The White Shadow 1: The Dancer

Chapter 9

For the first time since Chromwell, Darryll was asleep.

This was a big deal. Darryll never slept. There were a plethora of reasons for Darryll's insomnia, Darryll's internet addiction and pseudo-job as a game dev, his crippling paranoia, the voices in his head; but the most notable reason was likely the recurring dream that had plagued him for the last year or so. 

The void was a place somewhere in Darryll's head. He didn't know where, and to be quite frank, didn't want to know where. He honestly wanted to pretend it didn't exist. But whenever he slept, he returned to the void, in which several other people resided.

Darryll stared, from far away, at many, many people, of all shapes, sizes, and statures. They were all in their mid teens, as Darryll remembered them from when they were alive. Only a couple showed their faces, and Darryll wished he couldn't see them. Twisted. Moulded. Disfigured. Like they were made of wax, and had been heated up from within. Eyes were missing, teeth like crooked fingers, pointing everywhere. Darryll could feel their unhappiness, and remembered their names, though their skin was so mangled he didn't recognize anyone.

Harry. Nate. Lilly. Clive. Georgie. Benji. Jake.  The very though of their once smiling and content demeanour made Darryll feel like wet cement. However, there was face in the crowd that had never smiled at Darryll. Unlike his contemporaries, Dennis stood tall amidst the crowd of hunched and seated creatures. The eyes behind his glasses mirrored Darryll's own, in both shape, expression, and the bags that hung underneath. Dennis shared Darryll's mop of dark, shaggy hair, and was just as tall and lean. He called out from where he stood, but his voice traveled nowhere, only serving to alert some of the figures below him, who twisted and toiled to peer at the boy who stood above them. Darryll raised his hand, and showed his dead twin brother his middle finger, and in this instance, Darryll woke up.

The couch was not much better than the floor. It was stiff, scratchy, and smelled of beer and drugs. Darryll was still in his clothes, as he had fallen asleep on his new phone, which now lay face down upon the floor. Sluggishly, the boy shoveled himself out of bed and onto his wobbly legs. With some effort, he trudged along the floor,.past his new phone, and past Diane, who lay on the floor, peacefully sleeping, and found the door. Darryll opened and exited the building. He sat, crosslegged on the porch of his new residence, and looked to the sky. There were three stars visible, one incredibly bright and high, and two more, dimmer, below. He opened his palm, and looked into Diane's necklace. Darryll didn't trust the jewelry, as it had appeared out of a place that Darryll hadn't seen with his own eyes. What he had omitted to tell Diane last night at Sunny And Deadilous was that he had gone next door after planting the EMP to buy a near identical necklace so that he could remove Diane's necklace. After all,  Darryll didn't need to tell her everything.

