Lockdown

Sixty-seven

Lock snapped awake, surprised by two things. He was alive, and his cell door was wide open. He struggled to his feet and made it out into the corridor. Empty. No guards in sight.

He stood there for a moment, trying to orient himself. He’d had his best sleep in weeks, even if it was for only a couple of hours. The coppery taste was still in his mouth, but otherwise, beyond the usual aches and pains, he felt fine.

There was a click, and the cell door next to his opened. Like the external doors, it must have had some kind of remote override. A man stepped out, the man who’d been injected with the placebo intended for Lock. He blinked his eyes and reached out to pat Lock on the shoulder, as if physical contact would reassure him that this wasn’t a dream.

There was another click. Another cell door opened. Then another. And another. In under two minutes all the trial subjects had emerged. All of them looked well.

They gathered in small groups, some of them talking in urgent whispers. One of them crossed over to Lock, squaring up to him. Placebo guy stepped in between them, talked to the aggressor. He backed off.

The gate at the far end swung back on its hinges. Tentatively they started towards it.

One of the men said something and some of the others laughed. Placebo guy raised cuffed hands to his face and hushed them.

Lock brought up the rear as they walked towards the open gate. As he passed through it, the gate closed behind him. The men at the rear started as it clanked shut. At the far end of the corridor the door clicked open. They pushed through it and out into the darkness.

All twelve of them were still cuffed, and made for a surreal sight as they shuffled forward in the moonlight, a chain gang on evening manoeuvres. Placebo guy seemed to be assuming some kind of leadership role. He hissed at them to spread out, directing them to back into the shadows.

Lock picked his moment and filtered away from the group. He had as much idea about what was going on as they did — none. But he knew that with the amount of firepower in the vicinity, being out in open ground was about the worst idea possible.

Placebo guy waved at two of the men to go ahead on point. They did so, creeping forward to the edge of the building. Then they stopped, suddenly.

Lock could hear the guard coming round the corner, not because of footfall, but because he was on his radio letting the control room know that he’d cleared one sector and was about to move into the next. Standard procedure for non-static security. Clear and confirm. Clear and confirm. Repeat till dead. Almost certainly literally in the case of this poor chump.

‘Base from Leech. Yellow clear, moving to red.’

There was a pause.

‘Base? Can you acknowledge?’

It made sense that the guard wasn’t getting a reply. The cells had been remotely opened, and the only way to do that was from the control room.

There were twelve of them here. Which left only one person unaccounted for.