Chapter XIII: Sealed Sector

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

I have been editing this darn chapter for about a week and a half now and I still can't get that last scene-section to not sound like a list in my head. "First we did this, then we did that, then we did the other thing-" etc etc. Apologies for that, but I just can't look at this chapter anymore and I wanna move on to try get this thing finished asap.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

Chloe fired another round of rifle-fire into the face of yet another monster before leaning back, still firing, and shouting back to one of the executives cowering next to me. "How did these things get in? I thought you said this place had defences and shit!"

"Defences you people blew a fucking hole in!" For a moment, the suited man seemed to actually grow a spine before wilting back to his cowering near-foetal position.

Chloe paused. "Fair point."

That seemed in danger of inflating the man again, so I put a hand on his shoulder and tried to look commiserating instead of just warning - who antagonises a woman with a gun? He seemed to get the message either way and went back to cowering. We followed Chloe and Copse as they pushed forward down another bland, corporate poster-clad corridor (Hang in there, Kitty!) of monsters, their own gunshots melding surprisingly well with the rumbling thunder of the turrets outside. The screams were still terrifying though.

Finally, we reached the mess-hall room that we'd blown a hole into, pausing at the doors. Copse waved some mad gesture at us, then paused, pursed his lips, and sighed. "I forgot you wouldn't know that one. Line up against the walls, either side." We did as he asked, the three armed people going closest to the doors while I, Joyce, and the two executives from the manufacturies who'd ended up coming with us stood behind them. Copse lifted a hand, all five fingers up, and silently counted down. When he reached zero, he pumped his now-fisted hand and the three gun-wielders kicked in the doors.

Howling screams answered them, and they answered those screams with gunfire. Bursts of light and sound were all we could see of the battle inside, waiting for the others to call us in or call a retreat.

We - well, Joyce and I, anyway - were paying avid attention to every sound, every flash of light and thunder. We both knew what we were waiting for. We were waiting for one of them to scream in pain. One of the people we cared about to be hurt.

Suddenly, the furore paused as one of the monstrous blades rocketed out of the room, carrying a monster with it and impaling it to the wall. In the silence, Chloe's voice gave a very satisfied sounding "Oh that's cool". Another flash of light prefaced two more of those monsters flying out and being added to the rapidly-more-macabre artwork being created across the corridor wall. Chloe was giggling with impunity. After the eighth monster was added, the sounds stopped for the shortest beat before Chloe's head poked out, delighted expression across her face as she pointed to the wall-piece. Her voice gleefully proclaimed, "Max, I'm an artist like you now!"

I grinned back at her, turning and pretending to consider the monstrous pile of viscera. For a moment, I see patterns in the blood, weird symbols and signs that make sense and nonsense both at once, but the moment passes and it's just gore I'm carefully ignoring again. "Hmm. Yes, I see hints of Degas, maybe a little Pollock."

"What did you just call me?"

I rolled my eyes, leaning my head back so I could look at her near-upside-down. "Pollock, Chloe. He was an artist from Earth, like, a couple hundred years ago. He did modern art."

"Modern art!?" Chloe put her hand to her chest, scattering a little blood over her suit as she gave me an almost caricature look of offence. "How very dare you? My work hella belongs with those great masters and shit, with their brush strokes and their... uh... canvases? Canvae? Canvasi? Wait, no, that's a B&B thing, isn't it?" She trailed off, frowning.

I just chuckled, looking at her fondly as I let her have this one. "Sure, Chloe. Canvases works."

We left Chloe's newly-started gallery and headed for the wall-hole. The gunfire rumbles had gotten louder and more thunderous the closer we got, and now they were like a storm, a stampede of bullets raining down on the metal flooring outside. It was mildly deafening, actually. Copse, looking back to check on Chloe's regained pile of parts, had to shout when he asked her if she was alright with carrying them all.

"It's fine, this shit is eas-"

The thunder had stopped. Chloe stuck a finger in one ear and wiggled it exaggeratedly. "-y. Easy. Is it clear? It's gotta be, right? I don't hear any of those fuckers screaming and it'd be hella stupid to stop mid-"

Something in the centre of the complex exploded, setting off some kind of chain reaction as more and more things inside went boom. Flames licked up the walls, some of which were melting in front of us while others were holed or just gone entirely. The area felt uncomfortably silent for a few brief seconds, the flickering of the fires the only sounds we could hear before the screams started again. Before we could stop them, the two executives dashed back inside, disappearing into the corridor and out of sight. Their terrified screams carried for quite a distance though.

