A panic stirred in Charlotte, an internal countdown. She thought of the way her brother had looked at her from inside the lift, the way he had kissed her goodbye. Her chest felt as though it might implode, but she hurried to Darcy and helped him get his arms out and his pack on. Once he was in fully, she zipped up the back. He helped her do the same, then followed her to the end of the aisle. Charlotte pointed to the low hangar and handed him both helmets. The bin her brother had left was right where he’d said it would be. “Open that door up and jam the bin halfway inside. I’ll go start the lift.”
She threw open the barracks door and ran down the hall in an awkward waddle, the thick suit crowding her knees. Through the next door. The radio was still on and hissing. She thought of the waste that thing had been, all the time putting it together, collecting the parts, and now she was abandoning it. At the lift control station, she ripped the plastic off and flipped the main controls into the up position. She felt sure she’d given Darcy plenty of time to get it jammed. Another awkward waddle down the hall, past the barracks that’d been her home for these agonizing weeks, out into her armory hell, the last of her birds sulking beneath their tarps, a single chirp ringing out from somewhere. From the elevator. The sound of boots storming their way, Darcy yelling at her to get inside the drone lift.
Donald rode the elevator toward the sixty-second floor. When he passed sixty-one, he hit the emergency stop button. The elevator jerked to a stop and began buzzing. He steadied the bomb and pulled out the hammer, went ahead and removed the tag. He wasn’t sure how much damage it would cause if he detonated it inside the lift, but he would if anyone came for him. He wanted to give his sister enough time, but he was willing to risk everything to put an end to that place. He watched the clock on the lift panel and waited. It gave him plenty of time to think. Fifteen minutes passed without him needing to cough or clear his throat once. He laughed at this and wondered if he was getting better. Then he remembered how his grandfather and his aunt had both gotten better the day before they died. It was probably something like that.
The hammer grew heavy. It was incredible to stand beside something so destructive as that bomb, to lay a hand on a device that could kill so many, change so much. Another five minutes went by. He should go. It was too long. It would take him some time to get to the reactor. He waited another minute, some rational part of his brain aware of what the rest of him was about to do, some buried part that screamed for him to think about this, to be reasonable.
Donald slammed the hold switch before he lost his nerve. The elevator lurched. He hoped his sister and Darcy were well on their way.
Charlotte threw herself into the drone lift, her helmet banging on the ceiling, the bottle of air on her back causing her to tip over onto her side. Darcy threw his helmet inside the lift and began crawling in after her. Someone shouted from the armory. Charlotte began to shove at the plastic bin, which was the only thing keeping the lift from closing and heading up. Darcy pushed as well, but it was pinned tight. Another shout from beyond. Darcy fumbled for the pistol he’d taken from the pack. He turned on his side and fired out of the lift, deafening roars from inside that metal can. Charlotte saw men in silver coveralls duck and take cover behind the drones. Another shot rang out, a loud thwack inside the lift, the men out there returning fire. Charlotte turned to kick the bin with her feet, but the lid had buckled down where the door had pinched it. It had formed a wedge, wanted to come in with her, not go out. She tried to pull, but there was nothing to cling to.
Darcy yelled for her to stay put. He crawled on his elbows out the door, his gun firing pop pop pop, men taking cover, Charlotte cringing. He left the lift and began pushing the bin in from the other side. Charlotte yelled for him to stop, to get back inside. The door would slam shut with him out there. Another shot rang out, the zing of a miss. Darcy kicked the bin with his boot, and it moved several inches.
“Wait!” Charlotte yelled. She scampered to the door, didn’t want to go on by herself. “Wait!”
Darcy kicked the bin again. The lift lurched. It was almost free, just a few more inches. Another shot from beyond the drones and no sound of a miss. Just a grunt from Darcy, who fell to his knees, turned and fired wildly behind himself.
Charlotte reached out and tugged on his arm. “Come on!” she yelled.
Darcy reached down and pushed her hands inside the lift. He leaned his shoulder against the bin and smiled at her. And before he shoved the bin inside, he said, “It’s okay. I remember who I am, now.”
The elevator slowed on the reactor level, the doors opened, and Donald pressed a boot to the hand truck and tilted it back. He steered the bomb toward the security gates. The guard there watched him approach, eyebrows up with mild curiosity. Here was everything wrong with everything, Donald thought. Here was a guard not recognizing a murderer because he toted a bomb. Here was a man swiping an ID with Darcy’s name on it, a green light, and the ennui of an interminable job as he was waved through the gates. Here was everyone seeing what was coming and ushering hell right along anyway.
“Thank you,” Donald said, daring the man to recognize him.
“Good luck with that.”
Donald had never seen the reactors before. They were closed off behind large doors and spanned three levels. On any one shift, there were nearly as many men in red as half the others combined. Here was the heart of a soulless machine, which made it the only organ of consequence.
He followed a curving hall lined with thick pipes and heavy cables. He passed two others in reactor red, neither of them noting the holes in the shoulder of his coveralls, or that the bloodstains had begun to brown. Just nods and quick glances at his burden, even quicker glances away lest they be asked to help. One of the hand truck’s tires squeaked as if complaining about Donald’s plan, unhappy with that terrible load.
Donald stopped outside of the main reactor room. Far enough. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the hammer. He weighed this thing he was about to do. He thought of Helen, who had died the way people were supposed to die. This was how it worked. You lived. You did your best. You got out of the way. You let those who come after you choose. You let them decide for themselves, live their own lives. This was the way.
He raised the hammer with both hands, and a shot rang out. A shot, and a fire in his chest. Donald spun in a lazy circle, the hammer clattering to the ground, and then his legs went out. He clutched for the bomb, hoping to take it with him, to pull it down. His fingers found the cone, slipped off, caught the hand truck’s handle, and they both tumbled. Donald ended up on his back, the bomb slamming flat to the ground with a powerful clang felt through his back, and then rolling lazily and harmlessly toward the wall, out of reach.
The drone lift opened automatically at the end of its long and dark climb. Charlotte hesitated. She looked for some way to lower the lift, to go back down. But the controls were a mile beneath her. The large tank of air on her back knocked against the roof of the lift as she crawled out. Darcy was gone. Her brother was gone. This was not what she wanted.
Overhead, black clouds swirled. She crawled up a sloping ramp, all of it familiar. She had been here before, if not in person. It was the view from her drones, the sight she’d been rewarded with on four flights. With the push of a throttle, she would be up there in those clouds, banking hard and flying free.
But this time, it was with weary muscles that she crawled up the ramp. She reached the top and had to lower herself down to a concrete ledge below. A grounded bird, a flightless traveller, she shinnied down this ledge and dropped to the dirt, a chick plummeting from its nest.