Memento Mori

by Gingell, W. R.

  The delivery door opened when Marx made it to the top step. He hadn’t yet activated the hailer, so this must be his contact. Confirming Marx’s conclusion, the man looked worriedly around and said: “Get in, then! Quickly!”

  Marx stepped through the door as quickly as his rigid leg would allow, turning sideways to squeeze past his contact, and found that the door was being closed behind him. More importantly, his contact was shutting it from the outside.

  “You’re in a hurry, mate.”

  Was the man sweating? His fingers were white around the edge of the door. “I’m off shift. Gotta go.”

  “You’re meant to show me to someone who can sign for this.”

  “No one signs for it,” his contact said hurriedly. “Just put it down outside the office at the end of the hall, the one with the yellow plaque.”

  “That right?” Marx said slowly, watching a bead of sweat run down his contact’s face. If he had any sense, he would run now. Instead, he asked, “How will they know it’s there?”

  “Knock if you want, man! I have to go!”

  The door swung shut in the slight breeze as it was released, and Marx saw a flash of his contact’s back hurrying away down the steps before the door shut with an ominous click. It was probably alarmed, too. There was no getting back out until he’d sorted a few things out and made his delivery.

  Marx sighed. This was what came of asking questions. He learned things he would rather not know, and was visited by suspicions he would rather not have. Now he would have to find somewhere quiet to investigate this parcel before he learned on the grapevine that something untoward had happened at the Holstrom Institute—or, worse, was arrested by the WAOF for the same reason.

  Cautiously now, Marx made his way to the end of the yellow-marked delivery area, and stepped into the main hall of the lower level. As soon as he did, he wished he hadn’t. There were far too many people in the hall. A lot of security, too, which was both annoying and potentially problematic; he was going to have to do something about the security feeds or the core into which they fed. If he’d known the Holstrom Institute had roughly as much security as the average prison, he would have troubled to provide himself with some of the more illegal forms of recognition preventative. As it was, it was looking very much like he would have to find and corrupt the security files for the day. Between that and his suspicions of the package he was delivering, this job was beginning to look like more trouble than it was worth.

  Marx glanced around briefly to get his bearings and set off confidently down the hall, threading between uniformed workers and jumpsuited workmen. He’d seen a floor plan of the Institute, of course; he did the same thing for any job he took on. He’d been alive for too long to let one carelessly managed job be the death of him.

  You never, thought Marx, with a humourless grin, knew when a dull job would turn into a life-threatening one. This floor was the delivery floor, if his reading of the floorplans was correct; there should be nothing down here but offices, lockers, and storage. Nothing useful to him, in other words, unless he wanted to slip into one of them to discover exactly what was in his parcel. Nothing, either, that should need so much security. His eyes flickered back and forth across the hall, checking doors for an unsecured or open one, but the sensor pad beside each door was lit with a red light. Walking confidently would see him through the workers going about their own business, but the security feeds were another question. The longer he remained in this hall, the more likely it was that he would trip an alarm on one of the security channels. If he made it to the end of the hall without being able to find a suitable place to investigate his parcel, it was unlikely he would make it any further. He could already see the red light beside that sensor pad from halfway down the hall.

  He was nearly two-thirds of the way down the hall before he saw it; a single, not quite secured locker in the fourth row at his left. The light was flickering between red and green. It had probably been doing so for quite some time; even in a place so security conscious as the Institute seemed to be, the idea that smaller security measures were less important managed to creep in through the less critical floors.

  Marx spun on his toes at the locker and gave it a short, impersonal thump with the side of his fist that made it pop open. One of the passing jumpsuited men started at the noise but didn’t stop his brisk walk, and the apologetic grin Marx shot at him was disregarded. He looked down into the locker and his grin became slightly grimmer. There was a security ring in there, but no jumpsuit. Why was that?

