Chapter 173 Sewer Map

Lee Seng turned the door knob and took a deep breath. He pulled the door open. The noise grew louder and Lee Seng realized it was a lit room. The room looked deserted but the noise seemed to come from the left side. Lee Seng peeked around the door frame and turned his head left. He scanned the room. There were chairs around a table. It looked like people were playing poker with the chips divided up on four sides of the table. Cards were sprawled messily around the middle.

'It would make sense there would be people down here but… What the hell is this noise?' Lee Seng wondered. He stepped inside as he heard his friends start to follow after him. They carefully watched where they stepped, moving towards the open light. Lee Seng stood in the middle of the room looking around when his friends came in.

"What are you doing?" Manny asked.

"Checking for a map or any indication of where the hell we are in this sewer," Lee Seng answered. He moved to the middle of the room where the poker table was set up and started to casually move the cards around. "It's like they just up and left."

"What's that buzzing noise?" Olivia asked.

"Mmm, where's it coming from?" Evan asked. The group looked around and huddled around another door.

"Something's rumbling loudly behind this door." Olivia pointed. She grabbed the door knob and tried to pull it open. "It's… locked." Olivia twisted the door knob a couple of more times and shrugged at the group.

"Probably just a generator or something." Lee Seng guessed. He wandered over to the lockers and read the names of each one on them. "Garcia. Vee. Sanders. White. Farrow." He noticed Farrow's locker was unlocked and pulled the door open. The locker creaked.

"An old fashioned locker. These are slowly going out of fashion." Liz's voice spoke behind him. Lee Seng nodded and revealed the contents inside. A couple of hangers hung on the metal pole on top. There was a small place above the pole with a notebook. Pictures were attached to the locker wall. A man and a woman with two kids. Lots of pictures of the man.

"Farrow has a family. I guess it's the chick?" Lee Seng guessed.

"Mmm, you usually don't leave too many pictures of yourself, right?" Liz added.

"That'd be a bit too narcissistic for me, but could be an option for this person." Lee Seng grabbed the notebook and a folded sheet beneath it and pulled it out. He stepped to the side and unfolded the folded sheet. Lee Seng watched as the unfolded sheet grew bigger and bigger. It was a handmade map of sorts with indications of different areas marked with numbers and letters.

"A handmade map?" Liz peeked over.

"I guess so. I wonder what these numbers mean." Lee Seng moved over to the poker table and set the large handmade map down. He pulled the string off of the black notebook and opened it. There were large amounts of notes and personal stuff in here. "Most of this is just work related things… Farrow has good handwriting."

"Does it explain the numbers and letters?" Liz asked. The others were moving to look at the handmade map as Lee Seng scanned the contents.

"Oh, we're here." Olivia tapped on the left side of the map.

"You can read a map?" Evan asked.

"Can't you read a map?" Olivia asked.

"Not really."

"Hmmm, I thought everyone could. Well, I say we're here because the person wrote BASE right there."

"Huh, they did." Manny chuckled. Evan shrank in his skin as Ritsuka chuckled and patted him.

"What're you looking for in that notebook? Reading someone's diary or something?" Ritsuka asked.

"No, I'm trying to understand these letters and numbers. Farrow made this map so I just wanna know what Farrow means… And got it." Lee Seng landed on a page with numbers and letters. Liz moved over to peek and Lee Seng moved the book to show her.

"5… Locked… What does G mean?" Liz's eyes scanned. Lee Seng tapped on G.

"Maintenance room."

"That's probably what that door is then… So why did you want to pull this out?" Liz looked up from the book. Lee Seng stuck his finger in the page and closed it. He tapped where they were.

"We're here, right?" Lee Seng asked.

"Mmmhm." Olivia answered. Lee Seng's finger went out of base and followed the curves for a while until he reached a large opening with 101A tagged on it.

"I wanna know what that is. It seems to intersect with all of these pathways." He pulled the notebook up and removed his finger. He found A first and tapped on it. "A… Lit area."

