Solomon was doing burpees in the alleyway they were standing in between an abandoned apartment building and an office building. The scuffling sounds of his movements were drowned out by the first summer rain, a torrential but fleeting downpour, and the first of hundreds to occur in the next two months. Fuentes stood tall, his posture perfect and his body still. He watched Solomon rise and fall for a few minutes, his observation broken only once by a rat scurrying past, its fur as soaked as their hoodies.
“Your stamina is great and all, but I’m still confused by this,” Fuentes said, gesturing at Solomon. He had done this at every job they’d been on together. Rain was dripping off the stubble on Solomon’s chin and scalp; his head, though mostly full of hair, was almost always recently shaved, usually with a few days of stubble whenever Fuentes saw him.
Solomon spoke even as he continued his routine, grunting every now and then from exertion, “I do this because it’s efficient. I’m busy, and I live cheap. I don’t always have a time or place where I can do a full workout, so I do these whenever I can.”
Fuentes nodded, then asked, “And the sword?” as he gestured at a strangely curved knight’s sword sheathed and leaning up against the wall in the shadow of the fire escape, lined up alongside a well-used skateboard.
“If you saw a raggedy dude with a kriegsmesser skating by, would you try to mug him?” Solomon asked.
Fuentes thought about replying, but just shrugged instead, as he could find no retort for the statement.
After a few more minutes of waiting, an alarm bell rang nearby, and Solomon leapt to his feet. Fuentes removed his cheap, oversized hoodie to reveal a tactical vest. They pulled their weapons and a duffle bag out from the small shoulder-slung backpack Solomon was wearing. The hoodies and skateboard went into the duffle bag, a pair of tinted CBRN masks, ear protection, supplementary armor for Fuentes, and Fuentes’ combat helmet came out; they donned their gear with lightning speed and went to work.
Solomon threw his hood up over his head, ran up to the wall beneath the fire escape of the derelict apartment building, and jumped up it, kicking off the wall to get just a bit more height, allowing him to grab onto the fire escape.
Scrambling up and over the railing, he drew his sword and slashed the rusty padlock off the ladder, its accompanying chain smoothly cut apart as well. Once no longer hindered by the lock, nor by its internal catch once Solomon pulled it free, the ladder clattered down, and Fuentes rocketed up it.
I guess that’s why he keeps the sword around, Fuentes thought as his combat boot sent a length of chain skittering across the grated fire escape floor. Fuentes followed Solomon as he sprinted up the steps to the twelfth landing on the side of the building. There was a rusting ladder to the roof, and a blank brick wall.
Fuentes nodded towards a section of wall on the opposite end of the landing to the ladder. Solomon pressed a pair of bricks, then slid a silver dollar coin into a slot that appeared between the bricks. The entire portion of brickwork faded away, revealing an emergency door, identical to the ones below.
The two threw themselves in through the emergency door, weapons raised. The door slammed shut behind them and Fuentes swept the barrel of his carbine across the dark and dreary concrete guts of the building, the beam of his weapon’s mounted flashlight catching on the shattered remains of the drywall that used to separate the apartments, casting shadows that resembled gaping, toothy maws. Fuentes and Solomon flicked their masks’ built-in headlamps on, illuminating even more of the hidden floor.
It was in this light that Fuentes found what he was looking for; a single elevator shaft, the only remaining structure on this floor; its drywall had chipped off, revealing the aging concrete beneath. The doors, however, were in perfect condition, as was the control panel alongside it. They seemed almost out of place, like a cardboard cut-out set in front of the real entrance to the shaft.
He glanced over at Solomon, who was shining his gun’s flashlight around the room as well, though about a fourth of his beam was being blocked by the massive suppressor mounted on his machine pistol. Solomon glanced over a few moments later, and signed [No movement, no traps] with his left hand. Fuentes repeated the signs, and then signed [push forward].
