Fighting For Your Rights

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Angela was aware of the Mayflower Hotel’s political history and assumed it had an area underground for security, especially during the time of the Cold War. She had discovered the underground system a year or so back in the chance she needed a hiding place before she could get to the warehouse. While supporting Owen slightly, she led the survivors that followed them down the emergency stairwell toward the back door.

“We can’t go out there,” one of the men yelled over the wind that whistled between cracks from apartment doors.

“That is where the door is,” Angela spoke loud enough to be heard but calm enough to maintain decorum.

The man put his hands on his hips like Angela had seen her granddaughter do several times, but forced the thought from her mind in order to suppress the smile of amusement to worsen the situation. “To walk out there would be suicide.”

“Then stay here,” Angela spoke walking to the back door.

Moving to step in front of her, he demanded, “And what if opening that door brings the wind crashing in on us or that door is keeping any pressure out?”

Unable to help herself, Angela began to laugh, “What is your profession?”

“What does that matter?”

“I don’t believe you are going to make things better,” Owen mumbled as he pulled his arm from her and stood up straight. He looked the man in the eyes and remained calm. “Opening that door will make little difference to this building. Any seal of pressure was destroyed by the shattering of the windows.”

“How do you know?” the man demanded with his arms crossed.

Looking over at Angela with arms crossed in mimickery, she smiled, “Now you see what I have to be subservient about on a regular basis.”

“Yeah,” Owen spoke with rolled eyes. He turned his head back to the man, “You hear the wind whistling around this hallway.”

“Yeah,” the man nodded.

“That means any seal of pressure has been broken, so move out of the way or I will have to force you out of the way,” Owen stated with his voice getting a little higher and forceful in tone with each word.

The man’s face turned red and he huffed and puffed in annoyance. When he turned his eyes to glare at Angela, Owen grabbed him by the collar and shoved him to the side.

“Thank you,” Angela spoke as she stepped forward and entered her code to open the door.

“Do you have a male present?” the electronic voice spoke barely audible over the whistling wind inside and the damage the system was sustaining on the outside.

“You have got to be joking,” Owen muttered stepping forward to let the CURT bring up the holographic retina scanner. Owen opened his left eye wide and CURT quickly scanned it.

“She is not wearing her covering,” CURT stated from its programming.

Without hesitation, Owen stated, “I’m arresting her, so open the door and I will retrieve a covering from my vehicle.”

“Must give authorization code.”

“What? Do you have any idea…”

“Must give authorization code,” CURT repeated bringing up a holographic keypad where the retina scanner was.

“Wish they gave CURT some common sense,” Owen muttered as he punched in his code as fast as he could.

As the door opened, Angela yelled over the sudden gust of wind, “That may not be the best thing either.”

Owen took a step, but was blown back into the doorway, “Probably not. He may not have let us out at all.”

Choosing to take the lead, Angela stepped out and reached for a window sill of the building to hold onto as the wind continued to blow. “It is only about ten feet,” she yelled pointing to an area that looked like it once held a room, but the whole area had been overgrown with weeds, grass and unwanted junk that the hurricane had claimed as weapons. Angela took a deep breath and just started to move as fast as her old legs would go while trying to staying low and remain on the ground. She could not hear anything but the wind and prayed the others were following behind. Angela slid her feet along leaning almost sideways against the wind as she spent almost all her energy to walk a simple ten feet. Finally, she dropped to the ground and crawled the last foot to a broken set of steps. She grabbed ahold of one of the poles that held up a step and pulled open half of it. Sliding her finger down the center of the pole, Angela pushed the button and a latched popped. Owen had reached the stairs and wiggled his fingers under the opening and pulled it up. As soon as he lifted it a few inches, the wind grabbed it and swung them up with a crash. Owen motioned for Angela to climb down the rusted, broken steps then looked back to see who was behind them.

As soon as Angela cleared the steps, she shielded her eyes from the wind and rain to see five others climb down of the fifteen that were in the building ready to follow, but changed their mind. Owen fumbled down the stairs trying to pull the door close as he did, “This door isn’t going to be strong enough,” he called over the wind rushing over the opening.

“Then just leave it,” Angela yelled, “there are plenty of rooms we can find shelter in.” Owen nodded as he slid down the stairs, trying not to cry out as his wound hit a stair just right. Two men slid their shoulders under Owen’s arms and began to follow her down the left hallway while the other three followed behind them, two women and one man. They struggled deeper into the old halls for the hotel staff listening to the haunting calls of the wind chasing them. Their faces were increasing in fear and concern as they felt water start to rush past them and the winds push them onward instead of their own legs.

Angela walked to the second door on the right and pulled open the solid, metal door to let everyone enter. The room already smelled musty and damp from centuries of neglect, but as new water streamed in from unknown origins of the city, the odor did not improve. As soon as everyone was inside and they had found some of her stored lights, Angela pulled the door close hoping it would slow the water. The door latched and Angela quickly ordered, “Just put him in the corner.”

One of the men holding Owen looked at her in annoyance, “How dare you…”

Owen jerked himself away from the men and obeyed Angela’s order by hobbling over to the far corner and sliding down the wall. She walked over to the wall of metal shelves that had held hotel supplies, but she filled with her own supplies. She grabbed an electric lantern and some medical supplies then made her way to the corner Owen sat in. “Do you realize how many women will die today because of that law?” she spoke while he pulled a knife from his inside jacket pocket.

“The law shouldn’t be enforced in this type of situation,” Owen replied as she knelt down beside him and yanked the knife from his hand.

