Cole nodded, conceding the point quickly. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said putting down Farmer’s coffee and picking up the tampered one. ‘Wasn’t paying attention.’
‘No worries.’
Cole pretended to sip the coffee, check something on his interface and then rose from his seat. Ana joined him by the door.
‘He didn’t go for it,’ Cole said. ‘We’ll have to get him with a tranq when you arrive at the gate and he comes out to question you.’
It had been the plan A all along, considering they hadn’t expected Farmer to stop off anywhere on his ten-minute walk to work. But it would be so much easier to slip him something now than to sedate him intravenously outside Three Mills, drag him to the security house, and hope no one saw. ‘Give me your interface,’ she said. ‘It’s my turn.’
Cole obliged with an air of scepticism. She donned the interface, activated it and searched for reruns of the woman’s table tennis championships. Then she took the doughnut bag and the coffee, slipped in Cole’s earphones with the sound turned low, and with the table tennis match projecting on everyone she passed, jostled through the queues back towards Farmer.
She laid the bag and coffee on the counter beside the security guard. She was about to sit on the empty stool, when a skinny guy with tattoos all over his face and an interface projecting violent, fragmented images, pushed her aside. She stumbled into Farmer.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘So sorry.’ There wasn’t enough room for her to stand between the two stools, and with the tattoo guy elbowing her in the face she wasn’t going to argue over the seating arrangements. Annoyed, she gathered up the bag and coffee and was about to head off when Farmer rose. He was going to leave – offer her the stool. And then she’d have to stay and Cole would have to go after him.
‘There’s room if we both stand,’ he said.
She squeezed out one of the earpieces, pretending she hadn’t heard him. ‘Sorry?’
‘I said there’s room for you if we both stand.’
‘Really? Wow, thanks,’ she said. ‘That’s so nice of you.’
He glanced down at the table tennis match projecting from her interface onto his white shirt. She feigned mild embarrassment.
‘Good match,’ he said.
She smiled.
Farmer picked up his coffee, and continued simultaneously watching the news and the sports channel. She glanced at his projection, uncertain what to do next. She raised the coffee to her lips. It smelt so good. But then she remembered that she really
didn’t
want to drink it, not unless she wanted to crash out in an hour’s time. So she pulled out the doughnut instead and bit into the sugar-coated bun.
Next to her, tattoo face ripped off half his burger with his teeth. The smell of hamburger and ketchup that early in the morning was nauseating. She tried to ignore the Neanderthal, but he kept elbowing her. A glob of ketchup dripped from his burger onto her hooded top. Disgusted, she reached for the silver napkin container wedged into the window and took down Farmer’s cup with her arm. The lid flipped off. Coffee spilled across the counter.
‘Oh! What an idiot!’ She began mopping up the mess, her hands shaking even though she’d knocked the cup on purpose. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Farmer swiftly righted his coffee, but it was almost empty. He shot her an irritated look but seeing her distress his face softened. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.
She continued sponging up milky coffee with the paper tissue. ‘I’m really, really sorry. I’ll buy you another one.’
‘Nah, it’s all right.’
‘Please?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘What were you drinking?’
‘Leave it,’ he said.
‘Mine’s a latte. Please take it. Please. I haven’t even touched it yet.’
He looked over at her again, frowning. But he didn’t push the latte back her way. She smiled nervously, then finished wiping burger gunk off her shoulder. She waited as long as she could, practically holding her breath, desperate to get out of there. Finally, scrunching up the empty doughnut bag, she apologised one last time and left the restaurant.
Joining the bustle of the street, Ana felt someone move into step behind her. She squinted back. It was Cole on his crutches.
‘I want to go in instead of you,’ he said.
Safely enmeshed in the crowds and out of sight of the restaurant, she stopped and turned. She didn’t have to say anything – it was obvious he couldn’t be the one to go. And even if he wasn’t on crutches, he didn’t know the layout of Three Mills and he didn’t know Tamsin.
‘Stop worrying, I can do it,’ she said. They looked at each other long and hard. In the daylight, Cole’s eyes didn’t appear so inky and shadowed. Blue lingered beneath the surface, like a buried memory. ‘Ten minutes, in and out,’ she continued. ‘No one will know I was even there.’
