The Omega

Chapter 44 - Thwarting The Clave - Part 2

Chapter 44

Thwarting The Clave – Part 2

Not Intended for readers under the age of 18

WARNING - THIS CHAPTER IS NOT INTENDED FOR READERS UNDER THE AGE OF 18 - I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR READERS UNDER THE AGE OF 18 WHO READ THIS!!!

"And it is done." Luke said as he snipped the last wire to the lab's camera. "It's offline."

"And you're sure no one will notice?" Jace asked. He hadn't been concerned with this part of the mission plan when they'd been working under the assumption that nothing would have changed in the infirmary's maintenance access. But they'd discovered as they'd moved through it that some pretty big changes had been made. Like every phoneline in the infirmary was now tapped and additional cameras had been installed.

Do they know where they are and what areas they cover as Luke had noticed them? Yes. And could they avoid those now off-limits areas because he had? Yes. But the Institute had gone through a lot of trouble to ensure that just about anything that happened in the infirmary was caught on camera.

"Unless Stanley is actively watching this feed, yes. I'm sure." He said as he slid his small tool kit back into his pocket. He was finding the extra pockets he had when wearing cargos extremely convenient. "They may have put in new cameras, but from what I can tell they haven't touched any of mine."

"Probably because they didn't know they were there." Robert said, deadpan. Until that day he hadn't known that Luke had installed closed circuit cameras in the infirmary, and he'd been the Head of the Institute.

"Look, we both know that if I had told you, you would have wanted to hardwire them in, not keep them closed circuit." He said as he climbed to his feet.

"You're right. I would have." Robert said.

"And they didn't need to be." He said. "All it would have done is added additional screens for the OP's center to monitor that would unnecessarily pull their attention away from more important areas. Areas that need their full focus while violating the privacy and compromising the modesty of every patient taken into the OR in the process.

You know as well as I do that no one would have felt comfortable going into surgery knowing that they were being watched especially when the audience would have been their peers and not medical professionals. I installed these solely to capture anything that might go wrong during a procedure or in the lab. And as only Stanley and I had access to the footage no one was compromised the way they would have been otherwise.

The dispensary, well, that was just a precaution after what happened in Shang-Hai."

"What happened in Shang-Hai?" Jace asked.

"It doesn't matter. And you're right." Robert said to Luke, sighing. "On all counts."

"Why wouldn't they put a camera in the lab though? They seemed to put them most everywhere else." Clary said, trying to move this along.

"My guess is for fear of messing something up." Luke said. "There's already a lot of wires and cables up here that run to some really important equipment. The exhaust fans. The emergency oxygen system should the lab have to be locked down. One small slip-up up here and you could seriously damage a complicated system. One wrong move and you could render the lab useless. At least for creating antivenoms. Creating antivenoms can be incredibly dangerous, but they're something that we can't do without. And this is the only Institute with the equipment to make them."