Gridiron

Mitch squeezed her hand and tried a smile. It made his mouth start to bleed again.

'Just don't say I told you so.'

-###-

Ray Richardson picked the handmade shirt off his chest and tried to flap some air into the space between the sodden material and his sweatcovered skin. Outside the steamed-up doors and windows of the Gridiron it was dark. But for the bright lights, the smell of shit and the incessant piano music, he might have tried to sleep.

'How hot do you think it is?' asked Joan, shifting uncomfortably on one of the big leather sofas.

Richardson shrugged.

'It's not the temperature so much. Without the AC the tree makes it very humid down here.'

Dukes stood up and started to peel off his dark blue shirt.

'You know what? I'm going to take a swim.'

'How can we?' growled Richardson. 'You locked the door that led to the swimming pool.'

Then he realized that Dukes was talking about the fishpond that surrounded the tree.

'Not a bad idea at that,' he admitted, and began to undress.

Wearing just their shorts, the two men collapsed into the water. The salmon-sized, brightly coloured fish darted away in all directions. Joan regarded the water uncertainly.

'Come on in,' urged her husband. 'It's just like swimming in the Amazon.'

'I don't know,' she said. 'What about those fish?'

'They're Koi carp,' said Richardson, 'not piranha.'

Joan leaned forwards and splashed some water on her face and chest.

'I can't believe you're bashful,' teased Richardson. 'Not after that picture in LA Living. Keep your blouse on if you're shy.'

Joan shrugged and began to pull at the zipper of her calf-length skirt. She dropped it to the floor, tied the ends of her blouse together and stepped into the water.

Richardson sank underneath the surface of the water, and then surfaced again like a hippopotamus. He floated on his back for a moment and looked up at the inside of the atrium. Now that he was here it seemed like the best place to appreciate the internal geometry of the design: how the shape changed incrementally from oval to slim rectangular as the tower rose, with the atrium tapering past the curving ribs of the galleries and the central spine of the dicotyledon tree. It was, he thought, like being inside a huge white whale.

'Awesome,' he murmured. 'Just awesome.'

'Yes, wonderful,' enthused Joan, thinking he was talking about being in the water.

'It's just like a fire hydrant in summer,' agreed Dukes.

'I'm glad you persuaded me to come in,' she said. 'Do you think that it's safe to drink the water? I mean, has it been treated with Choke Water like the fountain outside?'

'I should hope not,' said Richardson. 'Not with these fish in it. They cost fifteen thousand bucks a piece. The water has to be especially dechlorinated and purified for them.'

'But what if the fish have, you know — gone to the bathroom in it?'

Richardson laughed. 'I don't think a little fish shit will do you any harm, love. Besides, I don't see we have much choice in the matter.' He swallowed a mouthful of the warm brackish water by way of confirmation.

The water had not been as deep as Joan had expected when she got in, but as she sat on the oil-smooth floor of the pool it seemed that the level was decreasing.

'Hey,' said Dukes, 'did someone let the plug out?'

He stood up. It had been waist deep when he climbed in. Now it hardly passed his knees. He looked around desperately for some kind of container and, seeing nothing that could do the job, began to scoop handfuls of their now rapidly dwindling supply into his mouth. Richardson sat up sharply. He was beginning to think that Mitch might have been right: that someone really did mean to harm them. Why else would he have chosen to drain the pond now if it was not to deprive the three of them of water?

He lay on his belly like one of the rejects from Gideon's army, and started to lap at the last few inches of water like a dog. Then he just lay there watching the carp flapping around helplessly.

'Saves trying to catch the fish I suppose,' he said, sitting up at last. 'We might get hungry.'

Joan stood up, hardly caring that Dukes might see her underwear.

'Sashimi makes me thirsty,' she said.

Dukes smiled and watched the water glistening on her half-naked body like the glaze on a clay figurine, dripping in a small potable trickle from the ebony curl of pubic hair that was just visible through her wet panties, wanting to put his mouth under it and drink it as if it came from a spring. Fat or not, he thought, she had a pretty face.

'Me too,' he said.

-###-

On the black screen of Tony Levine's laptop computer was the greenline drawing of the outside of the elevator doors. His thumb rolled the trackball of the mouse so that the view passed from one side of the doors to the other and the drive system above them. Willis Ellery took out his pen and pointed at what looked like the chain of a bicycle.

'OK,' he said, 'this is a high speed, fully adjustable MRDS. It uses this controllable DC motor to operate these two struts that pull the doors apart and then push them shut again. Near the top of the doors the force keeping the doors together will be greater than at the bottom. So that's where we'll try and force them apart: the bottom. That way we divert all that modified air product back into the main body of the building and away from the three men stuck inside the car. At the very least it should stop them freezing to death. Then maybe we can think about climbing down the shaft and opening the hatch on top of the car.'

'Sounds good to me,' said Mitch. 'But we'll need some kind of a knife or a screwdriver. David, why don't you ask Helen what she's got?'

Arnon nodded and went off to look for her.

'Even if we don't get the doors very far apart,' added Ellery, 'there are sensors incorporated in the drive mechanism. Some kind of a light tray. If we breach the beam we ought to be able to actuate the reverse door movement.'

'You mean open them?' grinned Curtis.

'That's right,' Ellery said quietly. Shocked by the death of Kay Killen, he failed to see how any of what was happening could be considered amusing. The news that they were trapped in the Gridiron had left him with a distinct feeling of nausea, as if he had eaten something disagreeable for lunch. He sighed with very obvious impatience.

'Look, I'm giving this my best shot,' he said.

'Sure you are,' said Curtis. 'We all are. So we ought to keep our spirits up, right? Let's not allow what's happened to get to us. You know what I mean?'

Ellery nodded.

Arnon came back with a selection of carving knives, kitchen scissors and wooden place mats.

'We can shove the mats in the space we create with the knives,' he explained. 'To keep the doors wedged open.'

'OK,' said Mitch, 'let's get started.'

The four men walked along the corridor to the elevators.

'Which one?' said Ellery.

Mitch touched the elevator doors gingerly. They were, as Richardson had said, freezing cold.

'The middle one on this side.'

Ellery selected a long bread knife and dropped on to his belly. Where the two doors met, he placed the tip of the knife and started to shove. Levine stood over him and, further up the height of the doors, tried to force another knife into the join. Neither man made any noticeable progress.

'It won't go in,' grunted Ellery.

'Careful you don't cut yourself,' said Curtis.

'There's no give at all. Either the drive system is stronger than I thought, or it's jammed solid.'

Levine broke his knife and narrowly missed severing a finger.

Curtis stepped forward with a pair of open scissors and took Levine's place.

'Let me try.'

After a couple of minutes he too stepped away and peered more closely at the entire length of the join. Then he rubbed his thumb across the join near the very top of the doors and, taking the blade of the scissors prised it into the connection. Something broke away, only it was not a piece of metal.