Chapter |4|

When Claude jumped down the hole, which wasn’t as deep as he expected, he was hit with the nauseating hot air which was making it hard to breathe as he went further down the tight hallway. On the end of the hallway was a huge room with plain concrete walls and a lot of smaller tight hallways, so much that Claude couldn’t count all of them. The room was filled with chairs in front of what seemed to be a stage. The stage was made out of wooden boards and was in a triangle like shape, the wooden boards didn’t seem as dusty when Claude took a closer look, well looks like someone did take care of the place after all. He stood at the entrance there and was slightly startled when he heard the big metal trapdoor shut behind him and the man who previously pulled him in come up.

“You might be overwhelmed right now, but I will explain you as much as I can right now, it’s quite a few before the presentation starts.”, the man started as Claude looked at him and then back at the room.

“What are all those hallways for?”, Claude asked.

“That’s a good question, I guess you haven’t been keeping up with the recent news of the Waive Foundation. They are a foundation focused on searching out the weaknesses of the mirrored counterparts for now, their plans next though are not yet really cleared up. They have presentations here every week with their new discoveries. The reasons these hallways here exist is because of one of their discoveries proved that the simplicity of their brains makes it hard to register that many things at once, according to them the counterparts will be faced with headaches and confusion.”, the man explained.

“So basically it’s a defence mechanism?”

“Yes, it’s also a living space for people of sorts, at the ends of the rooms are smaller metal trapdoors and below are mattresses for the people that stay here.”, the man said.

“Well explains the tidyness of the room.”, Claude muttered to himself, the man gave him a questioning look before he looked down at his wrist watch.

“Anyways, looks like the presentation will begin at any moment now, so you better go and find a place. I'm going back, I’m not used to being out in such air as it is right now, I usually get some fresh air by the trapdoor so when I come here in such an air it gives me a headache.”, the man excused himself and was soon gone from sight.

Claude went to find his seat, a bit confused about what the man was saying before, well Claude just walked into the room and didn't feel anything from the change in air. Well maybe it was just the thing about the guy, but it did feel sort of odd. Claude shook it off as he proceeded to find a seat just as the lights turned off and only a small bulb above the triangle stage flickered. Out walked a man, he was short and had a sort of a stereotypical villain look to him. He was pretty thin, almost deathly thin, his skin was pale-yellowish and his eyes were protruding with dark rings around them, the pupils were also extremely dilated that his whole eyes seemed black. When he started speaking though, Claude was appalled. The man's voice sounded light, young and cheery. This didn't fit his outside at all.

“Hello and welcome to this week's review of our findings. This week has been slow on the team but we still have got some news.”, the man spoke.

 

. . .

Claude listened through the whole presentation without much emotion, he just memorized some important things, guessing he will have to tell Clem everything when he gets out. When the lights were back in the room, Claude got up and a sharp pain went through his back, he cursed internally looking around for a clock, unfortunately there was not a clock in sight, surely if his back hurt like this, he must have been in there for like 3 hours. Claude hurried back to the hall he originally came from, hearing two voices he stopped in his tracks and immediately went to the nearest wall, trying to decipher what the two voices were talking about.

“Oh, so you’re that Claude- The fashion designer. Well, nice to meet you. Never thought I would be that close to a celebrity from our world, you guys are pretty rare.”, one voice said, Claude stopped a moment, before the next voice started their reply. Once the next voice spoke up, Claude was startled.

“Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I don’t think a lot of us want to be famous because it would mean losing our powers and living life the hard way.”, the other voice said, Claude immediately recognized this voice, that voice was Clem. At that moment Claude wanted to jump out and ask them what is going on but he decided to listen a bit more.

“Well, that’s unfortunate. But anyways, what are you planning to do with your guy here? You picked the most repulsive guys you could. Just last week, or maybe even two this guy came with his counterpart, he didn’t even blink and they took the counterpart away, apparently for ‘being a threat’, yeah sure the guy had metal fists and a body of a king of the cage but he didn’t mean any harm. I usually check on the counterparts locked up back there, him in particular- he is pretty protective over his lead and keeps asking me about how he is doing. The poor lead has a blind eye so he keeps being pushed around but for the sake of the guy not going on a rampage I lie to him.”, the man said.

“That’s sad. I came here with Claude to see what the humans were up to, seems like I stumbled upon the wrong TV channel though. Well, I’m going to make it work out somehow. Also, how can you come through there to see him though?”, Clem answered shortly.

“Just be careful if you plan presenting with him, the guys will attempt to frame you for something while you’re singing applications for the presentation and such. And as for that, my counterpart ability is one time shapeshifting. I can shift into one form for some time and when I come back to my original form I can’t go back to that one I was before. Good thing there are so much guys at the foundation that I have a year worth of shifting.”

“Well, they are going to at least attempt. I have no idea of what they could take me away for, maybe being too beautiful for the eyes of the humans?”, Clem said, laughing soon after,  

“Well, knowing their stupidity it might be possible.”, the man said through laughing as he tried to catch his breath.

“Okay but holy, it has been like 3 and a half hours already, where is he?”, Clem broke the laughter as the man stopped laughing too,

“Do you want me to go find him?”

“Yeah, maybe he got lost.”, Clem said, snickering. Soon footsteps were heard and Claude was startled as he backed away from the wall into the middle of the hallway, starting to walk forward and meeting with the man soon after.

“What were you there for all that time? Was the presentation that long?”, the man asked as he walked to Claude and stopped, Claude wasn’t really sure what to think, but he decided to play it as if nothing happened with him listening to the conversation.

Claude simply nodded.

“Well, Clem is waiting for you there, you better go.”, he said as he led Claude back to the entrance.

“Hey there, thought you have gotten lost in there.”, Clem laughed when he saw Claude.

The big metal trapdoor was only slightly opened and Clem was there laying down on the grass. He soon stood up and lifted up the metal trapdoor, well at least tried to. Claude almost got his head smashed as he was climbing out if it weren’t for the man who caught the trap door in time. Clem muttered a sorry when Claude finally climbed out.

“Thanks for coming, it was nice to get to know you two. Hope you come back an another time.”, the man said with a smile as he slowly closed the trap door, leaving Clem and Claude alone.

“Alright now buddy, pick up these bags and tell me what happened.”, Clem said with a grin as Claude looked at the clump of shopping bags beside the trapdoor with pain in his eyes. He sighed under his breath and walked over to them starting to pick them up individually and ranting on and on about the presentation. By the time he was done the two were almost at home.

“Well, nice you got to know some things buddy, but now it’s time for you to start on writing.”, Clem said as Claude finished.

“Writing what?”

“Writing your presentation.”, Clem said, as he stuck out his tongue at confused Claude.