Trying to be as delicate as possible, the young janitor lowered the handle and the door lock made a slight, click-like sound.
Under the surprised gaze of both of them, the door to Klein's private office opened.
"Fuck, you were right!" Layton whispered, turning to Faith and congratulating her with a look, while a dim light of a reflection coming from the position of the flashlight-equipped guards lit up the girl's face.
"Hurry up, come in! Quick!" she exclaimed, smiling under her mustache, as all the adrenaline flowing inside her knowing she was performing an illegal action mingling with the excitement of having a brilliant idea.
Bypassing the yellow ribbon of the investigation and taking care not to stumble inside of it, Layton entered first, followed by Faith, who cast one last glance into the hallway, to verify that none of the guards had noticed their movements.
Taking advantage of the speeches that Lucius's men were making aloud, Layton gently placed the door on its lock.
*click*
After successfully closing the office front door, his finger automatically moved to the light sensor, but to his surprise, he noticed that it too had been replaced by a normal light switch.
Resting with his back against the door, Layton sat on the ground, happy that he had come a little closer to his objective and catching his breath after the freediving of that moment of tension.
"Dr. Klein also had the light sensor and the ventilation system replaced... he's such a weird guy..." Faith commented, who lit the normal flashlight and pointed it at the floor, lighting the wall slightly by the door.
Suddenly, just as the two janitors were trying to return lucid and reassure each other, a beam of light moved vertically next to Layton, barely touching his shoulder.
Within moments, both he and Faith turned to the direction of light, noting that it came from a porthole-shaped window.
Layton grabbed Faith and in a quick gesture, lifted her off the ground and dragged her with him, catapulting himself behind the large office desk.
The light beam that had almost framed Layton continued to move around the room until it split, increasing the illuminated area.
"Fuck! What's going on? Who's... mmh!"
Faith's words were abruptly interrupted by her foresight friend, who put a hand on the girl's mouth and forced her to remain silent, while his arms were still wrapped around her, having moved her mechanically.
"There's no one in here, chief... I told you... we are the only ones in sector C."
"Yes, I confirm, Commander Lucius... with all the time we've spent in here waiting for the verdict of the second ship's doctor, I'm not surprised we have auditory hallucinations!"
The light coming from the torches of the two guards who had approached the porthole disappeared immediately after those words.
"Get back in position!" Lucius exclaimed, with an extremely recognizable voice.
Meanwhile, Layton's heart was beating hard against the girl's back, which grabbed his wrist and tried to move his hand from her mouth.
"Oh, shit! Sorry! I didn't want to hurt you!" Layton whispered, keeping his voice even lower than usual, realizing that almost all of Voyager's guards were just a few feet behind that porthole.
"No, I'm the one who apologizes! Because of my stupidity, they were about to discover us! I had no idea there was a window in this room, but I had to imagine... Klein's office is right on the corner between one hallway and the other, in front of his room" Faith replied, beginning to breathe normally.
Finally, the two comrades came out of their hiding place and, without standing up, began to look around, exploiting the sounds coming from the guards to walk, being careful not to move anything and not to make noises.
Dr. Klein's private room, barely illuminated by the light coming from the circular window, after Faith's flashlight had been turned off, was incredibly vintage: above the large solid wood desk that had helped them hide, there was a large monitor and other technological tools, such as a scanner and several medical archives in paper format.
Small drawers popped up at the bottom of the desk and each of them was equipped with a door-like lock.
The rest of the room was quite normal, and several wooden pieces of furniture were in contrast to the ship's ultra-technological metal walls: a large bookcase was located a few meters from the door on the left wall and was filled with large, heavy books, most of them about medicine and biology.
"Wow... Faith! Look at that! So I'm not the only one who brought print books with me! That bookcase is full of them!" Layton whispered, drawing the girl's attention and pointing a finger at the bookcase, whose rough surface of the book covers could barely be seen under the faint light that kept coming intermittently from the porthole.
"It feels like we're in a 21st-century office... it's all so... old... but even though the circumstances are bad, this environment makes me feel very comfortable, don't you feel the same sensation?" Faith said, who responded to Layton's remark with a question.
"It's true... this room is particularly welcoming" he continued, looking around and trying to distinguish other interesting objects in the darkness.
The only piece of furniture that escaped the watchful eye of the two janitors was a kind of long table located along the same wall of the porthole and above it, two microscopes and other devices and test tubes for the study of molecular biology.
Even under that lab table were dozens and dozens of drawers, which had all the air of containing medicines or other substances for therapeutic purposes.
However, despite everything in that room captivating the two outlaws, Layton was unable to remove his eyes from the drawers of the main desk.
Without saying anything to avoid making noise unnecessarily, he approached it again, remaining crouched, and opened the first drawer at the top.
The drawer was easily pulled out by emitting a slight noise generated by the two metal wheels that ran inside the recesses.