I really wanted to get a map of Shiganshina posted with this chapter but Comcast is a pile of cheap dildos and idk when I'll have internet access at not-work for a while which makes adding a map difficult right now.
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Neither of them spoke as they drove, the robotic voice of the GPS leading them through Shiganshina. Everything bled together with the gray skies and the post-holiday hush, the foliage-less trees and the bland streets bled together as they wound their way through local roads. It felt like an eternity passed between them turning off the highway and finding West Street, the car reduced to a crawl as it meandered down one way roads and tight, angular turns. Eventually they found themselves in front of what the GPS claimed was "2609 West Street" but looked more like an alley leading to a parallel road.
"What the fuck? Where is it?" Eren glared at the alley as they continued on another half block before Levi parked around the corner on a side street.
"Okay, let's go have a look."
"Why didn't you just park there?"
"Because I don't want it to be too obvious where we are."
"Okay?"
"I just have a bad feeling."
"Your hawk senses are tingling?"
"Sure, let's take all of my knowledge and experience and distill it down to magical hawk powers." Eren snorted quietly at Levi's aggrieved tone. He watched as Levi reached into the backseat and pulled out a backpack, opening it up and checking the contents.
"What's in there?"
"Flashlight, flares, rope, basic first aid kit... nothing special."
"Are you expecting that we'll have to go spelunking in the middle of a warehouse district?"
"That warehouse looks completely abandoned and we don't know for how long or how shitty the inside is. I'd rather just have my kit on me to begin with than get halfway through the building and have to come back. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to. "
"Okay, fair point."
The both of them moved forward quietly, the large building's front doors were all chained shut, signage from both the Health Department and the Department of Public Works stating that due to water damage in the area all of the buildings had been condemned and were not to be entered under pain of arrest or heavy fine.
"So we're going to break in?"
"Yeah, let me just go and get my fucking bolt cutters and welding torch from my car trunk." Eren groaned and followed Levi as he walked towards the alley and then started to go down it. Deep disquiet settled into Eren's stomach as the massive bulk of the buildings rose up on either side, the light dimmer in the narrow space. He caught up to Levi who had gone down a small set of steps by one of the buildings and was pulling experimentally at the handle of a door.
"What's up?"
"I think this is going to give pretty quickly if I pull hard enough. It's also going to make a fuck ton of noise. As soon as I pull, be ready to try and catch the door and not let it hit anything that might make a racket. I'll try to as well."
"Okay." Eren stood at the ready, arms out and ready to grab the door.
"One. Two. Three." Levi yanked on the door hard, there was the sound of something metallic giving way with a crunch and Eren threw himself between the door and the metal railing, stopping it from making a loud clang of metal-on-metal. He ended up with what he was pretty sure was going to be a nasty bruise on his shoulder and Levi staring at him, his lips pursed.
"What?"
"I didn't tell you to hurl your entire fucking body at the door."
"You said to try and stop it from making any noise and hey, there wasn't that much noise."
"Fucking idiot. Just because I have a first aid kit doesn't mean I want to use it." Levi turned away and started to head through the doorway, pausing briefly to turn around. "Coming or no?"
Eren followed behind him, closing the door and feeling a chill go up his spine. They walked into a hallway, the only light was the faint outline coming in through the cracks around the door frame. Eren stuck close to Levi as he turned around, flashlight on as he scanned the space in front of them.
"And you thought we wouldn't need this."
"Fuck off."
The inside of the building was frigid and damp and they could both smell the mold and mildew flourishing. They walked forward slowly, the beam of the flashlight only spreading so far. At the end of the short hallway they came to another door, this one giving way with nothing more than the heavy groan of rusted hinges. Beyond it was a relatively large room and as Levi moved the flashlight around they were able to discern a large freight elevator. Moving closer they noticed a water damaged sign next to it listing what appeared to be some sort of a directory by floor. Eren hung back while Levi moved in closer with the flashlight, trying to decipher the water-damaged words. After a few minutes he moved back, pointing the beam of light up to the space above the elevator door.
"Oh thank god."
"What?"
"Here, look at the directory." Levi moved back and turned the light towards the sign again so that Eren could read it as well. "This is elevator two which leads to B25 through B50, which from what I can tell are on the floor below us since this says we're on level one."
