“So it turns out I have heard of The Cold Box.  Just didn't know it.”  She took another lengthy pause.  Beez worried for her, and not just because one of her feet started tapping a triple-speed march.  But he didn’t rush her.  “It’s the same place that me and my friends were going to try to break into.”

 

“Does that make this...easier?  Or harder?”

 

“I don’t know yet.”  

 

“Did you have plans drawn up back then?”

 

“All lost in the fire.  I remember some of it, but it wasn’t something I was trying to keep in my mind for later.  I’ve been focused on… other things since then.  But that’s not what I meant.  Plans come and go.  The problem is going to be in not killing everything I see between here and there.”  Beez furrowed his brow and waited again.  “My… my friend… it was Tay’s brother.  Twin brother, actually.  He was dead when I got there.”

 

“Oh no…”

 

“He was a paranoid sonnuvabitch, and careful.  I found what he’d hidden.  But it’s not a coincidence that I asked him to look into that place and now he’s dead.”

 

“Poor Tay!”  

 

Roxie rounded on him so quick he almost screamed.  When she spoke, she almost hissed. “You can’t breathe a word of this to him.  He knows his brother is dead, but I didn’t tell him why.  He’s spent 4 years mourning his wife, and I will not put him right back in black waiting for answers that never come.”

 

“O-o-ok.”

 

Her gun was drawn and putting a dent in his forehead faster than he thought possible.  “Promise me you won’t tell him, Brandon!”

 

“I promise!”  She leaned in even closer, her dark eyes shining dangerously.  “I promise!”  

She retreated just as quickly as she’d advanced, and started tapping her foot again.  She snaked a hand out and tapped the coffee table in the far left corner.  A red dot appeared.  “So,” he started nervously.  Roxie glared at him from the very corner of her eye, but she made no other move to cut him off.  “16 people you know were killed for having knowledge of this place.  On top of that, my family was killed because of information that has since been moved there.”

 

“Not to mention we’re short one moat monster.  Even though I was careful, this place may be compromised.”  Beez whipped his head around, staring across the kitchen.  Suddenly, every noise, every air scrubber kicking on, every groan of settling debris, made his spine scream.  “Don’t worry.  I knew I was gonna have to be careful coming back.  I think I killed everyone tailing me.”  The boy hadn’t even noticed the faint acrid smell wafting up from her guns.  “...so hard to tell though.”

 

Once again, very unexpectedly, Beez felt comforted.  His trust in her was... new.

 

“So what are we gonna do?”

 

“We’re gonna be smart.”

 

***

 

“Did you find the cameras yet?”

 

“Almost got em…”

 

“Ok.  Loop the video so they don’t see us coming.”

 

“I… don’t know how to do that.”

 

“What do you mean?  In vids, the hackers always loop the video on a security camera.”

 

“I don’t know how to edit footage!”

 

“Isn’t there like a button you can push that does that?”

 

“Of course not!  They don’t build these things to make my life any easier.”

 

Roxie huffed.  She folded her arms over her chest and drummed her fingers on her bicep.  They couldn’t see The Cold Box from where they were, but being so close had her on edge.  They’d taken two weeks to carefully stalk the area and found surveillance much farther out than expected.  It was no wonder anyone who tried to actually put eyeballs on the place was spotted.  

 

Just as they’d originally thought, only one guard at a time seemed to be present in the facility, but the supplies they saw moving in and out were for a larger number of bodies.  Roxie put the number at 7.   

 

The facility itself wasn’t much to look at.  If the whole thing was one room, a guard by himself wouldn’t have had much room to stretch out.  8 bodies meant that it stretched underground.  They’d found no other entrance, but there was certainly something underneath it.  Old sewer systems ended abruptly, or made oxbows not present on the schematics Beez acquired.  A bottleneck like an elevator or staircase had shelved Roxie’s frontal assault plan.  She hadn’t been happy about it, but she agreed to give Beez a freer hand with stealth as the first option.  

 

“If we shut off the cameras,” she said slowly, “They’ll know we’re coming.  That puts us right back at frontal assault.”

 

”Fuck…”

 

“Think, Brandon.”

 

She was toying with his emotions.  He appreciated her trust in his abilities, though.  “I have a different idea then.”

 

“Awww, you suck at improvising,” she whined.

 

***

 

“Vinnie, I swear to god, if you’re up there sleeping again...”  

 

“Whu-uh-I mean, Of course not!”  Vinnie rubbed at his left eye roughly with the back of his hand, nearly dropping his comm in the process.  “You know me, man.”

 

“Uh huh.”  

 

Christ, this job sucks, Vinnie thought.  He basically sat there and did nothing.  Meanwhile, a half dozen of the meanest sons of bitches he’d ever met hid behind him and guarded one computer.  Total fucking waste.  It paid well, so he never shared his view on the subject with anyone, but still…  “What’s goin on?”

 

“Camera 4c is on the fritz.  Keeps coming in and out.  Go out and make sure there’s not some fucking sewer rat trying to hump it.”

 

“Copy that.”  He groaned as he stood up and shifted his belt.  It was getting harder and harder every year to just get up and walk around.  Getting old sucked.  He switched off his comm.  “...and you’re welcome.  Asshole.”

 

4c?  That’s pretty close to the center.  Most of his caution dissipated as he thought about how hard it would be for someone to sneak that far without being seen.  Not that he had much caution to begin with, admittedly, but Vinnie was still fairly groggy from his nap as he shouldered through the front door.  “4c, 4c, that’s uh….”

 

It took him less than a minute to be able to see it  The green and orange indicator lights on the side of it flickered on and off.  He took a deep breath as he grabbed the ladder and climbed.  The iron groaned and creaked beneath his considerable weight.  He had to be careful as he neared the top.  The last time he’d been up here, one of his pant legs had snagged on a rusty barb on the handrail, and the headache he’d gotten from the fall wasn’t half as bad as the ribbing from the guys down below.  

 

He puffed emphatically as he cleared the stairs and turned to cross the roof.  He never saw it coming, no matter how many times they would ask him later.  He only heard it, like a tiny piece of paper tearing in half.