by Frank Tayell
“Yes,” Ely said. “I do.”
“And have you got a plan?”
Ely stared into space for a moment.
“I think so. It’s not a very good one, but it might work. I’ll need your help, though.”
The plan was simple. Vauxhall had identified the worker who’d been stealing the hot water for the longest. Alexandra Penrith. Ely had asked Vauxhall to check where the suspect had been during the shooting. Vauxhall hadn’t been able to tell him. The records for the entire shift had been corrupted. She offered to check the camera footage, but that would take time, and that was something that they didn’t have.
There was just over an hour until shift-change. Penrith, Glastonbury, and about half of the other suspects were in Lounge-Two, The Sailor’s Rest. There was nothing unusual in this. The last round of pre-election broadcasts were being aired. Despite what Arthur had said, Ely wanted to find those genuinely involved. To do that, he was going to arrest Penrith.
As they rode down in the elevator, Ely checked the location of the suspects.
“There are twenty in Lounge-One, twenty-one in Lounge-Two. The other six are still in Recreation.”
“And you want me in Lounge-One?” Arthur asked. “I won’t be much use in a fight.”
“You won’t have to be. It won’t come to that,” Ely hoped. “You just need to watch. See who runs, see who doesn’t. We’ve got the cameras, but there’s not going to be time to analyse the footage before I act.”
“Yes, yes. I got that part. You want to see who runs, because you reckon anyone who does is involved.”
“What was it you said,” Ely began, but he remembered he was wearing the helmet, and its microphone would be recording. “Sometimes you have to take a chance,” he finished.
Arthur nodded, knowingly.
“Control,” Ely said.
“Yes, Ely.”
“Are you ready?”
“Ready and watching,” she said.
“And are you able to turn those Recreation machines off?”
“Yes, Ely. I just told you I’m ready. If they don’t finish Recreation in the next four minutes, the machines they’re on will each report a fault. You’ll have to hope they decide to go down to the lounge afterwards.”
The elevator clanged to a stop.
“What do you think will happen, Arthur?” Ely asked as he stepped out of the elevator.
“I think someone will run. The question is who. Good luck.” Arthur turned towards Lounge-One. Ely watched him go, then headed into Lounge-Two. He moved towards the wall, and looked at the crowd. He tapped out a command, dimming the wall light above his head.
Standing in the shadows, he slowly surveyed the room. The broadcasts had yet to begin. Some people were talking in low voices, but most were lost in their displays.
With its new dents and the bandages over his scalp, Ely’s helmet was a worse fit than ever. He tried focusing on a citizen in the crowd, but the tracking software didn’t register the movement. He raised a hand, tilted the helmet slightly until he found a position in which it would work. He needed a new one, but he would never get it. In a few hours, one way or another, it would all be over.
He was certain that it was the killer who had shot at him, and now he was almost as certain that the killer hadn’t acted alone. One of them had followed him to the Twilight Room then lain in wait, ready to shoot the moment that he stepped into the elevator. When he hadn’t, the killer had become impatient, followed him into the museum, and then lost the opportunity. Someone else had then deleted all the records for that shift. It had to be someone else. Again, they had acted in haste there. Deleting records for the entire shift spoke of a desperation that told Ely he was on the right track. Except… Except there was a small voice at the back of his head telling him that it didn’t add up. His reasoning made sense, it was logical, but it didn’t quite fit.
He looked slowly around the room, replaying the events, trying to see what it was that he had missed.
The political broadcasts began. Most of the room’s occupants ignored the large screens and stayed glued to their visors where they could follow the running commentary provided by other workers, themselves sitting in front of the same screen mere feet away.
A message came up on his display, ‘focus lost. Resetting in 10, 9, 8…’ he brought a hand up to move the helmet back into position.
Ely checked the location of the suspects in the lounge. Fifteen were in the main part of the room, five were in the privacy rooms around the lounge’s perimeter. He checked that the doors to those rooms were ready to lock on his command.
“Ely?” Vauxhall’s voice came clearly through his helmet. “The last of your suspects is leaving Recreation now. The first two have already gone into Lounge-One.”
“Why did it take that last one so long to leave?”
“It didn’t,” she said. “I staggered the times at which the machines would report an error. I thought that would look less, well, suspicious.”
“Right. Thanks.” He hadn’t considered that. “And no one is carrying anything?”
“No, it’s the same with everyone in the lounge already. No one is hiding anything.”
“Good.” Then that meant that no one was carrying a gun.
He scanned the room, gauging the crowd, judging the best time to act. Chancellor Stirling was scheduled to be the last person to speak. He couldn’t wait that long. Her speech would finish just a few minutes before shift-change. He scanned through the broadcast schedule. Henley was due to speak in five minutes. Disrupting his address would have to do. Ely checked that he had access to the Tower’s communication system. He was going to announce the arrest to the entire Tower, and Vauxhall was going to ensure it was transmitted to the rest of the City. He hoped it would work. He hoped someone ran. He hoped— And then he saw her.
