A Class Apart
Chapter 14 – Lockdown
James tried to assess his options. He could just teleport out, but he didn’t want to leave Sam. He wouldn’t be able to take Dr Soames too, which made him feel guilty. But he felt it was more important to rescue Sam first. Or he could stay and fight, but he had struggled to take on Emma Venton on her own last time. If each of the other sleepwalkers were as strong as her then he stood no chance.
James was being edged towards the ward doors, as though the sleepwalkers were trying to eject him from the room. There were now four sleepwalkers, including Nurse Winter, between him and Sam.
Then DI Stannard returned to the ward, and she was between him and the door. James was hoping to manoeuvre the four sleepwalkers that were in front of him as far away from Sam as possible, but they stood their ground.
Awww, forget this! James decided that too much thinking and not enough action would get him nowhere. He threw caution to the wind, and vanished into thin air.
The sleepwalkers looked around in confusion. Dr Soames was both fascinated and dumbfounded at the same time.
James materialised a second later at the far side of the ward, near the window and close to Sam’s bed. He had hoped to be closer. The landings always left him feeling slightly light-headed, and so it took him a few valuable seconds to orient himself. He made a dash for Sam’s bed, but he wasn’t quick enough. Emma Venton reached him first and swept an arm into his stomach, knocking him back across the ward and into the far wall. He doubled up, crumpling to the ground. James felt sick, but fortunately recovery came quickly. He stood up, but now he was even further away from Sam, and all of the sleepwalkers were arranged between him and his sister, with Nurse Winter standing right near Sam’s bed, guarding it.
Sam looked on helplessly. What could she do? If she tried using her flame power then she risked burning down the hospital and killing everyone. So there wasn’t much else except... A moment of inspiration struck. She tried adjusting her position to see if she could lean down under the bed and unlock the brake that kept the bed in its current position. As she feared, she couldn’t quite reach. Already prepared, she took hold of one of the metal handrails beside her bed. She gripped hard and gave a determined heave, expecting to meet a considerable resistance. Instead the metal snapped like it was a chocolate wafer. Which, thought Sam, I could really do with right now.
Now she was able to lean down to look under the bed and use the piece of metal handrail to release the brake. No problem! She looked at James and the sleepwalkers. No one was paying any attention to her, which was good. The next bit was tricky. She simply had no idea of how strong she was, so she was going to have to take a chance. She sat up in the bed and angled the piece of metal over her head, so one end was resting against the wall, and the other was held in both her hands. She pushed hard, hoping she had produced enough force to send the bed moving. She had. It fired forward at speed and sent Nurse Winter, Jerome, Anika and Emma flying like skittles as it skewed in a 45-degree arc and crashed into the empty bed the other side of the ward.
James took his chance. Only an empty bed stood between him and his sister now. He dashed forward and jumped onto it, then dropped to the floor the other side. His mind suddenly went blank. He had a brief mental image of his bedroom at home, but then that disappeared as he wondered if that would be too far to travel. He summoned up the image of the McDonalds restaurant on the ground floor of the hospital. That would be safe enough. He reached forward to touch Sam’s outstretched hand. He was aware of a fast movement in his peripheral vision but he closed his eyes, felt the touch of a hand, and there was a moment of disorientation.
When he opened his eyes he was indeed in the McDonalds restaurant. It was empty except for himself and DI Stannard, who stood next to him, clinging on to his hand.
Damn! It had almost worked. Stannard had got there first. He felt like a striker who had just tee’d up his shot, only for a defender to take the ball off his toe at the last minute. Stannard looked disoriented. In a second her head would clear. What should he do?
Sam groaned. So close. So, so close! She had been a fingertip away from touching her brother’s hand. She had guessed what he was trying to do, and if it had not been for DI Stannard’s quick movement, she would have been safe. Now what?
The sleepwalkers all picked themselves up off the floor and looked around in a daze. Nurse Winter reacted first. She started to move Sam’s bed back into its previous position.
“I don’t think we’ll be letting you have your tea after what you’ve just done, do you?” asked Nurse Winter huffily, as if Sam had just thrown a cup of tea over her clean uniform. “I think you should lie there, hungry, thinking about your behaviour.”
Nurse Winter heaved the bed so that it was finally back next to the locker. As she was pushing, she was leaning forward, and Sam could see down into the pocket of her apron. She could see the syringe and a small glass bottle of something that the nurse had used to inject her in her room on floor 16. Nurse Winter applied the brake to the bed again. Then she broke the handle off the brake with her bare hands. The bed would not be moving again.
“That’s better,” said Nurse Winter. She reached across Sam to adjust her bed sheets and tuck her in properly.
“You just concentrate on getting better now,” she said, all trace of animosity gone. Sam’s eyes were fixed on the needle and bottle in the nurse’s pocket. What had she got to lose? While Nurse Winter was pulling at her sheets, she slid her hand into the pocket and deftly pulled out the syringe and vial, then hid them under the sheets. Nurse Winter seemed not to have noticed. Sleepwalker, thought Sam gratefully.
