Lockdown, p.14
Lockdown, page 14
part #4 of Liars Series
Once they had completed their examinations, the doctors turned to leave.
‘Where are you going?’ Jarli asked. ‘Am I infected?’
‘We’ll know more soon,’ one of the doctors said. They all disappeared through the flaps.
Jarli sat there for a while, hugging his knees. Then he was too anxious to stay still, so he paced up and down the length of the tent.
What if I’m dying? he thought. What if they don’t let me see Mum and Dad? What if—
He was interrupted when someone came into the tent. It was Constable Blanco, carrying a bundle of clothes—and not wearing a hazmat suit.
Jarli scrambled away from her, pressing himself into the corner of the tent. ‘Get out!’ he cried. ‘I’m contagious!’
‘You’re not,’ Blanco said. ‘The disease control team say there’s no sign of botulism H or any other pathogen in your system.’
Jarli sagged with relief. ‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ Blanco tossed the clothes to him. ‘Put these on, quickly. I don’t have a lot of time. I’m not supposed to be in here.’
Jarli pulled his shirt on over his head, feeling the anxiousness unravel in his chest. ‘The botulism box—the one in the hazardous materials room—was wide open,’ he said. ‘How could I not be infected?’
‘I haven’t seen the box you’re talking about, but I overheard some hospital staff talking with the other police. Apparently there was supposed to a vacuum flask inside the box—an extra layer of security. It’s missing. Sounds like someone took it before you got there.’
Jarli hesitated, halfway through pulling his pants up. ‘You think the bad guys stole it?’
‘It’s possible,’ Blanco admitted.
‘Why would Viper want a container of botulism H?’
‘It’s a worry, that’s for sure. Who is he?’
Jarli was confused. ‘Who?’
‘Viper.’
‘I don’t know.’
Blanco stared at him. ‘You sent me a message. You said you’d identified him.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Jarli was even more confused now.
‘Are you messing with me?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Here. I’ll show you.’ Blanco pulled out her phone and brought up an email. She handed the phone to Jarli.
Jarli frowned at the screen. The message appeared to have come from his email address. But that could easily be faked.
‘I didn’t send this,’ he said. ‘Someone must have hacked my emails—or they could have spoofed my address using a PHP mail script.’
Blanco looked like she was about to say something else when Bess and Anya came in. Both were limping and covered in dust and sweat. But Bess was grinning from ear to ear.
‘We did it!’ she said. ‘All the criminals are getting loaded into police cars outside!’
Even Anya was smiling. ‘And I am not dying!’ she said.
‘Kelton: one,’ Bess said. ‘Bad guys: zero.’
Jarli hugged them both. ‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ he said. He didn’t mention the missing flask of botulism or the mysterious email—he didn’t want to spoil the moment. And he was too exhausted to wonder what it might mean.
‘Where’s Doug?’ he asked instead.
Bess’s smile faded. Her chin dimpled like she was about to cry.
‘What’s wrong? Where is he?’ Jarli asked again.
‘He, uh . . .’ Bess swallowed. ‘He didn’t make it.’
The shock almost knocked Jarli off his feet. ‘What? What happened?’
Bess explained about the underground prison, and the furnace, and the chimney. Jarli listened in growing horror. His friend had been burned alive.
‘He might have . . . I mean, maybe he made it to the roof in time,’ Jarli said, when Bess finished.
‘I heard him screaming,’ Bess choked. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she couldn’t.
Jarli hugged her again, tears brimming over in his own eyes. Doug had been just a kid, like them. A decent kid, underneath his grouchy attitude. He’d risked his life to save Jarli’s, several times. While working on Doug’s robot they had become true friends, not that Jarli had ever said so. Now Doug was gone.
‘The police haven’t found his remains,’ Blanco said.
‘Meaning that he could have escaped?’ Jarli said, clutching at straws.
Or that he burned away to nothing, said a gloomy voice in his head.
‘If he survived,’ Blanco said, ‘we don’t know where he is.’
Jarli wiped the tears on his sleeve. ‘I want to go up there. To the roof.’
‘Me too,’ Bess said, sniffling.
Blanco shook her head. ‘It’s been searched. He’s not there.’
‘I don’t care,’ Jarli snapped. ‘I have to see for myself.’
‘We don’t have time for this—’
‘What about Plowman?’ Anya interrupted. ‘Is he alive?’
‘Yes, believe it or not,’ Blanco said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought someone could survive getting squashed in a car crusher and then getting amateur brain surgery, but it turns out that he’s a tough nut.’
‘Perhaps Viper is not an amateur,’ Anya said.