As the gun-wielding people looked around, trying to find the monsters that were making the screams, a low chittering sound came from somewhere above us. With mounting dread, all of us looked up to find a horrific, mutated spider perched on the building staring hungrily down at us with innumerable black eyes. It was maybe fifteen feet tall, each fleshy leg a metre thick and twelve feet long, tipped with a wicked-sharp spike. There was a mess of eyes of different colours scattered over the front of its huge, swollen thorax, and below that were two blade-like teeth dripping with a viscous-looking goop.

In short, it was a giant monster spider.

I squeaked.

It took that as an invitation and attacked.

The group scattered, some going left, some going right, and the spider slammed into the spot we'd so hastily vacated with an audible clang. Huh. My brain absently wondered what part of the monster was hard enough to make that sound. Unless it has a bell in its ass.

The second thing my brain noticed is that spiders were freakishly fast. One of the legs whipped out to trip Copse and he barely rolled out of the way before a second leg tried to stab him. He loosed off a shot into its belly and the thing squealed in pain. He rolled back onto his feet and dashed out of its reach in a second as another leg whipped out and narrowly missed him.

The pincers chittered as the spider whirled around and launched itself at Chloe. My wife raised her gun, getting off only a couple of shots before it was on her, its massive body blocking my view of her. I couldn't hold in my terrified scream. I won't deny that my heart stopped in that instant. It was the most scared I'd ever been. The most helpless. I hated it.

Copse and David both let loose with their rifles into the thing's sides, each of them swearing loudly when their shots just pinged off its surprisingly tough chitinous hide. The thing spun and the front-most leg lashed out and tossed Copse with nary a thought. He landed with a thud and a loud groan of pain, rolling with the hit so he spun onto his back. Without getting back up, he fired off another shot that pinged uselessly off the spider-thing.

I forced myself not to rush in and sat in mute horror as the monster seemed perfectly happy to remain perched on top of my wife. If this were a movie, this would be the moment I got my suspiciously convenient power for monster-ass-kicking, but no. Instead, I had to watch as my wife... lifted a giant spider over her head with Kinesis.

Huh.

The spider flailed wildly above her, trying desperately to stab her with its rear stinger, but she held it so she was out of reach - apparently chitinous creatures aren't that flexible. She then tossed the thing like it tossed Copse, with utter ease; it bounced off the side of the building above us and landed upside-down and with a crash a few metres away from the hole. David took the opportunity to blast away at its underbelly, getting another squeal for his trouble. Oh, well, okay then. They've got this.

I hurried over to Joyce. "Come on!" I dragged her past the others, ducking under a randomly-swiping limb as it tried to stop us. We made it to the hole-door and crouched into the sides to watch the fighters work. They took a hit and run approach, dashing in and loosing off a few bullets before dodging back from the spider's unrelenting return-attacks. One of the others repeated the pattern on the other side. Bit by bit, pieces of chitin were blasted off the thing, leaving it more wounded and more open to attack as the battle stretched on. The Spider didn't seem overly bothered by this, continuing to fight on with the same gusto despite the missing bits and holes in its outer layers.

I heard another explosion from somewhere in the complex, accompanied by a symphony of screams and shouting. I think the monsters found the executives. I felt sorry for them for a moment, but it was a distant feeling. Like sitting on your hand until it doesn't feel like your hand anymore.

The explosion seemed to distract the creature for a moment, which was enough for David to hobble a little further away towards the outer-perimeter gap. The others followed him, which drew the spider's attention back to them. Before they could dart out of reach, the spider leaped. Yep. Spiders can jump. And that might've been the scariest part of this entire endeavour.

As it landed, David screamed. One of those sharp, blade-like tips had gone through his leg. My eyes narrowed in on the wound. Then, everything went red. Symbols crawled over the floor and the people like angry, bloody beetles. My heart pounded in my ears as I stared at them, shifting and writhing and undulating between shapes that made no sense, then did, then didn't, then did then didn'tthendidthendidn'tthen- There was something there. Watching. Waiting. Hungering. It knew we were here and it hated us. Hated us so, so much. I chuckled under my breath, but I didn't get the joke. Dog. Something was... separate. Something was new. Something was doing this to us. To me. I had to make it whole. to turn it off. Make it whole. turn it off. Make it-

Chloe laughed and the symbols vanished. I looked up to find her, well, kicking the crap out of the spider's rearmost body-bit. The thing kept squealing, agony and anger blending together the longer it went on. As the sac finally crumpled, Chloe pushed back off it, using her Kinesis to push the monster further away and into the range of Copse and David, who emptied their guns into the bloody remnant of the monster's body.

