Devil in the Wires (27 page)

 

Chapter 69

An Encounter on the Wards

W
e came into an upper corridor. There was debris on the floors. Wall cupboards all emptied out, doors removed. Black cables poured from plug sockets, looped and tied in loose knots.

“Watch out where you're walking here,” I said.

“Chris,” she said, “I won't break, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah. I'd just rather . . . well. You know. I know you're OK, you can handle yourself. I'd just feel better if you weren't here, that's all.”

“So it's more comfortable for
you
if I'm not here?”

“That isn't what I meant! Jesus—­” I took a breath. “Don't use the reader all the time. Keep your eyes open. Sometimes they're more use. Eyes, ears. If you don't see anything, then you can check.”

“I'm getting readings all over here.”

I checked my own meter.

“Me too.”

In the walls, in the wires in the walls
.

“I did this before,” I said. “I got it before.”

I woke it up
.

She said, “Can't you do that again? Just rig the whole place? Cables all over, switch on.”

“I could lose it that way.” I ran my reader up the wall, over the ceiling. “A lot of this—­it's like static. It's in the walls, the floors, the furniture. Like side effects. It's not the god itself.”

I woke it up
.

“This is unusual,” she said.

“You'll never see it again. At least, I hope . . .”

She swung her reader up and down the walls, over the floor, like a child learning to spray-­paint.

“Angel,” I said at last. “If I asked you to go back to the car—­or at least downstairs—­as a favor, say, you know, for me—­would you do it?”

“I heard the ‘if',” she said, “so I'm assuming that you don't intend to ask.”

T
here were open doorways each side of the hallway, though the doors themselves were gone. Everything was white and somehow dead-­looking. A big hole in the chipboard wall was stuffed with insulation matting.

At the far end of the hallway, just where it turned, there stood a man.

He was maybe five yards from us, backlit by the reflection from the white wall. A big man, tall, his belly swelling out, his head low on his shoulders . . . skull shaved smooth. His features were in shadow. He was wearing some kind of a short coat, jeans, and workman's boots.

He stood there, and he didn't move.

The god is going to eat you up
.

Woollard stepped forwards.

“OK, fella, turn around, slowly now. Hands against the wall. Pretty sure you know the drill here, huh?”

The figure made no move, showed no response. I took a ­couple of steps to the side, almost thinking that we'd got it wrong, this wasn't a man at all, but some kind of illusion—­a statue or a dummy, looking life-­like in the dim light.

Benedict said, “Mine, I think.”

Woollard shot him a glance. Benedict shrugged, then rocked back on his heels, biding his time.

Woollard's hand was on his gun. Angel took a step forwards, and when I saw that, I moved too.

The figure was still there. I saw his chest rise and fall, just once. His head swiveled, slowly, and he looked at us.

Then he ran.

The speed was wrong. I had the faint impression of him turning, but so fast I could hardly register it. He seemed to flicker in my eyes; there was a rapid, rattling sound, and he'd already gone.

Woollard broke into a run. Angel and I followed. At the corner we stopped.

He wasn't there. It was another short hallway, patient rooms on either side, the doors gone. Broken chipboard scattered on the floor. At the far end, the wooden counter of the nurses' station. Cables dangled from the ceiling.

“Easy now,” said Woollard.

Swing doors blocked off the far end of the corridor. Had they moved? As we arrived, had they shivered slightly, as if just closed? I wasn't sure.

“Check the side rooms.” Woollard's tone was clipped and business-­like. We took each room by turn. They were all the same: the empty mounting for a TV on the wall, a dry porcelain lavatory, a sink, in one a ­couple of armchairs. Woollard stepped carefully around the counter at the nurses' station.

“Ain't nothing here.”

We moved to the double doors at the end of the hall. Beyond them was an elevator lobby. Three metal doors, all closed, and a wooden door with a sign:
STAIRS
.

“Shit. How'd that guy move so fast?”

“He didn't.” Benedict had come up behind us without our noticing.

“So. You're saying that we didn't see that?” Woollard eyed him steadily. “What's your explanation, Mr. Small-­g-­god?”

Benedict shrugged. “Speed is a function of time. His time and yours are not the same.”

Woollard made an exasperated sound.

“The Old One comes and goes. As he passes, so the ripples spread, and those who please him get to ride the ripples. Another reason,” Benedict said, “why they're mine. Because unless you turn out to be much more skillful than I think you are, you'll need my help.” He turned, nodded to Shailer, skulking in the rear. “Tell them, Adam. Tell them.”