‘Well, he used a surgical robot—I don’t know how much skill was required on his part. Maybe it’s like using a self-driving car, or a robot vacuum. The machine has all the skill.’
Bess cleared her throat, but her voice still wobbled. ‘I overheard the criminals talking. They said Viper had done it before.’
‘Brain surgery?’ Blanco stroked her chin. ‘Now that,’ she said, ‘is interesting.’
‘Why did Viper want to do surgery on Plowman in the first place?’ Anya asked.
‘OK, this is where things get weird,’ Blanco said.
Jarli hung his head. This was where things got weird?
‘I’ve been investigating privately. I think Plowman figured out Viper’s identity,’ Blanco continued. ‘And he was smart enough to realise that this put him in terrible danger. So he added the information to Supply Chain.’
‘Which is what, again?’ Bess said.
‘It’s a string of encrypted data which can’t be changed or deleted by anyone, ever,’ Jarli said numbly. ‘People use it for cryptocurrencies.’
‘But it can also be used for recording other kinds of information,’ Blanco said. ‘Such as the names of criminal masterminds. Dana Reynolds has been digging too. She says Plowman changed his will. The new will stated that if Plowman died, his password would be made public. Everyone would be able to see everything he’d ever added to Supply Chain. And he adapted his pacemaker to broadcast his heart rate, so the will would be automatically activated as soon as his heart stopped.’
‘So if Viper killed Plowman,’ Jarli said slowly, ‘then everyone would find out who Viper was.’
‘Right. But Plowman’s threat would only be effective if Viper knew about it. So he reached out to a couple of people. I thought you must have been one of them.’
‘Why me?’
‘He probably trusted you because of your app,’ Blanco said. ‘But his plan didn’t work. Viper was too quick. He found out what Plowman knew before news about the will reached him, and got his men to put Plowman in a car crusher.’
‘But that means we can see it.’ Anya sounded eager. ‘We can look at Supply Chain and find out who Viper is!’
But Jarli already knew what Blanco was about to say.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s encrypted and unhackable. We can’t get to the data without Plowman’s password.’
‘But surely he will give it to you when he wakes up?’ Anya said. ‘He sounds like one of the good guys.’
‘He’s already awake,’ said Blanco grimly. ‘And he says he doesn’t remember the password.’
Jarli was aghast. ‘That’s what the brain surgery was for? To erase a password from his brain?’
‘Not just the password,’ Blanco said. ‘All knowledge of Viper. He didn’t even know what we were talking about. Viper couldn’t kill Plowman, and couldn’t threaten him, so he just removed himself from Plowman’s mind.’
‘Wow,’ Anya said. ‘That is brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.’
Jarli sat down on the bench. They were back to square one.
‘Don’t lose hope,’ Blanco said. ‘The police will retrace Plowman’s movements over the last few weeks. Who he met, what he did. Maybe he’ll remember something. Or maybe they’ll find whatever evidence he found, and identify Viper independently. I wish they’d let me help.’
It did sound like a lot of work. Jarli sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was so tired.
‘Do you think they’ll let us take the rest of the week off school?’ he asked.
Bess patted him on the back. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday, buddy. Keep up.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He still couldn’t remember Thursday.
Suddenly a strange feeling came over him. It was like the sense that he’d lost something important, but he wasn’t sure what.
‘Anya,’ he said. ‘This morning you said I’d sent you a message.’
Anya nodded. ‘Have you remembered what it was about?’
‘No. Can I see it? The message.’
‘Sure.’ Anya brought it up and handed her phone over.
The text message appeared to be from Jarli’s phone. Much harder to fake than an email address.
‘I looked for you the next day,’ Anya said. ‘But you were sick.’
‘I don’t remember being sick.’ Baffled, Jarli ran his hands through his hair—
And then he felt them. Hidden in his hair, at the back of his scalp.
STITCHES.
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First edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited, 2019.
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Text © Jack Heath 2019.
Illustration and design copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2019. Additional illustrations. Cover: concrete floor © leolintang/Shutterstock.com; fire © polygraphus/Shutterstock.com; magnetic resonance imaging© MriMan/Shutterstock.com; modern laboratory © F16-ISO100/Shutterstock.com; running man © istockphoto.com/PeteSherrard. Internals: banner © istockphoto.com/Lava4images; dark-haired woman bySage Kirk on Unsplash; falling ashes by Nazym Jumadilova on Unsplash; frame © istockphoto.com/gn8; grunge border © Gordan/Shutterstock.com; map icon © ananaline/Shutterstock.com; sports © Luciano Cosmo/Shutterstock.com.
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Jack Heath, Lockdown
