The lobby of Yaro’s skyscraper was huge. This building served as the base of operations for many of Yaro’s companies, so the first several floors were accessible to the public. They showcased the many products and services that the companies provided, with help desks, return centers, and information kiosks. There was a sizable amount of people already inside. People were lining up at help desks trying to resolve an issue with their product, others were lining up to what seemed like a line for job interviews, and I saw a horde of children being toured around the information kiosks.
Long story short, the lobby was very busy and very chaotic, which was perfect for us. There would be less attention directed towards us, at least until we made it to the higher floors.
Needle inspected a nearby kiosk showcasing the newest model of tablet Yaro’s company was selling.
“It’s pretty busy here, huh?” Needle said. “I didn’t expect this skyscraper to be this open to the public.”
Bubbles nodded. “Yaro likes to gather goodwill like this. Anyone can come and see what her skyscraper is like. Of course, the important stuff is inaccessible to the public. We’re going to make our way up without getting caught.”
Sil nodded. “Right. Let’s get started on the plan. Keshi, Needle, you guys remember where to go, right?”
“The security room, right?” Keshi replied. “If I remember correctly, it’s on one of the lower floors?”
“The fifth. According to Bubbles, it’s because any commotion happens on the lower floors only. The elevators that go above the fourth floor are tightly guarded, so they have the security room nearby to get to the commotion quicker.” Sil said.
“There’s still security guards around, so be careful.” Needle warned, sweeping his eyes around. “But yeah, what we’re doing is tough. Knock out the surveillance systems as discreetly as possible.”
“Yeah, while Bubbles and I sneak our way up the skyscraper.” I replied. “Are we good to go?”
“Let’s do it.” Bubbles nodded. “Keshi, Sil, Needle, we’ll see you later. Saka, follow me.”
Our group split. Keshi’s crew made their way to the opposite end of the lobby, where elevators would take them to the fourth floor. From there, they would infiltrate the fifth floor, and make their way to the security room.
Bubbles, his clone, and I also went to the elevators, but on the other side of the lobby as Keshi’s crew. We took the crowded elevator to the fourth floor, which was almost entirely dedicated to technology showcases. From there, Bubbles and I entered a public bathroom. The kind of public bathroom where you have one single room to yourself. I hoped nobody saw us go in there together.
Bubbles looked upwards. “Perfect, just as I remembered. There’s a vent in here that leads up. It’ll send us part way up the skyscraper. It’s not a direct shot to Yaro’s floor, but it’s our first initial step.”
“And we have to climb up several floors.” I grumbled. “I know I’m good at climbing, but this is honestly just terrible. I’m built for climbing trees, not gargantuan dystopian towers.”
“Quit complaining and get to it.” Bubbles laughed, as he clambered on top of his clone. He reached out and started fiddling with the vent. “You’re carrying Noah down as well. Just get used to it now.”
“Well, climbing down is easier than climbing up.” I replied. “Although, with the added weight, it might be worse.”
Bubbles unlatched the vent from the ceiling and tossed it down to me. I caught it and set it to the side. Bubbles pulled himself up, and gestured for me to climb on top of his clone. I climbed on top of the clone. It was slightly soft and squishy because of its goopy flesh, making it harder to balance. Bubbles grabbed my hand and pulled me up. Once we were both nestled inside of the ventilation shaft, Bubbles and I pulled up the clone, who had picked up the discarded vent cover. We put it back on, erasing any trace that it had been tampered with. Now, we just had to go up.
We shuffled horizontally through the ventilation shaft until it bent up at a 90 degree angle. From here, it would be a long way up. The shaft was narrow enough so that I couldn’t spread all of my limbs, but wide enough so that two people could comfortably fit if they were arranged side by side, meaning there was enough space for me to carry Noah down if he was on my back. That fact was a relief. I wasn’t too sure if Noah could climb as well as I could. He didn’t have any claws, after all.
Bubbles and his clone went up first, since he was familiar with the vent. He’d used it to escape originally. I wasn’t sure on how exactly he was going to climb until he and his clone shed off their suits, and started sticking to the wall of the shaft. Bubbles and his clone carried their suits, but right now, they were just viscous globs of pink goop.
“Stop staring at me like that, Saka.” Bubbles complained. “It feels like I’m naked.”
I had no idea where his voice came from. How did Bubbles even talk?
“That’s because you’re naked.” I replied. “Don’t get any of your goop on me, Bubbles, I just got this jacket.”
“No promises.” Bubbles said.
I sighed and hooked my claws into the shaft. They punctured the metal, but the holes I created were good gripping points for my ascent. Yaro had more than enough money to repair these shafts anyway. I’ll just have to be careful about where I punch these holes. If I accidentally created holes in a place where the shaft was visible to people, it’d be a problem.
