Night 49: File Room 2

[unheroed]

[From here.]At this point, Harvey had grown used to that off-balance feeling that hit him whenever he walked through a door. He knew it had to have something to do with what was going on, since here they were, not in the hallway or even in that mail room, but in an extremely cramped file room

Comments

[its_the_mileage]

The sense of disorientation registered all the more strongly now that he knew (at least in a general sense) what was causing it. Indy took a few steps to steady himself before he looked around: one of the file rooms. On the first floor, he was pretty sure, since the one upstairs was significantly larger. Why the counter to the mail room, the mail room to possessions storage, possessions storage to a file room? Was there some sort of logic to it?

Dent was getting frustrated (looked like he hadn't been thrilled with the contents of his box either), even more so once he couldn't get the drawer open. "Bash the lock with the heel of your flashlight," Indy recommended, since that'd worked well enough for him in the past. As long as they were here, he considered whether there were other files it might be worth his time to find, but nothing came to mind immediately. He already had his and Dad's. It occurred to him that he could look for his new German roommate's, but he didn't have the fake last name to go on or the desire to break into every drawer looking for Germanic-sounding last names.

The kid spoke up, and Indy turned his attention that way, since what he'd said was verging on the useful this time. "So you can see the right room through the doorway?" Indy asked him, just to clarify. That called for further study. Cautiously, he reached out and extended his flashlight into the door frame, keeping his hand well back. Nothing happened. Whatever the doors were doing, it only seemed to happen when someone actually passed through.

[unheroed]

It wasn't that Harvey didn't know how to force up a file cabinet -- it was just that he was sick of getting tossed around and then having to deal with obstacles at every turn. As it turned out, his determination outweighed his disgruntled mood, and so he let the other two theorize about how the doors worked while he smashed his flashlight against the file drawer a couple times before the thing opened.

Jerking it all the way open, he flipped through the files, turning the flashlight around so that he could read over the names. However, instead of having last names that started with A, these started with N. Did that mean this room only had a portion of the files?

Since it sounded like the kid had been here before, Harvey turned to face him, frowning as he realized that this room might be completely useless. The other two didn't seem all that interested in finding their files, after all. "Do you know if this room has a counterpart? I don't think this is all of the files." Either that, or Landel's didn't know the meaning of alphabetization, but the mail room and the room they'd just been in had followed a logical system.

[tender_cruelty]

Allelujah hummed in agreement, letting the man sweep the flashlight around the entry room for a moment. Then, he closed the door, waiting a few seconds before pulling it open again and peering outside once more. No, still the same view. So it wasn't that the place outside was changing every time the door was opened. Which... didn't help them at all really but at least he knew. That had to count for something, right?

Couldn't they just go back to being attacked by things? Those at least made some kind of sense and were the kind of things that he could combat.

He glanced back at the other man who had managed to get the filing cabinet open. "I think so. There's a matching door at the other side of the entry room. I assume it's another file room if there isn't everything here."

[its_the_mileage]

Indy nodded approvingly at the kid's test. He'd been pretty sure he was looking at the right rooms the previous times they'd gone through the doors, so seeing the entry room out there didn't go very far toward confirming anything--there was probably no way of being sure what their next destination would be without going there. Still, it didn't hurt to try everything they could.

Unless they planned on waiting around in here all night (which Indy didn't), all they could do was go through again, so he moved back against the wall and waited for Dent to finish. "Yes, there are two of them," he confirmed. "The first one has the letters up to L or M, I think. By fake family name."

[unheroed]

So much for that, then. Narrowing his one good eye, Harvey shoved the drawer closed harder than was necessary and then turned to face the two. They had spent more than enough time in this cramped room, and it looked like both Jones and the kid were ready to go.

He could have apologized for wasting their time, but Jones also could have given out that tidbit of information when they'd first arrived here, rather than waiting for him to force the drawer open and find out the hard way. It occurred to Harvey that this room might be indistinguishable from the other one, but he was still putting the blame on Jones.

Not that he voiced any of his thoughts -- that would just waste more time. Shaking his head, he stepped past the two and out the door.

[unheroed]

[To here.]