Seven Levels Below

XVIII

Mitch glanced up and frowned at the flickering street light above him. He was near the bustle of the downtown area on the seventh level again, so the lights weren't very far apart from each other. He still had plenty of light left, but the blinking was just another stupid thing getting on his nerves today.

It was Monday, and Mitch felt like he had plenty of reason to be grumpy. The irritating intern girls had spent half the day hovering near his desk while he actually tried to be productive. They were talking quite loudly about "Oh, I wish I could go to the coronation on Friday" and a whole bunch of other Cinderella-like shit that just reminded Mitch of how he was only going to see Scott for a little bit on Wednesday, and then just from a distance on Friday. For the whole week, he was stuck without his best friend--and they were whining about a party.

Mitch had also spent a considerable amount of Sunday holed up in his apartment, desperately trying to get Kirstie's dress ready. Unfortunately, that included him poking himself really hard with a pin--so much for being a professional--while trying to line up some of the pieces he had cut. That happened enough that it shouldn't have mattered, but his finger had decided it was going to be a dramatic bitch and start gushing all over the place. He'd been forced to discard two stained pieces of the dress, meaning he would need to try to salvage some of the leftover fabric into big enough pieces to recut. And his finger was bandaged up tight enough to stop the bleeding, and half of the movement he needed to actually work.

Just to top it all off, Mitch had managed to sleep through his alarm that morning. He was aware that he was not an early riser, but when you set multiple alarms throughout the morning so that you could wake up early and get some stuff done before going in to work, you'd think he could manage to get up. Nope! So Mitch had needed to sprint almost all the way to work that morning so he wouldn't be late. Mitch had missed breakfast, and had also needed to skip his lunch break in order to finish the task that his alarms had failed to wake him up for: actually sewing the buttons onto Scott's jacket.

Thankfully, sewing buttons was a simple task for the experienced craftsman, but without having a morning coffee, he had just been off all day and couldn't celebrate at least the one small victory he'd had.

He was currently on his way to return the jacket to Scott's mother as planned last Thursday, and then get some takeout on the way home. "Starving and stressed" was not a good mood on Mitch.

His quiet irritation was interrupted by a man stepping out in front of him.

Oh, no. This ought to be good.

"Can I ask where you're going tonight, sir?" Mitch recognized the man planted in his path as one of the officers who usually patrolled the market on Saturdays. He'd been chased around by this guy a couple times, but had never actually been caught. It would appear that the officer recognized him regardless, though, considering the mocking tone of his address.

"Just going to go visit a friend," Mitch snapped. It was close enough to the truth, but it wasn't like Mitch was going to try to get rid of this guy by announcing he was on his way to a secret meeting with the queen herself.

"Hmm," the guard's eyes narrowed and scanned Mitch, making him subconsciously grab at the straps of his little backpack tighter. "Mind if I conduct a search of your person? You seem to fit a certain profile we've been investigating recently."

Mitch certainly did mind, but there wasn't much arguing he could do. He was well aware of the stories about corrupt police and violent incidents that had occurred down here when people had refused to comply with orders. Besides, if he was telling the truth about the search purpose, Mitch could get in legal trouble for refusing, not just... physical trouble.