Spy School - Back to Basics [2]

10: Breaking and Entering

"Why'd you do that?" I asked.

"Because we need to get in here, and picking a lock would look pretty suspicious, don't you think?" she responded.

"What do you mean?" I said, confused.

"When I slipped this card, it let the door close, but it blocked the lock from closing, so now we can open it. See?" Erica turned the handle, revealing the interior. "Come on, lets go."

We quickly squeezed inside and Erica closed the door with a quiet click. I looked around. There was a hallway stretching let and right, with boxes and doors to other rooms littering it. The nearest door that was open seemed to be a staff lounge, with vending machines and coffe makers.

"Which way did they go?" I asked, scanning my surroundings for any signs of where they went.

Erica creased her brows. "That's odd. There are no recent footprints or any other sign of where they went. I guess we'll have to split up. I'll explore the right corridor, you take the left, we meet back here in fifteen minutes."

"We're taking down an organization stronger than SPYDER. Splitting up sounds like a really bad idea," I voiced.

"I know, but we have no other choice."

"We don't even have a form of communication!"

"Come on. We're wasting time," Erica replied irritably. I knew she was right.

"Fine."

We split up and walked down our designated hallways. Mine was uninteresting; all the doors either led to plumbing or AC units. Soon enough I reached the end of the hallway before half of my time was even up, so I walked back to where we agreed to meet.

I arrived with a couple of minutes to spare, so I started thinking about what Erica said. How could they have left without leaving any sign? Perhaps they kicked up some dust when they were leaving. I started looking around, but I didn't see anything. I sat down in defeat and stared at the ground.

That's when I realized I was sitting in a giant circle free of dust, while the rest of the floor was covered in thirteen layers of it. I quickly stood up. At that exact moment, Erica chose to return from her scouting mission.

"I didn't find any side of them on my end, so it must be on yours?" Erica said.

"No, but I did find this," I replied, gesturing to the dust-free circle.

"Do you know why it's like that?" Erica asked.

"No," I said, sighing in defeat.

"Huh." Erica peered closer. "Interesting..."

"What?" I asked.

"There's a hairline crack where the circle of dust is. You might not see it, but its there." Erica tapped the circle, and then listened for a moment. "Aha! It's hollow too. That's why we couldn't see any sign of them in the hallways, because they went through here. And it has no dust because if you move it at all, the dust will be shaken off."

"So, basically, they went through a hole in the ground."

"Yeah," Erica confirmed. She reached for something in her pocket, a very thin throwing star and started prying it into the hairline crack. "We need to get in here to follow them, obviously," she explained.

Erica succeeded and lifted off the circular piece of the floor. Looking in side, a set of steps led down to who knew where.

"Well," Erica said, "lets go in."

1149 words

Ngl, kinda afraid to open my notifications right now...

so sorry if you commented or something, will get to you soon.

Surprisingly, I'm more busy during the summer during the school year. So.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ *in horse voice* looks like there won't be that many updates... 

Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read my book