The explosions rock the building. Crap, I think. I figured we’d have more time. But that’s all it is sometimes. Time. And who can tell shit about it. I turn to my friends. “It seems the party’s started,” I say to one of them.
Fred Jackson looks back at me. He isn’t worried. He’s pissed off. “The fuck you think this about?” he asks.
“How should I know?” I posit back. “Intel ain’t my job.”
Isaiah Smith looks at me, somewhat confused. “But, literally it is your job?” he counters.
“Touché.” I smile as I speak. “But this is too early to be what I’ve been expecting it to be, so I can’t say for sure what it is.” Then, with a shrug, I add, “If that makes sense.”
Nicole Torres gives me a look that says enough. After all, I make no sense. Almost ever. It’s part of my job. Not actually, of course. In fact, it’s exactly counter to my job description, but it’s too fun not to, feel me? Anyways, I shake my head at that. “Don’t be mean, Nicky,” I reply to her look.
“What’s the plan?” she asks me all direct-like. Kinda still rude, if you ask me, but no one ever does.
“What, I’m supposed to plan for everything?” I ask. I have a plan, of course. Plans are important.
Fred raises an eyebrow at me. Isaiah, however, is the one who replies. “Yeah.”
“Oh, in that case, yep, I got a plan.” With a smile, I gesture for them to follow. “Just need to get to the seventeenth floor.”
Nicky rolls her eyes. “So you were just trying to irritate us?” she muses as we start to power walk towards the stairwell.
“Well, duh?” I reply, grinning ear to ear. “Again, I don’t know what this is exactly, so no promises on my plan working perfectly.”
“Since when do your plans ever work perfectly?” Fred replies, again quite rudely.
“Always, Fred my dear. Always.” We open the door to the stairwell. Or, more specifically, where the stairwell would normally be. There, instead, is a large hole and a lot of collapsing cement and glass.
“Nope,” I say, “Nope nope nope. The elevators.”
“They’re shut down,” Isaiah says, trying to press the button.
“Well, no shit,” Fred says.
“Nicky, Fred, get the doors open. We’ll hope there isn’t anything collapsing there and we can climb the cables.” I give the orders and, as though on instinct, they act. We may not be in the best shape as a unit anymore, but when shit hits the fan, we act on instinct. And we act just as smoothly as we did in our heyday. Nicky and Fred pry the doors open, revealing a dark, vertical corridor. Good. Darkness means there aren’t any holes in the shaft. That means the damage may just be external, not structural. The building shudders again. We won’t count on htat. “Nicky, Isaiah, get yourselves up to seventeen and open it for us all. Fred, you’re with me. We’re heading down to keep the cable stable and lock down our exit.”
Before I finish the commands, Nicky and Isaiah are already on the wire headed up. “Ready, Freddy?” I ask.
“Call me that again, I’ll cut off your balls,” Fred replies in his version of the affirmative.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say as I wrap my sweatshirt around the cable and start to descend. Anytime I think I’m going too fast, I tighten slightly. Another sweatshirt ruined. Fuck, and it’s one of the ones I liked, too. Fred follows me in his own way. I don’t care enough to pay attention. He knows how to do what he needs to do. As I hit the top of the elevator car, locked down on the first floor, I move to the side of the car. I need this stable and locked down, meaning the bottom has to be an anchor and the top needs to be connected to us. Elevators are designed to move, making them less than ideal anchors. Broken elevators, however, are much better, sturdier bases. Quickly, rather than carefully, I weld the side to the mounting and seal the breaks completely. This particular elevator car is going nowhere. I know, without asking or checking, Fred is doing the same on the other side. After finishing, I open up the maintenance hatch. Just because the building isn’t actively collapsing now does not mean we won’t need a quick getaway, and not having to stop to open doors is an important part of that. Fred, finished with his job, gestures up and down. I press my hands together, slide them apart, then make a circle with two fingers and gesture upwards.
He nods. “Make a fire then give you a colonoscopy,” he jokes, “Still got it.” He slides down into the car as I start to make my way up the cable to the seventeenth floor.
Climbing elevator cables isn’t as easy as it looks, and is even less so when for the last four years you’ve mostly been chilling at a desk. A twice a week workout, even a real intense one, doesn’t really build the right muscles to make this part of the work not painful. Not sure any kind of workout is enough. Every damned time I’ve done this, I learn about new muscles that I clearly have not worked out enough, even back when doing this wasn’t as rare an occurrence. It’s not just the struggle of pulling yourself up, though. The cables really aren’t meant to be ascended by hand. Cuts them up real bad if you don’t do it right. Now, back in the day, I knew how to do it right. But, it’s been a hot minute. Muscle memory isn’t quite the same. By the time I’m at the open door into the seventeenth floor, the cuts are enough to sting.
When I climb out of the elevator shaft, Nicky is the one to bring it up. “Damn, bossman, you really have got rusty.”
Isaiah looks at my hands. “My money’s on him needing the blood for his plan, so he figures he’ll save himself some time.”
