Chapter 9:

Cooling Vents and a Great Challenge

Idolatry


A quarter of an hour passed by and for some reason, the detective in a casual dress holding a small pistol in her hand and the pink idol were still more than a hundred meters below their objective.

For reasons beyond Lilianna's understanding, Amy’s path took them to the maze-like server floors.

Five meters of height and some good hundred or so meters of widht covered in computers and archivers filled a good chunk of the building, and they were amidst these.

It was all due to them leaving the elevator mid-travel without much explanation other than Amy saying 'Shortcut!' and jumping away, and this much was already weird enough.

“We’ve been at it for a while now, so I guess it’s fair to ask, right?" Lily finally broke the ice. "Why’re we inside one of the server rooms instead of anywhere else?!”

The slightly taller, better built and armed member of the duo stopped following her guide as she said so, forcing the small idol to turn around.

Her face was covered in a smug smile for some reason though.

"Intuition told me that stopping here would be much safer and my shortcut is perfect"

“Even if it’s the safest, what in the hells do you want to do inside the server room?! We’re still way too far away from the top to even use the windows or something.”

“This place is very cold, you see? I can bet my songs that, somewhere around here, we can find a vent to use.” Explained Amy in a way that couldn’t answer any questions at all.

“And why would we want a vent?”

“To crawl inside, obviously!” She exclaimed as if it was the obvious answer. “Have you never watched spy movies before?”

“I… I guess it’s a way to sneak around safely, but why?”

“I think it would be better for you to see by yourself, but most places inside this building are already compromised for us. At the moment, I am even unsure if our police friends can manage to clear their target in a short period of time...”

There wasn’t much way to be sure if Amy’s information was safe or right, but her cracking skills meant that every camera on the building could be accessible.

Lilianna knew so, even if only by deduction, and this much made her unable to notice the lack of certainty in the idol's words.

“If it was true, then gramps security forces would’ve been done for by now.”

“That is true, but…”

Amy stopped for a moment as if to create a little bit of drama but also to buy some time for herself to cool down her.

Continuing a few seconds later with a theory so reasonable it was unfitting of her appearance.

“Some outsider may have control over the system of the tower, you see? All security forces inside it are probably stranded around or were forced to fight without surveillance to support them. It would, in turn, cause their limited human resources to be spent rapidly." She explained with a weird sureness. "Meanwhile, police droids are easier to replace but weaker overall, so they can keep sending them until they win. It will take time though, and I believe we both are lacking in time right now.”

“You..." Words vanished from Lily's mind as she stood mouth agape after hearing what her pink-colored friend had to say. "You should act this smart more, Amy.”

“Cute is better than smart.”

All Amy was saying made some sense, except for her last remark.

In fact, Lilianna could even remember a time in which this kind of attack happened on NorCo's headquarters.

That one had the help of undercover agents from rival corporations and the results weren't even half of what was happening right now though.

"Even if you were right though, then how did that security guy open the doors for us? And why did no one stop the elevators when the cops were going up?"

"I would guess that whoever has the controls is unable to fully keep tabs of all systems, so they may focus only on their target. Or maybe it is all a trap and we are currently being hunted down, but I can't be sure."

"I see..."

A building with hundreds of floors, five different divisions, and who knows how many computers was very hard to fully control.

No single undercover agent could manage so and even peak-condition Amy herself would have some trouble doing so.

It all made the first theory more probable, but there was still something strange going on, even if Lily couldn't exactly pinpoint what.

“I can't be sure right now, so let’s change subjects for now, ok?”

“As you wish, milady.”

“Cut it!”

The self-proclaimed idol was hit with a sharp gaze that made her raise her hands in surrender right away while Lily returned to the important matters.

“About your plan… How do you plan to move through the vents? Each floor has its own cooling system, so they aren’t connected to each other…”

“They what?!” Said Amy with a face painted by surprise the moment she heard half of Lily’s phrase and noticed that what she was saying was, in fact, the truth.

“You’re not telling me…”

“But they must have some connection! How would someone sneak around if you were to keep the vents isolated?! More than that, why would you not keep them connected?”

