ViraVax (25 page)

Chapter 34

Harry looked behind their peel-and-peek and used the handle of his spoon to unscrew the bases of their light fixtures. He tapped and poked every square meter of ceiling. He wanted to find a way out before they were moved to a real room in another part of the facility. The machinery sounds around them had died down.

“They’re shutting down for Sabbath,” Sonja told him. “We’ll probably be stuck here until Monday morning.”

The elevator shaft is a straight shot,
he reasoned.
If they take us anywhere else, well get lost in the maze and never get topside.

Sonja paced, trying to draw the attention of any observers away from Harry.

“What are you looking for?” she whispered.

“The service hatch,” he whispered back. “There’s got to be one.”

When Harry was five his father stopped an elevator between floors. The two of them were the only passengers, and his father had said, “Let me show you something,” then he pushed a red button on the number panel. The numbers went all the way to number 10. Number 5 was lit.

A sudden stop had pitched Harry to his knees, and a loud, clanging bell hurt his ears. Harry had clapped his hands over his ears and did not try to get up. The Colonel had silenced the bell with a screwdriver from his back pocket.

“Now,” he’d said to Harry, “look here.”

The Colonel had reached up to the top of the elevator, lifted the big, square light fixture up and set it aside with a
clunk
onto the top of the car.

“The elevator is just a box,” he explained, “and that’s the top. I’ll lift you up, and then come up after.”

Before Harry could protest, his father had him under the armpits, over his shoulders and through the hole. It was a high, dusty shaft, cool, and it smelled of oil. Besides the light that lay beside him, Harry saw light spilling from around the sides of elevator doors all the way up the shaft.

“Move over,” his father said.

Harry scrambled aside as his father heaved himself up, then through the hole. The Colonel picked up the light fixture, replaced it, then squatted at a dusty control panel atop the elevator.

“Sit here in the middle,” his father warned him. “Things coming up and down the walls will take your arm off. Stay away from that cable, it’s greasy. Your mother would kill me if you got grease all over you.”

A cable as thick as Harry’s wrist looped over a framework atop the car. The Colonel pushed a button, and the bell came on again. He pushed another, and it went off. The next button he pushed started the car going up, and Harry saw why it was important to stay away from the walls. A huge concrete weight whooshed down its track in the wall and he jerked back, falling against his father.

“Now watch this,” his father said. “Look through the light.”

Harry knelt over the light fixture. The bright light hurt his eyes after the contrast of the darkened shaft, but he could see the whole inside of the car. His father stopped it, opened the doors, and a young, long-haired couple stepped inside.

“Do you think it’s safe?” the girl asked, looking the car up and down.

“It’s running,” the boy answered. “The alarm stopped. It must be okay. Probably some kid.”

He pressed a button and the door closed. The elevator rose one floor, two floors.

The Colonel did something on the rooftop control panel, and the elevator eased to a stop. The couple stepped forward as the doors opened, then stepped back in shock. The elevator had stopped about a meter short of the next floor.

“Shit!” the girl said, pressing herself against the back of the car.

“Yeah, well,” the boy said, grabbing her hand, “let’s go. Let’s get out of here before the doors close.”

He boosted her up to the next floor, then jumped up himself, limber as a cat.

The Colonel and Harry laughed behind their hands as noiselessly as they could. The Colonel closed the doors in the faces of the curious bystanders, and they proceeded to the top of the tenth floor. The Colonel threw a switch that shut the machinery down. He pulled out a pocket flashlight and showed Harry the pulleys and counterweights and explained that he could ride the top of the elevator without getting smashed against the ceiling.

“Never use an elevator if there’s a fire in the building,” his father warned. “The shaft is just a big chimney, the smoke will kill you. Otherwise, remember if you’re stuck in a building, there’s a way out. At the top of the shaft, there’s usually an access door to another floor or to the roof.”

The Colonel showed Harry the doorknob, opened it, and there was the bright light of day at the top of the world. He closed the door.

“Remember,” he went on, “from an elevator, there’s a way into the shaft. From the shaft, there’s a way out. If nothing else, you can reach the doors to the floor above you and pry them apart.”

