How can they even? How can they let her go that easily?

Neave relied on them so much; surely they knew that. And now… They’re giving their friend away.

I walk down the road, brooding, thinking of her, my dear Neave, who is not dead. I don’t want to think of her in death. I know she’s alive.

A sole tear escapes the brink of my eye, causing me to stop in my tracks. It seems to fall in a slow drop. And then another. And then my eyes are a waterfall.

I hate them. I hate them with everything I am made of.

I feel hopeless. I feel useless. I feel… I feel absolutely nothing. I am practically inhuman. Without emotion what are we? Without the feeling of love– we need to be loved to make us feel human and right now, I seriously am no more than a shell.

I shake my head and dry my eyes. I have endured too much heartbreak.

I wipe my eyes dry and breathe through my mouth since my nose is blocked up.

To stifle another tear, I hold my breath which is an entirely wrong move. I walk down the street, eyes reddened with tears– which still flow– and an irritated diaphragm, just as the rental car pulls up beside me with the window rolled down, revealing Neave’s… anomalies.

I glace sideways at them: “What?”

“Come with us, Oliver. You don’t have anywhere to go… Come with us.” Mendes offers.

“Screw you.” I spit at them.

“If we have to drag you off the streets we will. And that would be kidnapping,” says Lily.

“Leave me alone.” I say coldly.

“Oliver, don’t be so stubborn. Come with us.” Mendes speaks, concealed by the night.

“Go where with you anyway? Neave’s loft– The friend you’re so betraying?”

“No–”

“Where?”

“We’re going to go find her! We’re going to find Neave.” Mendes says hurriedly. He doesn’t sound as if he wants to.

I look at them. Why are they alive? They are indecisive and selfish.

“You couldn’t make your mind up fifteen minutes ago?”

“I– We…” Mendes stutters, luckily he has Lily to rescue him.

“Get in!” She commands. She’s cold and commanding. One of her only useful qualities.

“Do not tell me what to do.” I say, already making my way to the back seat.

“Be happy we’re going to save your lover” she bristles and I roll my eyes.

“You are obligated to save her.” I whisper loud enough so they can hear me.

“And we are going to, Oliver. We’re going to save her as soon as we have a proper plan.”

“A proper plan?” I say. Because of course we need a proper plan. Because of course no one is going to infiltrate just like that. What was I going to do? I didn’t even know where this place was.

“Yes, a proper plan.” Mendes states, “I’ll devise it since I am the smarter of you two,” he speaks a little boastfully.

“Yeah, whatever,” says Lily casually.

“I am,” he says and smiles a glowing smile in the dark. I shake my head at them. I still feel a lot of anger toward them and I feel like this is all being resolved a little too quickly. But I also feel this is my last hope.

“How did they not get you?” I ask rhetorically.

“Well, Oliver, unlike you and Neave, we know when to get out. We’re rarely at the wrong place at the wrong time– or to the Bureau, the right place at the wrong time.”

The car is really quiet for a minute or so, then Lily, the self-destructive being she is, stuns me with coming up with a few sentimental words: “We’re really sorry, Oliver. We can’t imagine how hard this–” She gestures gently with her hand, “must be for you… I’m sorry we haven’t reacted the way you would have wanted us to react. We are selfish and there is no denying that.”

“Damn right you are.” I mumble, but I do appreciate the sentiment.

“You have the right to be angry with us.” Mendes says.

“I am.” I say.

“Okay.” She says, dismissing herself. The ride continues in silence to Neave’s loft where we– or Mendes really, strategizes our mission. The mission is crystal. It isn’t to destroy the Bureau– which would actually be a really good opportunity to bring them down– but solely to rescue Neave.

Mendes takes suggestions from Lily and me, and as easily as we give them, he shoots them down with a valid explanation.

He lays out everything, even drawing a prefect blueprint from memory. The place has been built like a capital E, consisting of three floors underground. Mendes says the walkways and walls are lined with metal, the corridors with alarms and cameras and password requests around every corner. Both Mendes and Lily state that it isn’t that big at all. The size of a really small mall. How many square meters is that? I’d ask but I’m still really angry at them, and surely Mendes would know the answer. To be honest with myself, I can’t exactly tell the difference between meter and millimeter, so asking the size would simply confuse me.

They then tell me there are only a handful of entrances that are heavily guarded with cameras and alarms and that we should avoid those as often as possible, but that’s basically the only way to get in, too. That’s how Neave and Mendes and Lily escaped into the world.

“So, we’ll commence tomorrow?” I ask, afraid the answer will be negative. That he will say next week, or month. By then she could be dead.

“Well…” Mendes lingers on the answer he wants to give and glances at Lily. “Well, I was thinking about going in the early hours of the morning.” My heart flutters a little bit and I shiver.

“So you think it’s best to go when there is no light?” Lily asks Mendes as if it’s a bad idea.