The pair crept forward, their pathway lit by the potent beams of harsh artificial white-light cast out from their equipment. A sudden clattering of rubble made the pair snap their focus over to a dust covered rat digging through the dust and debris. They relaxed slightly and continued towards the elevator.
A light mounted just under the threshold of the elevator dinged on, flickering and buzzing slightly before reaching its full strength. The buttons also came alive with that odd, orangish glow. Fuentes looked at Solomon for a moment. Solomon shrugged and pressed the down button.
There was a clank, then a whirring, then finally the deep hum of the elevator ascending, accompanied by the panel above the elevator’s threshold dinging and lighting up a new number as the elevator passed that floor. The elevator slowed, and then stopped.
The doors slid open to a plush and well-kept art deco elevator, seemingly styled after a luxury hotel from the early 20th century. Solomon and Fuentes hesitantly entered the elevator, switching off their mask lights as they did so.
The doors remained open, and the pair stared at the internal button panel. The building they were in only had thirteen floors, and only ever publicly declared twelve residential stories, with a supposed ductwork hub and some boilers on the thirteenth floor, according to the public blueprints.
The elevator, however, had almost six hundred floors listed, descending down from 13 to -581. They were lined up on either side of the door, button after button. Solomon shuffled through his small backpack. After a few moments, there was another clatter. Fuentes shined his light over at the source, and saw the rat again.
Solomon found what he was looking for; he drew a small leatherbound journal, and began flipping through the pages, glancing between the buttons and the info on the pages as he went. He muttered something that Fuentes couldn’t quite hear through their masks.
When he looked over at Solomon to try to better understand what Solomon was trying to say, they heard more scuttling and clatters. In the darkness, dozens of pulsing, dim glows were bouncing across, through, and under the rubble. As one, their weapons shot back up, and the lights revealed that each and every light source was actually some sort of light glowing inside the brain of a rat.
All the rats were looking directly at them.
For a breath, the world was silent and still for the pair of adventurers.
Then, the rats began clambering over the rubble and rushing towards the elevator, their motion almost synchronized, as if they were one entity with a single intelligence. Fuentes tried to pull the trigger of his rifle, but he couldn’t move. He wasn’t even sure what he was trying to shoot at. He stared at the holographic sight mounted on his carbine, a dull confusion clattering through his brain and obfuscating the fifteen years of training he had.
The doors slid shut, and there was a soft dinging sound. Fuentes tilted his head a little to the left, and his rifle to the right. He stared at the trigger and safety as though he’d never seen them before. He marvelled at the weight the weapon had, so much heft for such a small device. It almost looked like a toy. He noticed a dull, muffled noise that was prodding at his mind. He looked over at the source.
Then, all at once, everything came rushing back. The rifle no longer felt foreign and novel. He knew the last time he’d run maintenance on it, what brand of lubricant he’d used on the action of the undermounted grenade launcher. He knew the zero of the sights, and how much of a pain it was to get the sixty round magazines he used into a functional state.
The muffled noise coalesced into Solomon’s voice. The vagrant was waving his hand about a foot in front of Fuentes’ face and saying, “... rats were anomalous. I felt it, too. I pressed a random floor just before I zoned out. They seemed to have some sort of mind-altering effect on you. Are you okay? What’s your handle? What year is it?”
Fuentes paused. He had almost replied with his real name. “Kilo Four, it’s the fifth of May, the year is 2021, and I’m fine,” he replied, “I’m just a little… I was just a little out of it. I forgot everything for a second.” Solomon just nodded in response, then looked over at the analog display for the elevator.
They were descending rapidly, which was evident both in the weird feeling in their stomachs caused by their descent, and by the rapidly dinging elevator buttons, each one flashing amber as they passed that floor. A button labeled -392 was lit green. Several other buttons were lit up red, including the button for floor 13.
Fuentes pointed to the 13th floor button, crammed up near the top of the left-hand panel. “Do you think the red lighting is a bad thing, or?” Solomon merely shrugged in response. Helpful input, bro, Fuentes thought.
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