"Stop smiling like that," I commanded as I stepped around the parked sports car to Ace's side.
"Why? Aren't you excited?" Ace questioned of me while he slid his surprisingly small pistol discretely into the waist band of his baggy, dark grey jeans.
"Well..." I began, now fixing the position of my new, black crew neck tee over my fresh black leggings. Both pieces of the outfit were supplied from the back of Katie's wardrobe and were a bit on the baggy side for my use, but I could still make it work.
At least, kind of.
"Yeah, I am, actually..." I continued speaking. "I just... forgot a little, I guess."
Ace finished playing with his gun and looked me over.
"Of course you did," he said. After his statement, he turned back to the driver's door of his car and reopened it.
"Here," he directed, now grabbing something from inside, specifically, another hand gun.
He then held the weapon out to me and shut the door once again.
My eyes got a little wider at the sight of it.
"Um..." I started, without intention of finishing.
"I know Katie told you that you wouldn't need it, but..." Ace explained. "Where's the fun without it, right?"
I studied him a second.
"Sure..." I spoke, very much unassured.
I then reached out and took the weapon. Afterward, I looked down at myself and attempted to conceal it in the waist of my own pants as well. Although, the fact that the hand gun was a bit small and my leggings were a tad large made the task more difficult than I had imagined it would be.
"Okay..." Ace's attention wandered off as I began to struggle with the tiny shooter. "Now..."
He then stepped past my side and made his way over to the run-down, wood picket fence a few feet in front of the car. I turned around, also, as I was in the process of losing my... pistol-pant game. After not even another two seconds of difficulty, I peeked up to see Ace facing away from me, and then immediately shoved the gun into the side of my more tightly fitted pair of underwear.
Problem solved.
"Through here," Ace continued, pacing over to a large hole made in part of the dirty, old fence. Soon after his statement, he ducked down and started to poke his upper body through the opening.
I took two bouncy steps in his direction, felt the movement of the gun pressed against my leg along with my steps, and then stopped to check that it was still in place. Of course, it was, but then another thought entered my mind.
"Hey, um... this won't, like... go off in... in there," I questioned and, once Ace paused to look back at me, I pointed to the side of my thigh, where the pistol was currently resting. "W...Will it?"
Ace looked as if he really wanted to laugh, but he didn't.
"No, 'Nesia, that's what safety sensors are for," he comforted, speaking in a low, soft tone.
I studied him a moment, and then resumed walking toward him.
"Oh, okay," I mumbled.
"But accidents do happen," Ace, pretty much, inaudibly whispered as he twisted back toward the fence.
I stopped for a moment after his statement, studied his backside, stopped myself from saying anything more, and then decided to continue following him once I had watched him begin to step through the messy fence hole.
After Ace had passed through the makeshift gate, I stepped up to it and hunched over to push my head through it. I didn't have to duck much, though, of course, because of... well, my height. Once I had my body from the waist up through the hole, I started to step completely through to the other side. I then gazed up to see Ace making his way through a tiny yard-like area with a number of metal scraps and probable car parts thrown all over, making it almost cluttered, since the area was so small. The grassy area was also surrounded by a few older looking, brown brick buildings, which were all lined up straight ahead and were each about five stories tall. To the left and the right laid just more grassy patches, but without the appearance of cluttered mechanical parts. Eventually, though, beyond the grass on each side, there were the walls of newer, nicer buildings, which happened to be extremely taller, standing at thirty stories or more.
Ace was already quickly pacing toward the far left, through the slim path of grass in between the brick buildings and old fence. I then gave a good attempt at trying to catch up with him.
"So, do you remember how we're getting in?" Ace tested of me, once I was at least close enough to his side to hear.
"Uh, yeah, we're..." I started, but swiftly lost my train of thought. "We're... The window?"
"No, 'Nesia, the back door... But, in your defense, I did warn that that could be how we're getting out, if you screw it up for us..." I looked over at Ace as he gave a slight laugh, and then went on. "Did you retain any information about the building, though?"
