New to the story? Start here: Memorial Day Chapter 1: Welcome to Bright Hill

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21 – Exposure Management

Advancing into the basement stairs took some concentration.  The bag wasn’t heavy, per se, but was just heavy enough to affect his balance as its contents shifted around.  He had to take small steps in until he felt the edge of the landing, then feel blindly behind him to shut the door.

The slight give in the wooden stairs made them feel more treacherous than they should be.  He was acutely aware of how loud his boots were on each step, a hollow thump that he thought he could hear echoing off the concrete walls of the basement.

He reached the first landing and made the turn, then after a minute, reached the basement proper.  As before, he had to feel for the steel shelves, following them until he found the gap that marked the white door.

Finding the spot on the doorframe in which the card reader was concealed was a challenge.  While he was doing it, the bag in his hand chirped to itself.  It didn’t startle him this time, even though he felt no more comfortable in the basement than he did upstairs.  He was eventually rewarded with a click from the door, and he opened it.

Descending the concrete stairs a short time later, he felt like his ears were still ringing from the clang of the gate’s maglock engaging.  The upper stairs weren’t especially challenging, but when he reached the transition to the lower, older stairs, he had to keep one hand on the wall as he slowly went down each one.

When he’d opened the outer hatch and stepped awkwardly over the sill, he paused.

Once he had committed to moving out of the kitchen, he had been focused on that entirely—careful, methodical, quiet.  He had studiously avoided letting himself think further about whatever had transpired up there.

Now, standing in the open hatch, he was forced to think about it.

Facing out into the basement stairwell, he waited, and listened.  The bag chirped to itself and he ignored it.

He drew the pistol from his leg holster, held it at his hip, and waited some more.

The hatch was not small, but between his body and the duffel bag in his hand, he was blocking most of the opening.

This is a hard boundary, he told himself.  Containment.  Exposure management.

That word again.  Exposure.  It nagged at him, pulling at a thread in his brain that he refused to follow for the time being.

The environment failed to acknowledge his presence.  He could hear the HVAC systems behind him—the subtle, ever-present sound of air moving, and a low hum that seemed to come from nowhere.

He carefully set the bag down out of the way, hearing whatever was on the bottom clang against the metal landing of the stairs.  He straightened, holding the pistol at his hip, pointed loosely out the open hatch.

Nothing changed.  The quiet, familiar sound of the environment behind him was beginning to feel comforting.

He carefully swung the hatch closed and spun the wheel until it clicked, setting the bolts into the door’s frame.  Only then did he holster his pistol.

After locking down the hatch and feeling his way down the metal stairs, he took a moment to breathe.  He was finally standing on solid ground again in what was, notionally, a safe environment.  The air smelled clean and sterile as it always did, with just a hint of the plastic-like odor he associated with the anteroom.

The journey to the inner hatch was slow, but undramatic.  His foot bumped the coiled garden hose near the shower cubicle, but it didn’t trip him.  He resolved to hang it up properly the next time he could come out here with his eyes open.

He didn’t repeat his stand in the inner hatch.  Instead he shut it and locked it as soon as he was inside, then felt his way through the fighting room, to the steel door and through it.

He did throw the deadbolts on the apartment door this time, recalling his earlier confidence that they wouldn’t matter.

Standing by the door, he set the bag down on the carpet and listened to the familiar sounds of the apartment: the almost-inaudible rumble of the HVAC that was always running, the fridge humming quietly in the kitchen.  Nothing sounded out of place.  Even unable to see, it felt comfortable, like what he heard when he was in bed—minus the sound of the laptop he left sitting on the bedroom floor.

Much earlier, briefly, he had been looking forward to this moment.  Here, now, he was left wondering why he hadn’t taken his blindfold off yet.

He made himself assess why he hadn’t.  Not finding a good reason within a few moment’s thought, he unclipped his helmet and set it on the carpet.  Without ceremony, he tugged the balaclava up and off of his head.

He saw nothing but the fake wood paneling, worn carpet, and the warm, slightly dim lighting.  He scanned the room, and it looked exactly as he had left it.

The bag at his feet chirped just then, drawing him back to the reason he was standing there in the first place.  He looked down at it for the first time since re-entering the apartment.

It was an ordinary black nylon duffel bag, the kind with one large compartment and two zippered pockets on the side.

The top two handles were shackled together with a large metal carabiner, and clipped to that was a small but substantial metal contraption, some kind of sturdy collar or fitting.  The side handles had similar carabiners on them, but attached to thick nylon straps that ran underneath the bag.  He unclipped the top handles and unzipped the bag, intensely curious to see what he’d been sent up to retrieve.

He opened the flap to reveal the bag’s assorted contents and then he stopped, feeling ridiculous.

If he had planned this operation under better circumstances, he would have eventually come to the part where he questioned how he was going to find an airdropped package when he couldn’t see anything.  There were contingencies for that, and he’d used some before.  It wasn’t something done haphazardly.  It was planned for, arranged—but there had been no mention of that from Steven.

The boring-looking smoke detector in the bag blinked its red light at him.  Clearly a residential one, tastefully off-white with a recognizable brand name on it, sitting on top of some carefully-packed equipment.