We stood shivering with anticipation, but mainly with the cold, while Elton headed off to the fire escapes. His only real qualification for the job was a healthy body. If it came to scrambling from the top of the fire escape to the roof Elton was a hundred times better situated to doing it than Simon, fifty times better than me in my current condition, and at least ten times as able as John or Mia.
After five or ten minutes fiddling about with the fire doors on the first and second floor, Elton shimmied up onto the railing, grabbed hold of the edge of the roof and vanished over. We caught a last glimpse of his legs waving and he was gone.
‘He won’t get in,’ Simon said.
‘Not without a hammer at least.’ John nodded. ‘And surely the alarms will go off whatever he does? I mean, at our house the alarm goes off if you sneeze after midnight. And this place has to have more to protect it than something my father had installed at home?’
‘Just be ready to run,’ Mia said. ‘It takes ages for police to answer an alarm. If we hear one and leave immediately then we should be fine.’
‘What if it’s a silent alarm?’ Simon muttered.
‘Silent alarms are for when you want to catch someone.’ I was making it up as I spoke, but it sounded right. ‘In a place like this, you want whoever it is to leave as soon as possible. The quicker they’re out, the less damage they do. Vandals could do thousands of pounds worth of damage in a place like this, and some random teens aren’t going to be able to pay it back. Best to have a noisy alarm and scare them off. I think.’ Despite my argument, none of them looked convinced. I tried a different tack. ‘Look, the fact is that Demus remembers “waking up” in a park a few days from now, missing any memory of the last two weeks. To me, that says we get in and get the chip. So whether it’s blind luck or skill, or mixture of the two, I think this is going to work. How else—’
‘Maybe I cause the memory loss by hitting you over the head with a hammer?’ Mia suggested.
A flash of a light at the top landing of the fire escape caught my eye. ‘Is that . . . ?’
‘It’s Elton with a torch.’ Mia started forward.
Against all the odds Elton was leaning out from the fire door, beckoning us.
I took a moment to hide the bag with Demus’s headbands in the bushes to collect later, then set off after Mia, with John and Simon at my heels. ‘If I built a lab I’d wire it so that the alarm went off if the fire doors were opened after office hours.’
‘Perhaps he disabled it,’ John said.
‘This is Elton we’re talking about, not a cat burglar. I don’t think he’s ever swiped as much as a chocolate bar from a corner shop.’
We climbed up, our shoes startlingly loud on the cold metal steps. ‘You got in, then.’ I stated the obvious.
‘Catch on a skylight was gone. No alarms up there. Dropped down on to a posh desk. Probably John’s dad’s.’ Elton shrugged. ‘You sure they’re keeping this super seekret chip here? It all seems a bit easy.’
‘Let’s find out.’ Mia squeezed past him and the rest of us followed.
Nobody had thought to bring a torch except for Elton. Fortunately, he’d thought to bring five. Though two of them were the front lights off his brothers’ bikes.
‘Take us to the mainframe,’ I hissed.
‘Why are you talking like that?’ John asked in a normal voice.
‘Uh . . . security guards?’
‘Fair point,’ he hissed back. ‘Though if they have any, we’re fucked.’
‘Place this size might have one or two,’ Elton said. ‘None, if we’re really lucky. Anyway, let’s hope they’re in their room watching TV and having a cup of tea. Keep your torch use to a minimum, though. If they do a patrol, they’ll have torches of their own and you’ll see them coming.’
‘Mainframe,’ I prompted.
‘Well, Dad did show me a room full of computers . . . or computer. On the middle floor, I think.’ John reached a crossing of corridors and turned slowly. ‘Let me get my bearings. It’s a pretty big place.’
Simon kept very close behind me, breathing heavily, far more heavily than the climb up the fire escape should merit.
‘You OK, Si?’
‘Great.’ He shone his light both ways down the intersecting corridor. ‘Just waiting for the guard dogs.’
