November 28, 2009

The next door was secured and Cynthia began to seriously wonder whether she might really end up trapped in the narrow stairwell until what emergency had occurred was over. She had not seen any signs of food or water, but that was to be expected, she supposed. After all, this was intended to be an emergency exit, not an emergency shelter. She did see several first aid kits, flashlights, and the occasional portable stretcher, none of which were of any particular help to her.

With growing relief, she saw that the numbers on the doors were growing smaller as she descended. She assumed that the main lobby would be labeled either “1” or “Lobby” or something similar. If so, she only had a few more levels to go. That was good, for her feet were beginning to hurt. She had worn short boots. There were intended for fashion, not for walking down a few hundred stairs.

Through the walls, she could still the faint sound of the alarms. Whatever was going on in the complex was still happening—or no one had yet returned to the building yet to turn them off. She started to wonder what she might find when she got there. (She already knew exactly where the restrooms were located.) Even if everyone had not gathered there, they would surely not far outside, even if out in the parking lot.

She made only half-heartedly attempts to open the next two doors, finding them locked as expected. By that time, she was close enough to the lobby level that she did not really care if she could get into any of the other floors.

The landing before the lobby-level doors were clearly marked with a 1-L. Cynthia assumed that it was to make it clear to anyone that it led to both the first floor and the lobby, regardless of which name they used for it. The door was also slightly larger than the other ones had been, which made a certain kind of sense. In an emergency evacuation, you would not want the last exit door to be the bottleneck for escaping employees.

The door was secured, but not locked. She had to work the latch first, but then the handle moved easily. She guessed that was to provide a minor deterrent to people who should not be using the door for regular access. Her hand still gripped the handle when she paused, wondering about the warning that the door had an alarm that was set to activate if it were opened. She could hear the other alarms still sounding, so she doubted that this one would necessarily be heard over the din. But did she want to call unnecessary attention to herself?

She had seen some doors like this used before. On some of them, the alarm shut off immediately after the door was closed again. She hoped this one operated that way. If she moved fast enough, the alarm might only sound for a moment and no one might notice. Taking a deep breath, she shoved the handle and rushed through.

Nothing happened at first and she thought maybe she was safe. Then, she heard a shrill beeping noise issuing from somewhere near the doorway. She pulled the door closed, straining against the pneumatic closing mechanism. An alarm started to sound and then stopped abruptly as the door clicked shut.

Cynthia released the breath that she did not realize that she had been holding. The momentarily breached door might show up on a security display somewhere, but she was relieved not to have to listen to yet another alarm going off—this one at close range.

She looked around and realized that the door had led, not the lobby itself, but to a small antechamber. There were three doors leading from it: the one that she had just exited and two others. The one almost straight ahead led to the main lobby area, slightly to the left and behind the security station. The other door was unmarked other than indicating that it led downward. There was a security access panel mounted next to this one.

Relieved to have finally reached the first floor, she headed for the door that led out the lobby. It was not marked as being alarmed and, at that point, she really did not much care. She was all but safely out of the building now. A few more steps and she might find out what was going on . . . and have access to a restroom.

Something made her pause as she started to open the door. There was someone stationed at the guard station with his weapon out. It took her a moment to consciously recognize what had stopped her. The person was in uniform, but it was not the dull gray outfits that the security personnel here usually wore. The weapon, she also now realized, seemed to be some kind of semiautomatic rifle, not the small handgun that the security usually carried. She shrank back slowly from the lightly frosted glass of the door, hoping not to be seen.

She leaned against the wall, back out of sight of the lobby area. The uniform she had seen had not seemed to belong to any law enforcement agency that she recognized. It had a military feel to it, although she was not certain. Her knowledge in that area was limited to her small number of encounters with campus police and highway patrol officers. Whatever organization the person belonged, the weapon he held carried serious intentions of harm.

Cynthia looked to the other two doors again. She did not particularly want to go back up to another floor. In addition, she would have to trigger the emergency exit alarm again, and the next time she might not as lucky in having it ignored. That left the door that led to lower levels. She knew from what her father told her that there were additional secure laboratories down there, as well as maintenance passageways. In either case, there were certain to be restrooms and other possible hiding places.

She studied the doorway quickly. Other than the security panel, there was no indication that it was alarmed. The only access card she had was her permanent visitor’s badge. She doubted that it would permit her past that door, but she saw little harm in trying. She did not think it would raise any major alarms, unless she maybe tried it multiple times without success. I’ll try it once, she decided, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll figure out what to do next. Her other options seemed clear: head back up to a higher floor, or take her chances in the lobby. Each of those choices held limited appeal for her.

Cynthia swiped her badge in front of the panel. The status light glowed amber for a moment and then, as she had expected, turned red. She swallowed, realizing again how thirsty she was. Out of frustration, she tried the handle anyway. She released it and jumped back in surprise when it moved inward. She had not heard it unlock, which had meant that it not been locked—or perhaps not closed all the way and she had not noticed it. There was evidence that someone had attempted to tamper with the locking mechanism, but she could not tell whether the scrapes and scratches were new or from some long-ago maintenance.

She peered through the partially open doorway. The passage way beyond seemed to be lit the same way as the emergency stairway had, so the failure of the lock did not seem to be the result of a power failure. She glanced back toward the lobby door and, with a resigned sigh, headed through the doorway.

The door, she discovered, did not lead directly to another stairway. It opened onto a short corridor that housed several offices, one of which she noted was the main security. Others seemed to be storage rooms. There was also a rear access to one of the main elevators. A few of the doors were open, but the interiors appeared dark as she passed them. She caught the bright glow of a display from two of them, as though their occupants had left in a hurry and then the overhead lights had turned off.

There was another door at the end of the corridor on the right side with a symbol that indicated that it led to a stairway. It did not specify which direction it might lead. It was possible, she decided, that it could provide access to both upper and lower floors. This door also had a security panel, but it was visibly open. As Cynthia got closer to it, she saw that someone had dropped a narrow strip of some kind of metal on the floor so that it wedged the door open just slightly.

The discovery caused Cynthia’s already simmering unease to boil to the surface. Why had someone propped that door open? Was it someone involved in today’s events? Or a minor security breach by one of the employees for their own convenience? She then remembered that she had been lugging her backpack with her during your entire trek down the emergency stairwell. Opening the front pouch, she started rummaging through it, trying to remember if she still had that canister of pepper spray in there. They had been distributed free to all students with night classes who had requested them. She had never used, except as the occasional mock threat against other students when they teased her.

After several moments of tense digging, she did locate it. She checked to see if there was any kind of expiration date on it, but could find none. Not that it mattered, she decided. No one seeing her hold it up at them would be likely to wonder about it. She resealed her backpack, tossed it back over her shoulder and, with the spray canister in hand, moved toward the doorway.

#

Cynthia found no one inside, nor any sign that anyone had passed through there recently. Not that she would be readily able to tell, she realized. Unlike the dusty interior of the emergency stairwell, this corridor had the polished, well-kept look as did most of the sections of the complex she had seen. Unless someone spilled their coffee on the floor, or tracked through with mud on their shoes, she doubted that she could tell if one person or hundred had walked through in the past hour.

The door opened onto a short platform. From there, as she had hoped, stairs leading both upward and down to the lower levels were available. Having already experienced the excitement that was the upper floors, she took the ones that would lead her downward. From what she could see as she peered over the railing, there seemed to be much fewer levels below her than there were above. She had suspected that was so; she was pleased to see to it confirmed.