‘Don’t you think I knew my days were numbered?’ Clarke hisses at him. ‘All I ever wanted was a little respect. A little acknowledgement. Was that too much to ask?’
Now completely taped up, Ben is stuck at the top of the stairwell. The worst thing is having to listen to his supervisor play the sympathy card. ‘I can see how you feel,’ he says carefully. ‘If you don’t have a job in this country, people treat you like shit.’
‘They treat you like shit if you do,’ warns Clarke, somewhat mollified. ‘When I come back, I’m afraid I’m going to have to terminate your contract.’
14. FRIDAY 3:05 PM
June, Meera and Miranda are keeping an eye out for Half-Swan, who has scuttled off again. They round a corner in the basement and find Howard in his deckchair, smoking dope and listening to the Chemical Brothers on his iPod. He smiles and peace-signs them.
‘Hey guys.’ Howard wants to high-five, but nobody’s in the mood. Half-Swan is sitting on top of a tool cabinet above him, poised to drop and attack. His colon is hanging below his shirt-tails.
Meera yanks Howard’s headphones off, pulling him backwards. She and Miranda drag Howard clear into the next room as Swan throws himself at the flimsy door, hammering it hard.
‘Don’t you know what’s happening up there?’ asks Meera.
‘Holy Jesus Mother Of God! What the fuck was that?’
‘Mr Swan,’ says June. ‘The top half of him, anyway. He’s kind of dead but he won’t lie down.’
‘No shit. Oh man, I warned you. No pain receptors, your brain keeps functioning as long as they tell your heart to keep beating. I fucking knew this would happen.’
‘How did you know?’ asks Miranda.
‘Oh fuck.’ Howard looks sheepish. ‘You’re looking for someone to blame, it’s me. I designed the SymaxCorp system.’
‘You?’
‘Yeah. I started when I was still at school – didn’t come out of my room for about three years. It was all theory, of course. Dr Samphire found me and made it happen. I ran it through every conceivable scenario, then pointed out the potential problems. He had some ideas of his own about those. He wanted to keep me where he could keep an eye on me. One of his little jokes; the whizz kid becoming the janitor. I don’t mind it down here. It’s cosy.’
‘I thought the directors were to blame,’ says Miranda, disillusioned.
‘Yeah, right. Most of them couldn’t find their own dicks with a microscope and tweezers. A profound lack of imagination is the only quality you need to rule the fucking world.’
Half-Swan slams himself at the plywood door, nearly breaking through.
‘How’s he kicking the door without any legs?’ June wonders.
Miranda looks around. ‘Is there another way out of here apart from the front doors?’
‘This isn’t like one of those Alien films where they keep pulling out maps of service pipes. Duh.’ Howard rolls his eyes.
‘Come on Howard, there must be something!’
‘Well obviously there’s a rubbish chute, but you can only get to it from the atrium, ’cause that’s where they take the recycling stuff.’
‘We can get there.’
‘The tunnel’s full of rubbish.’
‘We can clear it.’
‘And it’s welded shut.’
‘I thought you designed all this?’ Miranda accuses.
‘Don’t rush me,’ says Howard. ‘Somebody roll a joint while I’m thinking,’
Ben comes to. He’s tied to a wheeled desk chair with rolls of parcel tape. His mouth is taped. Perhaps Clarke wants to keep him alive as a sympathetic ear? He tries to move the chair, but it’s at the top of the stairwell flight, and one false move will send him to his death.
There’s a loose end to the tape. There’s also a trolley ramp on the first flight of stairs. Ben manages to fix the tape around the stair-rail with one hand. He kicks back. The chair tips down the stairs, spinning on its stem as the tape unravels. But it rolls too fast, shooting off the edge of the staircase and over into the stairwell. The tape pulls tight as he falls.
Ben and chair are yanked back, to hang suspended in space by the attached tape.
Miranda, Meera, June and Howard back away from the door, which is being violently battered and is splitting in half.
Howard points ahead. ‘There’s a cable tunnel that goes as far as the lobby, but it’s not very wide.’ He eyes June as he speaks. ‘I don’t know if she’ll go through.’
‘At least try – we’ll deal with the supervisor.’ Miranda looks like she’s been waiting for something like this all her working career.
‘If you guys are sure,’ says Howard, uncertainly.
‘He hasn’t got any bloody legs, Howard, all right? We can manage.’
Howard can’t wait to get out. He takes June with him. As Miranda and Meera barricade the breaking door, a dark shape shifts behind them. They turn around to find Miss Fitch in an alcove, chopping up documents on an old-fashioned paper-guillotine. She must have been there the whole time. She’s smoking hard and slugging vodka from the bottle.
‘I have so much paperwork, you have no idea.’ Her eyes are as white as the paper she slices. ‘It’s my job to make the directors look good. I’ve been rewriting their mail and remembering their wives’ birthdays for six fucking years on a bare living wage, and what thanks do I get?’ She slams down the guillotine blade. ‘What thanks do I get?’ She shouts so hard that everyone jumps.
Fitch looks down. She has cut her wrist through to the bone. The severed artery is spraying blood everywhere. ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake. I just had a manicure.’ She attempts to carry on working, her wrist flapping, pumping blood all around as Miranda looks on in horror.
Just then, Half-Swan breaks in and recognises Miss Fitch. He halts before her. She’s bleeding really badly. His guts are falling out. They’re not a great couple.
‘I’m a woman with feelings,’ Fitch continues, oblivious. ‘I have desires and needs. Nobody notices. It took you six years to ask me out on a date, Mr Swan. You spent the whole evening talking about work, then left me outside a kebab shop. I’ve had better nights.’
‘You’ve seen better days.’
‘This? It’s just a paper cut. Where are your legs?’
Swan looks down in some surprise. ‘What – ? Where’s the rest of me?’
‘There’s some of you in the atrium,’ Miranda tells him. ‘You are so past your sell-by date, Swan.’
Swan sighs. ‘This is where equal opportunities gets you. Women in business are such bitches.’ He makes a sudden move to strangle Fitch. Miranda spots the deadbolt key sticking out of Swan’s pocket and snatches it away. She grabs Meera and they get the hell out.
They run along the cable tunnel, emerging into the lobby, where sex and anarchy rule. It’s a scene from the uncut version of Caligula. The few members of staff who haven’t gone insane are hammering at the glass doors, trying to get out. Miranda and Meera attempt to walk through them with a little dignity. Meera tears off the lower half of her sari, which keeps catching on stuff.
They approach the doors with the deadbolt key. But just as Miranda is about to use it, a huge creature lumbers from the shadows and snatches it from her.
It is Clarke, armed with his razor-bat, his combover sticking up at a fantastic angle. Miranda screams.
‘Jameson,’ he hisses. ‘Our little company rebel. And Miss Indiana Fucking Jones. I thought I threw you out of the building.’ Miranda can see he has the key – their only means of escape.
‘What have you done with Ben?’ she asks, making a grab for the key. He holds it high above her, teasing. Then he opens his mouth and drops it in.