by L K Hingey
Kimber clung to the ladder as the second flare below began to fizzle out. She did not mind waiting, and after the initial excitement of hearing Tristan’s voice, she stopped yelling. Tristan did not stop though, and she could not help smiling when she heard a loud bang, followed by a loud clank, followed by an undiscernible profanity. She didn’t know what he was doing, but she could tell he was working hard to get the heavy doors open.
Finally, she saw a crack appear between the two doors. Tristan had hammered in a chisel. The gap was only a few millimeters wide, but he quickly pried it into a few inches with a flat head screwdriver. A small object was slipped in between the doors and when the screwdriver was removed, the doors squeezed in on the object. Tristan was wedging the doors apart, inches at a time. The hammer itself became his next prying tool and Kimber could see the head of the hammer as it was wedged into the thin crack.
With a grunt, Tristan heaved on the hammer and when the doors moved, he slid the flathead lengthwise into the gap. The space was now big enough that he could fit his knee and foot in. Using his leg as the leverage mechanism, he pushed and pulled with all his might. The doors had been designed not to be opened like this, and they did not budge easily. Tristan was strong though, and his strength was supplemented by stubbornness and adrenaline. To Kimber’s delight, the doors moved a couple feet this time.
Tristan squeezed his entire body in between the doors now. His back was flat, and he raised his knee up to push. Kimber could see half of his body, the muscles in his legs clearly straining against the jaws that did not want to open. With one last push, he pressed the doors apart and straightened his leg out to take the pressure off his muscles. With a sigh of relief, and a quirky smile, he ducked his head into the now open space and looked over at Kimber who was hanging off the service ladder.
“Well hi,” he said, trying to mask his panting.
“Well hello yourself.” Kimber grinned. “I’ve never been so happy to hear such profanity in all my life!”
Tristan beamed with an endearing cheekiness. He was clearly proud to have gotten the door open and looked nothing short of euphoric that she had made it up here safely.
“What are you doing way over there?” he asked playfully. “We need you over here.”
“I’m going to need a little help with that. See, I told you you’d come in handy.” She delivered the cheesiest wink she could muster, and Tristan laughed out loud.
“Hang tight. Um, literally,” he said and leaned away from the elevator shaft and into the hallway. With a few grumbles and grunts, he managed to grab hold of something while keeping his leg in the door. Kimber heard something dragging and soon saw a tipped over wooden chair shimmy its way into the gap. Tristan lifted both of his legs and let the doors crunch in around the chair’s long axis. When he was certain the chair would hold the pressure, he removed his body from the space and carefully leaned over it to figure out how to get to Kimber.
Tristan looked all around the shaft and searched for something to hold onto. There was nothing readily available and so, thinking quickly, he wedged himself back into the door’s gap. He extended his legs out once again and took the pressure off the chair. He awkwardly reached down to grab the chair off the ground and lifted it above his head. Kimber felt like she was watching an acrobat but began to see his plan.
He carefully held the chair in place as he bent his body, taking the weight off his legs. The jaws began to bite, and soon the chair was clamped tight, suspended in the air. Tristan cautiously removed his body entirely from the gap and reached out to grab the hammer. He got onto his belly for stability and then held onto the handle of the hammer, extending the clawed metal head towards Kimber.
“Try hanging the briefcase on the claw. It’ll make it easier for me to get you over here,” Tristan said.
“K, but be warned, I packed it pretty full. It’s not light, and if we drop it, we’ll have to go back down to get it.”
“You mean if I drop it,” his eyes crinkled into a smile. “Okay, I’m ready, I won’t drop it. Ease the weight on there, nice and slow for me...”
Kimber reached the briefcase out and hung it on the claw. She had never noticed Tristan’s forearms before but could see why he was not too concerned. The tiny muscles twitched and bulged but his arm never wavered. His face was pained in concentration but that was all that looked strained. He navigated the briefcase to safety and extended the claw back out again. “Shall we try the satchel?”
