Personal Demons

by Christopher Fowler

  Kallie started to die.

  It was as easy as he had hoped it would be. You just had to do nothing, keep still and allow the insidious numbness to colonise your limbs. The crawling clouds reflected the whiteness of the city, and finally ceased to move, as if the world could no longer be bothered to turn upon its axis. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the ice-jewelled shutters, allowing life to quietly slip away.

  The explosion of noise that followed blasted him to his feet. Somebody was playing music inside the building. He could feel the bass tones vibrating the windowpanes. Forcing his reluctant body into action he stepped back, trying to see beyond the reflections into the rear of the ground floor. Someone – some thing – was gyrating insanely to the music, raging the entire length of the store. And there were lights, bursts of primary colour, flashing sequentially.

  It took him a while to discover the forced door of the delivery bay at the side of the building. He climbed over buckled steel struts – they must have been rammed with a vehicle – to the interior, and was deafened by the surrounding, saturating noise. Someone had used a bright yellow forklift truck to break in. Piles of cracked and broken CD cases littered the floor. A primitive set of disco lights pulsed red and blue diamonds at the back of the floor near the stairwell. The dancer was a short, slim woman in her forties. Her body retained the litheness and aggression of a professional performer. She swung and slammed and span, kicking out, punching the chill air with a series of guttural grunts. Her greying red hair was tied back with a green bandana. She wore a red satin leotard with the leggings hacked off above the knee, and a yellow scarf carelessly knotted around her waist. She looked ablaze with anger and energy.

  Kallie dropped behind a record rack and watched as the music changed, from the techno-trance of The Shamen to the electronic heartbeat of Tangerine Dream, from the calypso rhythms of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra to the classical cadences of Michael Nyman. She danced through an eclectic melange of sound that comfortably encompassed Offenbach and Elton John. Now that there was no more culture, the abrupt changes did not shock. When the music ceased in midtrack she crossed to the DJ booth and flipped the tape – obviously an item she had personally assembled – so that she could continue to dance. The first track of the second side was 'We're Havin' a Heatwave', sung by Marilyn Monroe, and Kallie caught himself grinning uncontrollably. Wondering where the power was coming from, he searched the floor and saw that a pair of car batteries had been rigged to the system with jump leads.

  Now he was able to observe her properly for the first time, bent over the light in the booth, feeling for the controls. She was unable to see, permanently blinded by time spent lost in the snowy wastes. There were no forgers at all on her swollen right hand, and just two on her left. She had deftly flipped the tape with her thumbs. He tried to catch sight of her feet, dreading to imagine their damaged state, knowing that every step she took must be agonising, but she was already off and away, pounding across the floor to the brassy orchestrations.

  Finally, even the deafening music failed to keep him awake. Comforted by the great weight of sound, with his greatcoat pulled about his head, he slept on through the long, loud night.

  He awoke soon after dawn to find the store silent, the lights and the sound system turned off to conserve what little power there was left. The dancer was asleep on a patchwork duvet beside the DJ booth, snoring lightly. Studying her, he was tempted to think that the tiny crosshatched lines around her mouth and eyes were caused by laughter, not fear, even though he saw that her feet were little more than swollen stumps. For a moment he wanted to ask her how she could dance in the face of all reason, when the world and her own body were steadily failing her, how it was possible to experience pleasure without hope. But waking her up, he realised, would be a mistake. Better to let her sleep on, and rebuild her energy for another dance.

  Gingerly stepping between CD cases, he made his way back to the delivery bay door and left. Outside, he paused before the windows and looked back in, but could no longer see her. The floor was still and dark, as if the building would only reawaken when she did.

  The sky had cleared to a deep sapphire-hard blue and the wind was keen, but at least the snow had stopped. He passed several people on his way to the river, but none of them were prepared to acknowledge him, or even look up. For the first time he began to sense just how completely the cold had closed him, closed them all, off. He was aware of being hungry, a state he normally never noticed, and grew colder by the minute, but the shimmering ebony band ahead drove him forward along the half-buried embankment, until he was standing in the silent centre of Waterloo Bridge, above the strangled stream that had once been the mighty Thames.

