The Storm

Mike got out of the cab and ran into the high tech building. The rain was really coming down and he didn't want his suit… his presentation suit to get soaked. It would be uncomfortable enough going through his carefully prepared spiel. He didn't want to look like a drowned rat while doing it.

There weren't a lot of people on the main floor. He guessed his was probably the last appointment of they day and most people had been let off earlier to get an early start on enjoying the long weekend coming up.

Mike headed towards the elevators and followed a young woman wearing tight jeans and a plaid shirt into one.. Probably the daughter of one of the managers in the building or something. She turned around to look at him at the same time an impossibly loud crack of lightning and resulting thunder rumbled through the entire building.

He watched her visibly wince. "That one sounded like it hit the building," he said.

"Ugh. Don't reminding me." She said her big brown eyes looked a little fearful.

"I take it you don't like thunderstorms?" Mike said trying to be conversational, to keep his nervousness at bay.

She was in the elevator when he stopped walking. This particular elevator was one of those that clung to the outside of a skyscraper, he would have the entire view of the storm and the receding ground once. He couldn't move

"Never have," she said, "you ok?"

"I forgot this particular elevator was one wall of outside glass. I'm not a big fan of heights. Childhood trauma and all that." He smiled. But he still didn't move.

"Ignore me if I talk too much… heights make me really nervous."

She laughed lightly, "and thunderstorms terrify me. We are together in an elevator combining our fears."

"What you're saying is that we're not going to be any help to each other if it gets bad."

"That's what I'm saying," she smiled back at him. He heard the elevator pinging. This elevator wouldn't close the door on someone standing at the threshold. He couldn't take another step he kept staring out at the glass.

She followed his eyes and immediately saw the problem. "Look at me," she said." He gave her a quick glance but his eyes were drawn back towards the outside. He felt like they were in a fish bowl that would descend very quickly to heights that scared him to death.

"Look at me." Her voice was more demanding. His eyes fell on hers. He hadn't noticed but they were really pretty, and for now, held his attention over the outside world.

She walked towards him and took both of his hands in hers. She pulled him into the elevator, and she backed towards a corner, taking him with her. Her back was squeezed against the back corner of the front of the elevator.

His face was no more than a foot away from hers. Her large eyes held his.

She looked him up and down giving him the once-over. "you know you are a little overdressed for this building, right? Who are you here to see?"

"You know you are like the eleventh person to tell me that today. I'm here to see Jane Ives of Ink."

"Ink?"

"I-N-K, I call it that for short. It stands for Ives Neuro-Kinetic."

"Oh? You know her?"

"No. I know she is ruthless in business but fair… which is probably a odd combination. She had me look at some designs a few years ago, I made some improvements she liked. She contacted me for contract work some time later."

"She talked to you?"

Mike laughed. "From what I understand no one gets to talk to her outside of her entourage. I sent her an email. I've never seen her."

"I heard she replies with one word emails. Yes or no. Usually no. So you got a yes if you're in this building."

"Actually I got a have your people contact my people."

"You have people?" She raised her eyebrow.

"If you want to call them that. Everyone of my people," Mike air quoted, "are friends who wear multiple hats."

"What do you do… exactly?" She asked.

"I improve, increase, or design from scratch redundant safety systems."

"Have you done any in this building?"

"You're riding in one right now."

She looked around, "what makes someone design a redundant safety system for elevators of all things?"

Mike looked down, "I lost my parents and older sister in an elevator that failed. I promised my little sister Holly that I'd do everything in my power to prevent that happening again to someone else's family."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be flippant about it."

"It's ok miss, Holly and I, along with our friends, are proud of the work we've done. Our designs have saved people's lives. We don't compromise on a design."

"No compromise usually means expensive."

"You got that right. I'm sure your parents don't really care that Ives spent a lot of money on this elevator system if they get to hug you at the end of the day."

The young woman was silent. She cast her eyes down, "you are passionate about your work."

