Providence Descending by Sarah Boone (e book reader .txt) 📖

out of here. You're going the wrong way; that's what I'm telling you!”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Everyone who works here knows who you are. You're the only person who's ever successfully infiltrated this place. Trust me, I know.” The man in the hard hat pulled his gloves off, and extended a hand to Lucy. “I'm Scott. Anna Providence?”
“My name is Lucy.”
“Lucy Providence, then.”
Lucy backpedaled towards the elevator. “It doesn't matter. Look, I don't have time for this.”
“Great,” Scott said, “me neither. What I have is problems.” He picked up his tool box and started walking down the hall. “I know I told you those elevators are dependable, but you really shouldn't use one unless you have no other choice.”
Lucy's center of gravity vacillated between the elevator and the hallway, halted by trepidation. She jogged off after Scott. “Hey, hey! Are you saying you know another way out?”
“Miss Providence, I know every way out.”
They turned past a row of conference rooms, and Scott stopped in front of another air conditioning module.
“It's Lucy.”
“Forgive me, Lucy.” He pulled open a panel on the bottom of the machine. With his free hand, he snapped open his toolbox and pulled out a wrench. “I'm sorry I'm not as eager to help you as I was earlier this morning. Thing is, I liked you more then.”
“What are you talking about?” Lucy glanced down the hallway, straining to hear if anyone was approaching.
“I don't think you're really listening to me here,” Scott said. His face was turned away from her, and the sirens were giving Lucy a headache.
“What?” she yelled. “I can't hear you!”
Scott turned back to her. He sighed, resigned. Then he handed her the wrench. He pointed to the globe above them, the spinning red light. “I'll give you a boost.”
Lucy stepped up on his knee and smashed the light in. Shards of glass rained down around them. The speaker of the siren shuddered and died. She shut her eyes; frightened by the glass, Lucy flailed her arms and let gravity take her.
But she didn't hit the ground. Scott caught her across the shoulders and lowered her the rest of the way. “Much better,” he said. He brushed pieces of glass out of her hair. “Guess I should have lent you the hard hat too.” He took the wrench and went back to tinkering with the air conditioner.
“What did you say?” Lucy asked.
“I said that I didn't really think you were listening to me. I've been re-conning here for six months. I had to spend another six months in trade school just to qualify for this job. I wasn't even allowed on the upper floors until today because they needed me to deal with this. This was gonna be my big score, a whole year in the making. Then you, Lucy Providence, or whatever your name is, walk in and secure a twenty million dollar transfer in less than an hour.” Scott looked up at her, grinning. “I thought we were friends, Lucy.”
“Wait, you -”
“Also have intentions of robbing this place? Yeah, I did. But they're all shot to hell now, thank you very much.”
Lucy gave in to one of her nervous habits; she started to pace, ten even steps back and forth, eyes lowered, hands clasped together. “Look, I'm sorry I stole your score or glory or whatever; I didn't come here by choice. If we are friends, could you please just tell me how to get back downstairs and out? Please.”
“Hold on a minute,” Scott replied. He tossed back the wrench. “Can you hand me that saw there, in my box?”
Lucy obliged. “What are you doing?”
“I'm doing the best I can to keep this place from going up in flames.”
“I thought the fire was contained in the garage.”
“It is. But fire's not my problem yet. The fire is a byproduct of my problem, actually.”
“What do you mean?” Lucy snapped. “What are you talking about?”
He spared her an inquisitively demeaning look. “I'm talking about the earthquake,” he said. “The guy who was supposed to turn off the main gas lines forgot the one that powers the air conditioners. That's what caused the fire in the garage. The main air conditioning unit leaked enough gas since the quake that when a car started near the source, the gas ignited and exploded. Now these extremely dangerous vapors are flowing up through the whole system, floor by floor, threatening to explode at any second. It's my job to go floor by floor and cut off each machine from the main supply before they go kaboom.”
“Oh my -”
Scott took Lucy's arm, and pulled her around the next corner. “God? Not here at the moment. You can leave a message after the beep though. I'm sure he'll get it, oh, I don't know, after we're all dead.” He pushed her towards an unmarked door – a stairwell. “I would love to escort you down myself, but I have a building to save, so if you don't mind. I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said. Then she took off down the stairs.