  When he looked down into the spangled black water and saw that it still ran, determinedly chugging around the encrusted floes and over mounds of industrial debris, on through the heart of the city, he began to cry; lightly at first, then uncontrollably, great howls of despair that turned to roars of frustration, rage and joy. Ice formed on his face where the tears coagulated. Something inside him opened, fanning into faint life, slowly growing warmer until his gut was burning. He turned and bellowed from the bridge, out across the sub-zero city, up into the frozen sky where hardy white gulls still wheeled and screamed, yelling until he was hoarse and dizzy from the exertion.

  And as that first great release subsided, he knew; that hope was false, a misleading hollow nonsense obscuring all that was real and true. The truth was that the world would die and take him with it, today, tomorrow, years from now, in agony, in terror, in unreadiness, and it didn't matter. What mattered was the time left to live. His rumbling stomach broke his train of thought, and he yelped with the shock of the noise after so much silence.

  Kallie looked out across the glittering, foolish river, to the weakling sun climbing in a pointless sky, where a dancing madwoman whirled in scraps of fire on crippled feet, beyond the laws of gravity, the threshold of pain, the bounds of rationality. He removed a glove and wiped his eyes until they were clear and dry. Heavy grey snowclouds were amassing on the estuary horizon. It was time to head North, before the temperature fell further.

  He wondered what Shari was doing, and whether, in the face of all reason, she too was laughing.

  WAGE SLAVES

  The office block blotted out the night sky above Canary Wharf. Walls of polished black glass absorbed all reflections, turning the building into a black hole, inhuman and infinite. The surrounding streets were deserted. At this time of night a single window was still illuminated, on the 35th floor.

  Leonard Clark was in his office studying a document. He was a lifer, heavy, balding, gym-fit, a workaholic whose calculated responses and unflinching stares made others nervous. His office was clinically corporate. The only touches of humanity were a framed photograph of a lost-looking wife and a signed cricket bat – a quota-achievement trophy – mounted on the wall.

  Matthew Felix knocked and entered. Another executive, but one with an attitude as yet unhardened by the vicissitudes of business life.

  'Ah, Mr Felix. I've just finished checking your report. Take a pew.'

  The younger man seated himself and awaited Clark's verdict. 'The style is sharp, succinct,' noted his boss. 'It's very impressive. Very impressive.' He paced about, studying the document while Felix fidgeted, unnerved by the rare praise.

  'Thorough, that's the word. And not afraid to be critical. That's good. It shows integrity.' Felix grew increasingly uncomfortable as Clark paced behind him. 'How long did this take you?'

  'Three days. Well. Days and nights.'

  'It's paid off. It really has. There's just one thing that bothers me. A silly thing. It's this, here.' He held the document close to Felix's face. Too close. 'Receipt. I before E except after C. But you get it wrong every time. Every single time. Look. Receipt. Receipt. Receipt. Receipt.'

  Clark carefully removed his prized cricket bat from the wall, giving it a few test swings. 'A foolish, tiny, minuscule mis
take. Ruining everything.'

  He took a sudden high swing with the bat. The massive connecting crack against the back of Felix's skull knocked him clean out of his swivel chair, sprawling him face down on the carpet-tiles. Clark examined his unconscious subordinate, then dragged him out of the office by the lapels of his suit. 'There's simply no excuse for shoddy workmanship these days,' he reflected.

  Imagine an incredibly complex computer program, a physical structure, skeletal at first, then gaining a dense musculature of electronic cabling, pipework and floors and finally, an exterior skin. A monolithic mirrored cathedral, towering over the city horizon. Below the postmodern fripperies of its entrance, down in the railway station at its base, a train discharged its next batch of commuters. They marched along the platform in regiments, financial warriors heading into fresh battle.

