George crossed the concave threshold of the locker room floor. A foot away from the door he slipped on a small puddle of water, noticing afterwards that there was a slight trail of water coming from the last shower stall. He reached the door, placed his hand on the lever-style handle, turned and pulled. Behind the door was the same cinder block walls that served as the foundation for the rest of Public Utilities, except these weren't painted or sanded. They were raw: gray and coarse. The stairs leading down were narrow, affording only enough space for one and a half people. The florescent lights above were already on, but George looked for a light switch anyway. When he couldn't find one, George assumed the lights were tied into the building's main lighting rig and ran on a set schedule.
When George reached the bottom of the stairs the entire basement opened up. There were no walls in sight, and the only other structure besides support pillars was a single cubicle, the same used throughout all departments, illuminated by a pair of fluorescents. The cubicle consisted of three six feet wide by six feet tall partitions covered with gray fabric, and lined with black trim. The overhead lights created a spotlight irradiating everything inside of the cubicle, but leaving the surrounding space pitch black. The whole scene was only a light flicker away from potboiler horror movie set.
Hello?
Henry, hello?
The basement appeared to be unending, potentially spanning the entire square footage of Public Utilities, but because of the lack of lighting George couldn't tell. He was again left standing, not sure of what to do next, when he suddenly remembered the surge protector in his hand. He entered the cubicle, quickly taking stock of its surroundings, or lack thereof. What was surprising to George about the workstation was not the lack of personal belongings, but the overall cleanliness of the area. It's not what he expected from an exiled to the basement office space. The more George looked around the more he became uncomfortable. The cubicle began to look staged, like Hollywood's idea of a cubicle. It was a cubicle created to say, "hey, nothing to see here, just your average workplace cubicle, look at this picture of my kids, they're not my real kids, but they could be."
George's nervous curiosity had turned into an intense desire to leave as quickly as possible. He set about switching the surge protectors, which given the lack of electronics present in the office shouldn't take long. George pushed Henry's rolling chair out from behind the desk and crouched down to look for the power strip. It wasn't immediately accessible, but he did see the power cord for the monitor. It ran behind a file cabinet used to support one side of the desktop. George got on his hands and knees, ducked his head under the desk and began following the power cord with his right hand behind the file cabinet.
If you find anything valuable back there we're splitting it fifty-fifty.
The awkward joke came from behind George's back, about twenty feet away, and sounded more like a threat than an ice breaker. The words "fifty-fifty" were echoing throughout the empty basement as George retracted his arm from the crevice, crab walked from under the desk and stood up.
You're George right? My name's Richard, Richard Brown.