Akina's Reflection

XIII

"That's a huge door."

Antonio and I stared, with awe, at such a large entry. We have a code to unlock at least one of these, but even if we unlocked it, how on earth would we open this?

"Perhaps," Antonio suggested, "We can try the code?"

I walked up to the door, slowly. The lock was unlocked by a number lock, where you type in the six digit code. I carefully began to punch in the numbers.

Seven, seven, seven, zero, nine, seven. I then pressed the 'Enter' button.

We waited,

And waited.

Nothing happened.

"Is... The door already open?" Antonio asked, awkwardly. We tried to push the door, since there seemed to be no handle on the door.

"It's no use," I told Antonio, tired of trying to push the big door.

"Nothing's happening."

"Must be the wrong one." Antonio replied, kicking the door a final time.

"If there's nothing here, Sayoki, then we ought to go. I'll help you back up out the window."

We headed back to the window. I was kind of upset that this door wasn't it, but then again, the chance of the first door being it is very low.

Antonio got as high as he could. He then glanced over at me.

"I'm helping you up."

"Antonio, I can somehow make it up on- Ah! Antonio!"

Antonio lifted me up, high as he could.

"You're pretty light, Sayoki." Antonio commented. "But this is as high as I could lift you. Can you grab the edge?"

I grabbed the nearby edge.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Then get up, so I can get out."

I heaved myself over the side of the window, At one point stepping on Antonio's head to get an extra boost.

"Ow! Sayoki, my hair!"

"Sorry Antonio."

Antonio jumped, trying to grab hold of the edge himself.

"Stay there, Sayoki. I'm going to grab some stuff to make this pile higher."

"Don't hurt yourself."

Antonio walked off, into the darkness of the barn, though I still saw the beam of the flashlight he had on. I sat there, on top of the haystack, waiting for his return. I boredly looked around at the scenery, then back into the dark barn.

Something was not the same. There was a faint light, coming from the direction of the door. I rubbed my eyes, just in case I was seeing things.

But they were still there, the light, which was actually getting brighter.

I wondered why the door was lighting up. All I had was one reason, the doors were opening.

I ducked under the window ledge, then peeked out again. I want to see what happens when the door opens. I don't think we are the reason the doors are opening. Suddenly it occurred to me that Antonio was down there.

I would have liked to warn Antonio, but at this point I felt it was to late to warn him. I was just able to watch, as the doors opened.

The door did not open by pulling or pushing, as Antonio and I suspected, but instead more kind of sinks into the floor. There was a lot of light in the narrow hall behind the door, compared to that of the dark barn.

Two men then walked out, I didn't see them very well, though they were both wearing lab coats.

"Are you sure there was an intruder here?" One of the men asked.

"I'm sure, I swear I got a signal of a failed code from this door." The other said.

They both turned on flashlights, and searched around the area.

"Geez, why do we have an entrance to this old barn anyways?" The other man asked the first one.

"It was for storage, see? Though kind of abandoned, in a way. Just search for any sign of anything being moved."

The other man sighed, and continued looking.

I hope Antonio isn't caught. If he's caught, then they are sure to find me, I can't get far on my own. As I watched them, one looked up at the window I was peeking in from.

"Hey, I thought I saw something at the window."

The first man looked up, by then, I had long already ducked out of view.

They stayed silent for a while, probably staring at the window. Finally, the first man said to his friend,

"Must have been nothing, and nothing's been moved. Guess it was some type of false alarm?"

"There has been rumor of a hacker." The other man said, as they walked back to the door.

"They say this guy hacks the computers, shutting the important ones down. Viruses have also been reported, and stolen data."

"Someone's a traitor amongst us." The first one said, typing in the door code.

"No one could have known that much about this project, outside of MIRROR."

The door opened, and the two walked out, the door shutting behind them.

"A fraud, huh?" The other man said, before the door shut completely, pushing out all sound.

All was silent, and then there was a loud crash. Antonio jogged back to the light of the window.

"That was a close cut, huh?" Antonio asked, surprisingly cheerfully."

"So what happened? You had the best view."

I thought over what they said, wondering what I should tell Antonio.

"Not much," I finally said. Antonio listened as he stacked some heavy looking boxes. With some difficulty, he grabbed on to the windowsill.

"Um, mind helping a guy up?" Antonio asked.

I grabbed hold of Antonio's arms, and began to pull him in. Antonio was heavy. However, he is also bigger than me, and I am rather small. My sister Teri stands at my height, and she is still in highschool.

"Ugh, Antonio..."

"I am heavy, this isn't the first time I had to be pulled out of a barn. So, not much said, huh? Did they at least mention why there is a door in a musty old barn?"

"It's an old storage unit." I said. I then added, "Actually, they also spoke of a hacker. One that steals information from their computers."

Antonio began to climb back down the haystack. "So?" He asks.

"I'm not a hacker, or I'm no good at it, anyways."

"Aubrey. I think a friend of mine, Paul, he told me Aubrey was a hacker."

"I don't know, Sayoki. MIRROR is not something I know well, nor do I know much about Merry anymore. He really changed in a few years."

We walked back to the car. Antonio started up the car again, and we drove away from the old barn.

Inside Antonio's truck, I opened up Aubrey's laptop. I punched in the password, and the map once again popped up on the screen. Without thought, I pressed the 'minimize' button, and opened up another file folder, labeled "Personal."

If it is personal, I could learn more about Aubrey, and perhaps I could understand him.

Before I could start, Antonio said

"We will find an inn for the night, then we will go to the next location tomorrow. Where do you think we go next?"

I quickly brought back the map, scanning through the different entrances.

"Um... this one." I said, pointing to an entrance near downtown Indigo Creek. I somehow had a feeling this one will be the one, the one within an eye doctor's office.