Free Breathe by Christopher Fowler

‘We shouldn’t be breathing this. Let me know if you start to go nuts.’
    The elevator doors open before them just as a group of directors turns into the corridor.
    In the reception area, the pounding video screens are showing the kind of relentless, upbeat visuals that would drive anyone mad. Unable to take it any longer, Ms Thompson attempts to switch them off.
    When she is unable to do this, she tries to tear the plugs from the wall, but they won’t come out. In desperation, she drags the monitors down from their mounts by clambering onto them, sending them to the floor, where they explode in crackling rainbows of pixel light.
    Miranda can’t catch her breath. There is no more air left in the shaft. She hammers weakly on the walls. She feels her stomach lighten, and suddenly throws up.
    Motorcycle couriers don’t think about too much when they deliver packages. This one is whistling cheerfully to himself as he dismounts and strides inside the SymaxCorp building. Glad to get out of the rain, he crosses the lobby and is directed to the twentieth floor receptionist.
    As soon as the lift doors open, he knows there’s a problem. The air is thick, smouldering with soot and pieces of burning paper. Ms Thompson is seated at her granite desk, surrounded by small but fierce fires.
    ‘I got a package for the marketing department,’ he tells her. Ms Thompson carefully sets the package down in front of her. Something explodes on the wall behind them. He tries to ignore the problem. ‘I need a signature. If you would initial …’
    He gives the receptionist his signature pad and a pen. She snaps the pen in half and throws it over her shoulder, then stares at him as if she is going to kill him.
    ‘Sign underneath …’ he suggests.
    She squirts lighter fuel over the pad and sets fire to it.
    ‘… And, er, print your name. Or perhaps I’ll just go. It’s not a good time, is it? I’ll just go, eh.’
    The courier turns and walks away fast, trying to get the hell out, but the receptionist beats him to it. As Ms Thompson stares at this man in leathers who dares to pester her with demands, her eyes cloud liverishly. She brings him down with the kind of extraordinary flying tackle that Clarke wishes his son might one day make, and for good measure twists the poor boy’s head back to front inside his crash helmet.
    ‘All helmets must be removed!’ she screams shrilly, before returning to her desk and collapsing onto it with a skull-fracturing thud.
    Meera and Ben are descending through the building. The electricity powers down and the lights flicker as the elevator comes to a slow, grinding halt between floors.
    ‘Now what?’ asks Ben.
    There is a metallic bang, and the elevator is plunged into darkness.
    Swan has always had the capacity to become evangelical, but this is going too far. He has grabbed June’s hands and is pulling her before him, pawing her in a distinctly un-Christian manner.
    ‘Mr Swan,’ yells June, ‘you’re hurting me!’
    ‘Accept Jesus as your saviour,’ commands Swan. ‘We’ll pray to the Lord together.’
    June is horrified. ‘But I’m an agnostic!’
    ‘Then we must pray for your soul! Oh June, ever since I first saw you, I longed for the touch of your silken skin.’ Swan falls on his knees in front of her, burying his head between her thighs.
    Much to June’s own surprise, she kicks him as hard as she can in the groin, feeling his pods retreat into his pelvic cavity. Revolted, she hurries away from Swan, but he staggers to his feet and comes after her, seizing her arm. Most men would be rolling around on the floor for a while.
    June breaks free and runs for the stairs, but Swan throws himself after her with abandon, and the pair crash to the edge of the landing. June is knocked cold. Swan has shattered a kneecap on the concrete steps, but this doesn’t stop him from dragging her away. His eyes are clouded over with thick, white cataracts.
    ‘ Vengeance is mine , sayeth the