‘This way.’ John led us off again.
Right up to the very last minute, John gave a great impression of being lost. I was about to helpfully berate him as he stood halfway down a nondescript corridor on the first floor, staring at his fingers, but he beat me to it.
‘Here.’ He turned and patted the door behind him.
‘You’re sure?’ Unlike the hospital, Motorola seemed dead set against signs of any kind other than the names of the office occupants, set in tiny letters on plastic cards slid into holders on various doors.
‘It’s in there.’ John stood back.
Elton tried the door. ‘Locked.’ He took a crowbar from his bag. ‘So far, we’ve just been trespassing. Now, we’re breaking and entering. That’s what the charge will be. And if we come out with something that’s not ours, that’s burglary. Just so we’re clear.’
We all nodded, the torchlight managing to make us look like proper criminals. Elton shrugged and set to work. The frame splintered and the door opened without further protest. He reached in and flicked on the lights. We were in the middle of the building with no windows, so no worry about being seen from the outside.
The computers were something of a disappointment. I had been conditioned by years of television to expect something out of James Bond or Thunderbirds. The industrious spooling back and forth of reels of magnetic tape while banks of lights lit fitfully, hinting at great works of computation. Instead, we were presented with several uninspiring grey boxes about the size of refrigerators, humming gently to themselves. A table at the back of the room sported several monitors, each with a built-in keyboard.
John handed over the piece of paper bearing the passwords he had copied from his father’s list, and Simon set to his task. The first worrying thing was quite how slowly Simon worked what would hopefully be his magic. He typed at a rate of about three letters per minute, hovering one finger over the keyboard in a seemingly endless search for whatever character he wanted. The result appeared before him in glowing green on the grey screen. It took him forever to get through the passwords.
‘They don’t work,’ he said.
‘How can they not work?’ I asked.
‘Like this.’ He hit the return button. The legend ‘password or username incorrect’ appeared.
Simon tapped the word at the top of the list. ‘This is obviously his username . . . all lowercase, though . . .’ He turned to look at John. ‘There weren’t any capital letters in any of these passwords?’
‘I . . . There might have been . . . Is that important then?’ John looked sheepish.
‘Yes.’ Simon squeezed a considerable amount of passion into one short word.
‘Can’t you try them again and use capitals this time?’ Mia asked.
‘I can.’ Simon exhaled a long sigh. ‘There are quite a few possible combinations.’
‘How long?’ I asked. Simon knew exactly how many combinations there were.
‘That depends on how stupidly the passwords were chosen.’ He started typing. Slowly. ‘And if I get in, then I have to hunt around, and if we’re really, really lucky, I might get the combinations to one or more safes, and our chip might be in one of them. So if we want to be out of here before morning, then you lot had better start looking for the safe we need.’
He had a point.
‘It would be quicker if we split up to search,’ John said.
‘You realise that you sound like the doomed teenager in every horror film ever?’ Elton asked.
John and Elton both had points.
‘We’re not in a horror film.’ I tried to sound confident. ‘And this is a big building. We should split up and go find this safe. Let’s
hope there’s just one of the buggers.’
I turned back toward the door. Someone had hung a whiteboard on the back of it, and written on the board in red marker pen was the legend ‘Tower of Tricks’.
‘What the fuck?’ I stood, staring at it. Something about the lettering seemed familiar. ‘This is straight from our D&D game! Did one of you just write this here?’
John came to stand at my shoulder, a chorus of nos following him. ‘Not me. Stupid name for the place anyway. It’s not a tower. The whole building is only three storeys.’
Against all my instincts for self-preservation, I found myself alone in a cold, dark building with a bicycle lamp to light my way, rooting through deserted offices and empty labs, hunting for a safe that I wasn’t sure I would recognise even if I found it.
I had wanted to team up with Mia, but couldn’t think of a way to say so without it being taken as insulting her ability to play an equal role . . . or painting myself as incapable. And so here I was. Creeping through each room as if that might stop the boogieman from noticing me.
