She started shimmying up slowly, one foot on each side of the vent. It couldn't have been more than three feet wide, so it was easy to climb up. The metal of the sides was spotted with slits that provided a small amount of friction.
By the time Hiiro had started climbing, Shiris had killed 10 men and they were still coming. She had dodged numerous bullets, and was started to back up to the last corner. The last defense.
"Mayumi! Are they all up?" she shouted.
"Almost! How are you doing?"
"Not so good!"
Trowa started for the corner.
"No!" Mayumi whispered, pulling him back. "She can handle it! If she cant, she'll come around the corner and then we can help her!"
He stopped moving, eyes narrowed.
"Come on! Get up there!" She shoved him into he vent. Reluctantly, he began climbing. Julie was almost half way up.
"Mayumi, get up there! I'll hold them off until you make it up. Then I'll come up."
"No, you're coming too!" Mayumi ran to Shiris.
"Mayumi! What are you doing? Get back there!"
"I'm going to help you."
"Mayumi, go." Shiris commanded. She shot the next man to appear. Mayumi shot the next two.
"No."
Shiris glared at her, but couldn't do anything about it.
"So how long do we keep this up?" Shiris asked after the 30th man.
"Until there is a break in the men." Mayumi answered. They waited a moment.
"Can we go? I don't see anyone on the watch," Shiris commented, glancing at her watch.
Mayumi looked at it. "Okay. Lets make a run for it."
They leapt up and raced for the shaft. Mayumi went in followed by Shiris.
Looking up, they saw Trowa about halfway up. That meant Julie was almost out.
"We're here!" Mayumi called up.
"Shiris! Are you okay?" Trowa called down, fear in his voice.
"Yea, I'm fine!" She replied, happy that he had asked.
"How far up is Julie?" Mayumi asked.
"I'm about two thirds of the way up!" She yelled down.
Mayumi and Shiris quickly caught up with Trowa and the others out of pure nerves. The men could come back at any second, and they were sitting ducks in the shaft.
"So, what—exactly are we going to do when— we get out?" Shiris whispered to Mayumi as she slowly moved one foot and then the other.
"I don't really know. I suppose we should go back to the hotel to get our bags, if they're still there."
"But the Federation will be staking that place out. They'll be expecting us to go back there," Shiris noted.
"True, but I'm sure we can sneak in. I mean, hell, we made it out of here alive."
"Don't count on it!" Julie suddenly shouted back down, having reached the top.
She stared over the top of the shaft again. Pale blue skies and clouds greeted her vision.
"Apparently, the shaft doesn't stop at the ground floor! It extends up at least 100 feet above ground! It was that tall thing we saw when we got out of the van!" Julie yelled down, hair blowing in the wind.
"Can we climb down?" Hiiro asked.
"Maybe, it might be thin enough to shimmy down."
"Can you try it?"
"Hiiro! She might fall!" Duo exclaimed, annoyed at his friend's insensitivity.
"Don't worry Duo, I can try. But if I die, I wouldn't recommend this escape route."
"So not funny! Be careful! If you can't, we can go back down!" Shiris called up, worried as well.
Julie carefully pushed herself up onto the top of the shaft. The wind was strong that high up, and it was hard to keep her balance. The sun had just risen over the horizon, and the sky was lit with colors.
She lowered herself so that her legs wrapped around the tower and she was holding onto the edge of the vent. Then she carefully moved her arms, one after the other, down around the tower.
"Okay, I think if we cling to the tower, we can shimmy down!" She yelled to them, shaking her wind blown hair away from her face. She started inching her way down.
Duo quickly climbed up and hugged the vent after Julie was far enough down.
Back in the shaft, Shiris looked down. She took one hand off the side of the vent and looked at her watch.
"Oh, shit, we gotta hurry it up!" she shouted to the others. "They're coming! And no way in hell am I getting shot in this position!"
Mayumi looked down. Sure enough, she could see shadows at the end of the shaft.
"Two people at a time shimmying down the shaft, one on each side. Lets move!" Hiiro ordered. He quickly went up onto the top of the tower and wrapped his arms and legs around it and started down. Julie wasn't far away, since it was very difficult to hold onto the tower in the wind. Progress was very slow. Trowa started down the other side, opposite of the other three.
"Mayumi, go! They're almost here!" Shiris urged, glancing at her watch again.
Mayumi scampered up the shaft and out into the sunlight, going down the side opposite Trowa.
She was lying across the opening and wrapping her legs around the shaft when the commandos realized that they could shoot up the vent.
She cried out when a bullet grazed the left side of her stomach.
"Mayumi! What happened?" Hiiro shouted from below.
"Its okay!" Mayumi answered, quickly moving away form the opening as more shots rang out. Looking down into the shaft, she found Shiris had crunched herself onto one side of the shaft. She then flung her arms up, gripped the top of the shaft, and hoisted herself out before more bullets were fired. She was thanking her lucky stars that one hadn't hit her when a volley erupted like lava from a volcano out of the shaft. She moved so fast that she lost her footing.
"Shit!" She muttered, looking down. She was now hanging by just her fingertips, which were getting nicked by the bullets shooting up out of the tower. Trowa was staring up at her, bangs blowing in the wind.
