Transparency

by Charles Royce

  “Agent down, agent down,” he says.

  As the hooded man walks toward the box, the wounded agent slowly raises his gun.

  Pow, pow!

  The hooded man jolts backward. He falls to the ground. He scrambles toward the stairs. He boosts himself up on the stair rail. He limps up the steps.

  The agent drops his gun, collapses onto the ground.

  “Sir, are you okay?” Josh watches the agent breathe heavily. He sees the security guards on another monitor, forcing their way into the elevator bank. He speaks into his headset again. “Don’t worry, sir. Help is on the way. Can you make it to the elevator?”

  No answer.

  “Sir?”

  No answer.

  “Sir?”

  On the monitor, red notations appear next to the agents’ bodies. “DECEASED.”

  Josh looks at Tracy.

  Tracy is following something on the monitors. “Look!”

  They both watch the hooded man emerge from the stairs and into the lobby, holding his arm. Even in the bright lights of the lobby, ArchEngine cannot identify the man with the bandaged face. Grabbing his arm, the hooded man limps out the front door down the stairs.

  “He’s gone.” Josh exhales, presses his ear. “The hooded man is gone. Repeat, the hooded man is gone. Agent Pillsbury, we are sending the security guards down to Sublevel One to check on the agents.”

  “Copy that,” she says. “I’ve got West in cuffs. Heading down.”

  Josh watches her head down the executive hallway to the North Tower elevator, holding West by his handcuffs, pushing on the nape of his back.

  TRACY SWITCHES HER headset to the security channel. “Manny, DonDon, the shooter is gone, please just check on the agents, and make sure the box hasn’t been activated.”

  “Shooter?”

  She recognizes the voice in her ear. “Jamal, all is well. Earlier there was a man with a gun, shot and killed two federal agents on Sublevel One. The shooter is gone now. Repeat, the shooter has left the building. Everything’s under control.”

  She switches to channel four. “Pamela, Pamela, Tracy.”

  “Go ahead,” Pamela says.

  “Help should be there any second now.”

  “Good, we are freezing up here. This wind is nuts.”

  “Everybody okay? How’s the vice president?”

  “He’s good. Mrs. Maddox had surgery on her knee a few months ago. Seems to be acting up. We’ve been all over this godforsaken—”

  Pamela’s sudden silence frightens Tracy.

  “Pamela,” she says. “You okay?”

  “Yes, I just hear somebody coming up the stairs.”

  Tracy looks at the monitor. ArchEngine has spotted movement on the stairs to the roof deck. Shawn Connelly is heading toward the door.

  Tracy presses her ear. “Pamela, Pamela, Tracy.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Shawn Connelly is at the door. He’s a friend. He’s coming to let you guys in.”

  C h a p t e r 6 6

  SHAWN PUSHES ON the door harder and harder. Pamela helps him from the other side. He finally breaks through.

  “Damn!” Shawn’s hair blows back, revealing his strong forehead. “Everybody okay up here?”

  “We are now, thank you.” The former vice president reaches out his hand. “Roger Maddox.”

  The bodyguards walk beside the vice president.

  Shawn shakes his hand. “You need no introduction, sir. Shawn Connelly here. We sure miss you guys in the White House.”

  “You don’t need any introduction either, Mr. Connelly. Fine work coming out of your firm; we know it well.”

  They all begin to walk through the stairwell door, out of the blustering wind.

  “Thank you, sir.” Shawn reaches to help Pamela walk Mrs. Maddox inside to the stairwell.

  “It hasn’t been acting up at all until tonight,” Mrs. Maddox says. “I thought it was good.”

  “It’s my fault.” The vice president walks inside after them, bodyguards on either side. “Too much walking. I forced her to see every inch of this spectacular building.”

  “Ahh, a fellow architectural buff?” Shawn asks.

  “Why yes, yes I—”

  Slam!

  A giant gust of wind slams the door behind them, shaking the wall. They all stop and turn around.

  Creak.

  They hear a loud screeching noise whimpering outside, followed by a giant clunk that shakes the top of the stairwell.

