“Say that again. I can’t hear you.”
Ely pushed through the crowd, moving towards the last place he’d seen the woman. He knocked a man back down into his seat, and then he spotted her. She was heading towards the door. He cursed. He should have stayed where he was. He tapped out a command, ordering the doors to close. Nothing happened.
“Vox, close the doors. Close them now!” he barked.
Heads turned to look at him.
“Vox, did you hear me? Close the doors!”
More heads turned, the broadcast forgotten in favour of this more immediate entertainment.
“I’m trying,” she snapped back, “but it’s not working.”
The ghost reached the door. She turned and looked at Ely. She smiled, then disappeared around the corner.
“MOVE!” Ely bellowed. The crowd parted as he pushed his way through them and out into corridor beyond.
“Vox. She’s turned left outside the lounge. Are you tracking her?”
“I’m trying, but I’m having to do it manually. I’ve never done this before.”
“She went left, then where?” Ely barked as he reached the doorway.
“Along the hallway, then right at the end.”
Ely ran. He turned right.
“Where next?”
“Straight on and… I don’t know. I’ve lost her.”
“Well find her!”
He scanned the corridor looking for something, anything that seemed out of place. There, he saw it, an access hatch still partly opened. As he ran towards it he tapped out a command, it had been opened just seconds before.
“Vox, can you lock the access hatches to this ladder?”
“No,” she said, her voice thick with panic. “Not to any of them.”
Ely peered inside and looked upwards. He could just make out a foot disappearing through a hatch a few levels above.
“Have you got her on camera?” he barked, as he climbed into the hatch.
“I’m trying, I’m trying. It’s not easy.”
Access ladders, Ely thought as he climbed. They were rarely used, except by him on the few occasions when he had to move around the Tower during shift-change, and there were no cameras inside. He should have realised before that this was how the killer had moved so freely through the Tower. He should have realised. But he hadn’t. Neither had Vauxhall. Neither had Arthur. He reached the open hatch and climbed out.
He was in one of the Assemblies. A contamination alarm was ringing at this violation of the clean room conditions. A dozen gloved and masked workers, who’d been staring at the door, turned to look at him. An alert came up at the bottom of his display, recording the hours lost to production the disruption was causing. He tried to ignore it, the chase was more important, but years of conditioning told him that nothing was as important as this loss of hundreds of hours of labour.
He ran out of the Assembly. “Where now?” he barked into his microphone.
“Take the next right,” Vauxhall said.
“And then?”
“She’s heading towards… towards the elevators.”
“Are they locked down?”
“Yes. And they’re all still down on Level Four.”
Ely began to slow. The ghost was trapped. Only a handful of civic servants could operate the elevators at will. Except, he thought, this woman had already proved she could access the system. Could she override the elevators? He put on a burst of speed, rounded the corner and there, at the end of the corridor, he saw the ghost. She was levering open the elevator doors.
“Stop!” he yelled.
She turned, and looked at him with that same smile. Then she turned back to the door, and finished levering it apart.
“Stop!” he yelled again, still running towards her.
She did stop, but only because she now had the door open twelve inches.
“Who are you?” he yelled.
She smiled and waved.
Ely suddenly realised what she was about to do.
“Vox where’s that elevator?” He was only ten feet away.
“Level Four. I told you.”
It wasn’t.
The woman took a step through the door, but only fell a few inches to land on the roof of the elevator as it rose up through the shaft. The doors slid shut, and she was lost from view.
“Vox, open those doors. Now!” he screamed as he reached the elevator doors. He slammed his fist into the metal in frustration.
“Stand back,” Vauxhall said.
The doors slid open, but it was too late. The shaft was empty. He stuck his head out and looked up. The elevator was already two levels above.
“Call me another elevator!” he yelled into his microphone, as he backed away and started heading around to the next set of doors.
There was a sudden screeching of metal. Through the still open doors, he saw the elevator plummet down through the shaft. He saw the ghost, still standing on the roof. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Vox—” Ely began, but before he could finish the sentence there was a deafening crash as the elevator impacted against the bottom of the shaft.
Chapter 7 - Clean up
“Vox, come in. What just happened?” Ely spoke into his throat microphone.
“The brakes on the elevator failed,” she replied.
“I know that,” he snapped. Then he took a breath. “I mean could she have survived?” He knew the answer even as he asked the question.
“I doubt it, I mean, the cameras are gone. You’ll have to go and check for yourself. The elevator is ruined. There’s no way we can replace it, but the Tower seems okay. I’m still running a diagnostic check, but I think when they built it, they knew this type of catastrophic failure might happen.”
“Right. I see,” he said, not really listening. “Who was she? I mean, was she really a—”
“I’ve got the Chancellor calling,” Vauxhall interrupted. “And Councillor Cornwall. I’ve got to go.” She clicked off.
Catastrophic failure was right, Ely thought, as he looked down the shaft. He’d almost caught her. He’d almost had her. If he’d just been a bit faster he would have done, but he was too slow. And now she was dead. He was too far above the wreckage to make out much detail, but he thought he could see a leg. It was very definitely no longer attached to the rest of her body.
Was she the killer? She’d been able to override the elevator controls and his command to close the doors to the lounge, so she did have access to some of the system. But who was she? Why didn’t her records come up on his display? Was she a ghost?
Of course not. It was just shock making him think like that. With a few minutes notice she, or perhaps her associates, had wiped the location data from an entire shift. Someone, probably Chancellor Stirling, had simply erased all record of this woman’s existence. And Stirling would have had the access codes to override the elevators and door locks and all the rest. No, he decided, there was no great mystery to it.
He pulled off his helmet and ran his hand across his scalp, pausing when he reached the bandage. Why had she not had the gun on her? Because there was nowhere to hide it whilst wearing the jumpsuit. Then had she been on her way to collect it? He thought of the museum and its rambling collection of exhibits. She must have left it there after shooting at him. That’s where she was going, he thought. Up to collect the gun. Where else could she have been going? The transport pad? Could Stirling have sent a transport to rescue her?
He took a breath. He was guessing, letting his imagination get away from him. Well, it didn’t matter. She was dead. Just like Arthur had wanted.
He looked at the shaft. The elevator was probably beyond repair. The commuting times would have to be adjusted. Schedules would have to change, perhaps even the amount of time each worker had for sleep would have to be cut. More sacrifices would have to be made. Production would suffer but, of course, that didn’t matter any more.