Philip Kerr - Gridiron

A couple of times he retyped the transactions that would trigger the DP, just in case he had made a mistake, but with no more success. When David Arnon asked him how things were coming along, Beech did not answer. And he hardly noticed the commotion that followed Willis Ellery's electrocution. Stunned, he sat in front of the terminal, motionless, waiting for something to happen, recognizing in his heart of hearts that nothing would. His remarks about the responsibilities of a god struck him as hollow now. It was as if God, having decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, found that his much vaunted fire and brimstone just bounced harmlessly off the city walls.

Turning in his chair, Beech found Frank Curtis standing behind him, wearing an expression so frightful that he was suddenly more afraid of the policeman than he was of the consequences of what had failed to take place in the silicon heart of the machine.

'I don't know why,' he said, shaking his head. 'But — but it, GABRIEL, the disassembly program, it doesn't fucking work. I've tried several times to trigger the DP but there's no sign that Abraham has been infected. No sign at all. It's weird. I simply don't understand how he could be resisting it. I mean, the DP is specific to Abraham, written into his basic architecture. It's like you were born with some kind of congenital disease, or some genetic predisposition to cancer, and all you needed was the wrong kind of diet to set it off. The only thing I can think of is that somehow Abraham has discovered a way of making himself immune. But I really don't know how.'

The already angry expression of the face of Curtis grew more murderous.

'So you can't unplug it,' he growled. 'Is that what you're telling me?'

Beech shrugged apologetically.

'You dumb bastard,' said Curtis, and drew his gun.

'For Christ's sake,' yelled Beech and leapt off his chair, backing away across the boardroom. 'You can't. Please. No one writes a tighter code than me, man. But you've got to believe me, this is completely beyond my control. There's nothing I can do.'

Curtis looked at the gun in his hand as if surprised at the reaction it had produced. He smiled.

'I'd like to. Really, I would. If my partner drowns, I might.'

He turned abruptly and walked out.

Beech dropped into a chair and pressed a hand to his chest.

'That crazy fucking bastard,' he said, shaking his head. 'I thought he was going to shoot me. Really I did.'

'Me too,' said David Arnon. 'I wonder why the hell he didn't.'

Standing on the lid of the toilet, the top of his head inches from the ceiling, Nathan Coleman felt the cold water lapping at his shirt collar. It was only a couple of weeks since he and Frank Curtis had gone to Elysian Park where the naked body of a young black female had been found floating in the reservoir that ran under the Pasadena Freeway, just a few hundred yards from Dodger Stadium.

Coleman would have hardly thought it possible, but at the very moment when the water was right under his chin, he began to remember the taped commentary given by the pathologist during the girl's p.m. At the time he had hardly been paying attention at all, leaving Frank to ask the questions. But now he found that he could recall Dr Bragg's account in uncomfortable detail. Like he had prepared the subject of drowning for an exam. Yeah, thanks very much. What a time to improve your fucking memory. A complete mindfuck.

Drowning wasn't so bad if you were committing suicide. At least then you didn't struggle. But when it was accidental, you usually tried to fight it by holding your breath until you were too exhausted or hypercarbic to continue. The girl from the reservoir had tried to fight it. Not surprising since she had been held under the water by a gang of South Central crackheads. According to Dr Bragg, she had put up quite a struggle. It had taken three to five minutes for her to die.

Coleman didn't know if he could deal with something that took that long.

When you eventually let out your breath and drew water back into your airway, that could set off the vomiting reflex, after which you just aspirated the contents of your own stomach. Plus the water. You could aspirate so much water that it might account for as much as 50 per cent of your blood volume. Jesus Christ. And if that wasn't bad enough, drowning was not just an asphyxial event. It fucked up your fluid balance and blood chemistry: the circulating blood diluted, your electrolyte concentration reduced. Red cells might swell or burst, releasing large amounts of potassium which proceeded to fuck your heart around. Actual death might be precipitated by vagal inhibition originating in the nasopharynx or glottis. But just as often you could die from fouling of the lung by filthy water.

What a fucking way to go.

Coleman tucked his toe into the door lock and pushed his mouth another inch clear of the water. His head touched the ceiling. He wasn't going to get out of this. Just like in the movies. Like one of the poor guys trapped in the torpedo room. The only things missing were the depth charges.

