Thirty Nine Minutes (COMPLETE)

Chapter Eleven: Expulsion

Helen returned, seeing nothing but red. She marched into the research area, straight past Steve's repugnant odor and to the tank. Craig still floated there, eyes half closed but his weight had shifted so his head was facing towards the floor. Divers were in there with him, strapping weights to a belt they were attaching to his waist; they were guiding him to the diving pool.

"Oh, there you are, Helen. The test is about to occur."

"He's not ready."

"What do you mean? He's passed all the prerequisites."

"Oh for God's sake, Steve, take your nose out of official paperwork and look at his face! Did you know about all this?"

"What are you talking about?"

Helen threw her hands up in the air, taking a last desperate look at Craig before marching to the door, heading for the observatory deck. David was there, but she hadn't seen Neil. She climbed the spiral staircase two steps at a time. Craig was being pulled down into the depths and disappearing into the blueness.

"You sedated him? Are you out of your mind?" Helen slammed open the door of the observatory deck, gripping the report in a white knuckle hold. Turning to face her, David stood unmoving, hands in his pockets.

"Is there a problem, Ms. Newman?"

"You're damn right there's a problem." The blurred image of Craig had altogether disappeared. "Is this a usual thing?"

"I'm afraid that's classified information, Ms. Newman, you've broken a rather severe rule by reading that report."

Her emotions had got the better of her, and in the heat of the moment, she had acted with her anger rather than her mind. She stood frozen, hearing the stopping clop of Neil's shoes behind her. "What's going on in here?"

"Nothing." David turned to him. "Can you escort Ms. Newman off the premises, please?"

"Are you serious, David? You're forcibly medicating Craig without his consent in order to pass your tests. What happened to therapy?"

"I'm not at liberty to answer your questions anymore. Neil, if you please."

His warm hand curled around Helen's arm, and she had run out of time. Angry tears pricked as she stared back at David's cold, reptilian glare. "He's not a weapon, or something to be molded. He's a person." She was shouting over her shoulder as Neil led her away, just in time to catch Craig looking up from his position in the water, still glazed but watching the events still.

"Just keep quiet," Neil hissed to her as they turned the corner towards the elevator. As they stepped in, he leaned to press the button and whispered in her ear.

"The bar you snubbed me in. Eighteen hundred hours tomorrow."

His voice was unlike anything she'd heard from him before. Desperate, gentle even. A real cocktail. She looked at him and into those deep eyes of his. The message was clear, and she nodded.

*****

Helen had got there half an hour early after having pored over job applications most of the morning. Throughout the day, she kept catching herself looking at the fish tank on her desk: it was reminding her of things she'd rather forget, of Craig trapped in his own fish bowl, doped up in order to do the bidding of those who wished to use him. Her fingers were leaving condensation prints on her whiskey glass, hearing the faint clink of the ice as it melted forever into the spirit and diluting her attempt to forget about the events of the morning.

"Hey." She looked up and was almost taken aback: Neil was dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt and his hair was ruffled. An emerging five o'clock shadow was blossoming on his chin and only exemplified his handsome features.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

He nodded and sat, setting his beer bottle on the table that was tacky from spilled, sugary alcoholic drinks. Helen raised one eyebrow at his choice of drink. "I didn't take you for a beer kinda guy."

"I could say the same about you. Whiskey is not the drink I pictured you with."

"So, what was?"

"A can of beer, actually. The cheap stuff college kids persuade adults to buy when hanging out outside the liquor store."

She knew what he was referring to, and let him continue.

"It seems Craig got a real taste for it, and also became incredibly noncompliant when you weren't there."

"I guess they wanted something they could use, not understand. I had a meeting with David about it maybe a month ago. He's full of shit. Anyway," she said, taking a drink and fogging up her brain that little bit more, "what do you want? To come and drown my sorrows? Or maybe lure me into an alleyway so one of your friends can silence me permanently?"

Neil only rubbed a hand across his face. "You've been watching too many TV shows."

"Well, you're not denying it."

"I'm here because I've been working for a long time to get Craig out of there."

"Why? What's your motive to free him?"

He looked at her, so deeply Helen was afraid of falling into those blue eyes.

"Because it's not right."

The answer was too practiced, too perfect, but he seemed sincere. Not that Helen was a master deductor of separating the truth from a deception, but it definitely felt like an answer she wanted to hear in the situation. "That's not enough," she said.

"I thought you'd say that. Honestly, I'm glad you did: I wouldn't trust me right off the bat either." He reached into his shirt pocket, pulling out a small notebook and taking a Polaroid photograph from within the folds before placing it before her on the table. Helen peered down and saw a teenage boy standing proudly by a man, clearly a person comfortable on the open waters: bare foot, tanned skin and an impressive unruly beard. The boy beside him was a little pigeon chested with knock knees and a buzzed haircut. "Okay then, the reason I want to free him is because I was the one who pulled him up with our catch net ten years ago. I won't pretend I don't feel partially responsible for his current situation."

Taking a second to look from him to the grainy photo, she almost didn't believe it. "You?" she blurted out.

He opened the notebook and showed her another, much blurrier Polaroid, taken from a different angle but of the same boat. It was crude, but she recognized Craig's long, supple tail sprawled out on the wood immediately. "We weren't allowed to take photos, so I had to take this from my waist. You recognize who's on the deck there? Me and Father ran a small fishing business, and one day he turned up tangled in the net. On condition we surrendered him to the American authorities, I was to be employed by those same people. I think Father felt guilty about the whole thing too, the poor kid was terrified."

"You say kid, but you can't have been that much older."

"I was fifteen! Nearly sixteen, in fact. Anyway, those are my reasons, and they're on the table. I don't know if guilt is a good enough reason for you, but I can help you with information you can't get anywhere else, and most importantly, Craig trusts you. So, Ms. Newman, what do you say?"