Chapter Eighteen - Fate
They were back in the corridor, guns out, darkness biting the ends off torch beams. They were shivering, clouds of condensation streaming from their mouths. They were heading back, directions now reversed, the passages to Pandemonium's core to their left, the outer skin to their right.
They were returning to the lab.
'I'm not going back in that room. I told you that,' he protested.
A door suddenly reared out of the gloom to their right. He hadn't noticed that before. The plaque on it read Station Director: Graeme's office. Paize triggered it. It slid open, pale light dribbling weakly into the corridor. He glanced inside before stepping through, quickly checking the room before motioning Julia and Fenton to follow. Julia closed the door behind them.
The room was dominated by a vast desk. Behind it, backing on to the wall, was one of those wide black chairs he had sat in before: Graeme's chair. The two facing the desk, for Dezlin's audience, were smaller and less imposing. Two more were pushed up against the walls. A picture hung behind the desk. To his surprise Fenton saw the elegant frame held a cheap photographic print of the central court at Gadder. It was the sort usually bought by tourists, a cliché, the architecture lazily bathed in dappled warm autumnal sunlight. No self-respecting student would have a picture like that, unless they'd bought it in those first excited weeks of the first term before the cynicism set in, before they'd become sick to death of the place. And if they had one then surely they'd have soon discarded it as useless emotional clutter? He found himself shocked by his bitterness. There must be lots of people who had fond memories of the place. But he was surprised Graeme was one. He would never have believed he'd be sentimental enough to buy something like that let alone frame it and hang it pride of place.
He stared closer at the picture, beginning to succumb to the nostalgia. In the middle distance he could see students milling around the beer garden of The Extinct Tiger. They'd drunk there the night they'd finished their first year exams. He remembered saying goodbye to Alizen and Graeme, just as they were about to go touring, the last time he had seen them as a couple. He had drunkenly hugged Alizen, tried to kiss her, only guessing how much he would miss her that summer.
He glanced round the rest of the room. The far wall, the wall facing space, facing Hell, was shuttered. It must be another window. In the corner on a podium stood the intricate football sized model of Pandemonium Graeme had shown him four years before. There was a drinks cabinet and a display unit, its glass front was broken, the middle shelf empty. It had held the antique gun: the gun that was going to kill him. The case still held other artefacts, Graeme's precious books. He had been passionate about these relics, pages and pages of paper bound together between stiff card covers, bulky and heavy. They weren't genuine, few now survived from the real age of books, the time when they were the standard means of data storage. Graeme had bought these from a company that produced modern copies. They were still very expensive. He moved closer to read the titles, ancient texts: Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Eliot, Milton. Of course, that was it, Milton, not Milvern. He had seen that book before; Graeme had shown it to him at Gadder. Elaborately bound in silk and animal skin it had strange full-page illustrations: odd, stiffly posed figures with exaggerated musculature and greying skin, crazy stuff. Graeme had called him a philistine.
On top of the unit he was amazed to see Graeme's battered old entertainment centre. Instinctively he waved his hand over its sensor. It lit up. It had been left on music. Eagerly he scrolled through the playlist, memories flooding back: Rodrik Breen, The Ranters, Pod People, Beethoven, Tormentor, Yarvelling's Creation, he even had Rocket Shop. The horribly addictive refrain of You're My Lovely Thing started to bounce round his brain. No, anything but that.
He turned away. Paize gestured to Graeme's chair. Fenton gratefully sank into it. He was so tired and addled, mentally and physically. Julia and Paize sat down in front of him, slipping their guns back into their holsters.
'Any views?' Paize asked. It was getting to be a refrain, a mantra. 'Any comments?'
Fenton looked at him in astonishment.
'Oh, yes I can explain everything. All the really weird stuff that's been happening, all this time business and me being dead while I'm still alive and that hole out there,' he pointed to the shutters, 'and Hell and power drains and ghosts and countdowns. It all makes perfect sense. I'm amazed you can't see it.'
'Sarcasm isn't going to help any of us, Mr Fenton. You have no involvement in this installation; you have no business being here, if we can find some explanation for your presence that could be our way into the problem, a way of finding the solution.'
'You brought me here.'
'We brought you here because you already were here; you had to come.'
