The monitor screen didn't display the familiar split-screen camera feeds. A single red banner flashed across the center of the display: CAMERA 7-B: OFFLINE — PREVENTATIVE LOOP INITIATED 23:14.
"Feed went dark twenty minutes ago," Lowe muttered, his brow furrowing as he clicked through the network diagnostic. "Maintenance override code entered from the main terminal."
"Imagine that," Carl said softly from the shadows. "Must have cut the breaker on his way down the catwalk."
"I don't have maintenance clearance!" I shouted, struggling against Dennis’s grip. "I'm a ninety-day temp! Only shift leads have the master breaker keys!"
"Shut up, Vance," Dennis growled, forcing my second arm behind my back and snapping the remaining bracelet locked. The double-click of the ratchet sounded like a cell door slamming in a basement.
Lowe ignored both of us, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard as he pulled up the inner vault access logs. "Checking Cage 4 biometric history for the last two hours."
The screen blinked, refreshing the database query. A line of green text populated the bottom row of the ledger:
23:38:12 — CAGE 4 MAIN GATE — ACCESS GRANTED: OVERRIDE BADGE #4092.
The air went out of my lungs in one hollow, sickening drop.
Four-zero-nine-two wasn't Carl's number. It was mine. It was the temporary contractor badge number printed on the laminated card hanging from my own shirt collar.
"He used the manual numeric keypad," Carl said, stepping close to Lowe’s shoulder, his voice filled with grim satisfaction. "The thumb reader on Cage 4 failed on Tuesday, remember? Corporate sent a memo authorizing manual PIN entry until the replacement glass arrived on Monday. Every temp received their PIN on the carbon intake sheets."
"Those sheets were filed in your desk, Carl," I said, my voice rising as panic battered against my ribs. "The unlocked metal drawer behind your swivel chair! You told me on Monday you'd keep the paperwork until my permanent union paperwork cleared!"
"Dennis," Lowe said, stepping back from the terminal with a closed, unreadable expression. The professional doubt that had flickered in his eyes was gone, wiped clean by two lines of digital text on a company monitor. "Escort him to the processing room in Building A. Bag the evidence packet in a tamper-evident envelope. Call the county dispatch and tell them we have an employee detention for grand larceny of a controlled substance."
"You do this, and I lose the union card," I whispered, the cold reality settling in my throat like gravel. "My mother’s insurance enrollment closes at noon tomorrow. If I'm suspended pending an investigation, the company voids the policy. She can't pay for the dialysis clinic without the group plan, Lowe. She won't last three months."
Lowe didn't look at me. He was an officer of the company, and the company lived by its printouts. "The policy is automatic for schedule-two breaches, Jesse. You know the employee handbook. You can explain your mother's situation to the union steward and the county judge."
Dennis grabbed my upper arm, his grip bruising through my denim jacket, and shoved me toward the sliding corridor door.
As he turned me, my hip bumped against the rolling metal desk where Lowe had set the four-ounce packet of white powder. The bag sat beside my handheld dock scanner—a heavy, ruggedized Zebra terminal that was still tethered to the depot’s local intranet, its green battery indicator glowing steady in the dimness.
Carl was already turning his back, reaching for his radio to broadcast the all-clear to the yard gate. Lowe was reaching into his briefcase for a plastic evidence envelope.
For four seconds, nobody was watching my hands.
My wrists were cuffed behind me, but my fingers were free. Leaning hard against the rim of the desk as Dennis adjusted his footing on the slick floor, I twisted my right hand backward. My thumb found the rubberized pistol-grip of the scanner lying on the steel shelf. I couldn't lift it, but I didn't need to. I dragged the scanner's glass nose two inches across the metal until its red laser aperture pointed directly at the bottom seam of the evidence bag.
With the tip of my ring finger, I jammed down the yellow trigger button.
A narrow red beam flashed across the plastic. A sharp, high-pitched chirp echoed against the corrugated wall—the unmistakable sound of a barcode being captured by the warehouse database.
Dennis jerked my shoulder violently. "Stop squirming, Vance!"
He dragged me past the rolling desk and out into the concrete hallway, slamming the heavy fire door behind us. But as the door latched, I caught one split-second glimpse of the green terminal screen sitting on the table behind us.
The scanner hadn't recorded a night narcotics breach. The internal processor had read the faint, covered manufacturer barcode beneath Carl's thermal label and flashed its system status across the liquid crystal display:
ITEM ID: 884-B. STATUS: PRE-SHIPPED. DESTINATION: STERLING PRIVATE VEHICLE. CARRIER SIGN-OFF: C. MILLER.
The white powder wasn't sitting in Cage 4 when Carl went on duty. Carl hadn't stolen it from the vault tonight. He had signed it out directly from District Auditor Sterling’s private transport four hours ago, and my handheld scanner had just written the audit log straight to the terminal's non-volatile memory cache.