“The idea is to make them easy to isolate in an emergency, just like every floor of this building. It makes the whole thing harder to sabotage and easier to arrest invaders, I guess. It seemed to be important enough to gramps for him to spend a good deal of space setting a room for ir on each floor, so it should be useful...”

“Huh… It makes sense... But still…”

Amy was looking around the room with clear hints of confusion appearing on her cute face.

She had a very clear path in her head and, although she couldn’t check it right now due to interference, the connections were there when she looked before...

She was sure of it, but now that the path was right in front of her, there was no clear connection to use.

It was almost as if the whole system was connected to something else entirely.

"What do we do then? If what you said is true, then even the elevators could be dangerous, right?"

"You are right indeed, but the most one could do with the elevators would be stopping them in place..."

”We're going to the elevators then?”

“No, I have a better path.”

“Through the windows…?”

“No! It would be insanity.”

“You know what, just tell me what your plan is already, ok?” Gave up the detective who couldn't find any other path to leave this one floor, which also brought back Amy's smug smile as she started to answer.

“Of course! But before that, you have some extras on your eyes and legs, right?”

“Extras?”

Amy’s weird wording was starting to overwhelm Lilianna’s countermeasures, but the explanation soon came and she managed to understand what the pink girl wanted.

“Modifications and prosthetics. Most cops have some on those two, do they not?”

Perfect vigor and eyesight were a must for police officers, so yes, modifications were commonplace.

In reality, many of them would have heavily modified bodies to the point of not being able to hide said modifications.

Some saw having over-the-top robot arms as a plus instead of keeping a level where the most another person could see was the joint connections.

Lily just had the bare minimum required for an officer, though, and what she had was very well hidden.

“It’s kind of a custom, yes, but mines are partly from before too… My arms are natural still. Changing them for no reason sounded a little too much for me…”

“Not fond of missile hands?”

“Why would anyone have those in reality?”

“Style points?”

“Go back to the subject, dammit!”

“Sorry… My plan is heavy on the legs, but it shall be easy with some extras in place, so I had to ask to be sure.”

An evil grin covered Amy’s face right after she had finished her phrase and Lily started to feel some chills crossing her body as she followed the idol.

They crossed most computer racks and everything else until a wall presented itself as the central pillar of the building.

It was a dark-colored wall weirdly positioned as a column and without much covering it.

It seemed like a bunch of nothing, so all Lilianna could do was try to understand what they both were looking for as she was taken on a stroll around said wall.

It all clicked when Amy's legs stopped in place and she pointed to the hard-to-see lines on one of the sides of the column.

“Is this…?”

“The very thing absolutely no one ever uses but still has to always be around.”

“You must be kidding if you want me to…”

Amy approached the walls while an incredulous detective watched her and then she threw open the hard to notice metal doors on the wall that she had forcefully unlocked.

“We are using the stairs!”

And just as she shouted her magnum opus of a plan, the infinite stairway positioned in the middle of the building showed itself for them both.

It's impressive, oppressive, and depressive, a number of steps clear for all to see.

“I understand the reason, but still…”

“Do not worry, a prosthesis cannot get tired, probably.”

“It’ll be, like, thirty rows of stairs, right? And some of these floors are very high even...”

“Exactly. We shall climb until the top floor now.”

“For real… You know there’s a reason for why no one uses this thing, right?”

“I prefer to not be shot at or end up stuck in an elevator, so it is a reasonable choice.”

All of these were fair arguments, probably even good ones, but even with mechanical legs and some extras, using stairs to move around was too much of a pain.

Even the idea of climbing vents to move around seemed more appealing than having to spend the next who knows how many minutes stuck on these bland steps that went forever.

“Maybe I should sit down and wait for the droids…”

“I believe it is not an option with the little call you received earlier.”

“You're not letting it go, eh? And you know wiretapping is illegal, right?”

“I do not need to answer without a lawyer.”

“Yes, you don't… Sigh...”

Defeated by the same blackmail strategy three times in a row, and not being in the right mood to keep arguing, Lily finally accepted her fate and moved towards the staircase.

“Let’s move on already.”

“After you, Ms. Officer. You have the gun and all...”

“I’ll take it as a ’stay on guard’ then.”

Gripping her gun in position and then taking her first step up, the duo entered the first of the limitless rows, climbing them in silence as if resigned to their fates.

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