what they wouldn't do | DAREDEVIL

thirty four

There were a number of things Sarah loved about living in New York City, but she held the firm opinion that New York in the summertime was the worst. It got oppressively hot and humid, and for every one local there were ten sweating tourists who didn't know where they were going. There was a reason the richest residents of the city fled to Connecticut or the Hamptons from May until August.

But tonight, New York's hot weather was on her side, because with each summer's heat waves always came power outages. Usually small ones that didn't last long, but they were common enough in these high temperatures that when the power suddenly went out at Orion that night, it didn't immediately raise any suspicions from the few security guards that were there. After all, for once there weren't any unsavory meetings going on there, no congregations of important people to target. No one even noticed as two shadowy figures slipped into the building, then slipped back out undetected about fifteen minutes later, a list of four-digit key codes in hand.

Now they stood on a rooftop across from Orion, and Sarah tried not to look down at the ground. She'd never really considered herself to be someone who was afraid of heights. But as it turned out, that lack of fear was mostly due to her not actively spending much time on top of buildings with little to no barrier between her and a steep fall onto the concrete below.

Sarah made the mistake of glancing down, then immediately looked back up and swallowed.

Matt picked up on her nervousness, as always.

"You'll be fine," he said. "Just remember to—"

"To do what you say, and don't let anyone see me," Sarah finished for him. "You've reminded me a million times so far."

"And if something goes wrong?"

"Run. I know."

She could tell he still wasn't happy about the arrangement, but at least he'd stopped trying to convince her to go back home.

"Okay," he said. "There's two guards coming up the stairs to the roof. They're probably doing a sweep of the perimeter."

Once they were on the roof, Matt made quick work of the two men patrolling the area. He tossed their guns over the side of the building and fished in one of their jacket pockets, pulling out a keycard.

Meanwhile Sarah was over by the door, figuring out how to get in. There was a keypad a few feet to the left of the door, and a card swiper placed several feet on the opposite side of the door. Sarah took in the set up with raised eyebrows.

"Huh. Looks like you need to use both at the same time," Sarah noted innocently. "So...you would need two people. Interesting."

Predictably, Matt's expression below the mask was unamused. He walked over to the card swiper with the guards ID in hand.

"Try not to be smug until we've actually finished the job," he said.

Sarah pulled the key code list out of her pocket and went to type it in.

"Use your knuckle," Matt reminded her. "We don't need to leave fingerprints."

"Right," she said. Ten seconds in and she already would have made a mistake had he not caught it. Great.

Once they were inside, Matt swiveled his head like an antennae, picking up on the activity in the building.

"There's three floors above ground and about...seven more below ground," he surmised. "At least two armed guards on each floor."

"Can you tell where Tyler is?"

Matt frowned in concentration, then shook his head. "It's too difficult to tell."