Chapter 5

Matt tapped Kathy on her shoulder. Kathy began her ride down, Matt two seconds behind. Both their throats were now so dry that it was too painful to talk. Matt and Kathy were still counting the flights mentally and marking off the 100's, but they hadn't spoken to each other in hours.

It was nearing the end of a very long second day, the time about 11:30 pm. Life had seemed a lot more cheerful in the morning, Kathy awaking in happiness from sleeping for the very first time in her life with a man. They both voided full bladders into the escalator, Matt somewhat shocked by the extremely dark orange color of his urine, almost brown. They decided not to eat any food until they had a water source to help digest it. They started descending just a few minutes after getting up, there was really no reason to wait.

By noontime, they had descended another 1200 flights, averaging over 200 flights per hour. It was at that time they shared their last swallow of water. They paused for a brief conversation, and agreed they would not stop again until they either found water or were too weak to continue. They could not afford another sleep period, their bodies were drying out too quickly.

It was now just after midnight; Matt had just taken the lead from Kathy, their count at 3,600 flights on the day. Kathy tapped his shoulder, and Matt began his third flight down as leader, Kathy behind him. But instead of swinging to the next switchback, Matt just froze in the landing zone, causing Kathy to bump into him two seconds later.

"Sorry" croaked Kathy, "Problem?"

"Look..." whispered Matt.

There was a 2 ft by 2 ft by 2 ft cubic cutout in the back wall of the landing zone. The interior walls of the cutout seemed made of the same metal as the rest of the escalator shaft. The floor of the cutout descended another foot, where it ended in a grid similar to the ones covering the air vents. Its roof had a small oval hole in it, way off-center near its left end.

"A sink?" croaked Kathy, with a smile.

"Look" croaked Matt. He pointed to an indentation at the right end, an equilateral triangle imbedded in the wall with one vertex pointing straight down. At the bottom point, a small spherical ball sat, Matt and Kathy simultaneously thinking it looked like a joystick.

In hand sign gestures, Matt and Kathy agreed that Kathy could play with the sink first. Kathy got out the empty water bottle and positioned it under the oval hole, then reconsidered, and moved her hand away. She moved the joystick straight up just a bit, and a few drops of what looked like water began to fall from the oval. She quickly positioned the bottle to catch the liquid, and bumped the joystick up a bit more and got a steady flow. After filling the bottle, she returned the joystick to the bottom, and the flow ceased. She smelled and then took a small taste of the liquid, and then a slow swallow, rinsing her mouth.

"Just water, I think, a bit hot, not hard to drink," she said, handing the bottle to Matt.

Matt slowly drank half the bottle; then handed it back to Kathy. "You were very careful not to waste more than a few drops..."

Kathy drank the other half. "Well, we have no idea how much water this sink has to give. I don't want to do something really stupid."

"Ah... Very good point."