The Time Stone, Third Edition (Extended Version)
Chapter 20

Several meters from the guard’s office with chaotically strewn files and junk food wrappers, James and Tina sought to escape their confinement.

“There has got to be a better way!” Thought James thinking of his youth listening to the Rolling Stones as he and Tina ran up the stairwell curving to each floor circling frantic to get out to freedom.

“How many levels are in this building?” Tina asks rhetorically as she fought to catch her breath.

“Almost there”, James answered her hypothesizing with a grinning grit of determination. They turn the bend into the main landing of the ground floor and approached a metal door with the number one on it.

“Thank God,” cried Tina in a joyous voice.

“Wait!!!”James grabbed her by the arm and pulls her down to a crevice underneath the stairs and rolled on the ground besides her crouching down.

“What the..?”

“Quiet!” He held his finger over her lip as the metal door swung open and a moment later, two uniformed officers entered the stairwell.

“We got a level 31 on system wide. That means no one leaves the building, no exceptions until command says otherwise.” The two officers headed up stairs.

“It’s going to be one of those days.” They continued their conversation changing the subject as to who would beat the Chronix Bay Pirates in the next baseball game until they were out of hearing range.

“They’re gone.” Tina whispered.

“I can still hear them,” says James.

“Huh?” Uttered a confused Tina, “who are you, Bionic Man?” She asks as customary as it can be and jumped out of the crevice to her feet. “Come on, we don’t have much time.”

James crawled out of the crevice slowly following her thinking silently then speaks slowly. “You heard what they said,” says James. “We won’t be able to leave the building. No one can.”

“So we improvise and replace another way out of here” Tina smiles.

Then suddenly the metal door began to open slightly. “Oh crap!!!” James uttered as he moved his arm up to the door with a quick gesture and the door shut closed.

“How do you …?” Tina asks perplexed catching herself in midsentence with a wide open jaw as she saw James is holding his hand in mid-air towards the direction of the door and the door remained completely shut.

“I wish I knew” James answered even more confused than she was. James lowered his arm and the metal door budged open slightly again and he quickly raised it again and it shut again.

“Hold it, man.” Tina yells at him.

“I can’t hold it like this forever.”

“Right, we need a plan. We’ll figure out this freak show later.” Tina yells. “Uh, uh” Tina looks up while wiping her brow then saw an air vent blocking a shaft. “That’s it! Quick, give me a boost.”

“I can’t” yells James.

“Come on; just use your free hand.”

“Uh OK” James used his free hand to hoist Tina up as she stepped up onto his hand and she tried to grab hold of the vent grate, but fell back on the wall behind her. “Come on”, James uttered.

“Damn it” she says. “Try once more, James.”

“Come on you have one last try, this is our last try.” He says in a panic, feeling the weight of the door on his arm starting to give way, and it wouldn’t be long before it opened- despite his efforts. She stepped up onto his hand, takes a deep breath, and jumped up grabbing the vent and hung from it with one hand like a chimpanzee then she disengaged the hatch on the vent with her free hand and shimmied up the shaft. “Yes. Nice work”, James adds reaching up to Tina’s free hand reaching down.

“Come on boy” she reached out to grab his hand held up high and helped pull him up as he continues to hold the metal door shut by keeping his other hand to the metal door until he is safely in the shaft and sealed the vent shut. They crawled away rapidly.

Moments later the metal door swung open and a platoon of five uniformed officers ran in and fell in nearly on top of one another.

“What the hell?” A petite officer yells.

“No one is here.” A taller officer commented.

“Then who is holding the damn door?!” A muscularly built mustachioed officer with a gold shield and dark sun glasses yells as he commanded the fear and attention of the other officers. “Find them!!!” He takes off his glasses revealing his dark eyes as pitch black as coal and determined as ever, “replace them both.”