The Bridge

by Simon Winstanley

  He reached the elevator roof and took off his backpack.

  “Has your ship… sub, called you yet?” Terry asked Izzy.

  “No,” she stowed the radio again, “The static’s gone but I’m not getting anything. Probably not the best place to get a signal though.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Megan moved to perch next to him.

  Marcus removed the drone recharge pack from his backpack.

  “This is an inverter,” he said.

  “Converts DC to AC,” Megan nodded.

  “I was gonna use it to get the drone going again, but…” he glanced upward, “we’ll never get to it now.”

  “We used the supplies that you tied to that thing,” said Terry, rubbing the cut on his head, “The antiseptic stuff was handy, cheers.”

  “You’re welcome,” Izzy took out a screwdriver and began removing a panel, “So what happened up there, with the soldier?”

  “We were up at the top, trying to work out where to go. He got here…” Megan shook her head, “hell, was it only yesterday?”

  “When he found out we ’ad food,” said Terry, “he kept Meg at gunpoint and had me fetching stuff from other floors.”

  Megan nodded.

  “When your drone turned up, he couldn’t guard us and get your attention,” she rubbed at the bandage on her head, “Asshole butted me with his gun.”

  “Crazy nutter,” said Terry, “machine-gunned out the window. Got what he deserved, if you ask me.”

  Marcus exchanged a glance with Izzy. She appeared to read his expression perfectly and changed the subject.

  “Why go all the way up there?” she said and began cutting through a section of hose, “Why didn’t you just go straight to the tunnels and bunkers?”

  “We were too late,” Terry took a deep breath, “But for as long as I can remember, it’s always been about beatin’ the odds for just another day. This weren’t no different. I thought about all them old disaster movies, you know? You always used to see buildings stickin’ up out the water. So I thought if we got high enough…”

  “You’d survive the tides,” Izzy nodded, “But what if the building got hit, like just now?”

  “Played the odds,” Terry tapped the side of his nose and smiled, “Picked a buildin’ that was narrower at the top, didn’t I?”

  Marcus had to admit, there was a certain amount of sense to what he was saying. If they were just as likely to die from a tidal wave as from a lunar shard strike, pick the option that was less likely to happen.

  A sound of crashing glass came from high above them, accompanied by a sharp shock that passed through the surrounding metal rails. High above them, an orange glow was entering the shaft. Izzy hurriedly removed the panel from the elevator roof, exposing a set of wiring junction boxes.

  Megan let out a laugh, “You’re not trying to get the elevator going with that inverter? It’ll never work.”

  “I know,” Marcus told her truthfully, clipping a set of cables into place, “I’m trying to get it to fail.”

  “Eh?” Terry frowned.

  “The emergency elevator brakes did exactly what they were supposed to,” said Marcus, “When the power went out, they failed in the grip position, stopping the elevator from falling.”

  He saw Megan’s eyes widen.

  “What?!” she pointed at the inverter, “You’re gonna force the brakes open?”

  “Fastest way down,” Izzy answered for him, tying a piece of hose material to the elevator roof, “One floor at a time.”

  Megan stared at Terry, her mouth unsuccessfully trying to form words.

  “Gotta play the odds,” Terry shrugged, “Damned if we do…”

  Megan looked up at the flames entering the upper shaft, “Shafted if we don’t.”

  Marcus took hold of the hose that Izzy had tied in place, “Ready?”

  There were uncertain nods as everyone grabbed hold of the improvised hose strap.

  “Hold tight,” Marcus shouted and touched the inverter’s cable to the brakes’ exposed terminals.

  The elevator jolted and fell, grinding to a halt a few feet lower.

  “It worked!” Izzy smiled.

  Marcus knew that it hadn’t. The elevator brake shoes were still open. Something else had stopped them from falling, perhaps something in the shaft below.

  Far above them, an explosion rang out. The building had obviously been hit again. A violent shudder rippled downward and shook the elevator. There was a metallic-sounding screech from below them, then he felt a sickening lurch in his stomach.

