Slow Burning Lies (21 page)

Beth looked at the chair, then Patrick, before stepping up on to the table, then the chair, and gently pushing up on the ceiling tile above.

Patrick left and popped his head into Mrs Hill’s office. ‘Would it be possible to do that testing now please?’

‘Of course.’ The woman tapped in the shortcut key to lock her PC, and a screensaver of exotic birds flitting back and forth appeared on it. Patrick suppressed a sly smile.

‘If you could wait at the far end of the corridor by the light switch please, and put the lights on when I tell you to.’

The woman nodded and strolled out to take up position, while Patrick went into the office with the chair on the desk and was soon with Beth crawling along the ceiling space.

It was an eerily quiet, almost two-dimensional space that covered the whole floor, with a mass of wires, air ducts, and metal struts reaching down to the square frames that held the polystyrene tiles in place. The darkness was only broken by the occasional golden shaft of light from badly fitting tiles and the pair’s two flashlights.

‘What the fuck are we doing up here?’ Beth whispered.

‘Could you switch the lights on now, Mrs Hill?’ Patrick shouted downwards.

There was a click.

‘Just hold on please,’ Patrick shouted down. Then he crawled along the suspension frame, being careful not to put any weight on the polystyrene tiles, his flashlight flickering in all directions like something from a late night rock concert. He lifted a tile and glanced underneath it before replacing it and moving further on.

‘Ah-hah!’ he whispered after doing this three times.

‘What is it?’ Beth said.

‘You’ll see.’ Patrick took a thin safety knife from his pocket, then shouted down, ‘Could you switch the lights back off please, Mrs Hill.’

As the dull click came from below Patrick started cutting a tiny hole in the tile.

‘Is it working now?’ Mrs Hill said.

‘Be just another minute,’ Patrick said between squeaks of blade on polystyrene. He took out the smallest of palmcorders from his pocket, twisted the lens into the hole he’d just made, and hit the record button. He held down the zoom button for a few seconds, then after checking the aim and focus were both on Mrs Hill’s keyboard directly below, he carefully retreated to Beth.

‘Any chance you could tell me what you’ve been doing?’ Beth said.

‘That’s all looking fine, Mrs Hall,’ Patrick shouted out. ‘You can get back to your office now. Thanks for your help.’

‘So have you two finished up there?’

‘I’m not sure, Madam. That obviously wasn’t the faulty circuit. We’ll have to check another few before we can definitely say there’s not a problem.’

‘Oh, of course. I’ll just carry on as normal, yes?’

‘Sure.’

Patrick felt his coat being tugged. ‘I am still here, you know,’ Beth whispered. ‘It might be dark but there’s no need to keep
me
in the dark. What the hell have you been doing?’

From below then was a faint rumble of chair castors running across office-grade carpeting, followed by the clicking of a keyboard.

 
Patrick leaned into Beth and whispered, ‘Getting Mrs Hill’s password is what I’ve been doing.’

‘So when can we use it?’

‘When the diligent Mrs Hill decides to go home.’

‘And until then?’

Patrick turned his flashlight out. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’

37

The darkness above the ceiling space of the top floor office of VTA was a warm one. The mass of metal supports and ducting that formed the air conditioning system made for an uncomfortable bed, only compensated for by the faint womb-like humming and whirring of the motors and fans that resonated along its length.

‘So… we just wait?’ Beth said.

‘Yes.’

Patrick lay down, carefully spreading himself across a length of ducting, and used his briefcase as a pillow. The minutes passed by and he settled, occasionally turning the flashlight on to check the time.

Mrs Hill was clearly a more diligent worker than Patrick thought possible – either that or a compulsive workaholic with no friends or interests outside work. Still, the clickety-clack of her typing would keep him awake. And that was a
good
thing; an episode of the hoolies here would seriously screw things up.

But after an hour or so, that very same clickety-clack that he trusted to keep him awake became the monotonous, rhythmic beat that hypnotized his mind, like the ticking clock some people positively require to tip them over that edge and into the world of sleep. And so, eventually, he succumbed.

*

He awoke to find himself in another place and time – that is, a warmer place and a sensuous time. There were no sharp edges to the objects in his mind, everything felt soft and gentle – like a dream should be. The first crack of the wooden furniture had just sounded out amongst the smoky haze, and the flames were kissing the ceiling, dropping molten clumps of plaster onto the carpet below. He knew he should leave, but was drawn by the shouts from the floor above.

He looked down to his pyjamas and placed a small hand inside the pocket.

The key was still there.

