Breathe

1. WELCOME TO SYMAXCORP

Welcome to the bad world of big business. Companies are like icebergs, mostly hidden from view. Or they’re like hives, where everyone is given a specific job and a limited amount of knowledge. Almost any analogy works, because commerce is amorphous and elusive. If the events of this story have already happened, you won’t be told about them. You’ll be suspicious from the outset, of course. You know how these things tend to shape up. The evil bosses, the downtrodden workers, yadda, yadda.

But this particular company started life as a place that would benefit everyone. It was all planned out by a decent man, albeit a man with little understanding of people and how they work.

It began as an architectural model, a tower of smooth, white-painted balsa and plastic, surrounded by neat round trees. At its base strolled tiny plastic couples. The nearby river was a sheet of shiny blue perspex. The effect was one of space and light, a monument to human endeavour.

The reality is a glittering black jewel box, a saturnine, crystalline spear called the SymaxCorp building. As impersonal as only a modern building can be. The walkways around its rain-bleached base now resemble electronic circuitry, paths snaking between terminals, sparking trade into life. No couples stroll here by the scudding brown river. Workers come, do the job and get the hell out. How can you be comfortable in a building where the windows don’t open? Where the walls reflect back your own lonely image?

Did the designers and architects believe their own lies? Did they ever think, as they peered into the model, that this glass prison would offer freedom and happiness?

It is nearly midnight, and everyone has gone home now. Out of hours, the area has as much life as the surface of the moon.

The entire business district is built in a crescent around the bend in the river. It is less than five years old, but some of the trees have been planted fully grown to provide instant ambience. There are no homes or shops, or old men walking dogs. There is only the fierce crackle of commerce between the hours of nine and six. SymaxCorp is the latest building to be completed, a monolithic cathedral of industry designed not for the benefit of the individual, but for the unification of the masses. Although it is the personification of order, it has not been constructed on a human scale. Everything about it dwarfs the experience of living. If Albert Speer had lived on, this is what he’d have built.

Up on the twentieth floor, a single light shines bright. A salaryman called Felix Draycott is still working, sweating in the icy air, grabbing the last pages of his document as they leave the printer. He hates running out hard copies, but Clarke, his supervisor, refuses to read electronic documents. He hurries between the deserted workstations, heading for the row of glass boxes – individual offices granted only to supervisors – where Clarke stands waiting.

Clarke’s office is decorated with trophies for sporting events – rugby, football, swimming – and endless pictures of his son, in muddy, bloody kit, gap-toothed and downcast, the reluctant champion. There are cups and plaques, and a mounted cricket bat presented by minor royalty. The supervisor is living, through his son, the athletic career that he could never have had himself. Pathetic, really.

Clarke is overweight, red and balding, with a scary combover and a shiny leather built-up boot to compensate for a short leg, which he thinks no-one notices. He’s fifty-three years old, stout and surprisingly strong. And on the inside? Well, let’s just say that he’s been very angry about his life for a very long time.

He reads the document, pacing around the seated Felix.

‘Drains. Drainage. Dampers? … Ducts. Disposal, waste.’

Felix waits for more.

‘See under Suction.’ Clarke flips back a few pages. Felix waits with sweating palms cupped between his thighs.

‘Binary. Bins. Bin liners. Bin fires, small.’ He turns the page. ‘Computers. Coronaries. Cardiac arrest. Very impressive. You’ve really done your homework, Draycott.’ He riffles to the end of the document, reading the conclusion. ‘I like a man who makes up his mind about something.’

‘I talked to the R&D people, ran simulations, drew my own conclusions,’ Felix ventures. ‘Obviously it’s not what you want to hear …’

‘No, it’s a remarkable piece of work.’ There’s a but coming. Felix holds his breath.

‘But it’s a pity you’ve made so many spelling errors. Small slips, but so important, I feel. “i before e except after c”. Here. Here. Here. Here. It’s not hard to remember. And what’s this, biro?’ Clarke jabs at the page with a fat finger. Even in the freezing machine-fed air, Felix can feel the sweat dripping down his back.

Clarke puts down the document and casually removes the cricket bat from its chromium mount. ‘Tell me, do you ever play cricket?’

‘No,’ Felix admits. ‘Football, sometimes.’ He is suddenly aware of his proximity to Clarke’s built-up boot. ‘That is, uh …’

Clarke takes a practice swing that comes perilously close to Felix’s face. He’s glancing back down at the document. ‘This is a problem for the board. But I think I can crack it.’

‘That’s a weight off my mind,’ Felix admits. He wasn’t too sure how Clarke would react.

Clarke suddenly swings the bat down hard, cracking Felix a shattering blow over the skull, laying him out across his now-exploded chair. The top of Felix’s head is as flat as a deflated football. Blood is leaking from his ears.

‘I’m a tolerant man,’ Clarke tells him, not that Felix can hear, ‘but there’s no excuse for poor spelling.’ He drags Felix’s body off by the collar, down the darkened corridors, humming happily to himself.

The window through which Clarke can be seen is one of thousands, and now the light is extinguished. Endless windows, millions of workspaces. The black mirrored buildings rise up, vast, dark, dense, muscular with struts and cables, soaring floor by floor, until they blot out the sky.

2. MONDAY

The same deserted business district of the city is still silent at dawn. Then a single road-sweeper turns into the street. Window-cleaners set to work. Office cleaners appear beyond the windows, pushing vacuum cleaners across floors. Fluorescent lights flicker on. The pistons of business slowly rise and fall. The great engine of the city is coming to life.

Now an astonishing mass of commuters pours from trains and buses, over bridges, across roads, densely packed and determined, a civilian army on the march. People in stations, at bus stops, weaving between each other as more and more arrive. Yawns, coffee-cups, rubbed faces, snatched cigarettes. Workers through train windows, alighting on platforms, heading to work in their thousands. The crystal citadels unlock their doors as employees filter in.

It is the height of the rush hour. Through the commuter crowds on the platform, a young man called Ben Harper makes his way to work. He smooths his sticky-up hair, too alive to his surroundings to be a typical member of the workforce, too open and innocent and obvious. It’s his first day, but you can tell that just by looking at him.

Ben’s suit is too new. His shoes are too shiny. He grimaces and pulls a pin out of his shirt collar, then peels a price sticker off his briefcase. The shoes hurt because he’s used to trainers. He has never worn a tie before in his life. It took him twenty minutes to do the damned thing up.

Ben stands looking at the awesome SymaxCorp building. My new home, he thinks proudly. The windows glitter darkly in the early sunlight. This is where Ben has come to begin his corporate existence. He nervously checks his clothes and his minty breath, keen to make a good first impression. After looking up anxiously at the tower, he screws up courage and walks to the great doors, the Scarecrow entering Oz.

Crossing the gleaming, black marble lobby floor is an act of courage in itself. The entrance is vaulted and vast, shafted with angles of light, modern gothic, Sir Christopher Wren crossed with Tim Burton.

Behind him, a uniformed janitor follows with an electric cleaner, wiping away Ben’s footprints as quickly as he leaves them. The building’s impersonal atmosphere is already at work on him. It does that to people – you don’t even notice it’s happening until you’ve changed.

Ben feels out of place, bogus, an interloper here under false pretences. His collar feels as if it’s choking him. He coughs, asks at the desk where he should go, and is directed to the elevators.

He manages to enter one of the daunting steel lifts, but has trouble getting the doors to shut. The buttons won’t respond to his touch. He has had little experience of technology. Just before the doors close, a girl steps in. She wears the corporate armour of high finance, black slacks and a black top. A gold neck-chain. Cropped blonde hair with muted highlights. Pretty, in an unattainable way. Ben reaches across her and tries the doors again, but nothing happens.

‘Here.’ The girl reaches down and removes her shoe, then smacks the destination panel with it. ‘It always does this.’ The elevator jerks and starts up. ‘Technology. Just ’cause it looks good, doesn’t mean it’ll do what you tell it to do.’ She smiles absently at him, then stares ahead.

Ben stands uncomfortably beside her as they wait for their floor. He goes to speak, then changes his mind.

The lift stops and the doors open. The futuristic reception area of SymaxCorp beckons. Black smoked glass, polished steel, underlighters; a cross between a Fred and Ginger dance set and a Mayfair car showroom. Flat-screen monitors display the caring side of the sharing corporation; waterfalls, rainforests, sunsets, horribly soothing music that sounds like an Enya rip-off.

