Hack.A.I. (The Hack. series Book 1), page 8
“Nate, we have a problem.”
A screen opened up on Nate’s phone and it was the live video stream of two burly men in basketball vests with neck tattoos shouting and intimidating the receptionist. The security was lax, and they soon got what they wanted and charged towards the lift.
“I bet that Mr Harwood found out that someone has been using his accounts and followed them here?” Nate said aloud to SQAI.
“The probability is high.” She replied.
“Best get out of here, then. When’s the next train?”
Nate packed up his bag and glanced out of his fifth-floor window at the railway station parallel to his floor.
“It’s due in five minutes.”
“Perfect, let’s go.” He slid on his sunglasses and walked out.
The door automatically shut behind him as he left. He lightly ran to the large glass stairwell stuck on the side of the building and peered down its centre to see a hand grazing the handrail as it gained floors quickly.
“They are bound to have someone waiting outside for me to leave through the front door. Aren’t they?”
“I can confirm they do.” SQAI replied.
He gazed up the stairwell and the AR glasses declared that there were fifteen floors left to climb, or one hundred and fifty steps to the top floor.
“Great.” He said after beginning his ascent.
An echo of a door being slammed open shot up the stairwell. Nate peered over the edge to see two men eight floors below staring back at him.
“There he is!” They called out and ran up after him.
A padlock secured the roof access door atop the stairs. After rummaging a little in his bag, he pulled out a leather case and extracted two metal paper-thin rods. He slipped one in the padlock's bottom and created tension, then slipped the other into the lock and thrust it back and forth harshly. It didn’t unlock. He pulled out a separate tool with just one hooked grove, slid it into the lock and tried to feel for each individual pin.
He could hear the burly men’s loud stomps beginning to slow down as they got closer.
Punching benefits from weight, but not running, Nate pondered.
As he anxiously worked, each passing second felt like an eternity until the lock released and the door opened.
Setting off an alarm as it opened, but it quickly silenced again upon closing.
“The train has arrived. It departs again in five minutes.” SQAI said in his ear.
Nate's breath came in ragged gasps as he pushed himself forward, unable to stop.
He ran and bounced his foot off an air conditioning unit and, without skipping a beat, reached for the higher rooftop ledge, fifteen-foot above him and pulled himself up.
He sprinted towards the rooftops edge, his feet pounding against the ground, before soaring through the air over a thirty-foot gap with the grace of a hurdler. The building next door dropped twenty-feet down, so he landed with a thud. Feeling the impact reverberate through his foot, he rolled over his head to break the fall.
Two guards burst through the door. With the alarm ringing out, they ran to the edge, and noticed the thirty-foot gap between buildings and hit the brakes.
Still, Nate didn’t stop. He sprinted towards the roof ledge and launched himself forward, swiftly sliding across the pebble roof and seamlessly transitioning over the edge.
He dropped ten feet to the balcony below, leapt over the glass railing and let go of it. He repeated this action down. Dropping from one floor to another, followed by another. Clutching and releasing. Railing after railing. He descended ten floors in seconds until he arrived at the car park floor. The two men leaned forward, their eyes fixed on Nate's attempt to flee, his figure growing smaller in the distance.
Nate jumped toward the top of a thirty-foot lamppost in line with the three storey outdoor car park. With the agility of a firefighter responding to a call, he descended the lamppost, his grip firm as he slid down effortlessly. And ran across the road to the train station. With a sarcastic smile, he waved to the two men, mocking their presence.
The train journey over to his destination was a straight twenty minutes with no stops and uneventful.
A derelict red-brick building two hundred yards away from the meeting spot was the perfect distance for Nate to scope out the area as he waited for them to arrive. He arrived half an hour earlier than planned, to confirm it wasn't a setup, he needed to be sure. After all, Worsley had caught him.
He threw his dragonfly drones into the sky, and they observed the area for unusual activity when a van pulled up.
An old beat-up hippie VW. The pearlescent red and white paint job made it stand out. It looked more suited to a Scooby doo film than parked up in a bare industrial estate.
Blacked-out windows at the back meant he couldn’t see inside, but his thermal imaging showed there were three yellow-orange-red silhouettes moving around.
The surrounding area was quiet. Not unusually so.
Several old red brick industrial units adorned the estate, all had long been shut down, and the only road led to one building, making it virtually empty. That building, however, was the largest data centre in Europe.
