Desmond Barry - London Noir

He will tell you he’s afraid. That he doesn’t want this. You shoot him once. Right through the left eye.

It’s only then that you will notice there’s Muzak playing in the elevator.

“Was that absolutely necessary?” she will ask, looking down at the bodies on the elevator floor and frowning. “The only reason I agreed to help you get up here in the first place was to avoid anything like this.”

“Made me feel better,” you’ll reply with a shrug.

The building’s floors have a compact-steel core surrounded by an outer perimeter constructed from closely spaced columns. It is capped by a pyramid 130 feet high and weighing eleven tons.

The exterior is clad in approximately 370,000 square feet of Patten Hyclad Cambric finish stainless steel.

She will throw her arms around you just as the elevator reaches the fiftieth floor. You embrace. Your hungry mouths will find each other.

An aircraft warning light at the apex of the pyramid flashes forty times a minute, 57,600 times a day.

“Coming with me?” you’ll ask.

“No.”

“Don’t you want to see this through, now that we’re both here?”

“I got you to his office,” she’ll reply. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I want.”

You exchange one last look. One last kiss.

“The pass we found in the hotel will get you through to his office,” she’ll say. “But you’d better get rid of the gun. It’ll trip the metal detectors.”

“Fine,” you’ll say. “I don’t need it anymore.”

You toss the gun into a nearby waste bin.

“You’re sure he’ll be there?” you’ll ask.

“He never leaves,” she’ll reply.

You are now entering the main reception area at Virex International, an uninflected machine voice will announce as soon as the main office doors slide open. Thank you for not stopping.

All the rooms but the last one will be empty.

You’ll find him sitting at his desk, a wadded-up piece of human gum, drained and useless, gazing out at the sunset.

“John Frederson?”

His head moves slowly, painfully, away from the deep crimson light still spreading over London.

“No one’s called me that in years,” he’ll say.

“Then you’ll know who sent me.”

And still he’ll sit before you, empty and staring soberly at the sun: a baffling configuration of success and failure that has confounded history.

“A little far from home, aren’t you?” he’ll finally remark.

“We’ve had some... local difficulties.”

John Frederson will nod.

“And the ghost galaxies hired you?” he’ll reply. “I’m almost insulted. I’d have thought I rated better than a mere...” He’ll pause, peer at you. “Do you even have a name?” he’ll ask, looking like the man who just patented cancer.

You know why you’re here and why we sent you. You’re clean, filed down, all biometrics erased so they can no longer be read. The best false identity is no identity at all.

“Betamax,” you reply.

John Frederson will nod again. You notice a moth skeleton still clinging to one of the net curtains over his office windows.

She’ll be taking the maintenance elevator up to the pyramid by now. She’ll remove her cell phone from the side pocket of her black patent-leather handbag and carefully slide off the back. Then she’ll start removing the SIM card. The machinery around her moves with a smooth patience.

“You owe billions to the wrong people,” you’ll say.

John Frederson will shake his head and smile.

“No,” he’ll say. “They entrusted billions to the wrong person... They made an unwise investment.”

“You overdrew your credit.”

“Credit is a matter of confidence, of one party having trust in another,” he’ll say. “We can get that back in a second.”

“You no longer have the time.”

“Fifteen years ago there was nothing here but rusting sheds, dirty water, and oil slicks,” he’ll say, and then wave a stiffening arm toward his office windows. “Everything you see out there took less than a decade and a half to accomplish. In ancient Egypt they couldn’t even get a pharaoh buried in that time.”

You can’t argue with history, especially when it hasn’t been written yet.

You stare at the moth skeleton instead.

Your name is Betamax, and you know what you’re doing.

Banks of fluorescent lights flicker into life somewhere high above you, while the clicking of her high heels on the polished metal flooring continues to reverberate around the inside of the stainless steel pyramid.

She works as she walks, quickly and efficiently taking apart her cell phone, sliding a new card into the back.

You always know what you’re doing.

You grip your left wrist in your right hand and twist. A liquid splintering sound comes from deep within your arm as bone, cartilage, and gristle slide over each other. You’ll watch the hand retract, your fingers folding themselves back into the hard geometry of a gun barrel.

John Frederson is still talking, but you’re not listening anymore.

“It’s no longer a matter of generating money but of determining how it’s used, creating behavior patterns, displacing populations, altering demographics, shifting perceptions...”

The gun starts to assemble itself from inside your flesh, pieces snapping into place by their own intelligence. Their movement trips a switch inside your throat. You swallow hard. There’s a brief gagging sensation, followed by a mild electrical popping. You reach in and pull out the firing pin.

A pale sliver of movement flashes across a security monitor. She has finished replacing the chip in her cell phone and is preparing it to operate as a weapon. She will enter a numerical code using the phone’s keypad. The device will automatically arm itself.

“Immortality... free-market commodities like reality and fame,” John Frederson continues. “We’re just the universe returning to itself. Humanity is simply another system, a wave of development that expands and dissipates, reaching out who knows how far into space.”

You hold your breath and aim for the head.

He catches a glimpse of her on the monitor, standing at the center of the steel pyramid, clutching the cell phone in a tight white fist.

He’ll point at the monitor. “Who’s she?” he’ll ask.

One last scratchy subtitle appears before your eyes: Those who are not born... do not weep... and do not regret... Thus it is logical to condemn you to death.

“I thought she worked for you,” is all you’ll say.

Last-minute shifts on the international money markets indicate that an all-out strike against the London business sector is due to take place.

John Frederson will shake his head for the last time.

The framework of One Canada Square contains 500,000 bolts. Lifts travel from the fiftieth floor to the lobby in just forty seconds.

All over the planet, people will be switching on their television sets to watch the dust cloud rising darkly over London.

End transmission.

Daniel Bennett would like to thank Catty May.

Joolz Denby would like to thank Justin Sullivan & New Model Army, Michael Davis & New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack, Dr. Christine Alvin, Nina Baptiste, Spotti-Alexander & Miss Dragon Pearl, and Kate Gordon.

Cathi Unsworth would like to thank everyone who wrote a piece for this book. Also for help, support, and inspiration: Michael Meekin, Caroline Montgomery, Ann Scanlon, Lynn Taylor, Mr. & Mrs. Murphy, Paul Duane, and Michael Dillon.

Barry Adamson(www.barryadamson.com) was born and bred in Moss Side, Manchester, before heading for the West Side of London, where he has written and produced six or so of his own musical albums, including the Mercury Music Prize — nominated Soul Murder. Adamson has also scored several movies, TV shows, and commercials, and he now writes stories and screenplays.