The nurse then went over to the other side of the ward and started marshalling Emma Venton, Jerome Lake and Anika Ali into bed. Not that they needed marshalling. They simply obeyed.
Sam held up the bottle and needle for Dr Soames to see. His eyes widened and he mimed to her to throw the items over. She took a quick look in Nurse Winter’s direction. She was facing the other way. Sam threw the bottle over and Dr Soames caught it easily in his left hand, then slipped it in his pocket. Sam checked again, then threw the syringe. She made sure the needle went sideways on, not like a dart, so it couldn’t hurt anyone. It was safer, but harder to judge. Soames fumbled it. It dropped onto Philip’s bed and started rolling towards the floor. Soames recovered and caught it before it reached the floor. He slipped the needle into his other pocket.
Nurse Winter looked around. Dr Soames looked back at Nurse Winter. She smiled. Soames smiled back. They just had to wait for their chance.
Jasmin and Dave had come across an unexpected problem. They had planned simply to take a lift up to floor 36. The problem they had encountered was that all the lifts seemed to be out of action. On floor three there were two porters in charge of a patient on a bed, waiting impatiently for the lift to arrive. On floor four they found a bigger, bad-tempered, group of nurses and porters. On floor five an even larger, angrier, group appeared to want to start a riot. On floor six a fight had broken out.
Curiously, nobody seemed aware of the bigger events taking place outside the hospital, and indeed elsewhere in the building. Dave took some footage of the fight, more out of personal interest than professional responsibility.
Fortunately, Jasmin and Dave were both very fit people. Jasmin went to the gym every day and dance classes twice a week, while Dave played five-a-side football three times a week. Even so, the stairs were a daunting task and, with Dave carrying the camera, by the time they reached floor ten they had decided to stop at the restaurant to revise their plans. Jasmin phoned Tommy, to find he was there too, enjoying a cup of coffee and a doughnut.
“Can’t do any work, can I,” he said, cheerfully, into the handset.
He caught sight of Jasmin as she walked through the door. He waved. She waved back and put her phone away. Tommy wolf-whistled at Jasmin. She had found ‘disguises’ for herself and Dave. She was wearing a nurse’s uniform. One that was too tight, and amazingly sho
rt, Tommy noted appreciatively. Dave Sturn looked ridiculous in his jeans, polo shirt and a long white coat.
“Where’d you get that outfit?” Tommy asked.
Jasmin just tapped her nose secretively.
“I didn’t know there was an Ann Summers on the ground floor,” he laughed. “Great disguise. No one will be looking at you.” He glanced back at Dave. “Actually you fit right in as a junior doctor.”
Dave made a gesture with his finger.
“You just walk up ten flights of stairs?” asked Tommy.
They nodded, sinking into the seats. “The lifts are all stuck on one floor,” Tommy explained.
“Which floor?”
“Don’t know. But I’m not running up to each floor to find out. It’d probably be, like, the top floor knowing my luck.”
“What’s happening on the top floor? Have you been up there?”
“No. But I tell you, this hospital is crazy! The top five floors aren’t used. Or they weren’t. But that’s where they moved Samantha Blake. The ward that James Blake was in, that’s half empty too. Dr Soames, he’s up there an’ all.”
This all seemed a bit vague and casual to Jasmin. Not how she thought hospitals were run.
“Did you know that the bottom two floors are virtually empty? From what we saw, there’s only a skeleton staff down there looking after patients who can’t be moved. There’s riot police on the ground floor stopping anyone getting in.”
“Blimey. Not heard anything about that.” Tommy took another bite of his doughnut. A blob of jam fell onto the table. He seemed more bothered about that.
Jasmin looked around the restaurant. It was busier than usual, and the clientele seemed to be mainly staff and elderly people. People who were less inclined to use the stairs, she mused.
“There’s an old friend,” murmured Tommy, nodding in the direction behind Jasmin.
She turned around to see Mr and Mrs Randerson standing behind her. The phrase ‘bulldog chewing a wasp’ leapt to Jasmin’s mind when she saw the expression on Mrs Randerson’s face.
“Miss Sharma. I’d like a word with you,” Mrs Randerson said. Jasmin groaned.
“Oh please, Mrs Randerson, don’t put me in detention. Don’t you think there are more serious issues going on than your interview?”
“There are indeed,” Mrs Randerson agreed. “We’re going up to see Philip now.”
Mr Randerson held up two shopping bags, which Jasmin could see contained sandwiches and other food items.
“We’d like you to come too, please,” he said.
“I think it might be a bit of a walk up the stairs to floor 17, don’t you? The lifts are broken.”
“Philip is on the top floor,” Mr Randerson corrected her. He sounded proud. “And there will be no problem getting there.”
Sam was feeling uncomfortable. Dr Soames was unable to contain his wonder at the abilities that she and her brother had displayed.
“That was incredible, what you and James did,” marvelled Dr Soames. “Have you always been able to do things like that?”