They chose the meeting location for this reason. Nate knew that.
He set up SQAI to intercept any communications coming from their area and waited long enough for them to think he wasn’t coming. When the communications stayed quiet and they started the van to leave, he walked out. They had fully turned in the road and had driven off when they saw Nate approaching and stopped.
“Do you normally like to keep people waiting?” said an older bald man who hopped out of the back doors.
He was a little shorter than Nate, maybe five-ten.
“I had to make sure you were who you said you were.”
“And you’re satisfied?”
“For now.”
“You don’t trust lightly. Do you?”
“It’s kept me safe up to now.”
“That’s smart. I’m Ben…” he offered out his hand to shake. “Ben Cross if we are going to do this formally but everyone knows me as Bic because, well, you know.” He pointed up to his bald head.
“And I believe you have already bumped into CJ.”
Nate saw the beautiful girl from yesterday exit the van and nodded.
“CJ?”
“Cassie, Cassie Jacobs, my dear. — CJ.” She explained, her smile wide, mockingly bowing her head.
“And driving the van is Sketch. He’s Spanish, but don’t hold that against him.” Bic smiled.
“Hey, fuck you, pelon, my ball sack got more hair than you.” The angered Spaniard replied.
“That’s not something I’d be proud of, hombre.”
Nate smiled as Sketch mumbled something in Spanish which SQAI translated as a swearing insult.
“He’s not been with us long either, so maybe you two will get along. If you can stick the smell of him. I knew him from the old days and he’s just joined us in the almighty blighty!”
“Worse than desert, at least there was sun, cabron.”
“And what about you?” Cassie intervened.
“Me?”
“Your name?”
“Oh,” Nate smiled and avoided her intense gaze. “It’s Nathan, but you can call me Nate.”
“Nate, that’s a cool name!” She said in a soft voice.
“Thanks, I’ve had it since birth.”
Cassie’s laugh was over the top, and everyone noticed.
Sketch glanced at her, then back at Nate with his angered frown.
Bic saw the awkwardness in Nate’s face and his blushing cheeks.
“Do you always wear sunglasses?” Cassie squeaked.
“I prefer to, yeah.” Nate smiled at her, his eyes lighting up with warmth and affection, which he was grateful she couldn’t see.
“So, Nate, you are probably wondering why we asked you to meet us here?”
Saved from the awkwardness, Nate felt glad.
“I’m willing to bet it has something to do with the data centre over there.”
All turned to see the massive white factory, its black windows spanning the front.
“It does. We know what you can do, but we would like to see you in action.”
“So another test?”
“Well, you didn’t trust us, so how do we know we can trust you?” Cassie interjected.
“That’s fair, I guess. What do you want?”
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” Bic said in a monotone computer-like voice and paused, waiting for people’s reactions. “Do any of you get the movie reference there?” Bic said when they all stared at him blankly. “Seriously? It’s mission impossible.”
Nate stayed quiet and shook his head.
“What’s that?” Cassie asked.
“Eh, pelon, is that a spy movie or summin?”
“Yeah, a CIA spy movie. How have none of you seen that?”
“Oh, is that the one where the handsome ‘Witcher’ guy reloads his fists?”
“The who?” Bic stared back, equally puzzled. “No, no, Tom Cruise?”
They all stared at him like he was a teacher explaining aerospace engineering to a nursery class.
“God damn, you kids make me feel old. You, Nate, need to gain access to the data store and create a secure connection for us to access it again. You can only access it manually.”
“You want me to go inside?” Nate scoffed, his disbelief clear in his tone.
“Didn’t you break into a prison to help someone escape?”
“Well, yeah but…”
“What about bringing down that gang? That must’ve required you to do some physical hacks.”
“Yeah, it did, but…”
“So you like the thrill of working in the field! For you, this will be a breeze. There’s not much security, so you will be in and out in no time.” Bic tapped his shoulder as if to send him on his way.
“Ugh…” before Nate could say anymore he had been handed a drone and keycard to get on the site.
“I’m assuming you have your own laptop in there?”
Bic pointed to Nate’s backpack.
“Yeah.”
“Perfect! Just throw the drone up when you are nearby so that we can watch over you. Oh, and here is an earpiece so that we can hear each other. Just tap once to talk and twice to stop talking. Oh, and don’t worry, any problems, we will come in and get you ourselves.”