‘I want you to promise me you won’t try and rescue your friend, or do anything to stand out, or get yourself caught.’
‘Yes, OK. Can Stitch be in position by ten thirty?’
‘I’m serious. I want you to promise.’
‘I’ll stick to the plan, I promise.’
‘Thank you. And yes, Stitch will be able to record anything we film from ten thirty onwards. I’ve given her the camera reference number. She’ll record fifteen minutes of footage, then she’ll start hijacking a channel and loading up whatever she’s got.
‘Did Farmer drink the coffee?’
‘He took a sip.’
‘Then we’re all sorted.’ Anticipation, nerves and determination all tumbled inside Ana. They stopped in the crowds on the corner of Roman Road and Parnell. The roads were thick with cyclists, many towing carts of vegetables, books, second-hand knick-knacks and wares to sell on the streets. From the corner of her eye, Ana saw Farmer passing close by. He was taking a swig from the paper cup. She nudged Cole to warn him and they stepped away from each other. The Three Mills security guard disappeared into the morning throng, not seeming to have noticed. They waited a few seconds, before setting off after him.
*
A row of brownstone houses lined one side of the access road to Three Mills. Far up on the other side, an industrial mill with a clock tower stood at the water’s edge. But it was the blue gate between the houses and the tower that stopped Ana in her tracks. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself looking down on the gate from high within the white padded room where patients were corralled after breakfast, before returning to the main compound. A feeling of being trapped swept through her.
‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
Cole checked his interface. ‘Nine forty-eight,’ he said. ‘Farmer’s shift doesn’t start for another twelve minutes. What if the guy he’s replacing hangs about until ten exactly and meanwhile Farmer falls asleep on the toilet or something?’ It was a rhetorical question. Cole knew as well as Ana did that they’d used a double release pill. The guard would grow dozy, but wouldn’t fall into a deep sleep for a while. ‘Here . . .’ Cole inserted a soft earpiece into Ana’s ear. ‘I’ll be able to speak to you through my interface. But you can’t talk back.’
She nodded. They’d discussed this already.
‘So go over again what you’re going to do.’
She wanted to tell him to stop. He was making her more nervous than she was already. But she could see he needed this. It was harder to be the one outside, waiting, than the one inside, doing.
‘Once I’m in, I run past the car park up the long road heading north to the laundry place we saw on the plans. I’ll grab a robe and run back. Then I’ll go through the wash-block into the girls’ toilets, dump the rucksack, change into the robe and stay hidden. You’ll give me updates on the time and only when you tell me it’s ten thirty, will I actually enter the main compound. Then I’ll get the footage of the patients coming back from special therapy, get the footage of Tamsin without letting her know who I am, and come back out. Or you’ll tell me its ten forty and I’ll come back, whichever’s first.’
‘Exactly,’ Cole said, but he looked unhappy.
A man in the blue Three Mills uniform ambled up the street towards the footbridge. ‘Look, the night guard,’ she said.
‘Ana.’ He tilted his forehead against hers and squeezed the back of her neck. ‘Listen to your instincts. If you feel something’s off, get out of there.’
‘OK.’
The night guard turned a curve in the road.
‘Give me the rucksack,’ he said. They swapped the rucksack onto Cole’s back and, once they could no longer see or be seen by the second security guard, started over the bridge.
The last time Ana had committed herself to Three Mills, a uniformed man had appeared the moment she’d approached the gate. Farmer’s reactions weren’t so quick. He slouched on a stool behind a fixed latticed window in the last brown house that had been converted into a security station.
She knocked on the pane.
Drowsily, he pushed to his feet and peered out at her. ‘Hang on,’ he called. Then he left the small room. Ana imagined him struggling through the hall to the biometric panel, putting his hands on the panel . . . and the security door opened.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘I’m here to see Doctor Cusher.’ As she spoke, Cole, propped up on one crutch, Stinger in his other hand, swept around the side of the door. He jammed the weapon against the guard’s waist. The guard jerked and flopped to the floor.
Ana whipped back to check the road and the bridge. They were empty.
