There were all kinds of stories about the man who lived in the basement. He was a troll, some had said, and Millie imagined the gnarled, grey skin and stringy hair that her fairy tale books had taught her to expect. He was a ghost - murdered, of course, and strung up down there, forced to linger for all eternity. A convict, the old man who lived in 12 had insisted, warning her to stay away. It was all heresay and rumours, of course. Millie was sure he was just the janitor. She grabbed Jack's hand and pulled him out of the way of a puke coloured stain. A very poor janitor.
"But I know real thing," Jack from down the hall said, swinging their joined hands back and forth. Every day she came home he was there, waiting for her, when the elevator doors 'dinged!' and rattled open. He was a peculiar sort of boy for the modern age. Hadn't touched a piece of tech in his life. His parents simply couldn't afford it. It was one of the reasons they got along so well - they both liked the physical, realness of paper, words and activity over keyboards, servers and station sitting.
"The real thing, hm?" Millie replied, in her own, quiet, mouse-like way. Introverted by nature, she found she enjoyed the company of an imaginative child over that of her peers. At first, it had been a task. Jack was only about seven, completely relentless, he could natter on for days and days. They'd met when his mother - who was raising him alone - had begged her in broken english to watch him while she went to a job interview. When she returned, failing to get the job, she'd bustled her way into Millie's apartment and made dinner to say thank you. They'd been friends ever since.
Actually - Millie glanced down at the scruffy black mop of hair bobbing along beside her - their mother and him might just be her only friends.
"Yeah!" Jack said, with a kind of smugness that could only ever be endearing in a child. "In fact, he's a pirate."
Her eyes glinted with amusement, "you don't say..."
"Yes, I did just say, aren't you listening?" he snapped back. His english had improved immensely since she'd started babysitting him, but there were certain phrases still lost on him. "You don't believe me. No one ever believes me."
"Hey now," Millie said softly, she crouched down outside her and looked at him. "When did I say I didn't believe you?"
Jack paused, and scrunched up his face, as though he were trying to remember. Resolved that he had jumped to a terrible conclusion, he had the audacity to look sheepish. "Well... okay, but Mum didn't believe me."
She laughed, and stood. She unlocked the front door, and Jack frowned.
"Don't you wanna know?" He said, like she were insanity incarnate.
Millie blinked. "Know what?"
"About them - about him, being a pirate! You love pirate stories, remember that movie we saw, with the pirates in space?"
"Oh... right, Treasure Planet." She had wanted to read Treasure Island to him, but had decided he was too young. The movie was a fun alternative. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She really had just been amusing him. Millie was the kind of person who would never want to disenchant anyone, but inside, she was of a practical nature. "Oh, well, go on then."
Jack looked like he was about to burst. "He's hunting treasure!"
She bit her lip to keep from smiling. No matter the rumours people told about the guy - who she'd never even seen - anyone who created a magical world like that for children was just fine in her book.
"No way," she said, as they entered her apartment, and she threw the keys down on the bench. "What kind of treasure?"
"He said 23 million dollars of treasure!"
She faltered. "That's... oddly specific..."
"Yeah, isn't it the best! Look!" Jack dug his hand around in his pocket and pulled out a thin strip of paper. On it, printed, laminated and attached, were strange looking coordinates.
"He... gave you this?"
"Yeah, isn't it great?"
She looked at the scrunched up bit of paper, and then back at his hopeful face. Coordinates? A seed of doubt settled itself in her stomach. Now that she thought about it, Jack was one of the only people who regularly seemed to spend time with the basement dweller. Paranoia begun to gnaw at her.
"Jack... did he... ask you to meet him here?"
Jack shook his head, hair flopping around his face. "No, I just said I wanted to help, so he game me some to help with. I don't understand. How can we meet me on a piece of paper? That's really silly, Millie."
She cleared her throat, "Jack, you know... you know you're not supposed to go anywhere alone with anyone, right? Except for me, and your Mum."
He have her a quizzical look. "Yeah..."
Millie would have to talk to his mother as well, just in case. What a shame... chances were, the guy was completely harmless but... she looked down at the wide, innocent eyes of her charge, and shifted a little. Better to be safe than sorry.
"So you know what it is already? You're always so smart. He said it was coded!" Jack said with a pout. She looked at it again. She had instinctively recognised it as coordinates from the brackets, but now that she looked at it, it was a jumbled mess of letters and numbers and was that a batman symbol?!
"I wanted to do it! But it was really hard..."
"It can tell it's directions, but it's still coded." She cleared her throat, and said brightly, "How about I copy it down? That way, you can keep a copy, and so can I. We can try figure it out on our own, and then compare notes tomorrow-"
Millie could tell she was losing him when he started picking his nose. The universal child code for 'I no longer know or particularly care what's happening'. She ruffled his hair affectionately, and he batted her hand away with a squeak.
She peered down at the code again and chewed on her bottom lip. It was certainly intriguing... but coordinates or not, she needed to find out who this guy was, and whether he could be trusted, especially if he was playing with Jack as much as he seemed to be.
A/N: Loved this prompt, I got really carried away! Ran out of time, though, so I'll add a part two tomorrow.