BLUEMANTLE by Karen Langston (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📕

“What? How?”

“Dump a tonne of Chromatofen down the Alpha site. Drug the whole city. Turn them into drooling pawns. That’s how fucking insecure she is.”

Dent swallowed, struggling to hide his horror.

“Anyway,” said Wulfwin, “that’s between you and me. Understood?”

“Of course.”

Wulfwin straightened and stepped back. “Now, go rest. We start the final round of the game at zero-six-hundred hours. It’s to be done in C-Block infirmary – contain the mess. You’re to attend, whether you’re fit to or not. And, right now, you look like shit.” He sneered, about-turned and marched off.

Dent stared at Wulfwin’s receding form. His hands, then his arms, then his entire body trembled. A wave of nausea almost floored him. He fought back the urge to retch and turned, struggling to open the door. He ran blindly down dim corridors, up stairs and past alarmed troopers. Finally, he reached the door to his quarters, fumbled with the keypad, relying on muscle memory to gain entry. Once inside, he bolted the door, ran into his bathroom and threw up in the basin.

Confident the need to vomit had passed, he stumbled out of the bathroom and collapsed on his bed. He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. The urge to give in to sleep was overwhelming. Feeling himself drift off within seconds, he sat up and forced his eyes open. He needed a plan. It was approaching midnight. Six hours to get Ursel out and away from Wydeye.

Warmth cradled him. Darkness enveloped him. Stillness embraced him…

–

Dent bolted upright, eyes wide, disoriented.

Reality was a landslide, hurtling towards him – rocks of realisation, smashing into his head. Amid the onslaught came a glimpse of the clock above his bed. It was ten past five. He had slept through his best chance of getting Ursel out.

Panicking, Dent’s mind darted this way and that, grasping and discarding ideas as to what to do. Then a thought struck him. He held on to it, convinced it was the only way. Within five minutes, he was marching out of his quarters, dressed in standard-issue fatigues, heading straight for C-Block.

Troopers and Authority medical staff were crawling the building. As Dent strode through the corridors, they saluted him as he passed. No one questioned him.

He bypassed the door to Ursel’s cell and walked straight to the infirmary, which was behind a pair of swing doors at the far end of the corridor. The room was vacant. He checked a door on the left-hand-side and, to his trembling relief, found it unlocked. Silently opening the door, he peered through the crack – another corridor, empty. Then he closed the door, grabbed a steel gurney and wheeled it through the double doors to Ursel’s cell.

The guard at her door stood to attention.

“I’ve come to collect,” said Dent, his voice flat.

“Sir?”

“Commander Wulfwin’s orders. He is coming to interrogate the prisoner in forty-five minutes. I’m to take her to the infirmary and set up the apparatus.”

“I knew she was going through, but I was told zero-six-hundred, sir.”

“That’s when Commander Wulfwin starts. I’m ordered to prepare.”

The guard hesitated, until his doubt was assuaged by practical logic and the orders of a superior officer. “Yes, sir,” he said and unlocked the door.

Dent wasted no time. He picked up the broken frame of his charge and gently placed her on the gurney. He looked over his shoulder to check the guard was out of earshot. Then, forgetting, he whispered to her, telling her not to fear, that he was on her side, he was getting her out, begging her not to scream.

Her body was limp and lifeless. Yet she was breathing, her chest rattling. With deadweight limbs, she offered no resistance. She barely even looked at him, aside from a brief glance through one swollen, bruise-blue socket. Strapping her down was a gesture for appearance’s sake.

As he pushed her out of the cell, he nodded at the guard, who offered a parting salute. Then he wheeled her down the corridor and into the infirmary, in full view of passing troopers and staff. As soon as he was behind the swing doors and out of sight, he unbuckled the straps and wrapped a blanket around her. He knew she was conscious inside her lifeless body. He kept whispering to her, offering gentle assurances, attempting to calm himself by calming her.

From a cupboard, he took out a large piece of folded black plastic and laid it on the floor. A zip ran down the middle, from top to tail. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m going to have to put you in here.” Then he gently laid her in the body bag, leaving a gap in the zip, head end, so that she could breathe. “It won’t be for long.”

He placed the body bag on the gurney and pushed it towards the door on the left. Opening the door, he hesitated before the empty hallway.

This was the part of his last-minute plan that most hinged on desperation and hope. He knew the hallway led to a small morgue, where the deceased were stored until transported to the state’s main facility in Itherside. However, he had no idea if the morgue would be attended by staff, or if the exit, where the bodies were collected for transfer, would be locked. Having made it this far, he had no choice other than to find out for himself.

A mixed result. The room was empty, but the exit was triple-locked.

Trapped, Dent’s mind turned immediately to defence. He bolted the door through which he had come and set a cabinet below the handle. Then he unzipped the body bag and lifted Ursel out, laying her on a blanket, which he wrapped around her battered form. Still she did not move.

Time was running out. He knew Wulfwin would arrive early, eager to play his final hand. Dent looked around, desperation and determination producing a powerful cocktail of adrenalin and ingenuity. His eyes glanced from the refrigerated units against one wall, to a