by Frank Tayell
Ely gestured over his shoulder at the Tower. He didn’t look at it.
“The City of Britain. Was the name a joke too?”
“That’s what the place was called before I was born. I think that was what the people who built the Tower wanted it to become.”
“And you were born in the Tower,” Ely stated.
“I was,” Arthur answered.
“You didn’t know the world before.” Again it was a statement, but again the old man took it as a question.
“No, but it wasn’t always like this, Ely. The air was polluted. It was toxic. You couldn’t spend more than a few minutes outside without getting sick. When I was young, younger than you, there was a clock outside what’s now the Assemblies. It was counting down one hundred years. That was how long we had to wait. When I took power, I got rid of the clock. I had to. There are some things we need to remember, but many more that we need to forget.”
“So you destroyed the archives. All the old movies and books. There were millions of them, once.”
“She told you that, did she? It’s an exaggeration. There were a few thousand, no more than that. And yes, I erased a lot of them, but they were useless. They took up valuable storage space whilst giving people nothing but the wrong kind of ideas. I understood, you see, when no one else did. People couldn’t know the sacrifice they were making, not fully. For the part that they were aware of, they needed a reason. They needed an idea, one that could be turned and twisted into something useful when the time was right. I gave them a goal, a grand idea. They had the dream of achieving something their ancestors had failed at. Mars.”
“It was that easy?” Ely asked.
“Easy? You think it was easy? I’ve worked everyday for the betterment of my species. I’ve given up my life to ensure that humanity will continue stronger, purer, able to reconquer the world. It was never easy.”
“And now it’s over,” Ely said. “The Tower has failed. People will have to leave.”
“The explosions have brought that time forwards,” Arthur said. “But that time was coming, anyway. Yes, people will have to leave, and they will need to be led.”
“By you?”
“No, no. Not by me,” Arthur snapped. “Weren’t you listening, boy? If I’d just wanted power I could have had it long ago. This is about our species, about our future. No, I won’t lead. I’ll be the villain, the puppet-master who kept you all imprisoned these decades past. I will become the devil future generations will fear and revile. But I won’t care, because my job has been done.”
“Who then? Or are you expecting me to be their leader?”
“You? No, you’re a brawler. You’re good in a fight, but you’re not a thinker.”
“Then who?” he asked, again.
“Me, Ely.” Vauxhall stepped out from a doorway about twenty feet down the street from Arthur. Like the older man, she kept one of her hands behind her back.
“Hello Vox. I thought you’d be around here somewhere. So, why did you do it?” Ely asked.
“I found out twenty years ago. I was only ten, and I worked out how to hack into the system. I found out, and Arthur found me. He offered me a job. He taught me everything and then, together, we came up with the plan. It was the only way, Ely. The Tower was failing. More energy was being consumed than generated. We did our best to keep things going, but we knew it wouldn’t be long before we had to venture out into this wasteland. We had to prepare the people. More than that, we had to ensure we had the right people. It took us a generation, but we’re nearly ready. Most of the people in the Tower are of the right sort, the right mentality. There are just a few more to weed out.”
“You mean those forty-seven suspects. You were the one who left that note for Penrith?”
“It wasn’t her, it was me,” Arthur said.
“Which amounts to the same thing,” Ely said. “You planted the note as a test, to see who was loyal and who wasn’t?”
“The woman, Penrith, she told over four hundred people over the course of a year,” Vauxhall said. “Only forty-six of them proved unreliable. The others all reported it.”
“But not to me,” Ely said.
“Oh, some did,” Vauxhall said. “I intercepted their messages. I didn’t want you finding out before it was time. I won’t apologise for it, Ely. It was a necessary deception. There’s a time coming when we need to know upon whom we can rely.”
“I don’t imagine for a moment that you’re going to apologise for anything that you’ve done,” Ely said. “But when I asked you why you’d done it, I was talking about the murders.”
