by Joe Pascente
The elevator doors shut without any warning and Angela ran towards the doors, but didn’t make it in time. The doors had shut and the elevator was now on its way to the rooftop, with Jacobi stuck inside. Angela banged on the elevator buttons, but it didn’t stop. She banged her hand against the closed doors, and watched the numbers escalate. There was no way of knowing which floor the elevator would stop at, so she couldn’t go to the stairs until she found out.
But as she watched the elevator numbers click floor by floor, she heard a gun revolver cocking, and realized that she and Jacobi had walked right into the trap that had been laid for them.
With a commanding kick, Ace flung the 21st floor door wide open, gun out and ready to pull the trigger at any sign of one of his former associates. He held onto his cross with his other hand, praying for Dr. Haven to still be alive. Over the earpiece, he had heard this was the floor Duke had planned to meet Dr. Haven at, inside the Cloning Laboratory. So all he had to do was find this lab, and save the day. Seemed simple enough to Ace, especially knowing he had the element of surprise on his side.
Noticing the window at the end of the hallway was beginning to show signs of dawn’s light, he walked that way first. He passed by a few rooms, but each room had the look of a boardroom, contrary to a laboratory. Ace made it to the end of the hallway, passing each separate room along the way and none of the rooms remotely resembled what he pictured a cloning laboratory would look like.
Ace took just a small moment for himself and looked out the giant glass window. Still holding onto the gun with his right hand, he felt the cold air-conditioned glass with his left palm and removed his hand from the glass. He stared at his palm print slowly fading into evaporated matter when he felt the stinging sensation of a large knife being plunged into his back.
Before he knew what had happened, Ace heard a familiar voice. “That’s for Rocky.”
Biding her time just right, Bows had hopped down from an air vent in the ceiling tiles to make her move. There would be no gun battle between the two ex-lovers, as Bows foresaw how that would’ve ended up for her. So she knew she only had one chance to attack Ace in a devious manner, and she took it. It wasn’t honorable, and it was definitely against an assassin’s code, but she stabbed him right in the back like the cold killer she was.
At first, Ace didn’t realize how bad the stab wound actually was, until he turned around trying to reach for the knife, but couldn’t grab it. It was just an inch to the right of his spine, and had barely punctured his right lung. Bows had the upper hand at this turnaround and grabbed his hands, holding the gun above their heads.
Ace used all the strength he had to try to hold onto the gun but his grip was slipping, due to the intense sweat coming from his palms. He knew if he didn’t do something fast, Bows would get the best of him. Using his body weight, he backtracked into the wall behind him, and using his left foot against that wall, he propelled himself and Bows into the opposite wall. The gun slammed against the wall and fell out of his hand. Bows bent over to pick it up but Ace grabbed her by the neck and flung her between him and the window.
Time slowed down and Bows looked into his eyes. She knew she was cornered now, but Ace still had the knife in his back and if she could just grab it and twist it, she could regain control over this battle. But as time trickled back to orderly speed, Ace made a last ditch effort purely driven by his adrenaline and did a 180 degree-spinning kick landing his right foot into Bows’ chest, knocking her into the window.
These windows were sturdy, but Ace’s kick was too powerful and when Bows hit the glass, her body smashed into it and she screamed the entire 21 stories down to her death. Ace fell to his knees, trying to catch his breath, hyperventilating at this point. He crawled to the edge of the hallway and looked down at Bows’ body, sprawled out on top of a pool of her own blood. The window had completely shattered, except for a few shards of glass that hung onto the edge of the building and attached to one of the shards was the bow she had in her hair. It blew away in the light breeze that Ace felt on his sweaty face. Collapsing on the floor, everything went black.
DING…
The elevator door opened to the rooftop, and as Jacobi walked out, he saw nothing but an empty rooftop. Standing on top of elevator hub, Boulder looked down on Jacobi as if he were a zebra in a lion’s territory.
