The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) (16 page)

Anya was glad she had Nin as her guide. She
lost track of where they could possibly be in the Omega unit, after
they had made a right and left turn. Moving on all fours gave Anya
the sensation that they were meandering about, though she logically
knew that they had made two or three turns at the most. Nin
however, seemed to know exactly where to go.

They entered a vent that seemed to make a
sharp swerve. Anya was trying to keep her breathing steady—the vent
seemed to twist and turn more and more, with each step she took
forward, the tension weighing her down like lead. The walls—the
walls were closing in on her!

“
Everything all right?” Nin
was just about to ask, when he heard some footsteps. The goggles
and magik mushroom helped him pick it out—in the room directly
beneath them.

“
I—”

Nin turned as swiftly as he could, putting a
hand up against Anya’s mouth, to keep her quiet. He stayed still as
a stone statue, until he was sure the guard had gone into another
area in the building.

I’m okay,
Anya mouthed. She hadn’t ever been claustrophobic,
and couldn’t let it get in the way now.

They continued for a few more paces, before
Nin stopped, and backed around slowly. There was just enough room
to do so. He pointed to the ventilation grill in front of Anya,
which she slowly inched toward.

She looked down and saw the middle-aged,
slightly portly guard sitting at a counter, before a wide number of
screens. The guard looked like a Jabba the Hutt descendant. A
half-eaten sandwich rested on the far side of the counter. Anya
looked to the other side and saw the metal case, which she had ten
seconds to open and grab the right keys from. The metal case was
directly beneath her, and several steps away from the guard at the
counter.

Nothing too
difficult,
she said to herself. That was
her problem with being an optimist, at times. Over-confidence could
lead to an overestimation of one’s abilities.

Nin listened in to Dresan over the
earpiece.

“
Key room cameras, all
set,” Dresan updated him.

Nin peeked out at the security cameras that
were focused on the key box itself.

“
Move back,” Nin gestured
to Anya, as he carefully made an opening in the ventilation grill
for her. He made no mention of the blunders, on the elves’ first
attempt at breaking into the Gilbreth.

They’d chosen to enter via the rooftop then,
by throwing a brick into one of the ventilation turbines to jam the
fan’s rotation. Nin had no time to make a proper-sized opening in
one of the grills too, when he realized they weren’t all of the
exact same dimensions. Guards were dispatched to investigate the
rooftop by then. The brick hitting the fan blades had made a louder
sound than Nin expected. It was rather mortifying to admit, and he
was more comfortable leaving the facts unknown.

Anya watched him, as he worked on making the
opening in the grill. A small laser beam from his wrist device was
doing the job just nicely.

She knew now why she was better suited for
the job. Nin was tall and slender; Anya was more compact, in
comparison. Nin was smashed up against the tight space in the vent.
Anya could turn and move around with less trouble, and easily get
through the opening. Having a slight frame had its advantages.

Nin latched a metal hook onto the wall for
Anya to attach her belayer device. She connected the line of rope
and steadied herself, recalling what she knew from rock climbing,
as she removed her bracelet from her left hand that she always wore
with her. She held the bracelet in her mouth, holding it tightly in
between parched lips.

Nin was just about to hand her a couple of
thin, metal picks, for the lock. If a person used too much force to
pick the lock, there’d be a hard ‘click’ which would alert the
guard. Where were Anya’s tools for picking the lock?

“
What are you doing?” Nin
whispered. It was the same bracelet he’d taken, just the day
before.
What tricks have you got,
Anya?
He studied her face, noticing how her
cute ski nose gave her a touch of daintiness, which contrasted with
the more daring aspects of her nature.

Anya thought of the picture of the lock,
which Dresan had shown her on his laptop. She removed the bracelet,
to be able to speak. “It’s a three-point turn system lock?” She
decided to be extra sure, and silently mouthed the password
numbers. “Two one seven?”

Nin pointed to the bracelet, gesturing for
an explanation.

“
My lock pick,” Anya
whispered back.

