Apartment Block 98 - Outside at Street Level
"Don't try to look so inconspicuous if you're just gonna stand outside," the bounty hunter said, grabbing a hold of the door and making his way inside the building. Erik nodded in confirmation, looking pleased with himself at his involvement and watching Desmond as he might admire a big brother of sorts, a broad grin across his face beneath the bandages on his nose. He opened his mouth to say something, but his words were muffled by the door closing behind him, leaving the bald young man alone in the streets.
Apartment Block 98 - Inside
Desmond waited until he heard the click of the door closing behind hi, before pulling his earpiece out an putting it on; things seemed like they were about to go down and he needed the backup. Desmond gave one careful look around before he pressed a finger against the earpiece while making his way to the elevator. "Amano, I'm at the apartment block 98. Track my signal if you don't know where that is," he said, pressing the elevator's call button.
Distant machinery hummed as the aging elevator whirred to life, a few brief echoes of metal scraping on metal reverberating in the shaft behind the elevator's doors, followed by dull, muted and distant grinding noises steadily increasing in volume. As he waited for the elevator to arrive, he took stock of his surroundings. Cheap-looking black and white tile adorned the floor, stained in various places by faded brown and reddish patches across the narrow foyer. The light bars overhead were little more than functional, without any sort of decoration or dressings, and several of the drooping, cracked, or water-damaged ceiling tiles were shifted out of place. The hallway was barely wide enough for two average sized people to walk side-by-side, and the eggshell-white walls were covered in scuffs and signs of wear. The hall itself cut through to the other side of the building, leading to a windowless, heavy metal door that looked like an emergency exit or perhaps a service access, and another similar door with a tall, narrow window set on one side was just to its left. Without being able to see through it from where he was standing, it was easy to guess that it led to a staircase or a fire escape of some kind.
Another door was just down the hall from him, with a faded sign hanging crooked next to it that read "Office." Behind him, near the front door, a doorless threshold led into a mail room, lined on all sides by tiny, individually keyed mailboxes, many of which looked like they hadn't been used in years. The whole place felt like it had seen better days, now falling into a slow spiral of neglect and disrepair. It was somewhat depressing, in many ways, to consider what it must be like to live in a place like this.
Finally a bell sounded from the other side of the wall, and with a quiet groan, the elevator doors slid open, revealing the inside of a musty-smelling and intangibly damp-feeling elevator with only one of its two overhead lamps functioning. After memorizing the two possible alternative exits, should he need it, Desmond wasted no time getting inside the elevator. His hand reached for the button pannel on one of the sides of the elevator, hovering over the numbers until he spotted the number nine and pressed it. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Just as he was considering pressing the button again, however, the doors started to close, and with a sudden lurch, the car began its ascent, and he opened the duffel bag that he was carrying.
Desmond removed the
pistol from it as he rode the car upwards, he could hear muffled voices passing by through the thin walls, overhearing vidcasts playing too loudly, couples arguing, children chattering, and on one occasion, a few things he probably wasn't meant to overhear. It was tough to imagine if there was any semblance of privacy in this building, so he removed the cylinder-like silencer from the bag with his other hand, attaching it to the pistol. He let the bag drop to the floor, pulling out the shoulder holster for the pistol and removed his jacket before putting that on too. Normally, he would have settled for a leg or hip holster, since the position that the weapon was holstered there made it more natural, and in turn easier and quicker, to draw it, but in that situation he had to trade that for the concealability(sp).
The bounty hunter patted himself on the sides of his chest once more, feeling the rough fabric of his Styrling Everyday Vest underneath. That one had also been another trade-off, because he had to remove the bulky Durandium plate so that he could wear it under his clothes, but he'd take the extra protection any time.
The car lurched again as it decelerated, nearing its destination, and with a jerk, it stopped to the sound of another bell of a slightly different timbre than the one from the ground floor. After a pause, the doors opened, revealing a stubby hallway very similar to the one he'd just left, albeit with dirty, low-pile carpeting rather than the tacky tile. Directly in front of him was a battered and worn wooden door with the corroded brass characters "9C" glued to its center at eye level, and the corridor led to the left and right, ending in square, nondescript four-pane windows overlooking the street in front of the building, and the alleyways behind. Four more apartment entrances were at each end of the hallway, two on either side, their doors facing one another.
Putting his jacket back on and picking up the bag, Desmond stepped out of the elevator, adjusting the small duffel-bag's strap around his shoulders as he looked around. He looked to either side of him, spotting the apartment that he was looking for to his left, then moved towards it, slowly and carefully, trying to pick any noises that he could through the building's seemingly very thin walls.
Coming from the apartment across the hall was a vidcast that was playing loudly enough to almost discern every word spoken from down on the street, along with the occasional clatter of dishes. Muffled shuffling sounds every now and then could be heard from the opposite end of the hall, but apartment 9A was almost completely silent. Or, at the very least, too quiet to hear over the ruckus from its neighbor. The bounty hunter's eye kept staring at the apartment's door when he approached it, but instead of knocking at the door first, Desmond tried to open it, turning the doorknob. Much to his surprise, the door was unlocked, and it creaked ajar a crack before he could stop it, so he slowly kept pushing it forward, while reaching for the holstered pistol and drawing it.