"Yes, I did, actually," I responded, with just a slight amount of sass. Which, really, is kind of rare for me. "It's... it's... for office people and... built, like, a year ago..."
Ace quickly picked up my words for me.
"No. Low security, owned by a team of CEOs that don't really know what goes on inside most of the time, used by part time business boys to take care of their own 'business', and happens to be the hosting place of a certain secret meeting today."
"Which is why we're going there," I added to the end of his statement.
"Right; good job," Ace praised, but with an unenthusiastic, low tone of voice.
We were both now close by the wall of one of the tall clean buildings I had described earlier.
"Now..." Ace began, again, whilst studying the area behind the building in front of us. "Back door..."
He started to slowly creep over to the back wall of the skyscraper, which was only about ten feet away from the fence on our left. I carefully followed after him, passing by nothing but a dumpster and some open space while we moved. Not after much time, Ace abruptly stopped, and I peered over his shoulder to see a typical door with chipping blue paint all over it.
"Wait for my signal," Ace directed, now reaching out to the door's handle.
I took his order, stepping over to and leaning back against the silver, cement wall. He then quietly pushed the worn door inward and began to step through it. I could see him place a hand overtop the pistol in his pants as he disappeared into the building and let the door silently shut behind himself.
And, by pistol in his pants, I really did just mean the firearm he had shoved into the waistband of his jeans.
Once he was gone and out of sight, I turned to look around a little more. I didn't really observe anything else important, though, since there was literally nothing but a few more dumpsters and yards of fence behind the building. I did, however, begin to pick up on the sounds of moving vehicles from far away, probably somewhere on the opposite side of the skyscraper.
I gradually returned my eyes to the closed door in front of me, and then just decided to wait. And, after that, wait a little more.
Once I had realized that my waiting could end up being more laborious than I had originally planned, I took a step forward and leaned myself slightly against the door. I'm not actually sure why; maybe I thought I could hear what was going on inside better that way or something.
After probably another entirely whole minute of patiently waiting, I took a sort of loud, deep breath.
And then, suddenly, the door swung open and inward, forcing me to stumble into the building along with it.
"Whoa, 'Nesia..." Ace started as I attempted to catch myself from falling onto the hard, dark grey floor. "I didn't realize you were so anxious to fall for me."
After hearing him fire his remark, I pulled myself up to stand and straightened myself out.
"I... That..." I wandered my gaze around a moment, and then more permanently placed it onto Ace's face. "That was clever."
I forced a smile.
"I know," he shot back, whipping himself around immediately after.
Once he was turned away from me, I began to search the area that I now resided in.
The room was a pretty good size, had either concrete or cement walls (I think; I'm not a construction worker or anything), and was filled with a number of big, metal tanks. The tanks themselves appeared moderately clean and in good condition, but the pipes that ran out of each of them and against the walls and ceiling were a bit rusted and old-looking. Other than that, the area smelled like a sort of mix between a musty basement and lavender scented laundry detergent.
And, oddly enough, I liked that.
Ace had already paced halfway across the room while I was making my observations, so, after I completed them, I began to follow his steps. He quickly approached a tall, but oddly narrow, door at the opposite wall. The door was also supplied with a long, thin window that had that wire mesh stuff in it; the kind that I feel like you would see in a horror movie about insane asylums. That connection may be a bit far out, but it also could have been a red flag, or something like that.
Ace was now peering through the tiny area of window to whatever was on the other side as I stepped over toward him. Before I could really even stop walking, though, he suddenly reached out, grabbed my right wrist, and jerked my body over to the wall behind him.
"Gosh," I spat out, after the act.
Ace leaned back and away from the window for a moment.
"Sh!" he partly whispered and, somehow, partly yelled.
I froze up alongside him for an extensive minute or so, listening and seeing nothing but rumbling pipes around us.
"There was someone coming," Ace eventually explained, his voice still quiet, at least, for the most part.
"I... I thought you said we were okay to be seen," I tested.
