Chapter 17 - Into the Shaft
"There's no way out through the door," Leo said, frantically scanning the reinforced walls.
Victoria looked up toward the ceiling.
Above the central lighting rig was an old maintenance ventilation shaft.
"We go up," she declared, hauling a heavy metal table beneath the shaft.
She helped Leo climb onto the table first, boosting him into the dark narrow duct.
She grabbed the edge and pulled herself up just as the lower level filled with toxic halon gas to purge the chamber.
"02 MINUTES 45 SECONDS."
They crawled through the cramped metal pipe, guided only by the emergency red lights bleeding through the grates.
The heat inside the shaft was suffocating.
Victoria's ribs throbbed with every pull, but she refused to slow down.
Ahead, the ventilation shaft opened into the main elevator column running up the center of the tower.
Looking up, she saw the counterweights moving rhythmically through the dark abyss.
"Grab the cable," Victoria instructed Leo, pointing to the high-speed express lift platform above them.
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"If we miss this, Vance controls the entire hemisphere in less than two minutes."
Without waiting for an answer, she kicked open the vent grate and leaped into the open shaft.
