This might be my favorite chapter ever. Of all time. It pretty much goes down how I wanted. If only it were animated. This entire chapter was inspired by a song, the 'Detra-Giant Appears', which is from the Professor Layton movie soundtrack.

To enhance your experience, after reading this thoroughly, try picture this being animated. You'll have to make the lines fit with the song I mentioned to add the background music. If you start reading where Edward first starts talking and start playing the song (here, without spaces: www . youtube watch?v=LEyn1GRtNVE&list=SP12243978ED5B1469), and if you get all the dialogue in until Laura says, "Worry about your own damn light" by 40 seconds, the song gets action-like, and that's when Laura starts running. Of course, the song runs out too soon, but in my mind, this chapter was BORN from those 40 seconds.

Anyway, I'm weird. Leave me alone.

Holding Santa hostage,
Kelsey

CHAPTER 41: WHITE-COLLAR DELUSIONS

"Damn it all!" Laura shouted, pounding the computer keyboard hard enough to dislodge several letter keys. "Locked out of my own program!"

She shot up and pushed the swivel chair out of the way as she darted out of the computer room, leaving the flashing monitors behind. Trusting her legs more than she should have, she darted around corners and through the halls before finding herself in the drill chamber. The metal walkways spiraled around the circular space, diagonal staircases set at intervals in order to descend to the next level of the coiling pathway.

At the very topmost level, there was a little niche cut into the wall, housing a set of tall, double-monitor computers. They lined a portion of the path like sentinels, a motionless guard. Laura raced to them, typed in her password, and began bypassing the security barrier that Edward had so conveniently managed to put in place, specifically to keep her out.

"His little failsafe plan... Must be what he was busy doing when he locked himself in that stupid office annex…"

'Did he really plan all this out…? Locking me out so I couldn't change anything? I can't switch the drills' paths at all! I'll have to shut down the main power source to do anything…

'But that would shut off all of the pressure pumps. If I don't maintain a sound air pressure down below, everything will crumble and cave in. Who knows what that would do…'

"I'lljust implement the back-up generators so that the pressure pumps can maintain facility structure, or else this place is going to crumble inward on itself," she said aloud, as if hearing the words would prove her theory.

'It's all so risky! If something were to go wrong… I just wanted to redo the programming code and guide the stupid thing another way! I'm going to have to hack it to do things my way, and I probably won't have time!'

"Oh, I hate him!" she hissed, causing an echo barely audible.

"Hate who?"

The soft whisper spilled into her eardrums before her own voice had a chance to reach them. She slunk off to the side, but not before gasping, the sharp intake of breath bouncing off the walls like a flutter of bats. Edward had entered the computer space; when, Laura did not know. He wore a smug expression, his grin tilted and sarcastic, but small strands of his gelled hair poked out at random angles, making him look a bit humorous. That is…if he weren't mentally lost.

Her eyes darted to his hands, which were empty. The last thing she needed was a madman with a weapon in this tight space, but 'nothing' in his hands didn't necessarily equate to 'nothing' underneath his jacket…

"You wouldn't happen to mean me, would you?" he said dramatically, an air of feigned hurt lacing his voice.

"What are you doing?" she croaked. She was trying to maintain her poise, but felt her resolve deteriorating. "Why'd you lock me out of my own program?"

"Come now, Laura, you really need to ask? You're trying to thwart my plans, why would I just allow you complete access to all of my company's information and programs?" He shrugged, letting out a mellow laugh as he approached her. "Now, if you were being a quiet, nice little worker, I'd have thought nothing of it. However, you've been everything but that."

She couldn't hold back a snarl; she was completely peeved, and forgot herself. "Why would I just sit back and let you kill the whole populace of the planet, just because you feel inadequate? You've gone mad. Just shut it down, or let me shut it down…safely."

"Safely? Hmm, no, I don't think so. That would be too easy, and I don't think you like easy, do you, Laura?" He looked about the area, his eyes widening. "Where's your little professor pal, and his little friend? Ditched you? Like he did before?"

"Stop stalling me."

"Not that I could blame him. The girl who will be single-handedly responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Not the most attractive feature in a woman, no…" He paused. "Nothing to say?"

Ignoring the close-to-insufferable taunts, Laura attempted a discrete glance at the computer. The progress bar of her hack was at 80%. She'd begun cracking the block when Edward emerged, and was close to being able to initiate an emergency shut-down without cutting the entire power source. It had a 65% success rate, but it was better than shutting everything down. The possibility of the counter-pressure measures failing meant that the entire underground facility would implode on itself due to the earth's own subterranean force, making the chances of success a permanent, resounding zero.

