xp_logs | Skeleton Coast: Show Me The Way

Tuesday. Nathan, Pete, Alison and Cain get to the address in Windhoek that Gideon gave Nathan, only to find no one at home. Frustration seems to be the order of the day, for Pete especially - until his flash of temper reveals something completely and utterly unexpected.

The house had the vaguely Dutch look of most of the older architecture in Windhoek. Painted lemon-yellow, it was at the end of a street considerably more wooded than most in this African city, and surrounded by a low stone wall that enclosed its extensive grounds.

It was, however, quite empty. At least, everything Nathan's telepathy was telling him was saying that it was empty, and fuck, he'd dropped his shields completely, trying to find some trace of Dom's familiar psi-signature. Or Gideon's. But there was no one. No one at all.

He turned back to his companions, silent, but the truth written all over his face. His words were almost unnecessary. "They're not there. No one's there."

Cain cracked his knuckles, walking forward to lean on the low wall and inspect the grounds. "Don't look like much. You sure we ain't following a wild goose chase here, Nate?"

"This is the address. I don't know why he'd give us an address if-" Nathan stopped, glancing at the house and then back at the other three again. "We need to go in and take a look," he said tightly. "He likes his games, remember. And this has got to be part of one."

"Follow the breadcrumb trail," Alison said neutrally, leaning on her cane a bit as she nodded in agreement. She tilted her head to the side, inspecting the house pensively. "Doubt he'd even have bothered to rig anything to blow up, too. In his book, we've already proven we're part of the 'survivors' after all. That sort of testing would be for the beginners..."

Nathan blinked at her, then shook his head, looking back at the house. "We'll go slow," he murmured. "Just in case."

---

Inside, Nathan's telepathic impressions were confirmed. There was no one at home, and from the looks of it, the place had been very thoroughly 'cleaned', in more than just the standard sense of housekeeping. "I'm starting to wonder if I heard the address right," Nathan said, trying not to grind his teeth as the four regrouped in what seemed to be the house's living room. "You'd think he would have left a note, or something to drive me crazy with. This is very uncharacteristic."

"Looks like you're pretty crazy now," Cain said, ducking his head under the (for him) low ceiling. "Don't look like anyone's been held hostage here - can't see any secret doors, this place ain't got a basement. You sure we got the right place?"

It did look like a perfectly normal house. Rather a pleasant one, actually. Nathan shook his head in aggravation, his gaze raking across the living room again. "Well, it didn't blow up," he muttered, his eyes flickering to Alison for a moment. "There's got to be a reason we're here, even if he's not."

It was quiet in the room save for the movements from those who had just entered, the almost unnatural stillness relieved by the living now within, or so it seemed to Alison. It wasn't that the place was wrong exactly - Alison shivered, skin crawling slightly, not understanding why.

It just wasn't right somehow, either. She was, she decided, imagining things. She moved away from the knot of people at the center of the living room, on purpose, leaning on the cane as she started to look over things for a sign of something or other left behind for them.

"There's something somewhere," she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "We're just not looking where we ought to, that's all."

"Where we ought to." said Pete sourly. "Fucking 'ought to', my arse. We *ought* to be on a fucking beach somewhere, with little fucking umbrellas in the drinks. But no, I'm standing here is a fucking empty house, and christ only knows where Dom is, and I'm all out of fucking ideas! Twisted cunt, with his stupid fucking games and his fucking 'ought to'." He stopped just this side of a shout as he drove a fist shrouded in energy through the side of a nearby bookcase, smashing the wood, and causing it it collapse sideways, spilling books out onto the floor.

Nathan opened his mouth to say something - what, he wasn't sure - as Pete turned away from the shattered bookcase, tension and fury written in every line of his posture. But the words died on his lips as his eyes moved over the bookcase.

"Fuck me," he murmured, and every pair of eyes in the room went back to him.

He walked over and crouched down for a moment, reaching out and tugging the envelope free from where it had been taped to the back of the bookcase. Heavy, Nathan thought as he rose, holding it for a moment; it was high-quality paper, the texture noticeable beneath his fingers.

Before any of the others could say anything, he opened it and pulled out its repeatedly folded contents. A map, he knew, even before he unfolded it and turned to lay it out on the coffee table. A map of Namibia, with two locations marked by numbers.

The first was Khorixas, in the northwest. Number two was Luederitz, on the coast south of the Namib-Naukluft.

They were the only markings on the map, Nathan thought for a moment, until he spotted a note in the margins. Addressed to him.

Nathan -

This should help.

- Esther

Nathan managed, just barely, not to fall over.