Thursday 14 November 2013

Project: Leftovers 007

The fall of their comrade made the two other men hesitate for a second, giving Monica the opportunity of elbowing one in the Solar plexus. "Lane, go to the bathroom and fetch my stuff!" She climbed over the man she had just hit stumbling towards her closet.
   
    "Is this the time for..."
   
    "Yes. Trust me." The man with the bloody face had regained control over his body, climbed over his squirming companion lunging towards Monica who in reaction to this new assault stepped aside smashing the the door into blood faced man's. Leaving an impression of his pained expression on the door and of the door on his face.
   
    "No time!" Monica shouted. "Go. Go. Go."
   
    Lane turned around entered the bath room and found that all of Monica's belonging except her toothbrush and toothpaste were already in her toilet bag. She hastily stuffed then into the bag returning to the room to see the limping man standing up again fighting for breath, while Monica took pulled her full travelling back out of the closet using it as a very improvised blunt weapon. It wasn't very effective but as it was rather heavy and full of metal reinforced ridges it was enough to make the limping man tumble.
   
    "Now what?" Monica asked.
   
    "Now we wait." Monica said one of her eyes staring to swell shut while blood kept dripping from her split lip.
   
    "What?! Why?"
   
    "There." Monica said, shoving the limping man back shoving him into the man with the bloodied face, making him fall back into the night stand."
   
    "Where?"
   
    "Footsteps coming closer. Security I hope. Give me your best hysterical scream and follow my lead. Monica started screaming. "Things along the lines of "Oh, my god!" and "Please! Somebody! Help me!" She wriggled her eye brows at Lane signalling to do the same?
    At first Lane had a hard time doing any convincing screaming but the situation in front of her started to sink in brining back the shock from earlier that night. Monica pushed her forward. "Go. Your room first."
   
    The stumbled out of the room screaming bloody murder as one burly security guard came running around the corner. Monica was about to point into the room as the blood faced man lunged out of the room ramming into Monica pushing her hard into the wall of the corridor. Seeing this the guard shouted at him telling him to stop and doubled his speed. Barrelling into Monica's attacker before he had fully raised his hand shoving him aside. The guard wanted to tell Monica something but she interrupted him by pointing back into the room and screaming. The guard look to where she was pointing seeing the other man limping towards them. The guard cursed and without even bothering to warn him barged right into him.
   
Monica, now suddenly silent. Pushed Lane forward. "Your room. Get the stuff you through around and put it into your bag."

"Why. Better that way. Trust me. Hurry I will explain later but we have to get out of here before the police arrives."
   
   
    Back in her room Lane quickly gathered her strategically shed stuff. She was still pushing it back into her bag when Monica started dragging her out to the corridor again.
   
    "Quick, quick." Monica urged her on. They hastily descended the stairs back to the lobby risking being dragged to their deaths by their bags a few times as they didn't take lightly to being manhandled down stair cases.
   
    In the lobby Monica walked right towards the reception. "Just look traumatised and let me do the talking."
   
    "OK" Lane said having no idea what Monica was planning. At least she did not have to pretend to look worried. Seeing three masked men ransacking Monica's room did hit her square in her paranoia that was sent into a frenzy running around her mind screaming while looking for tinfoil to make a hat with it.
   
    "There are murderers in my room!" Monica shrieked at the receptionist.
   
    The receptions only got enough time to breath in.
   
    "I was about to go to sleep when these three monsters burst into my room. Masked and ready to do..." Monica paused for dramatic effect, shuddering before continuing, "What kind of security do you have in this place anyway?"
   
    "er..." the man at the reception now starting to collect a few drops of sweat on his brow despite the lobby being rather cool.
   
    "Have you called the police?"
   
    "We have sent security to your room immediately to provide you with assist..."
   
    "That was not my question! Have you called the police. The men might be right at this moment be murdering you security guard! And who do you think will be next."
   
    "Our security is very well tr..."
   
    "I don't want to hear your excuses man! I was viciously attacked in my own room! Call the police NOW!"
   
    The concierge turned towards the phone but before his hand had reached the receiver Monica interrupted him again.
   
    "But first we are going to check out of this death trap."

    "But..." the man said pointing towards the phone.
   
        "No buts. We will move to a safe location. We have paid in advance so you can cover the service costs with that and transfer the difference to our accounts. Me and my friend are not going to say here another second."
       
        "Yes ma'am." The man hastily printed out a few papers while Monica and Lane kept an eye on the door to the stairs and the elevator in case that any of their assailants had made it past the security guard. They quickly signed their documents. "And why haven't you called the police yet!" Monica screamed as a goodbye before turning around and stalking out of the hotel with Lane following her confusion and fear flowing from her expression.
        They walked out of the door turned left, then immediately left again and again at the next larger street.
       