'Come on, a lousy 20% more…'

"I have nothing to say to your taunting, Edward," she retorted coolly, folding her arms across her chest. She immediately regretted her haughtiness.

The man's face changed, much like it had back in the office. His eyes looked frosted and vacant, distant from the current reality. Lost in his own world, Edward grinned.

"You don't have to say anything." He took a step forward, causing Laura to jump a bit, her muscles anticipating an attack. "It's really too bad you couldn't have just kept quiet. Why'd you have to go meddling? Why'd you have to go and get him to help you? Couldn't do it on your own, understandably, but really, him? We both wanted him destroyed, why'd you have to go and do that, huh?"

"I didn't want him dead…"

"Whether you admit that you did or not, I don't care, but you just had to ruin it. It would have been clean and quick. But no, I had to go destroying everyone with info on me, anyone with potentially destructive information, because you kept seeking them out, trying to play inspector. So, ultimately, you killed them all off…"

He stepped closer. Laura retreated an equal amount of steps that he advanced and soon she'd be out of reach of the computer. She felt the sweat on her face, under her arms, on her palms.

"Those two wench maids, the idiot engineer with the cabaret, I suppose you could call it…" he continued, trailing off with a snigger. "Oh, there were others, old friends of my father. Archaeologists, engineers, the like. I had to cover my tracks. Anyone that led to me had to die. Even before you began meddling, there were others. Those who are the closest to us will hurt us the most, I'm afraid, as you attest. But all those deaths…do you realize that you're responsible for that?

"And as for that Ginlade character…yes. Layton was right about that one. The headmaster had to die too. Against me, he was. I wanted him to get rid of Layton for ruining my reputation, destroying my name by denying me the QwiqLogiq scholarship." He beamed at Laura's confused facial expression. "Yes, Laura. He chose your little drills, your engineering expertise, and he didn't even know who you were yet. But he'd put in quite a few good words about you, nominated you essentially. Oh no, that wouldn't do! Being bested by some peon girl. And Ginlade wouldn't see things my way.

"Do you remember him well? I think it was his death that really sparked my interest in obliterating anyone that crossed my path. That's why the world must go. Those who are capable of survival…so be it; they will have passed my test. The weak, they cannot be considered into the equation. After all, survival of the fittest. Can't say I enjoy the mess, especially with Ginlade. I figured the cyanide would have been instant, but apparently he caught on to what was in his tea that morning."

"You're psychotic," Laura sneered, sucking her teeth. She was becoming very uncomfortable in his presence. Edward was basically a ticking time bomb, a loose cannon, a vat of dangerous acid ready to boil over, and she presumed that he was relaying details and minute facts in order to catch her off guard.

"Hmm, perhaps. Yes, I went a little overboard with the stabbing, but Ginlade was a big man, and he wouldn't have went down with just oneslice. Yes, that was a mess, but well, you know how that goes."

'No, I don't!'

Laura's nostrils flared; she was thoroughly disgusted. The computer screen caught her eye, and she screamed internally with delight. '1%...come on!'

Then he smiled sweetly, sickeningly. "It's when the light leaves their eyes… That's the sweetest moment."

The girl inhaled deeply, and steeled herself for what was to follow.

"Worry about your own damn light."

All at once, Laura slammed her fist into the 'Enter' key to confirm crisis protocol as Edward pulled out a short knife, leaping at her. She sprung backward in the nick of time to avoid a deep slash to her abdomen. Edward's eyes were wild, like an animal on the hunt, and his smile was a manic, toothy one; it might have been charming, were the knife and the crazed eye-gleam absent. The girl raced past him as he tried jabbing her again, and the pursuit began.

Drum beats sounded in Laura's ears, the pounding of her heart counting down her last moments as she returned to the inner hallways. She chanced a look behind her, whimpering as she ran, the predator right behind her.

"You and I both know you can't run well!" he shouted, coming closer and closer. "Why don't you just accept fate as it's dealt unto you?!"

It was the truth: her legs were already throbbing. But stopping meant dying, and she couldn't die yet.

"I have too much to do," she wheezed as she plodded on. "I'm not going to give in…"

'Not to him!'

