Special Delivery

Author's note; I guess I should continue my habit of updating daily. I've got time to spare. Not enough of it, but I do have time to spare.

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Chapter 3: Atrium Hijinks and Lobby Laughs
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CARLSBAD APARTMENTS LOBBY - 28:03:2
As we entered, the lights suddenly died. "The power's out," Sam informed us. "Marvin must've removed a fuse. Looks like using the elevator is out of the question."

A police officer stopped us. "I'm terribly sorry, but there's been a burglary here, and we've closed off the area. I'm afraid I can't let you through."

"You look familiar," I told the officer. "Have we met?"
"Maybe not, but I've heard of you. Aren't you that new team from Prince Pete's Pizza Parlor?"
Alex nodded. "Can we get to the stairs? We need to deliver a pizza to Marvin G. Schwartz of the penthouse suite."
"Sorry, I can't. Like I said, we've closed off the area."

At that moment, Sam recognized the officer in question. She yanked off his hat, and revealed the identity of the officer. This was Marvin. But you knew that, right?
His disguise spoiled, Marvin fled up the stairs. We tried to follow, but he slammed the door behind him, and Sam got hit by it. By the time we opened it again, Marvin was gone.
Alex sighed. "Well, so much for that. Let's begin the climb."

As we climbed up the stairs, Sam stopped us. She put on her heat-sensor 6000's and scanned the staircase. "I'm getting a funny reading from that fifth stair. I think Marvin set up a trap."
I leaned forward and tapped the stair in question with my pencil. A boxing glove shot out of the wall, punching the space in front of me. Had I been on that stair, the glove would've knocked me cold.
Sam's suspicions were confirmed now. We continued scaling the stairs, stepping OVER that stair, and any other stairs Sam warned us against.

Somewhere around the twelfth floor, we found that Marvin had placed a ceiling through the stairs. How he did that was beyond us, but one thing was for sure: Climbing even one step further was out of the question.
"We can cross over and use the other staircase," I figured, and we exited to the twelfth-floor hallway.

As it happened, floor 12 was the atrium floor. The whole area was like a big garden. It was almost like an indoor jungle, and the sunlight slanting through the windows against the dead lights added to the feel.
To boot, Marvin had set up a tape player to play jungle sounds. He apparently wanted us to feel that we were in the middle of a real jungle. It worked.

"Twenty-five minutes, thirty-eight point two seconds," I read from my DS. "Looks like we don't have much time to spare."

Bravely we pressed on. We were stopped cold, however, when a lion met us face to face. It growled menacingly, and apparently had intentions of eating us whole.
A thought hit me upside the head. "Wait a minute. Since when do lions hang out in the jungle>"

Alex handed me the pizza, rushed the lion, and knocked it over with an uppercut to the chin. Its underside displayed a zipper. Clever, but not clever enough. She unzipped the zipper, and inside was none other than Marvin.
"That was one impressive lion you got eaten by," I cracked. Marvin fled again, disappearing into the bushes.
The lion costume Marvin was wearing remained on the ground. Just for a laugh, Sam put it on and growled. I think she scared Alex, though I wasn't really paying attention.

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I'll leave it here for now. What'll be next?