Page 78 of Coldwire
Almost like the place has been staged.
“Some help here?”
I jolt to attention, hurrying to join Kieren in hoisting the safe from the closet. It’s a small, rectangular box, flat enough in height that I can’t imagine anything larger than a textbook lying inside. I give it a shake, and Kieren hisses“Be careful!”right as what sounds like metal clatters against the safe’s interior.
“It’s light,” I remark. “Can’t be anything that takes up the whole space.”
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t think people even owned safes anymore—especially not upcountry.” Kieren peers at the scanner protruding from the front. “Hailey, did you say you needed the serial or the link number?”
A call request pops up in my display. When I accept, I hear Hailey’s answer, looped into the group line.
“Serial number. Read it out for me nice and slowly.”
Kieren does so, pausing after each digit to ensure Hailey has received it correctly. I push the water glass to the center of the bedside table. Hailey confirms that she has the number—she’ll start running the exploit.
“Lots of safes in old movies,” I remark when the line falls quiet. I mute myself so that Hailey can’t hear me. “Chung showed me a bunch of those, actually. The film noirs with the detectives.”
Kieren has turned around to peer through the bedroom window. We’re too high up for there to be activity immediately outside. I have to assume he’s only making a cautionary perusal. I can’t see his expression when he replies, “Most likely items you’d keep in safes are cash, identification, and weapons. First two are digital now. Maybe it’s a gun in here.”
“Sure. Very likely.”
He hasn’t reacted to my comment about Chung showing me my favorite noir movies. It’s not a lie: I did watch a lot of those on Chung’s recommendations. Still, I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I weren’t waiting for Kieren to ask about the detail, to investigate whether there was more significance. It’s unlike him.
“I think we’ve got it, babes,” Hailey declares.
I unmute quickly.
“Key?” I prompt Kieren.
He hurries to dig it out, sliding the teeth into the small slot at the front. When he turns it, there’s slight resistance for a heartbeat.
Then Kieren pulls hard, and the seal of the door shifts, opening.
“Success,” he breathes, reaching in. He tugs out one item. The only item in the safe.
I don’t even know what I’m looking at. It’s a thin, square disk with a hole in the middle. Kieren turns it over, frowning. There’s a sticker on the other side. In hurried handwriting, it readsPROPERTY OF THREE TOWNS NATIONAL DATA CENTER.
“A storage disk?” I ask. I can’t help but be disappointed. I imagined a rare gem that would lead us to a smuggling ring. A pair of gloves that belonged to some spurned lover. Somethingsolidthat was more than just… more information to follow.
Kieren nods. “Floppy disk. Look. It’s got a unique panel.”
The floppy disks with unique panels are a pain. They were made in a call toward nostalgia, resembling the disks that were first popularized almost a hundred years ago. Only, to smarten up the design and increase security, each disk comes with a unique reader to access its information. It’s essentially the layman’s version of an encryption.
“Should we look for a disk reader?” I ask.
“I poked through the electronics already,” he says. He taps the sticker on the disk. “If Chung only brought this home, then the reader is still in Threto, presumably.”
Our briefing says Chung works across all the major locations, given entry to each of Medaluo’s data centers. Fair enough if he ends up dispersing his sensitive information across them too to prevent access to thieves.
“HIYA.”
Rayna’s entrance into the joint call is a surprise, and Kieren and I both jump at the loud volume. He almost drops the disk, and I scoop my hands out, intending to catch it.
He regains his hold.
“APOLOGIES FOR THE VOLUME—I BROKE THIS SETTING IN MY DISPLAY THE OTHER DAY AND STILL NEED TO GET IT FIXED. PLEASE LEAVE NOW. ALARM IS STOPPING IN THIRTY SECONDS.”
21EIRALE
