Linkage: The Narrows of Time (19 page)

He swung his lower body like a pendulum and
plopped both of his feet over the front edge of the horizontal
surface. He only had minimal control over his legs, but was able to
shimmy his knees and his thighs onto the ledge. So far so good, he
thought. He just needed to maneuver his head and shoulders under a
metal support rail to get his entire body onto the metal landing,
then he’d be safe.

He let loose of his elbow grip and tried to
slide his head and back under the railing, but the knapsack caught
the underside of the railing above his head. He twisted and
contorted his upper body to compress the backpack, forcing it under
the rail. It worked.

“You okay?” Lucas asked.

“I’m good. Come on up,” Drew replied,
removing the bulky knapsack.

Lucas leaned away from the debris pile’s face
and wrapped his fingers around the bottommost metal bar. He tried
to pull himself up, making it partway, but then his body slid back
into its hanging position. “I’m not strong enough,” he said.

“See if you can lift your leg and grab hold
of the bar above you. That’ll take some of the dead weight off your
hands.”

Lucas grunted, lifting his right leg and
wrapping the hollow of his knee around the metal bar next to his
hands. “Okay, now what?” he asked, in a strained voice.

“Now reach up and lock your arm over the next
strut. Your center of gravity will change and you should be able to
pull yourself up.”

Lucas tried twice to reach for the bar.
“Can’t reach it. I should have had a power bar this morning.”

Drew feared Lucas would soon lose his grip;
his arms had to be getting tired. One slip and they would be having
wheelchair races in the hospital. “Try swinging your body to shift
your weight. Then lunge for the bar. You should be able to reach
it.”

Lucas rocked his body back and forth, each
time swinging a little higher. He reached up and wrapped his right
arm around the metal bar, locking himself into place with the crook
of his elbow. He climbed the rest of the way up.

“I knew you could do it,” Drew said,
relieved.

“Glad that’s over with. I thought I was
toast,” Lucas said, looking down.

Drew could feel the temporary platform
swaying beneath them. “We should get moving before this thing
decides to give way.”

Together, they climbed up the rest of the
makeshift ladder until they reached the top of the debris pile.

“Can you get in there?” Lucas asked, pointing
to the bright opening just above him.

“It’s going to be tight, but I’ll try.”

Drew used a piece of rebar protruding from a
slab of broken cement to pull himself up. When he inserted his head
into the passage, he jerked his head back and slammed his eyes shut
from the light beaming through from the other side.

“What do you see?” Lucas yelled from
behind.

“Give me a minute. Right now, all I can see
is sunlight from the other side.” Eventually, Drew’s pupils
adjusted and he could see properly. “Looks like a dirt cave, but I
think I can crawl through.”

The aperture was barely wide enough for his
chest and shoulders to fit. It was about six feet in depth, and
there were several jagged objects sticking out along the top of the
opening. He went into the cavity head first, on his back. He
slithered deeper and deeper into the hole, barely missing the sharp
objects wanting to slice open his chest. He made it to within a
foot from the far side of the hole.

“Can you get through?” Lucas yelled from
behind.

Drew turned over on his stomach. “There’s
something in my way.”

Part of a fluorescent light assembly had
fallen into the passage and was blocking the exit. He gave it a
shove with his right hand. It moved, but only slightly. He tried
working the light back and forth to see if he could move it. Each
time he shoved at it, the housing would slide a little farther away
from him. It took several more tries, but eventually he worked the
light free, sending it crashing through the far side of the
opening. “I’m clear,” he shouted.

“Go get help,” Lucas replied.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. Now go.”

Drew slid headfirst, out of control, down the
far side of the debris pile, scraping his elbows and forearms on
rocks and other objects in the wreckage. He was almost upside down
when he finally reached the bottom. After he flipped his body
around to sit up, he felt something wet around his waistline. He
reached inside the back of his trousers and found a handful of
fresh blood. He had been injured somewhere, yet he wasn’t feeling
any pain.

He checked the rest of his body, looking for
the wound. He found a six-inch rip in his pants just above his left
thigh. He pulled the material apart, revealing a deep gash in his
thigh muscle that was bleeding in spurts. He could see the bone
underneath. He clamped his hand around the wound to keep pressure
on it.

