For now the small group of emergency crew decided on seeing what the rooms had to offer in way of a hiding space. The first room they looked in was no good. It looked to be some sort of meeting room and all it held was a long, classy looking table and the matching chairs. The next room held boxes, and while it did have some pretty tempting hiding places, they also were obvious hiding places that would be the first things someone would check.
Several more rooms they looked at offered the same kind of hiding places, until finally they hit pay dirt. The room's lights didn't work, and what they could see of it was that it was some kind of storage room for odds and ends. They scattered to find hiding spaces, as quickly as they could without making too much noise. Then they hunkered down to wait.
Minutes past, though it felt like hours before they heard the third floor door open in the distance. They heard doors being opened and shut along the hall. Before too long the door to their hiding place swung open momentarily. They heard someone messing with the light switch and say "The lights are out in here, but from what I can see they aren't in here." From somewhere in the hall someone answered, "Then move on, they got to be somewhere in this building."
The door closed, and they heard the sounds of opening and closing doors heading down the hall until finally the one to the stairwell at the other end opened and shut. They all let out breaths they didn't realize they had been holding. "Now that they are gone for now, let's try to get ahold of headquarters on our cellphones and see what is going on." Pete said to the group.
Everyone tried, without success, to contact any of their organizations. "It's like there is no cell service at all, it's not even connecting to make the call." Jim said. "Something tells me that our hunch about this being more than a riot is correct." Jon said. "Maybe the biophone can get through. If does Rampart may know what's going on." Roy said. "It's worth a shot, let's go get." Ponch said.
"Hold on a minute. Finding out was is going on would be great, but we may have people losing lives here. We need to find out if there is anyone we need to help first. We can find out what is going on than when we contact Rampart to let them know what we are seeing." Johnny said. "We should also split up." Said Roy, "We could do one paramedic to two cops, that way even if one group is caught there is a chance of the other group being free to treat people and also to protect them."
"Good idea. Okay Poncherello, you and I are with Gage. Baker, you and Reid are with DeSoto. Try to keep out of sight and don't use your weapons unless you have to, we don't want attention drawn to us and one sound from our guns would be enough to bring the whole crew banging at our doors. There are two more stories up, but right now I think our safest bet is to go down. My group will cover the first floor, Reid yours will cover the second floor. Once those are clear, or if you run into trouble try to head back to this room. Then we can all search this floor, and split up again for the last two floors." Pete said.
The two groups headed off to search their floors. Roy and Johnny stopped at their supplies long enough to stuff some things that they would need for basics in their pockets, than continued on with their groups. Roy, Jon, and Jim swapped first names as they figured that it would be faster in emergencies to know call for the others. Pete insisted on keeping to the last names of his group, though he did concede to call Poncherello Ponch.
When Pete's group reached the ground floor, they looked around carefully, both inside and outside before coming to far out of the stairwell. They could see the "rioters" outside, though what exactly they were doing they couldn't tell. Whatever it was, they weren't bothering to look towards the building, so the three men crept out to begin their search.
Once they got to the back, away from the "rioters" it was eerily quiet. If there were hostages or anyone on this floor for that matter, they were probably beyond Johnny's help, though he was hoping that if they did find someone it wasn't that but fear keeping them still. They had almost finished their search when they heard the door to the stairwell they had come from open and people talking as they entered the floor.
"Those dudes must have slipped out, we checked everywhere." One of them said. "Impossible, we have this place completely surrounded. They have to be in here somewhere." Another answered. "But we would have found them in our search if they were still here." Said still another voice. The three men didn't listen to hear any more of what the "rioters" had to stay, they slipped inside of the door they had just opened when they had heard the stairwell door open.
Looking around, they found themselves in what appeared to be someones office. As Johnny and Ponch explored the room with their eyes, Pete put his ear against the door. Suddenly he hissed a warning under his breath and whispered, "They are going to check the rooms on this floor one more time, if they find it clean they are going to give up looking. We have to hide, or otherwise they will continue to look for the others."
Johnny dove for the desk, hiding in the classic spot, while Jim and Pete hid behind the curtains. While not the best hiding spots, they were the best ones in the room and they hoped that with this pass the "rioters" would be less thorough in their search.
Roy looked around, where were Johnny and his group? They should have met up with them by now, in fact they had already gone ahead and searched the third floor as well as the second, finding no one in the process. He was beginning to wonder if there was anyone here really in need of help, though there were two more floors to search. Turning to Jim and Jon he said, "We can't wait much longer for them, if there are really people here who need medical attention the faster we get to them, the better chance they have."
"Maybe we can leave a note with the supplies so that way they no we moved on." Jim said, "But I agree, we should get moving." Roy went to do as he suggested while Jon whispered to Jim, "Do you think they were caught?" "I have no idea, I would think that Pete would have come back or sent one of the others back if there was someone in need of help to let us know, but it could be that they are just distracted by a case."
Both men fell silent wondering what happened to their partners and the others. Were they okay? Or had something happened to them? Neither men really wanted to think about the worst of the possibilities.