“Are you guys afraid of heights?” Albert asked us during the next mission’s briefing. “I am,” Marco said and looked at me. “You?”
“I’m not really,” I said, but then remembered that Mark hadn’t been. We had some crazy trips, involving extreme hiking and roller coasters. I suddenly felt a nag274 to ask whether Beth was but thought better of it. “Why do you ask?” I asked Albert.
“Well, I’m afraid that we’ll have to drop you off on the next destination. I hope you noticed that I used ‘on’ instead of ‘at.’”
We did.
“A helicopter ride, before you ask anything,” he continued. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see the night city from above.”
So, we were slowly turning from superheroes into Mission Impossible characters. I made a mental note to ask Marco who played Tom Cruise’s role in his world.
Meanwhile, Albert was getting into details on how we were going to fly to the place and “fast-rope”275 out of the aircraft onto the roof of a skyscraper. James, the contact guy, was going to disable the security cameras on the roof and unlock the doors. We would have only one shot at this, and James was to leave with us after we were done. To make sure we would not fall off the rope, Albert showed us a few videos of the technique of using a thick rope to slide out of the helicopter. He showed us the heat- resistant gloves we would use to protect our hands from the heat of friction276 while descending.
As I was listening to what we were about to do, it occurred to me that it all sounded as natural as planning to go shopping – something I used to discuss with my girlfriends only six months ago. The thought distracted me for a minute, and it made me miss the life I had… but surprisingly not that much. Was there a way back to what I used to be? Would it be possible to return to the old ways, knowing what I knew now?
“Lizzy?” Albert’s question returned me to the parallel-universe reality. “Do you have any questions?”
“I’m good,” I said and looked at Marco. “Do you have any questions?”
“It’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? Hop on the chopper, wait until the pilot gives the signal, jump on the roof, do the thing and leave,” he said.
“We’re both good,” I said to Albert and looked at Marco again. “Do you also say ‘chopper’ on Two Moons?”
“No, Albert just used it. We call helicopters whirligigs,” Marco said and made whirling277 gestures with his index finger accompanied by pretty realistic helicopter sounds.
“Whatever you guys call it, you should be on one in two hours, so let’s get ready,” Albert said.
The car ride to the heliport took an hour. There, we found a private small black helicopter, ready to take off. There were two people – the pilot and the assistant. When I got inside, I realized that I had never been in a helicopter before. I suddenly felt a bit nervous, took Marco’s hand and held it tightly. Marco nodded and smiled.
“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing,” he said, pointing to the pilot, who did not identify herself and was quiet during the flight.
The assistant went through the descending procedure with us to make sure we knew the drill, which we had not actually done before. When he finished, we saw the skyscraper and heard the pilot’s signal to get ready. I started to hum the theme soundtrack from Mission Impossible subconsciously and could not get rid of it. I was sure that no one could hear it, because of the noise of the helicopter’s engine. It became a real earworm278, but it kept my spirits up279.
The assistant opened the side door, checked the thick rope that was attached to a bar on the fuselage of the helicopter. He found it satisfactory280 and with the palm of his hand upwards he gave us a sign to get on our feet and get ready to slide. I went first. The helicopter was hovering281 a few meters above the roof, and I clearly saw the H sign in the middle of the big circle on the roof. The sliding took a few seconds, but it took my breath away. It was both scary and exciting. I was humming my song even louder when I stood on the roof, holding the rope for Marco. He joined me momentarily. We gave a thumbs up to the assistant and started to run towards the exit door where we saw James waiting for us. As we entered the building, James shut the door, muffling the sound of the helicopter flying away. He was wearing his black security uniform, complete with a walkie-talkie282 and a handgun in a holster283 on his belt.
“We’ve got three minutes,” he said. “No talk beyond this point.”
We nodded and followed him downstairs. The lab was two floors down. As we were running down, I put the glove on and activated it. I was getting better and faster at it.
Our target was the in middle of the floor and it had no windows that we could use to get inside. So we had to take corridors with motion detectors to get to the door of the lab, open it and do the job. It was good because I could not imagine either Marco nor myself climbing the wall and making holes in the glass with some laser cutters.
James could not deactivate the detectors, but he was the chief security officer who would get the notification of the breach first. That would give us a few minutes, which was enough, before the rest of the security team would arrive to check the reason for the alert. James was going to stall284 them for another minute or two.
We ran down the corridor, taking multiple turns, and got to the lab in two minutes. James gave us a sign to hurry up and went to check if there was any commotion285. Marco punched the code for the door lock that James had sent to the Committee two days ago. It didn’t work. Marco punched it in again.
Nothing.
“James,” I whispered loudly. “What?” We heard him say.
“The code doesn’t work,” Marco said, and we saw James’s head from around the corner.
“Well that’s the only one I got,” he said and thought for a second. “Shoot it and get ready for some action.”
Marco took out his handgun, Ruger Super Redhawk Alaskan, and pointed at the lock.
“Now, I know why they gave me this. You could hunt a big game286 with it,” Marco said. “Just point and shoot.”
I turned away from the door, and he fired at the lock. The shot rang out across the whole floor. If it went unnoticed, then the security team consisted of seriously deaf people. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and we heard the alarm right away. James’s walkie-talkie lit up.
“I heard that too,” James was yelling to his soon-to-be-ex colleagues. “I’m on it. Stay put287 and wait for my orders.”
The lock was shattered, but it took a bit of pushing to get in the lab. At last, I was in and saw the already familiar glass container, but…
“There are no vials!” I yelled.
“What