“We didn’t kill Gower or Bradford,” Arthur said. “That was your ghost.”
“Gabriel, yes. I know. You needed those two nurses. Who else was there to deal with people supposedly sent for transport to Tower-Thirteen? They were killers, real murderers.”
“That wasn’t murder,” Arthur said. “The Tower was failing. It grew inefficient. More energy was being consumed than created. The population had to be pruned. And who else should I have sacrificed, if not the subversives whose deviance imperilled the future of our species. It wasn’t murder. It was housekeeping.”
“It was murder. The deaths of Gower and Bradford weren’t. That was revenge. But I’m not talking about those deaths.” Ely gauged the distance between himself, Vauxhall and Arthur. He began to walk slowly up the street towards them.
“No,” he said, turning to look at Vauxhall once more, “I want to know why you murdered the Greenes.”
She said nothing.
“I knew something was wrong with the wounds,” Ely said. “Something was wrong with the timing, too. You tried to throw me off track. Both of you. You did a good job. I was concentrating so much on whether the crime took place at three a.m. that I forgot to consider how someone could sleep through the pod being opened and their spouse being murdered right next to them. Of course, I was tired. I suppose that’s why you picked that time for the murder.” He took another step forward. “But I might have worked it out earlier if you hadn’t destroyed most of the archives. If Gabriel hadn’t killed Gower and Bradford, if he’d not slit their throats in revenge, if the blood hadn’t sprayed out onto the walls, I may never have realised. But he did. And I did. Eventually.”
“I didn’t slit their throats,” Vauxhall said.
“No,” he agreed, “you didn’t. It was Arthur or Gower or Bradford. It doesn’t matter which, because they didn’t kill the Greenes. Their hearts had stopped beating long before the blade sliced through their throats. What was it you said? You control the pods and the air-filtration system? You just cut off their air supply. Tell me why.”
“When we came back,” the ghost had said, “we told them what we found. And they tried to kill us. They thought they had succeeded. But we couldn’t leave. The woman who died in that elevator shaft, Fern, she was Finnya Greene’s sister. She wouldn’t leave her family here. She wanted to help them escape. We had to stay close, but we couldn’t risk hiding outside. We hid in the only place we knew they wouldn’t look. The tunnels. You see, we discovered what they really were, how this city is honeycombed with them. We got access to The Foundations, and to the servers. We found out how to hack into the system and we learned to watch them, and we watched you. It took us years before we discovered how to alter the records and camera footage, and then we had to find clothes, and then, oh and then… It took so long. But we finally managed to make contact with Finnya.”
“That was six months ago?” Ely had asked.
“Yes, how did you know?”
“That was when she handed back her visor,” he had said.
“Ah.” She’d nodded. “It wasn’t easy. And it wasn’t easy persuading her of the truth. Nor was it easy for her to persuade her family to come with us. But it was all in place. We were going to spirit them out, and at the same time we would cripple the Tower. Everyone would discover the truth, and then do with it whatever they wished. We would be long gone. We were going to act toda
y. It was always today, the day of the election. It seemed fitting.”
“We suspected she knew something,” Vauxhall said. “Handing back that visor, not communicating on-net, and then there was the night the camera moved in her room. She was up to something, and we couldn’t allow that.”
“So you wanted me to think it was Penrith? She didn’t recognise the clothing. I just assumed she was lying, but she wasn’t, was she? She had nothing to do with the deaths. She didn’t know Fern or the Greenes. You planted that evidence, because you wanted me to execute someone.”
“She was guilty, Ely,” Vauxhall said. “It was a test to see whether you were up to what comes next. Whether you would be prepared to help lead your people out into this Promised Land.”
