Suddenly they hear a rhythmic thumping noise and look up to see Clarke heading their way. Clarke stops by Meera’s desk. Sweating and annoyed, the supervisor studies Ben as if he is some kind of peculiar biological anomaly. ‘Mr Harper. Step into my office, would you?’
Clarke offers Ben a seat. The supervisor paces back and forth past his son’s sports trophies. Clarke’s elevated boot makes his clumping gait lop-sided. He is unpredictable when he’s like this.
‘I want you to know I was against your appointment here. But the law is on your side. You’re here to fill a European requirement. You’re a legal statistic.’
Ben shifts uncomfortably. ‘I know it’s only my first day, but it seems to me that people are experiencing low- level symptoms of illness, and they apparently think the building is at fault.’
‘If someone comes to you with a problem, you report it to me. Just stick to your job description and we’ll get along fine. Don’t give me bad news. I want solid factual evidence, not your vague opinions.’
Ben is already having a crisis of conscience. He wants to fit in, but he hates dishonesty. ‘You expect me to falsify my findings?’ That isn’t what he meant to ask, but it’s out now.
Clarke’s eyes bulge unpleasantly as he looms close. He’s been eating onions, and there’s an under-scent of lard. ‘Listen, you little prick, you stick to being a keyboard-monkey or I’ll leave you twisting in the fucking wind. How clear is that?’
‘Pretty clear. I’m just trying to do my job. I don’t want to get the boot.’
A building like SymaxCorp is analogous to the backstage area of a theatre set. In the same way that Disneyland’s miles of service corridors are not seen by the public, SymaxCorp’s basement remains hidden from view. Beneath the lobby, spotlights reach off into the distance. Two servicewear-co-ordinated workmen study them.
‘What are we looking for?’ asks Tony Cox, not because he’s interested but because it’s nearly time to go home and he’s starving.
‘Damage from a power surge,’ Ray Sturgiss, his supervisor, tells him. ‘It came up on the board. I don’t see any.’
‘How do they keep everything so clean down here? You could eat off the fucking floor.’ Tony snaps his gum and blows a bubble.
‘Suction system removes all the dust. Howard’s the only janitor for the whole building. One day, all places will be like this.’
‘The hippy bloke? He never does any fucking work.’
As the workmen watch, the lights go out all the way along the corridor.
‘Shit. That’s a big one.’ Ray looks up nervously. They descend and try the switches, but nothing happens. They flick on torches, illuminating a path. ‘I don’t understand. The system is brand new. There’s nothing to go wrong.’
‘Then where are the lights?’ asks Tony.
‘It must have damaged the sub-station.’ They stop before a tall steel box, the door of which is raised. ‘This shouldn’t be open. It’s hyper-sensitive equipment. It must have unsealed when the electrics crashed.’
Tony peers in. ‘So what do we do?’
‘Trip the relay from the mains after I’ve checked this.’
‘Can you smell that? Something burning.’ Tony sniffs the air.
‘I’ve got no sense of smell, mate.’ Ray rolls up his sleeves and reaches in to the rerouters. ‘Was a time when they’d employ a bloke with a broom to keep a place clean. Now even a sweeper needs a fucking degree in electronics to figure out. Give me some light here. Tony? Coxie?’ He looks around. Tony seems to have vanished. Suddenly, the lights come back on all the way along the corridor.
Relays trip. Electricity arcs. Machinery moves. The hum of new air starts up. Ray still has his hand inside the sub-station as the lid is reactivated and starts to close. There’s no way he can get his hand out in time. He struggles, but the heavy steel lid is still coming down on his fingers.
‘Coxie! Coxie! Shut it back off!’ The metal sheet closes on his hand, crushing then snipping off his last two fingers at the first joint. Ray’s agonised cries echo along the corridor, but his hand is free and the shield is back in place. The system’s designed to do that, after all.
The built-up boot. You hear it coming from the other end of the corridor. You get to recognise the loping walk. Clarke clumps to the front of the seated workers and barks at them.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he looks from one expectant face to the next, ‘this Friday, SymaxCorp presents its office systems via the top floor satellite link to the New York Board Of Commerce. This will be the most important presentation in the company’s history. The later you stay, the harder you work, the more likely you’ll be to win promotion over your colleagues. Don’t trust them, because they won’t be trusting you. This isn’t a business. It’s a war that we intend to win. Get a good night’s sleep. You have a very tough week ahead of you.’
Ben and Miranda are seated near the back, like kids who talk in class. They eye each other with some suspicion. ‘He should have been in the military,’ says Ben.
‘He
Clarke is watching them.
3. TUESDAY
The building glints blackly beneath gathering storm clouds. Sometimes movement can be glimpsed within; it looks as though a great creature is shifting. The darkest part of the sky is touching the SymaxCorp roof. On the twentieth floor, Ben dons a headset and runs the SymaxCorp DVD he has been given. He finds himself watching more streams and woodland scenes. ‘SymaxCorp creates integrated electronic office environments to suit any size of business …’ says a wholly insincere voice.
Ben wanders away through the open-plan floor. What should be ordinary is now becoming mysterious to him, because he sees it with fresh eyes.
A girl is on her hands and knees taping a cable along the floor.
A senior staffer is thumping his computer with his fist as the screen fills up with images from old porn films. John Holmes has a moustache, and is alternately fucking two overweight girls. The staffer is mortified with embarrassment.
‘SymaxCorp sets new standards in office efficiency, allowing you to work – ’ Here the DVD voiceover sticks and phases oddly, distorting. ‘– faster faster faster faster faster
A secretary touches a scanner and her hair stands on end with static.
A worker is lying with his head on his desk. He is surrounded by aspirin packets and bottles.
Another secretary finds her cardigan sticking to the wall behind her. She pulls it free, but it floats away from her body again.
Ben examines a window covered with a spiral of small insects. He presses his hand against the glass and the insects drop away. He returns to his computer screen, where the DVD is still playing. The images are increasingly absurd and divorced from reality. He looks up and imagines the discreet ducts that supply air to the entire building, forming an X-ray of the building’s walls, a maze of tubes he can hear hissing above his head as he works.
‘… creating the ultimate electronic environment. One day this is how all first-world offices will operate …’
Ben watches and listens, and gets jumpy despite himself. There’s something wrong with his chair. It won’t slide forward. The wheels keep catching on the carpet-square floor tiles. He bends down and looks closer. Someone has turned one of them around. He turns it back and finds he has pieced together a large brown bloodstain. What happened here? It seems a lot of blood for a paper cut.
Miranda catches up with him as he swipecards himself out. If he’s honest with himself, he’s been avoiding her all morning. ‘Wait,’ she calls, ‘where are you going?’
‘Outside, to get some fresh air. I’ve got a headache.’
‘Did you know we have a garden here? Okay, it’s kind of indoor, but it smells like real flowers. Really.’ She smiles hopefully at him. She is – he has to admit – incredibly sexy. And she needs him.
The garden is in another part of the building’s great atrium, an eerily pristine leisure area of walkways and flowers. No dogshit. No fag ends. Nothing real at all. It was built as an after-thought to the main building, once the
