“What made you start?”
“Was already on the road looking for the tower. Figured might as well share whatever news I found, connect the world at least a little, light a few shadows. Best I could do until the tower falls.”
“So you were out there alone, trying to find the jammer . . . for eleven years?”
“Not alone, I had Barbara! She has so much personality, I wish you could meet her. She got me so close. I was in the tower, I’m sure of it, I had the bomb, I was about to do it and then those fucking—those men, they . . .”
Julie is waiting. Tomsen finally notices the silence and stops pacing.
“I know how hard it is,” Julie says. “Feeling like it’s up to you to save the world. Like you’re the only one trying.”
Tomsen stares at her with damp, expressionless eyes.
“I felt that way for a long time, wandering around the country watching my parents slowly give up. Moving into an enclave full of people who were happy to die in a cage.” She cocks her head. “You went there, actually. The stadium in Post? I think you described it as ‘closed, hostile.’ Pretty accurate.”
Tomsen continues to stare.
“Anyway, I just want you to know that you’re not working alone anymore. You’ve got a crew now, and we can help each other.”
Tomsen blinks the remaining moisture out of her eyes. “A crew?”
“Like Nora said, we’re huge fans. It’ll be an honor to work for you.”
“Abram worked for Axiom,” I add. “He might have info you don’t.”
“Right,” Julie says. “So let’s just try it. Open all the doors you can. See how far we get.”
Tomsen nods. She nods so hard I worry about her neck. “Okay. Okay, we’ll do it.”
I’m looking over her shoulder, watching that grinning billboard wrench and sway on the neighboring tower. And then something else catches my eye. Something bright red and spinning.
“Uh,” I say. “There’s—” No time for words. I revert to body language. I tackle the two women to the floor as a stop sign spins through the window like a saw blade and sinks into the drywall. Wind screams through the broken glass.
“Can we do it now?” Julie shouts to Tomsen, brushing glass out of her hair.
Tomsen pulls a pouch of improvised tools out of her pocket and runs to the stairwell door.
M is on his feet; Nora tries to support him but he brushes her off. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“You do good work. I’m fine.”
We gather around Tomsen as she goes to work on the lock with a paper clip and what looks like a straightened binder ring. Abram lingers in the cell doorway. He doesn’t move to join us until the lock clicks and the door swings open. We run down the dark stairwell as windows shatter behind us, bits of debris punching through like a hail of bullets.
? ? ?
In violation of every building code imaginable, there is a locked door between every floor. If there were a fire, the top-floor employees would be slow roasted to perfection before they got halfway to the bottom.
The stairwell doors are solid slabs, but the doors to the offices themselves have windows, and I peer through them while Tomsen picks the locks. Vacant. Unlit. Most look like strange hybrids of corporate work floors and military barracks: cubicles with cots, copier rooms with rifle racks. A few look like jails, but we appear to be the only prisoners left behind. Was this a passive-aggressive execution or were we just forgotten in the shuffle? It’s hard to tell with this company. Despite its apparent craving for order and security, the new Axiom feels like a broken machine, a flopping, flailing contraption loaded with explosives and set loose on the world.
“Okay, what now?” Tomsen says. “I’ve been this far before but I can’t unlock this one so what now?”
Four floors from the bottom, we have hit a keypad door. Its thick steel solidity removes any thought of breaking through, although various dents and scrapes suggest past attempts.
“Abram,” Julie says. “Did you ever work in this building? Do you know any access codes?”
Abram looks at the lock and says nothing.
“Abram?”
“I didn’t even know the code for Pittsburgh,” he says quietly. “Everything’s different.”
A surge of wind roars through broken windows and the building sways. It’s a subtle movement but the effect is terrifying, like gravity has rebelled and we’re about to fall off the earth.
“Fuck it,” Nora says with wide eyes and starts punching numbers at random.
“I do know,” Abram adds like an afterthought, “that these locks have explosives in them.”
Nora’s finger freezes.
“Three wrong entries and you lose a hand.”
Nora steps back. Julie is shaking her head incredulously. “What is wrong with these people?”