The Big Brother Hole Ch. 04

"Emma's prayers were finally answered, and the Lord God appeared in his fiery chariot and raised us high among the righteous; Viktor was cast down, and Sean was smote - smote like a fucking good'un."

"Really," he said folding his arms, and taking a quick step to the left.

"Really; please don't try and be clever Professor," I said, "you do anything to threaten me or Emma and I will have no hesitation to start blowing pieces off of you."

"Oh, really," he said and took a bold step between me and Emma, and I was ready. I blasted a cartridge just to the right of his head and he must have felt the heat and the blast. I pushed another cartridge into the magazine tube to keep my three shell limit up.

"Next time it'll be some other part of you. Now step back."

He looked like he wanted to push his luck, but was lacking the last bit of confidence to do so.

"Please go back into the laboratory;" he sighed and folded his arms, staring up into space, he looked like he was about to lose his temper. I put another pace closer to Emma. "GO BACK IN THE HO... in the laboratory!" I couldn't guess whether he was going to lose his temper or cry now.

"How about 'NO'," I said.

"VIKTOR!" he shouted with a hint of smile, looking towards the control room I'd just come from; I didn't turn of course. I knew exactly where Viktor was. He heard nothing back, so tried again, "VIKTOR! WHERE ARE YOU, YOU DAMNED BUFFOON!"

"Nope," I said, "but do try for the other member of the Brains Trust."

"SEAN!?!"

There was a mumbled shout from the guardroom, a kind of "amfookinineeeeer!" sort of noise.

"He's fuckin' in there Professor, and I suggest you go join him," I said.

He folded his arms petulantly,

"No!" he snapped like a spoilt ten year old, "seeing as we are all using that word today."

"I'll take one of your kneecaps Professor," I said, "I've already had the discussion with the boy genius in there, I'm minded to chuck you all in the Big Brother Hole and leave you there to rot, same as you did for us."

"We did not leave you to rot," he took a pace towards me in temper, "you had running water and access to different types of food that you could..."

"Yeah and you only fed us when we had sex, I did notice that."

"You didn't seem to mind at the time," he gave a mirthless laugh.

"What about the water?"

"We lost our mains power," he said, "the generators are only strong enough for the IT equipment and building lights..."

"That's how you got dysentery Em," I said, "Seem's you can die of dehydration so long as the Mad Professor here can film it."

"We were trying to pay the bill, it was a computer error." He shook his head as if this was none of our business.

"In the fucking guard room Professor, NOW!" I snapped at him, bored of his games.

"But the experiment!" he pleaded, "There's months of data in there, another few weeks of observations, please."

"In the winter? Tell you what Professor, you go down and we'll observe you, show us how easy it is, how well we are looked after. Go on," I indicated to the yellow cage, "in you go, I'll drop you down. It's OK Viktor is already down there, he'll look after you I'm sure."

"No..." he stuttered, "no... no... I'm the only one that really understands the concept, pleeeeease!" he turned to Emma in desperation, "You're a Christian, make him see Emma, please make him see!" He clasped his hands in front of him edging closer to her again, "we're soooooo close Emma, this close!" he whispered and pinched his fingers together.

I stepped between him and Emma pushing him back several paces with the barrel in his ribs. He raised both hands in supplication, "I'll..." he'd obviously had a great idea, "I'll let you both out in time for Christmas!" he said as if it was a great treat, "Yes! Back to your families in time for Christmas!" He burst out, as if was going to join in the party himself. "Your parents and sister..." He put his hand to his mouth.

Emma's face creased at their mention.

"You knew about my family?"

"Sean," he stuttered, "Sean saw that people were looking for you and we..."

"No thanks Professor," she said, "I'll just go home if you don't mind."

"I thought..." he snapped, his hopes dashed by her personal betrayal of him, "I thought an intelligent woman like you, a graduate from Oxford no less, would see the societal value of this work! The huge social..."

Emma stood up, a look of hatred on her face that I'd never seen before.

