8.5
“Are you sure this is it?” Rainer asks, propping a hand on their hip and squinting skeptically at the crumbling brick shed.
“Yep,” Dallas says. “Help me get these boards off, will you? I’d hate for any of us to get splinters.”
Rainer doesn’t volunteer, and Austin isn’t so sure either. The boards over the entryway to the shed look ancient and warped, the door behind them hanging crooked on its hinges. The grass here has grown tall and thick, coming up to Austin and Rainer’s knees, and the shed itself has walls overgrown with kudzu and rope-like poison ivy vines. It’s hard to imagine that this place has stood on the DPR campus for so long without anyone knocking it down entirely, though it looks like the kind of small building where a water pump or a generator would be stored. Maybe too important to knock down, in that case.
“This is really an entrance to the Underground?” Austin asks. How has it been here for so long without any of the agents knowing?
“Oh, yeah,” Dallas says confidently. “It was a back way into the labs. The main entrance was sealed off a while ago, but I don’t think many people know about this one.”
“Is this the only other way down there?” Austin asks. He glances around for anything to help smash through the boards and, coming up empty, steps up to try kicking through one of them. It breaks apart under his boot with barely any give at all, nearly sending Austin crashing into the door with the leftover momentum.
“Not at all,” Dallas says, as Austin kicks through the second board. “There’s access tunnels all over town. You just seem like you’re in a hurry, so I figured I’d pick the closest one.”
“We are a little pressed for time,” Rainer agrees. They join Austin in the doorway of the shed, reaching out to push the door with their fingertips. It swings slowly inwards on a small, dark, entirely silent interior.
Austin switches on one of the flashlights the group took before leaving the DPR building, suddenly glad he has it. He swings the beam around the shed, revealing a complete lack of furniture or machinery. There are no other doors visible in the shed, nor any conspicuous seams where a secret entrance might be located.
“Allow me,” Dallas says, pushing in between Austin and Rainer and stepping into the shed.
The ceiling isn’t nearly low enough that he should have to stoop, but Dallas drops down onto his knees, tapping the wooden floorboards experimentally with his fingers. Finally, he seems to find the one he’s looking for, and pries it up, wincing a little bit. With it comes an entire section of the floor, a manhole-sized chunk of boards that Dallas props up against one wall. Austin and Rainer file into the shed, and Austin shines his flashlight down at the exposed spot beneath the floorboards, a square, metal hatch with a circular handle at its center.
“And there you have it,” Dallas says proudly. “Who wants to do the honors?”
“I will,” Rainer says, “but you’re going down first.”
They kneel next to the hatch and begin turning the handle, grunting with effort as it creaks a little, resisting the movement. Eventually, though, it starts to rotate properly. Rainer tugs on it after a few complete, clockwise turns, and the hatch pops open. They turn their own flashlight on to look down, the beam glinting off of a ladder and faintly illuminating a floor below.
“Well, no time to waste,” Dallas says, still smiling. Austin’s not sure he’s stopped smiling this whole time.
Rainer holds their flashlight beam steady on the ladder, giving Dallas enough visibility to lower himself into the hatch and start to climb down. Once Dallas is about halfway down, Rainer starts to descend as well, using Austin’s flashlight beam as a guide. Austin brings up the rear, holding the flashlight between his teeth and finding each rung of the metal ladder carefully with his foot before stepping down. The rungs are old, rust flaking off onto his hands, but his boots give him good traction, and it feels like no time at all before he’s standing in the underground chamber with Rainer and Dallas.
Chamber is a bit of an understatement, actually - like Dallas said, it’s more of an access tunnel. The wall behind them is a dead end, but in front of them, the path stretches onwards, past where the beam of their flashlights can reach. There are fixtures on the ceiling that must be fluorescent lights, though they’re either turned off, or long burnt out.
“This way,” Dallas says, switching on his own flashlight and gesturing for Rainer and Austin to follow him. “It’s a little bit of a hike, but a good way to sneak in. Most of the Underground doesn’t know this entrance exists.”
Austin matches Rainer’s pace, letting Dallas walk a good half a yard ahead of them. There are doors set into the walls of the tunnels at odd, almost random intervals, each with a darkened light above them, all unlabeled. Maybe storage, maybe branching hallways to other parts of the Underground.
Are we near the sewers? Austin wonders. He can’t hear rushing water, nor does he smell sewage. Above them, maybe? Below them? How do subway systems in bigger cities work? Maybe it’s something like that.
He’s still puzzling over it when they come to a fork in the path, and Dallas stops abruptly, considering both paths. He looks pensively towards the left side, then the right, then nods, and turns down the left corridor. Austin and Rainer both wait for a moment before going after him, letting Dallas have the lead again.
“Do you really trust him?” Austin asks Rainer, under his breath in case they’re not completely out of earshot.
“Yeah,” Rainer says. “I mean, he’s hard to get a read on, but I think he really does want to help out. He’s saved a lot of agents.” They hold up their hand, the one with the prosthetic thumb and forefinger. “He helped attach this, too.”
“How, uh,” Austin begins, and swallows, “how’d you lose them? If that’s okay to ask.”
“I don’t mind.” Rainer grins. “Got in a scuffle with a gang of werewolves who’ve been squatting in an abandoned hotel, out by city limits. I actually got off pretty lucky - one of the other agents with me had his whole arm taken off.”
“Jesus,” Austin says. “Is he okay?”
“Is who okay?” Dallas asks from up ahead, looking over his shoulder at the two agents. It’s impossible to tell if he’s been listening in this whole time, or if Austin just raised his voice loud enough to be heard.
“Ross,” Rainer says, by way of explanation. “The agent who lost his arm to a werewolf.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s fine,” Dallas says. “I think he was supposed to start getting fitted for a prosthetic soon.”
“Good to know,” Austin says, and glances back at Rainer’s prosthetic fingers. They look more advanced than any prosthetics he’s ever seen, which isn’t particularly surprising - the DPR lab technicians tend to develop some wild stuff that never really sees the light of day. “So, do those do anything besides just be fingers?”
“They’re an electroshock weapon, as long as I keep them charged.” Rainer’s grin stretches a little wider, showing off their fangs. They flex their index finger demonstratively. “The tip can come off, like a Taser. It’s strong enough to knock someone out.”
“Sounds handy,” Austin says, relatively impressed. He doesn’t expect to be losing an appendage any time soon, but it’s good to know that the DPR has some cool gadgets to act as replacements.
“That it does,” a voice from behind him agrees.
Austin, Rainer, and Dallas all freeze in place. The hairs on the back of Austin’s neck prickles, but his stomach is oddly calm. The precognitive sense that usually fires off warning bells whenever he’s remotely close to danger is inactive, though there’s only one thought coursing through his mind, his heartbeat pounding heavily in his ears.
Abbott. It’s Abbott. He has been hiding down here. He’s been waiting for us to find him, and now he thinks he has the jump on us.
Austin grips his flashlight tightly in his hand, ready to use it as a weapon. He whirls around, winding up for a punch, but suddenly finds stars exploding in his field of vision, pain blossoming in the side of his skull. His hand falls open, the flashlight tumbling out and clattering against the concrete floor. He’s already unconscious before he hits the ground next to it.