Death Match

Was it possible she was aiding Lash? Hardly likely. She’d seen the evidence; she knew how dangerous he was, not only to the supercouples, but to Eden itself. She’d alerted Mauchly to the meeting in the coffee shop. She’d turned Lash in.

Could he be threatening her in some other way? That seemed equally unlikely. Tara was eminently capable of defending herself. And Lash was unarmed: Mauchly had made sure of that himself.

He tried to put himself in her shoes, tried to follow her train of thought. But one could only make assumptions about a person one understood. And Mauchly was not convinced he really understood Tara. He’d been surprised, almost shocked, when she’d barged into his office two months before, asked him to use his clout to get her in the pilot program for employee matching. And he’d been just as surprised when she reappeared in his office after her match was found, asking to be removed from the program. It was Monday, he recalled; the day Christopher Lash first came inside the Wall.

Lash. This was all his doing. He was insane, a mad dog. He’d done great harm to the corporation. It was imperative he be stopped before he did any more harm — something truly irreversible.

Mauchly reached into his pocket, drew out a Glock 9mm. The weapon glinted faintly in the dim, off-hours light of the lab. He turned it in his hands, made sure there was a round in the chamber, returned it to his pocket.

This was one mad dog that had no place to run. And Mauchly would treat Lash just as one should a mad dog. Corner it, then kill it.

His radio squawked.

“Mauchly here.”

“Mr. Mauchly, it’s Gilmore. You asked me to report in if we spotted any movement in the tower.”

“Very true, Mr. Gilmore. Go ahead.”

“Sir, the penthouse elevator’s been activated. It’s moving as we speak.”

“What?” Mauchly felt mild a

“You don’t understand, sir. The elevator isn’t descending. It’s rising.”

FIFTY-TWO

As they emerged from the stairwell, Lash recognized the sky lobby of the thirtieth floor. He’d been here once. Like the rest of the i

Tara looked around guardedly, then motioned Lash to follow.

“Why are we here?” he muttered. It made no sense: they’d just made their stealthy way down nine stories: nine stories that he’d struggled so hard to climb. Blood was drying on his scratched hands and face, and his limbs ached.

“Because this is the only way.” Tara led him to one elevator, set apart from the others. There was a keypad beside it, and she punched in a code.

All at once, Lash understood. He’d been inside this elevator, too; been in it more than once.

He waited, expecting to see a brace of guards burst into the lobby, brandishing guns. The elevator a

Tara turned to the panel that held three unmarked buttons. There was a sca

She glanced back at Lash. “You realize that, no matter what happens, I’m going to have some pretty fast talking to do at the end of the day.”

Lash nodded, waiting for her to press the button. But Tara remained motionless. He suddenly feared she was changing her mind; that she would punch the bottom button, hand him over again to Mauchly and his thugs. But then she sighed, cursed, pulled the lead foil from her bracelet, held her wrist beneath the sca

As the elevator began to rise, Tara began to replace the foil. Then she crumpled it into a ball, and let it drop to the floor. “What’s the point? I’m made.” She looked back at Lash. “There’s something you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“If you’re wrong about this, Mauchly’s the least of your worries. I’ll kill you myself.”

Lash nodded. “Fair enough.”

They fell silent as the elevator climbed. “You’d better grab hold of something,” Tara said at last.

“Why?”

“As a security chief, I’ve got access to the penthouse elevator. Just as a precaution against emergency: fire, earthquake, terrorist attack.”

“You mean, what Mauchly was saying about the tower’s operational modes. Alpha, Beta, and so on.”

“The thing is, we’re not in emergency mode, just an elevated alert. That limits my access.”

“What are you getting at?”

“What I’m getting at is the doors won’t open. The elevator will stop at the penthouse level and sit there.”

As if in response, the elevator slowed, then stopped. There was no chime, no whisper of opening doors: the car simply hung, motionless, at the top of its shaft.

Lash looked at Tara. “What happens now?”

“We sit here for a minute, maybe two, until the request system recycles. Then the elevator will return there.” She pointed to the lowest button. “The private garage in the sub-basement.”

“Where a welcoming committee will be waiting, no doubt,” Lash said bitterly. “If the door won’t open, why did we bother taking this ride in the first place?”

She pointed to a small hatch beneath the control panel. “Stop asking questions and grab hold of something like I told you.” As she pulled open the hatch, Lash saw a telephone, flashlight, long-handled screwdriver. Tara slipped the screwdriver into the waistband of her pants, then straightened, planting her fingers along the seam of the elevator doors. Lash gripped the railing.

The elevator began to sink. Instantly, Tara dug her fingers into the seam and pulled the doors apart. The car lurched violently to a stop. Lash swung hard against the wall, desperately gripping the railing.

A pair of outer elevator doors were now exposed, metal retracting bars at full extension. Propping one foot against the i

“Jesus,” Lash said. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“High-rise dorm my freshman year. Go ahead, climb up.”

Lash pulled himself up, threw a leg over, rolled onto the carpet, then stood.

“Now hold back these doors while I climb out. The outer and the i

Lash did as instructed. A moment later Tara was standing beside him, wiping her hands on her pants. She plucked the screwdriver from her waistband and — kneeling beside the elevator’s sill plate — jammed it into the space between the floor and the doors. The door froze in place, wedged open.

“To keep unwelcome visitors away?”

Tara nodded.

“Surely the elevator isn’t the only way in.”

“No. There’s also a stairwell leading up from the i

“So what’s the point of all this?” Lash gestured at the open elevator door.

“The stairwell’s only for emergency evacuation. Opens from above, not below. That’s the way Silver wanted it. You have fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, before they force it.” She regarded him with cool, serious eyes. “Remember, I’m only here to listen to Silver’s side of things. For that, fifteen minutes should be more than enough.”

Beyond the walls of glass, dusk was settling over Manhattan. The rays of the setting sun sent orange shafts of light through the skyscraper canyons. Silver’s mechanical collection draped long shadows across the chairs and tables. Except for the ancient machines, the room appeared to be empty.