by B D Grant
Sidney lets out a groan as she slumps forward in her chair. Mom leans over to check her pulse. John slides his backpack off and offers it to her. Mom shakes her head at it. “We have to get her out of here or she’s going to die,” she insists.
“You’re coming with us,” Detective Ash tells her as he steps farther into the lobby. Mom straightens to stare back at him, but she doesn’t move.
John steps in front of her pulling the backpack over his shoulder. “We have a critically injured Seraphim,” he says. “We can figure out who goes with once we get downstairs.”
A creeping sensation trickles over me and I glance around at the offices. Kelly lifts his gun slightly. He’s sensed it too. It’s not the Tempero working on us; it’s something else. I look to Mom, but she’s glaring across the lobby at the younger detective stepping out ahead of Detective Ash who’s glaring back at her. “She is coming with us. You all are,” he says adamantly.
“Bryant,” Kelly hisses, stepping back from the lobby. I bring my tiny gun out from behind my back, placing my other hand on the handle of Sidney’s chair.
Blinds sway in the windows of two of the offices on our left. I duck back, yanking Sidney’s chair. “Look out!” Kelly yells.
A window shatters on the right. Shots ring out from both sides of the waiting room. Bullets fly between us and Ash’s team. More windows shatter as more of the SWAT team pushes the lone police officer at the door out of the way as they try their best to cover the two detectives. One after the other, the two on the SWAT team who had begun clearing the rooms on either side of the stairwell door begin returning fire on their sides of the lobby. The men in the stairwell door shout for the two other guys to stay put. Detective Ash has fallen back. He shouts for the younger agent to follow suit, but he’s caught sight of the SWAT guy trying to step out of the room to his right the gun fire explodes and he’s forced to dive back into the office as a barrage of bullets pepper the walls around the office he’s in. The agent moves back but stops a few feet from the stairwell. Squatting down, he returns fire to those shooting from the right side of the room. He’s an easy target out in the open, but whoever’s shooting seems more focused keeping them from us and vice versa than shooting them.
“I’m covering you, go go go!” he yells. The man runs from the room shooting blindly behind him as he runs for the stairwell. The detective pulls back, but not before another barrage of bullets fill the lobby. Both the officer and the detective are struck before they’ve made it to the door’s threshold.
Our entire group has fallen back. John pushes us back. I nearly stumble as the wheel on Sidney’s chair catches the side of my foot. I watch through the rain of gunfire as the officer staggers into the stairwell. The younger agent is on the ground. Men from the stairwell shout for the officer to stay put who’s still in the room to the left of them. Detective Ash leans out of the stairwell as Kelly, Glensy, Bryant, and Ben return fire to both sides of the room. I try to step forward to fire my measly to shots but Mom pulls me back. In one quick movement, Ash grabs the fallen detective and hauls him into the stairwell to safety.
“I can help,” I tell her in exasperation.
Yells from the stairwell erupt as the officers try to identify themselves to the unseen shooters but their words are drowned out by gunfire.
“And what if they’re coming up from behind us right now?” Mom asks, not mentioning that my tiny gun might as well blow bubbles for the good it would do compared to the firepower that the guys have. “I need you to watch our backs,” she says, looking behind us as she pulls Sidney farther away from the glass doors. Kelly yells for everyone to move back as he and Glensy take over returning fire. Mom’s moved Sidney back just in time, because no sooner have Bryant, Ben, and John done as they’re told, one of the glass doors shatters beside Glensy. Glensy buries his head into his elbow to cover his eyes as glass flies. John nearly falls over Ben. Mom turns Sidney’s chair around as Bryant runs around us to take the lead as we retreat, but none of us know where to go.
Ben hustles around us to join Bryant. John takes up the rear as we turn the corner away from the gunfight.
“Don’t leave that boy behind,” Sidney mutters, slouching more in her chair by the minute. I don’t know if she’s talking about Kelly or Glensy, but Bryant responds.