Ben approaches the receptionist, a tousle-haired and frazzled-looking woman with visible bra-straps. She’s wearing a name badge: THOMPSON. She can barely be seen over her desk, which is finished in grey granite. He listens as she complains on the phone to someone, half-heartedly trying not to be overheard.

‘Right across the top of my head, like a red-hot knife sawing into my brain, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then I bring everything up.’

Ben coughs. ‘Excuse me?’

Ms Thompson covers the phone as if caught selling state secrets. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Ben Harper. I’m starting work here today?’

The receptionist replaces the phone and does something extraordinary. She drops her head hard onto the counter.

Ben is understandably alarmed. ‘Are you all right?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she mumbles. ‘Just a headache. You’re expected. Please take a seat.’ She keeps her head down as he walks away.

Ben seats himself on a huge, squeaky leather sofa.

‘NOT THERE!’

Ben jumps up in alarm.

‘That one’s got – something wrong – with it,’ the receptionist explains.

He studies the skinny identikit corporate drones passing through the reception area and realises that, outwardly at least, he has nothing in common with them. He watches the video monitors. The thoughtful transatlantic voiceover intones good things about SymaxCorp – something about ‘The Environment You Deserve’, and, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if everything was this easy?’.

After five minutes he is collected by another name-tag. This one reads: FITCH. No first name. It belongs to a thick-waisted, thick-ankled, efficient young woman with dry ginger hair and an intimidating manner. Ben rises and goes to shake her hand, but she just clips a clearance card on his lapel. She does it with a little gun, and he has a feeling that the card won’t be removable.

‘Glad to have you on board, Mr Harper. This contains a chip with your security clearance. Code 7.’

‘Is that good?’

‘Codes start at 100 and go all the way down to zero. You get the idea.’

Ben nods. ‘I think I do.’

‘It means there are six levels below you, but they’re …’

‘Primates?’

‘Not far off.’ She points to his badge. ‘You’re required to wear it at all times on the premises. Try not to drop it down the toilet, as replacement cards will be docked from your salary. Come with me.’

‘Please, call me Ben.’

‘We don’t use first names here, Mr Harper. I don’t favour the personal touch.’

‘Nice.’

‘It’s not meant to be cosy, I’m not your mother. Your OOC is me, then Mr Clarke.’

‘OOC?’

‘Order Of Command. You are familiar with corporate terminology. The supervisors prefer electronic exchange over face-time.’

‘We’ll probably all get to be pals over a fag break,’ says Ben, then bites his tongue.

‘This building does not have a cancer verandah. Smoking is a dismissable offence. Think of this as a military operation.’

‘Do we get uniforms?’

‘You’re already wearing it. Remember, all commerce is war.’

‘You issue firearms as well?’

‘I so wish.’ She hands Ben a DVD in a steel slipcase embossed with the word SYMAXCORP. ‘Think of this as a holy bible with stiffer penalties for rule-breaking. Please run it and memorise the key points. You may be required by law to answer a questionnaire.’ She stacks hard copy documents into his arms. ‘You’ll also need to read these. As Health and Safety Officer, you may talk to staff only about health and safety issues directly affecting your department. Your first report will be due this Friday.’

Ben tries a tentative smile. It usually works. ‘Well, I’m happy,’ he tells her.

‘Don’t waste a smile on me, Mr Harper, you won’t be the son I never had.’ Fitch turns on her chunky heel and stalks away.

Ben looks around. The offices are dark, silver-grey slate and cherrywood, the new colours of corporate cool. The work-floor is futuristic, ergonomic, designed to prevent time-wasting, a mix of odd perspectives that sometimes curve unexpectedly around corners. There’s even a burbling fountain surrounded by grey pebbles and Japanese plants. Fierce little spots of light pinpoint the workstations like static prison searchlights. It’s elegant but weirdly oppressive. Touches of humanity exist in the way staff have decorated their booths; a photo pinned here, a small vase of flowers there. The workstations still look like hutches. The semi-private supervisor offices line the open centre, underlit glass boxes that are uncomfortably reminiscent of cages for battery hens.

The staff are highly focused. Workers flit quickly and efficiently or remain hunched at workstations like gargoyles, concentrating on their net-linked computer screens. Ben is perversely excited by the energy and technology he sees all around him. He sees ergonomic headsets and lower back pain, call-waiting and eye strain. He’ll have a lot to do.

He examines his workstation, checking the drawers, and is surprised to find that the bottom one has not been cleared out. There are odd items in this little haven of untidiness; photobooth strips, a conker on a string, an uncleaned mug, a pair of socks, yards of tinfoil, a fierce-looking army knife, lots of aspirin bubblepacks.

Ben doesn’t see that he has been seated next to the girl from the elevator. The name on her tag reads: JAMESON. She doesn’t appear to have noticed him, or perhaps she’s just too busy. Needing to load the DVD, Ben surreptitiously attempts to turn on his computer, but can’t find the right button. He climbs around the back of his desk, searching for it.

The girl’s noticed him now, and watches in amusement as he tries to discover how to turn the iMac on. After letting him fumble about for a while, she leans over and discreetly boots the computer up for him.

‘Bottom left,’ she whispers, and points.

Ben feels for the button but still can’t find it.

‘No, your other left. You’ve never used one of these before, have you?’

Ben feigns indignance. ‘Of course I have. I’m just used to a different type. Uh, brand. You know, model.’

She smiles witchily. ‘You use firewire or infrared for Powerpoint spreadsheets and Word docs?’

‘Oh, well,’ he says casually, ‘you know, either really. Both. Whatever, I don’t mind.’

‘Which OS did you train on, then? Ten?’

He studies the ceiling, thinking. ‘Oh, er, the usual one. Yeah, ten, probably, or maybe eleven.’

‘Okay, sport, it’s all yours. Take it away. Let’s see what you can do.’

Ben is screwed. Aware of being watched, he tentatively taps the keyboard and shuts everything down again. The girl scoots her chair beside his and holds out her hand.

‘I’m Miranda, corporate slut.’

‘You don’t look –’

‘Corporate, I know. What I mean is, I’m a temp. That’s how they see us, the management. High pay, low dignity. And you don’t know your way around an iMac. We met in the lift.’

‘The shoe hammerer.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m gentler than I look. Listen, I’ll keep your secret. Just tell me what the hell you think you’re doing here.’ Ben gives her a look of bruised innocence. ‘Oh, come on. Anyone can see you’re a company virgin. How did you ever get this gig? Is your daddy a director? Can’t be your mummy, this place has a glass ceiling. I’ve worked everywhere, they’re all the same.’

Ben thinks for a moment and mumbles. ‘I – uh – well …’ Miranda mirrors his innocent look and returns it bigger. Maybe he should level with her.

‘Shit. Well, the truth is, a friend helped me make up my CV.’ He pulls a disc from his pocket. Miranda takes it from him and inserts it into the iMac. She opens the only file and examines his CV on screen. Apparently he has worked at three of the hottest companies in the city. Yeah, right.

‘Pretty fucking unconvincing. And you got away with this?’

Ben checks his watch and pleads with Miranda. ‘For just over three minutes. Look …’

‘Miranda. Like in The Tempest.’

‘Miranda, I need this job,’ he pleads. Other workers have noticed their conversation and are pretending, rather obviously, not to listen.

‘But you’ve never done anything like it before.’

‘No. I was a hospital carer.’

Miranda scrolls down through the document and finds a second CV – this must be the real one, because it’s a lot less impressive. It runs to all of three lines. ‘Bit of a career jump, wouldn’t you say?’ She reads on. REASON FOR TERMINATION. ‘Jesus, kicked out for organising a strike. Why do you even keep a copy of this?’

‘To remind me,’ he explains.

‘I wouldn’t, not around here. The central server searches everyone’s hard drives. Erase it if you’re planning to stay.’

‘I have to make this work.’ He doesn’t want to beg, but he will if necessary. ‘I can do it. It’s Health and Safety, how hard can it be?’

‘Harder than you think. But I may be able to help you. ‘

Miss Fitch walks past. Her X-ray glare causes Miranda to break off. She waits for the all-clear before resuming.

