“Or from underneath?” John said. It didn’t look like an electrical surge, more like something covered the lens.
“Or from out of the lens itself,” Danny shook his head with a laugh—thatwould be scary. “Maybe they had some sort of device, something too small for the cameras to pick up on when it entered the room.”
They finished going through the other recordings. There was a definite cycle to the rooms, a pattern of one after the other, the cameras going dark with a couple minutes of leeway time in between, meaning there was likelynota dozen people involved, but nothing explained how the items had been taken from the labs in so short a time.
Danny sighed. “Unless we get a line on something that makes sense, this has to be the work of an Elemental, which means Zeus is going to be busy.”
“Sorry, kiddo,” John said.
“It’s okay, Dad. Nothing I’m not used to, right?”
ß
Despite the long day at work, Danny looked forward to his ‘date night’ with Andre. Andre had even made walking tacos for the occasion with a crockpot and all the fixings laid out in the room they’d turned into a working kitchen, complete with mini fridge. It had originally been a dressing area that connected to the bathrooms and showers, so it sported the most outlets and had a long sink and counter space.
Filling his plate with no less than four bags of Doritos singles, crushed up to turn the chips inside into pieces, Danny loaded them with taco filling. He’d supplied several two-liter bottles of soda to keep them going throughout the evening.
“My mother would call sacrilege on this entire meal, just so you know,” Andre said as they settled in the main room of the morgue with their gaming laptops propped up on Andre’s work station.
“I want your mother’s cooking in the worst way,” Danny said even as he dug into his first taco with a plastic fork.
“Pick a night to crash family dinner, bro. My mom loves you. More than she loves me, I think.”
The smile that had started to form on Danny’s face faltered. The mention of family dinner soured his stomach. He was glad he had an excuse to not be at home tomorrow night. Seeing Cho would be much more fulfilling than forcing small talk with Joey.
“Let’s start with a run on the first level heist,” Andre said, tucking into his food even as he pulled up his character from GTA.
The main game had set characters for the story mode, but the Heists co-op allowed for players to create their own characters. Andre and Danny both had avatars that basically looked like their real selves, onlyVaughnDammewas covered in tattoos and wore sunglasses, andNerdsDoItBetterhad a T-shirt with lightning on it and a leather jacket.
“Been way too long, man,” Andre smiled at Danny. “We need to schedule out a day like this every week—games, movies, whatever—when we know it’ll be slow on the Zeus front. We’re connected if anything comes up,” he gestured at the monitor tapped into dispatch, “and we still get to relax. Plus, Lynn needed the night off too. I told her she wasn’t allowed down here during our bro-time.”
“And how’d she respond to that?” Danny snorted.
“More colorfully than I care to repeat. I promised she could bro out with us next time, but I don’t think she minded missing out on Heists.”
“I don’t know. I bet if we let her try a round with us, she’d be addicted. Why do you think I never let you invite Stella? She’d outshine both of us by the end of the first run. She has a scary knack for video games.”
“Noted. Invite Stella next time to team up against you.”
“Dick.”
“Language, dude, wow, I’m offended,” Andre teased. “Prove you’re worthy to run withVaughnDammeagain and let’s get this one in the bag on the first try.”
The initial level heist was the only one they could complete with only two people. It was a bank job, split into a driver and a driller. Andre was the driller and had no trouble with his portion, but Danny may have run over a few too manypedestrians as he got used to the driving controls again. He was more of a console guy; this type of game on his laptop was tougher for him, but it was the only way he and Andre could play at the morgue. He also needed to keep a tight control over his temper and any frustration that might release his powers. The last thing he needed was to fry his computer.
They managed to complete the mission with Danny reaching the rendezvous point by the skin of his teeth, police cars right on their tail the entire time. The rush of adrenaline the heist provided was almost like a real patrol but without the threat of anyone getting hurt. There was something very soothing about that, and Danny felt a little of the tension in his shoulders drain away as Andre pushed him in the arm with a jubilant, “Go Team Zeus, yeah!”
“Whatever, man,” Danny said, “I almost botched the whole thing.”
“Just wait ‘til we try the prison break one again.”
Danny groaned. He equally loved and hated that mission. It was the one they’d done the most in the past because they failed at it as often as they succeeded so they usually had to redo it. They also needed to connect with two other online players. Although they hadn’t brought their headsets, if the others in their group had headsets, they’d still be able to listen in.
And they did, they discovered as soon as they connected for the new mission. Danny breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out to be a husband and wife, who not only seemed to know what they were doing but weren’t annoying teenagers. They only trash-talked each other, which was actually kind of adorable.
Danny and Andre took on the roles of fake prisoner and prison guard for the mission. This time, Danny considered it a small mercy that Andre was the one who mucked everything up. He got them so boxed in at one point, the two of them died together in a spectacular rain of gunfire.
“Reminder: invite Stella next time to team up againstyou,” Danny laughed.
