Gregg Hurwitz: The Tower

Rising to his feet, Allander reached the keys through his door to the lock. On the way through, they struck the side of one of the bars and slid from his sweaty palm. He crouched and shot his other hand through the food slot, grabbing the keys just before they disappeared through the bars of the platform floor.

Spade let out a gentle moan.

"It's hard not to be in control, isn't it, Spade? Frustrating not to be in the driver's seat?" His hand tight around the keys, Allander gestured as though he were holding a steering wheel. He pretended to lose his grip on the keys again, and Spade fell to his knees with a bang, arms uselessly outstretched. Allander caught the keys easily with a sweep of his other hand.

He laughed at Spade's expression as he inserted the key. The gears in the lock clicked loudly. He pushed the door and it swung open, creaking at the hinges. It was the first time a unit door had been opened from the inside. Only the dead had ever left the cells.

"Now open me. Free me." Spade reached for him, his fingers grasping at the black space in front of him.

Allander stepped onto the elevator platform and crossed the Hole, holding the keys inches from Spade's reach. Spade strained forward, turning his head and pressing his cheek to the bars.

"How much does all that exquisite muscle help you now, Spade? I'd bet that if your shoulders were a touch less beefy you could reach.. the… extra… inch… to… the… keys." He swung them back and forth in front of Spade.

"You hand those. You hand them here, you motherfucker, or I'll yell. I'll yell my fucking lungs out."

"Calm yourself." Allander laid a long, bony finger over his lips. "I'm going to dispose of the final nuisance above and the last thing I need is to be struck on the head by one of your wayward muscles. I'll see to you after I've handled him." He motioned upward with a flick of his head.

"Bullshit!"

"Ssh."

"Fuck you, ssh! Why the hell should I believe you?"

"Because what choice have you got?"

"I could fuckin' scream-how's that for a choice?"

"Fine," Allander said loudly. Spade cringed, looking up the Hole. Allander crossed his arms, strumming his fingers. "Let's hear it."

Spade turned in a tight circle, then grabbed the bars, his chest rising as if he was going to yell. But he didn't. After a moment of silence, Allander placed the keys on the elevator platform by his feet. Then he stepped forward and extended his hand to Spade's unit. Spade saw that the keys were out of Allander's reach, and he cursed silently.

They gripped hands firmly around the thumbs, and Allander leaned forward, peering intently into his eyes. "I will free you," he said. "You have my word."

He clicked the top red button with his other hand, and the elevator whirred and began to rise. Spade held Allander's hand until it slipped up out of reach. Then he began to pace.

Hackett heard the elevator engage. "About fuckin' time," he muttered, and peered over the edge. He saw a mound in the center of the elevator, covered with a blue jail-issue blanket.

"Oh shit, Mary Mother of God." His gun was immediately out, aiming at the mound as he fumbled for his walkie-talkie.

"Come in, goddamnit. Come in now. Over." But the thunder brewing in the sky had given way to a rain shower, broken now and then by bolts of lightning. The reception on the handset was shot, and only static poured out.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Hackett smashed the walkie-talkie on the railing. He looked longingly at the emergency phone on the wall of the shed, but then he glanced back down at the rapidly rising elevator and knew there was no time. He couldn't even check the location sensors to see which prisoner was on the loose.

His gun stayed fixed on the rising blue pile, which became clearer as the scant light from the sky spilled over it. Rather than rising to its usual perch ten feet in the air above the Hole, the platform clicked to a stop barely two feet above the top of the shaft.

Hackett fought to keep his hand from shaking. "Come out. Uncover yourself now! There are three of us up here and we have you surrounded."

Silence.

He advanced to the elevator, then stepped up onto it, his eyes locked on the blue blanket. His footsteps were measured and steady as he crept silently forward. The rain fell gently across his face, and he felt drops moving down his neck and mingling with the sweat on his back.

Behind him, an arm slid, spiderlike, out from the two-foot gap under the elevator, and Allander's head emerged after it. Allander strained to pull himself out from where he hung on the crossing support bars beneath the elevator. He managed to roll silently through the gap to the top of the Tower.

Hackett approached the blanket. His left hand inched forward, still shaking, as he held the gun steady in his right. He yanked the blanket back, revealing Greener's lower body. "Oh my God," he gasped.

Behind him, Allander pulled himself silently to his feet. Hackett started to whirl around but Allander ducked and swept his feet with a glancing kick, pulling the guard's legs out from under him. Hackett hit the ground flat on his back, banging his head.

Before he could raise his gun, Allander was in the air above him. He landed with the point of his knee squarely on Hackett's neck, collapsing his windpipe. Hackett twitched twice, then was still. His arms fell to his sides, the gun snug in his hand even as it clicked to rest against the metal.

Allander smiled. "I guess it's true. A veteran doesn't relinquish his weapon." He pried the gun from Hackett's grip and set it down beside him.

Then he paused and looked down tenderly at the fallen man. Reaching forward, he hugged him around the chest and neck, curling up on him momentarily as if to draw warmth from him. Hackett's head bobbed in the embrace, his blank eyes gazing ahead. After a moment, Allander got up and raised the elevator to its resting position ten feet above the Hatch.

Spade spied Allander's dark figure silhouetted at the top of the Hole. "Come on now, Atlasia. Your word. I have your word," he cried, his voice pleading now.

"Indeed. I said I'd free you, and I will. You just have to be less

… literal."

Allander smiled as he extended his arm over the Hole and opened his fist. The keys fell from it, rotating end over end as they plummeted into the darkness.

Spade roared below him, reaching desperately through the door at the keys, his fingers splayed, his shoulder and cheek mashed against the bars. The keys brushed his fingertips as they passed and he screamed as he saw them disappear below.

Allander looked at his hand, feigning shock. "Whoops."

"You motherfucker. You senseless motherfucker!"

"Well, at least my actions have prodded you to use a two-syllable word."

"I'll fuckin' r-"

"You'll what?" Allander yelled, crouched intently over the Hole, the veins in his neck bulging with blood. Spade halted mid-sentence, shocked by the rage in Allander's voice. "You'll what? I apologize, I didn't quite catch that. Somehow, I'm failing to see the danger in your threats." He leaned forward and gazed into the Hole. "I couldn't even retrieve those keys now if I wanted to. And I certainly don't want to."

The prisoners below Spade recognized Allander's voice, and peered up the dark shaft. The Tower erupted with noise, like a madhouse on the evening of a full moon. Despite the clamor, Claude Rivers slept on in Unit 11A. Spade strained to shout at Allander above the din, but realizing he could no longer be heard, gave up and settled heavily on his bed. His head collapsed into his open hands as he tried to shut out the insanity.

Allander roamed around the top of the Tower, laughing at the submachine guns hanging limply in the shed and digging through Hackett's tool kit. He pulled out a pair of wire cutters. The rain had momentarily stopped, as if gathering strength for a larger downpour.