Chris nods quickly. “You’re right. There must be a way to get to his lab through the ventilation ducts.”
“But what about the lobby?” Adam asks. “He must have had us run through it for a reason.”
“Good point,” Chris says. “Maybe he wanted us to know there were guards there.”
“You’re actually planning to break in?” Lynne asks, her voice rising. “No, definitely not. I can’t let you do that. There are too many guards, too much security—you’ll get caught for sure.”
“Not if you help us,” Adam says.
She shrinks back against her couch. “Me? No. No, I can’t risk it.”
“And what, lose your job?” Chris asks. “We’re going to die. You owe us for this.”
“I don’t know…” She bites her lip and turns to Adam, almost like she’s asking him for permission. Maybe because they’re friends in the future she probably trusts his judgment more than the rest of us.
“You can make this right,” he says. “No more guilt.”
“Okay, okay,” Lynne says with a sigh. “I can let you in the building, in case they’ve blocked Adam’s access, but that’s it. And you’ll have to go very early in the morning to make sure the building will be empty. No one can see me helping you.”
That would only give us a few hours before the aperture back to the present opens—but we’ll make it work. We have to.
“Thanks, Lynne,” Adam says. “What else can you tell us about the lab?”
She takes a moment to compose herself, taking a long breath. “The door can only be opened with a numeric code and a fingerprint—even from the inside—and there’s always a guard stationed behind the door.”
Chris runs a hand over his head. “I could try to take the keypad apart or something, but it might be too advanced…Or what about explosives? We could blast our way in.”
I blink at Chris. “You want to blow a hole in the wall?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Um, because it will bring every cop in the area to investigate, not to mention the guards in the lobby?”
Lynne shakes her head. “No, that wouldn’t work anyway. The doors and walls are reinforced.”
“You got any other ideas?” Chris asks.
“I do,” Adam says. “But we’ll need to go shopping first.”
14:36
We develop a plan to break into Aether Corporation and make a shopping list of everything we’ll need for the perfect heist. I have no clue if we’ll be able to pull it off, but for once we’re actively trying to change the future and I’m anxious to get started.
We say good-bye to Lynne—she’ll meet us at Aether later to avoid suspicion—and take the car to the nearby Aid-Mart, a huge drugstore like the one Trent stole from earlier in the day. It’s mostly empty at this hour, and we split up to quickly get everything on the list. Zoe and I head to the toy section to pick up some kneepads for her upcoming crawl through the air ducts. She’s the only one of us small enough to fit inside.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she says.
We pass under some way-too-realistic-looking pterodactyl toys that fly up and down the aisle on their own, letting out random shrieks. I’m a tiny bit worried they might actually attack us, but we make it by unharmed.
“What do you mean?” I ask. She didn’t seem nervous about the plan earlier when we were going over it. Maybe she feels more comfortable talking about it now that the guys are gone.
“It’s just a lot of responsibility.” She tugs on a strand of blue hair. “What if I mess up? Like, what if I get lost in the ducts and can’t get to the lab? Or what if I can’t start the fire or…”
“You won’t mess up. And Adam will be right there the entire time in case there’s a problem.”
She nods, but she bites on the edge of one of her black fingernails. “The rest of you are just so smart and talented. You and Chris can fight. Adam’s a genius, and Trent’s basically a ninja…but I’m just a girl with a sketchbook.”
Okay, she is way overestimating Trent’s skills. I stop and turn to face her. “You are not just a girl with a sketchbook. You helped us with Wombat, remember? We wouldn’t be able to buy any of this stuff now without your help. And you’re the only one who can fit in the air ducts.”