“Alonzo, hold that door!” I called out to the Italian man.

He looked at me with slight surprise, but his expression quickly changed to a neutral one, once I whispered under my breath that I was supposed to be here.

It seemed my combination of skills was designed for this particular situation. Well, at least the handful of passive skills that had helped me follow Alonzo all the way into the facility. I crossed not one but two security cordons and thankfully caught up to Mr Stupid just as he was about to enter the facility proper.

I was wearing my civilian clothes, and if not for the sword hidden under my jacket, I would have looked like some sort of health and safety inspector. My only worry was the number of security cameras that had seen me. But I needed to find the central security office anyway, to locate Cain, so I didn’t see it as too much of an issue.

“Thank you.” I said, as I finally caught up with the man.

“No problem.” He replied. “Can’t imagine how hard it must be running errands for Mr Solomon like that.”

“Oh, yes.” I simply replied.

‘Black trail’ was a useful skill, but damn, would I have liked to know just what kind of nonsense it put into people’s minds.

The heavy door behind me shut, and I found myself locked in an industrial-sized elevator with Alonzo. He idly scanned his key-card on a designated pad, and the elevator slowly went down.

“Lovely weather we’ve had yesterday.” I spoke, hoping to start a conversation with him.

Chatting with him would make the next step of my plan way easier, as it would allow for me to ‘naturally’ follow him to his lab, but considering how lax the security had been so far, I reckoned I could make do by myself.

“Yes,” he simply answered.

“Perfect for a hike…” I added, hoping to resonate with his favourite hobby.

“Oh, you hike as well?” He turned towards me with an expression of genuine glee on his face.

“Not really. I don’t have the time, with work and all that…” I tried to sound disappointed.

“Yeah, it can be tough. But getting away from everything is always worth it. I might be too tired to differentiate between halogen desiccators and moisture analysis, but damn does it feel good to get some fresh air, you know?”

He looked at me with such an expression that I couldn’t help but feel bad about lying to him. But this needed to be done.

“Yeah, I love how trees smell after the rain as well. My friends argue it all smells like wet water, but I think wet asphalt and wet leaves smell nothing alike.”

“Right?” He exclaimed with a smile. “And the further in you go, the better it gets. The other day I found a mushroom, all by myself! That was one of the proudest moments in my life.”

I wondered if a man like this should be working in this kind of environment. But I didn’t say anything on the subject. Instead, I joked:

“Was it the eating kind, or the smoking kind?”

“Eating, I think?” He didn’t sound convinced.

Just as he was about to elaborate, the elevator finally came to a stop. Its doors slid open, revealing a large intersection of corridors. Alonzo left the elevator and was about to turn around to say goodbye, but I didn’t leave him the chance.

“I think the wildest thing I’ve ever found in a forest was a shoe with moss in it. I always wondered what happened to the person who left it there.” I said as I crossed the short distance separating us.

“Are you going this way as well?” He asked, surprised, as he pointed towards one of the corridors.

“No.” I replied. “But, it’s not often that I meet a fellow outdoorsman, and a small detour can’t hurt.”

He smiled, wides than ever before, and gestured for me to follow.

For about ten minutes, he led me through corridors and staircases. It seemed whatever part of the facility we were in was wrapping itself around some central point. Either the rock was too hard to dig through there, or another part of the facility was there. It somewhat made sense, when I thought about it, to have different sections that could easily be isolated in case of an emergency. It also worried me just a bit, that I might not be able to get out as easily as I’ve gotten in.

During the whole walk, Alonzo did not shut up for a single second. He somehow deviated only to the topic of that ancient tree, and what it meant for him to have found it. I, in turn, had to make something up about how my favourite tree was one located in London (which I only knew about after skimming through the wiki page of Alonzo's cryptid tree).

“Ah, this is my stop.” He said, stopping in front of a door labelled as ’02-584-A’. “Would you like to grab lunch sometime at the canteen?” He asked.

“Sure, although I can’t promise anything, with my schedule.” I said, as I slowly moved my hand towards my sword.

Alonzo carried on talking about making plans, as he fiddled with his key-card, then the doorknob. Finally, he opened the door, to reveal a large space that smelled like disinfectant and held an impressive amount of equipment. Some of it looked like the industrial fridges we had at my workplace. The rest, I couldn’t even guess what it did.

“So, does Thursday-”

I hit him at the base of the neck with the pommel of my sword. I could only pray I had used enough strength to knock him out, but not enough to actually wound him.

I caught his body before it had had the time to fall to the floor, and winced under the weight. But it was too late to back down now. I dragged him inside, ignoring the growing soreness in my back, and gently put him on the floor. I then closed the door behind us.