Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“What’s happening?” Jack asked, almost shouting be heard over the raucous noise.
“Who can know for sure?” Winslow said with a shrug, as if unconcerned. “Maybe a prison riot? Possibly a runner? Either way, it won’t last too long.” Winslow shrugged again.
Jack knew one thing absolutely. Their five minutes were definitely up.
Madelaine lifted up on tippy toes, peeking out the window of the door, which was still locked from the outside. “I can’t see anything.”
Jack didn’t have to stand on tippy toes. He had to stoop slightly to see out.
“Do you see the warden?” she asked.
“No. All I see is Indigo Jones with his head in his window, still whining and complaining about kale.”
Jack shouted, “Hey! Warden Draven. Let us out of here!”
He heard the sudden staccato of the warden’s boot heels racing toward them. To the right, Indigo Jones’s face disappeared from his cell window and he started a different chant. “I want out! Let me out!”
Jack rolled his eyes. The warden ignored Jones and headed toward Winslow’s cell, key in hand.
“I can’t open your cell door quite yet,” he said, glancing over his shoulder toward the elevator. He didn’t seem panicked, which was worse, in Jack’s estimation.
“When, then?” Jack asked, trying to be patient.
Draven looked at his tactical watch and said, “Another minute or so.” He lowered his arm.
“But we’re free to go when you can let us out, yes?”
Draven hesitated. “Yes,” he said after a long pause. “In theory.”
“But?” Jack asked.
“The elevator is locked down and you will have to use the spiral stairs.”
“Twenty flights down?” Jack asked.
“Better than staying up here. This tower is on the cold side. Along with the elevators, the other amenities also cease working.”
“Amenities?”
“Well, the most important amenity is the heat. It won’t take long for this tower to get cold.”
Jack traded a look with Madelaine. “Stairwell it is, yes?”
“Yes. Whatever it takes,” she said. “We still have a time constraint on this errand, right?” Jack nodded.
Winslow, his voice cutting easily through the noise, said, “Before you leave the prison grounds, don’t forget that the silent moon will need a name.” They both spun around.
“Who is the silent moon?” Madelaine asked. Veyre had mentioned a silent moon and told her to give over Jack’s name when it was called for.
Winslow tilted his head to one side. “Don’t you know?”
“No, I don’t.”
Winslow smiled and shrugged. “I can’t help you. I’ve already done what is required. I did my part.” He did seem quite satisfied with their short meeting.
Madelaine turned to Jack with an expression that bordered on annoyed disbelief, but she seemed to shake it off. Apparently, the silent moon was going to have to be a worry for another time, along with the escaped wolf and the laughing danger man.
A sharp, metallic sound came from the cell door.
The warden said, “Okay, I’m unlocking the door.
Do not linger.” They both did an about-face, ready to leave and go down twenty flights of stairs to the ground floor and into a possible prison riot or perhaps just a runner, according to Winslow. Who could know?
Draeken Phoenix had told Jack what a runner was. That meant someone was tired of living at the Galactic Gulag XkR-9 and had chosen either fire or ice as a way to end his prison sentence. The hard way.
No one survived fifty or so steps beyond the prison grounds. At least not for long.
The moment the door was unlocked, the warden pulled it open and they both exited quickly.
The warden locked Winslow’s cell door and hurried down the hall toward the elevator that was, it seemed, locked down and unusable. The doors were lined in a thin red light that flashed like a heartbeat. It was unnerving.
Jack decided it was better not to have been on the way down in the elevator when the klaxon went off, trapping them inside.
Small victories.
They still faced a long walk down. Draven veered to the right, down a short hallway beside the elevator. He got to a large wooden door with a metal grate at Jack’s eye level. Jack could see the door was about six inches thick.
The warden pulled a big key ring from yet another tactical pocket and flipped through several keys, unlocking not one but four locks to open the large door. All the while, the klaxon blared and the red lights blinked.
With the big heavy door opened, Draven went through and motioned for them to hurry.
He pointed around the curved hall to the staircase, which was surprisingly wide, maybe five or six feet and made of gray and maroon stone.
It looked solid. Jack hoped it remained that way as they descended the next twenty flights.
He heard the big wooden door close behind them and turned, expecting to see Draven.
He wasn’t there.
“Warden?”
Jack and Madeline exchanged a look of “what the heck!”
Draven’s face appeared in the eye-level grate. “You should get moving,” he said.
