41

 

SISSY

WHEN THE ELEVATOR suddenly swallows Gene and whisks him up along the atrium wall, Sissy’s initial reaction is outright anger.

He left me behind, she thinks. To search the more dangerous floors of the building alone.

But she catches his expression as he is thrust upward. A look of astonishment. She sees his hand pounding the elevator buttons as he is flung higher, until all she can see is the soles of his shoes.

She runs over to the panel of buttons by the elevator door. She’s never ridden or operated an elevator before and is unsure which button to press, or if they need to be pressed in combination. She settles on pushing them all frantically, randomly, until the buttons become less plastic protrusions to press than punching bags on which to vent her rising fear.

“Gene!” she shouts, her head snapping back as she stares up. The elevator keeps rising, faster yet, as if it is being catapulted through the glass atrium roof.

Then the elevator stops. At the top floor where it’s now a mere speck of light. She hears shouting. Coming from the elevator. It’s Gene, his distant voice galaxies away.

“I can’t hear you!” she yells back, but she knows her voice is as inaudible to Gene as his is to her. For a moment she thinks about finding a stairwell and running up to join Gene. But she drops that thought. Gene warned her not to enter the floors between the glass lobby and top floor. Dark floors that might be holding hundreds of duskers sleeping off the night’s festivities.

And then she’s hearing his voice again. Loud and jarring, screeching out of speakers at the security desk.

“Sissy, can you hear me? Go to the security desk! I’m using the intercom. Go to the security desk!”

She races over. Next to the speaker is a set of different-colored buttons. Uncertain which button to press, she settles on pushing them in sequence and yelling out Gene’s name. On her fifth try, finally, she gets a reply.

His voice crackles through. “Sissy, the elevator’s stuck on this floor! See if you can find some external controls at the desk.”

“Okay,” she says, then stares at the daunting dozens of buttons before her. She punches all of them, randomly, trying to make sense of them.

“Sissy, can you—” Gene starts to say before his voice is drowned out by static.

Then something else.

Someone else.

Sissy’s fingers halt midair above the buttons. Maybe she imagined it and—

“Help me!” Epap’s voice.

Immediately she’s pushing the TALK button.

“Epap?! Oh crap, that’s his voice, that’s Epap!” She bends lower to the speaker, her lips almost touching the metal grill. “Gene, do you see him, is he okay?” She starts smacking the speaker, as if to coax out a response. “Gene! Are you with him now?”

Then a horrific scream screeches out of the speaker.

It’s Epap. “Help … don’t, please don’t, no!!!” he screams.

That gets her moving. She doesn’t care anymore; she’s going to storm up the stairwell if she has to. And as she turns to run, she looks up to the elevator.

It’s descending.

By the time it reaches the lobby, Sissy is already there, slapping the doors with impatience. Even before they open, she sees that the interior is empty. Gene must have gotten out to help Epap on the top floor. She leaps inside, presses the button for the top floor.

The button doesn’t light up. She presses it again.

The door slams shut. But the button still hasn’t lit up.

And now the elevator starts ascending. The sight of the lobby dropping away makes her feel queasy in the pit of her stomach. As if gravity has been reversed and she is falling up into the sky. She spins around, sees the blur of passing floors blink past her, the bold numerals painted on the doors of passing floors flashing by too quickly for her to read them.

This is all wrong. She can’t shake the feeling that she is being played, an invisible hand controlling her actions like a puppet. She slaps the glass in anger, hardly believing how gullibly she walked into the trap. She has to stop the elevator somehow. Can’t allow it to transport her to where it wants. There’s a key above the panel of buttons. She turns it. Something clicks in the panel, and all the floor buttons light up, then go dark.

The elevator only seems to pick up speed, lurching her upward faster. Then it begins to brake. The floor numerals rushing past her on the wall slow down and become readable. 55, 56, 57, 58. Then the number 59 drops into view slowly, coming to a complete stop before her. For whatever reason, the elevator has stopped five floors short of the top floor.

Ping, she hears the elevator sound.

She pulls out the handgun from her waist. Slams in the magazine. Gets into a crouch, ready for whatever might be on the other side of the doors.