Brain Storm (US Edition) (14 page)

She kept an unobtrusive eye on her surroundings to make sure that she wasn't being followed. She made sure that no one was paying her any undue attention. She made sure that the lingering glances she got were from men just admiring her and not anything more sinister. She didn't see anyone who looked out of place or who stopped at the same time as she did when she made it look as though she was window shopping. Just to make sure she took a trip through a shop that sold nothing but women's underwear. Most people in her line of work were men, and as far as she could tell all of those involved in the attack on her had been male, and men walking into or waiting outside a shop like this would stick out like a sore thumb. Sara checked out a few items on the racks and looked at who was here with her.

There were six men in the whole shop, not counting the skinny camp guy behind the counter. Two of those men were following their wives or girlfriends around, carrying bags and looking bored. Another was taking more of an interest as he and his blonde partner looked through the more exotic area of the shop. He whispered something in her ear indicating one garment in particular, she blushed fiercely and gave an embarrassed giggle. She looked around with her head down wanting to see if anybody had noticed but not wanting to make eye contact if they had. She didn't notice Sara watching them.

Of the three other men, one was paying more attention to the women in the shop than the clothes. He spent a few moments checking Sara out but that was no
longer than he spent watching most of the women. He quite obviously thought his staring wasn't being noticed but it just as obviously was. Sara exchanged glances with another woman who had seen him watching her as well and they both rolled their eyes. Sara guessed that if anyone was keeping surveillance on her they would want to do it without her knowing she was being watched even if the watcher didn't look like anything of a threat. Still she would keep tabs on him just in case.

The next man was looking through the racks of underwear looking faintly embarrassed. Every so often he looked down at a piece of yellow paper and then at the labels on whatever particular item he was interested in. Every so often he would look up but it wasn't Sara or anyone else in the shop that he was interested in. He kept looking over at the more 'adult' area of the shop where the blonde girl was still being flustered by her
partner’s whispered comments. He must have been out buying underwear as a gift for someone special, with her sizes written on the piece of paper, and wishing he had the courage to go over and buy her one of the less practical garments on display over there.

Sara turned the items she was holding around as though examining them as a prospective buy even though her attention was focused on the last man in the shop. In turn his attention was completely focused on Sara and he was coming towards her. He turned sideways to get past between the man who was shopping for a woman more than underwear and a self rotating display with a pair of mannequins dressed in lacy black lingerie trimmed in red and gold. He was dressed in a smart-casual outfit with dark trousers and suit jacket over a tight white T-shirt that was tucked into the top of his trousers. His dark hair was an unruly mass of spikes with bleached tips. He raised his eyebrows at the man as he passed and gave Sara a look that told her he had noticed the other man's interests as well.

He didn't seem to be looking at her like a man who wanted to kill her. She couldn't see a weapon on him but there were any number of places for him to conceal one. He might not even need a weapon, if he was one of the same group who had attacked her outside her apartment all he had to do was locate her and call the rest of the boys in.

"You can't seriously be considering that."

Sara blinked as her brain tried to make sense out of his words. "Err . . . Sorry, what?" It was a lame thing to say but she couldn't think of a more appropriate response.

The man with the blonde tips nodded at her hand and the hanger and clothes she held in it. "They are soooo not you." He dragged the oh in so out so much that it was a sentence in itself. That combined with the hand gesture that basically defined effeminate made this guy look as camp as the one behind the counter. She spotted the name badge pinned on the pocket of his jacket's breast pocket and berated herself for not noticing it straight away. He worked here as well, now that she was paying proper attention she saw that the
color of his suit matched that of the jackets and skirts worn by the female shop assistants who were milling about and chatting with other customers.

Sara looked at the items she happened to have picked up to stop her looking out of place. From the transparent plastic hanger in her hand dangled a matching set of bra and panties that wouldn't have looked out of place on a pensioner. She tried a smile as she struggled to come up with a reason for having them and then decided she didn't have to. She had been in here for a good few minutes now and no-one inside looked like a really likely candidate to be following her, and nobody had stopped outside suspiciously or walked past numerous times. There was only so much checking you could do there came a time when you had to get on with it.

"You're right, these aren't me." She handed him the hanger and walked out of the shop.

The lecherous customer watched her all the way dropping all inadequate attempts at subtlety. As Sara walked past the window display outside the shop he pushed one hand into his pocket.

Chapter
Eleven

Carla was starting to think that she was going to go crazy with worry. If whoever was holding her didn't get around to doing something, anything, with her soon the anticipation was going to send her out of her mind. A brief and fitful sleep had occupied her for a short while. She couldn't remember any details but she was sure she had been dreaming. The dreams hadn't left her with a sense of hope, rather they had left her feeling drained. She was more tired now than she had been before she tried to sleep.

Carla was certain that she looked a total mess. Her eyes would have heavy black bags underneath and would be rimmed in red from her crying fits. The rest of her face would be drawn and haggard. She could feel knots in her hair and knew that that would be in a state as well, grease and dirt would have turned it from brilliant copper red to a tarnished, rusty shade.

The chilling shadow of despair started to creep over her and she shivered. She felt the quiet terror and desperation coming together inside her and taking a stranglehold on her heart. Another wave of tears was just starting when she heard noises coming from outside her cell.