The rattles and bangs from upstairs were getting ever louder, ever more desperate. Patrick pressed the handkerchief to his face, wafted the smoke away, and started to climb the stairs.

He didn’t dawdle – but didn’t run either.

At the top the thumps and rattles on the bedroom door competed with the rumble of the fire below. And now he could hear screams too. That would be because the windows were locked, just like the door. For something so short-notice, it had all been expertly planned.

He heard a crash from downstairs, probably another of his mother’s stupid ornaments falling off the Welsh dresser in the kitchen.

Stepping closer to the door – the door that shook back and forth against its lock as if a hurricane was alternately blowing then sucking – he heard their desperate shouts again.

And then Patrick was no longer the young boy standing at the top of the stairs and calmly smirking, but was the man standing outside the door, looking across to the boy.

‘The key!’ he shouted to the boy. ‘Give me the key!’

But the boy just smiled. He smiled as the voices from the other side of the door became ever more desperate.

‘Give it to me!’ Patrick shouted again. The boy didn’t even shake his head, but laughed, then slowly turned his back on Patrick and descended the staircase.

Patrick grabbed the door handle, twisting it one way then the other, crashing his shoulder against the solid wood.

And then he froze.

The desperate voices coming from the other side of the door were no longer his mother and father, but tuned in and out, buzzed and howled, and now became the distorted screams of Rozita and his four sweet bright-eyed children.

Patrick ran to the top of the stairs but could no longer see the boy. He ran back and started punching and kicking the door, his tears threading streaks through the smoke-dust gathering on his face.

‘Patrick! Patrick!’ the shouts and screams came from the other side of the door as he was still kicking and thumping and ramming with his shoulder.

‘Patrick!’

He crashed his whole body against the wood and struck and struck again.

‘Patrick! Patrick!’

He closed his eyes.

*

‘Patrick! What the hell are you doing?’

One more thump – which reverberated with a metallic quality – and he opened his eyes again.

‘Stop it!’

Then there was a silence as he stopped thumping and switched on his flashlight to scan the ceiling void above the VTA offices.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he heard Beth say. ‘Smashing on the ceiling like that, you’ll fall through.’

Patrick felt the cold metal of the air conditioning ducting beneath his clenched fists. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I should damn well think so.’ A flashlight beam hit him in the face. ‘Are you okay?’ she said. ‘You were shouting a lot.’

Patrick took a few deep breaths to compose himself, wiped the sweat from his face and listened for a moment.

‘Patrick?’

‘Yes. I’m okay.’ The words were guttural. He cleared his throat then said, ‘What about Mrs Hill?’

‘She left about ten minutes ago. I was waiting for you to say what to do next. Then you started shouting. Did you fall asleep?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it one of those bad dreams?’

‘Was it that obvious?’

‘It didn’t sound like a summer stroll in the park.’

‘No.’

‘Jeez, Patrick. It must be terrible.’

‘Never mind that. Let’s get ourselves down.’

Beth eased herself back through the hole in the false ceiling and landed safely on the desk, while Patrick went to retrieve the camcorder, fumbling despite the aid of the flashlight. ‘Bingo,’ he said, placing it in his pocket.

At that moment he turned, slipped on a piece of metal framework, and both legs and an arm smashed through the polystyrene ceiling and dangled in the corridor below. With no time for thought he swiped his spare arm at anything within reach to try to drag his body up. All he caught was a bunch of cables.

The cables snapped off, leaving him to hit the ground with a crunch, accompanied by fragments of metal and polystyrene.

And an alarm.

It wasn’t a ‘makes your ears bleed’ alarm, but it was an alarm.

Beth was at him immediately, helping him up off the floor.

‘Shit!’ Patrick said. ‘Must have been the cables to the fire alarm circuit.’

Pieces of debris still snowed down on them as Patrick got to his feet and gave the shoulder he’d fallen on a crude massage. He pulled out the palmcorder and let out a groan as he saw a crack in the screen. He pressed play.

‘Oh, thank you, God!’ he said. ‘Look.’ He showed Beth the footage of Mrs Hill typing in her password. ‘Quick. We’ll have a few minutes.’ He ran to Mrs Hill’s office and booted up her PC.

Beth shouted to be heard above the siren. ‘We don’t have time for this, Patrick. We gotta get outta here.’

Patrick laughed. ‘No chance.’

‘We’ll get caught if we stay here.’

‘You go if you want to, Beth. I’ve got to do this.’

She went to hit the power button of the PC. He grabbed her hand and said, ‘What are you fucking doing?’

‘Come on. Let’s just leave, huh? We can do this another time.’