"In the boiler room?" his voice got drastically louder, once again. "Yeah, sure, good idea, 'Nesia."
"Well..." I prepared to sass him back, but then he glared back at me from over his shoulder. "Well... sorry; it's only my first time doing this kind of thing, so, you know..." I paused a second as I searched his face. "Well, second, really... Actually, you could argue third, but..."
He smiled, just a little.
"And third time's a charm, right?" he commented.
At that point, I meant to smile back, but I forgot to, or something.
"Sure," I responded, simply enough.
Ace then whipped his head back around and peeked out of the door window, again. After a few, short moments of observation, he stepped more to the left and grabbed at the door handle. He pulled it inward and carefully shuffled his way around it.
"Okay, we should be good," he declared as he threw the door completely open.
I made my way quickly around as well, and then followed him through the doorframe and into a small hallway. The door shut itself a bit more loudly than I probably should have allowed it to behind me while I looked around a little.
There wasn't much to describe, just two windowless, wooden doors placed at each end of the corridor, which were both the same short distant apart on both sides of me.
"This way," Ace guided, already basically to the door on the far right.
I wanted to say something in return to him, but I quickly figured that I didn't have time to, so I instead began to chase after him. Once I had caught up to him, at the side of the door, he carefully commenced the opening of the passageway. As he poked his head slowly through, I could hear distant footsteps from the other side.
Ace paused a moment, and then I heard the loud closure of another door, somewhere, followed by the ceasing of the steps.
"Okay," Ace then said, now pushing through the doorway. I trailed close behind and forced the door quickly, but softly, shut after us.
At the same time, I took a quick look around and saw an extremely similar hallway to the last. Only, this time, there were a lot more doors, and the hall itself was quite a bit longer.
"Now," Ace resumed while he made his way across to the other side of the hallway. "Once we're through here, we're in." He approached the last door on the left and stepped to the side of it. "Or, at least, we should be."
I looked him and the door over a second, and then made my way over to both's side. Ace turned to face me and went on.
"I'm gonna let you go first, so, when I tell you to, move as quickly and quietly as you can over to the..." he trailed off momentarily. "Elevator or stairs?" he asked.
I stared at him a short second.
"Elevator?" I questionably answered.
"Wrong," he shot back. "Always take the stairs; they're faster."
"Yeah, for you..." I softly responded. "And, I... I thought you were asking for my prefer—"
"No. We're taking the stairs," he proclaimed, now turning back toward the door.
"Well, I... I probably won't even be able to find them..." I subtly complained.
Ace gazed back over at me.
"Fine," he replied. "Then we'll just go out at the same time; just don't be loud or anything."
He shot his head back toward the door in front of us, and then proceeded to crack it open a bit. I stood still as he peered through the tiny opening.
"Ready?" he inquired as his eyes wildly searched the area beyond the doorway.
"Not... Not really..." I sluggishly replied.
"Let's go," Ace then shot out, completely ignoring me. He hurriedly pulled the door open a tad more, and then slipped quietly through the doorway.
"Oh," I immediately commented, reaching out and grabbing the door so that I could follow him through before it slammed shut.
I stepped out and into the new area, making sure to quietly re-close the door behind myself as I did so. I gazed around swiftly and took note of the extremely high ceiling, the countless number of large marble pillars, and the big, grand display of potted trees and plants that surrounded me on my left side. Other than those items, I could also see quite a few wooden doors, elevator doors, and even elaborately decorated doors, all scattered over the long wall on my right.
I looked back over to Ace; he was standing not far in front of me and peeking through the dense shrubbery beside us. I then decided to join in on his fun and looked through the tree branches, myself.
Surprisingly, there wasn't much to see, just a big... actually, huge desk in the middle of an extremely large lobby area, where there were seats and seemingly expensive pieces of decor evenly spread about. Around three small groups of people dressed in business-like attire were lounging in some of the sitting areas and two young women in similar, but more causal, outfits were standing inside of the large, circular desk area. The whole lobby area itself was also about only 10 yards away and in the center of the humongous room that Ace and I were also now standing in.
