Elastic Ecstasy
Darren Markane felt like these criss-crossing hallways went on forever, the pale grey of the concrete walls and floors, and the dirty white of the ceiling, along with all the rooms filled with humming equipment, and the pipes and conduits that ran along the walls, making everything look the same.
It reminded him of some old internet horror story, about some endlessly expansive rooms filled with monstrous terrors.
Fortunately in his case, these rooms were fully mapped, and entirely benign. They were just large. Expansive. And rarely travelled.
The perfect place to set up a temporary hideout if one didn't wish to be found for a while, but didn't plan on staying for long.
That's why he was here, torch in one hand, sweeping its beam across the corridors because the fluorescent lights that hugged the ceiling were dim and crap, and his other pressed to his taser's holster.
He wished he had a gun, but his department had grown leery of issuing him one after the last incident.
It was a load of horseshit, but he'd have to deal with it. At the very least, the perp he was hunting this time likely wasn't exceptionally dangerous.
Whoever or whatever it was, had broken into a local museum. Not unusual, priceless artefacts in fact had a price to the right people. However, only a single item was stolen, and it was, by most metrics, pretty worthless; a small carved sculpture, depicting some ancient goddess. It was not a unique specimen, and in pretty poor condition, but historically valuable.
Or some such, he didn't much study history. But there was intelligence to suggest it may be linked to other active cases involving theft of unusual items, some valuable, some not, but in all situations, done with minimal footprint; whoever stole them had done so almost without setting off any security systems or being seen by guards. Moreover, what systems they
did
trip, still didn't result in their capture.
So there were some suspicions about the perp, what they might've been capable of. However, it was also deemed of only 'moderate' priority.
The perfect assignment for an agent of his skills who'd gotten themselves into a bit of trouble with the department.
Whatever, if it was a punishment detail, he'd soldier through it and get back to 'front line' duties, as they were often called, due to their higher risk and greater importance to the safety of the city.
But that didn't stop him grumbling from how much of a boring drag this case was becoming. Because of course this place lacked CCTV coverage except for the exits which were
utterly
blind.
He reached the far end of the basement floor, and proceeded to check up and down the next column of rooms and corridors. Couldn't they have given him another fuck-up as a partner? It'd make this quicker, and at least he'd have conversation, even if it might've been terrible.
He muttered quietly, and shivered from the chill; no climate control for this basement, but at the same time, he was surprised it was cool with the amount of quietly humming machinery in all these rooms... what was it even for? The building above was a parking lot.
It was also annoying he felt chilly at all, his leather jacket proving to be less warm than he would've hoped. He should've brought something warmer than grey jeans and the navy blue T-shirt sporting his department's logo, with the black leather jacket on top.
At least his feet were warm, between the black leather boots and the thick, grey bamboo socks.
Beyond that though, he didn't have much on him... badge and keys in his jacket's right pocket, some handcuffs and packaged rubber gloves in his left cheek pocket, and his wallet and smart phone in the right.
All that was in his left jacket pocket was a small tin full of chewing mints, and a quick rattle told him it wasn't really that full.
He sneezed, and that fouled his mood some more, but then, he saw something; a door ahead, closing off one of the rooms. Not unusual itself... except there were scrape marks on the floor that looked fresh. And he hadn't come to this part of the basement yet.
His eyes narrowed, and his left hand pressed harder to the grip of his holstered taser.
He approached the door slowly, turning off his light, though his grip on it tightened; it always could serve an effective bludgeon.
His free hand went to the lever handle, and slowly pulled it down, and then, the door open.
It creaked quietly, and a light flickered on automatically.
Someone had clearly been living here temporarily. Why else would there be a mattress shoved up against the wall to the right of him?
There were also several sports bags pushed into the far right corner, and the shelves that were already inside had a few cans of tinned food. There was a laptop sitting on the mattress, but most curious of all, a strange looking device the size of a rock melon that reminded Darren of a gyroscope, sitting next to the mattress, but he didn't think it was that... he wasn't sure what it was.
He frowned, but once he was sure there were no traps, he stepped inside. He did get startled when he looked on the other side of the door; whoever had set this up had stuck a mirror to the back of the door, and seeing his tired face staring back at him caught him off guard.
Once the initial fright abated, he did take time to give himself a look over, and winced; he was looking a little rough.
His cheeks and jawline were covered in roughly shaved stubble, and his dirty blonde hair was all sorts of disorderly.
He examined the large bandaid covering his left cheek, and the healing cut that stuck out either end, earned in the shitshow that lost him 10mm privileges.
He groaned and brushed his fingers across his cheek, before examining the dull green eyes that stared back, slightly sunken from bad sleep and stress, and perhaps too much coffee and beer.
He was surprised he had as good a physique as he did with the amount he drank... then he remembered some of his colleagues and realised he didn't drink all that much.
But he certainly looked older than he did, like he was broaching his thirties, instead of being only twenty four.
He leaned in to examine his nose, swearing it was crooked still. It looked perfectly fine, but no matter how much he looked, and how many people told him to stop worrying about it, it still didn't look quite right. Did that surgeon really set it straight after that hit?
He shook his head; he was getting distracted.
He looked around, and found what looked like security clearance cards for the museum that got robbed... except they didn't seem quite right.
He pulled out the packaged rubber gloves, unsealed them and donned them. Picking up the cards, he turned them over and noticed they all had the same serial number.
Spoofed cards.
At least he was more confident this was a temporary hideout opposed to some homeless person's haunt.
He placed them back down, and took out his phone, taking pictures and marking them with virtual evidence markers.
In hindsight, he should've snapped some pics before he picked the cards up, but oh well.
He took some more pictures, and then rooted around in the sports bags; lots of unused trashbags in one, and nothing else, but the other turned up something curious; stretchy sporting clothes, of a somewhat... minimal bent, along with tube tops made out of a similar material. They came in all sorts of colours, often quite garish, though some seemed quite dark. And then, he found an unmarked aerosol can, save for a single warning label on it, but no words to detail the hazard.
He frowned, and put it back, not wishing to tempt fate.
He checked the last sports bag, and found all sorts of random effects, including hair dye, lipstick, women's underwear - leading him to assume the perpetrator was female - and assorted hygiene products, including wet wipes meant for cleaning when water wasn't available.
Just how long had the person who was hiding here planned on staying? Then, his nose scrunched a little. A sweet aroma hit him, like cinnamon and wildflowers, mixed with nondescript spices. The strange combination was oddly familiar to him.
He frowned, and he was starting to think he might've known this person.
He checked the hair dye again; a bright, copper blonde.
"Aw fuuuck..." he groaned.
