Project Gemini (WATTYS 2016 WINNER!)

Chapter Four - Memory Retrieval Service.

The outside of the shop was scattered with old newspapers, bits of broken glass and shards of metal from the last riots that had ruled the street. Old posters bearing the last Prime Minister's face sat crumpled on the nearest brick wall, shadowed by the gleaming red 'EVICITION' notices that lined each panel of the glass.

"Where are we?" she asked, getting out of the car and shutting the door behind her.

Kingsley tilted his hat, "A clinic for memory retrieval."

"An illegal one?" She judged by the state of the shop.

"This whole ordeal is off the books, and we're gonna keep it that way."

"If you say so."

She knocked on the heavily reinforced front door but on the second knock the door wrenched open. A scatty man in a stained dressing gown stood in its place. He glared at Kingsley, ignoring her. Red spots, almost puncture holes adorned his wiry frame.

"You're banned," he sneered at Kingsley.

"If it wasn't for me you'd be arrested by now."

"Last time you were here you shot a paying patron! You're bad for business." He looked at her and eyed her up and down disgusted. "Her too, both of you can fuck off out of here. You and your bitch of a girlfriend."

"Hey!" she shouted, pushing past him and into the threshold. She shoved him up against the wall. "Have some goddamn respect!"

The man cackled, "Is this your new project now, Detective? Some fucking sick game? How many Voids you can burn through before you get an answer? Is she going to end up like the last one too?"

"I need a favour." Kingsley's eyes darkened. "And then we'll be gone."

"You're bloody bold, you know that?" the man snapped.

"The Reapers—."

"All right, all right! I didn't expect the whole bloody package when you arrived. It was supposed to be you only. Get in. Get in, both of you." The man pushed her off him and adjusted his dressing gown.

Eva retracted her hand, half tempted to wipe it on her trousers—still feeling the takeaway grease from his clothes on her hand—but thought better of it. He punched a key code into the keypad behind her head and the door swung shut automatically. Deadbolts sliding across it. He turned and squeezed around them down the narrow corridor.

She gagged as the stench of decay hit her nostrils. Brown stains, bloodstains she'd guess if she had to, blotted the threadbare navy carpet. Door frames draped with smoky curtains lined the walls of the corridor, a monotone whirling coming from behind them. She ignored Kingsley and followed the man down the corridor.

Behind each curtain came methodical clicking, machines working by the sounds of it. She let them wander ahead and hesitated to pull back one of the curtains. An old man in his sixties lay on a bed in the centre of the room, surrounded by medical machines and a woman in black drapes who held his hand. Psychiatric straps held him down as he twitched violently.

And I'm the next one up.

She looked over her shoulder. The door wasn't that far away. She still had time to run. She could make the door open with her mind if she had to.

"Eva?"

Damn it.

"C'mon," Kingsley said, nodding his head at large black door at the end of the hallway.

Everything in Eva's head screamed abandon ship. Her foot stepped forwards on instinct and she staggered her way down the corridor, trailing her fingers along the curling striped wallpaper. The man had begun to unravel a thick chain from his neck—complete with key—and slid it into the lock midway up in the black door.