Note: any errors about clearing rooms or investigating facilities are my own, and will not be subject to later review.
It felt complicated to have a scattergun slung over his shoulder again. Norm had qualified on authority-class weapons when in the Peeps, and he wasn’t a bad shot with them. But he’d hadn’t yet had to shoot a person, and getting transferred to the FSB had been a quiet relief. You could kill somebody with a sticky round, but only if everybody involved was having a bad day.
Yet here he was, sliding down a ladder and into the silent gloom, a lethal weapon on his back. At least there was an IR flare down there already, so it wasn’t silent blackness. That would have well and truly sucked.
Norm’s training kicked in at the bottom as he skipped sideways away from the ladder, readying his scattergun as his IR lenses came fully online. At first glance he was in a square room, bare of everything except two mattresses against one wall. No lights, no outlets, nothing except a door to his left. He didn’t touch a single thing as he yelled “Clear!” to the three waiting above.
Ashelyn came down less gracefully than Norm had, and her own step-and-ready wasn’t as practiced. Clearly the Coexisters hadn’t gone in for as much training in room-clearing. No, they did all their dirty work behind a desk, Norm told himself snidely, before catching himself. The Department of Coexistence had been tossed in the same mass grave as the People’s Liberty Corps. There was no sense in holding a grudge against the dead.