Just a moment ago, Boulder was standing at the edge of the roof, looking down onto the ground. He had, of course, heard the screams from Bows as she plummeted to her death. Looking down upon her dead body, Boulder comprehended this was the end; not necessarily for him, but concerning him and the bodyguard, one of them was not escaping this rooftop alive once he arrived.
And not ten seconds later, the whizzing of the elevator alarmed Boulder into getting in position above the elevator hub, ready to spring on his prey.
Boulder was a large man, and when his full body weight landed on Jacobi’s back, his knees gave out and Boulder tackled him face first into the rooftop surface. This caused Jacobi’s gun to pop off two shots, before he was flattened like a pancake. As Boulder was still on top of Jacobi, he tried to wrestle the gun out of his hand, but Jacobi refused to let go. He fired off another three shots into the air, managed to get his left arm free, it was still hurt from being dislocated, but it was strong enough to poke Boulder’s other eye, temporarily blinding him.
Jacobi hit Boulder in the rib cage where he had shot him, and Boulder gasped in pain. He leaned over holding onto the bruised wound, and swung his arm around knocking his fist into Jacobi’s jaw, upper cutting him. Jacobi went flying in the air, landing on his back. Jacobi was in critical pain, but he crawled to his gun, as Boulder ran to the opposite side of the rooftop.
Still dizzy from hitting his already swollen head into the rooftop surface, Jacobi fired off the rest of his clip trying to hit Boulder but he missed every single shot. At the very least, this gave Jacobi some time to recuperate while Boulder was at the far edge of the rooftop.
Boulder laughed a hearty chuckle. “Not a very good shot, are ya?”
“I recall already shooting you once today, you oversized jamoke!”
“We all get lucky, sometimes. Too bad, Jeremy won’t be.”
Jacobi took a second to gain his composure and try to stop the ringing in his head. He noticed Boulder was staring at something right off the rooftop. It was a window washing lift, and Jeremy was tied to it. His mouth was gagged and his wrists were handcuffed around the lift.
Jacobi couldn’t see Jeremy from where he was at, but he knew from the boom mechanism, that Jeremy was on the lift. Boulder didn’t waste a second as he started the electric saw and began to cut the wire cables holding the lift to the rooftop boom mechanism. Boulder was laughing uncontrollably, and Jacobi had one shot to save Jeremy’s life.
Boulder was at a disadvantage because of his sliced eye, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings as well as he usually would be. Jacobi was still on the rooftop surface, not able to move much due to his injuries, but still not completely immobile. He did play this up for Boulder, pretending he was close to passing out, when he slipped a small circular tube out of his jacket pocket. This was one of the weapons he had gathered from Mr. Hornsby’s home.
It was a small-scale blow dart gun from Mr. Hornsby’s personal collection. Jacobi had always admired it ever since he had brought it back from Peru, and wanted to give it a try. But Mr. Hornsby had always told him it was a gentleman’s weapon of choice, and Jacobi was no gentleman. It was ironic thinking of it now that he knew Mr. Hornsby had been the one to betray him in a not so gentlemanly manner, but he didn’t let that distract him at this time.
He would only have one shot at this, and he had to nail it. He had loaded the dart prior to taking it from his boss’s home, but there was only one. If he messed this shot up, he would be out of options. With his dominant eye, Jacobi took aim wrapping his hands around the tube directly in front of his mou
th. He filled his cheeks with enough air to propel the dart across the rooftop, and exhaled sharply.
Boulder had just cut the second wire cable of the lift, and Jeremy was sliding around, almost falling off the lift completely. By the time he looked back at Jacobi, the dart had flown at a top speed and made contact with Boulder’s chest. He felt the small prick of the needle in his chest, stopped the electric saw to free both his hands and pulled the dart out, dropping it on the rooftop.
“Make that twice today,” Jacobi shouted in Boulder’s vicinity.
Boulder was standing on the rooftop edge while he was cutting the wire cables. This was clearly a bad place to be standing, when a dart so powerful it would knock an elephant out makes contact with the intended target resulting in the poisons to seep through the veins and cause an immediate cardiac arrest. Grabbing his chest due to the extreme pain he now felt, he lost his balance and fell backwards onto the lift.