She darted around a corner and bolted through a pair of metal doors. They swung back and forth on their hinges as she continued forward, hoping they'd slow down Edward. Onward she flew, through another set of doors warning her of the next destination: the drill chamber she'd just come from. It was the only way to keep out of reach of the madman on her heels.

The chase led back to the vast chasm of a room, Laura's path winding around the metal pathway, down a staircase, zig-zagging again across the clanking passages. The floor panels shook and shuddered like scaffolding, narrow and nerve-wracking; she was at the mercy of the floor's construction. If the situation would have allowed, Laura would have held some sort of empathy for window washers on their cheap scaffolds, but her mind was screaming the only thing that mattered: If I don't escape, I'll die here, like a mouse caught by a cat.

Alone…

And then she remembered suddenly, that she wasn't alone after all.

"Oh happy day, please hear me. HERSHEL!" Her voice traveled upward, downward, sideways and every way as she kept yelling out the Professor's name, hoping he'd hear each breath she managed to convert to sound. After a half a minute of screaming and running, her breathing became labored, so much so that she could no longer hear Edward's pounding footsteps. But in her bones she felt him catching up, every one of his heavy footfalls slamming vibrations through the ground.

'I wish I could have exercised more,' she thought, kicking herself. 'I hate my legs!'

Her feet tried to keep up with the pace her mind wanted her to take, but they were failing. She'd resorted to hopping down several stairs at a time to keep her legs from buckling underneath her, and he'd just as soon take the same steps in one jump right behind her. The cold metal rails slipped through her sweat-covered hands as she used the poles as support, propelling herself forward in lunges. It gave her a slight advantage in speed and distance, but it was soon rivaled by bursts in Edward's energy. The blade of his weapon grazed her elbows several times, and each time she managed to be just out of reach of the knife's tip.

"He can't hear you, you stupid little runt!" said Edward. "Might as well throw in the towel! You're alone!"

Running, running, running, Laura wove in and out of doors and hallways, any outlet she came upon, and found herself back in the drill chamber over and over again, each time one floor deeper into the ground as they both made the descent. She couldn't focus on finding a true exit out of the place; Edward was always right behind, and she was too occupied with surviving.

And then there was a break in their game of tag. As they took the run once more inside the drill chamber, Edward decided to use the rickety surroundings to his advantage. He threw his body forward and slammed himself into one of Laura's shoulder blades, causing her to trip sideways as she lost balance. She reached out and held fast onto the railing before falling over the edge, her back arching backward against the icy steel. Her abdominal muscles clenched tight as she attempted to gain her balance, and then she got a glance.

Below her was endless black, the chute leading ultimately to her own engineered creation, now resting. The situation threatened to send her plummeting towards it, as the dark, chilly air rose from the depths to greet her. Half out of instinct, half out of fear, she pressed her entire body weight into the bar to keep herself stable, lest she test gravity. The last thing she wanted was to slip over the edge and start learning (and failing) to fly.

As she corrected her posture, Edward had jumped up and was upon her again. He'd dropped his knife somewhere in the fall, and resorted to his bare hands. He grabbed her by the neck and shoulders and began forcing her backward. Laura could only try to eyeball his tightening grip. If she let go of the bar in an attempt to get him off of her, she'd fall.

"Care to take a dive?" he hissed, his hot breath inches from her face. His cologne was thick, and burned her nostrils and back of her throat. "You'll have such a grand time learning to fly, you little fledgling. Too bad your little toucan isn't here to teach you a thing or two about flapping your wings before you go splat!" he roared, his hideous laughter bouncing off all parts of the cylindrical space. Even as her mind blackened, her lungs aching for oxygen, she found his delight exponentially frustrating.

'GOD IN HEAVEN, I'M SERIOUS: WHY IS EVERYONE SO AGONIZINGLY ANNOYING?'

Edward hacked and coughed as Laura's knee sank into his stomach, courtesy of her last moment of consciousness. When he doubled over in pain, Laura took in a few copious gulps of air before making a run for it. She'd clambered down yet another set of stairs and turned to run inside a vestibule with more computers when Edward made a final attempt at murder. Her mind raced when she found herself on her back, Edward flat on his stomach next to her against the floor. He must have tackled her, she reasoned quickly, before seeing the small knife before her eyes yet again.

'He recovered it?!'