Nin gave a nod. He’d leave her to her own
devices. She was as sure of what she was about to do as he had
been, when guiding them through the ventilation system.

Anya replaced the bracelet in between her
lips, when Nin put a hand up. He was listening to his earpiece.
Anya couldn’t hear the faintest thing that was being said or
transmitted.

“
Ready?” Nin mouthed to
her.

She nodded, and he put a thumb up. Then
three fingers, and two, and then one, signaling the final
second.

Anya entered the key room once she heard the
guard swivel on his seat. It was going as Dresan had planned with
the rigged security tapes. One column of screens was jamming up
with jagged lines of interference. The guard knocked his hand on
the screens, to see if it would make any difference.

Anya lowered herself swiftly, using her toes
to quietly balance against the wall surface as she made her way
toward the key cabinet. She teetered back, taking the bracelet from
her mouth, and held out two of the key charms that were at the ends
of the bracelet. There were two sharpened points at the tips of the
key charms, which gave them the functionality of the ends of metal
paper clips, with an added amount of crucial precision.

Here goes,
Anya told herself.

The lock had three separate dials of
numbers, which radiated from the center. Anya slotted the sharpened
points of the key into the groove in each of the numbers that she
wanted—2, 1, 7—so that the numbers were lined up in a straight
line, which got the cabinet door open.

Her heart stopped when the guard took a wide
step to one side. She heard the “thump” of his footstep against the
floor, and she froze. It took every ounce of her will to stop her
hands from shaking and from making even the slightest sound. In
fact, she hardly dared to breathe. But the guard continued to look
in the direction of the screens, seemingly trying to figure out if
there was equipment trouble. Another column had started to buzz
with the interfering static. Anya had all of ten precious
seconds.

10...9...8...

The possibility of being caught loomed like
a ticking time bomb. Anya searched frantically for the keys labeled
“Janitor’s Room” and “V.” She looked at the left side: “Conference
Room,” “Video/Audio Room,” “Library,” “Visitor’s Center.”

7...6...5...

Then Anya spotted the first key on the right
side, the second key on the second row, labeled “Janitor’s Room.”
The second key labeled “V” was the last key on the bottom row. She
grabbed the keys and swapped them with the fake keys she had
brought along, and prepared to relock the cabinet with her
bracelet. She wasn’t thinking through the steps—she’d had enough
practice with locks and thefts to be able to do a decent job. The
movements were all natural to her. The hard facts gave her the
adrenaline she needed to see that she didn’t make a faulty move—if
she was too slow, the alarm would sound.

4...3...2...

She turned the number ‘7’ once,
anticlockwise around the outermost dial, which set the lock to turn
in random numbers to reseal the cabinet. The guard’s hand slammed
down on another screen, when the lock gave the faintest click to
signal the combination had been set in place again. Anya really
wondered how she had gotten into this in the first place, not even
knowing if she would come out of it alive…

1.

Anya’s bracelet slipped through her hands.
She stuck a hand out, grabbing it midair before it could hit the
ground. She leveraged herself against the edge of the wall with one
foot, the other foot ready to swing up, her neck tensing up as she
kept her balance—before she heard the guard curse, and dial a
number on his cell.

“
X096812!” the guard barked
down the cellular device. “
Why
is there a goddamn monkey, on the
rooftop?”

Anya felt—and heard—her shoe tap the wall as
she pushed off the wall to move upwards. Just then, a low hum came
on as the lights in the key room dimmed a notch. A voice came on
over the building’s intercom: “Lockdown activated.”

Anya made her way back up to Nin in one
piece, just as the lights flickered back to their pre-dimmed state.
She heard the guard muttering, “I can’t see where it’s gone…take it
down…I don’t want that thing messing around with the security
systems again.”

Nin gave her a quick hug around the neck,
before scuttling toward the vent. He’d shut his eyes for a moment,
when Anya dropped the bracelet. Anya didn’t know it, but he’d held
on to her belayer line when her foot hit the wall. His glove had
absorbed some of the sound and impact when she leveraged on the
sole of her foot for some balance and stability.

