This isn't right.
It's only been three days, how could so much have changed?
Lola flicks the light switch up and down, but the overhead light in the garage doesn't turn on, "Sure this is the right part of the base?"
"I'm sure it is, even the candle was still there," I say, looking around for a sign that the base is even still used.
Nayan insisted that we went in a different way than last time. One of these days he is going to get seriously pissed that we keep swatting off his resistance to our plans, or just his ideas in general.
We told Nayan that either they would assume we would go in somewhere else and this entrance might be under guarded. Or what I really thought, that they would think we would've been too scared to go back. But they went for option three the last thing I expected.
Leave.
This is unless they were able to predict our plan to a tee and this is a trap, but I doubt it. This place looks far too deserted. The changes would be far less noticeable if we weren't here three days ago, but there are some major changes already.
For one, the car is gone. A pretty big deal because if needed that would have been a nice resource. Two, the lights don't work. It's broad daylight and there are windows so it's not like it matters all that much, but It made the place feel more futuristic than it should to someone growing up in the 21st century.
And finally, there is not a peep of noise here aside from us, making it feel like any other place in Avex. Though it doesn't have years of built-up grime. For obvious reasons, I'm beyond happy that nobody is here, but I won't lie when I say that I miss seeing a crowd of people.
Nayan stands in the place the fancy car used to be, "So they just up and left?"
I walk over to the same secret door we found days ago, but now it's left hanging open carelessly, "I suppose."
Lola steps ahead of me into the hall. She looks into each room with only a slight hesitation, if anything she seems excited.
If I could explain her priorities in one word, it's loyalty. This is at life and death stakes of course, if she knows there isn't any real danger she'll horse around like a five year old.
I used to snowboard, I quit long before we wound up here, but before I was able to start, Dad pushed me. Not figuratively, I was just standing in the living room, and out of nowhere Dad shoved me from behind. Not hard enough to make me fall or in a mean way, but enough for me to have to take a step forward to catch myself.
I lurched forward with my right foot and was pretty mad, but my Dad figured out which foot was the dominant one, which helped somehow with board setup.
If Lola was pushed into a situation where she could protect herself or protect someone she loves, the same instinct that sent my right foot forward would take over. She wouldn't pick herself.
Though this shouldn't be confused for her being one of those complimenting every single person she sees, or her being willing to sacrifice herself for a stranger. She's an amazing person and all, but she isn't a saint. Her ultra Loyalty is reserved mostly for her loved ones.
Nowadays that loved one is only me, and of course, she cares about Nayan but it's not the same. If Nayan was the one talking to her about going to explore the red light last week, I don't think she would've put up much of a fight past butting in her two cents.
She would do anything to keep me safe, as I would for her.
I follow a few yards behind Lola with Nayan close behind.
"I doubt there's much of a point in looking," Nayan says just loud enough for Lola to hear, "If these people are smart enough to kidnap 80 plus people on an international scale and not get caught, it's safe to say they're smart enough to pick up their stuff."
"I dunno Nayan," Lola shouts from down the hall, "I couldn't agree with pointless, the odds are shit. But we're here and not at gunpoint, may as well look."
"I didn't say it was pointless, I said not much of a point!" He says before lowering his voice to a grumble, "You shouldn't talk so loud."
His attitude strikes me as odd. I know he's not the optimistic one, that's my job, but he is a generally happy person.
"Same difference!"
Lola's footsteps echo out ahead, far enough where if I talk quiet enough she wouldn't be able to hear the specifics of what I'm saying.
"What's wrong?" I ask, "I get what you mean and all with bad odds, but you seem- I don't know... Something's off."
He glances at me and sighs like he was caught, before looking straight out ahead. He lessens his pace ever so slightly.
"This just seems... too easy."
"I get that too," I whisper, recounting what happened in this very hall three days ago all too vividly.
"So you don't think..." He trails off with uncertainty.
"All we can do is hope that it really is just luck," I say confidentiality. But the words feel weird slipping off my tounge, like a muscle memory you don't fully agree with.
He turns to look at me, "Do you really think that?"
Do I really think that?
I think that I have to believe that. I'd drive myself crazy paranoid if I let myself really consider the possibilities of what could go wrong.
The reasoning is solid--somewhat at least. They left the base because they were discovered and didn't want to risk us sneaking back in and finding more than we already did. I haven't seen any cameras indoors yet, so I assume that they can't be sure what we figured out, therefore they covered their tracks as best they could.
"...By any means necessary..." Whittle's voice rings in my head, sending a shiver down my spine.
"Yes," I swallow hard "I really do think that."
"Then I will too," He says genuinly, without hesitation.
An uncontrollable toothy grin spreads across my face that I couldn't stop if I wanted to. I catch my face in the reflection of some modern art, I look... Happy. Stupid happy. And so does Nayan. I angle my head away so he doesn't see my smile.
Lola runs back to us, I didn't recognize it but she did leave at some point, "We've got to look through file cabinets, shelves, shit like that if we're actually going to find something."
We stop walking.
"So, like when we scavenge?" I say.
She points at me playfully, "Exactly like that."
With a few words of planning to meet back up when one of us gives the signal--yelling, we split up.
Lola went into a room labeled "Head office" by a silver plaque. Nayan went into a room labeled "Sleeping quarters", the thought was that there might be something wedged under one of the countless bare mattresses. When we talked about it, it gave me a sense if homesickness. Not like this feeling is unusual around here, but looking for stuff inbetween couch cushions feels too normal.
