The reprieve didn’t last long; Ross nudged him and nodded out the opposite window. Miles’ first, and hopefully last, airborne commute was nearing its end.
The GenPharm office park sat near the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital research tower. Though he hadn’t worked on that side of the business, Miles had read enough e-mailed press releases to know that his former company had sponsored research projects into various childhood illnesses alongside the staff of CCH. Maybe it was more for PR purposes than actual altruism, but he’d never been in a position to judge one way or another. The entirety of his career there revolved around the networks and computers. And keeping his head down to avoid the chopping block after the downsizing and restructuring, of course.
Funny how different my priorities used to be, Miles mused. I spent so much time in the car driving back and forth, and for what?
Of course, if not for the reduction in hours and alteration of his schedule, Miles wouldn’t have been so close to home on Z-Day. When everything fell apart, he would have been in the same tower the helicopter now approached — the twenty-story admin building.
This building, or the parking lot below, would have been his final resting place. At the motel, he hadn’t cared enough about his job to obey the weapons at work policy; here, he’d always locked his carry gun in the car. The metal detectors at the entrance had made that decision an easy one.
All the buildings in the complex were structures of stainless steel and glass. Before, on a clear day they’d have sparkled in the sunshine. To some extent they still did, though the effect was much reduced. Broken windows dotted the complex, and dust and smoke stains smeared most of the intact ones.
The administration building — his old stomping grounds — was the tallest of the three main buildings of the office park. It loomed over the squat, warehouse-shaped form of the research and production facility. The final tower, the executive office building, was only two-thirds as tall as Miles’ building, but it was more exotic in appearance. Where admin was all straight lines and right angles, the executive office building swooped and arched, from the decorative fountains in front — now overgrown with algae — to the CEO’s helipad on the roof. Miles smirked and recalled how he used to look down at the top of the EOB as the old man came and went in his private helicopter. It was gone now, and he supposed that maybe the boss had made it out. Wonder if he took anyone with him?
It could have gone either way; Miles’ only personal experience with the man had been from a single visit to his office to fix an issue on his assistant’s computer. Miles might have been a potted plant or a painting on the wall for as much attention as the head of the company gave him. At the time, Miles had wondered if that wasn’t worse than a dressing down.
The pitch of the Black Hawk’s engines shifted as Cartwright slowed and began an orbit of the building. Solar panels lined the south and west side of the roof. Miles had always regarded them as a definite PR stunt. The power generated wasn't enough to run the server room, much less offset the electrical needs of the entire building.
As the rest of the roof came into view, Miles shifted, uneasy. Blocky air conditioning units sprouted from the graveled surface. The squared-off building that housed the elevator mechanicals and fire stairs sprouted on the north wall. Unlike the EOB, the admin building did not have a helipad, and it didn’t look like there was enough open space for an impromptu replacement. He turned and looked at Lieutenant Ross. The SEAL caught the glance and smirked.
“Nowhere to land, right?” Ross yelled. Miles frowned and said nothing. The other man grinned. “No worries; Cartwright’s a pro. He pulls into a hover over the elevator shack and you just hop on out. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
“Yeah,” Miles drew the word out. “Sounds like fun.”
Ross clapped him on the back. Across the compartment, Foraker showed a broad mouthful of white teeth in the forest of his beard. Janacek didn’t react at all. The intense young SEAL had his head leaned back against the bulkhead with the bill of his Padres cap tugged down over his eyes.
Is he sleeping?
The helicopter came to a stop. For a moment, the transition from airborne motion to airborne hovering created a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The crew chief, Castillo, left his post near the cockpit and moved over to Miles’ side of the chopper. “Here we go,” he yelled out, giving Miles and the SEALs a thumbs-up. He slid open the side door of the chopper. The interior was immediately filled with the roar of the rotor blades and the wind effect off of the roof.
Castillo clipped a safety line to the interior of the helicopter and to his load-bearing harness in turn, then leaned out of the chopper. Using hand signals, he began guiding the chopper down. After a long moment of slow-motion falling, the helicopter drew into a hover again. Castillo drew back into the crew compartment and clapped Ross on the shoulder. “You’re clear, Lieutenant.”
