Chip in His Shoulder, A by Witt L.A

Author:Witt, L.A. [Witt, L. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing

Freedom had never tasted as sweet as it did when we stepped through that door. Even though we were far from out of the woods, at least we were out of this goddamned penthouse.

Out in the hall, Daniel leaned against the wall and furrowed his brow over the palm computer. His fingers moved quickly across the keypad, and after a moment and a little bit of cursing, he said, “Okay. Cameras are down.”

“This way.” I led him to the maintenance elevator and opened the doors via the manual override. Then I turned on the emergency lights lining the inside of the shaft.

Daniel peered down the dimly lit shaft as I knelt and popped the latch on the briefcase. “Um, Liam?”

“Hmm?” I looked up from pulling the coil of climbing rope and the grappling hook out of the briefcase. His gaze darted to the equipment, then back to the elevator shaft, and as his eyes widened, I swore I heard the Oh shit! going through his head from here.

“I’m actually afraid to hear the answer,” he said. “But what exactly are we doing?”

I stood, rope in hand. “Ever done any rappelling?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Um, no.”

“Then pay attention,” I said. “Because if you fuck up, you’ll break your neck or hang yourself.”

“Well. That’s encouraging.”

I shrugged. “Just being realistic. This won’t be pleasant with your shoulder either. The cuts are sealed, but the damage won’t heal overnight.”

“Great,” he muttered.

“Something to be said for nanobots.” I rolled my own mostly-healed shoulder.

He glared at me. “Just tell me what the fuck we’re doing.”

“The rope is long enough to go down five or six floors at a time,” I said. “I’ll go first, then steady the rope for you.”

“So we get to leapfrog the whole way down,” he said dryly. “The whole way down a fucking elevator shaft.”

“Not technically leapfrogging, but now’s not the time for semantics. So unless you have any better—”

“Fine, fine.” He waved a hand. “How do I do this?”

“It’s going to be a crash course, so—”

“Liam. For fuck’s sake.” He exhaled hard. “Could you pick a better description? Please?”

“Whatever.” I gestured with the coil. “Pay attention.”

I explained the steps, starting with looping the rope under my right thigh, around my right side, and over my left shoulder. I kept things as simple as I could while still being thorough; we didn’t have a lot of time, but this wasn’t easy to learn. It was also dangerous as all hell, and most of the errors that could kill him were exactly the kinds of errors he might make now: the fuck-ups of a novice.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Um, no.”

We stepped into the elevator shaft anyway, balancing on the narrow horizontal beams.

“Watch yourself,” I said. “Closing the door.” I eased the heavy door shut, and it banged into place, sealing us in as the sound echoed down the thirty-story shaft.

As I attached the grappling hook to the beam above me, Daniel craned his neck, looking over his head and then down into the vertical void below us.

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