Algorithm - Book 1 - The Medallion

Chapter 11

And now, the machines stood idle, like they were waiting for something. Their dragon teeth rollers patiently waiting for their next meal.

"Spooky," is all that Linda could conjure.

Hedda motioned the group to follow while she stepped into the musty gloom beyond the entrance. They slowly padded their way along the nearest wall in single file. All manner of debris was strewn over the broken concrete flooring. In minutes they had reached a side door which Hedda eased open to reveal about fifty feet of crumbling macadam leading to the office building. To the right Adam spotted his Pathfinder, Ben's VW and farthest out, a black limousine. The rear entrance stood a few feet beyond the cars and no one was stirring.

"Hey!"

Adam turned to see two figures standing beyond the cars at the edge of the parking lot. One was in a policeman's uniform and carrying what looked like Ben's desktop computer. The group ducked back into the dark recess of the breaker. They could hear the two men outside scrambling towards them from across the lot.

Adam motioned to the girls. "You two hide." He pointed to a jumble of twisted rubble stacked against a corner, obscured by shadows.

"Ben and I will try to get them to follow us, and if they do, you guys get to my car. We'll come around through the far entrance and meet you in the parking lot."  He reached into his jeans pocket and tossed Linda the keys.

There was no time for further discussion as the footfalls drew nearer. The girls sought cover, and Ben and Adam ran down the center of the building making sure they were visible in the scant light. They arrived at the gnarly remains of a rusty stairway when another shout erupted from the doorway.

"Hey, stop!  We just want to talk with you!"

Ben pointed at Adam and up the staircase, then at himself and the opposite end of the breaker. The communication was complete. Adam started up the stairs, while Ben took off, moving quickly for a man of his age. As Adam ascended the groaning staircase, he wondered about why people always seemed to choose to run up something when chased.

The rusty iron framework held decaying wooden treads. He heard and felt several boards crack as he reached the second floor platform.  When he paused there for a moment to look back, he saw that the hastily formed plan was working. The men had raced into the breaker past Hedda and Linda, and one was now veering toward the stairs, while the other ran headlong down the center of the floor below. Adam turned to continue his climb, but not before catching the movement of two figures slipping out the door.

There go Hedda and Linda. 

He stared into the gloom, trying to make out where he was, and perhaps more importantly, where he was going. Each floor consisted of a narrow wooden gangway hung along the inner walls of the building, interconnected by assorted flights of stairs and wooden chutes. Caged rooms devoted to sorting screens and grinding machinery hung suspended throughout the hollow building. Many of these had sunken through the rotted flooring or completely collapsed, having come to rest on the first floor in mangled heaps. Parts of shuttles and chutes designed to move the raw coal were still visible, hanging precariously from balcony to balcony, draped with the tattered fragments of leather conveyor belts. When Adam heard a staccato shuffle arriving at the base of the staircase, he headed up to the next level, taking care to leap over missing treads, and all the while trying to sort out an escape plan.