‘I hope you haven’t deserted us, stranger,’ Ranomi said to herself. ‘I really hope you haven’t deserted us.’
Not wanting to waste any more time, she grunted wordlessly and continued pulling herself through the duct. Her entire upper body was aflame with the effort of dragging herself onward, and every pull of her gecko-gloved hands sent a fresh wave of fiery pain through her arms and shoulders. She knew, however, that she just had to press on a little further, so she gritted her teeth and tried to drown out the discomfort.
The hi-tech night vision goggles she wore had provided enough illumination to get through the black labyrinth of ducts, but now, as she approached yet another right-angle corner, she saw a blaze of light crackling white pixels in her goggles from around the corner. She had arrived.
With a protracted sigh of relief, she flipped up her goggles and waited for her now-naked eyes to readjust to the darkness. When her eyes felt as if they were comfortable with the light level, she drew in a breath of chilly air and continued edging onward, breathing slowly and rhythmically in time with the pulls of her arms, as if she were swimming through a soupy sea of mercury. With a steadily increasing sense of anxiety, she approached the ninety-degree bend in the duct.
Would she find the exit open, or would she be trapped inside it, unable to turn around in the suffocating, python-tight space, blocked from getting out by a solid grille of steel? There was only one way to find out. She licked her cracked lips with a dry and swollen tongue, closed her eyes briefly, and dragged herself around the corner.
Her heart sank; the grille was still in place.
‘Oh no…’
Her first thoughts were not of her own predicament, but of the peril in which this situation placed all of her friends. She reached up and pressed the talk button on her earpiece.
‘William, Zakaria, are you reading?’
‘Reading loud and clear, Ranomi,’ William responded. ‘Are we ready to proceed?’
‘We’re—’
‘Hello.’
Ranomi looked up, startled by the sound of a voice just in front of her. She saw a pair of piercing hazel eyes, wide with worry and fright, staring through the grille at her.
‘You’re the one I’m supposed to let in, right? That’s why I have to take this grille off, yes?’
‘Ranomi, come in, come in! Is there a problem?’ William asked urgently.
‘No, everything is on track. I’ll talk later. We’re good.’
Ranomi stared at the girl for a few moments before responding to her. Her face was striking in its beauty, yes, but that was not why Ranomi was staring; she had an uncanny sense that she had seen this face somewhere before, although she had no idea how this could be possible.
‘Yes … yes, it’s me you need to let in,’ she finally said. ‘Thank God you’re here! Quickly, remove the grille! Do you know how? It’s really easy; it’s only held in place by six screws – the ones you can see on the corners, and those two in the middle. See them? All you have to do is unscrew them and it’ll fall off.’
The girl nodded, biting her lower lip with nervousness. She held up the key with its screwdriver attachment.
‘That’s it. Quickly and steadily now, let’s get this off. What’s your name?’
‘I’m A-, Adriana,’ the girl answered in a shaky voice as she started to remove the screws. Ranomi could see that she was struggling to keep her trembling hands steady.
‘All right Adriana, nice to meet you. I’m Ranomi. Now just try to stay calm, we’re here to help, and we can get you out of this awful place. But you have to do everything I tell you, exactly how I tell you to do it, okay? And right now, you need to stay calm and get this grille off so that I can get out of here.’
‘Three screws out, three more to go,’ Adriana said as she went to work on the last few screws.
‘Great, well done!’
Another one popped out.
‘Two to go.’
‘Oy!’
The gruff shout sent scuds of fear through the veins of both women, and Adriana stopped what she was doing, freezing up with fright.
‘What the hell are you doing out of your room?! How did you get out?! What’s going on over there?!’
Adriana shot a glance to her left and saw a burly guard standing at the top of the stairs. In the red glow of the emergency lights he looked like a demon freshly summoned by some wicked necromancer.
‘Are you deaf?!’ he roared ‘I said what are you doing?! Answer me! Get over here right now!’
‘Hurry Adriana, get those last two screws out!’ Ranomi urged, scrambling and twisting her body to unholster her suppressed mini Uzi.
‘Fucking useless slut!’ the guard bellowed as Adriana ignored his commands and struggled frantically with the final two screws. ‘You think you can ignore me, huh? Well whatever the hell you’re up to, I’m coming over there to break your fucking jaw!’
‘Steady hands Adriana, steady hands,’ Ranomi whispered as she cocked the submachine gun. ‘I’ll deal with the guard, don’t worry. Steady hands, steady hands.’
‘O-, one t-, to g-, go,’ Adriana stammered as she popped one more screw out and jabbed the screwdriver into the final one.
‘What the fuck are you messing with that aircon vent for?! Get away from there! Stop that!’ the guard shouted as he strode briskly towards Adriana, his scowling face purple with wrath. ‘I said stop, you stupid whore!’ he roared as he reached her, lunging for her arm.
Despite his speed, however, he was too late; as he grabbed Adriana and wrenched her with brutal force away from the aircon vent, the final screw dropped out and the grille fell off the wall, hitting the tiled floor with a clattering crash.
‘You’ve broken it,
