Fatespun - Not a Chance

Part 2 - C

With Sibby close behind him, Nick shone the light down the narrow stairwell for a moment before descending it himself. No wider than his shoulders, but made of solid concrete, the short flight of stairs ended with another door, which was, of course, unlocked.

Nick gently pushed on the door, checking to see how much noise it would make as he opened it. The hinges were in surprisingly good shape and opened soundlessly. With each small piece of luck, Nick got a little more worried. Instinctively, he reached into his jacket and pulled out his ‘Penny-Pounder’ as he gently pushed open the door with his forearm.

The worn wooden stock of the gun felt comfortable in Nick’s hand. Though he didn’t really like shooting people, he had learned that sometimes it was one of those unavoidable necessities. 

The ‘Penny-Pounder’ was a device of his own creation, sort of. A sawed-off double-barreled shotgun cut really short and loaded with rolled pennies. Bullets were hard to find, even for Nick, and better served the Unit than him. Any time he found some, he passed them on to the Hand for a handsome fee. On the other hand, pennies were pretty much worthless and gun-powder wasn’t so difficult to make. Stupidly dangerous to carry around and use if one wasn’t careful. Or lucky.

Nick custom made the ‘shells’ for the ‘Penny-Pounder’, hand packing gunpowder and pennies into a makeshift casing that fit into his specially shaved out shotgun. Every time he fired it he ran the risk of it backfiring and exploding in his face. It was the type of weapon that only a Fatespinner could use.

A quick sweep of the room with the flashlight showed that they were in a room similar to the room at the top of the stairs, though there were significantly less books. The room seemed to be constructed out of the same concrete as the stairwell and had a low ceiling and plain floor. The center of the room had a plain, though heavy, wooden table; sheets of paper scattered about it. Above the table, hanging on a wire from the ceiling was a single light-bulb.

Nick followed the wire with the circle of light created by the flashlight along the ceiling, down the wall, and to a switch beside yet another heavy door. The light hovered over the switch while he considered his options.

“Think it still works?” Sibby asked quietly from slightly behind him. Other than the white beam from the flashlight in Nick’s hand, they were in absolute darkness. They had gone down the stairs very carefully, Sibby’s hands on his shoulders the entire way, and if they hoped to discover what it was Nick’s luck had brought them there for, more light would be almost essential.

“Of course it still works,” Nick answered, the circle of light not leaving the switch. “But we’re not going to turn it on. We don’t know where we are or what we’re looking for. If it’s people that we’re looking for, the light might alert them, which would be bad for us. If it’s not people, I trust my luck will give us another way to find whatever it is.”

“Okay Nick.”

Nick could hear the nervousness in Sibby’s voice. Although there often wasn’t much more than the moon to light their way on the surface, there was always a sense of physical freedom and familiarity. The low ceiling, the tight walls, the utter darkness, it all felt too much like a tomb.

“Let’s see what’s on those papers,” he said to give their minds something to do other than spin nightmares. He moved the circle of light back to the table and Sibby moved into it, obviously slightly relieved to be able to see herself again. They had only been in the room for a few minutes, but even that had been enough to start to bother them.

She picked up one of the pieces of paper, shaking the dust off of it, and held it so that the light fell on the words. She shifted it around several times as she looked at it, eventually putting it down and picking up another. With the second page put down in favor of a third, Nick began to understand.