Several days later Layla sat at her desk going over a case file when her cell phone rang with her husband's ring tone. She grinned as she reached over and picked it up. She smiled as she saw her husband's picture on the screen before pressing the answer icon. "Hey babe, I, oh, wait a minute. Wait! Stop! What? Slow down Terry." Layla's authoritative voice rang off the walls and everyone looked over.

"Anxiety, panic, 87.1% dire situation." Diana instinctively rattled off as she looked over at Layla.

Layla listened for several moments before she frowned and her eyes sought out Walter. "Wait, what do you mean Paige is trapped? Damn it. Tell me what is going on, slowly."

Diana's eyes opened wider. "Probability adjustment required of 9.2% to raise initial calculation to 96.3% probability of a life threatening situation."

Walter frowned as he looked from his laptop to Diana and then to Layla. "What's going on with Paige?"

Layla looked over crossly and waved him off. "Okay, I understand now, we'll be there shortly."

Walter stood up and was already moving across the floor towards Layla's desk. "What is going on?"

Layla tore off a piece of paper and handed to him. "You drive and I'll tell you on our way."

Walter looked at the address before he grabbed his laptop and shoved it in his backpack as they quickly made for the door.

Sarah, Diana, Florence and Dustin along with Cabe came running after them. "Hey, don't forget us." Diana yelled.

"Yea, get in my SUV, I'll drive." Cabe called out.

As Cabe pulled away from the curb he turned on his lights and siren.

Layla hit her remote which locked down the Garage. "Okay, that was my husband Terry. Apparently his supervisor hired Centipede Partners to come in and assist on a project at a new facility that Richard bought. Paige was in the control room while the rest of them went into the lab. Sylvester accessed the computer system inside of the lab and it triggered some kind of response from the security system. There was a whoosh noise and then a loud metallic clanking noise and the security door that protects the control room in case of a disaster activated and Paige is now trapped inside. The system is not responding to commands from the main system."

"So Terry climbed up into the crawl space over the control room and found the wires that allow the building's computer system to interact with the control room have all been burnt out. He believes that was the whoosh sound and since the control room's computer lost contact with the main system it triggered the security door. But that isn't the worst part."

"Oh by all means, tell us the worst part." Dustin said sarcastically.

"The control room is air tight when the security door activates. And while normally there would be plenty of air in the room Paige has been able to tell them through their coms that she hears a hissing noise. She made her way to where the sound was loudest and they determined the air is being sucked out of the room. So the computer in there must believe there is an active fire in the room. Terry is estimating based on the sound he can make out from their coms that something is restricting how fast the air is being sucked out so that is allowing her perhaps a half hours worth of air in the room to survive on. And Centipede is completely out of ideas." Layla finished.

Cabe swore as he accelerated. "I'll be damned if I am losing another daughter before I die."

Walter opened his laptop and connected to the SUV's wifi and hacked into the city commissioner's system. He found the plans that were available for the building at the address Layla gave him and downloaded them.

Security met the SUV as they arrived and quickly escorted the group into the facility and down to where everyone else was standing around trying to puzzle what to do. Terry looked up and saw Walter and his team approaching and he gestured and the security guards with them moved the members of Centipede Partners back so Walter and his team could access the site. Walter ignored everyone as he pushed on past them and unplugged Sylvester's laptop from an access port and plugged his own in and quickly checked and found the system completely cut off.

Dustin stepped up to the door and began inspecting it and the wall.

Florence pushed past everyone and moved up to Sylvester. "Are you okay Sly?"

Sylvester nodded but she could see the agony on his face.

"You're blaming yourself for this aren't you?" Florence asked as she took his face in her hands.

Sylvester closed his eyes as he nodded.

Florence pulled his head down and wrapped her arms about him and hugged him tightly to her.

Walter reached into his pocket and pulled out his own coms and put it in his ear after changing the frequency from what his laptop detected. "Paige, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

"Walter?!" Paige exclaimed loudly. "I'm okay but I'm scared, the air is getting harder to breathe and my ears are starting to hurt."

Diana was watching. "Significant body language markers, 89.7% Walter is experiencing fear." She whispered to Layla.

