“He looked little, must have gold bars in his pockets,” I gasped. One of the women in the elevator grabbed his arm and together we hauled him up through the hole. Nikki scrambled up behind him and brushed her wet hair back out of her face.
“Now what,” one of the women asked.
“Just blast some more holes,” the other said.
“Not that easy,” Nikki spoke. “The shaft is next to the water now. Any shots at the wall of the tube will bring in water. It only worked below because we were in the bubble of the chamber.”
I thought a moment, then blasted another large hole in the roof of the elevator. “At least we can climb a little closer to the surface,” I yelled. Nikki fired several shots in the same area and we soon had carved out a large hole above us. I pushed my shotgun up into it and broke out the few sharp points left in the crude circular opening.
The ceiling of the elevator was too high to reach and the water that was now bubbling up around my knees made it impossible to jump.
“Let me boost you,” I said to the smaller of the two women.
The water was up to our hips by the time she and the other women had scrambled up. Nikki and I lifted the warden up to them, nearly dropping his limp body before it was pulled through.
“OK, Nikki, you’re next.”
“But…”
“Come on.”
She put her foot into my hands and was pulled up by the outstretched arms of the women above her.
I handed my gun up to them then tried to jump up to their arms and succeeded only in falling down into the water. I came sputtering back up and took a deep breath of air, lost my footing, and dropped back into the water. I came up again spitting out salt water. My eyes burned and my wet clothes seemed to weight a ton. I tore at the release on my ballistic vest so I wouldn’t be dragged under so easily again.
When I finally got the water out of my eyes, I could see the warden’s belt they’d lowered to me. I got a tight hold on it and the three above me pulled my heavy carcass up until I was even with the hole. Holding myself with one hand on the belt, I pulled my body up in a way I’ve never been able to do since then and got my elbow over the jagged edge of the plastic hole. The three women pulled on my hands and arms until I popped onto the top of the elevator with them.
We weren’t to the surface yet. We were in a fix. I studied the smooth sides of the tube and the three meters or so above us before we would be at the ground level of the shaft.
“Could we get on your shoulders?” one of the women asked me.
I thought a moment as the water lapped at my ankles. “We’d better try something.” I leaned against the side of the shaft, “Go on. Climb up if you can.”
She scrambled up my back, managing to nearly claw my bag lady skirt off and threatening to flatten my skull as she booted herself up the final few inches. “Can’t reach it!” she called down.
“Help!” she hollered. I realized that she was trying to contact someone outside the elevator shaft rather than calling to us. She called three more times, then lost her balance and slide off my shoulders and clawed her way down into the knee-deep water.
Things looked bad.
“Shall we try blasting holes in the sides of the shaft?” Nikki asked.
“Guess so, better than drowning like a bunch of rats without even—”
“Hello down there?” a voice came from above us.
“Help!” the woman next to me screamed again, nearly putting out my ear drum.
“Hang on.”
I expected them to toss down a rope or something. Instead, a moment later the whole elevator started to rise. It jerked and stopped, then slowly inched its way up. The water was now at our necks and slowly gained on us even as we went up. Nikki held the warden’s face above water and I held the short woman up as the water started to get up to our mouths.
“Hurry up!” I blubbered.
A face looked down at us from above. It disappeared a moment, then returned. “Hold on, we’re having to raise the elevator by hand.”
The water was too high for us.
We started coughing as it overtook us, rising up over our noses. Then the elevator jerked up.
The water dropped and we struggled for air, only to have the water suddenly bubble up over our heads again.
I pushed the short woman struggling beside me up. Even if I can’t breath, I thought, at least I can buy her a few more minutes. As soon as I had pushed her up, her weight was lifted from me and I felt her thrashing feet graze my scalp. I floated over to Nikki and boosted her up also.
Again, she was suddenly gone.
My lungs felt as if they were bursting. I exhaled under water then bobbed up and grabbed a breath of air then searched about for the other woman but couldn’t find her. I opened my eyes under the water and looked about. Then I squinted downward and saw her below me. Somehow, she had fallen through the hole in the top of the elevator and trapped under it, with her eyes closed tightly so she couldn’t see to find her way through the hole I’d broken in it. She had panicked—as anyone probably would—and was now clawing at the surface directly below me, unable to locate the opening next to her.
I floundered about trying to dive down and finally succeeded in reaching the hole with my fingers. Grasping its edge, I pulled myself down; my ears popping as water filled them.
I reached through the hole and got a good handful of the woman’s hair and pulled her toward the opening. She was thrashing about as I lifted her up through the hole and managed to hit me in the nose. Then she relaxed, passed out from lack of oxygen.
I grabbed her limp body around the waist, my lungs feeling as if they’d ruptured as I kicked off the top of the elevator toward the sparkling surface of the water.
We broke the surface and I passed out.
Chapter 23
By the time Nikki had emptied the brine from my lungs and managed to pump in enough air to revive me, we were halfway to the rocket port in the fleet of taxis our little driver had rounded up for us.
Unfortunately, his good work was rewarded with only a “thank you.” Our driver was on the war path when we couldn’t pay him; I thought maybe he would chew off my knee cap before we got him settled down.
When I told him who I was and wrote him an I.O.U.
He finally looked me right in the face and said, “Hey. Wait a minute. You really are that Hunter guy. I saw the newscast while you were at the prison. It’s a shame it interrupted the game-
-but it was interesting all the same.”
“Yeah. Well, what we’d like to—”
“I think I like your hair better the way it was in the broadcast about your new anti-gravity invention.”
“Yeah. Well… I’ll make good on what we owe you if you give me your address and—”
“No need,” he said tearing up the I.O.U. “Just give me a ride in the first spaceship you build with your rods. I’ve always wanted to get into space but been too short.”
“That probably won’t be right away because—”
“And buddy,” he continued, not listening to a word I had said, “if I were you, I’d quit wearing that dress in public. You’ve got to think of the image you’re projecting.”
I stood speechless as he drove off. Then the ribbing from the lab team and Nikki began about my soggy dress. I felt like I might have been better off leaving them all in the prison.
We finally located a vending machine at the port and Nikki and I both dialed up some plastic unisex coveralls. The prisoners did likewise and in a few moments, we were outfitted in regular attire and our prison uniforms and dresses were discarded down a garbage shut. By the time we’d purchased new outfits for everyone, Nikki and I had run through all the credits in the pockets of our bag lady outfits. I need to write a note to Dobrynin to pay his bag ladies better so there’s more money to spend next time we roll one.