Darker Side of The Moon (Angel Devourers #1) WangXian FF

6

"Have you found any trace of the thief?"

Lan Wangji sat on the couch at the office on topmost of the Lan headquarters, flicking his silver lighter while listening to his brother, Lan Xichen, who was frustrated about the one and only nanotech prototype that was just stolen from their highest security level facility.

They were supposed to research and find a way to reproduce it for the very important military contract that they were under. Unfortunately, due to the carelessness of the security, the sample, the only sample, was stolen. 

Right under their noses.

"What do you say, Mingjue?" Lan Xichen was feeling very frustrated, because everything seemed to vanish before their eyes. "How can you let security slack like this? I thought you already added extra personnel and security measures around this one facility? You know how important that project is to us, right? Now, what should I tell Minister Liu?" Minister Liu was the Minister of Defense that gave them the project, and he was a very hard man to please. To even think about the failure of delivering the result already sent Lan Xichen over the edge. He just did not want to face the consequences–and the loss of millions of dollars worth of the government contract. 

Which Lan Wangji did not approve of in the first place. He knew that government contracts would tie them down, and force them to do their bidding, no matter how lucrative the compensation was. He preferred to be independent–like their Yuwen counterpart of the family–but his brother insisted. And now they were in this mess–together.

Nie Mingjue on the other hand, could only massage the bridge of his nose, because he was as clueless as how the thief was able to snuck that prototype out. 

The casing that contained the prototype was enforced by titanium. It was heavy, and surrounded by laser, infrared and motion sensors. Only the ones who had the keys and passwords were able to take it, yet they did not find any discrepancy at all. Everything was just as it was, except for the most important thing. The nanotech.

Lan Xichen was on the verge of pulling out his own hair, when his brother, who was silent from the start, started to speak in his cold and lack of emotion tone.

"Brother, have you ever considered that this was an insider's job?" 

Lan Wangji flicked the silver lighter in his hand, then closed it in a lazy manner. He had the habit of doing something repetitive to enhance his thoughts–and it was something that was comforting to him, even when he did not know the reason why.

"They were all vetted and cleared before they even entered this facility." Lan Xichen sat on his chair behind the desk and sighed. "I knew all about every one of them."

"Mm." Lan Wangji flicked the lighter again. "Maybe you should recheck."

Lan Xichen seemed to ponder over what his younger brother had said. He admitted that although Lan Wangji was younger, his way of thinking was a lot more mature than his age. 

Lan Wangji graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard, the best of 0.1% on top of his class, with psychology as his first subject and criminology as his second degree. His way of thinking resembled those masters of criminal themselves, and there were many instances that the major crimes squad asked for his help solving cases as a consultant. 

Lan Wangji was as sharp as he was ruthless.

Even his own older brother sometimes was afraid of him–like right now, for example. Then he did what he always did best. Deflected his responsibility to another person. This time it was his Head of Security, Nie Mingjue.

"Mingjue, give Wangji all the personal information on the people who have access to the vault." He waved at Nie Mingjue, who hurriedly told his subordinate to fetch the data. "Please help me, little brother?"