He darted clear. The superheated, ionized gas sang for his flesh. He bowed his torso inwards, the plasma passing before him, severing three cables.
Only one cable remained, yet still the elevator held.
The shocktrooper moved quickly around the cable, on the same side as Jay. The torch swept down Jay’s chest. He shrank back, avoiding it. She smiled, reversed her grip and came in again. Jay rolled sideways, legs spinning into position around her knee and ankle. Pulled her ankle and pushed her knee. Her knee straightened out and she fell backwards.
Jay was on his feet. He dived through the air, past the cable, and sank into a roll. Up again, he pivoted his body. The cables were between him and the shocktrooper again. She launched after him, torch still in hand. Jay waited for the cable to break, but the shocktrooper bounced off it instead. She knew what Jay was trying to do.
Another barrage of attacks. Back and forth they danced across the roof of his elevator, while Nasira and her attacker did the same on the other one. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. He moved carefully, deciding what to avoid and what to deflect. One wrong decision and the shocktrooper would slice him in two. He slipped in beside her, his chest to her back. He wanted to take the opportunity to attack, but thought again and did the opposite. He leaped away, towards the steel beams.
He could see Nasira from the corner of his vision. She was still alive.
Jay put one foot out before him and pushed off a steel beam. Twisting around, he leaped over the shocktrooper and onto the dangling cables. The shocktrooper jumped towards him, the plasma cutting through air.
Jay gripped the cables and hauled his legs up, using the momentum to pull his stomach from the plasma’s unforgiving path. For a moment, he felt like he was lying facedown on an invisible table.
‘Nasira!’ he yelled. ‘Jump!’
‘You’re trying to get me killed!’ she yelled back.
‘Just jump!’
Jay kicked the torch-wielding hand. The plasma flame thrust in the direction of the last steel cable. Still in mid-leap, the shocktrooper could do nothing to correct the movement. The plasma cut the cable.
Jay watched the shocktrooper land on the elevator roof. Then the elevator plummeted. The shocktrooper instinctively jumped for the steel beams, but the elevator dropped only a few inches before the safety mechanism kicked in. The pull rods clenched furiously onto the rail guides, locking the elevator in position.
The movement hurled Jay upward, past Nasira. She leaped forward, arms outstretched. He saw, extended an arm of his own. And missed.
Her arms wrapped tightly around his legs.
He held the cable with clenched fists as the counterweights slingshotted them up the shaft. The colors in his vision bled into one another. Then the counterweights stopped. Jay bounced and dropped hard. His grip slid down the cable. Tightening it, he grabbed the end of the cable before it slithered from his grasp.
He looked down. Nasira was still there, her grip cutting off the circulation to his feet. Beyond her scarlet-dotted face, the shaft receded into a tiny square of darkness. The possibility of falling made his mind swim.
‘Stop hanging around!’ Nasira yelled. ‘Swing!’
‘Easy for you to say,’ he mumbled.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
He hated heights. Really, really hated them. He clenched the cables, his body freezing up.
‘Swing, you twat!’ she yelled. ‘Shocktrooper’s climbing the ladder!’
Breathe. Concentrate on breathing. Look ahead, not down. God, whatever the fuck you do, don’t look down.
‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ Nasira yelled. ‘Swing!’
Ignoring all common sense, Jay leaned out to one side, then back in. He repeated the movements until they began to sway from side to side. It was taking forever. Slack, severed cables brushed across his face.
From somewhere around the region of his ass, Nasira said, ‘Keep going!’
The swing motion was starting. He pulled with it, relaxing into the momentum, then pulled further. Nasira let go. He watched her dive across the shaft towards the ladder, arms out. She gripped the ladder’s sides, knees folding in, heels on rungs. Below her, he could see the shocktrooper climbing right for her. No, he wasn’t climbing. He might as well be gliding, he was moving that fast.
‘Move!’ Jay yelled.
In the south shaft, Nasira’s elevator dropped, then ground to a halt. For a second Jay didn’t know what was going on. He watched the shocktrooper in the south shaft become larger, clearer. Then he realized she’d pulled the same stunt he had, cutting all of the cables and propelling herself upwards at incredible speed.
