by Chris McGinty
The elevator was almost to the highest floor in the building when it suddenly lurched to a stop and he felt one of the cables break, sabotaged in some way cleverly designed to get him almost to the top of the building before it broke. He had one hope and that was in the bag that he carried.
He thought back to it now how at the moment that he was given all of these devices he couldn’t think of one use he might have for three or four of the items in the bag. Now one of those items might actually save his life. He unzipped the bag as another cable broke. Part of him knew that there were probably safety features to avoid this kind of fall, but if the elevator itself had been sabotaged then clearly those safety features were too.
He rooted through the bag ignoring the grappling gun, the miniature taser, and the night vision goggles. He pulled out the rocket boots just as the final cable broke. He wasn’t sure how long it would take for the elevator to free fall to the ground, but he suspected he really didn’t have much time.
He unbuckled the first belt and slammed the rocket boot onto his foot. He tried to unbuckle the second belt, but it was stuck. Very literally, he didn’t have time for this. Without taking the time to buckle the boot back he stood and fired the rocket.
In the last remaining seconds of the fall, he only had time to try to get himself hovered in the air in an ideal way to minimize the impact of the crash while not letting the bit come off his foot. It almost wasn’t enough, as the elevator itself collapsed in on itself almost crushing him in the process. The only thing that saved his life at this point and gave him one more chance to go after the enemy spy, was that there was a big enough opening in the destroyed elevator for him to crawl through.
He grabbed the bag with all the devices. Somehow he was now sure that he might actually need all of them to complete his mission.