“Who are you?” he asked, after he’d taken two paces.
“That’s a good question, but I think you can do better.”
The killer was taunting him, Ely thought, but it didn’t matter. There was a patch of deeper shadow against a wall three yards away. That, Ely thought, was where the killer stood.
“Surrender,” Ely said.
“Oh, no. I don’t think so. Not yet.” The voice came from behind.
Ely managed to half turn before another blow knocked him sideways. As he fell he saw the killer. In his hands was a long metal pole. And then the pain began.
His arm had taken the brunt of the swing. He flexed his fingers. No, his arm wasn’t broken. He hoped. But he was in more pain than he’d ever felt before.
“Why?” he screamed.
“Why? Why do you think?” the killer asked blithely. He stood ten yards away, at the edge of the beam of light cast by Ely’s helmet.
“Do you deny,” Ely hissed, “that you killed Nurses Gower and Bradford?”
“Deny? Of course not,” he replied. “But isn’t there something else you want to ask?”
“No,” Ely replied. “I know you’ve been working for Stirling. You want to undermine Cornwall to win the election. I know about the colony ships, how there’s only space for a thousand people out of all the citizens in all the Towers. I know all about you.”
The man laughed. The tunnel filled with its mocking echoes.
“You haven’t a clue, have you? I thought you’d be different. Or are you just the same as the rest? Look about you, and try to understand what you see.”
Ely needed a weapon. There was a lump of rubble on the ground two feet away. He edged sideways, hoping he wasn’t telegraphing his intentions.
“Okay. I’m listening. You wanted me to follow you down here, so you clearly have something to say. Tell me, then.”
“You don’t understand,” the killer said. But then Ely realised that, no, he hadn’t said it. He’d asked it. It had been a question.
“Understand what?” Ely asked, and at the same time, lashed out with his foot, kicking the rubble towards the man. The killer had been expecting it and skipped sideways. Before Ely could move out of the way, the metal pole arced through the air, and hit him in the side of his head. Ely fell. His vision blurred. He tried to stand, but couldn’t. He expected another blow at any moment. It didn’t come.
Ely pulled himself up. One of the helmet’s two lights had been shattered. With the light of the remaining one, he searched the gloom for the killer. He couldn’t see him.
He listened. He could hear movement, but it was getting further away. His light flickered. He slapped the side of his helmet and wished immediately he hadn’t. His head swam, but when his vision cleared he saw the beam of light shining down steadily on the floor.
He took a moment to look about, and this time he did it properly. It was a tunnel. He’d expected that. The ladder was situated about halfway along. Behind him, away from the direction the killer had run, was nothing but darkness.
He looked down. What he’d taken to be rubble was actually broken fragments of the tiles that had once covered the floor. Why, during the hectic panic when the Tower was built, had they tiled the floor? That made no sense. Some tiles were ridged, others smooth. There might have been a pattern to them. There was too much debris and mould to be sure.
That there was mould begged another question, but it was forgotten as his light played up the walls. There was a pipe. What had it carried? Presumably it was something from, or to, Tower-One, but what? Above it on the ceiling were opaque plastic panels that he guessed were lights, but at regular intervals between them were small metal grills. Was that for air-filtration? That question was, in turn, drowned out by his confusion at the large plastic panels pinned to the wall. Were they displays? No, he realised as he took a step towards one, they weren’t screens. A few ragged edges of the paper that had once, long ago, hung inside, still clung to the edges of the frame.
There was another, a few feet along. The contents, there too, had decayed. He moved his helmet to play the light up and down the corridor. He spotted some paper inside a frame, and on it a few words, ‘your choice, your future.’ They had been at the end of a sentence, though how that sentence began, he couldn’t tell. The only other part of the poster that had survived was an image of a domed roof, topped with a spire. Why would anyone, during those last desperate years, have put posters up in the tunnels between the Towers? The only logical answer was that it had been done by the ghosts, yet that seemed an unsatisfactory explanation.
There was a noise off in the distance. Ely remembered why he was down there. He put the mystery to one side and began walking down the tunnel in pursuit of the killer. He walked briskly. Stealth served no purpose when the helmet’s light gave away his position. He couldn’t turn it off, not simply because the footing was unsound, but because he feared the dark more than the ghost.
The tunnel curved. He saw a small beam of light up ahead. That had to be the killer. Ely picked up his pace, darting his head up and down between the floor and his prey. The light got brighter. He began to jog. The light suddenly spun and fell. The killer had dropped it. Ely broke into a run.
He made twenty feet before he saw the killer. The man was on his knees, his hands scrabbling for the dropped light.
Ely kept running, turning a stride into a skip, and brought his foot up in a roundhouse kick. His boot smashed into the man’s face. The killer flew backwards. Ely was unbalanced, and toppled onto the man, knocking the killer down as he tried to rise. Ely punched. The killer kicked. Ely bit. The killer pushed and head-butted and managed to get free. Ely pulled himself back to his feet. The killer was, standing, fists raised, just a few yards away. Blood was pouring from his mouth. Ely thought he might have been about to speak. He didn’t give the man the chance. Ely charged. His shoulder hit the killer squarely in the chest. The man punched and thrashed. Ely screamed and pushed and pushed and kept pushing.
There was a wet crunching sound, and it was the killer’s turn to scream. His thrashing stopped, and Ely found that he couldn’t push the man any further. He let go, took a step back, and found himself frozen in shock. He’d impaled the man on a four-feet long piece of bent metal that jutted out into the room.
“No,” he murmured.
The man’s eyes met his.
“Who do you work for? Where did you come from?” Ely whispered.
“An eye for an…” The man coughed. “Beat them… their own game.”
“Who sent you?” Ely asked again, his voice rising.
The bubbling cough turned into a rasping laugh. Then it stopped.
“Who…” Ely began, but he didn’t finish the question. The man was dead, that smile still on his lips.
Ely took a step backwards, then another, then he collapsed onto the floor. He watched the pool of blood slowly grow around the dead man.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean for… I’m sorry.”
Minutes passed.
This is a crime scene, Ely thought.
“This is a crime scene,” he repeated it out loud, hoping to find some comfort in the sound of a voice amidst the dark. He felt no better.
“I should preserve the scene,” he said. “Shouldn’t I? But, what for? No one is coming down here. All they want to know is that the killer is dead.”
And this man was the killer, and he was certainly dead.
“Why did you do it? What were you trying to tell me?” he asked.
There was no answer, not even from inside Ely’s own head.
The adrenaline began to wear off and Ely started to notice his surroundings once more. He got up, painfully. His head ached. His arm ached worse, but he was certain it was just bruised. He looked down, playing the feeble light over his body. His jumpsuit was torn. He had a few scratches, but was otherwise unhurt. He raised his head to look at the corpse once more.