Thur limped into their apparently shared hotel room. As he did, he gazed upon Susan, lying on the bed and lazily eating Chinese food as she watched the television.
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“Ah, good. Was worried you died or something.” Susan said with a hum. “So how was it?”
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“Bastards were ready for me like we discussed. Didn’t find a lead either.” Thur answered with a heavy sigh, peeling off his boots as he collapsed onto the other side of the bed. “The only thing I gained out of it was another A-item. Tell me you made progress, please.”
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“Luckily for you, I did,” Susan said, sitting up and carelessly brushing Chinese food off their bed. “It took a while to crack that laptop, but once I got into the groove of things, it was rather simple. I was worried at first that they had an A-item lock.”
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“So what did it tell us?”
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“A list of names to go with those profiles you found earlier, for one. Seems like K was one of their targets. Meaning our goals are aligned after all. I even found a location I suspect to be where K and the others are being held. But it’s not good news.”
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“Figured that much,” Thur replied. “What is it this time?”
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“The date, has it crossed your mind again?” Susan asked with an amused smirk. “November 15, 1996.”
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“Think I watched a good football game that day?”
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“No, you idiot,” Susan said with a chuckle, though it wasn’t much of an insult. Compared to her, there were few who weren’t. “It's something that people in our field would be aware of.”
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“November, November,” Thur said with a hum. “The first time I saw the numbers, they did seem familiar…”
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“They should, you could say that day was the start of it all…” Susan said with a sigh. “What do they call it?”
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“The Death of Normalcy.” Thur cursed. “George used to rant about it all the time. Which can only mean it is involved somehow.”
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“That’s what I was thinking. Aside from confirming K’s involvement and It's involvement. The computer had little other straight-up information of use. I have various accounts, an idea of how they did it, but we’re still short on the full story.”
“So we’re still not making progress,” Thur said bitterly.
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“Not so,” Susan replied with a smirk. “Now that we know It is involved, it increases the amount of known variables, and that’s all I need to come up with an educated guess. If It is involved, the entire mess must be tied to West Virginia as we originally thought. It had crossed my mind that maybe Point Pleasant, but it has decent foot traffic, too, and it's high key. No, it needed to be somewhere more suitable, somewhere more secluded and with ample space.”
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“You do realize we’re talking about West Virginia?” Thur said, raising a brow at the woman. “It’s not exactly a state lacking areas that fit those qualifications. There are miles of thick woods, caves, and even mountains they could’ve set up shop in. We can’t check them all.”
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“Let me finish. I narrowed my focus even further, and with more consideration, I realized the wilderness wouldn’t be suitable. While secluded and allowing space, it proved difficult to work with, and there would be no guarantee someone wouldn’t just accidentally stumble onto it one day.”
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“They also wouldn’t risk government ground, just as likely to get caught, and The Company can’t afford another incident with the US government,” Thur added on with a hum.
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“So they go for something else entirely!” Susan said, launching herself off the bed as she paced back and forth. “They’d need something pre-built, away from the public and preferably barring them, and not related to the government. And we can assume if It’s involved, it must be somewhere it would allow Itself to be taken.”
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“So somewhere most folk would never go near…” Thur said, catching on.
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“Exactly! So something with history and likely condemned or dangerous enough to be left alone! Still left plenty of options, so I started eliminating, when considering all of the qualifications for It though it left only three options.”
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“So places for me to hit,” Thur said with a heavy sigh.
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“Yep, get busy. They're all a decent distance from here, so it’ll probably take you a while to verify them. In the meantime, hunting you down and using my genius to crack that laptop has worn me out.” Susan said dramatically, nodding her head as if he had already agreed.
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“You’re out of your mind if you think I'm going back out there,” Thur said with a laugh. “I just survived an ambush with enough firepower to destroy a building, literally, not metaphorically. One of the bastards even had an A-item, as you said. I’ve earned my rest for the day.”
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“What kind of A-item are you talking about?” Susan said, " I'm interested!” Thur merely shook his head as he flicked over the coin he had taken. The woman squealed as she looked it over with a keen fascination he saw from her every time she encountered an A-item. Thur had one of his own he preferred to use, and had a distaste for them anyway.
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“Now if you could be so kind as to get out of my bed-” Thur couldn’t finish, he was suddenly kicked with both feet by Susan. Despite her frame and his own strength, it carried him off the bed and into the couch with a crack of wood that made it clear the hotel would rue the day the two of them had arrived. “Yeah, my bad.”
Thur had long ago learned the value of being invisible. The Company had been the one to teach it to him, but he liked to believe he had long ago surpassed the master.
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He went to great lengths to remain hard to detect. He had no ID, no DNA stored, and no credit cards; legally speaking, he technically didn’t exist. He only carried cash, and as a technically jobless man, that meant he often had no money at all. His knowledge, skills, and abilities allowed him to fare well, however.
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Thanks to Dixion and Susan, he could now at least travel in style. He drove a beat-up truck, green paint rusting off from all sides as he drove down the road. His hair was pulled back into a bun and tucked into a beanie, his eyes covered by sunglasses. The man cruised down the road listening to country music at full blast.