Patrick saw fire and determination in her eyes. Gone was the flippant humour that had served to calm his nerves up until now. But just for once he felt resolve to match hers. He grabbed her and shoved her into the corridor. ‘Do you want to run?’ he shouted out.

She didn’t answer. There was now just a little fear in her face, another first. She shook her head.

‘Then stay. But keep away from the PC unless you want to get hurt.’

She nodded again. They went back to the PC, Beth standing behind him.

‘It’s up,’ he said reaching out to the keyboard. ‘It should show the username of the last person to logon – that’ll be Mrs Hill. And this…’ He held the palmcorder screen up and hit the play button again. ‘This should be her password.’

He typed it in. the screen went blank for a few seconds, then welcomed Mrs Hill to the VTA secure system, telling her to log off if it wasn’t her.

‘Shit!’ Beth said.

‘What d’you mean,
“shit!”
?’ Patrick said, screwing his face up. ‘We’re in.’

‘But that doesn’t help much.’

‘We’ll see.’ Patrick pulled up a filesystem explorer and searched for ‘Lane’.

‘Fucking come on,’ he hissed as it whirred away but struggled to find any matches.

Then.

A folder: ‘JLane_Current_workload’.

Patrick double clicked on it. It beeped at him and brought up an ‘Access Denied’ error message. He cursed and moved on to the next match.

That was access denied too.

Then a third match came up.

‘What the…?’

‘What is it?’ Beth said.

‘It’s a folder called
“Jennifer_Lane_WishPhixxer”
.’

Another double click and the folder opened.

This time there was no ‘Access Denied’ error message.

Beth slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘Oh God,’ she mumbled.

38

Now they heard the faint thunder of running – a bass line to the screeching alarm. Beth popped her head out into the corridor to check.

‘It’s some sort of report,’ Patrick said, scanning the PC screen. ‘But what the hell’s
WishPhixxer
?’

‘We should go,’ Beth said.

‘Are you mad?’

She grabbed his head with both hands and turned his face it towards her. ‘Just trust me, Patrick. We need to go. Now!’

‘No way.’ He pushed her away, turned back to the PC and started scrolling down through the report. He stopped at a photo and gasped. ‘I don’t get it.’ He stared at the screen. ‘This is my… Oh, shit… what in the name of fucking Christ is all of this?’ He peered more closely at the photo. ‘Beth? Come and look at this. This is my kid brother, Declan.’

She stepped away from the door and looked at the screen. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I know my own brother. And this is him. The photo must have been taken when he was a kid, sure, but it’s definitely him. Look, it even says Declan. But…’

‘But what?’

‘It says it’s Declan
O’Halloran
, not
Leary
. I don’t understand.’

‘There are plenty more Declans in this world. Maybe it’s not your brother.’

‘But it is. Listen. Subject Background: mother and father both born in Manchester, UK, of Irish immigrant origin. Declan born in Manchester and now residing in the US. It doesn’t mention me but everything else matches Declan except the surname. I just don’t get it. Is this saying Declan was adopted or something? And in any case what the hell has he got to do with VTA or OrSum Games?’

‘Patrick?’

‘And if this Jennifer Lane was my Rozita, where do I come into this report?’

He scrolled further down the report and came across some links. He clicked on one of them.

A video player started up. It showed footage of a train crash in Japan. The footage was familiar.

All he could do was cuss some more.

‘Patrick,’ Beth said. ‘We need to go
now
!’

Patrick tried another link and his jaw dropped some more – it was a website news report on the poisoning of the Paris water supply.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘PATRICK!’

‘What?’

‘I can hear footsteps down the corridor – lots of them.’

Patrick stared at Beth while he listened for a moment, then looked to the screen again. There were more links, but what was the point? He shot off out of the door and Beth followed. When they reached the opposite end of the corridor Patrick hooked a glance back to see that there were, indeed, men in uniform giving chase.

‘This way,’ he said, casting a hand to the stairwell.

‘Why?’

‘For Christ’s sake
just follow me!
’

A few minutes later they’d run down three flights of stairs.

‘Where are we now?’ he shouted to Beth.

‘How should I know?’

‘It must be the ground floor, surely.’ He opened a door to see more men in uniform in the distance running towards them. ‘Where the hell did they come from? How many fucking security guards does this place have?’ He slammed the door shut and looked up and down the stairwell. ‘Only one choice.’ He nodded to the stairs descending even lower.

Beth caught her breath. ‘Patrick. Wait. How about just giving ourselves up here?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘We haven’t stolen anything – you might keep your job.’

