Cassia and Grit peeked out of the hallway leading back to the cell block. The door leading to the lobby had been locked from the inside, but Cassia had managed to convince Grit to drag the unconscious guard to the door to unlock it with his fingerprint. Then she’d also forced him to drag the guard back and lock him in the cell. She wasn’t sure why he’d grumbled about it so much. It was a sound strategy, but he’d seemed concerned about the guard’s safety. Cassia shook her head, and cracked the lobby door open further.
“Cassia, maybe we should hide out somewhere until we can talk to Tek,” Grit whispered from behind her. Cassia rolled her eyes. Somehow Grit’s emotions surrounding the purple woman were slowing him down. She’d have expected that from Kevin or Mel, but Grit was a surprise. Cassia ignored him and decided an aggressive approach would be best. The remaining guard was sitting casually at a desk, facing the door. Currently, he was doing something on his computer, but he would only need to glance up and he would spot the two of them. Cassia slowly let the door slide shut, then stood up.
“It’s go time,” she said to Grit, and she was out the door before he could utter any words of caution, or suggest waiting for the detective. There was something going on between them, she was sure of it, but she didn’t have time to figure it out now, considering she was striding across the open lobby.
“Hey, what’d she want?” the guard said absently as she approached. It wasn’t until Cassia was right next to him at the desk that he realized she wasn’t his partner. He managed to get out a surprised gasp before she slammed his head onto the desk and he slid out of the chair into a pile on the floor. Grit finally caught up to her.
“You like smashing heads, huh?” he said dryly. Cassia shrugged.
“It was the quickest way to get him out of the picture,” she answered. Grit started to reply, but she cut him off. “Grit, we can’t wait for Detective K’Nani. She’ll just put us back in that cell, no matter what you have going with her.”
Grit frowned at that, but didn’t seem to have any argument to offer. Cassia quickly circled around the desk and tapped at the computer.
“Well, Grit, we’re in luck,” she said. “Our friend here was requisitioning a ship of some sort, and it looks like he was having it delivered.”
“You’re going to steal another ship from the IPF?” Grit asked skeptically.
“If that’s what it takes,” Cassia said with a small sigh. Sometimes she couldn’t figure out the old guy’s sense of right and wrong. Or perhaps she just couldn’t tell when it would be activated. She reached down and unclipped the ID badge from the slumbering guard, hoping that the ships weren’t fingerprint activated like the doors were. She was about to step around the desk when she noticed writing on a sticky note attached to the bottom of the computer monitor. It simply read ‘Research, Level Two’.
“Grit, we’re going downstairs first,” she said, spotting an elevator to their left. Grit started to speak, or protest, she wasn’t sure, but she pulled him to the elevator. Unexpectedly, it opened with a ding right as they approached, and a small blonde woman in uniform stepped out. For a moment they all just stared at each other. Cassia moved first and shoved Grit into the elevator. She stabbed the button for the second level then jammed her finger on the close door button.
“Hey, who are you?” The blonde had finally realized something was wrong. Cassia ignored her as the door shut. The woman didn’t try to get in, but Cassia knew she would alert the building.
“What happened to stealing a ship?” Grit asked.
“The whole reason we even went to Earth-6 in the first place was to load up for finding the Weft and Warp,” Cassia said. “Well, I don’t know where that is, so the other part of that is finding information.” The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors dinged open.
“And this,” she continued, gesturing to the hallway beyond the elevator doors, “is where we find that information.” They stepped out, and peered both ways, but the hallway seemed to be empty. There was a small placard at the top of the wall that listed research to the right and evidence to the left. They followed the hallway until it bent to the left and led them to a pair of large glass double doors. The room in front of them contained a small bank of computers, with shelves full of boxes and file folders that stretched out farther than Cassia could’ve expected. She could feel the scholar in her jumping for joy. What would she give to study here for a while?
“It’s locked,” Grit said, snapping her out of the daydream. Cassia tried the door, but he was right. She recognized, now that she was focused on the present, that the room was only lit with emergency lighting.
“Are they at lunch or something?” she asked. Grit just shrugged.
“Time is different across universes,” she said simply. Cassia kicked herself. She knew that, she just wasn’t paying attention.
“Break it, big guy,” she said, trying to play off her ignorance. Grit looked shocked at her suggestion.
“You want me to just break it?” he asked. “Isn’t it going to be stronger than that?” Cassia shook her head with fake confidence.
“No. This is just a research division. All the good stuff is either upstairs, or below us. Or maybe in evidence. Either way, they aren’t expecting people to break in here.” Grit looked like he wanted to object, but then he sighed heavily and sidled up to the door. He examined it for a moment, then took a few steps back, lunged forward, and landed a vicious, booted kick right in between the two doors. With a crash, the latch busted through its casing and the doors fell inwards.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Well done,” Cassia said, impressed. The doors didn’t even look too damaged, especially if she left them open. Grit mumbled under his breath about less noise, but Cassia ignored it. She was in.