  The elevator was falling.

  REFLEX

  She felt the elevator fall.

  Instinctively, her reflexes took hold and she gripped the hose tightly in her hand. Every muscle in her body suddenly tensed and she couldn’t help screaming out.

  Her eyes flew wide open in panic and she saw the calibration room wall ahead of her. Still breathing hard, Izzy turned to her left and saw the old-looking man who’d helped her into the reclined chair.

  “What…” she began.

  “It’s OK,” he began pacifying her, “You’re alright.”

  As he busied himself disconnecting the electrodes from her head cap, the realisation began to seep back in. The fall hadn’t been a dream, or a nightmarish invention of her sleep. She’d been recalling the events prior to her arrival at the ARC.

  “I was falling,” she found herself explaining, perhaps for her own benefit.

  The man, who she now remembered was called Robert, was nodding.

  “The exit safeguard,” he said, “Not pleasant, I know, but it gives us the metrics, helps us establish tolerances. Everybody falls.”

  “Everybody?” she swung herself upright.

  “Yep,” he nodded, “Evolution’s deep-buried reflex, still hard at work trying to stop you falling out of the tree.”

  Izzy pulled the cap from her head and ran her fingers through her hair, “Feel like I’ve slept for a week.”

  “Nope,” Robert smiled at her readings, “Eight hours. We captured a wide sample of your time-rescaling.”

  “And that’s a good thing?”

  “Yes that’s a good thing,” he said, “With this data you should get a very stable stim-sleep balance.”

  From what Izzy could observe about his mannerisms, he was telling the truth.

  “I’ll just check that the trace is secure,” he walked out of view behind several computer screens.

  She stood from the chair and put her jacket back on. She didn’t know if the others had experienced similar effects during their calibration sessions, but there was something cathartic about it.

  “Mr. Wild?”

  “Yep?” he stood and looked over the top of a screen.

  “I don’t know if the others have said anything,” she said, “but I want to say thanks.”

  He seemed genuinely taken aback, “Er, you’re welcome Miss Kitrick.”

  “After everything that’s happened,” she shrugged, “This process is helping me come to terms with…”

  “Everything…” his eyes seemed weary.

  She nodded and quietly made her way out of the room.

  FIFTEEN

  As the elevator dropped, Marcus flung his arms out to steady himself. The cable he’d been holding went taut and pulled away from the brakes’ terminals.

  Immediately the brakes snapped closed again, biting into the safety rails and sending bright blue sparks fizzing from the corners of the elevator roof.

  The building’s floors continued to shoot past; stencilled numbers briefly illuminated by the sparks’ pyrotechnics. Suddenly the brakes seemed to gain more traction and the elevator jarred to a halt.

  “What happened to one floor at a time?!” Megan gasped.

  “I think the control’s fried,” Marcus quickly checked the stencilled number on the floor above, “We’re on fifteen.”

  “Need to get down to five,” Izzy nodded.

  “Can’t we just go all the wa
y to the bottom?” said Terry.

  “We’d drown, it’s underwater,” Marcus put the matter simply, then turned to Izzy, “We’ve gotta do this manually. Hold on.”

  Gripping the hose material that was still tied to the elevator roof, he connected the inverter again. Three of the four brakes opened, but the final one prevented their departure; it had been damaged during the descent, and was now doing its best to save their lives by holding the entire weight of the elevator.

  “Come on!” Marcus stood and jumped up and down on the roof, trying to force it to move.

  Izzy and the others now joined in, coordinating their efforts to deliver the maximum blow.

  “The brakes ain’t s’posed to be used more than once!” he continued jumping, “Can’t risk ’em jamming again, we’ll have to drop all the way! Keep calling out the floor numbers!”

  The elevator jolted slightly and the valiant brake groaned under the load.

  “Nearly!” he shouted, but before he could take another jump, the brake gave way and they dropped.