Because of this I was quick to move along. I walk into an unlabeled room, it's filled to the brim with filing cabinets and has a small desk in the center. The area is small but I could imagine it being packed full of huge piles of paper. Someone sitting in the little desk, living off a lukewarm cup of coffee, and helplessly sifting through it all.
I open and close each cabinet hastily, not one of them has even a scrap of paper. My arm starts to grow tired by the time I near the last of the rows of metallic drawers. I'm slamming the third to last one when something stands out against the rest.
I slowly let the drawer slide back open and I see what I was looking at before. The beige file stuck to the inside in a way that could easily go unnoticed if you weren't looking for it.
Or were in a hurry.
I kneel on the tile and pump a fist in the air with the excitement of my find. The paper is stuck to the plasticcy interior, but with some delicate picking I'm able to easily pull it off with only causing a few minor tears.
Maurice Gates. The name scribbled on the top corner of the file.
I flip it open, showing a bio page for a man who is probably on the older side based on the picture. It looks like the picture wasn't taken with him knowing. The camera is from a distance with him wearing a tight mask and gathering water from a stream. He has pale skin and fair blonde hair that seems to be shifting into a grey.
The bio labels him as Avexian, that he has a wife named Tracy, and a teenage daughter named Mirella. Both are labeled as deceased with a much smaller picture of them posing for a school or work ID.
I flip through the next few pages, mostly pictures with the occasion post-it attached.
I close it up and open my mouth to yell out the signal. A croak flutters out but I stop when I hear my sisters loud yelling.
"Guys! Come quick!" She hollers excitedly, "I'm in the cell area!"
I tuck the file into my bag for later and rush down the hall to find my sister, who from the sound of it found something even cooler than me.
I travel down a few halls using her quieter voice as a tracker, I almost crash into Nayan.
We both stop dead in our tracks, listening while Lola talks not far away.
"I thought You our were with Lola," I say.
"I thought you were!"
"If your here..." He pieces together, "You hear her talking right?"
"I... do...'
I listen for a moment while her voice carries on, a small mumble of space between each blurt.
Unless my sister is going crazy, this means one thing, and one thing only. Something very exciting.
"So does that mean?"
I bounce on my toes childishly, "It does!"
He bursts off down the hall, I'm quick to follow. With only one turn we find ourselves in a row of cells. Each with several metal rows blocking an exit from the inside of the concrete square.
Lola is just a few cells away with a set of keys jingling in her grip, she's unlocking someone's handcuffs.
She glances away from the short, dark haired boy with excitement.
She waves us over, her wrist rapidly shaking her hand, "Guys! Come meet Marcus!"
I walk over cautiusly, I don't try and hide my uncertainty. Nayan doesn't seem as concerned but he still isn't jumping for joy like Lola.
The boy, most likey our age turns to I and Nayan with a cheery smile that I could see him with on a regular basis. He has short black hair and-
Blue rimmed pupils.
He's Avexian.
The blue in his eyes seems a hint darker than I and Nayan's, but it still stands out brightly against his pale skin.
He lurches forward and pulls me into a hug. I tense up with my arms rigid at my sides, and don't even hug him back, but he doesn't seem to notice. Or If he does, he just doesn't care. He lets go and greets Nayan the same way, he looks equally shocked.
Lola wildly grins, "This is my sister, Cassie, and our friend, Nayan."
"I like your name, Nayan! And as you probably heard, I'm Marcus," He says with a strong Italian accent, like he knows the words in English but hasn't mastered the pronunciations yet.
"Thanks, yours is nice as well," He says, subtley giving me a this is weird look.
I shrug.
"And Cassie," He pauses as if to think of something, which only proves whatever he says won't be genuine, "Your shoes look pretty cool."
My shoes belonged to a girl who hopefully had to evacuate her home dimension. They probably weren't that nice when new and I souly wear them out of comfort.
"Thank you" I say, uncomfortable with his bright smile. Maybe if it was an excited joy I'd be more fine with it, but I'm sure this is his normal, "How long have you been here?"
"The prison, or just the general- erm, area?"
Area? Oh? He doesnt know where we are.
I learned that I and Nayan are Avexian through the biology report, but how I figured out that we're in a dimension called Avex is different.
It was after Nayan choked me and I stabbed his arm, we talked for awhile about just general intro stuff. At some point along the lines he asked how long I'd been been on Avex for. I thought it was weird that he called it that, but didn't bother asking because I was happy to find someone, and he had been here for well over three years.
He never told me how exactly how he figured it out but I've always assumed it was something like the paper Lola found. Regardless, I was happy to call the dimension Avex instead of "Place that's not home".
"Both," I say.
"I haven't been in the area for more than a few months," he quiets his voice innocently, "But I've been here for two weeks I think."
"Oh," I mumble.
He shakes off the sorrow in his last sentence, "But now that you guys are here, I'm free!"
Lola doesn't even look at him with a hint hint of suspicion, "I'm not sure how much I'd say free, but at least your not alone or in that damn cell anymore."
He opens his mouth to say something, probably some overenthusiastic Are you really letting me stay with you? But he's cut off by the loud grumble from his stomach and his smile droops.
"I hate to be a bother, but do you guys have any food with you?"
A/N: Yay, Marcus is finnaly here! What do you guys think, is he sus?