He drew his gun clear of the water and pressed the muzzle against the side of his head. He would wait until the last possible minute. Until the water was over his nostrils. Then he would pull the trigger.

Halfway along the corridor, Curtis met Jenny coming towards him.

'I thought I told you not to stop,' he snapped at her.

'But Will's breathing again,' she said. 'I think he's going to be OK. And what the hell gives you the…'

Jenny's voice faltered as she caught sight of the 9mm Sig in the policeman's big hand, and the thunderous expression on his face.

'What is it?' she asked anxiously. 'What's the matter?'

'The unpluggability scenario. That's what the matter is. Your friend Beech screwed up. We might just as well try and unplug the Hoover Dam.'

He strode down the corridor working the slide on the automatic to load the gun's firing chamber.

Mitch, kneeling by the breathing but still unconscious figure of Willis Ellery, stood up when he saw Curtis coming.

'Better stand well out of the way,' yelled the policeman. He took a marksman's aim at the washroom services patching cabinet. 'I'm not such a good shot. Besides, there might be a few ricochets. With any luck one of them might hit your pal Beech.'

'Wait a minute, Frank,' said Mitch. 'If Bob manages to take Abraham off-line then we might need those electrics to open the door.'

'Forget it. Abraham's here to stay. It's official. Your macho friend just put up his fucking hands and surrendered. The goddamn disassembly program or whatever the hell he calls it doesn't fucking work.'

Curtis fired three shots at the box of electrics. Mitch covered his ears against the deafening noise, and a shower of sparks flew out of the box.

'I can't think of anything else to do,' yelled Curtis, and squeezed off three more. 'And I'm not about to let my partner drown like a kitten if I can prevent it.'

Cable glands blew away from cable ends, and clips from casings as two more 180-gram rounds thudded into the WSPC.

'What I wouldn't give right now for the scatter-gun in the trunk of my car,' yelled Curtis and finished off the rest of the 13-shot magazine. Rubbing his shoulder Curtis dragged the kitchen table up to the door.

'Give me a hand here,' he said to Mitch. 'Maybe we can batter it down.'

Mitch knew it was useless, but by now he also knew that it would have been quite hopeless to have argued with Curtis.

They lifted the table, stepped back to the other side of the corridor and rammed the table's corner against the door.

'Again.'

Once more the table banged against the door.

For several minutes they kept up the battery until, exhausted, they collapsed on top of the table itself.

'Why did you have to build the damn thing so strong?' panted Curtis.

'Jesus, it's a fucking washroom, not a bank vault.'

'Not us,' breathed Mitch. 'The Japanese. Their design. When modules are used you just fit them in.'

'But the rest of it. What the hell's so wrong with a human toilet cleaner anyway?' Curtis was almost crying.

'Nobody wants to do that kind of job any more. Nobody you can rely on. Not even the Mexicans want to clean toilets.'

Curtis picked himself off the table and hammered on the door with the flat of his hand.

'Nat? Nat, can you hear me?'

He pressed an ear still ringing against the door and found it cold from the mains water that was pressing against it.

Frank Curtis heard the unmistakable sound of a single gunshot. Curtis sat down against the wall. He could feel the cold of the water now filling the men's room through his shirt. Helen Hussey sat down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders.

'You did everything you could,' she said.

Curtis nodded. 'Yeah.'

Leaning forward he drew his gun from the clip under the belt at the back of his pants and then leaned back again, this time more comfortably. The black polymer grip made it seem more like something that he might have considered shaving with than a weapon. He thought he might as well have used an electric shaver on the door for all the damage the gun had inflicted. He remembered the day he had bought it.

'That's a nice gun you've got there,' the gunsmith had said. He might have been describing a friendly-looking labrador.

Curtis hefted the gun in his sweating hand for a moment, then threw it across the corridor.

When Helen Hussey called the atrium on the walkie-talkie to report that Nathan Coleman had shot himself to escape drowning, Ray

Richardson understood for the first time the gravity of their situation. For him the worst thing was the realization that what had happened was going to affect his whole future. He doubted that the Yu Corporation would pay the balance of his fees and wondered if anyone would ever commission a smart building again. Certainly he could not see how the Yu Corporation building would become anything but notorious. People already hated modern architecture, and this would confirm their prejudices. But even among architects themselves what was happening seemed destined to consign Richardson to some kind of professional wilderness. Gold medals for excellence were not handed out to architects whose designs were found to be responsible for eight, maybe nine fatalities.