Walter's demeanor completely changed at the sound of fear in her voice. Layla stepped up and put her hand against his back. "It's okay Walter. You got this and there is no one we trust more than you."

Walter nodded. "Paige, I have never let anything bad happen to you and I am not about to start now. I'm assuming they had you try and find where the hissing sound is coming from to try and block it from sucking the air out." He began to adjust a couple of other coms.

"Not unless you count when Paige got shot in the back." Toby said sarcastically.

Everyone but Walter turned and stared at Toby.

"Yes, it is somewhere in the ceiling but there is nothing in here to access it. And I know you have always been there for me Walter and I am very grateful for that. And me being shot that time had nothing to do with Walter and you damn well know it Toby." Paige told him trying to calm herself.

Happy looked up at Toby and hit him in the shoulder as Walter ignored him. "Stop making her use up the air she has left."

"Paige, I'm going to have Sarah talk with you and guide you through a meditation while I attack this problem. But I'll check in with you in a few minutes." Walter told her as he pointed at Sarah with an open hand.

"What am I? Chopped liver?" Toby demanded.

Terry glared at him. "Why didn't you think to do that when this first happened?"

Toby stepped back away from Terry.

Sarah grabbed the coms Walter held out for her and stuck it in her ear as Layla grabbed the other one he had. "Hey Paige, it's Sarah, I know this is scary but I want you to sit down some place and close your eyes." Sarah told her as she began guiding her through a meditation.

Toby rolled his eyes before he looked around. "Gee, I guess I'm not needed here."

Walter dragged his hand down his face as he considered the situation. "This was intentional, someone set this in motion. Whether its purpose is to kill a certain person or a group or just to lure someone else on the scene is unclear." Walter half muttered to himself.

Walter looked at Dustin. "What are our options?"

Dustin had finished his examination of the door and walls and shook his head. "Not a lot to be honest boss. The outside is a titanium composite. Even if I had my torch it would take at least thirty minutes to even make a small opening to get air into the room."

Walter continued to ignore his old friend as she tried to get his attention. He nodded. "I downloaded the building's blueprints maybe there is something on there we don't know about."

Dustin nodded as he took Walter's laptop and began searching through the city's blueprints.

Walter looked at Sarah. "How are we doing Paige?"

"I'm feeling a little better." Paige told him.

Happy leaned past the security guards and smacked Walter's arm. "If you would listen to me you would already know the blueprints are a total bust."

Walter looked at his former best friend. "If you don't mind, I'll wait for my engineer to advise me on the situation."

Happy made a face as she doubled up her fist and Toby reached out and grabbed her by her arms and pulled her backwards even as the guards stepped up to block her. "Don't do it my little sugarplum. He thinks he is god anyway, remember?"

"Damn it Toby, quit being an ass to Walter." Paige screamed through the coms.

Sarah looked over at Toby. "Dr. Curtis, if you don't mind. Quit agitating my patient, she doesn't need the stress or to use up what air she has left. Paige try and block out his comments and just focus now." She began taking Paige back through the start of her meditation.

Walter looked up and pointed at an open panel. "Is that the crawlspace you were in early Terry?"

Terry nodded.

Walter climbed up the ladder and looked into the crawlspace and his head tilted. "This can't be all the space over the control room."

Terry frowned. "What makes you say that?"

Walter looked down at Terry. "There are no pipes or anything going into the ceiling for the air to be sucked out by and the space is too small for what the blueprints show for the control room. There has to be another space on the other side of that wall. Is there another access point?"

Terry looked at his supervisor. "I didn't even consider that. Is there another access point?"

His supervisor shook his head. "This is the only one I know of."

Dustin looked up at Walter. "Hey boss, check this out. There is an older blueprint from before these revised ones were implemented. It shows there use to be a shaft of some kind that led to this room. If it is still there that is. Now normally when something is removed and a new blueprint is made, they usually make a footnote about it. But this revision doesn't have a footnote for this. So it is possible this shaft is still there, just not documented."

Happy's eyes opened as she stared at Dustin recognizing his voice finally. "BravoCompany89?"