“Yeah,” His expression changes, “Don’t you?” He asks as if he is truly uncertain.

“No. I don’t think it’s wise at all, Mendes.” She snipes at him.

“Then what would you want?” He asks patronizingly.

“I think we should go immediately, when first light hits–”

“First light? What is this– Lily? We aren’t plundering a village! We’re saving our friend, and that’s it–”

“–But she can wait!” Lily yells back. I open my mouth as if to say something, but really I’m just astonished she’d even say that in front me.

“No. No she can’t, Lily. Nor can Oliver– you would want to be rescued at the first instance, too, wouldn’t you?”

That shuts her up. Thank you, Mendes. Thank you for making my point.

“You would want to be saved.” He states. “Don’t be so selfish.” He looks at me, my green eyes trained on him. His brown eyes bat briefly.

“You’re welcome, by the way.” He says pettily and I smile.

“Okay, so what’s our escape plan?” I ask quickly.

“That depends on if we do get out alive. But we follow our route in as we did to get out.”

“Okay,” I say, but then Mendes continues: “I told Lily already about the fake things–”

“–Fake things?” I ask, perplexed.

“Yes. Passports, identification, drivers’ licenses…” He says.

“How did you make all that?” I ask, marveled.

“I have my ways.” He says. “We should get some rest if– before we leave.” He says and glances at Lily. “You too, Oliver. You most of all, actually.” I should be offended, but I’m much too tired, so I obey him. We all do and we’re off to a slumber.

He moves to the couch where Lily claims her place and finds a spot behind her. He plants a kiss on her cheek and she blushes and closes her eyes.

I could have done that to Neave if she were here, with me at this moment in time. If only she had come with me, we could have been safe a million miles away. I doubt we’d be safe.

I move upstairs, onto Neave’s bed, so I can be closer to her. She is the last person I think of before I plummet into a restless, almost sleepless night. Only to be woken up in a few hours by Mendes and Lily, Neave’s only friends in the world.

*****

“That’s a basic storefront.” I state.

“Yes, I know” says Mendes, annoyed.

“So the Bureau of Superhuman Naturalism has established itself below the basic storefronts of Budapest.”

“I suppose it has.” Mendes says in an uninterested, tired voice. It’s four o’ clock in the morning and we sit in a car that’s heating up, and I’ve been ranting on and on about how this was so anticlimactic and that I was expecting much more than this. Mendes would explain to me again that the Bureau isn’t as big as I’d think. He’s tired, so I stop marveling at the dingy building.

“Oliver, you need to get some sleep, too.” He says, turning his back to me, still in the driver’s seat.

“Yeah,” I say and take a nap.

“When does it open?” Mendes asks himself.

“What do you mean?” asks Lily.

“I mean, Lily– my question is really basic: When does it open?” he says, extremely annoyed with her.

“Between nine and five,” she says sarcastically.

I grind my teeth and throw my head back. I doubt I will ever see Neave again, now.” Okay, okay. Oliver, think. What can you do?

“Maybe they’re already in there?” I ask. “Maybe they have been there all along?”

They both look at me, one with genius and one with doubt.

“I bet Mendes couldn’t figure that out,” says Lily and laughs at Mendes.

“Well then I guess we should find out?” He says shamefully.

“Preferably, yes.” I say. I am so eager.

We step out of the car at the same time like a syndicate and march straight on to the pavement that is rather empty at this time of the morning.

He shakes his head, “I can’t.” Mendes says as the door swings open. “I can’t see anyone.”

“Welcome!” says a man so cheerily. The presence of potential customers must have made his day a lot better before it even started.

“Hello, yes,” says Mendes. “May we use your bathroom? We’ve been traveling over the district and had a little too much to drink and now we need to relieve ourselves, if you don’t mind” Mendes implores, hoping the store owner will take pity on our lot.

“Do come in, look around if you must” he says. “Take your time.” I’m not sure, but I think those are the words of a lonely person.

I mean, it must be especially lonely living amongst antiques.

Our little group walks uneasy as we tour the awfully large antique store, I note the neo-gothic elements and follow the band to the very back of the store, but my mind is on Neave.

“How did you escape?” I ask my companions.

“We escaped through one of the store windows in the dead of night three weeks ago. The facility is under the city. Each of the stores for the next few square kilometers are built on the place, so, one of these stores must have an entrance to it.”

“What makes you think it’s this shop?” I ask.

“Well, this place attracts the least attention. I mean, its antiques and stuff.”

“So that’s your deduction? Because it’s antiques, it would look less suspicious?”

“Yes.” He says honestly. It’s some hunch to follow, then.

“And we couldn’t just enter through the sewer?”

“It would look suspicious. And weird.”

“So…” I linger.

“We kept running.” Lily speaks out. “We kept running until we couldn’t. Neave must tell you this story some time.”

“She must,” I concur.

