Raiden had never enjoyed waiting. Nowhere in his programming was it written that he should be happy sitting still. He always had to be moving, always had to be doing something.
However, waiting was all he could do right now.
Raiden sat on an ancient milk crate in the storeroom, staring at each wall of his prison in turn. Soon, he kept telling himself in his head. Soon. Soon I can go. Soon I can get out of here. Soon I can be free again.
He judged it to have been four hours or so since Terukaima had lost control of his temper. As far as Raiden knew, Thor was still in the Room having Mizuri fix his face back up. Not much longer until everybody except the night watch in the common room outside-he was pretty sure it was Rast today-had gone downstairs.
He glanced at the air conditioning duct in the way every once in a while, sizing it up over and over. The fit would be iffy, but Raiden was nearly positive he would make it through. Still, he had felt the same way before-nearly positive that he would escape Georgina Manor undetected, nearly positive he would reclaim the money Bladewing stole from him. 'Nearly positive' didn't say much anymore.
Raiden heard Japanese (Kanji, to be precise) singing heading through the common room toward the stairs. He automatically started ruling out possibilities: Spectre didn't know Japanese, Terukaima was confined to English and Rast couldn't stand it. Thor was probably in no mood whatsoever after his telling-off to be singing, so that left Mizuri. The last person on the second floor aside from the night watch.
"'Ey Mizuree, could yah check on thee prizner, greengo?"
"Do I have to?"
"Yep."
"Crap. Fine."
Mizuri tapped in the passcode that Terukaima said was going to change the next morning and glanced around the storeroom to make sure that Raiden hadn't broken anything. "All clear, Rast."
"Gudd. Thanks."
The door slid closed.
"Wait!"
After a second's hesitation it opened again. "Yes?"
"Er...how's Thor doing?"
Mizuri donned his lop-sided, 'demented clown' grin. "You'll never know it was there by nine in the morning tomorrow. I'm damn good at that kind of thing."
He locked the door and left. Raiden waited until he was long gone and turned to the grate over the air duct in the far corner of the room, next to a shelf stacked high with old manuals and car parts. All right! No more waiting!
Keeping in mind that the slightest suspicious noise would screw him over, Raiden activated the tiny magnets embedded in the ends of his two index fingers. They were extremely powerful despite their size and the grate was galvanized steel, proven by pressing his forefingers against it and having quite a time of trying to remove his north-polarized right one again. The whole warehouse was pretty old, seeing as it hadn't yet upgraded to titanium ductwork and water-fuelled air conditioning.
There were four screws securing the grill to the wall. He worked on one at a time, holding his finger a tenth of an inch from the top of a screw and making swift counterclockwise circles, pulling outward at it followed the magnet and dropped into the hand under it when it came free. The first three were almost eager to come out but the last was rusted and took a great deal of scratching at with his fingernails before it was ready to try.
The sickening familiar flurry of beeps on the keypad outside caught Raiden totally off-guard. Within two seconds Thor was towering in the doorway, the three scars still visible on his face.
It was all far too obvious. Raiden kneeling in front of the grate, three of the screws on the floor next to him, the rust from the fourth on the floor around him.
Oh shit, he thought. And here's the end of this little expedition.
"Everything all right in here?"
Raiden stared wordlessly at Thor, mentally demanding what the hell he was doing. Thor stared right back, mouthing the words 'Say something!'
"Uh-yeah. Thanks."
"Cool. Night, Ray."
"Good night."
The door closed. Raiden kept his eyes fixed on the same spot where Thor's face had been for a full minute. Then he let out a long breath, a smile creeping onto his face. Thor, you rock.
Within fifteen seconds the last screw was out and the grate was off. With one final sweep around the room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything-there was nothing much to leave behind, anyway-he poked his head into the duct.
And instantly discovered he was immensely claustrophobic.
The silver walls were everywhere at once-up, down, left, right, so close and small and menacing and evil and oh God they were going to squish him and kill him and he was going to die a horrible screaming death in a air conditioning vent and-
He took a deep, shuddering breath, thoroughly shaken. This was a new feeling-then again, he had never been encased in something as impossibly narrow as the duct was. Funny he hadn't felt it on the plane-it probably only kicked in during really tight squeezes.
...are robots even allowed to be claustrophobic? his thought core inquired.
No, they're not, his logic center told it firmly. Just ignore it and keep going. Soon we'll be out of here forever.
"Makes sense," Raiden muttered as he began to pull himself forward.
He had been crawling along for roughly half a minute when he came to a ninety-degree left turn. With a large amount of exertion and cursing he managed to squeeze himself around, although he ripped his shirt twice on the sharp corner and got his ponytail caught on a rouge screw.
