Lockdown Page 2

  They were interrupted by a squeal of static. Tyson was fiddling with the radio on his hip.

  ‘What was that?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘Not sure. Maybe the batteries.’

  Olivia tried her own radio. It made the same shrieking sound. She flinched and turned down the volume.

  ‘Must be a faulty broadcaster somewhere on the network,’ she said.

  Tyson looked up at the ceiling. ‘Great. That’s all we need. Come on—we’d better get back out there.’

  Just as the automatic doors started to open, something flew through the gap and skittered across the floor. It looked a bit like a soft-drink can, but smaller. Jarli peered down at it, noting that there was no brand name. Just black metal.

  ‘Close your eyes!’ Anya yelled.

  Jarli was too slow. A brilliant light FLASHED out of the can, dazzling him. There was a tremendous bang—a wall of noise which left him reeling. Blind and deaf, he staggered backwards until he hit the wall. He reached out, trying to stop himself from falling over, but he couldn’t find anything to hold onto. Soon he was on the floor, too stunned to even cry out.

  EMERGENCY SURGERY

  ‘CODE BLUE. DR LANAGAN TO SCRUB UP FOR SURGERY IN THEATRE ONE. LANAGAN TO THEATRE ONE. CODE BLUE.’

  Bess wasn’t sure what a code blue was, but it sounded like an emergency.

  Lanagan didn’t panic, though. ‘I’m afraid you’ll all have to leave,’ she said. ‘Right now.’

  She strode over to a button on the wall marked STERILISE. When she pushed it, the air filter started roaring overhead, sucking contaminated air out of the room and pumping clean air back in. Lanagan hurried over to a huge industrial sink and started washing her hands.

  Mr Hayes didn’t need to be told twice. ‘Come on, kids,’ he said, ushering them towards the door.

  Bess lingered. ‘What’s going on? What’s a code blue?’

  ‘It could mean a lot of things,’ Lanagan said. ‘None of them good.’

  Hayes herded Bess out of the surgical theatre after the other students. He let the doors fall closed behind him, silencing the noise from the taps inside. There was a faint sucking sound as the rubber seals connected—the theatre was airtight.

  ‘Well, then,’ Hayes said. ‘That’s life in a hospital, I suppose. Come on, everyone—back on the bus.’

  ‘Early mark?’ someone said hopefully.

  ‘Maybe. Depends when we get back to school. We may have time for a quick maths lesson.’

  Bess groaned. A faint smile hovered on Hayes’ lips. He was messing with them.

  As the group walked back, a pair of lift doors slid open up the other end of the corridor. A doctor and a nurse rolled a stretcher out. A man was strapped to it—pale, limp and bleeding.

  ‘BP’s fallen to eighty-two over fifty-five,’ the doctor was saying. Bess recognised him—Dr Vorham. He was a specialist in movement disorders. Her parents took her to see him once per year. But this patient looked like he was in need of much more urgent attention.

  ‘Kellin?’ the nurse said. ‘We need you to stay awake, OK?’

  The patient’s groan was little more than a phlegmy rattle.

  Kellin? Bess’s eyes widened. She tried to connect the battered face of the man on the stretcher to the face she had seen at Jarli’s robot battle, but he looked completely different.

  ‘Make way!’ the doctor cried. He and the nurse were pushing the stretcher dangerously fast. Anyone standing in the way, would be flattened. As the stretcher passed the students, Bess saw that one of the man’s arms was bent at an ugly angle, as though he had too many elbows.

  ‘Mr Plowman,’ Bess whispered.

  One of Plowman’s eyes was concealed behind a bandage. The other, bloodshot, fixed on Bess. ‘Tell him . . .’ he whispered.

  His voice was muffled by the mask. Bess strained to hear over the rain drumming on the roof.

  ‘Will . . .’

  ‘Who is Will?’ Bess reached for his hand, but the doctor and the nurse were still pushing, and the stretcher was already out of reach.

  ‘Compound fractures in these two ribs,’ the nurse was saying. ‘And I’m worried about his spine.’

  ‘Looks like arterial bleeding from his thigh,’ Vorham said. ‘If we don’t deal with that, it won’t matter what we do about his spine. Do we know his blood type?’

