<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/iXnBPhDm.png)</div>There is a latch on the door, but with the forceful entry the short screws are snapped out of the wood and the door flies wide.<br/><br/>It is a simple apartment furnished with things no doubt hauled from other sites. The bed sags, the wallpaper and ceiling paint are peeling, and dozens of cardboard boxes are stacked around the edge of the room.<br/><br/>Nearby, head turning, clearly surprised by the entrance, is a sandy haired man whose pants are gathered at his knees. He stands<em>very close</em>to a dark-haired woman sitting on the edge of the sole table in the room, her knees around his hips and her ankles over his buttocks.<br/><br/>On the table near the man's right hand is something that looks like a conch shell made of coloured glass. You'll never know if he was reaching for it. Similarly, you'll never know if it was their intercourse, or the extra jolt he gave the table when you burst in, or a careless motion by the woman's hand that knocked another smaller sea-shell like ornament off the table.<br/><br/>And although Briggs was raising his pistol, he'll never know why Wallace stumbled into him, half-knocking him into the closet.<br/><br/>But for both Burthold-Campbell and Briggs, the ceramic "crinkle" of that small shell breaking as it struck the wooden floor is the last thing they remember for a while.<br/><br/>Gordon is the first to wake up. His vision starts as a kaleidoscopic swirl that gradually settles down. He is prone, nearly, having collapsed into the closet. Musty jackets brush his head, galoshes, boots, and shoes press into his cheek and arm. There is still a pistol in his hand, the comforting weight of a Colt automatic.<br/><br/>Dany is there, reaching out his hand and helping Gordon to his feet. Dany's trench coat has been laid over Wallace. Dany lights one of his French cigarettes with his own and hands it over to Gordon.  "He..." Dany hesitates when he says that, "...is alright. Unconscious. Breathing normal. You were already stirring by the time I got to the top of the stairs."<br/><br/>"The other two seem to have caught the worst of the blast. They're... ...well, they're unconscious too."<br/><br/>The two kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling make Gordon's eyes water and his head ache. He feels... ...hung over.<br/><br/>Laying on the floor, her man's clothing loosely hanging on her, is a blond woman. Spread-eagled on the table is a dark-haired man whose women's clothing is busting at the seams, with his skirt pooled up around his hips revealing a naked crotch. The coloured-glass conch still sits on the table, with a few knocked over tumblers and a bottle of schnapps laying on its side in a pool of the sticky liqueur.<br/><br/>Wallace makes a groaning noise, under the trench-coat. It is a few vocal registers higher than Gordon would have suspected.<br/><br/>Dany gives a Gallic shrug.<br/><br/>Wallace wakens, laying prone with a pounding headache. The floor is hard, a blanket of some kind obscures the room. The last thing Wallace remembers is stumbling into Briggs when he suddenly stopped and a flash of... ...not sound, exactly.