        "What was that all about?" Lane asked.
       
        "That what my my parents call a 'polished retreat'."
       
        "That clears up nothing." said Lane exasperated.

        "You were right. Someone is obviously looking for me maybe for you. So we had to leave. Congratulations, you were right."
       
        "Is this really the right time for sarcasm?"
       
        "No sarcasm. I mean it. Usually I always had my parents or one of their lieutenants to keep me informed of the situation during all my missions. They looked at the bigger picture while I concentrated on the mission. That way I could focus 100% on what I had to do. Seems that because of that I'm missing some very important skills when it comes to interpret the situation... whatever. Point is, that you paranoia is well founded and it saved our skins."

    "Well my paranoia tells me that we should not be walking out here in the open, it also tells me that over there there is a lower market sign hidden in that tailors door sign. It also asks how that show at the reception desk has helped in the slightest. it was an unnecessary risk for fucks sake!"
   
    "Risk yes, unnecessary no. Lead the way, I have no idea how to find the hidden entrance in that shop." she motioned Lane to to take the lead. Lane walked ahead.
   
    "What's the benefit then?"
   
    "We were obviously freaking out because people went into our rooms to do god knows what. So we decided to leave the hotel and go somewhere else. We also pressed the guy at the reception to call the police."
   
    "Yes, what the fuck was that about? Right now the police might as well be looking for us and if they take us into 'protective custody' or god knows what shit, they see that I am a missing person."
   
    "Easy. That way we know if the police is its way already. If they are we have to leave faster and look for a back exit. We do not want to run into them. This way we knew they were not coming. So we could actually check out from our rooms and disappear without further notice. Women get attacked, they freak out, they leave. Case closed. The police will have to take care of the three stooges upstairs. The hotel will not have any reason to go looking for suddenly turning into thin air or trying to sneak with our bags out in the middle of the night."
   
    They walked right into the tailors store walking right past the small man with a shining warm smile that he had once bought from an actor who had made a fortune with it but had grown tired of being 'that guy from that commercial'. He had tried to ask the two ladies who had practically stormed his store what they needed in five languages to no effect. He was contemplating if he should put his winning smile away and try to get shouty instead, when to woman with the light brown hair opened the secret door leading to the lower market. 'Tourists now go there?' he thought. 'Well there goes the neighbourhood.

    "What if the police is on to us?" Lane asked pushing the receding shelve loaded with the planets finest blue fabrics aside to open the passageway faster.
   
    "Then nothing changes apart from us stopping the reception guy calling them before we leave and seeing very clearly how we walk away in a huff into the wrong direction."
   
    To Lane's great satisfaction this passage was actually a well lit and comfortably broad stair. The closed the door behind them and descended back into the lower market.
   
    "OK. Point taken. What does make you think that we will be more secure in the lower market?"
   
    "Mostly my instinct."
   
    "We're fucked then."
   
    "Who pissed into your porridge this morning? No need to get personal!"
   
    "Mostly dead people, people trying to murder me and oh the three dudes murdering your room." Lane replied.
   
    "Still no need to turn all aggressive on me." Monica said with a sulky expression. "A few reasons why we are probably better of downstairs. For a start it seemed that no one was looking for us down there. I also did not see any police there although that doesn't mean much. And another thing, it looks like this place here is not common knowledge, at least among the average tourist so they will concentrate looking for us up stairs. At least that is the bad case scenario."
   
    "Bad case scenario? Don't you mean worst case?"
   
    "No worst case, the individual looking for us has enough henchmen, informants and access to a wide variety of surveillance equipment as to be practically omniscient. In that case we are not retreating but simply exhausting ourselves while not even knowing that we are already in the middle of his trap. Meaning that we are already dead."
   
    "I can see how this is worse..." Lane admitted.
   
    "But that is a scenario were we have lost already. Thinking along those lines is unproductive." Monica said. They had now reached a thick curtain that was more of a horizontal carpet. It swayed very lightly as the war air of the lower market made its way towards the surface, carrying with it the smell of strange herbs and spices.
   
    "You are the strangest optimist I have ever met."
   
    "Pessimism only gets you to your grave faster. It also makes you lie down in your coffin while you are still breathing to cause less of a bother which is not only constructive but also looks ridiculous. If we are going to die we will do that with some fucking dignity."
   
    "Sounds good to me..." Lane said mostly to say something at all. She had no idea how conversations like these were supposed to work. Was it a conversation at all? Well, it certainly beat all her meetings where her 'managers' all tried to out do each other in 'dropping the ball' back in the office. "So. What's next?"
   
    "No we have to find someone who can get us out of this city."
   
    "How hard can that be..."

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