‘Fuck my job. I need to know what’s going on here. Come on!’ He grabbed the banister rail and swung himself round and straight onto the third step down, careering onto the half-landing and repeating the manoeuvre down onto the next level. He stopped there and waited for Beth to catch up. She hadn’t been too much help just of late – more of a hindrance if he was honest, way too much negativity – but he owed it to her to take care of her, at least to wait for her to catch up.

‘I need to know what WishPhixxer is,’ he said as she reached him. ‘And most of all how my brother fits into all of this madness.’

Beth was too busy catching her breath to speak.

‘Are you okay?’ Patrick said, holding a hand on her shoulder.

She nodded, still gasping.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her along, down three more flights of stairs, seemingly into the bowels of Chicago.

And then there were no more stairs, and instead of the modern striplighting of the upper floors, a single industrial grade bulkhead light fitting threw just enough light to show a single door.

By now the alarm was only just audible – another sign of how far down they’d come.

Patrick stopped and listened, motioning with a vertical forefinger to his lips for a breathless Beth to do the same.

Soon the sound of the alarm was accompanied by the dull clatter of boots on concrete fading in from above.

Patrick grabbed the door handle. ‘Looks like we’ve only got one way to go again.’

They went through the door and as it slammed behind them the view was blacker than black – as if not one single photon existed in the void. They heard a faint whirring noise, growing louder, then lights flickered into life showing them to be in a wide corridor – white walls, white floor, white ceiling. The few details amongst the whiteness were the bulkhead lights, the ventilation fans that had just kicked into life, and black skirting boards as glossy as slug trails along the base of the walls. Also just visible above their heads were bundles of grey cables running along the corridor. The air was damp but warm.

Patrick turned to Beth, gave his shoulders a brief shrug, and started running again. Beth followed, yelling out for him to slow down.

He slowed a little, looked backwards and forwards along the corridor, and said, ‘Hey, I know what this is.’

‘It’s a corridor!’ Beth shouted.

‘No,’ Patrick said. ‘It’s a pedway. Don’t you recognize it? I looked into this when I first moved to Chicago – when I’d never heard of the word. Most parts of the pedway are public, but there have always been rumours of a few privately owned tunnels. This must be one of them.’

‘So where does the goddam thing lead to?’

They heard the door behind them open, and then that familiar thumping of boots start up again.

‘Who knows?’ Patrick said. ‘But I’m going to find out. Come on.’

They both ran for another minute or so, and reached a T-junction.

‘What d’you think? ‘Patrick said. ‘Left or right?’

Instead of answering, Beth dropped to her knees, gasping for air amongst the stale and gassy vapours.

‘Patrick, please!’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough.’

He crouched down directly in front of her. ‘You want to stop here?’

She nodded.

Patrick grimaced as he weighed up the options, looking back down the long corridor at the tiny dots that were rapidly growing into security guards.

‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing her arm and pulling. ‘Let’s try this way.’

They ran together for another thirty seconds, galloping awkwardly like stragglers in a three-legged race, then reached a corner. They turned the corner. Then they both halted. They could see nothing but sidewalls and an end wall straight ahead.

Then Beth dropped down to her knees again. ‘That’s it, Patrick. It really is it.’

Patrick stared ahead. ‘But this can’t be just a dead end. What’s the point?’

‘I don’t care,’ Beth said, sprawled on all fours on the cold hard tiles and gasping.

Patrick stepped towards the dead end ahead of them, peering into the distance. ‘And what’s that?’

Beth reached out and grabbed his leg. ‘No, Patrick. Just stay here.’

‘But there are some signs over there.’

‘There’s no point! It’s a
dead end!
’

Patrick looked over to the signs again – three equally spaced large white rectangles, with red lettering he couldn’t quite make out.

‘Patrick. Please. We’ve reached the end.’

He turned back and crouched down to her, to her ruddy face now covered in unflattering sweat.

‘Please, Patrick. Don’t go over there. Let’s wait here and give ourselves up. They won’t harm us, I promise.’

Patrick looked back down to the bright white ceramic tiles covering the walls and floor, reflecting every precious piece of energy given out by the bulkhead lights, and to the grey cables snaking along the ceiling.

The rumble of the guards was getting ever louder.

‘Come on, Patrick. Let’s throw the towel in. The worst that can happen is we get arrested.’

He let his hands fall onto his hips and rounded his shoulders a little. He let out a long breath and wiped a hand through his sweaty hair.

After a final glance down the corridor he closed his eyes and bowed his head

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Okay.’