Author's Note: In order not to cause anyone any unnecessary confusion, the explanation is thus: Italics are events happening in the past, ordinary type is happening right now!

Also, I seem to be having a problem getting hold of Bianka-Chan, I don't know whether her computer's on the blink again, or if she's super busy, or if my email account has decided to play up. (But whatever the case, I'm going to continue sending the updates, and hope you get back to me when you can.) Therefore peoples this chapter is full of my grammatical errors. I'm posting it now, because if I don't, I'll never get round to writing the next.

Stardust Ray: I'm forever writing Seifer as evil, so I thought I'd give him a break this time. He's not such a bad chap really, just a little messed up around sorceresses.

Highway To The Dangerzone

Chapter Thirteen

Squall stood in front of the gang, behind him the plan-board looked at them all ominously. The board was covered in scribbles where the gang had changed their minds about certain aspects of the plan, and had made the subsequent changes.

Squall had one hand in his pocket and one hand pointing to the red cross on the board.

"Alright you lot, lets go over this plan one final time," he said, feeling for the first time since they had begun plotting, a pang of apprehension. "We will start with Irvine, since you'll be involved in stage one alone, our success all depends upon yours."

"No pressure then," Irvine muttered.

"Don't worry, I'll be right there with you, well, in spirit anyway," Quistis said playfully hitting his arm. "Whispering in your ear, telling you what you're doing wrong…"

"Enough messing about," Squall said stopping the fun. "This is important!"

"Yes boss!" Selphie replied saluting, receiving a snigger from Zell and a scowl from Squall.

"Irvine you will be in charge of obtaining the key to the lift, without it we can't hope to reach floor 20 in time. Once you have obtained it you will take it to the first floor. The first floor is public domain, which means you can access it via a staircase, which will be your escape route later. Take the key and drop it out of the window; I will then collect it. Understood so far?"

"Get key, take it upstairs, drop it out the window, sorted," Irvine replied.

"Then it's mine and Squall's turn! Isn't that right?" Selphie said excitedly.

Squall nodded.

Squall and Selphie stood in silence as the elevator whirred it's way up the levels. It didn't seem to be in much of a hurry, passing each floor slowly and unaware of whom it was carrying within.

Squall looked at Selphie, her hands were shaking, but her eyes were focused. He couldn't be sure whether she was frightened or just excited, maybe both, but whatever she was feeling he knew he could count on her to play her part.

"Between levels 20 and 21 I am going to stop the lift. It can only be stopped for 30 seconds before the maintenance staff are alerted, so Selphie you have to be fast. There is a hatch on the lift roof that will open up into the lift shaft. Selphie you must climb on top of the lift, and once there, stay still. Now the lift will go up slightly at first so remain where you are, as the lift descends grab the maintenance ladder."

Selphie gave Squall a 'thumbs up' to show that she understood him.

"Remember to knock out the camera first," she then added.

Squall watched the numbers above the door illuminate one after the other, 17, 18, 19, 20…

His finger, already poised over the emergency stop button hit home, and the lift stopped with a jerk. A quick motion with his fist broke the CCTV camera, and with his other hand he undid the latch to the roof.

Selphie grabbed his shoulder and stepped into his laced fingers. As she was lifted up, she found herself looking up into the empty lift shaft, a chain running up into the darkness above. She looked down at Squall before he lifted her up higher and she found herself up on the top of the elevator.

"OK?" Squall asked her.

"Perfect," Selphie replied grinning. "See you later!"

Squall shut the hatch and turned his attention back to the control panel. He pressed button 20.

The lift continued up to floor 21 before changing direction and heading back down to floor 20, as the doors opened Squall had no idea if Selphie had made it to her destination safely, all he could do was concentrate on his part of the robbery and hope that they'd meet up again later.

"Squall," Quistis spoke in his ear, she'd just seen him appear in the surveillance camera. "You need to greet the woman on the desk in front of you, she'll ask you why you are here, but since you managed to get into the elevator she probably won't question very closely."

Squall heard a thud come from the ceiling above him, the sound gave him confidence, and he looked up trying to imagine what was going on up there. But he didn't have the time to wonder, not if he was opposed to attracting attention for loitering in the hallway. There was a buzz, and Quistis was shouting in his ear again.

