Sprawl Saga Ch. 2

"Where are we?" Hadley whispered.
Where these two people ended up was nothing like the dank basement floors of Sandwolf. This room, for one, was huge- Much larger that a small hallway. It spanned lengthways at least a hundred meters based on Mark's first look. It had a high, arched ceiling, and many support poles ran through the middle. In long, neat rows in this room were a series of tables and chairs. The chairs were scattered, and many small trays were on the tables, apparently left behind. One thing similar to their starting point was its drab, grey colour scheme; nothing was painted any colour.
Gorado only gawked on at the unexpected display. Hadely took steps forward, reaching out and touching the tables to the left of the long hall. The next thing Hadely noticed was the cold: It was several degrees colder than the staircase in which they exited.
"What..." he stammered.
"This [i]definitely[/i] isn't Sandwolf," Gorado slowly remarked.
"That might explain why we can't ring up anyone else..." Hadley replied.
"This doesn't explain much else."
"What do we do now?"
"Say, can your robot thing triangulate? It could give us a general idea."
"Oh, good idea. Colin, what is our position?"
The hovering robot beside Mark sat silently for a second, and then said, "Unknown."
"Unknown? Colin, what are our coordinates?"
Again was another pause. "Unknown."
"That... Wasn't helpful," Hadley said to Gor.
"Well, there has to be other people around."
"Yeah, but look at this room."
"What about it?"
"I think its past inhabitants left in a hurry."
"Yes, this doesn't look good, i'll give you that."
Gorado then walked, limping ever so slightly, towards the far end of the hall. "Let's move on," he said.
Hadley walked faster to keep up with his dragon companion. "Colin, how many life forms are on this floor?" he said on the way.
A buzzing sound again emanated from Colin. "There are 4 life forms on this floor."
Hadely paused. "Four?"
"Affirmative."
Gor turned his head around, looking back at the robot. "What?"
"There are four-"
"Colin, where are these life forms?" Hadley said, interrupting Colin's repetition.
"One is 0.1m to my front. One is 0.2m to my front. One is 50.2m to my front. One is 78.6m to my front."
"What," Gor said, "are two of them on top of us?"
"Colin's recording us," Hadely explained, "but that still means there's two other people here."
Gor suddenly started to whisper. "They know we're here, don't they?"
"If they're that far in front of us, they're behind those doors," Hadley whispered back.
They both then crept as silently as they could across the remainder of the hall, Gor's claws softly clicking on the hard floor. Hadley rose the baton he was carrying above his head. When he was at the door, Hadley moved his other hand towards the wooden bar handle on the double doors. He could hear faint noises from the other side of the door.
"What are you do-" Gor whispered, but cut himself off when Mark suddenly threw open the door and rushed into the conjoined hall.
There waiting for them was a man. A man with a raised shotgun.
Hadley had suddenly found himself about 20 centimeters away from the barrel of a powerful gun. The man wielding it shouted "Stop there!" Hadely very quickly halted himself, the inertia of his sudden stop making him wobble. The man issuing the command was a young man in his late twenties. He had a chiseled face with a stubble of a beard. He was wearing what looked like to Hadley an old Yentorian soldier uniform.
"Identify yourself." the man said.
"My name?"
"Yes." He moved his weapon closer to Mark.
"It's Had-" he tried to say before being cut off by Matuso.
"Drop the gun."
The man in the uniform then decided to look over Hadley's shoulder at the orange dragon behind him.
"Drop the gun, boy."
The gun-wielder's eyes began to widen. He began to shake slightly, pointing the gun upwards slightly. "Wha- wha--" he stammered, dropping his weapon.
Obviously surprised greatly at the sight of a dragon, he began to back away. "Wait," Hadley said, "We don't want any trouble. I'm Mark."
Mark's attempt at a greeting managed to keep the scared man from bolting. He, while still eyeing Gor behind him, said, "Garrote. Corporal Garrote. What is that... Thing?"
Hadley gave a confused look, and Matuso behind him glowered. "Who, Gor? He's a he, not a thing!"
"... Okay," Garrote said, "so he's a... Dragon?"
"Yes, last time I checked." Matuso replied, eyes slanted.
"No. I don't believe it. This must be a goddamned dream or something. No."
"What," Hadely said, "Haven't you ever seen a dragon before?"
"No! Why would I?" The soldier was becoming more frantic.
"We're in a capitol of a dragon nation! How could you not have seen one?"
"What?!"
"Mark... I don't think he's from around here," Gor chimed in, "Matter of fact, I don't think we're anywhere near home as it is."
"So you think we've been... what, teleported?" Mark said.
"Look at it this way. Our whole floor's looks like it's been moved."
"What, you're lost in here too?" Garrote said.
Matuso looked at Garrote again. Garrote shrank back a little. "You mean you don't know where you are, either?"
"No, I-"
"Let me guess," the dragon said, interrupting the soldier, "You just randomly woke up in here, and you can't seem to find anyone?"
"Uhh... Pretty much."
Gorado sighed. "Well, I guess you're in the same boat as us, boy."
"Corporal to you," Garrote said, inexplicably raising his chest.
"Corporal, whatever," Gorado replied, still staring daggers at the soldier.
Garrote once again shrank under the large dragon's gaze, turning to Mark. "So, none of us has any clue of where we are?"
"Nope," Hadley said.
"Amazing," Garrote sighed in turn.
"This just gets worse and worse," Hadley said, "what do you think we should do?"
"I was hiding here, waiting to hear reports on the radio," Garrote said as he pulled off a small radio off his belt loop, "but I haven't heard from anyone else yet. I was hoping they're sill around; I've been sending an message out every 20 minutes for the past hour."
"I tried putting messages through my Wanesworth to the emergency line earlier, but they aren't receiving," Gor said, "We're in the same boat indeed."
"Well," Hadley remarked, "it seems our superiors aren't getting us out of this. I say we look around. Maybe we'll find out where we are. Maybe someone else knows-"
"Wait. Someone else?" Gorado interrupted, "Wasn't there a fourth person on your scan?"
Hadley paused. "You're right. Colin, what is the distance of the farthest living thing in range?"
"Wait, who's Colin?" Garrot said before bing cut off by Colin himself.
"1.1 meters to my back."
"That means he's directly behind us," Hadely said, "I wonder why we haven't seen-"
Hadely did not get to finish that sentence, as at that time, the fourth living thing jumped out from around the corner as Hadley was turning to face Colin.
It was not human. Or friendly, for that matter.