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To anyone watching, he looked like an old timer blowing off some steam. Barely worth notice, save for a glance. When attempting to remain hidden, it could often be worth doing the opposite of what seemed intuitive. If someone were looking for you, they would seek out those who stay in the shadows, avoiding attention. But would often disregard the obvious sight before them, assured their prey would be too wise to dare.
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George had been the one to teach him that. To weaponize audacity and boldness to keep your opponents on the back foot. Though surely the creep had never realized Thur would use those same lessons against him. Of course, Thur didn’t always do this; they would catch on. But mixing this in made it just a bit harder to keep track of him.
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The first option was the least likely. Thur wanted to skip it outright, but when dealing with The Company, no stone could be unturned. It was named the Old Hospital on Creeping Hill, which at very least would be spot on for The Company’s taste. This was a massive hospital, storied and interesting for some. But he doubted it held much interest for them. For years, it served the local community as a state-of-the-art hospital. For its time, it was massive and innovative, and for an impressive stretch of time, managing to keep up with the medical world. Though, as most buildings and businesses did, it slowed with time, becoming little more than a storage facility for years. Before being bought and utilized for its history as a historical and paranormal destination.
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Interesting, for sure, but being so open and documented, even to this day, made it unlikely. The Company’s sway and influence just about anywhere wasn’t to be overlooked, of course. But it would’ve been stupid to use it to justify such a massive risk. All the same, it would be equally stupid not to stop by and check it.
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He pulled into the parking lot, being let in by security with a cursory check-in, and he parked the truck next to about six or seven cars already parked and joined a milling crowd of about a dozen waiting by a sign about a dozen feet away from the door.
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His arrival was well timed. The building ran daytime paranormal tours, a mere hour to explore certain areas of the building and them alone. Even more was closed off due to private or sectioned-off areas, either condemned or deemed too dangerous to visit.
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So as a young man with a charming smile approached their group with a cheerful hello, Thur only stayed long enough to echo it. Before disappearing from their numbers with nothing more than a gust of wind.
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As he soared through the sky, he took a peek at his landing zone. The building was a towering mass, the years overriding the work and beauty once put into it. So Thur winced as he landed on the roof at the sound, but it held firm all the same. Nodding to himself, proud, he strolled forward off the edge of the roof, falling off it and stopping his fall by catching a windowsill with one hand. With a heave of his arm, he hauled himself inside.
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The inside of the place was about what he expected. An odd churning pot of rotting decay, the past clean and dolled up, and a manufactured vibe mixed in with authentic history. Most of the top floor was abandoned, with some machinery and furniture left to fill space, as well as dim lighting installed for necessity. The next floor was nicer, well-treated, and made a nice snapshot of an era, and, as much as Thur hated to admit, the place was a bit foreboding. He wasn’t sure how he felt about spirits, but he knew better than to doubt anything.
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So he kept his pace brisk as he marched through the halls. Occasionally, having to hide to avoid the notice of staff and the tour-goers. But Thur had little time to waste; an hour wasn’t very long. So he focused his attention on the cordoned-off areas. If the Company was going to hide something here, it would be there. But each was a little more than advertised, and the rooms were damaged by age and were likely to become a massive problem one day. They surely were for him to traverse now.
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It wasn’t long before he had worked his way down to the bottom level. Exploring every single one of the rooms, nooks, and crannies for anything suspicious. As his last venture had shown, The Company was fond of using hidden subspaces in their sites. So he had to be thorough to ensure there wasn’t a hidden entrance for such. Susan’s aid proved invaluable there, the woman’s tech allowing him to do so in half the time he normally would.
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Thur just barely managed to clear it all, find and sneakily rejoin the tour group, and leave amongst them within the hour. He was whispering as he called Susan to report his findings.
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He slammed the door of his truck shut and sped off as he used the bud she gave him to call her.
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'What'cha need?” Susan said with an exasperated sigh. “I was just setting up some parleys for this election…”
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“You’re detestable,” Thur said with an unseen roll of his eyes. One would think the smartest person in the world would act differently. Perhaps a sage scholar, or a clinical scientist, maybe even an aloof prodigy. But as far as he knew, the woman acted like an uncaring teenager. “Hate to interrupt your corrupt gambling.”
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“How is it corrupt! Just because I’m better?!” Susan roared in his ear defensively.
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“But I can fully confirm now that Old Hospital on The Creepy Hill is clear.”
“On Creeping Hill.”
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“That’s what I said.” Thur blundered through her complaint. “It’s clear, where to next? If it’s close enough, I can hit it today.”
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“About six hours away.”
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“Or maybe tomorrow?” Thur half-joked.
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“You’ll do it today. If you don’t stop, you can start the drive back by nightfall. Remember, my darling K is involved in this and several other innocent lives. We can’t afford to waste time.”
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“And as always, you're right.” Thur conceded. “At least tell me I don’t have to sign in for another tour. It was a bit of a pain there.”
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“Scheduled tours only,” Susan responded. “Assuming you can sneak in, it should be less occupied by this time of year. Quite the sight, too.”
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“Already seen one of the weirdest and biggest hospitals I’ve ever seen.”
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“How about an amusement park with a dark past?”
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“A pain, but doable. Send me the address, and I’ll be in touch when I’m closer.”
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“Good luck, soldier!”