"They're not looking this way, so, if we're quiet enough, they won't even notice us," Ace started to whisper to me with his eyes still buried in the plants.
"But... can't we be seen, now?" I objected.
Ace gradually moved his glance back at me.
"By anyone but those secretaries," he explained. "Because they'll probably stop us and make a big deal about how we didn't check in with them for our nonexistent appointment and call for security to escort us out."
I looked his expression over a second, and then gave him a simple nod of understanding, only because I honestly didn't know how to respond to that statement.
"Okay? So, now..." he twisted his body around and took a step forward. After that, he extended his right arm back, grabbed my left wrist, and then pulled me both forward and up to his right side.
"Just... be... quiet," he mumbled under his breath.
He released his grip on me once I began to step beside him on my own and, soon after that, we both made our way to the end of the line of potted plants, making us now completely exposed as we cautiously stepped toward to the far-off stairs. I focused on keeping my footsteps' external noises to a minimum, although the sound of all the people's minor conversations across the room would probably have been sufficient in covering their potential squeaks.
Ace and I moved at a slow but swift pace into what seemed like, to me, a random direction, even though to Ace it was probably the correct path to take to get to the door that lead to the building's stairwell.
Suddenly, though, a strong female voice shouted at us.
Or, at least, I'm going to assume it was being directed at us.
"Hey! Hey, you two!"
"Shit," Ace cursed in a mumble.
I instantly froze, as did he.
I looked over at Ace from the corner of my eye, and then saw him slowly spin himself around. I quickly followed suit.
"Did you check in?" I saw one of the two women at the desk-like counter, halfway across the room, continue to yell out.
I kind of widened my eyes a little and shot them over to Ace.
"Oh, no need," he began, taking a mere one step into the desk's direction. "We're just going to see our dad."
"Oh, really?" the lady sounded intrigued, but a little suspicious, still. "Who's your guys' dad?"
Ace didn't even pause before answering her.
"Mr. Johnson."
I looked from him to the woman he was conversing with, to the other intently listening woman at the desk, to each of the also eavesdropping businessmen and women around the lobby.
"Oh, okay," the young woman decided to continue. "Well, then I can call him and tell him you two are here for him."
She turned around swiftly and began to reach for the telephone on a small area of the vast desktop.
"That's okay, actually," Ace yelled back, and then glanced over at me for a moment before going on. "Sara, here, was wanting to surprise him today. We don't get to see him at work much, so she thought it would be nice of us to just come and pop into his office really fast, just without notice."
The girl at the desk hovered her hand over the office-like phone set, and then turned back to look at us once more.
"Oh..." she slowly started. "Well... he may be busy or in a meeting right now. Are you sure you wouldn't like me to call his office and make sure he's available for you? It'll only take a minute..."
I glanced back at Ace as he shook his head at her.
"Nah," he answered promptly. "If he's not there, then we'll just leave a note. I think he'd like that better than a voicemail, anyway."
The woman behind the desk counter looked Ace over a moment, and then turned her attention to me.
"So, Sara, is this your brother, then?" she questioned.
My heart felt like it stopped for a few seconds, although I know it truly couldn't have, because then I would have actually passed out, or fallen over dead, or something. Which, actually, I'm kind of surprised that I didn't.
"A-Aaron," I tried to manage out. I then directed my eyes over to Ace's calm expression and continued. "Yeah, he's my brother."
And my words finally came out with a seventy percent rate of confidence.
I gazed back at the girl and relaxed my muscles a bit.
She leaned onto her arms, against the counter, stared between the two of us an extremely long amount of time, and then looked down and grabbed a pen from nearby herself.
"Well, okay," she spoke. "Sara and Aaron, I'll make a note that you two checked in today."
I took a silent, deep breath.
"Thank you, miss," Ace responded and, immediately after his statement, he turned himself back around and resumed to walk toward the stairs' doorway.
