‘Still,’ Black Eyes says now, his Scottish lilt dancing on the cold air, ‘she’s a strong woman, your mother, a lawyer like your father, but, well, more forthright. She’ll make a good politician when she hits the Spanish parliament after she’s got over her little … illness. Your brother, too—Ramon, isn’t it? Seems like he’s following in their legal footsteps what with his fondness for debate club. Quite the family. And family, Maria, it’s important, keeps us together …’
Black Eyes is leaning in to me so close now, I can see the faint shadow of stubble on his chin, feel the hot garlic and tobacco of his breath on my neck. I want to scream. I want to run a million miles away, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring myself to move, and even if I did run, where would I go? Where would I ever go?
‘You though, Maria—my … our test child,’ Black Eyes says now, ‘for you we have plans. We would like you to become … a doctor. Try and press that into your subconscious, hmmm? Even though this will make all of today fade away. A plastic surgeon, specifically. We need to test your dexterous skills, hone them so they can one day be of use to us. Study in Madrid at the University Hospital there—that’s where one of our handlers resides.’ He smiles, a flash of crooked, tombstone teeth. ‘Do you understand?’
I nod.
‘With words.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good. Because you are the one our conditioning is working on and we wouldn’t want all these trips your mother takes you on to be wasted now, would we?’
‘Mama believes she is taking me to an autism clinic,’ I say, an unexpected flash of defiance streaking through me. ‘She does not know what you really do. You are lying to her.’
He stares at me. He levels his black, bottomless eyes at me and delivers a look so chilling that, even with my emotionally challenged brain, I get a shiver of fright.
‘We have a bit of terrorism to fight out there,’ he continues now as if I had never spoken. ‘Pesky little terrorists trying to break into our computer networks, into our global infrastructures. But now—’ Black Eyes taps my arm, lowers the needle to my skin ‘—now, my dear, sweet Maria—now you will forget …’
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
34 hours and 53 minutes to confinement
I come to. I tumble into the present day, gasping in a sharp gulp of oxygen, falling against the kitchen table in my Salamancan villa, sweat pouring from my brow and arms and bare, wobbly legs. I go to haul myself up, blinking furiously, desperate for water, but almost instantly another subconscious recollection arrives, dragging me back into a deeper, stronger dream. More lucid and glaring.
This time I see myself sitting at a desk in a Project tech lab. The walls are regulation white, and around the bottom are long strips of brushed steel, all bases for junction boxes that contain red and green bulbs that flash on and off by a control panel to the left. Computers sit in pre-allocated slots, controlled acoustics used to minimise background sounds for the subjects, subjects like me who inhabit the zone. There is spatial sequencing and lights and levels that are all compartmentalised to define their use, everything routine, expected.
My fingers tap a keyboard and I notice they are older now, not fifteen this time, but tanned, longer, the fingers of my stronger twenty-year-old self. I am writing detailed notes from memory into an online file, classified Top Secret, scores of data and times and geolocations going directly from my brain to the computer. There is a photograph on the screen of a woman with caramel skin wearing a hijab draped under pink-rose cheeks. She has a prominent, aquiline nose and her eyes are so brown they look as if they are constructed of pure liquid. Her picture is superimposed on the file and as I type, I record details of her, of this woman who I have known for two years but who has now caused problems for the Project. My informant, my asset in the field, code named by me as Raven, a bird symbolising good omens, yet the keeper of deception, of tragedy.
A beep sounds and I stand, quick, lithe, the colt now a thoroughbred as, turning to the right, I march out of the door and to the main corridor warren of the covert Project facility. Scanning the area, I proceed straight to Room Six, where I enter through the thick metal door, shut it and turn.
Raven lies on the floor. She is splattered in blood and on her head, her black veil lies splayed out, torn down to her neck, exposing cut, charred skin and deep, gaunt eyes. Gone is the rose of her cheeks, replaced now by two worn-out hollows, and when I look at her I know she is the enemy, yet for some reason, a lump forms in the base of my throat and I have to swallow it away.
A Project officer, younger, files over to me. He wears a grey shirt made with soft cotton fabric and beneath the front of the right hand shoulder is the letter H followed by a three-digit number.
‘I was called here,’ I say. ‘What do you require?’
He turns to me but makes no eye contact. ‘You need to guard the detainee. I have been asked to go to the control centre. I will be back in three minutes and thirty seconds.’
He turns, exits, and I do not move. My eyes stay ahead, my body now defined, muscles strong, hands skilled and slim from the medical school training.
‘M-Maria?’
The woman lifts her head from her slump on the floor. Her gaze is raised to me but I do not look at her. The lump in my throat tightens.
‘Detainees are not permitted to talk,’ I say, eyes front.
‘It is you, isn’t it? Maria? You … you cut your hair.’ She coughs. Blood speckles the white tiles, and her eyes dart left and right then settle back on me. ‘I know you think I am the enemy, but I am not. That’s just what they made you believe.’ She heaves in oxygen. ‘They set me up, Maria—you have to believe me. They’ll do it to you, too, if they have to. I’m not a terrorist …’ She coughs again, wipes her mouth. ‘They’ll be back soon, so you must listen. There … there is a file. It’s encrypted.’ She licks her cracked lips. ‘It’s on a file within a computer that’s not … that’s not attached to anything, a standalone device. No server is linked to it, but it contains a file that you created, a hidden file, away from the Project. Do you understand? Do you understand what that means?’
‘Detainees are not permitted to talk.’ I strain not to look at her. She is the enemy, and yet her words, her injured presence—they bother me.
‘It has details, the file,’ she continues, ‘ones they cannot track. It will give you what you need—confidential data, who the Project has tested on, the files and names of who they’ve killed. What they’re doing is wrong, Maria. They can’t treat people like this, they can’t act like gods of the world, and yet that’s what they do. Give man power and I give you an eternity of pain.’ She spits out some blood and I fight the urge to wipe it away because, for some reason, I feel connected to this woman but I don’t know why.
‘Maria?’
‘Detainees are not permitted to …’ I trail off, confused, unsure which side she is really on.
‘You are struggling, I know,’ she says now, low, laboured, ‘struggling with who I am … but we were in the field together. Maria, I helped you and you helped me. They’ll mess with your memory after they’ve done with me, like they always do. The file will give you what you need, tell you what you’ve done—the truth! Find out who you really are, Maria! I know you, I do. We were … we were friends.’
My eyes briefly flicker to her then, snapping back into position, I look away. ‘I have no friends.’
The door bolts open and the officer with the H on his shirt returns accompanied by two other, higher ranking officers. They stride to Raven, haul her up, but as they pull her