Revenant

Chapter 3

My apartment is exactly the way I like it.

I'm not sure if those words properly convey the full meaning of what I'm saying here. Any time you're dealing with someone who uses the phrase 'just the way I like it' or similar derivatives, there's two possible ways it can go. Either the person has made due with what they have, convincing themselves that what they've ended up with is perfect for them, or the person actually has the means to put together everything they want, and in precisely the manner they want it.

I fall into the second category. A big freaking clue as to how serious I am - I own the entire apartment building I'm living in. Through shell companies, of course.

Honestly, it's a great setup. The bar is downstairs by the street entrance along with a couple of small shops, some of them empty. I rent a couple of the second and fourth floor apartments to various tenants, and my own apartment is on the third floor. Well, actually, I suppose it would be more accurate to say it is the third floor.

The whole space is nicely furnished, but not in such a way that would cause you to think it was professionally done. I've never brought anyone here, but if I did they'd probably say something to the effect of, "Wow, nice place!". In addition to the private elevator I'd installed, there are two less than obvious ways inside, as well as four well hidden emergency exits, one of which I sincerely hope I never have to use. I have this thing about sewers.

There are chairs to sit in, tables to eat at, a kitchen to cook in, a bed to sleep in - just the sorts of sturdy and well-constructed things you'd expect to find in an apartment. Nothing out of the ordinary or unusual, except for the overall shape. My apartment floor plan kind of resembles a large, square donut, with all of the available living space wrapping itself around the two old elevator shafts located in the center of the building.

Of course, there's no elevators there anymore. What's there instead is an impossibly safe, impossibly secure, James Bond inspired childhood fantasy come to life. It's what I mean when I say that my apartment is exactly the way I want it.

I call it The Room. It's where I keep my 'stuff'.

It's a room-sized steel vault wrapped in concrete, and it spends most of its time somewhere around the second floor, tucked neatly below my third-floor apartment. When I need to access it, I swipe a magnetic card through a slot on the kitchen phone, enter a nine-digit PIN, and the whole thing rises up in the center of the room, displacing the concrete walls that are usually there. It takes less than a minute, and it doesn't make a sound. In fact, there's only ever been one thing I don't like about it - I can't ever show it off to anyone.

Well, actually, there's one other that I show it to. Myrrh, the cat who adopted me a couple of years ago. He thinks it's pretty cool.

However, if anyone else were actually to get inside of this particular room and see some of the things inside, they'd glimpse enough weapons, counterfeit documents, explosives, illegal ammunition, poisons, other evidence and whatnot, that if they testified at my trial they'd get me locked up for about seven-hundred years. I've got guns ranging from a playing-card sized, two-shot Remington derringer, all the way to a fully converted Calico M960 submachine gun, all resting in smooth, contoured outlines that have been recessed into the walls. There are cabinets for ammunition, compartments for explosives, shelves for poisons and other chemicals, a soldering table for detonators and other electronic devices, and, generally speaking, enough raw, destructive power to give Charlton Heston a hard-on.

And yes, I'm aware that he's dead.

So, as you can probably imagine, I have fairly tight security. Even my tamper-proof security system has a tamper-proof security system monitoring it. I've got safeguards in place that would make even the most paranoid conspiracy theorist feel relaxed and at ease.