The Ark

18.

I leaned on a ventilation duct, barely out of breath as I stared up at the mountain of glass looming beside us. A drop of nearly two thousand feet separated the rooftop on which Delta and I stood from the windows of ZenTech HQ's ninetieth floor.

The journey to our current perch had included a number of roof-hops, some balancing on ledges and an unnervingly easy shimmy up a drainpipe. It was cold, being so high up, and the gentle, intermittent winds ruffled the ends of my hair, tickling the back of my neck.

My gaze fell to the distant streets below. Passing hov cars looked tiny as they buzzed along the streets, their headlights illuminating even tinier looking people filling the walkways. The view should have been dizzying—but I felt absolutely nothing.

My heart was racing thanks to all the chemicals surging through my veins, but I wasn't scared, even though my brain knew I was supposed to be.

"Right." Delta dumped her duffel on the concrete and started pulling out all kinds of equipment. She blinked hard and brought up a blueprint in her MR to share with me. "As I said on the climb, we're at level ninety, on the eastern side. I'm going to cut through this window here"—she pointed to a window on the hologram— "we'll enter via this unoccupied office and make our way to the elevators on the western side and take them up to the lotus level."

My eyes drifted from the holo and over to the real life equivalent of the window she had pointed out. The dark glass was almost mirror-like in the night and from what I could see through it, the office inside looked unoccupied, as did a number of other surrounding rooms. "Is it really going to be that easy?" I asked doubtfully, tipping my head back to get a look at the lotus level that contained the penthouse offices. "We're just going to take the elevator up to Dad's old office?"

"I'm optimistic," Delta said pulling a lightweight harness from the duffel and clipping it around her waist. "But the plan will morph if need be."

I bit the insides of my cheeks as she threw an identical harness to me. Her confidence despite any proper preparedness could have been admirable—if it wasn't so likely to get us killed or caught.

"What's all this?" I asked, gesturing to the harness. I did a doubletake when I caught sight of her drilling a climbing anchor into the concrete underfoot.

She finished up, putting an end to the horrible grinding sound. "I'm going to fire this at the next window down from our target." She picked what looked like a harpoon launcher from the mess of stuff she'd emptied out of her bag. "Once the rope is anchored, we can climb across."

I shook my head. "How much shit can you fit in that bag?"

"The essentials," she said, giving me an exaggerated wink as she loaded a glass lance into the launcher. It looked like a thick needle, as big as my forearm, with a fine tip and anchoring barbs that would release on impact.

I watched Delta steady herself with a wide stance and take aim at the building. Strands of her peroxide-orange hair fluttered across her face and she blew them away with a huff of concentration, her eyes fixed on ZenTech HQ's glassy exterior.

We both flinched at the resonating boom of the launcher expelling the lance. There was a brief silence as it traversed the substantial gap, carrying rapidly uncoiling rope away from Delta's feet. Finally, a tiny clink of the lance piercing the glass echoed back and I let out a breath.

Delta flashed me a relieved grin, then swept her gaze over the building again. "Let's just give it a minute to make sure no one heard anything."

Neither of us spoke while we watched and waited, the hum of ventilation units and generators filled the silence, punctuated by the odd distant shout or honk of a car horn echoing up from the street.

After what felt like an eternity, Delta nodded to herself and anchored the rope. "Wait until I signal," she said, hitching her carabiner to the line.

I watched her tug the line a few times before trusting her weight to it completely. She gripped the rope and wrapped her legs around it, pulling herself along with her back—and the duffel slung across it—dangling down toward the drop.

She made it to the other side quickly, bracing herself against the window as she sat up in her harness and started working on the glass. She cut a hole just big enough to crawl through and gave me the signal before scrabbling inside.

I pressed my lips together and approached the edge, hooking my carabiner to the line. My already thumping pulse made it impossible to tell if the reality of what I was about to do had registered physically in any way. There was something about the absence of fear in my gut that was just as unsettling as the drop should have been.

I backed off the edge and hauled myself along under the rope. Clutching it tighter as another breeze picked up and blew me from side to side like a pendulum. I let out a controlled breath and pushed on, gazing past my white knuckles and into the dark, starless sky.

I reached the other side far quicker than I expected, starting a little as Delta's hand reached out to grab a fistful of the back of my shirt, guiding me through the window. Once I was inside the dark room, she pulled the knife from her boot and sawed through the rope, cutting it loose and sending it plummeting. As I watched it swing into the side of the building we had just come from, I realised something.

Delta hadn't mentioned how we would be getting out of here.

The building's MR blueprints appeared in my vision before I could form any kind of question about our exit strategy. "According to this," Delta said, using her still-unsheathed knife to point at the holo, "we go down the hall, turn left down a corridor and at the end there should be a foyer with the elevators." The projection shut off as she blinked and holstered her knife at the same time. "If we encounter anyone along the way, just be confident. Act as though you're supposed to be here okay?"

I raised my eyebrows and cast a quick glance over Delta's tight black clothes, then my own. "There is no way anyone would think we belong here," I said, sweating a little at the thought of being recognised for my bounty.

Delta flashed me the kind of grin that made me feel as though she was in on something that I wasn't. "We'll fit in fine. Trust me. Just follow my lead." She adjusted her duffel and opened the office door, stepping out into the hall before I could protest. I exhaled, trying to slow the pulse that was thundering in my ears, before following her.

Delta strode down the hall with a confident urgency that seemed more angry than panicked. She looked as though she was on her way to scold someone. I kept pace with her, trying to emit the same confidence but not pulling it off.

As we turned left and started down the second corridor, a tech came wandering out of one of the offices. He was headed in our direction, his attention caught up in the programming tablet in his hand.

"I mean, if they're going to hire a stripper as a joke, they still have to pay!" Delta exclaimed to herself, or me, I couldn't tell. Her sudden outburst caught the man's attention and she continued on, as though she was too enraged to even notice him. "What about our time? We could have been making points somewhere else!"

I tried to keep the surprise off my face, nodding my head in agreement and putting on my most convincing scowl. "What a complete waste of time."

The man ran his eyes over us in a way that made my skin crawl. It was obvious from his leer that he believed we were strippers and I was torn between admiring Delta's genius and feeling a little sick. I knew the clothes she had dressed us in were too tight.