Lockdown, page 8
part #4 of Liars Series
Anya peered through the blades of the fan at the room beyond. ‘I think that is the control room.’
‘Does the fan have an off-switch?’
‘Yes, but it’s on the other side of the fan.’
‘Maybe we can jam it with something.’ Jarli looked around. But it was an air vent—nothing here except steel walls and the noise of the turbine.
‘I think I could reach through,’ Anya said. ‘But I would have to be quick.’
Jarli stared at the spinning blades. They were doing at least one rotation per second. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘They’ll cut your hand off.’
‘They do not look sharp. At worst, they would break my wrist. And if I time it exactly right—’
‘If you break your wrist, how would we get out of here?’
Anya didn’t reply.
The blades whipped past, around and around.
‘We can backtrack,’ Jarli said. It would be hard going backwards, but it seemed like the only option. ‘There might be another way down to—’
Anya stuck her hand through the fan.
‘Don’t!’ Jarli hissed.
But it was already over. Anya had snatched her hand back out again, like a snake darting back after a strike.
The whining of the fan became a drone as the blades slowed. Soon they had completely stopped.
Jarli released the breath he’d been holding. ‘Still got all your fingers?’
‘Eight, nine, ten . . . yes! Piece of cake.’
‘That’s not funny.’
‘Well, comedy is subjective,’ Anya said. ‘Come on. We have to shut down the rest of the system.’ She gripped the blades of the fan and pushed. The whole mechanism swung sideways, and she crawled through.
Jarli followed, gratefully slithering out of the vent into the room beyond. It was cramped and dark, lit only by the LEDs on control panels, but it was nowhere near as stifling as the air vent had been.
A big square machine took up most of the room. It looked like a giant tumble-dryer with fat pipes connecting it to the ceiling. Most of the pipes were metal, but one was made of canvas, like a wind sock. The control panel was huge, with hundreds of buttons and dials, marked with opaque acronyms: HVAC, ATEX and CENELEC.
‘Which button should I press?’ Anya said.
Jarli didn’t know. He bent down, peering at the underside of the control panel, looking for a power supply. He wished Doug were here. Doug could cut the power to anything, often by mistake.
Something thumped in the corridor outside.
A giant footstep.
Jarli and Anya looked at each other, eyes wide in the gloom. Anya ran over to the narrow door. A simple slide-bolt was screwed into the frame. Anya carefully slid it closed to lock the door.
The bolt made a faint snick sound. Immediately, more footsteps echoed through the corridor, getting closer. The giant had heard the sound. And that one tiny bolt wouldn’t keep him out for long.
Anya braced her foot against the door, adding her weight to the strength of the bolt.
‘Hurry!’ she whispered.
Jarli turned back to the control panel. He saw a switch marked REBOOT, but that was no good—he needed to stop the aircon system for good. One dial said FAN SPEED, so he turned it right down, but he didn’t think that would be enough to stop the poison gas.
The doorhandle rattled. Jarli resisted the urge to look behind him.
Suddenly he saw it. A red button in a yellow circle. He couldn’t read the words until he wiped the dust off with his thumb.
Jarli pushed the button.
There was a harsh beeping noise. All the lights on the control panel went dead except for a lone standby light. Jarli heard all the turbines in the hospital groan as they wound down. The canvas pipe above the machine deflated and went limp.
Jarli turned to face Anya—
Just in time to see a huge fist punch a hole through the door and grab her.
ILLEGAL OPERATION
The jammer phone rang so suddenly that Bess flinched. Now that her own phone had been taken away, she felt anxious and vulnerable. Which made no sense. Her phone wouldn’t have protected her from a crossbow bolt or a grenade, even if it had been working.
Taipan answered the phone. ‘Yes, boss.’ He snapped his fingers to get Mamba’s attention.
Bess held her breath. The criminals had been waiting for further instructions. Now was the moment of truth—would they be ordered to leave? And if they were, would they take Plowman with them?
But when Taipan spoke again, it wasn’t what Bess had hoped for.
‘Poison gas?’ he repeated.