‘I’m gonna need some help here,’ Cole said. He put down his crutches and together they raised Farmer under the arms, and dragged him into the old factory house. Once inside, Ana took the rucksack from Cole and wedged it in the door so that it wouldn’t fully close. If it shut, they’d have to lift Farmer up high enough to put his hand on the biometric panel to get out. Not easy.
Cole stripped off Farmer’s uniform and changed into it. Ana darted down the corridor into the observation room where Farmer had been stationed behind the window. She quickly assessed the security cameras.
‘There’s a camera on the other side of the gate,’ she called to him, ‘showing the street up to the reception.’ She craned into the corridor, saw Cole checking the guard’s pulse. ‘You’ll be able to see me when I go through the wash-block door into the compound,’ she added.
‘He’s OK,’ Cole said. He stood up, straightened the blue uniform blazer he was now wearing, and raised Farmer’s security card in front of his interface.
‘There are cameras in front of the gate on this side too,’ Ana said, ‘and further up the street to the main road.’ They’d been lucky. If Farmer hadn’t drunk the spiked coffee and been dozing on the job, he’d have seen Cole arriving with her and proceeded with more caution.
Cole limped past Ana into the observation room. He perched on the guard’s stool. ‘Let’s see what we can find with basic security access,’ he said. Keeping out of the sight line of the window, she watched over his shoulder as information projected on the white wall ahead. ‘It’s giving general status updates of what’s going on inside,’ Cole said. ‘But no visuals. Once you’re in the main compound I won’t be able to see you.’
‘At least with the updates you’ll know if any of the orderlies report anything suspicious and you can warn me.’
Assuming the earpiece transmits that far and works through all the walls
, she thought. But she was trying to reassure Cole, not put him off. Her fingers twitched. She needed to get on with it, not let the adrenalin fester. ‘Come on. Let’s open the gates. If there are people around the laundry area it may take a while to get my hands on a robe.’
Cole took out the miniature camera he’d saved from Warden Dombrant’s interface. The camera had a tiny hook where it had been soldered into the interface housing. He pierced the hook through Ana’s T-shirt and attached a clasp on the back to hold it in place.
‘If you get caught, I’ll come in there after you.’
She swallowed. He would too, she could see it in his eyes. That would be a double disaster. ‘I won’t get caught.’
‘Don’t forget it.’ He pinned her gaze. ‘You’re going to be face to face with your friend. You’re going to want to get her out of there. Just remember, we’ll have her on video. We’ll prove she’s Pure and the Board will have to release her. Don’t tell her who you are. Don’t try to take her with you.’
Ana felt a lump rise in her throat. ‘I won’t.’
‘All sorts of things are going to hit you once you get in there. You need to block it all out.’
‘Hey, I’m the expert in blocking out emotions,’ she said. ‘Years of practice.’
Cole didn’t crack a smile. ‘At quarter to eleven, if there’s no sign of you, I’m opening that gate and coming in.’
‘Got it.’ She picked up the black rucksack and hooked it over both shoulders.
‘The sedatives,’ Cole said, holding out a plastic bag of small phial bottles, syringes and muscle relaxants.
Ana took the bag. The syringes were all still safe in their plastic packages. The three phial bottles each contained a dose that was capable of knocking a grown man out for an hour. They were a precaution and preferable in Ana’s mind to using the Stinger on its highest setting, which only resulted in a few minutes of unconsciousness.
She put the bag in the pouch of her hooded top. Cole adjusted the camera clip on her sweater. They kissed, and a moment later there came a buzzing sound as the gate began to open.
Breathing deeply, she strode towards the gate. Her eyes hitched on Cole’s as she passed the latticed window. Just inside the Three Mills grounds she stopped. Behind her, the gate clanged shut against its magnetic post. The sound echoed and faded. An eerie silence hung on the soft air. She was inside. The horror of Three Mills came flooding back. Her heart began to pound.
All the way to the laundry block and back Ana’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Cole spoke to her occasionally through the earpiece. ‘You’re doing fine,’ he’d say or ‘Keep behind the buildings. Security has a visual of the street.’ The laundry was over three hundred metres away. She had to hide and wait several minutes for a lady sorting through a great dumpster of robes. When she returned, coming into view of one of the security cameras, the relief in Cole’s voice was unmistakable.