again.
Under the cover of the few other trees planted in a circle around the middle, they found what they hoped for – a door leading inside the skyscraper. Jinhun tried the handle but the heavy door was locked.
“Now what?” He looked at his companion.
“Let me have a look.” Taylor knelt with a painful moan and started examining the lock. “Do we have any weapons with us?” he asked.
“No, there were guns, but they stayed in the car.”
The helicopter flew somewhere above their heads, but the thick leaf-cover hid them from view, at least for now. Taylor tried to focus on the door. He examined the lock again, but there seemed to be no hope. The heavy door was controlled by computer that responded to brain implant commands; but, as neither of them had one, it looked as if they were in big trouble.
Just as Taylor was about to explain that to Jinhun, their attention was drawn back towards the open grass on the roof. The noise from the helicopter's engine had increased significantly in the past minute or so. To their horror, they realized the pilot was about to land the machine on the roof. Taylor started looking around nervously; this was when he saw it.
A little to his right, hidden behind a bushy Chinese rose, glistened a manual control panel that most likely was for the door. Obviously, this garden and the door were made before 2017 – the year in which the implant-controlled doors replaced the older mixed ones. Taylor examined the panel for a few seconds, but as he obliviously had no idea what the password could be. He decided to use good old fashioned methods that always worked. Grabbing the plastic top with his fingers, he ripped it off, revealing half a dozen cables of different colors.
“They just landed!” Jinhun shouted from behind. This extra motivation helped Taylor decide. He simply ripped off all the cables and nodded at his partner. Jinhun tried the door; it opened with a hiss, which made him grin as he opened it just enough so the two of them could slide inside the building.
Out of the heavy rain and strong wind, they needed several seconds to adjust to the eerie silence. A winding staircase was heading downwards; they descended it as quickly as their battered bodies allowed. Jinhun was unable to walk alone, and Taylor had to support him despite the fact that his leg was still hurting a lot.
At the bottom of the stairs, a glass door that was unlocked and half-open led them into a long corridor with lots of identical glass or aluminum doors on each side. This was one of the many modern buildings in which office spaces were rented by thousands of different companies from all spheres of business. Luckily for the two of them, in pretty much every building of this type, nobody paid any attention or knew many people that actually worked in the same place as them.
Taylor and Jinhun separated. Jinhun was insecure for the first few steps when he had to support his own weight, but very quickly managed to hobble 'decently.' They headed down the corridor, walking as calmly as they could considering the circumstances and their injuries.
They reached the elevators undisturbed. There they found two Asian women in their thirties, both dressed in identical grey business suits that completely destroyed everything feminine about them. This was a very lucky coincidence, because they wouldn't have been able to command the elevator themselves as, once again, it was managed by a computer program that responded only to commands given via brain implants. The two career-chasing women stopped talking as they were approached. A few side looks revealed that they noticed their company.
Both Taylor and Jinhun were soaked after their roof adventure; their clothes were dirty and torn, not to mention the blood stains that both of them had.
“It's raining and very slippery out there.” Jinhun tried to cast a smile at the two women, who just turned their backs on them without honoring them with any comment or response.