Lost Mementos of the Past, Part 7

After what must have been another hour of walking, Caleb and Rick arrived at a large open area. Rick looked around and inspected the place with his flashlight. He looked down at the ground and frowned.

“No footprints here. Multiple pathways too. Looks like we're gonna have to decide which way to go from here.”

“Why don't we split up?” Caleb asked. “I know you're worried about me running off with Mina, but if she comes back from the other direction while we're exploring one path, that'd be even worse, wouldn't it?”

Rick sighed. “All right. You got me there. But take this.”

He tossed Caleb a small cylindrical device. It was all black, with a small red light beeping along the side.

“What is this?”

“A tracker. I'll be able to find your location so long as you're holding that. If you press the button on top, it'll alert me, so press it if you see Mina.”

“I see. Well, that certainly makes things easier.”

Rick scanned the area for a bit before shining his light down the western hall. “I'll go this way, so you go down the hall heading east.”

“Got it.” The two turned around and walked down the opposite hallways. As Rick's footsteps slowly faded into the distance, the place around Caleb became deathly silent. Every step echoed through the hall, and the emptiness sent a chill running through his spine. He wasn't unfamiliar with exploring darkened areas like this, but it was probably his first time venturing through such a cold and lifeless place.

He shook the chill off and ventured deeper into the underground hallway. The place was littered with rubble and debris, and if he wasn't paying attention, he could easily find himself tripping over on a fallen rock. The hallway had little in the way of detours or forks, yet he still saw no sign that Mina had passed this way. Nevertheless, he had to keep moving; after all, that didn't mean that she hadn't come this way either.

Caleb ventured deeper into the underground. At some point, he reached a staircase heading downwards, and for a moment, he wondered if he should turn back. He didn't know how strong the transmitter was, and there was a chance that heading downwards would make his location harder for Rick to pinpoint. However, before Caleb decided to head back, he saw something that made him change his mind.

It was a handprint placed right up against the wall, making an imprint against the dust. It was about shoulder height for Mina, meaning she likely placed her hand against the wall here. The fact that it was so clear meant that it was likely that she made this handprint recently. She passed through here. He was certain of it.

Once that was clear, his decision was made. He descended the stairs without a second thought. If the transmitter didn't work deeper underground, he'd just have to apologize to Rick later. Finding Mina was the priority, and if his hunch was right, he'd find her sooner rather than later.

The stairs ended up leading to a lower floor of the underground partition they were in. Caleb looked around, but it didn't seem like another mall. Instead, it seemed like a large empty area filled with abandoned cars. He didn't know if Mina would find anything interesting here, but all he could do was keep looking for her.

The area was massive, but it was surprisingly easy to search through. The entire place was flat and didn't seem to have any hidden nooks and crannies, meaning he could scan most of the area just by turning around in a circle. Doing that made it pretty clear she was not around. He considered the idea that she might be crouched down behind one of the cars in this area, but he figured that likely wasn't the case. After all, he was making enough of a ruckus that he'd have to at least catch her attention, if only inadvertently.

Once he was certain that there was no point in searching this area any longer, Caleb headed for the only other thing that caught his attention: the pair of glass doors on the west wall. They were thrown open, suggesting that someone had gone through them recently. There was another opening that seemed to connect to the surface, but since it was blocked up by rubble, Caleb was sure he was on the right path.

He walked briskly through the doors and down the straight hallway behind them. The area was fairly non-descript, and Caleb started to wonder why Mina was even down here. Was she hoping for a miracle at this point? If so, that meant she truly was desperate.

The hallway ended up leading to a similar lot with cars just like the one before. He could already tell that Mina wasn't here just from a glance, but he noticed another set of stairs leading upwards. He took a moment to think about the path he'd taken so far. The eastern path turned north until he hit the stairs, and the door he took led him west. He wasn't sure if that placed him close to where Rick should be, but there wasn't much else to do but keep going on.

The door led to a short hallway which opened up to a large building with an incredibly high ceiling. There were several floors to it as well, and while Caleb wasn't sure it was a mall, there was a pretty good chance Mina would think it was a good place to search through. Having said that, the sudden increase in his search radius slightly dismayed him, and he wondered if it had gotten dark outside yet.

Caleb suddenly noticed another door all the way across on the other side. He remembered by his estimation that he should be pretty close to Rick's location, assuming the pathways were symmetrical. He figured that if the two of them were here, the searching would go a lot easier. With that decided, he decided to press the button on his tracking to see if Rick would notice how close he was.

Sure enough, Rick emerged from the door only ten minutes after sending out the signal. He took a quick glance around and gave Caleb a strong pat on the shoulder. “Good work. I didn't know there was such a huge underground structure down here.”

“Is this another mall?”

“No, looks like a former apartment space. A lot of these got built underground when the war started as a way for people to live safe from bombings and nuclear radiation.”

“Then Mina might be here,” Caleb concluded.

Rick nodded in agreement. “Yeah. It may not be a store, but if someone living here was a fan of the movie she liked, they might have some kind of paraphernalia related to it. That's the logic she's most likely working on.”

Without another word, the two split up and began searching the apartment structures. With around four floors and twelve apartments on each floor, Rick and Caleb had their work cut out for them, but neither of them were undeterred by the monumental workload.

