“Can you confirm that?”
“No, I don’t know… I mean… I’ll try.”
“Okay. Thank you, and Vox,” he tried to think of something comforting to say, but he couldn’t. “Thank you,” he repeated instead.
The killer shot them both. As Bradford was crawling away, the killer had walked along the corridor, reached down to the wounded Nurse Gower, grabbed the woman by the hair, lifted her head up and then cut her throat. Ely looked at the corridor by the woman’s body. There was a spray of blood on the wall, about three feet up. Having murdered Nurse Gower, the killer went after Bradford. The nurse had raised his hands in a futile defence. The killer had slashed at them until reflex or pain had cause the man to drop his guard. Then he had been stabbed, the blade twisted, and torn across his neck. But the nurse had made it into the elevator. Which meant he’d been able to open the doors. So, whilst the communication system might have been blocked, and the cameras wiped, the killer had no more control over the elevators than any of the civic servants. That was interesting, though Ely wasn’t sure how it helped him.
Ely had never liked Nurse Bradford. He’d never liked either of the nurses and that feeling had been mutual, yet he could think of no act either could have committed that warranted such a punishment. There was a savagery to this attack, one that hadn’t been present in the murder of the Greenes. That first wound, the one caused by the dart, would probably have killed Nurse Gower, and possibly Nurse Bradford, long before help could have arrived from one of the other Towers. There was something very wrong about the two deaths. The violence seemed unnecessary.
“Vox, how are you doing with the footage?” he asked.
“I’m working on it.” She still sounded agitated.
“Hurry. I don’t think these two will be the last.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, fear clear in her voice. Ely understood why. She, or he, would be the next logical target.
“It’s only a hunch, but I can’t see any reason for the killer to stop. Where’s Penrith?”
“Who?”
“The woman I questioned a few hours ago.”
“She’s asleep,” Vauxhall said.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Positive.”
“What about the…” he began.
“Your other suspects? The same.”
Ely looked up at the crowd. They were still there, still recording. “You,” he pointed at a woman near the front of the crowd, “how did you know to come here?”
Half the heads turned to record the woman and her response.
“How did you know?” Ely asked again.
“I heard. We all did,” she said.
“Heard what? A gun shot?”
“No,” she said. “The screaming.”
That was no use.
“Vox, have you any footage yet?”
“Some. Not much. It looks like the killer knows how to wipe the recordings in the fixed cameras, but not the images recorded by the visors. If we knew how that happened—”
“That’s not important, not yet,” Ely interrupted. “Where did the killer come from, where did they go?”
“It’s a man. I’ve got footage of him disappearing into an access hatch two corridors along.”
“Which way?” Ely asked.
“Right,” she said.
Ely started to move.
“Follow the elevators,” Vauxhall said, “Now take that hallway to the right. That one.”
Ely started to run.
“There’s a hatch twenty feet in front of you.”
“I see it.” It was still open. If the killer could erase the recordings of the murder, then why leave footage that showed where he had escaped to? He reached the hatch, and peered inside. A man stood at the bottom of the ladder, looking up at him. The killer nodded at Ely, opened the hatch at the bottom, and disappeared out into the corridor beyond.
“Vox!” Ely yelled, as he dived through the hatch and began to climb down the ladder. “He’s just gone out onto the level below!”
“I see him. He’s out in the corridor. He’s gone into another hatch.”
Ely scrambled down the ladder. “Can’t you seal these hatches?” he asked.
“I’m trying. The locks won’t respond. The commands don’t work.” She sounded on the brink of hysteria.
Ely reached the bottom of the ladder and fell out of the hatch into the corridor.
“Where now?” he barked, as he pulled himself to his feet.
“Straight on, there’s a hatch about—”
“I see it.” It was hanging open. He reached it, and had his feet on the rung of the ladder before he looked down. He saw the killer, again waiting for him, two levels below.
“He’s waiting for me,” Ely hissed, as much to himself as to the Controller.
“What? Why?” Vauxhall asked.
But the killer had already gone through the hatch.
“Where’s he going, Vox? Where’s he going?” Ely barked as he dropped from rung to rung.
“Into the… No, he’s stopped at the door.”
“The door to what?”
“The Recreation Room,” she said, the edge of hysteria in her voice changing to bewilderment. “He’s just looking up at the camera. He’s… he’s smiling. Now he’s gone inside.”
Ely continued down the ladder, out the hatch, and along the corridor to the Recreation Room. The doors should have opened automatically. They didn’t. He swiped his hand down the panel to the side. Nothing happened.
“Vox! Open the door.”
“It is open. The system says it’s open!”
“Well, it’s not,” Ely grunted, as he levered the doors open with his hands.
Inside was chaos. Ely didn’t need to ask which way the killer had run. Ordinarily the machines were placed end to end, with a narrow corridor running between them. They had been toppled over. Whether by the killer, or by the panicked citizenry, Ely didn’t know. Some workers had been injured, and some of those were trapped underneath the broken machines. With the nurses dead, there would be no one to tend their wounds.
“Vox. Call Tower-Thirteen, we’re going to need medical personnel over here,” Ely snapped. There was no response. “Vox?”
“I heard you,” she said.
There was no time for Ely to help anyone, even if he knew how. He ran to the room’s other door, through it, and out into the corridor on the far side.
“Vox, where did he go?”
“Down the commuter ramp to the lounges.”
“Then where?” Ely barked as he ran. He was starting to feel breathless. He was starting to feel tired.
“He’s… he’s stopped. He’s just stopped.”
“Where?”
“On the ramp, halfway down to Level Six.”
Ely wondered whether, if he stopped to catch his breath, the killer would wait for him. No, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t rest. He couldn’t risk the chance that the killer would attack someone else. A small voice at the back of his head said that that didn’t matter, that almost everyone in the Tower was going to die anyway. He ignored that voice. It did matter. He was the Constable. It was his Tower and they were his people. He had to keep them safe.
He kept running. He vaguely registered passing Unit 6-4-17. Was there method in the killer’s route then, or a message? Ely didn’t have the spare breath to work out which. His daily Recreation kept him fit, but it was a long time since he’d properly slept.
“Oh, no,” Vox said quietly.
“What?”
“I think he’s coming here,” she said. “To the Control Room.”