Going back to the bedroom, Tala could see her brother was sleeping now. At first, she wondered who turned his body around, but then she realized he wiggled it himself as he normally did when he slept in his own bed.
I should just let him sleep, she thought, her heart feeling all cozy inside to know he would be okay.
Then, without intending to, she looked and continued to stare at Daiji. His face with a bruise on his forehead, seemed not to have changed one bit since the high school days. Could not believe that a long time ago she had a crush on him. Made her sigh and angry.
If he only wasn’t so stupid. Maybe I should just open the window and throw him out, she thought.
But, why should I even bother touching him?
“Let them be,” she whispered to herself, leaving the room as quietly as she could.
There were a lot of questions that she needed to find answers to before she faced her brother. She didn’t even know what she could tell him or if she should tell him anything at all.
Maybe he would think I was crazy. He’d probably worry a lot more. And he already was doing that way too much
She needed time to clear her mind, be alone, and see what was the best thing to do. Wait for Howey to return so she could ask him millions of questions that were bothering her.
*Ding, ding, ding
“Okay, I’m going to take care of you now once and for all!” she said, but before she asked for the Options and went in to change the message alert option, she checked what the message was all about, and that stopped her dead in a track.
[New Mission available]
“Okay. I can do this. Earn some benefit. Become superwoman. Yes. So, tell me, what is the mission?”
[1. Find the backup escape route
2. Leave the building
3. Time allotment: 5 minutes]
“Well, that’s easy enough. I can do that. Let’s try this again,” she said, suddenly feeling an urgency to complete this mission and see what benefits she can get from it.
[Do you accept the mission?]
“Yes,” she said, already in the kitchen pantry, shelves empty of any supplies. But she instantly thought she could spot the hidden exit stairways on a white wall that had a black rubber border, marking it as a door.
[Time remaining for the mission success: 4 minutes 58 seconds]
With no time ready to lose, she looked for a lock, but the white wall had no wall. Yet, she was certain, it had to be a door with a black rubber meaning that it was used for something other than decoration. She knocked on the wall and it even sounded metallic. Yet, there were no handles. She tried pushing against it, but it would not bulge, not even a millimeter.
“Maybe the light switch,” she said and went to press it, realizing there were two of them. She pressed the first one but nothing happened, not even when she pressed the second one down.
“Fuck! Why complicate it???” she said, knowing that the time was ticking.
There was no other switch and the shells were all empty.
Think, if someone was in a hurry to exit this, this would need to open extra fast, so…
She closed the closet door and then touched the switch, not pressing it down, but touched it, thinking what if it worked in some other manner? And she could feel that as she applied just a bit of pressure to it, it went inside, and she instantly heard the swift zoom of the door open and the outside air filled the pantry.
“So, that was the trick,” she said, all happy she could figure it out.
She stepped out in front of the stairways as the door behind her closed automatically and instantly.
Looking back at it, she could not even see that there was a door, its edge hidden by the marble siding.
She was on the top floor as the stairs ended at her feet
“What’s my time?” she asked as she started swiftly to descend down the stairs.
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For three floors down, there were no doors to enter from the staircase. And just when she thought it was going on go on like that for ever, on the fourth floor down, there was a fire escape door, and when she tried opening it, it swung wide open
“Why should I run down the stairs for 20 some floors? Faster to use the elevator,” she thought as she saw a pair of elevator doors just a few steps away.
[Time: Three minutes 26 seconds]
She pressed the lobby button and felt the elevator descent
“Please, no interruptions,” she wished as she watched the electric floor display swiftly count down to below 10 and then to L.
“That was fast! Less than twenty seconds. And now, I have even two-plus minutes to spare!!”
As she was ready to enter the lobby, the ping of the elevator door closing made her turn around.
The elevator next to hers just closed its door, but before it did, she was sure she saw a guy wearing a dark suit inside, his back to her.
“Shit!” she cursed instantly. “What if this mission was done so that I… run out? What if I am in danger? Just to leave? And what about my brother?”
She felt the terror shiver her insides and she swiftly moved back inside her elevator.
She looked at the floor bottoms, but it only went to 24. Slightly confused, she remembered Howey passing over the controls with the wrist of his hand. “Must be some kind of a wireless key that let him take the elevator to that floor!! So, what the hell do I do now???”
