BDCEMF - Chapter Four

4

Jeff awoke with a start. He hadn’t realised how exhausted he must have been. A glance at his watch revealed he’d been asleep for three hours.

‘Fuck!’ he thought to himself as he sat up and pulled back the CamoBlanket ‘Only a few hours ‘til daybreak and that’s my cover blown’

Stuffing the blanket into his backpack, Jeff ran through a quick inventory checklist, making sure he hadn’t dropped anything on his journey over the Borderwall. After ensuring that his meagre possessions were still there, Jeff slowly walked back to the revolving door he had clambered under earlier that night. Stealthily crawling to the street, Jeff was on guard against any Coffin Slabs, but it looked like the skies were clear.

Referring to a glowing LCD screen on his watch that displayed a map of the area, Jeff headed North down the road. His path was often obstructed by debris from nearby buildings, or the odd abandoned or burnt-out car, but his pace remained steady, devouring step after step. His journey to his next waypoint was uneventful, apart from part of the route being blocked by the collapse of a large building. It was simply a matter of plotting a diversion and Jeff was back on his way.

Jeff reached the next waypoint on his mission within an hour of leaving the office building. As he walked up to the large structure, he saw the glow of lights coming from the broken windows.

‘Strange’ thought Jeff ‘There shouldn’t be any other people here’.

Pausing for a moment to retrieve a small, plastic pistol from his backpack, Jeff slowly moved along the wall of the imposing structure, away from the main entrance. Poking his head around a corner, Jeff saw a rusted metal door, set into a high sandstone wall. Jeff could only just make out the word ‘Maintenance’ painted onto an attached sign.

‘Perfect’ thought Jeff as he made his way over to the door.

Placing the pistol into the waistband of his trousers, Jeff turned the handle of the door. It didn’t move an inch. Rolling his eyes, Jeff opened his backpack and removed a small black cylinder. Twisting the item, a small silver nib extended, much like that of a pen. Jeff drew the nib in a wide arc around the handle of the door, leaving behind a small black line that grew in size, as the metal surrounding the handle became eaten away. The item was a Nano-Cutter, a small tool that deposits billions of Nanobots, specially designed to devour metal.

The handle fell away from the door and Jeff slowly pushed it open. Beyond the entrance was an empty corridor that stretched away into the darkness. Jeff slinked through the gap and closed the door behind him, wedging it shut with a piece of metal he picked up from the ground. The fact that the door was missing a handle wouldn’t hold up to much inspection, but it was much less noticeable than a door that was wide open.
Pulling a small torch from his pocket, Jeff began to move swiftly down the corridor, seeking the source of the lights. He passed several doors, all with signs stating that they were boiler rooms or generator rooms. He eventually came to the door to a stairway. Jeff smiled to himself as he pulled the door open. The building was silent as Jeff left the corridor and began to rise slowly up the metal staircase.

Coming to the same floor he had seen the lights from outside; Jeff slowly opened the entrance door and was met with a shock. The doorway opened out onto a grand marble clad promenade, spotless white walls towering above supported the immense glass roof. The cathedral-like space disappeared into the distance. Jeff was stunned at the sheer purity of the place. After coming in from such a dilapidated area and seeing this, Jeff felt like he had taken the wrong door and stepped into Heaven.

He shook himself out of this illusion and looked closer at the area. The cavernous room was centred on a large black object suspended from the ceiling. As Jeff moved closer, he noticed it was a bank of large monitors, arranged in an inverted pyramid shape, so that they could be seen from any angle. To the right of these lay a large glass wall, that Jeff had not noticed in the dim lighting. Set into this wall was a number of glass doors, all of which were ajar. Jeff could see what looked like a giant piano keyboard, stretch to his left and right as far as the eye could see in this dim light. The white ‘keys’ were continuations of the marble footway, the black ‘keys’ stretches of railway track leading between these platforms and stretching into the distance.

‘Piccadilly untouched.’ thought Jeff as he made his way to the motionless escalators. He wondered how it had managed to escape the devastation that had occurred world wide during The Mishap. It was unheard of to find anywhere like this, especially this close to one of the epicentres of that global event.

‘Then again,’ mused Jeff ‘this is behind the Border Wall. Who knows what else may be untouched?’
He moved stealthily up the escalator, his footsteps barely echoing in the silent station. As he neared the summit, he saw a chink of light swiftly vanish as if a door had quickly been closed. Removing his pistol from the waistband of his jeans, Jeff moved speedily towards the darkened door which had just been closed. Counting down to himself, Jeff held his pistol how he’d remembered the cops in movies held them (back when there were movies).
Reaching zero, Jeff kicked the door in and stepped through, his pistol held outwards.

Standing there, in front of him, with a look of surprise on his face, Jeff saw himself.