Learning to Stand Read Online Free PDF Page A

major explosion overhead stopped her in her tracks. The
concrete stairwell shook.
    “ ALEX!” Raz
screamed.
    She felt him fumble, slip then fall from
platform above her. He slid down the staircase. Without thinking,
she rotated on her side. Snatching at his movement, she caught the
back of Raz’s Homeland Security jacket.
    But she could not stop his descent.
    With her left hip hitting the edge of every
step, they bounced down the stairwell. Troy, Matthew and the guards
caught them near the bottom.
    “ Raz?” she asked.
    He groaned. Pushing herself to her hands and
knees, her metal left hip seized.
    “ FUCK!”
    Her voice echoed around the cement
stairwell. The men reached to help her up.
    “ Wait,” Alex said. “My hip
is out.”
    Troy and Vince helped Raz to his feet. Raz
groaned but managed to stand.
    Alex hit at her left hip until the ball fell
into its groove. With Matthew’s help, she pushed herself to
standing with her right leg. Her left leg buckled but the hip held.
She smiled as a way of easing Matthew’s concerns and her own
fears.
    “ Let’s find the light
switch,” she said.
    She placed her hiking boot against the
bottom step. Feeling along the wall, she found an indentation.
    “ I checked that,” Matthew
said. “It’s empty.”
    “ Ok,” Alex said.
    Pushing past the men, she went to the door.
She felt around the edge of the metal door. Nothing.
    “ I need another light,” she
said.
    Troy set a black mini Maglite in her
hands.
    Returning to the indentation, she flashed
the light around the drywall. Folding her hand into a straight
fist, she bashed the back of the indentation. The drywall broke off
in chunks. Alex stepped back for Vince and Troy to clear out the
rubble. They exposed a keypad control panel.
    “ Anyone know any code?” Troy
asked.
    “ It’s probably Mellon,”
Vince replied.
    Alex furrowed her brow at Vince. He
shrugged. Shaking her head, she punched in a series of codes. There
was a click then the door swung open causing a series of lights to
go on inside a chamber. Machine guns ready, Matthew, Troy and Vince
went through the door.
    “ Clear!” Matthew called. “It
looks like a conference room.”
    “ Go ahead,” Alex
said.
    “ No,” the Weasel
said.
    “ There’s no other way out of
this stairwell,” she said. “You heard the explosion?”
    Her words were accentuated by another
explosion within the mountain.
    “ That’s for you,” she
said.
    Raz pushed the Weasel into the room. The
guards followed. Alex entered another code then scooted into the
room. The Weasel’s guards helped her close the door. Alex stood at
the door looking around the room.
    A long dusty table sat with twenty plush
leather chairs around it. A stage was set up near the front of the
room. The best technology, circa 1983, was scattered around the
room. A wide screen projector was set up near the movie screen.
Microphones hung from the ceiling and the stage. At one end of the
stage, there was a stationary television camera. Fresh film
canisters were tucked into a shelf in its stand.
    Attempting to take control of the situation,
she began giving orders.
    “ Troy? I need you to find a
data input. Remember we are looking for something from the 1980s.
Thanks.”
    “ Vince? I need a full
assessment of the methane panel of this region.”
    “ Methane?” he asked. Vince
Hutchins was a Navy munitions specialist.
    “ They used the CO 2 to compress the methane field,” Alex
said.
    “ Compress the methane then
light the field,” he said. “Never occurred to me.”
    “ Never occurred to me
either, but that’s what’s going on above. Can you run
a…”
    “ I’ll do it,” Vince said.
“And, sorry.”
    “ I didn’t think of it
either.” Alex shrugged. “Matthew, I need you to determine how long
we can survive in this room.”
    “ Raz? I need an oxygen
panel. We’ll cook without ventilation but with all the carbon
dioxide around, we can’t vent outside. This room should have