Panic set in, she knew she did not want to leave them just to walk in and take her brother. “I need to go as high as I can,” she concluded and pressed to go to the 24th floor.
“From there I could climb the stairs, maybe there is a way to open the door there.”
Climb up seemed to have dragged forever even though the numbers rose rather swiftly to 24.
Once she jumped out of the elevator, she stopped to listen, thinking if she could hear commotion on the upper floor, but there was no noise. And then she turned around and could see on the elevator display next to the doors that the other elevator actually took people to the 12th floor.
“Shit,” she thought, thinking what that would imply.
"A false alarm! They would never go to the 12th floor!! Maybe come here!! No. That was a false alarm. Fuck! But I know what I saw! Still…”
She jumped back into the elevator and pressed the 12th-floor button.
Once arrived, she peeked her head out.
Seeing a guy in a black suit knocking on the door on the far right side, still waiting made her glad that she was right, did not just imagine it. But then, she noticed flowers in his one hand.
“Fucken false alarm,” she said to herself, especially as the door energetically opened and a young woman showed herself, saying one cheerful “hello,” to the guy in a black suit who lifted his hand to give her flowers.
“Damn, I’m too jumpy,” she said and went back into her elevator, remembering her mission.
“How much time do I still have?” she wondered, ready to run out of the building once the elevator hit the Lobby.
[Mission Failed!!]
“Fuck!! I don’t want to play your stupid games!”
After she took a deep breath and partially composed herself, she decided she had nothing better to do than to look into it further.
“So, what does that mean, what am I dealing with the mission failed? Obviously, I’m still living, so, what gives?”
[Mission Failed
You have failed to follow the simplest of instructions and orders.
Agent Points: -100
Agent Reputation Level / Balance: 0 / -150]
So, this was not about getting me out of the apartment. Nobody was going to come and kidnap us. Damn. I blew it again. I don’t even want to see my stats again.
She spaced around the 24th floor but decided she could do nothing there.
“Might as well go out. Wait till Howey comes back. He’ll let me in. I hope,” she said as she rang the elevator to take her down to the lobby.
A minute later, she walked into the lobby and understood how secure the building really was. There were three security guards in a wide lobby, one watching over the monitors while two walked leisurely around.
They all bent their upper bodies as she passed them by, not even asking her a single question.
As she got through the main door and stepped outside to the bustling city that was slowly being veiled by the night, there was another Ding in her head, and this time, she was determined to go to the Options and shut it down. Just after she found out what it was about.
[New Mission]
“What?”
[Mission: Prevent Capture of Yourself by EB Agents]
“That sounds… something I definitely plan to do. So, then, might as well accept it…?” she thought, instinctively reaching inside her jacket pocket and pulling a dark baseball cap out. “Give me more details.”
[Mission: Do not get captured by any EB Agents or by any of their contractors during your stay outside the building.
Mission Class Level: 1
Time Allotment: Time pursuant to your stay outside the building]
“I guess I’m doing this. I mean, how many times can I fail?”
“Wouldn’t it be funny if Howey comes back any minute now and I finish this mission in less than a minute?”
Then another idea came to her mind.
She walked back into the building and approached the guard sitting around the monitors.
“Hi,” she said, smiled and try to look all innocent.
“Good evening, Mrs. Hayashi.”
“Oh, great, you know who I am.”
“Yes, Mr. Howard had informed us you will be staying with him.”
“Good… Now… do you have a key to take me to the 27th Floor? I mean, I kind of got locked out.”
“No, we do not. Only owners of those apartments have the keys.”
“I see. Well, Mr. Howard left and I got locked out.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Do you have his number to contact him?”
“Yes, we do,” he said, and in a few seconds on a piece of paper wrote a cell number for her.
Hah, the easiest mission ever, she thought, figuring that all she had to do was be smart.
Nobody was answering the number they gave her, so in the end she shrugged her shoulders and said.
“Can you inform me when he arrives? I may walk around the block, just to kill some time,” she said and offered her number.
“We’ll do that Mrs. Hayashi,” the guard said obediently.
She sighed and decided to go out again, understanding that she could just wait inside the building for the guy to show up.
"But what harm can there be just to walk around a block? I certainly can always run back in here and ask these guys for help. They even know who I am."