Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(93)

I held the ID badge beneath the scanner built into the wall. The door beeped softly, and there was a metallic scraping sound as the bolt slid back. I opened the door just as the guard swiveled toward us in his chair.

Gallagher rushed past me. The guard’s eyes widened. He tried to stand, but Gallagher grabbed him by the neck and lifted him six inches off the floor. “Delilah, confiscate his devices.”

While the guard clawed at Gallagher’s hand, trying in vain to breathe, I plucked the pistol, stun gun and remote control from his belt, then pulled the communication headset from his head and turned it off.

Gallagher set the guard down, and as the man bent over, coughing and gasping I saw that his name tag read Petit.

“Petit,” I said, as Gallagher pushed the door closed behind us. “If you want to live, sit down at your desk and disable the collars.” No need to tell him that cooperating wouldn’t actually save his life.

“How did you get in here?” he gasped, rubbing his throat.

“Disable the collars,” Gallagher growled. “Now.”

Petit took a step back and bumped his chair, which rolled toward the console. “Which ones?”

“All of them.” I glanced at the wall full of live camera feeds, watching for any sign that Pagano’s body had been discovered. “Turn them all off.”

The guard glanced nervously from me to Gallagher, then back. “I can’t.”

“Bullshit,” Gallagher growled.

“No, seriously. It doesn’t work that way, for this very reason. It’s a fail-safe. I can turn them off one at a time, but not all at once. And turning off more than three in a five-minute period sets off an alarm.”

“We don’t have time for that.” Gallagher glanced around at the equipment. “I’m just going to smash it all.”

“Wait,” I said, when Petit made no objection. “That’ll set off an alarm too, won’t it?”

He shrugged. “Probably.”

“Okay, we can’t turn off all the collars at once, and we don’t have time to do them individually.” I paced the length of the small room, while Gallagher stood over Petit. “And we can’t smash the system. So...” I turned and looked up at the guard. “Can you shut the system down? Just...turn it off?”

Petit shrugged, but the brief, slight dip in his brows was telling. “I don’t think so.”

“He’s lying,” I said.

Gallagher picked him up by the throat again. “Turn it off,” he demanded, while Petit clawed at his hand again, feet kicking ineffectually. “And if you trigger an alarm, I will make sure that you die very slowly.”

He let Petit down, and the guard sank into his chair, coughing and gasping again.

I stood over him while he worked, watching every keystroke, unsure that I’d recognize an alarm if he raised one. Gallagher watched the video monitors.

After a couple of minutes and several open windows on the screen in front of him, Petit found a software menu with a shutdown option. But he hesitated to click it.

“Do it.” I laid one hand on his shoulder—a silent threat—and he flinched. Then he clicked the command.

A box popped up, demanding an administrator password.

“Damn it.”

“What?” Gallagher glanced down at the screen. “Are you an administrator?” he asked.

Petit shook his head. “I’m just the night guard.”

“So, what, you have to wake someone up every time there’s a glitch or an update?” I demanded.

Petit’s brows dipped again, and his gaze flicked to the left for a second before dropping to the ground. He was a terrible liar.

I looked to the left, searching for whatever he’d automatically glanced at.

A row of shelves full of technical manuals. Those would take forever to search. A pod-based coffee system. A folding metal chair, with a jacket draped over the seat.

Bingo. I grabbed the jacket—clearly his—and searched the pockets. They were all empty. Then I noticed the employee ID clipped to the front. I flipped it over. Written on the back in block letters was an eight-digit code comprised of four letters, two numbers and two other symbols.

“Got it.” I unclipped the badge and rolled Petit out of the way, then typed the password into the box.

“Don’t do this,” Petit begged. “You’re going to get a lot of people hurt.”

“No,” Gallagher growled. “We’re going to get a lot of people killed.”

I clicked Enter. The window disappeared, and another one popped up, asking if I was sure I wanted to shut down the system. I clicked Yes, and a third window popped up, informing me that I had just shut down the system.

Relief flooded me. “We did it.” Every cryptid on the property would be able to fight back, walk through any unlocked door, and use any and all natural abilities.

The odds had been evened.

I looked up at Gallagher with a triumphant smile.

Then the remote controls I’d stolen from Pagano and Petit began to flash red. They made a single high-pitched beeping sound. Then they powered down automatically.

Petit laughed, and I realized that every remote control on the grounds would be doing the very same thing.

We hadn’t merely shut down the system. We’d announced that we’d shut down the system.