Nathan Pedde - Tokyo Tempest

“The unit is getting homey,” Darren said as he kept his eyes averted from Sakiko.

“Did you find the toilets?” Sakiko asked.

“Yes,” Darren told her about them.

“There’s a tank at the top part of the wall,” Sakiko said, “Is it full of water?”

“Yes.” Darren said staring at the ceiling, “But water will be an issue with them, we’ll have a limited amount of flushes.”

“What else did you find?” Sakiko said.

“The building is empty,” Darren said.

Darren then proceeded to tell her about the office and the thugs.

“So the office is barricaded by a steel door and then a pile of boxes,” Sakiko said.

“Yes.” Darren said, “We came back to get some food and then we need to find all the other entrances to this place to secure them.”

“Did you want me to come out with you two?” Sakiko asked.

“Yes actually.” Darren said, “I don’t think that’s a bad idea.”

“Definitely.” Yuki said, “We should all learn the quick ways through this building. I think this is going to be home for a while.”

Sakiko gave Yuki a questioning look.

“What?” Yuki said, “We need to get out there and get this building secure.”

Yuki walked over to a pile of MRI’s, and they split it between them.

Darren spent the time looking at either the floor, the boxes, or the ceiling.

“Darren.” Yuki said, “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Darren said, “Why do you ask?”

“Cause you won’t look at us,” Yuki said.

“I don’t want to seem rude.”

“Act as if we were guys,” Sakiko said.

“Guys don’t walk around each other in their underwear,” Darren said.

“Well.” Sakiko said as she crawled up to him, “Then don’t act as if we were guys, but I wouldn’t walk around in my underwear if I didn’t want you to look at me.”

Darren looked at Sakiko’s face. He made sure he didn’t look down at her chest.

Yuki grabbed Darren’s chin and pulled it down so he was looking at Sakiko breasts.

“What do you think of her?” Yuki said.

“Umm…” Darren said.

Yuki kissed Darren on the lips.

“Its okay to look.” Yuki said, “Its how Sakiko copes with stress. She gets grabby and bubbly.”

“Oh,” Darren said.

Darren gave Sakiko a look. She did look pretty in the red bra and panties. Yuki looked good in her underwear as well.

After the three of them split the MRI, Darren got dressed in his grubby clothes.

“We should get out there,” Darren said.

They left the storage unit and used the flashlights to light their way as they walked down the hallway.

“So we have the big set of overhead doors to secure somehow.” Darren said, “Then I’m assuming that there’s going to be at least one or two other ways to get out of this building.”

“Fire escape routes maybe,” Yuki said.

“Exactly,” Darren said.

Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko walked through the building. Darren showed Sakiko where the washrooms were. Warned not to flush them unless they had to. He also showed her the pile of boxes that blocked the door to the office.

After fifteen minutes of walking, Darren found two fire escape doors. Each one had an overly broad door handle meant to set off a fire alarm if pushed. Darren was sure that if he pushed it, nothing would happen.

“I was wondering.” Darren said, “Why isn’t there any emergency powered lights on?”

Yuki laughed.

“My dad picked this one cause it was substandard in certain things and generally shunned by the rich people.” Yuki said, “Its behind on its safety features, but its very secure.”

“So no rich clients means that no real risk of it being robbed or looted in this situation?” Darren asked.

“Exactly.” Yuki said, “Notice that those thugs grabbed the money from the front, but they didn’t try very hard to get into the storage part.”

“Out of curiosity,” Darren said, “Why didn’t we just go a shelter? Have them help us?”

“I’ve been skirting that question for a while, haven’t I?”

Darren and Sakiko both nodded.

“In the last disaster, we weren’t prepared at all. And after my dad and I had been picked up by our rescuers, we were stuck in a shelter for a few months while we waited to be told to do stuff. Dad’s work was destroyed, and he was laid off. We had no money to leave and go to a hotel. We were absolutely helpless. We were stuck jumping at the whim of those bureaucrats. It was the most horrible experience we had ever experienced. My dad vowed that if we were ever to get into a similar situation, we would be prepared. We wouldn’t go to the shelters to be treated like cattle.”

Sakiko gave Yuki a hug.

Darren nodded.

“Well.” Darren said, “I’ll help you any way I can. But first, how do we secure those doors?”

“We could pile boxes across these two doors.” Sakiko said, “But how do we secure the overhead doors?”

“Let’s worry about the overhead doors later,” Yuki said, and she turned to Darren, “Where was that locker that you broke into?”

“This way,” Darren said.

Darren led them down the hallway to the opened locker.

“Here it is,” Darren said.

The locker was still piled up full of boxes.

Sakiko looked at the boxes.

“Do you know what this is from?” Sakiko asked.

“No? What?” Yuki said.

“This is from that bookstore called ‘Grandpa’s Books.’ Its all leather bound books that are sold to the collectors. This must be his overflow.”

“This will make excellent barricade building material,” Darren said.

Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko loaded up cartloads of the boxes of books. They tracked them across the storage building and piled them at one door and then the other. The piles were four boxes deep, and three boxes wide and as tall as the door was. The piles made it hard to push the cart past the piles of boxes.

Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko walked to the overhead garage doors. Darren studied the garage doors and then the metal door to its side.

“The weak point is these doors.” Darren said, “Right now they have a metal bar going into a little slot here that will keep the door down. If we can get a lock or something, we can lock them, but there’s no way to prevent someone breaking it apart with an ax or something.”

“The man door has a slot for a piece of lumber,” Darren said and looked to the side.

In a corner by the door was a large piece of lumber. Darren picked it up and put it in the barricade.

“One door secured,” Yuki said.

Darren looked at the big overhead doors.

“So the doors are sufficiently locked, right?” Yuki asked.

“They’ll keep the thieves looking for an easy score, but not wanting to use a lot of effort in their attempt,” Darren said.

“Could we pile boxes and stuff in front of the doors?” Yuki asked.

“We could.” Darren said, “But it’ll only slow down the invaders.”

“Let’s brace the door, plug the rollers. Whatever. Then open up some of these lockers and see if we can get some stuff to use to secure these doors.” Yuki said.

Darren nodded and walked up to the first locker that he saw. Using the knowledge from before, Darren started to pry at the door frame. After a few minutes, Darren slid the door up.

The locker was small and only partially full. Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko looked around at the boxes and opened a few of them.

“Nick-nacks,” Yuki said.

“I got stuffed animals in this one,” Sakiko said.

“You know what,” Darren said, “Lets pile stuff in front of the doors.”

“You said that it wouldn’t be perfect,” Sakiko said.

“So what. If someone is that desperate enough to get in here to smash apart a door and then to push a large pile of crap out of the way, then he’s gonna find a way in no matter what we do. But he/ll be creating so much racket that we’ll know he’s coming, then we can go out another door,”