Ross nodded and rose to a half-crouch. He leaned closer to Miles and shouted into his ear over the roar of the wind. “I’ll lead the way. You come next, if you stumble or lose your footing, I’ll be there to catch you, all right?”
Miles swallowed, and nodded. Foraker and Janacek collected their gear, including a massive duffel bag that took both of them to move. As Ross stepped into the doorway of the helicopter, Miles patted down his own equipment to ensure that everything was secure. When Ross jumped, Miles tugged on the sling of his rifle one more time, just to reassure himself that it wasn’t going anywhere. Castillo beckoned, and Miles stepped forward.
Just focus on Ross, he told himself. Don’t look at what’s around him. Ross, and the roof. That’s your world now.
In the end, it wasn’t bad at all — Ross was right; Cartwright was a wizard with the helicopter. The right wheel was hovering a bare three feet over the roof of the elevator shack. Miles stumbled forward a bit as he landed, but he was able to steady himself and regain his balance on his own.
“Keep going,” Ross said. “But wait on the roof!”
Miles nodded and bent over as he scrambled to the edge of the elevator shack’s roof. Under the swirling rotors, the buffeting of the wind was tremendous; smaller bits of gravel flew around and smacked into his legs. He squinted and wished that he’d worn sunglasses or goggles of some sort to protect his eyes.
The architects who’d designed the admin building hadn’t intended for frequent access to the top of the shack. There was no ladder. Miles dropped to his stomach and mentally estimated the drop. It wasn’t bad, perhaps ten feet. The interior roof of the smaller building was likely to be low, but that at least meant the drop was manageable. He gripped the edge with both hands and rolled away. He grunted as his weight hit and let go after he’d slowed his fall. With the combination of his outstretched arms and height, the drop was next to nothing.
Particularly compared to jumping out of a helicopter.
There was a thump from the shack as Janacek and Foraker pitched the duffel out. Two smaller thumps in quick procession indicated the presence of the other two SEALs. The scream of the helicopter’s engine pitched higher in volume. Miles crouched down and shielded his face as the gale-force winds atop the roof increased. There was a dull roar that fell off to near absolute silence as the helicopter banked away and headed north.
The storm of grit and debris died down, and Miles straightened. Without the need to shield his eyes, he was able to survey the rooftop. A low wall, about waist height, surrounded the entire perimeter. Scuppers perforated it here and there, for drainage. As he’d seen from the helicopter, the southern and western sides mounted aluminum frameworks with angled solar panels. The frames looked not unlike bleachers with the seats removed. If they had to camp out up here for a bit, Miles judged, the solar panels would make for a decent windbreak and shield them from rain if necessary.
The outbuilding housing the fire stairs and the elevator lift equipment was the only other notable structure atop the roof. Miles took a moment to study it as the SEALs lowered themselves off the top and
brought the duffel down.
The heavy metal door to the fire stairs opened outward. There was a rusting metal coffee can to the side of the door that Miles assumed was full of cigarette butts. What was most interesting about the door were the newer-looking additions. A welding bead traced the seam between the door and its frame. Additionally, a thick steel bar hung across the door, supported by a pair of brackets fastened to the block walls of the shack. Coming up beside him, Ross noticed Miles’ study and indicated the door with a jerk of his chin.
“First time in, we weren’t sure how clear the building was. Standard procedure — stay up high and secure any points of access. The elevator car is at the bottom of the shaft, so the only way up from the ground floor is the stairway.”
Miles nodded. “Hear any knocking?”
Ross chuckled, though Miles thought he detected a hint of unease to it. “Not yet. Haven’t spent a ton of time up here, though. Long enough to weld and secure the door, access the server room, and determine we had no way in.” He pointed at the other notable feature in the shack’s wall — a set of metal double doors. “That’s our way in.”
Miles looked at the doors and then back to Ross. “I thought you said the elevator car was at the bottom.”