"Get on with it Squall, or the woman is going to think you're lost."

Quistis was right, he had to get moving. The woman was already smiling at him, ready to answer any questions he might have, her customer services manual under the desk filled with all the answers.

"Can I help you sir?" she asked.

Squall looked at her, distracted momentarily by her polished red nails.

"Yes, I'm here to check the laser monitors in room five," Squall said, trying to sound as if he did this all day long.

Suddenly Quistis was speaking in his ear again, drowning out the woman's reply.

"Stall for time! Stall for time!" she shrieked.

"Quistis, what do you mean there may be a problem, I thought you told me you could handle this?" Squall asked, trying to hold in his annoyance.

It was too late in the day to start wondering whether they would be able to pull it off. They had gone over this part, time and time again, and every time Squall had asked her, Quistis had assured him that she'd be able to do it.

"You must have seen the news, a few days ago the Karter building had a security scare, some kid managed to get up onto floor 13 without being stopped by security. Turns out the boy only wanted to make a delivery of some cakes and pastries and had gotten lost, but now they've upped the security in room five," Quistis told them all.

Everyone looked at her as if all their dreams had just been shattered. Dreams of lives far from this dead-end place, never worrying about money, never worrying about what was coming next, everyone had an idea of the life they wanted, and so Quistis' news made them all feel ill.

"Well, Quistis, what does that mean?" Squall asked.

Quistis took deep breath.

"It means that rather than changing their security code once a week, they are now changing it once a day. This means of course that rather than hacking in earlier and finding it within their files before you go, I will have to find it once you are there."

There was silence again.

"But," Selphie began. "You have so much to do already! You're already hacking into the security cameras, keeping control through the earpieces, and now you're searching through files? How are you going to manage all of that?"

Quistis shook her head.

"Maybe I could stay with Quistis? I could help her," Zell offered.

"You?" Irvine laughed. "You don't know a thing about computers, what are you going to do, stand and watch? Press the escape key? Delete, delete, delete?"

Zell folded his arms and sank back in his chair.

"Like you know anything about computers," he muttered.

"Alright, enough. Quistis do you want Zell to help you? Don't be afraid of loosing friends now, we're all leaving soon anyway and I doubt that we'll see much of each other after this," Squall said putting all the pressure on Quistis. She looked at Zell, Irvine was right, he didn't know anything about computers, but she had no doubt that he'd learn fast, but then again, she couldn't take the chance.

"I'll manage alone. We should stick to original plan, that's what we all know, I'll just have to work harder that's all."

Squall's heart seemed to stop for one frightening moment, for that split second he thought it was all over. He couldn't imagine what the others would be feeling; Selphie hiding in some cramped space, Irvine creeping out of the building, Zell waiting patiently in the building opposite, Quistis frantically sorting out glitches; all of them waiting like himself with their hearts pounding in fear.

He looked at the woman and tried a friendly smile.

"Have you been working here long?" he asked trying to engage her in a conversation.

It was lucky that she happened to be fairly young, therefore making it more plausible that he was trying to chat her up. Not usually very good at this sort of thing, pretending seemed to be much easier, probably because he knew all was depending upon him holding her attention.

"About a year now," she replied.

He looked at her name badge.

"Alison," he said making her look up from her desk again. "I used to know an Alison once…"

Squall cringed inside; this was excruciatingly embarrassing, he couldn't think of anything interesting to say.

"Oh yeah?" the woman asked.

Surprisingly she seemed pretty interested in anything that he said, her job must be pretty boring, Squall thought.

----

Selphie looked at her hands, they were covered in flaked off black paint from the ladder rungs she had just climbed up. She had managed to climb into the air ducts fairly quickly once inside the elevator shaft, and was now sitting directly over the top of room five. She was still inspecting her hands when Quistis' worried shout bellowed into her ears.

Dragging her phone from her pocket, Selphie hit Quistis' number and waited. At first all she received was the engaged tone, so she tried again. She assumed the others were doing the same thing as her, checking into base, all worried about what was happening. Rather than answer her call, Quistis spoke to them all over the earpieces.

"I can't get the code!"