The Girl With All the Gifts(29)

She throws her weight against the straps, struggles desperately, but they don’t move at all.

“Should we try some isoflurane?” Dr Selkirk asks. Her voice is unsteady. She sounds like she might be going to cry.

“They don’t respond,” Dr Caldwell says. “You know that. I refuse to waste one of our last few cylinders of general anaesthetic making the experimental subject feel vaguely drowsy. Please remember, Doctor, that the subject presents as a child but is actually a fungal colony animating a child’s body. There’s no place for sentiment here.”

“No,” Dr Selkirk agrees. “I know.”

She picks up a knife, of a kind that Melanie has never seen before. It has a very long handle and a very short blade–the blade so thin that when it’s edge-on to her, it’s almost invisible. She holds it out to Dr Caldwell.

“I want to go back to the classroom,” Melanie says again.

The knife slips through Dr Selkirk’s fingers and falls to the floor just before Dr Caldwell can take it. It makes a ringing sound as it hits, and again as it bounces. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dr Selkirk yelps. She bends to pick it up, hesitates, straightens again and takes another from the instrument tray instead. She flinches from Dr Caldwell’s glare as she hands it over.

“If the noise is troubling you,” Dr Caldwell says, “I’ll remove the pharynx first.” And she puts the cold edge of the blade against Melanie’s throat.

“It’ll be the last f*cking thing you ever do,” says Miss Justineau’s voice.

The two women pause in their work and look towards the door. Melanie can’t at first, because if she raises her head she’ll cut her own throat on the blade of the knife. But then Dr Caldwell moves her hand away, and she’s free to bend her neck and take a peek.

Miss Justineau is standing in the doorway. She’s holding something in her hands–a red cylinder with a black tube attached to one side of it. It seems to be pretty heavy.

“Good morning, Miss Justineau,” Melanie says. She’s dizzy with relief, but the ridiculous, inadequate words are hard-wired into her. She couldn’t keep them in if she tried.

“Helen,” Dr Caldwell says. “Please come in, won’t you? And close the door. This isn’t exactly an antiseptic environment, but we’re doing our best.”

“Put the scalpel down,” Miss Justineau says. “Now.”

Dr Caldwell frowns. “Don’t be absurd. I’m in the middle of a dissection.”

Miss Justineau advances into the room, stopping only when she comes to the bottom end of the table where Melanie’s bare feet are strapped down. “No,” she says, “you’re at the start of a dissection. If you were in the middle of it, we wouldn’t be talking right now. Put the scalpel down, Caroline, and nobody gets hurt.”

“Oh dear,” Dr Caldwell says. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?”

“That’s kind of up to you.”

Dr Caldwell glances at Dr Selkirk, who hasn’t made a move or said a word since Miss Justineau came into the room. She’s just standing there with her mouth half open, her hands clasped to her chest. She looks like someone who’s staring at a hypnotist’s watch and is about to go under.

“Jean,” Dr Caldwell says. “Call security, please, and tell them to come and remove Helen from the theatre.”

Dr Selkirk glances at the phone on the work surface and takes a half-step in that direction. Miss Justineau swings round a lot faster and brings the fire extinguisher down on the phone. The handset breaks in two with a dry, complicated crunching sound. Dr Selkirk jumps back.

“Yeah, look at it, Jean,” Miss Justineau tells her. “The next time you move, you’re getting this right in your face.”

“And you’ll make the same threat if I try to go to the door, or the window, I suppose,” Dr Caldwell says. “Helen, I don’t think you’ve thought this through. It really doesn’t matter whether I call off this procedure or not. You can take Melanie out of the lab, but you can’t take her out of the base. Every gate is guarded, and outside the gate there are perimeter patrols. There is no way you can stop this.”

Miss Justineau doesn’t answer, but Melanie knows that Dr Caldwell is wrong. Miss Justineau can do anything she wants to do. She’s like Prometheus, and Dr Caldwell is like Zeus. Zeus thought he was big and clever because he was a god, but the Titans weren’t scared of him at all. Of course, in the story, the Titans lost in the end–but Melanie is in no doubt about who’s going to win this battle.

“I’ll take it one step at a time,” Miss Justineau growls. “Jean, undo those straps.”

“Don’t,” Dr Caldwell says quickly, “do anything of the kind.” She gives Dr Selkirk a brief, fierce stare as she says this, then turns her full attention back to Miss Justineau.

And softens on the instant. “Helen, you’re not well. The situation here has put all of us under terrible strain. And this fantasy of rescuing the test subject… well, it’s part of your response to that stress. We’re all friends, and colleagues. Nobody is going to be reported. Nobody is going to be punished. We’re going to work this out, because really there isn’t any alternative.”

Miss Justineau hesitates, lulled by this gentleness.