With a final, rattling gurgle, it gave in. The legs fumbled for a second, trying to force itself up, then broke and what little was left of the torso slammed into the ground. After a silent moment, the legs began to curl around it. Then it was still.

Then, it exploded.

We all sat, lay, and stood in silence, feeling the truly revoltingly liquid spider-guts running down us. Chloe groaned. "Oh fuck, that is so hella gross! Ew, ew, ew-" She began to almost frantically wipe away at herself, accomplishing little more than smearing the guts further across her suit.

The rest of us exchanged looks, then almost as one, started to laugh.

The blue glow of the Kinesis modules shone pleasantly over the blood-strewn walls as we carried the parts down another empty corridor. I wasn't really paying much attention beyond making sure I was following whoever owned the back that happened to be in front of me. My mind was still on that... that episode. What the hell was that? I couldn't feel it anymore, but I could remember how it felt to be watched so intensely, so all-consumingly. Am I going mad? Have I gone mad?

No. No, I can't have. Not now. We need to live. We need to get out. Me and Chloe and all the others. I can break down once we're free, I decided, but not before. I'd done so twice now, but I couldn't be a burden to the group. Not now things seemed to be getting more... dangerous.

"Fuck!" Chloe swore as the square stack of parts knocked into one of the walls. The blue flickered for a second as she stumbled trying to straighten the load. She managed to get it righted again, then stopped, wiggled her foot experimentally, and groaned in teen-worthy angst again. "The fucking spider shit is in my shoe! In my fucking shoe!" She turned to Joyce. "In my shoe!"

Joyce simply smirked. "You know Chloe, you're sounding almost like Victoria now. Talkin' about your footwear all the time."

Chloe stared at her, aghast. "Take that back!" She probably intended it to sound threatening, but the upturn in pitch meant it sounded just like the whine it was. "Mom! Take that back!"

Joyce just shrugged. "I call it like I see it, Chloe. And you've even got the useless threats down pat, if what Max tells me about the girl is still true."

"It is," I chipped in happily. "She's not changed a bit."

Chloe turned her glare to me. "Not helping, Maxie."

"Not trying to." I grinned. "Consider it payback for the short joke. Sweet, sweet revenge is mine!"

She kept trying to glare at me, but I could see the hints of a smile poking through between her spotty efforts to repress it. "Well, I-" She started, before everything went black. "I can't see! Max! I'm blind! I think the crap from that spider got in my eye!"

She sounded so utterly panicked. I felt real bad for the grin I couldn't quite suppress as I drawled. "None of us can see, Chloe. The power went out."

"Oh." She said, sheepishly.

The black was replaced by a low, light reddish-orange glow as the emergency lighting came on.

I raised an eyebrow as I smirked over at Chloe. She just shuffled her foot awkwardly, still blushing. I resisted the urge to chuckle and turned to Copse and David. "What do you think caused that?"

Copse twisted his body, then hopped tentatively in place. He frowned. Oh. That's a something bad frown. "The main generator seems to be offline. There's a slight delay to the pullback on the gravity plating, meaning it's only running on residual charge." He looked up. "That's bad, in case you didn't know."

Chloe seemed to break from her nervous shuffle and mimicked Copse's jump. "Bad? That's a fucking understatement. If we don't get that generator back online, we're all dead. Fuck the gravity, that shit isn't important. It also powers Life support, remember?"

Oh, shit.

"Um, okay." I ran a hand through my hair, trying desperately to think. "Where's the generator, then?"

"Back in the EarthGov base."

Oh, double shit.

The promenade outside the Command Tower was... well. We stared at it, completely baffled. In only a few short hours, the rest of the station had gone almost completely to hell. This place, the place where we'd started all of this, was completely the opposite. Untouched.

"How is..."

Chloe's quiet, disbelieving question seemed wrong, disturbing this quiet piece of the way things used to be. With the door Kate had guided us through somewhere behind us, we stopped at the main Command Tower entry and tried to open it. After a few seconds of incomprehensible techno-babble, she cursed. "It's not working! Fucking lockdown's keeping us out."

"Lockdown?" I frowned. "What lockdown?"

Chloe frowned at me. "Jetson's Code Black, remember? It locks down the Command Tower and a bunch of subsystems that make shit hella less easy for us." Her frown deepened. "Didn't we go through all this shit with Temba?"