When he looked up, he could see clear up to
ground level. The surface opening was triple the size he was
expecting, perhaps due to the massive cave-in. It would explain the
overabundance of dirt in the stairwell.

“Hello? Anyone up there? We need help down
here!” he shouted.

A man wearing firefighter gear peeked over
the ledge and looked down at him. He then turned away for a moment
and yelled, “We have a survivor over here!” The man looked back at
Drew. “Are you injured?”

“I’m bleeding from my leg and can’t
walk.”

“Are you alone?”

“There’re seven of us down here. One’s in
pretty bad shape.”

“Hang on, we’ll send someone down,” the man
said, before disappearing from view.

It wasn’t long before the surface opening was
crawling with emergency personnel. A rescue worker wearing a
full-body harness was lowered down by rope to Drew’s position.

“My name’s Alan,” the rescuer said, swaying
in midair before his feet touched the ground.

“I’m Drew.”

“Where are the others?”

“My brother’s just on the other side of this
cave-in. There are four more people down on the twentieth floor.
One of them is in pretty bad shape.”

Alan was carrying another harness, which he
took off his shoulder. “I need you to put this safety harness
on.”

“No, I’m not leaving without my brother.”

“Trust me. We’ll get to him, and your
friends. But first, we need to get you to the surface. You’re
losing a lot of blood.”

Drew struggled to stand on his feeble legs.
“You’re going to have to help me.”

Alan slipped Drew’s lower body through the
two leg holes, and then put the V-shaped shoulder straps over
Drew’s head. He latched the waist belt around Drew’s midsection,
and clipped Drew’s harness to his own.

“Hang on tight,” he said, whistling to his
colleagues on the surface. Once he gave them a thumbs-up signal,
they were winched slowly up to the surface.

Drew studied the dark-haired man's face as
they made their way up to the surface. He seemed familiar in some
way. "You wouldn't happen to have a brother who's a security guard
on campus, would you?"

"No, why?"

"I know it sounds weird, but you look like
you're related to this man who stopped a fight between my brother
and some rugby players—except he had red hair."

"Sorry, no relation. I don't have a redheaded
brother."

"I guess it's true what they say. Everyone
has a twin."

* * *

Kleezebee and Rosenbaum joined Rapp, Larson,
and the injured Dr. Suki in the lobby on Sublevel 20, just outside
the NASA conference room. Kleezebee’s left armpit was getting sore
from the makeshift crutch rubbing against it. He moved the crutch
to the other side.

“Were you able to get it started?” Rapp
asked.

Kleezebee nodded. “The power should be online
soon.”

“Excellent news. Any problems?” Rapp replied,
taking the iPad computer from Rosenbaum.

“None,” Kleezebee said as the lights sprang
to life. He felt a rush of fresh air blow past him from the vent
above him. “Whew, that’s better. It was getting pretty stuffy in
here.”

Larson asked, “Now that the power’s back, can
we take the elevator up to the surface?”

“The elevator was destroyed,” Rosenbaum
replied. “Dr. Kleezebee and I had to take the stairs up to
eighteen.”

“Any news from Dr. Ramsay or his brother?”
Rapp asked Kleezebee.

“No, but at least they haven’t come back
empty-handed. Hopefully, they made it to the surface and sent
help.”

“So we just sit here and wait?” Larson
asked.

“Hey, you had your chance to leave earlier.
So unless you have a site-to-site transporter and can beam us out
of here, we’re not going anywhere.”

Larson stormed off, throwing his arms up in
the air and mumbling to himself as he walked down the hallway.

Kleezebee mocked him by waving his arms like
a gorilla, and then arranged his hands as if he were holding a
loaded rifle. He pretended to pull the trigger, simulating the
gun’s recoil. He walked to the closest chair in the waiting
area.

“How’s Dr. Suki doing?” Rosenbaum asked
Rapp.

“He’s hanging in there, but his pulse is weak
and he’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Should we move him closer to the
stairs?”

