Lobster Food Inc.

After breaking down her construction, she went up through the hole and answered, "It helps out in a pinch."

Dusting her pantlegs off, she looked around the elevator shaft, hoping to see a maintenance ladder or some other climbable structure. Motion caught her eye, and closer inspection made her groan out loud at the little red intruders. "Is that really what I think it is??"

He sighed. "Yeah..." he felt like he wanted to sit down.

"After all, this whole food company thing is just a face. They develop weapons, first and foremost," he glanced at the red things again, them scurrying out of the vents, heading towards them. Some fell down - some were able to find a different path, some stayed put. "Including live weapons."

"Well, do you have some sort of plan?? I got us out of the elevator."

She didn't have much of anything she could use in this case, besides her feet. But that couldn't go on forever and, really, who knew how many of those things were here. She hoped Zane thought of something.

"Not really," he said, looking around and saw a few ways up a glass casing. He wasn't really sure so he took out the blueprint and skimmed it.

"Hey, Dwy," he called out. "Maybe I do now. But I need you to break that wall--," he pointed at the side, a small distance between what they were currently standing on. "Behind that wall is a glass tank. Water. I'm going to need it."

He smiled at her. "Can you do it?"

"Just a hole?? Shouldn't be too much trouble." She walked over to where he had been pointing and knocked on the wall, testing it. Using a piece of chalk she had extracted form a pocket, she sketched a quick circle on the glass, and placed her hands on it, ignoring the knowledge of what might happen when the hole was open. The glass thinned rapidly, then got to the point where the water on the other side couldn't be held by such a flimsy layer. Then a cirlce of glass was gone, and water came pouring through the hole.

He grabbed her back, in case she gets washed away by the rapid pouring of water and thanked her.

Taking out his gloves, he wore both of them. And slammed his palm on the water, causing it to freeze. Tapping the ice with his other palm turned it into spikes, hitting the stray red things, and eventually covering their entrance.

The whole place was now littered with chunks of ice, but it made a good enough pathway upwards.

Dwyrin looked around the elevator shaft, surveying Zane's work. "You're pretty handy, yourself," she said, nodding approvingly, despite her now, wet clothes.

"I don't think we want to stick around here for too long. I'm sure that made quite a bit of noise." She started up the icy path.

He sighed. "I rather hoped I didn't have to resort to alchemy though," he muttered before he could stop himself.

Then smiled at her, following behind her as she goes up. "Well, since they know we're here. I suggest we don't hold back when we have to, yeah?"

"Who said anything about holding back??" she asked, grinning wolfishly. Despite how early on there had been incident, she was confident that would complete their objective.

Her face turned pensive and she stopped, almost at the vent entrance, then turned to him. "Why does it seem you are so reluctant to use your alchemy??"

He smiled. "Good point," he replied. "Well, let's go all out after we disable the networking." It was a lot easier that way and if there's a way to lessen exerting effort, that's the way to go for him.

"Hm?" he blinked, then smirked. "Secret. If you want to know, pay up."

She let out a short laugh and stopped, turning to face him. She raised an eyebrow. "And what could I possibly offer you for this information?? Do I even have anything you want??" Dwyrin sighed and turned on the path again.

"Where are we headed for this networking, business?? We can take a vent and figure it out, or we can climb to whatever floor and pry the door open," she suggested.

He shrugged then smiled. "It can be in the form of money, you know. But, I accept information for information."

Zane continued to walk. "Ah, the surveillance room - 12th floor. As much as possible, we shouldn't be known to enter there. It would be pointless if they do."

He reached the vent entrance and looked at her. "The vent's good. We should just find the right way."

"And what makes you so sure I have either one??" After a barely perceptible pause, she said, "Anyway, if you can get us to the floor I can make our path as unseen as possible. We have two more floors." She let Zane crawl into the vent before her, for the moment.

Sadly, she was familiar with the typical pattern of vents, and so crawled along behind him, surveying the limited scene.

He shook his head, "I can't be sure. And if you don't have either, then it simply mean I won't tell, yeah?" and he went in the vent. Handy things but really irritating... He didn't like cramped space at all. "We have to crawl in the vents for two floors," he repeated, more exasperated than anything. "Great."

But he went on ahead, crawling.

Maybe she'd ask him some other time. Oddly enough, she was sure she could get some sort of answer. Turning her mind to less pleasant thoughts, she closed her eyes imagining where the first ventspot might be.

After a few more yards she stoped Zane with a light tap on the ankle. When he turned his head to look at her, she put her fingers to her lips - the universal "shh" symbol - and pointed ahead and to the left, where the vent shaft split into three paths.

I think I hear voices...

He nodded at her, indicating that he understood. Each path had vent exits at different distances, screwed shut. But the bars let them see through what was happening beneath them.

It was still a floor more till the 12th, but he trusted Dwyrin's observations. And let her through to wherever she wanted to head first, moving along to where the shaft split.

After listening for another moment - to make sure they did not head toward people intentionally, just yet - she crawled half way down her chosen path then halted. She didn't see the tube that should have gone up, near the end of the vent.

How annoying. Well, can't go back from here... She sighed, resigned to this being more difficult than she had hoped. She crawled the rest of the way down the vent to the end, and peered out through the barred ventcover. She really didn't have a good way to open it - the screws were on the outside.

Rearranging herself with a bit of difficulty in the cramped space, she pulled her knee into herself and then thrust her foot at the cover, like a sideways stomp. The metal frame clattered into the dark room below, and she slipped out after it.

Zane stuck half of his upper body out the vent entrance she slipped into. "So, hey, do I follow you or... you have other plans you want me to do?" he asked, unsure of what she had in mind.

"What floor is this?"

"There's no way up through the vents from where we are. We're on the eleventh floor," she said simply. "My plan was to just take the stairs. I was kind of hoping you have a better one."

"Couldn't we have just made one?" Zane asked as he went back to the vent to better his position to get out.

A small thud sounded as he jumped out. "Well, stairs it is. I don't have any other ideas." Wow, I'm really lazy.

"But let's try to be really stealthy and all that crap, yeah?" he grinned. "I just realized I'm a lazy person and fighting the whole security is too much of a workout."

She turned to him in the semi-darkness. "How do you propose we could have just made a way up there?? Are you willing to do it??" she raised an eyebrow for a moment before heading to one of the doors in the room to peek out into the hallway.

"Do I seem like I'm not stealthy??"

"Nope," was his fast answer. "Not willing to do it - not that I have any idea how, in the first place."

He kept a good enough distance and waited for her to lead the way. "Ah, I didn't mean to sound doubtful. Just a friendly reminder." He smiled.

The dark was gratifying. If only the whole company building would kill their lights so that they would be able to move easier.

She smiled at Zane's quick reply, glad her back was to him.

"It's your job to get us to the floor, remember?? I'm just making sure we're as unseen as possible," she reminded him. "The hall is clear, by the way. But it won't be for much longer." Dwyrin threw the door open wide, hoping he would take the hint.

He blinked. "Really? It's my job?" he asked as he moved forward and took out some knives he grabbed in the laboratory earlier.

"Must've slipped my mind," he grinned. And as she opened the door, he ran out and destroyed all the cameras in the vicinity by throwing knives at the lenses. He also knocked out some few personnel that littered the hallway and gestured to Dwyrin.

"Good thing I'm here to remind you."

She passed him and continued down the hallway. Just recently she had been in the stairwell and was pretty certain of where it was. They reached the door. This is where I went wrong last time.
She put her ear to the door, listening, and pulled an 'L' shaped hunk of metal from somewhere in her clothes.

"Where is the room we need to be in on the next floor??" she asked, hand on the doorknob.