Kimber hesitated. “This is going to be even heavier than the briefcase, and it’ll be all dangly.”
“Mind tying a knot in the strap to help take out some of the pendulum? I think I can manage if it’s not swinging.”
Kimber quickly tied a knot and hung the bag carefully from the hammer, holding her breath as Tristan pulled it towards him. The bag, which would appear to most as nothing more than an overstuffed and worn out leather purse, was worth more to her than all the gold in Fort Knox. Kimber breathed a sigh of relief when it too made the journey safely into Tristan’s arms.
“Alright, now grab onto the claw...” Tristan tried to keep a straight face as Kimber rolled her eyes.
“If you were Thor, then maybe,” Kimber said, looking at the dinky hammer.
“If this stupid hammer was Mjolnir, then that door wouldn’t have manhandled me the way it did. Actually, all the doors in this place are built like a maximum-security prison. It’s crazy. I had to brawl with the door to this hallway way too.”
“I’ll tell you why when you get me out of here,” Kimber urged.
“Right. Um, trust me enough to grab my hands? I mean, I can definitely go look around for some rope, it just may take some time.”
Kimber thought about it. The space between their hands was only a few inches, and she could probably hook her feet around the ladder to stretch herself out to his fingertips, but essentially, she would have to leap to get a good grasp. There was nothing she could think of to tie to herself to create a tether. The strap of her knap sack would not be long or strong enough to do the job and she didn’t recall seeing any rope on their way in.
“How do we know I won’t pull you down?” Kimber asked, still a little unsure.
“Well, for one, I am way bigger than you. And two, if I feel myself starting to slide, I can wedge myself diagonally in the doors, like this.” He shifted his body across the doors to show her what he meant.
“Yeah, but if you do that, you may loosen the chair...”
“I am not scared of a chair bumping me on the head, and bonus, if it hits me it will probably be deflected away from you. You’ll just have to promise not to let go in case of an avalanche.”
Kimber smiled at him. She was beginning to know him well enough to tell when he was nervous, and right now, he was nervous.
“And what happens when the door begins to shut on you?” Kimber followed the chain of events a little further.
“Well, then, I’ll throw up a knee, and I’ll be crunched into a really uncomfortable position. But, on the bright side, if that does happen, I’ll be a super-anchor, and you can climb me like a ladder with zero worries of pulling me through. And, if you feel frosty when you get to the top, you can help free me before this death trap squeezes me to death.”
“So, you’re saying you won’t let go?” Kimber smiled nervously.
“I am saying I promise that I won’t let go,” Tristan reassured her, getting a little more serious.
Kimber looked down one final time. Both flares were completely spent, and the shaft was engulfed in darkness. She could barely make out the glint of the elevator’s roof some twenty feet below. Tristan shifted into a stronger position and nodded that he was ready. Kimber repositioned herself too, her legs now spring-loaded, and nodded back.
After a three-count, Kimber pushed off the ladder and glided into Tristan’s hands. They locked grips at the wrists, and she did her best to minimize any swinging motion. Her toes searched for grooves to help support her weight and when she fou
nd no purchase good enough, she gave up and concentrated on Tristan.
He seemed like he was doing fine and was not turning himself diagonally. He slowly shimmied his body backwards away from the shaft pulling Kimber up slightly as he went. When he felt like he was adequately grounded, he began to lift Kimber using just his arms. Kimber got her elbows onto the floor of the hall and Tristan pounced into a crouch, grabbing her under her arms and pulling her the rest of the way up.
Kimber made sure to duck under the chair and collapsed into Tristan’s arms. They had done it. They had gotten everything they needed. She was too high on endorphins to disclose any of what she had seen in the basement, and Tristan sensed that she was in a mild state of shock, so he did not push her. He simply hugged her for as long as she needed. When she finally did pull her head away, Tristan looked down at her with his intense gaze and gently outlined her face with the back of his hand.