“You’re not accompanying us?” Madelaine asked.
Draven pointed up and gave an exasperated look like Jack and Madelaine should already know the answers their own questions. “Well, the alarm screaming above our heads changes things, at least it does for me.”
“Seems like even more reason for you to hang with us and ensure safe passage out of here.”
“Not possible. But you two should get moving.” Draven seemed off—not that Jack really knew this guy, but his attitude was odd. What was he hiding?
“Why?” Madelaine asked. “What’s waiting for us down there?”
Jack was thinking the same thing.
The warden frowned. “I don’t know that anything is waiting for you down there. But staying up here is not a good option for the two of you.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “But I thought you were supposed to escort us while we were on the gulag’s grounds, right?”
“I never guaranteed safe passage out. Besides, it seems as though things have been taken out of my hands. Trust me, you’ll have better luck if you take the stairs.”
“Well, I don’t trust you.” Jack was done with this man. He turned away, grabbed Madeline’s hand and walked toward the stairwell as the warden laughed.
Madelaine didn’t stop him or try to slow him down, but her expression said she might be considering it. He squeezed her hand twice and led her to the top of the circular steps.
Jack and Madelaine started down as the warden continued to laugh behind them.
“Now what?” she asked as they carefully made their way down the steps, hugging the wall as the staircase grew darker the farther they descended.
“In a few more steps,” Jack said, “I’ll fish out my mini Maglite.”
“Awesome. I forgot you were a Boy Scout. Always prepared.”
“Or maybe I’m just afraid of the dark,” he quipped.
“Not likely,” Madelaine said. “I know better.”
“Well, since I wasn’t allowed to bring my Swiss Army Knife, I decided I should at least bring my mini Maglite for comfort.”
“Good thinking.”
Countless steps later, they were not racing down the steps, but they were making steady progress. Jack didn’t want to fly down the stairs and into anyone trying to climb up to greet them.
Whatever was in the cardboard box rattled around, feeling ridiculously ordinary considering everything they’d gone through to get it.
Jack tucked it more securely beneath one arm as he led Madelaine down the spiral staircase, the beam from his trusty mini Maglite guiding them.
Twenty floors. Twenty. Whoever designed Winslow’s isolated tower prison clearly hated visitors.
The red emergency lights flashing overhead for the past couple of flights didn’t improve the experience, but apparently the building crew didn’t want to spend the money on red-light technology all the way down the staircase.
The klaxon, however, was loud and clear. The alarm had been blaring continuously since it began. Its mournful howl echoed through the stone stairwell and bounced off the walls until Jack felt like it was drilling directly into his skull with each step he took.
“Next time,” he said between breaths, “we’re taking the elevator.”
Madelaine huffed. “The elevator was shut down, according to Warden Just Trust Me, but going down twenty flights is better than being trapped up there.”
“Fine. Then next time we should more carefully consider visiting anyone who lives twenty stories above the rest of civilization, especially while visiting any gulags.”
Over his shoulder, he saw a faint smile tug at her lips. “Look at it this way—we’re getting all of our aerobic steps in today, right?”
Apparently, problematic and possible prison riot experiences were improving her sense of humor.
Jack wasn’t sure the same could be said for himself. “Okay, I guess I can’t argue with that. Step count for the win.”
Winslow’s final words continued rattling around inside his head.
The blind old prisoner had handed over the package and casually informed them that inside the cardboard box was the special housing for the solution, that his father had carved it, like it would solve all their problems. Then he’d spouted all those weird cryptic maxims for them to chew on and worry over.
Jack was unsure about those adages, but he played along. His job was to make sure Madelaine was safe while they met their daily aerobic step goal at the worst prison in the known galaxies. He was willing to admit that going down twenty flights of stairs was better than climbing the same amount.
A large, heavy security door came into view beyond the curve of the final few steps. His legs would have danced in joy at the thought of no more steps, but they were too tired to be happy.
He looked through the security glass window placed at eye level. Beyond the door stretched the corridor next to the locked-down elevator, the entire scene bathed in flashing crimson light.
At least the klaxon was subdued here by the door and not drumming in his head.
They just needed to get through the door. Jack grabbed the handle and pressed his thumb on the release. Nothing happened. It did not budge, even when he exerted more thumb pressure. Maybe he was weak from all those flights of stairs while getting his steps in.