Chapter Six
Benji
The snow was so heavy that Benji began to assume that the fabled bunker didn’t even exist until he suddenly saw it appear through the blanket of white.
He couldn’t help but release a sigh of relief at the sight of it.
Before getting closer, he took the time to investigate the area to make sure that there were no unwanted visitors there.
His eyes scanned the snow around him and there were no footprints or tire trails.
No one else was foolish enough to come out there during the snow-pocalypse apparently. Just him.
“Unc, I see the bunker. Probably less than half a click away,” he said. Whenever they were on the comm, they avoided using their names just in case someone was listening in. It was for their safety, really.
“Got it, kid. I’m in position and you’re in my sight.”
Benji just nodded his head and fell silent again, continuing his trek.
His extremities were frozen to the bone.
He had a set of hand warmers that he had been clutching onto for dear life, but they weren’t doing much for him anymore.
With a huff, he slipped them into one the pockets on his vest and picked up his pace.
He needed to get inside as soon as possible and warm up.
Hopefully that bunker had heat but knowing his luck, it was going to be just as cold as it was outside.
Just less snowy. He supposed that was better than nothing though.
Even though the walk wasn’t all that far, the snow had really slowed him down.
After a good forty-five minutes, he had finally arrived at the area.
The building itself seemed quite desolate and quiet.
It was just a large stone building in what looked like the middle of nowhere.
There were no lights on the outside of it and no other entrances from what he could see and remember from the blueprints except the metal door he was staring directly at.
He could see a security camera pointing at the door but it was covered in snow so he felt good that it wouldn’t catch him.
However, he kept his face covered with his vest regardless.
He attempted the keycard that Andi gave him but it didn’t work.
He assumed that it was made for the doors inside.
No problem. He’d just pick the lock. Benji brushed the snow off the key pad and took a second to investigate it.
From what he could see, it was a simple automated lock. Interesting.
Reaching into another pocket on his vest, he pulled out a small lock pick set and knelt down so he could see underneath the lock appropriately.
His fingers were numb, so it made picking the lock quite difficult.
He had to really focus on what his hands were feeling through their numbness, which kind of felt like he was attempting to pick a lock in goo.
Luckily, Benji was pretty damn good at lockpicking and in about fifteen seconds, the lock was deactivated and he heard the locking slide open.
He quickly put the lockpick back before he stood up and unhooked his tactical mask from his belt.
Benji slipped it on over his face so that he could withstand the gas leak and then grabbed a knife from its sheath before he quietly opened the door.
Or, tried to.
The door was half frozen shut, so he had to give it a big push just to get it open really did not help with the ‘do this thing quietly’ thing but there was really no helping it. He had to get in.
And get in he did.
Benji practically fell face first into the bunker but caught himself before it got too embarrassing. Luckily, no one saw it. “You good, kid?” Spence suddenly asked.
Well, no one but him.
“Yeah, I’m good. Door was frozen shut,” he huffed and shook his head while closing the door behind him.
“Be careful in there.”
“Always.” Benji responded quickly and fell silent as he began to look back and forth down the hallways, trying to remember the blueprint.
There was a staircase on the opposite side of him.
He just had to navigate that way and go down.
Benji looked down at himself and frowned a bit when he saw the puddle that was already growing beneath him.
He hadn’t even noticed it was a decent temperature there until that moment.
He didn’t want to leave a trail of water behind him as he moved but he also didn’t want to just leave his boots there.
Benji weighed his options for a few seconds before he just started moving forward.
If the brief was correct, no one would even be there.
He didn’t have to be super careful. And by the time someone came back, the water would be dried up.
But still, he moved with swift and concise movements towards the staircase that he remembered from the blueprint.
He was pretty sure there was an elevator too, but he didn’t take those unless absolutely necessary.
Quietly, Benji pushed open the door to the stairs and moved down them, taking care not to slip and fall on the way down.
He counted the floors, remembering that the control center was three floors below, which he still found to be weird, but he wasn’t there to question their practices.
Once at that floor, he took note of the keycard entry and grinned.
Reaching into his vest, he pulled out the keycard and tapped it.
The light on the reader turned from red to green and the door unlocked.
Quickly, he threw it open and stepped onto the floor.
His gaze shifted once again, debating which way to go.
He eventually chose the right and followed the wall until he found the control center.
Once again, it was locked by a keycard reader.
He gave it a test push, to just make sure, before he tapped the keycard against that as well.
Stepping inside, he released a soft breath, beginning to walk through the room.
There were several computers in that room but there was one in the back of the room in an office that was practically screaming at him.
That was the one he was looking for. He was about to report that he found the hard drive, but he remembered that it was practically a dead zone down there.
His comm wouldn’t be getting through to anyone.
Walking into the office, he sat down in the cushy chair and shook the mouse to turn the computer on from its sleep mode.
He was expecting to have to take the time to figure out the password, but it wasn’t password locked.
It didn’t even have a pin. It was just ready to use.
“That’s fucking weird,” Ben muttered to himself and that familiar pit in his stomach returned.
There hadn’t been much that was setting off his warning bells inside the bunker but that certainly did.
Bringing up a blank word document, Benji typed a simple sentence.
i don’t feel good about this.
He needed to communicate it to someone. Andi would be able to read it and she could try to tell him he was just overthinking it all even though she had told him she had a bad feeling about it too.
He didn’t need her to say that at the moment though.
He needed her to tell him everything was okay. And it was. It had to be.
Right?
With a shake of his head, he plugged in the USB device and dragged the program onto the desktop like his sister had instructed. Immediately after, he brought up the word document so she could see his words.
Luckily for him, she was quickly responding.
What do you mean?
Benji frowned. As he was typing his next sentence, a loud crash was heard and Benji couldn’t even finish his sentence.
All he got out of was idk something isnt righ
From the corner of his eye, he could see Andi typing a million miles a second, but he had to investigate what the hell that was.
Moving out of the office, he walked through the room once again and saw that the door he walked in was wide open.
The crash must have been the door hitting the wall.
“Shit.” Benji was now keenly aware he wasn't alone anymore.
Whoever it was, they probably worked there, right?
Would they know about him? He doubted it.
It was probably classified what he was doing.
So, what? Would he be knocking out random bunker employees? Apparently so…
Keeping his back tight against the wall near the door, he cautiously peered out into the hallway, hoping to spot the culprit but no one was there.
Were they ding dong ditching him? He had no idea what was going on.
Releasing a soft breath, he turned his head away from the door and it was at that moment when he saw someone hiding underneath one of the desks in front of him.
His eyes widened and Benji reached down to grab their foot, dragging them out from under the desk while taking care not to stab their leg with his knife.
They looked like they were in tactical gear. What the fuck?
He hadn’t even realized that the door was moving to the left of him.
If he had, he may have been ready for the strong arm that was wrapping around his neck.
The person he had dragged out slapped the knife out of his hand.
With his core muscles (thank God for those), he bucked at the one in front of him.
Benji pushed himself backwards as hard as he could, slamming the other into the wall behind him.
It was enough to make them falter and Benji slipped out from his grip.
He lost his tactical mask in the process, but that was fine.
He had time to get out back upstairs before the gas leak got to him too badly.
Probably.