Ben looks from one face to the next. ‘This is a joke, right?’
‘Don’t look at me,’ warns Meera, ‘I can’t even be seen talking to you. I’m on my last point.’
‘You could try wearing a skirt,’ Ben tells her. ‘I bet you’ve never even been to India. Why look for trouble?’
‘Jesus, it’s not like I’m asking you to commit a crime, Ben.’ Miranda throws the spoon down.
Ben is totally irritated by her attitude. She acts like she owns the place. ‘You told Felix something “weird” was going on, and now you think he was, like, silenced or something, and you don’t even know what he found out!’
‘Oh, we know what he found out.’
‘Well, what? Tell me!’
She looks at the others in a moment of silence. ‘Why don’t I show you?’
Miranda leads Ben across the open-plan office. You can hear the wind whistling around the corners of the building up here. They’re level with other workers in other buildings. It’s like looking into the other train when you’re waiting in a station. ‘This is as good a place as any to start.’
A crowd has gathered around one of the water coolers. Inside the plastic water tank, liquid is spinning in a wild whirlpool. ‘It happens the same time every day. You can set your watch by it.’
‘Electro-magnetic interference,’ Meera informs him with a nudge. ‘There’s too much in here. The more equipment we turn on, the weirder it gets.’
‘Show him the pigeons,’ suggests June.
Meera takes Ben to the corner of the floor, and points out through the great windows. There are dozens of dead pigeons lining the window ledges, lying on their backs with their feet in the air. Some have been cannibalised. They’re missing legs and eyes.
Ben presses his face against the cool glass. ‘Mass suicide?’
‘They get within a certain radius and keel over.’
‘Oh come on, Meera. You’re talking about some form of radiation?’
‘If it can kill a bunch of birds, what’s it doing to our brains? Computers are shielded, they shouldn’t cross-resonate, but what if the specs are wrong?’
‘I thought they had experts to check this kind of stuff.’
‘Yeah, that’s me. But equipment’s more complicated now. You’re living in a world where a pen comes with pages of instructions in a dozen languages. Even your after-shave has a web site. It doesn’t mean that anyone knows what they’re doing.’ Meera looks around to make sure the CCTV cameras can’t see them, then removes a panel from the wall. Inside, thousands of tiny red insects scurry over the cables. ‘Know what these are?’
Ben has never seen anything like it. They swarm onto the floor, miniscule creatures buzzing over and around his shoes. He takes a step backwards.
‘Computer mites. Every building in the city has them. Just not this many. Pest controllers came in and sprayed, but they were back the next week, bigger and stronger.’
‘Maybe the stuff contained steroids.’
‘You’re not taking this seriously, are you.’ Meera puts the panel back, shaking bangles up her arm.
‘Maybe you’re taking it too seriously. Bugs and birds? Give me a fucking break.’
June and Ben look down into the building’s vast central stairwell, a world of steel and concrete. A strong updraft ruffles their hair. June opens a pack of cigarettes and removes the silver foil from inside it. ‘We’re not even supposed to carry packets of cigarettes into the building,’ she says, screwing the foil up into a ball and dropping it into the stairwell. It falls, then spins and hovers on the air current.
‘Touch it.’
Ben gingerly touches the floating foil ball and gets an electric shock.
‘The air flow is all messed up. It’s like being in a funfair.’
In the corridor where they’re standing, the wind moans eerily up the elevator shafts. Girls walk past, and their dresses lift in the updraft, like on a carnival walk.
‘This is all bullshit; it’s bad design, not bad vibes. You want to see a building with real problems? Visit the block of flats in Hackney where my old man lives. I’m going back –’
‘Wait. You said you couldn’t access the health records. Then at least you should talk to some of the staff. It’s your job, Ben.’
‘Damn. I thought I was going to get by on my looks.’
‘You could start with Apela,’ June tells him.
‘Apela. Is that corporate jargon?’
‘No, that’s her first name. She’s over there.’
‘Okay, but if I’m not convinced, promise you’ll drop the whole thing?’
‘That’s up to Miranda,’ says June. She doesn’t explain why.
Apela Tamarak is Fitch’s PA. She moves her mobile phone closer to her computer, until it suddenly emits a piercing shriek. ‘Watch,’ she instructs Ben. The noise from the mobile subsides into an old pop song. It sounds like an early Manfred Mann hit, then there’s a station ident from Radio Caroline.
‘It keeps picking up old pirate radio shows from the sixties. How is that possible?’
They listen to the long-forgotten voices of the Radio Caroline DJs for a minute. Apela is enjoying the show. Maybe she’s nuts as well, thinks Ben. He resolves to talk to some other staffers.
‘I get these red dots before my eyes whenever I stare too long at the company screensaver,’ says Alison, Clarke’s PA. ‘Then I pass out. Watch.’
Alison’s head drops forward. She’s out cold with her face on the desk. She opens one eye. ‘Sometimes I pass out right on the keyboard. It leaves marks, you know?’
When she sits up, all her hair is standing on end.
Jake in Invoicing is more embarrassed about talking, but Ben is good with people. Finally he opens up. They’re standing over a toilet in the men’s room, staring into it. Jake grabs the handle and flushes.
‘It flushes back to front,’ Jake explains. ‘The water goes down the hole anti-clockwise. It’s only supposed to do that in Australia, isn’t it?’
Harry, the mailboy, is happy to talk to anyone, particularly if they want to discuss shows on the Sci-Fi Channel. He points to some scratch-marks along the wall. ‘There’s, like, all this tiny grafitti everywhere. Check it out. Triple sixes, man. The mark of the beast. The ghost in the machine. Messages from another place. Warnings? Could be.’ He shakes his head sadly. His hair wants washing. ‘I get these weird headaches when I see them. Like something’s trying to take control of my brain.’
‘Do you smoke a lot of dope?’ asks Ben.
Jake is puzzled. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
Ben looks at his chaotic notes. None of them makes any sense. He studies the building blueprint, and reads the brochures. Words jump out: STATE OF THE ART – UNIQUE STRUCTURE – TWENTY NINE FLOORS OF NEW TECHNOLOGY
– TWENTY NINE FLOORS –
He cross-references the blueprint. Then he’s walking through the building’s lobby to a map of the floors. He has a readout of the building’s blueprint in his hand. He looks at the map and counts the levels, running his finger up the panel. Twenty-nine. The blueprint says there are thirty.
He returns to his workstation, feeling beaten. As Miranda passes, he stops her. He has the feeling that he’s getting involved, despite himself. He points out the notes he has taken.
‘Buildings don’t make people behave strangely,’ he reasons, ‘other people do. You really think there’s something wrong with the place, or is this some new kind of urban myth?’
Miranda pulls a pen from behind her ear, displays it to Ben and places it halfway up the wall, where it stays. ‘You tell me. Should it do that?’
They stand there looking at the pen as it starts to spin.