Stealing Silence(17)
“OK, got it.” Avalon took another glance through the door glass, then opened it and stepped into the hallway. The hum of air conditioning greeted her ears, and she saw a grate in the ceiling from which cold air was flowing into the stuffy corridor. She followed the ductwork in her mind’s eye, tracing the route down the hallway in the direction she was walking. The corridor ended in a set of double metal doors. These did not have glass and reminded Avalon of the doors in hospitals that hid an operating theatre. She put her ear up to the door crack, listening for the telltale sound of people in the corridor, but all was quiet. She opened the door a crack. There were no people in sight. She opened it further and stuck her head around the frame. The hallway was empty. She slipped through and gently closed the door. The hallway was about fifty feet long, with a door every ten feet on both sides of the hall. She ran down the hall, reading the doorplates as she did. She almost ran right past the door, for the plaque on the door was nothing more than a frame affixed to the door in which was a sign. This one was hand written in a spidery scrawl in faded blue ink, and said, “Lab E - Environmental Testing”.
“Is this the place?” she whispered into her mic.
“Peet says that is the place. Use the camera, slide it under the door.”
Avalon knelt beside the door, pulled out a tiny camera on a wire, and slid it under the door. The signal was being sent back to Peet to view and relay to Mitch what was on the other side.
“Move the camera now, to the right, just a touch. There, hold.”
Avalon checked the corridor. All was silent and still.
“Okay, the room is empty. You are good to enter, but do so silently. We do not know what is beyond these doors. This is as far as Peet has ever been.”
“Acknowledged. I will be careful. You are such a worry wart, Mitch.”
“And you are a precocious child. You must have given your father grey hair.”
Avalon smiled as she packed the camera back up and entered the lab.
The room was lit by a solitary lamp, sitting on a wooden desk that was shoved into the corner of the room. Journals were stacked on the desktop beside a computer screen in sleep mode, bubbles floating across the surface. She paused to glance down at the mess of papers. She scanned the desk, looking for anything of interest. Two textbooks were stacked against the wall. Avalon bent her head to read the spines. ‘Genetic Transformation In The Modern Age’, ‘On The Origin Of The Species’, and ‘Diseases Of The Ancients: The DNA of a Global Killer’, she muttered to herself, surprised to recognize the titles. They had been in her father’s study too, on the third shelf, on what he called the reference section of his office. A pair of silver cuff links sat in the tray on the base of the monitor. She picked them up, tumbling them in her hand and her eyes widened when she saw the golden bee raised on the flat surface of the cuff links. It was the same as the symbol on her father’s jacket. She saw that symbol every time she wore it. The cuff links went into her pocket too, as she scanned the desk for more interesting items. She pulled open the top drawer and sifted through the contents, shoving items aside. Several photographs of greenhouses were sitting in the drawer, and hand sketches of what Avalon took to be new designs for greenhouses. Three matchbooks advertising a bar in Solace with the name “Frankie’s Finger Food and Burger Joint” bounced around amongst partially used pens and discarded lunch receipts. Matches, awesome! I can always use matches, she thought and slipped one into her pocket. She shoved the drawer closed and took one final look around the desk. That was when Avalon’s eyes fell on a picture, taped to the top right corner of the computer monitor. It was an old photo, the colours fading from the print. In the photo four young people laughed into the camera, arms flung over each other’s shoulders, one man bent over as though he had told the punchline to the funniest joke in the world. Two men and two women, wearing jeans and hoodies in the orange and black of Solace University, were captured in various stages of mirth. It was a great photo, but that wasn’t what caught Avalon’s eye. It was the circles that were drawn around two faces. One was her mother and one was her father. Without giving it a moment’s thought, she snatched the photo from the computer front and stuffed it into the inner pocket of her jump suit.
A short hallway ended in a bathroom, the door ajar. Three more doors exited the room. One room had a light on, as evidenced by the thin ribbon shining from the base of the door. Avalon tiptoed past that door and moved to the last door by the bathroom. In bold black lettering, the words “NO STREET CLOTHING BEYOND THIS POINT-RESTRICTED ZONE” and “PROPER ATTIRE MUST BE WORN AT ALL TIMES - BIOHAZARD ZONE.” A keypad lock was placed to the left side of the door
“Now, that looks promising,” she muttered into the mic and pulled out a jar and a brush from her pocket. She unscrewed the lid and dipped the brush into the contents then dusted the surface of the pad. The dust clung to the grease of fingerprints, showing the four most common keys. The urge to hit the keys randomly surged through her but she knew she had to work systematically, she just hoped it wouldn’t be the last combination she tried. Only five combination tries later, the door lock clicked open. Finally, I can get the fertilizer and get out of here! 1859! Avalon giggled to herself, 1859 – Darwin’s theory of evolution – it was just the kind of geeky scientist code her father would use. With a satisfied grin, Avalon dropped her goggles in place and opened the door. Three steps took her to a second door. This one did not have a lock and swung open at her touch.