“Do you know where we are?” I ask. Now I feel a little uneasy.

“In an antique store.” Lily says. Surely she’s mocking me. “Mendes can pinpoint our geological location.”

“You make it sound like he’s a computer.” I say.

“I am. Kind of. It’s a perk of being technologically inclined.” He flashes a smile more winning than my own as he shuts the door behind him once we’re in the lavatory. “Now, what I remember is that every other store has been modified with a sliding panel only accessible from this side.”

“Wait– So how do the people get to their jobs?” I ask. I mean– I’m confused.

“They’re like us,” he says, “they don’t have families and they make do with the situation in the Bureau.” He says, not even answering my question.

Lily senses I’m about to say something, and she knows what, so she answers: “There’s a hostel. On the fourth floor.”

“Mendes says there’s only three.”

“Mendes is an unreliable liar,” she says with a girlish smile. I think she likes him. “No, there are only three floors we can roam. The fourth isn’t accessible.”

“We should probably suit up.” Mendes says while he tries to locate a panel on the wall of the bathroom which I doubt is there.

Then he finds it. “Here we go,” He says proudly to himself. It’s like something from the future, this panel. It slides open easily on a gear, except it needs full body force to reveal only part of those cold metal walls. Really, all I see is a mirror– or is it a portal to an environment more chilling? And not only that, but a touch-code is needed to access what is behind it.

I feel even more uneasy than before. It’s becoming all too real.

“What now?” I ask.

“You heard me. We have to gear up so we can look as if we fit in.”

“There’s not even a wardrobe or anything in here. This place is fairly empty.” I say. All that occupies the area is a chair and an age-old mop.

“Yeah, I can see that.” He says sarcastically.

I gaze at Mendes in confusion. “Yeah, so, what are we supposed to dress in?” I ask, slowly growing annoyed with him.

“Clothes–” He points to the mirror, “…are in there…”

“Okay, but how are we going to get in?” I ask, obviously showing my frustration now.

“With a code. Gosh, Oliver, you can be so stupid.” He shakes head as if I’m asking questions with obvious answers.

“No shit! Do you have the damned touch sequence, Mendes?”

“Why are you yelling?” He asks innocently and furrows his brow.

I slap my face. “Kill me now.” I whisper, and Lily lets free a giggle.

“Look here, Poopie,” He calls me and I lose tension at the nickname. Mendes moves his finger in a straight line across the mirror, touching and highlighting three dots on a square panel.

And it opens. The mirror slides away to reveal yet another looking glass. You’re killing me.

“That basic?” I ask skeptically.

“Maybe it’s a little more complex than that,” Mendes says candidly.

“Then how did it open?” I ask as we all adjust our posture, readying to step through into a cold world.

“The code will be whatever I want it to be.” Mendes says and wiggles his fingers in front of his face gleefully. I roll my eyes at his folly. “Shall we go?” He asks gesturing his hand outward into the metal box. “I’m pretty sure this is where we get dressed” he says.

“Yeah. I’d think so, too,” Lily says and makes her way into the room, arms folded. The moment her boots hit the metal, they make a sharp clunking sound. I expect something to happen– like lasers slicing her into cubes– but nothing. I begin to take Mendes’s word on this place being insecure…

Lily’s eyes scan, and land on something. I follow in after her to see what she’s looking at. It’s a small rectangle in the metal wall. Mendes comes in after me and adopts my stature.

“What is it?” I ask both Lily and Mendes.

“It’s a handle. A door handle.” He inspects it a little longer. “I suppose we push it in.” He places his four fingers on the rectangle and applies pressure. Just as he withdraws, the handle shoots out with a sharp ‘ting’. All this mystery is time-consuming. I open the door with the very unique handle, and remove a silver suit from what clearly distinguishes itself to be a closet.

“Where do we get dressed?” I ask, uncomfortable of the answer.

“Now is not the time to be shy, Oliver,” Lily says with a playful smile. The most unique thing I have seen from her yet. I shake my head. Whatever. We all get dressed in the same enclosure. Every article of clothing flies off hurriedly and soon we are all dressed in metallic pressure suits, or something of the kind. On our heads are things that look like welding helmets, except the visage is tinted red, so not only do I see everything in crimson, but my identity is protected too. It’s a win-win.

Mendes moves his hand across the mirror again, vertically on the touchpad just as the one behind us closes, moving the wood panel back in place. This time we sink down, down, down– what feels like a million feet underground.

A few minutes later it stops. I don’t know how deep underground we are, but the pressure feels normal. Of course it does.

“We are about to step into the cruel world once again,” Mendes states. “Are you ready Oliver?”

No. I am so far from ready. I don’t even want to go through with this– see Neave’s old world. But I am doing this to save her.

The lie cascades down my lips flawlessly. “I am ready.”

***

Tell us: Now that they are in the facility, do you think they are going to get out of it alive?