He moved slowly and soundlessly. It was almost like he did not want to spoil the gravity of the moment with idle words. Kimber kept his serious gaze, trying to communicate that she would need time to talk about what she had found. Whatever she wasn’t telling him, and whatever it was that he wasn’t hearing, seemed to be translated perfectly. She rested her head back on Tristan’s chest with a sigh.
After a few minutes, Kimber pulled away, pulling the flashlight out of her belt and looking around at the mess of the things Tristan had dragged into the hallway. There was a bag of tools that had exploded everywhere, an office chair, a lamp, and what looked like pieces of a desk laying near the briefcase and the leather knapsack.
With a raised eyebrow she asked, “Okay, I can ignore the desk fragments, but the lamp? What on earth was the lamp supposed to do?”
Tristan grinned and looked around at the chaos. “What can I say, I like to have options.”
Kimber looked out of the white corridor into the room beyond. Since the lights were off, everything had returned to a grubby grey color. A large heavy desk had been wedged in the doorway with shards of broken chair plowed before it.
“If you thought those elevator doors looked heavy, you should have seen that entry door. That thing was a tank. I propped the door open with a bunch of different things, in case it was wired to shut automatically during a power failure. The door crushed that chair like a dead cricket. The only thing that withstood the pressure was that dumb metal lamp.”
Both of Kimber’s eyebrows were now raised, and she peered back at the lamp. Sure enough, she could see a large dent in its metal neck.
“Thank goodness you were up here,” Kimber whispered, realizing how hard he must have worked to keep the exit open.
“Thank goodness someone was smart enough to, uh, force, her back-up to stay behind...” Tristan said with a small smile as he looked down and kicked a few of the tools to the side.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, k?” Kimber suggested and scooped up the shoulder bag.
Tristan bent down to get the briefcase and noticed the Colonel’s nametape. Kimber saw his head cock to the side, but he did not ask about it. He smiled and ushered Kimber through the doorway.
Kimber hopped over the desk, and Tristan followed close behind. The room looked quite a bit more disheveled than when she had first seen it, to include another desk that had been beaten apart. Kimber made a funny face and looked from the desk to Tristan.
“In case we needed boards for leverage,” he shrugged.
Kimber nodded, not wiping the look of surprise off her face. Tristan scooped a small pile of items off a counter nearby and looked out the door. “Coast is clear,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”
Kimber nodded seriously this time and quietly crept down the hall. Though the flashlight remained in her hand, she tried to see as little as possible. All she wanted was to get outside into the fresh air. When the lobby neared, and the doors came into view, their mood instantly lightened, and they rushed to the exit.
Tristan had to pry the doors open again, but it was nothing compared to the doors he had faced earlier. He quickly got a sliver opened wide enough to fit through, and they hurried out into the sunlight. The borealis was glowing a soft pink instead of red now, and it was brightening into electric hues against the dimming sky.
“I’ve never seen the borealis look so beautiful!” Kimber said ecstatically.
“Yeah, leave it to a near death experience to make pink my favorite color,” Tristan teased, looking up in appreciation. “Not going to lie, I can’t believe we pulled that off.”
Kimber nodded, still staring up in wonder. “Me neither. I’m glad we aren’t going back underground for a few days.”
Tristan brought her focus back down to Earth by asking what she wanted to do next. He gave her a few choices, which included spending the night in the welcome center, traveling the few hours south to the town of Radcliff to find the hotel room they had stayed at, or attempting to travel all the way back to Inanna. Kimber knew he was not serious about the last option and thought for a second.
“I actually had really wanted to go check out that giant granite building we passed on the way in here. I read about it in the visitor’s center; it’s the most famous gold reserve in the world. But I know we don’t have time to sightsee, and plus that soft bed is sounding really, really good.” Kimber was torn, but she was now as exhausted as she was curious.