There was nothing unusual about her appearance. Nothing made her stand out. If Ely hadn’t been running a full sweep of the room, he doubted he would have noticed her. But whereas every other person in the room appeared on his display with a small tag showing their name, this woman had none.
He focused on her. Nothing. He brought his hand up to his helmet, checking it was firmly in place. He tapped at his wristboard. Nothing. She had no name, no ID.
“Vox,” he murmured softly.
“Constable?”
“Can you see what I’m seeing?”
“Hang on, I’m looking at…” There was a sharp intake of breath “It’s… it can’t…” the Controller stammered into silence.
“What is it? Who is she? Why can’t I view her ID?”
“She’s… She’s… She’s a ghost.” The Controller stopped, and seemed to get a hold of herself. “It must be her, Ely. That’s the killer. She’s a ghost, just like I said.”
Ely ignored the last comment. It didn’t help him and it didn’t matter. He started moving towards the woman. Someone had worked out how to delete themselves from the system, he realised. And then he dismissed that thought, and forgot about Penrith and the other suspects. He knew whom he had to arrest.
There was a sudden storm of protest from the crowd. Most of the workers leapt to their feet, shouting and cursing at something the candidate had said.
Ely lost sight of the ghost.
“Vox? Can you see her?”
“Say that again. I can’t hear you.”
Ely pushed through the crowd, moving towards the last place he’d seen the woman. He knocked a man back down into his seat, and then he spotted her. She was heading towards the door. He cursed. He should have stayed where he was. He tapped out a command, ordering the doors to close. Nothing happened.
“Vox, close the doors. Close them now!” he barked.
Heads turned to look at him.
“Vox, did you hear me? Close the doors!”
More heads turned, the broadcast forgotten in favour of this more immediate entertainment.
“I’m trying,” she snapped back, “but it’s not working.”
The ghost reached the door. She turned and looked at Ely. She smiled, then disappeared around the corner.
“MOVE!” Ely bellowed. The crowd parted as he pushed his way through them and out into corridor beyond.
“Vox. She’s turned left outside the lounge. Are you tracking her?”
“I’m trying, but I’m having to do it manually. I’ve never done this before.”
“She went left, then where?” Ely barked as he reached the doorway.
“Along the hallway, then right at the end.”
Ely ran. He turned right.
“Where next?”
“Straight on and… I don’t know. I’ve lost her.”
“Well find her!”
He scanned the corridor looking for something, anything that seemed out of place. There, he saw it, an access hatch still partly opened. As he ran towards it he tapped out a command, it had been opened just seconds before.
“Vox, can you lock the access hatches to this ladder?”
“No,” she said, her voice thick with panic. “Not to any of them.”
Ely peered inside and looked upwards. He could just make out a foot disappearing through a hatch a few levels above.
“Have you got her on camera?” he barked, as he climbed into the hatch.
“I’m trying, I’m trying. It’s not easy.”
Access ladders, Ely thought as he climbed. They were rarely used, except by him on the few occasions when he had to move around the Tower during shift-change, and there were no cameras inside. He should have realised before that this was how the killer had moved so freely through the Tower. He should have realised. But he hadn’t. Neither had Vauxhall. Neither had Arthur. He reached the open hatch and climbed out.
He was in one of the Assemblies. A contamination alarm was ringing at this violation of the clean room conditions. A dozen gloved and masked workers, who’d been staring at the door, turned to look at him. An alert came up at the bottom of his display, recording the hours lost to production the disruption was causing. He tried to ignore it, the chase was more important, but years of conditioning told him that nothing was as important as this loss of hundreds of hours of labour.
He ran out of the Assembly. “Where now?” he barked into his microphone.
“Take the next right,” Vauxhall said.
“And then?”
“She’s heading towards… towards the elevators.”
“Are they locked down?”
“Yes. And they’re all still down on Level Four.”
Ely began to slow. The ghost was trapped. Only a handful of civic servants could operate the elevators at will. Except, he thought, this woman had already proved she could access the system. Could she override the elevators? He put on a burst of speed, rounded the corner and there, at the end of the corridor, he saw the ghost. She was levering open the elevator doors.
“Stop!” he yelled.
She turned, and looked at him with that same smile. Then she turned back to the door, and finished levering it apart.
“Stop!” he yelled again, still running towards her.
She did stop, but only because she now had the door open twelve inches.
“Who are you?” he yelled.
She smiled and waved.
Ely suddenly realised what she was about to do.
“Vox where’s that elevator?” He was only ten feet away.
“Level Four. I told you.”
It wasn’t.
The woman took a step through the door, but only fell a few inches to land on the roof of the elevator as it rose up through the shaft. The doors slid shut, and she was lost from view.
“Vox, open those doors. Now!” he screamed as he reached the elevator doors. He slammed his fist into the metal in frustration.
“Stand back,” Vauxhall said.