‘We’re not supposed to be talking.’ She points to the tiny CCTV camera in the corner above their workstations. ‘It’s activated every time anyone moves their chair. It picks up signs of fraternisation and relays them to the management monitors. You should keep a screensaver made from a worksheet so that you can default to it when a supervisor passes. And put a pair of sunglasses on your desk. You can see who’s prowling around behind you.’

‘How do you know this stuff?’ he asks. Maybe she’s older than she looks.

‘I’m a temp on 100WPM/1BB. We know everything.’ She waves the question aside as she ejects his disc and slips it back in the case. ‘Hundred words a minute and one bathroom break a day. Highest rating. I don’t have to work here.’

‘Then why do you?’

‘They pay more. I’ll go with anyone. In a strictly business sense.’ A quick smile. Miranda’s voice carries, and others start to notice when she’s not getting on with her work. Ben means to look busy and committed, but it’s not easy.

‘But why is this place –’

‘No more questions. Seal those luscious lips.’ She holds a finger to her mouth. ‘I’ll meet you at the refreshment station in half an hour.’

They stand before the coffee machine like spies exchanging secrets. Miranda points to another CCTV camera above them as she spoons in Nescafé. ‘The supervisors time our breaks. We’re not allowed tea because we’re sponsored by a coffee company.’

‘What about mineral water?’

‘Coca Cola. Approved company brands only. So why would you want to work here?’

‘The money, and I’ve got a lousy employment history. After the strike, I had a kind of a breakdown. I’m not good in stressful situations.’

She hands him a styrofoam cup. ‘Well, you really picked the wrong place this time.’

‘Look, I just need to make some cash. Toe the line, be like everyone else and keep my mouth shut.’

‘You don’t look like someone who can do that.’ She’s flirting with him. She couldn’t be, could she?

‘I can do it,’ he says unconvincingly. ‘I’ll fit in and earn some hard cash if it kills me.’

‘It might do.’ She sips coffee with a smile. ‘The last guy who had your desk disappeared.’

Ben reads his on-screen manual. Under DUTIES it has:

ASCERTAIN WELFARE OF ALL STAFF IN YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AREA AND FILE WEEKLY REPORT TO HEAD SUPERVISOR. Thirty pages of small print follow the heading, but he skips that part.

‘Okay.’ Broadly speaking, it sounds easy enough. Ben one-finger types: ACCESS WELFARE REPORTS FOR:

He highlights all the twentieth floor group members. The screen reads: ACCESS DENIED PERMISSION BY GROUP HEAD: MR CLARKE.

It make no sense. How can he do his job? There’s one way to find out. Ben knocks on the glass wall of Fitch’s booth and enters. Fitch is busy and barely bothers to look up.

‘I’m unable to access the staff’s previous welfare reports, Miss Fitch.’

‘You don’t need to. You’re going to file new ones.’ She’s marking work, ticking and crossing out, a teacher destroying the lives of her pupils with the flick of a pen. No family pictures here, no knick-knacks, just paperwork, files, signs of a monastic existence.

‘How can I do that if I can’t see their past complaints?’

‘Their past complaints have been dealt with.’ Tick. Cross. Cross.

‘How do I know that?’

Now she looks up. ‘Because I’m telling you.’

‘I need to see their personal histories. Can you grant me access?’

‘You ask a lot of questions.’

‘I’m not getting many answers.’

‘Then you’ll have to come up with some of your own. Your predecessor was very opinionated, Mr Harper.’

‘You make it sound like a bad thing.’

‘It was for him. Opinions are valid only if someone wants them.’

Don’t rise to it, he tells himself, and leaves. Not a great start. He has to learn to control his mouth.

Ben walks over to Miranda’s workstation. ‘Is there any reason why I wouldn’t be able to access any health reports?’

‘After Felix disappeared, Clarke rerouted everything.’ Miranda points to the man in the photo-frame on Ben’s desk, leans forward and whispers. ‘His name was Felix Draycott. He vanished three weeks ago. Worked late one night, failed to turn up the next morning. Didn’t even come back to empty his desk. We were told stress.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘You tell me. You’re Health and Safety.’ She curls a finger between his shirt buttons, drawing him closer. ‘Oh, but there’s something else. Something really weird.’

‘Miranda, it’s my first day.’ He removes her hand, although he likes the touch.

‘I could make it your last.’

‘Please don’t do this.’

‘Come on, Ben, it’s your job to listen and make a report.’ She opens her desk and takes out an expensive man’s watch. ‘His watch was still in his desk. He took it off while he was working because he said his computer affected it. What kind of man would leave a job without taking his Rolex with him? And that’s not all –’ But Miss Fitch is passing with sheaves of paperwork, a one-woman hardcopy industry. ‘Meet us for lunch later. That’s all I ask.’

‘Us?’ asks Ben. ‘Who’s us?’

The dining room is as far from a canteen as Ben can imagine – a brushed steel kitchen galley with modular cream resin seats, a seventies-influenced lunch area set in a tall tropical plant-filled atrium. Even the flowers smell real. The food, too, is fashionably seventies; coq au vin, chicken chasseur, trout with almonds. Miranda takes Ben to a table. As she does so, she points out another staff member, a balding thirty-year-old with a fussy attitude who’s talking earnestly to Fitch.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Mr Swan. He’s Fitch’s bitch, company spy. If you complain about anything, he’ll spout the rules and offer you anger-management courses. I’m on his shitlist; there’s a surprise. Fitch is a secret drinker. Eats breath-strips to cover it up but forgets to throw away the empties. She has no life. You can imagine. All the men around here are going bald. Weak sperm or something. Comes from sitting too close to the monitors.’

Mr Clarke clumps past. Ben can’t help but notice that he has one leg shorter than the other. The boot tends to draw attention to itself.

‘That has to be Mr Clarke. He was supposed to be at my interview, but I think he was off sick.’

‘He’s the one to be scared of. The head of the department, Felix’s old boss. He was the last one to see Felix. Don’t stare at the boot.’ She waves. ‘Hey, Meera, June.’

‘Hey, Miranda.’ Meera Mangeshkar is a harassed-looking Indian staff member clad in a garish sari, and armed with stacks of zip-drives. June is a heavy-set Caribbean woman with a kind face that naturally reposes in a smile. They join them at the lunch table and shake Ben’s hand in turn.

‘This is Ben. He’s Felix’s replacement.’

‘Oh, wow.’ They give him weird, knowing looks.

‘Nice to meet you, Ben,’ says Meera politely.

‘Meera is our IT genius,’ Miranda tells him. ‘She’s been penalised for breaking the dress code.’

‘If you get ten points against you, you’re suspended,’ Meera explains. ‘I’m up to nine.’

‘You sound quite proud of it,’ says Ben.

‘I’m here to make the machines look good. Apart from that, I’m invisible. So I don’t wear the kind of regulation IT clothes they expect you to wear, and then I’m not invisible.’

‘Nice thinking.’

‘Nice tie.’ Meera flicks his Tootal with a grin. ‘This is June Ayson. She was suspended.’

‘For being over office target weight.’ June pinches an inch through her sweater. ‘I’ve got a month left to lose fifteen pounds.’

Ben is appalled. ‘You’re telling me they have a weight limit here?’

‘Well, they can’t have a colour bar, and they had to think of something.’ June doesn’t seem too concerned. She smiles, even, white teeth like peppermint pellets. Perhaps she’s crazy. Perhaps they’re all crazy.

‘Am I right in thinking you’re all in trouble with the management?’ asks Ben. The group’s silence answers his question.

‘Oh, well, that’s just great.’

‘Listen to me, Ben,’ says Miranda. ‘I know you want to keep your nose clean, but we need your help. There’s something very fucking weird going on here. It’s the building.’

‘Yeah,’ June agrees, ‘it has bad vibrations. Strange stuff happens all the time.’

Ben is deeply unconvinced. ‘Like what? Poor feng shui? You’ve even got a fountain.’

‘It makes you want to wee all the time,’ says June.

‘Okay, but you’ve got everything you could want here.’

Miranda has her cynical face on again. ‘Yeah, maybe too much. Ask any of the staff. They all have problems. Everyone talked to Felix because he was Health and Safety. He made a report of his findings. He delivered it, and then he disappeared.’

‘I don’t see how I can –’

Miranda sighs, like he’s missing the point. ‘Clarke had a copy of Felix’s report. He was supposed to present it to Dracula.’

‘Wait, there are vampires now?’