Anya thought the video was a creative use of
an actual live monkey. She wondered how long it took to get all the
fake videos—and interruptions—looking anything but fake.

She checked to see that the two keys were
secured in the small loops on her belt, before putting her bracelet
back on. She looked over at Nin, who was busy welding back the bars
he had cut, using the same small laser beam from his wrist
device.

“
Good as new,” he
whispered, before tuning in to his earpiece. He listened intently
for a few seconds, before turning back to Anya. “Ready for the head
guard?”

Anya stopped herself from sighing. Her
adrenaline levels had skyrocketed through the roof, and she wasn’t
so sure she was quite ready for another round so soon. If she
suffered a heart attack, she was going to place the blame on
Nin.

As if reading her thoughts, Nin whispered
over her lips, “Sooner it gets done, the better.” That seemed
enough to get Anya to comply.

He’s so fine,
she thought.
He’s such a
good leader. Anyone who could coordinate this has to be.

Little did she know that Nin’s thoughts
paralleled hers at that very moment. He was silently full of praise
and admiration for his lovely, new thieving accomplice.

Chapter 10:

Anya was beginning to feel a little faint,
when she saw Nin pause and turn his head to the right. The
moonlight that shone into the room cast some light on his face.
Anya saw him smirk to himself. It highlighted his devil-may-care
persona, which Anya found quite irresistible. He slid out of an
open vent, and helped Anya out.

“
Tavia removed this earlier
for us,” Nin said, before replacing the ventilation grill. Nin was
glad everything was going perfectly as planned. And it was going a
lot better than their first attempt.

“
What room is this?” Anya
asked.

“
A laboratory, of some
sort.”

There was a silvery-bluish tinge to the
interior of the room, which had a whiteboard on one side of the
wall with scientific notations scrawled all over it. The walls were
lined with cabinets—whether they contained files, or something
else, Anya didn’t stay behind to find out. Nin held her hand
gently, moving in the shadows, out an open door, and then skulking
alongside a corridor, before stopping about midway. He moved like
he had night vision, like a panther that had no problems with
navigating in the dark. Nin gestured to Anya to back up against the
wall, as he adjusted his earpiece.

Anya heard the sound of heavy shoes on a
polished floor. The night shift’s head guard, a hefty towering
individual with a fierce tribal-pattern shaved hairstyle, prowled
the open space in front. His shoulders seemed broader than Nin and
Anya’s combined shoulder width, if they were standing together. The
guard’s obvious upper body strength made him ten times more
intimidating than the officer keeping watch at the key room. Anya
would have baulked earlier in the vent, if the guards had switched
places.

Anya shuddered to think of a physical
confrontation with the head guard. She wouldn’t stand a chance.
Neither would Nin, for that matter, unless it was a battle of wits,
and not brawn—a skilled, lighter-framed and more agile opponent
might be able to exhaust the other. From the map Anya remembered,
the janitor’s room would be somewhere over to the right. They’d
have to make a quick dash to the door, and slip the key in.

Suddenly, Anya heard another sound, a
metallic clinking sound, coming from a further distance away, like
someone was lightly striking a fingernail against a metal railing.
The guard peered up, at an overhead passageway which linked two
departments together in the Omega unit. The hunter was seeking out
his prey.

Everyone waited, all four of them, though
there was one other main individual to uncover, as far as the guard
was concerned. Nin stayed still as a statue. Anya held on to the
“Janitor’s Room” key, ready to place it in the keyhole once they
got to the door.

There was complete silence for a few more
nerve-wracking moments, before the clinking began again. It was a
more staccato beat this time, like someone was tapping along to the
rhythm of some music. Then an unearthly voice, speaking in the
Elven tongue, which made the small hairs on Anya’s skin stand on
end. Anya saw the guard move forward, and Nin edged over to the
right, with Anya close behind. Nin turned back once to see the
guard ascending a flight of stairs, as Anya opened the door to the
janitor’s room.