Abilities

Chapter Eight

     He dragged her to the right, down the corridor, in the opposite direction from where he’d arrived. Their bare feet made pattering sounds on the linoleum floor, echoing around loudly in the silence. It felt silly running as fast as they could when there was no one around, no one to run from.

     They got to the end of the corridor and found another two, leading off in opposite directions. They paused for only a second, then Mark darted down to the left, and Lea followed right behind him, still holding tightly onto his hand.

     They ran and ran, down endless corridors, going purely on instinct, but every corridor looked exactly the same and there seemed to be no end.

     ‘Stop,’ Lea pleaded. She couldn’t go on any longer, her heart was pounding in her throat, and she could taste blood. Her right side ached and her legs wanted to give up.

     Mark let go of her hand and turned, looking around him, his face grave. He was thinking hard, she could tell. Lea moved over to one of the spotless walls and lent against it, pushing hard to keep herself upright.

     ‘Look in all the windows,’ he ordered her.

     ‘How? The blinds,’ she managed, through gasping breaths.

     ‘I don’t know Lea!’ he yelled. ‘We just have to try!’ He sighed loudly and started moving to every window, attempting desperately to get a glimpse inside the rooms. Lea watched him for a second, then joined in too.

     She angled her eyes, right up close to the glass and got a thin crack of a view into the room beyond. It was a room exactly like the one she’d been in, but the person in the bed was someone else. It was a tall man, much taller than Mark, with dark hair. It looked like he was asleep.

     She moved to another window, not sure what she was looking for. She peeked into room after room, each the same with a different occupant. It was scary, all these people lying there unconscious, no idea how close they were to dying. They must have all been taken, she mused. And if they've been taken, they'll be killed soon.

     ‘Can’t we help them?’ she asked Mark, who was peering into a room nearby.

     ‘The best way to help them is to get out of here and tell the police,’ he told her sternly. ‘I think I’ve found something.’

     She moved over to him, to look through the window. Inside was not another bright, white room but instead a staircase. It had no lighting and was dark, ascending up and away, into oblivion.

     ‘Let’s go,’ Mark said, pulling the door open.

     They ran up the stairs, trying not to fall over. They were made of metal and the clanging of their feet made the linoleum before seem so much quieter. Eventually they reached the top and a door. It was a solid, metal door, with no window, so they had no idea what was on the other side. They stopped and stood behind it.

     ‘The stairs only went up,’ Lea observed. ‘So we were on the bottom floor before.’

     ‘Seems like it, doesn’t it?’ he agreed.

     ‘So this is the only way to go,’ she said. He nodded and pushed the door open.

     Suddenly running didn’t seem so stupid anymore.

     The room they had entered was huge. It was like one of those offices you saw on TV, but never existed in real life. Hundreds of tiny cubicles, with desks and computers, the hum of fax machines and scanners and printers dulled only by the chatter of voices. It was swarming with people, people talking with phones pressed to their ears, people walking around, people chatting in little groups.

    They shuffled quietly into the room, Mark closed the door behind them and moved to Lea’s ear. ‘Run before they notice us,’ he whispered. Luckily it was a big room, and so full that they made their way towards another door unremarked. Until the last second, when as Mark opened the door, someone yelled ‘Hey! Stop!’

     In the shock of the moment, both Lea and Mark turned around and stared, meeting hundreds of pairs of eyes on them. The door was open, and they could feel outside air on their painfully exposed bodies.

     Mark shoved Lea through the door in front of him and she heard a gun shot. Mark slammed the door shut behind them and looked at the handle: there was a key there. He twisted it and it clicked satisfactorily.

     'That was handy,' Mark commented drily.

     ‘What was that?’ Lea asked him. ‘Someone shot at us!’

     Mark looked down at his chest, a bright red stain spreading across his flimsy gown. ‘They sure did.’

     Lea let out a noise that was half a choke and half a squeal as he slumped to the ground. ‘Mark!’

    ‘Lea, what are you doing, run for Christ sake,’ he told her, his voice suddenly weak. She looked around. They were on top of a building.

     ‘Run where?’ she cried, then she got down on her knees beside him. She was shaking with shock, desperately wanting to be sick. ‘Mark, no, tell me it’s not real,’ she pleaded. Her nose started running and tears welled up inside her. ‘Like you did before, it’s a virtual world, you’re not hurt.’

     Mark smiled at this and moved his hand down to the wound. He touched it gently, then lifted his hand up, with blood on his fingers. ‘No, this time it’s definitely real.’

     Lea howled. ‘No! Mark you’re wrong!’

     ‘Lea you have to go,’ he insisted. ‘There’ll be a fire escape ladder, you can climb down it, but you can’t carry me. I don’t know how long it will take them to get through the door, but you don’t have long. When you come back with the police, you can come and look for me. Please, if you don’t get out, it would have all been for nothing.’

     ‘But I can’t,’ she sobbed. ‘You came for me Mark, you never gave up on me, I can’t leave you. If I leave you now-’ She stopped, she couldn’t say it, but she had to. ‘If I leave now, you may not be alive when I come back.’

     ‘That might be true,’ he admitted. ‘But I came so that I could get you your life back.’ He reached out his hand to stroke her hair. He was getting blood in it, but she didn’t mind. ‘Do it for me. Go.’

     Lea swallowed the colossal lump in her throat and then moved in to kiss him on the forehead. ‘You’re my hero,’ she told him.

     Then she stood up and fled across the roof top.