A little ways further he arrived at a fork; he had a choice between right or straight. Raiden closed his eyes and looked the warehouse over in his mind. Off to the right was the main floor and the sleeping quarters, where most of the LIST was at the moment. Straight ahead was...well, he wasn't quite sure what.
It would be way too dangerous to try and follow the right passage; one accidental bang on the wall would be hugely amplified in the big, echoey warehouse. That left one option. He continued onward, keeping his claustrophobia sealed in the back of his mind. He would use the right corridor if the other didn't pay off.
One more left turn at he was at another grate. He peered through the metal slots to make sure that nobody was in the room. It seemed to be half as long as the warehouse was wide and about twenty feet from floor to ceiling. Lengthy wooden tables covered in pencils and papers were scattered haphazardly around the room. At the far end was a stainless steel counter Raiden recognized as a repair table; he had been on the one in Wily's lab enough times to identify it at a glance. On the wall opposite the air duct was a fair-sized window.
The mystery room at the end of the duct was empty of movement. Raiden called up his Triple Spear, adjusting the direction it was facing as it was beamed in so that it wouldn't end up stuck in the wall above his head. The weapon landed blades-forward next to him. He pushed the top blade through the grate until the other two prevented it from going any further. Then he slid backward to the corner, where the end of the Triple Spear's titanium shaft almost touched the wall furthest from the grate.
Flattening his feet on the back wall and wrapping his hands around the staff, he counted to three and pushed with everything he could call up.
The grate bulged outward with the pressure, the bottom screws slipping out a quarter of an inch. Raiden stopped to give his arms a rest and check his progress. It had been a fair bit easier than he had first predicted; the metal was older than the stuff in the storeroom and was made of something like aluminium.
Almost free, he sang mentally, uncomfortably aware of the walls close around him as he got ready to make another attempt. One more push and the grill dropped right off the wall, nearly taking the Triple Spear with it. Raiden lunged forward and grabbed the end of the rod just before it slid out of the air duct and crashed loudly to the floor, the grate wedged onto the top blade.
Raiden wormed out of the duct, flipped in the air and landed catlike on the ground. He separated the grill from his staff and dismissed it. A page of blueprints crowning a stack on the nearest table caught his eye and he picked the sheet up, skimming its contents; it seemed to be a layout for the warehouse. He followed the air duct that had served as his escape route from the storeroom to the area where he was at the present and almost dropped the blueprints when he saw the label.
He was in the Big Stick Room at the end of the hall.
Well, looks like I get to look through the planning room before I go!
His eyes drifted upward to an image tacked to a corkboard under the air duct, hung at perfect reading height for the Wilybot. Boomstick Blueprints were in block letters along the top of the page. Underneath was a side-view sketch of a very deadly-looking gun with a tube-like body and telescoping cylinders on the end. The whole thing was on a forty-five degree angle, pointing skyward. The body was supported by a number of struts bolted to the ground. Under the body was a box with a pair of small tubes sticking out of the side labelled thessium intake and uranium intake. On the end of the body closest to the ground were a computer screen and a control deck. Out of the end of the telescoping cylinders there came a white beam that arced around and crashed down in a number of buildings scribbled in the background with the words Lazuli Island below. A small arrow pointing to the white beam proclaimed it as an omega wave (wave of white-hot ion energy) Just under the official description someone had scribbled and don't forget the really big shockwave! Island don't stand a chance! Below the diagram was a long list of parts, about twelve of which were not yet crossed out.
Raiden stared at the blueprints. "So that's what Terukaima's up to," he said quietly, the enormity of everything settling on him. "He's trying to blow up the city."
His central processor drifted to all the people of Lazuli Island, peacefully oblivious to the drawing on the corkboard. Every last one of them would die, simply because they lived and worked in the wrong place. He suddenly figured out what he was doing and his programming tried to force the sensation away.
No! What do you care if they die? Wilybots do not feel pity! Wilybots get on the next plane to Tibet!
"Oh yeah?" he challenged himself, his fingers twitching at his sides. Anyone walking in on him at that point would have shipped him straight off to the nearest mental institute. "How come I feel for all these humans, then? I must not be a Wilybot."
B-but...that makes no...you were built by...so you have to be... His program's voice gibbered senselessly for a moment, then fell silent.
"That's what I'll do. I won't let them blow up Lazuli Island...I'll show them what I can do. I'll show them what they get for locking me up. And if Thor knows what's good for him, he'll get the hell out of here before I start."
Raiden pulled the diagram off the corkboard, folding it up and tucking it into his pocket. Then, turning, he marched over to the window. Just as he kicked out the middle pane, Rast's yell shook the warehouse.
"Dee prizner eez gone!"
Raiden smiled to himself as he sailed out into the frosty darkness. Have fun catching me again, you bastards.