“And it was you who shot at me. Or one of you. I suppose you needed me to think the threat was real. You know, it’s almost funny,” Ely said, as he walked around a mound that appeared to be more metal than moss. “You must have spent a long time working out which room could be accessed without someone appearing on the cameras. But then it turned out that the ghosts actually could get into the system and wipe the records. All that effort on your part, all wasted. But because of it, because they died, all the rest of these events occurred. The woman who died in that elevator, her name was Fern, and she was Finnya Greene’s sister. All she wanted to do was get her family out of the Tower. The killing of Gower and Bradford aside, they don’t believe in killing. Even after you murdered her sister, Fern didn’t come after you. She wanted to lead me up to the roof. Fern wanted me to see the truth. She thought that she controlled the elevator. But you still had control of that, Vox. You disconnected the brakes. You caused it to plummet. That’s another death on your hands.”
“Oh, enough,” Arthur snapped. “If you want to count them like that, then there are thousands of deaths on each of our hands. But the scales are balanced by the lives we’ve saved.”
“After Fern’s death,” Robin had said. “I told Gabriel that we shouldn’t kill. That we shouldn’t become like them. I thought he’d taken it to heart. We went back to our original plan. We’d set off the charges, and rescue the children. Gabriel and I went to plant the bombs. On the way back he saw those nurses. I couldn’t stop him. And then he died in that stupid accident. Do you think his death was justice? Do you think it was just?”
“I don’t know,” Ely had replied.
“Twelve thousand people, Ely, the future of our species. Individuals don’t matter, they can’t,” Arthur said.
“Is it just twelve thousand?” Ely asked. “Are there no others?”
“It’s just us,” Vauxhall said. “The Tower, the City of Britain.”
“It was a great nation once,” Arthur said, pointing at the buildings. “I’ve read the books, it controlled the world. From its ruins an even greater nation will arise. With your help.”
“Where were you going to take the children?” Ely had asked.
“We found a farm. It had been abandoned a few seasons before. Crops had grown wild in the fields, but they were there. The buildings were empty, but people had lived in them, and recently. We thought that perhaps we could find them.”
“Now, are you finished with the questions?” Arthur asked. “Because we do have work to do. We need to see if the Tower can be repaired. If it can’t, then we need to act quickly to maintain control of the situation.”
“I’ve one last question,” Ely said.
“What?” Arthur snapped impatiently.
“If there are no ships being built, then what is it that everyone’s doing in the Assemblies?”
“Keeping busy. Keeping occupied. Staying useful,” Arthur said. “That’s all anyone ever wants out of life, isn’t it? To be safe, to be comfortable and to have a purpose.”
“I see.” Ely glanced between Vauxhall and Arthur. Then he looked up. A solitary bird flew out of the window above him. It circled overhead once before coming to settle on a twisted lamppost.
“So, unless there’s anything else, it’s time to make your choice,” Arthur said. “I told you that time was coming. I gave you that gun. I see you’ve still got it. So join us, or shoot us now. It is time for you to choose.”
Ely took another step. He was thirty yards away from the door to the tunnel. Arthur was closest, at around twenty yards away. Vauxhall stood ten feet behind and a dozen feet to the right of the old man. Both, he noted, still had their hands behind their backs.
Slowly he moved his hand to the pistol at his waist. As he did, he saw both Arthur and Vauxhall visibly relax. He took the gun out, then tossed it through a broken window.
Arthur looked surprised. Vauxhall looked relieved.
“What now?” Ely asked, he took another step forwards. “I mean, if you want Vauxhall to lead the people, what happens to you?”
“Like I said, the Tower was my life. I’ll stay, once everyone else has left.”
Ely stopped, suddenly, and stared at the ground.
“What’s that?” he wondered out loud, as he bent down.
“It’s a beguiling story,” Ely had said, as he’d raised the pistol again. “And I can see that some of it’s true. But how much? You’ve no proof that Fern was Finnya Greene’s sister. And if there ever was any, it’s now been destroyed.”
“Proof? You want proof? You want more proof than that what you can see? If you pull that trigger, you will die. That’s not a threat. It’s a fact. The gun’s rigged. Where do you think we learned about explosives? Out in the wild? We were taught by that old man. There’s a button on the side. If you press it, the magazine will come out. At least if it was real gun with proper ammunition in it, it would.”
