The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy) by Jess C Scott

Author:Jess C Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: urban fantasy, young adult, teens, steampunk, elves, series, cyberpunk, young adult fiction, ya books, borderlands, ya series, terri windling, cyberpunk elves, cyberpunk books

Chapter 10:

Anya was beginning to feel a little faint, when she saw Nin pause and turn his head to the right. The moonlight that shone into the room cast some light on his face. Anya saw him smirk to himself. It highlighted his devil-may-care persona, which Anya found quite irresistible. He slid out of an open vent, and helped Anya out.

“Tavia removed this earlier for us,” Nin said, before replacing the ventilation grill. Nin was glad everything was going perfectly as planned. And it was going a lot better than their first attempt.

“What room is this?” Anya asked.

“A laboratory, of some sort.”

There was a silvery-bluish tinge to the interior of the room, which had a whiteboard on one side of the wall with scientific notations scrawled all over it. The walls were lined with cabinets—whether they contained files, or something else, Anya didn’t stay behind to find out. Nin held her hand gently, moving in the shadows, out an open door, and then skulking alongside a corridor, before stopping about midway. He moved like he had night vision, like a panther that had no problems with navigating in the dark. Nin gestured to Anya to back up against the wall, as he adjusted his earpiece.

Anya heard the sound of heavy shoes on a polished floor. The night shift’s head guard, a hefty towering individual with a fierce tribal-pattern shaved hairstyle, prowled the open space in front. His shoulders seemed broader than Nin and Anya’s combined shoulder width, if they were standing together. The guard’s obvious upper body strength made him ten times more intimidating than the officer keeping watch at the key room. Anya would have baulked earlier in the vent, if the guards had switched places.

Anya shuddered to think of a physical confrontation with the head guard. She wouldn’t stand a chance. Neither would Nin, for that matter, unless it was a battle of wits, and not brawn—a skilled, lighter-framed and more agile opponent might be able to exhaust the other. From the map Anya remembered, the janitor’s room would be somewhere over to the right. They’d have to make a quick dash to the door, and slip the key in.

Suddenly, Anya heard another sound, a metallic clinking sound, coming from a further distance away, like someone was lightly striking a fingernail against a metal railing. The guard peered up, at an overhead passageway which linked two departments together in the Omega unit. The hunter was seeking out his prey.

Everyone waited, all four of them, though there was one other main individual to uncover, as far as the guard was concerned. Nin stayed still as a statue. Anya held on to the “Janitor’s Room” key, ready to place it in the keyhole once they got to the door.

There was complete silence for a few more nerve-wracking moments, before the clinking began again. It was a more staccato beat this time, like someone was tapping along to the rhythm of some music. Then an unearthly voice, speaking in the Elven tongue, which made the small hairs on Anya’s skin stand on end.

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