"Societal value you cunt?!" she snarled at him, specks of angry spit flying from her lips, "prostituting us before the world for the gratification of sick perverts like you and that bastard Sean in there? I'd rather die like Tina did, with honour! You bastard! You think you're an intellectual but you're just another pervert fuck-up like your boy in there." She took a pained breath and sat back down again. "You either know or have forgotten that the Russians run things now, and as soon as Harry and I can no longer perform, they'll kill us both, or you don't care?" he was trying not to make eye contact with her. "You don't do you. DO YOU!" she screamed at him, and he still looked down, knowing his indifference could get him killed now, "No, you'll just grab another couple of poor unfortunate bastards to screw on camera until they starve to death..." he folded his arms, trying to give just enough indifference without me killing him.

He stared at the ground like a school boy caught breaking the rules. She shook her head in disgust again, "Ooh just shoot him Harry, then we can go home." She spat at him. This he seemed to fear her more than all of my threats with a gun.

He backed away from her - scared now. My turn to play mind games I thought.

"Turn around Professor, back of the skull, two shots, you won't feel a thing." All I actually wanted was for him to turn around so I could club him and then tie him up.

"No!" he said, "no, my work, it'll all be wasted, I'm the only one that can draw it all together. You say you suffered in my laboratory, well do you want your suffering to be wasted? Let me finish my work please..."

"HELLO?" came a rather slurred call; It was Viktor.

"Viktor!" shouted the Professor moving towards the edge of the hole, "get up here!"

"How de fuck do I do that!" he shouted back.

"Stay..." I shouted at the Professor but he had moved closer to the edge and lay down, "Viktor, my boy what has he done to you?" His compassion for his Russian strong arm employee was short lived and in a flash the Professor was back up on his feet and pointing Viktor's Taser at me.

"Now," he said triumphantly, "YOU go back in the cage and go down into the laboratory with Viktor." He grinned, his face losing all its previous concern as if he now had the answer to his problems.

"No chance," I said watching his face and the muscles in his hand for the first hint of flexation. I sighted the gun to his head.

"We can do this the hard way or the easy way Harry," said the Professor with a cool smile I was just dying to wipe off of his face.

"I never graduated from Oxford Professor," I said, "I was in the infantry; hard way all the way. Now put the Taser down before I make you." I put finger into the trigger guard - shots were now a real likelihood.

"Drop the gun before I make you," he said, but turned as Emma stood, waving Sean's knife around, I didn't even know she'd picked it up!

I smiled at her, she grinned back.

"We appear to have reached a bit of an impasse Professor..."

I saw his arm muscles flex and moved deftly to one side as he tried to keep a bead on me. I reacted on instinct and blasted at the gun in his hand and it flew from him, the two yellow cables part of the red mist, hopelessly damaged, as was his hand now.

He dropped to his knees staring at his wrecked hand,

"My..."

I stepped closer to him and pushed him down to the floor face down. I knelt on his back and I patted him down and found some car keys in his trouser pocket. Result.

"Where are Emma's glasses," I snapped at the Professor as I stood up.

"I'm not sure," he said rolling over and still staring at his wrecked hand and the tendrils of flesh that hung from it.

"Tell me fuck head or so help me I'll blow the other hand off."

"For pity's sa..." I'd had enough of his stalling now and lashed out with my foot and caught his wounded hand and he screamed.

"Glasses you fucking psycho."

"On the table!" he howled nodding his head towards the jail room, "in the guardroom, with Sean's things."

I kicked him sharply in the stomach and he curled on the floor, I ran into the room and there was a large in-tray style basket on a wheeled table. There was an SAS survival guide, some of the snare wire, a couple of candles, a match box, and there was a pair of glasses; and still Sean was growling from his cage.

"Set me free you cunt!" He yelled, "I'm as much a prisoner as you are! Set me free!"

"As soon as the police get here, they'll let you out," I ran out of the room to where the Professor was laying on the floor clutching his hand as the feeling returned after the shock and adrenalin wore off. "Get in there," I said pointing my shotgun at him.

"You savage," he snarled at me, "You've ruined years of research, put social psychology back into the dark ages," he tried to roll onto his hips, using his one good hand to prop himself. I took a step back from him. He got to his knees and started to drag himself into the guardroom.

"I'm a savage, you're the one that killed a young woman and locked up another for a fucking sick experiment that turned into on-line porn."

"IT IS NOT ONLINE PORN!" he shouted, "The Russians are merely making the research available to..."

