Mercy 6

A thunk echoed from somewhere above her, up at least another floor. A cable squeaked. She thought to bounce herself in the cube, to push herself up, let fall her weight. This sent her into a drop that had too much momentum at first before gliding into descent. It was happening. For the first time in a very long while, she felt a whole part of something happening, something she was doing — as a person, as a body.

* * *

The dumbwaiter crunched and scraped to a halt, ended up cockeyed, with Mendenhall keeled hard against one wall. The time capsule spilled, the marbles crawling around her. She couldn’t slide the panel. Mullich had warned her that she wouldn’t be able to. As he had advised, she spun, braced her back against the wall opposite the panel, and kicked both feet outward. Think through the punch, he had told her. Your feet not at the wall but through the wall. The panel flapped open, and she found herself in a little dead-end hall that mirrored the one she had come from.

It was quite dim down here, the subbasement just above the dead space. No light shone in the hall. The faint glow at the open end appeared spent and singular and without color. She crept out headfirst, hands braced to a grimy floor.

A shadow moved across the feathery end of light. Boots scraped the dusty linoleum. She knew it wasn’t Mullich. He never made noise. He had told her he would not be there. Definitely boots.

Probably one of those guards from the outside. Hospital people, even security, always learned to just wear running shoes.

Mendenhall pressed herself to the wall, into a wedge of pure darkness. Her sound was echoed by his sound, a hiss over the grime. She released a sigh, a near-surrender. A similar response from him startled her, unnerved her. He was frightened — perhaps more than she. She slid quietly along the wall. Let herself appear from the edge. What was the point of hiding? He knew someone — something — was there.

Her form appeared to shock him. He was young, big, almost a twin of the guard from the caf, though softer and somehow reddish.

He gave himself no time to really see her, register her. He turned and hurried into the darkness behind the one light, a bare bulb hanging on a wire. The bulb swung in the wind of his exit. She looked down at herself. The reflector stripes of her tracksuit drew bone lines on her black form, angled and ready. God. He must have thought her the plague. He must have thought he had stumbled upon the source in the depths of this building.

She wished Mullich could have seen it.

Mendenhall returned to the dumbwaiter and peeled away the broken panel. This was the last stop for the little cubicle. Beneath it, according to Mullich, was a narrow shaft for repairs and ventilation.

Mendenhall shouldered herself into the box and pushed with her legs. Again like a punch, he had told her, starting low and following through to the other side. When the dumbwaiter lifted, she was quick to slide her fingers into the opening and pull upward. She used the mason jar to keep the whole thing wedged open.

Tepid air rose from the shaft and sifted around her ankles. She readied herself, emptied her lungs, stretched herself thin, went in feet first, lowered herself with toes pointing, exploring. Above was gray. Below was black. He had told her she would have to just let go, to trust him, his sense of the building. The landing would be okay, he had said.

She opened her hands. The drop was longer than she had anticipated, became a sucking thing. She felt swallowed.

47

She crashed through the ventilation grill at the very bottom of the shaft, at the base of everything. Her knees buckled and thrust her forward, headfirst, her forearms up just in time. The sheet metal gave, the corroded screws snapping into the darkness, pinging against concrete. She lay fully emerged, shot out, the side of her face against the cool floor, arms boxed around her head.

Mullich had told her it would be safe to use a light down here, that there would be nobody. He had also told her she might want to keep it all dark, to just crouch her way to the opposite wall and then feel for the submarine door.

With raised hands, she tested the ceiling. Metal girders, cold and blistered, grazed her fingertips. As she crept across the darkness, she lost confidence in her direction. Cloth brushed her cheek and neck. She stifled a cry and swung her arm. Something wrapped around it, pulled and cinched her elbow.

“No,” she cried.