Rook landed on his feet with a heavy thud. The shock went straight into his knees. It stung. He unclipped from the wild rappel as it snaked through the choppy air.
“Squeeze harder next time or you’ll break your leg,” Cypher said as she passed him without looking up from her arm-mounted computer. “Entry that way.” She pointed to a rusted doorway sticking up from the roof like a festering sore, her MP5 tight to her back.
“We have touchdown, Chop,” Mouth said into his earpiece. Then, “Oh, fuck off already, just get back here when we call you,” and the he-lo stuttered away in stop motion. Mouth smoothly ejected his mag, checked it and slapped it back in, pulled the charging handle of his short barrel AR-15 and a round chambered with a clean mechanical clank. “I know I’m pretty, but you might want to stop staring at me, Rook.”
“Right, sorry, sir,” Rook said and checked his AR in turn.
“Mouth,” he corrected, and clicked his selector from safe to deadly.
“Right. Sorry.”
Mouth walked away, a pistol-grip Mossberg pump shotgun on his back.
Rook tested his tactical flashlight, flicked it on then off, then slapped at his foregrip. It jiggled slightly. He pulled a knife from his belt and tightened the screw.
“On me,” Boss commanded and the crew scrabbled around him, boots scraping on the rocky rooftop.
“Deacon, give us some protection.”
“Boss.” Deacon nodded and let his weapon fall to the side. Then he locked his hands together and they all bowed their heads in prayer.
The night was eerily silent, filled with nothing but the soft sounds of their uneven breathing and Deacon’s rumbling, arcane verse. Not even the passive swishing of cars on the street could penetrate the fog that separated Shadow Team from the world. It was like the city had become nothing more than a tomb, a new age Roanoke Colony, an abandoned sprawl of hidden sarcophagi with decrepit mummies awaiting discovery within. Rook shivered at the thought. It had made him uncomfortable, this long settled silence. That and what Boss had said.
They were trained. They were strong. They were armed to the teeth. What more protection did they need?
“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,” Deacon said.
All eyes opened.
“Let’s move.” All eyes fell on Boss. He flashed a determined finger at the rusted door and the team made huddled moves towards it and stacked around the frame, first he and Mouth, then Deacon and Cypher just behind. Rook lagged a moment before stacking behind Deacon.
Boss thought it over a moment; he didn’t want Rook at the back. Not a good idea.
“Rook, move up.” Deacon let him pass. The kid’s eyes were wide, he was breathing heavy and he looked like the mouse that saw the hawk. “You stay with Deacon. Watch his back. He’ll watch yours.”
“Yes, Boss.”
Deacon patted Rook on the shoulder. “And you watch Boss too, Rook. We watch our front and our back in this crew.”
Boss wasn’t sure that this one would last, but he did know Rook would be fine with Deacon. He had no doubt about that.
With that settled, Boss tested the door knob. Locked.
Mouth looked to Boss; placed a hand on his Mossberg.
Boss shook his head in answer to the silent query. “Cypher, you’re up.”
She pulled a small drill from her vest, attached a drill bit and stripped the lock. The door popped open slightly, fragments of metal falling from the holes where tumblers once rested. She fell back in line.
Boss pushed the door softly and glanced through the opening. He shook his head and opened the door fully, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Its metal hinges squealed their complaints and the red flakes of rust and decay that had set in was soon lost in the gloom of the night.
They moved into the darkened stairwell together, Mouth and Cypher shadowing close behind him, and Deacon covering the rear. Rook was lost somewhere in between. Boss popped his flashlight on and looked over the railing. Stairs spiraled jaggedly down the corrupt walls of the building and into the fast-approaching darkness below. He could see no living thing on the stairs, but that didn’t mean he believed the façade. He had been here before, a few too many times in fact. He knew the difference between still air and dead air. That kind of quiet that was too quiet. Too quiet because something had made it too quiet.
This was dead air. And the whole damned city seemed to be filled with it.
“PK-EM is strong here, but no heat signatures, Boss,” Cypher said, hovering her arm over the stairwell as if reading his mind.
“You trust that?” Mouth blurted.
Boss raised a fist. Talking ceased. Then he signaled to move forward.
They spread out along the stairwell, moving down step by step, flashlights bouncing on wall and stair alike. As Boss spiraled downwards, he watched the dingy walls for any bad signs. He didn’t see any recognizable writing amongst the symbol-laden scrawl — well, nothing more than the standard, illegible, black spray-paint graffiti that should be expected of a shithole New York apartment — or any signs of struggle. No blood. No scratches. No charred marks. No holes that seemed to have tunneled themselves open out of nowhere and lead on and on and on. Just the usual grit, grime and decay of a needle-supported residency.
Floor after floor, they continued down towards a growing question mark, and on every landing Boss looked to Cypher who checked her computer.
“We just went down five floors and you’re telling me you haven’t picked up a single signature?” Mouth whispered hoarsely.
“Not one,” she said icily.
“And that doesn’t strike you as fucked up?”
“Not one? Not even like a cat or something?” Rook chimed in, the kid’s voice wavering.
“Nope.” Cypher gripped her MP5.
Boss could see the nerves setting back in on the kid. Normal. But he needed Rook to have his head in the game, not in the clouds. That’s the tough part of the job. Stopping the what if to focus on the what is.
What is kept you alert. What if could get you killed.
“Cut the chatter. Now. We’re moving.”
When they reached the 6th floor, Boss took to the doorframe and signaled to stack up once more, realizing now, for the first time, as he turned and looked back up the stairs just how dark it had become on their descent. He watched his team slowly materialize like ink blots out of the solid black that had swallowed them. All except one.
“Where is Deacon?”
Rook looked back over his shoulder. “I–I don’t know, Boss.”
“What do you mean you don’t know, Rook?” Mouth growled. “Everyone watches the man to his front and back. Always.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Quiet,” Boss said. He listened closely. The stairwell seemed to rumble gleefully at him. The air felt heavy, different. Almost leaden. His head was buzzing, and the gentle hum behind his eyes that shook his teeth told him he was being watched. “What’s that sound?”
“No signatures still, but PK-EM is off the charts, Boss.” Cypher said. “Could be auditory distortion as a result of the waves.”
“Could that also be blocking heat signatures?”
“It’s possible. The radiation is definitely strong enough. It’s unbelievable, Boss. There’s only one thing strong enough to produce this.”
“A Sink Hole.” The words fell heavy from his mouth.
“Seriously? Oh, that’s good. We got a party on our hands and he lost D. Fan-fucking-tastic,” Mouth said with a mocking chuckle.