Page 5 of The Lost Zone (Dark Water #3)
Chapter Two
Alex
Belvedere’s oak front door opened slowly, its old hinges creaking.
Bracing himself, Alex was surprised to be greeted by a middle-aged woman with a plain, homely face, her greying brown hair pulled back from her face in a tight bun.
Dressed in a pair of white overalls and holding a nanopad, she wasn’t wearing an ID tag.
“Welcome to Belvedere, Mr Tyler,” she said in a warm, friendly voice. “Please, do come in.”
“I think you’re mistaking me for someone else,” Alex refuted.
“I’m not George Tyler, I’m his IS. I believe he’s sent me here for some…
special training.” He stared her straight in the eye.
If any part of this was supposed to be intimidating, it was failing.
This woman looked as if she worked in a health spa, not an expensive resort for breaking recalcitrant indies.
Maybe Tyler had misunderstood the services they offered here.
“That’s right. We know who you are, Mr Tyler,” she said briskly, glancing at her nanopad. “You’re Alexander Tyler, Mr George Tyler’s IS. That’s what it says on your registration form. Is that incorrect?”
Alex felt sick. Of course Tyler had registered him in his own name; he should have expected that.
“If that’s what my houder says, then it must be correct,” he demurred, recognising the futility of arguing.
“This way then, please, Mr Tyler.” She opened the door wide, and he stepped into a huge hallway.
There were worn grey flagstones underfoot and a roaring fire burning welcomingly in the grate.
The walls were painted a serene white and there was a huge mirror taking up one entire wall opposite the fireplace.
“This is the old house,” the woman told him as she led him towards an imposing stone staircase. “We have a new wing at the back, which was only built ten years ago, but this part of the house dates back to the 1870s. Isn’t it lovely?”
“It’s not the most beautiful example of the architecture of its time,” Alex observed, looking around.
“It’s an uninspired replica by a mediocre architect.
Age alone doesn’t confer beauty or originality,” he added when she cast him a look of surprise.
“It’s not a very interesting example of the buildings of the period.
It’s just a bog-standard country house, probably commissioned by some second-rate second son of the lord of the manor.
” He smiled at her. “I know a little about second-rate second sons.”
She gave him a look of polite disinterest. “Of course, it hasn’t been used as a country house for a very long time, even before the Rising.
It was a mental hospital for many years, then a spa.
The government requisitioned it to house refugees during the Zoning.
It fell into disuse when they built the work camps.
An old place like this was far too expensive to run. ”
“And now?” he asked carefully. “What’s its purpose now?”
“It was bought by Madeleine Selcourt, our CEO, twenty years ago as an exclusive training centre for the instruction of indentured servants. We train to the highest possible standards,” she stated proudly.
“Only the wealthiest clients can afford to send their servants here. It isn’t cheap, but we guarantee to transform even the most unpromising IS into one so polished and skilled they could serve Queen Matilda herself.
” She sounded like she’d swallowed the sales brochure.
“Really.” Alex wondered if Belvedere was exactly what Tyler had envisaged when he’d sent him here.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to turn Alex into a personal valet who could pass muster in royal circles.
Then again, there probably weren’t any establishments that would publicly offer to brutalise your IS into submission.
If there were, Alex was sure Tyler would have enrolled him instantly.
“Do you have a name?” Alex asked as he followed the woman up the stairs and along several long corridors.
“You may call me B,” she said.
“Bea? Short for Beatrice?”
“No, just B,” she replied, showing him into a large white room made even lighter by a wall of old-fashioned sash windows.
Inside were five trestle beds, each with their own bedside table, lamp, and small wardrobe, all painted white.
The flooring was tiled in white, the curtains white linen, and there was a long, wide mirror along one wall, which increased the sense of airiness and space.
It was all so unexpected. In Alex’s imagination, Belvedere had been a place of nightmares, a gothic castle filled with dark dungeons.
He’d envisaged iron manacles on the walls and instruments of torture in every room.
This genteel old place with its unrelenting whiteness was the last thing he’d expected.
“This is the dormitory,” B informed him.
“I’m afraid you’ll be on your own here until the new training course begins.
We’re closed for the holidays, so we’re between courses at the moment.