Ross winked, and said, “Trust me.” He turned to Foraker and Janacek as they came down off of the roof after the duffel. “Chief, I want you up on comms. Report in on our current status, to Hanratty as well as General Vincent. I’m sure Mr. Matthews will appreciate putting his people at ease. Brian, you’re on overwatch. No engagements without clearance, we don’t want a horde coming down on us.”
“Hooyah, L-T,” Janacek said. He shucked out of the straps of his rucksack and carried his rifle over to the roof’s edge to set up shop.
“Highlander Six, this is Hatchet, how copy, over,” Foraker intoned into the headset attached to his MBITR. “We are at the objective, over.” He waited for a long moment, then shook his head at Ross. “No signal with Camp Perry, Mikey. May need to relay through Cartwright.”
“Go ahead,” Ross nodded. He knelt down at the duffel bag and unzipped it. “I’m going to take Mister Matthews on a tour.” The lieutenant pulled a coil of heavy black rope out of the bag. “Ready?”
Miles nodded and stepped aside to let the SEAL lead the way. Ross moved to the double doors and pushed one open. At his nod, Miles stepped inside and let his eyes adjust to the dimness. It wasn’t as bright as outside, but it also wasn’t completely dark. As he adjusted to the difference, he saw why.
The interior of the elevator shack was clean and laid out in a well-ordered fashion. The concrete floor of the room was smooth and glossy, coated in an off-white paint. At the room’s center, metal railings sprouted from the floor and surrounded the elevator shaft itself. In case the rails weren’t noticeable enough, they were painted bright yellow with black bands winding around the horizontal members.
To one side, a pair of vertical I-beams sprouted from the concrete. Horizontal beams from the walls intercepted the vertical beams and supported a large assembly. Miles assumed this was the elevator lift motor itself; the cables from the shaft rolled up into a capstan on one side of it. Metal cabinets with high-voltage warning stickers lined the same wall. Thick power cables connected the cabinets to the motor and a conduit in the floor that must have led to the building’s electrical system.
Light shone from the shaft. As Miles stepped forward, he noted that the topmost elevator exit doors were open. The light originated from there. Huh.
He turned to Ross. “We always figured the solar panels fed back into the building grid, but there must be some sort of cutoff that keeps this running.” He stepped closer and leaned over the railing. The light didn’t carry far enough to illuminate the bottom, so he could pretend that the shaft wasn’t as tall as he knew it actually was.
The top floor of the admin building had been the employee cafeteria — or Miles had thought. He couldn’t see much of the room beyond the elevator door, but he could see enough to note that it ended at a solid-looking security door with a card-reader installed in the wall next to it.
A hidden server room, running on its own auxiliary power, with no posted access from the building’s lone elevator. What in the world is going on here? Miles found his voice. “You do realize there’s a chance that I may not be able to open it.”
Ross shrugged when Miles glanced at him. “Cross that bridge when we come to it,” the other man said. “Let’s take a look.”
Miles looked back down the shaft. “Uh, well . . .”
“Ever rappel before?” Ross said.
“Yeah, no. Not my thing.”
Ross chuckled. “All right, we’ll do it a little different then. There’s a ladder molded into this side of the shaft.” He slapped the floor where they stood, across from the opening. “We run lines from the railing across there, climb down just a bit, and swing inside. I’ll lead and grab you as you come in.”
Miles frowned. “Sure,” he said. “Sounds like an absolute blast. Glad I survived the end of the world to revisit high school gym class.”
Ross shook his head and said, “Let’s saddle up.” The bundle of rope from the duffel turned out to be several coils. Ross secured a pair of doubled-over lines from the rail above the open door, knotting the ends into a complex arrangement with heavy-duty carabiners. He clucked over Miles’ vest for a long moment before returning to the duffel and retrieving a new load-bearing harness. “Here, put this on. No offense, but I don’t want to trust your life to that thing.”
Miles joked, “What, adding eight years of hard use to something that was surplus to begin with isn’t a good prescription for durability?” He adjusted the fit of the new harness and slung it over his existing one. He hefted his rifle and looked at Ross with a cocked eyebrow.
