Bang (8 page)

Kindness has a way of disturbing the circuitry of
madness and the plumber’s words began to reverse Delilah’s temporary insanity.
She knew she wasn’t right in the head, because she was aware of an unshakeable
fear, a fear whose origin she could not pinpoint, even after her lessons on the
System Panic Unit. That is to say, she knew she was a bit crazy right now. But
hadn’t until the plumber told her that she wasn’t a bad looking bird. The
relief that the dripping had stopped was enormous, too, but what the dripping
had done to her, both her mind and her body, was enormous also, and she
staggered very uncomfortably out of Wet Room 102, in the plumber’s overalls. He
wore skin-tight underwear and on one hand had five fingers and a thumb, which
wasn’t particularly unusual these days. He turned to close the door behind them
and while doing so read a flyer pinned to it: for the return of the missing
prisoner, on offer was a substantial upload of credit to the Life of whoever
delivered her, and a free Life upgrade. Though briefly tempted, and this was
heady stuff, the plumber pressed on with his insane charge, and she lolloped
along next to him, with a finger tugging at her mouth, and her eyes sunken.

‘Would you Adam and Eve it!’ cried the plumber as they
approached another door and another flyer. Now on offer, additionally, was a
home unit out in the rich ten-lane suburbs with the fake blue skies that also
changed colour and sometimes, on special occasions, the inauguration of a new
head of the Authority for instance, went pink. Now the plumber, a man with
wrinkled skin on his collection of eleven fingers and thumbs from their regular
submersion in water, impure water at that, faltered. To pass through this door
was not so easy, and his own eyes glazed, much as Delilah’s were glazed right
now, as he imagined shifting his plumbing gear and belongings into one of those
posh home units. But he snapped back, and flung the door open, his face hard,
resolute, and along came Delilah with him, struggling to make sense of what was
going on.

They turned a corner and came upon Floor 102’s notice
board. On offer this time, along with everything else, was a contract to
provide the entire Authority, all the way from Authority Welcome right down to
the bottom of the System, with a certain service. This would be an exclusive
contract, and, dealing as it did with such a tightly controlled substance, the
credits promised for taking it on were astronomical. So the plumber decided to
trade Delilah for this mammoth plumbing contract and all its associated perks
and he Lifed the name on the flyer to say that he’d found the missing prisoner.
Two men, the two officers who’d fed Delilah the teabags accompanied by
eggshells – at least they appeared to be this pair of officers – walked out
of a security office behind Delilah and the plumber. They took an arm each of
Delilah. Then a woman appeared and beckoned the plumber away. His smile was
mixed, but erred towards the great riches awaiting him. Together the plumber
and the woman entered the elevator, the plumber turning to give Delilah a
hopeful wave, then the arrow went from
up
to
down
, and the
elevator began descending. And this was how it went. That was the System.

One of the officers said, ‘She’s put on a bit of
weight, I reckon, after that lovely meal she ate the other day.’

‘So she has. Give her a pinch. Go on.’

The officer pinched Delilah under the arm. She didn’t
fully register; she wasn’t fully back yet. But she was on the way. What there
was of her was still on a ten-second cycle, a sort of click or tick that struck
every ten seconds in her brain, which was fading, and would fade, but for now
horribly repeated the drip that had set it. She could detect an emotion in her
too, distinct from the others, which she determined was fury. Fury was good,
she further decided, on the road to recovery. And the object of her fury was
Officer Gentle. There were others, but right at this moment it was Gentle. But
she didn’t fully register the pinch because she wasn’t fully back yet. She
hadn’t resumed speech, for instance, so she couldn’t say anything.

‘A man came back in. Your man.’

‘Yes, so he did,’ taunted the other officer, ‘the man
came back, back into Authority Welcome. Your man.’

‘Wanted to pay your bail.’

‘The man came back. Your man. You have a friend.’

‘We invited him in, made him comfortable, asked to him
wait around a while. What, an hour or so? Not long. We gave him a number off a
paper roll of other numbers to look at while he waited.’

