Tethered Twins

Chapter Twenty Six

Emmie Keyes

The ladder took us down to below ground level and after we’d unhooked ourselves we took in our surroundings. We were enclosed in a wide grey maintenance tunnel and a bright ray of light shone towards us illuminating a pathway on my right hand side.

I crept forward towards it and could see that the light was emerging from a large room above the pathway with a curved sheet of hard glass separating us from the room. The glass was transparent and looking through it I could see guards circling around. It looked like the main lobby of the building and I dared not move forward too much in case of being spotted.

“Where now?” I asked Grace.

“Hang on. I’ll ask my contact,” she replied.

“Your contact?”

“We once filmed a movie at TethTech so I know someone who has schematics for the entire building. Hopefully they can find a way for us to get to the basement without being seen.”

Her contact continued to be very useful and I was reminded that when this was over I would have some serious questions for Grace. There’s no chance a movie studio would be given schematics for a building as secure as this. She picked up her phone and spoke quietly so as not to be detected.

--<><>--

Grace Wilkerson

 “Jill?” asked Grace.

“Hi Grace. What’s up? How is Emmie?” replied Jill.

“She’s fine. We’re both in the tower.”

“You what? We specifically told you not to go in…”

“.. if I didn’t go in she’d be dead right now!” interrupted Grace. “Now listen, we know that Tobias killed Will. If we don’t make it out of here alive you have to stop him.”

“You know we can’t do that without Emmie. She has to survive, whatever happens.”

“What about me?”

“You know Emmie is the top priority. If she dies it’s all over.”

Grace paused for a moment. She didn’t like being told her life was worthless. 

“Fine,” replied Grace, unhappy but trying to think about the bigger picture for a moment. “We need your help.”

--<><>--

Emmie Keyes

Within two minutes Grace had a full schematic of the building. Rather than proceeding through the well-lit walkway for fear of being caught we instead went through a dark passageway and used our phones to illuminate the way. We worked our way through twisted walkways and snuck under three floors until we reached a hole that led down into the basement.

We looked down and could see that the hole led to a ladder that would take us down. I climbed down it first and jumped off the last few rungs.

As I landed my feet made a loud ‘thudding’ noise and the room erupted to the sound of the animals. Dogs barked fiercely, a monkey screeched and it was clear they saw us as intruders.

The room was still quite dark, mainly lit by floodlights that swung in the air above each cage. It was just enough light to make out the faces of each animal and to see their distress. The conditions in the room were terrible. The floor was covered in dirt and the cages themselves were enclosed in rusted metal bars. It was a stark contrast to the pristine nature of the rest of the building and it was clear the contents of this room were far less important than the rest of the building.