  “What the hell was that?” Shawn asks. “Hold on, wait right here.”

  He opens the door to the roof deck, attaches the latch to keep the door from closing. He walks back outside, scans around to his right, then to his left. He leans over the railing and looks down onto the atrium, then to his left. His eyes widen.

  Shawn presses his headset. “Tracy?”

  “This is Tracy. Shawn, is that you?”

  “Uh, we have a problem up here on the roof deck. This big ol’ metal logo up here? It’s about to fall eighty floors into your party.”

  C h a p t e r 6 7

  TRACY SNAPS HER fingers at Josh, points to the monitor. ArchEngine has already detected a problem on the roof deck and has automatically brought it up on the center screen. The system analyzes the situation, outlining the sign like the facial recognition program:

  Exterior problem: Unbolted fixture.

  WARNING! DISLODGING PROBABLE.

  SOLUTION: REWELD IMMEDIATELY.

  “We see it, Shawn,” Tracy says into her headset.

  “I mean it,” Shawn urges. “These bolts are giving way.”

  “Shawn, you guys need to head down right away,” Tracy says.

  “Look!” Josh points to the ArchEngine analysis of the sign.

  WARNING! POSSIBLE CASUALTIES.

  WEIGHT: 0.8 metric tons

  DIMENSIONS: 12’ x 22’

  SQUARE FOOTAGE: 264’

  SUBSTRATE: Steel, aluminum, brass

  TERMINAL VELOCITY: 86.751 MPH

  Possible trajectory simulation initiated:

  Tracy and Josh watch in awe as the system generates a possible trajectory of the sign should it fall. In the simulation, the sign breaks free and crashes onto both exterior glass elevators in the front of the building, then propels slightly outward before it crashes through the Center Tower atrium. The simulated thermal indicators of the people begin disappearing one by one.

  POSSIBLE CASUALTIES: 1,712

  SOLUTION: EVACUATE CENTER TOWER ATRIUM

  Tracy turns to Josh. “The party! We have to get everyone out of there now!”

  “Tell Shawn about the glass elevators right underneath that sign.” Josh looks at a live feed of the building from the front. He stands, grabs his event headset, puts it on, heads toward the door. He turns around on his way out. “I’ve got my event headset on now, Tracy. Call maintenance, see if there’s anything they can do without an elevator.”

  “Shawn!” Tracy screams into the headset. “Stop! Do not go down those elevators! If the sign drops, it’ll take you guys out with it.”

  “Copy that. Heading back up to the roof deck. Is maintenance on this thing?”

  “Gonna try to send them up now.” Tracy switches channels.

  Josh pulls the fire alarm on his way out.

  C h a p t e r 6 8

  AS THE ALARM blares throughout the atrium, Josh rushes in. “Jamal!”

  “Is there a fire?”

  “No, but that sign up there is about to fall on our guests.” Josh looks up, points at the logo, which is almost completely visible now with its new angle. “We gotta get everybody out. Now!”

  “Fire!” Jamal yells. He grabs his flashlight, starts motioning for people to exit. “Everyone out of the building. Please don’t panic. That’s right, through the lobby, down the stairs, please.”

  The music from the big band is still playing. Josh notices they don’t seem to be hearing the alarm. People are still dancing and drinking.

  “
Stop!” Josh runs to the back of the atrium. “Stop the music. There’s a fire, please use the perimeter of the—”

  “What?”

  “Where do we go?”

  “Where’s the fire?”

  The voices circle around him. “Please proceed to that exit sign in the corner, please, hurry. Please don’t panic.”

  He continues to usher people to follow the ones heading to the door. He finally makes it to the band. “Stop! Please! There’s a fire!”

  The band stops. The people who are still dancing finally stop and look around, trying to make sense of the confusion.

  “Fire!” Josh yells. “Everyone out now! Please! Let’s hurry along!” He pushes a small crowd further out of the center of the atrium.

  He looks through the atrium ceiling at the giant logo hanging high above them.

