Friday March 10th.
Mid-day
A
??
fter going through the huge door (and locking it from inside), Vic and Vivian found themselves in the large building, where Dotu the Great resided.
Being taken aback by the grandiose of the place, they hesitated a bit, looking at every little thing that caught their attention, the oversized living room, the wide hallways between rooms, the spiral stairwell lined with red marble railings, the sofa looked like it was made of ruby, and those large air-conditioners you'd see in corporate establishments littered the place.
The TV was huge, its screen was flatter than any they had ever seen.
Driven by their curiosity, they searched each door they came across, some rooms being the same as the other, some rooms being wasted as storage rooms.
A while later, while the two walked along one of the hallways somewhere in the building, Vic broke the silence.
"Uh… we aren't lost, are we?" He looked at Vivian. "What are we doing?"
"I dunno, get them and run?"
"Such a nice plan that is."
"Better than 're-kidnapping'"
They wondered to the end of another hallway, when Vivian came up with a suggestion.
"Well… hmm, let's check the back." she said with a sigh.
"Just like that?" Vic didn't sound too keen on it.
She stopped, "Rich people are always at the back of their houses."
He looked at her, hanging his head on his neck, a silly expression on his face. "We're looking for Dotu!? WHY!?"
She folded her arms and lowered her head, "Because wandering about, knowing the enemies' location is better than doing the same, while the enemy could be anywhere."
"What!? I don't get." he still looked dumbfounded.
"Well, I didn't expect you to understand," she sighed. "Let's find the backyard."
She turned around, heading back the way they came.
Vic, still confused, shook his head, followed her behind.
They got back to the living room, but Vivian took a right to the door opposite the main door they came in through.
"Keep your footsteps silent." she cautioned him.
Vivian opened the door, just a small crack that could give them a good enough view of the place.
Vivian looked from the lower half, while Vic, being an inch taller, looked through the upper half, and to his surprise, there was Dotu (a man that could be him at least), by the pool relaxing on a red mat under a red umbrella.
From the way he lay lifelessly on the mat, they assumed that he was in a deep sleep, too deep in sleep to notice their presence.
"See? I was right."
"Bah, anyone could have guessed that."
"You didn't, Mr. Re-kidnap."
"Let's act like I never said that, yeah?"
She closed the door, with caution, then folded her arms while looking at the floor.
They both sighed, as they thought of their next move.
"Let's assess the situation, we're trying to look for a bunch of people in a rich guy's house while trying to remain as quiet as possible and avoiding attention at all costs, the guards are still outside so that's a good thing-"
"People…" She cut him short.
Then she went on all fours, resting her ears on the ceramic tiles, she shut her eyes.
Vic stared at her with indifference.
At this point, nothing she did surprised him.
"Are you praying?" he asked, but didn't sound like he wanted an answer.
"…" of course, she didn't give one either. So he joined her, positioning himself in front of her and resting his ears on the tiles as well.
"…"
"… hmm"
"…"
"Hm hm Hmmm."
She opened her eyes.
"Mmmhmmm, hm"
With a hand out of nowhere, she slapped him on the mouth.
"mrfff! KAI! Your hands are all sweaty!"
She got up to a kneeling position, "I have a clue."
"W hy'd you slap my mouth?" he held his hand to his mouth.
"We need to get underground." she got up
"Under- what?" he stood up as well.
"Underground, there's a lot of people. I think. Or, what do you suggest?"
"An apology would be nice, yeah?" he said, then started jogging towards the living room, to which Vivian followed.
They wandered upstairs, their senses wide open for anything that might throw them off.
Vivian had suggested looking for an elevator, which was an endeavour that was taking some time.
"…Paul has this way, he has a way of handling things. Says he wants to own a cult someday, so he has to practice it out on people."
"Uhm…"
Vic had started reciting a bio description on his friends a while ago.
"And Harry, well you know Harry yeah? He's popular, but not as popular as me. Get this, he doesn't know what he's doing in life. He just 'goes with the flow', can you imagine?"
"Yeah, actually."
"See, if you don't got a purpose in life, then you're as good as dead."
"… What if one doesn't know their purpose?" it was serious question, not that he noticed, since almost replied with a laugh.
"Heh, It's as good as finding one, yeah, I have this uncle that died."
"You no longer have him then."
"Well guess this, apart from me knowing him as my uncle, I don't know anything else about him, he has no actions to his name. He came, he lived a bit, and he left, gone, poof!"
