"The first cameras are located near the door... with this darkness, we should identify them by the small red light on their sides" Faith replied, who after leaving the bucket, realized that the broom slowed her movements.
The two looked at each other, barely seeing the glitter of their eyes, but as if they could speak telepathically, they chose at the same time to leave the brooms next to the bucket.
"If someone stops us, we're going to come up with something" Layton said, who felt the need to reassure his particularly agitated partner.
After a long breath to take courage, they both advanced down the aisle in the only direction allowed.
The sound of their footsteps echoed on the metal floor, dispersing into the air in that terrifying atmosphere.
Faith grabbed the torch, but Layton put a hand on her arm, suggesting that she should not turn it on, and had to proceed cautiously.
Sliding the palm of her hand on the wall to their left, a few meters from the exit of the inter-warehouse, it touched a small metal gap.
"Uh? There's a door over here" Layton gasped, knowing that if he approached the tag ID to the sensor, it would light up and blow up their cover.
"I see it too, but we have to move forward. The doctor's room is still far away, we have to walk all over the corridor" the girl replied, too afraid to stop and talk about useless things.
After those words, they continued to walk forward on tiptoe, until a powerful red light illuminated their faces, causing them to tremble with fear.
Two large intermittent light headlights began to rotate on the right wall, illuminating a large door composed of two sliding parts.
On it, a large inscription caught Layton's attention.
*SECTOR C <-> SECTOR A*
"Fuck, the door is about to open!" Faith exclaimed, unable to hold back.
*beep*beep*beep*
A sound similar to that of a truck in reverse made the wall vibrate and the two metal pieces of the large door began to slide away from each other, much slower than the normal doors, which were smaller and lighter.
While the two young janitors were immobilized by fear, Layton instinctively extracted old Sam's ID tag and approached it to the door next to him, the second in the hallway.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" Faith asked, grabbing her partner's shoulder and worrying that he was going to do something they would soon regret.
"Open up, fuck, quick!" he said, who caught in a hurry, approached his flickering hand at the sensor, showing it the identification tag of his boss.
Sam's code appeared on the small green monitor and the sliding door opened immediately, issuing a small 'beep' that became confused with that of the Sector C access door sirens.
After entering, Layton pulled his friend with him, grabbing her wrist.
Faith awkwardly entered the room and, when both were inside, the door closed again.
"The lights, I have to turn off the lights, otherwise they will be able to see us from under the door!" he frantically thought, resting a finger on a second internal sensor, from which it was possible to adjust the room lights and the intensity of the ventilation system.
Sliding down over a specific area of the sensor, Layton's finger decreased the intensity of the light until it was completely turned off.
"Fuck! Fuck! I knew we'd have to wait a few days! Someone is entering Sector C, they certainly noticed our presence by watching the security camera footage! We're fucked up, Layton! Uhm... Layton?" Faith said, who while desperate behind the door, had not noticed that her partner was no longer next to her.
The young janitor had moved across the room, sitting in a chair in front of a desk, on which there were several monitors connected to a central computer.
"What the hell are you doing? Does it feel like the time to screw around on the computer?! Stop..."
Faith stopped talking again when the monitors in front of Layton lit up simultaneously in the darkness of the room, showing images taken by surveillance cameras above the main entrance to Sector C, the one that had opened a few seconds before they hid.
"How did you..."
"Instead of whining like you, I noticed that the computer on this desk was on... only the four monitors were turned off. Why would someone selectively turn off only monitors without the main computer? It was obvious that it served to keep some kind of 24-hour program active, such as surveillance video. Indeed... look over there" interrupted Layton, pointing to the wall to his left, barely illuminated by the lights coming from the large LED monitors.
On that metal wall, a tag read:
*SECURITY & SURVEILLANCE OFFICE – SECTOR C – BS VOYAGER*
Under the metal tag, a coat hanger filled with jackets and uniforms of the security personnel.
"How the hell did he figure it out?! I wouldn't have figured it out! This guy is a genius, too bad I didn't meet him before!" Faith thought, who struggled to imagine how Layton had calculated all those details in a few seconds, while a subtle attraction to him grew without her knowledge inside her.
The girl avoided speaking needlessly, knowing that it would not help by continuing to ask questions to her companion, focused on what he was doing and timidly approached him, resting a hand on the back of the chair on which he was sitting.
"They look like surveillance men and they're also armed... let's try to raise the level of the microphones..." Layton thought aloud, moving his hand to the keyboard and pressing a key combination that opened the audio panel of the video surveillance system on the main monitor.
*General volume – sector C
Value: 2... 3... 4... 8*
*click*
After that operation, two small speakers positioned under the monitors released the audio of cameras throughout Sector C, but with his computer skills as a nerd, Layton selected only the two that interested him, isolating the incoming audio.
...
"Colonel Major Lucius, proceed with caution! The situation is not yet well defined!"
"Get out of the way! This is ridiculous! A single day's absence was enough and here is the result! What you've done is foolish... evacuate an entire industry just for a stupid cold!"
The first man who spoke seemed like a simple soldier, who positioned himself in front of the man who appeared to be his boss, a certain Colonel Lucius, a tall, muscular man with a menacing appearance, with his hair shaved sideways and a short mohawk in the middle of his head.
A square jaw and a pronounced chin with a completely shaved beard were elements that made his face particularly hard, whose naughtiness was crowned by his small, piercing light blue eyes.
From the video, it was possible to notice how the head of security, in a violent gesture, yanked one of his subordinates, namely the man who had advised him to proceed with caution and walked down the corridor, in the direction of the staff rooms.
"Chief, most of our men are in front of the doctor's room who got sick... they say his condition has worsened. In addition, we found a corpse two rooms next to his" another guard said, drawing the attention of his boss, who turned to him, returning in his footsteps.
"Close the door. No one will come in or out without my order. You two, in front of me! You, follow me and cover my back. Wield your weapons, eyes wide open!" Lucius exclaimed, who after the man's words had suddenly changed his way of doing things and had stopped making the bully, acknowledging that there was a really dangerous situation.
...
"What did he say?! A corpse?! Did I hear right?!" Faith asked, who approached the central monitor's speaker.
"Yes, he said just so... and he wasn't referring to Dr. Klein, but to someone else... that means only one thing" Layton replied, looking at his adventure partner and implicitly waiting for her to complete the sentence.
"It means that the virus has already begun its transmission" she replied, promptly.
After those words, Layton shifted the mouse cursor over the two other cameras, positioned at the end of the other corridor, and drew video and audio, temporarily turning off the two over the door.
In the new images, the two young janitors saw dozens of men gathered in front of a room with their weapons in their hands.
"Fuck, how many guards! Looks like they're almost all here! And if their boss has also joined the party, it means that the situation is more serious than expected..." Faith exclaimed, commenting on the images of the cameras.
"The resolution of these cameras really sucks... if I try to zoom forward, the faces of the guards become a shapeless cluster of pixels... what a shit! Good thing they left this computer on and passwordless... we were incredibly lucky, this is making things a lot easier for us!" Layton replied, who was looking in the program settings for a quick way to increase audio-video rendering.