“Not recently. This map is useless. None of these rooms are even labeled.”
“Because it’s a fire-escape plan, not a lead-the-spies-to-the-hangar plan,” explained Elliot. “Take a picture of it anyway. We could use a good map of the base. They’re hard to find.”
“I’ve only been asking for one for years,” said Anthony as he held up his watch to take the picture. “Do you know how helpful they’d be?”
“Yes. Which is why we keep asking you to hack into their systems every time you break into one of Cicero’s facilities!”
“You use a machete to hack into a storage shed one time,” complained Anthony. “And suddenly it’s, Gosh, Anthony, what have you hacked into recently?”
“Okay, you know that’s not what—wait. You’re joking, right? That was a joke?”
“What do you think?” said Anthony.
“Ugh. Forget it.” Elliot looked back at the noticeboard as Anthony continued snapping pictures. It was delightfully mundane. There was a notice for game night, an advertisement for a babysitting cooperative, and a sign-up sheet for an upcoming pot-lock.
Mindfulness Meditation Workshop today at 2pm, shouted a flyer, right next to an announcement printed on Cicero’s letterhead: Reminder that everyone needs to view the anti-harassment in the workplace lecture posted to YouTube.
Someone had even included a frame from the video, and Elliot swore he recognized it from the sexual harassment video Bea had made them all watch the previous month.
These are bad guys, he had to remind himself. They’re trying to take over the world.
In between meditation workshops and babysitting co-ops and forgetting to clean out their fridge.
Elliot glanced around the lounge again. It was so normal. The snack machines, the bathroom, a scratched-up circular table and a few plastic chairs. Two rather threadbare and stained couches slouched in the corner, and there was a mug reading Employee of the Month in Arabic on the kitchenette’s drying rack.
There were even inspirational words painted directly onto the wall above the door where they’d come in.
Welcome to Cicero R&D, Algeria. The Wi-Fi Password is PassWord_123.
“You have got to be kidding me,” said Elliot.
“I’m a very funny person,” Anthony continued. “Ask anyone I’ve captured, they’ll tell you my banter during a penultimate battle is among the best out there. I could do stand-up.”
“Yeah, I get that,” said Elliot, still staring at the words. “Would hacking be easier if you had the Wi-Fi password, though?”
“Huh?”
Elliot pointed. Anthony turned and stared. “Oh. Yeah. That helps.”
Navigating the internal systems of Cicero R&D Algeria was disturbingly simple. As soon as the tablet logged into the Wi-Fi, a main internal website automatically displayed numerous colorful and neatly organized tabs. Finance. Security Schedules. Current Projects. Upcoming Projects.
“Unbelievable,” muttered Elliot as he navigated the website. “Do they really just put all of this up for anyone to see?”
“No kidding,” muttered Anthony. “Their cafeteria serves tacos every Tuesday, and these idiots have week-old pizza in their fridge. They could have tacos.”
Elliot snorted, amused despite himself. “I’ve already started downloading the financial records—O’Leary is probably mentioned, but it’ll take too long to sift through it now. We’ll have plenty of time later. And here’s a labeled map of the facility. I’ll download it, too. We’re over here, in the north-west building.”
“There,” said Anthony, pointing to a large room labeled Hangar. “We’ll find transportation there.”
As soon as Anthony’s finger touched the screen, another box popped up, this one filled with schedules and destinations.
“And you see?” crowed Anthony. “Flight to Kurdzhiv, Bulgaria, leaving in four hours. Perfect. We need to be on that plane.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Elliot absently. He closed the schedule tab and navigated back to the map, tapping on several of the rooms, each with the generic label of Research Lab. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” Anthony had already moved away to shove bottles of water and bags of chips into his backpack.
“These research rooms. You tap on them, and nothing comes up. But you tap on the hangar and you get a complete schedule of upcoming flights? Or the main security office, and you get the schedule of security sweeps?”
Anthony looked up from the backpack. “You can access the security rosters?”
“You’re missing the point! There’s nothing about what’s going on in those research rooms. Which begs the question—”
“What’s so secret about the research that it’s not listed?” finished Anthony, with an approving nod.
“It’s the middle of the night. The researchers aren’t going to be here until morning. We’re here, we know when security sweeps occur, and we’ve got a couple hours. We should check out those labs.”
Anthony frowned. “Why?”
Elliot’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, why? Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not really, no. This isn’t one of Cicero’s main bases. What could be here that could possibly concern us?”
“It’s not about what we don’t know, it’s about what we don’t know that we don’t know,” said Elliot, growing angry, but managing to keep his tone neutral and calm. “Cicero’s base in Urumqi wasn’t important ten years ago, but it’s where the plot to turn the moon pink originated. And no one bothered with his base outside Kinshasa until it turned out there’s where he was training the geckos to be underwater assassins. And if we’d known about what he was doing in Lahore, we could have stopped that whole mess years before the exploding crackers were anywhere close to being available for sale—”
Anthony stood up. “Let me see that.”
Wait... did I convince him? wondered Elliot as he handed over the tablet.
Only to see Anthony scroll back to the security listings.
Oh. Guess not. The disappointment was acute – to be so close to actually learning something, but not get there...
“I want to go to the labs,” said Elliot firmly. “No. I am going to those labs. With or without—”
“Hello?” called out a voice from the hallway.
The words died on Elliot’s lips roughly the same time that his heart stopped beating in his chest.
Oh shit.
Footsteps sounded outside the lounge, echoing down the hallway.
Faster than Elliot could blink, Anthony darted across the room, flicked on the television—which immediately started showing some music video channel. Elliot stared at the moving pictures, stunned—right before Anthony grabbed him and squeezed them both into the bathroom.
“What are you—?”
“Shut up,” snapped Anthony, yanking open the tiny supply closet and throwing Elliot into it. “Stay there, I’ll take care—”
“Oh no you don’t!” hissed Elliot. “You are not leaving me alone in here.”
He reached out, grabbed Anthony by the collar, and yanked him in too—just as the security guard entered the lounge.