Shailer held his hands out, open palmed, as if offering a gift. “He's right, he's right. We've got to work together on this. Everybody. Pool our expertise, you know? Or we won't, won't—­”

“Survive?” I suggested.

“I was going to say, get through it. Get the job done, I mean. It's like I said, Chris. We need him. He's our negotiator, our advisor. He—­”

“See me,” said Benedict, “in this present instance, as an exterminator.” He put his fingertips together, and he smiled. “You have an infestation. Your station has a problem: it makes certain ­people dangerous, and your culture has no way of channeling their needs and appetites. I can remove these ­people, as you'd remove unwanted vermin. It's no different.”

I looked at Woollard. He was gazing at the floor.

Shailer approached him. “You understand that, don't you? You're a practical man.”

Woollard's teeth pulled at his lower lip. Then he said, “This is it, then? This is your solution? This freak gets to be judge and jury? Executioner? That how it works? 'Cause it ain't how I work. He wants the job, he trains for it, like any other motherfuck. I don't—­”

Angel said, “I think we need him.”

That surprised me. We all turned to her.

“What happens in the future,” she said, “that needs thought, and debate, and regulation, otherwise we're just like, I don't know, like vigilantes here. But now . . . ­people are dying. They're dying because of something we all helped bring about, one way or another.”

Woollard shook his head. “Not me, ma'am. Not me.”

She looked at me; she looked at Shailer. “We should deal with this, then close it down. Close it all down, until we know that we can do it safely.”

Shailer said, “That might be . . . difficult.”

I said, “I think it would be very easy. Especially since it isn't even working at the moment.”

“Chris—­”

“If I were you,” I told him, “I'd be thinking damage limitation. Or else change your job.”

“Fuck you.”

“Work together,” I sneered. But Angel touched my arm.

“Chris, he's right. We need to cooperate. Even with—­” Her glance flicked to Benedict. He was standing back, just watching, and I saw what Shailer had meant; he was like a kid with an ant farm, watching everything we did.

To Woollard, I said, “You're the law. So it's up to you. Where do you stand on this?”

“I say—­” He sighed. He put his hands together. “Part of me says, pull out, call backup. 'Cept I don't know what the hell I'm calling them to. So I guess . . .” He looked around. “I guess we see what we can see. And then make up our minds.”

“Good!” said Shailer. “Good, good. That's a start.”

I grinned at him, then pointed to the door marked
STAI
RS
.

“All right, then. After you.”

 

Chapter 70

Rose

T
he next was waiting two floors up. Perhaps there had been others; perhaps we simply hadn't seen them. There was a door marked
CORONARY CARDIAC CARE
. A keypad had been cut out of the wall. The doors swung open easily, leading to another ward, a hallway and rooms off. About halfway along it was an armchair, one of those adjustable hospital chairs. And that's where he was sitting.

As we walked in, he stood, regarding us with amiable curiosity.

“Visitors,” he said. “I don't get many visitors.”

There was a smell in the air, faint and sour.

Woollard said, “Stay where you are.”

The figure stopped, one arm already up in greeting, the smile starting to waver on his face. He was so skinny you could see the bones under his flesh, the ridges of his jaw, the dark circles of his eye sockets. His hair was messed up. I put him at maybe thirty, thirty-­five, but it was hard to tell; there were deep lines bracketing his mouth, a wild look to his eyes which made him seem much older.

Woollard asked him, “Name?”

“Name? I'm—­I'm John. What is it? What's happening here?”

His glance shifted from one of us to another.

Woollard said, “Well, John. You need to tell us your last name, and what you're doing on the premises. And why I shouldn't book you. Criminal trespass, for a start.”

“Criminal . . . ? No, wait! I don't mean any harm. What's going on?”

“Murder, for a second.”

The man waved his hands in front of him, shaking his head.

“Oh no. No no no. That wasn't me. None of that was me. You
know
that wasn't me! Look at me, I'm just—­I'm just glad to see you, that's all! I stood up when you walked in. I'm just hoping you can stop this, hope you can—­”

He took a step towards us. Woollard raised his gun. He didn't aim it, just showed it. That was enough. The man put out his hands as if they'd stop a bullet.

Two of the fingers on his left hand had been tied together with a bandage. They stuck up, stiff and straight.

Woollard said, “Kinda interesting, I think. Most folk, see—­you accuse 'em of something, they tell you,
I dunno nothin', sir, I dunno 'bout that
. You, on the other hand . . .”

I glanced back at Benedict. He was standing to the side, behind us. With everyone's attention elsewhere, he seemed to have abandoned all pretense of being human. His face was empty, blank, like something made of wood.

“The rules are simple,” Woollard said. “First, your full name. Second, your address, if you have one. Then, you tell me everything you know. Got that?”

