Providence Descending - Sarah Boone (epub e ink reader txt) 📗

to his back. “Stay away,” she warned. “I'll kill him.”
Scott sighed. “This is a strange friendship that we share, Lucy Providence.”
“That's not my name.”
“Hardly matters right now, does it?”
One of the guards ordered to Lucy to put the gun down. “Let him go now. No one else needs to get hurt.”
“Come on,” Lucy said. She nudged Scott down the hallway.
Scott didn't move. “Not without my toolbox.”
“Fine. Grab it.”
They backed down the hallway, Scott with his toolbox in hand, Lucy with Scott in hand, all the way into the elevator. The guards followed cautiously, pleading for Lucy to stand down.
“Not gonna happen,” Lucy snapped. “Walk away.” She tried to use her free hand to retrieve the elevator keys.
Scott said, “Here, Lucy, let me help with that.” He slipped out of her grip, taking the gun with him. He aimed it at Lucy's head. “There. Now you can make it work.”
The guards looked at each other, not sure how to respond.
“Stay away,” Scott said, wheezing a little at the humor of it all. “I'll kill her! Ha, ha, ha.” The elevator doors slid shut. Scott saluted them with the gun, then he handed it to Lucy. “Fifth floor, please.”
“Why did you -”
“What do you mean why did I? Why did you, hm? What were you doing? A criminal taking another criminal hostage?” Scott exclaimed. “What nonsense!”
“Nonetheless,” Lucy said. “I can't let you go now. You have to get me out or -”
With ridiculous ease, Scott snatched the gun back. “There is honor amongst thieves you know. You could just ask for help. You don't have to go all Jack Bauer on me, alright?”
Lucy pushed the button for the fifth floor. “I'm sorry,” she ventured. “Will you please help me get out of here?”
“I'll make a deal with you. If you help me modify the air conditioning units on each floor so they don't explode, I'll get you out of here.”
“But you have to keep moving up. How can that possibly work?”
Scott bent down on one knee and pulled open his toolbox. He withdrew a backpack, heavy, black, medium sized. “Baby, I've had an exit strategy since the first day I started working here.”
“Is that a parachute?”
“That's right.”
“Your plan is to just fly off the roof.”
“I'm no Peter Pan, Lucy. And you're no Wendy. What we're going to do is jump, pray, and hopefully, float. You in? Tell me now. I've got to finish. Time is short. If you're going to trust me on anything Lucy, you can trust me on this: the only way out is up. Yes or no, Lucy? Yes or no?”
Lucy looked into his eyes – complete opposites of hers, so alive, so honest, so like Topher's they emitted some spell-binding, blinding light. She could trust those eyes. She hoped that she could trust those eyes. “Alright. I'll do it.”
The elevator lights flickered, then they went off for good and the elevator stopped moving.
“Damn it, Lucy! This is why I said no elevators.” Lucy remained still. She heard Scott rummaging in his tool box. Then they had light, a small electric lantern. “And this is why I needed to bring my toolbox.”
Lucy ran her hands over her face. The bad luck hadn't left her yet, that was for sure.
“Alright.” Scott pulled a wad of fabric out of his toolbox – a second pair of cover-alls. “Putting these on would be a good idea. Sorry I don't have another hard hat. You'll have to take your chances.”
Lucy snorted. “I've been doing that all day.” She stepped into the canvas suit, began to pull it up over her shoulders. She winced when it brushed against her arm.
Scott stopped her. Gently he pulled away her torn sleeve to assess the damage the bullet had done where it nicked her skin. “I think I have a band-aid somewhere,” he murmured.
“No time,” Lucy replied. “You said it yourself.”
“Guess not. Still, I can't have you fainting on me or anything. Hold on just one second.”
“I. Do not. Faint.”
“You're. A. Girl.” Scott ripped off the rest of Lucy's sleeve and proceeded to wrap it around the cut. “No more chance taking for you. Now let's get the hell out of this elevator, hm?”
Lucy couldn't understand how Scott could still have a sense of humor in the midst of multiple disasters, but she was grateful he did. Disasters or not, smiles were rare for her, laughter was rare for her. In this dark, quiet elevator, in a situation where every moment felt like her last, he'd given her both.
“Luckily,” Scott continued, “a power outage shuts off all the gas flow to the air conditioners. The need to modify them doesn't change, but it becomes less urgent because there's no power source to spark imminent doom. Unluckily, the longer we stay in here, the easier it is for the dumbos in navy to find you, so we need to get going.”
“You'd think they'd know about the gas problem,” Lucy said.
“Oh, they do.”
“Then why would they keep trying to find me when they know how dangerous the building is?”
Scott pulled a crow bar out of his toolbox. “Stand back,” he said. “Lucy, once again, I don't think you completely understand the gravity of your situation. Sergeant Brenner, head of security, Captain Hard-ass, I'm assuming you know who I mean?”
“Yeah?”
“He'll have his goons chase you into hell itself, angel. No joke. That man thinks two seconds ahead all the time, and since you got away from him, I just know that all he can think about right now is catching you, no matter what.” Scott lifted the crow bar and wedged it into the crease in the metal door. Lucy held up the lantern so he could see better. “You know, right after you escaped, they told everyone on staff what you did and that we needed to stop you, yadda yadda, basic information, but I just realized they never told us how you got out of there. How did you escape Brenner's clutches? I'd really like to know.” Scott grunted as he pushed on the bar. Slowly, the crease grew bigger. “He interviews all employees before they're officially hired. I don't know what he did for everyone else, but when I went in there he just stared at me for five minutes. That's it. Just watched me for five minutes, then told me I could go. I mean, what the hell is that?”
Scott got the elevator open wide enough to see that they were six feet below the fifth floor. “Bummer,” he said. Then he pushed further into the crease, using his body to block the doors from closing. “Lucy, you're going to have to climb up there. Use my toolbox as a stool, then my shoulder. Ready?”
Lucy nodded. She got up to the fifth floor, then she strained to hold the doors open, bracing one leg against the door in front of her and clutching her injured arm. She looked down the dark shaft. The expanse of air startled her, pulling her almost, calling her to the darkness. Scott handed her the toolbox first. It weighed more than she did. She started to tip back into the elevator. Scott had to jump and push to vault the box into Lucy's lap. She rolled it off. Scott jumped the elevator sidewall and grabbed Lucy's good arm. Both criminals flexed, and Lucy pulled Scott up.
“Come on then, Lucy, let's get back to work.”
Lucy held the air conditioning vent open so Scott could work his magic. First he cut a metal hose, then quickly he would smash it shut with his wrench in multiple places to stop the gas from seeping through. “Take away the danger factor and it's the easiest job in the world.”
“Sure,” Lucy agreed. “Yeah.”
“So,” Scott ventured. He hoisted his tool box onto his shoulder and waltzed down the hallway.
“What?” Lucy asked.
“You never told me, how did you get away from Brenner?”
“What's it matter?”
“I want to know. I figure telling me is the least you could do.”
“I guess it is.”
“So,” Scott pressed. They jogged down the hall, and he knelt in front of the next A.C. Module. “How?”
Lucy leaned over to hold the vent open. “Have you ever heard of something called the Warner File?”
Scott paused shuffling in his toolbox a moment; he looked down at the green diamond carpet, then said. “No. I haven't.” He nodded at the plastic file, clutched in Lucy's white-knuckled hands. “That it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is it really important or something?”
“I think it might be.”