I had the top floor to search. Elton had the middle floor where Simon was working. John and Mia each had half of the bottom floor. He said he thought there was a better chance of the safe being down there. It held the more senior offices, and some administration rooms.
There’s something about the way a handheld light throws the shadows around that quickly convinces your mind that everything in the room is focused on you. Waiting for its chance to strike, scurrying away as the light swings toward it. I found myself turning on the spot, faster and faster, trying to catch whatever it was that was stalking me before it pounced.
I forced myself to stop and to carry on the search, heart pounding, ready to jump at every shadow. In films they had wall safes hidden behind large portraits. The offices at the laboratory were singularly lacking in large portraits. In fact, they seemed to have a rule against posters or pictures of any kind. One of the larger offices had a number of framed certificates hanging behind the desk. No wall safe behind them, though.
I entered another room. A workshop of some sort, with towering shelves filled with slide-out plastic bins each brimming with electronic components. I walked in, footsteps too loud, breath pluming even in here. The swing of my lamp revealed a figure standing silent in the darkness at the end of the first aisle. I froze, stopped breathing, and clenched the lamp so tight I managed to turn it off briefly.
‘Stay back! I’ve got . . . a . . .’ Got a what? A knife? A gun? A pointy stick? I snatched a Stanley knife from the shelf behind me.
The figure remained unmoving. Terrified, I edged toward it. ‘Who . . . what?’
A white lab coat hung on a coat stand. Mocking me. The figure that my imagination had constructed fell apart. I stood feeling foolish and relieved, trying to calm my heart. They wouldn’t keep an important safe in a storeroom. I put the knife in my pocket and backed out, keeping one eye on the coat stand and its ghostly occupant.
My hunt had led me back almost to the fire door we had entered by. I could feel the draught from the fire escape as I went to check the last door on the corridor. I hugged myself against the cold. Elton had left a screwdriver to keep the door open a fraction, just in case. Somehow it felt better that it not close on us. Now I noticed a dark object just before the door. A bag? Something not much bigger than a football. I moved closer, directing the weakening beam of my light toward it. A plastic carrier bag? Two bags. One full of something, the other mostly empty . . . I tilted my head to the side, trying to make sense of it, and stepped closer.
‘I wouldn’t.’
I squealed like a little girl at the sound of the unexpected voice behind me.
‘Steady. It’s only me.’
‘Jesus, fuck!’ I clutched my chest. Demus stood behind me, hands raised. In the lamplight he looked half dead, white skinned, dark circles about his eyes.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Helping,’ he said. ‘I arrived before you and disabled the alarms from the outside.’
‘If you were going to come here anyway, what do you need us for?’ I felt both angry and relieved.
‘Passwords, combinations, athletic ability. All that sort of thing.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, from what I gathered about it after the event, you were all here. So I needed you to be here.’
I frowned, trying to find a flaw in his logic. My logic. ‘What’s in the bags?’
‘Sacks,’ he said.
‘Bags,’ I repeated, and flashed my light back toward them. ‘Tesco bags, by the look of them.’
‘Sacks,’ Demus said again. ‘And you really shouldn’t look.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’ The contents of the fuller bag looked wet.
‘Sacks is in the bag. Well, his head is. The other one has a hammer in it and a hacksaw. Rust left them there on his way in.’
CHAPTER 22
‘That psycho’s in the building?’ I started back in.
‘Woah.’ Demus grabbed my arm. It felt weird holding myself back like that. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘To stop him!’ I tried to shake off Demus’s grip. ‘Mia’s on her own in there. And the others.’
Demus held on, his fingers biting painfully into my bicep. ‘This is what happens. Mia survives.’
‘What?’ I shook my head. ‘You said you don’t remember this. I’m supposed to wipe my memory.’
