Flauraan

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Sophie and I entered a dark room, trying to find a way to the upper levels that didn't involve an elevator. The Weraynian could easily hack into the camera feed from them, and we didn't want to risk it. We both knew how vital it was that we didn't get captured again; this time the Weraynian would kill us on the spot. So we were looking for some kind of staircase or access ladder so that we could get to the pilot deck.

We stared around the room, my eyes taking in each shape in the room instantly. It seemed to be a dead end, but I felt a strange intuition, as if the room was hiding something. I couldn't help but lament on humans and their darned stupid technology at this point.

Facing the door was a control panel, and pushed to the sides of the room were a couple of tables and chairs. The middle of the floor was clear, and when I looked closely I could see that it was made up of interlocking pieces. Glancing at the ceiling far above I saw a sliding panel, currently motionless, but I knew that once some power ran through it the panel would slide away leaving a large opening.

While I'd been examining the room Sophie had crossed to the control panel and started fiddling with it. She pressed a button and a small screen flickered on, along with the lights.

We looked at each other and then all around the room as a low humming began and the room powered up. Sophie had a curious look on her face and turned back to the control panel, placing her hand on a lever.

"No Sophie!" I yelled, but it was too late; she started turning it as far as possible.

A deep rumbling came from beneath our feet as the parts of the floor started elevating, with us on top of them! Sophie quickly jumped away from the controls and onto one of the moving platforms beside me, laughing maniacally.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?" she said with a smile and a shrug. "I found a way up!"

"Yeah, one that makes a lot of noise." I replied as the block underneath me began to rise higher than Sophie's and the ceiling panel retracted into the wall, just as I'd predicted.

We were on a sort of floating, spiralling staircase! The blocks continued to move upwards, then sideways, and then upwards once more as ceiling after ceiling moved out of our way. I figured the humans had a lot of fun designing this one.

Finally we stopped moving and I knew we were as high as you could go. As soon as we stepped off the platforms the floor slid back into place and the platforms we'd been standing on fell back down to the room we'd been in about three floors beneath our current location. Wrenching the door open, Sophie exited the room, and I followed her, glancing about warily as I did so. It was likely the Weraynian knew the staircase had been activated and we would have to be on our guard.

I glanced at Sophie. "I assume you know which way the pilot deck is."

"Yeah, and so do you." She smirked knowingly. "Come on, let's go."

Huh, I thought as I followed her warily up the corridor. She's picking up fast.

Eventually the corridor joined perpendicular to a wide hallway, which we turned into and walked along.

I smiled in surprise. The hallway was large, empty, and gleaming white. Unlike all of the other forsaken passages I'd been through on this spaceship, this one had no doors set into it the whole way along, there were only corridors at the end.

Sophie and I shuffled along the walls, and when I caught sight of a camera indent up ahead, we crawled, making as little noise as possible.

Once we were right underneath it, Sophie reached up and switched it off. Hopefully if the Weraynian noticed he would just think it had powered down.