Sleep didn’t find me that night. It evaded, didn’t come forth like usual. Something within me just drove it away whenever it tried its futile approaches. So, I picked myself up from between the sheets, and sat up. My computer lay, closed at my desk. It truly would be a shame to lie awake all night and get nothing done.

  I slid out of bed, and sat on the very uncomfortable desk chair. It would be difficult to fall asleep on this. Good, I thought. Laziness has no place in me, not right now.

  I plugged in my USB drive.

  It booted up, and a memory hit me. I was extracting files from the CIA to help a client. And they were loaded onto my old USB drive.

  Instantly, I sat up and rummaged through my bag.

  Come on, come on, come on.

  Nothing. No flash drive. Just old clothes, and some emergency supplies. And-

  Strange. I thought. They took a USB drive, but not a loaded pistol.

  If that gun was gone, I would’ve assumed they took away potentially dangerous items. But they must’ve known, must’ve known something to constitute that.

  I suppose I was right about the drive. It was much more dangerous and important than the gun. And unfortunately, the CIA saw it that way as well. But I could not let them keep it. I needed it back and I needed it back fast.

  I wasn’t really thinking straight. I grabbed a burner drive and the pistol, before storming directly out of the room and nearly running straight into Seph.

  He leaned leisurely on the wall, chewing a leaf of what smelled like basil. He was wearing black pants, and a loose-fitting white cotton shirt. He looked me up and down. “You do this every night?” he asked, standing straight from his earlier reclined position.

  “No,” I muttered. “W-why are you here?”

  The moonlight slid over his handsome form as he smiled slightly. “Why shouldn’t I be? It’s the best time of the night.” He looked at me with a strange glitter in his eyes.

  I nodded, reserved. “I… guess?”

  “But I’m not the subject of concern here.” Seph gestured to the lump in my pocket. “You’re the one carrying a pistol around.”

  I shrugged it off. I knew one thing: I couldn’t let myself become the topic of conversation. So I matched Seph’s energy with a grin. “Don’t tell me you don’t have weapons concealed under those clothes of yours.”

  He walked closer to me, so close that I could feel his body heat radiating upon mine. A small knife slid from his shoulder right down into his hand. He gripped it steadily in front of me. I wasn’t sure if he was admiring the craftsmanship or me. “You have no idea,” he breathed.

  “Oh.” My conscious mind chose to settle for that meaning more knives. My unconscious thoughts were not as easy to beat down. “So…” I said awkwardly, and Seph pulled back, the weapon sliding back to where it came from.

  “Yes…?” he asked, suddenly back to a casual mood.

  “I’d better go.” I instantly started for the door, but he pulled in front of me.

  “Woah there-” he said. “Whiteford will kill you if she catches you out there.” He smirked. “Unless I kill her first.”

  “Are we plotting to assassinate Whiteford, or are you just making a point?” I asked, a tremble in my voice.

  Seph slid even closer than before. “Whatever you want,” he whispered into my ear.

  I did not know what to say. “So… you’re coming with me?”

  He smirked, and pulled out a pistol of his own. “Of course.”

  There was a pause.

  “So… what are we doing?”

  I sighed. “The CIA, did they confiscate your stuff?”

  He tilted his head slightly to the side. “They tried.”

  “You-did you get it back?” I asked.

  “They never got it out of the room.”

  “But if, say…” I trailed off, not sure how much information to give. “They did manage to get one’s items, where would they be?”

  Seph walked past me, instantly on the move. I scrambled after him. “I-is that a yes?”

  He brought his finger to his lips, and we moved gracefully through the halls. When we reached the lobby, he pulled me against the wall. “No cameras in the hall, but there are plantly here.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” I whispered as we slid around the room, keeping close to the edges.

  “Sometimes it pays to get information out of the people who we like the least.”

  Well, that narrowed it down to Jane, Janet, Vivian, or maybe Whiteford. I couldn’t find a reason to hate anyone else.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  We reached the edge of the lobby, and we entered the dining room. “Under a table, quick!” Seph hissed, then there was a force in my back. Roughly, he shoved me down. He leaped directly after me.

  I panted. “The fuck was that for?”

  He laughed wildly. “The CIA keeps their cameras at 1 FPS, so they can sneak around if they need to. Plus no audio. Too easy to hack.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Must’ve been a hella good source to learn all this.”

  “Indeed it was.” He immediately lunged for the next table, and I followed. We continued the strange way of movement, reaching the other side within a couple of minutes.

  We panted for a bit under the final table, out of breath. I turned and stared at Seph. “What now ‘information boy’?” I teased. I felt a bit wild. I hadn’t done much that could be considered bad since the day at the cafe. It was a warm, full feeling surging in my chest.

  At it was. So. Fucking. Amazing.

  Seph winked, his dark hair wild. “Turns out, the CIA are a bunch of anxiety-filled ‘prepare-for-everything’ pricks. So, they’ve got backup measures everywhere.”

  He crawled straight behind the bar, and disappeared. I paused for a few seconds, staring. Seph’s smirking face reappeared. “You wanna get your shit back, right?”

  I hesitantly crawled after him, and turned to face the bar. A narrow, wooden staircase led straight into some basement-cellar.

  I stared, at a loss for words.

  “Emergency exits,” Seph said. “And a network of sans-camera tunnels to wherever your desperate heart desires.”

  I sat, then slid myself down the first few stairs, before shifting into a crouching position, then eventually rising to my full height.

