4
"Aarya what the fuck are you doing?" he angrily whispered to me.
"What is your problem? I said thank you and you can leave me right here. I'll be fine promise."
"You cannot break into the training facility!"
"If you knew what I was doing why did you ask?" I was finding him exasperating.
"It's illegal and not to mention stupid. The security here is tighter than at the president's."
"Well yes it is illegal but then again I am training to be an assassin so my moral lines are slightly blurred. And the security system is not that great. Jeez I've already ha.." Oh shit. I really needed to remember to keep my mouth shut at three forty two in the morning.
"Already have what exactly?" he looked at me through tired eyes very apprehensively
"Had all the help from you I need, thank you."
"Why is that you asked me to help you again? I never quite understood that in the first place?"
"Because you are the only one stupid enough to fetch me from the middle of nowhere and drive me to here without a second thought. You have no idea how grateful I am to your single digit IQ at the moment. The worst part of this is that your main motivation is curiosity which would be fine if you had the intelligence to back it up with." I could taste the venom in my mouth half of which was actually created for my parents but it seemed I got to take my frustrations out on Alex.
He held a pained look in his eyes as he turned the set of his face into a cold expression,.
"You're a real bitch you know."
"I know." I got out of the car and walked toward the stairs that led to the front entrance of the school. I heard an engine growl to life and the sound died out as Alex drove off into the early morning. Guilt riddled my body and settled firmly in my stomach. Alex had not deserved what I had done to him. I knew that I had used him ruthlessly and shamelessly and I also knew that if I did not make amends I would not be able to live with myself. I pushed those thoughts to the back of my head, determined to focus at the task at hand.
I turned towards my computer and reset the buildings cameras to twenty minutes before and let them play five minutes of footage over and over. Cameras disabled, check. I then turned off the motion sensors, the heat detectors, sound sensitive silent alarms and the doors' alarms. It was amazing how much one could do when one had hacked into the main system.
While I was in the car with Shane I had thought about a particular blue-grey steel door. My wait at the train station had not let my anger dissipate and I knew I had to do something to let off some steam and so between then and the ride to the training facility I had hatched my plan.
I walked around the building until I came to a small frosted window. I dumped my overnight bag behind a large rose bush aware that it would be impossible to get the mud stains out later. The lock to this window had been tampered with somewhat like the one in my house. You never know when you will need an easy access to anywhere. I opened the narrow window, held on to the windows frame on either side and slid through feet first into the west corridor's ladies' room's second stall. I slipped my back pack from my front, where I had placed it to make it easier to enter with, to my back where it was out of the way. I eased the bathroom door open and slowly stepped into the hall way checking every corner as I did so. I could not afford to get caught. Whereas most tertiary institutes worst punishment would be expulsion, here it would be prison for ten years plus if I was lucky - and that's only because I'm a first year. If they found out how much I knew, death would be my only future. It was morbid but in an organization like this it was a necessity.
I walked slowly and carefully, doing my best not to make a squeak. I walked past the lift to the stairs and began my ascent with careful determination.
When I reached the correct landing I strained my brain to remember the floor plans so I could get to the door. A left, a right, another right two corridors down and one last left and I faced the imposing door. The door had been left open and a chill ran down my spine. This was abnormal and some survival instinct in me told me to run. I looked closely at the door. There was no-one in the room but looking at it properly for the first time I noticed the security for the door. I could tell it was not connected to the main system otherwise I would have seen all the requirements to enter already. Instead I figured it had its own network where every person who had access had been manually logged in for their fingerprints, voices and irises. If I was to guess that they each had personal codes to enter that would log in who had access when and for how long. Looking at it I knew this was the only chance to I would have to enter that room.
I slipped into the room. It was empty and illuminated with a blue almost surgical glow. I could see rows of steel filing cabinets pressed along all the walls, making a very small room smaller. I opened the one nearest to me and pulled out a file. It was like the ones in the library except this one had things that seemed to involve the CIA. I pulled out another one, FBI. Another one, CIA. I pulled out more, Navy intelligence. Antiterrorist Agency. The President Protection Unit, The U.S.A Pentagon. I pulled a few more out and skimmed them. They all involved our assassination agency and some other government departments. There were some that involved other countries but most were other internal government agencies.
I heard a cough off in the distance. I held my breath as I carefully slipped out of the small room. Once I was off that floor I moved as quickly as silently possible till I reached the window in the bathroom and my face embraced the cool fresh air. I drank in the morning air like there was no tomorrow using it to still my quavering nerves.
One last image haunted me as I walked in the direction of my flat in the early hours of a bird-chirping morning. As I turned the corner away from the door to return to the stairs I took one last look at the door and saw a petite silhouette enter the room nonchalantly.