I shrugged. "You mentioned it, but to be honest I wasn't really listening. I mostly just pretended I knew what the heck you were talking about."

She chuckled fondly at me, her eyes softening. After a few moments of us staring at each other like the love-sick fools we always were, David gave a rough cough. "Uh, if we can't get in this way, we'll have to find a new route inside."

We all paused for a second.

"Uh, how, exactly? It'd be a pretty crappy lockdown if it only locked the front door." I looked around at the others, hoping the EarthGov people would have an idea.

"Well," Chloe offered, "If Jetson locked the place down, he'd probably have a way to get through if he needed to, right?"

"EarthGov does like it's highly hypocritical back-doors." Copse agreed. "It wouldn't surprise me if Jetson had an override for emergencies."

"Isn't the whole point of the Code Black to keep control in an emergency?" I raised an eyebrow.

Copse smirked. "An emergency in an emergency, then."

"Well, okay." I paused. "Where we would find that override, then?"

Copse shrugged. "Where do you think you'd find an autocratic overseer's vaguely illegal secret passcode to every door sealed for emergency reasons to protect innocent civilians?"

We all exchanged slightly baffled looks. Copse rolled his eyes. "His private quarters, of course. Shit, people. Don't you know anything?"

Jetson's apartment was oddly simple-looking, from the outside. I was expecting something more ostentatious from the head of EarthGov on the station. Then again, I mentally amended, the three-ems were the ones who actually owned the station. EarthGov might have authority, but authority doesn't pay for golden faucets and white leather couches.

Copse and Chloe both get up from where they'd been crouched at Jetson's door-lock, poking at whatever incomprehensible locking tech was hidden in the wall there. "I think we got it?"

"You think?"

"Yeah. We either disabled all the security systems or just put them on a maintenance block." She shrugged. "If we don't, then it's not like we'll be alive to care. Plus, with the power out everywhere else, whatever emergency generator this guy is using has to power everything, so it should be... not-quite-fatal if we do set any of his defence shit off."

"Great." I gulped. "This is gonna go great."

Chloe swaggered over to me and draped herself over my shoulders. "Relax, Maxie. It'll be fine. Don't you have any faith in me?"

"Always," I answered automatically. I blushed and carefully ignored the rather amused looks the rest of them were giving me. Chloe just leant in and planted a wet kiss on my cheek. I coughed awkwardly, then pushed through the peanut gallery and into Jetson's apartment.

The room inside was, surprisingly, just as simple-looking as the outside. A plain lounge set, couch and two chairs, dominated the centre of the open space. The far wall had a large screen, with a door to either side of it. To the right was a small kitchenette covered uncomfortably thoroughly in alcohol bottles. The left wall had a few tables pushed up against it and a large desk facing away from it. Every surface there was covered in things - this was the office of a person who actually worked for a living. Copse split off to the desks with a loud "Huh. Did not expect this from an EarthGov high-up."

Chloe went straight over to the big screen and started poking at the wiring behind it. Welp. We've lost Chloe for the moment. I turned to Joyce and David. "Do you two have any ideas?"

David hmmed. "Standard EarthGov clearance, like the one I got, means you get a secure safe hidden somewhere in your home for any document storage."

"So, look for a hidden safe?" I tilted my head and scanned the room. "How, uh, how do we do that, exactly? You know, given that it's... hidden."

Despite my awkward ramble, David just shrugged. "Keep alert, pay attention to your surroundings, and start ripping up carpet."

I looked around pointedly at the carpet-bereft room. David shrugged again. He was blatantly trying to hide a smile as he offhandedly explained. "It's a metaphor."

I grinned at him. "Are you... Did you just make a joke?"

He chuckled, which was always nice to hear. Not that it was a particularly pleasant chuckle or anything - Joyce had just had to work for years to get him to actually laugh at our jokes. We were always a little too hip and happening and down with the homies for his humour to get our finely crafted wit. That's what Chloe says, anyway. Personally, I always thought that EarthGov had made him too sad for jokes. Until Chloe and Joyce had turned things around for him. He'd still never made a joke until today. It wasn't a very good one, but still! Points for effort, right?

As I ran off, yelling to Chloe about how miracles do happen, the two Price-Madsens gave me a bemused look and started poking around the room. Their loss. Chloe and I enjoyed ragging amiably on David to ourselves for a few minutes before winding down and getting on with things.

