Chapter 8 #2
“I, uhh… might run to the gas station or something for a bite to eat—”
“Already covered. Dalton tends to overcook. There are leftovers in the fridge. Help yourself.” Isaac pointed across the way to the kitchen.
“Oh.” Andrew stopped his backward momentum with a pleased smile. “Thanks.”
Isaac followed him, partially because he too was due for a bite, but also because he knew Andrew was keeping a keen eye on his surroundings and the path to the kitchen would lead him right past—
“Oh my God.” Andrew came to a skidding halt when he saw the glass case around the corner. “Is this what Dalton mentioned? That isn’t a comic. It’s The Shadow Annual from 1942!”
Despite the otherwise mundaneness of the building, a place of honor had been set aside for Isaac’s pristine copy of the old pulp magazine.
“No wonder you keep it under glass.” Andrew approached the case with the proper gait and reverence. “In this kind of condition, it’d be worth… I can’t even imagine what this is worth. You must have paid—” he cut off as soon as he glanced at Isaac. “You stole it, didn’t you?”
“Now, Andrew, before you assume I took that off some poor devoted geek-boy who’d had it passed down for generations from his grandfather, it was at an estate auction.”
“You actually bought it?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny…” he trailed off with a grin.
Andrew laughed, awkward middle school dance nerves assuaged. “The class I tutored Dalton in? I did my final project on The Shadow.”
“For Art History?”
“Why not? My dad used to play me recordings of the radio show when I didn’t want a normal bedtime story. Steve wasn’t as big of a fan.”
“Aren’t gruesome murder mysteries a tad much for a young boy?”
“Mom wasn’t too happy when she found out, but I loved it, even when I had nightmares.” With another chuckle and longing look at the enshrined magazine, Andrew continued into the kitchen.
He proceeded to extract every container of leftovers from the fridge, before looking them over guiltily as if asking permission. Isaac snatched the one he wanted for himself, and then spread his hand over the others to indicate Andrew could knock himself out.
“I always tried to figure out the mysteries before the Shadow did,” Andrew said, beginning to stir the contents he’d chosen for his meal and getting the containers into the microwave.
“I loved all the fantastical elements, his powers that were mostly really subtle, so he also had to be a good detective. I was more inspired to join the force because of him than Steve or Dad.”
“Must have been hard giving it up,” Isaac said.
Andrew gave him a measuring look, like he expected him to be teasing, but Isaac kept his expression neutral to prove he wasn’t.
“I really didn’t choose security to spite you.”
Andrew laughed again. “I know. Maybe sometimes the real reason I get so pissed at you is because you’re so good at something that I wanted for myself.
Security can have its own mystery to it, like what we’re working on now.
I mean, I never do things like this—planning a fake break-in—but it is exciting. Feels a little like an old noir story.”
“Complete with homme fatale?” Isaac tilted closer.
“Maybe,” Andrew bantered back.
The beep of the microwave interrupted, and Andrew retrieved his now steaming containers while Isaac replaced them with his.
“Expecting some dramatic treachery, Andrew?”
“I don’t want to. But I guess it’s human nature.”
“To expect betrayal or to enact it?”
“Depends on motivation. When there’s nothing worth wanting but something for yourself, it’s hard to see beyond being selfish. But when you have something worth fighting for,” Andrew smiled like he had Isaac all figured out with the arrival of Dalton in his life, “your perspective changes.”
“What people want changes. Doesn’t make us any less selfish.”
“Maybe, but the bad guy isn’t always black and white, not even for the Shadow.” Andrew continued smiling around his first few bites, chuckling and finally quoting in a hilarious parody of a deep announcer voice, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”
Isaac played along, less ridiculous but still deep and rumbling as he finished, “The Shadow knows.”
Andrew giggled, lighting up like a dream, so much younger than he usually allowed himself to appear. “Do you ever take it out?”
“That’s a bold question.”
“The book.”
“I know. Still bold.” Isaac ignored the intermittent beeps as his leftovers signaled their end too. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I wouldn’t!”
“I do, however, have a copy worth absolutely nothing when I want to remind myself of the stories.” Isaac first claimed his food, and then opened his junk drawer to take out a beat-up old copy of the same magazine that he’d found at a comic shop and paid a whopping $5 for.
Half the front cover was missing, and the pages were all faded, but it was readable.