“We aren’t leaving anyone. We just got to find a place to go.” The first door we come up to Bryant and Ben slow. I stay close to them with my two-shooter raised. Bryant jiggles the handle—locked. They check two more doors—all locked. John keeps any eye on the doors as we pass them. A break in gunfire and Bryant calls out behind us, looking past John, “Where do we go?”
Glensy answers, his head popping around the corner to see where we are. “We’re trapped. They cut off our only way down.” Shots ring out and Kelly unloads his magazine. Glensy’s head pops out of sight followed by the sound of shards of glass being stepped on between shots as he runs back to Kelly.
I continue slowly walking down the hall, past Bryant and Ben as the guys talk to Mom about the route she took to get up here.
There’s got to be another way. This place is too big for that to really be the only way out. I walk past the next door that has a keypad. Kelly has Mase’s keycard so there’s no point in trying the handle knowing it’s going to be locked.
Out of nowhere someone plows into me, pushing me to the wall on the other side of the doorframe. I look back to see Ben on top of me, pushing me farther away from the doorframe I’ve just walked past. Bryant has his back against the wall on the other side of the doorframe, rifle up. Behind him, John has moved in front of Mom and Sidney. My eyes widen when I see it: the door with the keypad is cracked open. It wasn’t when I walked past it.
From the other side of the door, a man’s voice calls out, “You people look like you need some help.” Bryant looks at Ben in shock as he’s thinking the same thing I am, how does he know that? Ben glances around the hallway and then points directly across the hall from us, facing down from the corner of the wall is a small, reflective sphere. It no doubt holds a camera inside, pointing down at the door. “As long as none of you shoot me, I can get you out,” the man says.
“He’s telling the truth,” I whisper to Ben.
Bryant kneels down a little, like he’s getting ready to charge into the room, while Ben keeps the man talking. “Are you alone?”
“Uh, there is a young man with me. He’s unarmed. There’s a clear route to get downstairs. If we hurry.”
“Both of you walk out,” Bryant instructs from his crouched stance.
Another voice from inside the room says something quietly.
“I’d rather not,” the man says as shots from the waiting room die down. I don’t hear much return fire either, so I’m guessing that the authorities have retreated too leaving Kelly and Glensy to hold down the fort.
Bryant nods for John. He inches forward whispering something my mom and Sidney. Mom then lowers her head and whisper into Sidney ear. She nods and then Mom steps back, turns, and then runs back the way we came. “There’s a camera on you,” the man continues, “it’s how we knew where you were. We don’t want anyone else who might be watching the feed to see us helping you.” Ben lifts his rifle and runs a round into the sphere. It pops in a less glorious splash of glass than the lobby doors, littering the floor. The camera inside is destroyed. “Good job,” the man says, sounding less than enthusiastic, “but, that’s not the only camera.”
Glensy jogs up from down the hall, Mom at his heels. He replaces John at Bryant’s side by the door. Bryant silently holds up two fingers to him.
Glensy’s voice is calm. “Identify yourselves?”
“There might be audio with the surveillance system,” the voice replies. Glensy straightens, lowering his gun. Kelly calls for backup from around the corner as the gunfire in the lobby picks back up.
“I know who it is,” Glensy says, looking from Bryant to Ben and me. “Hold on a minute,” he barks at the door. He wheels a
round, hurrying down the hall and around the corner. A split second later he leans around the corner. “John, we need ya. You got a full magazine?”
John ejects the magazine from his rifle into his hand, examines the remaining the cartridges and then slams it back into his rifle. “I’ve got a spare,” he says, tapping a hand on the hip pocket of his coveralls as he takes off in a jog toward Glensy. They disappear around the corner and when there’s movement again it’s Kelly trotting toward us. Glensy and John must have stayed by the glass doors to keep any Rogues from following us.
Kelly ejects the short magazine from his handgun, glances at it with a frown, and then tosses it to the floor behind him as passes Mom and Sidney. He runs his hand over his belt but he’s out of magazines to replace it. With nothing left to do with it, he shoves the gun into the holder on his hip. “There’s two in,” Bryant starts to tell him, but Kelly doesn’t wait to hear him out. He moves past him and then slips through the cracked door.
