Page 86 of Crash and Burn

Well, she thought,her job was the most important thing right now. Though she'd been at the university for several years. She'd been struggling and finally being offered a tenure track position was a coup, but it didn’t guarantee she would make tenure. Missing the first meeting only made her look bad.

She slumped back against the wall and didn’t speak, though this Kalan Smith firefighter seemed like he would understand.

They were silent for ten more minutes before she asked, “How long do you think we’ll be in here?”

“There's no telling. They could get it fixed and get us moving in the next few minutes or we could be stuck for several hours. We should maybe sit down.”

“Oh my Lord,” she replied, the words rolling in her mouth like distasteful marbles. She thought about her nice work clothes on the old elevator floor, but sat down anyway.

He offered his own wry grin, for the first time revealing that he, too, was not okay with being stuck here. “I was supposed to be off shift at eight this morning. With this extra assignment, I’ve been on for twenty-eight straight hours and it’s not going to end soon. Once you and I get out of here, the team still has to get the guys in to actually repair these now.”

“Are you exhausted?”

This time he shook his head. “I’m used to it.”

They talked for a little while and Seline appreciated that his easygoing conversation made thirty minutes pass like nothing. Though he got the occasional message on his radio, nothing had happened. Then, she found herself telling him about one of the students who'd managed to blow up a beaker and make a noxious red smoke in her lab on the very first day of class.

A message popped over his radio even as a knock came at the elevator doors.

“We're here! We're going to get you out.”

Seline scrambled to her feet, as did Kalan.

It took over twenty minutes for the firefighters outside to pry the silver doors almost two and a half feet wide. Unfortunately, what Seline and Kalan saw was the workings between floors. Above her, in about a three foot square of space, two heads peered through the opening.

“Hey, Kalan!” one of them said.

Kalan immediately replied, “This is Dr. Seline Marchand with the university. We need to get her back to work today.” There were instructions quickly exchanged about how to lift her up and out the small window they’d braced open.

On a normal day Seline would have balked. Instead, she took a deep breath and peeled her shoes one by one. It had been made clear that he would lace his fingers together for a classic boost up and out.

She told herself she could do this, even though she was petrified. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she settled her bare foot into his linked fingers, and she pushed upward.

But before she grabbed the edge of the floor above her head, Seline balked and suddenly jumped back down.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Then she immediately shook her head no.

“You said you weren't afraid of the elevator falling.”

“No,” she said, “I'm not afraid of plummeting to my death. This is a legitimate fear.” She pointed at the opening, knowing she sounded crazy, but the words didn't stop. “That is a three-foot gap braced by two by fours. If this elevator falls a mere three feet—as it has donetwicealready—it will snap the braces like twigs. And, even though the edges of the floor and the opening are blunt—” she motioned to both as she spoke, while Kalan and the other firefighters looked on. “—the force of it will chop me in half.”

She noticed they hadn’t stuck their heads through the opening. They knew this, and no one contradicted her. “It's basic kinematics,” she said and watched as he nodded, clearly already aware. “That's what I'm afraid of. If this elevator moves while I am going out of that tiny hole, I will lose limbs and maybe my life.”

“Okay.”

She was being irrational. There was a whole team of firefighters here. They were not going to let her get chopped in half. They did elevator rescues as part of their job. But she was nervous and couldn’t stop spouting the physics. “The changing coefficient and the friction and the brake pads do not work fast enough to stop a three-foot fall.”

“I thought you were a chemist,” he was grinning at her, but not in a demeaning way.

“Physical chemist. I’m not quite up on my string theory or what FermiLab is up to right now, but I have an excellent amount of physics under my belt.”

Kalan only nodded and looked up to the men peering down at them. “Hernandez. Kane. I'm going to boost Seline up, you’re going to grab her hands and pull her through as quickly as possible.” They nodded and shifted a little bit. Then Kalan turned to her. “Don't grab the edge of the floor. Just aim high and grab their hands. They’re going to pull you out as fast as they can. The braces will hold long enough, even if the elevator falls at the exact right moment. You’ll be fine.”

He was so kind and reassuring that she believed him.

“The other option is waiting until we get this fixed. Right now, everything is turned off.” He emphasized the last words, then added, “which means the elevator should not start up again. It shouldn’t move at all. This is the safest we're going to be, and I'm coming out after you.”

Seline nodded. Damn, he was good at being calm. He was even talking her into this, though she was armed with physics and fear. She nodded.

Once again, she placed her hand on his shoulder and her bare foot into his strong hands. This time, he didn't wait for her. Instead, he said, “One … Two … Three.” And he launched Seline and her rapidly beating heart almost through the small window above them.Almost.

---