We did explain this to your houder, but he insisted that we took you straight away. I do hope you won’t be lonely.”
“I doubt it.” Alex thought it sounded peaceful after the trauma of the past few months. “When does the course begin?” He wondered if the word “course” was a euphemism, or if he was genuinely going to be taking classes in becoming the perfect indie.
“We’re not sure on precise dates yet. It depends when we’ve filled it, but it won’t be anytime soon. Right, I’ll leave you to settle in, Mr Tyler.”
“I don’t think that’ll take long. I didn’t bring anything.”
“No, that was on our instruction. We’ve provided everything you’ll need. There’s a bathroom over there. Please take a shower and change into the bathrobe provided. The doctor will arrive shortly to perform your medical.” She gave another pleasant smile and then left.
Alex wandered over to the window, wondering what on earth was going on.
This place was so clean, pale, and sterile.
There were no clues as to what he could expect from his stay here.
Suspiciously, remembering his time at Vertex Tower, he searched each corner of the dormitory for hidden cameras but found nothing.
The place was clear. Nobody was watching him.
He twitched aside the curtain and looked out over the rugged landscape. In the distance, he could see the sea, whipped up into a froth by a raging wind.
What horrors awaited him here? It might once have been a spa, but Tyler clearly hadn’t sent him here for a holiday.
He expected Alex to return broken and obedient.
How was Belvedere going to achieve that?
What did it even mean to be broken? How did that look, sound, and behave?
More to the point, what would satisfy Tyler that he was a broken man?
Nothing he’d done so far had convinced his houder of that, so what would?
He felt broken. His entire body ached and he walked like an old man. He was weary to his soul. Surely he’d been broken long ago on a country lane, crouching beside his mother’s body? How much of him was there left to break?
He tore his mind away from such useless questioning and shuffled to the bathroom. Like the dormitory, it was a study in white, from the shiny tiling on the walls to the pristine towels hanging neatly over the heated rail. Another huge mirror took up all of one wall.
It felt good to wash away his time under Tyler’s roof. He wasn’t free here, but at least there was some respite from the strain of being in proximity to his houder.
He stepped out of the shower and stopped in shock as he caught a glimpse of himself naked in the mirror.
His skin was almost as white as the tiled walls.
His cheekbones and jaw jutted out sharply and his eyes were sunken with great purple shadows beneath them.
His body was emaciated, all his ribs showing clearly through a thin covering of flesh.
Yet, what shocked him more was that his reflection was so wispy and insubstantial.
The light from the frosted window glanced off the white walls, giving him a ghostly appearance.
He stared at his reflection and a wraith stared back.
In this place, he was called Alexander Tyler. Was that who he was now?
“My name is Alexander Lytton,” he announced to nobody but himself, writing it in the condensation on the mirror. It was his name, but it felt taboo to say it out loud. “Alexander Lytton,” he said again, louder. His gaunt face stared back at him, unconvinced.
“MY NAME IS ALEXANDER LYTTON!” he screamed.
His reflection’s chest heaved with emotion.
“That is who I am,” he rasped tearfully.
“I will never, ever be Alexander Tyler.” His reflection jerked his head in grim acknowledgement, and he calmed down, convinced that he had found himself again.
He was about to turn away when he heard a whisper of doubt niggling away at the back of his mind.
But who is Alexander Lytton?
During those long, terrible months as Tyler’s whore, he’d fought so hard to hold on to his identity, seeking some glimmer of himself in the mirror every day. Now he wasn’t sure what he was searching for anymore.
Who are you?
Wiping away the steam with his towel, he scrubbed out his name so he could look at himself clearly again. The apparition became more substantial, gazing at him questioningly.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. How was it possible to protect an identity he didn’t even have? “I’m Solange’s friend,” he said at last. Maybe that was all he had left of himself. If so, it was the best part of him, and he was happy enough with that.
He turned his back on the mirror and dried his body, then pulled on the white bathrobe provided.
He wasn’t sure he’d be allowed to keep his clothes, so he retrieved the photo of Solange that Ted had given him and tucked it into a small gap behind the bathroom mirror, where he hoped it wouldn’t be found.