We continued to slowly ascend. I used all four of my arms to climb so that the burden was evenly shared amongst my limbs. When I had to rest, or find a better grip, I pushed my tail on the opposite wall of the shaft to keep myself propped against the wall. Bubbles showed no signs of being tired, shapeless goo that he was, and he continued to creep up the ventilation shaft wall, leaving bits of moisture behind.
Occasionally, there would be grates in the ventilation shaft that I could see through. Most of the time, they were facing walls, so I couldn’t see anything, but occasionally I would be able to peek into a hallway or a room. We were still on the lower floors, so there were people dressed in business casual scampering throughout the hallways carrying tablets and mugs of coffee. We were still on the floors where Yaro’s employees worked as normal. As we went higher, we would be seeing less employees and more higher ups and leaders, I presumed. From the few times I could see people from the grates, I didn’t see any security guards. Bubbles was right, Yaro’s security presence lessened outside the first five levels.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I still expected there to be security guards on the penthouse and collection floors, though. That was probably the most important part of the building, after all. Bubbles and I would just have to sneak past them, or fight them if we got caught. But that was a problem for later me. Current me was still crawling her way up a narrow vent. Sweat dripped down my forehead, my arms, my legs, and down my tail. I haven’t climbed for such an extended period of time ever. I took elevators like a normal person, usually.
“How much farther up?” I eventually asked Bubbles. We had been climbing for a while at that point, and I wasn’t sure what floor we were even on.
“We’re at around the 30th floor, and we’re heading to the 110th. But soon, this shaft is going to end. We’re going to find a maintenance elevator and use that to jump up a few floors.” Bubbles replied.
I wiped some sweat off my forehead. “Alright, that’s good. And what was the exact timing for Keshi disabling the security again? I hope they get it right.”
“If they’re going according to plan and there hasn’t been any issues so far, they’re going to disable the security cameras and motion sensors when we get right below the 110th floor. The maintenance elevator doesn’t go directly on that floor, so we’re going to the one directly below it. Once we get up there, I’ll send a message over to Keshi, and they’re going to deactivate the security. When that happens, we have a small window of time where we sneak past the guards and bust Noah out.” Bubbles explained.
“Right. Let’s get Noah out of there.” I said.
“And kill Yaro while we’re at it.” Bubbles added.
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A dozen minutes passed, and it was time to stop climbing. Bubbles schlorped his flesh back into his suits, and clambered out of the ventilation shaft after checking if the coast was clear. I followed him.
“There’s no surveillance cameras on this floor, right?” I whispered.
“Yeah. This floor is used for storage and maintenance, so there’s no cameras and almost no people. We might have to avoid a janitor or a repairman or something, but otherwise, this floor is safe.” Bubbles whispered back.
I checked the gray hallway that was littered with random crates and objects. As Bubbles has said, this floor didn’t have people on it. There were several crates, lockers lined up on a wall, and I could see a larger open storage space where a lot of cargo was kept. There were mops and brooms propped up against the wall as well. This floor was pretty much a warehouse hundreds of meters up.
“Alright, follow me.” Bubbles said. “The maintenance elevator is this way. Keep an eye out, though. I don’t want to kill a janitor.”
I stalked after him, trying to diminish the sounds of my footsteps as much as possible. Any sound here neatly echoed off of the clean stainless steel walls, and I was testing my ability to walk quietly. We were probably going to need it on the floors above. This floor was a practice run.
Bubbles walked without any sound as well. I didn’t know if it was because of his biology or because of his skill, but he was really good at being stealthy. I guess he had to be, since he escaped from this helltower in the first place.
We had to pass through the giant storage room that took up the entire center of this floor. I didn’t hear any commotion, so it was safe to assume that any maintenance workers or janitors were on break or working elsewhere. I did glance at a suspicious mop that was propped against a locker to dry, though. Other than that mop, the coast was clear.
It took a few minutes, but eventually, Bubbles, his clone, and I hustled our way to the other end of the floor. There, Bubbles led me towards a single elevator shaft, and pressed a button. We waited for a minute, and the doors slid open.
Inside the elevator shaft was simply a grated platform. It wasn’t a normal elevator. It was just a platform made out of a steel grate, and railings that were around the height of my thighs. I was very tall, but these railings would barely keep anyone else safely inside. On top of that, the railings were only on three sides of the elevator. There were no safety precautions whatsoever on the side that we entered from.
“Bubbles, why does this elevator look so unreliable?” I asked.
“It’s because it's a maintenance elevator, so workers can fit their tools and carts and whatever thing they’re trying to move on this elevator.” Bubbles answered. “And maybe because they don’t care about their workers.”
I lifted a leg and put it on the steel grated elevator floor, and slowly pressed my weight on it.
“What’s the weight limit on this thing?”
“Trust me, it’s far heavier than we are. When I made my escape, I snuck aboard a maintenance worker’s cart that was filled with several other things. It can hold all of that. Don’t worry.” Bubbles laughed.
I stepped onto the lift. “Fine.”
Bubbles and his clone stepped on as well. He fiddled with the buttons on the side of the lift, and we started to slowly ascend.