  We descended down into the darkness, my bearings only being kept by Seph behind me. I took an unsteady step, stumbled a bit, before realising I had reached the bottom of the stairs. The air was cold and dank, everything smelling a bit of mold and wetness. The floor beneath me felt like rough stone. The slow drip, drip, drip of water in the distance filled my ears.

  I reached out for a wall, and grasped the slightly mud-coated stone. I recoiled at the texture, before again feeling along the walls. “You didn’t tell me we weren’t going to be able to see where we walked.”

  Warm breath was suddenly on my back, Seph behind me. “I didn’t know,” he whispered into my ear. Then, he grabbed my wrists. I made a slight gasping sound, which I’m pretty sure made him smile.

  Not that I could see it, of course.

  He guided me forward, carefully picking through our surroundings. Rocks - I presumed. Seph released me, flinging me away from his warmth into a cold void.

  Then light blinded me.

  A flickering lightbulb had been turned on above us. Seph stared up, with a look of innocent joy. He looked down at me, still smiling. “So there’s the lightswitch.”

  Our surroundings were now more obviously visible. The tunnel was moss and dirt covered, carved purely into gray stone. Small, out-of-place-looking lightbulb installations lined the ceiling. Many tunnels branched out along different points. The ground was coated in bright white stones as well as some larger gray ones.

  Seph started off quickly, and I immediately followed. He occasionally glanced at the openings, each of which had a name carved above, like ‘meeting 202.’

  “What are we looking for here?” I asked cautiously.

  “I don’t quite know…” Seph trailed off, stopping. “Something to do with item confinement or storage.”

  He continued, but I stopped after a few more openings, staring at one of the names. Each of our names were written. Carved in was ‘room 24’, but a sticky note, saying ‘Xarnon Agents’ was below.

  “Wait.” I said, causing Seph to stop and turn once more. “We could have just come straight down here from our room?”

  Seph shrugged. “Of course,” a mischievous look twinkled in his eye. “But we would’ve had to search the room, and where’s the fun in that?”

  Without another word, he started forward. I hurried to keep up with him. “Damn,” I muttered. “They certainly have a room for everything.”

  “Ah.” Seph muttered, stopping at a door about seven paces in front of me. I quickly caught up. ‘Storage basement’ was etched into the stone.

  “Well…” I trailed off. “If it’s anywhere, it’s probably here.”

  Seph gestured for me to go first. I cautiously started up the staircase, pulling out my pistol and pointing it forward. The wooden stairs creaked ominously under me. Well, shit. I thought. If there’s anyone up there, they know exactly where we are.

  I emerged into dark space, my heart pounding. I whirled, pointing my gun at any hint of shadowy movement. Seph emerged from behind me. “We’ll be fine,” he said, almost shakily. “They probably have orders not to shoot us.” I wasn’t sure if he was reassuring me, or himself.

  “You don’t suppose there’s a lightswitch here?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Probably is. But turning it on could alert guards.”

  He produced a small, metal object that I couldn’t make out in the darkness. There was a click, and a small light illuminated the space. Seph had a flashlight. But…

  “Wait,” I said. “You had a flashlight this whole fucking time, and you didn’t bother using it?”

  Just like before, he responded: “Where’s the fun in that?”

  I sighed, and Seph began pointing the light around, while I matched his movements with my pistol. Many boxes with labels made using masking tape and Sharpie were present. Some were labeled: ‘spare guns’, others: ‘chopped wood.’ Most of it was just junk that I had no idea what the CIA would use it for.

  Dust enveloped the air, this space seemingly mostly unused. A locked metal door was eventually found, locked from their side. Seph approached the door, and stood near it, continuing his flashlight-based search.

  Footsteps sounded outside the door. “Shit,” I muttered. Seph turned off his flashlight and darted behind a crate. I matched his movements, going as far back into the room as possible.

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

  The sound of military boots marched forward.

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

  They got louder.

  Clomp. Clomp.

  They stopped in front of our door.

  I reached up my hand to cover my mouth, and my pistol slid right onto the floor.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!

  There was a small clack, as the gun landed.

  I slowly reached out, and pulled the gun closer to me. But instead of grabbing the shape of a pistol, my hand met a USB port. I pulled it closer, and felt its ridges. It was unmistakable, it was-

  The door creaked open, causing my stomach to do flips in my chest. My insides were a flurry of panic. I crouched down to make myself as small as possible, while my stupid brain kept mapping out all of the possible ways this could go wrong.

  A light flashed over the crates, illuminating the spaces near me.

  I was probably there for years, or maybe only a few seconds, before the guard sighed and turned around, closing the door. I picked up my USB drive and pistol, before standing up. The guard's footsteps gradually receded.

  Clomp, clomp, clomp.

  “Holy hell, Seph,” I gasped, standing up on shaky legs. I heard boxes shifting, and Seph standing up.

  We panted, a strange exhilaration in my lungs. “Do you need to keep searching?” Seph asked.

  “No,” I muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We left just as we came, walking down the creaky stairs and back into the stone passage. But this time, Seph stopped at the stone labeled ‘Xarnon agents.’

  He stared at it and shrugged. “We better figure out how to get directly from here to our room. It’ll be useful.”

  We started up the stairs, coming up into pitch blackness. “What?” I muttered. The passageway just… ended. No trapdoor, nothing.

  “Try pushing the wall.” Seph suggested.

  I shook my head, but did it anyway. To my amazement, the wall opened easily after I applied some gentle pressure. It opened up, giving me a full view of our dorm room.

  And the scowling, bedridden faces of Les, Mel, and Naomi staring at me.