Diane woke up to Darryll, fully clothed, staring down on her, his couple hours of sleep having done nothing for his miserable complexion. Diane groaned, "W' times it?"
"Time for you to get up. Your going alone this time, lucky you, I'll be outside in a car," Darryll grinned, "Just like old times."
Diane smiled, glad Darryll was back out of harms way, but still had a lingering question that she hadn't quite shaken from last night, "Hey, Darryll?"
Darryll nodded, "Mhm?"
Diane got onto her knees, and turned to face her friend again, "What was that screaming yesterday?"
Darryll suddenly turned, "Best you don't know. Trust me."
Diane pushed herself onto her feet. She only wore her underwear, since Darryll didn't want to spend money on Pyjamas. She brushed her mass of hair out of her eyes, "You ask me to trust you a lot nowadays."
"So is there any point at which you don't trust me?" Darryll asked, rather slyly.
Diane shook her head urgently, "No, of course not! I just worry that you don't trust me!"
Darryll didn't even hesitate, "Of course I trust you. We're not just partners..." And Darryll turned to face Diane with the exact same expression as he'd had when he'd pulled Diane out from under the desk, "Were freinds. Now come on. Big-ish day."
Diane moved to the table upon which her clothes, washed by Darryll in the night at a nearby lake, lay folded semi haphazardly. She picked her trousers, and turned back to Darryll, "Were going to the server place, right?"
Darryll sat at another desk, linked with a cupboard. He was checking the four guns he'd stolen from the men at the store. He offhandedly replied, "Yep. That's the one."
Daine pulled her trousers up her legs, "So," she asked, "What's the plan?"
Darryll clicked one of the guns magazines out, and observed it. He replied, "The Dancer knew what we were doing when we went to download the software at the store. Moreover, the smoke she used was hard built into the building. D'ya remember when Nia mentioned that she owns the company now?"
Diane gasped, halfway through her shirt, "Are you saying-"
"I'm not saying Nia's the Dancer," Darryll quickly reassured, "I'm saying that the Dancer might be using her as a cover up to take over the business."
Diane nodded, and exhaled, "Thank god. So, are you saying that the Dancer bought Sunny and Deadilous, and knew that we would be at the store, and will be expecting us to be at the servers?"
"Presto!" Darryll threw his finger at Diane, "See, I'm not the only clever one."
Diane almost smiled, but had a realisation. "How did the Dancer know we would be there?"
"The bug." Darryll replied, "You squashed it, and the Dancer is smart. She realised our plan there and then. Presumably, anyway."
Darryll stood up, and grabbed a gun in his free arm. He walked over to Diane, who was putting on her jacket, and handed it to her, with the words, "We keep the rest somewhere safe. I'm not gonna lose any guns again."
Diane pocketed the weapon. "Thank you."
Darryll moved back, and plopped himself upon the couch, where he threw his head back and sighed, "Alright, plan time. Firstly, I used  some hacked satellite imaging to see what the place looks like." Darryll took his phone from his pocket and swiped through a few things before coming to the image he wanted. He showed the picture to Daine, who studied it carefully.
It was a warehouse. Smaller than Chromwell's, sure, and a bright red, rather than black, but it still bought back awful memories. However, Diane tried to shake these feelings off. They only served to hold her back. Darryll flicked to another picture, and said, "The warehouse was made a manufacturer called Kal's. This wouldn't be important if not for the fact that it means that I can search up the plans for most of their warehouses. Here."
The next image was one of a top down plan of two floors. The bottom floor would be separated into two rooms, one filled with servers and the other with crates. The server room was smaller, and only had two doors for people, whilst the Crate room was bigger, and had two doors for people and a large double door for vehicles. The second floor was comprised of two small rooms conjoined by a railing balcony that overlooked everything. Diane memorised everything as best as she could, and gave Darryll a thumbs up. He closed his phone, and explained, "I don't know what the guards patrolling times are, or when the next shipment is coming in, or even how full the crates are."
Diane could see the despair behind Darryll's eyes as he listed just how uninformed he and Diane were in their present situation. However, he continued, "But once we get to the servers, they will be much more valuable than I previously anticipated."
"Why?" Diane asked.
"Because they hold more than just info on SnD's now. They hold information on the Dancer and her operation now. We get this, were freaking stacked. You get it?"
Diane nodded, "If we get this information, we don't need your informants."
Darryll grinned. "Exactly. Now, here's the plan." He drew a small USB stick from his pocket. "This."
Diane stared at the small price of plastic in Darryll's hand. Then, much to Darryll's amusement, she stared back at him with bored and annoyed eyes. "You know I have no technological prowess. Just tell me what magical thing it does."
Darryll chuckled, and flicked the stick into the air, and caught it in his fist. "This will allow me to go directly into any server it's plugged into."
Diane nodded, "Magic stick gives you access to the magic box, I see."
Darryll laughed at Diane, who laughed with him at her own little joke. "Really, though, what hole should I put the stick into? And how do I find it?"
Darryll got onto his feet, and gestured Diane to follow him. She got up and Darryll led her to his new room, and to his computer, places upon the most clean and stable desk in the building. Darryll bought the stick to eye level, and explained to Diane, "This USB, goes into a hole that looks like this." He bought the USB to the computer, and Diane watched intently as Darryll gestured to a small, rectangular hole, and he placed the USB inside the hole. "Remember," he said, gesturing to a symbol on the top side of the inserted USB, "The side with the symbol always goes on top." He removed the USB, "You get all of that?"
Diane nodded, "I think. The stick goes into a small rectangular hole, symbol side on top."
"Yep, and there should be a column of the holes on the right side of each server. Just put it in, and I'll do the magic. Good?"
Diane nodded again, and gave Darryll a thumbs up, "Got it."
Darryll slid the USB into his pocket and gestured Diane to come with him, "Then let's do this."
As Darryll entered the car, he, rather embarrassingly, finally remembered his and how it was bound in a sling. He had to slide back out the drivers seat awkwardly, asking, "Errrr, can you drive, Diane? Please?"