"Ah, so that's what all of these A's are then." Ritsuka tapped at a couple A areas.

"We're on the non-lit side… Such a shame." Manny shook his head.

"What's 101?" Liz asked. Lee Seng flipped the pages for a while until he landed on 101.

"Oh, shit." Lee Seng said surprised. "101: Large drop off. Sewage filters through here and goes to the sewage site on the West side. Avoid going here at… all costs."

"Welp, guess we can't go there." Liz sighed.

"What's E?" Evan asked. He tapped at an area to the east. Lee Seng moved through the pages and then looked at the number and letter.

"0E… Zero means… door…? What the hell…? E means… exit. Oh, an exit!" Lee Seng's eyes scanned and noticed multiple 0E's.

"There's a couple of exits on this side." Liz pointed out.

"They're attached with AC though." Ritsuka pointed out. "These, on the other hand, are all the same as the one Evan pointed out. They're all 0Es."

"What's AC?" Olivia asked. Lee Seng scrolled through and tapped on the notebook.

"AC is Academy. So it's an Academy exit." Lee Seng answered.

"Then we want to avoid those?" Evan asked. Lee Seng shrugged and shut the book.

"I think it's best if we get as far away as possible. I think going towards the east end would be our best bet." Manny tapped. There were light double-dotted lines about three-fourths through the map. Manny had tapped on the one-fourth area after the dotted area.

"What's the dotted double line mean?" Liz pointed. Lee Seng pulled the book out and flipped through the book. It took him awhile to figure it out but he found the lines and their meanings.

"Double lines mean walls… So I guess this is intricately all beneath the city and then some…" Lee Seng spoke. He scanned further and noticed the double dotted lines. "Oh, double dotted lines! These mean…"

His eyes stopped reading and he looked up. The group gave him questioning looks and he simply shook his head. Liz pulled the book, moving her finger into the page so she wouldn't lose the spot.

"Double-dotted lines are indications of the walls that are… Infected?" Liz looked up. "What does that mean?" She looked back down and continued to read. "The infected zones are off limits due to the high toxic levels. Moving through these areas would require necessary equipment. If you have to go through these levels without equipment, move fast and make sure to not be caught by… the strange anomalies down here."

"The strange anomalies? Monsters?" Evan guessed.

"It would make sense why there's people down here then." Manny shrugged. "Technicians and adventurers of sort have to stay down here to make sure the infection zones don't grow too much. I'm wondering why this isn't digital and it's handmade… Is there a reason why it's handmade? What if this is old and outdated?"

"Manny does bring up a good point…" Olivia agreed. "What if it is old? Areas may have changed and there could be different infection zones…"

"We can be sure the layout's the same. You can't change the underground so easily." Ritsuka tapped the table. Lee Seng nodded and grabbed the map. He started to fold it back up the way he found it.

"Then we'll use it to guide our way out." Lee Seng spoke. "If we find an infection spot, then we'll figure out where to go from there."

"I'm just curious where the workers went… This place looks like it was just used." Olivia looked around. She pointed at a computer system on a desk in the corner. "Like that's still running. Do we wanna look through that before we go?"

"Should we be nosy?" Evan asked. "We got what we wanted."

"But we could get an updated map." Manny rounded over to the computer. Lee Seng pulled a chair and sat in it.

'The seats are cold. Nobody's sat in this chair for a while.' He noticed.

"Hey, looky here!" Manny waved. The group shuffled and surrounded Manny. Manny was sitting on the desktop screen. "It's unlocked. We could dig around if we wanted to."

"And where would we look…?" A mail pop-up appeared on the bottom right corner. Manny clicked it and watched as the mail app opened up.

"I don't think that's a good idea…" Liz's voice trailed off. Manny was already reading the contents. His playful demeanor slowly shifted to be serious.

"Oh, no…" Manny quietly let out. "This isn't good at all…"