“We probably shouldn’t move him again. I’m
afraid the rebar might shift and cause more damage.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she
asked.

Rapp shook his head.

Kleezebee checked the house phone attached to
the wall next to him—there was no dial tone. “Phone’s still out.”
He took a seat in one of the waiting room chairs after pushing the
seat off. He slid one of the magazine stacks over on the coffee
table, making room for his injured leg. He leaned back in the
chair, closed his heavy eyelids, and let his head fall back against
the wall.

* * *

Two sweat-covered firefighters tugged at the
rope as Drew and Alan were winched over the ledge and onto the
ground just beyond the stairwell’s entrance.

“Thanks for the lift, guys,” Drew said,
waiting for someone to help him out of the safety gear.

Lucas’ earlier prediction of the science lab
being leveled was correct. From the looks of it, the energy field
had torn through the west side of campus, leaving only a fifty-foot
section of NASA’s building intact. The stairwell’s shaft appeared
to be just beyond the energy field’s reach, though a sizable
portion of the surrounding structure had collapsed into the
hole.

A female EMT, wearing an orange reflective
vest, pushed a gurney toward Drew, while her partner ran alongside
her, carrying a pair of red medical boxes. After Alan unclipped
Drew’s harness, she helped Drew remove the harness and sit back on
the gurney.

Alan told his colleagues, “There’s another
survivor on the other side of a cave-in, plus a few more down on
the twentieth floor. You’re going to need excavation equipment and
a medical team.”

Drew watched rescue crews rally quickly with
shovels, picks, and other equipment. Seconds later, two men were
lowered into the hole. He hoped it wouldn’t be too long before
Lucas came up and out.

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” Drew
said, shaking Alan’s hand.

“No problem. Just doing my job,” Alan said.
“Dana will take good care of you now.”

Dana used a pair of scissors to cut away his
pants from around the wound. “That’s a pretty deep cut. We need to
get you to a hospital.”

Drew pushed her hands away. “I’m not leaving
without my brother.”

“We need to stop the bleeding,” Dana said.
“Can I at least clean it out and wrap it?”

Drew was starting to feel lightheaded. “Okay,
but I’m not leaving until Lucas is out of there.”

The second EMT opened one of the medical
boxes, pulling out gauze and other supplies. He handed them to
Dana.

“Let me know if you need something for the
pain,” she said, dabbing the gauze on the wound. The pad turned a
dark red color almost immediately.

Drew leaned back to rest his head on the
pillow. His eyes closed unexpectedly.

* * *

Lucas had been sitting alone for almost an
hour when he heard muffled sounds of tools clanking against rock
and cement. He used a rebar stump to pull himself up to the opening
at the top of the debris pile. He yelled through the cavity, “I’m
here! I’m here! Can someone hear me?”

A male voice from the other said shouted
back, “We can hear you. Hold on, we’re digging our way to you.”

“How’s my brother doing? Is he okay?”

“He tore up his leg pretty bad, but the
paramedics took him to the hospital. You might want to stand back
in case some of this stuff shakes loose.”

Lucas nearly jumped off the wreckage in
excitement. He quickly descended to the ground and waited for
rescue. While he was waiting, someone tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned around. It was Larson. “Shit, you scared the hell out of
me.”

“Sounds like rescue crew’s on the other
side,” Larson said with a gleeful tone. “Hopefully, they’ll have us
out of here soon.”

“What are you doing up here?”

“I got tired of waiting. Do you have a
problem with that?”

Lucas shook his head.

“No, I didn’t think so,” Larson said with a
smug look on his face.

Lucas wanted to drop him right then and
there, but didn’t.

Larson used his left arm to nudge past Lucas,
moving closer to the base of the cave-in. He just stood there with
his hands on his hips, looking up at the opening at the top of the
wreckage.

Lucas moved to within a step of the man’s
backside. He raised his hands together and considered wrapping his
fingers around Larson’s neck. He wondered what it would feel like
to squeeze Larson’s throat until the asshole stopped wiggling.

Larson shuffled back a step.

Lucas did the same, lowering his hands so he
did not bump into him.