job any more. I’m a tad fussy about my ambient radiation levels and I can’t stand the weirdness. Sorry.”
Call-me-Bill looked puzzled. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“No, seriously,” Call-me-Bill said, “you can’t leave. Look. This’ll explain.”
From his coat pocket he produced a newspaper, rolled up tight into a tube. He flattened it out and pointed to a short column of text under a photograph of a scary-looking grinning lunatic. The headline read, Police Seek Suspect in Van Goyen Murder Hunt. The photo was an old one – Theo giving a press conference, the day before the VVLHC went online – but instantly recognisable.
“So you see,” Call-me-Bill went on, “if you set foot outside the hotel grounds, you’ll be arrested. It was on the TV news and the radio as well. It’s just a shame they couldn’t have come up with a better photo. This one makes you look like you’ve just stuck your fingers in a light socket.” He gently tugged the newspaper out of Theo’s hand, folded it and put it back in his pocket. “It’ll all blow over soon enough,” he went on reassuringly, “but till it does, you really ought to stay here, where you’re safe. I did promise Pieter I’d look after you.”
Theo opened his mouth, but it was as though someone had pressed the Mute button. Call-me-Bill smiled at him and gave his shoulder a friendly pat. “We’ll keep you off the desk for a bit, though, just in case. Don’t suppose you’ll mind that, you’ve been pulling some pretty long shifts recently. Tell you what, why don’t you give Mattie a hand sorting the linen? I can keep an eye on the desk, it’s not like we’re rushed off our feet right now.”
Theo glanced sideways at him. “That’s not what you said a few days ago.”
“Ah, well, the rush is over now, for a bit. Gives us all a chance to catch our breath.”
“What rush?”
“Good man.” Call-me-Bill beamed at him. “And if you really hate 9998, we can swap.”
“Sorry?”
“Swap,” Call-me-Bill repeated. “I’ll bunk down in 9998 and you can have my room. If you don’t mind mucking in with all my junk, I mean. Not ideal, I grant you, but we’re a bit pushed for space right now.”
“Pushed for space? We’ve got two guests.”
“Splendid.” Call-me-Bill nodded decisively. “So, if you make your way down to the laundry room, I’ll tell Mattie you’ll be giving her a hand. No rush.”
The laundry was a bit closer to the Room That Glowed than he’d have liked, and the grim, monolithic cast-iron-and-brass machines that stood silently in the corners gave him the creeps, although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what they were or what they did. He found Matasuntha standing in front of an enormous floor-to-ceiling cupboard. The door was open, and a ladder was leaning against one of the countless shelves.
“What kept you?” she said.
He’d come straight from his bathroom. “Sorry,” he replied. “Look—”
“You can start,” she said, “by getting down all the stuff from the shelves and putting it on the floor in neat piles so I can go through it all.”
Every shelf – he lost count after thirty – was laden down with folded towels, sheets, pillowcases, eiderdowns, curtains. There was enough fabric in that cupboard to make a loose cover for the Sun. “All of it?”
“All of it. Come on, don’t just stand there like a pudding. Get on with it.”
He hadn’t actually seen the main reactor of the VVLHC overload, but he had an idea of what it must’ve been like. A bit like the indescribable build-up of pressure inside him when Matasuntha made her last remark. Fortunately, he knew about pressure. You can ignore it until it bursts and trashes mountains, or you can channel it into doing useful work. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll make a start, then.”
“About time.”
The top shelf was so far off the ground he could feel distinct symptoms of oxygen deprivation as he pulled out a crowded armful of blankets. He fought it, however, and clambered slowly back down the ladder. Matasuntha was writing something on a clipboard, with her back to him. He hesitated. He’d never deliberately attacked anyone in his life (YouSpace didn’t count) and the last time he’d been in a fight, he’d been eight, and he’d lost. On the other hand, he felt that he’d exhausted all the usual diplomatic channels, and there simply wasn’t time to get a UN resolution through the Security Council. Besides which, Russia would probably veto it.