Millie was standing on Sanchez’s shoulders and he braced himself against the metal. Around him, short, squat screws fell in the sand. After a few minutes, a large wire grille rattled open, swinging on its hinges.
“You coming?” said Millie.
He looked up and she was forcing the thing upward. She had her tie in her hand and had lashed one end round the frame. The other end was over the lightcable. The flap rose inch by inch, and suddenly Millie’s torso was disappearing, and her weight was gone. She squirmed back around and let down a hand, grinning in triumph.
There wasn’t much room in the air vent, and Sanchez was an awkward climber. They lay there together, wet with sweat, getting their breath back. Then Millie led the way, spreading her weight like a lizard, inching through the metal trunking. She dreaded something giving. It was built for air, not for children, and was thick with dust and dirt—nobody had ever cleaned it. She imagined falling in a cloud of filth and landing at the feet of angry teachers. What would actually happen to her if they really were about to interrupt some horrible experiment? If Professor Worthington was there, knife in hand? Millie hadn’t thought about this before; for Millie, consequences only suggested themselves seconds before they occurred.
She gritted her teeth and inched forward.
The air vent had started square: it now converted to a tube the width of a large rabbit hole. The children wormed through, flashlights between their teeth. Mercifully, there were no right angles. A gentle curve took them about six paces in, and then the metal under them turned into a perforated grille, where the air was either pumped in or extracted out. There were lights below, but Millie couldn’t get her bearings. She whispered back to Sanchez: “Somebody must be down there, the lights are bright.”
“Yes.”
“They work late. When they think we’re in bed, they come down here. I bet it’s her, our trusted Professor Worthington. Her tower is a complete red herring: this is where she works. And I bet the lift goes straight to her room.”
“How do we get down, Millie? This is painful.”
“It’s wider here, give me your hand. We can unscrew a section and drop.”
She helped Sanchez out of the tube and turned to the bolts. The whole venting system was simply built and it wasn’t long before a section was opening upward, like a hatch.
Sanchez was muttering a prayer. Millie hesitated too. “Maybe I should have just called my father. Or maybe we should have called yours.”
“Shall we go back? We can phone him, but I don’t know what he can do . . .”
“I don’t know what anyone can do,” said Millie. “I don’t know what we’d say without any proof.” She started work on the last bolt. “Let’s do it,” she said. “We’ll get some evidence, then leave.”
The panel tilted, and it wasn’t hard to slide it to one side. Millie peered downward into the quiet. It looked like that first room, the storage area, but she wasn’t sure. She tested the supporting rods and started to lower herself. Her feet found some kind of work surface and she was steady enough to help Sanchez. They jumped down onto a tiled floor. Millie wondered why Sanchez was clutching her. Then she realized she was clutching him too and they were both breathing fast.
“Was I telling the truth?” she whispered. “About this place?”
“Yes.”
“Am I crazy?”
“Oh yes.”
“This is where I started and those are the doors into the lab. They could be in there, Sanchez, there’s lights on everywhere! Keep to the wall, okay? Don’t say a word.”
“What’s that smell?”
“Shh!”
“It’s like a hospital. Disinfectant, or something. It’s so damp, it’s horrible!”
The children huddled themselves together and crept forward, keeping low. Sanchez looked at the doors and shuddered. They reminded him of operating theaters—the thought made his heart lurch. He’d seen doors like that when they’d wheeled him down the corridor after the kidnapping, hoping to save his toe. Doors that flipped open so the trolley could be raced inside.
He was aware of a humming and a ticking: the sound of fridges and their motors. Millie was beside him; he felt a hand on his arm, and her voice was high-pitched, right in his ear. She said, “You know I told you I never got frightened?”
He nodded; he couldn’t speak.
“I was lying,” she said. “I’ve never been more scared.”
They were at the doors now, squatting. Sanchez felt for Millie’s hand. He swallowed. “If it matters,” he said, and his voice was shaking too, “I think you’re the bravest person I know. And I’m very frightened, also.”
They started to rise, inch by inch. “Are you ready?” whispered Millie.
“No.”
Their hands were clasped. He had a vision of the doors crashing open. She had a vision of a room full of people, turning to stare—but they forced themselves up and their heads came level with the windows.
“There’s someone in the chair,” whispered Millie.
She was staring at the monstrous black thing, which sat there just as she remembered it. It was tilted back and drenched in light. “Look, Sanchez—look!”
“I can see . . . but—”
“Someone’s in it. Someone is sitting in the chair. Oh no, what if it’s him? It’s Tomaz.”
“It can’t be, how can you tell?”
“I can see feet. Use your eyes, you can see a pair of feet! It’s a boy, and his feet can’t touch the ground, he’s small. I can see his hand. Stand here, you can see his hand. It’s Tomaz, it must be.”
“It can’t be . . .”
“We’re going in.”
“No. Call the police.”
“How? One of them is probably down here!”
“This is so dangerous, Millie!”
“He’s on his own! We’re going inside!”