“It’s funny though.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
naŭ
“Where is she?”
“She’s in an office. I got the impression it was hers. She gave me a passcard so I could gain access to the higher levels.”
“I should go back.”
“I’m heading for the exit. Anna, you could come with me, get out of here. I’m sure she wouldn’t blame you.”
“We both know what I’ll do.”
“Yes, we do.”
dek
Anna took a few paces forward, passing Kattar, up to the glass that held the open city before them. She stopped on the shady side of the tower and placed her palm to the pane, the thickness of the glass strange in transparency, a slice caught clear, cloak of invisibility for the wasted day. “Give me the card,” she said.
He did so and she placed it edgewise onto the pane, as he had done when he’d used it before to open the door. And just as then, she dragged the passcard along a line downwards, leaving a trail of white heat and blue vapour. She met the end and the glass cracked.
The cracks progressed slowly, fanning outwards, silver shards flowing and forking. A few shards fell free, silently taken, letting in the roar of the winds buffeting the tower. “This way is outside. Mr Wayfarer can’t get to us here. We are only in danger if he brings the tower down. Then he’ll take us with him.”
“Anna. We can’t go out there.”
“Wait. I’ve called it. We’ve just got to have patience.”
Kattar glanced at the city, dead in aspect, unworthy of peripheral acknowledgement with her in the room, ectopic obelisks so soon ruins, already relics of thought. Bizarre creatures sat in the saddle, huddled in chambers. Now there was no pretence the fun had gone. The treadmill had knocked them on the shoulder too, caught up with them, of their own making. So all that was left was to tear it all to pieces, maybe start again if the whim took them, resurrect the plaything for gutterdogs. He looked at her, at her movements, her gait. She held herself the same.
An elevator rose from the exterior, sparkling, made of glass, the sides fastened with metal joins. “I’ve not seen it before, only heard about it. Truth is I wasn’t sure that your passcard had high enough clearance. Looks like we’re lucky.”
The doors silently opened, and they stepped through the pane in front of them, through the cracks, to the outside, where Wayfarer couldn’t follow. Anna pushed the single button, large and red, making it glow.
They descended silently, the enclosed space insulating them from the violence of the winds swirling around the building. “How will it know where to stop?” Kattar said.
“I don’t know. The building knows things. Lately everyone’s been noticing it’s taking over. Before, it worked for us, but now it’s willing what happens. I think it’s Mr Wayfarer, but I can’t be sure.”
“I know you said you won’t come with me, but promise that if when we get to the office floor and your friend is dead, or not there at all, you’ll give up on this place and we’ll both get to the exit. It makes no sense for you to stay here, Anna.”
She folded her arms and leaned back, resting her weight on the rear glass. The glass was so clear it raised Kattar’s anxiety for her, as he imagined her body falling straight through and tumbling away. “Alright,” she said, quietly. “You stay in the elevator. I want you protected from Mr Wayfarer whatever happens. You won’t follow me onto the floor. You understand? That’s the deal. You stay here. I’ll go to the office and find out if she’s still there. If I shut the door behind me then it means she’s still alive and I’m going to stay with her. If she’s dead or missing I’ll come back to the elevator. I mean it—you stay here or you are leaving on your own. I’ll make my own way out if I have to.”
“It’s hard for me to agree to that.”
“I know. I don’t take it lightly. Neither should you.”
“Then I won’t. I’ll stay here. You have my word.”
“You always did your best to keep your word. I’ve never forgotten that about you.”
Never had he wished someone more dead.
dek unu
They made time a beggar, kissed like all was love and love was all that was.
“There’s something else,” Kattar said. “Maybe this will help you somehow. I’ve been shown a name, Espe. I think it’s a clue, a way to find the exit.”
“Jesus. Kattar, if you’ve been told that name it means you’ve been summoned. You are already on your way. The tower will ensure you are taken to him. It’s the name of the child. He has his own floor, and no one sees him unless he calls. I won’t be able to find him, not without an invitation. You go and meet with the brat, but be careful. Not all those he summons come back, and there’s no way of knowing if that’s because they’ve been shown their desired exit, or otherwise.”
“So he’s some sort of gatekeeper?”
“Nobody knows what he is, only that he’s Esperanto.”
dek du
Anna left him and walked out onto the floor into the quiet hum of office space. There were no cries from the woman who wouldn’t die, the place ticking over to eternity. She turned into the office, out of sight, disappeared. He didn’t even hope—he knew the tower would offer him no consolations. The door to the office closed and he sunk to the panel, pressing the button, uncaring where it would serve him up.
Safe from Mr Wayfarer he took the opportunity to lower his guard. As the machine carried him higher, he got to his knees and planted his hands on the glass, a chance to take in the magnificence of the city without the tower’s breath on his neck. The ding was coming, where he’d have to face the floors and halls, and Mr Wayfarer himself if his luck ran out. The passcard lay next to him, or what remained of it. Anna must’ve dropped it, not that it mattered as it was in pieces, charred and fractured. Maybe the lift would travel to the apex and an EXIT sign. That was what would happen if all was right with the world, if justice stacked up. With no passcard, his thin hope for access was frayed. He bent and lifted the remaining pieces, putting them in his pocket.
The elevator softly bumped its ascent. Idolators in stipendium, small arms fire from presidential suites, falling men wearing kryptonite necklaces, vomiting milk and honey for mass scaphism, trickling down to fester the roads. The delirium was absolute, integral to the boom, the arteries of the new stimulant paradise. All was incendiary now, the flow of the bang. Ride it or be crushed to nothing, but you can’t force a bang back inside its bomb.
A city to make him nauseous, his Rome under glorious golden light, the blood seeped into the dust.
Choral voices lifted the elevator. They came on the wind, cries of agitation, want, rage, revenge and violence. Bitter and remorseless, of every language, of nonsense and babbling, of eloquence and rationalism, of populism and bandwagoning, of group therapy and interventions, of flimflamming and crock. Rapacious, they threatened to unsteady the elevator, the force of discontent in the voices enough to pummel the sides and send it swaying in its climb. Kattar retreated to the nook beside the door, pressing the button briskly and repeatedly in a vain effort to encourage the elevator towards its destination unknown.
At last the voices whirled away, taken on gusts out over the city, the play of the updrafts fortuitously leading them in a different direction. The elevator slowed. He’d travelled to his highest survey of the city yet, perhaps two-thirds up. A haze nestled the skyscrapers, wispy clouds hanging low speeding on the high breezes. If he ever did make it to the EXIT, he’d leave this place forever.