Chapter 14
"How many hours have we been doing this?" Lea asked.
"Too many. My eyes are about ready to fall out of my head," Cheetara replied.
"How many more hours do we have to go?" Lion-O wanted to know as he got up and went back behind his desk to check the timer, pausing the video playback as he did so. They had moved the couch out from the wall and projected the video onto it, using the couch for comfy seating in front of the wall.
"By the look on your face, it's going to be a long night," the cheetah commented on the lion as he shook his head.
"Time to freshen up the coffee and see if Snarf has anymore sandwiches to bring down," Lea said. She got up and picked up the wall phone, calling down to the kitchen.
"More food is on the way," the lioness smiled slightly.
"Good because for some reason I'm starving," Lion-O commented as he checked the coffee pot. Dumping the grounds into the trash can, he got a new filter, and a new coffee packet.
"Last one. Guess I had best restock," he sighed.
"Does that look odd to you?" Cheetara suddenly asked, not directing the question at anyone in particular.
"What look odd? What are we talking about?" Lea asked.
"Look at the video and look at the time stamp," the cheetah commented.
"Ok so the time stamp says five am and I'm looking at Cats coming in for their shift. What's odd about that?" Lion-O was confused.
"The shop doesn't run twenty-four hours like the Control Room. The shifts in the Control Room run seven am until three pm, three pm until eleven pm, and eleven pm to seven am. The two shift operation the in shop runs seven am to four pm and three pm to midnight. Why is there what appears to be a full shift in two hours before they're supposed to be?" The cheetah wanted to know.
"What's the date on the stamp? There were a couple of days last month where Panthro wanted everybody out of the shop by two o'clock so he could run some tests on the new generator system. The second shift didn't come in until five," Lea filled them in as she was being handed off the new sandwiches from Snarf.
"The date was three weeks ago," Cheetara told her.
"Ok that would not have fit into that time frame," the lioness shook her head. She then thanked Snarf for all his hard work and promised they wouldn't bug him anymore this evening.
"Let's go backwards a little," Lion-O messed with the controls. The day before seemed to be on time and the lion buzzed forward to discover that the day following the one that had been paused, was off too.
"The tape has been altered," he said.
"Who alters the tape but doesn't remove the footage of themselves committing a crime?" Lea asked.
"Someone who doesn't have access to the machine. All you have to do to change the time on the security cameras is change the time clock settings. Only a few people have access to that piece of equipment," Lion-O pointed out.
"Finally, it's getting interesting," Cheetara said. The phone rang and Lion-O answered it as the two ladies continued to watch who went near the jacks and who was near the time clock.
"Thank you, I'll pass the news along," Lion-O said before hanging up the phone.
"What are you passing along?" Lea asked.
"The Mutants panties are in a bunch and the report from the Evil Chasers on SG-17 is in. We need to call a meeting immediately," he told them.
To Be Continued…