"Looks like there's one below that even. I guess 'SB' is sub-basement?"
"Probably." Levi swung the flashlight beam over towards the elevator again.
"Please tell me we're not going to take the elevator."
"Fuck no. I'm looking to see if there are any stairs."
The both of them walked around the room, staying close to the walls as they looked for a door that might lead to a set of stairs. They ended up finding a heavy door that lead to a flight of stairs on the wall directly across from where they had entered. Levi handed off the flashlight to Eren while he pulled the door open, the squeak of its hinges echoing around the room and causing the both of them to go stiff, anticipating something unknown.
They started down the stairs, the steps somewhat slippery and the air growing fouler as they went lower. Levi caught Eren as he tripped forward slightly on a particularly slippery step.
"Any chance you have another flashlight in your bag."
"Only some flares and those are blinding."
"Fuck."
"I don't usually have another person with me."
They continued to move down the stairs cautiously until suddenly there was a splash instead of a damp slap as Levi stepped down. He quickly moved backwards, nearly causing Eren to slip again. Sweeping the flashlight beam across the floor revealed that the entire landing was covered in an inch of water.
"Watch it, looks like they weren't kidding when they said the place had water damage." Levi shifted to illuminate the rest of the landing, the light revealing the remainder of the stairs heading down to the sub-basement to be completely underwater. He tried to suppress a shiver. "Guess we're lucky that we're looking for B34 and not SB34."
"Yeah." It was more of a croak than a word as Eren tore his gaze away from the flooded stairs and helped Levi push on the stairway door, encountering a great deal of resistance that turned out to be various debris that had at some point ended up on the other side of the door, most likely when the flooding had receded.
The flooding was uneven, some parts of the floor were submerged in what seemed to be three inches of water in some places whereas it was fully dry in others. Levi had the both of the skirting the hallway along the walls, not trusting the integrity of the floors now that they knew the majority of what was below them was likely to be underwater. He didn't know how structurally sound concrete was after this sort of flooding– something he didn't doubt Hanji would know –and he wasn't in the mood to find out.
There were doors along the hallway, each marked with a number. The intervals between the doors were uneven, leading them to guess that whatever rooms existed behind the doors were different sizes. They had walked almost halfway down when another hallway branched off to their right, a faded sign next to it indicating that B30 through B35 were located down that way.
The water got deeper in the hallway and by the time they reached B34 at the end they were walking through water two and three inches deep. They had both known that Shiganshina winters were rain and damp and never dry but they hadn't been prepared to go wading through water deep enough to be covering their shoes. Waterproof boots could only do so much when they had laces and if their socks and feet hadn't been wet already they were now.
And finally they were standing in front of a door with a sign readingB34 on it.
Eren took the key out of his pocket, Levi drawing back and holding the light so that Eren could see the lock. There was something anti-climactic about it; the key slotting in without issue and the tumblers and pins all falling into place with a small click. The door hinge squeaked slightly but mostly it was just the slosh and ripple of water being displaced as Eren pulled the door open.
The both of them moved inside the room, Eren leading the way. There was no light save their flashlight and Levi set about exploring the room, quickly finding a small lantern sitting on a heavy metal desk against the wall totheirright. Turned on it cast enough light for the entire room to be visible, if not entirely well-lit. They discovered that it was relatively small; ten feet by fifteen feet. At the far end of the room was a cot, the blanket and pillow spotted with mildew and to their left was a large shelving unit made of metal wire, its shelves almost completely filled with banker's boxes.
"Do you think he stayed down here?"
"Looks like it. At least in some capacity."
Quietly, they got to exploring the small room, largely ignoring the bed as a result of its stench and focusing on the desk and shelves. The desk drawers turned out to be empty except for a pair of cracked reading glasses and a glob of soggy paper that had clearly at one point been a notebook. On top of the desk was what really caught their attention though. A desktop computer sat there with no peripheral equipment; no mouse or keyboard or monitor, simply the computer itself. It was old, the plastic of the large case cracked and scraped up, but the side panel –
"Eren, hold the light a second." Levi handed off the light and shifted his bag to pull out a multi tool and began to unscrew the casing.
"It's probably completely waterlogged."