'So, I'm destined to die here, is that what you're saying? You're just playing along with fate, giving it a little helping hand, a gentle nudge in the right direction. It's not your fault, you're only obeying orders. Well, I don't believe in fate. I'm going to fight this.'
'Good, Mark,' said Julia, 'we don't believe in fate either. And we're going to help you. So help us. Think. Why are you here?'
'I don't know,' he railed in impotent despair. 'All I can think of is it has something to do with Graeme, that's the only connection I can see. But I don't understand why. I haven't seen or heard from him for years. We'd been friends, we weren't on good terms when he left, but we weren't enemies, at least I don't think we were. And if we were the rancour was on my side. Graeme was always pretty cool with people, cold even. Nobody seemed to touch him. He could take them or leave them, just walk away unaffected. I wouldn't have thought of him as a man who'd bear grudges. It must be him though. If it isn't the coincidence is absurd. And then there's Alizen.' He paused for a moment, how much did they know about her and Graeme? 'It's so strange her being here, but at least there's a reason for that, that's not a coincidence.'
Paize leaned forward, interested. 'What reason, Mr Fenton?'
He was taken aback. 'Well, you said she was SSD, I presumed you'd picked her for this job because she knew Graeme, or she'd volunteered.'
'No, Mr Fenton.' There was a hint of anger in his voice. 'She's been on my team for a few months. We brought her here because she seemed the right person for the job. I had no knowledge of her personal interest here, none of us did. She only disclosed it to us once we were trapped here. If she'd told us before we'd left I'd have brought someone else. She should have told us. She knew that. It's policy. Emotional involvement in an assignment always causes problems.'
Emotional involvement causes problems. He thought of the last seven years of misery. It was an understatement. So, Alizen had deliberately kept quiet about her history with Graeme just long enough to get her here, until it was too late to replace her. She was playing her own game, by her own rules. It was typical, once she'd made up her mind nothing would get in her way. But this was serious, she'd crossed her masters. What was it Paize had said in the mortuary? He'd already reprimanded her for letting sentiment cloud her judgement. That must have been for keeping quiet about Graeme. He'd reminded her of it in front of everyone so the original dressing-down must have been just as public, just as humiliating. Alizen would not take that well. But she must have known the risks. She'd been so concerned about Graeme she'd jeopardised her precious career. She must still care.
'So, it's a coincidence she's here?'
'I find it very hard to believe in coincidences, Mr Fenton. It's my job to find patterns, connections. Dr Dezlin's not the only link. She knew you too. Everything seems to point back to you.' Paize's words hung ominously in the air for a moment, like an accusation.
'I can't help. Before today I'd not seen or heard from her in over three years.'
There was a long, empty silence.
'What do we do now?' asked Fenton nervously. 'I thought we didn't have long.'
'We don't,' said Julia, 'but there's not a lot more we can do. We'd hoped havi
ng you here might act as a catalyst, speed things up a little, make things happen.'
The door hissed loudly as it sprang open. Paize and Julia leapt to their feet, guns out, aiming at the shadowy figure framed in the opening. There was a resounding clang as the overturned chairs hit the floor.
For a second there was no movement, the only sound ragged, panting breath. Then the silhouette stepped forward, into the dim light.
'Alizen!' Fenton gasped.
She was breathless, hair dishevelled. Her hands, swathed in transparent surgical gloves, were covered in blood. There was blood too on her blue plastic apron and her face was flecked with it.
Her blood?
'Something's…happened.' She was struggling to get the words out 'You'd…better….see.'
She darted back out of the room. Fenton was on his feet, alarmed at her distress but Paize got to the door first. 'Julia, follow us, watch him!' Then he was gone, out into the corridor. Fenton and Julia reached the door together. Julia stepped back, letting him out first, then he was racing up the passageway, Alizen and Paize ahead of him. They disappeared through the mortuary doorway. He was there seconds later, panting, dashing through the door. Too fast, too quick to stop, he almost careered into Stev Len's prone body. He swerved, missed it, managed to pull up. He stopped. Julia was at his side.
Alizen and Paize stood at the foot of the table, staring at the prone body spread-eagled on the floor. It was lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood.
It was Dr Bainz. She was very clearly dead.
The plastic sheeting had been thrown off the table, cast aside. It lay discarded in a crumpled heap on the floor, not far from Bainz's body.
But the table was empty.
Fenton's body was gone.