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“Exactly. You can’t be seen by the fourth security guard, and he can’t suspect that anything’s wrong, or a ton of backup will come down on you. Don’t make a noise knocking out the other three and get them out of sight, and he won’t have any idea something’s wrong until the guard rotation in an hour.”
I eyed the entrance, which a man was striding by right now. “Which one is off-limits?”
“He’s the lead, so he should have a golden patch on his left sleeve,” Blaze instructed.
Thirty seconds later, another man rounded the corner, a rifle in his hands. I spotted the gold patch immediately. He surveyed the entire area with a keen eye. We’d definitely need to be extra careful with leaving evidence, as this man would spot any discrepancies.
“When he passes, you have four minutes max to deal with the other guards and get inside the door.” Blaze’s voice became even harder as he gave careful instructions. “Dess, I showed you how to use the keypad cracker. The rest of you, work to disable the guards and hide the bodies. Hide them well.”
Four minutes. I could do this in four minutes. When I’d practiced with the cracker on various doors around the city for practice, it’d never taken more than a minute to find the right combination. But Blaze had warned me that this one would likely take longer, and we didn’t want to cut it too close. I only had one shot. If I pulled it off before it was done decrypting, it could set off the alarms in the building.
The second the lead guard turned the corner out of view, the next guard had come into sight. Julius leapt forward silently, capturing the weapon first, then muffling the man’s gasp and knocking him out with a jab of a syringe. Maybe the same stuff the crew had used on me when they’d first taken me home. He pulled the man toward the sculpture where he’d restrain and more carefully hide him, and Talon moved forward to deal with the next guard.
The second the guard was unconscious, I bolted toward the metal front door, yanking the keypad cracker from its spot on my belt. With a glance at the lock, I stuck the device to the base of it and pressed the necessary buttons. It flashed, and the orange light began blinking, showing that it was scanning for possible combinations.
I looked toward where the rest of the crew stood by the modern sculpture, waiting for the next man on duty to come into sight. The seconds slipped by, and the steady rhythm of guard’s footsteps reached my ears.
The lock cracker was still blinking. I tried to tune out the anxious twisting of my stomach. “What are we doing the second we get inside?” I whispered into my mic as I heard the faint scuffling of Talon effectively incapacitating the other guard.
“Go directly to the right, staying as close to the wall as you can and then keep going in that direction until you reach the stairwell door,” Blaze replied in my ear. “The automatic lights will alert security if you go forward. You’ll need to get to the employee’s stairwell at the side of the building.”
“Got it,” I whispered. One more guard left. Well, that and the damned tracker. I stared at it, willing it to switch to green, but it just kept blinking that orange dot at me.
Julius had gotten into place to take down the third guard. Talon was still concealing the second. Garrison slunk over to stand at my shoulder like a guard dog, ready to bolt inside with the rest of us the second we could.
“We have time,” he murmured into my ear, taking in my stance.
But we didn’t. If this stupid box of circuitry didn’t perform fast enough, the entire mission would be a bust before it’d even started.
The third guard’s footfalls sounded. Julius was on him in an instant. Talon joined us at the door, Julius following seconds later. The fucking light was still orange.
“Blaze,” I hissed. “It’s almost time for the lead guard, and the cracker hasn’t—”
The light blinked green, and the lock clicked open. At the same moment, I heard the lead guard approaching. He hadn’t turned the corner yet, but we had the space of a few heartbeats to get out of sight.
I yanked the device from the door, shoved it open, and flung myself inside and to the right, just as Blaze had said. The others had heard his instructions too. We all flattened ourselves against the wall in the sudden, thicker darkness that had no streetlamp glow tempering it.
The door shut with a faint tap. I held my breath, braced for thudding footsteps and an angry shout.
Nothing came. More seconds ticked by with the pounding of my heart. The lead guard must have walked right by with no inkling that anything was wrong.
Next to me, Garrison gave me a gentle nudge. I nodded even though he couldn’t see me and started sidling on down the righthand hall.
I couldn’t make out any of the technology that made this place so special in the pitch black we’d found ourselves in, but I could hear it. An electronic hum droned through the air as if from all around us. It sent a shiver down my spine.
The seemingly endless corridor finally brought us to a push-style door. A dim light on the other side showed a narrow stairwell.
“We’ve reached the stairs,” Julius murmured to Blaze under his breath.
I could almost hear Blaze nod. “Go up. There aren’t many other guards until you get to the top floor, and the ones who are on the lower floors aren’t likely to be on the stairs. If you do run into anyone… you know how to handle them.”
Julius had another syringe ready in his hand. Garrison brandished a stun gun. I flexed my fingers, mentally rehearsing the move Noelle had taught me that could briefly knock out a man if you applied the right amount of pressure on just the right spot by his neck.
We slipped up the stairs one after the other, giving the doors we passed on the second and third floor a cautious glance before hurrying by. Several steps down from the fourth landing, we paused again.
“We’re just about at the top,” Julius reported quietly. “What are we facing up here?”
“I couldn’t find out all that much specific detail, unfortunately,” Blaze said. “But since the control room is up there, it’s where the most security presence is concentrated. Avoid any loud sounds and try not to touch anything I don’t tell you to. The control center is in the middle of that floor, with data banks all around it. Make your way to it as quickly as you can, and any guards you need to deal with, do your best to keep them out of sight afterward.”
