Chapter 3 – Slick man

We now found ourselves in a lobby-like area with lots of doors leading out of it.
- “Great!” I said sarcastically.
- “What are we going to do now? There are only 3 of us.” Rick asked.
I thought carefully and then said:
- “Rick, you stay here and do not let anyone out. Jack and I will check out all of the rooms on this floor.”
- “Sure.” Rick agreed.
So Rick stayed in the lobby area, Jack went through left-most door and I went through right-most door. All of the rooms were very quiet. We’ve checked several of them now when I suddenly heard someone speaking through my radio. It was one of the members of staff in this silo, who let us in.
- “We were going to tell you that we just detected some movement on the floor above you. Maybe that’s the robber.” They said.
- “How do you know?” I asked.
- “We can see it on our computer. It detects movements in the whole silo.” They said.
- “Sure, me and the team will check it out ASAP.” I said and quickly exited the room I was in and went towards the lobby.
I then contacted Jack via the radio:
- “Jack, we must go to the floor above. Staff says that their computer detects some motion there. Regroup with the team please.”
- “Sure.” Jack agreed and joined us in the lobby.
- “So guys, are you ready?” I asked them.
- “Yes.” Both of them said simultaneously.
All three of us went slowly towards the staircase leading up and went up to the next floor. It seemed very quiet there too. The floor was divided into corridors. We went along the central corridor very quietly and carefully. No-one was seen there.
- “Where do you think he is?” Jack whispered.
- “I hope pretty close.” I said.
We kept on going along the corridor and suddenly heard a faint sound somewhere. All of us stopped. A couple of seconds after we proceeded in a quieter fashion. All three of us turned around the corner and came out into another lobby-like area, but slightly smaller than the previous one. There was a guy there picking a lock. He hasn’t seen us yet so we crept up to him and put our guns towards his head.
- “Don’t move. VENUS force.” I said.
The guy didn’t move. He didn’t even turn around.
- “Let’s go. Our boss needs to find out what you have stolen.” Jack said.
The guy still didn’t move though.
- “Didn’t you hear me?” Jack said angrily, “I said, move!”
At this moment the robber swiftly turned around and hit our guns, so now they were not aiming at him. He then quickly punched Jack in the face and then kicked Rick in the shins. Both Jack and Rick fell down. I quickly aimed my shotgun at him and shot, but he rolled out of the line of fire. By the time I pumped my shotgun for the next shot the robber began sprinting for the elevator that was there. I could not believe that there was an elevator there all this time. I quickly aimed again and Jack and Rick joined me, but the robber threw a shockwave grenade in our direction. We hardly ever use ordinary frag grenades on Venus as Venus’ atmosphere does not have oxygen and therefore does not support combustion. Frag grenades can be used inside though as we have oxygen inside, but battles are very likely to happen outside too as well as inside and therefore it is not economically suitable making large amounts of frag grenades. So the most popular grenades are shockwave grenades. When they explode they produce a very powerful shockwave. At a close distance to centre of explosion the shockwave is capable of ripping a person in half. At a few metres away it can cause people to fly backwards with an enormous speed causing injuries. Therefore when the robber threw one of those grenades in our direction, we had to save our lives. All of us dived to the side and got down to the floor. Grenade exploded shortly afterwards. None of us got harmed, but the robber managed to get into the elevator now.
I got up first and ran towards the door. It closed just before I reached there.
- “Damn it! He is getting away.” I said out of frustration.
I then began looking around and saw a vent above the elevator door. It led into the elevator shaft. I quickly jumped up, grabbed on to it, opened it and crawled inside.
- “Jim, what are you doing?” Jack asked.
- “We cannot let him get away. Quickly get down via the stairs.” I said and then climbed into the vent completely.
The vent led me into the shaft and I jumped on top of the elevator as it began moving down.