Restricted Access

by Victor Appleton

  I cycled through the other cameras until I found one that showed a closer view of the adults.

  “Where’s my dad?” Rowan asked.

  I scanned the people in the shot. “I don’t see him.”

  Sam put a hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “I’m sure he’s fine. These cameras can’t catch everyone.”

  Rowan pointed to the group of thumbnails. “Can you try a camera somewhere else?”

  “Sure.” I moved the curser to the thumbnails and selected six of them. When I clicked the selection, six video feeds filled the screen. But even though they were video feeds, they looked like static images. The hallways, labs, and office spaces were empty, so there was nothing moving.

  “What’s that?” asked Sam. She pointed to the top right corner of one of the feeds. There was a bit of movement in the monitored hallway.

  I leaned in for a closer look. “Someone’s there, all right.” I could make out a pair of legs at the end of an empty corridor, but the rest of the person was just out of frame. The person seemed to be pacing, and I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, adult or student.

  “Who is that?” Sam asked.

  “Look,” said Rowan.

  The mystery person stopped pacing and began walking toward the camera. Then the screen became gray static.

  “What happened?” asked Sam.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. I closed the window and relaunched it. Still static. Then another one of the six screens became static. And then another.

  Then the really freaky thing happened: The first screen cleared. There was no static and there was no longer anyone in frame. A fourth screen went to static as the second frame cleared. It was as if the static intentionally masked the identity of the person walking past them.

  “Someone’s bypassing the cameras,” Sam muttered.

  “What does that mean?” asked Rowan.

  I stared at the screens. More went to static as more cleared. “It means this quarantine lockdown may not be real after all.”

  9 The Distraction Infraction

  “WE’VE BEEN LOCKED UP FOR no reason?!” Rowan exclaimed.

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” I said as I scanned through the other video feeds. “Hang on a second, I need to think.”

  I had lost the trail of bypassed security feeds. The last static screen I spotted was on the fourth floor somewhere. Whoever was moving through the company had either stopped or moved to an area I hadn’t found yet.

  I knew Swift Enterprises worked on all kinds of top secret projects. But I couldn’t believe someone would lock down the entire building just to steal one. Then again, what other reason could it be? We had to report what we knew before they had time to finish their heist.

  “Tom, we have to tell someone,” Sam said, as if reading my mind.

  “How?” asked Rowan. “None of the phones work.”

  “And who would we tell?” I asked. “If someone can bypass the security feeds so easily, it might be one of the security guards.”

  “It can’t be all of them,” Sam said. “We should tell as many of them as we can.”

  That was a good plan. There was just one problem. “How do we get to them?” I asked. “We’re still on lockdown.”

  “We’ll find a way,” Sam said. “You guys got in here, right?”

  Rowan shook his head. “I don’t want to go back into the vents.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’d need a ladder to get up to it at this point. Besides, we’re lucky we got this far. It’s a maze up there.”

  Rowan shivered. “And very cold.”

  “Fine,” Sam said. “Any other ideas?”

  Rowan glanced at the glass entry doors and then back to the security desk. “When we were in the first room, you know, to make your circuit boards, the guard hit a button under his desk to unlock the doors.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know if it’s going to be that easy—”

  BUZZZZ-KLAK!

  Sam had reached under the desk and found the button. Rowan ran over to the double doors and pushed one. It swung open.

  Sam and I looked at each other, and I shrugged. Then I followed her as we ran through the open door. We entered the smaller area with the gym entrance, the elevator, and stair access. Rowan released the door and it slowly swung back into place.

  “Wait!” I dove for the door and caught it just before it shut. “We should prop this open,” I suggested. “It’ll probably lock again, and we’ll be trapped in here if we don’t find a way out.”

  “Good idea.” Sam ran back into the track room and grabbed the security guard’s chair. She rolled it into place, blocking the door from shutting all the way.

  I ran to the stairs and tried the access door. It was locked. Sam tried the gym door while Rowan pressed the call button on the elevator. All three were dead ends.

  “It was worth a shot,” Sam said.

  Rowan left the call button alone and moved to the elevator doors. He jammed his fingers into the gap between the doors and tried to force them open.

  “Dude, again, way too many movies,” I said.

  Sam shrugged. “Any better ideas?”

  Fair point. I shook my head. “No, not really.”

  Sam and I moved to the elevator doors and added our strength to Rowan’s. Even with Sam pulling one door, Rowan pulling the other, and me trying to pry open both, we barely got them five centimeters apart. We all grunted as we finally gave up.

  “We need some leverage,” Sam suggested. “Something to pry with.”

  “Got a crowbar handy?” I joked.

  Sam got that look in her eyes—the look that means she’s getting an idea and is about to do or say something totally insane. “Hold that thought.”

  She ran back into the track room. Rowan and I watched as she darted across the track.

  “You think she might have a crowbar in there?” I asked him.

  Rowan shrugged.

  Sam ran back with what looked like an old mic stand. It was a silver pipe on a round black base.

  “What’s that?” asked Rowan.

  “The stand for the motion-activated camera,” she explained. “It’s like the one they use for photo finishes in horse races. That’s how I accurately tested my speed.”

