by James Axler
Mildred nodded. "I agree. And after a hundred years without any oiling or servicing, I feel even worse about risking the big drop."
J.B. coughed. "Even if it falls, you don't get hurt. Wait until a fraction of a second before it hits bottom and you jump up in the air. Never fails."
Ryan looked at his colleague in amazement. "How do you know that?"
"Read it on a shithouse wall in a frontier gaudy down near Nogales. Why? You mean you think it's not true, Ryan?"
"Double-stupe bastard! Look, do you want to walk or ride?"
"Walk."
Krysty nodded. "Yeah. I'd rather walk."
THEY CLIMBED STOLIDLY up the wide stairs, the faint blur of the basement shrinking away beneath them until it vanished. They passed two intermediate levels, landings that had doors at either end. The heavy sec doors had no visible way of opening them.
"Not enough plas-ex to shift them," J.B. said sadly. "Have to keep climbing."
The air remained dull and flat, with a stale taste that lingered in the throat on every breath. The lighting was much worse, making it almost impossible to see more than twenty feet in any direction.
"How far do you think we've climbed, Doc?" Mildred asked.
"Entirely too far, ma'am. I fear we shall shortly be bumping our heads upon the lower levels of the sphere of heaven itself. Or, to put it another way, at least two hundred feet."
Ryan had been in the lead, and he heard the conversation. "Closer to three hundred. But there's good news, then Doc."
"What?"
"Won't be going any higher."
"We've reached the dark at the top of the stairs, have we?"
"Sort of."
They all stopped behind Ryan. There had been some kind of earth slide that had pushed the shaft of the stairs to one side. Rock, cut as clean as sliced butter, filled the gap above them, and the stairs disappeared into it as though they'd never been.
"That's it, folks," Mildred said.
Krysty sighed. "I suppose exercise is good for us."
"Not for my poor old knees," Doc retorted. "They've been exploding like cherry bombs for the past fifty feet or so."
Mildred patted his arm. "Us old ones'll lead the way. It just goes to prove that my father's younger brother, Josh, knew what he was talking about."
"What do you mean?" Doc asked testily.
"He used to say to me, 'Millie, what goes up must come down.' And now I see what he meant."
"WHY DON'T WE JUST GO BACK and try another jump?" Mildred suggested.
"We haven't explored this place properly yet, and there's something odd about it. It's not like other redoubts." Ryan looked around them. "Almost like it was built just for the gateway."
"I say we take the elevator," Doc suddenly said forcefully. "Having been treated like one of the men of the grand old Duke of York, I want to be up when I'm up. I've had enough of being down when I'm down. Is that clear?"
"As purest water, Doc," Krysty said. "Though you kind of lost us a bit there."
The Armorer peered into the elevator. "I still don't much like this, Ryan."
"Think it's a trap?"
J.B. shook his head slowly, a thoughtful look on his face. "Not like a deliberate trap, no. But I don't figure it can be that safe after all this time. Look how it came stumbling down and then the doors jammed. Seems real iffy to me."
"You wait here?"
"Dark night!" The slight figure turned away, biting his lip. "I don't like this a spent round, Ryan. Something's wrong. Passage is wrong. Lights, doors, stairs… this elevator."
"So you think we should get out?"
"Yeah."
Ryan knew there was another question. "Do you want to get out, J.B.?"
"No," he replied reluctantly. "Let's go up and see where the cross hairs meet."
"Sure."
IT TOOK ANOTHER KICK from Ryan's combat boot to get the steel doors to slide shut. Even with all five of the friends inside, there was still masses of room.
Mildred stood by the control panel, finger poised. "Not much of a decision needed," she said. "It's either up or down. I'll try up first."
The inset button, surrounded by a ring of frail golden light, clicked. The metal cage began to vibrate, slowly, then faster. They could feel, rather than hear, distant humming. Seconds ticked by, and still the elevator remained stubbornly in the basement of the building.
"How do you spell claustrophobia, anyone?" Mildred asked.