‘I don’t remember it happening, but I remember the aftermath. I’ve lived with it for more than half my life. I never asked about it, but some facts can’t be avoided.’
‘The aftermath?’ I tried to haul myself free, but he hung on grimly, as strong as I was, or as weak.
‘This is the Tower of Tricks. There’s no escape without sacrifice.’ Demus released me with what sounded like a cry of pain and slumped back against the wall. ‘There’s a price to pay.’
‘Tell me what you know!’ I shouted it at him.
‘I know that this way you can bring Mia back. Return her past to her and give her a future. I know that one day, that will mean more to you than everything. Anything.’
‘At what cost?’ I grabbed him, taking the front of his coat in two handfuls. ‘At what cost?’ The bike lamp fell to the floor, shadows spinning crazily.
‘You lose friends here, Nick. I lose friends. And I’ve had twenty-five years to mourn that fact. There’s blood on my hands. Whatever I do, there’s blood on my hands.’
‘Who? Who do I lose?’ I slammed him back against the wall.
‘Does—’ He coughed. Something dark stained his lips. ‘Does it matter? Would . . . Would it change what you do?’
‘I . . .’ I tried to think of losing any of them. Of the look on Simon’s mother’s face on learning that her only son was dead. Of the Arnots, if they lost Elton. ‘No! I’m not losing any of them. Tell me how to stop it!’
‘You can’t stop it. It’s the sacrifice. It’s what she costs us. Her life saved. Others lost. One or many? Elton set you the puzzle already. And you ran from it. Ask me again how to stop it and I might tell you. But then you’d have to decide. I could tell you where to find Rust. One word. One word.’
‘I . . .’ Like the spell. One word, and someone who would have lived, dies.
‘Or let it play out. As it already has played out. Let my past be your future. And save Mia.’
‘Mia.’ One short word that sent a hundred vivid images flooding through my mind’s eye. I wanted her. More than anything. More, in that moment, even than I wanted to be well. I stood back, releasing Demus.
He straightened, wincing. He had blood around his mouth. In the light and shadow from the fallen lamp he looked demonic, almost the vampire he had once seemed.
‘I don’t know what you do, Nick. I don’t remember this conversation. I remember the next week. I remember the shit I had to deal with. The bodies that needed to go into the ground. None of this is good. None of it can be. But it happened.’
‘I can
’t play this game. I’m sorry.’ I stepped away, bent, and picked up the light. ‘I need to unstick the future, jump us onto another timeline. We all need a chance. I can’t walk your path. I’m sorry.’ I glanced down the dark corridor. ‘Your Mia is old. Forty. She’s lived a life . . .’
Demus bowed his head. ‘How easily the young sacrifice the old. When you get to forty, it won’t seem quite so clear-cut. Believe me. But . . . Well, just remember that you told me the old were a price worth paying.’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Not exactly. Though I kind of had.
Demus pulled back his right sleeve. ‘I don’t have a scar here.’ He drew a finger across the back of his wrist.
‘What?’ I wondered if he had gone mad or was just trying to distract me while Rust killed my friends.
‘I don’t have a scar here.’ He shrugged. ‘If you did . . . then you couldn’t be me. Could you?’ He covered his wrist with his sleeve again. ‘I remember that three people die here tonight. Do it your way and maybe it will be more. Maybe fewer.’ He met my gaze, narrowing his eyes against the light. ‘It’s in your pocket.’
I reached into my coat pocket and there it was, the Stanley knife. I took it out and set the small, razor-sharp blade to the back of my other wrist.
‘Think about it.’ Demus didn’t plead. I was grateful for that.
‘No time.’ And I drew the blade across my skin. I didn’t press hard, but the blood came quickly, along with a sharp, sick-making pain. I turned away, retching. I would have a scar where Demus didn’t. He wasn’t me. His past was no longer my future.
‘Restaurant.’
One Word Kill (Impossible Times Book 1) Page 17
