When the novel Vertical Run is over, Dave Elliot is a
changed person. Through excruciating
circumstances and several moral decisions David becomes a person that
understands who he is, and what he has to do to save himself and those he
loves.
Early on in the story Dave’s boss walks in his office with a
gun and tries to shoot him. After
managing to knock out his boss Dave walks out of his office only to be shot at
again -- this time by mercenaries that know what they are doing. Also about this time you find out that Dave
has a cynical voice in his head that he converses with. After eliminating
them and listening to radio chatter Dave realizes that he is trapped near the
top of his office building with massive amounts of troops below him.
About this time Dave starts to become his former self again
-- something he apparently doesn’t want to be.
Old habits like shooting a gun, and preservative thinking start to kick
in, such as on page 27 “(You must think.
Thinking is the only way out.)”
Also, on page 29 Dave starts counting bullets, a tactic that would only
be used by a trained army combatant.
This is a change that Dave resents though. He has spent a lot of his life trying to be
normal after his military career and being forced out of that normalness is not
something he enjoys. Dave portrays this
well on page 18-19 by saying “For 25 years I have devoted myself to
ordinariness… It is how I define the
word ‘good’.”
Quite a ways into the book Dave does manage to MacGyver his
way out of the building and into the streets of New York. When he does step into the streets of New
York though, he is a changed man. Gone
is the normal corporate executive. Dave
Elliot is officially deadly… and out for revenge. After figuring out a small clue (and taking
out five sentries) Dave finds himself at chemical research lab where some virus
he is supposedly infected with was developed.
He finds it completely barren.
Nothing is left in the heavily sanitized hallways, except for another
guard.
Dave decides that his best option at this point is to return
to his building and figure out why he is being hunted. Being the person that he is, Dave knocks out
the guards, leaving them alive. When he
picks up a radio Dave hears the enemy commander telling his people why Dave is
so dangerous. Dave learns that he is
infected with a virus that could take out the world because of how contagious
it is. Dave accepts his fate and, after
exacting his revenge on the captain of the enemy mercenaries, walks into a
childhood oasis alone, and dies there, completely at peace with himself.
