i e4a5a8edf2d8eda0 by Unknown

private elevators, high-security, limited
    access.” He slid aside a hidden metal covering to expose a translucent plate and several code
    buttons. He pressed his open left eye against the scanner and keyed in a code. A bright beam
    played across his retina, mapped the patterns there, and confirmed his identity. The lift
    hummed, then whisked open. “I am the President, after all—no matter what Mr. Petty says.”
    The slan hunter glowered at him.
    Jommy urged them all inside, then turned to the control plate. “Thirty-eighth level would
    be our best starting point.” He punched the number. The doors closed, and the private car shot
    downward.
    Only seconds later, the palace was engulfed in a roar of light and fire.
    Shockwaves slammed into the descending elevator car, making a sound as if they were
    trapped within a bronze church bell. The bright ceiling light went out, and the car shuddered
    to a stop, dislodged from its tracks. More explosions thundered overhead. The walls trembled.
    “Brilliant idea, Cross,” Petty said in the darkness. “Now we’re stuck here.”
    “We would have all been happier if you’d stayed in the command-and-control center,”
    Kathleen retorted. “Why did you bother coming along with us?”
    “I couldn’t let three slans get away. That would be shirking my duty.”
    Trying to solve the problem he faced, ignoring the heated conversation, Jommy felt with his
    fingertips along the metal wall of the chamber. He found the crack in the sealed lift door. “We
    have to pry it open, get out of this elevator car, then climb to an access hatch.” Gripping with
    his fingers and palms, he pressed with all his enhanced strength, straining until the doors
    began to peel apart. “There … making progress!”
    Then, with a squeal and a groan, the stalled elevator dropped farther down the shaft,
    grinding along its tracks with a spray of sparks. They were in free fall for a moment, plunging
    out of control. Through the crack he’d been able to open in the door, Jommy watched one
    floor, then another and another streak past as the detached elevator picked up speed. Then it
    slammed to a clamorous halt, caught again in precarious balance.
    “Have we hit the bottom?” Kathleen asked after a moment of stunned silence. “Why didn’t
    we crash?”
    “We’re jammed in the shaft again,” Jommy said. “But it’s unstable.”
    “We could figure that out for ourselves,” Petty added sarcastically. “Maybe we’re almost to
    the bottom.”
    “There’s at least sixty more levels down,” Gray said. “I suggest we get out of here before we
    drop the rest of the way.”
    Applying all his strength, Jommy wrenched the door open farther. The tracks in the
    elevator shaft had been knocked severely out of alignment from the bombardment high above.
    One of the broken rails had twisted to one side, and the falling car had wedged to an unstable
    balance. Two feet above them, Jommy saw another hatch that opened to a floor—their way
    out. “Kathleen, I’ll boost you up. You can open the door from within the elevator shaft.”
    She didn’t hesitate, and Jommy was surprised at how easily he could support her weight.
    As she reached out through the open door, though, the elevator groaned uncertainly. If the car
    fell now, Kathleen would be sheared in half.
    Kier Gray moved to the other side of the elevator to compensate for the weight shift. They
    all knew the car could drop at any time and plunge screeching and sparking for sixty floors
    until it struck the bottom like an asteroid impact.
    Kathleen stretched out her hand, and with the barest tip of her finger she managed to hit
    the emergency hatch control. Lights blinked and, with a sedate hum, the emergency hatch slid
    aside to reveal a corridor well-lit by flickering ceiling lights.
    Jommy gave Kathleen another boost, and she scrambled out of the elevator and through
    the hatch. Once safely inside, she called for her father to come up. As Gray moved