The man swallowed, his Adam's apple jutting. He bit his lip. His nod was like a tremor running through him.

“Now would be good,” said Woollard.

Angel took my hand, squeezing my fingers, and I squeezed back.

“My name—­I'm John Rose. I'm twenty-­nine. I was a CT tech, I worked here—­look. Please. I don't know what's happening. It comes and goes. That—­that thing, the way it changes everything. Paul said it's the reason that we're here, it wants us here. I don't know. I'm not the one you should be talking to. I'm the victim here, I'm the one who's suffered. Paul knows more than I do, he—­”

But then he stopped. He looked up, straight at Angel.

“Ah,” he said.

“Gotowski,” she said. “It's Gotowski, isn't it?”

He nodded vigorously.

“That's him. Yes. That's who you want to see.”

Woollard said, “So how many are you here? Just while we're keeping score.”

“How many? Oh, not many, no. Not many. There's Galt, and Ramon, and—­there's one who never gives his name. I'm not like them. I'm not one of them, if that's . . . what you're worried about.”

“Any of these fellows sort of heavyset? Bald?”

“Galt. That's Galt, yes. I could tell you about him. I could tell you things—­oh, about all of them. And—­” he cocked his head, listening. “Oh. Oh—­”

“What is it?”

But I could feel something. At first I thought the floor was shaking, but it wasn't the floor. The air itself seemed to be trembling. There was a faint whine, a tinnitus deep inside my head.

John Rose stepped back. He crouched down, pushed himself into a corner.

He said, “He's coming back. Assur. He'll be here . . . very soon . . .”

Angel's hand tightened on mine. I had a feeling like my guts were knotting up.

Benedict said, “He's already here. Wherever he is, that's where he always is.”

“That,” said Woollard, “is more BS,” but his eyes had sunk into their sockets, and he looked sick with strain.

Rose whispered, “Here he comes.”

Around us, the room seemed to twist and reshape itself. Walls buckled, folding in upon themselves. I stepped back, slipped, and went down on my knees. Angel was with me. Shadows on the ceiling rippled, somersaulted, the room turned inside out, snaking around itself. There was a sense—­a sense of some appalling tension—­which all at once dissolved. The room seemed to unfold, remake itself into a perfect duplicate of its original form. It looked the same, it looked identical, but it felt different somehow. It felt wrong. Shailer was crouching. Angel was on the floor beside me, but unharmed. Woollard too was down.

Only Benedict still stood, seemingly unperturbed.

“That,” he said, “that would be him, here . . . now.”

 

Chapter 71

Man with a Gun

“W
e're in his guts. We're part of him.”

John Rose got to his feet. He had braced himself, and he'd recovered faster than the rest of us. He'd known what to expect. He stood a moment over Woollard, then bent quickly and took the gun from his hand. Woollard rolled over, snarled, reached out. Rose danced back. A cloud of vapor puffed out of his mouth.

The temperature had plummeted. I felt it on my face, my hands.

“OK,” said Woollard. “You know I can't let you have that.”

“Can't stop me.”

Rose inspected the weapon. He didn't look familiar with guns. He hefted it, surprised by the weight, holding it in both hands. But he flicked the safety off effectively enough, and then, like a child playing cowboys, levelled it at each of us in turn.

“Boom,” he said. “Boom. Boom. Boom.”

He wanted to look serious, but he couldn't stop the grin from spreading on his face.

“See who's in charge now? See?”

Woollard made to get up, but Rose almost shrieked at him, “No! No! Get down!”

He stayed down, said, “You're no more a CT tech than I am.”

“Listen, listen.” Rose was talking quickly now. “It's scary here. It gets . . . scary, see? They're scary—­those guys. The others. But if they've got you, they won't want me, right?
Right?
I'll be safe then.
Right?
”

He kept moving the gun, from one of us to the next. His eyes were never still. With his free hand, he reached down, felt around until he seized on a loose metal strut—­a disused wall-­mounting, maybe two feet long. He battered on the heating pipes with it.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” he shouted.

He stopped, cocking his head. When he heard nothing, he tried again, hitting harder. His voice rose to a fragile squeak.

He stopped, his breath coming in deep, wheezing gasps.

I told him, “You're an addict.”

He hammered again.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!”

Another pause. I said, “You're hanging round the big boys, hoping for a taste. But that's all it is, isn't it? You really aren't like them. You haven't got the nerve.”

He leaned forwards, the gun full on me now.

“You,” he said, “don't know a thing about it.”

“No? That's where you're wrong. I've had a taste myself. Up above the world. That's it, isn't it? Up above your own life, looking down.”

