11.50.
The fart seems to put Tamba swiftly to sleep. I shut the door to a crack, listen. A soft snore rasps from his voicebox. Like a baby that has been burped, he sleeps blissfully. I squeeze the door shut behind me.
* * *
I tiptoe down the corridor to the cultivation hall. I sit on the first spiral stair, panting for no reason other than I am about to commit mass suicide. I pull on my sneakers, gaze at the door in the white nightmare light. A big obstruction has appeared in my throat, soft but intractable, like a lump of Janeé’s batter. Air sneaks through my nostrils, keeps me living. I walk to the door.
‘Na me sahn,’ Cecilia called me. Light of my life.
* * *
The door swings open as if on a spring. Salt sprays on my black trousers, scatters on the floor. It can’t be true.
I stare at the torn paper hanging from the latch. It worked!
* * *
The prisoners are jerking from their wombs, teetering on their buttocks, their eyelids torn open. I leave the door ajar, set my cell phone to Whisper. Josiah is staring, the scars in his eyes as thick as keloid tissue. He committed mass murder, my mind howls at me. How can you free him?
No. The sachet of salt is all I must think of.
I must not judge.
Samuel is crouching as if at a starter block. Vicki is on her hands and knees, gazing at me. Eulalie’s hands are flat against the door of her cage, ready to shove. Sweat trickles from the plastic sacs against my belly-button. I must do what the dream woman said, in case this is the last time we ever speak. I go close to the witch, type in the open.
My African translator whispers, ‘I dreamed of a woman with a white streak in her hair.’
Eulalie’s breath rasps in.
‘She said you must marry the man with the wife in ashes.’
Eulalie groans. She nods, her grey eyes smouldering in the eerie dimness. ‘The man who loves me.’ She touches her crown. ‘His wife was struck by lightning when she was three.’
Of course! The man with the wife in ashes.
Vicki brings us back to terrifying reality. ‘Malachi?’
I check my timepiece. ‘Eleven fifty-eight. At midnight I will cut the power off. You only have three seconds to open up.’
The whisper flies down the aisles as if on a bird’s wings. The wings shut to stillness. We wait, all of us, barely breathing.
I check my wrist. ‘One minute,’ I type.
I watch the numbers switch to 11.59. Hold up one finger. Vicki whispers for me:
‘One.’
The prisoners take up the count. ‘Two. Three. Four . . .’ Eulalie counts too, her eyes curiously happy. I turn my back on Vicki’s frightened, counting mouth.
‘Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen . . .’
I run from the hall.
I fly up the spiral stairs, crouch on the second-highest step. My fingers find the metal flap easily. I shine my cell phone light onto it. It is striated, covered with greasy paint. I can’t get the damn thing up.
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine . . . Thirty seconds to get it open.
I dig my sore fingers into the seam, pull hard on it. My fingers slip. I do a crooked backward somersault down three stairs. My head hits the metal. Something trickles down my temple. Blood.
I shudder, check the time. Nineteen seconds. I launch at the metal plate again, croak softly, ‘Please!’
My scrabbling fingertips sink into a slit along the top edge. It flicks down easily.
Down, not up, Tamba!
11.59.51. I have nine seconds.
I peer into the opening. A bulbous switch, good for the fingers of an extraterrestrial.
Fifty-three. Fifty-four . . .
Down or up? I wiggle it. It won’t budge.
Five seconds. Help me!
A strange calm soaks my nerves in gentle sunlight. It sinks into my muscles, sends signals to my brain. I explore the centimetres around the switch. Yes. There is a tiny track to the left. This is a sideways switch.
Fifty-nine . . .
I jam my hand against it.
Sudden shocking darkness. The silence of a sleeping whale. I count. One. Two.
Do I hear the soft sound of thirty-nine simultaneous clicks?
The whirring, the clicking of machines returns to the metal arachnid. The misty lights flicker like birthday candles above me.
Happy birthday, Malachi.
The rig did nothing more than hold its breath for three seconds. Electricity hums through its steel skin, its heart beats relentlessly. I smile like a man who has suffered damage to his amygdala, the part of the brain that receives lethal danger signals. One breath gets my sneakers all the way down the spiral.
* * *
As I burst through the door of the cultivation hall, I am met by a straggling line of creatures who have only just evolved into Homo erectus. They rock sideways on their spines, unsteady on their legs. They cling to their cages, shuffle towards me.
I blow air between my teeth.
‘Shhh.’ I press my finger to my lips. One silly word makes me their leader.
The prisoners let go of their cages, stumble towards the one who has promised them a chance to do something other than shit liquid and suffer recurring, live autopsies. These people are too frail to reach the deck, surely. Still, I beckon wildly. Come. Quickly!
Vicki thrusts her long legs forward like a newborn foal. She buckles. Samuel pulls her up, his hips more powerful than they seemed when he was caged. His penis looks longer than it did when he was sitting. Eulalie collapses to her hands and knees, smiling like this is a party game. The yellow man grabs her shoulders, wrenches her from the floor. Where is the Indian? Eulalie might be excellent at communicating with spirits, but she is useless with satellite technology.
There he is. Barry, the fat Australian, is holding on to Vihaan as he grunts and grinds down the aisle. Barry falls to his knees, but he keeps a stubborn grip on the