The sheer drop below him came into painful focus. Jay shut his eyes and held on tighter. He had to get a hold of himself. Focus. He forced himself to open his eyes and look ahead. The shocktrooper shot past him, a smear of limbs. The only thing between them were steel beams with rail guides mounted on both sides. Through the beams, Jay saw the counterweights shift, then catch. The shocktrooper bounced and dangled. She was directly opposite him.
Without even waiting to catch her breath, she swung her cable through the loose ones. Since she was still bouncing, her swings came easier and faster. Jay’s heart skipped more beats than he cared to count. His cable was still swinging but not enough for him to reach the ladder. Even if he could make the jump, the shocktrooper coming up after Nasira was too damn close. He was caught between two shocktroopers. Fuck.
The female shocktrooper swung under a steel beam and, still clinging to the cable, crossed over to the north shaft. Her boots slammed hard into his shoulder, sending him into a violent spin. His right hand came free. His blurred vision showed him the male shocktrooper going straight for Nasira.
Jay’s left hand loosened from a blow he didn’t see coming. The shaft spiraled around him. His vision popped and crackled. He held onto the rope with his left hand. Sweat ran into his eyes. He blinked but they still stung like hell.
Bring the right arm up. Keep the legs still. Raise the right hand. Above the left. Hold. Don’t fucking let go. Both hands on the very tip of the cable.
The shocktrooper swung back in. No kick. Silence. The cable jerked. The bitch was on his cable. Right above him. The bottomless shaft was all he could think about. Every time he opened his eyes, his mind was an ice blender on fucking high.
The shocktrooper slid down. Her boots smashed into his head. His spine jarred. Phosphenes danced around his vision. His hands slipped. He couldn’t see. Then realized why. His eyes were closed. He opened them. He was falling. Not straight down. At a forty-five degree angle. The swing of the cable had thrown him out. Straight for the steel beams.
Oh well, fuck it. He hugged the first beam. Pain slammed his ribs. He could feel his feet. Every breath was hell. A burning itch in his ribcage. He looked up. Didn’t feel dizzy this time. He craned his head.
The shocktrooper was waiting for another swing on the cable. It came. She leaped right for him.
Jay did the only thing he could do. Let go.
With his arms above his head, he grabbed the next steel beam down. Held on, hauled himself up. His ribs no longer itched. He could breathe without pain. Stale air punched down his throat. He told himself not to look down.
In the south shaft, he could see steel cables, tangled and thick. From the corner of his vision, he caught a blur of movement. The shocktrooper was almost on him.
He launched himself into the shaft, his arms out for the severed elevator cables. His hands closed over them. He didn’t care which one he got, as long as he got something. Each hand grasped a different cable and they pulled away from each other, stretching him like a starfish. He drew his arms in, muscles quivering from the strain. He climbed as fast as he could.
The cable jerked. He looked down. The shocktrooper was below. Beyond her was a drop that made him instantly sick. He kept climbing. With each hoist, he used his feet to trap a cable between the heel of one boot and the top of another, locking his position in. He didn’t know what the shocktrooper was doing: inserting a fresh magazine into her pistol, or jumping onto his cables to kick him off, or whatever the fuck shocktroopers did whenever they were kicking the shit out of poor fucks like him in an elevator shaft. He tried to focus on his painfully slow climb, desperate to gain some distance between himself and his pursuer.
The cables jerked, swayed. He could feel the shocktrooper climbing quickly, confidently, reaching him in an instant. He lashed his feet out, tried to kick her in the head. He hit something. He lashed out again, repeatedly, viciously. Anything to drop her into the shaft.
She held on, climbed up his legs. He tried to elbow her off but she moved out of reach. She was up and over his head. Her feet locked around a slack cable. The cable whipped him in the face. She wrapped it twice over one of her boots. She secured her legs, then let go. Swinging upside down, hanging only by her feet, she thrust her elbow into his face. Light danced around him. An unbearable pain blossomed from his jaw. He couldn’t tell if he was still holding onto the cable or not. The pain in his mouth overrode all else.