He said nothing. I felt like I was watching through a long, dark tunnel.

I had to keep him listening.

I said, “It's still your life. That's the thing. It's not Heaven or Nirvana or some airy-­fairy stuff. It's just your life. It's just reality. Except it doesn't worry you. It doesn't hurt. You're up there, nothing's wrong, and you can see it all, in all directions. Fractions of a second. Fractions of fractions. On and on.”

He held up the bandaged hand, the one that held the metal bar.

“They broke my fingers. See? It would have gotten worse, only I promised them. I promised them I'd help.”

He lowered his voice, looked me in the eye. “I'm not like them,” he said.

Then Shailer moved.

I had been trying to give Woollard the chance to act. But it was Shailer who took it. There was a big trolley on castors—­the kind of thing they use for holding linen—­and it suddenly came hurtling across the floor towards Rose, gathering speed as it did.

I'd seen Shailer move, thought he'd been about to slip out on us. I'd not expected this. And nor had Rose.

He spun, startled. In the same moment, Woollard was up. The linen cart collided with the wall, bucked and skidded sideways. Rose never fired a shot. Woollard was on him. I was up too, and grabbed one arm while Woollard grabbed the other. Rose was thin, but powerful. He writhed and twisted like a beached fish. Angel grabbed him from behind, her arms under his shoulders. I could hear Woollard breathing hard. The gun was on the floor. Shailer scooped it up, holding it delicately, his arm out, as if it were some venomous reptile.

Rose strained against us. I felt his elbow jab me in the ribs, his fingers flex, trying to scratch.

Benedict had not moved from his place against the wall. But now he said, “I could have saved you all this bother.”

Woollard ignored him. “I'm reading you your fucking rights, bro. Shut up and listen.”

But Rose would not shut up. A sound began, deep in his throat, at first only a gurgle, then louder, bursting from his throat, a string of nonsense syllables, yelling, screaming. His eyes swung up inside his head, only the whites still visible. He pulled and pushed at me. His leg kicked out, and he sagged against me, then sprang up like a jack-­in-­the-­box. I had to fight to keep him down.

Benedict walked over. He was very calm. Rose kicked and struggled, but we held him. Benedict reached out and pressed his open palm to Rose's brow. The effect was almost instant. I felt Rose's body stiffen, freeze. He seemed to stand to attention, and his eyes were riveted on Benedict. The shouting stopped at once. His mouth dropped open and a little puff of vapor twisted out like smoke.

I let go. Woollard did the same. Angel, too. It was instinctive, like jerking back from an electric shock. In the half-­light, Rose's face was cut with shadow. His eyes were wide. I could almost feel the life drain out of him. Benedict just pressed and pressed and Rose's spine curved and his head went back. Woollard swore. But none of us moved. None of us tried to interrupt. Benedict just stood there, pushing his hand against the thin man's head, and when I looked into his face, I could see nothing human. The features might be mine, but they were empty, as unfeeling as a mask.

It couldn't have gone on long. Less than a minute, probably. Benedict lifted his hand. He straightened up. Rose simply knelt as he'd been left, bent backwards, gazing at the ceiling.

I watched Benedict—­I don't know how to say this—­I watched him re-­composing his humanity. He twitched, he frowned. He exercised each portion of his face, bit by bit. He blinked, slowly, deliberately. He pursed his lips, pressed them together, and then pulled them back over his teeth. He wrinkled up his nose. With one finger, he touched his cheek, a gesture I'd made only minutes earlier. He was imitating me.

He placed his fist on the palm of his other hand, folded his fingers over it, and squeezed.

He blew out a breath.

Rose fell back. His hands were twisted up, held to his chest like wrinkled claws. His mouth moved and his lips cracked, dry skin flaking. He was withering before my eyes. His clothes sagged. His skin shriveled and grew old.

Benedict, stretching himself, flexing his shoulders, pulling himself up to his full height, asked Woollard, “Was he important to you?”

Woollard said nothing.

“A friend? An employee, perhaps?” Benedict's tone was mocking. “Someone useful to you? Or to society? An industrialist? Entrepreneur? Person of significance?”

“He was—­” Woollard stumbled.

“Someone you admired?”

“God
damn
—­”

An ugly ticking sound came out of Rose's throat.

“What the fuck have you just done to him?”

“Saved you the trouble.”

Benedict moved back. None of us spoke, until Shailer, his voice high and fragile, said, “We need to leave here. Press on, or, you know. Get out.”

“We need—­” began Woollard, but I touched his arm.

“Not now,” I said. “Not now.”