a cocktail of drugs. I thought the interview would go more smoothly in my office.” Tim looked the Director in the eye as she mulled this over
,
trying to find fault.

“Very well. G
o on
,” s
he said at last.

“As the 3 of us walked down the corridor, just outside my office, the lights went out. Richard, and I’m only assuming this, was terrified. He picked up the statue of the commander and chucked it at me. It missed.” Tim breathed deeply. “I didn’t see it but can only assume that Carl then shot himself in the foot. You may want to get forensics to match th
e bullet in his foot to his gun.
”

“No need. W
e k
now he shot himself. Carry on. T
he next bit
’
s going to get interesting
,
I think.” She smirked.

“Richard, upon hearing the gunshot
,
seemed to regain some sanity and put his hands in the air to surrender. Carl, in what I can only describe as an intense rage
,
went to aim his weapon at Richard. In order to prevent loss of life in an illegal shooting I incapacitated Carl.” Tim said the last 2 words quickly as the Director mulled them over for a couple of minutes.

“That’s a very good story and
put together
nicely
in all the right places. Well done.”

“It
’
s what happened
,
” Tim said
,
defensively
.

“I’m
unclear on a couple of things. P
lease enlighten me.
Number 1:
how
did subject 6741 then escape the building?”

“The lights went out again, only this time for longer.”

“I find it
hard to believe that you didn’
t have a chance to incapacitate
the subject. Did you not have your gun?”

“Well
,
yes… I hit Carl with it. But the lights went out before I could get a bead on Richard.”

“And you
’
r
e
sticking to that story
,
I suppose? Carl, again
quite
interestingly, heard a woma
n’s voice in the corridor just b
efore he lost consciousness.
Any ideas?”

“No.”

“I’m sure you
’
r
e
aware the CCTV cameras were damaged in the power outage so I can’t prove anythi
ng… but the desk sergeant let
someone
up
to see you just before all this happened. A known associate of the subject…” She let this information seep in before she continued. “ …Now
,
tell me what
really
happened? And I can see to it that you don’t spend any time in the interrogation room.”

“I’m not rea
lly sure what you’re getting at.
” Tim became fu
lly aware of what he had
done,
r
eplaying it over and over in his mind
,
looking for ways that she could catch him out. After he had watched Richard run out of the fire escape
,
he spent the next
moments trying to calm down
Richard
’s
fiancé
e
as she had slipped in the ever-growing pool of blood next to Carl
’
s foot. She must have thought
it was Richard
’
s
,
he mused
. As the lights came back on
,
she screamed once
,
then fell silent, all the while clinging to Tim. He briefly remembered the smell of her hair. Then
, the beast awoke.
Carl’s foot twitched and he groaned. Not really knowing why, Tim pushed the scared lady towards the fire escape, silently mouthing the word ‘run’ over and over.

“You
know
what I’m getting at… Are you listening to me?” the Director said slowly, h
er voice taking on a rabid
,
piercing quality. Tim looked up
,
expecting foam in the corners of her mouth.

“I don’t
really know what more I can say.
I’ve told you exactly what happened and
,
if there’s nothing else
,
I would very much like to get back to the case. The subject
is
- after all - still out there, and I would very much like to apprehend him. And have a chat with the desk sergeant.” Tim
’s
voice remained neutral and he tried to put over an air of honest professionalism.

The Director almost laughed.
“We are no
where near finished. There is someon
e
…” A frenzied knock on the door broke her off mid
-
sentence. “WHAT?”