Chapter Sixteen – Rat in a Maze

Lucy waited in the interrogation room for ten minutes. She fidgeted within the parameters of her handcuffs. She tried to figure out an escape plan. She watched the security camera, the blinking red light that she used as a method of counting seconds.
The blinking red light stopped blinking. The camera was off. Lucy stared at it a moment, wondering why. She decided not waste time. She whipped her lock-picks out of her waistband. Brenner reentered. She slid her hands under the table.
Brenner tossed a plastic file down before her. “The Warner File,” he said, “what do you want with it?”
Lucy looked at the plain, blank folder. “I want to save my father's life. Nothing else.”
“What do you want with it?” Brenner repeated. “Now I want the truth. Why have you come for this? Tell me why!”
“I don't know anything else!”
Brenner pulled his gun out of it's holster and cocked the hammer. He aimed it at her head. “Tell me why.”
Lucy shook. The sound of her lock picks tittering against the bottom surface of the metal table caught Brenner's attention.
“What -”
Lucy felt the chambers in the lock give free. She pulled her hand out and slammed the table upwards, between her and Brenner. The gun fired, the bullet denting the table right before her face, but not making it's way through. Lucy swiped her hand across Brenner's, knocking the gun loose, then back the other way, hitting him across the face. He lunged forward at her and yanked her down by her jacket sleeve. The both of them fell down across the over-turned table. Brenner locked an arm around Lucy's throat and squeezed.
“Why do you want the Warner File?” he wheezed. “Tell me now.”
She sprung out her legs, tugging with no avail at Brenner's iron arm. Darkness frayed her vision. Her heart began to slow, and then the door opened. Brenner released immediately at the sight of the guard.
“Sir?” the guard asked, hand gravitating toward his gun.
Lucy elbowed Brenner in the stomach. She launched herself at the guard. He drew and shot, missing her. She grabbed Brenner's chair and slammed it down on guard. He crumpled to the floor. Lucy turned back to find the head of security, unconscious and bleeding; the guard's missed shot had hit him, in the torso, somewhere near the spleen.
Lucy tucked Brenner's gun into her slacks. Then she grabbed the Warner File off the table and stepped outside the room. Two guards stood at the crossroads of hallway that led to the front office and out to freedom. They turned and looked at Lucy. She shot at them and they ducked behind the wall. Lucy ran around the other way.
She came across a fire alarm and reached out to pull it, hoping the chaos would give her an avenue of escape. Bells began to clang and red light to coat the walls. A full scale, “Get the hell out of here.” Lucy started, staring down at her hand. She hadn't yet pulled