Mr Hook's Big Black Box

Kris Alexandros: Escape Route

Every step brought more pain. It felt like every part of my body was bruised and swollen, and I was feeling a little light headed. It was really hard to focus on what I needed to do, but I reminded myself that I had friends depending on me. I limped around the room to the pile of my clothes, which was pretty thoroughly shredded. I had no idea if they thought the key might be in some secret pocket, or if they were just trying to keep me from escaping, but either way they'd done a good job. Without my clothes, I had no choice but to remain here until they came to check on me. I seriously hoped they wouldn't, because they would be on their way to the club room, where they would find an ambush set by Rasputin and his men. I had no doubt that the Russians would win, but then there was every chance nobody would find me here, at least for a while.

The room was mostly filled with small tables, the right size for a single student to spread out their books and take a test. At the front of the room was a larger desk, suitable for a teacher or invigilator maybe, where they'd dumped me. Off to one side was another larger table, and that was where I found my luck hadn't completely run out. The items from my pockets, spread haphazardly across the table. My wallet was gone, and my bunch of keys. But they'd been dumb enough to leave me with my phone, and the charger.

I picked up the phone, and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. I wondered if it had been damaged by the beating they'd given me. But as I'd grabbed the charger from the wall outlet just as Landry came in, it seemed more likely that the small handful of percent in the device had become exhausted. I unwound the cable, and managed to find an outlet in the corner of the room. I slipped as soon as I bent down to plug it in, and finally resorted to kneeling on the tiled floor while I got my phone plugged in.

Almost immediately, it rang. I silently thanked whatever gods might be favouring us. Landry must have seen the phone with a black screen, and assumed they'd already broken it. He surely wouldn't have left it with me if he realised I could use it to call for help. As it turned out, my low battery might have saved me.

"H... hello?" I muttered to the phone. There was silence. I didn't know who was calling, I hadn't thought to check the screen before I answered. Silence, a distant mumbling I couldn't make out, and then a faint beep as they hung up. Still, it was a good sign. My phone was working, so I could call for help, if I could just work out who to call. And assuming that the slightly echoey voices I'd heard were the result of someone calling me from their pocket, rather than a blunt impact damaging the speaker in my phone.

I left it plugged in there, and switched off, for a minute or two. I looked at the rest of my worldly possessions. A couple of painkillers, for all the good that would do. I swallowed two anyway, though I knew the action was optimistic beyond belief. Then I walked around the edge of the room, and checked the doors. Both were locked, which was no big surprise. A sobering thought, though. Where would Landry have got the keys? Either his team included someone with skills other than fists, in which case I had underestimated him, or there was a member of staff lying injured or dead somewhere close by. Either way, there was nothing I could do about it right now. My body was aching so much that just walking around the edge of the room was a real effort.

At some point in my perambulation, I realised it was almost a miracle I didn't have any broken bones. Or maybe I did, and I just couldn't tell the difference between all the types of pain. I'd broken my wrist as a child, in a careless skateboard incident, but I couldn't really remember what it had felt like. I just had to hope that this walking around wasn't doing any more serious damage to my body.

I checked every cupboard in my prison, every drawer in the desks. I checked the doors again and again, in case in my confusion I had somehow failed to twist the handle correctly. Eventually, there was nothing left that I could do. I was trapped, and my body certainly wasn't up to breaking the solid wood door down like I would expect to see if this was an action movie. Then I remembered that I'd left my phone connected while I walked round in circles. By now it might be charged well enough that I could call Ferrari and request a rescue attempt. But before I did that, I peered out through the thin piece of glass in the door, trying to see the room numbers on the doors opposite. If I knew those, I could tell her without having to unplug my phone, and that would be enough to let her find which building and level I was in.