Page 68 of Sky Song
Cricket raised her eyebrows. “That’s why you aren’t his mate.”
“That’s not the only reason, my skies. Scroll over here. Open this.”
“Oops. Access denied.”
He grunted softly and slid two fingers down the shaft of his short boot, pulling out the shiny device. He didn’t do much with it except fitting it flush with the computer’s transmitter.
“Will it work?” Cricket chewed her lip nervously.
“Who knows.”
“Who knows?”
“I was told it’s a bit unreliable, but what do we have to lose?”
“Lyle, why are you doing this when you know this tool is unreliable?”
He gave her question a thorough consideration. “There’s always an element of risk. Always. Don't be afraid to take it.”
As a reassurance, it was a one out of ten.
But something was happening on the screen. At first, the image went all skew-y, then blinked out of existence, and then reappeared as normal.
Lyle reached over with his gloved hand - the rubber already messed up from his sharp nails - and tapped the folder Cricked hadn’t been able to access a minute ago. It opened without a prompt for a code.
“What am I looking at?” Cricket asked hesitantly.
“You tell me, I can’t read your language.”
“Oh, I forgot.” She scanned the contents. The garbled symbols jumped out at her with zero meaning. “It’s all gibberish. The documents are encrypted.”
“It’s alright. I’m copying all of it.”
“How long will it take?”
“Not sure.”
“Lyle, my shift is about to start.”
“You worry too much. See? This thing isn’t as iffy as I was led to believe.”
They waited in silence for two minutes, three. Cricket kept her ears open for the sounds of Terrance’s bouncing steps or Salty’s tired shuffle. Each second stretched longer than the previous one, and along with them, her nerves.
Suddenly, the screen blinked, the machine bleeped and turned off.
“Is it finished?” Cricked whispered.
Lyle calmly reached over and picked up the shiny device, tucking it back into his boot. “I think we just shut down your entire hospital’s system.”
Cricket’s stomach bottomed out and her heart dropped through. “What are we going to do now?”
“Get out of here.”
Grabbing her by the arm, he started for the staircase just as the siren sounded.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” she kept repeating as they took the stairs two at a time. “We’ll get caught. Oh, my God, what’ll happen?”
Instead of being annoyed, Lyle was grinning as he turned to her. “What are you chanting? A prayer?”