‘Dr Hugo Samphire. Chief bloodsucker, the Chairman of SymaxCorp. I searched Clarke’s office one night, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe you’ll have more luck.’

Ben raises his hands in protest. He feels like he’s waded out into a river, only to feel the current tugging him away. ‘Whoa, whoa, back up! Search his office? If I cause any trouble, they’ll kick me out.’

‘Only if they find out the truth about you.’ Miranda smiles sweetly.

Ben feels himself losing his temper. ‘Are you trying to blackmail me? This is my first day, for Christ’s sake.’

Miranda leans close and threatening, taps him on the wrist with her dessert spoon. ‘Listen pal, before Felix’s computer was cleaned out, Meera tried to burn a disk of his files, but his system refused to make a copy, and flagged up the request to Clarke.’

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.

Ben decides to have a quiet word with Meera. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he begins, ‘I don’t buy into any of this –’

Meera raises a pencilled eyebrow. ‘But?’

‘Okay, I went outside the building and counted the windows. There are meant to be twenty nine floors, but I counted thirty. Where’s the extra floor, Meera?’

‘Ah, now that’s the big secret isn’t it.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning, first of all, that they didn’t build a thirteenth floor. What you have here is a shrine to rationality built by irrational people. There are two floor twelves. Also, when I first joined, I went through the cabling with a fine-tooth comb and came up against a blank. I mean a real blank: a room that cables come in and out of, but nobody seems to know what’s in there. Room 3014 … but it’s on the thirtieth floor. A floor that doesn’t officially exist. But I’ve been up there. The door’s always locked. Suppose it contains some kind of weird technology we’re not allowed to know about? It’s just sitting there, right above our heads.’

Suddenly they hear a rhythmic thumping noise and look up to see Clarke heading their way. Clarke stops by Meera’s desk. Sweating and annoyed, the supervisor studies Ben as if he is some kind of peculiar biological anomaly. ‘Mr Harper. Step into my office, would you?’

Clarke offers Ben a seat. The supervisor paces back and forth past his son’s sports trophies. Clarke’s elevated boot makes his clumping gait lop-sided. He is unpredictable when he’s like this.

‘I want you to know I was against your appointment here. But the law is on your side. You’re here to fill a European requirement. You’re a legal statistic.’

Ben shifts uncomfortably. ‘I know it’s only my first day, but it seems to me that people are experiencing low-level symptoms of illness, and they apparently think the building is at fault.’

‘If someone comes to you with a problem, you report it to me. Just stick to your job description and we’ll get along fine. Don’t give me bad news. I want solid factual evidence, not your vague opinions.’

Ben is already having a crisis of conscience. He wants to fit in, but he hates dishonesty. ‘You expect me to falsify my findings?’ That isn’t what he meant to ask, but it’s out now.

Clarke’s eyes bulge unpleasantly as he looms close. He’s been eating onions, and there’s an under-scent of lard. ‘Listen, you little prick, you stick to being a keyboard-monkey or I’ll leave you twisting in the fucking wind. How clear is that?’

‘Pretty clear. I’m just trying to do my job. I don’t want to get the boot.’ That didn’t go so well, he thinks, not daring to look back as he leaves the office, mentally biting his fist.

A building like SymaxCorp is analogous to the backstage area of a theatre set. In the same way that Disneyland’s miles of service corridors are not seen by the public, SymaxCorp’s basement remains hidden from view. Beneath the lobby, spotlights reach off into the distance. Two servicewear-co-ordinated workmen study them.

‘What are we looking for?’ asks Tony Cox, not because he’s interested but because it’s nearly time to go home and he’s starving.

‘Damage from a power surge,’ Ray Sturgiss, his supervisor, tells him. ‘It came up on the board. I don’t see any.’

‘How do they keep everything so clean down here? You could eat off the fucking floor.’ Tony snaps his gum and blows a bubble.

‘Suction system removes all the dust. Howard’s the only janitor for the whole building. One day, all places will be like this.’

‘The hippy bloke? He never does any fucking work.’

As the workmen watch, the lights go out all the way along the corridor.

‘Shit. That’s a big one.’ Ray looks up nervously. They descend and try the switches, but nothing happens. They flick on torches, illuminating a path. ‘I don’t understand. The system is brand new. There’s nothing to go wrong.’

‘Then where are the lights?’ asks Tony.

‘It must have damaged the sub-station.’ They stop before a tall steel box, the door of which is raised. ‘This shouldn’t be open. It’s hyper-sensitive equipment. It must have unsealed when the electrics crashed.’

Tony peers in. ‘So what do we do?’

‘Trip the relay from the mains after I’ve checked this.’

‘Can you smell that? Something burning.’ Tony sniffs the air.

‘I’ve got no sense of smell, mate.’ Ray rolls up his sleeves and reaches in to the rerouters. ‘Was a time when they’d employ a bloke with a broom to keep a place clean. Now even a sweeper needs a fucking degree in electronics to figure out. Give me some light here. Tony? Coxie?’ He looks around. Tony seems to have vanished. Suddenly, the lights come back on all the way along the corridor.

Relays trip. Electricity arcs. Machinery moves. The hum of new air starts up. Ray still has his hand inside the sub-station as the lid is reactivated and starts to close. There’s no way he can get his hand out in time. He struggles, but the heavy steel lid is still coming down on his fingers.

‘Coxie! Coxie! Shut it back off!’ The metal sheet closes on his hand, crushing then snipping off his last two fingers at the first joint. Ray’s agonised cries echo along the corridor, but his hand is free and the shield is back in place. The system’s designed to do that, after all.

The built-up boot. You hear it coming from the other end of the corridor. You get to recognise the loping walk. Clarke clumps to the front of the seated workers and barks at them.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he looks from one expectant face to the next, ‘this Friday, SymaxCorp presents its office systems via the top floor satellite link to the New York Board Of Commerce. This will be the most important presentation in the company’s history. The later you stay, the harder you work, the more likely you’ll be to win promotion over your colleagues. Don’t trust them, because they won’t be trusting you. This isn’t a business. It’s a war that we intend to win. Get a good night’s sleep. You have a very tough week ahead of you.’

Ben and Miranda are seated near the back, like kids who talk in class. They eye each other with some suspicion. ‘He should have been in the military,’ says Ben.

‘He was,’ Miranda tells him. ‘Desk job. The boot. But you never lose the discipline.’

Clarke is watching them.

3. TUESDAY

The building glints blackly beneath gathering storm clouds. Sometimes movement can be glimpsed within; it looks as though a great creature is shifting. The darkest part of the sky is touching the SymaxCorp roof. On the twentieth floor, Ben dons a headset and runs the SymaxCorp DVD he has been given. He finds himself watching more streams and woodland scenes. ‘SymaxCorp creates integrated electronic office environments to suit any size of business …’ says a wholly insincere voice.

Ben wanders away through the open-plan floor. What should be ordinary is now becoming mysterious to him, because he sees it with fresh eyes.

A girl is on her hands and knees taping a cable along the floor.

A senior staffer is thumping his computer with his fist as the screen fills up with images from old porn films. John Holmes has a moustache, and is alternately fucking two overweight girls. The staffer is mortified with embarrassment.

‘SymaxCorp sets new standards in office efficiency, allowing you to work – ’ Here the DVD voiceover sticks and phases oddly, distorting. ‘– faster faster faster faster faster faaaasterrrr … and better than the best from your staff … no matter how urgent your deadline …’

A secretary touches a scanner and her hair stands on end with static.

A worker is lying with his head on his desk. He is surrounded by aspirin packets and bottles.

Another secretary finds her cardigan sticking to the wall behind her. She pulls it free, but it floats away from her body again.

Ben examines a window covered with a spiral of small insects. He presses his hand against the glass and the insects drop away. He returns to his computer screen, where the DVD is still playing. The images are increasingly absurd and divorced from reality. He looks up and imagines the discreet ducts that supply air to the entire building, forming an X-ray of the building’s walls, a maze of tubes he can hear hissing above his head as he works.

‘… creating the ultimate electronic environment. One day this is how all first-world offices will operate …’

Ben watches and listens, and gets jumpy despite himself. There’s something wrong with his chair. It won’t slide forward. The wheels keep catching on the carpet-square floor tiles. He bends down and looks closer. Someone has turned one of them around. He turns it back and finds he has pieced together a large brown bloodstain. What happened here? It seems a lot of blood for a paper cut.

