Chương 51: Bricked

A brick was in the lobby without a scheduled appointment. Just from the doorway, June could see the sprinklers on the ceiling had been going off for who knows how long, maybe days, maybe hours. Both glass doors that once were the entrance to the quaint studio were shattered into hundreds of shards that had scattered all over the tiled floor.

'Shit… Mortimer's going to kill me.' June walked inside to inspect the damage. The chairs were thrown and toppled, the drywall had holes in it, and the nice curved desk meant for a receptionist never got its chance to fulfill its duty since it was charred and in pieces. Spray-painted symbols of a flower with a skull in it were everywhere. It looks like these looters did a little more than loot. June climbed up the old creaky stairs, now drenched and squishy.

'It's going to get moldy.' When June peered his head into the second floor, his face paled. The expensive camera was torn apart and was seemingly beaten to death, the green room was covered in smoke, and most of the polyester green screen that hung on the walls and floors was burned. June clenched his teeth, his fingers biting into his palm.

'Why? Who would do this?' He swallowed his disappointment and walked upstairs, where Mortimer's room was, and the room he was staying in was. Mortimer was standing in the center of the living room. He wore casual clothes, unlike his normal elegant suit. The old man looked crushed, something June never thought was possible before. It felt like a bullet through his chest; it was abrupt and painful, and he didn't expect it either.

'This is my fault, I shouldn't have left.' Around the old disheveled man, the couch was flipped over, the carpet was cut into pieces, the sprinkler system hadn't stopped yet, but by now, all electronics in the building were most likely fried, and the water damage itself would be astronomical. June felt bad; he felt mad too, but he had an idea. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

June opened the door to the room he was staying in, the window that looked out into the street was destroyed, and the TV was gone, presumably through said window. The bed was torn on and…

'…. Did they piss on my bed?' June shook the stain out of his mind and covered his nose. His purpose in coming to the guest room was something other than feeling bad; his phone was missing, too, and he had left it on the table, out in the open.

'Bingo!' June walked over to Mortimer and tugged on the sleeve of his shirt, since he was too short to reach his shoulder.

'How do I segue into telling him I know how to find the people who did this?'

"Mortimer… I'm sorry that I wasn't here to protect the studio when you were gone." June expected Mortimer to shout at him, or cave his skull in with his…

'They took his cane too!' Surprisingly, Mortimer didn't look mad at June; instead, the old man looked more tired than angry.

"I have an… idea."

It took a while for June to get home by mundane means, mainly a lot of wading through waist-height water and swimming, but he eventually got what he needed. His family once freaked out because he fell asleep at home and didn't respond to a call, so he put an ever-present tracker on his phone so they could check his location at any time. As drastic as it seemed, June was happy he was the one who set up the tracker, since he was able to disable it at any time, and he was able to see their locations too.

In short, he was able to find his phone through his mother's phone. So June popped in, played with his dog for almost thirty minutes, then showered him with toys when he remembered Mortimer was waiting for him in the lobby. June quietly grabbed his mother's phone to check the tracker app and wrote down the address where his phone disappeared to. June gingerly put the phone back and snuck out again.

And now it was the dead of night; since the storm ended just several hours ago, plenty of neighborhoods were still missing power. June and Mortimer stood on the sidewalk looking at an old factory; it was hard to see them since the lack of streetlights anyway, and they weren't trying to be subtle. The factory they were squatting in was not being used by any means; it was considered a historical site, despite how much of an eyesore it was.

"An old factory that made air raid sirens during the Cold War? Hm… isn't that interesting? Mortimer?" June searched it up online using one of his old spare phones, and despite how interesting the story of this old building was, Mortimer was too busy devouring a twelve-pack of donuts June bought at a nearby store.

'Luckily, Jim's was open, and the donuts weren't sold yet.' The two weren't scouting out the factory at all; Mortimer was in no mood to play super spy, and June was more or less concerned for how sad the old man looked. Besides, few things in the mundane world could kill them, let alone wound them in any way that mattered. So right now, Mortimer was devouring donuts that June bought for him since the old man kept on sulking for a rightful reason.

Mortimer took a little bit longer to finish, lethargically consuming his donuts. June didn't know what to think; the old man's curated persona seemed to be melting into the frosting covering his face. The two walked up to the factory and opened the door. The factory was by no means large; in fact, it was mainly a large room where people would hand assemble the sirens instead of a more modern, mechanized factory.

Well, appreciating the historic significance of the site and comparing it to the modern-era factory would have been nice, but a good dozen people turned their heads to June and Mortimer when they entered. And there were people tied up on the floor. Sitting atop a couple of boxes was a larger man with a familiar cane. He had deep red eyes since. And he was a Dreamer.