Chapter 7 - Upward into the Storm
The emergency klaxons wailed throughout the eighth floor, strobe lights painting the marble corridor in frantic flashes of amber and white. Water poured from the ceiling sprinklers, turning the plush carpet into a sodden bog and slicking the polished stone.
Elena slipped on the wet floor, her pistol clattering across the tiles.
""Run!"" Sofia screamed, grabbing Julian by the sleeve of his sodden blazer.
Julian didn't hesitate. The adrenaline of the near-fatal shot had temporarily overridden the paralytic's grip on his limbs. Together, they plunged through the emergency stairwell door just as Elena scrambled back to her feet, shouting orders into her radio.
The stairwell was a sterile concrete silo, the wail of the alarms amplified tenfold within the echo chamber.
""Thirty-two,"" Julian gasped, stumbling on the first step. His lips were turning a faint, alarming shade of blue. The toxin was entering its final phase, suffocating his oxygen exchange. ""We have to... make thirty-two.""
""Twenty-four floors,"" Sofia said, looking up into the dizzying spiral of the stairs. ""You won't make it up twenty-four flights of stairs, Julian. Your heart will burst.""
Julian leaned heavily against the iron handrail, his head spinning. ""The private shuttle... on fourteen. There's an express dumbwaiter for high-end dining carts... runs from the main kitchen on fourteen straight to the executive suites.""
Sofia’s eyes lit up with recognition. As banquet staff, she had loaded that exact dumbwaiter a hundred times with chilled caviar and vintage champagne. It was an oversized industrial lift, built to accommodate large rolling silver carts.
""Six floors,"" Sofia decided, hooking her arm firmly around his waist. ""We can make six.""
They climbed through a haze of pain and sheer will. Every flight felt like an eternity. By floor eleven, Julian was semi-conscious, his body trembling violently in the throes of a chemical seizure. Sofia practically dragged him by the collar, her own lungs burning, her hands bruised and scraped from the metal railings.
When they finally crashed through the heavy fire doors onto the fourteenth floor, the hallway was deserted. The kitchen staff had evidently evacuated or were locked down due to the fire alarms raging below.
Sofia pushed Julian through the double swinging doors of the banquet prep galley. The stainless steel tables gleamed under the emergency lights. At the far end of the room sat the heavy brass door of the executive catering lift.
She pulled the manual crank, and the steel gate rattled upward. The interior was barely four feet wide, lined with padded felt to keep expensive tableware from rattling.
""Get in,"" Sofia gasped, shoving Julian inside. He collapsed onto the padded floor, his breathing shallow, wet, and rapid.
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Sofia squeezed in beside him, her back pressed against the metal rear wall. She reached for the internal service panel, slid Julian’s red master keycard through the reader, and jammed the button marked: SUITE 32.
With a sudden, violent jolt, the lift engaged its high-speed cables, shooting them straight upward through the dark throat of the skyscraper.