Jacobi managed to get to his feet making his way over to the edge of the rooftop where the lift was now hanging by one solid wire cable and another that was frayed and about to snap. Boulder was shouting in pain, writhing around causing the cable wire to fray faster with all the weight now on the lift. It only took a few seconds for the third cable wire to fray completely and snap causing the lift to hang by a single wire.
Boulder fell to the opposite edge of the lift and held on with both hands. Jeremy was handcuffed to the opposite side of the lift, trying his best to slip his hands out of them. Jacobi knew it was just a matter of time before the last cable wire snapped and the lift fell to the ground, so he made the decision to climb down the wire cable and onto the lift to save Jeremy.
There was only one way he could manage this in time. He needed Boulder’s help. Using the lift’s walls, Jacobi slid down to the side of the lift that Boulder was hanging from. His face was flush and his pupils were dilated to the maximum.
Jacobi took a chance. “You’re going to die. The poison in your veins is heading straight to your heart and it will happen no matter what you do. But you can die either as a hero, or a villain. Give me the key to his handcuffs.”
Boulder had predicted one of them wouldn’t be leaving that rooftop with their lives, he just didn’t expect it to be him. He thought about his brother and Bows. This mission had killed them, and now he was to be next.
“Please. We don’t have much time! I need the key!” Jacobi begged.
Boulder had a good grip with his right hand, so he let go of the metal bar he was holding onto with his left hand and reached in his pocket. He grabbed the key and placed it in Jacobi’s hand.
Before letting go of the lift due to his heart bursting, Boulder’s last words were, “If I had to go out, I’m glad it was by your hands. You’re a worthy warrior.”
Jacobi watched Boulder fall to his death. It happened in slow motion, but at the same time, quite suddenly. He didn’t have to watch his body hit the ground, for he could hear the end result, even from way up on the rooftop. There wasn’t time to process this because he had to quickly maneuver his way back to Jeremy.
The last remaining wire was bouncing back and forth and fraying due to the constant weight it had to hold up. Jacobi’s hands were shaking as he looked down at the ground at the two dead assassins. If he dropped these keys, Jeremy would be the next dead body down there. And if he didn’t manage to get off this lift when it fell, he’d be the fourth.
The handcuff key slid into the lock and Jacobi turned the key, unlocking the handcuffs. Jeremy removed his gag and held onto the lift for dear life.
“Follow me, Jeremy. We’re going to be okay!”
“I can’t do this! I can’t climb that thing!” Jeremy said, panicking.
“You have to. You’re going first.” Jacobi grabbed Jeremy’s arm and pulled him up from the lift and onto the cable wire. Jeremy succeeded in his climb, although he was climbing slowly. Jacobi followed him up close behind, but heard the wire snapping inside the cable.
There was a loud cracking noise and the lift snapped off from the wire cable, falling to the Earth just barely missing the bodies of the deceased assassins. Jeremy made his way to the rooftop ledge and climbed over. Jacobi quickly followed. They sat against the ledge catching their breath and looking up at the morning sky. During their time on the rooftop, the sun had peaked out above the horizon and lit up the clouds in the sky.
“You see that one, there? It looks like a monkey playing a flute.” Jeremy said, pointing at a random cloud cluster. He started laughing to himself.
Jacobi didn’t understand what he was saying and didn’t really care. He knew he had to get back in the building and get to Angela. Her life was on the line.
I’m coming, Angela… wherever you are, just hold on…
III. What’s in a Name?
“Little fact about me, I’ve always had a phobia of elevators. I get claustrophobic and I panic because I get all choked up and can’t take a breath. You ever have that feeling? You know, like you’re trapped and there’s no way out. It’s terrifying.” Duke was speaking to Dr. Haven, holding his pistol against the back of her head.
