Nikki Shore - Ghost Beneath The Ashes

Chapter 3

Reclamation Drive near LM City, 3:30 PM

Finally gone through past the traffic, Erin and I led the cab to a fairly narrow street surrounded by old or abandoned warehouses. Erin paid the fare to the cab and it drove off. I'm a bit ashamed letting my best friend pay the fare, but she insisted. The salty moist air of the pier lingers throughout as I parked over the cab just near the metal cargo crates right in front of the warehouse.

The place looks like your typical movie set warehouse: colored in a very dull orange and surrounded by cargo crates and pier junk. On the front was a large coiling gate. On its left side was a bronze plaque with a quote on it, apparently by Tesla,

"THE PRESENT IS THEIRS; THE FUTURE, FOR WHICH I REALLY WORKED, IS MINE."

Right next to the plaque was the stairs which led to a sci-fi looking metal door. As we approached the warehouse, we became aware of the size of the place. I climb the short stairs and walk to that door, Erin was behind me. On the side of the door looked like a biometric scanner, the ones you see in security doors. I pressed the largest button among its control panel.

A buzz sounded off the thing and some voice—childish, like 11 or something, straight out of a cheesy dubbed Korean dramas I see on TV—utters out of it,

"Oh, you guys are here. I'll call over Shelley after she's done some tinkering."

Erin crossed her arms, touching her shoulders as she shudders from the cold air of the pier.

"Oh great, now she wants us to wait here. I'm kind of antsy when it comes to waiting. My arms are getting cold."

"Well, you shouldn't have worn that cover-up of yours."

I said to Erin. I reviewed my notes while leaning over the rails.

Erin leaned back at me, her arms over her hips.

"Excuse me Nik, you can't just boss me around when it comes to fashion. Since when did you decide to be the fashion police? You're always wearing that same jacket and that same damn t-shirt. You probably don't even put that on the laundry."

"Well, sorry to burst that bubble of yours Er,"

I faced to Erin while she still is shuddering,

"I have three of these and I put them in the laundry every week. It's my uniform of sorts, it gets me around."

Then someone else calls out of the speakers again. This time, it was a low pitched yet cheeky voice.

"That goes for me too Coley, but unlike you, I don't get out of the house much. Abandon all hope all ye who enter here."

Then the door opens up quicker than I say 'bagel'. Before us stood a vertically challenged brunette in her twenties, with fairly long, fairly frizzed up hair. She wears those rimless glasses covered by her bangs which she constantly brushes off her face. She wore an pretty beat and heavily wrinkled white lab gown lined with pouches that looks like it was designed by Rob Liefeld. It was held together by her belt which had a buckle with a V design.

Her shirt was orange with lines in them strapped with harnesses. She wore plain brown cotton leggings which seemed to be covered in grease and grime from all the lab work she does. You can tell that she clearly does not care about her own appearance.

She then lets us inside, which looked like straight out of a mad scientist's lair in those cheesy horror movies. The sound of humming electricity resonates in the entire place. There are various mechanical junk everywhere which made the whole place smell of soldered metal. Fluorescent lights dangling in the ceiling illuminates her work tables.