Man in the Empty Suit Read Free Page A

city was an empty cemetery, markers over unoccupied graves. Was I really too lazy to make more trips through the recent past to see what had caused New York’s abandonment? Was I really so self-centered that I could handle only this one night? I’d seen this same lightning storm many times, but never from this height. I took a deep breath, suddenly looked forward to revisiting this moment when I became Sober, and before I exhaled, I felt guilt at having despised him for simply being older.
    Thunderous echoes chased one another between the buildings. Beneath them chattered a mechanical rattle. I turned my head to listen. When I realized that the rattle came from behind me, not outside, it was too late. The elevator had descended.
    Back to the elevator, tripping on furniture in the dark. Unseen glass smashed against the floor, and I crunched shards under my heels. I stumbled through the dark hallway, felt along the walls until I found the door to the missing elevator. I held on to it, suddenly needing the support, and listened to the grinding descent. I felt angry. Worse, I felt mocked. To be abandoned, in some sort of joke. I’d never played practical jokes on myself before. There was no point. I played a joke either on a Youngster, making myself a past victim, oron an Elder, which was impossible because I could not trap memory.
    As I wondered at Sober’s reasons, the elevator cables sang. Gears slowed, then stopped. I pressed my face to the elevator window and saw the car lights three floors below me. Above me, in the elevator’s main motor, rose a whine. Cables slipped, but the elevator stuck. Rather than stop, the motor groaned. The car’s lights flickered. An alarm sounded somewhere above me, a jarring bell. It started, stopped, then sounded again briefly, as if stuttering.
    I called down to myself. “Hello?” There was no answer. My anger rose. “Hope you’re happy now.” No reason to leave me here, but at least I wasn’t trapped in the car with him. It occurred to me that my future self might have left me here so we wouldn’t both be stuck in the elevator. He might, in fact, have been saving the Entrance. But why not tell me this would happen? Elders loved keeping secrets. One more sign of the Elders’ superiority issues. I dismissed the fact that I would eventually inhabit those issues. Every single one.
    I yelled, “Listen, I’ll head down the stairs and get help.”
    Still no answer.
    I looked around the hallway. My eyes had barely adjusted to the dark. Besides the penthouse entrance, there were two doors; I opened the first and reached gingerly into the absolute black depth. It was a service closet. I felt along the wall toward the other door: the stairway. Low light bounced along the walls, reflected from farther down the stairs. Hushed voices echoed and layered over one another into a chorus of whispers.
    I called out. “Hello?” Something flickered at my feet. I reached down and found my own multiarmed clock, same asthe one pinned to my lapel. I tried to read it in the dim light. Behind me something in the elevator motor let out a spark and an echoing report like a gunshot.
    I returned to the elevator. “Hello?” I called down again. Still no answer. Below, in the shaft, the elevator lights seemed farther away. Something burned. Smoke wafted from the shaft, and the motor’s whine grew louder.
    “Is everything all right?” I shouted, pounding on the door. I watched the lights fall away and felt my stomach drop, as if it were I who flew upward rather than my counterpart descending.
    I might have shouted a silly threat. I turned back toward the stairway. Whatever low light previously lit the stairs had disappeared. I felt forward with feet and hands and located the top step. Slipping one foot to the edge of each step, I toed my way down the stairs—twelve steps to the landing—negotiated the turn, then counted steps to the next floor. Twelve again. Twelve steps, landing, twelve, landing, and