Breathe

by Christopher Fowler

  The girl’s noticed him now, and watches in amusement as he tries to discover how to turn the iMac on. After letting him fumble about for a while, she leans over and discreetly boots the computer up for him.

  ‘Bottom left,’ she whispers, and points.

  Ben feels for the button but still can’t find it.

  ‘No, your other left. You’ve never used one of these before, have you?’

  Ben feigns indignance. ‘Of course I have. I’m just used to a different type. Uh, brand. You know, model.’

  She smiles witchily. ‘You use firewire or infrared for Powerpoint spreadsheets and Word docs?’

  ‘Oh, well,’ he says casually, ‘you know, either really. Both. Whatever, I don’t mind.’

  ‘Which OS did you train on, then? Ten?’

  He studies the ceiling, thinking. ‘Oh, er, the usual one. Yeah, ten, probably, or maybe eleven.’

  ‘Okay, sport, it’s all yours. Take it away. Let’s see what you can do.’

  Ben is screwed. Aware of being watched, he tentatively taps the keyboard and shuts everything down again. The girl scoots her chair beside his and holds out her hand.

  ‘I’m Miranda, corporate slut.’

  ‘You don’t look –’

  ‘Corporate, I know. What I mean is, I’m a temp. That’s how they see us, the management. High pay, low dignity. And you don’t know your way around an iMac. We met in the lift.’

  ‘The shoe hammerer.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m gentler than I look. Listen, I’ll keep your secret. Just tell me what the hell you think you’re doing here.’ Ben gives her a look of bruised innocence. ‘Oh, come on. Anyone can see you’re a company virgin. How did you ever get this gig? Is your daddy a director? Can’t be your mummy, this place has a glass ceiling. I’ve worked everywhere, they’re all the same.’

  Ben thinks for a moment and mumbles. ‘I – uh – well …’ Miranda mirrors his innocent look and returns it bigger. Maybe he should level with her.

  ‘Shit. Well, the truth is, a friend helped me make up my CV.’ He pulls a disc from his pocket. Miranda takes it from him and inserts it into the iMac. She opens the only file and examines his CV on screen. Apparently he has worked at three of the hottest companies in the city. Yeah, right.

  ‘Pretty fucking unconvincing. And you got away with this?’

  Ben checks his watch and pleads with Miranda. ‘For just over three minutes. Look …’

  ‘Miranda. Like in The Tempest.’

  ‘Miranda, I need this job,’ he pleads. Other workers have noticed their conversation and are pretending, rather obviously, not to listen.

  ‘But you’ve never done anything like it before.’

  ‘No. I was a hospital carer.’

  Miranda scrolls down through the document and finds a second CV – this must be the real one, because it’s a lot less impressive. It runs to all of three lines. ‘Bit of a career jump, wouldn’t you say?’ She reads on. REASON FOR TERMINATION. ‘Jesus, kicked out for organising a strike. Why do you even keep a copy of this?’

  ‘To remind me,’ he explains.

  ‘I wouldn’t, not around here. The central server searches everyone’s hard drives. Erase it if you’re planning to stay.’

  ‘I have to make this work.’ He doesn’t want to beg, but he will if necessary. ‘I can do it. It’s Health and Safety, how hard can it be?’

  ‘Harder than you think. But I may be able to help you. ‘

  Miss Fitch walks past. Her X-ray glare causes Miranda to break off. She waits for the all-clear before resuming.

  ‘We’re not supposed to be talking.’ She points to the tiny CCTV camera in the corner above their workstations. ‘It’s activated every time anyone moves their chair. It picks up signs of fraternisation and relays them to the management monitors. You should keep a screensaver made from a worksheet so that you can default to it when a supervisor passes. And put a pair of sunglasses on your desk. You can see who’s prowling around behind you.’

  ‘How do you know this stuff?’ he asks. Maybe she’s older than she looks.

  ‘I’m a temp on 100WPM/1BB. We know everything.’ She waves the question aside as she ejects his disc and slips it back in the case. ‘Hundred words a minute and one bathroom break a day. Highest rating. I don’t have to work here.’

  ‘Then why do you?’

  ‘They pay more. I’ll go with anyone. In a strictly business sense.’ A quick smile. Miranda’s voice carries, and others start to notice when she’s not getting on with her work. Ben means to look busy and committed, but it’s not easy.

