The Rig by Joe Ducie Page A

seem to whoever was monitoring the devices that he was somewhere else entirely. In the month he’d been here, that seemed like the greatest flaw in the Rig’s security. The cruel and heavy-handed staff relied too much on the leashes strapped to the inmates. Drake had never once seen a guard actually poke their head into the cell at night.
    Drake worked the pen lid back and forth in the narrow, rectangular lock, listening close for clicks and feeling for resistance. The point of the lid was about three centimetres long, and it slipped into the hole all the way to the cap. The more Drake fiddled with it, the more warped and stretched the plastic lid became. After half an hour of fruitless ‘lock picking’, Drake tossed the lid aside, afraid of breaking the point off in the tracker and ruining any future attempts.
    He rolled over to face the wall and tried to sleep – but sleep was long in coming. Images of the Rig’s delicate spine snapping and plunging into the freezing water plagued him until a grey and lifeless dawn broke through the rain.
    The weather cleared up after the storm into a brisk but sunny week.
    As Mario had promised, Tubes was a nightmare. The Rig had soaked up –
God knows how
– mounds of seaweed and sand. The working day was extended for the crews through free time and beyond lights out to get the pipes cleared and keep the mighty prison running. For the first time since he arrived, Drake saw the technicians from the control tower out and about making repairs and checking the dials and readouts on dozens of machines. He stumbled into his cell, escorted by a guard, around midnight for three nights in a row.
    On the fourth day since the storm, he was afforded a brief reprieve from the work, as his latest session with Doctor Lambros had rolled around. Drake had been looking forward to a change of pace, and she provided just that. At the very least, it was an opportunity to stop looking over his shoulder for Alan Grey or worrying about all the guards with rifles and batons.
    â€˜Good afternoon, Will,’ the psychologist said. She removed her wireframe glasses and smiled. ‘How are you this week? Bit of a scare with that storm, wasn’t it?’
    â€˜Yeah, I only just managed to keep my dinner down. Is the Rig supposed to sway like that?’
    Doctor Lambros nodded. ‘Oh yes. I’ve been here nearly eighteen months and we’ve had a few wild nights, I can tell you.’
    â€˜What happens if we have to evacuate?’ Tristan hadn’t been so sure, and Drake was honestly curious. If he could force an evacuation somehow … Easier to escape when he wasn’t a hundred or more miles out at sea.
    â€˜There are lifeboats under this and the northern platform. In that very unlikely event, you’d proceed through the outer shell and one of the winches would lower you down – along with ten or so others – into one of the rafts. You weren’t told all this when you arrived?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Oh, well, now you know. I’m sure someone just overlooked that in your induction.’
    Drake weighed the idea, then nodded slowly. His induction had been a bowl of cold soup and five minutes of butting heads with Warden Storm. He was certain something more was going on at the Rig. Something secret. He thought of Irene, the urgency in her eyes, and of Grey’s ‘advanced lessons’.
    â€˜So what should we talk about today?’ Doctor Lambros asked. ‘You’ve been here nearly five weeks now. One month down!’ She made that sound almost like a good thing.
    â€˜Only fifty-nine to go …’ Drake muttered, and made a little puffing sound between his pursed lips. During lunch, Brand had delivered the news that his work schedule would continue – Tubes for another month, on Warden Storm’s order. ‘You know, you may be the only friendly person in this place.’
    â€˜Have you been making