Later, waiting out a roadblock on the way home, his father had told him something else.

“Everything is a trap,” he said. “Before you leave the entrance to any room, make sure you have an exit. Before getting into a car, make sure it has door handles inside. Remember, every window is an escape if you can break it.”

Only lately did Harry realize how differently he and his father saw the world. Harry saw a window as a way of enjoying the outdoors without the bugs. His father saw it as an opening for snipers, a source of deadly fragments, an escape hatch.

“Shit!” Harry said, and snapped his fingers. “Window!”

“What window?” Sonja asked.

That two-way mirror is a window,
he thought.

Harry hurried into the bathroom without answering, put his face to the mirror and peered through.

Gone!

The spy crew had shut down and left.

“Harry?” Sonja asked. “What are you doing?”

He put a finger to his lips and shooed her out. Harry inspected the mirror and found that it was installed within the structure of the wall itself—nothing to pry or unscrew. He returned to his bowl in the other room, picked out three balls of rice paste that he’d formed there and handed two of them to Sonja.

“Cover the lenses in here, just in case,” he said. “I’ll get the one over the bathroom, you get the other two. Make it as fast as you can. Ready?”

She licked her lips and nodded. “Ready.”

By the time Sonja covered the second lens, Harry was swinging his chair into the bathroom mirror. His muscles fought back, twitching and trembling. The chair bounced away, cracking the mirror but not breaking it. He recovered his balance and caught a glimpse of his reflection hefting the chair. What he saw made his heart race.

God!
he thought.
I
thought it was Dad!

The tousled black hair, the fierce grip on the chair, the hot, focused anger in his gray eyes, all completed the image. This was his young father during their workouts in the gym. Or, later, his drunken father shattering the kitchen cupboards. Harry swallowed hard and hefted the chair again.

This time Harry placed his feet wide apart, took a deep breath, and as he let it out, he swung the chair into his father’s twisted image with everything he had.

Two of the legs punched through the laminated glass but Harry’s own rubbery legs dropped him to the floor. He reached up and enlarged the holes by pulling out the shards. He got out all the big ones, draped a towel over the sill and squeezed himself through, headfirst. He fell, panting and sweating, between two monitor stations.

He gestured Sonja over and helped her through, and the two of them made it with only a few nicks and cuts.

“Nobody here,” he whispered.

“And no alarm,” she answered.

“None that we can hear, anyway.”

The room appeared to be the workstation for three or four people. All was silent except for the slight whirr of the air-conditioning fan. The little room was crowded with its three terminals and four desks, as though at least half the equipment was there for temporary storage. Sonja started for the door.

“Wait,” Harry said. “There might be an alarm on the doors. Let’s see what we can do from here, first.”

“Like what?”

Harry saw the fight-or-flight gleam in her eyes and noted that she was getting better cooperation from her muscles than he got from his. He waved his hand to indicate their surroundings.

“Like get this elevator running to get us topside.”

Sonja rolled her eyes. “This thing’s the size of a decent house,” she said. “You’re worried about me opening a door—and you think nobody will notice if you fire this thing up?”

“Any better ideas?”

She pointed to the computer terminals in front of them.

“If they’re shut down for the Sabbath, maybe we can call somebody, let them know where we are. You’re the networks whiz, aren’t you?”

“Thank you for the recognition.” Harry bowed slightly. “First, let’s find the access hatch, so we have a back way out in case we’re spotted.”

“You’re right,” Sonja said.

She tiptoed to the door, cupped a hand to her ear and held her breath. “Nothing that way,” she reported.

“Chill,” he said. “Looky there.”

He pointed over her head, to the maintenance hatch in the ceiling over the doorway.

“Help me drag this table over there,” he said.

It wasn’t that easy. The table, like the desks and other heavy furniture, was bolted to the floor with wing nuts. When they unbolted the table and slid it across the doorway, Sonja discovered that the table could be bolted into place to block the door.

“If we can cover that hole we made in the mirror, too,” he said, “we can make it mighty tough on anybody who tries to come after us.”