  SHAWN PULLS MRS. Maddox out of the stairwell onto the roof deck. Her husband comes up behind her, along with Pamela and the two bodyguards.

  “I say we wait here until maintenance comes, just to be safe.” Shawn leans over the railing, looks at the sign. “It’s dropped a little bit more.”

  “We can take the stairs,” Pamela says.

  “You go on, dear,” Mrs. Maddox says. “I can’t do the stairs.”

  “I’m not going to leave you and the vice president,” Pamela replies.

  The bolt nearest Shawn gives way. The sign slightly drops and bangs up against the building. The railing shakes. The large metal logo is now hanging from one bolt.

  “This thing is coming down,” Shawn says.

  HOLDING JAMES WEST’S cuffed wrists with both her hands, Agent Pillsbury looks up out of the North Tower elevator. She sees movement to her left at the top of the Center Tower. The Élan logo is now dangling by one end, flickering as if it’s dying.

  “Dear God.”

  The sign falls, hitting the center elevator, sending sparks flying into the night sky. It bounces slightly, taking out its sister elevator to the right. The second bounce changes its trajectory, the sign falling downward toward the atrium.

  STILL HERDING GUESTS toward the exit, Josh looks up. He sees the sign careening toward them from above. He falls forward to duck for cover, taking four guests with him on the way down. He lands on top of them as the crashing blow of metal and glass shatter down on the crowd. A deafening boom fills the room as glass continues to fall, the clinking and clanging echoing through the otherwise silence.

  Josh hears only a ringing in his ears, followed by the moans of people beside him, the screams of people running past him. He opens his eyes. The scene before him is blurred, almost tunnel-like. Scattered around are several motionless bodies. As his eyes begin to focus, he sees Miss Harriet with her cane, trying to distance herself from the rubble beside her.

  Josh jolts up, shuffling his feet between the people moving on the ground beneath him. He turns. Just ten yards away from him is the building’s gigantic logo, wrapped in the metal remains of the atrium, sparks flying from chandeliers half ripped from the ceiling. From Josh’s vantage point, the entirety of the metal structure is cockeyed, upside down, the “E” of Élan embedded about a quarter into the subfloor in a pool of surrounding concrete splitting before his eyes.

  “The subfloor.”

  Josh helps the people around him stand, then helps Miss Harriet up on her cane. He rushes her to the exit, then runs down the hallway to the control room.

  JOSH OPENS THE doors to the control room, looks at the giant wall of screens. Some of the monitors are dead. The others are glitchy but filled with movement—people with red-hot thermal imaging running through the lobby, James West breaking free from Agent Pillsbury, Chris Dixon ushering a woman and her daughter down the sky bridge, Shawn and Pamela on the roof deck consoling Mrs. Maddox.

  Tracy is on the phone, talking loudly. “Get them out now! I mean it!”

  Tracy hangs up the phone, she can barely breathe. She looks at Josh. “The subfloor, Josh. The security guards were crushed. I can’t see the black box anymore through the rubble. ArchEngine says there’s a gas leak in the South Tower.”

  Josh glances at the monitor, focusing on Sublevel One. He sees nothing but dust and what looks like a leaning pillar. “We have to get everyone out of the building now.”

  “I just got off the phone with the hotel.” Tracy’s eyes are shifting back and forth. She’s using her fingers to count. “Hotel is evacuating. Mall security is getting everyone out and down the sky bridges to the North and South Tower elevators. Jamal is ushering people out of the lobby. I’ve got people running through the halls of the condos. I’ve called 9-1-1, the fire department is on the way. Can you think of anything else?”

  Josh looks up at the roof deck. “Shawn.”

  “Channel four,” Tracy says.

  Josh turns to the channel. “Shawn. You have to get down from there. This whole building could blow any minute.”

  “Blow?”

  “Just get down from there! Use the stairs!”

  “We can’t! The vice president’s wife can’t make it.”

  “What about the bodyguards? Tell them to carry her!”

  “She won’t do it!”

  In another monitor, Josh sees a news helicopter off the Hudson River. “Hold tight, Shawn. I’ve got an idea.”