Dustin looked over surprised and then recognition as he finally heard her voice. "BikerChick27?"

He started to say something else but the look on Walter's face after sliding down the ladder silenced him quickly. "That's our attack point. Where can we access it?"

Dustin doubled checked. "It is two floors above on the fourth floor, room 221-b, Baker wing."

Walter frowned. "221-b Baker? That was Sherlock Holmes fictitious address." He looked at Terry. "Take us there, now."

Terry nodded and led Walter and Dustin quickly up to the fourth floor to the Baker wing and a few moments later they found room 221-b. Walter touched his coms. "Paige, I'm just checking in with you. How are you doing?"

"You and Sarah have helped my fear tremendously. But it is still getting harder to breathe and my ears are really hurting." Paige told him with a bit of a wheeze to her speech.

"Try your best to yawn, it might help relieve the pressure differential. Hold on Paige, we're closer to an answer, I promise you. You are going to be okay." Walter told her even though he wasn't sure.

Dustin had quickly picked the lock on the door and it opened. It was clear that the room hadn't been used very much but there were clear signs that someone had been inside the room recently. They followed those tracks over to a floor segment. Dustin had counted each step and nodded as the prints on the floor stopped at the next floor panel. "These footprints lead right to the spot of that shaft."

Dustin pulled his utility tool out of his pocket and opened it. He drove the edge of a screwdriver between the edges of the floor plates and pried and forced the plate up a tiny bit. Terry grabbed the edge as it came up and he pulled hard with all his strength and the plate gave out and flipped back out of the way and as soon as it did there was a huge back rush of air. They could clearly hear a shrill wheeze of rushing air sound.

Toby stood outside of the room listening after following the small group upstairs.

"Paige, you should find it easier to breathe now. We've broken the air tight seal." Walter told her as he pressed his coms.

"Yes, oh yes, thank you Walter. Thank you." Paige nearly cried with joy.

Suddenly they heard a new noise as the rushing air sound stopped. It was a kind of a grinding sound. Dustin frowned as he pulled out a flashlight and directed the light down the shaft. They saw someone had placed some kind of box with vertically twirling blades about half way down the shaft that would prevent anyone from descending down the shaft.

Dustin frowned. "That makes no sense. Why would anyone put that in there?"

Toby heard the elevator ding and he quickly stepped around a corner of another doorway and waited.

Terry walked around lifting up the other floor plates to expose the complete shaft. Terry shrugged. "Unless it was some part of a security system at one time but I've never heard of anything like it. Besides, with the threat of the loss of air Paige is basically safe and we can take the time needed to cut through the security door."

Richard moved into the room. "Walter, I am so sorry. I don't know how any of this happened. Please tell me you have figured this out."

Walter shook his head as he looked at Richard. "We solved one problem and now we have another." He looked at Terry. "I don't think so. This feels wrong. Something else is going on." He touched his coms. "Paige, has anything changed down in the room?"

Paige opened her eyes for the first time since starting the meditation. "Walter, there seems to be some kind of smoke coming in from the ceiling. Walter, what's going on?"

Walter drew in a sharp breath. "I'm unsure Paige. Hold on." Walter looked down the shaft and looked at Dustin. "Did you see anyway we can access the motor for that thing and shut it down?"

Dustin shook his head. "Nothing like this is on any of the blueprints you downloaded."

Walter looked at Richard. "What do you know about this?"

Richard shook his head as he looked inside. "There was never anything like this reported to me when I bought the place."

Walter frowned as he listened. "Do you hear that?"

Greetings! I hope this finds you all well! This year is almost up! If you don't follow Heleen on IG you missed a great Walter meme, Walter declared that if you thought 2020 was bad, wait until it turns 21 and starts drinking! LOL

Heleen - It is a rough picture huh? I wonder how Ari and Tina would react on IG if they knew. LOL

Railman - Thanks, I'm trying! If my wife was still here she'd say "Very trying." lol

Lucy - LOL Thanks! It certainly is either a conversation starter or stopper. lol

Marie - Thanks!

Margaret - Thank you!

Sakura - I want to forget the activities myself! lol

To the Adventure! -Tim