Using the sleeve of the orange prison suit to dry her eyes she tiptoed over to the door where she could hear the sounds clearest. Careful that she didn't make any sounds that would alert whoever was making the noise outside that they were being overheard, she placed the left side of her face up against the door. Flattening her ear up against the material, forcing the air out of it in the process, she struggled to hear what was being said.

"Shouldn't they have done this before they dumped her down here?"

"Maybe, but they want us to do it now. Something to do with the sedatives screwing up the results, I didn't question them."

Carla recognized the voices of the ginger and dark guards who had given her her one and only meal and who had subjected her to that degrading shower.

"Remind me again of why we have to leave our firearms behind when we go in," the ginger one said.

"In case she goes for one and tries to escape," the darker one said like he was talking to a child. "You can't be afraid of her, surely?"

"Of course not," the ginger one answered very quickly. "But if they're right who knows what she . . ."

Carla missed the rest of whatever would have been said because at that moment the door was shoved open aggressively and she was thrown onto her back. Her head banged against the side wall of the cell and her teeth were clacked together. She sat there rubbing her back and her head as the two guards came into the cell.

The dark one came inside first, he had been the one who opened the door, and looked down at Carla. "It isn't polite to listen in on other people's conversations."

The ginger one came in around the other and waved the end of his tazer-like stun-stick in her  face. He started it up so that a charge arced between the pair of prongs and pushed it at her nose.  Carla pushed herself back but the wall of her cell impeded her movement. At the last moment before it made contact with her face he switched the device off. He went ahead and shoved the metal prongs into her cheeks under her eyes. The prongs were hot from transmitting the charge and the touch burned her skin.

He took the prongs away and Carla dared to breathe again. She had broken out in a terror sweat with the electricity shoved in her face and now her skin was clammy. A rivulet of sweat ran down between her shoulder blades and continued down along the edge of her spine.

"Roll up your sleeve," the dark one directed her.

When she was slow in complying the ginger one gave a feral grin and activated his stun-stick again. Carla hurried to pull the sleeve up to her left elbow. Ginger kept the charge going while dark hair fixed his own weapon to the side of his belt. He opened a pouch on his opposite hip beside an empty holster. From inside the pouch he drew a plastic cylinder about ten or fifteen
centimeters long. Then from inside that he drew out a needle and syringe.

Carla's pulse was already racing in fear but now it felt like her heart was going to explode with the pressure. Sweat beaded on her forehead and rolled down her cheeks from her temples. She didn't want them to start pumping unknown substances into her body. She tried to crawl away but the wall still prevented her from retreating.

"Give me your arm," the darker one commanded.

Reluctantly Carla held a shaking arm up away from her body but kept it quite close as though to protect it. The dark one grabbed her arm at the wrist and pulled it to extend it towards him. He handed the syringe off to his companion while tied a band around her arm just below the elbow. The band was tightened until Carla was forced to gasp from the pain. The ginger guard returned the syringe and the tip of the slender needle was moved up against the raised veins on the underside of her forearm.

She felt it as the needle pricked her skin and was pushed up through it into her vein. Carla wanted to pull her arm away, but even if it hadn't still been held in place by the guard she wasn't sure she would have dared to in case it caused her further injury. Of course whatever they were going to put into her could be meant to do just that.

The dark one decided the needle was far enough inside her and he reached back to the end of the syringe. Instead of pushing the plunger down to force drugs into her bloodstream he pulled back on it and the main chamber of the syringe started to fill with the blood that was being pulled out of her. When the chamber was filled the syringe was pulled out of her arm and the grip on her arm was released.

The two guards left the room leaving Carla to take the band off her arm. Blood continued to  pump in drops out of the hole in her arm and she held her hand over the wound to try and stop the flow.

***************

The redolence of cooking meat and onions fried to burning point was always the first thing that alerted Sara that she was almost upon the ECSIS building. It was open what sometimes seemed like twenty-four hours a day. For the few hours when it was closed, between approximately three in the morning after the clubs closed and six or seven when the first office workers stopped by after missing breakfast or the dirty-stop-out brigade made their way home, the spot where the hot-dog stand stood would still smell the same. It was as though the surrounding area soaked up the smell and let it out in its absence. The stones, brick and concrete were permeated by tiny molecules that struggled free in the quite areas that struggled free and lingered haunting the spot until the vendor returned.

Today business was booming with a queue of people waiting to be served their reprocessed meat in a bun with limp onions and dollops of yellow or red gunk. The pink sausages sat in a metal container built into the cart next to a similar container with
smoldering onions. On an island between the two stood squeezable condiment bottle in red and yellow with tracks of semi-liquid  in matching colors running down from funnel caps. A box of napkins to serve the hot-dogs rested beside the bottles.

The man doling out the delights was one of the usual suspects in the uniform striped shirt and trousers, a matching hat tried to contain an unruly mass of greasy black curls.
Serving a customer with one hand the young man wiped the other on his trousers and then placed it on the underside of the rim of the cart. He moved his hand a little further to the side and brought out a fresh pack of paper napkins. He placed the hot-dog into one of those napkins and passed it on to the customer.

Sara pushed through the crowd and around the corner to where she could see the ECSIS building arrogantly declaring
its presence in huge letters. The building stood there proud and erect but unaware of the shadowy foundations underneath that dealt with the things it couldn't handle. Foundations that supported it out of sight and allowed it to continue to stand tall in the face of all the things which threatened to tear it down in a display of force or would just as soon subtly gnaw away and erode it slyly so that it crumbled before it even knew what had happened to it.