Something firm clamped against his neck. He could no longer draw breath. When he opened his eyes, he realized the shocktrooper was sitting above him, her legs wrapped around his neck in a triangle choke. Right leg under his armpit, boot resting somewhere over the small of his back. Her left leg was bent, her boot hooked under her right knee, locking his neck and one of his shoulders together and squishing them between her legs. In any other situation, this would’ve been very kinky.
In effect, it wasn’t her choking him; it was him choking himself with his own shoulder. She was just helping by squeezing her knee. His vision faded into a wisp of light. His thoughts slowed until he could no longer think at all. He’d let go of the cable long ago; it was just her legs that kept him hanging there like a puppet. He supposed she wanted to be certain he was dead before she dropped him into the shaft.
He pried at her legs but he didn’t have the strength any more. He couldn’t reach beyond her stomach. The pressure points behind her knees were out of his reach. He couldn’t remember why he was in the shaft or what he was meant to be doing. All he could think about was the darkness below.
Swinging his legs, he kicked. The kick didn’t reach her. With each swing, he tried again. His mind was back in the ice blender. At least it was somewhere. He kicked again, swinging his best leg. He swung more than he’d planned and the momentum sent him upside down, his foot striking the back of her neck. Her legs relaxed from around him.
If Nasira asked, he’d totally done that on purpose.
His vision seeped back. He was falling. Headfirst.
He reached for the cables. His hands brushed them, unable to grip. The cables were gone.
His right hand jolted. He’d grasped a cable without realizing it. His body wrenched violently, swung hard. He flipped upright. With one hand, he clung to the very tip.
He looked up. The shocktrooper was hanging above him, on a different cable. She held her pistol, fresh magazine already loaded. Aimed at his head. She couldn’t miss. She wouldn’t miss.
Chapter 40
Sophia leveled her P90 at the bottleneck. Fire extinguisher smoke poured out, obscuring everything. She waited, hoping the intruder was one of her own.
The blast door behind her was still closed.
Hang on a minute. What if Denton had reprogrammed the blast doors to avoid the glitch? If he had, the doors wouldn’t retract at all when the emergency power was cut. She’d have to wait until the reactor was offline. And by then it would be too late.
She checked her watch: 00:57.
Less than a minute before Denton would be ready to inject. And after that, only fourteen minutes before the missile was due to hit.
Benito shifted nervously beside her, cradling the Browning pistol in both hands.
‘Move away from me,’ Sophia said. ‘Just in case.’
From the smoke, two silhouettes emerged. She hoped it was Nasira and Jay, or Lucia and Damien. She kept her aim, focused on their faces. The features slowly revealed themselves.
Shocktroopers.
***
Damien had nowhere to go. He kept his gaze between Grace and the second shocktrooper. Like her comrade, Grace wore violet, disc-shaped goggles, making it virtually impossible to read her expression. ‘Are you going to say anything?’ Damien asked her.
‘What’s there to say? You’re a terrorist. You must be stopped.’
‘Grace, you think you’re doing the right thing, but listen to me. You’re not. Nothing about this place is right. Nothing.’
She didn’t move for a long time. Or at least it felt that way. Then, finally, she came straight for him, one stride after another. Without saying a word.
Damien could see the other shocktrooper doing the same thing at the other end of the walkway.
Underneath the metal grille, something burst open. Came to life. The reactor coolant. Dangerously superheated.
Damien sprinted across the walkway towards Grace. Behind him, the coolant vaporized. Over his shoulder, he saw control rods scythe upward like javelins. One rod punched through the walkway right where he’d been standing. Another rod struck the other shocktrooper under her jaw. It smashed through the top of her skull. He kept running, heading straight for Grace.
Something crashed above him. Half the walkway had lifted up behind him and slammed hard into the ceiling. Grace turned and started running too. He’d counted on this.
The walkway came crashing down on top of him. He dropped onto his elbows and chest, rolled to one side. A handrail smashed down right beside him. The other handrail landed on his opposite side, trapping him. He looked up to find the walkway inches from his face.
Grace was standing nearby, separated from him by the metal of the walkway. She didn’t approach. Instead, she turned and ran, leaving him to be irradiated.
He lay there for a moment, catching his breath. Crawling out on his elbows, he checked that she wasn’t waiting for him. The narrow corridor outside was empty. She was nowhere to be seen.