Of course you had to stay alive to be able to defend yourself against your critics. Stuck on a baking hot atrium floor, without food or water, how long could they hold out? Richardson went to the front door and peered to see through the tinted glass. Beyond the empty piazza was the Babel-like landscape of downtown: the monuments of modern worship, monuments to function and finance, well-designed tools for the classification and efficient exploitation of labour, liberating the ground for the speedy circulation of the life-blood of capitalism, the office worker. He rubbed the glass clear of condensation and looked again. Not that he really expected to see anyone in the darkness out there. The only consideration given to what happened in these urban areas at night, when the last hot desker had gone home, armed with his portable phone and his laptop so that he might do some more work, was how to deter the poor and the destitute from coming there to sleep, to drink, to eat, and, sometimes, to die. It did not matter where they went, as long as they kept moving, so that by daybreak when the office workers returned to the area, their arrival might not be obstructed by those who lived on the Nickle.

If only he had not been so committed to the principle of design deterrence. If only he had not thought to add Choke Water to the fountain, or render the piazza's surface inhospitable to those who might have slept there. If only he had not made that call to the deputy mayor's office and had those demonstrators removed. He meandered around the base of the tree looking up towards the top. He kept walking until he remembered that one of the upper branches came very close to the edge of the twenty-first level. And the tree itself was covered in lianas that ran the whole length of the trunk, and were as strong as ropes. Could they climb up to the twenty-first level, to food and water?

'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' asked Dukes.

'Incredible as that might seem, yes, I am,' answered Richardson.

'What do you think our chances are?'

'I dunno. How strong is your wife?'

Richardson shrugged. He was not sure.

'Well,' Dukes said, 'better than down here. Reckon I'm going to try anyway. I used to climb a lot of trees when I was a kid.'

'In LA?'

Dukes shook his head. 'Washington state. Up near Spokane. Yes, sir, I climbed me a lot of trees in my time. Never did see a tree like this one though.'

'It's Brazilian. From the rain forest.'

'Hardwood, I guess. What do you say we try and get some sleep? Take a shot at it in the morning.'

Richardson glanced at his watch and saw that it was close to midnight. Then he looked at the piano. It was playing another strange piece.

'Sleep?' he snorted. 'With that fucking noise? I've tried telling the hologram to put a sock in it, but no dice. It just goes on and on. Maybe the computer's planning to drive us nuts. Like General Noriega.'

'Hey, no problem,' said Dukes and drew his gun. 'To shoot the piano player, you just shoot the piano. What do you say? I mean, you're still the boss round here.'

Richardson shrugged. 'I'm not so sure about that,' he admitted, 'but go right ahead. I never did like the piano much anyway.'

Dukes turned, worked the slide of his Clock 17 automatic and fired just once into the polished black woodwork, dead centre of the Yamaha nameplate. The piano stopped abruptly, in the middle of a loud and hectoring finale.

'Nice shot,' said Richardson.

'Thanks.'

'But you missed your vocation. With an aim like that you should have been a critic.'

Fear crept down the corridors and along the atrium floor of the Gridiron like some psychotic night watchman. Most of those trapped in the building slept hardly at all, while others paid for their apparent lack of vigilance with vividly claustrophobic nightmares, their periodic cries and shouts echoing in the cavernous purgatory that was the dark, almost empty, office envelope. Buzzing with the memories of the day and the preoccupations of sudden mortality, all human brains stayed active until the dawn came, and light brought the false promise of safety.

Joan Richardson had a feeling for trees, especially this one. It had been her idea to have a tree in the atrium. The strength of a tree, she had argued to her husband and then to Mr Yu himself, would enter into the building itself. Never a man to do things by halves, Mr Yu had got hold of the biggest, strongest tree he could find and, in return, he had donated some enormous sum of money — paradoxically — to preserving several thousand acres of Brazil's rain forest against the slash-and-burn system of clearing. Joan had admired the gesture. But, more especially, she admired the tree.