  ‘But why is this place –’

  ‘No more questions. Seal those luscious lips.’ She holds a finger to her mouth. ‘I’ll meet you at the refreshment station in half an hour.’

  They stand before the coffee machine like spies exchanging secrets. Miranda points to another CCTV camera above them as she spoons in Nescafé. ‘The supervisors time our breaks. We’re not allowed tea because we’re sponsored by a coffee company.’

  ‘What about mineral water?’

  ‘Coca Cola. Approved company brands only. So why would you want to work here?’

  ‘The money, and I’ve got a lousy employment history. After the strike, I had a kind of a breakdown. I’m not good in stressful situations.’

  She hands him a styrofoam cup. ‘Well, you really picked the wrong place this time.’

  ‘Look, I just need to make some cash. Toe the line, be like everyone else and keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘You don’t look like someone who can do that.’ She’s flirting with him. She couldn’t be, could she?

  ‘I can do it,’ he says unconvincingly. ‘I’ll fit in and earn some hard cash if it kills me.’

  ‘It might do.’ She sips coffee with a smile. ‘The last guy who had your desk disappeared.’

  Ben reads his on-screen manual. Under DUTIES it has:

  ASCERTAIN WELFARE OF ALL STAFF IN YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AREA AND FILE WEEKLY REPORT TO HEAD SUPERVISOR. Thirty pages of small print follow the heading, but he skips that part.

  ‘Okay.’ Broadly speaking, it sounds easy enough. Ben one-finger types: ACCESS WELFARE REPORTS FOR:

  He highlights all the twentieth floor group members. The screen reads: ACCESS DENIED PERMISSION BY GROUP HEAD: MR CLARKE.

  It make no sense. How can he do his job? There’s one way to find out. Ben knocks on the glass wall of Fitch’s booth and enters. Fitch is busy and barely bothers to look up.

  ‘I’m unable to access the staff’s previous welfare reports, Miss Fitch.’

  ‘You don’t need to. You’re going to file new ones.’ She’s marking work, ticking and crossing out, a teacher destroying the lives of her pupils with the flick of a pen. No family pictures here, no knick-knacks, just paperwork, files, signs of a monastic existence.

  ‘How can I do that if I can’t see their past complaints?’

  ‘Their past complaints have been dealt with.’ Tick. Cross. Cross.

  ‘How do I know that?’

  Now she looks up. ‘Because I’m telling you.’

  ‘I need to see their personal histories. Can you grant me access?’

  ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

  ‘I’m not getting many answers.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to come up with some of your own. Your predecessor was very opinionated, Mr Harper.’

  ‘You make it sound like a bad thing.’

  ‘It was for him. Opinions are valid only if someone wants them.’

  Don’t rise to it, he tells himself, and leaves. Not a great start. He has to learn to control his mouth.

  Ben walks over to Miranda’s workstation. ‘Is there any reason why I wouldn’t be able to access any health reports?’

  ‘After Felix disappeared, Clarke rerouted everything.’ Miranda points to the man in the photo-frame on Ben’s desk, leans forward and whispers. ‘His name was Felix Draycott. He vanished three weeks ago. Worked late one night, failed to turn up the n
ext morning. Didn’t even come back to empty his desk. We were told stress.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘You tell me. You’re Health and Safety.’ She curls a finger between his shirt buttons, drawing him closer. ‘Oh, but there’s something else. Something really weird.’

  ‘Miranda, it’s my first day.’ He removes her hand, although he likes the touch.

  ‘I could make it your last.’

  ‘Please don’t do this.’

  ‘Come on, Ben, it’s your job to listen and make a report.’ She opens her desk and takes out an expensive man’s watch. ‘His watch was still in his desk. He took it off while he was working because he said his computer affected it. What kind of man would leave a job without taking his Rolex with him? And that’s not all –’ But Miss Fitch is passing with sheaves of paperwork, a one-woman hardcopy industry. ‘Meet us for lunch later. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘Us?’ asks Ben. ‘Who’s us?’

