Down The Rabbit Hole: Season 0 - The Key.

Episode 3: Mini Safe

Abby DeVan - Hi5 Studios - 1st June 2018 – 21 years old

I sit on the grey couch upstairs in orange base, quietly editing a video for one of the YouTube channels in my base when I hear a ruckus coming from downstairs. I decide to pay no mind to it as it is normal for the base to get loud at break time.

Not a few seconds later I see the group of Tanner, Paul, Matt and Connor coming up the stairs. It quickly comes to me that they must finally be asking around about that file cabinet from a week ago.

They are all wearing knock off police attire with Nerf guns in their hands as they waltz up to my seat and I decide play along lightly with their little game of police interrogation because pretty much everyone in the company can act a bit like a child and have fun while doing their job.

I finally join them after making the final adjustment to the video I am working on and follow them to the neighbouring unit, red base while quietly observing in silent amusement as they interrogate the employees and hilarity ensues as everyone adds their own quirk and personality to the joke.

After all the fun and games, we eventually make it back to my home base warehouse where Matthias walks up to me filling me in on what is needed to be told, "So, no one in Hi5 Studios own the file cabinet which means it must have belonged to the previous tenants that were here." He turns to include the rest of the group "You guys wanna bust it open and see what's inside?" The group agrees excitedly with cheers.

"So, how are we going to do this? Are we going to drop it from the deck? Connor what do you think?" I question.

"I think we should take a baseball bat to it." He replies, grabbing his weapon of choice.

"Okay, we all have eye protection, right?" Matt asks, ever responsible for his employees.

"Well, we all have shades." Tanner suggests.

"Wait, Connor, we don't necessarily need to destroy the cabinet we just want to be able to open it." Matt reminds the hockey player who wields a metal baseball bat.

Everyone with the exception of Connor all take cover behind a see-through plastic wall, I end up beside Matt with Paul and Tanner behind us both, before Connor proceeds to swing the bat hard with a 'bang'.

After some trial and error, with one final hard swing Connor manages to break the key lock off of the cabinet. We all rush up to it bursting with curiosity. Connor opens the drawer and for a split second I think that nothing is there until Tanner reaches in and pulls out a thin, grey contraption from the back corner.

"Wait, what the heck is this?" He asks in disbelief as he hands it over to Paul. He fiddles around with the unknown contraption until one of the corner sides slides down to reveal a three-digit combination lock. The group is momentarily blown away.

"Is this like a mini safe?" I suggest slowly.

"Hold up." Matt begins "I'm just a little confused because you bust out that lock – just to clarify, we're going down a rabbit hole right now because the key I originally found does not go to this. So, the 863 key, wait does this have a keyhole or just the combination?"

"Just the combination." Tanner clarifies.

"It looks like it could attach to a key chain." I add, throwing things out into the wind.

"Wait, do we want to see if anything else is in here because we have the top drawer still." Connor thrashed the cabinet so much that Tanner had to put effort in to be able to open the top drawer, but all that effort is wasted when Tanner says "Nothin'"

Paul passes the combination safe to Matt. "Are you going to test if it's 863." I ask him, silently hoping.

"Well, what else could it be? I know that the key didn't open the cabinet so it might not do anything." Paul, Connor, tanner and I all watch in anticipation while Matt carefully puts in the combination of 863. He ever so slightly pulls on the end of the contraption only for it to snap open revealing something small, slotted inside.

"Wait, 863 was the code?!" Tanner exclaims. However, I watch in both awe and confusion as Matt pulls the thin item out of its hiding place.

"Another key?! I quit dog." Tanner says in an exasperated tone.

"TS5." Matt reads. "TS5? 863 worked on this? Is this a mini safe like (Y/N) said?"

"That's creepy." Paul comments.

"This whole thing is creepy." Tanner agrees.

"What's throwing me off is that we are in orange base, but I found the keys in blue base." Matt says in confusion.

"Kevin had told me the other day that the cabinet was found in blue base, but it was moved in here for storage." I quickly relay.

"So, this is all existing in the realm of blue base." Matt clarifies, I nod.

"So, 863 has nothing to do with this." Tanner starts "But it opened that mini safe, so maybe 863 is a lot bigger than we think."

"I just hate the fact we have two keys now." Paul adds.

"Now what?" Matt addresses the group "Do we just wait to see if anyone finds something?"

"We have to keep looking I guess." Tanner replies.

"Actually, Abby, you talked to Kevin about this, and you are good at research and stuff like that, so could you try to find some idea of where to look at some point in the future?"

"Yeah, sure. I can figure something out." I reply quickly, already thinking of where a connection could be drawn.

"Okay, I'll let you have a look at the keys to see if that helps at all." He says, placing it down in my hand.

"I'll get something, don't worry."

Connor makes light work in wrecking what is left of the file cabinet with his bat before carrying it out to the dumpster, leaving the group to disband and continue our original tasks for the rest of the day until we go home from yet another day filed with curiosity.