"To any fucker out there with broadband and a credit card... you murdering bastard." I snarled.

"And Tina killed herself," he snapped, "it was totally unforeseeable but we've learned so much from it, her death was not..." He looked behind and saw his on-coming incarceration, "No!" said, "The Russians! They'll..."

"The Russians will do what Professor? Surely they are just your friends that are making your research more widely available?"

"They enabled us to improve our research methods, it was necessary to humour them." He hissed, realising now that he was in the shit and no mistake.

"Shame they didn't arrive sooner, Tina might still have been alive."

"Her death..." he said looking around at the falling walls of his own personal Jericho.

"Her death was in vain you fucking idiot, what have you learned huh? That if you stick a young girl in a hole in the ground with water and inedible food she might kill herself eventually? Rah-fucking-rah you idiot, I could have told you that!"

He stood in the doorway of the last cell, Sean started calling him again.

"But it was for science!" he screamed as if it was the answer to everything. In fury I punched him square in the face and he flew back into the jail cell, and I slammed the door shut on him. "NOOO!" he roared.

I stepped out into the control room and walked to Emma, still sat on the chair holding her side shaking now. I slipped the glasses on her nose, and she looked up and blinked while her eyes refocussed.

"Harry!" she beamed at me. "Hi!"

"Let's go baby," I said, "Before the Russian Mafioso in the hole finds a way out."

I locked the door on the main room and threw my medic bag over my shoulder. I did think of doing something to the Professors wounded hand but then figured, 'fuck 'im, he'll learn a valuable social lesson from it. He was wounded for science after all.

The car key I'd taken from him suggested a Citroen. I took Emma's hand and walked her through large earth bunds that must have been there to keep the noise out, and they had done a good job. There was a red soft top Berlingo and it opened to the blipper on the key. I helped Emma into the passenger seat, I asked her to keep taking photographs and film as we left.

The track was very long and I began to worry that I'd gone the wrong way. But there was no other way so I just kept on driving.

Eventually we got to large metal gate, I desperately hoped it wasn't locked or that the key was on the ring we had. I stopped some distance away from it and taking my shotgun, walked towards it. I walked backwards just in case someone had followed us out. The gate was padlocked shut but the Professor had the key on his bunch and I unlocked and open the gate.

I drove the car out, for the first time noticing a gate house almost completely hidden by foliage, I knew that no one could be in there at least. For some reason I went back and locked the place shut again. All the time Emma was filming.

The entrance gates had a sign, 'strictly private - no entry under any circumstances' with an added 'no parking - no stopping - no turning' There was even a couple of those hardware store 'I'm on guard here' and 'German Shepherd Dog on patrol' signs with cartoon snarly canines on them.

I got back in the car to see Emma with tears pouring down her face,

"Get me away Harry, please," she mumbled, "just drive."

"Give me my phone," I said, "I'll..."

"Just fucking drive!" she screamed. I did.

Within minutes I was on an A road with the familiar green signs, and I saw one for Stowmarket.

Stowmarket? Fucking STOWMARKET? That was in Suffolk, how the fuck had we ended up in fucking Suffolk from the Yorkshire Dales?

"We're in Suffolk honey," I said, "We've been moved some bloody distance and no mistake."

There was another sign for Stowmarket, so I headed there. As we entered the town I pulled over to where there was the first fluorescent yellow clad road sweeper of the day.

"Nearest hospital mate," I shouted to him.

"That way," he said, seeing Emma's bloodstained hand, "drive to the roundabout, it's signposted. There's no A and E but they have ambulances there."

"Thanks Mate," I shouted and pulled out, there was almost no traffic that time of day.

I drove like I was in my paramedic car and eventually pulled into the grounds and drove up to the two bright yellow ambulances parked there.

I flashed my headlights as I approached, and they crews got out. I explained what had happened and this was backed up by our grubby clothes and the pale thin look to our faces. I'd not noticed until I first saw my reflection in the rear view mirror.

I called the police from my phone and explained to the 999 operator where I was and what had happened. She sounded startled and gave me a simple, "Stay there, I'll get a team out to you."

