“To know to come to the tower? Or were you in the city for another reason?”
“Um.” Another glance at Dorran. “Actually, we read the address. It had been scratched into a bunker wall. We had no idea what we would find here.”
He chuckled. “Unorthodox. But hey, it worked, I guess? You came here, and that’s all I’d hoped for.”
A low, soft chattering noise came from behind Clare. She flinched and swivelled. At the same time, Dorran put a hand out and swept Clare behind himself. The room remained empty.
“It’s okay! Don’t worry!” The man lowered his voice and extended both hands, palm out, as though trying to pacify them. “They’re outside. They can’t get in. At least, they haven’t so far.”
Dorran slowly relaxed his guard. The scratching sounded closer than it was. Clare would have thought having covers over the windows would be comforting, but in reality, it left her feeling unsettled. She hated not being able to see the hollows. How many there were. How close they were. The chattering was growing louder. She suspected most of the dispersed creatures were returning now that the radio and spotlight were off.
“I’m sorry, I’m doing a really awful job as a host, aren’t I?” The man broke into a nervous chuckle. “I’m Peter. Dr Peter Wiesner.”
Clare finally pulled her eyes away from the shrouded windows. “Doctor?”
“One of the theoretical ones. Not a medical doctor, I’m afraid.”
“Oh. Uh, I’m Clare. And this is Dorran.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” Peter loped forward, hand outstretched, and shook Clare’s then Dorran’s. His fingers were warm and shaking. From nerves or excitement, Clare wasn’t sure. “Look at you; you’re drenched. You must be freezing. And probably exhausted and hungry too. Let’s go upstairs. It’s going to be a lot more peaceful than down here. And I can get you some dry clothes. Nothing glamorous, but it’ll be better than what you have.”
Clare gave Dorran a final glance, checking he was happy to travel deeper into the tower. He was already watching her, waiting for her decision. He sent her a small smile, and Clare returned it. Peter was already moving towards the reception desk, so they followed.
“Hey, Peter…” Clare wrapped her arms around her chest as they crossed the vast, sparsely decorated foyer. “What is this place?”
Peter stopped beside the reception, where he’d set up his laptop. He took a moment to power it down then slowly turned to face them, fingers knit, smile unsteady. “Well… it used to house a lot of businesses. It was a bit of a hub. But it holds a special significance for the current state of the world. I guess you’d call it ground zero.”
Clare faltered. “You mean…”
“Yeah. It all originated here. The stillness, the monsters…” Peter took a breath and pulled a smile back onto his face with obvious effort. “I’ll tell you everything. But let’s get you somewhere safe and warm first. Follow me.”
Chapter Forty-Three
As Peter picked up the laptop, a loud, screeching wail echoed from outside the building. The front door rattled, and Peter tucked the laptop under one arm. “You don’t need to worry. The tower’s secure. Well, relatively. There are some hollows inside, but they’re all locked in rooms. Those guys on the street don’t ever leave, but when you get to the upper floors, you can’t really hear them much anymore.”
Peter stopped beside one of the security gates and pulled an ID card suspended from a lanyard from under his jacket. He swiped it over the reader, which beeped and flashed green. The gates swept back, and Peter ushered them through before they closed again.
“You have power?” Clare asked.
“A generator. I’ve been restricting what it feeds juice to. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t turn off the security system, so it’s been leeching power. The elevators are out of service, though, so we need to take the stairs. Sorry.” His smile was apologetic. “You’ve probably already done a lot of walking today. Do you think you could manage another twelve floors?”
“Just as long as we’re not being chased,” Clare said.
Peter laughed. “I like your spirit.”
Dorran ran his fingertips across the marble walls as they started climbing. The stairwell was wide and elegant, an echo of the foyer. Every second landing opened into a new corridor with its own set of doors, each with a little plaque set beside it.
“Best to stay away from rooms you don’t know,” Peter said. “Some of them contain hollows. You can usually tell which ones because of the noise, but sometimes they’re silent, and that can be an unpleasant surprise. I’ve locked all of their doors, though.”
Clare gave a slow nod. She was feeling faintly dizzy, and not because of the stairs.
Is he telling the truth? Is this where the stillness spread from? She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She already knew the disease wasn’t infectious—if it was, she would have felt its effects weeks before—but she still felt itchy just touching the bronze railing.
She’d listened to all of the wild theories being bantered across the radio, but Clare had never believed she would find out the cause of the world’s destruction. It had felt like something that was meant to be abstruse. Like black matter; it was a concept that wasn’t ever supposed to be in the hands of average people.
Though… in this stillness, is anyone average? We all survived the end of the world. We’re all remarkable in some way or another.
A hundred questions crammed themselves into her brain, but strangely, she was reluctant to pull any of them out. The idea of knowing more about the disease was frightening. She dreaded what the answers might mean for humanity’s future.
As they passed the fourth floor, she began to shiver. Outside had been cold, but inside the building was worse. It didn’t have heating and still clung to the chill from the snows. The exercise kept her core warm but didn’t do much for her numb fingers.
The higher she climbed, the more she began to dislike the tower. It was too clinical, bordering on hostile. In some ways, it felt like Winterbourne’s opposite. Winterbourne had never been welcoming, but it had held an excess of hostile emotions and passions. Helexis held none.
“Here we are!” Peter skipped as he came off the twelfth floor’s landing. He nodded to the passageway ahead of them. “I’ve been living here. We have food and water, and the heater’s running. It’s not exactly homely, but, uh, I hope you’ll make yourselves at home, anyway.”
Clare read the plaque by the stairs as she passed it. Aspect Laboratories. “You said you were a doctor?”
“I have a doctorate in molecular sciences. My dissertation caught the attention of Aspect—the company that owns this part of the tower—and I was given a grant to explore surgical advancements for eighteen months. Basically, they gave me office space, equipment, and money to live off. In return, they owned part of anything I created here and would theoretically make bank if I developed anything impressive.” He laughed.
Clare felt faintly nauseated. She forced the words out. “Did your team…?”