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Part 5-10: Penthouse
As predicted, the muscle went about kicking open office doors with military precision, formation, and speed. They swept their guns and barked, “Clear!” And they moved through the floor ten times faster than our little civilian group had. Despite the worsening outlook regarding Persi’s freedom, I couldn't help but be a bit impressed.
I let them push past me, but not before I heard another group from further down the other side of the building, likely doing the exact same thing. If you didn’t want someone to escape, you’d start at the bottom, work your way up, and make sure all the exits were covered. Great.
Behind the first group was the scientist type, Deluxe from the darkest timeline, perhaps. Even though his hair was shorter, and he was taller, and he wore little circular glasses—the fat tablet he stared at was more than enough to give me the impression.
He lifted a fat walkie talkie to his face and said, “I’ve a trace. Weak though.”
“They’re swarming the third floor now,” I said. “And it looks like they’re looking for the signal.”
I made to get up off my ass, but my angry ankle buckled. I careened into the wall and added my cheek and nose to the list of throbbing body parts.
“Floor’s clean, proceeding to four,” said one of the soldiers. The swarm reorganized and double-timed it towards the stairwell as the scientist trailed them at a trot.
My warping shortcut got me back to the fifth in the blink of an eye, and I spent ten seconds or so trying to trick myself into floating up this time, but alas, learning how to fly was eluding me. I resorted to hobbling my way to the stairwell.
“In the room with your device,” said Persi. “It’s really high up, Dack placed it. Give me a moment.”
Trying to estimate how fast the dudes had swept through the floor, I said, “They’re two floors away, you have maybe four, five minutes. Unless Eden’s door slows ‘em up.” I had a good feeling that it might.
“Okay.”
I worked my way up to the sixth floor, weaving up the stairs and ghosting through the doors until I found Persi. She’d taken an old dusty desk drawer out of its slot and was using it to push the long, flat device off of the top of the door jamb. There was some adhesive on it, which made the task clumsy and painstakingly slow.
“Deluxe, any thoughts on how we get the hell out of this mess? Rooftop? Climb down the outside? Try and sneak past them?” I asked.
“Yes. Avoid the rooftop, they’ll probably have eyes on it,” she said. “Your best bets are the elevator shafts.”
“Okay,” said Persi. She grunted and gave the drawer a healthy shove. There was a ripping noise and the device came swinging down like a hypermodern pendulum—a long black bar, still partially stuck to the door with whatever glue we’d used. Persi snagged it, tore it away, then flitted out to the hall. The intruders sounded like they were right below us.
“I think I should get higher,” said Persi.
“I don’t hate that idea,” I said.
“You’ve four more storeys you can access before the roof. Each buys you a few minutes and means the main force is higher up when you go down—I also don’t hate it,” said Deluxe.
So that’s what we did. I limped ahead into the stairwell first to make sure they didn’t have anyone advancing up, and spotted the elbow of a guard two flights down. Persi took her time easing the door open, the tiny creaks and rattles losing themselves in the echoing calamity of the invasion. Once in, she stuck to the outermost wall of the stairs, winding all the way up until the faded number ten marked the topmost floor.
I thought the layout might be different for the penthouse, but the architects of this place must’ve had a thing for consistency, for it was the same old, same old. The elevator doors were right where we expected them to be. And they were stuck.
Persi tried to get a grip on the thin depression between the metal sheets, but there was no purchase on either.
“Maybe we try one floor down?” she said.
Below, the organized search rolled on. They must be past the fifth by now, and nothing seemed to have changed. To them, Eden’s door would probably appear locked—maybe that alone wouldn’t halt the whole operation? Crap.
“No,” I said. “No time. Stand back.”
Persi backed away from the door, and I curled my right hand into a fist. My ankle was the worst of all the pain, having taken the brunt of my fall. I settled my focus on it, exploring the texture of the sensation. Hurt was like a form of pressure combined with tingling if you really allowed it. It made your muscles squeeze, but so did the cold… but hurt was also a heat. Pressure, heat, power.
With this in mind, I slammed my fist into the elevator door. A wave of pressured heat exploded, forceful enough that I cried out. It radiated back up my arm and into my shoulder socket. It also radiated across the door in a hazy blue sheen.
Hooked into the pain, part of me rebelled, remembering the bone grating, primal twisting terror of the library inside Fort Ticktock. Fergus’ back skewered with kindling. My body, ruined. But I held fast, trying to keep the pressure and heat level, refusing to let it leak away. The blue brightened, filling the whole rectangle of the barrier, until it was blue no more.
“Alena, what’s going on? Get out if you need to,” said Deluxe.
Distantly, I felt my lungs wheezing. I felt sweat and heard a constant, hitching moan: my physical self’s unrestrained reaction to the wretched task.
“Don’t— wo—” I got out, and it cost me some concentration. The pressure wobbled, and threatened to become plain ol’ hurtin’ feelings instead of door melting magic. Black spots had started to grow, now they receded. With a shriek that was half battle cry and half raw agony, I punched the metal with my other fist. Leaning so my knuckles ground and cracked, I channeled the fresh weight of heat into the door and it went black, then it went away, and I tumbled forward into the gaping maw below.
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Alena might be able to get by them .persi? Not so much 😂
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