  ‘Not yet. Test takes ten minutes.’

  ‘This man doesn’t have ten minutes. There’s some universal donor in the theatre. Lanagan can start transfusing that while I stop the bleeding.’ Vorham took control of the stretcher and pushed it into Surgical Theatre One. He called back to the nurse, ‘Once you have the test results, bring us more blood in his type.’

  ‘On it.’ Ignoring the students, the nurse ran past towards the stairs.

  Bess and the other kids stared in horror as the double doors to the theatre closed and the wounded man disappeared.

  What happened to him? Bess wondered. Did he fall off a roof? Get hit by a truck?

  She clutched her crutches a little more tightly. When she was a child, she’d tumbled headfirst out of a treehouse. The accident had left her unable to walk normally, or to control the occasional spasms in her muscles. These symptoms hadn’t been obvious until the rest of her body healed. With Plowman’s body so wrecked, it was hard not to imagine what damage might be hidden beneath the surface.

  Panicked babbling filled the air. The kids up against the wall were jostling, trying to see if the stretcher was gone, while the kids up the front were trying to back away from the trail of blood droplets on the floor.

  ‘Students,’ Hayes bellowed. ‘Calm down, please. We’re going to head back to the bus. When we’re all back at school, we’ll talk more about what just happened, and I’ll call the hospital to check that the patient is OK.’

  That seemed unlikely to Bess. The guy had been a wreck. ‘They called him Kellin,’ Doug whispered. ‘Do you think it was . . .’

  ‘You’d know better than me,’ Bess said. Doug had met Plowman at the Robattle, and Doug’s mother had once worked for Magnotech, a company Plowman owned. When Viper tried to buy an electromagnetic weapon from Magnotech, Doug’s mother had contacted the police. Viper had responded by using the weapon to crash a plane into Doug’s house.

  Before today, Bess had only ever seen Plowman in the distance. He owned a fancy golf resort at the edge of the town. He didn’t like golf, but he used the green to test out drones. Bess had sometimes seen quadcopters circling the area, and a man in a broadbrimmed hat holding a remote control.

  ‘I guess it kind of looked like him,’ Doug said, looking shell-shocked.

  Bess cringed. How would she break the news to Jarli? He and Plowman were friends, sort of.

  ‘Poor guy,’ she said. ‘You reckon someone tried to rob him, or what?’

  ‘Back to the bus, everyone,’ Hayes was saying. ‘Follow me.’

  They were still twenty or thirty metres from the lift when the doors opened again . . .

  And a man with a grenade walked out.

  SNAKE PIT

  Jarli looked around. His eyes were still adjusting. The world was a mess of washed-out shapes. He could see people moving, but he couldn’t tell which ones were Anya and Olivia.

  And there was something huge. The size of a rhino or a minivan, swooshing across his field of blurry vision. As soon as he blinked, it was gone.

  We’re under attack, he thought. But there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t even stand up. The noise had messed up his balance. Vertigo— like someone had tampered with his brain.

  A strange thought popped into his head: How did Anya know it was a flash grenade? It had just looked like a soft-drink can.

  The ringing in Jarli’s ears started to fade, and soon he could hear voices. At first it was like listening to a foreign language. The words meant nothing. But then his brain recovered enough to decode the sounds.

  ‘Room one clear!’

  ‘Four civilians neutralised.’

  ‘Doors secure.’

  ‘Rattler, kill the phones. Anaconda, go seal the back exit.’

  Someone grabbed Jarli’s shoulders and shook him like a rag doll. He tried to fight the person off, but it felt like his arms were made of spaghetti.

  The hands let go of him. ‘I figure we have about fifteen minutes before this one’s up and about,’ a voice said.

  ‘Plenty of time. How about the others?’

  ‘Paramedics are immobilised. The girl’s unconscious. Turn on the jammer.’

  ‘I already did.’

  ‘Are the phones down?’

  ‘Yep. No calls in or out.’

  ‘OK. Taipan, Mamba, you two find the target.’

  Jarli blinked furiously, trying to clear the fog from his eyes. He found himself looking at Anya, who was slumped on the floor with a puddle of drool under her mouth. Maybe she’d hit her head on the way down.