They did, and the five seconds after she'd said it I heard the whoop of a siren. I had already told the ambulance men I was one of their own and my use of their language about Emma's stab wound and what I had done to it helped to reinforce it and they seemed quite impressed.

The Police arrived and approached me slowly but my shotgun was now unloaded and on the back seat. I held my hands up so they could see that I wasn't armed,

"OK mate, if we're to believe everything we've heard, you've got a bit of a story to tell us."

"Everything you've heard? Check the video," I handed over my phone and pressed the necessary buttons for them. "I don't know where we were or how I got here but you might recognise something on the route we took.

The two officers stared at it in shock as Emma had filmed our home for the last month and our escape. I could hear familiar shouts and a few shots.

"Christ..." said the first.

"What the fuck?" said the second.

"That's the old RAF Littlehurst site," said the first, "used to play in there when I was a kid. Was sold off back in the spring, they're gonna build a TV studio there."

"Yeah," I added, "that bloke there," I pointed at the screen, "He kind of did and Reverend Emma Rogers in the ambulance there has been imprisoned in it since late June. Me since mid-September." They both looked shocked.

The ambulance man said that we really needed to go to the hospital now. He looked me up and down.

"And if you'll take my advice mate, you should get checked over too."

I jumped in the back of the ambulance and said that I'd be at the hospital. They followed and called up for more support including some armed response and I sat in the speeding ambulance holding Emma's hand until we reached the accident and emergency department some distance away.

Once there, I walked alongside Emma's trolley, still holding her hand. Her gorgeous face looked happy under her oxygen mask but she was also fighting to stay conscious. We were taken straight through and a nurse looked at me, my pale shocked face and sat me down. I ceased to be the rescuer and became another patient.

Some Doctors appeared and demanded to know what we'd been up to. I told them; the kidnappings, the imprisonment, the poor diet, the cold, the damp, her upset stomach and finally being stabbed as we escaped. I even mentioned the Russian mafia. We showed them the pictures on my phone and were taken to a private room. The one policeman had been joined by two more, one of them a sergeant and they all made frantic notes and recorded our details, stepping outside of the cubicle to talk into radios.

The walk to the private room really seemed to take it out of me, and I was helped from my seat and on to another trolley and my adrenaline and strength finally gave out. When my head touched the pillow, the rest of me gave up and I slipped into unconsciousness. While I was out they took my blood pressure, took a blood test, swabbed, swiped and one of those tiny wrist band put on - I was well taken care of.

While I slept and Emma was prepared for surgery, several armed response teams prepared to enter the Big Brother Hole, guided by a remotely operated drone. They entered the site in their cars where they found the Mad Professor, Sean and Viktor just where we'd left them. An ambulance was called for the Mad Professor, and more police officers, including an assistant chief constable. All before nine thirty.

It turned out that the Mad Professor was one Doctor Jeremy Peskett-Jones, who was a Doctor by virtue of his PhD in social psychology but little else. He had been left lots of money by his late mother, a consultant psychiatrist from a very well to do family. She had written several books on the subject and was one of the most highly respected specialists in her field. She had been the Home Office specialist psychiatrist working on some very high profile cases before trials and then within prisons and young Jeremy felt he should take up his mother's fallen mantle and continue her work with the incarcerated.

It was later speculated that 'Mother' might have done some experiments on him as he was definitely odd. His masters at Eton, his college lecturers and his tutor had all commented on his 'distraction' and how this strange loner was totally focussed on himself and his own needs rather than the rest of the world. His first couple of PhD thesis suggestions had been a bit worrying, they said, if not actually illegal.

He stayed in education for as long as he could and right up to his eventual, and to his advanced thinking 'grossly watered down to the point of meaninglessness', PhD.

He could not get a teaching position or Professorship at any college in Cambridge; he even tried the poorer cousins down in Oxford but the age of the slightly potty career academic was almost over, even for Oxbridge. An old friend had suggested checking in the Times Educational supplement for teaching jobs, but he said he'd rather wash up in a back street kitchen than teach in a 'Red Brick'.

Denied the opportunity to spread his wisdom through education he decided he would make his mark and carry on his mother's work; but not having her education, qualifications, contacts or charm he'd been turned down by the prison service - even the private ones - and then the NHS and felt belittled. He'd show them.