SPEED

A/N:This story is based on the film Speed. It is set before Mal and Natara meet and before Natara becomes part of the F.B.I.

You are now Taylor Evans

You have just finished another tedious board meeting and are on in the lift with the rest of your colleagues, on the way to the ground floor, you press the ground floor button again trying to quickly get the doors to shut.

"Thanks for pushing that Taylor, the light is on but you never know it could be broken." Your friend Mark says sarcastically.

"Shut up." You quickly add back. You are all standing in the lift on the 43 when all of a sudden there are two massive bangs and the lift begins to fall at an incredibly fast speed. You hear a few people scream as the lift falls and people loose there balance, the lift reaches floor 30 by the time the emergency brakes screech to a halt.

"Taylor, what button did you press?"

Everyone looks around the lift and at you.

You are now Mal Fallon

You and your best friend and partner Ken Greene race down the streets of San Francisco to reach some big company's building. By the time you and Ken arrive other emergency services have arrived. You both jump out of your squad car and Ken quickly goes to the trunk of the car as you turn the engine off. By the time you get to your trunk Ken already has you vest out for you. You take the vest from Ken and out it n as Ken does with his, you both then grab your guns and head off into the building with the other officers. by the time you get into the building your Captain Maria Yeoung is inside talking to the boss of the company.

"So theres no other way in. No doors. The only way in is access panels is that correct?"

"Yes mam."

"Alright gentlemen, what we have here is 11 passengers in a express elevator. Below floor 30. Bomber's already taken out cables, wants $4 million or he blows the emergency brakes."

What's our clock? Asks Ken

"He gave one hour. That leaves us thirty-one minutes exactly." Officer Bartaugh informs you and Ken.

Some other cop asks "Anything else that will keep this lift from falling?"

"Yeah, the basement." You say jokingly.

"We would like to avoid that event, Officer Fallon." You feel as if you've just been kind of told off. You know Maria doesn't really trust you yet, you are still trying to prove yourself over everything that happened with your dad.

"This is an express elevator gentlemen. The only way in or out is through access panels. Bomber's also wired the hatch to trigger the bomb, which seats him in the crazy-but-not-stupid section." Captain Yeoung tells everyone.

Mam, Ken volunteers to examine the device.

"Yeah, right." Ken stares at you.

"Fine. The two of you check it out."

"The nearest access panel is on the thirty-second floor in the lobby." Bartaugh adds.

"I want reports only, we're in a holding patern. Worthy, Briggs, I want you to secure base area, no one in or out. Everyone else, I want you to confirm building evac. Move!" Captain instructs.

You look to Ken "Looks like we're walking."

You, Ken and a few other officers are running up the stairs.

"30." You then race up the next set. "31." Some of the other officers get off on both those floors to evacuate anyone who is left, "32" you say in some sort of relief you don't have to run up another flight of stairs. You and Ken open the door and begin to search the floor, you discover no one, you see the exit panel out of the corner of your eye and take you drill out of your vest to open it up. You take off the hatch and search to see if anyone is around. You here a woman cry. "Help get us out of here. Help please!" You and Ken then climb in. As you get to the top of the lift more of the passengers in the lift are asking for help. "Who's up there. What's happening?"

"Ladies and gentlemen this is the S.F.P.D."

"What are you doing up there?"

"There has been an elevator breakdown, so please just relax, we will get you out of here as quickly as we can." You say trying not to sound to panicked. "Am I wrong?" You ask Ken and look up at him.

You are now Taylor Evans

You don't know why the S.F.P.D would be here if this is just a so-called lift break down. One of your friends Blake asks everyone "Why send cops? Shouldn't they send repair guys?" This question makes everyone think like you just were.

You are now Mal Fallon.

You and Ken both survey the lift.

"What do you think?" Ken asks you.

"Your the expert."

"Looks solid. I don't recognise the work but they defiantly know what their doing."

"I don't like it."

"What's to like Maria said we hold so we hold your in enough shit with her anyway, don't piss her off by going against her." You begin to climb around the lift shaft looking around.

"Alright, pop quiz. Airport, gunman with a hostage. He's using her for cover. He's almost to a plane. You're one hundred feet away." You don't respond your to busy looking around. "Mal?"

"Shoot the hostage." You say cooly.

" What?" Ken asks you puzzled.

"Take her out of the equation. Go for the good wound and he can't get to the plane with her. Clear shot."

"You're crazy, you know that? 'Shoot the hostage.'" Ken the laughs to him self. You just ignore him "Ken this is wrong. He's gonna blow anyway."

"What makes you think that?"

" Gut feeling."

" Yeah, well, Maria outranks your gut. So we wait."

"How much you think the lift weights? Maybe we can do something about those hostages."

"We're not gonna shoot em right? Please tell me we're not going to shot them Mal." As Ken says this to you you climb up the ladder to the roof. "No we just take them out of the equation." You run over to a load of cabling on the roof, it seems very sturdy. Ken helps you move it to the vent which leads to the elevator shaft. "You sure this will hold?"

"I will hold."

"We only have 8 minutes."

You are now Maria Yeoung

You are on the phone trying to get money for the asshole that is doing this."He's not talking I need that money NOW! I can't get anymore time."

You are now Mal Fallon

You are attached to some wires ,and Ken is making sure you don't fall to quickly, as you try to attach the cables to the lift. "Remind me please Ken. Why did I take this job?"