Heels digging into the floor, Laura pushed herself backward as the knife stabbed downward again and again, this time missing her arm, the next time missing her torso. His breathing erratic and hysterical, Edward made random, unplanned jabs into the floor, trying here, there, anywhere to catch a bit of the squirming girl. Laura felt like she was dancing, only on her back, as she twisted and flung herself in every direction without thought or calculation.

"No, no, stop!" she managed to shout breathily, attempting to throw him away from her. He was too heavy, and more importantly, too determined and crazed, two qualities she didn't know how to remedy.

The man struggled to smile, but he did, and it was frightening as he continued to rip and tear with his blade. He'd managed to crucify her lab coat's arm to the floor twice, and it tore into shreds when she pulled away. Again, she felt herself struggling for freedom, her back to the ground.

Edward laughed maniacally and took in a sharp, heavy breath, as if preparing for a dive. "And this, Laura Haris, gives a whole new meaning to what it means to terminate an employee!"

The amoral piece of metal rose above her face, positioned to force itself between her eyes. Life scenes flashed, people spun in a carousel of visions, everything she knew displayed in an instant slideshow. School, Liam, rugby balls, pianos… Carbite and Luke, Flora and Hershel. All her enemies, all her friends, all her loved ones…

And then it all stopped.

Hadn't she just been looking at the knife, directly above her? She blinked, and in a flash of brown, it was apparent that she'd eluded death once more, as the Professor had finally found the both of them. He was now grappling with Edward a few feet away from her.

"God almighty…" she whispered to herself, much too incredulous to say any more. She rolled onto her side and placed her palms against the floor. The cool touch of the metal and the throbbing of her bruised muscles were the only things helping her realize that the scene playing out before her was very real. Yet she should have been dead. She imagined herself flailing, the last synapsing of her nerves coursing through her body as a knife stood buried in her skull, sending her brain into permanent shut down.

That's how it should have been. And now, her savior rolled and tumbled in a scuffle against her assailant.

The Professor grunted and shouted, tussling with Edward as he now tried to save his own skin. The younger of the two let out a wailing shriek as he endured a punch to the wrist. The bone cracked as it was met with Layton's fist from the front and the solid floor from the back. Immediately, the knife was dropped, and the Professor with one swift motion sent it flying towards the middle of the dark vacuum just beyond them. The blackness swallowed it with silent indifference, and it was gone.

Meanwhile, wheezing and puffing, Edward slinked backward and away towards the computers, nursing his injury.

"You stupid, damnable old man, look what you did to my wrist!" He held it up high for all the world to see, limp and useless. It was a sickly green from the monitors' glow.

"You're lucky that's all you escaped with," Layton snarled dangerously, his voice low and gravelly. It drew Laura's attention away from Edward; it may have been the first time his voice was laced with a genuine desire to harm. "You're going back to the surface. With us. Now."

"Oh, am I? Since when do I take orders from the likes of you?"

"Since you forfeited your rights by being responsible for the murders of innocent people the world over, and for just now attempting to murder your own associate and employee. That's 'since when'."

"You mean your little 'girlfriend', not my associate."

"Your mind games have become boring." Layton licked his lip where a small cut had opened up in the fist fight. "Where's the Book?"

Edward laughed. "Ah, and there's the question! But, where's the answer? Wouldn't you like to know…"

"Where is it?!"

"You were gone so long, I thought you might have found it!" Edward said with a pout. His lower lip curled stiffly, his eyes shining with plastic sympathy. "Left your little prize all alone too! For some silly mystical book. Shows how important you are, Laura."

The Professor looked as if someone had smacked him in the face. Hard.

"That's—not true—I—Laura…"

Layton turned robotically to look behind him. He shouldn't have let Edward's prodding affect his emotions, but it was too late. Laura stared back, tight lipped and silent. Her eyes were wide, but her expression was otherwise plain. The Professor struggled to find words, perhaps the first time he couldn't conjure up an explanation. A lot of firsts, in a matter of minutes.

With a shriveled, dry giggle, Edward broke the heavy silence.

"You know it's true, Laura. And I can show you the video footage. And my destroyed office, by the way. Did you really need to destroy my office, Professor? All for a silly book. Put Laura in danger and everything."

"She wouldn't have to be in danger if you weren't a psychopath!" the Professor spat caustically. He turned back to Laura, unable to read her expression. "Laura, if I knew he'd have ran out and came after you, you know I wouldn't have—"

"But, you did." It was the first time she'd spoken in a normal tone all afternoon. "You busied yourself with that stupid book. It's the reason all of this is happening, all of this—"

"All of this is happening because of greed and pride and hideously misplaced talents," he reasoned tirelessly. "Laura, you were in that computer room, it was locked and secure, I merely took a few extra moments…"

She shook her head, her eyes now slits. Layton was held fast in her sight. "Get him restrained, and get this over with. I've had enough for one day."