“What’s going on?” Mom asks, pushing Sidney up stopping as she gets behind Bryant. I listen, but hear only rustling from inside of the room.
“We have help,” Sidney says, her voice hoarse. I step out from the wall to look around Bryant and see that she’s alert, no longer slouching over in her chair.
A second later, Kelly peers out of the room. “It’s clear. Let’s move.”
Ben and Bryant exchange a glance. Sidney lets out a weak groan, and Mom calls for John. It takes him a minute, as guns are still being shot off from inside of the lobby. He runs up from around the corner, letting the backpack slide off his shoulder as he gets to her.
Mom doesn’t have to tell him anything. He takes out a pre-filled syringe popping off the top before quickly giving Sidney an injection in her arm. It takes only seconds for the pain to slide off Sidney’s face, leaving only a lulled daze. John zips the backpack shut, but offers it to Mom for her hold onto.
Down the hall, Glensy lets out another string of shots as we enter the room behind Bryant and Ben.
Inside the room is an older man, around Mom’s age, talking with Kelly. The guy from the kitchen, Mick, is fidgeting behind them by the room’s other door. This room has a surveillance setup where three empty chairs stand behind a long desk for an unobstructed view to watch the corridors and rooms across several screens. A tall filing cabinet stands against the wall across from the surveillance system.
The man holds a spray paint can; I only place it when I see the black paint streaking down one of the walls. At the top, a camera has been fully covered.
“I thought you were one of them,” Kelly says, arms folded.
The man tosses the can of paint into a trashcan under the desk. He glances past me at Sidney before looking back at Kelly. “I’m not the one who shot a lady in a wheelchair.”
Mick takes a key card from his back pocket. Kelly watches him closely. “And what about you?” Kelly asks him.
Mick cocks his head to the side, turning to face him. “Oh, you can see me now,” he says, swiping the card on the other door’s keypad. “You walked past me earlier this morning and didn’t even acknowledge that I was in the same room.” The door doesn’t unlock. Mick wipes the keycard hard on his shirtsleeve before trying again. “I haven’t seen you since the raid, and you can’t even spare your old roommate a minute.” The second swipe and the door unlocks. “I guess it takes being the person saving your butt to get your attention.”
Kelly shows no outward signs of Mick’s words bothering, but his voice is heavier when he replies. “I’ve been…not myself lately.” Mick pushes the door open with his back. “I am happy you made it out during the raid.”
Mick shrugs lightly, holding the door open. “I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Jessica. The guys in the marsh would have killed me if Jessica wouldn’t have shown up when she did. I’ve been playing along ever since.”
Kelly checks out the room on the other side of the door Mick’s holding open. “Thank you for helping us,” he tells him as he steps past the door to check behind it.
“Don’t give him all the credit,” the man says to Kelly. “I had to force him to help.” He lifts the large handgun he’s holding proudly in the air. “I had to point this thing at him more than once for him to believe his life depended on it.” Mick smirks when Kelly gives him a questioning glance as steps back into the surveillance room.
“Go get Glensy,” Kelly says to Ben. Ben jogs out. He turns to the man still holding his gun up. “Thanks, Dr. Baudin.”
“Don’t mention it,” Dr. Baudin says, lowering his gun. “And you don’t have to call me doctor anymore. I’ve stopped teaching.” With his left hand he fishes in the front pocket of his loose slacks pulling out an extended magazine and tosses it to Kelly. Kelly slams it in the bottom of his gun loading a round. Baudin’s pockets are still bulging.
John stands in the doorway on the other side of the room waiting for Glensy and Ben. Kelly goes to the desk in front of the screens and efficiently clears it by sweeping the clutter to the floor.
When Glensy enters with Ben right behind him, Baudin offers him a magazine identical to the one he gave Kelly. Glensy grins at him as he accepts the magazine. “I guess it’s your turn to surprise us this go around,” he says to Baudin, doing the same as Kelly and loads one in the chamber replacing his old magazine for the extended one.
