When my feet first touched the pavement, I felt all the warmth return to my body. I stumbled forward and my hand found a dumpster as I steadied myself. A wet dumpster.
Ew.
Just as I began to wipe the soiled appendage on my pants I heard two more footsteps behind me.
"You dropped this."
I lifted my clean hand and caught the object thrown at me. The feeling of porcelain comforted me. Far more than it used to.
"Remind me again." I couldn't quite keep the bite out of my tone as I lifted to fit the mask snugly to my face. "Why didn't we just take a bus?"
"They don't exactly run all the way out here." I turned back to look at Rat with a scowl, who had little pity for my plight. "I suppose I could have let you walk all the way out here."
I wasn't sure where 'here' was but I was almost sure the trek on foot would have been worth it if it meant getting to avoid one of Rat's shortcuts. She knew that I couldn't stand them.
I frowned at her for a moment more before sighing and looking away.
"Where are we?"
Rat didn't answer, too busy ignoring me and looking down at her phone. Deciding I didn't feel like waiting for her to finish whatever it was she was doing, I made my way out of the alleyway to find out for myself.
What awaited me was not the city that we had spent the last week exploring, at least not any part of it that I had seen. Tall industrial buildings surrounded me on all sides, metal behemoths spotted with rust, vines, and graffiti. I could just make out towering pipes in the distance pointing towards the sky, likewise covered in overgrowth of some sort.
"It used to be a steel mill." Rat stepped out of the alley to stand beside me. "Every time I lose track of the target he's in this area."
I had been surprised multiple times times that week to see Rat return to the hotel room frustrated. Not just annoyed like she got when I said something she found stupid, but actually frustrated. She didn't often express much traditionally. If you wanted to really understand how she felt you had to be able to pick out her subtle queues. Those were nowhere to be found this week.
Instead I would watch as she stomped into our room, all but slamming the door, the force at which she did so increasing as the week went on. I took this as evidence that she hadn't managed to track our target completely. I didn't ask for details, as I knew it would only make her angrier and that she would tell me once I needed to know.
Still, it boggled my mind to consider that a run of the mill proxy was throwing Rat off their trail. Looking around now, however, the idea wasn't as surprising. Winding paths and spiraling stairs would cause anyone to get lost in a place like this. You would have to know exactly where you were trying to go, like our target likely did, even then I found it hard to believe that anyone could find their way around easily.
"You're sure he's here?" I usually knew better than to question Rat and it wasn't even my job to do so. Tracking was her job and confrontation was mine. But the thought of wandering the desolate streets in front of me... "Like one hundred percent?"
"I watched him enter on ten separate occasions." Her tone told me she wasn't exactly happy with being questioned after the week she had. "And that aside, how else would you explain this?"
She lifted her phone to show me what it was she had been staring at. From the bright screen saw that she was in her settings on the wifi page and on it was a single source. It looked like a hotspot. The source flickered on her screen, indicating that we were likely on the edge of its range. It was 5G too. Guy was really riding the highlife.
"So someone is here." I took another look at the sprawling landscape of degradation before me and let out a long sigh. "And now..."
I let out a deep sigh instead of what I knew to be true. The sooner I said it, the sooner I would be forced to acknowledge it and so I didn't. Rat had no such reservations.
"You're going to find him." Rat leaned against the alley wall, mask facing my direction. "I did my part, now it's time for you to do yours."
I spent the next few hours trying to get the lay of the land while establishing a general idea of where the hotspot radius was. It was a meticulous process. I kept glancing down at my phone the entire time, checking the signal and watching as it would disappear when I went too far in a specific direction. I mentally noted landmarks, something that was difficult with everything looking the same in a state of disrepair, as I etched a rough map in my mind, one that I would do my best to recreate in our hotel room that night when we finally returned.
I finally gave up for the night when the hotspot disappeared altogether. Either the target knew we were there, something I knew was probable after what Rat had told me earlier that week, he had left, or he had decided to go to sleep for the night.
Rat was still waiting for me back at the alley, standing in approximately the same spot she had been when I left. I wondered if she had stayed there the entire time. Knowing her, she had. She was silent, wordlessly offering me her hand to which I reluctantly took it.
We've been back the last couple nights in a row and I've had about the same luck as I did the first. The hotspot itself hasn't moved and the area isn't that large, so it's only a matter of time before I find the guy.
I'll post again if anything happens or just when I can.
~Rabbit
