Room 106

The bulb was trying its best, but the layers of grime only permitted a dull, smoky aura in an otherwise dark room. The paint, or whatever was left of it, was peeling off the walls and a distinct smell permeated the atmosphere, whose origins were mysterious and best left undiscovered. The two men sat dead still.

The silence was suddenly broken by a dull rumbling, which seemed to be rapidly approaching them. The men didn’t budge – they were too used to it to even care. The furniture started shuddering as a train went screaming above the room, tucked away in a labyrinth underneath the London metro that only a select few were aware of. The train’s roar faded into the distance and the hanging bulb cast awry shadows as it swung from the fixture. Amidst the dust and blackened shelves, a single red light flickered to life. 

 Instantly the men broke out of their hibernation and one of them went over to the panel.

“What now? Did he find him?”

“I think so. Let me check…you can never be too sure about these things”

The second guy grunted an affirmation and the room fell silent except for the occasional clicking.

“Oh, it’s him alright! It’s his signature”

“Damn that Bill! What’s he been doing for so long?”

“What do you expect…getting drunk! But it seems he’s had an eventful evening. He met up with another one of our men.” Matt turned away from the panel to face Paul. “And he saw the target.”

“Was he spotted? The last thing we can afford right now is to –“

“No, no. He disguised himself”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. Irish terrier?”

“That would be apt, wouldn’t it?", Matt chuckled. "But you’re a bit off. Feline this time…Burmese, it seems. And he says he made a quick getaway too once the target spotted him. Apparently the man was too inebriated to notice anyway.”

“What is it with him and those god-damned animals!”

“Be that as it may, what’s our plan of action now? He’s taking the tunnel back here as we speak.”

“Who’s following the target?”

“Our man was working the bar. Tracking down an Irishman is like waiting for the deer to appear at the watering hole.”

Paul’s face creased into what only those close to him would recognize as a smile. But it soon vanished and a stony look washed into his eyes.

“Initiate Protocol C.”

 Matt looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded and turned back to the panel.

The two men slipped out as another train went screeching overhead. Darkness engulfed Room 106, punctuated by three dim red lights that blinked steadily in the corner. It had begun.

"I am in the business of making your wildest dreams come true"

He was drunk, he thought and then he reasoned that if he was sober enough to realize that he was drunk, then he wasn't drunk enough. Again, he thought that if he could reason that way, it was one more proof of the fact that he wasn't drunk enough. Yet again, he deliberated, if he could think about how he reasoned about his realization, which doesn't come easy to many even when they are sober, he wasn't drunk enough, may be not at all. Then he considered that since the realization that he had - namely, of being drunk - won't come to sober people anyway, since that wouldn't be an issue for them since they hadn't been drinking in the first place, his deliberation was all futile. However, if his deliberation was futile, then his consideration was futile too and if his consideration was futile, everything was pointless. This made him sad and helped him cement his decision that he might as well have another drink anyway.

There was nothing unusual about this particular night for him yet - other than the fact that his brain registered an unusual amount of introspective activity. However, since the introspection's sole purpose was to justify his decision of buying yet another drink - something he did using different justification-tactics everyday - even this wasn't very out of the ordinary. He was the usual solitary figure at the bar who spoke little - and that too, only to the bartender to say thanks when he suggested what drink he ought to have next. Little did he know how different this night would turn out to be from the others.

The bartender was taking the last orders - it was now late. The man staggered out of the bar - one half of his brain was signalling that this was a definite sign of inebriation while the other was telling the aforementioned half to shut up and mind its own business. Since the two halves of his brain were arguing with each other, it was that time in his life when he was the most useless creature intellectually.

Probably it was because the arguing halves of his brain rendered his mental faculties zero that he didn't register any surprise when he saw a black cat holding a beer bottle in its paws. He just blinked at it.

"Darn, it's over," said the cat (another phenomenon he should have been surprised at had he held possession of his brain's powers). The cat turned the beer bottle upside down and shook it to see if there was any more beer in it. Then, very unexpectedly, *WHACK* - it hit itself on the top of its head. The beer bottle broke into smithereens. And oh, the cat died.

This, apparently, was enough distraction for the two halves of his brain and they stopped arguing. They vaguely recalled that the death of a cat as a result of the lack of an alcoholic beverage sounded familiar - may be the sub-conscious in them had dreamed about something like this sometime in the past. But wasn't this weird then?

The man felt really confounded now.

Just then, the bartender breezed by on his bicycle, grinning, his teeth seeming even whiter than usual due to the eerie white street light. He said just one line - "I am in the business of making your wildest dreams come true. Can you beat that?"