  The dining room is as far from a canteen as Ben can imagine – a brushed steel kitchen galley with modular cream resin seats, a seventies-influenced lunch area set in a tall tropical plant-filled atrium. Even the flowers smell real. The food, too, is fashionably seventies; coq au vin, chicken chasseur, trout with almonds. Miranda takes Ben to a table. As she does so, she points out another staff member, a balding thirty-year-old with a fussy attitude who’s talking earnestly to Fitch.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Mr Swan. He’s Fitch’s bitch, company spy. If you complain about anything, he’ll spout the rules and offer you anger-management courses. I’m on his shitlist; there’s a surprise. Fitch is a secret drinker. Eats breath-strips to cover it up but forgets to throw away the empties. She has no life. You can imagine. All the men around here are going bald. Weak sperm or something. Comes from sitting too close to the monitors.’

  Mr Clarke clumps past. Ben can’t help but notice that he has one leg shorter than the other. The boot tends to draw attention to itself.

  ‘That has to be Mr Clarke. He was supposed to be at my interview, but I think he was off sick.’

  ‘He’s the one to be scared of. The head of the department, Felix’s old boss. He was the last one to see Felix. Don’t stare at the boot.’ She waves. ‘Hey, Meera, June.’

  ‘Hey, Miranda.’ Meera Mangeshkar is a harassed-looking Indian staff member clad in a garish sari, and armed with stacks of zip-drives. June is a heavy-set Caribbean woman with a kind face that naturally reposes in a smile. They join them at the lunch table and shake Ben’s hand in turn.

  ‘This is Ben. He’s Felix’s replacement.’

  ‘Oh, wow.’ They give him weird, knowing looks.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Ben,’ says Meera politely.

  ‘Meera is our IT genius,’ Miranda tells him. ‘She’s been penalised for breaking the dress code.’

  ‘If you get ten points against you, you’re suspended,’ Meera explains. ‘I’m up to nine.’

  ‘You sound quite proud of it,’ says Ben.

  ‘I’m here to make the machines look good. Apart from that, I’m invisible. So I don’t wear the kind of regulation IT clothes they expect you to wear, and then I’m not invisible.’

  ‘Nice thinking.’

  ‘Nice tie.’ Meera flicks his Tootal with a grin. ‘This is June Ayson. She was suspended.’

  ‘For being over office target weight.’ June pinches an inch through her sweater. ‘I’ve got a month left to lose fifteen pounds.’

  Ben is appalled. ‘You’re telling me they have a weight limit here?’

  ‘Well, they can’t have a colour bar, and they had to think of something.’ June doesn’t seem too concerned. She smiles, even, white teeth like peppermint pellets. Perhaps she’s crazy. Perhaps they’re all crazy.

  ‘Am I right in thinking you’re all in trouble with the management?’ asks Ben. The group’s silence answers his question.

  ‘Oh, well, that’s just great.’

  ‘Listen to me, Ben,’ says Miranda. ‘I know you want to keep your nose clean, but we need your help. There’s something very fucking weird going on here. It’s the building.’

  ‘Yeah,’ June agrees, ‘it has bad vibrations. Strange stuff happens all the time.’

  Ben is deeply unconvinced. ‘Like what? Poor feng shui? You’ve even got a fountain.’

  ‘It makes you want to wee all the time,’ says June.

  ‘Okay, but you’ve got everything you could want here.’

  Miranda has her cynical face on again. ‘Yeah, maybe too much. Ask any of the staff. They all have problems. Everyone talked to Felix because he was Health and Safety. He made a report of his findings. He delivered it, and then he disappeared.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can –’

  Miranda sighs, like he’s missing the point. ‘Clarke had a copy of Felix’s report. He was supposed to present it to Dracula.’

  ‘Wait, there are vampires now?’

  ‘Dr Hugo Samphire. Chief bloodsucker, the Chairman of SymaxCorp. I searched Clarke’s office one night, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe you’ll have more luck.’

  Ben raises his hands in protest. He feels like he’s waded out into a river, only to feel the current tugging him away. ‘Whoa, whoa, back up! Search his office? If I cause any trouble, they’ll kick me out.’

  ‘Only if they find out the truth about you.’ Miranda smiles sweetly.

  Ben feels himself losing his temper. ‘Are you trying to blackmail me? This is my first day, for Christ’s sake.’