  ‘Anya,’ Jarli said. It came out like ‘Nah’. His tongue felt floppy.

  She didn’t react, but someone else did. A tall woman with broad shoulders and a leather jacket approached Jarli. She was carrying a big sword— a cutlass, like the kind a pirate might use.

  ‘You’re awake,’ she said. She had an American accent. Her voice was hard, like a VILLAIN from a video game. ‘Can you hear me?’

  Jarli tried to nod, but his head wouldn’t move. He blinked instead. ‘OK,’ the woman said. ‘Here’s the deal. We’ve sealed the hospital. We’ve cut off all communications. No-one can leave, and no help is coming. But if you do as we say, nobody will get hurt. Got that?’

  Jarli’s phone beeped. LIE

  DO NO HARM

  The man Bess saw coming out of the elevator had a short, military-style haircut and swim goggles over his eyes. He was tossing the grenade from one gloved hand to the other like a cricket ball, and whistling between crooked teeth. Under his black coat, two ammunition belts crossed his chest.

  It was a moment before anybody reacted. Bess had enough time to think, Who wears swim goggles inside? And then: Crikey, that looks like a grenade.And then: That is a grenade!

  She grabbed Doug, who’d been ambling next to her, oblivious. ‘Are you seeing this?’ she whispered.

  Doug froze. His eyes widened in alarm. One of the other kids saw the man and screamed.

  The sound made Hayes turn around. ‘What the . . . everyone get back! The other way, quick!’

  ‘What’s up?’ someone demanded from the back of the group.

  ‘Go that way, towards the stairs!’ Hayes told the students. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it!’ As the grenadier approached, Hayes pulled a red handle on the wall—a fire alarm. A harsh BEEP, BEEP, BEEP filled the corridor. The grenadier ignored the noise, smiling as he strolled towards them.

  The class fled the other way towards the stairwell. Bess fell behind immediately. Her crutches made it hard to run, and it was worse when she was stressed. Her heart hammered her ribs as she limped after the other kids.

  When she risked a look back, she saw that the squat man was following them at a brisk walk. Slower than all the other students, but faster than Bess. He would catch up to her soon. The fear felt like a live animal in her chest.

  Doug noticed that Bess had fallen behind. He ran back and grabbed her arm.

  ‘Lean on me,’ he hissed.

  Bess wrapped her arm around his shoulders. He carried one of her crutches as they hobbled towards the stairs, like in a three-legged race. Faster than the grenadier. But he didn’t look worried that the kids were getting away. He moved like he had all the time in the world.

  ‘Can you make it to the bottom of the stairs?’ Doug asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Pretty quickly, if I fall, Bess thought. It had happened before.

  And then someone screamed up ahead.

  ‘Turn around!’ Hayes yelled. ‘Back to the room!’

  As the kids at the front of the group turned, mouths gaping, faces drained of colour, Bess saw what they had seen. Someone else had emerged from the stairwell. A woman with a vineyard of tattoos on her bare arms, boots which came up to her knees . . . and a crossbow. She looked like a vampire slayer.

  Now the corridor was blocked at both ends. The teacher and students were trapped between a grenade and a crossbow. There was no way out. But maybe they could barricade themselves in one of the surgical theatres.

  Everyone panicked, fleeing from the woman. In the chaos, Bess was nearly knocked over. She clung to Doug, fighting to stay upright.

  ‘I’d advise you all to stay where you are,’ the grenadier shouted from the other end of the corridor.

  But Hayes was holding open the doors to Surgical Theatre 1. ‘Hurry, hurry!’

  The students flooded through the doorway. Doug and Bess were last. Hayes slammed the door behind them.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Dr Lanagan demanded. She was wearing a smock and a surgical mask. A scalpel was in her gloved hand. Plowman lay on an operating table behind her.

  Despite the fire alarm, it didn’t look like the doctors had any plans to evacuate. Maybe just like at school, everyone ignored the beeping stage of the alarm. It wasn’t until the second stage, when the siren wailed, that got people moving.

  ‘Does this door lock?’ Hayes asked.

  ‘You need to leave,’ Lanagan said. ‘Immediately.’

