Page 33A slow climb

It was funny how the first thing I did, out of curiosity, was trying to imagine where she was. It was fairly quiet on both sides, making it possible for me to hear as much as I could of her side. The mind is a truly wonderful thing, being able to filter multiple layers of sound if it wants to. Like, focusing on a single voice among many, or hearing a drop of water in the sink while music is playing.

This is what I heard.

The voice of the woman itself made me imagine she was slightly taller than myself, mid thirties and, for some reason, blond. She was sitting near computers but not typing on them. Despite that, I could hear the distinct hum of fans in the background. There was no other sound, which led me to believe she was inside somewhere, with double pane glass at least.

I was overcome with all kinds of sensations, but this was an important time to sound professional. Questions like 'you have?' or 'were you looking for me?' were not the right way to go. Instead I opted for:

"What is it you require?"

The woman on the other side smiled almost audibly. "First a little thing, on the top of Prozium building there's a suitcase. Retrieve it."

"When?"

"Now." And she hung up.

I knew what building she was talking about, one of the higher buildings in the city, with the brand-name in large, neon letters shining out to the ocean. In fact, the docks was a very good place to see it from. They must have paid tons to get it up there, and visible from this distance. So, she wanted me to get to the top of that building and retrieve a suitcase. Sounded innocent enough.

Would I still be able to say no if they asked more of me?

Part of me had this crazy idea that the suitcase would contain a sniper rifle and I would be asked to take someone down. I'd never be able to do that, but then again, considering what I'd read, there was an elegance to Seriph that would avoid any irregularities.

Anyway, this felt like a test.

And, considering her apparent high intelligence, it probably was.

I made my way to the building itself, taking little time to get there, but looking around well at all the angles. It was a very standard high office building. No rain-pipes, but there was an earthing cable running along the side of the building. It was fixed to the wall very firmly and would have been easy to use as a way up, if it wasn't for the open parking place outside.

With camera's.

It took me a while to figure out a way in. The cameras covered most of the grounds. And, contrary to cameras in movies, they didn't swivel about, leaving easy access for the less timing-challenged of us. No, the only thing in my favor was that the camera's weren't hanging too high and were all aimed outwards. So, once close to the wall, it'd be easy.

Well, that and the mistake they made on the back of the building. There was fairly large gap in the camera coverage as there was no parking places there. Moving along the side of the building and climbing easily over the fence, had me inside the compound in no time. After that it was just a matter of getting to the lightning conductor, making sure no one could see me, and climbing up.

I felt eyes on me though.

And I realized I'd forgotten one very, very important thing just when I was getting ready to climb. The phone. It sat comfortably in my pocket but it was still turned on. How could I have been so insanely stupid as to sneak in somewhere with a phone that had a ring-tone enabled. I didn't dare turn it off completely, as there might be a code on it when I turned it on. But a silent mode was easily found that even disabled the vibrations. I felt so stupid for not thinking about it before.

It wasn't just the sound, if I was climbing up, being all concentrated, and someone would call me in the middle of a climb, the shock might cause me to fall. And, though it probably wouldn't kill me, that would hurt a lot! Actually, I wonder what kind of fall it would take to kill a vampire. As I understood it, we basically regenerate from almost anything besides decapitation. And even then, if the head was brought back to the body, it would probably grow back on.

I started to climb.

With those heavy thoughts on my head, I tried to make myself as light as possible, which still kind of worked. I wasn't able to fly, but like this, the lightning earthing cable was more than enough to easily climb up while still looking realistic. It was still quite the climb, the building was twenty four floors high and it took me the better part of twenty minutes to get up there.

Vertical hiking, the new way to lose weight.

Except when you go down too fast. Though splattering on the concrete might count as 'losing weight' as well.

On the roof itself was very little of interest. Some air conditioning vents, an exit door with a single camera and a light above it. But it hardly covered one third of the roof. It was extremely convenient to have the light so close to the camera, as it basically meant that the camera could see where the light shone. I almost wished I'd played more video games. They probably train you for this kind of thing in some of them.

The case was placed on the edge of the roof, behind the block with the door. Behind it was just enough space to walk and, of course, no light or camera. All fine with me. I moved along the edge of the roof, climbed over and walked in the shadows towards it. When I reached my destination, I remembered to turn my phone back on. No sound though, I left it on vibrate this time, hoping that it wouldn't go off when anyone was close enough to hear it.

Now to see what was in the case.

Locked, with a simple number combination lock. I could easily force it open but before I even tried it, the phone rang.

"Yes?"

"The code is 192 for both locks. Open it now, please." The final words sounded more like a command than a request, but it wasn't too fierce.

I entered the code and opened the case. What I saw surprised me in a couple of ways. On the one hand it was totally not what I expected, but on the other hand it was both unpredictably cool and questionably useful to me. What it looked like was very slim, efficient, night vision goggles. The complete pack with a charger, manual and everything.

I was only a little bit wrong.

The plot brightens?