"I'm sorry, dear. I tripped."
Nic looked down. Some stupid woman had just abandoned a pair of black, very high heels on the stairs, and the old lady had stumbled over one. Nic picked up one and then a few steps later, the other. Not knowing what else to do with them, she shoved them into her bag. The shoes looked expensive. Maybe, if she was lucky, they were her size. Nic realized she was getting giddy. The air seemed stale and close, inhaled and exhaled by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people before them. But did she really want to smell fresh air if it might also carry the invisible scent of death?
Mrs. Lofland's lips were moving. Was she in pain?
"Are you all right?" Nic asked. "Do you need to stop?"
"No, dear, I'm just praying."
"You don't need to worry. I'll get you out of here, I promise." "I'm not worried about myself, dear. If it's my time, it's my time. I'm just praying for you and the others."
Normally, Nic would have had to stifle a retort. Mumble to God or mumble to yourself--what difference did it make? But for some reason, Mrs. Lofland's words made her feel better.
They passed an abandoned black wheelchair left in the stairwell. Where was its owner? Nic's eyes strained ahead until she caught sight of a woman being slowly carried down the stairs by four men--young, old, black, white--all united in their common goal of saving another human being.
"Leave me behind," the woman was saying. "Go on without me. The firemen can help me."
Nic didn't hear their answers, just saw them shake their heads.
They had just reached the ninth-floor stairwell when all hell broke loose. Someone below them must have gotten the same message Nic had earlier.
"It's poisonous gas," a man below them shouted, his voice cracking in panic. "They're evacuating all of downtown!"
His words were answered by screams, shouts, and shoves. The crowd had been slowly pushing forward like a herd of cattle. Now it became a stampede. A man in front of Nic fell. She reached out her hand, but in a second he was gone, rolling down, trampled by panicked people. A woman behind them screamed, "I don't want to die here!" before clawing her way past Nic.
Nic grabbed the handrail on either side of Mrs. Lofland. The cane was gone, lost in the chaos. She flattened herself and the older woman against the wall as the crazed crowd surged forward. If she were alone, she thought she could make it all the way down to the exit. But Mrs. Lofland? She would be crushed. The next time she tripped, Nic probably wouldn't be able to pull her back up.
Time slowed down, the way it had at other times Nic had faced death. She saw people's open mouths, but their screams were oddly muffled. All of her attention was focused on finding a way to keep them both alive.
It was clear they weren't going to be able to make it to the exit. But was that really so bad? Leif's e-mail had said the sarin gas was two blocks away. Not here. And if there was no sarin in the building, then paradoxically, the lower they went and the closer they got to being out of this crazy panicked crowd, the more danger they might be in. The gas would seep out through roof vents and then roll invisibly back to the ground--the very ground these people were trying to claw their way toward.
What if they stayed here, higher than the gas could reach? Almost immediately Nic realized the flaw in the idea. Most buildings' HVAC systems vented stale air through the roof and picked up fresh air at ground level. So even if they managed to get back onto a floor, the ducts overhead could still be spewing invisible death. Unless ...
She thought of a plan. Now all she needed was to get them back out onto a floor.
"We've got to get back inside one of the floors!" she yelled in Mrs.
Lofland's ear. "It's the only way." She felt more than saw the older woman nod.
Nic wrapped her right arm around her companion and then let go of the security of the handrail. Almost immediately, they were buffeted by the shoving mass. Using her left elbow, Nic began to create a space where none existed. She made some headway, but the surging crowd pushed them inexorably down two steps, then three, four. The eighth-floor stairwell was now above them. And there was no way they were going to be able to swim upstream.
She had to make it to the far side of the stairwell before they reached the seventh floor. Each time Mrs. Lofland was pushed off balance, Nic hung on for dear life, pinning her to the empty air, until the older woman could get her feet under her.
There. The stairwell door. She yanked it open. Quickly, Nic pulled Mrs. Lofland through the door and closed it behind her.
They were in a typical office space, fuzzy, blue, head-high walls making a warren of cubes. Mrs. Lofland leaned against one of them. Her face was pale. "Don't we need to evacuate?"
"I don't think we would survive if we kept trying to go down." Nic's thoughts whirled. Going--staying--which choice was right? And which choice could kill them?