Diane stopped the car at a parking lot several metres from the warehouse. As the car came to a halt, Diane noticed that her shoulders were stiff, held high and uncontrollably shuddering. She let go and sank into her chair, Darryll looking over her shoulder. Darryll then lay back as well, and exhaled heavily, his phone in his only good hand. He looked over at his friend, who lay still with her eyes closed, in an outwardly peaceful state. Darryll asked, "Need anything?"
Diane opened her eyes and side-eyed Darryll, "I'm good. Just getting a little deja vu is all."
Darryll closed his eyes and grimaced. "Yeah, I get that. If you wanna back out and get some more info-"
"No," Diane's reply was sudden and determined, "I need to go in there now. The Dancer needs to be stopped."
Darryll nodded, "Yes. Now, do you know where you need to go?"
Diane gave Darryll a thumbs up, "Yep!"
And then she left, and Darryll sat by himself in the car.

Diane found that the warehouse was much smaller than the last one. Much, much smaller. It was only really comprised of two rooms, one of which was much smaller, which was the crate room. Diane, wearing her cloak, found the west entrance, three metre tall double doors, which to the crate room. She saw a large, dark green truck with a large crate tied down with white rope upon it's back. Diane waited until the massive doors opened so that she could slip through. She felt her gut tighten, and searched for a hiding place. There were two large stacks of crates stacked against the walls, and three men, two in hi vis jackets moving a crate out of the room, and one in a suit, observing them. Diane ducked behind the large truck that entered the building, and let her Cloak go for enough time to relax, before she reapplied it and ran back into the fray. The workers hauled the crate between them up a flight of stairs, and the other man watched with a stern eye. Diane made for the door to the servers, but it was locked. She couldn't kill the observer because the workers were there, and she couldn't kill the workers because they were just that- workers. So she leaped onto the railing of the stairs, and dashed for the top, where the door was unlocked, and slipped through.

She found herself atop an overhanging stretch of black, chainlink pathways that oversaw the servers. And there were a lot of servers to oversee. Rows upon rows of black boxes adorned with red and blue flickering lights. There must have been hundreds of servers, packed like sardines with very little room in between for a couple workers to monitor each of them. Diane observed five men below and six security cameras above, and decided that she needed to move fast for cover, otherwise she risked being caught. She ran along the pathway, light on her feet, making little noise, until she came across a set of stairs leading down. She ran down as quickly and quietly as possible, and came to a door at the bottom, leading into a small room. There was a window on the door that showed there was no one inside, so Diane pushed it open and entered. She closed it behind her and dropped her cloak, before taking a look around. She was inside a control room of some sort. To her left, there was a window observing a row of servers, and below the window was a desk that contained a myriad of buttons and levers and so on. Diane tried to take a closer look, but given that all the labels were abbreviated, she didn't understand what any of it meant. So she donned her cloak, and found another door leading to the servers.

Upon exiting the room, Diane bought her hand to her pocket, placing her fingers over the USB stick preemptively. She found one of the servers, and after a brief examination of where the hole was, she placed it in the lowest hole and quickly made herself scarce. She re-entered the control room, and sat cross legged on the floor, without her cloak. She asked into her earpiece, "Darryll, I've placed the USB."

No response.

Diane immediately felt her gut grow thick with worry,knowing that Darryll always responded. She pulled her cloak back on and carefully exited the room toward the stairs, back where she came. But as she was moving along the overhang, she saw something truly abysmal.

Darryll was walking, a gun to the back of his head, with the Dancer and two men.