Miranda catches up with him as he swipecards himself out. If he’s honest with himself, he’s been avoiding her all morning. ‘Wait,’ she calls, ‘where are you going?’

‘Outside, to get some fresh air. I’ve got a headache.’

‘Did you know we have a garden here? Okay, it’s kind of indoor, but it smells like real flowers. Really.’ She smiles hopefully at him. She is – he has to admit – incredibly sexy. And she needs him.

The garden is in another part of the building’s great atrium, an eerily pristine leisure area of walkways and flowers. No dogshit. No fag ends. Nothing real at all. It was built as an after-thought to the main building, once the architects realised that they had failed to provide any space where the staff could go to calm down. A completely secure leisure-area, a contradictory concept invented, unsurprisingly, in Los Angeles.

‘Did you hear?’ says Miranda. ‘One of the electricians lost like his entire fucking arm or something last night. Industrial accident. They fired him. Can you believe that? Negligence. They may even sue.’ She seats herself on a green plastic park-bench affair. ‘You’ve seen things for yourself, haven’t you? Are you going to put them all in your report?’

Ben feels bloody-minded today. She pushes, he pulls, that kind of thing. ‘All buildings have quirks,’ he snaps. ‘They’re by-products of advanced technology.’

‘The place is controlled by computers that purify the atmosphere.’

‘Sounds like a good thing.’

‘Not if they’re killing you.’

Ben stops and turns on her. ‘How do you know they are?’

‘Come on, I know, all right?’

‘But how?’

She decides. ‘Felix told me about the radiation. It was in his report to Clarke.’

‘If you’re so damned sure you’re being poisoned, why don’t you tell the management?’

‘Are you kidding? That’s what he did. SymaxCorp has its own security staff. They’re armed with Tasers. This is private property. It’s outside police jurisdiction.’

‘If you think it’s so dangerous, maybe you should just leave.’

‘That’s what they want me to do. If you leave here, you get a black mark on your temp record that stays with you wherever you go. Nobody leaves unless they’re forced to.’

Ben stops and looks at Miranda. She seems determined that he will help her, and he is equally determined to resist, although his determination is taking a few dents. But she’s dangerous to know. Getting into trouble is the last thing he needs to do.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says finally. ‘I’ve lost too many jobs for talking out of turn. This is my last chance. I can’t let you screw it up.’

‘And I’ve had enough jobs to know when something is fucked. Come with me.’ She gets up and takes his hand. Looking around, she opens a door at the side of the lobby. It leads to a darkened stairwell where timer lights switch on. They walk down a ramp into the underground car park. It’s gloomy, claustrophobic and concrete, with the kind of shiny floors that squeak as you turn the wheel.

‘Someone’s been scratching these all over the place,’ Miranda explains, pointing out triple sixes surrounding a crucifix. She looks meaningfully at him. ‘Evil besetting good. And they leave little notes. Look at this one: “GOD IS WATCHING YOU.”’ The words are scrawled all around the basement. In a shadowy corner stall stands a blue BMW covered in dust. ‘You know I told you that Felix left his watch? That’s nothing. He loved his car. He drove it into work but he never drove it home. Why would he have left it here?’

‘What? What? You think the big bad corporation had him whacked? Do you realise how incredibly stupid that sounds?’

‘He isn’t at home, Ben. I checked with his neighbours. He hasn’t been seen. He isn’t anywhere.’

‘Where are the car keys?’

Miranda hasn’t thought of this. ‘I think they were on his belt. On a ring with his flat keys. I know he had only one set.’

Ben stops. ‘And how do you know that, exactly?’

‘I just know, okay?’

‘When was the last time you saw Felix?’

‘He was working late, writing the report for Clarke.’ They look up into the darkness of the basement roof, where the air ducts hiss. ‘And he never left the building.’

‘You want me to start nosing around for his sake?’

‘No. I want you to do it for my sake.’ She peels off her blue shirt and throws it over the TV camera. Then she removes her bra.

‘Jesus, Miranda.’

‘Let’s keep religion out of this,’ she warns, kissing him as she pushes him back across the hood of a car. Resistance is futile. He pulls her down on top of him. But before her nakedness fills his vision, he can’t help but notice that the space they’re in belongs to Clarke.

Later, they return to the garden. The river glistens like silver foil. Above them, a handful of stars have escaped the light pollution of the metropolis. But they are still behind the great glass wall, in the leisure area of the SymaxCorp atrium. Ben wonders if he will ever leave.

‘Chaos and order,’ he tells her. ‘The universe has to be governed by one system or the other. The one you choose to believe in decides the kind of person you are.’ He looks up through the glass at the night sky, at a blood-red moon. ‘You can live in an entirely random way, going wherever you want, taking whatever work comes along – or you can build the world. I thought it was all about taking a stand. But it’s about being part of something.’ He says this admiringly as he tips back his head to look up at the illuminated rows of offices, each little box containing a person lost in concentration.

‘I don’t understand why you would choose to be a battery hen. Always knowing what’s going to happen next.’

‘I’ve tried the other way and it doesn’t work,’ he explains. ‘One day you wake up and find you’ve done nothing with your time on Earth. This way I can make some money, start to create a future.’

‘You think this is order? You think because you’ve entered corporate life, everything else is going to fall into place? This is chaos. That, up there, that’s order.’

‘At least my way I’ll get a little respect.’

Miranda gives a derisive snort of laughter. ‘You could spend twenty years here then get fired. Two days later, no-one would remember you.’

‘You remember Felix.’

She stops laughing. ‘I’m the only one who does. Ben, help me to find him.’

4. WEDNESDAY

Ben stands on the forecourt looking up at the building. He knows that his mood is darkening with every passing day, but what can you do? He signed up for the tour of duty. The clouds are even blacker now, and it is raining hard. London suits the rain, he thinks. Everyone goes indoors. He heads into the building with a fresh look of determination. Control is the key, he tells himself. Control.

He stays seated at his workstation for half an hour before Miranda looks furtively around and then wheels her chair over. Before she can speak, Ben holds up his hand to her. ‘All right. All right. I’ll find out what I can.’ So much for his resolve. ‘Tell me one thing. Last night …’

‘It wasn’t because I wanted you to help me, all right? Happy?’

‘Then what was it?’

‘I like you. You have the kind of innocence a girl just wants to wreck.’

‘You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before. ‘

‘Is that good?’

‘I don’t know. Are you?’

She gives him a dirty smile. ‘I could be better.’

‘I just hope the cameras didn’t pick us up.’

‘You worry too much. What’s the worst that could happen?’

‘Never say that out loud.’

Through his window, Clarke silently observes them speaking. Checking his watch, he heads off to attend a meeting with the board, in a spectacular, hardwood, faux-19th Century conference room overlooking the city skyline. It would be wrong to think of the board members as villains. Nothing is as black and white as that anymore. They’re a group of ordinary, hard-headed businessmen; but their luxurious private world is cocooned, far away from the floors below. They no longer empathise, because they’re dealing now in abstract concepts. The world of business management would rather think about pluralistic environments than toilet dispensers.

‘This deal will turn us into the global standard,’ Clarke promises. ‘It’ll allow us to showcase systems in government buildings all over the world. I’ll have to push the staff hard. We’ll have to go through the night.’

‘Does this mean paying overtime?’ asks the company’s chief accountant.

‘I don’t see how we can legally avoid that.’

‘What you’re asking us is –’

Clarke interrupts. ‘I want your permission to go into Room 3014.’ The directors look at one another in trepidation, but they already know it’s necessary.

Ben checks the floor buttons, and takes the lift to the twelfth floor. He gets out and looks around. An unmarked door leads to another staircase. Climbing the steps, he arrives at a new floor. Apparently there really are two twelfth floors.

Returning to the lift, he heads up to the twenty ninth floor. Another unmarked door leads upwards. He emerges into a dimly lit corridor, plushly-carpeted. At one end of the corridor, he sees a door of polished steel, stencilled as Room 3014. Putting his ear to the cold metal, he hears a low hum emanating from within.

He turns around and walks straight into a tall, cadaverous man in a black suit. Even the senior staff call him Dracula, because he’s the spit-double of Christopher Lee, and he’s never been seen outside of the building in daylight. That’s as far as their imaginations stretch.

