8 INTO THE VENTS

I took in a deep breath of slightly chilling air conditioned breeze and then released a slow sigh, preparing myself mentally for what I had ahead of me. This very act and thought filled me with a minute chill in my joints, but that wasn't going to halt me from my objective at this stage of the plan I had managed to get myself to, regardless of the obstacles I had and was still going to face.

"Alright, it's time to head out" I pulled the dangling cords on the straps of the backpack which was already worn on my back at the time and this action caused the backpack straps to tighten a bit more, fitting a little bit better than before. Next I buckled the backpack around my waist to prevent it from falling off, also pulling the straps by the buckle to make it fit even tighter.

Now all set, I walked over, stretched once more and got into the vents, closing it back behind me but unfortunately I wasn't able to screw the nuts shut because there wasn't enough of an opening for my hand to fit through to do the screwing but I made sure to vent cover was snuggly stationed in place and the nuts well hidden so as they don't get discovered. I took them with me, then I started to move deeper into the vent, heading for the Black room quietly. Well, being as quiet as meandering inside a vent would allow me to.

On a normal occasion, it wouldn't be quite an easy feat to make my way through the vents I am now but fortunately, because of my size and also the fact that before I made the jump back I had already studied the original set of blueprints for the vents in the building, just out of curiosity, I was very confident of where I was heading to.

The original set of blueprints which had not yet been altered for the sake of entirely removing the Black Room from them as they, The GHA, deemed that particular information not a vital "thing" to be had out there in the open where someone with the right resources and connections could gain access to. 

It was quite difficult getting the original blueprints from my time as they weren't online in any hackable archive, but regardless of that initial hitch, there's always one place where getting difficult items such as that was very possible. The central hub for all things and services, both Legal, illegal and things that seem unheard off, The Underground Market.

The Underground Market is such a disconcerting topic of mystery, so there isn't much I can say about it, except for the fact that it became even filled with more mystery and harder to gain access to a few years before I made to jump to this tim— Wait a minute, that's not right. Something's not right with my memory of the market cause their level of access and the difficulty around it always remains the same when I think about it now so why did I just feel like something changed abruptly?

Anyway, there's only one of said original set of the GHA first ever headquarters blueprint available there in the Underground Market and it took me about a month and also close to a million Neuros to obtain, but after that was done I didn't mind or felt the loss when the package arrived. Quite the price to pay for something I didn't deem important at the time and was just looking for in order to quench my curiosity but now I'm thankful that I went the extra mile.

From the blueprints, the Black Room as I had initially suspected was on the sublevel floor and the only way to get there was through the elevator and without a high level ID card like Brian's, the chances of anyone else making it there was less than zero. Well, for a normal person and under normal conditions anyway. 

My only option, and the one the new plan was following right now was to remove the Identification confirmation process from the elevator entirely and to do that I needed to gain direct physical access to the server or any port terminals in connection with it.

The Typograph Layer Moduling crystals on the doors were one of the only two major security measures that restricted me from accessing the elevators aside from the cameras all around watching everything while the other restriction being the building being armed to the teeth with security personnels stationed almost everywhere.

However, with just the right tweaks, if you knew what you're doing, can manipulate them (the Typograph Layer Moduling Crystals) completely and luckily for me I was the one who fashioned them. Plus, there was a port on the fourth floor which was also the security floor and it could be used to make alterations to the layer's scanning ability.

Since the crystals are versatile, a change in their fundamental codes in that port can drastically change its functionality, instead of going to the main server which funny enough was also located in the sublevels floor, this time period.

The security floor was strategically placed at the middle of the entire building, so that if there was trouble on any of the other floors, which the chances of something like that even happening being very low to none once already in the building, the security officers would be of equal distance away from it, which also ensured faster average response time.

*CRAWL*

From the vents I had to go vertically downwards to get to a lower floor, which as expected was hard to accomplish because of my new found weak body frame and hands which weren't used to these types of activities. In parks you hardly see girls playing on the monkey bars so there wasn't that playtime activity to give me an adequate amount of preparation for this. Also, the dust on the surface of the vent reduced my grip in some places but somehow I managed to make it there, the fourth floor. 

I crawled inside the vent until I got to the port and now positioned horizontally and directly above the port which was by the wall at the end of the passage in the fourth floor I took off the air vent lid. 

I wanted to jump down then make the changes to the port's control panel, which would have been the fastest way to make the changes, but proved difficult, and because of the distance I was closer to it from up in the vent than from the floor so the only choice was to make the changes from there up in the vent and the only way that that would be possible was to do it while upside down, using my legs to keep myself in place in the vents while my upper body would be dangling outside working.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed exhaustedly.

I first took the time to observe the situation while taking note of the tools I needed for this particular objective and after quickly assessing what they were going to be, I ZIPPED open the backpack in a rush and took out the exact alternative equipments I had in my arsonal. 

Using the multipurpose screwdriver again and while dangling outside the vent, I opened up the port, removing the screws on the cover, one edge at a time while some screws weren't as friendly with the magnetic end of the screwdriver as the others which I had in my mouth so they dropped to the floor after I finish uncoupling them, but fortunately, they didn't make any noice of consequence,

After all the screws were taken out, my next target was the now freed cover of the port but with my grip not being properly placed on it as I changed hands mid pull out, because of being upside-down and all the blood rushing to my head made me dizzy, the cover fell as a result. It was heading straight for the ground and I could feel my heart sink with every inch I saw the cover descend in, but luckily for me, a black plastic cord connecting the cover to the body of the port totally prevented the fall.