Baudin watches John as he checks the hall one more time before slamming the door shut. “Looks that way.”
“Hey, did you see?” Glensy asks, meeting Kelly’s eyes before turning to Mick at the other end of the room. “Mick’s not dead.”
“Yeah, I see that,” Kelly says, pulling the table away from the wall as Ben and Bryant move the large cabinet in front of the door. “Never would have thought all three of us would switch sides.” He moves the table in front of the cabinet once Ben and Bryant move out of the way.
“Here, lets rig it on two legs to better jam the door,” Baudin says, moving toward Kelly and the table.
Mom, John, Ben, and Bryant are checking out the screens that still have feed going to them. Sidney looks to be asleep. I take her chair and carefully push her toward the door Mick is holding open so as not to wake her. I stop a foot in front of Mick and wait for the word to move out.
“Hey now,” Mick says, eyeing Kelly’s back. “I didn’t switch sides just because my life depended on it. I also did it for love. Jessica will never leave this place as long as her parents worked here.” Kelly and Baudin tip the table up on one side and jam it into the cabinet so that it’s wedged in place.
Kelly turns and looks at Glensy who’s walking over to join Sidney and me by Mick. “I guess you can say I did it for love too.” Ben chuckles, pointing for the others to look at the screen displaying the inside of one of the elevators. The lab tech from earlier is inside of the elevator pounding on the doors. He tries pulling them apart with his hands. They give a few inches and then stop.
“It’s me that he loves,” Glensy says jokingly. I roll Sidney to the side so that he can pass. “He made a deal to work for Kian as long as he let some of us go.” He lifts his head up as he enters the adjoining room.
“Fat lot of good it did him if you didn’t leave,” Mick says after him.
“There were too many in the lobby for all of them to be Elites,” Kelly says to Baudin as they pass everyone watching the surveillance system.
“What’s an Elite?” Ben asks, everyone turning from the screens to follow Kelly and Baudin.
“Rogues you don’t want to meet,” Kelly says.
“Kelly should know,” Mick murmurs. We file past him through the open door. It brings us into a breakroom. There’s a small round table in the middle where no more than four people could probably sit at a time, especially if they’re Dynamar. Cabinets are on the right with a small sink holding a dirty plate and coffee cup. The refrigerator is on the other side of the cabinets, by the door. Glensy shoves the table out of the way for me to be able to push Sidney across the room to the next
door.
“Keep quiet,” Kelly says, from the surveillance room door where he’s waiting for everyone to go past. “There could be more of them searching for us.” He ushers Mick into the breakroom, taking over holding the door for him.
Softly, Glensy asks Baudin, “How did you know we needed help?” His hand is on the handle of the door by the refrigerator, but he appears to be waiting on Kelly.
“I got her,” Mom says, gently squeezing my shoulders. I release Sidney’s wheelchair and Mom takes my spot behind the chair. Bryant, Ben, and John check their ammunition while Mick and Kelly pick up the table and move it to the door. This time they position the table so that if it’s opened it will push the table into the side of the cabinets and hopefully get lodged and stop the door from fully opening.
“When everyone started going crazy and locking everything down,” Baudin says, “I snuck into one of the surveillance rooms on the eleventh floor to figure out what was happening where I had been putting my physics degree to good use changing a light fixture. They’re still in the middle of getting all of the equipment installed on the eleventh floor so they haven’t started assigning security to it yet. The keypad wasn’t activated so I didn’t even have to break in.”
Glensy nods. “Lucky you.”
“Yeah, but not lucky me,” Mick says, walking up to us. Kelly sees Sidney slumped over and his eyes widen. Kelly goes straight to her. He places a hand on Sidney’s shoulder, but Mom yanks his hand away.
“She’s okay, just medicated,” she tells him, turning the chair a little away from him.
Mick is telling Glensy, “Baudin was already in the surveillance room by the time I ducked into the room. As soon as he saw me, he knew why I was there. He gave me the option to either help him or…” Baudin gives him a wink, “…eat a big one, as he so delicately put it.”