"Laura, don't you see, he's trying to get us on opposite sides! He's—"

"Oh yes, hate each other all you want, I don't really care. My plans are dashed and ruined. And isn't this all just convenient…" Edward shot his figurative knives, the only weapons he now had, at Laura as he glared at her. "Your drill is stopped, just the way you wanted, and you're alive. And you have your precious teacher. Even if he's argumentative. And uncaring."

"That's not true." The Professor took a few solid steps towards the young man, making Edward flinch slightly. "Stop your sociopathic babble this instant!"

Suddenly Edward leaped from his slumped position on the floor. "All so good and well when you are the one shouting insults, Professor. You're just so lucky, Laura… Too bad. I always have a failsafe." He walked calmly to the computer, watching the Professor and Laura from the corner of his eye. Layton inched forward, but Edward pulled out another blade from his sleeve, stopping Layton in his tracks. "Ah, ah, ah, Professor. Unless you want to be gutted with a slice as wide as the brim on that obnoxious hat… I still can use my arm, although you broke my wrist…" With a few prods of his elbow against the keys, he was all smiles again.

"What did you just…" Layton started, frustrated that he couldn't jump at Edward to keep him from the computer. He was afraid of the point of the knife.

"Up and running, as usual. We have a lot of safety precautions around here, and even more safety backups. You know, just in case an odd couple decided to shut the thing down when it was supposed to be running at full capacity? Now it's all locked, and you'd need a couple of days to undo this little number. Programming was never your strong point, Laura."

'Who do you think programmed the drill, you nimrod?!'

The Professor jumped when Laura let out a booming scream of frustration. "Grrrah, you stupid, wretched excuse for an engineer! Don't you get it?! You're going to kill us all! Not just everyone, but you too! That drill is going to hit the fault line, and flood all of England. Where will you be?! You'll be right here drowning with everyone else! Was that a part of your plan?!"

Edward continued laughing. He might have tired of it, were he a logical person of sound mind. But he was having too much fun with the whole thing. "Well, of course not! I have my ways. I'll be high and dry when you'll be pushing up daisies! And I mean that quite literally!"

Once again, the ground quaked and grumbled, the cue for Edward to make a run for it. His coat tails rounded the corner by the time the Professor jumped to action.

"Not again, you're not!" Layton was after him within a second, leaving Laura alone. She could hear their feet slamming against the metal staircases in the chamber. Alone with the computer cluster, her mind swam. She couldn't believe it. Her hack, her efforts to override the program…all for naught. She was back at square one, fighting for more time at the drawing board.

"I'm out of ideas… I've exhausted everything… I've shut down the other machines, but this one here… I can't do it in time…"

Tears came to her eyes as she thought to just hunch down on the floor and wait to die. Her energy was gone. Her will to continue was gone. Slowly, her senses dulled, and she no longer heard the clinking of the metal floor route beyond the little alcove she was standing in, no longer saw the sickly light coming from the locked computers. She closed her eyes, sucking the back of her teeth, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth.

"I wish I would have never joined the company. I wish I'd never met Leopold, Edward, whoever." Her arm swept across her eyes, brushing tears away. "Never went to college…was never good at anything…I wish I was never good at anything!"

'I wish I never met Hershel either! None of this would be happening! None of it!'

In an instant, she hated herself.

"No, no, I…I don't mean that…I mean…it would have made things…"

'…a lot easier but…I…I don't think I would have liked not ever meeting him…

'He's…too rare…and too…important to not have ever been a part of my life…'

Her eyes flicked open, and all she could hear was the grinding whine of the drill, meters and meters below, digging deeper into the earth.

"No. I don't put on that sort of show. Laura Haris does not operate a waterworks, or a theater.

"I find answers, I put things right. And I protect what's important."

She spun, she started, and she threw herself out into the drill's chamber, where she ascended the stairs. Somewhere above her, the Professor and Edward were probably fighting to the death, but it was out of her hands. She had her goal in sight, her last hope of saving everyone that wasn't yet dead.

"Luke, Flora, Hershel. This is for you. Edward's got his little 'failsafe'… Well, so do I!"

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