That was all. That had been the point where Kyle had started awake. As to what the thing had meant or was supposed to signify – who could say? Kyle had long since given up trying to predict the meaning of these glimpses, other than the fact that they had meaning. But in any case, if something could be said to have brought him here today, it would have to be that brief and as yet inexplicable ‘dream’ before waking.
As yet it was still fairly early in the morning. Kyle had beaten the first rush of heavy traffic in London’s streets by just a few minutes. For the next hour or more all would be chaos out there, but in here it was quiet as the proverbial tomb. The rest of the admin team (all three of them, including the typist!) had been given today and tomorrow off out of respect for the dead man, so the offices upstairs would be completely empty.
In the tiny foyer Kyle had pressed the button for the elevator, which now arrived and opened its doors. He entered and as the doors closed behind him he took out his pass-card, sliding it easily and smoothly through the sensor slot. The elevator jerked but made no upward movement. Its doors opened, waited for a long moment, closed again. Kyle frowned, glanced at his card and silently cursed. It had run out yesterday! Normally Gormley would have renewed its validity on the branch computer; now Kyle would have to do it himself. Fortunately he had Gormley’s card with him, along with the rest of his office-related effects. Using the ex-Head of Branch’s pass-card, he coerced the elevator into carrying him to the top floor, going through a similar procedure to let himself into the main suite of offices.
The silence inside was almost deafening. High up above the level of the street, with soundproofed floors to shut out hotel noises from below and double-glazed, tinted windows for additional privacy, the place seemed set in a sort of vacuum. The feeling crept in that if you listened to that silence long enough, it would become hard to breathe. It was especially so in Gormley’s room, where someone had been thoughtful enough to draw the blinds at the windows. But the blinds had jammed only a little more than half-way shut, so that now, with bands of light coming in through the green-tinted windows, the entire office seemed decorated in a horizontal, sub-marine pinstripe. It made this once familiar room strangely alien, and it was suddenly very odd and unreal not to have the Old Man here . . .
Kyle stood in the doorway, staring into the office for long moments before entering. Then, closing the door behind him, he stepped to the centre of the room. Several hidden scanners had already picked him up and identified him, in the outer offices as well as in here, but a monitor screen in the wall close to Gormley’s desk wasn’t satisfied. It beeped and printed up:
SIR KEENAN GORMLEY IS NOT AVAILABLE AT PRESENT. THIS IS A SECURE AREA. PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF IN YOUR NORMAL SPEAKING VOICE, OR LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU FAIL TO LEAVE OR IDENTIFY YOURSELF, A TEN SECOND WARNING WILL BE GIVEN, FOLLOWING WHICH THE DOOR AND WINDOWS WILL LOCK AUTOMATICALLY . . . REPEAT: THIS IS A SECURE AREA.
Feeling irrationally aggressive towards the cold, unthinking machine, and not a little perverse, Kyle said nothing but waited. After a count of three the screen wiped itself clean and printed up:
TEN SECOND WARNING COMMENCES NOW . . . TEN . . . NINE . . . EIGHT . . . SEVEN … SIX …
‘Alec Kyle,’ said Kyle grudgingly, not wishing to be locked in.
The machine recognised his voice pattern, stopped counting, commenced a new routine:
GOOD MORNING, MR KYLE . . . SIR KEENAN GORMLEY IS NOT –
‘I know,’ said Kyle. ‘He’s dead.’ He stepped to the desk keyboard and punched in the current security override; to which the machine replied:
DO NOT FORGET TO RE-SET BEFORE YOU LEAVE, and switched itself off.
Kyle sat down at the desk. Funny world, he thought. And, funny bloody outfit! Robots and romantics. Super science and the supernatural. Telemetry and telepathy. Computerised probability patterns and precognition. Gadgets and ghosts!