Frank Tayell - Work. Rest. Repeat.

“No.”

“Can you seal us in here?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I can’t guarantee he won’t be able to override the lock.”

“Do it anyway. And…” he hesitated for a moment, but it had to be done. “Send a message to Cornwall. Tell him we’ll need assistance over here. Nurses and Constables. We may need engineers, too.”

“What? Cornwall. Right.”

Ely clicked off, irritated. The Controller seemed more distracted than ever.

The Foundations got their name from the columns, each two metres thick and spaced three metres apart, that supported the rest of the Tower. Placed equidistantly between each pillar, turning the cavernous space into a forbiddingly uniform labyrinth, were the servers. From some, red, orange, and green blinking lights added ominous colour to the shadows, whilst most sat dark, unlit and unpowered. Great coils of cable snaked out from the servers, along the floor, up the pillars, to disappear into the ceiling.

In the distance Ely could make out the wall that partitioned this quadrant from the next. In the other direction he could make out the far thicker, and more imposing, wall of the Tower itself.

The air was warm, and humming with electricity. Ely shook his head, consigning that noise to the background as he tried to pick out the sounds that shouldn’t be there. He couldn’t hear any. He turned around. The hum seemed to grow, and as it did, his heart began to beat faster and louder.

“Come out,” he yelled. “Surrender. You can’t…” he trailed off, unable to think of an adequate way to finish that threat.

There was nowhere to retreat to, nor any way for the killer to escape. He’d followed the man down to The Foundations, and here it would end. Ely had been in a few brawls. He could handle himself in a fight, but he’d always had the weight of authority behind his blows. He’d never needed to do more than remind a felon of the fate that awaited those who resisted arrest. His truncheon seemed a wholly inadequate weapon when compared to the knives the killer had, but he was the Tower’s Constable. The two nurses had been murdered. He had to bring them justice.

He thought he heard a noise. It was close. He moved forwards quickly, bringing his truncheon up, holding it diagonally across his chest. He darted past the edge of the pillar and, pivoting and turning, brought the truncheon down with all the force he could bear.

It hit a mess of wires with a dull thud. There was no one there. He spun around, expecting to see the killer behind him, but no, he was still alone.

Walking on the balls of his feet, ready to dive sideways or back, he moved slowly past the bank of computers to the edge of the next pillar. Then he dashed forward, turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees, and stopped when he found he was still alone.

He took a breath, then ran to the next pillar, and the next, and the next. Again and again, from pillar to pillar, sometimes turning to the left, sometimes to the right, picking a direction when some half imagined sound, magnified by fear, became that of the ghost.

And then he heard it, a scraping of metal. It was so loud it seemed to fill the cavernous space. He stalked towards the noise. It came from the wall. Not from one of the partitions that separated this quadrant from the next, but the twenty-foot thick barrier that protected the Tower from the flooded wasteland beyond.

He moved faster, ready to dive out of the way of the blow he expected at any second. He reached the wall. The blow didn’t come.

A section of metal panel had been removed. It revealed a ladder leading down into the dark. He stared down into the hole. There wasn’t meant to be an entrance to the tunnels here. Yet clearly there was one. He bent down to examine the panel. The bolts that should have secured it to the wall were smooth. On the tunnel side, someone had affixed a small handle. It could be removed and replaced at any time, but unless you knew where it was, someone could wander down here for days and not find it. It was the perfect hiding place. And Ely had no reason to follow the killer down there. He could call for tools, and seal the man in. Tower-One would be safe. The other Towers could be alerted, and told to check their own access points. The entire City could be secured. But that wouldn’t be enough. Not for the workers, nor for Ely. Justice, seen or not, had to be done.

He climbed down, into the dark

He descended down the dark tube, glancing up at the ever-shrinking circle of light above him. The ladder was pitted with rust, and some rungs were bent. The further he descended, the thicker he found them coated in slime. He counted forty rungs before his foot touched something solid, rough and uneven. He’d reached the bottom of the ladder. All was darkness. He took out his truncheon.

“Control? Control? Vox, can you hear me?”

There was no answer. He switched on the visor’s emergency light. The beam was weak, stretching out a mere dozen yards. Slowly, he stepped away from the ladder.

There was a crunch behind him. Before he could turn, something hit him from behind. He fell, hard, dropping the truncheon as he reached out to break the fall. His face hit the ground. His helmet took the brunt of the impact, but he was still dazed.

He rolled onto his side, then onto his back, turning his head this way and that. The helmet’s feeble beams of light stabbed out into the darkness as he sought his assailant. He could see no one. He crabbed backwards a few paces, then staggered to his feet.

“Why did you kill them?” he called out.

“You come down here and that’s the first question you ask?” the killer replied. Ely spun around. There was sarcasm in the man’s voice, but Ely thought he could tell the direction it had come from. Slowly, tensed, expecting another blow, he moved forwards.

“Who are you?” he asked, after he’d taken two paces.

“That’s a good question, but I think you can do better.”

The killer was taunting him, Ely thought, but it didn’t matter. There was a patch of deeper shadow against a wall three yards away. That, Ely thought, was where the killer stood.

“Surrender,” Ely said.

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. Not yet.” The voice came from behind.

Ely managed to half turn before another blow knocked him sideways. As he fell he saw the killer. In his hands was a long metal pole. And then the pain began.

His arm had taken the brunt of the swing. He flexed his fingers. No, his arm wasn’t broken. He hoped. But he was in more pain than he’d ever felt before.

“Why?” he screamed.

“Why? Why do you think?” the killer asked blithely. He stood ten yards away, at the edge of the beam of light cast by Ely’s helmet.

“Do you deny,” Ely hissed, “that you killed Nurses Gower and Bradford?”

“Deny? Of course not,” he replied. “But isn’t there something else you want to ask?”

“No,” Ely replied. “I know you’ve been working for Stirling. You want to undermine Cornwall to win the election. I know about the colony ships, how there’s only space for a thousand people out of all the citizens in all the Towers. I know all about you.”

The man laughed. The tunnel filled with its mocking echoes.

“You haven’t a clue, have you? I thought you’d be different. Or are you just the same as the rest? Look about you, and try to understand what you see.”

Ely needed a weapon. There was a lump of rubble on the ground two feet away. He edged sideways, hoping he wasn’t telegraphing his intentions.

“Okay. I’m listening. You wanted me to follow you down here, so you clearly have something to say. Tell me, then.”