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Nothing. Not even the red flash of the reader rejecting it.
“Shit,” she curses. The power’s probably cut.
She could try to mess with the circuit breakers outside, but she’s only done it successfully once, and after a spark flew near her face, she vowed never to do it again.
At least the drive here was quick. She didn’t wastethatmuch time on a fruitless journey.
But Audrey stares at the keycard angrily, as if the inanimate object is the true source of her frustration.
Then she realizes she was holding the damn thing the wrong way.
She tries it again, holding her breath, and the scanner beeps and turns green.
The front doorclicks.
“Holy shit,” she breathes quietly, pulling the door open as gently as she can. She’s embraced almost entirely by darkness as the door shuts behind her.
The alarm in the corner has its green light on, but that’s the only source of light she has.
The building still has power, but the alarm isn’t active.
It doesn’t make sense.
She pulls her hood over her head and hurries down the hallway with her head down, eyes focused on the carpet. When the moonlight from the door fades away and she’s in pitch-black darkness, she reluctantly turns on her phone’s flashlight.
She has to be quick.There’s no one in here as far as she knows, but there’s no reason for her to stay any longer than a few minutes.
Take the notes, get out.
Did they really not set the alarm?she wonders. There are millions of dollars’ worth of equipment in the rooms, along withhighlyclassified information.
After a few more hurried steps, she stops at her old research room.
She shines her cell phone’s light through the little rectangular window in the door, peeking through to see.
Nothing seems amiss. It doesn’t look emptied yet, which gives her a surge of hope.
Her notes could still be there.
But the next test is the door.
Just because the keycard works for the front door doesn’t mean that it will work for this room. The odds are extremely low that Tabitha wouldn’t have had the coding for the lock changed the minute Audrey quit.
Still…she’s made it this far.
Adrenaline pricks at her spine, and she’s giddy as her heart beats in her chest.
With the phone light shining on the reader, she swipes her card, and the door unlocks with aclick.
Yes!
She exhales quietly, slowly pulling open the door to her beloved research area.
She didn’t realize how much she missed it until now. She made it her own, as much as Tabitha would let her. The floral file organizer still sits on the highest shelf closest to her, and her two microscopes are pushed back against the wall next to it. Her research desk is still organized, with a framed picture of Pearl on the end of it.
Her coworkers gifted her a custom nameplate that saysAubrey S, which sits next to the picture of her cat.
The lab smells as it always does—clean, with the slightest tinge of bleach.
