“Alright sasquatch, put your best game face on.” Aaron announced before turning more serious and quieter. “Time to hope we all don’t just wind up in a dumpster somewhere.” With that he turned the vehicle into a parking entrance.

As they paused waiting for the gate to open Jamie looked around. The parking entrance from the road was a metal gate for what appeared to be a generic run-down brick building with occasional boarded windows. Nothing seemed to stand out along the row of buildings to either side. Next to the parking entrance on the right side was a laundromat, while the other side was home to a small oriental grocery store. He could see a grizzled hobo that was muttering to himself sitting on a stoop with a paper bagged beverage a bit past the laundromat. Aside from a young woman jogging with her dog, there were a handful of people on the street heading in or out of the various shops and restaurants along with an occasional person in business attire lost in their own world on various devices.

They only had to pause at the metal gate for a moment before it started lifting and they were able to make their way in. As they entered, the car’s headlights automatically flipped on, and they slowly made their way through the dimly lit parking garage. A dingy yellow glow was cast from lights running along the ceiling throughout the garage, with the only source of natural light being the entry gate. The walls looked to be made of concrete or cinder blocks with numbering painted in black above each parking space.

Going down a level, the cars began looking worse for wear, with the garage itself also needing some attention to cleaning and maintenance. The few trash cans transitioned quickly from clean to dirty and those at the bottom of the ramp to the lower level were overflowing. The atmosphere quickly shifted from average to dated and unwelcoming with pipes dripping and the concrete dotted with oil stains and small pools of rainbow filmed liquid. Coming to the back of the garage Aaron parked in a poorly lit corner.

“I’ll let them know we’re here.” Jay commented as he was taking his cell phone out with his left hand, the right still holding the plastic cylinder containing a mouse.

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“That’s okay, as transporting agent it’s my responsibility to check in for clearance. I’d appreciate doing everything by the book if possible.” Aaron looked at Jay, who paused with phone in hand and slid it back inside his pocket. Seeing that, Aaron pulled out his own phone and typed a brief message.

The three men and mouse sat in silence for a moment. Aaron and Jay staring out the front window, mouse appearing to sit on its butt leaning against the wall of the container, and Jamie looked around from the backseat. Feeling anxious sitting in the back, still partially naked and dirty, Jamie couldn’t help himself. “So this is your headquarters? Feels like we’re a bit out of place….” Jamie looked to the two agents, waiting for one of them to say something.

Aaron’s phone broke the silence with a chime. After glancing at the message he looked in the rear-view mirror at Jamie. “Don’t have to worry any longer, we’re cleared to go in” he said, while putting his phone away. Jay and Aaron climbed out, Aaron going to open Jamie’s door for him while Jay held the plastic cylinder just inside the flap of his jacket and scanned the surrounding area.

Welp, can’t be any worse than being barefoot in a gas station bathroom. Jamie thought to himself as he looked out the car at the murky garage floor. “Where to?” Jamie asked, doing his best to ignore the cold slimy water he was standing in.

“Follow me sir.” Aaron replied while shutting the car door.

Had anyone been in the garage at the moment they would have seen a rather strange site. Aside from the sleek sedan not fitting in with the rest of the vehicles on the level, two clean cut men in suits and a third that appeared worse than most of the homeless of the city exited the vehicle. The driver appeared to act as a chauffeur for the hobo in the backseat, holding the door and leading him towards the wall of the garage. The passenger appeared to act as bodyguard, arm held inside his jacket, scanning the surroundings until the others were halfway to a metal door marked MAINTENANCE along the wall. The suit acting as bodyguard quickly followed the other two. The metal door along the wall opened without difficulty, and the three men disappeared into a shadowy passage.

Stranger still, would have been that minutes after the MAINTENANCE door shut, a mouse slowly made its way in the same path the three men had. It then began climbing the wall next to the door, making its way towards one of the pipes running along the ceiling. On reaching the pipe, it shimmied into the wall a few feet above the entryway the men had just used, and disappeared into the darkness.