Chapter Five - The Facility

At the Facility, young James Edwards notices something out of place.

“Kurt, have you seen the score?” James exclaimed as he sat down beside his colleague. Kurtis Hendriks was reading an article about the Large Hedron Collider when James burst in. 

“No, I have not.” He said as he closed the rag, slipping in his thumb to hold his place, then turned wearily toward James. “What was it?”

“We won.” The ginger man said through a line of teeth. He was clearly more excited about the game of cricket than Kurt had ever been. 

“That’s great!” Blonde man said with what little excitement he could muster. He opened up his magazine again and turned away from the cricket junky. “Keep an eye on the screens for a bit, will you. I am in the middle of the first decent article this mag has had in years.” Kurt leaned back in his chair and settled into the article, leaving James to admire the views on the screens. 

James had only been stationed at the Midlands Facility for a little over four months and already Kurt was wishing he had never come. The lanky, freckled ginger was just too damned happy for his liking, and in Kurt’s experience of the job, that was a bad thing. He had long ago decided that this kind of personality in this kind of job only meant that James was one of two things " naive or unstable. Kurt was hoping the kid was the former, which would only take a little experience to solve. 

The door in the guard room opened behind the men and a tall dark-haired man entered. He crossed the room swiftly and picked his badge from its place on the wall. William Tolby, greeted them as he slipped in card through the digital clock machine. A moment later he was gone. 

“Shift change came early.” James chirped as he watched the outer video feed and saw Tolby exit the building and begin doing his patrol on the North side of the complex. 

“Kebbler got the s***s, so the doc sent him back to base.” Kurt replied, without so much as looking up from his magazine. “and if you don’t give me a little bit of quiet to read my magazine, you may land up in the same boat.”

James raised his eyebrows as he took in the threat. He was quite taken aback by it, but didn’t venture to query it. It just seemed a better idea to sit quietly and watch the televisions that showed the same show every night for what seemed to him an eternity.

The black and white image shifted as the camera scanned its field of view. When it had turned left as far as it could, it looked parallel with the side of the building and he could see Tolby turn around at the end of his patrol route and head back along the walk way. Something caught James’ eyes as the camera began to swivel back around. It looked to him like a window had opened in the upstairs bathroom. He watched it intently as it finished it oscillation and began turning back. When it had returned to it previous position, Tolby was gone.

“Kurt, look at this.” He said as reached out a hand to tap his senior colleague on the shoulder. 

Kurt grunted and looked up. On the screen Tolby was absent from his post. “He probably passed under the camera as it turned, there is a blind spot underneath it.” As he spoke, the camera swivelled around, and as the opposite end of the walkway came into view, the men sat bolt upright. Tolby was gone. Kurt grabbed the cordless telephone from its holder on the wall and hurriedly dialled the extension of his patrol manager Simian.

“Simian, Tolby is off the park. Send somebody out to investigate.” He barked an order into the receiver and listened as the man accepted the order and hung up. Kurt turned back to James, “what did you see?” his face was red as he spoke.

James told Kurt everything that he had seen and done. 

“Take the radio and go find that window.” He turned to James as he spoke. “Channel twenty-one.”

James jumped up from his seat and took a radio from the charge port on the shelf and rushed out the door into the corridor. In the corridor everything was calm and quiet like nothing was going on. This facility had always made him uneasy. He was to date still unsure if it was meant to be a prison or a hospital, or a prison-hospital. Every grey corridor looked the same " the same deep door well set with heavy steel doors. Every one of these cold doors had a small armour glass window. He had only ventured a peek into one of these windows once. The cell had been empty, but on the back was was a large unmistakeable smear of blood. It had been dark and almost burnt sienna, which meant that it had been there over a day. The scene was still deeply etched into his memory, regularly inducing horrid nightmares. At last he came to the elevator that would take him up to the upper floor. 

When the doors opened on the upper floor, he was met by a senior guard who requested his ID badge. James presented him with his ID badge and when the guard was satisfied that he was who he said that he was, he let James continue on his way. The nurses turned to watch him rushing down the corridor, then turned back to their work, puzzles and games. He had recognised the window as the lavatory window, as the lavatories were the only room on the upper level that had windows. The reason for this was the patients were unstable and could throw themselves out of windows if left unattended in their wards. The windows in the toilets were smaller and the patients were never allowed to leave their wards unattended. 

James reached the toilets and pushed open the door. He gasped when he saw the man lying prostrate on the floor, with blood seeping from his head and forming a pool on the ground. He pulled the radio from his pocket, turned the dial to twenty-one and pressed the transmitter.

“Kurt, I have a man down.” He waited for Kurts response.

“Copy.” There was a brief pause, then Kurt continued. “They found Tolby. We have a situation. Let the Med Staff clean up there, and get back here now.” 

“Copy! I’m on my way.” He turned and exited the lavatory and headed for the nursing station. Once he had informed them of the situation James headed back to the monitoring station. 

In the station, Kurt had dialled the senior security manager to seek orders as to how they would proceed. The line crackled a moment until the deep, raspy voice of Nardus Volskenk answered. Kurt filled him in on everything that had happened, and awaited an order.

“Do nothing, dispose of the bodies and go about your business as usual.” Volskenk cut the line, leaving Kurt Jenkins dumbfounded. 

As he set the telephone back on its holder, James came through the door. He had been running, by the sweat that had beaded on his brow. He stopped to catch his breath as he leaned against the wall, it crossed his mind that it may be time to utilise the gym. It was that he noticed the quizzical expression on Kurt’s face.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“Nothing, apparently.” Kurt said as he sat down on his seat and stared blankly at the wall. 

“What?” James asked perplexed. His brow furrowed as he tried to fathom why they would be doing nothing.

“Comes from upstairs it seems.” Kurt rubbed his tired eyes. He was clearly annoyed by the decision of inaction by those in power.

“Why are we doing nothing about it?” 

“How the hell should I know James? Go and ask The Colonel if you really want to know. I’m just as pissed off as you are that good men died tonight. I am also upset that they are just too comfortable dusting this under the carpet like it never happened.” Kurt turned away from the young man and threw his magazine into the bin. 

“I suppose I will.” James left the room and headed back to the upper room. He needed to know who was missing, and what it was that warranted his escape.

“Then clearly you have not yet met The Colonel my boy. I pray you never do.” Kurt mumbled as he continued to watch the monitors.