And then the car stopped. Twenty-sixth floor. End of the line.
Jack let out the breath he'd been holding. Milkdud hadn't been exaggerating about the extra space at the top. The car had stopped well short of the support beam and the roof. In fact, the shaft continued up a good twenty feet above him.
Jack knew Dud was leaning on the door open button to give him some extra time, but he couldn't hold it forever. Jack looked around and spotted a metal ladder embedded in the left wall of the shaft, running up to a door—just where Dud had said it would be.
He grabbed a rung, stepped off the top of the car, and climbed to the door. Dud had said it was unalarmed and that he'd left it unlocked, so Jack pushed through.
He shut the door behind him and stood a moment in the rumbling darkness, reveling in the feel of solid floor beneath his feet as his pounding heart slowed.
What a hell ride. Only a few minutes in real time, but a good aeon or two subjectively.
But he'd survived. The worst was over. He'd be more in control from here on in.
Until he had to get out.
He'd worry about that later.
He fumbled his hand along the wall and found the light switch. A row of naked fluorescents flickered to life overhead.
He was in what Milkdud called the HVAC area—heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning. Straight ahead sat the system's air filters, each the size of a panel truck. Eight-foot ducts ran to and from them.
Jack stepped over to the nearest and freed the briefcase from his belt. He opened it and removed a one-piece coverall—let Dud wear pantyhose; Jack preferred coveralls. He stripped off his suit jacket, pants, and tie, then stepped into the coverall and zipped it to his neck. He traded his wing tips for sneakers. He slipped the slim little cell phone into the inside breast pocket. He strapped the headlamp around his head and slipped its battery pack into his right hip pocket. He adjusted the headphones to his ears, then turned on the Walkman and dropped it into the left hip pocket.
Milkdud's voice spoke softly in his ears.
"Okay, Jack. If you're listening to this, I guess it means you're not lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the shaft." And then he chuckled.
"Ha ha," Jack said.
"Go to the big return that feeds into the left air filter and open the service door. We're using the return system because it'll have cooler air. Look close and you'll see I've marked it with my handle."
Jack stepped to the door and found the lever marked with Dud's little black spot within a circle. He pulled it open and looked inside. Dark. Very dark.
"Dark, isn't it. But not for long. To the right of the door is a light switch. Flip it."
Jack did, and an incandescent bulb lit the inside of the duct—a square galvanized metal shaft, eight foot on a side. A dozen feet to his left it made a right-angle downward turn.
"Don't stand there gawking, Jack. Get inside, close the door behind you, and start moving."
Jack did and inched to the edge of the down shaft. Just below the lip, a metal ladder trailed down the inner surface of the shaft; its rungs were swallowed by the darkness beyond the cone of light cast by the single bulb.
"Use the ladder to get to the twenty-first floor. Don't worry about the dark. We'll take care of that as we go."
"If you say so," Jack muttered.
He swung over the edge and started down. As he neared the darkness below…
"The engineers who renovated this system were unusually considerate. Not only are there no motion detectors or grates in the ducts—something I'd recommend if I was trying to keep out people like us—but they placed a light on every floor, same as in the elevator shaft. But these have to be turned on. Keep an eye out to the right of the ladder as you pass each major seam. You'll see a pair of light switches: One operates the bulb above you, and the other the bulb below."
"Love those considerate engineers," Jack said as he found the switches and hit the one that illuminated the section below.
"Conserve energy, Jack. Turn off the light in each section as you leave it."
"You do it your way, Dud. I'll do it mine. I like to see where I've been."
"Turn me off until you see my handle on the twenty-first floor."
Jack found the off switch and continued his descent without a running narrative. The only sounds were his soft, echoing footsteps and his breathing. Farther down he found a big "21" in red marker facing him through the rungs of the ladder. Dud's handle hovered under the curve of the "2" like a floating eye.
Jack turned on the Walkman.
"Okay, Jack. If you're at the twenty-first floor, it's time to leave the big vertical and enter the laterals via that opening on your left. These get smaller as we go, and unfortunately they're not lit for us, so you'll have to turn on the headlamp."
Jack swung off the ladder and into the smaller duct. It was perhaps half the width of the vertical. He adjusted the headlamp lens to the widest beam and began to crawl.
"At the first intersection you turn left. I've cleared the dust and left a little directional arrow. I've done that at each intersection—the black arrows for the way in, red arrows for the way out—just in case something goes wrong with the Walkman."
"What a comforting thought," Jack said. But he appreciated Milkdud's thoroughness.
He found the first pair of arrows—bracketing Dud's handle—and made the turn.
"And that's basically it, Jack. The arrows will lead you to the return that services Haffner's office. If you need any help, you've got the cell phone. The thing is to move slowly and carefully, easing yourself along. Sudden moves that bang against the sides will send the noise far and wide. Most people ignore an occasional rattle or such from a register. But give them a series of noises moving along above their hung ceilings and they start making calls, asking what's going on. So take it easy, Jack. We've given you plenty of time. Good hacking, man. This is Milkdud, signing off."
Must think he's Walter Cronkite or something, Jack thought as he turned off the Walkman and continued his crawl.
As he slid through the dark ducts, following the wavering beam of light stretching before him, he came to appreciate the coveralls. Its button-free front surface allowed him to glide along smoothly and silently.
The ducts, as Dud had warned, did indeed get smaller. But Jack kept following the arrows. He was, he freely admitted, utterly lost. He knew he was on the twenty-first floor of the Hand Building, and that his body was horizontal, but any orientation beyond that was a guess. Was he facing east or west, uptown or downtown? He had no idea.
That Dud had managed to hack this place—doing the elevator thing, and finding his way through this labyrinth of ductwork—on his own was astonishing.
That anyone could call it fun was simply beyond Jack.
And then Jack came to a left-pointing arrow and saw—literally—a light at the end of the tunnel.
Slim bands of fluorescent glow angled up through the louvers of a register at the end of a small duct. Jack heard voices filtering through from the room beyond, but couldn't catch the words. And even if he could, hearing was not enough. He wanted to see who was in that room, wanted to know who was saying what.