"Somebody unscrewed the side panel at some point, you can see scrape marks on the case. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry." With the screws out the panel came off easily, revealing a mess of wires and parts. Levi pulled the flashlight out again, getting a closer look at the tangled mess in the computer.
"I'm going to take a look at what's in the boxes." Eren left his side, taking the flashlight with him. Levi sighed and turned back to the computer, moving aside wires that didn't attach to anything. Beneath them he found something expected and unexpected.
"Ah." The exclamation was soft as Levi pocket the hard drive that had been packed in behind loose wires and revealed an envelope. Pulling it out, Levi could see that it had been crudely sealed against water damage in a zip top plastic bag. Holding the envelope he could make out the name on it: Eren.
Levi buried both things in his backpack and put it back on, the water sloshing as he stood up fully and walked over to where Eren was sifting through boxes of what appeared to be medical records.
"Find anything interesting?"
"A hard drive was in there loose. If there's anything on it Hanji should be able to handle it." Levi paused and took a breath. "How about you? Anything interesting in here?"
"Well, the doctor is listed as being 'Grisha Jaeger' on all of them so I guess either this was his storage room slash crash pad or he had a fan of his work. Pretty sure it's not the latter."
"I guess we can rule out the bottom shelf as a lost cause." Levi glanced down, the bottom shelf wasn't too low but while the boxes weren't currently in the water it was clear from the watermark on them that at one point they had been almost halfway submerged. "You want to pull boxes off the top shelf and look through them and I'll take the middle?"
"Sure."
They moved sluggishly as the freezing cold water soaked in and slowly crept further up their pants. Eren pulled boxes down off the top and brought them over to the desk to thumb through the files inside while Levi simply lifted off the tops and went through them on the shelves. It was difficult to read in the dim light, even Levi was slowed down considerably. They had been through less than half of the boxes now and there seemed to be nothing more than patient records; mind-numbing children's growth charts and massive lists of illnesses suffered by elderly patients.
"Levi? I think I found something." Eren was holding up a folder identical to all the others from a box that looked no different in anyobvious way. Sloshing over, Levi drewup next to where Eren had put the box on the table. It looked completely innocuous except for the stamp on the side that had been facing the wall reading The Cronus Project. "You guys never found anything on Cronus, did you?"
"No, not really."
"Well, now we have some–"Eren flipped one of the folders open and groaned. There was nothing in the folder except more patient records.
"Fuck." Levi's fist slammed down on the desk.
"Wait no," Eren flipped through a few pages, "these are different from the others."
"What, does Old Man Goldfarb have a migraine and the shits now?" Eren looked up from the folder and stared at him.
"How closely have you been reading these?"
"His first name was Levi, it stood out."
"Okay, well these records don't have names on them and all the others do. I'd need to actually sit down with these and look at them properly but it looks like the first couple of pages are lab test results. I don't recognize these sorts of tests either…"
"Why would you?"
"I'm a fucking marine biology major. I've taken a couple of toxicology classes too. I mean, it's for fish but it's still the same basic stuff."
"Well, this is all gibberish to me; Hanji might be able to make sense of it. OrNifa, she's the one with the fucking medical degree."
"Okay, well we need to look for the other boxes."
"What?" Levi gave Eren a confused look. "What other boxes?"
"The box says that it's number one of three."
"So that's two of the remaining twenty boxes on the shelves." Levi grimaced and turned to look at the shelves. "And we have to hope they got shoved in with the ones on the second and third shelves. Anything on the bottom shelf is gone."
"Well, let's get going." They were lucky in that the second box Levi pulled out ended up being box three of three. "Okay, we're almost half done with the remaining ones. It shouldn't be –" Eren cut himself off as Levi went tense and held a finger to his lips. When he spoke it was barely a whisper.
"I think I heard something." Eren watched as Levi removed his earplugs, closing his eyes and listening. He tried to listen for whatever Levi might have heard but all he could hear was the whooshing of his pulse in his ears. After another moment Levi opened his eyes again and breathed out slowly, his body losing some of its tension. "Just a rat. Let's get these boxes and the hard drive back to the car first. I can carry a second if I have to but I don't want to risk slipping and losing both boxes to this watery clusterfuck."
"Fair."