It was me who found something interesting first, surprisingly. I thought Copse would get something first, being in the office and all, but he was just poking uselessly through endless paperwork tablets. I called Chloe over from her TV examination and showed her the set of documentation I'd found on a tablet in a box by the trash disposal shaft. "Have you seen this? Apparently, the Prescotts helped fund some things in the EarthGov Base - two barracks, a... 'presentation hall', and something called an ossuary for the morgue."

"An ossuary is a room that stores bones." Chloe responded, taking the tablet from me and poking through the files. "Huh. Grinling-Wren Construction. They weren't even close to the lowest bid tendered. Looks like the Prescotts got to pick the contractor too. Only reason EarthGov wouldn't take the cheapest option is that someone owed a favour."

I blinked in shock at her. "Wowzers. How the heck do you even know that?"

She looked at me in puzzlement for a second, then grinned. "Don't you remember that bar on that asteroid? Suzies? We went for a tour around the one under it."

Her near-scandalous eyebrow waggle tipped me off that this was a raunchy story, but... I had nothing. Not a flicker of a memory came to me. I blinked again. Still shocked, but this time at myself. "No... I don't remember that at all."

Chloe chuckled awkwardly. "You don't remember? Damn. See if I take you to the bone zone again." I blinked at her for a few silent seconds until she slumped. "Fuck. That pun flopped hella hard, huh?"

From somewhere behind us in the room, David's voice dryly said "You should probably get back to work and stop makin' terrible jokes."

Chloe winked at me, then leaned past to yell "I know where you sleep, David! And that you make terrible jokes too!"

David promptly let out another irritable grumble-litany against kids these days, the establishment, and the perils of poor paperwork performance. He kept at it until Joyce elbowed him in the side. He just as promptly shut up and got back to whatever he was doing.

Chloe couldn't suppress her amused little laugh; her face twitched and contorted as she tried to keep the burgeoning smile contained and failed dismally. It was a nice sight. A very nice sight.

Still. We got back to it.

I left Joyce and David to the Kitchenette and pushed open one of the side-doors next to the screen. Ah. This was where the expense had not been even slightly spared. The bed was about ten-feet squared and covered in an array of plush, expensive-looking pillows and blankets. The thread count in this room alone must be higher than my entire closet - and dog, did I regret listening to Victoria that one time she explained what that actually meant. The walls were covered in what looked like actual oil paintings - a rarity outside the most upscale museums and homes of the obnoxiously wealthy. We hadn't even been able to make oil paints for nearly two centuries, nevermind find people to actually make paintings with them. Thus, the old ones had become worth fortunes.

The richly upholstered couch along one wall was another wealth-exuding installation, as were the apparently genuine wood table pushed up against one wall and the dozen or so antique-looking plates displayed on racks and small lecterns across it. They blended in well with the carelessly discarded metal dishware abandoned in the middle of the table - still with food on, as if the Director was distracted during a meal that he'd then forgotten. What had he been working so intently on?

Copse whistled behind me and I spun to see him walk through the door, gazing with surprisingly educated appreciation at the artwork across the walls. "Damn." He let off another rattling gout of what I still thought might be Spanish. "The man had taste. Is that a Degas?"

I nodded. "I've only seen one in my art classes, but yeah. I think it is."

"Damn," He said again. And meant it. "He was either collecting for years or some smugglers owed him big. How old was the guy?"

I shrugged. "Fourties or fifties. Why?"

"Like I said, he'd have to have been collecting for years. He's pretty young to have amassed all these himself. Eh," He shrugged. "Hardly matters. The guy's dead, so it's not like it matters if he did something illegal."

I looked at him. "That's an... interesting view for an EarthGov officer to take."

He just grinned. "I did tell you I was a pretty bad EarthGov officer."

Touche. I just nodded and went back to looking at the room. Probably awkward, but I didn't notice until I was already searching and by that point Copse had gone back to the office again. I was slightly at a loss as to what to look through. There were no tablets in here, no computer-docks. Nothing...

Although... there was a wall full of expensive, one-of-a-kind paintings...

I reached up and tried to pull one off the wall.

Man, these things were heavier than they looked. I promptly dropped the ridiculously cumbersome frame on my foot and screamed in pain. "Aaa- Fu- Frick!"

In a flash, the three gun-wielders were in the room and frantically pointing the aforementioned guns in various directions until they realised it was a false alarm and looked confusedly at me. "What... what happened? Why'd'ya scream, Maxie?" Ooof. Another Chloe-sounds-'hella'-like-Joyce moment. What an adorable distraction from the pain still going on in my foot. Okay, no. Not that much of a distraction. Ow.

