John stepped into the elevator. He was headed down to sub-level 42, where his apartment was. John is a tunnel Engineer 3rd grade, quite a good title for someone as young as he was, though not good enough to warrant housing on the surface. However, even though his apartment was on sub-level 42 it was still abyss side so that was something, he at least had a view and another thing that was in short supply, a balcony.
Strangely John was in the elevator alone, the complex in which he and the other citizens lived was known as Sector 3, coloney “Dead Mine” , the buildings all surrounded the edge of super crater that was created by one of the giant companies hundreds of years ago. Slowly the structures built up from the bottom and the top to great a was from space would look like a standard city with a giant 1000 meter hole in it. With so many citizens living there being alone in an elevator was quite the luxury.
He found mind wandering back to when he was a teenager. He had led a fairly rough life and had been initiated into a tunnel gang when he was only 12. Tunnel gangs roamed the mines and tunnels of the under complex looking for people who were foolish enough to wander alone. He became the gangs main brain, he seemed to have an almost sixth sense about the tunnels and how they worked.
That was all in the past now though, John had quit the gang when he was 17, they had been in the middle of a war when he had the revelation that perhaps the gang wasn't for him. His gang mates didn't take to kindly to John wanting to leave and they nearly beat him to death. He was saved at the last minute by a local cop.
That cop took pity on John and through a local charity helped him get his life back together. John took courses at the local school to get his learning certificate and applied for tunnel engineering school, to put his talents to good use. That was 10 years ago and he had risen through the ranks quickly, making tunnel Engineer Level 3.
But all that was just a distraction. He knew that he was trying to avoid the strange events that had happened to him just last night. A stranger had been pounding on his door asking for help. John understood what it meant to need help from a stranger and he had opened the door to this person.
It was a woman, a young woman. She looked beaten up and dirty and was crying for help. John let her in and triple locked his door. She said that she had been kidnapped and was running away from the men who took her. She didnt know where she was and was too hysterical to tell him where she was from. John picked her up and took her over to his arm chair. He set her down and wrapped an old blanket around her shoulders. Her tattered cloths meant that she was likely very cold.
Just as things seemed to be calming down, there was another knock at the door. This was not the knock of the desperate but the knock of intention. The knock came again, “pound pound pound”. John had asked “Who is it?”. No one answered.
The pounding came again “pound pound pound”. John looked at the girl who was silently sobbing and who had turned white. Whoever is at the door, she at least believed they were after her. John moved to the peep hole. The person on the otherside had covered it so John was not able to see who it was.
Pound, pound, pound.
John had lived a hard life and was not easily scared, however this whole situation seemed incredibly odd and he started to feel something strange down in his gut.
“Ok, hold on. Ill open the door in just a second.” The pounding stopped. John walked over to the door and grabbed a small black object from a nearby box. As he opened the locks the door burst open and a giant man tackled John to the ground.
“Where is the girl?” the man was shouting! “You do not take what does not belong to you.” The man started punching John and looking around his apartment. It was then that he noticed that John was not fighting back. In fact, John was simply staring at the stranger with a strange gleam in his eye. The stranger started to wonder who this man was, when he looked into Johns eyes. John winked at the stranger. The stranger stopped what he was doing and went slack for just a second, as this happened John brought the small black object into the stranger side and pushed the small red button. 1 million volts of electricity entered the man through his shirt and caused him to seize up.
John was able to get out from underneath the man and he hit him again with the personal stun wand. The stranger was still putting up the best fight he could and John stunned him again. Unfortunately for John personal stun weapons generally only had enough power for three good charges. John knew this and he immediately ran to his closet for a hammer that he kept in his tool box.
John grabbed the hammer, ran back and pounded the man in the back of the head. The stranger fell to the ground and did not move. John, out of breath, fell to the floor. The room was completely quiet and still, except for the young woman crying in the chair. A small stream of blood was coming out of the stranger's head, though he was still breathing.
After a few additional moments John came to his senses and ran over triple-locking his door. He ran over to the sliding door that guarded his balcony and opened it. He then calmly walked over to the stranger's body and took it outside. Once the stranger was on the balcony, he closed the sliding door and set the stun gun back into it's charger, he was fairly certain that he would need it again. He made his way into the kitchen and grabbed all the towels he had and used them to start cleaning up the bloody mess on his laminate floor.
John then walked over to his second chair and sat down. He had no idea what was happening but was quickly realizing that he had just put himself in a very bad position, between this helpless person and a group of people who wanted her. He was not worried about anyone else coming in, his door was not only locked with three steel pin locks, BUT he had gone to the extra precaution of replacing the standard apartment door with a hard steel security door. You weren't getting in without a major fight and he could have the local police there quickly.
He looked over at the girl who was now asleep. He could wait to talk to her, but the man on the balcony was another matter. He would not be passed out for long, and having a gangster in your apartment balcony was never going to have a happy ending.
He was not sure how this was all going to work out but he did have an idea about what to do next. He called the man who had saved his life and asked for advice. The old cop picked up the phone, looked at the caller ID and smiled. John had not called his old friend for a few weeks and he was happy to get a chance to talk to him.
“Hello John.” The old cop had said.
“Hi.” John had said back. “I need your help, a woman needed assistance and I helped her but we were attacked by someone who had been chasing after her. I knocked him out and put him on my balcony but im not sure what to do now, the girl is still here and is in shock.”
“Ill be right there” the old cop said then he hung up the phone.
John looked over to the girl , “Everything is going to be alright. What is your name?”
The girl lived over at John shivering and in the smallest of voices said “Alania” and burst out into tears again. John smiled, “well do not worry Alania, my old friend is coming over to help.” The girl fell asleep right then. John recovered her with the blanket and went to the kitchen to make some tea, it was going to be a long night.
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