Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

He stopped. That was the old himself.

He was working to free the children. To allow them their justice.

Smile.

He was, he had to admit, fairly good at this sort of thing. Perhaps there was a place for him among the ranks of the Chapeaux Noirs. He had to admit: Being a saboteur was rather satisfying.

But no: He had one last task. One last goal. One last wish to complete. He patted the thing in his pocket, took a deep breath, and began walking toward the end of the hall.

That was when Bammer and Jimmy showed up again.

You’re not supposed to do that, Unthank fought the urge to say aloud when he saw them. He chided himself. Remember. Flexibility. Smile. Don’t sing.

“Hi, gents,” he said amiably. “Back so soon?”

“Elevator’s down. Service elevator isn’t taking our credentials.”

“Oh,” said Unthank. “That’s strange.”

Bammer cocked his eyebrow. “I thought you were making your way out.”

“You were goin’ the wrong way to get out,” added Jimmy.

“Was I?” said Unthank. “I was, wasn’t I? Oh well, I guess you both should lead the way.”

The two stevedores paused and shared a look. “I said: Service elevator ain’t takin’ credentials. Think it’s been shut off. We need it on.”

“You got security clearance for that, don’t you?” asked Jimmy.

“I do, in fact,” said Unthank. Flexibility. He thought of the children. They would be climbing by now.

“Well?” prompted Bammer.

“I suppose we ought to, well, turn it on,” said Unthank.

“Yeah,” said Jimmy. “Like, now.”

“Right,” said Unthank. “Now.”

The three of them stood there in the hallway for a minute; another explosion rocked the building.

“NOW!” shouted Bammer.

The two stevedores grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face the door he’d so recently closed and locked. He focused his power into his legs to stop them from buckling, before realizing that he needed an equal amount of brainpower to consider all the implications of turning the service elevator back on. He and the stevedores were on the twenty-second floor; he knew that the duct-rats would be climbing into the shaft at the fifteenth. Surely, unless the children had already climbed above the elevator car, they would be meat loaf in the workings once the apparatus had passed them by. A shiver went up his spine.

“C’mon,” said Bammer. Unthank then realized they’d already arrived at the door, and he defeatedly presented the required body parts to the palm and retinal scanners.

“Welcome back, Mr. Unthank,” said the robotic chirp.

Jimmy cast a sidelong glance at Joffrey.

“Did you—” he began.

Unthank interrupted him. “C’mon, gents,” he said with a forced urgency. “The Chief Titan might be hurt.”

This, apparently, was enough to distract them from their sudden suspicions. They entered the room, gently shoving Unthank forward. A myriad of television screens presented themselves, flickering in the dark of the room. The monitors displayed the footage from the tower’s manifold security cameras and they played in stark, cinema verité black and white the violent scene that was playing out all around the tower’s ground floor. Several of the screens only showed static; three of them showed the dust-and-debris-covered lobby. Another explosion sounded; its source was shown in grim depiction by one of the television screens: a tremendous white cloud overcame a section of the south wall; a phalanx of stevedores came rushing into the frame.

“Quick!” shouted Bammer. Or was it Jimmy? Unthank couldn’t tell; his eyes were fixed on the monitors.