Delta

Chapter Ten: The Building

"So...do you have a location in mind or are we just wandering around?" I inquired after walking with Adrian in silence for five minutes. We had stayed on the same catwalk for the entire way, and even though dozens of tall buildings rose up on either side of us, we had no way of getting over to them.

"One time when Jason and I were walking around we found this huge building that looked interesting." Adrian said. "But we couldn't figure out any way to get over to it. That's where we're headed, if I'm retracing the way right." 

We continued walking and didn't say anything else. The silence was kind of awkward, but I didn't want to ask any more questions because I worried that I would annoy Adrian. As we walked, I started to hear a constant noise. It was so faint at first that I almost thought that I was imagining it. But after a minute, the faint whisper of sound turned into a loud rushing noise.

"Um, do you know what that noise is?" I asked Adrian, figuring he might have some sort of idea.

Adrian looked perplexed and slightly worried, which made me feel a little concerned. 

"I have no idea what that is." He said. "But it's coming in the direction we're heading in, so I guess we're about to find out. Last time Jason and I didn't get this far because we got ambushed by some of those spiders. We had to go a different way."

I had the urge to pull out my shock-rod (which, by the way, was the label I had given it), but I noticed that Adrian wasn't holding his and I didn't want to look paranoid. As we got closer to the noise, it turned into a loud roar. We rounded a corner and at this point it sounded like wherever the sound was coming from, it was right in front of us. But nothing was there.

"Hey, there's the building!" Adrian shouted over the noise. I looked up and at the same time felt something almost like wind or air rushing in front of me. 

"Wait!" Adrian yelled, and I suddenly felt him grab my arm and yank me back. 

I spun around to face him. "What's going on?" I yelled.

"Look!" He shouted, pointing at the wall on our right. 

For the first time I noticed a small, hard-to-notice metal grate. That seemed to be the source of the noise. The longer I looked at it, the more I began to realize that the loud sound that we were hearing was in fact rushing air. 

"What is that?" I asked, loud enough for Adrian to hear. 

"There must be some sort of source inside that grate generating all this wind!" Adrian shouted. "Maybe a fan or something! If you look closely, you can see the how strong the force of the air current is!" 

I looked hard at the place in front of us where I could feel the air rushing past. At first I didn't see anything. But the longer I looked there, I finally began to notice the small ripples in the air that were formed by the force of the current. 

"Wait a minute!" I yelled. "What if this thing is designed to get us over there?" I pointed to the huge building that rose up out of the vast void that was all around us. The air coming out of the grate seemed to lead directly over to a catwalk in front of the building.

Adrian looked dubious. "That doesn't sound very safe." He shouted. "We don't-" He cut off, looking annoyed, and gestured for me to come over to him. I walked over and he pulled me even closer until we were standing side by side. "We don't know if that's even the purpose of this." He said, not having to shout anymore because of how much closer we were. "The air current probably wouldn't be strong enough to hold our weight. It's a risky plan, considering if it doesn't work, we could just fall into that." He gestured to the vast emptiness below us. "Let's just keep looking around for another way to get over."