Pandora Jones: Reckoning by Barry Jonsberg

Author:Barry Jonsberg [Jonsberg, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2015-03-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Pan’s heart lurched and she had difficulty drawing breath. She tried to be logical: it’s only the dark. It can’t harm you. Breathe. But her lungs refused to obey and the harder she tried to force them, the more constricted her airways became. Flashes of light played against her eyeballs and her legs felt weak, on the point of collapse. Inwardly, she screamed. Outwardly, she gave the tiniest squeak of terror. This felt like death.

A glow appeared in the ceiling of the elevator and suddenly Pan’s lungs expanded again. She took in deep breaths and resisted the urge to sink to her knees. Only a second or two must have passed, but it felt like hours.

‘They’ve cut the power,’ said Nate. At least he appeared calm. The fact he could even speak seemed miraculous to Pan. ‘That’s probably what the guard was doing – alerting the authorities that we were inside the Infirmary. So they’ve pulled the plug.’

‘In that case, why is there light?’ Wei-Lin asked. She gestured towards the panel in the ceiling, which emitted a creamy glow.

‘Emergency procedures,’ said Nate. ‘Think about it. There are four floors, buried in tons of rock, carved out of a mountain. How do you get fresh air in? Especially if the electricity fails. Backup power, that’s how. A generator for an emergency, so no one dies down here because air isn’t getting through.’

‘You seem to know a lot about this,’ said Jen. Her voice wasn’t friendly.

Nate sighed. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know you don’t trust me and I don’t blame you. But this isn’t insider knowledge, Jen. I’ve never been here before. At least, not that I remember. It’s just common sense. There has to be backup power. And that’s good for us. They can turn off the main switch, but the emergency power has to be independent. Probably a generator that kicks in automatically.’

‘This is all fascinating,’ said Sam, ‘but it doesn’t exactly help us, does it? We’re stuck in an elevator and the emergency power doesn’t appear to be making us move.’

‘Back in the real world,’ said Karl, ‘you’d press the button marked with a phone and wait for rescue. I guess that’s not an option available to us right now. Especially since there isn’t a button marked with a phone.’

‘No,’ said Nate. ‘But I’ve watched movies and so have you. There’s got to be a way to access the lift shaft.’ He examined the ceiling and smiled. ‘For example, a panel exactly like that one.’ He pointed.

It was a recessed section next to the emergency light. Metal seams marked it as different to the other panels in the ceiling.

‘Okay,’ said Jen. ‘So we climb up a greasy cable to the next floor, swing to the lift entrance and force our way in through the sliding doors. Is that how it goes?’

Nate smiled. ‘You remember the movies as well.’ There was a pause.

Jen handed the knife to Karl. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Nate. ‘I’ll go.’

The two looked at each other for a few seconds and then Nate smiled again.

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