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  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 gett
ing 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.’

  5 – A Plumbing Job

  Moments ago as the men bickered Delilah had backed herself towards the wall, which was colour-coded like the lift buttons for the floor, and swaggered quietly away. This colour-coding for a building of 333 floors was an administrative nightmare. The difficulty was that there were not enough colours. Policy therefore was to choose one colour and vary it. Floor 49 was lilac, 48 a shade lighter and 50 a shade darker, but only very slightly, imperceptibly. This was continued throughout the 333 floors. The Authority trained people in the art of subtle colour recognition, how to distinguish one shade or hue of lilac from the next. A policy intended to help employees find their way around, and not to aid non-employees, people such as Delilah, who were trying to escape. So, to 49’s backdrop of lilac, Delilah quietly slipped away, barefooted, crazy-haired, in overalls, with a fork sticking out of her finger, which she hid up a cuff of the overalls.

  And now she had just been challenged.

  ‘Stop, who goes there? I am an administrator from the Color Coding Office and demand to know.’ The administrator shook what appeared to be a rolled-up colour chart at her. Two whistling painters waltzed past, thumbs hung in their pockets, talking about a friend of theirs who worked over in the Public Body. Delilah chose once more to make use of the power of speech. She said, though her voice felt funny, lower, gruffer, ‘I am a plumber. Let me through. I have a job on.’

  ‘You’re not that missing plumber there’s a quarter of a promotion reward for, are you?’

  ‘Do I look like that missing plumber?’

  ‘I don’t know. What does that missing plumber look like?’

  ‘For a start,’ said Delilah, ‘he’s a man. He’s also much taller than me. Now stand aside, office administrator, I have a blocked U-bend to see to.’

  ‘I am sorry to have held you up. Good luck with the U-bend. I bet it’s eggshells again.’

  Delilah pushed past the administrator, grunting like she hoped a plumber might, and headed, with the swagger her discomfort had developed, which also suited a plumber, for a door whose sign was universally recognised. In the bathroom, luxury, relative luxury at least, greeted her. Before she did anything else she drank water, pure water, and lots of it. She noticed shower units next – gently nozzled shower units, not industrial colanders, behind frosted plastic, with shelves of unguents and tempting cleansers. Before showering, she discovered some scissors in a cupboard above a sink and used these to pry the fork off her finger and to trim her hair in the mirror, giving it a radical restyle, creating a parting that she swept over the apparent bald patch, transforming her appearance. In the shower, she allowed to flow into her body an excitement that went someway towards dulling
the numerous pains currently resident within it. Dried, she slipped back into the overalls and adjusted them so that they were tight against her body. Then she stole a pair of slippers she found lying about and put them on. This, she realised, was a crime. It was also the first crime she had ever committed in her life, other than reading controlled literature that one time at school and getting hit on the head with a cabbage for it. After so much punishment, she reasoned that the Authority ‘owed’ her a crime, yet still felt a culpability. Honest Delilah next realised, once again washing her face, that the sink was blocked: her hair. She set about unblocking it and while doing so ran escape options through her mind. She was getting out of here.