Ely looked down at the pistol.
“Try it,” she had said. “It’s not a trick.” She’d raised her hands, and this time Ely saw they were empty.
He’d pressed the button. The magazine fell, but only by half an inch. Carefully, he’d pulled it out. There were no cartridges, just something wrapped in silver coloured plastic, with two wires leading from it back into the body of the pistol.
“They’ve tried that before,” she had said.
“Why me?” he’d asked. “Why are you telling me? Why did you want me to follow you?”
“I told you, we only came back because of Finnya’s family. I’m going to honour her wishes and take the children somewhere safe. As for you, for at least the last five years you have been culpable in all the deaths this Tower has caused. But you were an unwitting accomplice, Ely, a prisoner like all the others. We decided we would give you back your life, we were curious to see what you would do with it.”
“And what about me?” Ely asked, still kneeling.
“The workers will think you’re leading them,” Vauxhall said. “You just won an election. You fought the killers that had been terrorising the Tower, and in doing so you discovered the truth. You’ll lead them out here.”
“And then where?” he reached down to his boot, and palmed the spring powered bolt gun.
“And that’s why you’ll be the leader in name only,” Vauxhall continued. “I’ve found a spot, somewhere not far. There are buildings there that we can use. I’d hoped that—”
In one smooth motion, Ely stood and raised his arm, pointing the bolt gun at Arthur. He pulled the trigger. The bolt flew out with barely a sound. The old man collapsed. Ely turned. Vauxhall’s arm came up, a pistol in her hand. She fired. Ely was hit. As the force of the impact spun him around his finger tightened on the trigger. The bolt flew.
Expecting another shot, he twisted his head. If he was going to die, he wanted the last thing he saw to be the sky. There was no second shot. Vauxhall was down, but not dead. The bolt had hit her in the thigh. The pistol lay on the ground three feet from her, and she was crawling towards it.
Ely staggered over to her, bent, and picked up the gun. She didn’t seem to notice him for a moment. He found the catch, and ejected the magazine. He nodded.
“Ely, please, you can’t.”
&n
bsp; “You killed them in their sleep,” he said. “Not just the Greenes, but everyone. They always died in their sleep. I suppose it was Arthur who changed the archives, made it look as if that was how people had always died. I thought that was normal. Why would I think any differently?”
He replaced the magazine.
“Please. Don’t. It would be murder,” Vauxhall pleaded.
“No, it wouldn’t. Didn’t you hear what the Chancellor said? The sentence for the killer was death.”
Ely pulled the trigger, twice. He glanced over at Arthur. The bolt had lodged in the man’s chest. He was dead.
The gun was heavy in his hand. He wanted to drop it, but he knew that he would need it in the days to come. He glanced at his shoulder. He had no idea how severe the wound was, nor what he could do about it. He limped a short way from the bodies, to a slightly larger grass covered mound. He sat down.
Time passed.
“I’ve a bandage if you want one.” It was Robin. She stood in the doorway to the Tower, two children behind her.
“It’s over,” Ely said.
“Yes, it is.” She walked out of the shadows. The two children followed. They weren’t the Greenes. Another pair came out, and another. And then he saw Simon and Beatrice Greene.
“You’re taking all the children?” he asked.
“Who else will care for them?” she replied.
Ely nodded.
“Here.” She knelt beside him, took out a bandage and wrapped it around his shoulder.
“It’s not really more than a graze. Your arm doesn’t seem to be broken,” she said. “But then again, it might be. Keep the wound clean. Maybe you’ll live. Maybe you’ll die anyway. Death comes to us all, it’s how you live that counts.”
She stood up and beckoned for the children to follow her. There was quite a crowd of them now. Ely thought he could see some taller figures lurking in the shadows just inside the door.