“Secret entrance huh?” Jamie asked as he followed Aaron through the doorway labelled MAINTENANCE. The lone bulb sticking out of a socket on the ceiling barely gave enough light to make anything out aside from the metal chain pullcord beside it. The wall to his left had metal shelving along it with various cans that looked to be cleaners and paint. The right had brooms and other tools hanging from it. Fifteen feet in and they were at the end of the maintenance closet with a door to their right that had worn paint labelling it as ‘Stairwell B.’

Aaron opened the door and began up the cement steps, with Jamie following and Jay last in line. On reaching the first landing Aaron led the way out of the stairwell, passed what seemed to be a similar maintenance closet for the floor, and through a door with faded paint marked ‘To Stairwell A.’

“Not to be rude, but couldn’t we have parked on the main level?” Jaime asked as they walked through the door, starting down a long unadorned cement hallway. As they were passing what felt like the midway point of the corridor, he realized he wasn’t going to get an answer.

Reaching the other end and going through an unlabeled door, they entered another cement stairwell that Jamie assumed was stairwell A.

What the hell. Won’t answer questions, won’t talk, making me walk all this way barefoot on cement. I’ve gotta say something. Jamie thought before he finally spoke up as they made their way down a level. “Guys, you know walking on cement barefoot isn’t the most comfortable right?”

Aaron stopped at the landing marking the end of the stairwell with the only way forward being another labelled MAINTENANCE and turned to glare at Jamie for a moment before opening the door. At that point, Jamie was finally surprised, as instead of a similar dingy maintenance area it led into a large sitting area. The doorway marked the transition into a well-lit crème colored room with ceiling lighting, laminate wood flooring, two wingback armchairs, and a three seat sofa. The armchairs and sofa were modern in style and covered in light gray fabric with wooden pegs for feet. Across from the door they were entering through there was one other door for the room, but was a regular door compared to the run-down metal door they were passing through. It was so surprising that Jamie glanced back to make sure he had really come through a cement stairwell as he followed Aaron in.

“Have a seat on the couch.” Aaron said, while he walked in and sat on the far end of the sofa. Seeing as Jay sat on the close end of the sofa, it only left the middle open for Jamie, who sat down.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“So do I get to know what’s going on now that were in your super-secret headquarters?” Jamie asked as he inspected the room. Before anyone answered, and before he worked up the nerve to say anything else, the door opposite the one they had entered opened. Aaron and Jay both sat up a bit straighter, the tiredness in their posture a moment before now gone.

A tanned middle-aged man with a buzzcut walked in wearing sneakers, jeans, and a teenage mutant ninja turtles T-shirt. After shutting the door, the new stranger went to the nearest armchair, sat down, and closed his eyes. Okay, not what I was expecting, Jamie thought looking at the man and then to Jay and Aaron. After another thirty seconds of silence he began to wonder further. Am I supposed to start things off? He looked to Aaron, hoping for some type of guidance. Aaron, still sitting ramrod straight, eyes forward, gave the slightest of shakes of his head in a no motion. Okay, guess we play the waiting game.

Another few minutes of silence and the stranger sighed. The sigh seemed to break some internal tension and his posture relaxed, eyes opened showing they were lightly bloodshot.

“You know, today was my day off.” The stranger started and paused, looking at Jay.

“I’m sorry chief,” Jay managed to get out before the chief raised his hand to cut him off.

“I should be just waking up in fact…. Instead, I get a call from agent Rosineau’s boss in the middle of the night about a situation. A situation that sounds so fantastically wrong that I found it hard to believe. Apparently, one of my team leaders who was out on a capture mission of a fugitive jumping lines, a non-violent fugitive mind you, managed to break a handful of regulations. Not only that, but managed to somehow break the big two at the same time. Supposedly, my team leader not only interacted with his own variant, but he managed to bring his own variant across lines. To make matters worse, that variant was PD naïve, and then my team leader thought it would be a good idea to get other agents involved in the debacle.” The stranger glanced at Aaron as if pointing out the evidence before he leaned back in the chair and crossed his leg, left ankle resting on right knee, looking up at the wall at nothing in particular.

“In fact, I actually didn’t believe it at first.” The chief chuckled and looked down for a moment. “I put on these clothes and came to the office around three in the morning to look into it.” There was another pause as he looked at Jamie. “What do you know, it was true. Top agent brought his naïve variant over and called the KC branch for help. I’m not gonna lie, pretty upset at first. Really had a lot of anger.” He continued on nodding to himself as if to acknowledge it.

“Thought about possible consequences for you Agent Clements.” He gestured to Jay. “Thought about possible outcomes for your variant Mr. Clements here and about what would happen to Agent Rosineau. Thought about Sam and the rest of team B even. Hours passed. Got the report back that Mr. Clements doesn’t have much impact. Read through about our friendly fugitive Mr. Squeck and his history. Wrote a couple drafts of the incident and outcomes for each of you even, all that was left was to paperclip your reports and file it away. Fortunately for each of you, writing those was a bit cathartic. I’m not even mad anymore, just disappointed.” He reached up to rub the right side of his face with his palm and paused for a moment, looking over each of the three men on the couch.

“So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to sit down and have breakfast. Over breakfast we’ll fill in Mr. Clements, I’ll get to know Agent Rosineau, and we can talk about how much you messed up Agent Clements. We’ll come up with the least bad solution to our problems. Then I’ll go home and try and enjoy the rest of my day off. How does that sound?” The chief finished and stood up, walking over towards the door he had come in through, not waiting for an answer.