“Graham!” Samuel’s cry was pointless, unable to stop the older man from running from his post. He headed the same way many others had gone before him, toward the stairwell and hopefully to safety. But with people filling the building from the ground up now, who knew where was safe anymore. Someone had to think of something, and it had to happen fast.
“Oh jeez, this is bedlam,” Austin pressed the heel of his palms to his forehead, heaving a deep breath as he tried to think on his feet and be of some use to the situation. The way he saw it, there was only one thing for it, the issue was, he doubted whether anyone – Samuel especially – was going to like it. “Come on, man,” Austin pushed forward and grabbed Samuel by the arm, “it’s up to you now.”
“What? Get off!” Samuel detached himself from Austin, though the younger man could definitely overpower him if he needed to. This was not the time for a struggle and Austin knew it, he just didn’t see another way around what needed to be done.
“What are you doing?” Samuel asked. It wasn’t like the floor was silent any more though, people were shouting and trying to decide what to do. Looking down at the scenes below the window and trying to decide whether it was safer inside or out.
“You know the speech, right?” Austin asked, raising his eyebrows and taking a no-nonsense stance. It was the sort of thing he did when his son was acting up, the parental gene inside him kicking in and coming out where he least expected it to. “There are loads of news crew’s outside. Let’s take the story to them. We don’t need Graham. You wrote it. You can tell everyone.”
“What? No way,” Samuel refused. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not? We’re not going to get anything done stuck up here. We’re done for and you and I both know it. But those guys out there? They’re still searching for answers. They still believe that they might be able to get their money back. We have to set the record straight so we can figure this thing out. That’s never going to happen if no one knows the truth.”
Samuel couldn’t deny that Austin made a very good argument and – had the shoe been on the other foot – he would likely be doing the same thing. But it was different when it was him expected to stand in front of the camera and tell the country that they were broke. Where was the President now? Or someone from the Board of Directors? Samuel looked around the room in desperation, willing there to be anyone else who could take this burden from him. But there wasn’t. He was the only choice. Thinking back through everything that had happened since the crash, Samuel realized that everything had been leading up to this moment. He could’ve stayed at his parents’ house in Freeport, he could’ve avoided coming back into the city and returning to the Trident building. He hadn’t had to do any of this, but he had, because of his loyalty to the company and his need to do the right thing. He might not want this job, but he had it now and there was no getting out of it. He could either run like the coward Graham had turned out to be or face up to the music and play his part.
“There’s a camera crew coming inside now,” someone called from over by the window, drawing Samuel’s attention. “I think they’re live streaming.”
“Someone get it on the television. What channel?”
There was another pause as all the screens around the room which normally showed the stock markets skipped through various channels, landing after a couple of changes on the scene in the lobby of their building. It was worse than they’d all imagined. The place was a wreck, windows smashed and graffiti sprayed on all the walls, but beyond that it was the people that truly terrified the Trident employees. They looked bloodthirsty, searching for someone to blame or put an end to everything. Just to the side of the camera, two men fought each other with their bare knuckles, punching the lights out of each other. Samuel winced. The last thing he wanted was to walk into that, but he knew he didn’t have a choice.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, turning to Austin and biting his lip. This was a man he had never met before and yet for some reason, Samuel was now willing to stand by his side as they ran into the madness downstairs. His newfound courage was slowly amassing inside of him and although he was still terrified about what might happen, Samuel was determined to see this task through now and at least try to make a difference.
“Nope,” Austin shrugged. “But come on. I think we’re better off getting to them before they get to us.”
That was something Samuel couldn’t agree with more, forcing himself to jog toward the stairwell before he looked back and changed his mind. Cries from a number of people to wait rang out behind him, but he refused to answer them. There was hardly anyone left on the nineteenth floor now and unless they all acted fast, Samuel feared that they were all going to end up dead.
The minute he was out in the stairwell and rushing downwards just ahead of Austin, Samuel remembered what it had been like in the building just after the news about the crash broke. He had been frightened then, but this was something else. Heat rose up the stairwell like there was a fire burning below it and that spurred him on, the thought of being trapped
