Spy School - Back to Basics [2]

11: Security Surveillance

Some underground tunnel

Vienna, Virginia

May 10

1130 hours

The stairs leading down where nothing special. Simple cement, that's all there was, but as we went farther and farther down, strange things started popping up. Cracks appeared in the walls, and there were humming and clanking noises in the distance.

Thankfully, our route was straight enough. There were no forks in the hallway or someone springing on behind us, which made me more worried with every second. We had overcome so many obstacles, but now we had no trouble at all.

"This doesn't feel right," I muttered.

"I know. But we can't do anything until we spring the trap," Erica responded.

We stopped. The hallway continued on, but was blocked off by various things. To our right was a door marked "Security Room. Do not enter under ANY circumstances!" It had no obvious lock, which definitely meant it was a trap.

"I suppose it's time to spring the trap?" I commented, gesturing to the door.

"Lets go then," Erica said, turning the door handle.

I held my breath, expecting alarms to start blaring or someone to attack us, but nothing came. Erica took a cautious step forward, her eyes sweeping the room.

"It's clear," she told me, and we both sensed the unspoken "for now" at the end of her words.

Surprisingly, there was an actual security system. Several monitors showed various cameras around the underground tunnel system. Next to the desk with the monitors, there were several comfortable-looking leather chairs and empty smoothie cups littered around the room.

Erica immediately walked toward the monitors, but something else caught my eye first: on the wall, next to a set of cabinets with snacks, was a piece of paper. It was basically a sign up sheet for guard shifts, as seen:

Tunnel system | John, Scamder, 100 through 800, eight-hour shift (rotations) | Charlie, Lauren, 800 through 1600, eight-hour shift (rotations) | Sam, Jordan, 1600 through 2400, eight-hour shift (rotations)

Ivy Household | Sarah, Caleb (at bushes, 24/7), more people needed!

There was more, but then Erica called me over. "Wow, these security systems are advanced. There's even audio, which is strange considering the vastness of the area they're monitoring," Erica observed.

"It's monitoring this whole tunnel system, right?" I asked.

"Yep," Erica said. "That's why we would've been screwed if there was actually a guard here. You can barely see the cameras, too, because they are embedded in the wall."

"What's even the point of this all? After all, this is their home territory. No one but them should be able to get in," I pointed out.

"Well, we did," Erica countered.

"True," I replied. Erica started zooming through all the camera feeds. All of them were empty, until-

"Look!" I exclaimed. The camera feed Erica had just stopped on showed an image of Elizabeth and Lacy in a room. Room wasn't quite the right word. It was a huge area the size of two rocket launchpads. Rather than being made of concrete like all the other rooms in the underground system of tunnels, it seemed to be made of metal painted a blinding white. The whole place was illuminated with bright white lights, further blinding my eyes, and steel frames supported the ceiling. Through the entire room ran a giant steel tube, parallel to the floor, about eight feet in diameter.

Elizabeth and Lacy seemed to be deep in conversation, but we couldn't hear them.

"Unmute the camera feed, so we can hear them," I urgently requested. Erica pressed the unmute button. Just as she did this, a notification popped on Elizabeth's watch, but I couldn't make out what it was because of the camera angle. Elizabeth took a quick look at it, then continued talking.

"So, this is the system. I know it, since I came up with the idea of it. But when you started working on it, some tweaks had to be made, because of physics, the limitation of today's technology, or whatever. It still works in the basic concept, correct?" Elizabeth asked, gesturing to Lacy. I was surprised the audio was so clean and crisp, it was like she was talking right into the microphone.

"Yes, of course. The missile goes in the tube. The tube guides it's path towards the target underground. That way no one can trace the missile to us from satellite images. It enters the target from the ground, which helps rupture gas lines so the whole accident can be blamed on a gas leak. To clear away all evidence, the missile is heated to extreme temperatures, so it melts the tube behind it. The metal tube is made of Indium, which has a melting point 313 degrees Fahrenheit, below the temperature that you usually use for an oven. This means that we can melt it rather easily." Tracy explained.

"Good. And how long will it take it to reach it's target?"

"Ten minutes," Lacy answered.

"You know, Lacy," Elizabeth began, "I haven't told you the whole reason for this. Sure, its to destroy an old enemy, but also, this has profit. You see, the location our target is at has a large outcropping of Jadeite, according to our computer software program. Once the whole place is destroyed, we'll be called in to reconstruct the place. And we'll do that, but while we're doing it, we'll be secretly, and discretely, extracting the precious Jadeite from the location."

"Ingenious."

"It is, really. I used to be a pretty face that had a bunch of friends, nothing more. But when you start to hate someone, you grow smarter, and craftier," Elizabeth said.

Erica and I looked at each other.

"H-how-" I stuttered.

"They must have been planning this for a while; they built a whole tunnel underground," Erica said.

"But it seems a rather impractical method," I said.

"It is," Erica agreed, "but like Lacy said, it's ingenious. At least, when it comes up to covering tracks."

We turned our attention back to the camera feed.

"-so yeah, we're pretty much ready, I say," Elizabeth exclaimed. "Oh wait, I almost forgot!" Elizabeth looked straight at the camera and put on a big smile. "Heya, Erica, Ben, so nice of you to join us!"

1036 words.

*walks into Wattpad after two weeks*

*drops off cliffhanger*

*refuses to elaborate*

*leaves for another two weeks*

yay dank memes