They all hopped back in the van and drove off, leaving Nate standing there as if he had missed his train.
seventeen
“Okay, SQAI, you heard the man we need to get inside.” Nate pulled out his phone and threw up his own little drones. SQAI took control and began her reconnaissance. Using his phone to show the group watching on the drone his workings out.
“There is an exhaust tunnel in use close to the waterfront that leads directly to the main server.”
She showed him the diagram on his glasses and he made his way down to the river, running next to the building and car park.
He skirted along the river’s edge to the large exhaust pipe big enough to fit a van.
Nate could hear the harsh drone’s whizzing propellers following him from above.
The shimmering waves of heat danced in the distance, growing stronger as Nate approached.
Sputtering and rumbling, the fan’s engine echoed in the air, blending with the gentle river’s lapping to make an industrial birdsong.
“How hot is it in there?” Nate asked SQAI.
“Average temperature is approximately forty-six degrees centigrade. Reaching highs of fifty-four.”
“Holy shit, will that kill me off?”
“Although the human body isn’t conditioned for those extreme temperatures, it will be feasible at least for a few minutes, thanks to the human homeostasis, a process through which the human brain — a part called hypothalamus — regulates body temperature to keep it in the survival range. Although I would recommend that you not touch anything with bare skin. It could lead to severe burns.” SQAI replied.
The metal brackets holding the large metal exhaust structure gave Nate the perfect climbing frame to sneak in directly through the tunnel itself.
“Can we turn it off for a little while?”
“We can disable it temporarily, but it has three minutes before the backup generators kick in.”
“What temperature does it drop to?”
“Approximately 32 degrees.”
“Shit, that’s still hot. Let me get to the start of the tunnel and turn them off.”
“Yes, Nate.”
After he slipped the phone back in his pocket, he rummaged around in the bottom of his backpack for some gloves. The remnants of his first and only free-running holiday.
He slipped them on and climbed the frame like a veteran scaffolder, swinging from pole to pole, until he reached the exhaust’s edge.
SQAI had disabled the machine and Nate felt the heat drop away immediately, which allowed him to pull himself up.
“Are you going through the exhaust?”
The earpiece blasted in his ear, forcing him to briefly pull it away from his ear.
“Yeah, less security interference this way.” Nate replied, angered at the intrusion.
“It must be boiling in there.”
“I’ve turned it off, so it’s bearable for now.”
“Like, how?”
Nate realised that the question wasn’t meant for him when his voice sounded distant from the earpiece.
“On his phone, too. This boy is a genius, I’m telling you!” Bic said to the other two, ensuring Nate heard.
Nate encountered mesh fencing in the tunnel, which was attached to and separated by two metal brackets placed in an x formation.
With a foot shove, he separated the left side mesh from the frame, creating enough space to slip through. Further into the tunnel, he went, disappearing from the drone's view.
He discovered a sizeable fan, roughly a hundred yards away, resembling an old windmill, gradually decelerating to a near halt. Nate waited for the two-inch sharp blades to stop completely before he forced himself through a gap only capable of fitting a lighter set man.
A ladder stood between the fan and the metal panel wall at the tunnel's end.
At the top, a hatch caught his eye with the words "Emergency Use Only" etched onto its surface. He pictured the emergencies those fans behind him would be involved in and shrugged it off. He pulled his sleeves over his gloved hands and made the climb.
“Am I okay to leave?” Nate said, standing atop the ladder.
“Working.” SQAI said in his ear.
Despite being switched off, the heat inside was still unbearable. Nate's forehead was covered in sweat, which dripped down his face and caused a burning sensation in his eyes.
The night vision allowed him to see his surroundings in a green tinge, but the heat radiating from was causing them to steam up, making them redundant.
“Nate, we have a problem.” SQAI said a few seconds later.
A display appeared on his glasses, showing two guards walking together.
“After monitoring their radio, I believe they are coming to investigate the fan.”
“It must’ve triggered some manual alarm directly to the security room. Shit.”
Given the non-urgency of the two guards, Nate guessed this must happen a lot.
“How far away are they?”
“Thirty seconds out.”
Nate slid down the ladder and cowered down.
“Have we got audio?” He whispered to SQAI.
The camera’s sound played in his ears.
“So, Beth invited them?” One said to his colleague.
“Yeah, she’s not seen them in ten years, but they are ‘family’, whatever that means. But at twenty quid per head, I’d rather they didn’t come.”
His colleague scrunched his nose and nodded.
