You decide that getting out of the ventilation system as soon as possible will reduce your chance of getting trapped. Grabbing hold of the grate, you try and pop it off without making any noise but it won't budge. Suddenly you hear footsteps coming down the stairs so you back away from grate so you won't be seen. You see someone come down the stairs just as the elevator doors open with two people inside, then two more go walking by coming from your right. After they pass, you wait to see if anyone else comes by but nobody does. Noise starts to echo through the ducts behind you. It sounds like they've entered the ventilation ducts and are headed your way at a rapid pace. You must get out now so you turn your body around and with your feet, you kick the grate as hard as you can and it falls to the floor with a crash. You hear someone in the distance behind you yell out that he must be over this way. You leap out into the hallway and glance at the sign by the elevator. It says that you are still on the first floor in the administration section. You look to your left to see if anyone is backtracking, then to your right. You see a door at the end of the hall just as the sound increases in the duct behind you. You have about 20 seconds to make a decision about which direction you want to go. Do you want to go up the stairs next to the elevator, to the left and sneek up behind them, take the elevator, or go to the door down the hall to your right?

i say the door to the right they'd know if we took the elevator, and we were already up there anyways right? or am i going to get us killed?

do what yanbu says- if we go up the stairs, and the guys in the vents follow, we will be trapped between people upstairs and people downstairs...

Did we destroy the vent or could we put it back in place?