I can't remember if it's cyanide or explosives or sarin gas, but it's something.

Something bad.

Maybe this would move Susan, the possibility of her 317 employees being blown sky-high or drowning in their own seizure-induced saliva, but I can't pause to find out. It's fire alarm time. I have to get word outside.

How? Earlier I had the idea of using that carebnb backdoor to slip a message through the datablock, but now it occurs to me I need specific computers for this—computers with the same database access the servers on Two have.

The straightest line between here and police cruisers roaring up Second Ave, I think, is to physically escape the datablock. Depending on their antennas' strength, the block could extend anywhere from five to ten feet from the building perimeter. Beyond there, I can broadcast a message to the San Francisco police, fire department, the FBI, Drudge, The New York Times—anyone and everyone capable of summoning the calvary.

The ground floors will be covered by Elite guards or sensors. Even assuming I can break a window on a higher floor, how do I get sufficiently far from the building? Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt has the ability to transmit, but my arms aren't ten feet long.

I could throw her. Set a timer, rig a message-send to run two or three seconds after I activate it from her keyboard. Then hope she gets the message off before crashing to the ground and exploding into a thousand pieces.

Feels like a prayer. I could knuckle down and do the deceleration calcs, but off the top of my head, I'm pessimistic.

No, I need something that can gain those ten feet of space and stay operational. Either by surviving a fall, or ...

Or not falling.

I lower myself out of the duct, leaving the vent panel aside, stepping down the cart. I take the long route to the stairwell exit so as to avoid Oleg, Katya, and the sleeping biz-siders. Raven could rendezvous with me by riding the elevator or bumping handicap-access push buttons, but neither is quiet—I need to let her out at Two. Then we'll relocate to one of the more sparsely-populated floors and try our SOS.

I slip out of Ten and begin tapping Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt's keyboard. My fingers keep striking between keys but eventually I get the command issued for Raven to go to the second-floor stairwell and hang tight.

I walk down eight flights. When I tease open the door, my girl is hovering at forehead-height like a spare brain.

"You rock," I whisper.

The least-populated floors are Three and Eight. Deciding Eight is better, the transmission having a better chance away from street-level interference, I lead us back upstairs. Raven follows in EXTREME_QUIET mode, using just two propellers, virtually silent with Sempiternity for a backdrop.

On Eight, we walk to the far east edge of the building. This floor used to house Graphic Design and Brand Strategy—before the bosses outsourced both. A few giant monitors and easel-style displays dot the area, oddly left behind after the furniture and workspace borders got reclaimed. Dinosaurs after the layoff meteor.

Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt pegs the time at 4:57. If I remember correctly, Elite was planning to wake us at 5:30. Thirty-three minutes is a chunk of time, but it's not forever. To pull off her distress cry, Raven will need custom logic. She needs the text of her message. She needs recipients. She needs fly and repeat logic—if the SOS doesn't go at 10 feet, I want her beaming it again at 10.1 feet, at 10.2 feet, at 10.3 feet ...

The first decision is where. Which window. We cruise that east hall, gauging thicknesses and surroundings. I find a usefully-eroded stretch of caulk in one corner office, but the neighboring building is a mere ten yards away and could bother the transmission. In theory Raven can pathfind around it, but she's been an indoor cat for years now and I don't trust her algorithms with such large vectors.

The center windows are better, overlooking that $35 in/out parking lot. Raven can soar and spray data-packets at will.

Sold.

I prop myself cross-legged on a nearby folding table, power Raven down to save battery, and set about writing her logic. Coding on Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt is hell on the wrists, but I don't need to rewrite Microsoft Windows. I create a simple executable file called SAVE_US.

SOS_message = "Russian terrorists with guns and explosives have taken over 235 Second Ave. Building locked down. Employees held hostage. Dead body in Howard dumpster. NEED HELP NOW."

recipients = {[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], text_to_phone("911")}

fly(DIRECTIONS.east, SPEEDS.medium)

success_or_fail = transmit(SOS_message, recipients)

If(success==TRUE)

fly(DIRECTIONS.west, SPEEDS.fast)

end

Else

loop

I pour over the dim monochrome screen for typos. Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt doesn't have autocorrect, and it would suck if a misplaced semicolon left Raven blipping syntax errors, hung out to dry 800 feet above Folsom Street.