Harry set a chair atop the table and coaxed the hatch screws out with the handle of his spoon. Sonja unbolted one of the desks, turned it on end and leaned it against the window.

“With or without alarms, somebody will be on our tails,” Harry muttered. “They’ll check their monitors, or deliver dinner.”

Sonja grunted him an acknowledgment, then slid the remaining desk snug against the first and bolted it down. Only two of the legs lined up with the holes for the bolts, but Harry could see that it would take a superhuman effort to knock her blockade free.

“Nice job,” he said with a smile.

“Thanks,” she smiled back, dusting off her hands. “How does it look up there?”

“High,” he said, giving her a hand up. “Very high. But I suppose a hotshot pilot like yourself won’t be intimidated.”

Sonja stood on the chair and poked her head and shoulders through the hatch. “You’re right,” she said. “That’s a long way up. This is
huge.
I’ll bet the whole Pan Am Hotel could fit in here.”

“If it worked like it’s supposed to, it would be impressive,” Harry said. “My dad said that they have crews on these things every day because of the contractor rip-off.”

“Yeah,” Sonja said, “but not on the Sabbath. Sure is black.”

She ducked back inside and stepped down from the chair.

“I suppose you want me to carry you up there,” she joked.

“Now,
that
thought terrifies me,” he said. “I want to try these terminals. We’re going to need the cavalry and they need to know where to look.”

Sonja pulled on his sleeve.

“Let’s just
go”
she whispered. “Somebody will check on us, and I want to be gone when they do it.”

“Just give me a minute,” Harry said, turning to the nearest console. “If I can get outside, I can get a message to the Agency. If anybody can crack this place, they can.”

“All right.” Sonja’s lips were tight with disapproval. “Do it.” Then, as Harry switched on the nearest terminal, she added, “My dad told me that he used me for his password. Maybe my name will work.”

When the machine asked, “User ID?” he responded, “Sonja.”

“Invalid ID,” it responded. “User ID?”

“Try ‘Louise,’ “ Sonja said. “That’s my middle name.”

“Invalid ID. User ID?”

“I have a number that will get us out,” Harry said. “The number Major Scholz gave me. But the dzee might intercept the message. If you’re ready to make a run for it, I can . . . ”

“Try my birth date,” she said. “Let’s save ourselves all the running room we can. Use your access if we hear them coming. Try 1/12/00.”

That didn’t do it, either, but on a hunch Harry typed, “SLB011200.”

The voice-box responded, “Hello, Red. Your last access was 18 February 2015, at twelve twenty-four. You have fifty-six files in personal folders. Eleven messages waiting. Go to?”

He got Red Bartlett’s personal log.

“Harry, send your message and let’s go! They might use gas, like last time, and a pile of furniture won’t stop it. . . .”

“Yeah,” Harry said, “I know. No problem. Let me try something here.”

He saved the Bartlett log to a file called “Out,” then navigated himself out of the local network that tied this set of computers together. In less than thirty seconds he broke through the greater networks of the Level Five system, then into the corporate mainframe topside. From there, he thought he had a line to the outside.

If nothing else triggered an alarm,
he thought,
this will.

The viewscreen announced, “Welcome to Telcom. You have three unretrieved messages and one memo in storage. Read, Download, Help, Exit?”

Sonja touched the top of the viewer, and Harry saw tears welling in her eyes.

“If he left a memo, it would be a holo of himself,” Sonja said. “It would have to be right before he died. Show it.”

“There isn’t time,” he said. “I’ll get it into the block with his other files and we’ll take it out with us.”

Harry dumped the files, memo and messages to block. He addressed the block to Major Scholz’s Agency number and pressed “send.”

The electronic voice reported, “Message sent one hundred percent error-free. Send another?”

“Got it!” he said, and the first
thump
of a fist hit the blockade across the room.

Harry unclipped the data block from the Litespeed and tossed it to Sonja. He typed “Y” to send another message.

“Harry,
please!”

“Get moving,” he said. “I’m coming.”

He turned so she couldn’t argue and typed, “SOS SOS SB & HT held fifth level ViraVax up shaft.” He hit “send” and followed Sonja out the hatch as fleshy blows rained down on the door behind them.