“This beats climbing, no?” Bubbles asked.
I crossed both sets of my arms across my chest. “It does, but I still don’t trust this rickety elevator.”
Bubbles and his clone both shrugged. “It’s the only way for us to go up.”
I pointed at the sad excuse of a railing that was shorter than my hips.
“When we find Yaro, I’m going to tell her to do something about her maintenance elevator. These railings are definitely not compliant with whatever safety administration that oversees elevators.”
Bubbles chuckled. “I’m sure she’ll take that advice to mind.”
We stood in silence as the elevator slowly made its way up dozens of floors. There was no elevator music, thankfully, but there was awkward silence. Our climb up the ventilation shaft wasn’t nearly as quiet, but that was because I was grunting the entire way up.
I tapped my tail against the ground impatiently as I waited for the slow elevator to make its way up. Eventually, the elevator started to slow its pace. We were about to reach the 109th floor. Before the elevator came to a stop, and before the doors opened, I heard murmurs from outside the elevator doors.
My gaze shot towards Bubbles who had heard the murmurs as well. Someone was waiting for the elevator where we were about to get out. We were going to get caught! Bubbles pointed upwards. I understood immediately.
When the shoddy maintenance elevator doors opened, two janitors strolled inside and entered the lift. Bubbles, his clone, and I were above them, holding onto a support beam at the very top of the elevator shaft. Since the elevator’s highest floor was the 109th, Bubbles and I were able to climb up before the elevator doors opened and hide above the lift. The janitors never thought to look up, and the lift began its descent. We managed to not get mangled by any machinery, and also not get caught as soon as we got somewhere important.
As soon as the janitors were far enough away, Bubbles sighed. “That was close. Good climbing. You practically jumped up there with no noise.”
I dropped down from the support beam and stepped onto a ledge at the same height the elevator shaft door was. “It was the only place to hide anyway. Good thing they didn’t look up.”
Bubbles dropped down on the ledge across from where I was standing, on the other side of the elevator shaft door. “Now, we have to pry this thing open. I’ll send the signal to Keshi’s crew right before we do that so we don’t trip any alarms.”
I nodded. “Sounds good to me. The real infiltration starts here.”
Bubbles sent the signal to Keshi’s crew, and a minute later, he received confirmation that the security system was down. Apparently, they were hiding just outside of the security room, and were waiting for Bubbles’s signal to bust in. It only took them a minute to subdue the guards and disable security measures.
I gripped the crack in the elevator shaft door with all four of my hands. I wedged my claws in there and began to pull them apart. My back muscles strained, and after a few moments, the elevator shaft doors began to move. Bubbles slipped through when the opening was wide enough, and checked if there were any patrols or passerby. Once he confirmed there weren’t any, Bubbles and his clone helped hold the doors long enough for me to slip through myself. The elevator shaft doors closed behind me with a thud.
We were immediately on the move. Bubbles guided us to the nearest staircase to go up a level, where Yaro’s penthouse and collection was. The surveillance cameras that dotted the hallway ceilings were limp and deactivated, confirming that the security system was down. But that was only a matter of time. There was no doubt that there were security guards trying to take back the security room from Keshi, Sil, and Needle. Their response should be delayed too, considering their comms should be shut down as well. Unless they had a backup of some sort.
I heard boots thumping down the hall, around a corner. Bubbles, his clone, and I waited for the boots to come closer. Judging by the sound and number of steps, it was a patrol group of guards moving quickly. They probably noticed that their comms and security was down, and decided to make their way down towards the security room.
Bubbles and I waited for them to be right around the corner from us. Bubbles counted down, and we popped around the corner and opened fire. Both of our hand cannons found their marks, and four guards went down immediately. The last two guards that avoided getting hit initially stumbled and fumbled for their weapons, but they were quickly put down as well. Bubbles put clean shots through their torsos that opened up holes the size of a fist, and I put a few shots through their legs, crippling them. I deliberately aimed for their legs. Even if they worked for Yaro, I didn’t think they deserved death for doing their job.
Bubbles and I stepped over the fresh corpses and groaning bodies, and kept running. Bubbles’s clone followed, too.
“You aimed for their legs?” Bubbles asked. “You’ve gotten soft.”
I shrugged. “It gets the same result. They have nothing to do with Noah, either. If they directly compromised Noah’s safety, it would’ve been a different story.”
We continued running. We didn’t run into any more groups of guards, thankfully. This floor was actually relatively empty. Apparently, Yaro didn’t have any events or parties planned for today, so the upper floors, which were meant for living and entertainment, were pretty empty. The higher ups in business suits were probably stuck in a meeting somewhere anyways.
After a couple more minutes of running, Bubbles and I came upon an extravagant stairway that headed up.
Bubbles pointed up the stairs. “This is where Noah and Yaro will be. The tracker I put on Noah is still active, so we can find his location based on that.”
I rolled my neck to pop its joints. “Let’s go get my human back.”