Extinction Game Read Free Page B

side of the bed.
My left hand, at least, remained free. I yanked experimentally at the chain a couple of times, but it was soon clear that brute force was never going to set me free.
    I stared through the pane of glass at the outer chamber. I wondered if I might be inside some kind of isolation unit. If they thought I might be carrying the EVE virus with which Red Harvest had
wiped out the rest of humanity, that would make sense. They had shot me with a tranquillizer dart, I felt sure, then brought me to this place . . . wherever it might be.
    I leaned over the side of the bed and saw a bedpan. The sight alone filled me with an overwhelming urge to urinate. Despite my shackles, I was at least able to get both feet on the ground and
make use of the pan. Then I lay back, still groggy from the effects of the tranquillizer, and fell asleep until Alice came to me.
    I came awake only slowly, from a dream in which I had been swimming through an ocean of oil, desperate to reach air. She gazed down at me in alarm, her face framed by the strip lights. She
mouthed something at me, and when I tried to reply, no words would emerge, despite a powerful sense of overwhelming danger. She shook her head in frustration, then darted out of sight. I tried to
sit up and see where she had gone, but there was no sign of her. I hoped she could get away, escape whatever place we had been brought to, and soon enough I slid once more into unconsciousness.
    I found myself ravenous with hunger the next time I opened my eyes. I rattled at the chain in frustration, wondering if their intention was to starve me to death. But only a
short while passed before the door in the outer room opened, allowing two men to enter.
    One was slight and bespectacled and wore the white coat of a doctor, while the second was tall and muscular and wore a grey T-shirt and cargo trousers. He pushed a metal trolley. His crew cut
made me think he might have been one of the three men who captured me. I watched with fascination as they each opened a locker in the other room, withdrawing white suits from within and pulling
them on, finally completing the ensemble with visored hoods.
    More hazmat suits, I realized. I had been right in thinking I was in some kind of isolation chamber. But if they had the antidote to the EVE virus, as I knew Red Harvest had, was it really
necessary to take such extreme precautions?
    Then, I remembered: the men who captured me had also worn hazmat suits. Perhaps they didn’t have the antidote after all.
    They checked each other’s suits before opening the inner door. As it swung open, I felt a sudden breeze, indicating a difference in pressure between the outer and inner chambers, and
further confirming my virus theory. I smelled coffee and baked bread and felt my hunger grow exponentially, as the larger of the two men lifted a plastic tray of food from his trolley before
depositing it on top of the white cabinet.
    ‘Mr Beche,’ said the other man, smiling at me, ‘Jerry. How are you feeling?’
    ‘Like I’ve been hunted, kidnapped, drugged and chained,’ I answered. ‘Where am I, and who the fuck are you?’
    ‘We’ll get to that,’ he replied. ‘First of all, we want to make sure you’re well, and then we’ll talk.’
    ‘Or you can just tell me who you are, and where I am,
right now
,’ I insisted. ‘Otherwise, why the hell are you keeping me here?’
    The little man’s shoulders rose and fell. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have the authority to tell you anything.’
    ‘Are you Red Harvest?’ I demanded, my heart hammering.
    ‘No.’ He brought both hands up in a gesture of placation. ‘Rest assured, we’re not.’
    ‘Then why the
fuck
am I chained to the fucking bed?’
    The smaller man opened and closed his mouth, then looked to his larger companion, who placed the plastic tray on the trolley standing near my bed and pushed it closer. ‘You attacked some
of our people when they brought you in,’ he said, his voice