There was a shuddering and, at last, they began to move slowly upward.
"Haberdashery and hosiery on the second floor, with toys and facilities for the rumpus room on the third," Doc recited tonelessly.
There were beads of perspiration on Krysty's forehead, and her sharp green eyes had narrowed like a feral cat. Her hands were locked in front of her, tangling like strong, coiling snakes.
Ryan moved to stand by her, and she looked up at him, managing a shaky smile.
"Not good," he said, not bothering to make it into a question.
"Not good, lover. Too much like being buried alive. Not good."
"Least we're moving."
"For now…"
They moved steadily up in relative silence. Every now and again the side of the elevator would scrape and bump on the walls of the shaft. Ryan figured that the earth shift that had blocked off the stairway might also have damaged the running of the elevator.
Each time it happened there was a jarring rumble, and the whole thing rattled.
"How much farther?" J.B. asked, as though he were talking to himself.
The elevator hesitated at that moment, waiting poised, as though it were about to uncurl itself with a surge of energy.
"Come on," Mildred whispered.
There was an upward lurch, faster than before, taking them at least fifty feet in a couple of heartbeats.
And another stop, this time a grinding halt that had a dreadful feeling of permanence to it. Ryan pressed the "up" button several times, but nothing happened. "Looks like the end of the line."
Then, from above, they all heard the deep, sonorous twanging sound of part of a steel cable snapping.
Chapter Five
NOBODY SPOKE FOR several endless seconds. Then it was Ryan who broke the silence. "Best if we move slowly and careful."
The cage still seemed jammed firmly in the damaged shaft. There was no sensation of swaying from side to side. After the thrumming sound from above them, there was only silence.
"Try the "Down" button," Krysty suggested. "Might work."
"Long as we don't go too fast." J.B. leaned a hand against the cold metal of the inner wall.
"Accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second," Doc muttered, "and assuming the shaft is around two…three hundred…then…ninety-six in the… four minutes… No, that can't—"
Mildred hissed across at him. "We get the bastard picture, Doc. We'll hit the bottom kind of fast and kind of hard."
"I fear that I am unable to contradict that statement, my dear Dr. Wyeth," he said. "So sorry, ma'am."
Ryan tentatively pressed the lower control button. All that happened was that the thin ring of golden light around it went out. The interior ceiling lamps of the elevator remained on.
Above them they heard the thunderous vibration of another part of the main drive cable snapping under the strain.
J.B. pointed at the roof of the elevator. "Maintenance hatch."
There was a rectangular trapdoor, four feet long and three feet wide, set close to the far corner. A chromed handle protruded from it. Ryan didn't much fancy having to climb up through the trap, but he couldn't think of any workable alternative.
The Armorer was the lightest of the group. Doc steadied himself, hands on knees, with the two women on either side. Ryan helped J.B. to scramble onto the old man's back, holding him as he reached for the trapdoor.
"I recall playing leapfrog as a child," Doc began, but he ran out of breath and stopped talking.
"It's open. Ther
e's a folding ladder here on the roof. I'll get out and drop it down."
J.B.'s legs vanished, and they could hear his studded boots on the outside. When the others had moved out of the way, he lowered the ladder, which was thin wire with slatted rungs.
"What's it look like up there?" Ryan called. "Enough light?"
"Just. The walls come squeezing in, but… Hey! We're only a few feet from what could be the top. There's double doors there. I reckon—"
He was interrupted by another of the main support cables rupturing.
"You all right?" Mildred called.
The familiar pale face slid into view in the black rectangle. "Sure. But it looks like there's only about five more of those to go. Then…" His index finger jabbed downward, and he made a low whistling sound.
"You first, Doc," Ryan ordered. "I'll hold it steady for you."
"I'm more than capable of climbing a rope ladder, my dear fellow. I recall a square-rigger around the Horn when I—" He caught the look on Ryan's face. "Sorry. Climbing."
As soon as he was outside, Ryan gestured to Mildred. "Go."