“I’m not leaving mine. You do what you got to do.” Ross clipped the first carabiner onto the rear of Miles’ harness, then did the same for his own. He fussed over the arrangement of the lines for a few moments then finally nodded to himself. Ross threw one leg over the top railing, flashed a grin at Miles, and started his climb down the ladder.
“About ten steps, I’d guess,” Ross murmured. His voice echoed a bit in the shaft, and the hair on the back of Miles’ neck stood up. There was just something eerie about the sound — he hoped it didn’t carry far. Failing that, maybe the building was empty. “And here we go.”
Ross reached up to grab his ropes, pulled down on them, and kicked off from the wall. He swung surprisingly fast — to Miles, at least — and landed just inside the opening in the shaft. Ross’ arms wheeled, and he reached on and grabbed the wall to steady himself as he attempted to catch his balance.
He was in.
The SEAL turned and gave Miles a thumbs up. “Let’s do it.”
Miles took a breath, gave the ropes a final tug to assure himself they were secure and threw his own leg over the top rail. When he got his second leg over, he froze on the edge with one foot on and the other seeking the top rung of the service ladder. He supposed this would have been less nerve-racking if the elevator car had been right below him. What he was about to do had to violate some sort of work safety practice. What would the signs say, after all? ‘It has been 90 days since our last worker turned himself into a pancake’? Not likely.
Miles found the rung. Taking his time, he brought his other foot down to find the next one. His knuckles were white on the rail, but as he lowered himself the angle of his grip changed, and he had to shift to the middle rail. Down four steps, then five, and he had to shift from the rail and now he perched just on the rungs, who knew how many hundreds of feet in the air . . .
Seven down, then eight. On the bright side, the rungs were wide enough for him to have both feet on one at a time. Across the shaft, Ross murmured, “That’s good. Keep one foot in place and turn.”
Miles did as instructed. It didn’t look like a long way to jump, but it sure felt like it. He licked his lips and looked back up. He imitate
d Ross’ tug of the ropes, then went one better — he looped his forearm around them several times then grabbed hold. Here goes nothing.
He pushed off with his free-hanging leg. For a moment that felt like an eternity he hung in midair, and panic swept through him, but then gravity asserted itself. The ropes pulled tight around his forearm and he swung forward. It didn’t feel as fast as it had looked for Ross, but he was sure that was just a matter of perspective. Before he was even aware of moving, he was inside the opening. His feet scrabbled for traction, and he felt the sensation of falling backward.
Ross clamped two hands on his harness, arresting his rearward motion. Momentum thus spent, Miles stood and took a deep, shuddering breath. He was in.
“Not so bad, right?” Ross said. Miles gave him what felt like a weak smile as he tried to stop the shaking that threatened to overwhelm his limbs.
“Right.”
Miles uncoiled the rope from around his arm and rubbed it as Ross unclipped the rope from his own harness, then released Miles. In retrospect, wrapping it around his forearm hadn’t been such a great idea. His long sleeve had protected him from rope burn, but his arm felt at once crushed and stretched. It throbbed in time with his heart.
Miles looked at the heavy metal door in the opening. The entranceway off of the elevator was no more than ten feet deep and just a bit wider than the elevator opening itself. The door sat in the exact center of the short corridor and was a flat, neutral gray.
Almost like a zombie’s eyes, huh?
It could have been the twin of the server room entrance three stories down, right down to the label pasted on the outside of the door.
“Moment of truth,” he said to Ross. He unbuckled the breast pocket of his shirt where he’d secured his GenPharm badge and drew it out. The plastic was starting to yellow and the picture had faded even though the card had sat in the darkness of his dresser drawer for years. If the card had used a magnetic strip, Miles doubted it would have continued to work after so long. GenPharm had switched to a combination thumbprint and embedded microchip system not long after Miles started. During that entire time, he’d never had to have the card replaced for a chip issue, only for annual picture updates. He slid the card into the slot and waited. Work, work, work.
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