Bess found herself gripping her crutches so tightly that her hands hurt. She looked at Doug, whose eyebrows had disappeared into his blond fringe.
‘Of course, boss,’ Taipan said. ‘I’ll tell Anaconda to look for some air-filtration masks.’
Bess doubted that he intended to get enough masks for all the hostages.
Just then, the droning of the aircon faded away to nothing. Bess hadn’t even noticed the sound until it was gone. The SILENCE was unnerving.
‘Actually,’ Taipan said, ‘the aircon just stopped. Will that solve the problem?’
There was a pause.
‘I see. What are we doing with Plowman?’
Bess could faintly hear the rasping of Viper’s voice.
‘Brain surgery?’ Taipan said. ‘I don’t understand.’
The two doctors looked alarmed.
Taipan listened for a long time, and then said, ‘By phone? Even with instruction, I don’t think I can— oh, I see. How do I hook it up?’
Another pause.
‘Yes, boss,’ Taipan said finally. ‘Right away, boss.’
He ended the call.
Lanagan spoke up immediately. ‘There’s nothing wrong with this patient’s brain.’
‘That’s not your concern,’ Taipan said.
‘Even if there was, neither of us is a neurosurgeon. We’re not qualified to—’
‘My boss will do the surgery.’ Taipan turned around to face everybody else in the group. ‘Attention please. We’re all going to Theatre Two. Move quickly and quietly. Anyone who tries to run will become target practice for my associate.’
Mamba started reloading her crossbow.
Hayes and the kids started shuffling towards the door. But Lanagan and Vorham didn’t move.
‘Is your boss a qualified neurosurgeon?’ Lanagan demanded.
Taipan was pulling a tablet computer out of a satchel. The screen lit up, revealing a picture of a coiled snake. ‘Viper is confident that he can perform the operation without killing your patient,’ Taipan said. ‘He’s done it before. You have nothing to worry about. Now, move.’
Lanagan didn’t. ‘Confidence is not a qualification,’ she said. ‘And Mr Plowman’s brain is fine. I can’t allow—’
‘I’ve had enough of you,’ Taipan said. ‘Mamba?’
Mamba shot Lanagan with the crossbow.
Everyone in the room screamed. Lanagan hit the floor immediately—but Bess noticed that what was sticking out of her leg was not a crossbow bolt. It looked more like a dart, with a feathered tail.
‘You can’t . . .’ Lanagan began. Then her eyes fluttered closed.
Vorham crouched next to her. He ripped out the dart and sniffed it. ‘Is that animal tranquilliser?’ he demanded. ‘That’s not safe for immobilising humans. The dosage—’
‘You want to be next?’ Mamba asked.
Vorham shut his mouth.
‘Don’t worry,’ Taipan told him. ‘We’ll switch back to normal crossbow bolts if everyone doesn’t get a move on.’
Reluctantly, Vorham lifted Lanagan by the armpits and dragged her out the door. Hayes and the schoolkids followed. Bess looked back in time to see Taipan fiddling with the huge surgical robot. It looked like he was plugging his jammer phone into it.
Maybe the batteries are running low, Bess thought. Could be an opportunity. If I can just get to it—
‘Move,’ Mamba growled.
‘OK, OK.’ Bess limped out the door.
Mamba herded everyone up the corridor towards the other surgical theatre. No-one tried to flee.
Vorham unlocked the door. Mamba made a threatening gesture with the crossbow, and Vorham handed her the keys.
All the hostages shuffled inside. When someone switched on the lights, Bess saw that Theatre Two was much the same as Theatre One. No surgical robot, but there was an operating table surrounded by blinding lights. A laser scalpel was nearby and a stereo was built into the wall.
Mamba didn’t follow them in. Instead, she shut the door and locked it. They were trapped again.
Vorham carried Lanagan over to the operating table. He checked her pulse, her breathing and the dilation of her pupils.
‘I think this is an improvement,’ Mr Hayes told the students. ‘Now we just have to stay calm and wait for the police to intervene.’
‘An improvement?’ someone said. ‘Am I the only one who heard the phrase, “poison gas”?!’
Doug was sitting in the corner, quaking like a dog in a thunderstorm.
