Page 86 of Fight or Flight
I watch as Jace slips out of the closet and silently creeps down the hall.
Keeping an eye on his progress, I cut and loop the recorded footage for each camera he passes to keep him out of sight, then turn it back to recording the live feed when he’s out of range.
The process is slow, but he manages to get up to the top floor of the house without incident.
“Want me to time you?” I ask as he kneels in front of one of the doors and pulls out his lock picks.
“Not particularly,” he says softly, his attention on the lock as he slips the picks into it.
“You sure? I bet you won’t beat my time when I was getting to the passageway.”
“Probably not because that lock is child’s play compared to the one I’m working with.”
“A convenient excuse if you ask me,” I say as I pack up my bag and sling the straps over my shoulder.
“Good thing nobody asked you.” He pulls the picks out of the lock and twists the knob.
“I’m headed to the server room,” I tell him when the door has closed behind him.
“Roger that.”
Using the map on my phone, I go back into the passage and make my way to another closet at the far end of the building. Tapping into the device I left in the electrical room that gives me remote access to all of the cameras and door lock sensors, I bring up the camera feeds for the route I’m taking on my phone.
“On my way to the server room,” I tell Jax.
“Roger that.”
We’re silent as I creep down the hall and into the stairwell so I can get up to the top floor.
The server room is right next to the stairwell, and I tap Ben’s card on the sensor next to the door. There’s a softclickas it unlocks.
“Yahtzee,” I say quietly and slip into the small room.
“I take you’re in?” Jax says dryly.
“Yup. I take it you’re still sitting on your keister while I do all the work?”
“Not sitting, so you’re wrong twice.”
The server room is exactly what I expect—a row of tall cabinets full of electronic components that keep their closed system running.
“How long until you have control?”
“Shouldn’t be long,” I tell him as I search through a mess of wires for the one I need to hack into the system.
Jax keeps quiet as I hook my laptop up to the wire. Once I’m in, I do a quick check to make sure there are no hidden surprises or traps I need to worry about, then run the program I built to crack the access code and another to search out and copy any files that could be of interest to us.
“I’m in,” I tell him.
“Awesomesauce.”
Using the gift I left in the electrical room, I pull up the key log system and unlock Ben’s door.
“These morons have all the money in the world and can’t buy a working brain between them,” I tell Jax. “It’s laughable how easy it is to hack them. It’s like they want me to take over their system and make it my bitch.”
“You’re doing an awful lot of talking for someone who’s supposed to be getting me into Ben’s room,” he says in a flat tone.
“And you’re being awfully mouthy for someone who’s relying on me to get you into his room without getting caught,” I point out and bring up the camera feed in front of Ben’s room. “Give me a second to get this on a loop…and you’re good to go.”