‘What are you doing here?’ asks Dr Hugo Samphire, the Chairman of SymaxCorp. ‘This floor is for the exclusive use of the board members.’

‘Dr Samphire. I got lost.’

‘You should have memorised the building plan in your company bible.’

‘I did, but this floor isn’t on it.’

‘Need to know, Mr …’ He squints at Ben’s badge. ‘Harper. Go back to your workstation and do whatever it is we pay you too much to do.’

But he doesn’t. Instead, he meets Miranda in another part of the steel and glass atrium. This part is faux-jungly and filled with tall palms that seem real. Miranda lights a cigarette, with her patented Fuck ’em attitude. People back away from her, because smoking is a sackable offence.

‘I’m not near the sensors, okay? They would set the alarms off. I know where they all are. It helps me to think.’ She blows smoke discreetly. ‘Clarke is tripling everyone’s workload in order to meet Friday’s deadline. After this, all leave is cancelled.’

‘What, you think you can’t handle the pressure?’

‘I’m used to hard work, sonny. What’s the matter with you?’

‘It’s bullshit about the thirtieth floor. There’s no mystery to it. There’s a bigger problem here.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I studied the sick lists. There’s a sharply rising pattern of illnesses. I’m down to see Willis, the staff nurse.’

Miranda throws him a look. ‘Good luck. You’ll need it.’

Willis is middle-aged, and exhausted about it. The staff nurse sits in the building’s medical centre, sticking nicotine patches up her arm. ‘Care for a nicotine patch?’ she offers. ‘They’re great. I always have one around about now.’

‘No thanks. How’s business?’

‘Don’t ask. I can’t sew fingers on, for Christ’s sake. One of the workmen lost two of them.’

‘I guess you must have noticed this.’ Ben shows her a graph of rising sicknesses reported by staff. ‘Headaches. Hallucinations. Mental problems. That’s a lot of strange behaviour.’

Willis keeps sticking, barely bothering to look up. ‘Staff will tell you it’s stress-related. That’s bollocks. Ask someone if they work too hard, they’re not going to say no, are they? Everyone’s under stress; it shouldn’t make that much difference. Nobody smokes or drinks anymore. They should; it’d calm them down. I suppose it might be SBS. Sick Building Syndrome. Except that the building’s constructed from hypoallergenic materials.’

‘Something must be causing this. So many of the women …’

‘The female staff don’t operate collectively, Mr Harper. We’re not nuns. We don’t all get our period at the same time. But there is something, some kind of psychosoma.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I dunno, it’s hard to pinpoint. Natural tendencies get exaggerated under pressure. The sickly ones get sick, the angry ones lose their tempers more, the depressed ones get melancholy. There are chemicals that will do that, but there’s no reason for them being used here.’

‘Has anyone ever tested for them?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Can you get me data on anything you think qualifies as unusual behaviour?’

‘Sure. I managed to find quite a lot for Felix.’

‘So what happened to the report?’

She studies him with hooded eyes. ‘What do you think?’

It’s early afternoon, and the atmosphere on Ben’s floor is ramping up. People are tense and visibly working faster. In the reception area, the video images and soothing music now play at a faster, more urgent pace. Ben sits at his computer trying to access Felix’s files. He discovers a set of dated reports:

CONTENTS DELETED

CONTENTS DELETED

CONTENTS DELETED

He stretches out his back, then looks around and sees Fitch shouting at June and throwing papers onto the floor.

‘You collate the forms in binders, not with these damned things! It’s not hard to remember.’ Fitch looks exasperated. June is forced to bend and pick everything up.

June mutters under her breath. It sounds like she says: ‘Fitch the bitch.’

‘We don’t have to hire the obese, you know. We’re doing you a favour. You can keep this job or just order yourself more dessert.’ Fitch clutches her forehead, as if in pain. Ben frowns. Even from the little he knows about Fitch, this is uncharacteristically cruel. She’s obviously been drinking. He had her down as more professional. June’s nearly in tears. Ben can’t stand by and do nothing, even though it means breaking his vow. ‘What is your problem?’ he asks Fitch.

‘Inefficiency is my problem, Mr Harper. We get this done right, we win the contract and we all get to keep our jobs. We may even get bonuses at Christmas. Things are going to get a lot tougher around here. You want to be a lightweight, tell me you can’t handle the pressure.’

‘Ben, don’t, it doesn’t matter,’ June interrupts, anxious for her new colleague not to cause a scene.

‘Look,’ Ben tells Fitch, ‘if she’s suffering from stress-related illness, she can report it to me and I’ll take action for her – until then, sober up and back off.’ He storms back to his station in anger.

‘I like you like that,’ Miranda whispers.

‘Well, I don’t like myself like that.’

‘Fitch has been getting at June all week, but I’ve never seen her like this before.’

Clarke sees them talking and calls Ben over with a curt: ‘Harper. My office. Now.’

When Ben comes into the office, Clarke stalks around him in a predatory, unsettling manner. ‘Do yourself a favour. Stay away from Jameson. She’s good at her job. But she’s trouble.’

Ben finds himself defending her. ‘Miranda’s concerned about my predecessor getting dismissed.’

‘Of course she’s concerned. She was going out with him. When she broke it off, he was so upset that he had to leave. He couldn’t bear to keep seeing her.’

Ah. That would explain it.

Miranda runs to catch up with him. He’s leaving for the night. Ben keeps walking.

‘Hey, wait for me. I thought we were spending the evening together.’

‘You didn’t tell me you were going out with Felix.’

‘Did Clarke tell you that? We had a one night stand, all right?’

‘You dumped him.’

‘Bullshit. He ended it, not me.’

‘He couldn’t stay any longer because he felt uncomfortable around you.’

‘Clarke’s trying to divide us, don’t you see? I’m just worried about him. Clarke knows what happened. There has to be a way to make him admit the truth. You know it’s the right thing to do.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I usually get fired for. Doing the right thing.’ Ben carries on, leaving her behind. He doesn’t want to be angry with her, but the devil in him won’t forgive. She catches him up.

‘Ben, I’m not using you. I wouldn’t do that. I think you’re … I don’t know. You care. You’ll make a difference whatever you do. I liked Felix a lot. Now I’ve no-one else. Please Ben.’

The devil wins. Ben leaves for the night. Miranda can do nothing but watch him go.

Up on the twentieth floor, senior manager Meadows sits in a glass box like Clarke’s, ploughing through piles of paperwork while working two computer screens and taking three calls, crazy-busy. His assistant, Jo Cousins, a battle-tough woman in her fifties, puts her head around the door. ‘New York’s on Line 2, Mr Meadows, and your wife’s still holding on 3.’

‘I told you to tell her I’ll call back,’ Meadows hisses. He takes a call, then another, wipes his forehead and examines the flickering call switches, buzzes his assistant. ‘Hold all my calls, Cousins.’

‘I can’t. New York is urgent, I can’t keep –’

‘Hold the fucking calls!’

Meadows rises and locks Cousins out of the office. For a moment, he thinks he can smell burning. Then he methodically turns off the computer screens and tears the phone jacks out of the wall. He puts on a CD – ‘Barcarolle’ from ‘The Tales Of Hoffmann’ – and cranks the music up high. Next, he begins to take off his clothes, neatly folding each item – shirt, tie, trousers – on his desk.

His flustered assistant sees what is happening and tries the door of the office. Meadows’ behaviour attracts the attention of others.

Now completely naked, the supervisor goes to the window and strikes it with a chair. He has to do this six times before the glass cracks. Cousins hammers on the glass wall as others try to break the office door down.

As the music reaches its height, Meadows climbs out onto the window ledge. His is naked, and has cut himself badly on the broken glass. Meadows’ eyes cloud over a milky white. He braces himself, then swan-dives, out into the sky and the streets below, sailing, sailing all the way down to his death.

There is a rending of flesh and glass as Meadows’ body explodes through the canopy above the station platforms, and home-going commuters scream and run.

5. THURSDAY

The building’s security guards have roped off the area around the shattered window. It’s stormier than ever outside, raining grey pellets. Normal work has been disrupted as everyone talks about what has happened. There are boards around Meadows’ office that only serve to draw attention to it.

Ben passes Willis with a dry, knowing look. ‘You said you’d get me data if there was unusual behaviour. I think that constitutes “unusual behaviour”, don’t you?’

Willis guiltily agrees with a sigh. ‘Meet me for lunch. I’ll have your data for you.’

