Behind the desk, stretching the entire width of the room, a room that can’t be less than a hundred yards wide, is a metal wall that rises floor to ceiling like the gate to a medieval castle. For all the formality and refinement of the room—sterility is probably the more apt description—there is no play at keeping that image up when it comes to security. Whoever approved the design of this building was not taking any shortcuts on security, and if that meant screwing with the interior architecture, so be it.
It’s also obvious that the shape of the room matches the shape of the building on the outside—Smalley, Jones, and I are standing at the beginning of a long tube, and if we could tear down the wall in front of us and look straight ahead, the building would go on forever. So it’s great that we got this far into the building, but behind the metal wall, that’s where the business goes down. That’s where we need to get.
“Jesus Christmas,” Smalley says. “This place is freaking weird. Look at that wall, man. What kind of maniac wouldn’t at least put some drywall over that thing? Give it a coat of paint. I feel like I’m in a science-fiction movie.”
“You are in one,” I say, not even trying to be funny. “You’ve been in one for a couple of months now.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right, but still, what kind of person makes a place like this?”
Jones nods his head as he studies the room, and then answers, as if he knows exactly what he’s talking about. “The kind of person who wants everyone who enters this place to know that the only way they’re getting past this room and to the meat of the building is if they’re invited.”
He walks forward toward the desk, continuing to study the room. Smalley and I follow.
“You coming in for a job interview?” he continues. “Got a delivery of flowers. Or pizza or Chinese or the new business cards that just finished printing? You better just plan on parking your ass in one of these chairs until you’re called.” He runs his hand across the back of a stiff, red chair. “No exploring allowed. Ever.”
We reach the front of the desk and stop. “Well then,” I say, “I guess that raises the obvious question: how are we supposed to get through?” I’m looking intensely at Jones. My question is sincere, challenging the man for an answer.
Jones frowns and twitches his head, never taking his eyes from the thick metal door, which looks twice as imposing from the distance we are now. He says nothing.
“There’s got to be a key, right? Maybe here behind the desk or something?” I walk around the front of the desk and assume the position behind it, the position of the receptionist. I pull on the drawers that line the behemoth piece of mahogany furniture. They’re locked.
Jones continues to stare at the door for a few more seconds and then turns to me, as if the question has broken him from a spell. He scoffs and shakes his head. “This isn’t some Podunk restaurant on the South River. This is a billion-dollar building. Maybe several billion. This place is serious. It may not look like much from the freeway, but look at this place. And who knows what kind of technology is back there.
“Yeah, it’s impressive,” I agree. My voice containing a so what? tone.
“My point is, with a place like this, there’s no key to the door. Not to that door.” Jones raises his eyebrows and dips his head toward the back wall. “Not to the door that leads to the kingdom.”
“So we need a badge? That’s what I told Stella.”
“Who’s Stella again?” Smalley asks.
“Not even a badge,” Jones says, not allowing us to digress. “Look at the door. There’s no badge reader for that door. There’s a key pad. Only a code will open that door. Probably no less than eight digits, and probably changed frequently. So unless you know what that number is—or have a thousand years to figure it out—you’re not getting through.”
“Why can’t we just break it down?” Smalley asks. It’s the question of a child, but it needed to be asked.
Jones hesitates, blinking quickly several times, processing the question, and then he busts into a full laugh.
“What?”
“Break it down? With what? More of your rocks? You think that will work?”
“No, I didn’t mean with ro—”
“No!” Jones snaps, and then softens his eyes almost immediately, putting his hands up in a silent apology, shaking his head as if to strike the outburst from the record. “No, we don’t have what we need to get through that door. Not even close. We need a code. Without it we’ll need dynamite. Maybe. A grenade launcher, perhaps. And I’m not even sure those would work. It’s over. This was a good idea, we needed to investigate this place, but it’s a dead end. Let’s just head to the river and see if we can find Dominic’s friends. That was the original plan anyway. If we find—”
And then we hear it, a sound exploding from the middle section of the door, reverberating through the air with the tenor and danger of electricity. The sound buzzes again, and this time I theorize it’s the work of some magnetic device, releasing the thick latches that secure the door. The metallic noises resonate like the pop of a pistol, inciting in me a similar level of terror.
A second later, three voices begin to ring through the cavernous room as two women and a man step out into the lobby. They’re in mid-conversation, obviously not expecting to see anything resembling the mayhem that has taken place in the lobby area.
The door swings wide towards the desk, only a few steps from where I’m standing. If the door had been hinged on the other side, and opened away from the reception desk, the people exiting would have seen us instantly. Jones and Smalley sprint silently around to the far side of the desk, moving away from the door, crouching down as they turn the corner. They glide in like paratroopers and stop on a dime as they sidle up beside me. No one is making eye contact. No one is breathing.
“I don’t understand why we have to come all the way out here for a bag of pretzels and a soda,” one of the female voices complains. “A billion-dollar company, you’d think they would be able to afford a vending machine in more than one location.”
“It has nothing to with being able to afford,” the male voice instructs. “It’s a security issue.”
