The
man had sat down at the table and opened a folder, taken out bits of paper and
a pen, then began to write on the paper. He was there for what felt like days
to Ellyn and Seth, other people came and went, bringing the man drinks and
snacks. Seth gave Ellyn a nudge as the man got up and walked out the room. Seth
signed for Ellyn to nudge the others. He switched the fan off and they all
filed out of the vent. Dahveed and Blueberry began sieving through the paper on
the desk. Julian and Clarence went over to the door to stand guard. Seth went
over to one of the machines and punched a keyboard, pressing many keys at once,
nothing happened at first, but then the machines whirred into life, Julian
walked up to Seth and gave him a light slap on the face, Dahveed reached up and
placed all the paper they had gathered into the vent, so they could get it
later. Clarence looked out the door and gave a thumbs up to show it was clear,
they all left the room, and entered a long curved hallway, and entered a room
on the opposite side. This room had a large map of England stapled to the wall,
it had some areas shaded in colours, placed she noted were that Freeport Seth
had mentioned once before, Pangolia, it was shaded in white, with many red
arrows pointing to it, another city, called Waymon’s Pit was coloured green
with several green arrows coming from it, stretching to other cities and towns.
Seth and Blueberry reached up and pulled it down from the wall, only tearing a
little at the corners. Clarence had gone over to a map of the area and crossed
out the plans that were written on it and re-wrote some new ones, perfectly
matching the handwriting of before. There were a couple of filling cabinets
along one wall; Julian was going through these taking out every other file. Ellyn
once more stood in the middle of the room, just watching, not knowing what to
look for. The map was obvious but that was sorted. They seemed to all finish at
once, and gathered at the door again. Seth looked out to the right, and saw
no-one, looked to the left and saw no-one, looked to the right once more and he
heard footsteps coming from around the corner. He signed to the others that
there was someone there and they all backed away from the door. The footsteps
approached the door stopped, then they heard the door on the other side open
and close. A sigh of relief was heard from all members of the group. Just as
Seth reached for the door to check someone opened it from the other side, and
entered the room, there was a moment when neither side did anything but stare
at each other. Seth was the one to break the silence. He grabbed the man by the
collar and dragged him to the ground, then punched him in the face with his
left hand. He fell immediately unconscious, with a small cut and a bruise
forming on his forehead. Seth efficiently searched the man, finding a set of
keys, his wallet, which he left on him, and a small set of papers. They crowded
around the man, looking, wondering what to do.
“Dixon?”
A voice sounded from outside the door, Ellyn looked at the man’s shirt and saw
it had a name tag that said that this was Dixon. The door opened slowly and
Dahveed rushed forwards and pulled the other man through the door, he yelled
out before Dahveed could silence him. A multitude of footsteps could be heard
approaching, fast. The all left the room, going back towards the opposite door.
However, it was locked, Seth brought out the keys he had taken from Dixon, and
started to try them in the lock, the footsteps were getting closer, so Seth
started trying to knock the door down, but it was too well made for him, the first
set of footsteps came around the corner, he shouted at them to stop, instead
they all ran in the opposite direction. They didn’t try any of the rooms; they
just kept on running down the corridor, the following footsteps getting
quieter. At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors, Blueberry was
first so ran straight into them, smashing to doors wide open. They then stopped
dead in their tracks. Seth tore his tape off, as Julian’s curse was silenced by
his own. The room ahead was a canteen,
filled with men in the tan uniform. They all turned to see the newcomers; Ellyn
looked to Seth and could tell he was thinking hard. Some of the men drew their
weapons and pointed at them. Seth saw another vent opening, just behind them
behind the door. He pointed to it “That’s our way out,” some of the uniformed
men looked to see what he was pointing at, this amused Ellyn somewhat.
“Ready?
On three” said Seth, their group got ready to run. While they were in a life
threatening situation, at this moment Ellyn was happy, it was the first time
that she felt she belonged to a group, while at the manor, she was much younger
than any of the other servants, while here, Seth was only a year ahead of her,
more or less. Seth shouted “THREE!!” and pulled Ellyn from her thoughts, they turned
around and slammed the doors shut, They reached the vent and they threw their
collected loot into the vent, then Seth brought out a length of rope from his
satchel, and tied the door handles together on the door. He then held out his
hands as a step and pushed Clarence up into the vent. Dahveed and Blueberry
were pushing back the men from the corridor. Julian went up next, pulled up by
Clarence and pushed by Seth. Julian picked up the loots and moved on down the
vent shaft. Ellyn went in next, and then moved to join Julian, but staying
where she could see into the room, Blueberry traded places with Seth, and with
help from Clarence, pulled himself into the vent, Seth and Clarence helped
Dahveed up into the vent, then all helped pull Blueberry up. They quickly
crawled to the end of the vent and lifted each other up to the surface. Even
Julian had no idea where they were. They decided to stick together, but ended
up getting hopelessly lost. They wandered long past sunset, and decided to stop
for the night.
“Hey
if we are lost, it makes us harder to find!” Seth said after moments of
silence. This raised a few chuckles from the group, although their expression
was grave. They managed to get a fire going, and cook a couple of wild Cludu, a
type of flightless wild bird. Tonight, the group slept around the fire, lying
down on a couple of broad leaves Blueberry and Seth had gathered from the
nearby bushes. It was not nearly the comfortable night of last night, instead
her bed was the cold lumpy ground, surrounded by noises from the unknown.
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