‘Two days, we made him wait, looking at his number.’

‘Yes, it was more like two days, but one can’t rush
these things. Whilst we searched for you. High and low we looked. All the
kitchens and bedrooms and saunas and enhancement parlours. But could we find
you? Not a bit of it. We called the holiday companies, both of them. They’d
taken no booking. We visited the schools, disguised as pupils, lest you’d taken
up a job teaching maths or core geography. But no, no sign. We traipsed through
all the officers’ records beginning C in case you’d changed your name and
joined the force. Zero luck. Then what happens? We find you arm in arm with a
man in skin-tight underwear and belt of wrenches and pipe parts. And what do we
find you wearing? Is it a chair-covering, or something? Did you make it
yourself, during your sojourn? You did some sewing? Sewing does wonders for
you, you certainly look refreshed, doesn’t she?’

‘Refreshed isn’t the word for it. I take a look at her
and I think
vivacity
. This is a girl going places. This is a player.
This is
someone
. This, this is …’

‘A prisoner.’

‘That’s the word.’

‘A murderer.’

‘That too.’

‘A traffic offences offender.’

‘She’ll take everything coming her way.’

‘She’s going down.’

‘Deep down.’

‘Forever and forever.’

‘And then some.’

‘A worse fate even than the electric animals.’

‘The artery insects?’

‘Worse.’

‘So much worse.’

‘She cannot imagine.’

‘She doesn’t need to imagine, she will
experience
.’

‘To the elevator?’

‘I want to press the button. Not you. You did it last
time.’

‘Don’t make a mistake. You won’t press the
up
button, will you, in error?’

‘Not me. Not the
up
button. I won’t even look
at the
up
button.’

Outside the closed doors of the lift, the subordinate
officer did indeed not look at the
up
button. Nor did he look at the
down
button. Which perhaps explained why, when his hand shot out, it hit the
up
button. And the carriage immediately arrived opened its doors with a swift
hiss, like a mouth.

‘Look what you did, you idiot.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have looked, I know I should
have.’

‘Oh get in, let’s make the best of a bad situation.
Come on, prisoner, you too. What’s this, a gift? You have an admirer, prisoner.
Look, your very own rocking horse. Sit on it. Take a weight off. We’ll rock
you. Go on, on you get, you mad bint.’ As the lift began its assent, Delilah
was hoisted onto the rocking horse, and rocked, and over-rocked, and sent
crashing back and forth by the two accompanying men. ‘Where are we going?’ she
heard a small voice in her head ask. She made then a mental assumption: ‘I’m
back.’ But rather than let on, she observed from the other side of the shutters
of madness the current situation. ‘Maybe this isn’t to be such a bad day as the
last few,’ she reasoned, a finger still tugging at her open mouth for continued
effect, as the floor-indication system indicated they were leaving the System
behind and moving into the heart of the Authority.

The contraption gave a ting at the floor the officers
argued over and eventually agreed must be the correct floor and the doors
sprung open with their mouthy hiss. The Decorating Officer, who was there to
greet them, said, ‘Here is your medal of promotion for finding the girl,
officers.’

‘But this medal is only for one officer,’ one
complained.

‘Do not trouble me with such trifling detail. I have
other people to decorate. Get out of my way!’

‘You’re not getting off that lightly, Decorating
Officer. Stay where you are. We want one each.’

‘You pipe down!’ shouted the Decorating Officer.
‘You’re getting one and one alone. Share it. Which one of you saw her first?’

‘
I
did,’ said both officers.

‘No, it was me,’ said both.

‘Correction,’ said one. ‘I spotted her with the
plumber before you’d even got your fat ass up off that chair you like to sit in
so much and pretend to snooze.’

‘What plumber?’ asked the Decorating Officer.

‘No plumber. My colleague is imagining things. Which
is why I must have the promotion. I have no imagination, I only carry out the
letter of the law.’

‘There is no letter of the law, as any good lawman
knows, just idle chatter.’

‘
I
know that,’ said the other. ‘I keep telling
him. But will he listen?’

