FINE WINE || L.HS

9. THE FACTORY

They stood in front of the building where it was supposed to happen this evening. The tracker told them that their criminal was walking around New York somewhere else, around Times Square.

Haeun looked up at the factory and swallowed the lump in her throat. She looked up at Sunghoon, standing next to her, who was busy preparing. He was determined. 

He was working on his gun, making sure it had enough bullets and that he could reload the weapon properly. Then he put the earpiece in his ear. 

"Ready?" Sunghoon asked Haeun. 

"Almost," She replied and quickly put her earpiece in. "Go ahead."

Sunghoon opened the mailbox with a small crowbar. The panel with the keys came out. "Do you remember the code? It's on the tip of my tongue," Sunghoon asked, kind of hesitating. 

"Seven, zero, five, zero eight, three," Haeun spoke. "Key that in."

Sunghoon's finger clicked on the numbers in the order that Haeun said. The screen lit up green and the door creaked open. 

A huge foul smell came out, as if there were thousands of dead corpses lying there. Haeun almost choked. She put on her mouthpiece, as if some pandemic was going on, but more to protect her identity. Sunghoon did the same thing. 

"I'm going to get really sick of this air," Haeun whined. 

They walked to the inside and the door closed behind them. They were in a large drug lab. There were large barrels filled with liquid everywhere.

"What the fuck!" Sunghoon scolded softly as the friends looked around throughout the room. 

 Haeun slowly let her hand caress the wall from right to left. They were quite recent bloodstains that had been splattered on the wall. She just thought of the image she saw when they first arrived at this factory and saw a man lying there in a pool of blood.

She sighed deeply.

Sunghoon walked on the other side of the huge room. He arrived at a large bulletin board, from which several letters were hung. He quickly grabbed his phone and took pictures. He looked more closely at the various letters. For example, he found a prescription for the new drugs. They hadn't named it yet.

"Damon, there's blood all around this place," Haeun said and turned to him, but he did not respond. He was busy reading something. "Damon!" She called out again, but a little louder this time. 

Again, no answer.  

She walked toward him, irritated. "How many times do I have to call your name before you finally respond!" She nagged.

"Now wait a minute! I'm just reading something..." Sunghoon said and made a slapping gesture. "Your name is right here."

"What?" Haeun asked puzzled. "How would my name be hanging there?"

"It's a list of all the test persons they used for drugs," Sunghoon said and pointed to it on the board. "Here, for example, it says Waylon. By the workings of the drugs, it says he became aggressive, so someone named Ni-Ki shot him in the leg."

"I remember that name," Haeun said and thought deeply with her eyes closed. "I think I met him at the casino. Not met, I made eye contact with him and he was wearing a name tag. I think I recognize him from that."

Sunghoon swallowed. "So the two of them are working together."

"Apparently."

The boy looked at the list again. "Below Sam is you, Summer. It says: Drugs tried on Summer. Disappeared soon after ingestion, so no clear result. Find her for reuse and new project."

"Shit," Haeun scolded under her breath.

Sunghoon looked at Haeun with concern. "Take this," He said and handed her the gun. "You need it more than I do. I'm better with the fist anyway."

Haeun sighed and took the gun. She put it in the pocket of her long, black trench coat. 

"Be careful. I'll see you outside in an hour," Sunghoon said.

"What do you want to do, Damon? Leave me alone now?" She scoffed.

"It's better if we separate our ways. We'll find more information in shorter time. I'll search upstairs. I'll meet you outside in an hour, yes?"

Haeun nodded and soon after, Sunghoon walked up the stairs with quick steps away from her. She shook her head in disbelief. She took one last look at the list and bit her lower lip. 

What do they need her for?

45 MINUTES LATER - THE FACTORY

 The search had yielded Haeun nothing except a picture of the building's floor plan. She had realized that Sunghoon was busy with the cool stuff, like armories and other big things, but she got nowhere except some empty archives. The only thing she had left to look at was the office, which was the room at the end of the hallway.

She could've known after the visit of the casino. 

It was dark in the hallway. A small light on the ceiling was almost empty, but just barely managed to light up the hallway for a small part. It gave her goosebumps.

She ran her hands through her wig to get the tangles out, purely out of boredom, but also out of nervousness at the same time. The bangs of her wig were poking annoyingly into her eyes. 

After trudging down the hallway for a short time, she arrived at the door. She placed her hand gently on the door handle and carefully opened it. It was dark in the room. 

She gently stepped inside. She had a feeling someone was there. At any rate, it didn't make any sense.

Suddenly the door slammed shut behind her. She was startled and let a small scream flow from her mouth. Now it was pitch black. No light, nothing.

Quickly she turned herself around and tried to open the door, but noticed the door was locked. She kept pulling on it, but due to the antiquity of the door, the door handle fell off. It fell on her foot. 

Hissing, she stumbled backward in pain until she suddenly bumped into something reasonably soft. 

Her eyes widened as she felt hands crawling on her shoulders, which had turned her around within a second. She almost didn't dare raise her eyes. 

Meanwhile, Sunghoon was babbling through the earpiece, saying he was outside. Shit! Of course, it was already time. 

Suddenly the light came on and the view became clear. She was in the office... with Heeseung in front of her. 

"Who are you? And why are you here?" He said, pointing a gun to her head.