"… Sorry I guess"
"Nah, that wasn't the point, the point-" he put a finger on his forehead and squinted his eyes, "The point is, he is gone! Everything about him."
"So, no purpose?"
"No purpose! YES! That's what we're talking about!"
"Ughhh"
"What?" he stopped, pointing something by the side of the hallway, "Door."
"Hm?" She looked up at it, and its presence made her shoulders drop.
It was a huge door. Unlike the other doors in the place, that one was wooden, with two shutters. Engraved in gold on it were dragons, snakes, demon-looking creatures, diagrams, tetra-grams scattered around the door in a mess.
Why did it look like that?
Vivian's legs shook as she stood in front of it, a drop of sweat dropped down her cheek.
Vic walked up to it and opened it, walking into the given room afterwards.
"Oh, neat!"
"What the heck?" She ran after him, despite the door still intimidating her,
'This Dotu guy…'
Through the door was an office, complete with the desk, black leather chair and gold embroideries on the sofas. In addition, it had a simple parlour area, with a TV like the one downstairs and two air-conditioners. Flowered intercontinental Vases stood at the corners of the room, paintings of various objects hung on the walls and a huge grandfather clock stood by one of the sides.
If there was one word for the room, it would be clustered.
"This place is awesome~!" That was Vic.
"Office…" That was Vivian.
"This must be Dotu's office. I have to say, hehe the guy is living the life!" he remarked.
"He must be a politician... a successful one at that." she noted.
"Alright," he rubbed his hands together in glee while looking about, "What to do first?"
"…"
Vivian's eyes met the large window, then the desk in front of it. The architecture of it simply caught her eye, it drew her towards it.
Vic on the other hand was tossing books from the shelf on the wall. He ran to the vase and peeked into its hole, he threw the artificial flowers out of it and tore out their fake petals - to see if they were real. He ran to the sofas and threw out their cushions aside, sticking his hands into the foams in their leather casings and ripped through their seams. He checked behind the TV and everything else that was movable. Like a spirit on steroids, he moved and touched everything he could get his hands on.
Vivian could only watch him from afar,
'so intimidating…'
But Vic ran passed her and stepped on her foot.
"Hey! Guy be careful."
"Is that a chandelier?" He gasped, running underneath the hanging light bulbs.
"Ughh"
He was just being a child at this point, she went over to face something else.
Like the wide desk.
Whatever good image the desk ever had, was ruined with what she saw on it.
Loads of absolute rubbish.
"eugh." She groaned.
Papers, folders, files, pins, paperweights, stamps, ink, it was an unkempt sanctuary.
Who lived like this?
"Then again… I'm probably worse..." she sighed. "cleaning is hard for everyone, I guess."
She reached into the pile and drew out a card like paper she saw sticking out.
She glanced at the contents.
"… Mining… proposal… Uni-port…?"
She skipped to the end of the paper.
'Dotu the … the man owns a mining firm'
She returned the paper and picked another one closer to the chair of the desk.
A shorter looking paper with uneven sides, it might've been ripped out of a book.
"This one is… a diary note. Interesting.
She read the crooked handwriting to herself.
Dickson is proving difficult, might have to resort to plan B. Whatever happens, he should know, it was his doing.
"Well, he certainly knows how to pass the blame." she said with a scoff, and rolled her eyes, tossing the paper aside. "Men... the same everywhere."
'Though, that name, Dickson, do I... Know it somewhere...?
She wondered.
It had something to do with Uni-port, she would maybe find out about it with time.
"Hey! I found a pair of tights in this chair!" Vic called out to which Vivian turned around.
"That's a couch. And don't touch that, guy!"
He replied with a light laugh.
As usual.
So she faced the table again, "This man, he's looking for something, he wants something from... that Dickson person, but what?"
She walked to the side of the desk with its drawers. She opened the first one,
Stationary,
The second one,
Books, journals.
The third,
More papers.
On closer look at them, they looked like… agreements? Signed ones at that.
She searched through them all, the were all letters of agreements, Dotu on one hand, and on the other were various parties, mostly companies.
Companies she was sure were privately owned.
"Okay…"
She sat on the leather chair behind the table,
Not much thought to that.
She sighed and glanced at the table.
There was a framed picture lying face down on it, one she hadn't noticed before. She carried it and observed the figure on it.
A girl,
No, a young woman.
She wore a blue dress, it stopped just below her knees and hugged her slim frame rather tightly. She was in a matriculation gown, one that matched the ones they used at Uni-Port.
Was she a student there?
