Inside 863

Chapter 9 | 1/8/2021

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see who had texted. The lock screen said that it was two-thirty. Woods had sent a message on the company group chat. It read, Everyone get out of the building ASAP. That gave me chills. Something was up. I started to wrap up what I was working on. My phone buzzed again a minute later. It was a direct message from Matt. It said, Come downstairs to the warehouse. I might need Megakill's back up.

Back up? I thought. Something was definitely up. I shoved my phone back in my pocket and stood up from my desk. I saw Dakota glance at his phone. He must be reading it, I thought. He looked at me and we locked eyes for a moment.

We hadn't talked since the day after Christmas when I had dashed out of his house. I didn't think I should pry after Matt had said "What happened in the room stays in the room." I wish I was in the room where it happened, I thought. Oops, just quoted a line from Hamilton.

I walked into the warehouse to see a distressed Matt and Woods and hear an ominous beeping with Samantha videoing it all. I looked around to see where the beeping was coming from. My heart skipped a beat when I realized it was coming from the police case.

"Fill me in," I said.

"We cut the power on the police case and it started counting down. The timer is connected to a vial that has the same snake logo as the vials inside the safe from the vent in Megadesk. We think it's some sort of self destruct mechanism, which means it could be flammable," Matt explained. "Let's go to Orange Base and get some tools." I followed Matt, Woods, and Sam out of Red Base and to the Orange Base warehouse.

"My main worry is how are we going to get the case out of the stairs?" Matt asked.

"We could cut the cord," Woods suggested.

"Whether the switch is on or not, that's a live power cable. You cut that cord and you risk electrocuting yourself, which possibly also risks detonating whatever that is," Matt said, rejecting the idea.

"We can't like, take a REKT machete to it quickly?" Woods asked. Matt laughed.

"Okay so how about this. The cable is coming out of the back of the case. We make that hole bigger, we unplug everything, we shove that power supply out, and then we just take the case off and move it."

"Okay," Woods said, not sounding like he really knew what Matt meant.

"What do we need to do that, Woods?" Matt asked. It was Woods' time to shine.

"Uhhh," he said, walking over to a tool chest. "I think I know what you're saying, like-" he picked up what looked like a few inches long pvc pipe with holes in the side. I had no idea what it was. I didn't really know a lot about tools.

"Yeah, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, but something that will do this with plastic. This is designed for wood," Matt said. I supposed it was a tool that one would attach to a drill to drill a large hole out of a piece of wood. They continued to search the tool chest. I decided to stay out of their way and let the men handle the tools part.

"What kind of tools do we have in here?" Matt asked, picking up a hatchet. "This is a nice ax." He ran his finger across the blade.

"I'm thinking the dremel would be too slow," Woods said. He picked up a powered hand saw.

"That'll do," Matt said. "You got some safety glasses?"

"Yeah. There's some with the old BU stuff."

"Do we want any sort of bin for the evidence?" Matt asked. Woods picked up a large but shallow storage container.

"Should we get gloves?" I asked.