Puzzled, Ben looks through the door to Meadows’ shattered window, then walks back through the open-plan floor to his desk. What the fuck is going on? he wonders.

Two male office workers are having a violent argument about – it seems – pens. A girl is crying quietly at her workstation. Others seem to be suffering from bad headaches. One is staring into an empty waste-basket as if searching for the meaning of life.

Ben watches Miranda working, her tongue poking from the side of her mouth in concentration. Suddenly smitten, he draws a red love-heart on a piece of paper and folds it into an aeroplane. He remembers how to do this from his last job as a carer.

He launches the paper plane at Miranda’s desk. It hovers for a moment, then gets sucked into the wall grating between them. If he concentrates hard, he can actually see the air in the room. It’s like the building is respiring.

Miranda feels him looking. She glances up and smiles. Checking the coast is clear, she comes over to speak to him. ‘What do you think about Meadows going for a walk in the clouds? The official line is that he was under a lot of pressure and had a nervous breakdown. Some breakdown. They had to hose him off the platform. They found his teeth in McDonalds –’

Suddenly Ben looks sick and disorientated.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. I feel a little weird. I need to go to the bathroom.’ Once there, Ben is violently, volubly sick. He soaks a paper towel in cold water and presses it against his forehead. Hearing rhythmic noises, he turns and sees a couple, Alison and another office worker, making intense love in one of the open toilet cubicles, their bouncing, fleshy images distorted in the mirror. Now they are photographing each other and laughing. Ben looks at his watch. ‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Jesus, get a room.’

Spotting a slew of discarded photographs lying across the floor, he picks them up and studies them.

Perspiring and pale, he walks with Miranda. ‘You okay?’ she asks.

‘Better than the others.’ He points to their fellow workers, some mumbling, rocking in their chairs, clutching their heads like lunatics in Bedlam. Others are simply eyes-down and working hard, just as they always have.

‘Clarke had most of the division working all night. Not me, thank God. Temps charge too much overtime.’ They pass the photocopying/scanning room, where a girl is sitting on the photocopier, running out pictures of her arse. ‘She’s been doing that for nearly an hour. I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve got some photocopying to do. What did Willis say?’

‘I’m meeting her in the restaurant. Does everything seem strange to you? I mean really strange?’

‘Hallelujah, he sees the light. C’mere.’ She grabs his face and kisses him.

‘I’ve seen a lot more than the light. Take a look at these. They were in the bathroom.’ He hands Miranda the set of Polaroids. ‘The staff seem to have spent part of last night photographing each other naked.’ He calls out to the passing Swan, who looks harassed. ‘Mr Swan, would it be possible to have a word with you?’

Ben follows Swan into his office and shuts the door. He shows him the photos. Swan seems confused and distracted. Perhaps he, too, is losing control.

‘What do you make of these?’

‘You should have seen it here last night.’ Swan mops his forehead with a paper tissue, leaving little bits stuck to his skin. ‘And now look. Fights breaking out. People being rude to one another. Tasteless remarks made toward our non-Caucasian staff. Dirty pictures scrawled on the walls of the toilets. It’s against nature and it’s against God.’

‘It’s time to do something about this – maybe even evacuate the building until we can figure out –’

But Swan isn’t listening. He’s got his hands on a Bible and is brandishing it. ‘For the Lord sayeth, Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21. Someone has to keep a watch on this place.’ He whispers disconcertingly in Ben’s ear. ‘The Devil is in control of this building.’

‘It was you who put the triple sixes and crucifixes all around the basement?’

‘We have to warn the innocent, don’t you understand? You’ll pray with me, won’t you? Say you’ll get on your knees and pray!’

Ben manages to excuse himself and get out of the office. He heads for the reception area.

The video screens have all been changed again. Instead of streams and wheatfields, they now show fast industrial machinery shots cut to hard hip-hop beats.

‘Who changed the screens?’ he asks, as he passes.

‘Mr Clarke’s orders,’ the receptionist tells him. ‘Inspires the workforce, paces things up. It’s like being stabbed in the ears with red hot needles. Can you get repetitive brain injury?’ She drops her head back onto her console with a thud.

Willis looks furtive and distraught as she leafs through her notes. Ben notices she has a number of chewed-up pencils in her hair. Her nicotine patches have increased in size. ‘Look, maybe I was wrong,’ she admits. ‘Maybe it is stress-related. The business with Meadows has freaked everyone. There’s been a big rise in health problems among workers with a history of migraine, asthma or any kind of mental disturbance. I ran medical data matches on key personnel to find out who would be most susceptible. Guess who came out top?’

Easy one. ‘Mr Clarke.’

‘How did you know? He has a history of anger-management problems going back a long way. I think he may be – unwell.’

The pair become aware of a ruckus going on by the food counter. June is trying to return her lunch-plate to an upset chef. ‘You taste it, it’s tainted,’ she explains, visibly upset.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the chef rallies. ‘I made it fresh this morning.’ One of the other diners is eating, and suddenly throws up. Others start gagging and vomiting. The restaurant quickly becomes disgusting. Everyone is being sick. The air is suddenly sour with bile. Ben pushes around to the back of the counter. ‘Health and Safety. Could you show me where you prepared it?’

The chef leads the way to the rear of the kitchen, where a brushed-steel electronic panel is the master-control for the kitchen. ‘Everything is automated, see? The quantities are mixed here. All I have to do is program them in. Nothing is touched by human hand.’ Everything’s spotlessly clean, but Ben becomes aware of a terrible smell in this area. ‘Christ, what is that?’ he asks.

He looks up at the vent above the master-control. It connects to a thick steel tube. He pulls a refrigeration unit out of the way. Something disgusting is leaking out of the tube. It leads directly over the food container. ‘What’s that for?’

‘Hot air convector; it keeps the food at a preset temperature.’

Ben grabs a spanner and breaks the tube apart. He quickly wishes he hadn’t; it’s full of liquid shit. Everyone jumps back, horrified, as the floor is spattered.

‘Where is this supposed to lead?’

‘Just to the boiler.’

From up the vent, through square steel ducts, through all manner of pipes and tunnels, the effluent sweeps, driven by pumps. Ben runs upstairs, following the ductwork. Behind him follows Miranda. The last duct leads to a junction, where the toilet waste pipe has been connected to the hot air intake. Both pipes are clearly labelled. Ben smashes them apart. Somebody has rerouted the pipes with silver racing tape. It’s an act of vandalism.

‘Why would anyone do that?’ asks Miranda.

‘To be a force of chaos.’ Ben looks at her. ‘To wreck the system.’

‘You don’t think – I wouldn’t even know where to begin …’

Ben studies her long and hard. He softens. ‘All right. Let’s go and see someone who would know where to begin.’

Ben and Miranda head down to the basement. ‘Seriously, why would someone join the pipes together?’ Miranda keeps asking him, as if he can explain everything that’s going on. ‘Industrial espionage?’

‘That’s about ripping off patents, not poisoning everyone in the building. It doesn’t make sense. This guy Howard is in charge of building maintenance. Willis warned me that he’s sort of – unusual.’

They arrive on a Hawaiian beach at sunset. Palm-fringed sands, ukulele music playing on a stereo somewhere, over the sloshing of small waves. Howard the janitor is sitting in a deckchair in sunglasses, before a sun-lamp and back-projected video screens. There’s sand all over the floor, plus a few seashells. He’s dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, and is drinking a Mohito mixed in a coconut.

‘No point in getting stressed,’ he drawls, in his medicated-for-the-hell-of-it voice. ‘Electromagnetic pulses. Radiation that fries your brain, man. There are phones, computers and monitors in every square inch of this place. They don’t even know what effect it has on humans, but you can see what it does to things with simple nervous systems. Check out the bugs, man.’ He points his sandal at a ring around his work area, where hundreds of cockroaches lie in piles. ‘Works on pigeons, too. Anything with a tiny brain.’

‘Do you think it could trigger some kind of reaction in humans?’ asks Miranda.

‘That’s science-fiction bollocks. All it does is damage cells. It explains the insects and the pigeons. They drop when they hit a certain radius around the building.’

‘But it doesn’t come close to explaining what’s happening in here,’ says Ben.

Howard has no answer for that.

Clarke is on the prowl, and notices the two empty workstations. He stops by Meera’s desk. ‘Where are they?’ he demands, smoothing down his combover, something that is fast becoming a nervous tic.

