An alert came up on his display. The shift was about to change. Ely moved to the side of the hallway. Doors opened, the workers filed out, and headed towards the ramps.
The Tower had ten elevators, each capable of carrying fifty workers at a time, though they only ever carried most of them up from the ‘homes’ to the Assemblies, ‘farms’ or classrooms at the beginning of the shift. Around the lift shafts at the centre of the Tower were the commuter ramps. It was down these, during shift-change, that the workers walked, queued, and waited for the previous shift to move on from rest to sleep. They talked, they joked, and they ignored Ely. He stood there, silently, his hand moving to check boxes, clicking yes or no, as he filled away a dozen more reports.
When he’d become a Constable, nearly five years ago, there had been no patrolling. Life then had been exciting, though he’d not thought so at the time. He and Tower-One’s other two Constables, under the gaze of their supervisor, Arthur, would pour through the other-net, seeking out sedition and recidivism. There had been an arrest a week, sometimes two, always resulting in deportation to the launch site.
That had gone with the election of Councillor Cornwall and the Chancellor’s adoption of his policy of Re-Organisation. Two Constables from each Tower, along with dozens of Instructors and nurses and other civic servants, were sent to the launch site. Arthur was forced into retirement on Level Seventy-Six, and Ely was left to patrol the Tower alone.
Work, rest, repeat. That was life for everyone in the Tower, and it was the same for every worker in every Tower of each of the three Cities left on Earth. Three hundred thousand souls, all following the same routine, all dreaming of the day that—
A light began flashing on his display. There was a disturbance outside a hab-unit down on Level Six. No, Ely reminded himself as he brought up the camera feed from the corridor in question, they were called ‘homes’ now. The image from outside the ‘home’ showed two couples arguing, with two sets of children loitering disinterestedly behind them, lost in the worlds behind their displays
It didn’t look serious, and though all had elevated heart rates, the system suggested there was a low probability of violence.
Mentally, Ely cursed. During shift-change the elevators were to only be used by the workers. That was another one of Chancellor Stirling’s edicts, one Ely suspected she had directed at him personally. He could use the long winding commuter corridor, but he didn’t want to endure the baleful gaze of all those citizens. He walked over to the nearest access ladder and began the long climb down to Level Six.
Chapter 1 - The First Murders
“All right, move along, move along,” Ely called out when he rounded the corridor. Other family groups, all the same two-parent, two-child variety, were lingering outside their allocated rooms.
“Go on, get to your beds,” he said, pushing a woman towards her hab-unit. “An hour’s lost sleep is an hour’s lost production.”
The trite slogan, one of Chancellor Stirling’s that Ely disliked on principle, had the desired effect. The crowd began to move, not into their ‘homes’ where they would miss out on this latest piece of entertainment, but close enough to the doors that they could bolt inside should the threats be directed at any of them personally.
“So,” he said, reaching the group at the centre of the disturbance, “what seems to be the trouble?”
“Constable. Finally! Can you tell these people that Wisteria Lodge is our home?” The man spoke in clipped tones, every other word punctuated with scornful impatience. According to the tag on Ely’s display, he was Mr George Winchester, an assessor in one of the Assemblies. His wife, Mrs Georgette Winchester, was an overseer in the same Assembly. Their two children, a boy aged twelve, a girl aged eight, stood to one side.
In front of the doors to the unit in question, with their children loitering to the side, stood another equally exasperated married couple. Ely’s display tagged them as Mr Alfred and Mrs Alfreda Durham.
“Look, please,” Mrs Durham said. “We’re tired. We’re all tired. We just want to go to bed.”
“Well, what of it?” Georgette Winchester snapped. “So do we. And we can’t, because you won’t let us into our home.”
“But we keep telling you,” Mr Durham said. “It’s our home this shift.”
“He’s right,” Mrs Durham agreed. “It is. It’s ours!”
“Quiet. All of you,” Ely barked. He was tired. His throat felt sore after all the shift’s shouting. His head still throbbed from the blow that had dented his helmet. Above all, his pride was bruised from the conversation with Chancellor Stirling.
“And the rest of you,” he said, addressing the workers dawdling further along the corridor, “get to bed. An hour’s lost sleep is an hour’s lost production. Anyone still out here in five seconds will be fined a point for that lost hour.” This time the workers fled into their units.
“As for you,” he said addressing the two sets of adults, “stay quiet or I’ll charge you with disturbing the peace.”
They glared but stayed silent as Ely tapped a command onto his wristboard and brought up the hab-unit allocation for that shift.
“Unit 6-4-18 is allocated to the Winchesters,” he said, imbuing his voice with finality. Both sets of adults looked at him blankly. Ely stared back for a moment, then he sighed. “I mean Wisteria Lodge,” he amended.
“See?” Mrs Winchester crowed. “I told you.”
“The Durhams are assigned to…” Unit 6-4-17. “Sea View. Next one down,” Ely said, and closed the file.
“Yes, yes.” Mr Durham made no attempt to move. “I know that’s what it says.” He waved his wrist at Ely. “But that door won’t open. It says it’s already occupied. And I know how it works. If a ‘home’ is occupied, everyone moves down one. That means that this one,” he tapped on the door, “is ours.”
That wasn’t how it worked. Units were sometimes unavailable because a pod had to be replaced, a printer reset, or the plumbing fixed. It was rare, but it did happen, and when it did the ‘home’ was removed from the night’s roster.
According to the records on Ely’s display, Unit 6-4-17 was meant to be available for that shift. He checked the data. There were no signs of life from inside. The room had to be empty. He assumed it was a glitch. There had been a few of those recently, though none so great as this.
“You two, get out of the way,” he snapped at the Durhams. “Now! Or…” He tried to think of a threat. “Or I’ll dock you a point each for every minute of the Winchesters’ sleep that you disrupt.” He lowered his hand to hover over his wristboard. The couple moved.
Ely turned to the Winchesters, “Go inside. Go to sleep.”
“Finally!” Mr Winchester sighed. He waved his hand down the scanner. The door opened, and the family traipsed into the room. None of them offered a word of thanks.
“This way,” Ely said to the Durhams, and walked the dozen feet down the corridor to Unit 6-4-17.
“Look, Constable. It’s pointless. The door won’t open.” Mrs Durham swiped her hand down the scanner. A small red light flashed. Ely was able to see the message on her wristboard-display that read ‘home occupied’. She swiped her hand down the panel again. The message changed to ‘Please check your assignment’. On Ely’s display a different message came up ‘Attempted unauthorised entry to Unit 6-4-17’.
It was definitely a glitch. A big one. More hours of production would be wasted whilst it was fixed. He checked the time. It was twenty minutes past shift-change. The family inside would already have left.