Free The Towers by David Poyer

under the shoulders as she limped down. Blair got an arm around her too, and together the three helped her from step to step. She was panting; her blouse was soaked. Blair hoped she wasn’t losing the baby. To her astonishment, some cursed them as they pushed by. As if their lives were infinitely more important. “Another step. Keep on going. Stay with me, Cookie. Stay with me.”
    Fifty-fifth story.
    Fifty-four.
    Fifty-three. The numbers on the landings crept by with incredible slowness. Still, the air was free of fumes now. Rank with sweat and perfume but no longer cooking with smoke. She panted, throat raw, toes masses of pain. The Christian Louboutins had always turned heads. But right now, they were turning her ankles. She envied the younger women who romped past, running shoes flashing white under skirts, purses and dress heels slung over their shoulders. She wanted to turn off and rest, the way older people were doing at the landings. But pressed on.
    The stream of exiting people was moving faster now. The stairwell opened ahead. The residents of these floors must already have left. They were outside, safe; only now and then would one of the doors open and some latecomer join the exodus. Also, she figured, the other exit stairways must be open here, below the crash. Reasoning this out as she dragged her burden and her weary self down one excruciating step after another gave her an obscure pleasure.
    Reasoning about things meant you maintained some tiny measure of control.
    At the fortieth floor one of the men let go, no apology, just stepped away suddenly from their dragging progress and slipped into the stream. Giory and the other man they’d been trapped in the elevator with, Tommy, had long before vanished. They must be outside in the open by now. The air was cooler, though, and the lack of crowding, of frantic, hurrying, panicking humanity, was reassuring. “We’ll make it,” she told Cookie. Now she and the one man left supported the groaning soon-to-be mother. Their eyes met over her bent head. He winked, but his jaw was taut with effort. Or fear … she felt it too … expecting the roar of another jet. She wanted out, out, out. But there was no exit save this endless limbo of featureless stairs, only the painted numbers different at each landing. The same single fluorescent tube each time the steps angled left. The same putty-colored concrete.
    If only she’d just kept going from the Sky Lobby. That express elevator would have had her on solid ground in three minutes. Why had she gone back up, after seeing the North Tower explode? For pride? A job? She’d have been halfway across town, at Penn Station waiting for the Amtrak. She’d never, ever go higher than four stories again.
    All the other stairways had been blocked. If this one hadn’t been open, they’d still be huddled up there, waiting to die.
    A commotion below rose toward them as they dragged downward. Yelling, what almost sounded like cheers. Hoarse cries from raw throats.
    A straining, exhausted-looking man in a heavy black coat festooned with yellow and silver reflective patches and a large, strangely contoured helmet was trudging up toward them on the left side of the stairway. Another climbed directly behind him. Both were covered with gear that swayed and clanked. They looked bulky and determined and strong, but also flushed, nearly used up. She saw why. They carried coils of heavy-looking hose, portable radios, hanks of manila line, steel pry bars, yellow flashlights, goggles, oxygen canisters. She was shaking and all she’d had to do was walk down stairs. She couldn’t imagine carrying all that load up—her eye went to the number at the landing—twenty-eight flights. And they still weren’t even halfway to the fire.
    And walking up into it, when everyone with any sense knew to get out. Her gaze met the lead fireman’s. “You managing okay?” he asked,