She was halfway up, carefully planting her feet sideways on the narrow rungs, when another cable broke. This time the effect was much more spectacular, the elevator suddenly unjamming itself. It dropped four or five feet, the sides screeching against the rocky walls of the shaft. They all heard the cable take the weight, booming like a gigantic tuning fork.
"Fireblast!" Ryan growled. "Lef's get the fuck out of here."
Mildred had managed to hang on to the ladder, swinging from side to side. Krysty grabbed at it, steadying it for her.
"Come on!" J.B. called. "I can see now where it's going. Frayed like an old bootlace."
"Not as 'fraid as me," Krysty said to Ryan, struggling with a fixed grin.
"Joke like that wins you next place on the elevator roof."
She knew better than to think about arguing, shinning quickly up and vanishing through the trapdoor.
Ryan glanced around. He made sure the G-12 caseless assault rifle was snug across his shoulders, then climbed effortlessly up the ladder. Just as he emerged into the black cavern above, two more strands went simultaneously, one of the broken cables lashing like a demented serpent and striking a fountain of sparks from the driving wheels.
The elevator dropped another few inches, with a jerk that sent it clanging against the walls. Ryan realized that one side now dipped markedly lower than the other. As the weight was transferred onto fewer and fewer of the support cables, so the strain would become greater and greater.
Time was running out.
Ryan swung himself onto the roof, joining the others. Doc was sitting cross-legged near the center, his shoulders hunched, head bowed. Mildred was near him, while Krysty and J.B. were standing near the farther edge, staring upward.
"You okay, Doc?"
"Never felt better, dear boy," came the muffled reply.
"There's the exit doors," the Armorer said. "Looks like ten feet."
Ryan could see them, and they were identical to the pair in the basement. He pushed away the thought of how far below the basement actually was and concentrated on how to get his friends up and out.
"Have to get up those cables," he stated.
"They're breaking," Mildred protested.
"Right. If they break and we're still here, then we're all dead. Only chance."
The cables were black and coated with old, crusted grease, each individual strand about the thickness of a child's wrist. Now that he looked carefully, Ryan could see that there were still four main sections left. He touched the nearest, feeling it thrilling and taut under his fingers. The parts of the support cables that had already snapped were hanging above them, ragged-ended and useless.
"Go for it. If one of them goes, you just gotta try and hang on tight."
"I'll take this one with you, lover," Krysty said. "Give the others one each."
"Yeah. Come on, Doc. More your ass or you're bonemeal."
Krysty, Ryan and J.B. had gloves, which made it easier to cling to the cables and climb them. It was harder for Mildred and Doc, but there wasn't time to think about offering gloves around and trying them on.
Already there was the rising scream of tortured metal. The threads of twisted wire were all trembling, the noise filling the shaft. The elevator gave another lurch, as though it had been gently rear-ended, one side dropping a further three inches.
"Going to go!" Ryan yelled. "Just hang on as tight as you can."
Krysty was immediately above him, her boots locked on the dark cable. Ryan also hung on with hands, arms, legs and feet, tangling himself into it, knowing that when the cable snapped it might go anywhere.
J.B. was crabbing his way up his chosen section, reaching level with the sealed sec doors. "Locked tight."
Krysty's voice filled the darkness. "It's coming… Now!"
The weak point was where the century-old cables were connected to the bolts on the top of the elevator. When the last four broke, almost simultaneously, the noise was appalling.
Instantly the thick wires, feeling almost like rods of iron, were transformed into whirling dervishes of malign metal. The five friends were rolled, lifted, swung and dashed against the unforgiving walls of stone.
With double weight on it, the cable that supported Krysty and Ryan steadied first, giving them a chance to look down. The elevator was falling away from them, slowly at first, then gathering momentum. The rectangle of light that was the trapdoor enabled them to follow it all the way. Its flanks scraped against the shaft, with hideous, metallic groans. The final impact, three hundred feet down, was oddly lacking in drama—a faint crunching, like a child putting his foot on a pop can.