  He picked up the ring and looked more closely at it. It was red and white in parallel lines, with a small two superimposed over the red and white. Marx’s brows rose. So that’s why there was no jumpsuit: the locker belonged to someone who worked on the second floor—the ground floor, if you entered from the front of the Institute—and who would be able to wear his or her own clothes to work. He took a thoughtful moment to put the ring on, weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of the two courses of action currently open to him. He could now, with this ring, let himself into any of the doors along this hall; unfortunately, someone in a level two ring letting themselves into a level one room was likely to be seen as odd. Or he could proceed to the end of the hall and ride the drop chute to the second level where his ring would be less noticeable, but he himself would be more likely to be seen as out of place.

  “Should have shaved this morning,” said Marx, shutting the locker with another thump of his fist. Then he made his parcel more comfortable and sauntered on to the end of the hall.

  Patient #51: Codename, Trouble

  Marcus’ office was empty. At least, Kez thought, looking around suspiciously, it looked empty. Things with Marcus were never exactly what they seemed. The last time she was in his office she had avoided two subtle alarms and tripped a third—and it was no good expecting them to be the same three alarms this time, either. Kez had already turned off all the security feeds that came from the room, but she was reasonably sure Marcus had a backup system somewhere. She was also reasonably sure she knew where that backup system was. There was a small, elegant piece of mirror artwork on one of Marcus’ bookshelves, set conveniently just where its mirrored surfaces could reflect every angle of the room—or pick up an image of every angle of the room.

  Kez crossed the room and built a nice little structure of books around the elegant thing, careful to use the bib of her jumpsuit to move them. Marcus liked his old-fashioned things, but it was very unlikely that anyone had ever read these books, and Kez would much rather not leave traces of herself all over what were likely to be otherwise unmarked books.

  That particular problem dealt with, Kez looked around the room with suspicious eyes. What really worried her was the idea that there was most likely a backup core for storage of that secondary feed, too. It wouldn’t do her any good to cut off Marcus’ backup security if it had already recorded her entering the room for Marcus to see later at his leisure.

  That wouldn’t be hidden either, of course; it would be somewhere, inoffensively, in sight. She wandered through the office again, carefully inspecting everything. Marcus wouldn’t be back for some time yet; he had a visitor today—one of the important ones who brought alert, jump-suited security with them—and they had already spent several hours in the back gardens where no one could approach them without being seen. Marcus’ garden meetings most often lasted the entire day, so there was no need to rush and miss something important.

  A whisper of memory said, Don’t go, and Please don’t take long at the back of her mind. Kez hunched her shoulders against it. She didn’t owe the boy anything, and she would be opening the door for him, after all. It was just that she had to do something else first. She pushed away the memory of the boy’s voice and went back to her slow search of the room. All the usual things were there on the desk: the watch—always there, to Kez’s incomprehensible rage; who owned such a thing and didn’t wear it?—the two stacks of paper, the tiny glass paperweight that was more deco
ration than use, and Marcus’ tidy, gridded pen-holder.

  Kez slipped the watch into her pocket and glared at the pen-holder. “Ain’t nobody even uses pens anymore,” she muttered. That wasn’t completely true, but Marcus certainly didn’t. Her sharp black eyes kindling, Kez grinned. She snatched up one of the pens and snapped it between her fingers, careless of the shower of fragments that disappeared into the carpet. Much to her disappointment, all the exercise produced was a growing pool of ink in the palms of her hands that she wiped off on Marcus’ chair where it wouldn’t be seen but might leave a nice stain on the seat of his trousers. She broke the other pens, too, just in case, but all that produced was more ink, some of it pleasingly red and inclined to look like gore when she trailed the excess across her trousers.

  Kez, her eyes even sharper, pondered the gore for a moment. Was it possible that it was a—what was it that Marcus called it?—a false positive? No, that wasn’t the right phrase, but neither were the pens right. If they, the most out of place thing on the desk, were normal, it suggested everything else on the desk was normal, too. Except that Kez was certain everything else wasn’t, and although most people might have been happy to cease destruction with the pens, Kez wasn’t most people.