I glared at her, waving vaguely down at the painting on the ground. I blinked at it, recognising the pastel-gouache of a seaside town from my art studies. Oh dog. I just took a de Arriba to the knee...

Chloe swept forward into the room, plucking me up and dumping me on the dead guy's bed. She dropped to her knees and poked at something on my injured leg, sending a lance of pain up it. "Are you okay?"

"Ow!" I turned an irritated stare at Chloe, who was now looking slightly chagrined at the poke. I didn't let it make me too sympathetic. She still poked a wound. "I was, before you poked my injured leg!"

She smirked. "Aww, babe. Did I hurt your war wound"

"The War wound! This is the end! The end!" We both immediately chorused, breaking down into laughter. The others looked at us like we were insane. Which, wowzers, we quite possibly could be. But hey, you've got to keep your spirits up in the end of the world, right?

David walked over to us, and we noted how quiet the action was. The clicking of his cane on the metal floors of the station had been so routine we'd barely noticed it. On the rugs and carpets scattered over the floor in here, his cane barely made a sound. Until suddenly, it did.

A loud thunk-click sound echoed through the room and we all went fucking silent. Except for David. David swore, loudly. A beat passed. More silence. Then, something began to whirr and activate. Two of the paintings, one of a lighthouse standing at the edge of a cliff backed by a violent storm, the other a set of rusted tracks and discarded technology piled up as the green of the forest began to reclaim it, slowly slid apart and revealed a safe.

Though honestly, calling this thing a safe was an insult to bank vaults and high-security containment everywhere. I'd seen Max-Sec EarthGov prisons on Mercury that were less fortified than this monstrosity in the wall was. It was covered in cogs and connectors and locks and lazers and all manner of technology that I couldn't even begin to identify.

Chloe, on the other hand, very much could. And proceeded to, loudly and enthusiastically. "Oh fuck, that's a technolon-30-o-3! I didn't even think they'd cracked the NP-shit on the last one yet! And is that a deburr-defence one-sixty?" She immediately darted forward, knocking my injured bloody (well, not actually bloody but in very much serious pain) leg aside as she went. I grit my teeth and bit back the shriek of pain.

Chloe still noticed, whirling away from the fascinating technology and dashing back over to me to babble concernedly over me. That gave room for Copse and Joyce to move in, both of whom seemed oddly perceptive regarding the safe's security. Joyce's hand seemed to explore the surface with awareness, moving around certain things and over others. She definitely knew something about this.

Copse watched the safe. He stood a little behind Joyce and he just watched. Watched as she poked at things and twisted others. She turned a z-plotter and turned three dials, opened a hatch to reveal a lever that she didn't pull, clicked her fingers twice in front of a receiver I almost didn't notice, then turned a complicated set of squares and circles and non-geometric shapes until a panel opened to reveal a number pad and a six-digit code LED display.

"Huh."

Joyce stepped back and rubbed her hands together in satisfaction. We all looked at her. She shrugged. "I used to work cleanin' rich people's apartments after I graduated. They'd open their safes to pay me all the time." Another shrug. "I guess I just picked things up. That one had a lot of things I recognised."

"Huh." I looked over at the safe again; the little code-panel glowed enticingly. "Do you know anything about hacking security codes?" I asked, hopefully.

Of course, Joyce shook her head. Couldn't be that easy, could it? "I'm afraid not, sorry."

Shoot.

"Um, okay." I tried to think quickly, wondering what the heck we were going to do now. "Anyone else?"

More head shakes.

Shoot.

"So, um. Okay, maybe he wrote it down somewhere? Did anyone find anything like that in the other room?" I looked around at the others, David and Joyce both shook their heads, Chloe shrugged (which I took to mean no). I turned around to ask Copse and found him standing by the open safe. "What did you do?" I gaped at the man, just standing there innocently.

He just blinked slowly at me. One. two. Three. Then- "I just got lucky, I suppose."

"You got lucky?" I looked at him, then the safe, then him again. Some luck. "Damn."

He chuckled and wandered back over to the safe, pulling it open. "Oh. That's... not a pass-key."

We all took the opportunity to join him, peering around him like the teen heroes in a Carpenter horror movie trying to spy on the killer. "Oh."

"Oh my."

"Is that..?"

"Our way in?" Chloe grinned. "Oh yeah."