She quickly hooked her legs around the side, grimacing as she bent her fingers. Her hands weren't doing so hot either. All knuckles were bleeding, and her grip was getting loser.
"Only 97 feet to go," she muttered to herself as she slid down.
Julie was the farthest, almost halfway down. She could hear the scrape of boots on metal from inside the tower.
"They're halfway up!" she called to everyone.
"Move faster!" Hiiro shouted to her.
"I'm going as fast as I can!" she yelled back, glaring up at him as best she could.
"Do you know how funny we must look?" Duo laughed, braid whipping around.
Julie giggled and almost lost her grip. "Yeah, imagine if someone came along and saw six people clinging to a tower!"
"What are you two laughing about?" Hiiro asked from above.
"You wouldn't understand," Duo replied with a laugh.
"And why not?"
"Because it involves humor," Julie said with a snicker. Hiiro glared at them some more.
""Whoa! Shit!" Trowa exclaimed suddenly, staring at the tower.
"What? What is it?" Shiris asked anxiously, looking down at Trowa.
"A bullet was just shot at my face! Luckily the metal was thick enough that it didn't go through, but-"
A series of bangs interrupted him.
"Yikes!" Duo exclaimed, looking down at an imprint of a bullet that had appeared in front of his stomach.
"Faster! Faster!" He urged Julie. They had maybe 50 feet to go, and the ground looked a long way down.
By know the people inside had caught on that the metal wasn't giving way, and stepped up their attempts.
"They're getting further out!" Shiris warned, a bullet poking though the metal directly in front of the middle of her forehead.
"Ouch!" Julie screamed as a bullet nicked her arm. "They're going through!"
"We're sitting ducks out here!" Duo cried. Julie started to slide down, not caring about the friction burns she was getting. It wasn't a super fast process, but it was faster. The others soon imitated her.
After a moment she checked the ground. "I'm almost far enough down that I can jump!" Julie cried. The ground was about 20 feet down.
"Okay, I'm gonna jump!" Julie said, looking down. She had maybe 10 feet to go. She let her feet dangle, and then let go. She landed with a thump on the ground, but still on her feet. Glancing around, she saw the shack some distance away. Next to it was the van.
"I'm gonna get the van!" she shouted, and started running. A second later Duo jumped down and raced after her.
"Hiiro, can you jump yet?" Trowa called.
"Almost…there!" he jumped and landed lightly, looking up.
"Hurry! Jump!" he shouted to Mayumi as faces appeared at the top of the vent.
Mayumi looked at him doubtfully. Should she trust him?
He motioned again. Hell, why not. She let go and fell into his arms. He immediately propped her up on her feet and started running to the van. So much for a dashing hero.
Mayumi looked up. Trowa was almost within jumping distance, and Shiris was right behind him. The men on the top were gesturing down at them, unsure of what to do.
Trowa jumped down, and gestured to Shiris. She jumped and landed in his arms. Unlike Hiiro, he held her for a moment. "Are you okay?"
She nodded, smiling up at him. Mayumi turned away and headed for the van.
The men up top had finally decided to shoot at them, and bullets began to rain down. Trowa put Shiris down and they sprinted for the van, praying the commandos were bad shots.
Inside the van, Duo had hotwired the controls and Julie was riding shotgun.
The van screeched up to Hiiro and Mayumi, who flung open the door and jumped in. Not bothering to close the door, Duo raced to Trowa and Shiris, who flung themselves in amid a chorus of bullets.
Shiris managed to slam the door shut, and bullets riddled the door.
"Hang on tight, this is gonna be a bumpy ride!" Duo shouted, but the others couldn't hear him.
"I'm guessing this is gonna be a bump-p-p-y-y-eee!" Shiris cried as Duo swerved all over the place. The passengers in the van couldn't see anything. Up front was another story.
"They're sending out cars!" Julie exclaimed, looking in the mirror. Behind them, three vans were trailing them. Duo shoved the pedal all the way down and streaked onto the dirt road that led away from the bunker.
"Where are we going?" Julie asked, hanging on for dear life to the door handle.
"Back to your hotel, right?" he answered.
"I guess so. But we have to lose the commandos quickly."
"Don't worry," Duo replied with an evil grin. "I'll use their own tricks against them." He reached over Julie into the glove compartment and took out a remote.
"Bingo!" he said, and pressed the red button. In the mirror, Julie saw a thick wall of metal slid up behind them. Two of the following vans were smashed to pieces when they ran headlong into it. Only one emerged.
"All right!" She gave Duo a high five and a huge smile. Because of that, the spies in the back were thrown around even more as Duo swerved off the road, distracted by Julie.
"Hey!" Mayumi exclaimed, pounding on the divider between the back and the front. "What are you doing?"
Julie and Duo vaguely heard them.
Mayumi sat back and looked around. Or at least, she tried to look around. She couldn't see anything. It was pitch black in the interior of the van, even though it was a sunny day outside.
"Ouch!" she head Shiris exclaim as Duo turned a corner a bit fast.
She had hit her stomach against something, and it stung painfully.
"Jesus, Duo, what are you doing up there?" she shouted angrily.
"Hiiro, what's in here?" Mayumi asked.
"Some items for binding prisoners, some junk, nothing useful," he replied.
No, just stuff that hurt a lot when you slam into it, she thought wryly.