8. The Bird

I do not know how long we stood there beneath the bookcase. It couldn't have been but more than a minute, but it was long enough to register her tears, to feel those fingertips upon my cheek…to see her yet trembling. The chamber was silent, silence through which I could again hear the groaning of the wind upon the tower's heights. Beyond the metal shell I could hear something else...droning. "Look, Elizabeth, we have to go." I said with a glance over her shoulder.

Eyes refocused upon mine, her hand fell away from my face. "How...how do you know my name? Her voice had a pathos in it I could barely bare.

Forcing myself to focus, I tried to localize the sound. "Not now. Where's the door?"

"There's no way out." She moaned, looking toward a daunting bank vault door. "Trust me, I've looked." A keyhole adorned its right side.

Sifting through my pocket, I produced the token Laslowe had given me. "What about this?" I asked, holding it before her between my thumb and two forefingers.

"What about it?" Her eyes remained upon the door.

"This is the way out, isn't it?"

With a double take at what was in my hand, her eyes widened. "Where did you get tha...give it to me!" She snatched it from my grasp and looked upon it in disbelief, spun it between the Bird on one side and the Cage on the other. Dashing for the door, she hesitated before inserting it into the socket. Inside I heard the movement of tumblers and the door sprung open. She jumped…stood there, hands upon her chest before looking back to me. Upon her face I saw amazement...and fear.

"I told you, it's a way out." I came alongside her, still feeling bruises I'd nurse for days. They wouldn't be the last. "How long have you...been locked inside here?"

She continued looking at the door, lower still lip a tremble. "All of my life. I've...never been...out."

I swung the bulkhead open further and offered my hand. "Are you serious?" She looked at the door but said nothing. I nodded down the passage. "Well, out is this way."

From the apprehension in her exit, I knew for a fact she wasn't lying. Outside I stumbled to a halt. A sign called out: "CAUTION: PROCEED ONLY IF SPECIMEN IS PROPERLY SEDATED!" She stood looking at it, eyes turning back to mine. "Specimen? What specimen? What is 'sedated'?"

"You don't want to know. Come on." I drew my weapon as I led her down a flight of stairs to the right. "Look, there's a lot I have to tell you but for now we need to move."

The stairs led to another flight that caddy cornered left, winding its way around her quarters. Tile adorned the wall, black with white stripe amid antiseptic air. Now outside her apartments, we could hear the wind whipping even more strongly. I could hear the droning no more.

"Who are you?" In my fear for Columbia's finest popping up behind every corner I was moving cautiously. It gave her opportunity to get in my face. "Why did you come here?"

"I came here to get you out. That's all you need to know." I said, holding forefinger to my lips. Presently we emerged onto the wooden catwalk and again I knew my way. Tracing my path backward we arrived at the elevator lobby, two of its three walls actually windows to her chambers. At first she seemed not to understand what she was seeing, before the realization hit her that she was looking from the backside through one way mirrors. As I walked to the lift and pressed the button on its left, I could see her unravel.

"What is all this?" She said, palm upon chest. "They were...watching me? All this time? Why? Why did they put me in here?" She turned to me and I could see her blue eyes hysteria. "What am I? WHAT AM I?!"

"You're the girl who's getting out of this tower." I said, attempting to calm her nerves with a steady gaze. The lift chimed and its doors slid open. In shock she jumped behind me. Realizing she'd never seen an elevator before, at least not while awake, I stepped inside, unable to help but grin. "It's an elevator. It won't bite."

"An elevator?" She asked, trepidation upon her brow as she analyzed its dimensions.

"Yeah...it takes you up and down. And we're going down." I offered my hand. After a moment of indecision, she took it. Standing next to me, fingers warm in my gentle grasp, she looked up at me embarrassedly.

She jumped again as the doors closed.

As girls went, this "Elizabet was of average height, perhaps 5'5" but slim. Me being an inch or two over six feet put distance between our eyes, forcing her to look up at me. As the lift descended, I could see her angst, arms about herself, unable to know whether she could trust this stranger. As unnerved as she'd been when she realized she was being watched, the research rooms we found at the lift door's opening left her positively unhinged. I'd known they were coming and tried to prevent her from seeing them...to no avail. As she looked at the hanging photos and reels of film sitting on racks, she began to understand. Passing a laboratory room with gurney and surgical instruments, she turned to me. "What am I?" She whispered again, touching with her fingertips another sign warning about the 'Specimen.' "Am I..."

"Not anymore." I holstered my pistol in an effort to calm her. "When is the last time you saw a human being?"

"Four years ago, I think. Maybe five." Her eyes became distant. "When I was younger people used to visit me all the time, for elocution and math and finishing lessons. I had very demanding teachers."

"But that stopped?" I asked as we left the chambers behind. By her demeanor I could tell I'd for the moment gotten her mind off the laboratories.