“Yeah, I agree. Too expensive to waste on people who don’t want to be there.”
They reached above the hatch and stopped. “I wonder what’s wrong with this damn fan today!”
“I was working the other night, and this fucking thing broke three times! By the third time, I just gave up and left it off.”
“Oh, mate, I wouldn’t do that. It’s really important to the nerds that this stays on.”
“I know, but I’m not a bloody technician. Get someone professional in to fix it rather than relying on security in it. It’s a bloody new building. They should complain to the builders about it.”
“Yeah, that’s true! It looks like it’s just a case of turning it back on this time, thank christ.”
One of them pressed a button, and Nate heard fans behind the metal fencing activate. A wave of heat then rushed down the tunnel, engulfing everything.
Nate, feeling trapped in a baking oven, climbed the ladder and waited at the top as the two men stayed in situ, chatting.
“Come on!” He mouthed, feeling the heat and pressure mount.
They stood there talking and laughing jovially.
“Temperature is hitting a peak temperature of fifty-four, Nate. More than a few minutes in this heat could cause you to lose consciousness.”
“Great, and I’m feeling dizzy already. Come on, you bastards, leave.”
They didn’t leave. Their voices mingled in an easygoing conversation, filling the air with a casual tone. Killing time. One leant up against the wall. Easing into it.
“SQAI, can you get them out of here?”
“Working.”
A distant alarm rang out a few seconds later. Nate observed as the two men exchanged a quick glance and swiftly departed down the hallway they came from.
When he thought they would be out of sound range, Nate attempted to open the hatch. His gloved hands had become sweaty as he exerted more force, feeling the heat radiating from the stubbornly stuck handle.
“SQAI, it’s stuck!”
“Nate, your body is overheating. You need to get out of here before you pass out.”
“I’m trying!”
He climbed up one more step on the ladder and gripped with both hands the red hatch lever, the stickers behind indicating clearly that you turn anti-clockwise to open.
With the last remaining strength that the heat had not drained from him yet, he gritted his teeth, pushed his feet hard off the ladder and the lever creaked, then like an airlock, it hissed as it released its tension and unlocked fully. Nate's body swung freely as he clung to the lever, then swiftly leapt onto the ladder, his feet landing with a solid thud.
A screen opened up on Nate’s phone and it was the live video stream of two burly men in basketball vests with neck tattoos shouting and intimidating the receptionist. The security was lax, and they soon got what they wanted and charged towards the lift.
“I bet that Mr Harwood found out that someone has been using his accounts and followed them here?” Nate said aloud to SQAI.
“The probability is high.” She replied.
“Best get out of here, then. When’s the next train?”
Nate packed up his bag and glanced out of his fifth-floor window at the railway station parallel to his floor.
“It’s due in five minutes.”
“Perfect, let’s go.” He slid on his sunglasses and walked out.
The door automatically shut behind him as he left. He lightly ran to the large glass stairwell stuck on the side of the building and peered down its centre to see a hand grazing the handrail as it gained floors quickly.
“They are bound to have someone waiting outside for me to leave through the front door. Aren’t they?”
“I can confirm they do.” SQAI replied.
He gazed up the stairwell and the AR glasses declared that there were fifteen floors left to climb, or one hundred and fifty steps to the top floor.
“Great.” He said after beginning his ascent.
An echo of a door being slammed open shot up the stairwell. Nate peered over the edge to see two men eight floors below staring back at him.
“There he is!” They called out and ran up after him.
A padlock secured the roof access door atop the stairs. After rummaging a little in his bag, he pulled out a leather case and extracted two metal paper-thin rods. He slipped one in the padlock's bottom and created tension, then slipped the other into the lock and thrust it back and forth harshly. It didn’t unlock. He pulled out a separate tool with just one hooked grove, slid it into the lock and tried to feel for each individual pin.
He could hear the burly men’s loud stomps beginning to slow down as they got closer.
Punching benefits from weight, but not running, Nate pondered.
As he anxiously worked, each passing second felt like an eternity until the lock released and the door opened.
Setting off an alarm as it opened, but it quickly silenced again upon closing.
“The train has arrived. It departs again in five minutes.” SQAI said in his ear.
Nate's breath came in ragged gasps as he pushed himself forward, unable to stop.
He ran and bounced his foot off an air conditioning unit and, without skipping a beat, reached for the higher rooftop ledge, fifteen-foot above him and pulled himself up.