I instantly continued to follow him and, soon, we reached our destination without any more interruptions. Ace then opened the unmarked door in front of us and stepped inside. Well, it might have actually been marked as the stairs, but seeing if it was or wasn't was not the first thing on mind. I don't remember really being good with stair doors, anyway.
And, yes, I do remember that.
I had, by now, stepped through the doorway, behind Ace. The door then swiftly swung shut behind us, and once I was sure it was going to lock all sounds into the stairwell where we were, I turned to where Ace stood and prepared to speak.
"You're really good at that," I commented.
Ace locked his eyes onto me and stopped himself from moving any farther toward the bottom of the steps, which were just a foot or two behind him.
"Yeah," he began. "I know."
He gave a short-lived smile, and then spun himself around to continue his determined journey toward the tiled stairway.
I then looked the long, winding staircase over, gave a slight sigh, and began to trace Ace's trail up the first few steps.
"So, um, how far up, exactly, do we have walk on these?" I asked I climbed behind Ace.
"Twelve flights," Ace quickly answered.
I halted myself and widened my eyes.
"Twelve?" I tried to repeat without yelling.
Ace stopped a few steps ahead of me and looked back into my direction.
"Well, the twelfth floor is the first stop, then we have to go to the twenty-seventh," he went on.
I felt even more lightheaded than I had... well, at all, within the past two days.
"I-I... I can't... I can't do that," I stammered, shaking my head as I muttered.
"Not with that attitude, you can't," Ace advised before whipping himself back around and continuing to trot upward.
As he left, I gazed downward and searched the steps under my immobile feet.
"Oh, God..." I mumbled, now making the decision to continue climbing the stairs.
Or, at least, the decision to attempt to.
"I mean, I'll carry you if you pass out, so you've really got nothing to lose!" Ace shouted from pretty far ahead of me.
"H... How does that work?" I interrogated in return, not too far out of breath. Well, not yet, at least.
"What do you mean?" Ace shot back, now giving his trek a rest and waiting for me to catch up to him a little. "I said I'd carry you, if you knock out."
"Y... Yeah, b... but..." I began to approach his side and halted to take a deep breath. "I mean... how do I not have anything... to lose?"
I looked up at him as he looked back at me.
"Well..." Ace started to answer as he looked around at the white railings and endless paved steps. "You'll get there either way."
He returned his eyes onto me, smiled, turned back around, and then continued to push on.
I kind of rolled my eyes, in a way, and then resumed to step behind him. I gazed over at every door that we passed and noted that they all looked identical; metal horizontal push handles and clear, non-chipping blue paint were applied to each. And, for some odd reason, none had the number of the floor they led to printed anywhere on or around them.
And I was sure about that.
"Almost there, 'Nesia!" Ace eventually yelled as he passed over another landing above me.
"B... Better be..." I remarked through heavy breaths.
After another, long set of steps, I could hear Ace's footsteps turn to silence. I then stopped at the next landing between two sets of stairs and glanced up to see him standing by one of the doors at the end of my next group to tackle.
I took a huff-like, deep breath.
"I'm... not gonna make that," I breathed out.
Ace crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall beside the door.
"Come on, don't give up now," he encouraged. "I told you before; I hate people who give up."
I gave him a sideways look, and then reached out to grab the white rail on my left. I took my time making slow, steady steps up the last thirteen stairs or so. And, once I was nearly to the end, Ace leaned forward and extended his hand out to me. I reached mine out in exchange and he rapidly grabbed it to tug my body up the last step.
"Good job, cadet," he praised, now pulling me over to his side and turning to open the door in front of us.
He let go of my hand as we both pushed through the doorway and, after that, I took a second to glance around.
We were in the corner of a long hallway area, which extended both straight in front of us and to the left. The hall itself was wide and clean; there were only doors against the inside walls and only windows against the opposites. There were also a few men in suits pacing the corridor, an elevator door right next to the door we had come from, a water machine on the other side of that, and a strong view of trees, smaller buildings and roads in the windows all around us.