  This time, Rowan and I each grabbed a door and pulled. When the gap was big enough, Sam jammed the end of the stand inside. She wrenched it to one side and the gap opened wider. She grunted as she pulled the rod harder. Then something gave and the doors opened completely.

  I put an arm out to keep Rowan from falling into the open shaft, but it turned out that I didn’t have to worry. The elevator was parked on the floor below us, and its top was level with our floor.

  Sam jammed the stand into the opening to keep the doors from closing again. “Okay, now what?” she asked.

  Rowan peered down at the elevator. “Is there a hatch on the roof? Maybe we can climb into the elevator and get out on the floor below us.”

  “Then we’ll have two sets of doors to pry open,” Sam said. “And in a cramped area.”

  I pulled out my phone and activated the flashlight app. The bright white screen appeared and I held it into the shaft. It illuminated the cables, the side of the shaft, and the service ladder stretching up the side.

  “Check it out,” I said, pointing to the ladder. I followed it up and spotted a small hatch on the floor above.

  “Where does that go?” Sam asked.

  “Let’s find out,” I said as I stepped onto the elevator roof.

  “What if the elevator goes to the top floor?” Rowan asked. “You’ll be crushed.”

  I carefully stepped around the cables and toward the ladder. “If the doors are on lockdown, the elevators will be too,” I said.

  I climbed up the ladder toward the small hatch. When I was level with it, I reached out and grabbed the handle. I had a feeling that it would be locked tight and we would be no better off than when we started. I gave it a turn and heard the lock disengage. T
he small door swung inward.

  “Cool!” said Rowan. He began to step onto the elevator.

  “Hang on a minute,” I said, digging out my phone again. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t a dead end.

  It turned out that I didn’t need a flashlight. The narrow corridor beyond was lit by intermittent lights near the floor. Spaced on either side of the plain walls, they stretched all the way down the tunnel. The ceiling was the same height as a regular hallway but was crowded with pipes and electrical conduits. I was in some sort of building maintenance corridor.

  “Well?” asked Sam.

  “I don’t know where it goes,” I called down. “But it’s a way out of here.”

  Apparently, that’s all Rowan needed to hear. He stepped onto the elevator and moved to the ladder. He quickly scaled the distance and I stepped through the hatch to give him room to enter.

  As Sam followed Rowan up the ladder, the elevator shaft filled with a loud hum.

  The elevator began to rise.

  10 The Convergence Occurrence

  ROWAN SCRAMBLED INTO THE HATCH and crawled into the corridor. Once he was clear, I leaned out to check on Sam. She hurried up the ladder, but the elevator was coming up fast.

  “Come on!” I shouted. I leaned down and reached out for her.

  When she was close enough, I grabbed her arm. I held tight and flung myself backward. Sam flew through the hatch just as the elevator whizzed by. We landed in a heap on the corridor floor.

  Sam pushed herself up. “Thanks,” she said as she got to her feet. Then she extended a hand and helped me to mine. When we were both standing, she gave my shoulder a hard shove. “I thought you said the elevators were locked down!”

  I raised my hands in defense. “How would I know? This is my first lockdown too, you know.”

  I poked my head out of the open hatch and watched the elevator continue up the dark shaft. It was too dark to see where it stopped.

  “Do you think whoever bypassed the camera can override the elevator somehow?” Sam asked.

  “Seems like it,” I replied. “I wish I could see what floor it stopped on.” Whoever was inside was one step closer to their goal, and we were still no closer to reporting what we knew. I thought about climbing the ladder after the elevator. But if it descended, I’d be toast.

  “Hey, check it out!” came Rowan’s voice, way too far away. The kid had run off again.

  Sam and I moved down the narrow hallway until we turned a corner. We came around and saw Rowan staring at the ground next to several arched openings along one wall. Several B-bots were parked against the other wall. Most of them had tiny blinking red lights on them. Some of them had solid green lights.

  “Wow, so this is where they go,” said Sam.

  A B-bot appeared through one of the small arches and rolled to a stop over a large rectangle on the floor. I could just make out the rectangle falling away under the robot. A motor whirred before dust and small bits of trash fell out of the robot and into the opening.

  “Cool,” said Rowan.

  The trap door closed and the robot continued forward. It then stopped, turned, and backed against the wall like the others. It locked into a small charging station and its own red light began to blink. Immediately, one of the green light B-bots rolled away from the wall and exited through the nearest archway.

  “So now what?” asked Sam.

  I studied our surroundings. The tunnel went on for another few meters before turning another corner. Then I spotted something just before the turn.

  “Check it out,” I said, running down the corridor. I was careful not to kick any of the charging B-bots. I stopped at a ladder leading up to an opening in the ceiling, and I saw a similar environment through the open hatch above. The ladder must lead to the maintenance corridor on the next floor up.

  “These B-bots are all over the company, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah?” asked Sam.

  I pointed to the ladder. “So there must be tunnels like this throughout the entire facility. I bet they’ll take us anywhere we want to go.”

