The alarm was a loud shrill noise that pierced her ear drums. She put her hands over her ears. She saw movement of people upstairs and decided to slink away, hiding behind the lift shaft. She took off the orange jacket and the hard hat, and seeing an empty air conditioning shaft hole decided to run to that. She went in backwards, sliding her feet in first and covered the opening with a nearby plastic sheet. There were some advantages to having such a young, small body.
The shrill alarm had stopped, replaced with an incessant beeping. There was an announcement over the speakers.
"This is OSG – we have an intruder, all personnel report to lower level checkpoints," boomed an authoritative male voice. It repeated on a loop along with the beeping.
Ashildr remained perfectly still, inching backwards into the ducting so she was not visible from the outside. She could see a small slither of the building mottled through the plastic sheeting. She planted herself and settled in for a long wait.
The alarm was still going off. Ashildr saw some dark figures cross between the light and where she was. There were several pairs of heavy footsteps, which gradually stopped.
"We've found the discarded jacket and hard hat, she must be close," said a slightly familiar female voice. There was a loud sniff. "Send out a search team, check everywhere, we can't have her getting to twenty five."
"Yes, ma'am," a group of male sounding voices replied, the footsteps walking off.
"And soldiers," the footsteps stopped, "don't worry about killing her, just bring her to me."
"Yes, ma'am!" the group shouted.
Ashildr was completely surrounded by darkness inside the square duct, she barely had inches on each side. She was now about three feet from the opening. The dark figures moved away and the light flowed back in slightly, leaving a slither of visibility through her left eye to her right. The alarm stopped.
One pair of footsteps remained, walking around for several minutes. They walked along the side of the duct, close to Ashildr but separated by a thin sheet of aluminium. She heard the footsteps travelling on her right side, and then there was a sudden dull thud inches in front of her face. It disturbed the dust in the space.
Ashildr gasped slightly hoping whoever was there took that as the material reverberating. There were several small taps above her head, like fingertips drumming the surface. Ashildr slowly tried to silently shift her body away from that side of the ducting, hearing the drumming above her neck now.
There was another dull thud near where her stomach would have been had she not shifted her weight. She felt the metal shift slightly with the impact. Ashildr held her hand over her mouth trying to mute her shock.
"I know you can hear me," the female voice boomed out. The lower notes held an echo through the metal for a second after.
Ashildr remained still, feeling her heart beating quickly in her chest.
The drumming resumed, moving past her hips, towards her feet.
"I know you are here," said the voice slowly. "We take intruders very seriously here... Great fake name by the way."
Another dull thud near her knees shook the whole duct. In the movement it caused her unzipped jacket to unravel, and the zip itself hit the aluminium with the smallest of taps.
The drumming fingers stopped still.
"There you are." The footsteps retraced towards the opening of the duct.
Ashildr edged herself backwards as quietly as she could until her feet lowered down slightly and hit something solid, the zip dragged scraped along the bottom. Unable to see she rotated herself to be face up in the duct, and found her knees could now hang down. Seeing no other way out she dropped herself down as far as she could whilst tensing on the upper surface of the vent. She had to spin around again to get the angle to be able to hang by her hands from the bottom lip, feet dangling into darkness, banging on the side of the vent. Preparing herself for pain she dropped herself into the dark just as she heard the rustling of plastic above her, leaving the duct empty.
She dropped down about six feet, her feet landing on a solid surface with a loud thud. She twisted one of her ankles.
"Do you really think you can escape me?" said the voice bellowing through the space.
Ashildr felt around her, trying to gain a mental picture of her surroundings in pitch black. She was surrounded on all sides by the duct, until she noticed a faint blue hue around her. It appeared to be emitting from her waist, looking down she could see the reflection of the sunglasses in the dull dusty metal. She unhooked them from her belt loop and passed the sunglasses up awkwardly to her eyes, being careful not to drop them. The inner lenses were the source of the light, she put them on her face and saw the whole area illuminated in blue. There was some white writing in the top corner, but it allowed her to see the area in the gaps around her.
"There's no use trying to escape me, I will find you," said the voice, banging on the duct above. "I've found her, she's in the duct, get down to the next floor!"
Looking down she saw the duct continued backwards, directly underneath where she had just been, and forwards towards the side of the building she needed to be. Making the decision to go forward, she worked out in her head how to go that direction so she would go head first. Dropping to her knees she squeezed herself backwards, craning her neck painfully to the side to get it past the top of the duct she was aiming for.
Wearing the sunglasses she could see the way illuminated in front of her, straight ahead for twenty feet and then a left turn. Judging her position, to the right of her would be the outside of the building itself.
She crawled her way through, using her feet and elbows for traction. Ashildr was reminded of being in the trenches during one of the wars she experienced, doing something similar in a muddy tunnel in the pouring rain. She got to the junction and heard voices coming from that direction so decided to carry straight on to the next.
Another twenty feet down the corridor there was a second left turn, which Ashildr took, contorting her body sideways to bring her legs around. There was a loud bang behind her which stopped her still.
"We know where you are," the voice said faintly. Ashildr carried on, slower this time, judging the voices to be at the previous junction. She approached a panel on the base of the ducting which she could see down into the space below. Careful not to move over it, she inched forward to gain a better view of her surroundings. This duct was in the ceiling, and she looked over a concrete floor lit with bright lights and strewn with new power cables. She could see shadows coming from the left. She decided to run, crawling quickly past the opening before they arrived and continuing another twenty feet until she reached another grate.
As she peered through this she saw movement below. A brunette flashed past, followed by ten figures with guns and black helmets.
There was a loud sniff below.
"Show yourself!" the woman said, "I know you are here."
With another loud bang, this time three feet in front of her, a tube of light shone upwards at a slight angle. The bullet rattled to the base.
"Getting warmer," she said, sniffing again.
Ashildr decided to stay still this time. The third bang was louder, accompanied by a discomfort in her left kneecap. Ashildr bit her hand when the wave of pain started, she had been shot many times before, and knew exactly how to react. She felt a few drops of blood drip down before her body healed.
"Do you have any idea how much this is costing me? And now I have to clean up your blood as well."
"Soldiers," she shouted, "get the intruder."
Ashildr heard the guns preparing by the clicking below, so she made a run for it. She crawled as quickly as she could, past one more grate as a shower of bullets rained behind her, a few of them caught her through her right foot and shin. She reached the end and took a left and ten yards in front saw an opening on her right. It had a ladder on the far wall. The bullets were catching up to her, pinging all around and making the duct very insecure. She put her hands on the rungs of the ladder and pulled herself through and up, until both hands and feet were securely out. She clambered up as fast as she could, losing her footing, twice having to pull herself up. Bullets continued to ricochet in the distance, she felt a few whistle in her direction.
After climbing for a few minutes she saw a half size door on her left, with a ledge to stand on. She stepped off the ladder and went to the door. She tried the handle but it wouldn't turn. It felt pretty loose against its casing so, bracing herself against the rear wall she gave the door a forceful kick. It didn't move so she tried again. On the third time it buckled, leading out to what looked like an access corridor.