Suddenly, Tristan lit up. “I have a better idea. Follow me?” Tristan asked gently and started down the road towards the west. They each stole backwards glances at the clinic, which in the sunset was glowing a shade of Pepto-Bismol pink. Kimber felt safer, and heavier, with each step that carried her farther away from the clinic.
She realized that she was not merely tired but absolutely drained. She started to stagger a bit and when Tristan looked over at her, she was shaking her head as if to clear her mind. She caught him looking at her in concern and tried to smile. Tristan stopped and lightly lifted the pack off her shoulders. “We aren’t going far, and don’t worry, it will be much cozier than a fortress of granite and gold.”
His voice was soft as he slung the bag across his body and walked alongside Kimber. He could tell she was not doing well and kept a close eye on her. In front of them, the sunset was lighting up the sky in a celebration of color. The sun, the horizon, and the borealis all burned with intense shades of dazzling pinks, passionate oranges, and subtle reds. The entire sky was on fire and Tristan breathed it in deeply.
“You know that’s what you look like, right?” Tristan said unexpectedly as he looked upwards, his voice a little husky.
Kimber glanced at him and then at the sky. It was a beautiful sunset, one of the prettiest she had ever seen.
“Not just the colors. I mean yeah, the oranges, pinks, browns, and reds are almost as stunning as you... but there’s so much more to see than that.” He stopped walking and gazed up. “Look at how gracefully the borealis is dancing on the horizon. How energized the pinks are becoming higher up... as if the cosmos were pumping life into them. And can you feel how warm the sun still is, even as it gives the last of its light to the world? When you run, you have a grace and freedom I have never seen before. When you get energized, others can feel the electricity coursing through your veins. And when you smile, I swear it’s like you can light up the darkest of places.”
Tristan was still looking up in contemplation. He spoke deliberately and unabashedly, and the words flowed off his lips like poetry. “Can you see the passion against the fury? The grace amongst the destruction? The warmth through such bleakness? It’s incredible.”
His words hung like music in the air and Kimber stared at him, shocked. Was this the same logic-driven man that she had been traveling with for days? Or was she so wiped out that her mind was playing tricks on her? She looked down at the coloration on her arms and then back to the heavens, trying to see beauty beyond the colors, to where both creation and devastation began. She let the warmth soak into her skin and tried to feel the billions of electrons being ri
pped apart above them. She could see the full beauty of the universe, and it really was incredible.
She must have swayed slightly as she gazed up, because Tristan reached an arm out to steady her.
“Let’s get you somewhere where you can lie down,” he said, his cool-headed nature taking over again. He linked his arm with hers and walked with her the rest of the way to their destination, which was only a field and a right turn onto a road away. She did not mind Tristan taking the lead, and she retreated into her own thoughts until they reached a building that had a large sign out front that read The Next-Gen of your IGH Experience.
Kimber’s eyes sparkled with happy surprise. The base had a government hotel. They would be getting a comfortable night’s sleep! They quickly looped around to the front doors, and she handed Tristan her tiny spool of wire to pick the lock. She dug for the flashlight as he worked. It did not take him long before he had the door open. They walked in carefully and checked out the condition of the hotel.
Everything was in good, albeit dusty, shape. There was still light seeping in through the windows, but the flashlight helped to brighten everything. The lobby was clean, and Tristan quickly ducked behind the service desk to rummage for supplies. With a grin he found a bottle of water and the key to an adjacent office. He wasted no time and let himself into the office where he rummaged for anything useful and grabbed the master key off a well-organized wall.
Kimber waited for him in the lobby, too tired to care about food and supplies. As she looked around, she found a rack of old brochures and selected a handful of ones the sparked her interest. The tiny print alongside glamourous pictures advertised all sorts of activities and food options. Virtual reality experiences dominated the entire top row and offered trips like skydiving, safari trips, golfing outings, spa days, workout routines, and even full-length cruises. She opted for the brochures on the lower rows and plucked out titles like, Explore the Mammoth Caves!, Appalachian Adventures, and Discount Horseback Riding.
