The Forever Man - Book 1: Pulse

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  There were three of them. Two of them had spent the bulk of their adult lives fighting their way up the corporate ladder until they had achieved the level of success that was measured by the position and square footage of your office. The higher up, the more senior. The bigger the footage the more valuable. Both of them, Mary Blithe and Conran Fisher, had offices on the same floor. The 63rd floor of the London Shard. However, Conran’s office measured out at six square foot more than Mary’s. Hence, he was senior. Just.

  The third person was Winston Dube. He was the cleaner for the observation deck of the Shard situated on the 72nd floor and measuring around 8000 square feet or roughly ten times the size of Conran’s office.

  So, according to the logic used by Conran and Mary – Winston was the most senior of the three. By quite a long stretch.

  However, none of this mattered. All that mattered to the three of them was the fact that they had been trapped in the elevator around the 50th floor. It was pitch black. They had been there all night.

  And they were now starting, quite understandably, to panic.

  ‘I need to pee,’ said Mary. Her voice less of a statement and more a whimper.

  ‘Hold it,’ retorted Conran. ‘Help will be here soon.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Asked Winston. ‘I mean, we’ve been here all night. I’m not sure what the time is but I guess that it’s late morning. Something’s wrong, man. Something is seriously wrong.’

  ‘Well what do you suggest?’

  ‘Nothing to suggest, dude. All that we can do is wait.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Yeah,’ answered Winston. ‘Exactly.’

  The smell of urine enveloped them. Acrid and pungent. Like distilled fear.

  ‘Sorry,’ whispered May.

  She started to cry.

  And they waited.