  With his arm now more securely restrained by the hose, the inverter cable remained in place, keeping the other brakes firmly open. Through the fast-rushing air, he could see Izzy struggling to angle her flashlight at the side of the shaft. In a swipe of the beam, he briefly caught sight of Terry and Megan doing their best to remain upright.

  “Eleven!” Izzy yelled, “Ten!”

  He had no idea how long it would actually take them to stop, but he’d have to trigger the brakes soon or they’d simply slam into the floodwaters below.

  “Nine!”

  Straining against the hose, he reached down with his other hand.

  “Eight!”

  He grabbed the electric cable and yanked it free of the brake block. The shaft lit up again with a glow of sparks and he felt his legs compress under the deceleration.

  He saw floor seven shoot past: the elevator beneath their feet must already be passing through floor six. The brakes’ friction appeared to ramp up sharply but it wasn’t quite enough to stop them. Marcus saw the number six start to slide past. With a resounding splash from below, the elevator suddenly stopped and tilted sideways, sending them all toppling over.

  On their way up, they’d obviously underestimated the devastation to the lower floors. The shaft itself was damaged; the elevator had left the safety rail. The brakes now had nothing to grip and wouldn’t be able to stop them from sinking into the water.

  “Move!” Marcus pointed to the closed doors in the side of the shaft which seemed to be slowly sliding upwards as the elevator began to sink. A steady hiss began; the air was being pushed out of the elevator car below them.

  As Terry and Megan began freeing themselves from the improvised hose tether, Marcus and Izzy set to work trying to prise open the mechanical doors that would allow them to exit onto the sixth floor.

  Pushing their fingers into the small crack between the doors, they worked to force them wider open. The metalwork began to part and Marcus could see the floor on the opposite side; it appeared to be rising rapidly. If the elevator sank much further, they’d need to climb up to get out.

  The doors were now just wide enough to escape through. As the sound of bubbling water rose from beneath them, he knew he’d have to prioritise who would leave first. Although it went against the grain, he knew what he’d have to do.

  The floor began to draw level with their feet so he grabbed Terry and pushed him toward the gap, “Terry, you can’t climb. You gotta go first.”

  “Megan oughta-”

  “Ain’t a discussion,” he pushed him out, “Izzy, I’m the next weakest.”

  “Yep,” she understood, “Go!”

  As the elevator continued to sink, the roof he was standing on dropped lower than the floor outside. With more effort than it should perhaps have taken, he braced his hands on the doors and hauled himself up and out.

  “Megan,” he turned round immediately, “Let’s go!”

  “Yeah, screw that,” she pushed Izzy forward, “I’m stronger.”

  He knew she was probably right; a few minutes earlier Megan had taken a fall, yet had still managed to catch and climb down a hose.

  “OK, quick,” he grabbed Izzy’s hand and pulled, helping her off the elevator roof; now over a foot lower than the floor.

  As Izzy crawled out of the shaft, Terry pulled a short, knotted rope from a battered-looking bag.

  “I got the Gene Pool rope, Meg!” Terry shouted and began lowering one end of it down to her, “Grab on!”

  Quite what he meant by a ‘gene pool’ rope was something he’d have to ask later but, for the time being, Marcus was just glad of their good luck. Grabbing a knot alongside Izzy and Terry, they took up the strain. At the same time, an ear-splitting metallic shriek came from several floors above.

  “We got you, Meg!” Terry yelled, “Come on!”

  The rope tightened and she made swift work of the short climb. As she neared the top, Terry held out his hand to steady her and together they pulled her free of the shaft.

  A second later, a cascade of debris collapsed onto the elevator roof; a cacophonous, crushing mix of steel and concrete that shook the floor. As the immediate, shaft-filling noise subsided, Megan shook her head and turned away.

  “Not even gonna think about how close that was,” she breathed heavily, “Where now?”

  A strong rumble passed through the floor.

  “We didn’t come in this way,” Marcus shook his head, “We need to get back round to the other side.”