My head feels furry and slow and sore. But the code looks clean.

I press Raven's ON button, right at her frame's crotch, and zap her the file. She accepts with a grateful bleep-bloo.

Next I scout about for something that'll shatter glass. The few remaining chairs here are blocky and upholstered—no sharp edges. Those giant LCDs are nice and angular, but heavy; I'd never muster the velocity to pierce a window.

The time is 5:21. Rise and shine in nine minutes, assuming the Elite facilitators haven't beaten their alarm clocks up.

I keep scouting. The kitchenette is a husk. The breakroom barren. The bathroom is stocked with soap and toilet paper, apparently still on the janitorial sweep, but nothing pointy.

Should I try another floor? But what else is there to find? The item that keeps returning to my brain is a claw hammer—those flat, heavy edges—but I'm not going to find one of those.

5:25.

I am rushing, yawning, three-quarters asleep when I stumble onto a copy nook. The copier itself is long gone, but various accoutrements remain. Loose staples, notebook dividers, a labeler with a snake of tape dangling from its mouth.

Tucked in a corner is a broad black object. An inch high maybe. I think paper cutter at first, but on closer inspection, find no blade—just jaws and three evenly-spaced teeth.

A hole punch.

Sturdy-gauge metal. Two sharp edges. Weighty, but when I grip it one-handed and rear back, it rips the air.

"Warm up your pipes!" I call to Raven, trotting to our center window. "It's time to sing."

The clock flips 5:29 as I reach the window. The sun hasn't peeked out yet, but a luminescence coats the cables of the Bay Bridge. I check Raven's logic over one last time—yep, go till success, then scoot right back—then put her in a hover six feet from the window. Can't have some stray shard lodging in her motor or transmitter.

"Okay, girl," I say. "Let's make a hero out of you."

I raise the hole punch. It feels eager in my hand, lithe, pulling for the window. The glass begins forty inches off the floor and stops at the ceiling. Single pane. Rubberized eighth-inch caulk. No tint that I can see.

Structural engineering was never my favorite, but I can plot a load map when I have to. The glass's center is its strongest point. I want to hit near an edge. I want to lead with this right-angled bottom and cleave the material. If I strike true, there's a great chance it shatters.

And if it doesn't? I'll whack again, and again, and again.

I push out a hard, hot breath. I square my feet and settle weight in my hips. With Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt in my left hand, I grip the hole punch with my right and swing it backward, then—marshaling every ill, ugly urge from the last 24 hours—swing viciously forward.

The impact suffocates my arm. Numbness takes everything from wrist to rib, a deep inner-body scream of agony.

I expect to feel air rushing in. Why isn't air rushing in?

The window didn't shatter. It only spidered. I gaze through the fractal pattern at the pay lot below, oddly segmented.

Growling, I shake out my arm and enlist the other one and chuck the hole punch two-armed into the heart of the web.

The crunch is deafening. Glass cascades to the sky, busting a three-foot void, the hole punch soaring through.

I grab Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt and tap out, "SAVE_US."

Raven blips green; her rotors whir; and she bolts forward. She flies through the heart of the hole—collision detection working like a charm—and out into the black-gray morning. The air is bright and sweet, and seeing Raven in it cheers me. She is a drone, after all—if for no other reason than to flush fresh air through her intake filter, I really should be getting her out.

I flip Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt and type, Status.

Flip back over to see the screen.

Transmit FAIL

Raven must have sent the first one too quickly, before escaping Elite's data block. Actually yeah—that's exactly what happened. I didn't code in a delay factor because I was rushed, and because it's a loop: she'll just keeps resending until the message finds its recipient(s).

No worries. The messages will definitely send her second or third try.

I glance outside to see how far away she's gotten, but my drone isn't there.

A fiery ball is.