"Come on, Sara," Ace commanded with my... code name, I guess, as he began to take off down the left hallway.
I immediately refocused my attention to him and followed his order to follow. Once caught up to his right side, one of the wandering businessmen passed us by.
"Good afternoon," the man greeted as he walked.
"Afternoon," Ace returned.
I smiled at the man, but didn't say anything, myself. I took the time to study his ninja turtle neck tie before he completely passed us, though.
Once I had looked back to the long hall before us, I spotted another businessman entering a room not too far ahead. Once we had made our way to that point, I peered over and saw that he was in a large, roomy office with the door propped open. I could only watch him reach over a small computer desk to grab something, though, before we had passed by the room.
"This one, I think," Ace abruptly mumbled as he veered off to a closed door across from one of the big side windows.
I stopped myself by his side as he gazed up to look at the room number above the doorframe. I looked, as well, mostly because I had nothing else to do at the same time, and saw that the number read twelve-hundred eleven.
"Let's hope," he whispered, now bringing his head back to eye level and reaching for the door's unlocked handle.
I mean, I'm assuming it was unlocked, because the door opened for him without any resistance.
Ace next stepped inside and held the door open for me to follow, releasing it once I was also in. I then took the time to look around, as I always do, and saw just a normal, unoccupied office area that looked almost identical to the room the other guy from the hallway was in. A wooden desk with a black laptop sat in the center, in front of me, and cabinets and other storage-like furniture sat against every wall. The only chair within the proximity of the walls sat behind the computer desk.
"Damn," Ace commented, staring directly at one particular, completely cluttered storage cabinet.
The cabinet, in a better description, was tall, wide, and had a number of shelves that overflowed with unorganized papers, folders, and other, just random items which were just shoved into big messy piles.
I made my way over to the cabinet, as did Ace, and then reached out to touch an object whose name or origin I could not identify. Once I pulled it cleanly out from its place in the pile upon the middle shelf, though, I quickly figured out what it was.
It was one half of an entire bicycle tire's tread.
I exchanged a look with Ace, and then dropped the piece of rubber onto the floor.
"This'll be fun," he said, now turning to sort through the pile, himself.
I gave way to a small laugh, just because I couldn't help myself.
"Wait," I afterward started to speak. "What are you even looking for?"
"The old set of janitor's keys," he promptly replied.
He started sorting through a few handfuls of crumpled papers, letting them fall to the ground as he searched.
"Oh," I simply said.
I stood still and observed him a moment, and then decided to crouch down a bit and sort through the contents of the shelf underneath his.
I pulled out six wrinkled papers, a thick black Sharpie, a glass candle lid from Yankee Candle, a bottle of unlabeled cologne or, possibly, perfume, a three inch piece of white rope, a black guitar pick with the words 'pick strings, not wedgies' inscribed on it, a small unopened package containing a fake black mustache, two blank, unlabeled CD cases without any discs inside of them, a black beanie with the Chicago Cubs logo printed on it, and an opened, empty box of 'double pleasure' condoms.
Because what kind of pile of office clutter wouldn't be complete without a package of used contraceptives?
After dropping each item into an accumulating mound on the floor, I studied the now empty shelf, straightened my posture, and then looked at Ace.
"Any luck down there?" he asked, himself continuing to search.
"I don't think so," I replied. "Unless you're looking for the... the key to failure, or something."
Ace laughed a little as he threw an old television remote, one with the back duct-taped into place, onto the top of the mess by our feet.
"Nice one, 'Nesia, but not exactly the answer I was looking for."
I showed him a tiny smile back, even though he wasn't even paying any attention to me, as he continued to dig through the mess in front of himself.
"Oh, wait," he, after a few more moments, piped up again, still looking only at the heap of junk on the shelf he had been searching. He then shook his hand a bit and pulled out a large wad of jingling keys to show to me.
I looked at the keys, and then back at him as he flashed a pretty good smile.
"Good j—"
"Let's go," he abruptly shot out, cutting my sentence short. He then hurriedly pushed past my side, still ringi