  Ben Harper's tie was knotted too tightly. He tried to loosen the knot as he marched with the crowd. Feeling something sticking in his neck, he pulled a pin from the collar of his brand-new shirt. He had yet to notice the price sticker still on his briefcase. He checked his watch and glanced up at the sombre building, its windows darkening as clouds passed.

  Ben had the hopelessly innocent face of a young man on his first day in a new job. He watched the other commuters for his cues, swallowing nervously and wondering why he had ever lied in the first place. Then he crossed the half-finished road to the Symax building and entered its pristine foyer.

  The Olympian marble hall appeared to have been designed by Albert Speer. A cleaner shadowed Ben, carefully wiping away his wet footprints, removing all human spoor. To access the elevator he had to collect an electronic tag from the commissionaire, who punched in its encoded number. The guards looked like American police officers. Video monitors checked his progress as the lift arrived and he entered.

  'Hold the doors!' An attractive young woman slipped into the elevator and smiled at Ben. She stood on one leg and removed her shoe, then belted the base of the door with the heel. The door juddered and shut. 'There's something weird with the electrics,' she explained. 'I should keep a hammer in my handbag.' She put the shoe back on.

  Ben watched her, fascinated, until the doors opened on the 35th floor.

  The reception area was a gleaming shrine to the work ethic, part space station, part rainforest. A large chromium sign read: SYMAX. The Future Is Now. Beyond this a bank of TV screens showed corporate videos; images of wheatfields, dolphins and sunsets. The robotic blonde behind the desk noted Ben's colour-coded badge. 'Oh, new boy. I'll call someone.'

  He watched one of the corporate videos. An avuncular voice intoned something about 'the first generation of environments that work for you. A Symax building is an infinitely adaptable stress-free workspace. Light, heat and climate are monitored by sensors that control your staff's constantly changing needs. One day all offices will be this way, because at Symax the future is here to stay.'

  'Mr Harper.' A corporate-looking woman in her early thirties held out her hand. 'Diana Carter. We met briefly at your interview. If you'd care to follow me.'

  She led Ben through the swing doors, past rows of extreme-technology work stations. The sky dominated, framed in the floor-to-ceiling windows. It gave the area a feeling of peace, as though they were on the deck of a liner coasting its way through the clouds. Staffers had customised their work spaces in odd ways, as if trying to make them cosier and less efficient-looking. All sound was absorbed but for the clicking of keyboards.

  'There's been a personnel change since we spoke,' explained Carter. 'Mr Felix left us rather suddenly. The PR department isn't fully functional yet. Things are a little crazy.' She handed him a manual. 'Company bible. Read and believe. This desk was supposed to have been cleared. Mr Temple wanted to welcome you but he's not himself today. None of us are.' She gave a brief bleak smile and whizzed off, leaving Ben at his work station.

  The girl from the lift was at the next desk. She looked over and smiled, appraising him. Feeling spied upon, Ben attempted to look efficient. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the switch to activate his terminal. Perhaps it needed a key or something. He checked the desk drawers. The first one contained a pair of damp socks, a bottle of painkillers and a hunting knife.

  His watch had stopped. His chair-back appeared to be broken. He tried to fire up the computer again, to no avail. He studied other people for tips and got none. Amused, the girl finally came over. 'Try the button at the front.'

  Ben sheepishly pressed it. The screen came on, but nothing else did.

  'You've never used one of these before, have you?'

  'I'm not familiar with this, uh, make,' said Ben.

  She reached over and booted up the system for him. 'What are you doing here?'

  He shifted awkwardly. 'I'm the new PR assistant to Mr Clark – '

  'I don't see how. You obviously have no experience.'

  'I've had dozens of corporate jobs.'

  'Then go ahead and set your voicemail.' She sat back, amused. 'You can fool them but not me. You've never worked in a place like this before, have you?'

  Ben was flustered. 'I thought I'd get a bit further before being found out. It's only ten past nine.'

  'I won't tell anyone.' She held out her hand. 'Marie Vine. Let's cut a deal. Tell me what you're doing here, and I'll get you through. Nobody has to know.'