  Miranda leans close and threatening, taps him on the wrist with her dessert spoon. ‘Listen pal, before Felix’s computer was cleaned out, Meera tried to burn a disk of his files, but his system refused to make a copy, and flagged up the request to Clarke.’

  Ben looks from one face to the next. ‘This is a joke, right?’

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ warns Meera, ‘I can’t even be seen talking to you. I’m on my last point.’

  ‘You could try wearing a skirt,’ Ben tells her. ‘I bet you’ve never even been to India. Why look for trouble?’

  ‘Jesus, it’s not like I’m asking you to commit a crime, Ben.’ Miranda throws the spoon down.

  Ben is totally irritated by her attitude. She acts like she owns the place. ‘You told Felix something “weird” was going on, and now you think he was, like, silenced or something, and you don’t even know what he found out!’

  ‘Oh, we know what he found out.’

  ‘Well, what? Tell me!’

  She looks at the others in a moment of silence. ‘Why don’t I show you?’

  Miranda leads Ben across the open-plan office. You can hear the wind whistling around the corners of the building up here. They’re level with other workers in other buildings. It’s like looking into the other train when you’re waiting in a station. ‘This is as good a place as any to start.’

  A crowd has gathered around one of the water coolers. Inside the plastic water tank, liquid is spinning in a wild whirlpool. ‘It happens the same time every day. You can set your watch by it.’

  ‘Electro-magnetic interference,’ Meera informs him with a nudge. ‘There’s too much in here. The more equipment we turn on, the weirder it gets.’

  ‘Show him the pigeons,’ suggests June.

  Meera takes Ben to the corner of the floor, and points out through the great windows. There are dozens of dead pigeons lining the window ledges, lying on their backs with their feet in the air. Some have been cannibalised. They’re missing legs and eyes.

  Ben presses his face against the cool glass. ‘Mass suicide?’

  ‘They get within a certain radius and keel over.’

  ‘Oh come on, Meera. You’re talking about some form of radiation?’

  ‘If it can kill a bunch of birds, what’s it doing to our brains? Computers are shielded, they shouldn’t cross-resonate, but what if the specs are wrong?’

  ‘I thought they had experts to check this kind of stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, that�
�s me. But equipment’s more complicated now. You’re living in a world where a pen comes with pages of instructions in a dozen languages. Even your after-shave has a web site. It doesn’t mean that anyone knows what they’re doing.’ Meera looks around to make sure the CCTV cameras can’t see them, then removes a panel from the wall. Inside, thousands of tiny red insects scurry over the cables. ‘Know what these are?’

  Ben has never seen anything like it. They swarm onto the floor, miniscule creatures buzzing over and around his shoes. He takes a step backwards.

  ‘Computer mites. Every building in the city has them. Just not this many. Pest controllers came in and sprayed, but they were back the next week, bigger and stronger.’

  ‘Maybe the stuff contained steroids.’

  ‘You’re not taking this seriously, are you.’ Meera puts the panel back, shaking bangles up her arm.

  ‘Maybe you’re taking it too seriously. Bugs and birds? Give me a fucking break.’

  June and Ben look down into the building’s vast central stairwell, a world of steel and concrete. A strong updraft ruffles their hair. June opens a pack of cigarettes and removes the silver foil from inside it. ‘We’re not even supposed to carry packets of cigarettes into the building,’ she says, screwing the foil up into a ball and dropping it into the stairwell. It falls, then spins and hovers on the air current.

  ‘Touch it.’

  Ben gingerly touches the floating foil ball and gets an electric shock.

  ‘The air flow is all messed up. It’s like being in a funfair.’

  In the corridor where they’re standing, the wind moans eerily up the elevator shafts. Girls walk past, and their dresses lift in the updraft, like on a carnival walk.

  ‘This is all bullshit; it’s bad design, not bad vibes. You want to see a building with real problems? Visit the block of flats in Hackney where my old man lives. I’m going back –’

  ‘Wait. You said you couldn’t access the health records. Then at least you should talk to some of the staff. It’s your job, Ben.’

  ‘Damn. I thought I was going to get by on my looks.’

  ‘You could start with Apela,’ June tells him.

  ‘Apela. Is that corporate jargon?’

  ‘No, that’s her first name. She’s over there.’