The Door - Part 1

 THE DOOR PART 1

Inspired by a story prompt from Tim Wilson's 2020 class, held during the first UK lockdown.

***

I watched as the battered yellow taxi roared away to a new call, leaving me choking on its exhaust fumes. Back home, with modern fuel, catalytic converters and hybrids, such asthmatic wheezing was a thing of the past. Here, they'd barely discovered unleaded, and emissions reduction technology was regarded as witchcraft. The stink of dirty diesel would need to be dry-cleaned out of my suit. If I could find a dry cleaner in this hell hole.

I mopped my forehead with an already-damp handkerchief and slicked back my hair. The trickle of a shower in my hotel room would have a difficult time ridding me of the sweat and grime a short trip across the city had inflicted upon me. It was only ten a.m., local time, and set to get hotter as the day wore on.

I turned on the spot, surveying the street. It seemed I was alone, apart from the rats, insects and the dead dog on which they were feasting. One thing I had learned in my brief time in this city was that 'seemingly alone' meant little. There were eyes on me, I could feel them, and they didn't belong to the rats.

The instructions were in my jacket pocket. Scribbled on the back of a beer mat they read 'Calle de la Fatalidad. Box. Blue door'. My Spanish was rusty but 'Street of Doom' didn't seem very inviting.

Come to think of it, the blue door didn't seem very inviting either. Half-hidden in shadow on the east side of the street, the paint was fading, chipped and peeling, exposing earlier layers of greyish-white, lime green and puce. At least the door seemed solid, unlike the surrounding walls, where the mould-stained beige plaster had been torn away, exposing the red brick beneath. What had caused such damage? I wondered. Subsidence? Poor construction? Age? Or bullets? The little I knew of the history of this place meant that bullets, rockets or heavier ordnance were the likely culprits of the damage.

At least the box was there, placed on the ground in front of the door. Who had placed it there was uncertain. My contact had just said it would be waiting.

Could my contact, met through a cut-out and paid in used notes, be trusted? Had she just taken the money and run? What if she was doubling for the other side? One of the many 'other sides' in this place. The box could easily be a booby trap. 

Keeping my distance, I examined the box from all angles. About the size of my clenched fist, it was made of cardboard, stained with damp patches, the corners worn and battered as if it had been used in a kick-about.

I could see no obvious signs that the box was 'rigged' in any way. Of course, tilt-switches, triggers and explosives could be inside the box, to be detonated by opening or even the slightest movement. Scarier still were proximity sensors, like passive infrared security lights: if I got too close, BOOM!

I took a cautious step towards the box. Nothing happened.

Three more steps took me to within arms length of the box. I crouched down and examined it in more detail. It was one of those types where the lid covered the top and all the sides down to the base. A semi-circle on the bottom edge of the long side was where a thumb could be used to ease off the lid.

With all the care of a child building a tower of alphabet blocks, I reached for the box and eased up the lid, millimetre-by-millimetre. As the lid separated from the rest, I checked for wires or other sensors that might react to the removal of the cover. Nothing.

I flipped the lid upside down, expecting a note to flutter to the ground. Or to see the stylised cartoon of a bomb just before an explosion spread me across the street. Instead, printed in the same neat hand as the instructions on the beer mat, were the words 'Look in the box, dummy.'

I looked in the box. I mean, how could I refuse?

Nestled on blue tissue paper was a small brass key. The edge was bright and shiny, as if the key was newly cut. I could see no markings, not even a brand name, on the disc-shaped head.

Not one to throw caution to the wind, I took a pen from my pocket and gently levered the key up from its bed of tissue. There were no wires restraining the key and no obvious trigger mechanism.

I took the key and stood up, still breathing and not splattered across the walls. Good.

What next? I wondered. The most obvious course of action would be to find a lock for the mystery key. More tempting, to me, would be to ditch the key and hail a cab for the airport. But then, I'd return home with my tail between my legs, having accomplished precisely zip.

I turned to the door. Now that I was closer, I could see a small brass key hole in the black door knob. It was begging me to enter.

With an inward shrug, I slotted the key in the lock. It turned smoothly with a quiet click. Still no explosion, which I took as a good sign.

I stepped through the door and into another world.

***

Well, not really another world. In fact this one was disturbingly similar to the world I had left behind, less than a week ago. Dim light was provided by state-of-the-art 50-inch TV screens, showing news channels from around the world, computer monitors and angle-poise lamps. A bank of servers and disk arrays flashed their red, green and blue LEDs. Half a dozen operators were scattered about the desks. A far cry from the brick-sized mobile phones, bakelite light fittings, rampant overcrowding and general dilapidation of the city outside.

"Ah. Good. You made it at last."

It was a voice I recognised. My contact from the night before. 

"What is this place? Who are you?"

She stepped into a pool of light and ignored my questions. "We were impressed by your caution. You lost a few points because you left the box outside but that can be overlooked for now. A solid seven out of ten. Not bad for a newbie. Most don't score more than three."

I repeated my questions while studying the woman in front of me. Gone were the street clothes, unkempt hair, acrid sweat and a week's worth of grime from last night. Now she was dressed in Prada and Manolo's, with a perfume that made Chanel 5 smell like hippie juice.

"This is the nerve centre of our operation. You can call me Rebecca."

"That's not your real name," I said.

"And Robert Adams isn't yours."

"How did you know that?"

"Who do you think provided your passport and tickets?" Rebecca replied with a smug smile.

I had wondered, I admitted to myself. Clearly, there was something going on here. They wouldn't have flown me half way round the world on some sort of mystery tour if I wasn't useful to them. "Why? What do you want from me?" I asked.

Rebecca pointed a remote control at the central TV screen. A man's face took up the left half of the display while his bio scrolled down the right hand side. "We have a job for you," Rebecca replied.