The Darwin Elevator (22 page)

“We need to get inside,” Skyler said. “Sam! Jake! Meet in the basement!”

“What is that awful noise?” Tania asked. Her knees shook from fear; she felt panic taking over. She knew, had no doubt, what made the sound. She wanted him to say it, so she might draw strength from his confidence.

“Trouble,” he said, and grabbed her arm.

Skyler pulled the scientist as fast has her legs would allow. The bulky suit and air tank slowed her as much as her fear, he realized.

Near the middle of the roof, a maintenance entrance jutted from the gravel surface. A three-step stairway led up to the plain white door, paint cracked from years of exposure.

He let go of her arm long enough to turn on the flashlight attached to the bottom of his gun barrel. The poor woman clutched at his jacket, then his backpack. He offered her a reassuring nod, then turned the door handle.

It twisted, unlocked. Skyler took a breath, then yanked the door open and raised his weapon.

A pitch-black stairwell greeted him. He swept his light across and down, and saw nothing.

“Stay with me,” he said. Her rapid breaths fogged the inside of her helmet, and knew he needed to calm her down soon. “It’ll be okay.”

Tania nodded, but her eyes said otherwise.

After three flights of stairs she stumbled. He just managed to catch her and pull her back to her feet.

“I feel dizzy,” she said.

“Rest here a second. Catch your breath.” He leaned her against the wall. “There’s a water tube, if you turn your head all the way left. Drink a little.”

While she settled down, Skyler examined her environment suit. The sensor on the front showed green, no air leaks, but after nearly two decades of use Skyler didn’t trust it.

A cursory inspection turned up no rips or holes, so he shifted focus to their situation. Jake might be stuck in the tall building on the north side. Injured by the fall, perhaps, though not so bad that he couldn’t fire his gun. Samantha could handle herself, ammo permitting. He wondered how many subs had made the campus their home. From the sound outside, dozens. A hundred, maybe. Too many. They usually formed small packs.

He reached to tap his earpiece, and found nothing there.

“Son of a—” he said, and stopped himself.

“What is it?” Tania asked. Her breathing, though rapid, had calmed.

“Nothing,” he replied, no desire to panic her further. The gadget must have fallen off during their rush to get off the roof. Without it he had no way to contact Angus, no way to arrange landing, or warn the poor kid. Jake carried the other radio. “Let’s get to the basement, and find the others.”

She followed without being pulled now, and Skyler felt grateful for the freedom of movement. He instructed her to keep two paces behind and continued down the steps.

He ignored the doors he came across, marked with decreasing numbers, until they reached one that said B1.

The muffled sound of Samantha’s shotgun echoed through the building. It came from everywhere and nowhere.

Two shots, a third. Then nothing.

Skyler fought the urge to race to Samantha’s aid. He glanced back at Tania and saw terror there. Less than before, but not gone.

“Go. Help her,” Tania whispered, her voice amplified by the speaker on her suit.

“I’m not leaving you here,” he said. “Grab my jacket, we’ll move faster.”

He turned the door handle and slipped into the hall beyond. They were at a corner. Cracks ran the length of the linoleum floor. Parts of it curled where sections joined. Black blotches of mold grew on the walls and ceiling. It stank of age and stagnation, and the hint of human waste. Skyler let a wave of nausea pass.

The idea to abort the mission crossed his mind. He doubted that any of the equipment Tania needed to access here still functioned, judging by the state of decay in the hallway. The place was a wreck.

Her grip of his jacket somehow reassured him.

The blueprint had outlined a square-shaped basement beneath the four buildings above. Skyler guessed that the hall, which went either left or straight ahead, lined the entire perimeter.

“Six of one,” he said, and went straight.

Two doors on either side of the corridor ahead were open, blocking his view. A pile of debris spilled from one room—a storage closet, Skyler noted. Cleaning supplies and other basics. On any other mission he would stop to pick through it for useful items. This time he shimmied over the mound and then helped Tania to do the same.

Another corner loomed, fifteen meters ahead.

“Wait,” Tania said.