Chapter Fourteen – The Warner File

Sergeant Brenner made sure to introduce himself before seizing Lucy's shoulder and slamming her face first into the ground. “Anna Providence. Welcome to the Federal Credit Building, the last sliver of civilization that you'll ever see for the rest of your pathetic little lifetime.”
They cuffed Lucy and dragged her to the security office on the tenth floor.
“What a low level of thief,” Brenner spat. He walked ahead of her, constantly looking back to showcase his disgust. “A letter opener on an entry level employee? A twenty million dollar transfer to a registered account? Such an amateur you are – no fun to catch, not one iota of a challenge. You know, lady, me and my boys here at the Federal Credit Building appreciate a real challenge. Keeps our skills sharp.”
Lucy said, “You're making a mistake.”
Brenner kept on talking. “Every once in a while we catch a desperate low-life like yourself, another simpleton foolish enough to even try to do what you've done. I wonder sometimes how much more entertaining it would be if I let you go, let you run around like a rat in a maze, trying to avoid us, just some colossal game of run and seek. Sometimes I think that would be a load of fun.”
“Why don't you try it then?” Lucy suggested. “Let me go.”
Once in the security office, Brenner reclaimed custody of Lucy. He walked her past a row of desks and monitors to a windowless door – an interrogation room: one table, two chairs, one security camera.
Brenner said, “ You know, I would...” Sergeant Brenner paused; a member of his staff handed her a sheet of paper with Lucy's picture on it. “...Lucy. I really would, but the catch is, if I let you loose to wreak havoc on the facilities here, my men would be authorized to use whatever force necessary to subdue you. An automatic fire at will, if you will. You could be holding up a white flag, a big sign that says you're sorry, and they'd shoot you on sight, and the only one to blame would be yourself. That's why no one gets away with robbing this place. Because our security doesn't deal in guilt. Can't redeem the unrepentant. No need.”
Lucy scanned the small cement room. No way she could force her way out. Even if she could physically match Brenner, there was a camera and thirty more armed men on the other side of the door. She was going to have to do what she was never really good at; Lucy was going to have to talk her way out of this. “You can quit the intimidating speech tactics. I'm innocent, sarge. A pawn. I've been set up.”
He placed the rap-sheet on the table in front of her. “From what I see on this piece of paper, you're the exact opposite of a pawn, Lucy. From what I see here, you're smart enough to do this on your own, and you have been for quite some time now.”
“I steal cash,” Lucy replied. “I mean, I stole cash. You can see on that paper I've been out of it for five years.”
“What I see is that you haven't been caught or implicated in five years. Until today.”
“Someone forced me to do this. You have to believe me. I was done with that life until the day before yesterday. Look, they have my father; they gave me an envelope and told me to follow the steps or they would kill him. You want the truth. There's the truth.”
Brenner chuckled. A nasty, cruel chuckle. The black-hearted, empty-minded chuckle of the cat with a mouse securely cornered. “Lucy. Honey. I'm not after the truth. I'm not a police man. I'm not a detective. I don't care why you forced two office workers to make that twenty million dollar transfer. I don't care who sent you. I don't care if God sent you. I care about punishing the red-handed, and that, little girl, is exactly what you are.”
“You don't understand! They're going to kill my father! They said make the transfer and bring them something called the Warner File. You want to punish me, fine. But please let me go finish what I came to do.”
Sergeant Brenner blinked at Lucy an interminable amount of times. Then he sat down in the chair across from her. “Did you just say that you came for the Warner File?”
Lucy nodded.
“You're after the Warner File?” Brenner asked again, leaning further and further over the table.
“Yes.”
He stared another interminable amount of time, blinking continuously. “Well, that changes things, Lucy. That really changes things.”
Then Sergeant Brenner got up and marched out of the room.

Chapter Fifteen – Honor Amongst Thieves

After all the bad luck Lucy had been experiencing that day, she'd considered running into Scott again the first right turn on the road. She bounded down that stairwell, half-smiling, a child that thought she had already gotten away with it, whatever it was. But the bad luck wasn't gone yet. In fact, it had no plans of going anywhere. It intercepted Lucy's path as a patrol of six guards, marching up the stairs. The first two ran ahead, tailing Lucy back up.
Lucy, Brenner's proverbial rat in a maze, was faster than all of the guards but one. He caught her in a flying tackle just outside the fourth floor door, and the both of them tumbled through, right past where Scott still knelt by the air conditioner. He stood, hands on hips, smirking and shaking his head.
Lucy kneed that guard in the groin, and slid out from under him. The other five approached right behind. Two advanced while the other three drew arms as back-up. Lucy's eyes darted from the guards to Scott and back. Then she took a running step against the wall to her right, countered her weight against the hard surface, and launched herself behind two of the men with guns. Two hits each and both were down. Shots went off. The third, a rookie of some kind, maybe just a bad shot, or someone who possessed no compunction against shooting a woman, didn't get Lucy save for grazing her right arm. His gun clicked empty. He was out of bullets. He began to search in his belt for a replacement clip.
A fourth guard drew on Lucy. She stepped into the range of his arm, and twisted his hand back, unfolding the gun into her own. In mere moments she was behind Scott, gun