  There was no point in continuing to lie. 'I needed the work,' he admitted. 'So I faked my CV. I was a teacher, do you know what that pays? I'm twenty-six and sick of never having any money. I can handle this. I know about people.'

  'If you know so much about people,' asked Marie, 'why did you stop teaching?'

  'I got fired for organising a student picket. I get too involved. This will be better for me, more – impersonal. It's just press releases. How hard can it be?'

  She brought her lips close to his ear. 'Here's something for you to think about. This is the most advanced work environment in the world. Yet it gives a job to a little red school-teacher with a faked CV. What does that tell you?'

  At noon, Carter reappeared to take Ben on a tour of the floor. 'Over there,' she pointed to a thin man in a tight grey suit, 'that's Mr Swan.' Swan's posture was birdlike and vaguely irritating. He slowly craned forward. 'If there's anything in the company manual that doesn't leap out at you, feel free to give me a tinkle.'

  'Over there, Mr Carmichael.' Ben nodded to each of the staff in turn, but people were too busy to take much notice. 'Lucy, your shared PA. Paula, word processing.' They passed another office. The huge shape of an arguing man could be seen through the glass. 'Mr Clark, the new department head.'

  Marie passed with a sheaf of papers and interrupted in a manner that seemed to annoy Carter. 'Mr Felix was in line for the position, but he's gone,' she explained. 'Vanished like a summer rain.'

  'Mr Temple is the managing director, as you know, but he's not often here,' said Carter. 'He lives on the floor above -'

  ' – but seeing him is like getting an appointment with the Wizard of Oz,' Marie cut in. 'Oh well, better get back to work. We're all on Candid Camera, you know. They record everything, and they're everywhere. Even in the toilets.'

  'I suppose Symax needs good security if it's developing systems no-one else has,' Ben replied.

  'Exactly so, Mr Harper,' agreed Carter. Marie was disappointed that Ben had chosen to side with the management. Ahead, a crowd was gathering around one of the refreshment stations.

  'It's happening again!' called one of the office boys. People were watching a half-filled water cooler that was emitting an ominous rumbling sound. The water inside swirled around in an impossible whirlpool, climbing the sides of the plastic jar. It whirled faster and faster, and suddenly the jar ruptured, spraying water everywhere. The secretaries squealed and jumped back.

  Ben turned to Carter but found her place taken by Marie. 'A bug in the system,' she explained. 'Look, my little bogus friend, I know it's your first day but I'd like to speak frankly with you. You confided in me. Not here,
though. The walls have ears and eyes. You have to be careful who you talk to. Over lunch.'

  They crossed an acre of grey marble floor to the restaurant, passing a pair of security guards with vicious-looking guns in their belts. 'Private security firm,' noted Marie. 'Those things on their belts are tasors.'

  'Is that legal?'

  'This place is beyond the jurisdiction of the police,' she explained. In the restaurant there were vegetarian dishes, roasting chickens, trays of ham and beef. They shared a quiet table away from the chatter-filled main section.

  'Three weeks ago Matthew Felix walked out of here and never even came back to collect his belongings,' she explained, talking through a mouthful of chicken. 'His car's still in its usual parking space under the building, but he's gone. He was my friend. And your predecessor.'

  'What can I do?' Ben shrugged helplessly. 'I just got here.'

  'The secretaries are always off sick. They say there's something in the air that makes you ill. At this height the windows can't be opened because of the winds. Then there are the phone lines. They randomly switch themselves around, like they've got poltergeists or something.'

  'It's my first day,' he pleaded.

  'The staff can sense that there's something wrong even if the management can't, but no-one – NO-ONE – is willing to talk about it.'

  'This suit is brand new, Marie. And the tie.'

  'I'm trying to find someone who's not just a management sheep.'

  'I'm not a sheep!' Ben protested. 'I've been in the business world for four hours! Management must be able to do something. Temple, he's the boss-man.'

  Marie speared a piece of asparagus. 'He won't see me. I've already had two official cautions from Clark. One more and I'll lose my job. They all think I like to stir things up.'