“I’ll go deal with the signs,” Luke said. “Mike… do me a favor and run up to the Green Room of the con — it’s 1–303, right there on the third floor — and find a guy by the name of Simon Ballard — he’s head of the con security — get him to deal with clearing that particular elevator lobby, only people with legitimate business permitted to enter, no gawkers. Go! We’re it, there’s no help coming. We need to get on with this. If it is mechanical then the Lord alone knows what went wrong and I don’t want that thing dropping down like a rock with those people still in it. Go, go, go! If you need any help, grab any of the staff and tell them it’s on my authority!”
The maintenance crew scattered, and Luke loped back to his own office. At his computer, he called up a blank document and typed in OUT OF ORDER in large black letters and then set the printer to cough out multiple copies. He grabbed a handful of sheets even as they slid into the tray and handed them to the nearby receptionist with a roll of tape and instructions to tape a sign on every elevator door in Tower 1, starting from the top floor and going down. When she ran with those, Luke himself grabbed the remaining signs and started from the lobby, and then up.
About ten minutes later a small and worried knot of people gathered together outside the crippled elevator on the third floor. It included Simon — who was overheard muttering darkly about not having enough people to cordon off any more hotel floors to general traffic — and Dave, and one or two other able — bodied volunteers who had turned up in case any assistance was required but who prudently kept out of the way in the meantime until they were needed.
Andy and a pair of waiters he had collared as minions had hauled up a crowbar, a cordless drill and screwdriver, a couple of flashlights, and two short ladders. He was an unlikely superhero — stocky and grizzled, with a worn tool belt around his waist over his blue overalls.
“Right, then,” he said. “I would have preferred it if we had that key — among other things it’s supposed to turn the elevator right off if it’s used properly, so it isn’t likely to shift when you’re in the middle of doing something iffy, and that’s without screwing with the electrics — but needs must… Okay…”
“Wait,” said a commanding female voice from behind him. “Someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Elevator incident,” Andy said.
“The elevator appears to be stuck,” Luke said, turning to face Andie Mae. “There’s people in there.”
“I think Xander’s in there,” Dave said.
“We need to get the doors open, ma’am,” Andy said. “Now.”
“Oh, God,” Andie Mae said, biting her lip and flushing. “It isn’t as though we haven’t enough to… are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No, ma’am,” Andy said, “but one way or another we need to haul those folks out of there, and we gotta try. Excuse me…”
“Oh, for a sonic screwdriver,” murmured Simon, watching Andy grip the business end of the crowbar and apply it to the space where the silver doors of the elevator came together.
“You can’t just sonic — screwdriver your way through life,” Dave said, and Simon laughed.
“Where’s Libby when you want her?” he said. “That’s the sort of quote that would make it straight into the ‘Overheard in the Corridors’ part of her beloved newsletter…”
“You okay?” Dave said suddenly, aware that Andie Mae’s had lost color just as quickly as it had flamed into her cheeks, and now looked rather pale and wan.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m fine. I just perhaps shouldn’t have tried that last cocktail last night, that’s all.”
“That’s okay. We all feel a bit fragile,” Dave said.
Andie Mae glanced at him, from out of the corner of her eye, and then dropped her lashes. “That isn’t… really…”
The elevator doors creaked and then jerked apart, leaving a narrow sliver of a gap. Andy pushed at one wing, trying to force it wider, and Luke leapt to help, pushing the other wing in the opposite direction. For a moment neither man seemed to be able to move the doors at all, and Dave stepped forward to Luke’s side of the door to add his own strength to the effort as necessary.
“Use force, Luke,” he muttered.
The doors finally gave, and they pushed them apart wide enough to have an opening they could look through. Andy, on the lip of the landing level, peered into the shaft.
“Worst possible position,” he said. “It’s squarely between the floors. We can’t do anything from below — there’s too great a gap, and someone could easily slip through the gap between the car and the landing while we’re hauling them out. Too dangerous. And look — it’s a little off — square, hanging there — I doubt that we can get that inner door open safely enough for people to…”
“Anybody there?” came a muffled voice from inside the elevator, in response to that succinct summation.
“We’re coming to get you,” Dave hollered. “Hang on!”
“Somebody go tell Luis to cut that power,” Andy said. “We’re going to need to go down on the top, and haul them out through the hatch. Just as well I brought those ladders. But we’re going to be working in the dark, down there — it’s going to be a mess of…”
“Can we be of any assistance?”
The voice was courteous and pleasant, and the three at the elevator doors turned to see who was speaking, coming face to face with the android known as Boss. It was only Simon who happened to be looking at Andie Mae at the moment Boss had spoken, and thus he was the only one who saw the expression on her face undergo a couple of interesting changes. But Boss was speaking again, and Simon filed the information away for later.
“My associates can help,” Boss said. “We may be better equipped for this kind of task. I will summon them.”
Andy, who had not met the androids before, stared openly — and was even more taken aback when Bob and Zach, the two under — droids, stepped smartly out from the stairwell and came to stand beside their superior officer.
“Please tell us what needs to be done,” Boss said.
“Uh — somebody better go tell Luis — we’ll need that power off, now,” Andy stuttered.
Simon gestured to one of his security people. “Go. Tell the man.”
“We’d better warn them, in there,” Dave said. “They’re going to freak out if the lights suddenly go out on them with no warning.” He went down on one knee and thumped on the lift doors. “Guys! Guys! Help is on the way! Lights may go out — don’t panic! Someone’s coming! Can you hear me? Everyone okay in there?”
“Hurry it up!” a faint voice — Xander’s — came back, muffled by the doors.
The hoistway doors jerked suddenly inwards, just an inch or so, and Dave stumbled back instinctively, tripping on his own heel and falling on his ass inelegantly before scrambling back up to his feet.
“Whuh — uh?” he said. “That thing just tried to kill me!”
Boss stepped forward and folded one hand on the edge of one of the doors. “It will not happen again.”
Andy swiveled his head around to listen. “There. Hear that? I think that was the power. Okay. Now we need to work fast. Somebody needs to climb down to the top of the elevator — there’s a, a thing, like a control panel or something like that, it needs to be set to maintenance mode rather than operating mode — I’ve got a ladder — here — and a flashlight — ”
Boss made no move or sound but one of the other two androids, Zach, approached the edge of the landing level and picked up the ladder, sliding it down until it rested on the top of the elevator car and leaning against the lip of the landing level.
“The flashlight will not be necessary,” Boss said.