He handed the copy to Andrew, and despite its roughened state, Andrew excitedly started paging through it as soon as they moved to the kitchen table, like it was some glorious prize.
Watching him, amused by every snicker and gasp as Andrew read, Isaac tried not to think about how, despite all their romps together, he’d finally bought Andrew dinner.
Then suddenly Andrew stopped.
“What?”
“Are my T-shirt and sweats here?”
Isaac almost dissolved into laughter when Luke appeared in the doorway.
“Are you going to enjoy your date all night or are we hitting the road?”
Date. They both took a moment to recover from that.
“Sorry.” Andrew set the book aside with a shamefaced shrug. They’d finished eating a while ago, but somehow, Isaac had lost track of time.
“Just making sure our new recruit doesn’t faint on the job,” Isaac said. “Let’s get going.”
“There’s one thing you left out of the plan,” Andrew said on their way out the door. “The original thief didn’t leave any evidence of how they got in. So, how are we going to?”
Luke chortled, while Isaac flashed a grin.
“You’ll see.”
ANDREW
Timing was everything, especially when avoiding a camera above an entrance into a building that should have been one of the most secure places in the city.
They had seconds to get to the door, break the lock, and get inside, and it was all up to Ford, who’d promised, given the type of door, that he knew how to breach the defenses in moments.
“There’s only one entrance with a rotating camera. Other cameras might have caught the door opening, so this has to be the way the thief used. And I think I know how they didn’t trip any alarms.”
It was the ‘think’ part that worried Andrew, but he trusted Ford, more so with this than with anything else.
“Twenty seconds. Starting… now!” Ford dashed across the alleyway to their entrance of choice, and Andrew followed, with Luke right behind him.
They were not as inconspicuous as a single thief would be, even in the dark, all in black, but the smug smile Ford graced Andrew with as they reached their destination was a comfort.
Until it couldn’t be anything but annoying when the high-tech tool Andrew expected Ford to pull out was nothing more than a can of compressed air.
After spraying the air through the lock, the sensor blinked from red to green, admitting them into the building before the camera could return their direction.
No alarms. No forced entry.
But it was just so...
“Amateur?” Ford answered his incredulous expression. “I agree. Vallancourt needs to upgrade her egress doors to—”
“Electro-magnetic, I know,” Andrew said.
He knew the tricks too. He just hadn’t expected the answer for this entry to be so simple.
The passive infrared sensors on the inside of the door had reacted to the compressed air the same way they would if a person on the other side was trying to get out, a safety precaution, and any evidence left behind would swiftly evaporate.
The thief must have done the exact same thing.
Inside, the normal elevators weren’t an option.
That would be far too suspicious, but there was a freight elevator outside the view of security.
They just needed to reach it, take it up, exit without the guards noticing them, and make it across the floor to Dalton’s lab.
With the blueprints and security guard schedule, it should be easy.
Assuming the mystery thief had done the same with similar intel, gloves would have prevented fingerprints but didn't explain the lack of fibers. Latex gloves wouldn't leave fibers, but what about the rest of their clothes?
Andrew tried to stay focused on his own pending ‘heist’. “I just have to think of this like a Metal Gear Solid VR Mission,” he muttered, waiting for Ford’s signal to move down the next corridor.
“Video games, Andrew?” Ford teased with a derisive cluck of his tongue.
“You’d love this one, Ford. I’ll have to show you sometime.”
“Asking for another date?” He smirked, looking practically ethereal in the dim lighting of Avalon after hours.
Did he want a date? Was this a date?
“Can you stow the moon eyes, lover boys?” Luke growled. “We’ve got company.”
A guard had stepped into view at the end of the hallway. A simple glance to the right would give him a clean line of sight to all three of them.
But he wasn’t part of the schedule. They were waiting for the guard scheduled to come down the corridor in front of them before they continued onward. Meaning they were trapped between one guard inevitably headed their direction and one that only needed to turn his head to see them.
Andrew pushed from the wall toward an unplanned corridor, trusting Ford and Luke to follow. They did, and once safely in the empty hall, Andrew slammed his hand against the wall as hard as he could.
“Are you crazy!?” Ford said in a furious whisper.
Andrew swung a finger up to his mouth to shush him.
They waited, Ford scowling as two sets of footsteps sounded, getting closer and closer until the guards stumbled into each other, not visible from their vantage point but still audible.