After about twenty minutes of searching, however, the two had only managed to inspect the lowest floor. The apartments were larger than both of them expected, and they were surprisingly unstable as well. That forced them to move slowly to avoid disturbing the buildings too much.

“What are we going to do?” Caleb asked. “We need to search the upper floors, but I don't know if they're going to be able to support our weight.”

“I doubt Mina would be up there if it was that unstable,” Rick observed. “Still, wouldn't want to spend too much time traipsing around. Plus we weigh a fair bit more than she does.”

“Wait, me too? Aren't you guys cyborgs?”

“Don't underestimate humanity's technology. Our cybernetic bodies aren't that much heavier than those of a normal human's.”

“That's surprising. Then what are we going to do? Are we going to search the upper levels?”

“Hold on.” Rick knelt down and put his ear to the ground. Caleb watched him with a mild curiosity. He didn't know exactly what he was doing, but he was sure that Rick was trying to use some kind of remainer tech he wasn't aware of. After about a minute of listening to the ground, Rick got up and placed his ear against one of the nearby wall.

“Okay, she's in this part of the structure,” Rick concluded as he pulled away from the wall. “Somewhere around the third floor. We'll need to ascend slowly.”

“Wow,” Caleb said in awe. “How did you figure that out?”

Rick smirked and pulled at his ear. “I've always had very sensitive ears. Cybernetics only enhanced that ability even further.”

“All right, then let's go. Third floor, right?”

Caleb and Rick gingerly climbed the steps up to the third floor. The stairs creaked and groaned as they made their way up, but they held without crumbling. Caleb breathed a sigh of relief once the two of them were off the steps, but they weren't out of the woods yet. They still had to find Mina, who was almost definitely in one of these rooms.

“She should be on this side of the structure,” Rick said as he walked up to the first room. Caleb waited outside for a moment before suddenly hearing a loud crumbling sound and a scream from across the hall. He quickly made his way over to the apartment the scream, trying his best not to move too fast and cause the way to crumble under him. He could hear Rick following after him, but had no time to explain anything to him. As he arrived at the apartment in question and opened the door, he was surprised to see a large hole in the middle of the room. It looked as if it had suddenly fallen away, probably after someone had stepped on top of it.

Caleb gingerly stepped into the room and tried to inch his way around the hole. As he slipped around, he noticed that the hole actually opened into the apartment below on the second floor. From what he could see, the rubble created by the hole miraculously did not cause the second-floor room to collapse, as he could see a pile of rubble lying in the middle of the ground. Seeing the large hole, Caleb felt a bad premonition and shined his light into the hole.

His premonition was correct. On top of the pile of rubble lay an unconscious Mina. She seemed largely unhurt, so it was most likely that the fall was what knocked her out. He couldn't tell her condition from up on the third floor, but he knew that there was no way it did any lasting damage to her. As he continued to inspect her from above, Rick entered the room as well.

“Rick!” Caleb called out from across the hole. “I found her, but she's passed out. She's on the second floor!”

Rick nodded. “Alright. It'll be a pain, but we should take the stairs down. No need to put more strain on these old buildings.”

The two of them left the apartment and descended down to the second floor. There, they found the room where Mina had fallen into and rushed in. Just as they entered the room, Mina seemed to stir awake from atop the pile of rubble.

“Ugh,” she groaned as she shook her head. “That was a bit of a hard fall.”

“Don't move too much,” Rick grumbled. “You must have dislodged a circuit in the fall, which is why you lost consciousness. That's why you don't skip your maintenance appointments.”

“You're here, Rick? Great.”

“You skipped your maintenance, Mina?” Caleb was surprised. “No wonder Rick was gunning after you so hard.”

“I was only pushing it off for a week or so,” Mina said with a pout.

“After pushing it off for a month already. You should know these bodies don't last forever.”

“I know. Stop nagging me!” Mina sighed. “Anyway, I don't think anything came loose. The impact just... hit something important, I guess.”

“That's the problem, moron. In any case, let's get out of here. You need to get checked.”

“Wait! I'm so close. The apartment I was in before I fell... I saw something!”

“Don't be difficult. Can't you see how much trouble you're causing everyone?”

“Please!” Mina turned to Caleb, her eyes pleading with him. “I finally found it. If I could just grab it...”

Caleb gave Mina a reassuring nod. “I understand. I'll go back up and get it, so please... go back with Rick.”

Mina seemed reluctant to agree, but ultimately she ended up giving Caleb the okay. The moment she did, Caleb got up and left the room. He knew he could leave Mina to Rick, so he didn't need to worry about them. It was more important for all of them to get out of here as soon as possible.

Caleb climbed back up to the third floor and entered the room Mina had fallen from. Once again he inched his way around the hole and made his way into the back area of the apartment. The moment he was on solid ground again, he started hunting through the two bedrooms to find what exactly Mina had seen. It didn't take long before he discovered it: a poster hanging on the wall of the main bedroom, visible through the doorway and from all the way from the living room. The color was faded and the title was in a language he didn't understand, but that was not what caught his eye.

What caught his eye was one of the cast members featured prominently on the poster. She was a young woman, easily in her twenties, with long black hair that flowed down her back. Now that he was closer, he realized that she was a different person, but from a distance he was shocked. The woman on the poster looked just like Mina.