He sprinted towards the rooftops edge, his feet pounding against the ground, before soaring through the air over a thirty-foot gap with the grace of a hurdler. The building next door dropped twenty-feet down, so he landed with a thud. Feeling the impact reverberate through his foot, he rolled over his head to break the fall.
Two guards burst through the door. With the alarm ringing out, they ran to the edge, and noticed the thirty-foot gap between buildings and hit the brakes.
Still, Nate didn’t stop. He sprinted towards the roof ledge and launched himself forward, swiftly sliding across the pebble roof and seamlessly transitioning over the edge.
He dropped ten feet to the balcony below, leapt over the glass railing and let go of it. He repeated this action down. Dropping from one floor to another, followed by another. Clutching and releasing. Railing after railing. He descended ten floors in seconds until he arrived at the car park floor. The two men leaned forward, their eyes fixed on Nate's attempt to flee, his figure growing smaller in the distance.
Nate jumped toward the top of a thirty-foot lamppost in line with the three storey outdoor car park. With the agility of a firefighter responding to a call, he descended the lamppost, his grip firm as he slid down effortlessly. And ran across the road to the train station. With a sarcastic smile, he waved to the two men, mocking their presence.
The train journey over to his destination was a straight twenty minutes with no stops and uneventful.
A derelict red-brick building two hundred yards away from the meeting spot was the perfect distance for Nate to scope out the area as he waited for them to arrive. He arrived half an hour earlier than planned, to confirm it wasn't a setup, he needed to be sure. After all, Worsley had caught him.
He threw his dragonfly drones into the sky, and they observed the area for unusual activity when a van pulled up.
An old beat-up hippie VW. The pearlescent red and white paint job made it stand out. It looked more suited to a Scooby doo film than parked up in a bare industrial estate.
Blacked-out windows at the back meant he couldn’t see inside, but his thermal imaging showed there were three yellow-orange-red silhouettes moving around.
The surrounding area was quiet. Not unusually so.
Several old red brick industrial units adorned the estate, all had long been shut down, and the only road led to one building, making it virtually empty. That building, however, was the largest data centre in Europe.
They chose the meeting location for this reason. Nate knew that.
He set up SQAI to intercept any communications coming from their area and waited long enough for them to think he wasn’t coming. When the communications stayed quiet and they started the van to leave, he walked out. They had fully turned in the road and had driven off when they saw Nate approaching and stopped.
“Do you normally like to keep people waiting?” said an older bald man who hopped out of the back doors.
He was a little shorter than Nate, maybe five-ten.
“I had to make sure you were who you said you were.”
“And you’re satisfied?”
“For now.”
“You don’t trust lightly. Do you?”
“It’s kept me safe up to now.”
“That’s smart. I’m Ben…” he offered out his hand to shake. “Ben Cross if we are going to do this formally but everyone knows me as Bic because, well, you know.” He pointed up to his bald head.
“And I believe you have already bumped into CJ.”
Nate saw the beautiful girl from yesterday exit the van and nodded.
“CJ?”
“Cassie, Cassie Jacobs, my dear. — CJ.” She explained, her smile wide, mockingly bowing her head.
“And driving the van is Sketch. He’s Spanish, but don’t hold that against him.” Bic smiled.
“Hey, fuck you, pelon, my ball sack got more hair than you.” The angered Spaniard replied.
“That’s not something I’d be proud of, hombre.”
Nate smiled as Sketch mumbled something in Spanish which SQAI translated as a swearing insult.
“He’s not been with us long either, so maybe you two will get along. If you can stick the smell of him. I knew him from the old days and he’s just joined us in the almighty blighty!”
“Worse than desert, at least there was sun, cabron.”
“And what about you?” Cassie intervened.
“Me?”
“Your name?”
“Oh,” Nate smiled and avoided her intense gaze. “It’s Nathan, but you can call me Nate.”
“Nate, that’s a cool name!” She said in a soft voice.
“Thanks, I’ve had it since birth.”
Cassie’s laugh was over the top, and everyone noticed.
Sketch glanced at her, then back at Nate with his angered frown.
Bic saw the awkwardness in Nate’s face and his blushing cheeks.
“Do you always wear sunglasses?” Cassie squeaked.
“I prefer to, yeah.” Nate smiled at her, his eyes lighting up with warmth and affection, which he was grateful she couldn’t see.
