The spike on which the man had been impaled had been part of a support for an open sided metal box. It had been a little larger than the height of a man, and perhaps four feet square. It looked a little, Ely thought, like a sentry post from one of those old movies. A chunk of masonry had fallen from the ceiling, crushing it, causing one of the supports to fracture and twist so it was pointing out into the room.
And was this a room? He looked around. There was something about the space, something almost familiar. He’d never seen the like before, but he thought he’d seen echoes of it somewhere. In a picture, or perhaps a movie? He shook his head, there would be time enough to look around. There was something he had to do first.
He approached the body. Gingerly, he reached out a hand and peeled the cloth away from the wound. The material was wet, warm, and sticky with blood. Ely swallowed.
Underneath was not skin, but another layer of material. It was made of something thick and unfamiliar. If it resembled anything he’d ever seen, it was the material covering some of the seats up in the museum.
He peeled away more of the jumpsuit. It was a harness. Strapped to the leather were slots. In each was a small cylinder of metal. He pulled one out. It wasn’t a cylinder. It was a metal bolt, about six inches long, with a pointed tip. That, he guessed, was what had been in the nurses’ wounds. Under the man’s left arm was a sheath. In it was a flat metal handle. He pulled it out. The handle was attached to a blade. The edge was still covered in blood. He dropped the knife.
Holstered under the man’s right arm was an L-shaped piece of metal. There was a trigger, but it bore very little resemblance to the pistols he had seen in those old movies. He took it out, and examined it. There were two tubes, one on top of the other. In each, there was already a bolt. He guessed that if he pulled the trigger, a spring inside would propel the bolts out.
It was incontrovertible evidence that this man had killed the two nurses. For want of anywhere else to store it, and after he checked it wasn’t liable to go off accidentally, he tucked it into his boot. Would it be sufficient evidence? Would the workers want to see the body as well?
“People need to know they are safe,” Ely said. “They need to know they can work and live in… they won’t, though, will they? Almost all of them will die. Was that what you were trying to tell me?”
He turned away from the corpse in frustration, and looked around to see if his surroundings could give him any answers. He was in a hall, the walls about fifty feet apart. To his left, the way that he’d come, and to the right, the space disappeared into darkness.
The ceiling was low, just above the reach of his outstretched hand. It had the same pattern of lights and vents that there had been in the corridor, though here there were more gaps. He took a step to one side and shone his light up through one. It wasn’t a ceiling, not a proper one. It was made of some thin material above which hung a mess of pipes, wires, and brackets.
That was a terrible waste of metal. Everyone knew their stocks were low. The materials down here should have been salvaged. And the space itself, he thought, why was that being wasted?
He walked slowly towards one of the walls, letting the torchlight play up and down the cracked and faded paintwork. There was a wooden door hanging open from its hinges. He took a step forwards. Inside was blocked by rubble. He continued on until he reached another door. This one was closed. He tried the handle. It moved slightly, but the door did not. He stepped back, and shone the light along the wall. There was another corridor, a few yards further on.
“Where am I?” he asked himself, turning around, peering into the gloom beyond the extent of his light. “Corridors and doors. Tunnels and…” It was a junction, he thought. That had to be it. A place where all the tunnels connecting the thirteen Towers met. That didn’t explain the rubble or why there were no signs.
But there were symbols, he realised. And one that appeared more than any other. Once he’d noticed it, he started to see it everywhere, on the doors, the walls, even on the floor; a hollow circle with a thick line running through it. He’d seen it before, in one of those old movies about The War. He couldn’t remember which one. On the wall, under the circle, there was some writing. Most of the tiles upon which the lettering had been printed were chipped and broken. But he could still make out the word, ‘Underground’.
He kept walking. The place was derelict, but not ruined. The drones could have cleared it up in a matter of hours. People could live down here. The question of space and breeding rights could be solved. Could have been solved, he thought. It was too late now.
The light caught something metallic. Stairs. He walked towards them. The light reflected off something beyond. It was water, dark and topped with black slime, but water nonetheless. He felt an enormous sense of relief. The tunnels were flooded, just like he’d been told. For whatever reason the tunnels weren’t used, he now felt that there would be a reason.
He was in a junction, then. He’d been turned around in the darkness. All he’d done, he thought, was run around under Tower-One.
There was a sound of something metallic falling to the ground. He turned his head towards it. The sound came again. The previous moment’s relief vanished as he moved towards the noise.
He’d taken four steps when he heard it again. He took another ten steps before the light hit a wall. In it was a door. He wished he’d not left the knife with the body.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
There was no answer.
“I’m Constable Ely, from Tower-One. Come out.”
He felt foolish as soon as he’d spoken the words. He sought for something else to say.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” he said. “It was an accident. But he was a killer. A murderer of innocent people.”
The words echoed hollowly in the gloom.
“The City must come first. Production must come first. Our species must come first. All else must wait.”
There was silence, until he heard a voice ask, ‘Why?’ But that voice came from inside his own head.
“His death was an accident,” he said again, as he opened the door. There was a short corridor, beyond that a room. He went inside. There was no one else there.
The room was twenty feet wide, twenty feet deep. Against the far wall was another door, this one closed. In the centre of the room was an allotment bed, identical in style though not in construction, to the ones Arthur tended up in the Twilight Room.
The lamps above the plot were all of an irregular manufacture, the tubing of different colours, melted and taped together. The plot was more than half-filled with plants. He didn’t recognise any of them. They were ordered in neat rows, with those on the left hand side being little more than shoots. As the rows snaked back and forth, the plants grew in height, until they reached a spot on the left hand side where the soil was bare.
There was a metallic clink. A lever spun, a valve was released and water began to fill a reservoir. That was the noise he’d heard, an automated mechanical system for watering the crops. There wasn’t anyone else down here.
This was where the ghosts got their food, then. Why? Couldn’t Chancellor Stirling have given them food to take with them? Couldn’t they have just stolen it? It would have been so much easier than growing it from scratch. He knew that the answer was here, somewhere in this room. This time he would find it.
There was a workbench against one wall. Next to an odd assortment of tools, wires and a stack of metal pipes, all neatly sawn into foot long lengths, was a pile of jumpsuits. He picked one up, then another, then a third. They were of three different sizes.