‘Very well, you will both receive half a promotion.’

‘I’d rather have a half a cabbage. What use is half a
promotion?’

‘Yes, Decorating Officer, my able friend is correct.
What’s half a promotion when it’s at home?’

‘You’re trying my patience,’ said the Decorating
Officer, whose rank no-one had ever pinned down. Officers assumed,
understandably, that because he was a Decorating Officer he must be of senior
rank. But there was no logical reason why this had to be so. He said, ‘You may
both, in due course, again co-discover a lost person, for which there is a
prize of a single promotion, and once more share it between yourselves. Thus
gaining a full promotion each. I can’t say fairer than that.’

‘Be realistic, mister, it’s not exactly likely. I’ve
heard of long shots but this scenario you put to us is up there with the best.
I mean, it’s a joke. You’re the Decorating Officer but you couldn’t decorate a
wallpaper shop. You decorated my friend and pinned the medal to his knee. What
kind of a Decorating Officer pins a medal to an officer’s knee? If you were a
Decorating Officer of only a foot in height your choice would be
understandable. But even then there would be no reason why you couldn’t climb a
ladder and stand on a plinth and administer from there, or even climb up the
officer himself, or herself, and attach the medal, along with your words of
congratulation, which are very uninteresting, to the officer’s shoulder. Admit
it, you’re not a very good Decorating Officer.’

‘I second that,’ said the other officer.

‘I’m taking this higher,’ said the previous officer,
hoping to establish the Decorating Officer’s rank. ‘Who is your superior?’

‘We all answer to the Authority.’ This was both a
stock response and a brush off, one the Decorating Officer supplemented by
saying, ‘I know what really happened anyway, and you’re on shaky ground here.
You want to watch what you say. The plumber is a friend of mine, and he found
the girl, not you. I am sad that I will never see the plumber again, but our
friendship will go on, at least in memory, my memory. He managed to contact me,
you see, and then, suddenly, everything went quiet. Ho hum. Perhaps he too has
escaped or gone missing and there will be a reward for finding him. A quarter
of a promotion, I think. Yes, that’s what it’ll be.’

‘I wouldn’t even get out of bed for a quarter of a
promotion.’

‘Nor would I.’

‘Gentlemen, our conversation has come to an end.’

The two officers seemed satisfied now. One said, ‘This
way, prisoner. Look lively!’

‘Prisoner?’ said the other, and spun round.

‘Where has she gone?’

‘She’s missing!’

‘You must report this at once,’ said the Decorating
Officer, ‘to the Missing Persons Officer.’

‘Where might we find him. Is he on this floor? These
floors are so confusing. One so much resembles another.’

‘You’re looking at him. Me! I job-share with the
Missing Persons Officer. He in turn job shares with the record keeper at the
Abduction Unit. But that is quite another matter.’

‘It is lucky we came to you, then.’

‘Very well,’ said the Missing Persons Officer, ‘Who is
this person you would like to report missing? Are they tall, short, thin, fat?
Male, female, unsure? What is the missing person’s name? What is your
relationship with said missing person? How long have they been missing? Any
distinguishing features? These are some of the many questions I will ask.’

One officer said, 'She has a fork sticking out of her
finger. That is how I recognise her.'

'Stop!'

The other said, 'I know her by her hairstyle – it
resembles our friend’s whose knee you pinned a medal to.'

'Not yet!’

‘She’s utterly indistinguishable to us otherwise.’

‘No! You must come to my office to answer the many
questions I must ask you. The wonderful thing about this procedure is that
often by the time we have completed the questionnaire the missing person has
been found, and though it feels like we have been doing lots of work, we have
in fact been sitting down together eating and drinking and asking and answering
questions. I received a medal for inventing this procedure. I awarded it to
myself in front of a mirror. Unfortunately I blinked at the wrong moment and
pinned the medal in my eye. That is why I am half blind, and why I sometimes
pin medals to the wrong parts of officers. This way. Follow me. Whoops, that is
a wall.’