Meera shrugs. ‘It works for me.’
They head back to the top floor and room 3014. Miranda opens the master control panel and looks around for some way of disarming it. ‘This needs the female touch,’ she warns, smashing a steel chair into the system, which makes no difference at all. Meera stops her and follows the cabling to a DANGER: LIVE VOLTAGE box. She unclips the lid, overrides the protector panel and removes a water cooler tank, emptying the whole lot into the mains.
There are several small explosions and a lot of sparks, but the air system reroutes again and remains on, its gauges moving even further into overcompensation. Throughout the building, floor by floor, the lights go out and the windows darken.
Miranda stands up and brushes herself down. ‘Nice one,’ she says, sarcastically. ‘Terrific. This top was brand new. We can’t stop it. Now what do we do?’
‘Get the key back. Get the hell out.’
Meera heads off after the key.
17. FRIDAY 4:17PM
The directors watch as the mainframe diverts itself to keep running. They are panicked and still trying not to inhale the atmosphere, although it’s hopeless pretending you won’t breathe. ‘There must be some way to turn the damned air off,’ Dr Samphire insists.
‘Ultimately, it’s designed to reroute itself to an outside power supply if there’s a crisis. It can’t be turned off.’ This from the same smartarse director who was rude to him before. When this is over …
‘What you’re telling me is we’re fucked. That boy. He knew what was wrong. You have to find him.’
The other director looks disgusted. What happened to ‘we’? he wonders.
The work-floor is a very different place now. The air is as thick and as murky as the bottom of a pond. The windows have automatically darkened, screening out the light. In the hazy beam of Miranda’s torch, lunatics flit past in various states of undress. The building is a heathen hell, where small fires burn on desks. The few remaining computers are smashed in. Some of the sprinklers are on. There are moans and screams in the dark. Bedlam was an oasis of sanity by comparison.
Ben is still suffering from the effects of his fall. Miranda searches for survivors. Hearing a whimpering sound from under one of the desks, she finds a battered but still-living friend.
‘June?’ She helps her out from the crawlspace. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I think so.’
They are heading for the stairwell door when Miss Fitch reappears in front of them, lurching out of the semi-gloom. Her hair is standing on end. She’s trailing a computer keyboard, and has sellotape stuck all over her, with scissors, pens, and other bits of office equipment hanging from her body. Her cut wrist flops uselessly. She’s covered in coagulating blood.
‘Where do you two think you’re going? Have you finished all your work?’
‘There’s no more work to do. It’s over.’
Fitch, with her good hand, plucks some fluff from her sweater in annoyance. ‘You know, ever since you came here, there’s been disruption and insubordination. All this is your fault. If you hadn’t started trying to upset the status quo, we wouldn’t be trapped in here now.’
June taps Miranda on the shoulder. Miranda turns around. The deranged staff from her floor are standing behind Fitch in a semi-circle, watching the pair of them. The weaker ones always wait for a leader to emerge. It pays to be on the winning side.
Fitch works the crowd. ‘You see what she’s done? She’s destroyed your careers! Why isn’t she affected? You can’t let her get away with this!’
The crowd surges forward, backing Miranda and June against the stairwell doors. The girls slip through, dragging Ben with them, jamming the handles shut on the other side with a chair leg – but it won’t hold for long.
Miranda, Ben and June intend to head down the stairs, but another group of Bedlamites, this one in the mob colours now adopted by the accountancy floor, are on the way up.
The trio are forced to go up, not down. They hear the noise of the angry mob below them. The doors are smashed apart with fire-axes. Miranda grabs the partially-comatose Ben and smacks him hard in the face, causing him to revive a little. They are forced to continue upwards as the doors below burst open, and the Workforce of the Living Dead attack.
Have you ever been in an office where there’s a hostile environment? Now imagine that times a million. And give them all weapons.
The angry lynch-mob, led by Fitch, Half-Swan and the remaining supervisors, move fast. Ben, June and Miranda whack them back, knocking them down only to see them rise again. They’re only just managing to stay ahead. Somehow they reach the directors’ floor and get inside, barricading the stairwell doors behind them. Two of the directors are still there.
‘If you’ve got any bright ideas about how to get out of here, now’s the time to suggest them,’ says Miranda. The directors look helplessly at one another. So much for executive decisions. Miranda checks Ben’s eyes. They’re clouding over. Didn’t he once have a nervous breakdown? She doesn’t like the look of him. He needs to be taken outside into the fresh air, fast.
‘What’s above us?’ asks June.
One of the directors looks at her as if she’s mad. ‘The roof, you stupid bitch. There’s no way down from there.’
‘Even if we could get back down,’ June tells Miranda, ‘we still don’t have the door key.’
‘Then we have to make our stand here.’
18. FRIDAY 4:28PM
As they speak, Meera has located the service door and is stepping out onto the glass roof of the atrium, which is still slippery with pieces of shredded Clarke. The key is lying on a vast, unsupported pane of cracked glass. As Meera ventures towards it, the pane starts to splinter like ice on a lake. This isn’t in my job description, she thinks, dropping flat on the glass and starting to inch her way across it. The key seems miles away.
Upstairs, the last stand is taking place.
June, Ben and Miranda are as prepared as they’ll ever be. The two directors are sheltering behind them. ‘They’re coming through,’ yells June. As the remaining barrier between the sane and the insane starts to splinter, Miranda turns on the two cowering directors. ‘We should just throw you out there to die.’
‘Don’t do that! I’m in a position to grant promotion,’ promises some gormless-looking guy in a grey Burtons suit. ‘I’m a very powerful man!’
Miranda looks at his groin. ‘I think you’ve pissed yourself,’ she points out.
The other director tries to reason. ‘They’re our employees. They’ll listen to us. They’ll still recognise the voice of a superior, surely?’
His colleague opens the door to get out. ‘Surely? Fuck you, college boy, I’m out of here!’ Then, too late, he realises what he’s done.
The mob is through the doors now and pouring in, a screaming mass of blank-eyed workforce insanity. Ben tries to help the directors, but it’s too late. The angry horde pours in around the shattered door, falling on the two men. They set about tearing their bosses limb from limb.
‘Stop!’ shout the directors. ‘Think of your careers! You’ll never work in this town again! We’re in a position to grant you substantial financial awards!’ But they still die horribly. By the time their attackers have finished, the room looks like an abattoir. Ben, Miranda and June are forced to run again.
There’s an extremely stylish Colefax & Fowler executive bathroom at the end of the corridor. The trio barricade themselves inside.
‘Now what do we do?’ asks Ben.
‘I don’t know. The doors won’t hold long.’ Miranda senses someone behind her. She slowly turns. ‘June –’