I turn and Marcus is leaning back against the counter, a dumbfounded expression on his face. The hole in his chest looks like a crater on the moon and as I watch, its edges turn white and dry and start to crumble away. They fall in clumps of calcified dust. His mouth opens like he’s trying to speak, but then his jaw cracks and his eyes turn white and he stumbles forward and falls.
I turn back to Jonah and realize that the thing in Kevin’s hand isn’t a knife; it’s a gun and I can smell the gunpowder now, sharp and spicy, like bonfire night.
“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Jonah says. “Our new member has a trick or two.”
He eyes the crudely thumbtacked wires that lead from the switch to the floor panel with an air of contempt. We sit in silence, waiting to see what he’s going to do next. My ears are ringing. Next to me, Vikram groans. There’s no blood anymore, just woodlice that are pushing their way between his fingers, rolling down his neck and getting caught in his shirt collar and the lapels of his jacket. He struggles and chokes and a few waterlogged ants escape his mouth. Abi leans in close, soothing him, stroking his hair with a tenderness I wouldn’t have expected between them.
“He won’t last much longer,” she breathes.
“Enough, Jonah,” I say, standing up. “Let’s go; it’s me you want.”
A satisfied grin spreads across Jonah’s face. “Oh, ho. Squeaky gets brave all of a sudden!” He gives me an admonishing look. “You know, if you’d been brave five minutes ago, Kyle, your new friend here might not have had to die.”
“Let’s just go,” I say. “You don’t care about them. No one else has to die.”
Jonah shrugs. “That was my original intention, Kyle, honest it was. But you’ve all gone and piqued my curiosity now.” He turns to Abi. “A bunch of scientists like this, I bet you got some kick-ass skills, haven’t you? And then there’s this machine I keep hearing about.” He looks at me. “That’s what you’re here for, right? That’s what was so important you made me chase you halfway across London?”
“It’s a specialized MRI,” Abi says. “It can help you get back; it can save you.”
“Show me,” Jonah says.
“Vikram needs to go first,” Abi says.
Jonah smiles. “Then it’s a party. Let’s go see what this thing can do.”
Abi shudders with relief and starts to haul Vikram to his feet. Farah moves quickly to help her, taking Vikram’s other arm and looping it over her neck.
Jonah nods at Chiu. “Levi, stay here with the little one. The rest of you may as well come along for the show.”
“Benedict?” Abi says, a question edged with anger and blame.
Benedict stands. “Of course.”
Kevin gives me a smug, satisfied look as we follow Jonah back out into the corridor. Anger and hatred glisten inside him and I feel what I felt when I was in the street. That terrible, terrible blackness. It’s like a vision, an insight. I see it all too clearly. Jonah and his followers in control of this place. Organized. Ready to enslave or murder anybody unfortunate enough to find themselves here. There are worse things than dying, I think.
We come to another set of double fire doors, these ones framed with thick bands of black and yellow tape, with a sign over the top of them that reads: HIGH MAGNETIC FIELD – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
The sight of the MRI brings back unpleasant memories. It stands alone and severe in the centre of the room, something between an industrial tumble dryer and a giant plastic doughnut. White casing, grey panels, a kind of mechanized stretcher that feeds you in head first like it’s feeding you into the fire at a crematorium. It’s the noise I hate most. Loud and alien, like bones being ground up by steel teeth. I had lots of trips to the MRI in the run-up to my operation and in that jaw-grinding noise it’s not hard to convince yourself there’s something else… A voice. A sound like lots of people talking at once. Hell.
Farah and Abi lower Vikram on to the bed, his hand still clamped to his neck and the woodlice forcing their way out where they can. He coughs, leans awkwardly to one side and spits three more woodlice and a millipede on to the ground in a pool of saliva. Ants explore the back of his hand.
I wish there were blood, I think. My god, I wish there were blood. But the blood, when people are dying, is short-lived and is quickly replaced by something else. Another rule, I note, with no sense of pleasure.
Benedict is at the console, typing rapidly.
“How does this gizmo work then?” Jonah says, stooping to peer into the mechanism.
“Thoughts are cytoelectrical impulses exchanged between neurons,” Benedict explains as he types. “But qualia, the self-narrative I, is a standing wave composed of these impulses that extends across the whole brain.”
Jonah flashes me a playful wink. He doesn’t care, I think. There’s a punchline coming, I can feel it. This is just the build-up.
Vikram convulses, coughing uncontrollably, gasping for breath.
“What’s taking so long?” Abi snaps at Benedict.
“Nearly there,” Benedict says. “I’m updating the field alignments.”
Abi looks confused. “Use the same ones as Devon.”
“We may as well try the new ones—” Benedict begins.
Abi exhales a disbelieving gust that’s half laugh. “He’s dying, Benedict! This isn’t the time to try out a new protocol.”
“It’s what he’d want me to do,” Benedict insists, still typing.
Vikram vomits a stream of yellowish fluid.
“Hold on, Vik,” Abi whispers, her voice cracking. “You’re OK, you’re going to be OK.”
“What’s this with the field alignments?” Jonah asks, coolly.
“We’re still working on the protocol required to preserve our memories,” Benedict answers, without looking up. “There’s no point in us coming here unless we can take news of our research back with us, is there?”
My breath catches. Benedict doesn’t know what he’s done. To Benedict this is science, self-evidently the right thing, but there’s a dangerous look in Jonah’s eyes.
“He’ll remember this place in the ordinary world, will he?” he says.
“We hope,” Benedict answers. “It would be a tremendous discovery.”