  “That’s great,” Sam said. “But how do we get out of this tunnel once we get there?”

  Rowan knelt on the ground and poked his head out of one of the arches. “I bet I can fit through.…” He gasped and pulled away from the opening. He looked up at us with wide eyes. “There’s someone out there,” he whispered.

  I knelt too and eased toward the opening. I spotted someone slowly moving down the main hallway. From the low angle, I could see their sneakers and the bottom of their jeans.

  “Who is it?” Sam asked.

  The feet stopped, as if the owner had heard Sam’s question. I pulled away from the wall and made a shushing gesture to Sam and Rowan. Then I eased back toward the opening. I came face-to-face with…

  “Ah!” Noah shouted.

  “Ah!” I echoed.

  “Dude, is Sam all right?” my best friend asked.

  “Her?!” I barked. “I’m the one you just scared half to death!”

  “I’m here, Noah,” Sam said.

  Noah sighed with relief. “Oh, good. I thought that elevator squished you.”

  I shook my head. “How did you know about that?”

  Noah sat down cross-legged. “I’ve been locked in this hallway the whole time. There was nothing to do but watch everyone on the security feed.” He laughed. “I lost you and Rowan for a long time after you went all Bruce Willis through the air vents.”

  I smirked. “I’m glad we could keep you entertained.”

  “How did you know where to find us?” asked Sam.

  “It was hard to see clearly, but I saw you climb into the service hatch in the elevator shaft,” Noah replied.

  “Any idea how we get out of here?” I asked.

  Noah shrugged. “There’s got to be an exit around there somewhere,” he explained. “People have to get in there to service stuff, right? It can’t be convenient to climb over the elevator every time.”

  He had a point. I stood and moved down the tunnel, scanning the walls. Sure enough, I spotted a door with one of those push-latches across its middle, like an emergency exit door.

  “Found it!” I shouted. I pushed the bar and the door swung open.

  Noah was there waiting on the other side. “Cool! You can’t even tell there’s a door from this side.”

  Sam and Rowan followed me out. I heard the door hissing shut behind them and I thought of the chair propping open the test track door.

  “Wait!” I said, lurching for it. “Don’t let it…”

  The door clicked shut and I saw that Noah was right. You couldn’t tell there was a door there.

  “Now we’re trapped,” I said.

  “I can get it,” Rowan announced. He got down on the ground and shimmied through the nearest archway. A second later, the door was open again.

  “That’s good to know,” said Sam.

  Noah grabbed the open door. “Cool, let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait a minute,” I told him. “You said you were watching the security feeds?”

  Noah pointed down the corridor. “Yeah, from the security station. The guy never came back.”

  “Can you show us?” I asked.

  While we followed Noah down the hall, we filled him in on the static we’d seen at our security station.

  “Yeah, I saw a couple like that,” Noah said. “I just thought the cameras were down.”

  “When we saw them,” Sam added, “the cameras were down in a pattern, like they were hiding someone traveling though the halls.”

  “So this ‘quarantine’ may be a fake?” Noah asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But if someone’s using the lockdown to steal from the company, then we’re the only ones who know about it.”

  We reached the security desk and Noah plopped down in the chair. After a few keystrokes and some quick mousework, he had pulled up the same selection of thumbnails I had found.

  Noah leaned back i
n the chair. “All right, what am I looking for?”

  “Look for any camera feeds that are just static,” Sam suggested.

  “I don’t think you know what you’re asking,” Noah said as he scrolled through the long group of thumbnails. There must have been hundreds of security cameras in the building.

  My heart sank. It would take forever to scan through each of those feeds.

  “Is there any way to just search the cameras in high-security areas?” Sam asked.

  “Good idea,” Noah said as he began to type. “Security has these cameras tagged and cross-referenced in tons of different ways.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  Noah grinned up at me. “I told you I had some time on my hands.”

  It wasn’t long before Noah had the list narrowed down to around twenty thumbnails. He began cycling through them. I recognized a couple of the chemical labs, the engineering section, an electronics lab, and then the screen went to static.

  “Where’s that?” asked Sam.

  Noah highlighted the thumbnail. It was labeled SERVER_011_MAIN. “I think that’s the server room.”

  “Can you check the other cameras in there?” I asked.

  Noah’s fingers raced over the keyboard, and ten more thumbnails appeared. He quickly cycled through them, and every one of them showed nothing but static.

  “All the cameras in there are offline,” Noah said.

  “Then that’s where they are,” I said.

  “Where is it located?” Sam asked me. Rowan looked up at me as well.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just because it’s my dad’s company doesn’t mean I have the place memorized.”

  Noah pulled out his phone. “Luckily I do.” He opened his new mapping app. “Or at least my phone does.”

  “Did you finish mapping the entire facility?” I asked.

  “Just about,” Noah said as he swiped through some screens on his phone. “Here it is. Fifth floor.”

  “Think you can get us there through the maintenance tunnels?” I asked him.

  Noah got to his feet. “I can get us close, at least.” He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. “If the tunnels generally run parallel with the main hallways on every floor…” He tapped his screen again. “Then I should be able to add them to the map I’ve already built.”