  She looked at the desk again, prepared to break everything on it if necessary, and found that it wasn’t necessary. That glass bauble—the rectangle that looked like it was something but was something else when you looked at it another way—that was it. She should have seen it straight away. It was glass, like the mirror artwork on the bookcase, but unlike the glass artwork that reflected everything, this glass bauble had taken on an impression—two impressions—and could be said to be the exact opposite of the mirror artwork. Marcus would have liked that. Kez chuckled in the back of her throat and slipped the glass bauble into her other pocket. No need to search any more. She had everything she had come for.

  Kez wriggled back into the floor the way she’d come. The security feeds outside the door of Marcus’ office weren’t connected to the office’s internal systems, and she hadn’t done anything about them this morning when she planned her campaign. She would have to think about that next time; it was a tight squeeze going through the floor, and she wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer. Once she grew a bit more, she’d be too big to work her way around the bend that opened out into the wall. It was easy to get back into the ceiling from there, but only if she was still small enough to get around the bend.

  Once in the ceiling, Kez allowed herself to stop and check the time on her stolen watch. It was well toward lunch, which meant she should hurry. If she was in time, she would be able to slip out of the ceiling while the lunch trolley was usefully in reach. It was much easier getting in and out of the ceiling if she had something to help her in and out. The lunch cart was always a good way for someone shorter than average to drop from the ceiling without injuring themselves, and the wheels were so stiff and hard to move that it behaved almost like a stationery piece of furniture. She shuffled herself along in a furious cloud of dust, stopping only to sneeze occasionally, and arrived at her destination—and the end of the crawl space—hot and coated with dust.

  A quick glance down through the carefully lifted ceiling tile was enough to show Kez what she needed to know. Her eyes brightened. She was in time.

  Kez waited until it was almost below her and until the lunch lady took her tray into the next room. Then she slipped out of the ceiling, curling her skinny legs around and down, and dropped.

  There was a silent and swift-moving series of events that Kez’s mind couldn’t quite comprehend, and something hit her very hard in the back. It took a few shocked moments to piece together what had happened, but gradually it occurred to Kez that as her feet hit the lunch trolley, it had slid effortlessly out from beneath her feet. The trolley was now lurching drunkenly against the far wall, and Kez’s teeth were buzzing in her head as she lay on the ground, trying to draw breath without groaning.

  Good thing I got a hard head, she thought dazedly. Her ears were ringing, which was ridiculous because there hadn’t been any especially loud noises, had there? Oh, right; hit me head. Why’s me leg hurt? And who’s runnin’ in the ’all?

  It was another few moments before the ringing subsided. With it, the running footsteps disappeared, and Kez sat up, confused. Had she heard someone running, or was that just because she’d hit her head?

  “Good gracious!” said a surprised voice behind her. “Kez! Good heavens, is that—that’s ink, isn’t it? What have you been up to? Did you run into my cart?”

  “Yeah,” said Kez to all the questions, scowling.

  The lunch lady, who seemed to know by now that this particular scowl was merely a thoughtful one and not to be feared, said, “You’d better get along, hadn’t you? Lunch has already started in the mess hall.”

  “Don’t feel like diggin’ pills outta me food,” Kez said, and hauled herself to her feet. Her left ankle was hurting in a dull, dangerous way; she must have twisted it. “Oi. Since when did you start oilin’ them wheels, anyway?”

  “The wheels? Goodness! So that’s what’s different today! I thought it was a bit quieter around here!”

  “Yeah,” said Kez sourly. “Real quiet.”

  “I’m sure it was still squeaking earlier, though. Maybe it’s finally worked itself out.”

  “Yeah,” said Kez again. “Maybe. Reckon I’ll go now. Ain’t meant to be in this hall, anyway.”

