Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) Jakob Tanner (reading comprehension books TXT) 📖

The man gulped and took the coin and then turned back to face the street. The driver put his foot on the gas peddle and they began to trail the garbage truck from the tower-zone.

Agent Paul watched the two student climbers get into the taxi cab.

He watched it all from inside a nearby telephone booth.

I’ll have to inform the higher ups, Agent Paul thought to himself, pulling out a cell phone.

The kids were impressive. They had broken through one of the sewer wards and were now tracking a tower-zone garbage truck. Agent Paul was impressed but also confused. What exactly did these two kids want?

He placed his cell phone to his ear as he rang his boss.

“They haven’t spotted me yet,” Agent Paul said to his superior. “I’m following them now. I’ll do as directed.”

71

Sakura sat in the lobby of the top floor of the climber’s guild.

She tapped her hands on her knees nervously.

“He’ll be right with you,” said a secretary from behind a desk. The woman went straight back to whatever else she was working on. She had done her job to assuage Sakura’s concerns about the meeting running late, what more could she do?

Not much, Sakura figured. Still, she didn’t understand why she had been called here in the first place.

The top floor of the climbers guild belonged solely to the climber president. There was a lobby the elevator opened up to and then a doorway to a large open office where the climber president resided.

Was she being promoted? There was only one job higher than her own...the presidency itself...and she really didn’t see the climber president retiring any time soon. He loved the job too much.

The secretary picked up a phone and then placed it down again.

“He’ll see you now,” said the secretary.

Sakura stood up and strutted into the climber president’s office.

The man sat behind his desk, leaning forward with his elbows on the wood, fingers steepled together. He had a grave expression on his face.

“Good afternoon, Sakura,” said the climber president. “I have much I need to tell you.”

Max and Casey sat in the back seat of the cab watching through the window as the garbage truck from the tower-zone drove through the traffic-filled streets of the outer-rim.

They were in the southern part of the city now, often referred to as the greater outer-rim area. It was hardly a city now, more like a suburb bordering on farmland. Far in the distance was the second wall—the wall that separated the entirety of Zestiris—both outer-rim and tower-zone—from the rest of the world.

“Still want me to keep following?” asked the cab driver, loosening the collar on his shirt.

Max could tell the driver was getting anxious. Following a garbage truck from the tower-zone was already a sketchy thing to do, but now driving this close towards the second wall. The man clearly didn’t want to get himself into any major trouble and this was the kind of job that had trouble written all over it.

The second wall was very far in the distance, it looked almost like a mirage or the seaside from a great distance away.

Much closer though was a large impending mound of garbage.

The dump was in view.

A good distance ahead of them, the garbage truck from the tower-zone stopped in front of a barbed wire gate.

After a few moments, a partition swung up allowing the garbage truck to drive through.

“I don’t know if they’ll let me pass,” said the cab driver, nervously.

The garbage truck was getting smaller and smaller as it went deeper into the dump. If they didn’t continue after it soon, they might lose it forever. Their whole high-stakes mission down the drain.

“You know what,” said the cab driver, throwing his hands in the air. “I can’t do this. I won’t drive you two any further. Please leave.”

“Are you kidding?” said Casey, getting frustrated with the man. “We gave you a gold coin.”

If that was the man’s decision, thought Max, so be it. They didn’t have time to waste arguing with him. The garbage truck from the tower-zone was getting away.

Max opened his door and pulled Casey along with him.

“What are you doing!?” squirmed Casey. “Let me go!”

“C’mon,” said Max. “We don’t have time to waste.”

Max quickly turned his head to the cab driver and thanked him once more.

He drove off a second later, leaving Max and Casey conspicuously standing at the side of the dirt road.

Max took in the dump in front of them. He didn’t see how it would be possible to enter through the official front gate, but the good news was: the piles of garbage were so high, they spilled over sections of the barbed wire fence.

“Looks like we’re climbing garbage,” said Max.

He got up onto the mound of junk and started climbing up over busted refrigerators, air conditioners, and black bags of stinky garbage.

Casey followed behind him, squirming and grumbling about the sudden gross turn their mission had taken.

“I mean, we already went through the sewers,” said Max. “How’s that any different from climbing a pile of garbage?”

“I guess the grossness was monotonous in the sewer,” said Casey. “Whereas now I have to face a new gross thing every ten seconds. Like look at that—it’s a maggot filled teddy bear.”

Ugh, thought Max.

He tried to pay as little attention to the garbage as possible and stay focused on just climbing it. They were high enough that he could see the route the garbage truck had taken through the different mounds of garbage that made up the outer-rim dump.

Eventually, they climbed so high they were over the barbed wire fence and could descend out of sight of the security gate.

They rolled down the hill and were now on the streets of the dump.

They spotted the garbage truck and hurried after it.

They ran down the gravelly road of the garbage dump, tailing the truck.

The truck eventually stopped.

Max and Casey hid behind a discarded bathtub, using it as cover.

For a brief second, Max wondered