Brooklyn Knight by null

side of the doorway, neither man felt anything much in the way of undue heat coming toward them as they moved outward into the basement. Both continued attempting to breathe through their jackets as best they could, but the sparse amount of coffee Dollins had splashed them with was rapidly drying out.
    “My God,” said Knight harshly, coughing as he did so, “doesn’t this building have sprinklers down here?”
    The oddly colored smoke stinging their eyes, the pair continued to fumble their way forward, their senses straining to understand what was happening. Rather than answer verbally, Dollins instead pointed toward an alcove ahead of them. As the two men entered, the professor saw what the detective was leading them toward—a watercooler.Understanding what was expected of him, Knight immediately set to filling cups of cold water.
    “Yeah, you’d think they woulda run some kinda sprinklers down here by now,” growled Dollins. “That’s the way’a things, though—building’s just too old. Budget keeps going toward luncheons for the top brass. Us grunts’re probably lucky we even got the damn smoke alarms.”
    “I guess so.” The professor mumbled his answer as he splashed the detective and then himself in the face to relieve the growing pain in their eyes. After that he doused both their heads and then their jackets. Dollins did not even look in the professor’s direction, his focus aimed down the hall, as were the weapons he held in each hand.
    Pointin’ guns at a fire , thought the detective. They might as well call the men in the white coats to get their nets and come on over.
    Despite his attempt at humor, however, Dollins kept both his weapons pointed down the smoke-filled hallway. Though it made no sense and would be considered insane by any reasonable person, something within him, some primal section bound deep within his soul, refused to let him waver. Something was being hidden by the oddly colored, strange-tasting fumes. Something terrible enough to set off all the alarms within his mind at full alert.
    As he kept his eyes focused dead ahead, Knight held a cup to the big man’s lips so he could take a drink.
    Dollins gulped the first half deeply, then used the second half to gargle before he swallowed, realizing that would be the last relief he would know. Diverting his attention for the briefest of moments to his companion, he saw that the professor had taken his own drink. Not seeing any reason to hesitate further, Dollins started them down the hallway once more.
    The two men encountered no one else as they continuedmaking their way steadily forward. With the fire alert siren still blaring they could hear nothing else, either—could barely understand even each other. So loudly did the alarm echo in the narrow corridors of the underground section of the precinct house that when it suddenly ceased being broadcast it was actually several seconds before either Dollins or Knight realized the thing had gone silent. Both men stopped moving, pausing to listen to their surroundings.
    Fire, each of them knew from bitter experience, possessed a very distinctive sound. They were also listening for any other possible noises, such as any others who might still be in the basement area—friendlies who might be trapped somehow or intruders who might have been the reason the alarm had been set off in the first place. Able to detect nothing out of the ordinary, the pair continued their cautious forward movement. Once they turned the last corner between them and the property room, however, the sounds reaching them changed.
    Dollins turned to the professor, moving close to ask him if he might be hearing the same thing the detective was. Before the larger man could speak, however, Knight gave his head a sharp nod, making his eyes go wide so as to indicate that he was as suspicious of the sounds reaching his ears as was Dollins. Both of them understood the need for silence as they continued onward as cautiously as