Los Colinas is one big liminal space
Lindsey found the stash car in an empty parking lot, next to a half-built hotel at the edge of a mound of retail space. Strips of luxury shops and restaurants that served eighty-dollar entrees to Rolex men and Gucci women flanked the lot like prison walls. Laughter echoed on the hotel’s bare sheetrock as a smiling group left the sushi place. She would have felt like an outsider even without all the weaponry.
She pulled back the carpet in the trunk and opened a reinforced compartment where the spare should be. There was a large luggage bag that felt like it was half full of solid steel. She loaded her weapons into the side pouch and wheeled it carefully to the trunk of her car. Her headset beeped as Michael answered her call request.
“I’ve got it. About to head that way,” she said.
“Take the tunnels under his office.”
“You think he’ll head down there?”
“I’m almost certain that’s where the door is.”
“Should I try and find it?”
“No, they’ll be on guard for that. And be on the lookout. Their nest is probably down there.”
Michael’s tone was almost fearful. Lindsey told herself that it had nothing to do with her. The failure at the restaurant had set him on edge. She let her wounded pride flare up and die down before she answered.
“All right then, I’ll set up. Anything else?”
“If they find you, blow the stairwell and get the hell out. I have a feeling we’re gonna be down a few people soon.”
She opened EP’s folder and pulled up a map of the tunnels, pastel colors woven under a grey lattice of streets and retail centers. A maze of restaurants, shops, basements, and garages. Not a good place to be caught by surprise. Michael was right. Going for the door would be a waste of time.
“Hey babe, what’s the nearest entrance to these tunnels?”
“Lobby of that building to your left,” EP said.
It was a squat cement tower with dark brown windows and a parking garage built into the side. The stone sign sitting in a bed of pansies out front said “Dativasoft”.
“Think you can get me past security?”
“Don’t need to. People come in to use the tunnels all the time.”
She parked in the first open spot, marked ‘reserved’. She wouldn’t be needing the car again anyway. If they were moving to the door, the next fight would be all or nothing. She got her things out of the trunk and walked across the lot. Somewhere a helicopter was chopping up the afternoon air.
~
The basement was a flat box of stained concrete floors, bare pillars, and brick walls flaking off the multi-toned paint of four decades. Rough fluorescent lighting flickered next to the occasional foam ceiling tiles and wide areas of darkness packed with pipes, wires, and beams. Everything was pushed off to the sides. Desks topped with overturned chairs, pyramids of old file boxes, forgotten mail carts, and one sad refrigerator. In the back wall, a door stuck out of its dusty worn surroundings. Dull grey steel, rivets the size of half dollars, and a slit window of glass thick as a telephone book.
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Behind the door was an old maintenance office. Two robot-still men in fold-out chairs sat facing each other in the center of the room. Another man crouched frowning next to a sagging cloth sofa holding a needle and vial. An older guy in a suit, his arm out of the jacket and his oxford sleeve rolled up, lay on the couch like he was being painted by an old master. He watched the frowning man in front of him struggle to get the needle in the vial.
“Hurry the fuck up.”
“Thanks, that’ll help.”
He finally got the dose drawn.
“Make sure I can breathe this time, jack ass.”
He couldn’t get it in the vein fast enough. When the arm hung limp, he put the propofol back in a whining mini-fridge and picked an Origin-12 off the top. He sat down in the chair in the far corner with the shotgun leaned against his shoulder.
There was a long quiet while they waited. One of the guys in the center stirred and walked over to a desk against the wall. He put his cigarette out on an inch of the exposed, water-damaged wood, and grabbed an assault rifle, then sat back down, loaded a magazine with a loud snap and racked the slide. The frowning man in the far chair glared at him.
The guy on the couch groaned and his eyes sprang open.
“Got it.” He said to the ceiling. Frowning man pressed his ear-piece.
“Anthony, this is bedroom.”
“Go for Anthony.”
“Just got a confirmation.”
“Good. The rest of you load up and meet us in the control room.”
“On our way.” He got up and the man on the couch grabbed his knee.
“Drop me the rest of that vial. I’m getting out of here.”
~
Paul leaned his head on the window and watched the flat spread of parking lots and grass lawns slide below him. What would it be like to be down there, driving around, having lunch, without the feeling that life is slowly closing in on you? He couldn’t picture it. It didn’t exist. That world would never be anything more to him than scenery, rolling by without compassion, untouchable as an old cartoon background.
The helicopter touched down on the roof with its blades still going. Andler pushed Paul across the pad as the other guards formed up around him. There was nothing in sight but sky and a boxed door at the edge of the roof.
Andler punched numbers on a keypad and the door came open with a metallic sound and a beep. They went down the stairs and came out in the elevator lobby. A worker leaned up against the window looked up from his phone and bag of cookies. His mouth hung open and he scanned the new faces for some sign of a disciplinary action coming his way. Paul felt for him. No one was ever on this floor and it was a great place for “time theft”. Andler pointed a gun at the guy and he almost cried.
“Fuck off.”
He sprinted to the stairwell, whimpering.
“What the fuck, man,” Paul muttered. Andler turned on him.
“They could be anyone. Don’t hesitate with that thing!” He pointed to the Beretta PX4 in Paul’s hand. Paul had forgotten about it. He couldn’t see himself ever using it.
“Just think about the door,” Andler said as he called the elevator. Paul didn’t need to. It felt like the door was thinking about him, broadcasting the absolute knowledge that all of this would drop away the moment he went through it. He didn’t know what was on the other side, but as the world around him detached itself and melted out of place, that other world felt something like reality.
He tried to let his thoughts fall towards it, and his mind snagged on the edge of a glaring emptiness. There was something else, something massive, that he had forgotten, as if it had been cut out of his mind. The elevator closed and he realized that the revelation in the helicopter, far from being enlightenment, was just another impact on the way down. He was certain the next one would destroy him.
~
At 12:55, Martina walked up behind Gradie and scared the shit out of him.
“Hey,”
“Yeah?” He spun in his chair. He had been sitting on the same account for an hour.
“Hey, hold off on leaving for a bit.”
“Why?” His stomach tried to shoot up out of his mouth, so he clenched his jaw shut.
“There’s a police chase on the highway.” For a split second, he thought it was him they were chasing, but logic caught up with his thoughts and the wave of relief almost knocked him out of the chair.
“What? For real?” said someone in a cubicle nearby. Others looked around and popped up from behind the fabric panels.
“Yea, two cars shooting at each other with machine guns.” Said Martina.
“Is it drugs?” someone said. “Got to be.” someone else laughed.
“They don’t know, but I don’t think they got them yet. The highways are all blocked off.”
More people turned around and started talking. Gradie got a strange feeling, like he had forgotten something. He looked back at his computer and tried to remember what it was.