The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 33 - Alex

All it took was enough pressure on the throat for enough time. A very simple equation. Throwing your arm from behind around the neck of an unsuspecting target, grabbing your own wrist and then pulling, pulling as hard as you could. It took about a minute at most. Then consciousness faded, as well as the struggle to get free.

Lifelessly, the man he had known for several months – had drunken with, had joked with – dropped to the floor and Alex stepped over him. He did not care one tiny bit.

Aaron came out of the large garage now and into the corridor that led underground directly into the basement. He kicked his food against the dead man's head, just to be completely sure. Then he picked him up by the shoulders.

"What are you doing?", Alex asked in a whisper, the dismissal in his voice ringing aloud, nonetheless.

"Making sure we're not caught even though we're not spotted", his brother grimaced back, then dragged the corpse back to the limousine with which they had arrived. He shoved it into the trunk, before he once more stepped through the exit into the long hallway.

It was silent down here, except for some quiet humming of some generator in one of the adjacent rooms.

Guns at the ready, they started their stroll. All the walls and the ceiling down here were built from red bricks with gray gaps of mortar in between, while the floor was all dark screed. On it their steps fell almost without the tiniest sound for as long as they continued onwards slowly.

Sometimes doors, mostly out of steel, but some made of wood also, led into small rooms on both sides, which contained refrigerators and storage, equipment for repairs on the building, and large batches of tubes and pipes and cables, as well as parts of the heating system, the air conditioning and the water supply. None of that was the slightest bit interesting.

Quickly, the hallway met another corridor that forked away from them.

Aaron stopped before entering it, and listened, moving his head slightly from one side to the other. There were some very faint noises, that reminded of the usual sounds of an inhabited house, yet they reached here from so far away and probably from one of the upper floors, that they seemed entirely meaningless.

Still holding his gun up close to his face, with both hands, index near to the trigger, Aaron jerked his chin down one of the hallways.

"So? That way?", he asked.

"Yeah", Alex answered. "Down to the third open staircase you find. There is one behind a door that is never used. It was built for the servants to be able to hide away from any lordly eyes. It's very likely locked anyway, but if it's not, don't go up there. The third open one, without a door! The first and second staircase only reach the first floor. You need to go to the second floor. So: third open up."

He felt that he sounded stupid, repeating this as if he was explaining to a little child. But he honestly did not want any complications of his brother running around aimlessly on his pursuit to get his toy boy back. "On the second floor, you turn right. It's the second door then on the right. There might be a guard, inside or outside."

He had explained all that before, in fact. He had even drawn a stupid map, but the proportions had all been off, and he had ripped it to shreds therefore while Aaron had grinned at him with spite.

"Where are you off to?", now his brother asked, not sounding like he really cared. It was probably just to make sure they would not end up shooting each other.

"Into the other direction", Alex answered, and now it was his smile that beheld the other with malice. "See you, Roro", he snarked and walked off.