They seemed to be in another meeting point of corridors. Doors branched off to their left and right. Seeing this, Ferb heaved a sigh.
"We're never getting out of here." he said
"Course we will. We've got you." Phineas said.
Ferb smiled inwardly. Phineas always knew the right thing to say.
They picked a door branching off to their left and hurtled through it-
-and came face to face with their pursuers.
For one second, time seemed to freeze as the hunter stared at the hunted-
Ferb simply had no time to react. He was tired and at the end of his rope.
The robots fired, a blast of certain death coming Ferb's way-
But Phineas jumped and shoved him aside-
-and the laser hit his right hand!
He yelled in pain, but somehow managed to make it to the door they had came through in.
The laser blasts flew everywhere. One of them singed Ferb's hair.
"Oh, they are so going down." Phineas' right hand was bleeding.
But he still had his good hand, because he was left-handed.
They rushed through the heavy steel door immediately opposite them and bolted the door. It would not stop the robots, but it would give them time.
Looking around, the saw they were in a corridor that had no doors branching off it. The walls were blank.
They dashed down the corridor, taking a 90-degree left turn at the end-
-only to be stopped short by an elevator blocking their way.
There's an elevator here? Why didn't they use that, instead of the lake bottom entrance? It's an unusual size, too- what do they use it for? Cargo? It's huge.
Several buttons were on the display: Level 1, 2, 3, Topworld...
That sounds promising...let's try that.
He hit the button.
Ding!
The display above the elevator sprang to life.
What it showed, however, was something Ferb did not want to see.
PLEASE INSERT KEYCARD. On the buttons panel, a card slot helpfully materialized.
Great. What do we do now?
The three of them were startled by a bang on the steel door.
There should be a keyhole somewhere on the elevator's door. If I can find it and hack it-
BANG!
They were breaking in. That was no surprise. What surprised Ferb was that they didn't break in yet.
Apparently Hazelton mistrusts his robots as much as I do. That's why he made the doors robot-proof...or as close to it as financially possible.
There it is! Ferb had spotted the keyhole, high up in the door. Perfectly within range for the tall Brit on tiptoes. He took out his hairpin and was halfway through hacking the door when he stopped short.
The key is here?
Sure enough, there was the key, just dangling there by the door.
He wrenched the key off its hook and-
BANG! This time, it was followed by a crash.
He didn't waste any time and jammed it into the keyhole. If the robots were through, they had to get out of here very very fast.
"Hurry!" urged Phineas.
You try doing it. Nevertheless, he opened the door-
-and straightaway had a bad case of vertigo.
Where there was supposed to be an elevator cab, there wasn't one.
Only a sheer drop, 400 feet to the bottom.
Of course, they had conveniently ignored the 'OUT OF ORDER' signs above them when they turned into the elevator dead end.
Ferb never liked heights. And now they were sandwiched between death by laser and death by falling 400 feet.
Just our luck, Ferb thought.
Well, at least we get a last stand. And here they come, in all their glory-
Lasers flew everywhere, cutting through the three.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, the lasers, Ferb's hair, Isabella-
Isabella?
She was suspended, for the briefest instant, over the abyss, her mouth open in a silent scream-
Ferb did not see what had happened, but Phineas certainly did.
"No!" Even Phineas' voice seemed to come out in slow motion.
And then she fell.
Phineas POV(1st person)
There is no life without her. Call me what you will, but I'm going to save her...or die trying.
Only one way out, then.
I jumped in after her. But I'm not committing suicide.
I had a plan. And in the next ten seconds, it had better work.
Behind me, Ferb had other things to worry about. And so did I. I blocked out all distractions and focused on my goal. One.
She had fallen in almost vertically, while I had dived in at an angle. Two.
Thankfully, the cables that hoisted the defective elevator cab were still there. Three.
I was falling ever faster now...towards death and Isabella...towards doom and salvation. Four. She seemed to be slipping away from me, and I streamlined myself to increase my speed, for she had fallen in spreadeagled and was slower then me. There was still a chance. Five.
Bad thoughts flash through my head now. What if I don't survive? I pushed the thoughts out. I have to. Six. I was zooming in on Isabella, and in the dim light, I could clearly see how bad her injury was. My heart sank.
I'm reaching out for her, her hand, her life, my world-seven.
I've caught her! We're falling towards the cables, where I've aimed us-eight.
I'm reaching out for our lifeline now, hoping against hope-nine.
The sudden jolt in my hands means I've done it! I've caught hold of a cable, and though while sliding down it stings and burns, I didn't let go for the last fifteen feet.
And...touchdown! One of the weirdest days ever. It even beats the day when everyone on Maple Drive couldn't remember anything and could only dream of it.
We're on a defective elevator cab, suspended halfway up the HUGE complex.
Four hundred feet below the world, the green laser flashes looked small, insignificant, almost like a Fourth of July show seen from a distance. But I knew it was anything but.
So I yelled up, "Ferb! Trust me! Jump!"
I could only hope he heard and trusted me.
Ferb's POV(1st person)
I was certain I had lost my friend to war and my brother to madness. And I myself was one step away from being laser toast.
No, I think I'll stay away from laser tag after this.
That's when I heard his voice.
"Ferb! Trust me! Jump!"
I was stunned. He's alive?
Neatly sidestepping a laser blast, I weighed my options.
For some reason, the robots weren't plugging away at us as hard as they could. Maybe they had orders to take us alive. In any case, in five seconds I was going to be tagged by a laser, and I had to think of a way to get out fast.
After careful consideration for two seconds, I reached the only logical choice. Still zapping with my taser, which was dangerously close to overheating, I decided to make my escape more American.
"You'll never take me alive!" I waved and grinned to them. They hesitated at what they had been programmed to think of as a friendly gesture, and I seized my chance-
I turned around, and fighting vertigo, I jumped.
Phineas POV(1st person)
Of course, Ferb made a flawless jump. He descended to where we were.
The robots looked over the edge and blasted their lasers at us.
I evaluated our situation. Our elevator seemed to have stopped between two floors, and the doors were jammed open. If we jumped off, we could land on one of them. There was just one problem-
"There's a gap." Sure enough, there was an ADMIT ONE ticket to death between the elevator roof and the floor.
"It's a chance we'll have to take." I said.
And together, we jumped off and landed on the floor, the robots' futile shots never troubling us. This floor seemed to be as dark as the elevator shaft we just left.
"Cmon, let's get going." Ferb said, already setting off like a police dog that has scented a scent.
Me and Isabella just let Ferb guide us. We were too tired to muster any effort of our own. In Isabella's case, I was actually carrying her.
Perry was alone. No Monogram to help him, no Carl with some state-of-the-art gadget that could help him. And worst of all, no Phineas and Ferb.
He had to make a decision fast. Should he go in and assist his owners, revealing himself and possibly never seeing them again?
Whether he said yes or no, the clock was ticking. Indecision was murder, in either case.