The door was loud when it finally came down. Ellie hadn't been watching; her eyes had been trained on the street, scanning for any movement. Brennan had made awfully short work of the whole thing. She was just turning to join him -- with one last glance at the quad over her shoulder -- when the runner came.
As if by instinct, Ellie stepped soundlessly behind Brennan as he fired. There was no reason to be afraid; runners were fast, but one against a capable gun was manageable. If there had been more than one, she would have stepped out to attack from the side should one dart close enough to hurt him.
He was right though -- there would be more around, inevitably.
The smell inside the building said as much: heavy, obtrusive, rotten. It was so strong and foul it felt almost like a physical object pushing in on her temples, down her throat. Ellie's free hand went up to her mouth instinctively as she stepped forward to join him at the junction.
"Left," she told Brennan quietly. The lab she'd worked in was at the end of the hall, in a small closed suite of rooms. Walking that same hall now was odd; all the doors were locked, the rooms dark; Ellie could only imagine the kinds of things left to rot behind them.
When they reached the right room, she paused to listen. There was no sound. A glance back down the hallway showed nothing.
She glanced at Brennan as if to ask if it was all right, but turned the knob slowly anyway, stopping to listen for a second time. Nothing.
The laboratory was long, large and dim, lit with rays of dusty sunshine from dirty skylights. There was a puddle of something black and sticky oozing across the entrance. Several tables had been turned over, the glass cabinets broken -- as if someone had left in a violent hurry. Papers and books littered the floor. There was a large stain of blood along one wall, and an abandoned sleeping bag beneath.
Ellie stepped into all of this rather calmly, moving instantly to look at the log that still rested on a desk near the entrance. She had been the last person to check in and out four years ago -- and the paper was somewhat yellowed now, ripped along the bottom, but it was almost exactly as it had been. She looked back at Brennan again, offering him a smile, and began to survey the room for supplies.
"Let's look around -- quickly."
There was a second doorway to the left, and another on the far side of the room. She moved toward the latter, past floor to ceiling metal cabinetry, most of the doors flung open to reveal nothing left. Still, there was a shelf full of binders and data that looked remarkably intact.
That was when something happened. There was a sound like bare feet scrabbling against the tile; Ellie paused, head immediately turning to the source of the noise. Her machete raised instinctively. The noise got closer, and the sound of dripping, like blood --
The runner barely had time to enter the doorway. At the first sight of it she stepped forward swiftly and calmly into a cabinet, shutting the door behind herself.