The accountants are gathered around a computer that they have covered in dozens of red candles and votive offerings. They appear to be worshipping it, chanting numbers at the garlanded screen. Their hummed refrain is the theme tune to
‘It’s true,’ says Ben. ‘There is a thin line between accountancy and madness.’
At eleven thirty, Meera makes an announcement. ‘I think I’ve been looking for the wrong thing,’ she tells them, tapping her screen with a pen.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Electro-magnetic radiation wouldn’t do this. You heard Howard. I’ve been on every website he could recommend and haven’t found a thing. It couldn’t spark a kind of collective mental breakdown.’
‘So what do we look for?’
‘I don’t know – some kind of trauma event.’
‘When did you first notice changes in people?’
Miranda thinks. ‘Maybe three weeks ago.’
‘Soon after Felix went missing. You’re sure he never went home? Suppose he’s still here.’ Ben feels tired and sore-headed. He didn’t sleep well.
‘There is one way to find out,’ suggests Meera.
‘How?’
‘His car key has a finder. It emits an electronic pulse coded to its matching base. All staff with car park spaces have them. It’s so the guards can locate the keys to move vehicles.’
Miranda slaps her forehead. ‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that! I’m sorry, I don’t drive, all right?’
‘How will we find the key finder?’ asks Ben.
‘It’ll be with the rest of Felix’s things,’ says Miranda. ‘I can take care of the search. What are you two going to do?’
‘We’re going to get Clarke’s keys,’ says Ben, ‘and take a look inside Room 3014.’
7. FRIDAY 11:47 AM
It’s a drastic move, but she can’t think what else to do: Meera chucks a cup of coffee into a wiring panel and shorts the computer outside Clarke’s office. Then she calls Fitch’s attention to the computer. Fitch is drunker than a fly in a martini. She hammers on Clarke’s door, and he emerges, looking as if he’s just been woken up. The moment he leaves his office to inspect the damage, Ben slips inside, searching his jacket for keys. He’s out with them just before Clarke storms back, slamming the door behind him.
Across the room, Miranda is going through Felix’s desk. She locates the key finder, a black plastic hand-set, and turns it on, so that its LED starts slowly chirping.
She sets off to find out where the sound is coming from, running the finder around the room. The electronic signal quickens – especially when she moves near a large aluminium ventilator grating.
She sees another CCTV camera secreted on the floor in the corner of the room. You’d think the damn things were breeding. She twists the entire unit off its base and throws it in a bin. The finder is going mad. Miranda pulls out a screwdriver and starts undoing the screws that hold the vent cover.
Far above her, on the forbidden directors’ floor, Ben and Meera step out into the corridor. They head for Room 3014. The door has warning signs on it:
HAZCHEM, STERILE ZONE.
Fumbling with the keys, Meera checks her back, then opens the great steel door.
They slip inside and find, in the centre of the room, an immense, grey plastic box. There are a number of unmarked yellow cylinders, like diving tanks, connected to it.
Ben is disappointed. ‘That’s the sensor unit for an air-con system.’
Meera shakes her head. ‘This isn’t any old air-con system, baby, it’s a SymaxCorp system. This is what we make. I’ve never seen one of these things up close.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘What’s the difference between a Ford and a Ferrari? This is the future. Check it out. The chemical composition of the building’s atmosphere can be changed via different program settings. When people get tense, they breathe quicker, and you get excess acidity in the air. The gauges measure dioxins and alkaline levels and gently compensate, restoring a natural oxygen balance that relieves stress. Except …’ She checks a line of coloured bars, incomprehensible to Ben.
‘Except what?’
‘These readings are way off. The SymaxCorp system doesn’t just recycle air from outside, it adds pure oxygen. But this isn’t pure. It’s some kind of weird chemical mix. I know enough about pharmacology to see that half of this shit isn’t even approved for public consumption.’ She runs her hand along some greyish residue at the outlet to one of the pumps, and licks her index finger. ‘Interesting.’
‘What?’
‘I think we’ve got one superheated cocaine speedball going through the building. Mix it with a cocktail of manufactured chemical compounds, and there’s no telling what the effects could be. How long can you hold your breath?’
‘Everyone has to breathe.’ They consider the point for a moment. ‘You think the directors figured they could get everyone to work harder if they pumped in this stuff?’
‘Long-term, it would brain-damage your workforce. That would be counter-productive. Wouldn’t it?’
‘Then they must have introduced the crack element in order to get the presentation prepared in time.’
‘So how is all the other stuff getting mixed in there?’
‘Maybe the system is fucked.’
They look at the gleaming pipes and cylinders, and listen to the insidious hiss of air.
Miranda takes the vent casing off and climbs inside the duct. She enters an unnerving maze of tubes, tunnels and conduits. The dark passages get narrower as she follows the quickening chirrup of the finder, pushing her way into ever more claustrophobic spaces. Following the signal, she turns into another pipe with a smaller gauge –
– and discovers that she is stuck. No matter how hard she wriggles, she can’t free herself from the constricting walls of the pipe. The key-finder is beeping faster still.
Ben and Meera, meanwhile, have torn up a floor grating in Room 3014 and are now, coincidentally, peering down into another of the interconnected vents. Meera is trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. Why would the system radically change the air?
Miranda is starting to panic. She is completely trapped. There’s no way forward and no way back. The key- finder is going wild, almost a continuous beep. She twists in the hot darkness, and finds a loose steel plate above her. She manages to raise her foot and kick at the plate. It’s not bolted, and flies away.
Felix’s rotting corpse falls on top of her.
Miranda screams, fighting off the maggot-infested cadaver as it leaks over her neck and arms, its putrefying face falling against hers, its stomach bursting open in a liquefied mess, releasing its gases. Fumes roll off the body, travelling up through the ventilation shafts, all the way to the sensors in Room 3014 …
… which go wild as they try to rebalance the air composition.
The sensors react to the rotting cadaver, sending chemical gauges into red-zone overload.
An electronic alarm starts whining somewhere. Lights flash. It’s never a good sign when systems in public places do this.
Bathed in pulsing crimson light, Ben and Meera see the startling effect on the sensors. They are connected to tanks of air additives, the mechanical valves of which start rotating. Now they are unstoppably turning by themselves, until they are wide open.
‘Whoa!’ Meera jumps back. ‘Something big just hit the sensors.’
‘Was it something we did?’
‘I think we should get out of here.’ The pair of them duck out of the room, shutting the door behind them.
Above Swan’s desk, next to his framed Bible quotes, a sensor light starts pulsing red. Newly toxic air is pumping out of the vent above him. He’s sweating, and Bible-thumping mad.
Above Clarke’s head, too, a sensor light starts pulsing as poisoned air pours through the vent in an unpleasantly warm stream.
Above Fitch’s head, an identical sensor light pulses as the deadly air pumps in more heavily than ever
