Possible for them.
“Fuck,” he groaned as he looked down at himself.
In the glow from the lights out on the ceiling, he saw more than he needed to about his reality, and by extension, the two of them.
The fact that he’d ejaculated all over himself and now had a sticky, cooling mess to clean up seemed like a perfect commentary on everything.
Especially their future.
Rio had vastly underestimated the scale of the place—and the operation. The staircase she and Apex used wound its way around a landing, and when they got to the next floor up, he stopped and seemed to gather his thoughts as he sniffed the air like he was searching for evidence of a live fire.
While he did . . . whatever the hell he was doing . . . she looked through the chicken-wire glass in a heavy fire door. The corridor on the far side was easily sixty feet long and ten feet wide. A series of light bulbs dangling from raw wires illuminated its progression to a far-off end . . . and she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.
The walls had cutouts in them, little curve-topped holes stacked three to a group and spaced far enough apart to accommodate ladders that led up to the middle and top levels. It was almost as though they were sleeping compartments of some kind—
“Come on,” Apex hissed. “We don’t want to be caught here.”
“Then why did you stop.” She glanced back at him. “What are all those spaces?”
“None of your business.”
As he pulled her away, she did some math in her head. Assuming they were a kind of bunk system, there had to be—Jesus, several hundred workers in the facility.
“How many people are here?” she said, even though she’d already done the estimate, and even if she hadn’t, he would certainly not help her. It was more like she couldn’t believe the total.
“We’re going all the way up to the main floor. It’s more dangerous in some ways and less so in others.”
“Well, I’ll put that in my Yelp! review of this place. Thanks.”
When they got to the next floor, he didn’t give her a chance to stop at the fire door. She caught only a glance through its window down another long corridor. Unlike the one under it, the level seemed to be far more brightly lit, and there were no sleeping pods. The walls were also finished, although only with raw Sheetrock from what she glimpsed.
At the next landing, Apex stopped at a steel door that had no window in it. Pressing his ear against the steel panel, he seemed to not even breathe as he listened.
Then he turned to her. “The lowest two floors are totally underground. The next one up is mostly so. This one is not at all, however, so I’m going to have to move fast. As soon as I open the way, we’re heading to the first door on the left that’s unlocked. It’s a break room. It will be empty and the windows are boarded up, so it’s safer. On three. One . . . two . . . three—”
Apex ripped open the metal panel, and then recoiled as if he had been hit with toxic gas. Lifting his arm to his face, he ducked down low—and jumped forward in a defensive crouch. Even though she didn’t smell anything dangerous, Rio echoed his protective stance, drafting behind his bulk, holding her breath as a vague impression of moldy carpeting, peeling walls, and a crumbling ceiling registered. Out in front of them, weak sunlight streamed across the corridor in sections, and he dodged around the stripes of faded gold.
Right ahead of her, Apex was breathing heavily, like he was struggling to stay conscious, and his speed was slowing. As they passed doors, she tried the knob of every one of them. All were locked—
“Oh, God,” she muttered as the man faltered and fell down.
When he tried—and failed—to get back on his feet, she stood over him and looked around. Had he been shot? She hadn’t heard anything.
Rio grabbed his flailing arm and dragged him off the carpet. “What’s wrong?”
“Help . . . me . . .”
There was nothing in the air that was bad, no one else was around, and he didn’t appear to be bleeding or wounded by a bullet. But now was not the time to ask questions.
Hauling him onto her, she threw his arm around her shoulders, braced his weight, and tightened a hold on his waist. Together, they limped forward, weaving a sloppy path down the corridor, her robe disguise tripping her up. She looked into every open door, noting the toppled office furniture, the graffiti, the occasional view out into a scruffy landscape of leafless trees. At each space, he told her to keep going.
“How much farther,” she grunted.
“There . . .”
Okay, that narrowed their end zone down to absolutely nothing in particular.
Just as she was about to drop him, his hand shot out and grabbed on to a knob. With a powerful crank, he released the mechanism and threw the door wide—and then he shoved himself off of her, falling forward like a drunk, landing facedown with a bump of useless limbs.
“Shut the door—shut the fucking door,” he groaned.
Rio shot inside, but didn’t slam things—because there were people under them. Maybe above them, too. And they’d made enough noise with their footfalls.
As she carefully closed them in, instantly, everything went pitch dark, and her only orientation as she floated in space was the sound of the man’s tortured breathing. Her eyes did adjust, however, shadowy outlines of a stretch of countertop, a sink, a table on its side, and one spindle chair in the corner pulling free of the void, thanks to a soft glow around the panels that had been nailed over what she assumed were window frames.
“Dumbwaiter,” Apex said on a wheeze.
“Excuse me?” Rio lowered herself to her knees. “And what the hell is going on? Are you hurt?”
“There—it’s a dumbwaiter. Your weight will lower it down. When you’re ready, I’ll pull you back up.”
“No offense, but breathing seems like a challenge for you right now. How ’bout we focus on that first?”