Crouching was hard for Bess. She sat next to him instead. ‘You OK?’ she asked quietly.
Doug didn’t even seem to hear her. He was hugging his knees and staring at the wall.
Bess put a hand on his shoulder, and he flinched.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Like Mr Hayes says, we’ll be out of here soon.’
‘Didn’t you hear?’ Doug’s voice wavered with fear. ‘That guy said his boss would be the one performing the surgery.’
It took Bess a moment to realise what this meant.
Viper was coming.
ARMS RACE
The giant’s arm was right under Anya’s chin, crushing her against the door like the safety bar on a roller coaster. She tried to scream, but couldn’t get any air into her lungs. The jagged edges of the hole in the door scraped her back.
She got her hands beneath the arm and tried to bench press it off her chest. It was hopeless. She couldn’t move it any more than she could have lifted a truck parked on her torso. It felt like her heart was going to explode.
Jarli ran over, grabbed Anaconda’s huge hand, and pulled. But even with their combined strength, they couldn’t overpower the giant. Anya was trapped.
‘Let me in,’ a deep voice snarled from outside. ‘Or I’ll crush you like a tomato.’
Anya didn’t doubt that he could do it. Her ribs were already creaking.
‘Hit him,’ she wheezed.
‘With what?!’ Jarli demanded. ‘Find something!’
Jarli ran off to search the room for a weapon. But Anya couldn’t see one, and soon she couldn’t see anything. She was too dizzy. She needed air.
‘There’s nothing!’ Jarli cried.
So Anya did the only thing she could.
She lowered her head and, with the last of her strength, bit the arm as hard as she could.
There was a scream of rage from the other side of the door—and the giant’s grip loosened. Just for a split second, but it was enough.
Anya slipped out of Anaconda’s grip and dropped to the floor. Then she scrambled away from the door just in time, spitting and gagging. The huge hand scrabbled around, but couldn’t find her again.
‘We gotta get out of here,’ Jarli hissed.
Anya was still coughing as the air flooded her lungs. ‘The vents,’ she choked. ‘He won’t fit.’
The arm slithered back out the hole in the door. Soon it was replaced by a bloodshot eye under a tremendous brow, peering in at them.
‘I’ll kill you!’ the giant roared.
Jarli was already climbing back into the air vent. As soon as he was in, Anya followed him. It was easier than before. The fear had loosened her joints.
She’d just managed to get her torso in when—
Smash! The door shattered behind her. Footsteps thudded through the control room towards the vent.
Panicking, Anya wriggled deeper into the vent.
Too slow. A mighty hand grabbed her foot.
Anya thrashed like an eel. Her shoe slipped off, and then she was free, clawing at the floor as she dragged herself towards safety.
The vent shook as Anaconda’s arm bashed against the walls, but Anya was out of his reach.
‘Anya?’ Jarli called from up ahead.
‘I’m OK. Keep moving.’
They crawled deeper into the darkness. Anya tried not to listen to the bellows of fury from back in the control room.
Jarli had reached the T-intersection. ‘Which way?’ he asked.
‘Back to the exit,’ Anya said. ‘We need to tell the cops we shut down the air conditioning. Otherwise they will still gas us.’
‘Won’t we get arrested?’
‘We have bigger problems.’ Literally, she thought.
Jarli crawled around the corner, heading back the way they had come earlier. Anya suddenly realised that she couldn’t hear Anaconda yelling anymore.
‘Jarli,’ she said. ‘Wait.’
Jarli paused. ‘What?’
‘I think—’
A giant fist punched through the floor of the vent.
Anaconda was in the corridor right beneath them!
The crash was deafening in the confined space. Jarli screamed and scrambled backwards, accidentally kicking Anya in the shoulder. She wriggled back as fast as she could.
The hand, scratched and bleeding from punching through the aluminium, groped around for the two kids. When it couldn’t find them, it grabbed the jagged edge of the hole.
Anya saw what was about to happen.
‘Get back!’ she cried.
