Unlike the previous ones, these were tall and slim. They were also individually packed rather than squished together in tight-fitting outer packaging like the loads they’d overseen so far. Curious, Darren hovered behind the woman, peeking over her shoulder at the terminal as more items made their way along the conveyor belt.
“Hey, Mariam, can you get the details for this load?” Darren asked, his interest piqued. There was just something strange about the way this batch didn’t seem to follow the packaging conventions of the earlier ones, and since he and Aiden had some time to kill, he decided it was a mystery worth solving.
Glancing at the slowly moving cylindrical-shaped items, Mariam flicked through various submenus, pulling up an itemized manifest labeled ‘LQ-OXNT2’.
“Mariam, do you know what this ‘LQ-OXNT2’ stands for?” Aiden, who was next to Darren and peering at the screen from the woman’s other side, took the question from his mouth.
Mariam raised her shoulders. “All I know is what’s on the manifests, same as you. Though…” she paused, thinking. “If you boys had spent less time sneaking out to smoke, you’d know it’s one of our regular loads.”
“Good thing we are reformed then,” Darren said over a chuckle, wiggling his eyebrows.
“About time,” she agreed, grinning. “Let’s finish up here and head to the staff room. Break’s about to start in five.”
“You go ahead. Danny and I will double-check the numbers,” Aiden insisted with one of those fake smiles Darren couldn’t mistake for real anymore.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Well, I won’t say no if you offer.” After smoothing out her overalls, she gave them eacha pat on the shoulder. “You keep this up and I’m sure the disciplinary committee won’t fire your asses.”
Once the woman was out of sight, Aiden hunched over the terminal, lightly tapping away at menus with his slender fingers. “Darren, look.”
Even in a situation like this, the use of his first name didn’t fail to send a thrill down his spine, making Darren envision all the ways he could make Aiden cry it out in pleasure. But now was not the time for daydreaming, so he shut his fantasies down before they’d had the chance to distract him any further.
Pressing against Aiden’s side, he focused on the displayed data. According to the records, this sector handled mostly cosmetics like soaps, shampoo and oils, though a few times a month a shipment of a few tons of ‘LQ-OXNT2’ seemed to make it through as well. Like today, it usually happened during the night shift, and when he checked historical data, the manifests seemed to be perpetually vague, lacking information about destination, purpose and breakdown of loads.
Tapping his earpiece to turn it on and connect to the long-distance secure frequency Nyle had set up for this mission, Aiden said, “Hey, any idea what ‘LQ-OXNT2’ might be?”
“A few,”Nyle replied in his chiming voice.“We’re cross-checking a couple of things. In the meantime, you two should head down to the sublevels. I’m inside their surveillance system and things look quiet.”
With Nyle remotely overwriting the real-time surveillance feed, their only concern on the way down to the power room was the occasional security guard they came across. Fortunately, the cargo racks littering every available space offered plenty of cover and hiding spots, letting them avoid detection. What made them hit a dead end, however, was the reinforced blast door they found once they reached the marked location. The blueprintshad suggested a utility room that they’d assumed was a staircase, but clearly, they’d guessed wrong.
“Nyle, can you get this open from your end?” Darren called over the comms.
There was a short and tense pause.“Negative. I can’t even get a read on any of its systems. This means it’s most likely an old model, separate from the central network. You’ll have to figure out a way to open it yourselves.”
“I don’t think it’s on the local system either,” Aiden supplied, frowning at the hacking device the blond genius had given them. “I can see the back-up power supply for this floor, but nothing else.”
“Hmm… Then it’s probably mechanically operated. You’ll need a physical key or…”Nyle snorted.“An industrial-grade cutter which you don’t have either.”
“Maybe I can pick it?” Darren suggested as he studied the door. He couldn’t see a conventional keyhole though; instead, there were two sockets on each side of the steel monstrosity that he guessed were used to unlock and operate it. “I think I see the control points.”
“Can you describe them?”
“There’s two, one on each side of the door. They are built into its frame, about a meter above the floor, and are about as big as my fist,” Darren explained, trying to remember if he’d ever encountered a door with this kind of mechanism. He reached the conclusion that he hadn’t.
“That would be them, yes, but I have no idea where the keys could be…” Nyle made a rumbly noise of exasperation.“Darren, I think you might need to find a different way to get in. But, on the bright side, that confirms we were right about the vault’s location.”
Was there going to be another way to get in, though? This had been their best bet, and if there was a door of this scale here, then he doubted there was another entry point. Which was a problem, because unless they figured out a way to get the door open, they weren’t going into the vault today and needed to come back again, find the keys and only then proceed with their plan. While it sounded straightforward, it also greatly increased the risk of getting caught. The smallest mistake—hell, Mariam opening her mouth about Sammy and Danny’s sudden change in attitude—was all it would take for Marcus to notice something was amiss.
Darren cursed under his breath, feeling like a mouse trapped in one of those mazes with no exits. They were so close and yet they’d hit a roadblock.
“Nyle,”Aiden’s voice sounded in Darren’s ear, dragging him out of his bleak thoughts. Aiden wasn’t around, instead ambling down the aisle to the left and staring up at the ceiling.“Where are the loads from sector C-12 transported to?”
Darren thought to butt in and ask what Aiden was on about, but didn’t, because his mind picked that exact moment to point out how natural it felt to have Aiden here on this mission with him. How effortlessly Aiden had taken over the task of solving their current setback without the need for Darren to even ask for help.
“Gimme a sec! Hmm… This is a bit strange. It looks like the cargo is taken all the way to Storage Area N, on the other end of the warehouse. But…”Nyle trailed off, likely skimming through whatever he’d found.“I see records of only a third of our mystery cargo on averageactuallymaking it there. The rest is attributed to spillage and, listen to this,internal use. Care to guess what that might be?”
Taking a few steps forward, Aiden tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling again. His eyes were clearly following something, though Darren couldn’t quite see what from here. “Something to do with power?”
“Bingo! And by the way, Rick figured out what the abbreviation is. Modified liquid oxygen.”