“Yeah and you saw how CURT helped with that.” She grabbed his hand and placed it on the towel from the apartment to continue to hold pressure then cut the towel off from the side. “You aren’t attached to these pants are you?”

“I guess not,” Owen said hesitantly then gave a sigh of annoyance as she used the knife to cut them open around the wound.

Pulling his hand away, she pulled back the towel then looked around the area, “Have you been through a hurricane before?” she questioned putting the dressing back down and placing his hand back on top of it since the bleeding had not stopped.

“Once when I was very young,” he stated watching her pick up a bottle of rubbing alcohol and opening it up.

“Unfortunately,” she said looking into his eyes, “the wound is not closing and my stitching it up is not going to help until I can get you to a place where you will be sitting for a little bit.”

“I’m sitting now,” he stated eyeing her as she had him pull back the towel.

“Well,” Angela said pouring the alcohol onto the wound and he gritted his teeth in a swallowed scream, “we can’t stay here.”

Once she stopped pouring and he had a chance to catch his breath from the pain he asked, “Why?”

She lifted up the container of gauze she had grabbed and squeezed it to wring out the water, “That is why. Besides this is only meant to wait out the storm and I don’t think it will last that long.” Angela walked back to the shelves to get another container of gauze when the walls and ceiling began to shake and groan. In an instant it stopped as a loud thundering hit the roof above them. Rushing to the shelves, Angela grabbed the gauze and another lantern. She tossed it to Owen and was at the metal door faster than anyone would expect a woman her age to move.

She pushed at the door and was able to get it open far enough to squeeze through. “Stop her,” Owen yelled trying to quickly wrap his leg as the door closed behind her. The others just stood frozen in place either looking at the ceiling, the door, or Owen uncertain of what to do. Owen tied off his sloppy dressing and climbed to his feet, ignoring the pain as he limped to the door. Shoving the door open with what little bit of energy he had left, Owen was surprised that he struggled with it more than Angela did. When he finally pushed the door far enough, he wriggled himself through then jumped when he turned to see Angela holding a lantern in front of him.

“Not exactly wise of you to be out here,” she muttered.

“The same could be said of you,” he replied then listened, “the storm has stopped.”

“Yeah, but that isn’t our problem now,” Angela sighed as she gave Owen a shoulder to lean on while they waded through the water and climbed over various kinds of debris: rocks, twisted steel, splintered wood, and glass. The silence was eerie as they stumbled back through the hallway that was once clear. “I think the apartments collapsed on top of us.”

“What makes you think that?” Owen asked stepping over a piece of fabric.

Angela stepped over the piece of fabric then leaned over to her right and pulled back a thin piece of corrugated steel to show the face of a woman that had been cut up from glass and her neck broken. Her hair was matted to her face from water and blood, “She lived in my building.”

Owen stared at the woman’s face and then at Angela’s unfazed appearance at the sight of death as she returned the corner of the steel to its location. Pulling a container out of his jacket, he asked, “How close do you think we are to the entrance?”

Angela looked at the container in his hand and nodded, “Explosives. That should do the trick.”

He looked at the container in his hand and then at her surprised, “How did you know that?”

“Just because women are considered inferior doesn’t mean we are dumb.”

“So, I’ve been told.”

“I forgot, you already met Robyn,” Angela smiled as Owen averted his eyes to focus on the explosives. He opened the container and pulled out the entire three-inch stick, “You’re not going to use all of that are you?”

“What?”

“Have you ever used the stuff?” Angela questioned taking the container and explosive stick from his hands.

“It happened to be in my lab,” Owen said reaching out to take it back.

Turning her body to keep it out of his hands, Angela stuck out her hand instead, “Give me your knife.” Owen looked at her hand as he reached into his pocket and she asked, “Is your lab still standing?”

Holding the knife hostage, Owen demanded “What is that supposed to mean?”

Angela chuckled as she lifted up the stick of explosives, “In this enclosed area, this stick could kill us and not make a dent in the building above us.”

“Then how is that going to help?” Owen asked handing over the knife.

Cutting off a one-inch sliver of the stick, Angela kept her smile, “I thought you were proficient in combat.”

“Combat doesn’t always include explosives or architectural knowledge.”

“True,” she shrugged pulling out the detonating device in the container. “Is this all there is?”

“What do you mean?” he asked as she flicked the knife to stab into a piece of wood.

“What is this ‘kit’ used for?” Angela questioned handing the explosive stick and the part she cut off to Owen while she pulled out all the parts from the container to use for the explosion.

“I’ve never had to use it personally…”

“Haven’t you ever been taught to not take weapons you…”

“I’ve seen it used,” Owen interrupted as she finally began connecting wires together to extend the line for detonation.

“That isn’t really the best for a replacement,” she said not taking her eyes from the wires. She handed him the container then took the slice she had made. “I need your watch.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well,” Angela explained finally looking up at him, “I don’t have enough of a line for detonation. Either one of us stays here and pushes the button...”

“And gets squished.”

“Exactly.” Owen pulled his wrist watch off, “Now make yourself useful and make a hole.”

“Why?”

“You really don’t know much about explosions, do you?”

“No,” he admitted with a bit more force then he meant to.

“Well, we want the force to go up and to do that we want to make sure the explosion is a little more buried in the rubble and closer to the surface.”

“Alright,” Owen relinquished moving forward to a better position as she began to attach his watch to the detonator, “let’s get this over with.”

“I would appreciate it. I have to get to my daughter,” Angela spoke finally allowing a twinge of concern be revealed in her face.

“We should find a safer place,” Owen disagreed.

“My son-in-law is at work.”

“Then we better get this done.”