He turned. Her face looked ghostly under the tiny white LED built into her suit’s helmet. She clutched her silver briefcase under one arm. “Try the lights,” she said, and pointed to a bank of switches on the wall beside them.

“Great idea,” Skyler said. His flashlight would draw subs like moths to a flame. He crossed the hall and flipped the switches one by one.

Clusters of LEDs along the ceiling came to life, flooding the hall with pale white light. Satisfied, Skyler clicked off the light on his gun.

“Skyler?!”

Samantha’s voice, from beyond the corner ahead. “We’re here!” he called back.

“It’s clear, come to us,” she shouted.

Us
. She’d found Jake, and he was okay. A wave of relief washed over him. He flashed a smile at Tania and led her to the corner.

Samantha stood halfway down the next corridor, at a wide alcove that fronted a bank of elevators. The entrance to the lower basement, and the data vault, according to the signage on the wall. A set of ugly green chairs and couches occupied the space, along with a series of empty bookshelves.

Jake sat behind her on the floor, back against the wall, legs straight out. White gauze had been wrapped around his head. His arms cradled his stomach. Skyler thought maybe the man had died, until Jake turned his head and nodded at them.

“You scared the shit out of us with those lights,” Samantha said.

Skyler ignored her and focused on Jake. A gash on his cheek looked superficial. Blood soaked through the bandage on his head.

Tania stifled a gasp at the sight.

“What happened?” Skyler asked.

Jake winced. “Roof caved in. Water rot, I should’ve spotted it. I tried to tell you, but when I stood up I just, I don’t know, blacked out. When I came around the damn subs were right on top of me. Really aggressive bastards, like those ones in Malaysia. I put down seven or eight before they spooked and ran.”

“Worse than Malaysia,” Samantha said. “This place is like a warren, Skyler. I’ve never seen so many in one place, not since the Purge. They’re all over the upper floors.”

“And they did that?” Skyler asked, pointing at the wound.

“No,” Jake said. “The fall did that.”

“I dressed it,” Sam said. She took a long draw from her canteen and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. “He’ll live.”

The sniper coughed and signaled a halfhearted thumbs-up.

“I lost my comm on the roof,” Skyler said. “Does yours work?”

Jake shook his head. “Shattered.”

The bleak news settled in. They had no way to signal the
Melville
.

“Angus is probably shitting himself up there,” Samantha said.

Skyler raced to formulate a plan. He needed to get Tania to the data vault; she’d said it could take her hours to find the data she needs. He checked his wristwatch. “Angus will make a fly-by,” he said for the woman’s benefit, “thirty minutes after loss of contact. We’ll need to get his attention, one way or the other, and tell him how long to give us down here.”

“Do we know that?” Samantha asked.

“Not until I get started,” Tania said, and tapped the briefcase.

While she spoke, Jake pushed himself up to a standing position. He probed at his skull before nodding to Skyler.
I’ve had worse,
his expression said.

“Okay,” said Skyler. “I’ll take Tania below and get her started. Make a barricade with these couches and hold here. We’ll be back with news before Angus flies over.”

Samantha and Jake nodded in unison.

A second passed before Skyler realized Sam had not argued.
Hell
must have frozen over,
he thought.

Skyler led Tania down another stairwell, not trusting the elevators despite power being on. The steps only descended one floor and ended at a heavy door. Though unlocked, Skyler had to give the handle a hard yank before it opened. A waft of cool air hit him as the door swung aside, and they found themselves at the end of a wide hallway.

Something about the place bothered Skyler, and then it hit him: it was clean. The crisp air had a chill bite to it, and carried none of the odors typically found in deserted buildings. He’d been in many places outside the Aura, and Mother Nature had reclaimed it all in some way. Not here.

As his ears adjusted, he recognized the hum of an air conditioner, barely audible but there nonetheless. It knocked and whined, as if it might fail at any moment.

Tania whispered, “Could there be survivors in here?”

Skyler looked at her. The fear in her voice was so obvious that he wanted to hold her. “Doubtful,” he said. “Twice in the past we’ve encountered immunes while in the Clear. One had gone insane over the years and tried to sabotage our ship. The other is my engineer.”