"I don't know why, but I went through a...a bad time and suddenly they didn't come anymore."

Edmonton was nowhere to be found as we emerged from the passage beside the Siphon. For a moment I thought he might be too much for the girl, deprived for years of any human companionship then suddenly forced to deal with two strange men. As we stepped into the chamber she swooned. With a deft twist I caught the girl in my arms. The illumination of the chamber seemed to grow brighter. She opened her eyes.

"You okay?"

Elizabeth looked about in bleary disbelief, hand upon her forehead as she took in the arcing equipment about us. "What is this place?" She said, curling her nose at the bite in the atmosphere. "It hurts."

"Good question." I answered, releasing her, gandering about at the garish layout. I was about to speak when Edmonton emerged from the office ahead. Seeing me with the girl he smiled, leg sans blood and clearly rebandaged.

"Oh, jolly good, you've found her. I had wondered where you'd gotten off to the last hour or so. It seems I've been mistaken, DeWitt. I had thought this assemblage here the power source for all of Columbia. Imagine how deflated I was when I found I was wrong."

"Wrong?" My brow furrowed.

Edmonton pointed his Steyr at me. "Good day, Miss. I believe I'll be requiring your company."

I placed myself between her and him. "What the hell, Edmonton?"

"Mr. DeWitt...who...who is he? Why is he pointing a gun at us?"

"Because, my dear, I'm afraid you're going to have to come with me. There are several men who would like to have a frank discussion with you."

"Fat chance." I replied with steely eyes, wondering how I could have been such an idiot for letting him insinuate himself to my cause. Though his lips continued moving I knew his type now…a liar…and I how this game ended. Slamming Elizabeth to the ground, I whipped my Broadsider out and opened fire. With bullets sparking the metal about him the Brit fell over backward, head over heels over a wrecked desk and onto the tile. As she screamed, I yanked Elizabeth upright by the arm. "Come on!"

We rounded the "Siphon" and Edmonton began shooting. For a master of electricity or whatever he'd claimed to be, he was a fool. A stray shot shattered what must have been a capacitor bank. Electricity began arcing everywhere, lighting the curtains and carpet aflame, the lot of which erupted like a dry and underbrush clogged forest into a booming conflagration. Behind us the Siphon room exploded. Again Elizabeth shrieked. Dragging her along I could see the flame spreading along the decorations and wooden paneling of the rooms. We stumbled to a stairwell and, despite her fear, managed to look at me. "Which way!?"

Still searching the smoke behind us with the sights of my gun, I backed into her and looked down. Below fire spewed from doorway, belching like a furnace into what would have been our escape. Shying away from the sudden burst of heat, I noticed upon the wall a hatchway. Pocketing my pistol, I spun it open to blinding light. A sudden gale cut into the stairwell. Below I heard a drone and saw the gunship coming alongside the monument's gardens. Smoke was now spilling from the tower's base and everywhere below our level. Upon the decks of the approaching zepp troopers were preparing to dismount. I knew there could only be one answer for this situation...live a few more minutes and hope against hope that something crazy happened. "Up!"

They must have seen us, for bullets ricocheted from the golden metal below, flying off into space with a tink and deafening crack. With outstretched hand I kept Elizabeth against the statue's cold skin as we climbed, realizing in my handgun I had only a round or two remaining. From the garden below the zeppelin continued to rise. We picked up our speed, but it was no use, and with every step the gale threatened to send us plummeting to our doom.

We climbed perhaps three hundred feet before the gunship came level with us. Eye to eye I could see its crews bringing their barrels to bear. My eyes widened and I threw myself atop her, collapsing to the catwalk. Cannon fire obliterated the statue's exterior where we'd been standing and beneath me Elizabeth shrieked. As the gun crews prepared a second volley I heard, 'Cease fire, cease fire, you idiots!" Screech over a public address speaker. "That's her!"

Far below us the hatch opened. Edmonton appeared, hobbling and burnt...not in a good mood. He fired at me with his Steyr, bullets sparking off the metal twenty feet away. Then I heard great wrenching sound. Below us a sheet of white fire sprayed through Columbia's skin, accompanied by tendrils of wild, blinding voltage. Again, Elizabeth took off, away from the fire and Edmonton's bullets, only to reach a dead-end landing. Desperately the girl looked back at me as if I'd somehow know what to do.

Sheared away at the torso, the head, wing and bosom of Columbia we stood upon began to slide...began to fall. Slammed to the surface, I saw Elizabeth scream as she was flung into the vastness of space.

About me through wet, wind blinded eyes I could see the city falling away and the blue wall of the Atlantic approaching. This was my fault, I cursed...if I'd just left her where she was, she'd have been safe instead of dead. As we plummeted terrified eyes found mine, her arm reaching upward for me. With superhuman effort I twisted...managed to clench her extended hand. Cloud flashed by, white brilliance followed by the sudden crush of frigid seawater.