The elevator seemed to be creeping upward as slowly as a rising tide, the little squares on the black glass panel lighting one after the other. So sad.

"Do you have a family around here?" she asked Jerome, just to hear some human noise.

"My mom." He was squinting at the blinking lights on the panel as though hypnotized. She wondered how well he could see. They climbed from 35 to 36 to 37. For a modern elevator, Olga thought it seemed cruelly slow. "She lives in Garyville," Jerome went on. "My brother lives in Houston, Texas."

"Olga? Can you hear me?" The sudden voice in her head made her jump and gasp.

"What's wrong, Olga?" Jerome asked.

"Just a headache." She put a hand to her temple. "Who is that?" she subvocalized. "Mr. Ramsey, is that you?"

"Jesus, I never thought I'd get through again. You need to get off the elevator."

She looked at the panel. 40. 41. "What are you talking about? How did you know. . . ?"

"Olga, you look really sick."

She waved her hand to show she didn't want to talk.

"Just get off the elevator!" Ramsey's obvious panic cut through her confusion. "Now! If that door opens above the forty-fifth floor, you're going to set off alarms all over the building. Security will be on you before you can blink."

The feigned headache was becoming real. "Stop the car," she told Jerome. "What floor are we on?" The blinking panel suggested it was 43. "I need to use the restroom, Jerome. Is that okay?"

"Sure." But even as he pressed the button, the car had already moved up another floor. Olga found herself holding her breath. The car slid to a stop and the door hissed open, revealing a carpeted hallway and a bizarrely festive lighting scheme. It took her a moment to see that the walls were hung with shimmering pieces of neon art. Jerome stood in the open doorway. It took Olga a moment to realize he expected her to know where the restrooms were. After all, she was an employee, wasn't she?

"I haven't been on this floor," she explained. When he had told her where to go, she asked him to wait in the elevator lobby, afraid that someone might notice an elevator stopped on one floor too long.

The restroom was empty. She sat down in the farthest stall and pulled up her feet. "Tell me what's going on," she said to Ramsey. "Where did you people go? I've been trying to call you all day."

His explanation did not make her feel any better about anything—in fact, it was hard to think of something more carefully designed to destroy what little confidence she had left. "Oh, God help us, Sellars is . . . gone? So who is this Beezle who is helping you out? Is he one of that army fellow's specialists or something?"

"It's a long story." Ramsey didn't sound very eager to tell it. "Right now, we have to figure out what we're going to do. Are you in a secure place?"

She had to laugh at that. "I am in enemy territory, Mr. Ramsey! I am about as secure as a cockroach standing in the bathtub when the light comes on. If someone doesn't smash me with a shoe, yes, I suppose I am just fine."

"I'm doing my best, Olga, honestly. You don't know how hard I've been trying to get back in touch with you since Sellars . . . since whatever happened to him." He took a deep breath. "I'm going to put Beezle on with you. He's . . . he's a little eccentric. Don't worry about it—he's very good at what he does."

"Eccentric I can live with, Mr. Ramsey."

The voice, when it came, was like that of some ancient comedian from the Television Era. "You're Olga, right? Pleased to meetcha."

"And you." She shook her head. Sitting fully-clothed on the toilet talking to an escapee from the Catskills circuit, probably twenty vertical feet or so from armed men who would be happy to kill her, or at least beat her senseless, if they knew what she was trying to do. There has to be an easier, more sensible way to commit suicide, she told herself.

"Look, if there's a bunch of machinery up there, that may be just what Sellars wants," Beezle told her after she explained what she had heard from Jerome. "We won't know until we find it, and even then we won't know anything anyway, since according to Ramsey this Sellars is kind of a sleeping partner at the moment." His snort of indignation was audible and almost funny. "But if you try to walk in there without authorization, you're lunchmeat, seen?"

He sounded a bit old to be using kiddie slang, but Olga had spent her life among showfolk who liked affecting Bohemian airs. "Seen, I suppose."

"So we have to monkey with your badge some more. I don't know what Sellars planned. I haven't found any notes about this, but I'm still looking. He might have had some legitimate code to plug in, but I ain't got it. Maybe you could find someone who has access already, then I could, y'know, counterfeit an authorization,"

"There's a janitor who's helping me," Olga said hesitantly. "He's been up to those floors at least once or twice."

"What?" Ramsey had been listening in. "Olga, we can't tell anybody. . . !"

"I didn't tell him anything," she said angrily. "Give me some credit. I told him a big, stupid lie. He is braindamaged, or perhaps a little retarded, so you can imagine how I feel right now, using him like this." She was close to tears again, "Would his badge information help you?"

"Yeah." There was a moment's silence as the stranger named Beezle considered. "Maybe we could make it look like the janitor got off at the wrong floor or something—y'know, like he was just messin' around. . . ."

"If you do anything to get him in trouble, I will kill you!"

"Kill me?" The raspy laugh sounded in her ear. "Lady, the kid's parents tried to unplug me for weeks and didn't get to first base, so I don't know how you think you'd manage it."

Completely thrown by this bizarre non sequitur, Olga could think of no response.

"Look, just get us his badge information," Ramsey said after a moment. "You still have the ring, don't you?"

"I can do a better job with her t-jack," Beezle said.

"Fine. Just do that, Olga. Then we'll decide what to do."

Feeling like a character out of some antique farce, she hurried out of the restroom and trotted down the corridor. Jerome was standing stock-still in the elevator lobby, looking at his shoes. The overhead lights gleamed on his prominent facial bones, making him seem like some machine that had run down and stopped.

The custodian lifted his head when he heard her. The smile changed his misshapen face into something lovable, an old doll, a broken but familiar toy.

"I just wanted you to know I'm almost done," she said. "Oh, my shoe. Can I hold onto your shoulder?" She steadied herself while she pretended to adjust the shoe, taking care to lean her telematic jack close to his badge, then she hurried back to the restroom. Ramsey and his new friend were already analyzing the results.

"I can make something to get you in," Beezle said at last. "But it won't fool anyone if they check up, and they'll probably notice you going in. The schematic says there are security cameras all over that floor. There are some little indicators that are probably drones, too."

"That won't work," Ramsey said miserably. "Even if she had time to plant Sellars' little package, and we got the right place first time, someone would check the place over if they found her in there with a forged clearance. They must have engineers on call."

The relief that washed over her at the idea of being barred from the upper floor made Olga realize for the first time how frightened she was. "So it's hopeless?"

"I can't do miracles, lady," Beezle grated. "My owner Orlando always used to say. . . ."

"Hang on," said Ramsey, interrupting yet another puzzling remark. "You brought in more than one package. We can set off the smoke device."