"I made a promise." Mike said taking a quick look to the glass wall, he was no longer able to look at the miniature cars getting smaller. His breath a little quicker.

"And a promise is something that you can't break. Ever."

Mike looked into her eyes. She knew. He didn't even have to acknowledge her words. Something unspoken passed between them.

"What makes this elevator have a redundant design?" She said trying to keep his attention from the glass behind him.

"We try to make one thing, be it lights, power, buttons, we try to make it very hard to fail. So we put some kind of backup process in case it does. And then we do it four more times.

"So a if the lights went out, it means that six different systems keeping the lights from failing… actually failed?"

"That right, mathematical odds are so high we can almost guarantee one hundred percent."

"But you don't?" She raised an eyebrow.

"No, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. We use the industry term five nines. It means that it's nine-nine point nine nine nine nine nine percent reliable."

"Smart." She smiled at him.

The elevator slowed to a stop. It wasn't halfway to the floor his appointment was on.

"Shit… uh, sorry… power is about to go out."

"How do you know?"

"Safety design, a sudden loss in power can result in a shocking stop for an elevator. This one detects power fluctuations and slows to a stop, at a floor if possible. Don't worry. These are LED lights in the elevator, takes very little power and the battery on the roof of the car will power it for days."

Another crack of lighting and they could see the power went out in all the surrounding buildings. Including the building they were in.

Including the elevator.

"Hmm, well that's not supposed to happen."

"Why did it happen? Means all systems failed."

"Yeah. This isn't good news for me or my company. The design of this elevator makes it intentionally hard, if not impossible to disable the various redundancy systems. The fact that we are standing in the dark means that someone has intentionally altered physical hardware. I hope it's not Ives."

There was another bolt of lightning that seemed to pass right behind him.

Another quickly followed, in the flash, Mike could see a tear slowly making its way down her cheek.

"Sit right here." After she sat down she drew her knees up under chin and wrapped her arms around her shins.

Mike sat across from her still shielding her view from the glass wall and the storm outside.

"It's ok. I'm sure someone will be here soon. This elevator has a beacon system notifying various people that it's occupied and stopped between floors."

"If it wasn't disabled." She said in a quiet voice.

He sighed, "yeah, if it wasn't disabled. Ok, I'm going to change all my designs to make them impossible to alter. Five nines is obviously not going to work. My reputation is on the line. And probably my business."

"Can you do me a favour and talk to me… it will keep my mind off the storm… why do you think you're business is on the line?"

"We put all of our profits back into the business. One failure makes it tough to recover from. If this elevator failed, how many others did?"

"What's ironic is that I was going to give a design sales pitch to Jane Ives, but I'm currently stuck in one of my designs. Not only am I late… and I heard she really hates it when someone is late… so, not only that but, the fact that one of my designs apparently failed means my team has to scramble… and I'll lose contracts… and wow… didn't really think about it, but I think this stopped elevator means I'm done."

He was silent for a few minutes. The domino effect was going to be swift and devastating.

"I guess when this elevator gets moving again, I'll just head home. Dealing with the lawsuits is going to bad enough… but it means I'll have broken a promise to Holly." Mike's voice was shaky.

"Everything will work out." The young women said.

"Not really, When Ives Neuro-Kinetic sues you with an army of attack lawyers, that business goes away."

"You think she's that much of a ruthless bitch?"

"I imagine her advisors, board of directors, whatever, will tell her she has to. As a person she's a smart business woman, but I'm sure she has her limits. I'm not worried about the lawsuit. Wouldn't be the first time we were sued. My company has good lawyers. If it was any other company than Neuro-Kinetic, I'd probably be ok… but Ives is going to sue me into the dirt. I'm not worried about that.

"You aren't worried about being sued into the dirt?" She smiled at him like she didn't quite believe him.

"No. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to tell Holly." He looked down.

Mike gave the woman a quick look, and saw her smiling.

