In the moments since they'd crossed into the lobby, Al and Salome stood in awe. The inside of the building looked like an elaborate version of the visitors dorms they'd learned about in school. Neither of them had ever actually seen the doors, leaving your sector was strictly forbidden, but they'd seen pictures in their books. Deep crimson washed the walls while gold trimmed nearly everything. Salome noticed the reception table. In The Purg everything had been shiny, metallic, and sterile. The table she was looking at now had a beautiful design and multiple shades of brown running through it's glossy appearance.
“Wood.” Al answered her silent question, following her gaze. “They used to cut down trees and things like that....desk...” he struggled over the word before continuing “were made from them. The Purg saw no use for something so fragile, so we've been forced to see the by-products of our industrialization rather than the beauty of nature.”
Salome had quit listening. She know how Al felt about their home. Ex-home. She had to correct herself. What she did know was what “wood” felt like under her fingertips. She played with the words she'd never seen pictures of, but had actually experienced today. “wood, curb, gold, hell, wood, curb, gold, HELL!” she shouted the last word and Al turned suddenly, startled by her scream before he realized that once again, it was her bravery that he enjoyed most in her.
“Mae, we need to figure out what we're doing. I'm pretty sure you need a key to get into the rooms. I read that somewhere, but I haven't a clue what one looks like, let alone where we might find it.” Al stared around uncertainly.
Salome smiled, a glint in her eye, “Then I guess we'll just have to look around some more.” Leaving the desk and beginning to bounce around the open room they'd entered. “How do we find something we've never seen?” Salome stops and turns to look at Al, waiting for all of his book knowledge to kick in.
“ Well this is a place where people came and went, I forget the name, so it's going to be something in a large quantity, and it will probably be somewhere important. Go back and look around your desk” Al said, starting toward the mailboxes.
Salome frowned, her excitement over the search for keys stifled by Al's demand she return to the desk. However, her eyes relit when she began to search for what could be used to get them in a room. This is like the 'game' we played in school. I'm looking at ten thousand things it seems like, but I'm trying to find something specific. Salome thought to herself as her frustratingly slow process began again. Salome began brushing everything from pile to pile, playing with each new foreign object she found.
“The trick here is...” Al muttered, never looking away from the rows and columns he was studying “...we have no idea what the hell we're looking for.”
The two continued to search, she digging through nearly a century of dust, rubble and left behind debris from the building they were ransacking.
“Hotel!” Al turned and yelled to Salome giggling at his own revelation, looking at Salome to see her reaction. She smiled softly, once again amazed by the intelligent man standing in front of her. He smiled back and they returned to their work with renewed vigor. Somehow finding out the name of the place they had decided to call home, however temporarily, had helped focus their search for the key.
Salome turned, ready to give up on the desk and find a new search when her shin caught a small shiny knob positioned at the base of the desk. She swore again, this time under her breath and bent to rub the spot where she'd hit. She noticed that the wood had notches in it here, like the drawers in The Purg. These were different though, they were more naturally, and much harder to see. She sat down on the floor and began to struggle with the biggest drawer along the right side of the desk. Finally she managed to jimmy open the drawer and found something worth investigating.
“Al, come here. I found some drawers and there's a stack of something in here!” She noticed. Her tug on the drawer had showered several stacks of rectangular pieces of plastic all throughout the deep hollow. Her excitement grew as she reached in and extracted one from the top of the nearest pile.
“1124 Hilton Hotel. I guess we know where we are, sort of. What does this picture mean? It's got a tall pyramid, maybe, on top of a really tall square shaped building.” Salome realized how much she was struggling to explain the building she was looking at so she silently handed the card to Al.
“Mae, you've lived underground your entire life. This may be the smallest or largest building in the city and we'd never know. We have nothing to compare it to.” Al finished, chuckling at their own expense before continuing, “Grab one that starts with a 1. Now that I've remembered the name, the rest is coming back to me as well. If the key starts with a '1' then we know it's more than likely on the bottom floor.”
“Al you just said we've lived under this place our entire lives, don't you want to get as far away from the ground floor as possible?” Salome began searching deeper in the drawer. She withdrew her hand finally, firmly clutching a card stamped “3819.” She looked at Al triumphantly, knowing that despite his (however justifiable) fears, he knew she was right. They needed to get above ground, as high as the ransacked, crumbling hotel would safely take them.
Al grabbed the key and started toward the elevators before realizing that was a luxury they'd left behind and instead, turned in search of stairs. Salome quickly caught up to Al and surpassed him in their search. It was quickly becoming apparent to the two of them that while Al was brilliant and could name and relate to anything they'd found so far, it was Salome who was the intuitive, cunning one. They'd longed for so long to escape The Purg, waiting for someone to share their desire and for someone to be what they lacked. They found that in one another. As they searched for the stairs, Salome thought back to when she first met Al.407Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4FtaahSFC