‘I asked them to give me a hand, sir,’ Meera volunteers. ‘I had too much to do by myself.’

‘Well, get them back, before you find yourself with nothing to do ever again.’ Clarke continues to snoop around Ben’s workstation, and starts fooling around with his computer. There’s a private file on the desktop. Clarke clicks it open. He finds himself looking at the original, untampered-with version of Ben’s CV, including his terminated employments and a note:

HOSPITALISATION: NERVOUS EXHAUSTION

Clarke mutters to himself. The little prick has never held down a job in his life. He picks up the nearest phone, eyeing his wall-mounted cricket bat. ‘Security? I want you to track down a member of staff for me. Ben Harper. When you find him, bring him to my office.’

At that moment, Howard is showing Miranda and Ben the building’s plans on his laptop. ‘There’s more electronic resonance in this building than in any yet designed,’ he explains. ‘It’s fucking with the laws of nature, man. And they want to put them up everywhere.’

This doesn’t make sense to Ben. Too vague, too neat. ‘So you get some electrical disturbance – that wouldn’t make people act crazy, would it?’

‘We’ve no idea how the brain works except for electrical activity. Maybe there’s an interdimensional element. Maybe we’re on an old burial ground. Who knows what bad karma lies under the city streets? Spooky, eh?’

Ben and Miranda look at him in some annoyance. Ben is feeling terrible. He’s sweating hard and looking greenish. ‘Then why isn’t everyone affected?’

‘Physiology. Some skulls are thicker than others. And some people have weaknesses. You know, past problems. Hey, you don’t look so good.’

Miranda’s mobile rings. ‘Meera? Shit.’ She turns to Ben. ‘You left the original version of your CV on your desktop.’ As she’s speaking, a pair of large and fantastically stupid security guards come into the basement. Their uniforms are stretched at the stomach buttons.

‘Harper, you have to come with us now,’ says the first, thrilled to be delivering a line he’s heard in countless movies. Ben hesitates for a moment, then makes a run for it. Howard points towards the back of the sunset cyclorama.

Ben finds himself in the fire escape. He races up the stairs as fast as he can. As the pursuing guards close in, Ben ducks out onto one of the other floors.

People are behaving as if they’ve been drugged. They barely notice Ben as he pushes through them. The guards seem to have become distracted by a young woman who has taken her top off. As he escapes, Ben ducks back into the main stairwell and hides in one of the toilets. It’s not exactly heroic, but it gets him out of a situation.

In the next cubicle, an executive sits crying his eyes out. The atmosphere in the building has now phased beyond the grasp of normality. But it’s a closed world. Outside, everyone goes about their work. Nobody really knows what goes on in other people’s offices.

The guards enter the toilet. When Ben looks around the door, he is caught. After a brief struggle, he’s overpowered.

The stony-faced security team lead Ben back up to Clarke’s twentieth-floor office. When he ducks and tries to escape, they punch him viciously in the stomach. Clarke is waiting at his computer.

‘Mr Harper,’ he says pleasantly, ‘do have a seat.’ He waves the guards away. ‘I don’t think you’ve been very honest with us about your career. Let’s take a look, shall we?’ He takes great pleasure in punching up Ben’s CV.

Ben tries to catch his breath. He knows he is seconds from being thrown out of the building, and there’s nothing he can do. The file takes forever to open. Clarke waits. Outside, Meera anxiously transfers documents, cutting and pasting. When Clarke’s file opens, the supervisor sees that it has been completely revised. Furious, he jumps up and drags Ben out to his own workstation, where he punches up the same file, only to get the same result.

Clarke is staggered. He knows he’s been had, and hates it. ‘I don’t know how you did this, pal, but I’ll find out,’ he screams, his voice cracking. ‘Nobody pisses in my gravy and gets away with it.’

Meera walks behind Clarke, smiling as she slips the disk into her pocket. The supervisor turns to the rest of the staff, who are watching him anxiously. ‘Get on with your work, all of you.’ He turns on Miranda. ‘And you, get back to your job or …’

‘What will you do, kick me out? You can’t fire me, Hopalong, I’m not permanent.’

‘You’ll be here tomorrow if you want to work in this city ever again.’ With that, Clarke strides angrily away.

Ben pulls Miranda aside. ‘We need to get to the directors. If there is something going on, they have to be told.’

‘They already know, Ben. All they care about is making money.’

‘Oh, I get it, evil corporation takes over world. It must be so easy going through life with that good/bad thing going on in your head.’

‘You think they don’t know that something is wrong with the system? How can you be so naive?’

‘I nearly just got fired because I was downstairs listening to Howard explain about altered dimensions.’

‘So you’re not going to help me find Felix’s report?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Ben touches his sore stomach, knowing that a point has been passed. ‘We’ll search the office tonight.’

The building looks silvery against a dark sky. The office lights are still on, but most of the staff, including Clarke, have left. Ben and Miranda wait while Fitch shuts down her computer. ‘You can go home now,’ she says suspiciously, ‘both of you.’

‘We have some work to finish, Miss Fitch.’ Miranda smiles unconvincingly.

‘You know you’re not supposed to remain on the premises without a supervisor.’

Miranda holds up a sheaf of paper, making sure Fitch can’t see that the pages are blank. ‘Mr Clarke specifically asked for these to be finished tonight.’

‘Well … all right. But remember, you’re being recorded.’

Ben and Miranda wait for Fitch to leave, then head for Clarke’s office. Ben stands on a chair and takes a digital photograph of Clarke’s office from an angle just below the CCTV camera. He plugs the camera into his computer and opens the CCTV camera’s digital file. ‘Meera showed me how to do this,’ he explains, replacing the current digital feed with the file he’s just shot. It looks identical.

Miranda watches, amazed. ‘And to think you didn’t know how to turn a computer on four days ago.’ They enter Clarke’s office. Miranda searches the cupboards while Ben boots up Clarke’s terminal.

But Clarke has only reached the lobby doors. It is raining hard. He looks up at the sky, and turns back. His umbrella is still propped up in the corner of his office.

Ben and Miranda can’t find anything. Ben’s run of luck with technology ends as the computer sounds an intruder alert. And Clarke is coming up in the elevator. They frantically try to shut down the computer, but it starts deleting the hard drive, file by file.

‘I knew I shouldn’t have touched it,’ wails Ben, watching as the screen scrolls and wipes. ‘It’s clearing the whole lot.’

Clarke arrives at his floor and steps out of the elevator. He lopes noisily toward his office. He’s maybe thirty seconds away.

Ben watches helplessly as file after file is destroyed in total meltdown. In desperation, Miranda pulls the plug on the whole system.

Ben hears Clarke coming. He shoots Miranda a horrified look and drags her behind the door. Clarke steps inside and stops. He reaches down for his umbrella and pauses, sensing something amiss. Ben and Miranda hold their breath. Clarke is a fairytale wolf sniffing the air for humans. Time stretches into an agonised intake of breath.

But he goes. Ben kisses Miranda in relief, but she returns his kiss passionately. Perhaps she gets off on this, but it’s killing me, he thinks. ‘Do you reckon we’ll ever get to do this somewhere else?’ asks Ben, as they surface.

Miranda does her mischief face. ‘I thought you enjoyed danger.’

‘I’d enjoy horizontal.’

Rain is illuminated on the tall glass walls as they slow to a walk across the foyer. Miranda thinks aloud. ‘Well, if Clarke had the report file, he certainly doesn’t have it now.’

‘Then we’ll get to the truth another way.’

Miranda suddenly spins around and kisses him hard. ‘I can’t deal with this place any longer. I’ve decided, I’m not coming back next week.’ Ben stares at her in astonishment. ‘You don’t need this job, either. You don’t have to take a stand. Look what it does to people.’

‘You’re right, Miranda. I don’t need this job.’ He feels suddenly lighter. ‘Fuck, we can go anywhere we want.’

‘Tahiti.’

‘Tasmania.’

‘Alexandria.’

‘Istanbul.’

‘Cardiff.’

‘The Cote D’Azur. Cardiff?’

‘Spend the weekend with me,’ pleads Miranda. ‘Tomorrow’ll be my last day, then I’ll be free. Let’s celebrate. To corporate sabotage …’

‘And the death of big business.’

Miranda is right. He’s come a long way in four days.