  The lunch lady gave her an approving smile and went on with her business. Kez sent back a particularly venomous glare and limped toward the door at the end of the hall. It would get her into the main hall—if she could open it, of course. It was no use rapping on the little window in the door, either; technically speaking, Kez was allowed to be in the main hall, but she wasn’t supposed to be in this section. If someone other than the lunch lady caught her she would be locked up in her room without a second warning.

  Kez dragged herself down the hall on her aching ankle, a distinctly gloomy droop to her shoulders. She hadn’t been lying to the boy about her ability to open doors, but the main hall doors were a very different proposition to the ones in the rest of the Institute. The main hall was the Safe Area. The Pretty Area. The bit where you could only see the nice parts of the Institute. Understandably, Marcus didn’t like people getting further along to where the Institute wasn’t quite so nice, and the doors out of there were harder to unlock.

  Prepared for an annoyingly lengthy struggle with the inner workings of the sensor, Kez didn’t notice that the little light beside the pad was green until she was right in front of it.

  “Hah!” she said. “Funny.” What was Marcus up to? Was this also part of his game with her, or was he playing with someone else at the moment?

  She didn’t let herself hesitate; she was through the door and into the main hall in a moment. It was roiling with all the patients who should have been in their rooms; a rushing, contained tide with dangerous undercurrents. Kez, grinning, plunged into it, working her elbows as viciously as if she really was swimming. This felt like a bit too much uncontrolled chaos for one of Marcus’ schemes; but, Marcus or not, she was prepared to use it for her own benefit. Kez limped her way through the throng, giving a wide berth to two trapped visitors, and slipped through the door that led to the blue playroom. From there, she could get back into the ceiling on the right side of the inconvenient barrier.

  Kez gave a little chuckle and rubbed her hands together. Nearly there. Her eyes swept the room more by habit than from conviction of actual danger, and in the panorama of blue walls something moved that was blue but not wall.

  Golden hair and a beautiful smile danced dizzily in Kez’s sight.

  “’Allo, Demon,” she said, with a dry throat. What was he doing here? More importantly, why wouldn’t the door open again? It was unlocked: the light was green when she sent a desperate look down beneath her lashes.

  “Hallo, Kezzy,” said Damon. He didn’t have a knife to hand,
but Kez was almost certain that the limp, rag-doll legs flung carelessly askew beneath one of the chairs didn’t belong to a doll. “I came in here to play with the little ones. Marcus said I could.”

  “Sure ’bout that?” asked Kez. Her hands were behind her back, cold and clammy around the handle of the door and pulling, pulling; but the door wouldn’t open. “Sure the doors didn’t just open?”

  Damon smiled slyly at her. “Isn’t it the same thing? Did you come in to play with me, Kezzy?”

  “Don’t think so,” Kez said, her voice almost a growl. “Not ’nless you wanna be bit.”

  “You have too many teeth, Kezzy,” said Damon. He took one small step forward. “Share some with me.”

  “I’ll share ’em, all right,” Kez promised, but her hands were shaking. Damon was already taking another step in her direction. A cold sweat seemed to freeze at her hairline, and Kez gave up her façade of fearlessness. She turned and hauled on the door handle, shoving at the door itself when the handle didn’t even give as much as it would have if it was still locked. At any other time, it would have occurred to her that someone was holding the handle from the other side. Now, panic sparking all along her scalp, she couldn’t think. All cold fingers and toes and ears, Kez felt the warmth of something stirring deep in her stomach. She seized on the feeling and the fear, and shifted herself up and out—and into that Other Zone that was always waiting for her at the edge of fear.

  Time and Space made a milky nonsense around her, and Kez drifted. The glass rectangle grew warm and slightly moist in one hand while Marcus’ fob watch grew warm and slightly moist in the other. And Kez waited, waited, waited for the fear to subside.

  Guest Passes #34 & #35

  “There’s an unsettling amount of automated security in this hall.”

  “Worried, sir?”

  “Just slightly. Did you know how much security would be here when you dragged me into your scheme?”