----------------------------------------
The minutes were flying by and Cassia still hadn’t found anything worthwhile. She’d set Grit on the task of searching the computer, even though she probably would’ve been faster. The reason was probably that she wanted to see if she could come across anything interesting, even while skimming for the Weft and the Warp. Cassia sighed. So far, even that minor goal had been unobtainable. Everything was sorted into boxes, or folders that were clipped shut. They were all labeled neatly, so Cassia could tell there was important information contained inside, but it would’ve taken too long to open each one. Already she was concerned about the amount of time they’d been in the research area.
“Grit, we should probably get going,” she called. It had been a moment since he’d grunted any updates in her direction. She’d reached the end of her row, and she reluctantly returned to the computer bank. Grit was hurrying in her direction as she emerged from the shelves of files.
“I think I’ve got something,” he said. “I could never really find anything under Weft and Warp. But I kept finding references to something called “Unverified”. I tried to find it on the computer but…” Cassia was already running back to the shelves. She quickly located the correct section, and began searching for a folder, running her finger along the labels as she went.
“Aha!” she exclaimed as she pulled out three large manila folders that were rubber banded together. “Grit, the IPF doesn’t even believe the Weft and Warp exist!” Cassia realized she was basically shouting at the man, but it was hard to tone down her excitement. She thumbed through some of the pages to verify it was what she was looking for.
“What do you mean?” Grit asked, confused. Cassia thought she faintly heard the elevator bell ding.
“I think we have company,” Cassia said, pulling Grit into the row with her so they couldn’t be seen through the glass doors. She carefully led him to the back of the shelves, where there was just enough space to squeeze between them and the wall.
“What I mean,” she whispered, “is that the Weft and Warp intel that the IPF has is deemed not credible. That’s why they have it in paper form, and basically in a miscellaneous folder. Ok, I’ll lead.” They had reached the farthest corner of the room, and Cassia now started tracking along the wall back towards the entrance. Looking through the shelves, she caught a glimpse of a couple women in uniform sitting down at the computer bank. Their uniforms were obviously IPF, but different than the ones Cassia had seen before. As she watched, the women chatted idly, then began to focus on their respective screens.
“Did you shut your computer down?” Cassia whispered over her shoulder to Grit. He nodded. Cassia turned back to watching the women, but she was impressed. She’d taken Grit for a simple, albeit mostly nice, soldier. Maybe he was a notch above that. After another minute of watching the women, she turned back to Grit.
“I don’t think that the IPF is looking for us,” she said. “Or, at least, they don’t know that we’re down here. It’s been almost ten minutes now, there’s no way they wouldn’t have checked here if they were searching for us.” Grit considered this.
“That woman we saw in the elevator,” he said. “She had to have seen that guard you knocked out.” Cassia frowned at this. He was right, the unconscious guard should have been obvious. Eventually, she shrugged.
“Well, these ladies obviously aren’t looking for us,” she decided. Then she stepped towards the front of the row.
“Follow my lead,” she said, then strode forward before Grit had a chance to reply. Fortunately, after a moment’s hesitation, he followed her as she approached the women at the computers. When she was still a good distance from them, she half turned back towards Grit.
“I can’t believe that idiot sent us down here on a fool’s errand,” she said angrily. Grit looked at her with wide eyes, but then quickly stepped to catch up to her.
“Look, it was probably an accident,” he said in a pleading tone, and Cassia again had to adjust her impression of his intelligence level. Cassia turned forward again. They had reached the computer table, and all of the women were looking up at them with various startled expressions.
“I’m done!” Cassia shouted. “I’ve had enough of just being an errand girl!” She stormed past the surprised women as Grit hustled to keep up with her.
“Don’t even start with me, Brian!” she called as she reached the doors. “I’m leaving this time.” She heard Grit offer a hurried apology for his distressed colleague and then they were both out in the hall and around the corner out of sight. Grit was laughing.
“Brian?” he asked. Cassia tried to glare at him, but couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Yeah, I really got into it, didn’t I?” she said as they cautiously continued down the hallway back to the elevator. When they reached it, Cassia paused.
“Do we just go back up?” she asked. “In theory, there’s a ship waiting for us to steal.”
“Like you said, if they were looking for us, they would’ve just come down here and found us,” Grit answered. “It doesn’t seem likely that they would instead just wait for us to come back up the elevator.” Cassia pushed the button in response. The elevator was already on their floor apparently, because the door opened immediately and they were shortly stepping out into the lobby on the main floor. The lobby was empty, so Cassia hustled Grit along and led them straight out the main entrance and into the parking lot. There was an old jumper parked on the curb. Cassia fished in her pocket and pulled out the guard’s key card she’d taken, and then swiped it across the door lock. There was a small beep and the door unlatched. Cassia pocketed the card and then gasped.
“What?” Grit asked, worried. Cassia looked at him, mouth agape.
“The guard,” she said. “He wasn’t there.” Grit was confused at first, but then realization dawned on his face.
“But why would he…?” Grit asked, trailing off. Cassia agreed with the unspoken question. There wasn’t any reason the guard wouldn’t have raised the alarm. Unless…
“It was her,” she said slowly, almost in awe. “She’s letting us do this.”
“Who?” Grit asked. Cassia thumbed through the file folders again, paying closer attention to the names of the reporting agents. Then she looked Grit straight in the eyes.
“Your girlfriend,” she said. “Detective Tek K’Nani.”