  ‘This room has to be kept sterile,’ Vorham added.

  ‘There are people with weapons outside!’ Hayes shouted. ‘We’re under attack!’

  Lanagan looked shocked. ‘What people? What weapons?’

  Vorham just raised an eyebrow.

  Footsteps approached in the corridor outside.

  Bess looked around for something heavy they could drag in front of the double doors to seal them. But all the furniture was bolted down. Instead, she jammed her crutch through the doorhandles.

  Just in time. The handles rattled as someone pushed from the other side.

  The doors were solid, made of thick wood. The crutch was only aluminium, but it held.

  ‘Locked,’ a voice said. The tattooed woman.

  ‘Hello in there,’ the grenadier called. His voice was oddly formal. ‘I assume you can hear me.’

  Everyone inside the theatre looked at one another in anxious silence. Bess realised she was holding her breath.

  ‘Kids,’ Vorham said quietly. ‘I think you should move away from the door. You too, Mr Hayes.’

  Bess followed as the other students scampered into the corner. But there was nowhere to hide.

  ‘The police are on their way,’ Lanagan shouted. ‘They would have been notified as soon as the fire alarm went off. If I were you, I’d be gone before they get here.’

  ‘I assure you, madam, they are not on their way. We have cut the telephone lines, and brought two frequency jammers to block any communication from mobile phones or other devices. The rest of the hospital staff and patients have been secured in the basement. The only people aware of the fire alarm are those inside this building.’

  As if on cue, the beeping stopped. All the lights in the room flickered at the same moment.

  ‘See? My colleagues and I have plenty of time,’ the grenadier said.

  Bess couldn’t resist digging out her phone to check if he was telling the truth. No signal. They were on their own

  ‘We mean you no harm,’ the grenadier continued. ‘Just give us Mr Plowman, and we’ll be on our way.’ A horrified silence descended. Bess looked at Plowman, unconscious and vulnerable on the operating table.

  ‘He needs immediate medical attention,’ Lanagan said, her voice wavering.

  ‘That’s not your concern.’

  ‘He’s my patient. It is my concern.’

  ‘If you do not release him peacefully, we will take him by force. Mamba, would you care to estimate the number of casualties if we were to blast our way into this room?’

  The tattooed woman just grunted.

  Bess could hear Doug hyperventilating on the floor nearby.

  ‘A rough guess will do,’ the man pressed. ‘How many died in Malburse, when we used explosives to clear a path for our retreat? Twelve? Thirteen? Of course, there were no children there. The comparison isn’t apt.’

  He let that hang in the air.

  The name ‘Malburse’ hit a tripwire in some distant corner of Bess’s mind. But she couldn’t remember where she’d heard it.

  Vorham was whispering to Lanagan. ‘We have a responsibility,’ he said. ‘Not just to our patient, but to these students. They are also in our care.’

  Lanagan shot him a withering look. ‘You really think these kids will be safe if I open this door?’

  ‘Safer than they’ll be if a bomb goes off in the corridor.’ Vorham’s voice remained calm.

  It’s like he wants them to come in, Bess thought.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ the grenadier said.

  ‘He’s my patient,’ Lanagan said loudly. ‘I swore an oath.’

  Bess heard the grenadier sigh. ‘Is that your final answer?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘History will remember you for your foolishness. For the lives you could have saved.’

  ‘History will remember you as the man who blew himself up trying to break through a very strong door.’ Lanagan turned back to the operating table and switched on the laser scalpel. ‘Dr Vorham, get the next transfusion ready,’ she ordered.

  Vorham hung a bag of blood on a hook. ‘It’s our last one,’ he warned.

  ‘You should use the remote detonator, Taipan.’ Mamba’s voice was raspy, as though she was recovering from the flu.

  ‘No. We’d have to switch off the signal jammers. Don’t worry, this will work.’

  Bess braced herself. She and the other students were huddled only five or six metres from the door. If the bad guys tried to blast their way in, the students would be showered with debris. Even if they weren’t hurt, they had no way of protecting Plowman from Mamba and Taipan—

  Bess froze. Mamba and Taipan sounded like codenames. Codenames based on SNAKES.

  Viper is back, she thought.