The hallway extended for fifteen meters or so before ending at a closed door. A small window, covered in dust, sat at shoulder height.

“Wait here,” Skyler said, and jogged to the door. He did his best to keep his boots quiet, rolling his feet with each stride, but they still echoed off the beige linoleum surface.

He wiped dust from the window and peered through. Nothing moved in the room beyond. He tried the door handle, gently, and found it unlocked.

With a wave he signaled Tania to come join him.

When she arrived at his back, Skyler raised his pistol and put a finger to his lips. She nodded. Slowly he opened the door and leaned inside. The room was small. White floors, wall, and ceiling, broken only by a series of gray metal lockers on one wall. A few were open, displaying their contents: white jumpsuits and breathing masks.

Skyler pointed at the clothing. “What’s all this for? Is it dangerous inside?”

“I doubt it,” Tania said. “Probably just for keeping dust out of the equipment.”

“Not something we need to trouble with, then. Still, could be valuable.” Skyler opened the satchel strapped to his chest and removed a tightly folded duffel bag. He stuffed it with three jumpsuits and breathing masks.

The other containers were all locked, save one. Skyler opened it to find civilian clothing. He rummaged through the pant pockets.

“What are you looking for?” Tania asked.

Skyler removed a set of keys and jingled them at her. From another pocket he found an access card. “Andrew Ryoko Shu,” he read aloud.

“A. R. Shu,” Tania said, quietly.

Handing her the card, Skyler said, “Know the bloke?”

“The name was in the Japan data. We’re in the right place.”

Satisfied, he slung the duffel bag on his back and moved to the door at the other end of the room. Tania kept one step behind him.

This one proved to be locked. Skyler tried the keys he found, one after another. All failed. Then Tania swiped the access card through a slot on the wall, and a firm click emanated from inside. The door unlocked.

Skyler pulled it open. The floor inside sloped upward and then turned ninety degrees. The hum of the air-conditioning was much louder here.

He stepped inside and felt a rush of panic as a tearing sound came from his feet. Looking down, he saw that he stood on some kind of white pad with a sticky surface, covered in faint, dusty footprints.

“To remove the dirt from your shoes, I think,” Tania said.

Skyler continued up the ramp. Turning the corner, he came into a large room with a high ceiling lined with bundles of cables. Row after row of equipment filled the vast room. Most appeared to be functional, judging by the myriad of small blinking lights.

“This is it,” Tania said.

Skyler looked over the room. “Where do we start?”

She pointed toward one of the equipment racks that still had power. “That one is as good as any,” she said.

Skyler checked his watch. “Is ten minutes enough time to get set up?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” he said, “a quick sweep of the room and it’s all yours. Wait here.”

He scanned each row. All were empty except the last, where Skyler found a toolbox on the floor. Someone had abandoned their work many years ago. On instinct, Skyler went through the box and removed a handful of useful tools, placing them in a pouch within his jacket.

Satisfied the room was safe, he returned to Tania. “You’re on,” he said.

She walked to the computer rack and surveyed its contents. Then she moved around to the other side of the row and opened the access panel on the back side of the same section. Inside, a chaotic mess of colorful cables snaked through metal loops, connecting all the systems together.

Tania removed the briefcase strapped to her chest and set it on the floor. She opened it to reveal a gleaming, streamlined device, clearly far newer than anything else in the room. She opened a small display on the top of it and powered it on.

Skyler watched, fascinated, as she methodically searched through the cables inside the big cabinet, tracing where they started and stopped.

“These gloves make it difficult,” she said.

Through some criteria that he couldn’t understand, she finally settled on one, and tugged it aside from the others.

Next, she pulled a similar cable out of the briefcase. On the top of the device, she slid open a covered section, revealing a bank of various connection ports. Tania scanned them quickly and plugged the cable into the one that matched.

She took the other end, found her isolated cable inside the old computer rack, and held it between two gloved fingers. From the case she grabbed another wire with two pronged clamps on the end.

“Careful,” Skyler said. With all the violence around them, if she ended her mission by poking a hole in her suit …

Tania paused, steadied herself. With deliberate care she punctured the cable and locked the clamp.