“Nothing on that side but dead end rooms, what about you?” She spoke softly, looking at him with a hopeful eyebrow raised.
“The stairs are back this way,” he gestured down the hall behind him and tried to focus his thoughts on the mission again. “Let’s be quick, I heard a few soldiers talking nearby.”
They promptly reached the top floor of the building and found themselves staring down an impossibly long corridor, each floor’s central hallway seemed to stretch halfway back to Verona and had evenly-spaced openings which were the doorways of the individual guest rooms, although most of the doors were broken or missing. Sergio wondered if the Nationalist’s had gone through all these rooms to strip the hotel of furniture or if it had all just burned away when the city was attacked. Maybe things in Realm really weren’t as bad as everyone thought, aside from the politics that is.
The large room on the corner of the hotel building gave them the perfect overlook down to the square below, the truck still sat there idling with not a single soul nearby. Sergio kept his focus on the right side of the square where they had come from, and Marco was at the window on the left and watching down the side-street. In his brief glance towards her, Sergio noticed that the building across from them had a large antenna on the roof, likely a radio post which the Nationalists used to communicate with each other from different points on the surface. He wondered if there was a way to use his own shortwave radio to intercept their transmissions, taking the device from a pouch on his vest he began to fiddle with the dials.
Marco had been completely silent since they had ascended the stairs, possibly because of his report that he had heard a squad nearby, or she was simply absorbed in her own thoughts as he was most of the time. He thought he could sense her inner tension about their mission but maybe it was still all just his own worries tangling up in his chest. She wasn’t fidgety or careless, in fact she seemed to be hyper focused on the building across the street until Sergio’s radio began to spout static and he jumped to turn the volume down. They both looked outside with alarm to ensure nobody besides them had heard the noise but only the wind reached their ears in return. Where were all the soldiers? What were they doing up here? Sergio carefully moved the dial, holding the radio up to the side of his helmet as he slowly adjusted the frequency.
“You said you heard two guys?” Marco asked without looking over at him. “Any of the same from the tavern?”
“One of them was, I think, but not the other.” Marco glanced over at him expectantly and he was quick to dispel her hope, or was it fear? “It wasn’t Sokolov either. He might not have said much to me but I remember what he sounds like.”
“There’s at least one guy left in the truck, the music changed.” Marco pointed down at the vehicle. “I don’t understand, they said they were meeting him.”
Sergio didn’t reply, he was too focused on listening to the small bits of noise sputtering out of the radio speaker, though none of it made any sense so far. One channel was a repeating broadcast, seemingly from Losla about an off-limits area near Barrikadnaya; likely due to the same conflict with the Nationalists that Vera had informed them about earlier. Another channel seemed to be a short and cryptic conversation between two men who were approaching the Kremlin; Sergio remembered that Vera was preparing to lead a team to clear the monument of that strange biomass that they had discovered there on their trek to Oslotower. The chatter must be a squad of Hunters getting into position to attack. Sergio ticked the dial to the next frequency on which a light and pleasant instrumental music was playing, it faintly echoed up from below them as well, seeming to be the same channel playing in the truck.
“Wait, what was that?” Marco spoke up suddenly, but when Sergio looked up he realized she had been talking to him. “Go back.”
Sergio switched the frequency back to the previous channel and listened again, not understanding why Marco was confused about it, she must have heard Sacco’s radio at least a few times and had certainly been briefed about how the Order uses communications when on missions. Nothing the men had said on that channel was out of the ordinary.
“Alyosha do you read? We’ve reached location Alpha-six-two, waiting for your confirmation. Over.” The radio crackled quietly. Sergio recognized the name, a trustworthy Hunter who had transferred from the Polis guard to the Order just before he had arrived to give Sacco’s message to Vera.
“That’s it Sergio, the building with the antenna, it’s got to be a listening post. They’re looking for secret passages near Verona and they also monitor any communications they can hear, just waiting for someone in the Order to give away access to D6!” Marco gripped the edge of the window anxiously.
“If that’s true, then we have to tell Vera right away. If they’re already down in Verona and stationed right above it, then they could find The Subway-2 at any time!” Sergio said rapidly, already turning off the radio and preparing to leave. “We have to get back before he leaves for the Kremlin, or before these guys find the monorail.”
“We can’t rush back just yet without confirming it, and they said they were meeting up with Sokolov.” Marco protested with hand raised towards the window.
“Sokolov isn’t part of the mission.” Sergio grumbled. “How are we supposed to confirm any further without going in the building over there? There could be twenty armed guys just waiting for us, and no way to tell from up here.”
“What do we have to lose by waiting another five minutes to see who comes out?” She turned to him with an almost sarcastic look on her face.
Before Sergio could answer, a loud cracking sound started up from just under their feet, but he wasn’t quick enough to warn Marco what it meant. The floor suddenly gave way and Sergio took in a panicked breath as he grasped desperately out with both arms to the window frame beside him. Marco didn’t even call out as she descended, unsuccessful in her own attempt to grab something solid, and she was gone in an instant. The collapse was over in less than ten seconds and Sergio was struggling to hold on, it was difficult to tell where he might land if he let go as his helmet restricted his vision. He kicked his foot out in a few directions until he found a ledge to push himself onto. Panting for breath and trying not to panic, he crawled slowly on all fours to the edge of the crater in the floor. To some relief he saw Marco dusting off her arms and pushing the broken floor boards away from her. She had only ended up three more floors down and didn’t seem to be hurt. He wanted to call down to her to confirm but as he was lifting his visor he heard an alarm bell ringing.
“Fucking damnit,” he whispered to himself, the Nationalists were about to come investigate the sound of the collapsing building. They had to get out of here fast.
Sergio looked around fervently, his weapon had fallen away from him and he couldn’t find it through his cursory inspection of the area. Next he gauged his best options of getting down to check on Marco, he would have to lower himself floor by floor because the gaping fissure cut him off from using the stairs. He might have been able to jump the gap but didn’t know if the floor would hold out or if it would make the building collapse even further. His heart raced as he fought with himself, trying to make up his mind.
“Come on, I heard it over here!” An angry voice echoed through the window.
Marco coughed and called out for him weakly and Sergio couldn’t think anymore, he began to lower his legs over the edge of the crater, turning onto his stomach and pushing himself backwards. He fell two floors before rolling sideways onto a concrete landing, quickly regaining himself so he could get down to Marco and make their escape. Looking down at her, she sat amongst a pile of concrete and wooden rubble, dusted with grey smoky powder which she was trying to clear from her respirator with her sleeves. She coughed and groaned, fidgeting again as if trying to free herself from the pile. Just behind her one of the walls had come to rest at an angle and Sergio decided to jump down onto it. Crouching down to crawl towards Marco he could finally see why she was struggling and why she hadn’t moved, one of her legs was caught under a thick slab of concrete and she was trying to pull it out unsuccessfully.