She ignored the question in her mind, of course she was.
Along with the wide smile plastered across her face, Vivian found herself very envious of the lady in the picture.
'S-U-G…
…the only female one at that.'
Her ears whispered to her - trouble.
She stood up, scattered through the junk on the table, she roughened it up more than it already was.
A small jotter caught her eye. She snatched it and stuffed it into her jogger's pocket.
"VIC?" she called out, since the silence in the room had her worried.
Vic was facing the grandfather clock, his hands on his waist.
"What is it? I'm busy, yeah?" he answered, without moving bone.
"Someone's coming!" she said, in a hurry.
She could hear footsteps coming up the stairs some some metres away.
Vic glanced at her first, as if he couldn't believe her to know such a thing, then he turned to face her with his hands on his head. " SHOOT!" he ran to the grandfather clock.
"What are you-?"
"There's... something to this- thing. Help me out." he kicked the front of the clock like it was a punching bag.
"I don't even know what you're doing?" she asked, with confusion in her voice.
"Anything!" he steps back from the clock.
"D'oh!" She exclaimed, but had no other choice but to believe him.
So she walked up to the clock and kicked it, hard!
The clock fell back and hit the wall behind it. Its internal parts rumbled on the impact and it chimed loudly across the room, like it would at noon
Then, to the right of it, the bookshelf shifted to the left.
The light coming from inside said there was a room inside.
"Huh, I thought the door was behind-"
"Get in!" she ran passed him and got into the room.
Vic, glanced at the office they were leaving behind, then sighed as he got into the room.
The place was a bigger mess after their presence touched it - not a good reputation.
Once Vic got in, the door, or the bookshelf rather, began to close, till it shut them in.
The room was dark in comparison, despite the only overhead light source. Its walls were steel bars and beyond them was a shaft of cement.
"What is? A private room?"
Vivian pointed at the controls by the side of the door, "It's an elevator."
"Efficient!"
She looked up at the ceiling, "I've only ever heard about it."
Vic, without saying a word, pushed the button that pointed down on the control panel.
"Dude!" Vivian slapped his hand away.
"What?" Vic asked her, "It could lead to to the lecturers."
'I know that, but you can't just...'
!!!!
The elevator shook here and there, and began to descend, it took them unawares.
In fact, neither of them had ever been in such a mechanical construct.
Something from outside scrapped on the walls, leaving a metallic noise in its wake.
"Hey, you're senses are rather good, where'd you learn to hear like that?" Vic asked.
"In my endeavours to avoid the human race, I adopt any skill useful." she said, while staring at him.
"That doesn't make any sense, you just have trust issues."
To that, she couldn't say anything.
Vic and Vivian stood there, sharing the thin air in the compartment, but no word.
A minute passed, Vic though it a good idea to sit down on the floor of the compartment.
"This is taking too long, I feel like I could live my whole life while …"
"Don't sit down."
"I've been standing all day, let me rest."
"Well so have I, now stand up."
"You just don't want to stand alone huh?"
Her face flushed, she gasped, then looked away
Vic: hah, you're so predictable
"I'm not, gosh this is taking too long, staying with you is driving me mad." she said as she roughened up her already shaggy hair.
"Sucks to be you then."
"Don't just talk to me," she sits down, her back facing him. "Y-you're the weirdo running around, even with a broken foot."
Vic smiled, "It's fine, not broken. Thanks for caring."
In reply, the girl folded her arms and raised her shoulders.
Time moved at a slow pace within the space, they could hear each other breathing in the silence, that alone was awkward.
"What's your real adjective?"
He threw in a question.
"…Why are you asking me that? It's not important."
Vic crossed his legs. "But I want to know! It wouldn't hurt to know right?"
"Well…" she shrugged, "I don't like talking about it."
"Hmm," he nodded, his fingers on his chin, "So if I tell you mine, you'd tell me yours?"
She didn't see any need in exchanging adjectives of all things.
Not that she believed in their need.
"I-I don't know, whatever."
"..."
He looked at the ceiling, then lay down on the floor.
Wasn't he being too free?
He didn't say anything, as if some other thought had come and preoccupied his mind.
"Um... So what is it?"
She was inaudible.
"What's what?"
She looked at him from behind her shoulder, he could tell that he was getting on her bad side.
"Oh, my ad? Nah I don't have one, too tacky." he said, his voice, the calmest she'd ever heard him.
She got intrigued, turning around to face him again.
"How, so?" she asked, carried by curiosity.