But in the confined space, there was no way she or Jarli could move fast enough. There was a screeching, grinding sound as the bolts which connected the air vent to the ceiling were RIPPED out of the concrete. The metal groaned and tore, sheared clean off the ceiling by the strain of holding up the giant’s weight. Anaconda had ripped a five-metre-long segment out of the air vent, with Jarli and Anya inside!
For a moment they were trapped in a falling tube, screaming as they bounced weightlessly against the walls and ceiling. Anya covered her face with her arms and—
WHAM! The chunk of the air vent landed in the corridor. Gravity returned with full force, slamming Anya’s body against the floor. She felt the ripples in her brain as her skull bounced off her forearms.
Thud, thud, thud. The giant was walking around the fallen segment, trying to work out how to get to the two kids inside.
‘What do we do?’ Jarli hissed.
Anya’s mind was racing. They couldn’t hide in here forever. Anaconda was strong enough to rip the metal apart like wrapping paper. They had no weapons to protect themselves, and they couldn’t outrun him. By the time they got out of the ruined vent and stood up, he would already be on them.
Suddenly they lurched upwards. Anya screamed. The giant was lifting them into the air!
The metal tube swayed, tilted and shook. Anaconda was trying to tip them out, like a garbage truck emptying a bin.
Anya braced her hands against the sides of the vent, trying not to fall. But her palms were slick with sweat, and the angle was too steep. She slipped down the vent like it was a waterslide and fell out onto the tiled floor of the corridor.
Anya only had a split-second to roll out of the way before Jarli tumbled after her. He stayed down, dizzy. But Anya leapt to her feet and found herself facing the giant.
‘You’re dead, kid,’ he snarled, rubbing the bite mark on his forearm.
With nothing else to do, Anya raised her fists.
It was like stepping into the boxing ring at the gym after school—except that her opponent was more than twice her size. And it wasn’t a ring, it was a corridor strewn with rubble. The overhead lights had gone dead. Two chunks of the air shaft were still attached to the ceiling, but they looked wobbly. Maybe she’d get lucky and one would fall on him.
Anaconda didn’t raise his fists. Instead, he picked up the fallen chunk of the air vent—a thick steel tube about five metres long. Then he threw it at her.
Anya leapt aside just in time. The metal flew past her and hit the floor down the other end of the corridor, with a sound like crashing cymbals that left Anya’s ears ringing. Even after that faded, she could hear an ominous hissing sound.
Now Anaconda threw a punch. Anya ducked. The huge fist whooshed over her head, leaving a vacuum behind it which almost sucked her into its wake.
Anya darted in and struck the giant in the solar plexus. The blow would have left a normal person gasping for breath, but with Anaconda, it was like punching a refrigerator. The impact hurt Anya’s hand and jarred her wrist. She darted back. The giant didn’t seem at all affected.
He lifted his leg to stomp on her like she was a cockroach. Anya dived out of the way. Anaconda’s foot hit the floor so hard that the ground shook.
Anya barely had time to recover before the giant’s fist swung down towards her. It was like the sky was falling. She was too slow to get out of the way—
But then Anaconda tripped and went down, face first. Jarli had grabbed his ankle, and was hugging it tightly.
‘Run, Anya!’ he yelled.
Anya did as she was told, sprinting towards the stairs. Hopefully Jarli was running in the opposite direction. Maybe the giant wouldn’t get up in time to catch either of them.
When she reached the stairs, she snatched a look back to check who Anaconda was chasing.
The giant and Jarli both remained on the floor. Facedown, motionless.
Even from this distance, Anya could still hear the hissing sound. She looked at the ripped end of the air shaft, still attached to the ceiling.
The cops didn’t know that the aircon system was shut down. They were pumping poison gas into the hospital. Now it was spilling out of the torn-up vent.
And Jarli was breathing it.
RUN LIKE THE WIND
Anya couldn’t see or smell the gas from here. But if she inhaled it, she would collapse—fast. Anaconda had gone down immediately, and he was huge.
She took a deep breath and ran back up the corridor. She stepped over the giant, grabbed Jarli’s shoulder and shook it. Jarli didn’t react. When she lifted his eyelids with her thumbs, his eyeballs had rolled back so only the whites were visible.
