Site Omicron
Vienna, Virginia
May 10
1100 hours
"I thought you would be better than this, Samantha, Ben." Lacy frowned. "Honestly, I can't fathom why you would break my trust!"
Erica and I glanced at each other. Surely she was just over-exagerating or being sarcastic. How can you break someone's trust if you knew them for less than a day?
We were interrupted by Elizabeth.
"Ms. Lacy, may I go to the bathroom?" she asked, innocently, like she wasn't the head of some secret organization that was planning to nuke a country not less than a month ago.
"Sure," Lacy smiled. "I'll take you there, and you two-" she nodded towards Erica and me- "get out of there immediately. I don't want to see you breaking any rules again." We nodded quickly, and Lacy gently shoved us out of the room and locked the door, and then walked out of the room with Elizabeth.
As we walked to the place where Jayden was giving yet another lecture with zero enthusiasm, I realized something.
"Erica," I whispered, "if Elizabeth interned here, wouldn't she know where the bathroom is?"
Erica froze. "So that means Lacy is showing Elizabeth to a different place, but where? They're probably going to a place to launch their operation."
I prepared for one of Erica's distraction, but thankfully, this one wasn't going to harm me. She then collapsed in my arms, and I barely caught her.
"Um," I stuttered as the class turned to look towards me, "I think Samantha is dehydrated, let me take her to the water fountain."
"But you don't even know where it-"
I was out the door before anyone could respond.
"Can you stop being limp?" I muttered.
"No. Wait until we round the corner of the building." I swore I almost saw a hint of a snicker on Erica's face, but then it was gone. Could it really have happened- Erica, laughing?
I went down a different train of thought. "I still don't understand why you choose this distraction to get us out of there."
"It was necessary."
I finally rounded the corner of the building, and in less than a second Erica was on her feet.
"No more talking from now- and I absolutely mean it," Erica added, seeing me about to add a "but" to the conversation. "And don't look like you're sneaking around, otherwise we'll get caught. Instead, walk normally, but at a bit of a slower pace."
I nodded in defeat. We wordlessly started walking, trying to look like we were just going to the water-fountain.
The duo in front seemed to also know Erica's advice and were walking with their heads high and inconspicuously. They reached a door marked "Staff Only" and Lacy started to fiddle with the keys on her lanyard. Erica suddenly lunged forward.
"What are you doing?!" I whispered. She ignored me and darted behind a corner just next to the door which Lacy was opening.
"Can't you hurry?" Elizabeth asked impatiently. "You already tried three keys."
"Well, I don't use this entrance often, so you'll have to excuse me," Lacy replied in a clipped tone. She inserted another key and the door finally opened. "Aha."
Lacy and Elizabeth entered, and just before the door closed, Erica went out of her hiding spot and slipped something that looked like a card between the door and doorframe. Thankfully, Lacy and Elizabeth were already inside, so they didn't notice her. I quickly jogged to Erica.
"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