Shaking my head, I start walking ahead of them. “Come on, based on that stairwell, I say we should get out of this building soon as possible. Isaiah, set the trail for Fred, he’s on up. Nicky, you’re on me.”
Isaiah nods, then he and Nicky follow me down the hall. I head straight for my office. Or, the office that was once mine. Sort of. Before that whole little firing thing. It’s one right, then down the hall several doors. Isaiah lingers at the intersection for Fred’s sake. Once Nicky and I reach the door, I open it. Normally, I would check to see if they kept my codes active. Common enough practice in low security offices. But, what with the building actively exploding around us, I figure any alarms set off will be completely and utterly ignored by all the people fleeing the area as fast as they could. So, I just kick it. Hard. I may not be as strong as I used to be, but I’m still strong enough to kick open a low security office door.
Nicky stands at the door, waiting for the others. “Really?” she muses, “Some dweebs office?” Then, in a completely different voice, she adds, “Fred’s hit Isaiah.”
“It used to be this dweeb’s office, remember?” I reply as I head over to the large oak shelving. I flip out a knife from my kit. At the side of one shelf, I stab and cut a small rectangle out of the wallpaper. Beneath it lies a touchpad. “And I like to keep my offices equipped.” I press my slightly bloodied palm against the pad. Isaiah was right, partly. I was going to need my blood for this. Timing-wise, the cable worked great. Touching my hand, with all those tiny cuts across it, to the pad still stings, though.
Falling down from the ceiling and rising from the floor are large panels. At the doorway, Nicky smiles at me. She can’t quite see what’s going on, but she gets a feeling in her gut. “Please tell me this is what I think it is.”
I smile. Before me, lain out across several racks and shelves on the panels, sits our old gear. Isaiah and Fred arrive and all three enter the office around the same time as I walk into the center of the panels. “Come on guys, get everything into our bags and bug.” I pull my suit and helmet off the rack and slide it into my duffel.
“You just left all our shit here?” Fred asks me.
I shake my head. “Not all,” I correct him, “Just enough.”
Nicky smiles as she reaches my side of the panels, touching each bit of equipment. Isaiah moves straight for his old rifle. “I remember this baby,” he muses as he lifts it up and aims down the sights at nothing in particular.
Fred, unlike his compatriots, just starts shoveling his gear into his bag. “We’ve only got six, y’all.”
I only really need my helmet and the belts. Those are the first things in the bag. Then, I pick up my pistol. The strange gun isn’t like Isaiah’s or Nicky’s guns. Theirs are actually significant. Better than what they undoubtedly have in their cars right now as we speak. Mine, it’s not that amazing. In fact, the only real special thing about it is the material, but that’s neither here nor there. I pick it up for sentimental reasons. Spinning it around my finger, tossing it between hands, then sliding it into a holster on the wall, I smile. “Still got it,” I say as I pull the holster out and swing it onto my own shoulder. Fred shakes his head at me. He is right, of course. We don’t have time for the goofing off. But I needed to know. Now that I do, I smile. “Finish up and head down. I have one more stop, then I’ll meet you outside.”
“You notice he said ‘outside’, not in the lobby?” Isaiah says as he carefully puts his gear into his backpack and briefcase.
“He’s jumping off the roof,” Nicky says.
“Probably doesn’t even got a stop,” Fred adds, “Just wants to jump off a roof for old times sakes.”
“No, he’s got a stop,” Isaiah corrects, “It just might be the little boys’ room. Like Vienna.”
I smile. “I forgot about Vienna. And, nope, this is an important stop. Don’t worry, I’ll be right down.” I rush out of the room and to the shaft. It’s been a year and change, but the elevator shaft is yet to be replaced. My stop isn’t necessary, but it will certainly be useful if anything works out long term. But, it means more climbing.
At the top of the elevator shaft, there is a small door for maintenance access. Normally, you’d go the other way, but doesn’t mean it ain’t still a door heading this direction. The maintenance access hall is small, but comforting. The exact same as back in the day, when I first came here for some trysts on company time. Partway down the hall, there is a small alcove, oft used for snacks or breaks. I used it for, let’s say other purposes, back in the day. But it’s also my landmark for the box. In the ceiling, and technically the roof, two steps further from the elevator is a hidden trap door. Tapping the piping twice to turn on the mic, I say my magic words, “Open the fuck up.” The voice command registers and the trap door drops down. Falling gracefully into my hand is a small, intricate box. Not fancy enough to be considered beautiful, but nice nonetheless. What’s inside is the more important part, but that can wait for safety. I open up the door on the opposite end of the hallway. Nicky, unlike Isaiah, was only partially right. The door leads to the stairwell. Ain’t no way I’m getting up to the roof. I knew that from the moment we opened that stair door earlier. Else my plan would be just keep heading up. Taking out some rope, I tie it off on the piping up here. It’s about 200 feet long. Should get me most of the way down. At least to a distance where it won’t be deadly to try and roll out of the fall. Just like old times. I have the most massive grin on my face as I leap out of the open door.
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