“Potato chips and candy bars?”
“Yes, actually. How would the vendor get back in the crypt to stock the machines? Can you imagine the process for something so trivial? It’s too much of a hassle. The powers that be certainly aren’t going to allow it just so as not to inconvenience low-level employees like you two.”
“Listen to you now,” the other woman says. “Gets a promotion and suddenly he’s no longer a member of the same class.”
“Damn right.”
“You and Colonel Badass and Ms. Wyeth are—”
“What the f...?”
I can hear the awe in the voice of the first woman as she cuts off her profanity mid-word, and I know instantly it’s her reaction to the shattered front windows. These three employees—I can’t know their positions at this point, but there seems to be a level of hierarchy separating the man from the women—obviously didn’t hear the shattering from behind the thick steel door; but they sure as hell can see the damage now, the entire first story of the building’s glass front has detonated across the floor of the lobby.
“What?” the other woman asks. “What is it?” And then, almost immediately, she cries, “Oh my god!”
“Who’s here?” the male voice shouts, his voice suddenly masculine and alert. I can almost see his head on a swivel, whipping his eyes around the room, searching for the danger.
I’ve yet to take a breath, my eyes wide, animated, trying to catch the looks of my companions, both of whom have maneuvered themselves in front of me now, facing me. But their eyes are still averted, up and to the side, listening.
“Maybe it’s just vandals, Spence? You think? Maybe they just busted the door and left.”
“It’s not vandals. Anyone still in the cordon who took the time to do this would have ripped the place apart. Look at the furniture.
It’s all untouched.”
I can hear the man—Spence—take a step in our direction, toward the desk, the tight rubber soles of his shoes clicking out past the doorway and around to the front of the reception area.
Jones still doesn’t meet my stare, despite the telepathic shouts I’m hurling in his direction, and instead presses two fingers on top of Smalley’s forearm. She snaps her head towards him, meeting his gaze, and Jones tips his head in the direction of the door, pauses for a moment, and then nods back to her. He then touches his chest and dips his chin in the direction of the clicking heels.
Smalley blinks a couple times and then nods, a gesture that says she’s deciphered the charade and is ready to go. Her face is serious, focused, and for the first time since our original encounter at the Clam Bake, I see the soldier in her.
Finally, I wave a hand low, and get their attention, and I flip up my hands. What about me? But Jones only holds up a hand and shakes me off, and then points to the floor, telling me to stay put.
I’m offended at first by the snub, particularly after the heroic acts I performed inside the grocery store and at the gift store of the Clam Bake. I can hold my own. If it wasn’t for me, in fact, we’d all be dead now, massacred by the horde at the entrance of Gray’s Grocery.
But that’s a pointless position for me to take now. It’s not a contest to see who’s been a bigger badass, it’s about continuing to survive. And Jones and Smalley seem better suited to lead that endeavor at the moment. I can feel the calmness coming from them both. They seem to be in their environment, hunkered down in wait while the enemy paces around us, silently sending codes to one another, having already formed a plan before I’ve even been acknowledged.
I mouth the word “Okay,” and then Jones puts his hand against my right hip and presses, moving me to the side, out of the way. He crouches forward, taking my place under the desk, and then holds up three fingers above his head, making sure to keep it below the height of the desk. I look back and see that Smalley is fixed on his fingers.
“What are we going to do, Spence? Maybe we should call in the airlift. They’ll want us to do that. We have to go tell them. Maybe they can get us out of here today instead. I mean they’ll want to leave, right? If someone is here, inside—if they’re inside—we have to get out.”
“Stop talking!” Spence snaps. The voice is right in front of us, just on the other side of the desk, slightly past where the three of us are stooped, hidden.
I look back to Jones, his three fingers still frozen above him. And then the three fingers become two. Then one.
When the last finger falls and the hand becomes a closed fist, Smalley, still crouched, takes two steps toward the edge of the desk that’s closest to the interior steel door where the three D&W workers emerged. And then she rises up.
Simultaneously, Jones explodes to his feet, almost causing me to shriek at the force of the motion. There’s not a single muscle twitch wasted in the movement, and within seconds, the man called Spence, recently promoted by D&W upper-management, is lying flat on his back atop the reception desk. Jones is hovering above him, his arm wrapped tightly around his neck.
Concurrent with Jones’ attack, I hear the shrieks of the two women, presumably from the sight of Smalley appearing in a dash from behind the desk. But the two shrieks become one almost instantly, as the first scream is replaced by the sound of colliding bodies.
There’s too much happening for me to stay put, and against Jones’ command, I follow Smalley’s path from behind the desk. I clear the view of the desk and can now see the result of the collision sound. One of the women is lying on the ground about six feet from Smalley, and Smalley has wedged her body between the steel door and the jamb.
The second woman is standing about ten feet away from the door and is backing up slowly toward the front entrance, rotating her look between Jones, Smalley, and now me.
“Who the fuck are you?” Spence asks, the crook of Jones’ arm around his neck severely limiting the clarity of his voice.
Jones ignores the question. “Dominic, get behind her. Don’t let her leave.”
