Frank Tayell - Work. Rest. Repeat.

But why had she gone into the lounge? He’d assumed that she had gone there to meet one of the other suspects. Perhaps she had, but she had access to the Tower’s surveillance system so surely she would have known he was in there. Why then did she go inside? Because he was in there, he realised. She hadn’t been going there to meet anyone else, and he hadn’t been chasing her. He had been following her.

He began to tap out a command, then stopped. He didn’t want it recorded. He began to walk briskly along the corridor to the Control Room.

“Ely! Congratulations,” Vauxhall began, “I was listening in to—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted, taking off his helmet. He checked that it had turned itself off.

“The screens here, can they be monitored?”

“By whom?”

“By anyone. Can we talk privately?” He looked around.

“I told you, there are no cameras down here.”

“Right.”

“Ely, what is it?” Vauxhall asked, the good cheer gone from her voice.

“There’s something wrong, something doesn’t add up. Can you bring up the schematics to the corridor outside Unit 6-4-17?” he asked.

“Okay, but tell me why?” she asked as she tapped out a command.

“Which one is the… okay, that’s the room the Greenes were murdered in, right?” Ely asked, pointing at the screen.

“Yes. Please, Ely, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Look, here.” He pointed. “There’s an access hatch right next to Unit 6-4-17, so the ghost didn’t need to avoid the cameras or wipe the footage when she killed the Greenes.”

“So? Why does that matter?”

“Well, it’s just… I… I don’t know.” The more he found out, the more he found the evidence didn’t fit the crime. “Why didn’t the system alert you when the woman walked into the lounge?” he asked, instead.

“I thought I’d explained,” she said. “The cameras record everything, but it’s the wristboards that tell us where people are. We track those, then search for the footage for that time and place.”

“So, because this ghost looks like everyone else you didn’t notice anything was wrong?”

“Well, yes. I mean, here.” She pointed. “This is the footage from the lounge right now. On this screen, that’s the wristboard log. Now, you look at those two and tell me if there’s someone who doesn’t belong?”

“But we track more than just their location,” Ely said. “What about weight and height and gait? What about the motion sensors in the Assemblies that make sure the workers are completing their tasks with the most efficient series of movements?”

“Yes, yes, we’ve got all that, and I can bring it up, but it’s all associated with the workers ID or, to put it another way, the wristboard.”

“But on the display on my helmet—” Ely began.

“No,” she cut in, “your helmet is different. You get the names and IDs and access to all the records. And you can have that because it’s just one screen and one camera. Imagine the computing power, and the requisite energy we’d need, if every camera in the Tower was going to overlay onto every screen here the data for every citizen. We couldn’t do it. You understand?”

“I think so, or I’m starting to.”

“You know something, or you suspect something, Ely, I can tell. What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Could the ghost be someone from one of the other Towers?”

“Well…” She paused to think. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You’re not certain?” he asked.

“No. I mean… okay, maybe. She’d have had to come in via the transport pad, and I watch each delivery and collection, but, I’m not watching each person come and go, so it’s possible. Why?”

He thought about telling her about Stirling, but he wasn’t certain they couldn’t be overheard.

“I’m just playing around with an idea. What happens when someone dies? Does their record get deleted then?”

“No, it’s just removed from the active database. It’s still there in the archive.”

“So if someone wanted to create a ghost, they would have to go in and actually destroy the entire digital record?”

“Right, exactly, the entire record,” she said. “For every meal eaten, every shower taken, every hour of Recreation, every time that the wristboard was used would have to be removed. And I don’t mean just deleted. That would just make it seem as if the food had disappeared or the electricity was being mysteriously generated by no one. No, you’d have to go through and edit every interaction that person had with the system. I’m not saying it’s impossible,” she added. “Just that it would take a very long time. I mean, it’s almost more believable that this woman was a ghost, you know, living outside the system.”

“What, the descendent of someone hiding down in the tunnels for the past sixty years?” Ely scoffed. “I hardly think so.”

“Yeah, but the tunnels are like the museum. No one goes there.”

“Because they’re flooded,” Ely said. “No, there’s someone else involved in this. Someone who has access to the system, someone who could go in and alter those records. Someone who has the time to do it.”

“What are you saying Ely?”

“That I want to get to the bottom of this. I want answers. They’re important.”

“The ghost’s dead. You’re going to be elected. What’s more important than that?”

“The truth,” he said. “Did those drones collect a sample of the woman’s clothing?”

“Just like you asked, yes.”

“Can you get it analysed?” he asked.

“Well, yes.”

“I mean right now.”

It took twenty minutes to find out who had printed the clothing. It took only thirty seconds to get approval from Councillor Cornwall to interrogate her.

“This way,” Ely said as he pushed Alexandra Penrith along the corridor.

“Why? Where are you taking me?”

Ely didn’t reply. She had been waiting for her ‘home’ when he’d stormed down the corridor and pulled her out of the queue. Heads had turned, cameras had begun to record, and a barrage of questions followed them as he marched her down to Level Three.

She kept protesting, and he kept silent, until they reached the corridor with the wrecked elevator.

“I said, where are—” She froze when she saw the debris.

“Here. Do you recognise her?” He pushed her closer to the wreckage, and the body that still lay within it.

“No,” she said softly, when she saw the body.

“Who is she?” Ely asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Ely pushed her against the wall.

“Look down at what she’s wearing. Go on. Look. Recognise it?”

She glanced down, then hurriedly looked away.

“You should recognise it. Now tell me how you know her!”

“I don’t,” she said, keeping her eyes resolutely ahead.

“The pattern is unique,” Ely said. “They always are. It only took a few minutes to work out who printed it. You did. Five days ago.”

“I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

“You know that woman. You helped her.”

“I didn’t,” she said. “I never met her before.”

“You were in the lounge when I tried to arrest her. She was going there to meet you, wasn’t she? Tell me why?”

“She wasn’t. I really don’t—”

“Then explain how she’s wearing your clothing.”

“How can I? I don’t even remember wearing it. I don’t remember wearing anything that looked like that. I just select a random pattern every day. The old clothes go into the recycler.”

“Which one?” he asked.