Having followed the diminishing block of yellow light to its ending, Ryan now looked around him. It was like some macabre jolt-fantasy of a puppet show. Three marionettes dangled around him, jerking and twitching on their thick cords. Jagged, twisted ends of torn, rusted wire still thrashed at the dark air, but the violence of the movement was slowing and easing. J.B. was highest, now a little above the level of the doors. Mildred was next, clutching at the cable like a girl in the middle of a gym test.
Doc had come closest to buying the farm. His cracked knee boots were slipping down, only eighteen inches from the ragged end of the cable supporting him.
"I would be grateful for some aid," he called. "Else I fall into the abyss and perish."
"I'll get him," Krysty said, shinning up with her usual catlike ease and strength. "Come on, Doc. Grab hold of my arm and swing on over here. I've got you safe."
There was an ungainly struggle a few feet above Ryan's head, then Doc was snug, hanging on to Krysty's legs.
"How about the doors, J.B.?" Ryan called.
"Just looking."
Mildred was swinging back and forth like a pendulum. "Can you speed it up some, J.B., or I'm going to be performing the high dive and break all known records."
"And your neck," Doc cackled, his good humor miraculously restored.
"Why don't you get your face out of Krysty's ass and shut your mouth?" she yelled back, voice echoing, then dying flatly away.
"Because she's making an old man happy. You ought to try it sometime, you wizened old beldam."
To everyone's surprise J.B. interrupted him. "Just shut up, Doc, will you?"
"Sorry, John Barrymore, I'm sure."
There was an awkward silence, broken by Ryan. "If the bitching's over, can we get the sweet fuck out of this place?"
"Need some plas-ex. Got a last bit left somewhere in one of…" The Armorer let go with one hand while he fumbled in his well-worn leather jacket. "Yeah!" he shouted triumphantly.
"Nowhere for us to shelter," Ryan observed. Above them the cables continued for another twenty feet or so, then they vanished into a self-contained power unit.
If they couldn't force the doors, then there was no doubt they would die. Maybe the strongest could contrive to ha
ng on the dangling cables for a few hours. But at the finish they'd all go down.
"So little explosive it should dissipate out around us. Long as we close our eyes and keep our mouths open, the blast shouldn't do much damage. Could make us swing around some more."
Ryan glanced up. "You all right, Doc?"
"Passing fair, dear friend."
"Mildred?"
"Sure. How long will it be before it actually blows?"
"Got a twenty-sec detonator," the Armorer replied. "I'll have to swing myself to reach the doors."
He began to rock from side to side, pushing off with his boots from the rocky walls of the shaft, building momentum like a boy on a rope above a summer swimming hole.
"Try and turn your back, Mildred," Krysty called.
"Nearly… there… now…"
"Count us down," Ryan said.
"Haven't got… the detonator… in… yet. Setting it… now."
Ryan immediately began counting out loud. "Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…"
"Gaia, protect us all," Krysty breathed.
"Amen to that," Mildred said.
"Ten, nine, eight…"
Doc's lips moved silently.
"Two, one and—"
It was a sharp, small noise, like a gaudy whore slapping a drunken customer across the face, and the shaft filled with the characteristic bitter scent of plas-ex.
Ryan closed his mouth and opened his eye.
"Don't know," J.B. said, getting his answer in before anyone could ask the question.
He began to swing again, this time gathering speed so that he could kick out at the doors with his combat boots.
The others waited.
"Yeah," J.B. called.
Chapter Six
BY THE TIME they'd all struggled through the bent and damaged doors, Doc was close to total collapse.
J.B., helped eventually by Ryan, had managed to lever open the right-hand door. It had been badly dented by the plas-ex and it had been a desperate struggle, both men swinging on the pitching, greased cables.
None of them had even taken time to look around, so great was the relief at escaping from the dark shaft.
They rested in the deafening stillness. From somewhere above a faint light was filtering through. The air was cold and damp. Outside the titanium-steel elevator sec doors was a room about twenty-five feet square. It was filled with tumbled rubble and stank of urine.