  Izzy shone the flashlight ahead of her.

  “This way, I think,” she set the pace, picking her way through hanging ducts and cables while avoiding holes in the floor.

  Marcus followed close behind, occasionally checking that Terry and Megan were keeping up. As they moved outward, away from the centre, he caught sight of the unsettling night view.

  In a unifying darkness, what had once been office space seamlessly transitioned into a mass of shredded vehicles and portions of masonry from other buildings. This side of The Shard had clearly borne the brunt of a massive tidal wave.

  A burst of static came from the radio clipped to Izzy’s waist. She instantly grabbed it.

  “Tris, come in, this is Izzy!”

  The radio remained silent.

  “Come in,” she tried again, but there was no response and she seemed to start walking faster, “Let’s pick up the pace. Get further round.”

  Only after several more minutes of threading themselves through tight spaces, did they arrive on the northeast side of the building. For the first time, Marcus became aware of how cold it had become. With no external glass to deflect it, a biting wind was now whistling through the open floor.

  Beyond the broken level they were standing on, the shattered Moon’s orbital debris hung in the black sky like a grotesque, sparkling bracelet. Its reflected light caught the miniature ripples of the Thames that lay just a few storeys below.

  “-ou read me?” the radio handset suddenly came to life.

  “Come in,” Izzy was swift to reply, “Yes I read you!”

  “Izzy?” Tristan’s voice crackled through, “You OK?”

  “We’re OK,” she beamed, “What happened?”

  “Don’t have time! Just get down here! Are you still up on the tenth?”

  It took Marcus a moment to remember that the 10th floor was the last time they’d checked in; Tristan had no idea that they’d climbed to, and descended from, the 20th floor. He also had no idea that they were now escorting guests.

  “Long story,” Izzy shortened it, “We’re back on the sixth floor.”

  “I think we’ve got about fifteen minutes.”

  Marcus turned to look at the skies, something that Izzy picked up on.

  “There’s another fragment strike coming?”

  There was a short pause.

  “Maybe…” he said, “but there’s something else… I… I may not have a choice. You have to get ba… aa-”<
br />
  The signal broke down into static again.

  “Down there!” Megan called out, “Gimme your flashlight!”

  Izzy handed it over without question, and Marcus watched as Megan pointed it down towards the water and began flashing the beam on and off.

  A few seconds later, he saw a flash of light return from below, then several bright lights turned on in sequence. Against the dark water, the Iseult lit up like a beacon.

  “-ou have to hurr-” Tristan’s voice quickly disappeared into static again.

  Marcus could feel that the inhaler dose was wearing off. He could see that the Iseult was only a few floors down, but it wasn’t immediately obvious how to get there. The last few impacts had caused several floors to collapse: the stairs they’d used earlier were now simply buried.

  As Megan turned away from the water, the flashlight beam passed over something briefly. Something that was probably relevant, even though he couldn’t directly remember why.

  “Can I have that a sec?” he took the flashlight and began sweeping it around the immediate area again, desperately trying to re-trigger the recognition.

  “What is it?” Izzy spoke at his side.

  “I’m missing something,” he continued sweeping the beam, “but I can’t tell what it is.”

  “Maybe I can,” she watched him carefully, “keep looking.”

  The more he tried to focus on what he’d seen, the more indistinct the feeling became. His train of thought seemed to be fading fast; the inhaler’s effects were now almost completely exhausted.

  “Stop!” said Izzy.

  Marcus immediately stopped swinging the flashlight.

  “There it is!” she almost laughed at what was held in the light beam, “It was just too big!”

  It seemed that Izzy’s particular talent had made another leap forward; detecting someone’s subconscious reactions to inner thoughts.

  Thrust into the side of The Shard by the force of a tidal wave, was the train carriage they’d seen when they’d first arrived in London. Although it was still embedded in the building, the carriage was now sloping down into the water.

  “Whoa…” Megan saw it and tilted her head sideways, “Can we…?”