Page 104 of I Married Kayog
That the alarm hadn’t gone off confirmed that Maeve had tapped into their feed through the snitch. That woman was truly a wizard when it came to technology. I didn’t know how long she could fool them, but I planned on being gone in the next five minutes.
Although I expected it, my stomach dropped when I closed in on the third door on the left side of the main hallway where the security control room was located. Three people were inside, two of them fairly close to the door, the third farther back. There would be no way for me to enter without walking in their path.
As if she read the thoughts crossing my mind, Maeve spoke into my earpiece.
“Two guards, three meters in, facing the door. A third guard in the backroom located at nine o’clock. No line of sight. Servers at three o’clock.”
She didn’t need to go into further details, keeping to the strict minimum to limit the length of our communications.
I blasted the two guards with a strong enough disruptive wave that they would literally freeze, and I swiftly entered the room. Despite knowing the guards were sitting at their desk, only three meters away from the door, finding them staring blindly at each other, their eyes empty, still freaked me out. There was something uncanny about breathing people frozen into wax statues.
Ignoring the knot twisting my insides, I made a beeline towards the tall racks of machinery with blinking lights which lined the sidewall. I crouched behind one of the massive servers and released the two human guards from my thrall. Although it would have been safer for me to keep them in this frozen state while I finished my task, the longer the disruption, and the greater the chance they would realize something abnormal had happened. I also didn’t want to risk the third guard wandering into the room and finding their colleagues in that state.
The two guards resumed chatting as if nothing occurred. As I plugged the scrambling device into one of the appropriate slots of one of the servers, I absentmindedly listened to them for any signs that they might be onto me. But one of the maleswas discussing a financial investment he’d been considering venturing into.
Heart pounding, I watched the five solid red lights on the device. The first one started blinking, indicating that it was starting to work. After fifteen seconds—that felt like twenty years—that first light turned a solid blue, and the second red one started blinking.
My heart skipped a beat when the third male exited the backroom and approached the desk where his two colleagues were chatting away.
“I’m going to grab a drink,” one of the voices said—which I presumed belonged to the newcomer. “You guys want something?”
They both declined, and the man started walking away before one of the other two suddenly changed his mind and requested a candy bar. The third guard acquiesced with a grunt and walked out of the room.
I peered back at the device, my heart soaring upon seeing four solid blue lights with the final red light blinking. Seconds later, it switched to blue, then all five lights blinked before turning green and then shutting off.
“All done,”Maeve said in my earpiece with a triumphant tone.“You can remove the device. Hang tight. There’s a group of six people hanging by the elevator on the main floor. If they don’t move quickly, I will create a diversion.”
As I unplugged the scrambler, I fought the urge to tell Maeve a diversion wasn’t necessary. Despite being informed of my powers, she didn’t fully understand their extent. But maybe she was seeing something through the cameras that I couldn’t. Anyway, arguing wasn’t an option with the two guards sitting inside the room. I wanted to limit the use of my disruption to only when it was necessary.
“Go!”Maeve suddenly said.
She didn’t have to repeat. I froze the two guards and hurried out of the room, before immediately releasing them. I forced myself to cross the hallway back to the elevator at a brisk enough pace without being too quick it would raise suspicion. It wasn’t the people that worried me, but the motion detectors that could trigger an alarm if they picked up abnormal activity, such as people running in the secured areas.
As soon as I stepped inside the cabin, I made to place the snitch onto the control panel, but the door instantly closed, and the cabin flew up to the lobby. At first, I feared someone on a different floor had called the elevator, but I couldn’t feel anyone close enough to have done so. I realized then that Maeve had worked so damn quickly, she no longer needed the snitch to control the elevators.
I stepped out of the cabin to find the place deserted. As I approached the end of the hallway leading to the staff quarters, I noticed a group of people congregating around a refreshment table. Making sure not to draw attention to myself as I entered the main hall, I took on the typical curious bystander expression as I stretched my neck to see what was happening. Water was pooling at the foot of the table while the maintenance staff was frantically cleaning the mess.
By the way a couple of them were scratching their heads, they were baffled as to what had caused the issue. And then I spotted the burnt spot against the wall where an electric surge apparently occurred, frying the electrical outlet and the cool beverage distributor.
I didn’t have to ask whose handiwork caused it.
“There you are!” Linsea exclaimed, behind me.
I turned around to see her strutting towards me with her usual graceful gait. A human I didn’t know was accompanying her.
“Here I am,” I said warmly, broadcasting loudly the successful outcome of our mission through our bond.
Her smile broadened, and she hooked her arm around mine, resting her other hand on my upper arm. To the random observer, the gentle squeeze she gave it would only be an affectionate gesture from a female to her husband. But this was my mate congratulating me for a job well done.
I smiled back.
Epilogue
Linsea
Two days after our little meddling escapade, the entire Wuras empire came crashing down. Watching the footage that Maeve and Tedrick generously shared with us of the massive raids against the judges’ front companies, vineyard, and homes was beyond orgasmic. Having my daughter fully exonerated, the threat over her husband’s family lifted, and the exemplary sentence passed down onto the corrupt judge and his father was the icing on the proverbial cake.
In the weeks and months that followed, I was blessed to have semi-frequent interactions with Malaya. Obviously, she knew nothing of our bond. However, since she had become an official investigative journalist for both the Enforcers and the Obosian Conclave, we got to collaborate on quite a few occasions. Granted, I could have worked with other journalists to cover some of the projects and missions assigned to me. But why deprive myself of such precious moments?