They were waiting for the elevator to come back down to the lobby, so they could take it back up to the 21st floor. For the few minutes of interacting in the lobby before this point, they spoke very few words to one another—mostly because they heard the sound of Bows’ body hitting the pavement. Duke told Angela to come with him outside the building to check out what had happened. Once he glanced at the body and discovered it was Bows lying dead on the ground, he knew part of his plan had failed. Bows was supposed to kill Ace, not the other way around.
While Duke paid his respects to Bows by closing her eyelids, Angela spotted a man hanging on the window-washer’s lift attached to the rooftop. It was hanging by three cable wires at this point, and swaying back and forth. She could see another man standing on the rooftop ledge, but she couldn’t make out who it was. The sun was beginning to peak just above the horizon so her vision was a bit limited, especially since she was looking at figures 30 stories above her.
But Angela had a terrible feeling the man hanging off the right side of the lift was Jeremy. Her gaze was broken when Duke grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in front of him.
Duke wasn’t paying any attention to the rooftop. “And we’re walking back inside. Step to it, Doc.”
He was already thinking about Ace being loose in the building. He didn’t want any surprises from him, so he would have to investigate what happened up at the 21st floor. He pressed his pistol’s barrel into the back of Angela’s head and walked her back inside over the broken glass doors and into the lobby.
That’s when he gave her his passive aggressive elevator jargon. Angela couldn’t concentrate on Duke’s words. She was too worried about Jeremy and Jacobi. She knew Jacobi was on the rooftop because she was watching the elevator come back down from the top floor.
The elevator doors opened and Duke pressed the pistol against Angela’s head pushing her inside. Once inside, Angela stood against the left side of the elevator wall and stared at Duke, who was nonchalantly standing against the opposite wall.
Angela wanted answers. “Why are you people doing this to me? Who hired you?”
“Oh, my dear, it’s honestly not important at this point. People want you dead all over the world. Your precious love drug was the worst thing that’s ever happened to this world. Giving people an unreliable hope to find their special someone? It’s fantasy. There’s no such thing as true love, and you know it.”
“I know I care about that man up on the rooftop. And I know you have the power to help him. Jeremy doesn’t need to die over this. You have me, you don’t need him.”
“He might survive, I don’t care one way or another about his life. What I really care about is my team and now they’re all dead except for one.”
“That’s not his fault, or mine for t
hat matter. You all came after me, remember?”
“That pesky bodyguard of yours is really something. If I didn’t have to kill him, I’d want him to join my squad. He’s quite the talent.”
The elevator doors opened at the 21st floor and there was a trail of blood on the floor from the elevator to the shattered window across the hallway. There was a light breeze coming from the open window, reaching the sweaty faces of Duke and Angela. He pushed her in front of him and made her lead the way down the hallway. Angela walked slowly, hoping to delay the inevitable.
“Ace…where are you, son?”
Duke was peering his head into every door of each room along the hallway. At first glance, Duke was certain Ace had escaped this floor, since there was a trail of blood leading to the elevator doors. Except, there wasn’t a smidge of blood in the elevator. This was too suspicious for Duke to reasonably prove one way or another if Ace was still lingering around on this floor. Angela had reached the end of the hallway and was stepping into a small puddle of blood by the broken window.
The sun was further up above the horizon and lit up the building with a shining bright orange glow. Looking out the window, she knew what Duke wanted her to do.
“I believe my mission leader has a crush on you, Dr. Haven,” Duke began to say, still pointing the gun at Angela. “I’m not sure if he’s still with us or not, but I’m pretty sure he will show his self-righteous face to save your pitiable life. So, I want you to jump.”
Angela had predicted correctly. This insane man wanted her to jump out of this window and fall to her death. She took a step forward and reached the ledge of the hallway. Turning around, she stared into the eyes of the man that wanted her to jump.
“I won’t do it.”
“Then I’ll shoot you dead, right here; although, it would look better as a suicide. Imagine the headlines: The marvelous Dr. Haven’s suicide. Loved and Lost. It will be spun as a romantic Romeo and Juliet story. The love of your life died at the hand of assassins who were after you, but being the cause of his death, you didn’t want to live anymore! And so you jumped.”