Caleb pressed the lift’s up button. It didn’t light up. He pressed it again, then looked at the other lifts in the bank where they were standing.
‘Looks like these aren’t working.’
‘The whole lift system is offline,’ said Sara, as she jammed the crowbar into the break in the doors and threw her weight against it.
‘Little help?’ she said, turning to Caleb.
They both pushed, levering the maw of the lift open, creating a gap large enough to squeeze into. Sara wedged the crowbar into the gap, which shook precariously as the automatic doors fought against the foreign object blocking their path.
Sara stuck her head through the opening.
It was a three-lift shaft with pulley and wires strung across the space like tendons. The lift on her left was tugging wildly at the suspending cable, straining against the brakes that were mooring it in place, the pressure raining sparks down into the shaft. These must have ignited something on the ground, as flames leaped up from below, ten feet and higher, like angry snakes trying to escape from a pit. A sudden high-thermal blast of air roasted her face, and she pulled back.
‘There’s got to be another way up,’ said Caleb.
‘There is,’ said Sara. ‘An emergency exit door leads to stairs. It’s a short walk from here. That way.’
She pointed down the corridor, and Caleb nodded, walking quickly towards it.
‘I’m sorry, Caleb,’ she said, stepping through the gap in the lift doors. ‘I have to get there before the clock runs out.’
‘No!’ shouted Caleb, reaching for her.
She pushed the crowbar with both hands from inside the shaft, and the doors slammed shut.
Sara looked at the closed interior of the door. There was no option but to proceed.
A metal ladder ran up the inside of the shaft. She was about to grab hold of the rung at her eye level when she stopped herself, her fingers hovering inches from it. Intense heat pulsed from the metal. Her fingers were still inches away from the ladder now, but the heat was so strong she could feel her outer layer of skin begin to singe.
She pulled her gloves out of her pocket and looked at them. A version of them had been her constant companion since childhood, thick, triple-enforced leather that blocked out everything. They would hold off the heat long enough that the damage would not be permanent.
She pulled on the gloves and gripped the rung, immediately feeling the searing heat channelling through the material to her fingers. When she lifted her hands to grab hold of the rung above, the fingers of the gloves fused themselves to the metal and she had to peel them off.
The acrid smell of burning leather filled the air, and she increased the speed of her ascent as the soles of her shoes began sticking to the rungs.
Sweat pricked her skin, sticking her shirt to her back and dripping into her eyes.
When she was halfway up the ladder she could begin to feel the heat mounting, her palms pricking with the intense burning sensation.
She wasn’t going to make it.
There were four rungs left to go, but the burning was so intense that she had to control her reflex to let go of the ladder.
She stifled a scream and kept clambering up, the smell in her nostrils mutating from burning leather to burning flesh.
She was at the level of the lift door one floor above.
Next to the sealed doors was an emergency switch, and she reached out to it. The extra pressure on the one hand that now held her caused her to cry out in agony.
She reached the switch and flipped it upwards.
She launched herself through the open lift door, falling on to the ground and throwing off the tattered remnants of her gloves and destroyed shoes.
Ahead of her was the door to the computer room.
She tried to stand, but screamed immediately as the soles of her feet sent shooting pains up her legs.
There wasn’t time to recover.
She steeled herself and limped towards the door.