John Saul - Black Lightning

“Mr. Jeffers!”

“Back among the land of the living,” Glen said. “Thought I’d have a look around. Jim here?”

“Mr. Dover won’t be on site until after lunch today,” Janie told him. “If you want to wait for him—”

“Actually, I’d just as soon poke around on my own a little.” Glen gave her a conspiratorial wink. “How can I find out what he’s doing wrong if I only see what he wants to show me?”

Janie’s eyes darkened. “Mr. Dover doesn’t have anything to hide,” she began, in a voice that made Glen wonder exactly how close a relationship the receptionist had with her boss. “He’s the most—”

“Joke!” Glen interrupted. “It was just a joke.”

Janie looked uncertain, then uttered a small laugh. Glen seized the opportunity to pick up a hard hat, put it on, and slip out of the office before she could insist on calling someone to escort him.

He spent a few minutes touring the ground floor, then climbed the temporary stairs to the mezzanine level. But even as he began inspecting the structure, he found himself being drawn toward the elevator.

What would happen if he went up?

Would the acrophobia that had overcome him the day he’d had his heart attack engulf him for a second time, or had his unexpected panic just been some kind of crazy fluke? As he stood in front of the metal cage considering the wisdom of going higher up in the structure, the elevator clanged to a stop and one of the workmen looked at him inquiringly.

“Great to have you back, Mr. Jeffers,” he said, with a wide smile. “You going up?”

Glen hesitated, then made up his mind. It was like falling off a horse, he decided. If he didn’t get on the elevator right now, and conquer the fear that had nailed him a couple of weeks ago, he might never be able to overcome it at all. “Thanks,” Glen said. He stepped into the cage, the man closed the door, and a second later the machine came to life, rattling upward.

Instantly, Glen felt the first stirrings of apprehension in the pit of his belly. But he said nothing, determined that today the acrophobia would not get the better of him. As the machine continued to rise, Glen forced himself to look straight down, through the heavy grating of the elevator’s floor, to the steadily receding mass of concrete upon which the steel skeleton of the skyscraper stood.

With every floor they passed, with every twelve feet added to the distance of the drop, the queasiness in his stomach increased. Suddenly the elevator jerked to a stop, and Glen felt a moment of pure terror.

Stuck! They were stuck! Trapped. A wild desperation seized him, blood pounding in his ears. He heard the workman’s voice distantly.

“Utility floor,” the man announced. “This is where I get out.”

The utility floor. Only thirteen stories up, Glen realized, on the floor he’d set aside to hold part of the mass of equipment that would run the huge building’s systems. Only a second ago he would have sworn they were much higher.

This was ridiculous!

“I think I’ll go on up to the top,” he said, forcing himself to sound matter-of-fact, hoping his nervousness wasn’t reflected in his voice.

The hard hat hesitated, and Glen instinctively knew the man was remembering what had happened the last time the architect had visited the site. “You want me to go up with you?” he asked.

Glen shook his head. “I’ll be fine.” But as the construction worker got out of the elevator and it began creaking upward, he wondered if he’d told the truth. When the elevator finally rattled to a stop a few minutes later, he knew he hadn’t.

Determined to overcome the fear that was congealing in his gut, Glen opened the door and got out. The platform around the open shaft of the elevator had been expanded since the day he’d had his heart attack. A wide path of rough-cut four-by-twelves extended all the way to the edge of the framework. If he stayed in the center of that path, he would be perfectly safe.

Taking a deep breath, Glen moved forward, telling himself it didn’t matter that there were no handrails, that there was, indeed, nothing at all to steady himself with. When he was still five feet short of the edge, he stopped.

His stomach felt queasy, and he was finding it a little difficult to breathe.

His heart was beating quickly, but not quite pounding, and there was none of the pain he’d felt in his chest and left arm before the heart attack.

All he had to do was take a few more steps.

Fixing his eyes on one of the steel girders that would soon support the outer skin of the building, knowing that if he could just get to it — touch it — he would be all right, he started forward.

One step, then another, and another.

Reaching out, his fingers touched the cold steel, then closed on one of the thick ridges of the I beam. He edged closer to the girder.

And to the edge.

Now he was starting to feel dizzy, but he struggled against it, determined not to give in to the panic that was threatening to overwhelm him.

All he had to do was look down. Just one look, down to the sidewalk forty stories below, and he would have done it.

He edged closer and looked down.

Instantly, the chasm yawned open, drawing him outward, pulling him down. He felt himself leaning over, and an insane urge to jump blossomed inside him. Now he could feel it, feel the wind rushing past him as he dropped, feel the weightlessness of the fall. If he just let go …

He felt his fingers loosen on the girder, felt himself begin to lean out over the precipice, felt the dizziness take control of him.

No!

The single barked command came out of nowhere, slashing through the panic that had fogged his mind. Instinctively spinning around, Glen swept the platform with his eyes, searching for the person whose voice had broken the terrible trance of the acrophobia.

He saw no one.

But the voice spoke again: Down. Now.

Obeying the command, Glen started back toward the elevator. But as he crossed the platform this time, there was no trace of uncertainty in his step, no feeling of dizziness in his head, no hard knot of fear in his stomach.

And no consciousness of what he was doing.

The Experimenter felt good this morning. For the first time, he felt truly strong, strong enough that he would no longer have to put him to sleep.

Even yesterday, when Glen had begun to wake up while the Experimenter was working on the cat, he hadn’t really tried to stop the Experimenter’s work. He’d merely watched at first, but the Experimenter had been certain that, in a way, Glen had actually enjoyed it. After all, the Experimenter had experienced every emotion Glen had felt as, together, they’d carried out the work on the cat.

First there had been resistance, manifested by a faintly sick feeling in the pit of his belly. But the Experimenter had known that wouldn’t last long — perhaps if he’d tried to work with the dog, or even the bird, it would have been more difficult But the Experimenter had known that Glen didn’t really like the cat.

Didn’t like her any more than the Experimenter himself did. And that made things even simpler, for with their mutual antipathy toward the animal, their two minds were already working in a primitive synchronicity.

All the Experimenter had to do was reinforce that synchronicity, strengthen that tenuous bond that the cat herself had established between them. He’d worked slowly, letting Glen watch, letting him get used to what they were going to be doing. “It’s all right,” he’d whispered. “We’re not going to kill her. We’re only going to see what makes her live.”

He’d felt Glen relax slightly, felt him begin to shed that peculiar sense of guilt that kept so many people from accomplishing all that they were able.