'It's a maintenance center,' Graham said.
Connie went to the red door. She took one step out of the room, holding
the door behind her. She was sur iss prised and excited by what she
saw. 'Graham! Hey, look at this.'
He didn't respond.
She stepped back into the room, turned and said, 'Graham, look what-' He
was only a foot away, holding a large pair of scissors up to his face.
He gripped the instrument in his fist, in the manner of a man holding a
dagger. The blades gleamed; and like polished gems, the sharp points
caught the light.
'Graham?' she said.
Lowering the scissors, he said, 'I found these on the shelf over there.
I can use them as a weapon.'
'Against a gun?'
'Maybe we can set up a trap.'
'What kind of trap?'
'Lure him into a situation where I can surprise him, where he won't have
time enough to use the damned gun.
'For instance?'
His hand was shaking. Light danced on the blades. 'I don't know,' he
said miserably.
'It wouldn't work,' she said. 'Besides, I've found a way out of the
building.'
He looked up. 'You have?'
'Come look. You won't need the scissors. Put them down.'
'I'll look,' he said. 'But I'll keep the scissors just in case.'
She was afraid that when he saw the escape route she'd found he would
prefer to face the Butcher armed only with the scissors.
He followed her through the red door, onto a railed platform that was
only eighteen inches wide and four feet long. A light glowed overhead;
and other lights lay some distance away in a peculiar, at first
unidentifiable void.
They were suspended on the side of one of the two elevator shafts that
went from the ground floor to the roof. It served four cabs, all of
which were parked at the bottom. Fat cables dangled in front of Connie
and Graham. On this side and on the opposite wall of the cavernous
well, from roof to basement at the oddnumbered floors, other doors
opened onto other tiny platforms. There was one directly across from
Graham and Connie, and the sight of it made them realize the precarious
nature of their perch. On both sides of the shaft, metal rungs were
bolted to the walls: ladders connecting the doors in each tier to other
exits in the same tier.
The system could be used for emergency maintenance work or for moving
people off stalled elevators in case of fire, power failure, or other
calamity. A small white light burned above each door; otherwise, the
shaft would have been in absolute darkness. When Connie looked up, and
especially when she looked down from the thirty-first floor, the sets of
farther lights appeared to be closer together than the sets of nearer
lights. It was a long way to the bottom.
His voice wavered when he said, 'This is a way out?'