I quickly run past the startled woman and position myself between her and the open glass façade. But it seems unnecessary at the moment. The woman is stunned, and she gives no indication that she plans to flee.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Spence says. “Where is she going to go? She wouldn’t make it three hours out there.”
“We have to get back inside,” the woman on the floor says, her voice teetering on panic, now recognizing their vulnerability. “We’re not secure anymore. We can’t stay here.”
“Who are you,” Spence repeats. “What are you doing here? This is a private, legal business. You have no right to be here.” He squirms, kicking his feet out, testing Jones’ grip. But the soldier squeezes tighter, gagging the man, locking him down tighter in the bend of his elbow, using it like the jaws of a vise.
Spence tries to speak again, and this time, Jones pulls him fully over the top of the desk and down to the floor. They both disappear from view, and for a moment, all we can hear are the violent sounds of a scuffle.
In a matter of moments, Jones rises back to his feet, and then a second later, he raises his clenched fist and brings Spence up in front of him by the back collar of his shirt. There’s a small pistol in Jones’ hand now; the barrel of it is slanted up in the direction of Spence’s skull.
“Wasn’t expecting this prize at the end?” Jones says. “It’s a good thing too, because I probably would have gone with a different strategy.”
Jones looks over at Smalley for the first time since the plan unfolded and smiles weakly. “Thank god. You got there in time. Something tells me Mr. Spencer here would have died before giving us the code.”
“Damn right I would.” Spence replies, and there’s nothing in his tone to suggest he’s lying.
“Please don’t hurt us.” It’s the woman who Smalley shoved to the floor. She’s now on her feet, holding her left arm at the bicep. “We didn’t have anything to do with...whatever happened. We just work here. It was—”
“Shut up, Pam,” Spence interrupts, but the command lacks energy and authority.
“You didn’t have anything to do with what?” I ask.
Pam averts her eyes from Spence. “What happened here. The experiment.”
“Shut up!”
“They know, Spence. They’re here. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t know.”
“What else?” Jones asks. “How far does it go? Is it everywhere? Is it the world?”
“God no,” the woman answers. Her voice is a whisper. “The world?”
I can see the genuine confusion in the woman’s eyes, the disbelief that we’re that out of touch with what’s happening.
“Why would you think that? Is that what they told you?”
It is what they told us, of course. The early radio broadcasts said the world was a frozen ball of ice now. But it was obviously just part of it, part of the whole plan to keep us contained. Stella, Tom, Danielle and I had floated that theory, that it was part of the experiment, and now I know it’s true. Thank God. There’s hope.
I think of my other group again, whom I’m now certain are dead, but I shake the thought away, trying to stay focused.
“How are you alive?” the other woman, the one I’m guarding from leaving, asks. “How could you be alive still living out there? They’re everywhere now.”
“How do you know that?” Smalley asks. “How do you know what’s out there? I thought you couldn’t survive for three hours out there. How do you know what’s happening then?”
She shakes her head, bewildered by the question. “I see them when we leave the cordon. We all see them.”
“You leave?”
Again, a head shake of puzzlement. “Of course we leave? Did you think we lived here?”
“Goddamn it, Sydney,” Spence says, the words spitting out through tightly gritted teeth. He’s apparently re-ener
gized and resuming his authority over the women. “If you say another fucking word, I will—”
“You’re not gonna do a goddamn thing!” Smalley interrupts, pointing a finger of warning at Spence, who, with the muzzle of a pistol currently resting against his head, is in no position to argue.
“How do you leave?” Smalley asks calmly. “I don’t see any cars out there. You have some kind of limo service that comes and picks you up?”
“The airlift,” Jones says. “She mentioned an airlift a minute ago. They must have a helicopter come in. Is that it?”
The woman nods. “Yes.”
“Christ,” I say. “So how does that work exactly? You have a landing pad on the roof?”
“No. Inside.”
“Inside? Inside the building? You mean the roof opens up?”
The woman nods again.
“Jesus, who the hell owns this place?”
“Nameless and faceless, that’s who. Like I said, we just work here. You have to believe us, we had no idea what was going on with the experiment. Not really.”
“I’m getting very tired of hearing that.”
“So the airlift isn’t coming today. When’s the next one?”
“It’s supposed to be Wednesday,” Pam answers. “But sometimes they come a day early, sometimes a day late.”
I look at Jones and Smalley, and I can tell instantly they’re having the same confused reaction that I am. “What day is today?” I ask.
Pam frowns and looks away, embarrassed, ashamed at the suffering that she, if not the direct cause of, has at least played some role in administering. “Tuesday,” she says.
“Looks like we have some time to kill then,” Smalley says, and then clicks her head up toward the front entrance of the building. “And we certainly can’t hang around here. Check it.”
I turn around slowly, and in the fraction of a second it takes for my vision to span the vast expanse of the lobby toward the building’s front door, two crabs have crawled through the gaping holes where two glass doors used to be. The bloody streaks left by the shards of glass are already apparent on their heads and torsos, even from this distance, so stark white are their bodies.
They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2] Page 19