The Black Storeroom

This is the Black Storeroom.
Its location is hidden.
Its owners are secretive.
Its lighting is spooky.
When They don't want you to know about it, this is where They send it.
When They want you to protect you from it, this is where They keep it.
When They think it might come in handy, this is where They put it.
Then it becomes My problem.

I am the Storeman.

How did you get in here?

It’s been a hell of a day, and I’m beat. Paranoia had been preying on me, so I decided to tighten up the Storeroom security until I sort out this latest intrigue. I had already sealed the Labyrinth against outside access (and set up a nasty surprise for anyone who tried to bypass it) and this morning I decided to put up barriers on all the open shelves in the place. This took a good part of the day and caused me a few headaches to get it all calibrated properly. I suspect Neville might want a word or two about the power usage, but he’ll have other worries to deal with soon enough, I hope.

The Backblocks of Europe. Thursday.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” ‘O-Train’ muttered grimly, and rubbed his chin pensively. Behind his back, his team exchanged weary glances. The Captain had a bad feeling about every mission, and was almost always right, too – though this had more to do with the fact that they were a Dregs squad than any inherent precognition. To feel apprehension about a pending mission was a little redundant, rather like a fireman declaring a job may be ‘hot.’ (It was this fact that had gotten him the secondary moniker of Captain ‘O’(bvious) in his team’s mind.)

Thursday Morning.

            On the panel above the bed, the soft blue light changed to yellow, and a quiet chime sounded, announcing the start of a new ‘day’ – at least according to the base clock. Outside the insulated walls, the sun had risen four days ago and would continue to shine for at least another ten, but inside - for convenience - the base observed a terrestrial 24-hour cycle, which - for the hell of it- coincided with that of Murmansk.

            Being in dangerous situations is kind of an occupational hazard for me, and quite honestly, I’ve long since lost count of the times my life has been threatened. True, I’m a little harder to kill than most at the best of times, but then I’m not exactly dealing with run-of-the-mill dangers down here either. Still, it’s been a while since the danger has been personal. Facing a hazard is one thing, knowing that someone is actively targeting you is quite another.

            I head to my armoury at double-speed. I’d love to be able to take a moment to gibber a bit, but there’s no time, I’m not out of danger yet. You see, the Labyrinth... well, it’s big. Each room inside it is a 20m³ cube, and each of those cubes are themselves arranged in a larger cubical formation - 7X7X7 – which comes to 343 rooms, or 140m³ of masonry, give or take. And in the centre room of all of that, is the device that keeps all of that real estate tucked into a nice, safe pocket dimension. But if anything went wrong – say, a horde of genetically engineered and enhanced vermin chewing on it – then all of that would suddenly manifest itself right back here, in that bay in Aisle A.

             Which would be bad.

            After lunch, I start preparing a new space down in aisle D for a new arrival. The word is, that some Mad Scientist (a redundant statement, in my opinion) in the backblocks of Europe decided to do a Frankenstein and see if he could reanimate dead bodies. It turned out that he could, and so he did and would probably have got away with it too, if he hadn’t decided to go for quantity over quality. One lighting bolt and a maniacal laugh later, and before you could say “Oh crap, Zombie Plague,” we have a Situation.

 

Wednesday

            Cord Walker flattened himself against the wall, listening intently. The faint clattering noise from around the corner told him there were more foes waiting for him. He glanced back down the stone corridor in the direction he had come, but saw no signs of pursuit. He glanced back and snatched at his belt for a small ovoid device that he activated with a whispered word, and tossed around the corner. Two seconds later, there was a flash and he flung himself around the corner with his gun raised.
 

*Yes, I still live. Sorry for the delay. Real life, etc etc.*
 
           History is a strange thing. It’s true that people say it’s written by the winners, but many forget that it’s also often rewritten by the tellers. Details are lost, distorted by time, or in some cases... ‘improved.’ Take the Trojan horse, for example, in whose cockpit I’m currently sitting. At some point, long ago, one of Them decided that it would be more historically appropriate for the Greeks to have won through cunning subterfuge, rather than with a giant steam-powered battletank. The fact that the new version made the Trojans look like idiots didn’t hurt either. And in the end, the outcome of the story is pretty much the same, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

            I don’t get many visitors down here. When deliveries arrive, the S3 teams barely leave the dock, and when S4 needs something they usually make me bring it to them. Apart from the occasional appearance of the Pencil or other minor drones, I’m pretty much left to myself.

            So with Vanessa on her way down, I’m feeling a rare twinge of self-consciousness. I clear away the coffee cups, sweep the snack debris from my desk and start to stack the paperwork neatly before I catch myself.

            Haig is playing fetch with Lucy in the open area between my office and the aisles. It’s a touching little scene - quite cute in a Disney-meets-Tim Burton kind of way - and comforting to watch.  I need the comfort right now, after my little adventure down in Aisle A. I’m still shaking from it.

             I have to take a few moments to calm down after the Pencils departure. I’m not at all worried about repercussions of course - although he is in charge of “Efficiency,” he is not in any way above me - but I’m still pretty steamed. After a bit of pacing, cursing and general grumbling, I retrieve my chair, send Haig off to find Lucy again, and then it’s down to Aisle D with my repair kit. 

            After the S3 team depart, I spend some time filling the airholes of the intact statues with rubber cement. This is not technically allowed, because Section 4 may at some time wish to study them, and will want them intact and untampered with, but I’m not overly concerned. Section 4 in general shows no interest in anything dating from before the Martian Invasion, so this is unlikely to come back and bite me. And if it does, they can bite me. There are 3 security doors between this room and S4’s offices. I have a yellow line painted on the floor.