On the wall panel, she read the temperature had flown up to forty-nine degrees Celsius, an unprecedented event. A brand-new record. There had been many casualties. There were, no doubt, going to be even more. Clarissa staggered back to the living room with difficulty. Her body felt stiff and heavy. She glanced outside, to the building facing hers. Hardly any lights on. The city seemed fast sleep. But shrill ambulance sirens and the drones’ incessant circling came to her from afar. She felt sweaty. Her clothes were sticky. Was there a problem with the air-conditioning? She asked Mrs. Dalloway to check.
Two words lit up the panel.
SYSTEM ERROR.
Clarissa opened the front door. It was boiling on the landing, as if a heater had been turned on full blast. She went to fetch her mobile. Get hold of Jordan, Adelka. The calls couldn’t go through, even though the signal was strong. She tried a dozen times, in vain. She remembered the landline in her office and rushed to it. When she stuck the phone to her ear, there was no dial tone, just an automatic voice blaring out the same words over and over: “System error. Please hang up. System error. Please hang up.”
She was alone in her flat, with no air-conditioning, no mineral water. Up on the eighth floor, under a skylight that had warmed up all day long under the broiling sun. Perspiration trickled down the back of her neck, between her breasts. Dusk had barely been able to lower the heat. Her heart beat with slow, painful thumps. She could hear her blood flow through her eardrums with a muffled sucking noise that nauseated her. Her body had been drained of all the vigor she had left. She was a wreck. She couldn’t move. It seemed to her the residence had depleted her of all her sap. She was nothing but an empty shell.
As she lay on the sofa, limp, inert, craving water, she felt she suddenly knew what “they” wanted, what “they” were doing. It was clear. How had she not seen it? She had to write it down, straight away. The floor swayed when she tried to get up. Above her head, the ceiling looked like waves were lapping over it. Hands stretched out in front of her, she ambled ahead warily. The screens on the walls weren’t functioning properly; frames were skipping, appeared to be jumbled together, along with a crackling sound. New words popped up: PROTOCOL C.A.S.A. DOWN. REBOOT. Clarissa couldn’t help smiling, in spite of her weariness. She imagined Dr. Dewinter and her team dripping with sweat, working themselves into a frenzy in front of their inoperative screens and servers. Somehow or other, the heat wave must have triggered the internal system’s meltdown.
Clarissa got hold of her notebooks, tucked away in her handbag. She sat down to write, and had to put her pen down after a few sentences, she felt so weak. She shouldn’t take all this lightly, at her age. She had to dampen her body, drink plenty of fluids. She had to act fast. Under the shower, she’d go. She’d wait it out there.
Impossible to stand up again. Her limbs had gone as flaccid as marshmallow candy. Flat on her stomach, she slid across the flooring, making feeble swimming movements. The remaining distance to the bathroom seemed never-ending. Sometimes she’d halt, spent. She felt like crying but forced herself not to. She certainly wasn’t going to perish right there on her own floor! How pathetic! How ridiculous! She could hear her father’s voice, his cursing, his wit. Bloody hell! Move on, now! Come on, girl! Rustle your bustle! Her elbows stung as she inched along. Each effort she made forced a strangled moan from her. The shower was miles away. She could very well stay right there, flat out, wheezing, drenched with perspiration, and no one would ever know. Cameras were no longer filming. She would peter out, just like that. In a few days, her body would be found by Ben, or by the nice cleaning lady who came once a week. Jordan and Andy would turn up beforehand; she was sure of that. At least she hoped so. It was tempting to let herself drop off. So very easy. The surface under her cheek felt hot and sticky.
As she stared close-up at the grooves engrained within the wooden planks, shadows began to materialize, created by the many indentations; tormented features appeared, sketched here and there as if by magic: malevolent eyes, grimacing mouths, crooked noses. It seemed to her the floorboards were covered with a chain of scowling masks, hideous hobgoblins with emaciated faces like in Munch’s powerful painting, The Scream. She forced her eyes away, but when she glanced at the walls, she noticed with anguish blurry shapes coming to life there as well, as if the corridor were crowded with apparitions hiding behind partitions, reaching out to grab her.
Clarissa shut her eyes. That was better. They had gone. She breathed slowly, using Elise’s method. Should she surrender to this gentle stupor? Should she let herself be carried away?