  “Calling the news station now,” Tracy says. “Not sure if their helicopter has permission to land on a city building.”

  “They do tonight.”

  “How can I help?” Agent Pillsbury walks in. “I lost West.”

  “We have bigger things to worry about.” Josh grabs the phone from Tracy. “Hello? Yes, we have a situation on that roof deck you’re filming. Yes, you’re filming the Élan International grand opening from your helicopter. Those people up there on the roof need to be evacuated now! There’s an emergency in the building. What? I don’t care! Those people on the roof deck include a former vice president and his wife. Yes, Roger Maddox. Hurry!”

  Josh hangs up the phone, presses his ear. “Shawn. We have a helicopter coming in a few minutes.”

  “In this wind?”

  “Unless you have a better idea.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Shawn says.

  “Figure it out quick.” Josh releases his headset. He turns to Tracy. “Are we sure all three elevators on the Center Tower are out?”

  “Two are out, and now the other ones aren’t working anymore, in any of the towers,” Tracy says. “The alarms are still going, but the electricity is iffy at best.”

  “The electricity.” Josh thinks of the thousands of people still in the building. He takes a deep breath through his nose. He doesn’t smell gas. “I’m going downstairs.”

  “What?” asks Agent Pillsbury. “No, the bomb squad is en route, they should be here any minute. You can’t go down there.”

  “Watch me.” Josh turns toward the door.

  “I’m coming with you,” Tracy says.

  Josh grabs Pillsbury by the shoulders. “Listen. It’s a little glitchy right now, but ArchEngine hasn’t alerted us to any other gas leaks other than the South Tower, and I don’t smell gas in here. I don’t think the box has been fully activated. But if some of those wires got moved and any of those pins came out, we could be looking at gas leaks anywhere in the building, with or without the system’s detection. You asked what you could do to help. Find the breakers, the electrical panels, anything, and shut it off. If something happens and the gas starts leaking—”

  “Then the electricity might spark an explosion.”

  “Yes. The gas stoves from the restaurants, the broken chandeliers in the lobby, the broken sign from the roof, anything.”

  “Got it.” Agent Pillsbury starts looking around the control room. “I’ll find it.”

  Josh and Tracy run out the door, down the hallway, to the stairwell entrance to Sublevel One. He swipes his employee security card from his wallet.

  C h a p t e r 6 9

  SHAWN GRABS THE business card from the vice presid
ent, shoves it in his wallet. “Got it. Now go!”

  Former vice president Maddox kisses his wife, wraps his arms around her.

  “Sir, we need to go,” one of his bodyguards says. “Now.”

  “I’m scared,” Mrs. Maddox says to her husband.

  “I know, honey, but it’s the safer option. I’d be joining you, believe me, if we all could fit.” He smiles, looks up at the approaching helicopter. “See? They’re almost here.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  The two bodyguards join him as he walks away.

  He turns.

  She looks at him, nods, blows him a kiss.

  “Mr. Connelly, my number.” He points to the card Shawn is holding. “Use it. We’ll see you on the ground.”

  “You definitely will, sir.”

  The wind grows stronger.

  “Thank you!”

  “My pleasure, sir!”

  Shawn watches them exit through the door, down the stairwell. He turns around. The helicopter rears backwards like a horse. It steadies in the wind, then circles around again.

  He takes off his jacket and places it around Mrs. Maddox. They huddle against the rail, watching the lights from the helicopter flickering as it readies for another attempt at landing.

  C h a p t e r 7 0

  TRACY REACHES THE stair landing first, turns on her phone’s flashlight to complement the struggling lights above her. “It’s a mess down here, be careful.”

  The alarm is blaring, the air is filled with dust. Tracy coughs as she helps Josh down the last two steps, the banging of their feet on the black metal adding to the strange hiss coming from somewhere else in the room.

  “Wow.” He ducks underneath the bent pipes jutting from the ceiling below and places two hands on the railing. He throws himself over and lands on the floor of Sublevel One. He helps Tracy across.