Gyrus

Chapter Sixteen: Norm Solo

I crossed the tunnel that led into the cannery, running as fast I could. I could hear shouting coming from behind me and howls of pain but I didn't turn back. There was nothing I could do to help Wong, not with the barricade keeping me in and him out. He had sacrificed himself for me, standing as a barrier between me and the guards. If only Zoe and I had listened to him. He had told us we would need some sort of distraction to get into the cannery but we'd shot him down, instead hoping on stealth to take us through.

Shame washed over me as I realized that this was why I was alone in my vision. I was meant to be the only one to enter the cannery and because of my arrogance, Wong and Zoe were at the mercy of the guards. If we had used his plan, Zoe and Wong would have created a distraction and retreated to safety. Instead, I was trapped inside the cannery with guards probably looking for me, the terrorist kid whose friends tried to kill workers. Wong was only heaven knows where right now and Zoe was out for the count. I stopped at the end of the tunnel, paralyzed with confusion. The corridor got to a crossroad, offering me three separate routes, all identical and tinted red with the shrieking security lights. In the distance I could hear the tread of footsteps running towards me, I had to get out of sight and fast. I turned left and ran, choosing the shortest of the three paths.

I butted the door open in case there were any guards behind it. The door swung open and ushered me into a room shrouded in semi darkness. I paused so my eyesight would adjust to the low light conditions. I was in some sort of service room, filled with technological bells and whistles. The silence in the room was constantly being interrupted by the clink of massive dials and the hiss of valves. It was also shaped awkwardly, the far wall protruding in concave. I squinted for a better look and thanked my stars for some good luck when I realized where I was, it was the factory's boiler room. The tank that held the water was massive and took about half of the room creating the concave wall I thought I saw, the rest a labyrinthine maze of pipes and dials.

Locking the door of the boiler room behind me, I grabbed one of the bars that lay beside the wall and propped it against the door hoping it would buy me some time if the guards stumbled upon me here. I snaked around the pipes and bars, my eyes trained on the tank itself. A tank that big had to have a way it could be examined from up top. Hopefully it would have a ladder, and nothing but that would get me to the ceiling and the relative safety of an air-condition vent. I reached the tank and rounded it slowly taking my time to feel its surface in the room's semi darkness. I sighed in relief when my fingers came in contact with rounded metal bars welded to the body of the tank.

Climbing up the rungs two at a time, I made my way to the top of the tank. The ladder was made from the same kind of iron the tank was made from and my hands burned with rust flecks. I stealthily navigated the top of the tank, tip toeing so my footsteps wouldn't echo, using my hands to pat the ceiling till I found where the gentle whirring noises were coming from. I found it soon enough, the rectangular grooves differentiating it from the other ceiling squares. I pulled the hatch that protected the vent out and was about to hoist myself up when a loud boom reverberated through the room and the bar I had propped against the door was sent flying. The boiler room door flung open to reveal a handful of guards. I immediately dropped to my belly on top of the tank. They looked left and right, sweeping the room with their torch lights, I flattened myself further and held my breath, too afraid to peer in case a flash light arbitrarily flashed in my direction and spotted the open vent. They delayed for a minute, the point guard staring intently at the tank. Then as suddenly as they had come, they left.

I let out a sigh pulled myself to my feet and cringed. The rust flakes from the tank had turned the front of my overalls the colour of dried blood. There was no way I was going to blend in with that. There was nothing I could do about it so I unbuttoned the top half and tied it around my waist. I finally climbed into the vent and wiggled in, closing the hatch behind me in case the guards came for a secondary search. The vent was dark but cool, drafts of cool air periodically washing over me as I crawled back in the direction of the fork I had just come from. Soon enough I came to the fork and I licked my thumb and put it flush in the confluence of vents. The drafts were coming from the vent to my right instead of the vent straight ahead. Wherever the air was coming from was where I needed to be. I took off, crawling against the drafts and ignoring the involuntary shivers the cold wind was giving me. After crawling for what felt like twenty minutes, I came upon a widened vent with a single hatch set flush in its centre. Not willing to take any more chances I crawled to the hatch and opened it before maneuvering so I could slide out foot first.