Perfect People

126

Naomi bolted, sprinting back down the path. The fading slap of her shoes, the drumming of his own heart and the roar of panic in John’s ears were the only sounds.

John ran over to Dettore and knelt beside him. He stared at the blood spreading across the collar and shoulders of Dettore’s jumpsuit. Panic spread deeper through him.

He scrambled to his feet and ran after her. When he was a few steps behind, he called out, ‘Naomi! Stop! Stop! Where are you going?’

‘To get my children,’ she said without turning her head.

He grabbed her arm and jerked her to a halt. ‘Naomi! Hon!’

She stared at him with eyes that were barely focusing. She was shaking, hysterical. ‘Let me go!’

‘You might have killed him.’

‘I’ll kill you, too,’ she said. ‘I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me taking my children home.’

John looked over his shoulder at the distant, motionless figure. Then up at the windows of the buildings all around. Any moment doors would open and people would be running towards them. They had to get out of sight, that was their first priority. Beyond that, he had no thoughts, no ideas, no plan. All his instincts told him that Dettore had been their one lifeline here. This wasn’t about taking their children home any more. It was about trying to survive.

Frantically, he looked around, trying to get his bearings. He stared at the red-brick structure that he thought Dettore had said, just a few minutes before, housed the Department of Astrophysics. Then at another housing the Library and General Research Facility. As his eyes roamed from building to building, he simply had no idea which was the one they’d seen Luke and Phoebe in – it could have been any of two dozen different ones. A voice inside his head screamed:

Get inside! Got to get inside! Out of the open! Under cover!

Shelter!

Hide!

The Department of Astrophysics was the nearest. Holding Naomi’s hand, he dragged her, half running, half stumbling towards it.

Where the hell’s the door?

They ran along the front of the building, past huge darkened-glass windows, past flower beds and a pond, and around the side. A small glass door in front of them was marked FIRE EXIT ONLY. He tried to pull it open, but could get no purchase; there was no handle on the outside, no gap big enough to get his fingers inside.

‘Are they in here?’ Naomi said. ‘Is this where Luke and Phoebe are?’

‘Maybe. We’ll start here.’

She was sobbing. ‘John, I want my children. I want Luke and Phoebe.’

‘We’ll find them.’ He dragged her further along and round to the far side, and realized this must be the main entrance. Ahead of them two children, a boy and a girl of about six, walking hand-in-hand in their white outfits, skipped up some steps then carried on straight towards a window in the centre of the building. When they were a couple of yards from it, a section of the glass rose, then dropped seamlessly behind them after they had entered.

John led Naomi towards the window, and the section rose up for them as they approached. They went through into the air-conditioned chill of a huge, deserted atrium with a marble floor, and a massive Foucault pendulum suspended from the ceiling. It felt like the lobby of a grand hotel, except there was no front desk, no staff. Just twin elevator doors on the far side. The children had disappeared.

Where?

The elevators? It was the only possible place they could have gone, John thought, and, still holding Naomi’s hand, dragged her over. He couldn’t see any buttons. He looked up and down. Nothing, no apparent means of summoning the damned thing. There must be! He turned and looked behind them. The place was still deserted. There must be a staircase, a fire exit route. Moments later there was a chime, and a light went on above the right-hand elevator door.

John tightened his grip on Naomi’s hand. The door opened.

The car was empty. They went in; John looked at the panel and pressed the bottom button.

Then from across the atrium he heard a shout. Two figures in white jumpsuits, teenagers, were running across the floor towards them. More were coming in through the glass door.

Panicking, John stabbed the button again, then again. The first two were getting nearer, yards away. Then the doors closed.

Furious banging on them.

Naomi was staring at him like a zombie. The car started sinking. John pulled out his phone, stared futilely at the display. As before, it said, NO SIGNAL.

There had to be some means of getting through to the outside world. There had been a phone in Dettore’s office, must be satellite phones around. There must be supplies coming in by plane or boat, or both; there had to be some way of getting word out, or getting away from here.

How?

The doors opened onto a deserted monorail platform. He pulled Naomi out, looked right and left. Two dark tunnels. A narrow gridded inspection sidewalk went into the tunnel in both directions. He pulled her to the left, into the tunnel, running as fast as he could into the darkness.

They covered a few hundred yards, then heard shouting behind them. He turned and saw several flashlight beams following them. Naomi stumbled, recovered. There was light ahead of them, a long way in the distance. The flashlights behind them were getting closer. His lungs were aching, Naomi was silent, following him, clinging to his hand. He ran even faster now.

The light ahead was getting closer. The voices behind them getting closer, too. Gaining on them. They burst out of the darkness onto another platform. An elevator door, and beside it, an emergency exit door. He pulled it and led her through into a dimly lit concrete stairwell that only went up.

He pounded up the stairs, two, sometimes three at a time; Naomi, close to collapse, tripped repeatedly so that he was almost dragging her up by her hand. He could hear voices at the bottom. Then they reached the top and a door with a push-bar. He jerked the bar and shoved the door, and they both stumbled forward into a long, brightly lit corridor with a tiled floor and walls that looked like they were made of brushed aluminium. There was a double door with two glass portholes, like a hospital ER entrance, at the far end.

They raced down towards it, but a few yards before they reached it, two figures came through.

Luke and Phoebe.

More small figures began crowding in behind them.