Agent in the Dark

The rain was a blessing, as well as the darkness it brought with it, which shadowed our movements and took the focus off of us. By my calculations I was roughly a mile from the lair I had carved out for myself in the rubble of the once proud city. The rain was cold and it wasn't healthy for anyone to be out in, but I was grateful for it.

I saw none of the beleaguered residents of the city on my sprint away from the scene of my latest bloody massacre. Up ahead of me were the high-rises. One in particular was the location of my lair in this city of cutthroats.

The high-rise must've caught on fire at some point and from the ground floor up to roughly halfway up its height it was a charred ruin completely impassable, as the weight of the building had partially collapsed down onto the weakened burned out areas near the ground plain. It had been a daring feat to climb up the charred outside of it for a distance of twenty to thirty floors in the dark of the night. But the sanctuary that I had found had been worth it.

The upper stories of the high-rise were virtually untouched by the scavengers, who had raped the city. It was as safe a spot as could be found in the city. There was even food, candy bars mostly. I reached the base and looked around in the onslaught of heavy rain, but nothing stirred. I tugged on an almost invisible strand of fishing line and a climbing rope fell down the outside of the building the several hundred feet needed to reach me. I hooked a foot in the loop at the end of the rope and gave the rope a sharp tug, which unseated the safety I had on a connected rope, which had a heavy weight attached to it via an elevator pulley at the top of an elevator shaft.

Normally the ascent was faster, but with the extra weight of Asia it was more of a gradual rise up the side of the charred out high-rise. I was actually pretty proud of my little dumb waiter system to be truthful.

When we reached the popped out windowpane I swung inward and tied the rope off. Awkwardly I stepped out of the loop and began climbing the stairs to the next floor above us. Another nice thing about the shelter was that the roof and windows of the upper section of the high-rise were mostly intact, so there was little water damage or fouling done by birds. It was a veritable haven in the midst of hell.