“So, Nate, you are probably wondering why we asked you to meet us here?”
Saved from the awkwardness, Nate felt glad.
“I’m willing to bet it has something to do with the data centre over there.”
All turned to see the massive white factory, its black windows spanning the front.
“It does. We know what you can do, but we would like to see you in action.”
“So another test?”
“Well, you didn’t trust us, so how do we know we can trust you?” Cassie interjected.
“That’s fair, I guess. What do you want?”
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…” Bic said in a monotone computer-like voice and paused, waiting for people’s reactions. “Do any of you get the movie reference there?” Bic said when they all stared at him blankly. “Seriously? It’s mission impossible.”
Nate stayed quiet and shook his head.
“What’s that?” Cassie asked.
“Eh, pelon, is that a spy movie or summin?”
“Yeah, a CIA spy movie. How have none of you seen that?”
“Oh, is that the one where the handsome ‘Witcher’ guy reloads his fists?”
“The who?” Bic stared back, equally puzzled. “No, no, Tom Cruise?”
They all stared at him like he was a teacher explaining aerospace engineering to a nursery class.
“God damn, you kids make me feel old. You, Nate, need to gain access to the data store and create a secure connection for us to access it again. You can only access it manually.”
“You want me to go inside?” Nate scoffed, his disbelief clear in his tone.
“Didn’t you break into a prison to help someone escape?”
“Well, yeah but…”
“What about bringing down that gang? That must’ve required you to do some physical hacks.”
“Yeah, it did, but…”
“So you like the thrill of working in the field! For you, this will be a breeze. There’s not much security, so you will be in and out in no time.” Bic tapped his shoulder as if to send him on his way.
“Ugh…” before Nate could say anymore he had been handed a drone and keycard to get on the site.
“I’m assuming you have your own laptop in there?”
Bic pointed to Nate’s backpack.
“Yeah.”
“Perfect! Just throw the drone up when you are nearby so that we can watch over you. Oh, and here is an earpiece so that we can hear each other. Just tap once to talk and twice to stop talking. Oh, and don’t worry, any problems, we will come in and get you ourselves.”
They all hopped back in the van and drove off, leaving Nate standing there as if he had missed his train.
seventeen
“Okay, SQAI, you heard the man we need to get inside.” Nate pulled out his phone and threw up his own little drones. SQAI took control and began her reconnaissance. Using his phone to show the group watching on the drone his workings out.
“There is an exhaust tunnel in use close to the waterfront that leads directly to the main server.”
She showed him the diagram on his glasses and he made his way down to the river, running next to the building and car park.
He skirted along the river’s edge to the large exhaust pipe big enough to fit a van.
Nate could hear the harsh drone’s whizzing propellers following him from above.
The shimmering waves of heat danced in the distance, growing stronger as Nate approached.
Sputtering and rumbling, the fan’s engine echoed in the air, blending with the gentle river’s lapping to make an industrial birdsong.
“How hot is it in there?” Nate asked SQAI.
“Average temperature is approximately forty-six degrees centigrade. Reaching highs of fifty-four.”
“Holy shit, will that kill me off?”
“Although the human body isn’t conditioned for those extreme temperatures, it will be feasible at least for a few minutes, thanks to the human homeostasis, a process through which the human brain — a part called hypothalamus — regulates body temperature to keep it in the survival range. Although I would recommend that you not touch anything with bare skin. It could lead to severe burns.” SQAI replied.
The metal brackets holding the large metal exhaust structure gave Nate the perfect climbing frame to sneak in directly through the tunnel itself.
“Can we turn it off for a little while?”
“We can disable it temporarily, but it has three minutes before the backup generators kick in.”
“What temperature does it drop to?”
“Approximately 32 degrees.”
“Shit, that’s still hot. Let me get to the start of the tunnel and turn them off.”
“Yes, Nate.”
After he slipped the phone back in his pocket, he rummaged around in the bottom of his backpack for some gloves. The remnants of his first and only free-running holiday.
He slipped them on and climbed the frame like a veteran scaffolder, swinging from pole to pole, until he reached the exhaust’s edge.
SQAI had disabled the machine and Nate felt the heat drop away immediately, which allowed him to pull himself up.
“Are you going through the exhaust?”
The earpiece blasted in his ear, forcing him to briefly pull it away from his ear.
“Yeah, less security interference this way.” Nate replied, angered at the intrusion.
“It must be boiling in there.”