They each took a box, Levi grumbling since the size of it was a bit unwieldy for someone of a shorter stature. In spite of the added weight of the boxes they moved more quickly this time, more certain of the direction in which they should be going and focusing more on speed than silence. Lacking a free hand, they had tied the lantern from the storage room to Levi's pack, the light swinging as he walked and creating the sort of lighting that Eren had come to associate with horror movies.
Opening the door outside proved slightly more complicated this time given that the two of them were using both hands to hold the boxes. After a few minutes of finagling they were finally able to get it open, Levi groaning in frustration at the rain that had started while they were inside.
"We'll put these in the car and then we can go back and look for the third box. Shouldn't be too difficult as long as it isn't on the bottom shelf."
"If it is?"
"We still have the majority of what was there."
While their feet were already soaking wet they had stayed relatively dry otherwise, but now that they were outside again with the rain again they could both feel the water soaking through their heavy sweaters, coats left in the car. Eren suppressed a smile at Levi's mumbled curses as they walked down the alley together. They were right at the end when Levi paused, falling a step behind Eren and causing him to turn around.
"Levi?" Eren wasn't prepared for Levi to launch himself at him, knocking the breath out of him and sending the box of files flying as his back hit the soaking wet pavement. His eyes widened as he looked up at the pitted concrete behind where his head had been. He hadn't heard the first shot, but he definitely heard the second ring out and watched as a small chunk of pavement a few inches from his head shattered into dust. There was a pause and a third shot rang out. Before he got to see what it hit there was a hand on his shoulder dragging him up and pulling him down the sidewalk.
"Move!" Levi pulled Eren towards the car, sprinting and practically dragging him along, the rain picking up as they drew closer to the corner of the street where they'd parked the car.
"Wait!" Eren stopped and yanked his arm back from Levi a few feet from the car. "We left the boxes. We have to go back."
"Like hell we are." As Eren made to dash for the boxes Levi reached out and grabbed his arm, flinging him back against the car, his already bruised shoulder hitting first and causing him to wince. "I have no fucking clue who the fuck that is but whoever they are, they're almost as good as Killshot and as far as I know, she's still in Trost's maximum security prison."
"So we're just going to leave boxes of shit out there for them to get?" Eren stood up again, fists balled up and ready for a fight.
"Yeah, we're leaving them."
"What the fuck? We went through all of this shit to get them and we're just leaving them there?"
"Get in the fucking car." Eren recoiled at the furious look on Levi's face. "You are twenty-one and a couple boxes of fucking paper aren't worth dying for."
Eren got up off the ground, his jaw set as he went to open the car door. Levi stood, watching and waiting for him to get in before moving himself. For the briefest of moments Eren was tempted to go slowly, until he heard the pounding wet slap of footsteps from around the corner. He got in quickly and heard another shot ring out, twisting around to look at what was going on behind the car and listening for anything else. The opening of the driver's side door and Levi getting in startled Eren and he turned to stare at the other man sitting next to him breathing hard and shaking slightly, from wet and cold ornerveshe couldn't tell. He looked like he'd fallen in a lake, which Eren realized was probably how he looked as well after he'd ended up on the soaking wet ground twice.
"Are you okay?" Levi's voice was hoarse as he turned on the car.
"Yeah. What about y–" The sound of a bullet ricocheting off the back of the car interrupted him and Levi quickly put the car into gear and sped off, hydroplaning around the next corner and speeding off in the direction of the highway.
"Eren, I need you to do a few things for me." Levi started pulled out his phone and tossed it over. "I need you to text both your sister and Hanji and tell them we're going dark and that I'll call in later. You can just shut my phone off but I need you to wipe yours and we're going to ditch it."
"And we're cutting off contact with everyone because why?"
"Because nobody followed us from the bank but they knew exactly where we were and they're going to find out really fucking fast that it wasn't just boxes of paper that we took out of that storage unit."
While Levi took them on one of the more harrowing drives Eren had been on he tapped out texts.
[Levi:] hanji it's eren. levi is driving and shit happened so we're going radio silent. we'll explain later but tl;dr we found something about cronus and got shot at but we're okay. going to have mikasa get in touch with you.
[Levi:] levi says he'll call and touch base later
[Levi:] ps don't tell mikasa we got shot at
[Eren:] mikasa, i'm really really sorry but we have to cut off contact for a bit. get in touch with dr scientist, they know more