"Did I say something you found funny?" There was no humour in his voice.

"You are more worried about breaking a promise to your little sister then dealing with a billion dollar lawsuit. I'm smiling because you know many people I know that would have that attitude? None. Just you. And I don't even know your name."

"Mike Wheeler… formerly the lead engineer of Redundant Design Systems."

"I'm El Hopper. I'm here to meet my best friend who works here."

The next boom of thunder rattled the windows of the elevator car. He could feel her shiver, his hands still in hers. With the power out, the elevator had started to cool down. Mike took his suit jacket off and laid it over her shoulders.

"Thanks. D you want sit beside me?" she said whispering, "we can share body heat. Looks like we'll be here for awhile."

She moved out of the corner so that her back was flat against the wall. She seemed so small even when he was pressed against her side. She was shivering.

"Uh, Miss Hopper it's not really that cold in here yet… you're really shivering."

"I don't like small spaces, or the dark. Or storms. Or lying. Or broken promises."

Mike chuckled, "well, no girl likes lying or broken promises…"

"I didn't mean to make light of it… Mike… and call me El please. I can see your promise is weighing on you. It's made you forget we are clinging a few hundred feet to the outside of a building. But you made me forget the storm." She took out her phone and started thumbing through it.

"Thanks for the reminder of where I am… I wonder if I can make the INK board of directors forget that one of my designs failed."

"Why don't you ask Jane Ives to investigate?" El said to him.

"I don't want her to think I'm trying to stall her or redirect blame. I have to be honest with her, I owe her that much for even taking a chance on my company. I'll own it, it's on me after all… but…"

"But Holly will be in the same room."

"Yeah," he sighed. His phone buzzed. It was a text message. He looked at it. "Hmm."

El looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"Text from Jane Ives. Short and sweet. 'We're waiting.' "

"You aren't going to text her back?" El looked up from her own phone.

"I heard that she doesn't like replies back that sound like excuses… and that's all I have right now. I'm just going to text back that I'm sorry…. Shit, gonna have to say I'm trapped in an elevator." He texted back.

His phone buzzed again. Puzzled he read the text. He wiped at his eyes repeatedly.

"What's wrong Mike."

"Jane Ives texted me back. She said not to worry, that Holly and the guys were working on it… and that she loved me. I guess she meant Holly." Mike half laughed half cried. "I'm not likely to get an I love you from Jane Ives."

"Probably not. But that sounds like you might not be sued?"

"Nah, we'll be sued. Not a lot of business lawsuits are personal, they are just business. You used to have Apple and Microsoft suing each other on one hand, on the other making partnership agreements on technology. If we make this right… it might not be too bad. Maybe we won't be sued into oblivion."

"You actually sound relieved."

"Holly knows. She and our friends are on it. She loves me, not that I was worried about hat, but at least she won't be too disappointed. Neither will the rest of the team. People have endured a lot worse than I have El. Not a lot of guys can say that. I'm feeling so relieved that I can say that being stuck in an elevator with a pretty girl is definitely not the worst thing that has ever happened to me."

She smiled back at him, then looked up as the lights came back on… the elevator started to move.

Mike sighed. "Show time."

He helped El stand up and they faced the door together. Waiting for it to stop. When the door opened they stepped out.

Waiting for them were Holly, Dustin and Lucas. There was a redhead with her hair done up, glasses on and holding a clipboard. She was standing beside Lucas.

She raised an eyebrow looked at El who was still holding Mike's hand and standing very close to him with his suit jacket still draped over his shoulders.

The redhead spoke, "If you are ready Mr. Wheeler and," she gave a half smile and curt nod to El, "Miss Ives, we will all reconvene in the boardroom."

"Miss Ives?" Mike looked at her. But didn't let go of her hand.

"Call me El… please." She gave his hand a squeeze.

"And, please let me explain? Ok?"

Mike was confused. She squeezed his hand again.

"I didn't lie to you. I promise"