Sam shook her head.
“Nothing shows up in either your or your brother’s blood tests or X-rays to suggest there is anything significantly different about you,” he mused. “But it’s just fantastic. James healed from his major injuries in a few days. Now he seems to be able to heal at an even faster rate. Perhaps you will be able to as well? I wish I could examine your legs.”
Sam shrugged. She didn’t really like talking about this. Dr Soames was making her skin crawl.
“Should we ever get out of this, I’d like to do some tests on you both,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Sam felt a slight sweat creeping up her spine. She didn’t want more tests. Something inside her said that tests would be bad. If the tests she’d had so far had revealed nothing, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that more specific examinations would be really horrible.
“It’s only since the accident?” Soames clarified, full of academic interest in the case, his own plight temporarily forgotten.
Sam nodded, still not speaking.
“I wonder if the accident triggered something in your body? I’ve no idea what or how. But a near-death experience, a sudden rush of adrenalin, perhaps combined with your body already changing in puberty...” he shrugged, trying to gauge all the possibilities. “I’m sure we’d be able to find out how. It’s incredible.”
Sam had no intention of being a guinea pig. Her dad would protect her. She changed the subject.
“Why did you think I was close to Philip?” she asked.
Dr Soames looked momentarily annoyed at being snapped out of his speculative analysis.
“What?” he asked.
“Earlier,” Sam reminded him. “You said that you knew Philip and I were close. Why did you think that?”
“Oh. Ummm.” Dr Soames cast his mind back to try and think what had given him that idea. “I think Mr and Mrs Randerson mentioned something about it earlier. They wanted Philip to have a private room. They knew you had one. Mrs Randerson said it would be better for both of you if you were closer together. And your brother was reading to Philip and talking to him. I thought perhaps you were all close friends.”
Sam shrugged. That wasn’t really how she would describe it. She noticed, however, that Nurse Winter was standing over Ivan Reddington. Her back was turned. Sam nodded to Dr Soames.
Quickly and expertly, Dr Soames refilled the needle from the bottle, stowed the bottle in one pocket of his jacket, and the needle in the other. They were ready.
DI Stannard had fainted. James had caught her and laid her gently on the floor – which was impressively clean, he noted. Say what you like about McDonalds, but it was always spotless.
He tried to wake Stannard up. He could hear a commotion coming from the reception area. There was a large throng of people, predominantly police in riot gear. James wanted to go and get help, but he had a sense that the mood of the people was ugly. He elected to wait for a minute and find out what was happening.
The restaurant must have been evacuated in a hurry. There was a tray of large fries and a burger and Coke on the counter, untouched. James carefully reached up and brought the tray down to floor level. He had a good view out into the main reception area. He ate hungrily while he watched events unfold.
PC Nelson was worried. All the entrances and exits to the hospital had been secured, but they had a near-riot on their hands. Harden had arranged for ambulances to be rerouted to other hospitals. However outpatients, visitors and hospital staff were still turning up in droves, all demanding to know why they weren’t being allowed in to the building. Meanwhile staff inside, who had heard there was a security alert, were clamouring for an explanation as to why an alarm hadn’t been sounded and insisting on being allowed to leave. Nelson wondered what was happening to all the other people in the hospital. Did they even know anything was going on?
PC Nelson was grateful for the arrival of Chief Inspector Harden, accompanied by PC O’Brien, as they emerged from the only functioning lift. O’Brien remained in the lift, holding the doors open. Harden took a megaphone from one of the other officers.
“Sir, all hell is breaking loose down here,” shouted PC Nelson.
Harden walked straight past him. He clambered up onto the reception desk and started speaking through the megaphone.
“Your attention please. There has been a security alert in the hospital. Please leave the hospital as instructed. For those of you outside the building, please do not try to enter. You need to leave the grounds of the hospital immediately for your own safety.”
There was another uproar as a hundred voices from inside and out tried to make themselves heard. Harden put down his megaphone. Through the closed doors, he caught sight of Roger and Yvonne Blake pressed up against the glass, trying to attract his attention. He walked towards them. Yvonne Blake waved hopefully and desperately at him. He met their gaze for a short while, then turned his back. He spoke to
the nearest officer, a 22-year-old man called Fitzgerald.
“First chance you get, lad, have those two at the front arrested for breach of the peace.”
Fitzgerald looked unsure, but Harden’s gaze was determined. Fitzgerald could feel his will buckling as his superior’s eyes bore into his own.
“Yessir.”
Harden marched back to the lift, and he and O’Brien went soaring back to floor 36.
Fitzgerald opened the door to the hospital so they could usher the hospital staff out into the car park.
Roger Blake put a foot in the door.
“Please. I have to speak to Chief Superintendent Harden. My children are in there.”
“Step back from the door please, sir,” Fitzgerald ordered.
Instead, Roger tried to push his way forward. Fitzgerald grabbed him by the arm, turned him around, read him his rights and handcuffed him.
Roger Blake looked at his wife incredulously. He had just been arrested.