The elevator shaft was full of suffocating heat that felt like the breath of a dying beast.
Mo Chou didn't wait; she knew the elevators were death traps, likely rigged or stalled by the first wave of bombs, so she pried the heavy steel doors open with a sharp screech that set her teeth on edge and dove headfirst into the darkness.
Her fingers, protected by tactical gloves hidden beneath the wrinkled, aged skin of her disguise, caught the thick, grease-slicked steel cables. She slid down with a terrifying speed that would have shredded the palms of any ordinary person.
Every few floors, she would kick off the concrete wall to adjust her momentum, the jolt vibrating through her spine.
The aura Mo Chou projected into the gloom was one of pure lethality.
"Big brother, I'm in the lower-level," she whispered into her comms, her voice tight and stripped of its usual playfulness. The air was becoming thick with the scent of chemicals. "Give me a visual. I'm blind in here."