"Come on its not that bad and think in thirty years you get a nice small pension and a cheap gold watch."

"Fair enough. Hold" you attach the clamp to the lift and get Ken to pull you back up.

You are now Peter Hale

You sit in the lift attaching a control pad to the central lift controls when you hear a kind of squeaking, noise. "Don't fuck with me." You say to no one, you get the remote out of your pocket and detonate the emergency brake labeled button.

You are now Taylor Evans

Again the lift starts to plummet down after another bang, all of a sudden the lift comes to a halt and your friend Sophie falls down the hole in the elevator floor, everyone quickly rushes to help pull her up and back into the lift. Everyone begins screaming 'Oh my God' and 'Help us'.

You are now Ken Greene

"He's early the SOB is early." You and Mal rush to get to the lift.

You are now Taylor Evans

Once Sophie has been pulled up everyone stands around the lift when it begins to drop again a little bit then stop. 'What the fuck is going on' you think to yourself.

You are now Mal Fallon

You jump down the flights of stairs until you reach floor 27. Behind you Ken is radioing Maria. "Maria we need some help up here." You reach the lift and drill the bolts out of the access panel. The door is about three quarters above the access panel. You pry the door open to be treated by a woman who is trying to get out. "Help me oh my God help me please!"

"Take my hand." You take her hand and begin to get her out. The lift then falls where the cable must be slipping. You quickly get her out. "Thank you. Oh my god thank you." She hugs you as she gets out. "Take it easy your fine." The back up arrives and you give them this woman. "Here take her." You and Ken begin to unload the other passengers, they quickly say thank you and are escorted off. The lift keeps moving where the cables are getting weaker, a lot of the men are helping give the woman a boost. There is one woman left who is too scared to move. "Come on, take one step and grab my hand," she slowly moves forwards and takes your hand "Don't let go of me." You pull her out just as the cables give way and break and the lift falls down with a pound bang where it hits the basement. The passengers are taken away whilst you and Ken both are slumped over the hatch breathless. You both sit down on the branch under the hatch trying to catch your breathe.

"Is your watch slow?" You question Ken.

"No he jumped the gun we had 4 minutes left."

"Why do that? He's just lost the 4 million."

"Maybe he couldn't hold it long enough. It's a problem with middle aged men. So I'm told."

You stand up. "He's here."

"He could of blown that thing form LA."

"He knew we were up to something. He's close."

"He's not going to corner himself in the building and we evacuated." Ken thinks for a moment. "The elevators."

"The passenger ones were stopped, checked out."

"What about the freight elevators?" You point to Ken and you both go to the elevator, you force the door open. You hear someone cough. "Would the mystery guest please sing in." You grab the lift cable and slide down to the roof of the lift with Ken behind you. You try to be as quite as possible. You get out your pistol ready to take him out when gunshots go off and it is going through the roof of the elevator. Ken grabs hold of the cables trying to steady himself and so he didn't have to put much weight on the roof in case it collapsed. One more gunshot to the roof and it does jus the that-Ken falls down with it into the lift.

The man quickly points his gun at you but you move and his fire misses. "Shit." Ken says, that attracts the mans attention and he points his gun at Ken and tells him to stand up. "Get you arse up." He holds Ken by his nose and pulls him up with that, you stand there watching down when the lift begins to move up to the top floor, you see there is no where else for you to go so you jump into the lift. The man points his gun at your head. "I don't think anyone will give me 4 million just for you." he goes to pull the trigger and you brace yourself, he pulls the trigger; luckily he has run out of bullets. You grab the gun off and chuck it to the floor. He quickly grabs Ken and pulls out a detonator from his pocket and you can see he has dynamite strapped to him, as he does this you pull out your gun.

"Pop quiz hotshot. Terrorist holding a police hostage he's got enough dynamite on him to blow a building in half. What do you do?"

"There's 50 cops waiting for you in the basement."

"Well why don't we get off on the third floor-at least they'll think that." He presses 3 on the actual lift buttons but on his he presses ground floor.

You are now Maria Yeoung

"I want location on those goddamn shots, Sanchez where's Mal and Ken."

"Captain we have movement on the freight elevator."

"It's on three. Move!"

You are now Mal Fallon

You stand in the lift with Ken and this wackjob holding him hostage. "This day has been real disappointing." The lift gets to the P1 and the doors open as to are taking he moves with Ken and you follow him.

"Why because you didn't get to kill everyone?" You ask him.

"There will be a time, boy, where you wished you hadn't met me."

"Mister I'm already there." You keep your gun trained on him but you can't get a clear shot Ken is in the way. "If I drop this stick your friend gets cleaned up with a sponge. Are you ready to die friend?"

"Fuck you. Go ahead drop the stick. Do it."

"Shut up Ken."

"Do it."

"Oh we've got all the balls in the world right here."

"Give it up there's no where to run."

Ken looks at you and you says "Shot the hostage."

"Say goodbye Ken." They are really close to the door but you do what Ken says and shot him in his leg, he falls to the floor clutching it. "You shit!" You look from Ken then to the man. "Give it up you've got nowhere to run." He begins to back away from you towards the door, you move forward to stop him from getting away. He then turns and goes out of the door, you go to follow him but you are thrown backwards when a bomb explodes, you hit your head on the wall and them everything goes black...