“I’ve turned it off, so it’s bearable for now.”
“Like, how?”
Nate realised that the question wasn’t meant for him when his voice sounded distant from the earpiece.
“On his phone, too. This boy is a genius, I’m telling you!” Bic said to the other two, ensuring Nate heard.
Nate encountered mesh fencing in the tunnel, which was attached to and separated by two metal brackets placed in an x formation.
With a foot shove, he separated the left side mesh from the frame, creating enough space to slip through. Further into the tunnel, he went, disappearing from the drone's view.
He discovered a sizeable fan, roughly a hundred yards away, resembling an old windmill, gradually decelerating to a near halt. Nate waited for the two-inch sharp blades to stop completely before he forced himself through a gap only capable of fitting a lighter set man.
A ladder stood between the fan and the metal panel wall at the tunnel's end.
At the top, a hatch caught his eye with the words "Emergency Use Only" etched onto its surface. He pictured the emergencies those fans behind him would be involved in and shrugged it off. He pulled his sleeves over his gloved hands and made the climb.
“Am I okay to leave?” Nate said, standing atop the ladder.
“Working.” SQAI said in his ear.
Despite being switched off, the heat inside was still unbearable. Nate's forehead was covered in sweat, which dripped down his face and caused a burning sensation in his eyes.
The night vision allowed him to see his surroundings in a green tinge, but the heat radiating from was causing them to steam up, making them redundant.
“Nate, we have a problem.” SQAI said a few seconds later.
A display appeared on his glasses, showing two guards walking together.
“After monitoring their radio, I believe they are coming to investigate the fan.”
“It must’ve triggered some manual alarm directly to the security room. Shit.”
Given the non-urgency of the two guards, Nate guessed this must happen a lot.
“How far away are they?”
“Thirty seconds out.”
Nate slid down the ladder and cowered down.
“Have we got audio?” He whispered to SQAI.
The camera’s sound played in his ears.
“So, Beth invited them?” One said to his colleague.
“Yeah, she’s not seen them in ten years, but they are ‘family’, whatever that means. But at twenty quid per head, I’d rather they didn’t come.”
His colleague scrunched his nose and nodded.
“Yeah, I agree. Too expensive to waste on people who don’t want to be there.”
They reached above the hatch and stopped. “I wonder what’s wrong with this damn fan today!”
“I was working the other night, and this fucking thing broke three times! By the third time, I just gave up and left it off.”
“Oh, mate, I wouldn’t do that. It’s really important to the nerds that this stays on.”
“I know, but I’m not a bloody technician. Get someone professional in to fix it rather than relying on security in it. It’s a bloody new building. They should complain to the builders about it.”
“Yeah, that’s true! It looks like it’s just a case of turning it back on this time, thank christ.”
One of them pressed a button, and Nate heard fans behind the metal fencing activate. A wave of heat then rushed down the tunnel, engulfing everything.
Nate, feeling trapped in a baking oven, climbed the ladder and waited at the top as the two men stayed in situ, chatting.
“Come on!” He mouthed, feeling the heat and pressure mount.
They stood there talking and laughing jovially.
“Temperature is hitting a peak temperature of fifty-four, Nate. More than a few minutes in this heat could cause you to lose consciousness.”
“Great, and I’m feeling dizzy already. Come on, you bastards, leave.”
They didn’t leave. Their voices mingled in an easygoing conversation, filling the air with a casual tone. Killing time. One leant up against the wall. Easing into it.
“SQAI, can you get them out of here?”
“Working.”
A distant alarm rang out a few seconds later. Nate observed as the two men exchanged a quick glance and swiftly departed down the hallway they came from.
When he thought they would be out of sound range, Nate attempted to open the hatch. His gloved hands had become sweaty as he exerted more force, feeling the heat radiating from the stubbornly stuck handle.
“SQAI, it’s stuck!”
“Nate, your body is overheating. You need to get out of here before you pass out.”
“I’m trying!”
He climbed up one more step on the ladder and gripped with both hands the red hatch lever, the stickers behind indicating clearly that you turn anti-clockwise to open.
With the last remaining strength that the heat had not drained from him yet, he gritted his teeth, pushed his feet hard off the ladder and the lever creaked, then like an airlock, it hissed as it released its tension and unlocked fully. Nate's body swung freely as he clung to the lever, then swiftly leapt onto the ladder, his feet landing with a solid thud.