The doors slid open, but it was too late. The shaft was empty. He stuck his head out and looked up. The elevator was already two levels above.
“Call me another elevator!” he yelled into his microphone, as he backed away and started heading around to the next set of doors.
There was a sudden screeching of metal. Through the still open doors, he saw the elevator plummet down through the shaft. He saw the ghost, still standing on the roof. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Vox—” Ely began, but before he could finish the sentence there was a deafening crash as the elevator impacted against the bottom of the shaft.
Chapter 7 - Clean up
Ten hours before the election
“Vox, come in. What just happened?” Ely spoke into his throat microphone.
“The brakes on the elevator failed,” she replied.
“I know that,” he snapped. Then he took a breath. “I mean could she have survived?” He knew the answer even as he asked the question.
“I doubt it, I mean, the cameras are gone. You’ll have to go and check for yourself. The elevator is ruined. There’s no way we can replace it, but the Tower seems okay. I’m still running a diagnostic check, but I think when they built it, they knew this type of catastrophic failure might happen.”
“Right. I see,” he said, not really listening. “Who was she? I mean, was she really a—”
“I’ve got the Chancellor calling,” Vauxhall interrupted. “And Councillor Cornwall. I’ve got to go.” She clicked off.
Catastrophic failure was right, Ely thought, as he looked down the shaft. He’d almost caught her. He’d almost had her. If he’d just been a bit faster he would have done, but he was too slow. And now she was dead. He was too far above the wreckage to make out much detail, but he thought he could see a leg. It was very definitely no longer attached to the rest of her body.
Was she the killer? She’d been able to override the elevator controls and his command to close the doors to the lounge, so she did have access to some of the system. But who was she? Why didn’t her records come up on his display? Was she a ghost?
Of course not. It was just shock making him think like that. With a few minutes notice she, or perhaps her associates, had wiped the location data from an entire shift. Someone, probably Chancellor Stirling, had simply erased all record of this woman’s existence. And Stirling would have had the access codes to override the elevators and door locks and all the rest. No, he decided, there was no great mystery to it.
He pulled off his helmet and ran his hand across his scalp, pausing when he reached the bandage. Why had she not had the gun on her? Because there was nowhere to hide it whilst wearing the jumpsuit. Then had she been on her way to collect it? He thought of the museum and its rambling collection of exhibits. She must have left it there after shooting at him. That’s where she was going, he thought. Up to collect the gun. Where else could she have been going? The transport pad? Could Stirling have sent a transport to rescue her?
He took a breath. He was guessing, letting his imagination get away from him. Well, it didn’t matter. She was dead. Just like Arthur had wanted.
He looked at the shaft. The elevator was probably beyond repair. The commuting times would have to be adjusted. Schedules would have to change, perhaps even the amount of time each worker had for sleep would have to be cut. More sacrifices would have to be made. Production would suffer but, of course, that didn’t matter any more.
He put his helmet back on and turned around. He wasn’t alone in the corridor. The workers from the Assembly had all followed him out. Their names flashed red on his screen, each tagged with a charge of ‘dereliction of the workplace’. At the bottom a counter ticked upwards, recording the minutes of production wasted as they stood there watching him. No, not just watching, they were filming and uploading. He checked the newsfeeds. They were all covering this. Even the election broadcasts had stopped.
Ely knew that what he did and said next would determine whether Cornwall would win the election, and thus determine the fate of those few who made it to Mars.
“Back to work. Production can not stop,” he said, imbuing his voice wi
th all the authority he could muster.
“Was that him? Was that the murderer?” one of the workers asked. None of them made any effort to leave.
Ely hesitated before answering, but only briefly. “It was,” he said. “But it was a woman. Not a man. Following a lead, I tracked her to…” He was about to say Lounge-Two, but corrected himself in time. “The Sailor’s Rest. There was a chase, she died.”
There was a general murmur of acceptance from the small crowd. Some started muttering a quiet commentary, others typed quickly on their wristboards. Within moments, a dozen new articles appeared, all with headlines on the variation of ‘murderer dies in dramatic chase’.
“What about the elevator?” a worker asked.
That was a good question. Ely thought quickly.
“The elevator was destroyed in order to prevent far greater destruction to the Tower itself. It’s all over. Get back to work.”
And this time they obeyed, backing away slowly in case there was some final piece of drama that they could record. Ely waited until they were gone then headed to the next elevator along. The door wouldn’t open to his command.
“Control? What did she do? I can’t get the elevator door open.”
“That was me. I’ve shut them all down whilst I run a diagnostic on all the essential systems. You’ll have to use the ladders.”
Wearily he walked along to the nearest access hatch.
“Vox, do you have any idea who she was?” he asked, as he began the long climb down.
“She’s the killer.”
“I mean what’s her name? Who was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you get a good image of her face?”
“Dozens.”
“And does she come up in the system?”
“Not yet.”
“I need to be sure of this. Check to see if anyone is off-net. And run a check on the other Towers as well. We need to know who she was.”