“Were you not listening just now?” asked Cynthia.
“They’ll come back for everyone,” said Lyle. “They’ll take all of us, and we’ll be fine, and we won’t need our food. And since we can’t take it with us anyway, let’s give it away. It’ll buy us some good will, at the very least.”
“And who’s going to give it to them,” asked Ira/Moore. “You? Do you really want to walk out to that fence and hope they don’t stone you to death?”
“Half of them are Lyles,” said Lyle. “I’m practically one of them.”
“Unless they put it together that the Lyle on the inside of the fence might be the real one who got us all into this mess in the first place,” said Ira/Moore. “They’d tear the bars apart with their teeth just to get to you.”
“It’s too late anyway,” said Lilly, and they all looked to the window. Three rioters had already climbed the fence, only to be shot down by the soldiers inside, but more were coming, scaling the bars, swarming over the top, and shooting them would mean shooting into the backdrop of thousands of civilians. The soldiers hesitated, and it was all the time the rioters needed. The locks were snapped open, the chains broken, the gates opened, and the mob flooded in.
“Get upstairs,” said Ira/Moore. “Everybody go, now!” He didn’t wait to see if they followed him, but bolted out into the hallway. Cynthia grabbed Lyle firmly by the arm and dragged him out with her, Lilly running close behind.
Lyle shook Cynthia’s hand away as they reached the elevator. Ira/Moore was frantically pressing the button.
“They said they locked the elevators,” said Lilly.
“I can hear the motors running,” said Ira/Moore.
“I think they only locked the bottom floors,” said Lyle.
“I can hear the motors running,” Ira/Moore repeated. “The elevator cars are moving, just be patient.”
“We should take the stairs,” said Lilly.
“It’s thirty-nine floors,” said Cynthia, “and we’re on the fifth. We’ll never make it in time.”
“Have you ever actually taken stairs?” asked Lilly. “It doesn’t take two minutes per floor.”
“The elevator’s going to come,” said Ira/Moore, but the longer they waited, the more nervous Lyle got. He shifted on his feet, looking at the door to the stairway, listening for the sounds of the mob. The building was almost eerily quiet.
Cynthia folded and unfolded her arms, pausing every few seconds to push the up button again. Ira/Moore pressed his head against the metal doors. Lilly played with the cuff of her sleeve until she’d twisted it so tight Lyle thought her hand would turn blue.
Lyle opened the door to the staircase.
“It’s going to come,” Ira/Moore insisted.
“Quiet,” said Lyle, “I’m listening,” and stuck his head into the stairwell, holding his breath, listening for voices. For footsteps. There they are. “There’s someone in the stairwell.”
Lilly paled. “Chad said they locked the bottom floors!”
“Locks are easy to break,” said Lyle.
“It’s probably just people on other floors,” said Cynthia, “giving up on the elevators and running.”
“Probably,” said Lyle. “That doesn’t mean they’re on our side.”
The four of them looked at each other. Lilly slipped off her heels. “Let’s go.”
They ran through the door, bounding up the stairs, clutching the railing as they rounded each corner. Other voices and footsteps echoed around them, but they couldn’t tell if they were coming from above them or below them. The tenth floor, the fifteenth floor, the eighteenth floor. They were slowing down. Lilly paused and Lyle pushed her forward, gasping for breath. Ira/Moore ran ahead without waiting, up and up and up. Cynthia clung to Lyle’s side like a remora.
“I need a rest,” said Lyle.
“You can rest at the top,” Cynthia hissed.
The twentieth floor. The twenty-fifth. The thirtieth. Now even Lilly, in better shape then either of them, seemed winded and faltering. She paused again, panting, and this time Lyle stopped with her. Cynthia wheezed in behind them, her teeth gritted.
“Eight steps per flight,” Lyle wheezed. “Two flights per floor. A hundred and forty-four steps to go.”
“A hundred and sixty,” said Lilly. “We have to reach the roof, not the top floor.”
“Whatever we’re hearing is definitely below us,” said Cynthia. “It’s getting closer.”
Lyle could hear it now, as well, closer now, almost on top of them. He looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing. They dragged themselves up another sixteen steps. Another thirty-two. Another 112. When they reached the top floor they were greeted with a wall of rifle barrels aimed straight at Lyle’s face, but the soldiers lowered their weapons when they recognized the women with him.
“I told you they were coming,” said Ira/Moore. The soldiers hustled them out onto the roof, where a cold wind stung them. Nearly a hundred people were huddled together for warmth, delegates and staff and service workers, all waiting for the helicopters. None of them had a coat.
“We can’t raise anyone on the radio,” said Chad. “It should only be another twenty minutes.”
“Have you heard from General Blauwitz?” asked Cynthia.
“Not since we lost the fence,” said Tanzania. “He’s either captured or too busy to talk.”
“Or dead,” said Estonia.
The roof was narrow and cramped, even without the people—most of it was taken up with satellite dishes, radio antennas, and other bits of scaffolding. The entire perimeter was ringed with a screen, like a fake wall, and Lyle was glad there was essentially no chance of falling off the edge. The helicopters, he assumed, would try to land on the roof of the elevator housing, which rose above the rest of the rooftop like a miniature warehouse in the middle. He didn’t know how sturdy it was, but it was the only place wide enough and flat enough to work.
“This just keeps getting better,” said Cynthia. “Can we see anything?”
