The remaining two hours passed by rather quickly for Jessica, and especially Kaylee. She was severely worried about her brother and Ricky knowing that they’d be behind enemy lines with little help. Luckily for the team, Ashburges entire campus lied right along the edge of a forest line and there was a very nice ridge surrounded by trees to park their van and await Shusha to bring Tom’s uniform. Joe wisely booted up his own security system in the back of the van along with Kaylee sitting alongside him. As the system booted up, it made the signature note tone that is heard in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a digitalized voice awoke that said,

“Hello Dave.”

Kaylee was quite amused and smiled a bit while looking over at Joe and said,

“Niiiccceee. But uh, why Dave?”

“Eh my father’s name was Dave and he’s the main one that built this little rig you’re looking at, and it fit so we ran with it. But as far as I’m concerned, this baby here knows who’s boss.”

Joe began working his magic on the computer and many of his blue screens sprung to life with images of inside the Ashburges building. Jessica was very interested and walking up to check out just how many eyes they were going to be counting on and was thoroughly impressed. As Joe was hitting buttons and flipping through different cameras It looked like they have an entire visual of the entire main floor including the outside courtyards. The main lab access remained off limits due to having no cameras there in the first place, but other floors were accessible including the staff lounges and even the security barracks itself. The cherry on top was that Joe was even able to see the inside of the main security office and could keep an eye on the man that is supposed to be keeping an eye on them, which gives the group a great advantage of staying one step ahead.

“Joe I’m impressed,” Jessica said, “I had no idea that you would be able to get so much access.”

“What can I say? I am a Jedi when it comes to hacking and surveillance systems was like the second thing I ever learned when my hands first touched a keyboard.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities one bit, especially after seeing that! I am not one to give orders a lot, but I do want you to keep one of those shiny screens looking at the main security office at all times. If something goes awry, he will be the one to push the button and I want to be a step ahead if you see him flipping out on camera. Kaylee, this is perfect for you because two sets of eyes are better than one.”

“You read my mind,” Joe responded, “Kaylee, I will look at this half of my screens and you watch the other half. Are you familiar with a keyboard?”

Kaylee immediately responded, “Oh don’t worry, I play hardcore on League.”

“Perfect. Here’s a spare keyboard that’s rigged to my setup. Periodically I want you to check the cameras on your side and the F7 – F12 keys will give you the full range of cameras to split with me. Each key will switch between two cameras so you should have 12 different cameras to keep track of as well as myself. Just remember that they see whatever we see but they don’t have to switch like we do. If you see Tom messing up, don’t be afraid to call him out. We don’t him to give us away.”

“Alright I can do that easy as pie.”

“Ah speaking of that,” Jessica interrupted, “Tom will have an earpiece that I’m going to link with our own communication equipment. We will hear everything he hears, and we will be able to properly direct him to an elevator that takes him to the main lab floors. This elevator is usually not guarded but requires high-level access for obvious reasons. It’s the only way to and from the main lab so we need to do this carefully.  Once he is in the main lab, he will have a ton of security to worry about. Unlike the main campus and main floors, security down there is kept tight. Ashburges Love their secrets. Kaylee, I know I said originally that I’d stay here in the van with you and Joe, but Tom is going to need an inside woman in the main labs because security doesn’t get the same amount of clearance that we in the labs do. Until Tom makes it onto that floor, I will remain at my desk researching more on this company for anything that might help out.”

“Jessica,” Tom interjected, “Pardon me if I sound offensive, but if you’ve been interning there this entire time, do you mean to tell me you still don’t know what all they do?”

“Tom, I have to have somewhere to put my brain to use. Ashburges provided me with the perfect opportunity to land a good career right out of high school. They even told me they’d cover my college education to get my PhD in whatever field I chose. I knew Ashburges created technology that was meant to help the world a great deal, and they also intensively promoted science in the local high schools to inspire young minds like mine to work for them, or at the very least, increase the number of future scientists in this country. Knowing those details, I didn’t really ask a lot of questions about why they were being so secretive and why they had to have so much security. Depending on what information I find, will depend if Ashburges is somewhere I want to stay and stake my career in.”

“And what if you find out something terrible? Something that shows ulterior motives of this company and its owner?”

“Then I’ll leave. There are thousands of places to go in this world that I can put my mind for use that is for good. I’d refuse to use my mind for nefarious purposes. And let’s not forget. This is more about trying to help Drake and Ricky get back to normal. Once they have their lives back we can decide what I need to do and what needs to happen to Ashburges based off what we find. Deal?”

“Deal. That’s all I needed to hear. If anyone can make the right judgement call, it’s you.”

Jessica cracked a smile only for a second before aggressive knocking at the back of the van startled the group. Tom looked back at the rest and motioned for them to remain quiet and to get down. They were parked right outside of a major company but they were still technically on private property and they had no idea if the person at the door was an armed guard or not. Tom slowly reached for the handle as Joe quietly said to himself,

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

As soon as Tom wrapped his fingers around the handle, he pushed the door open quickly only to reveal that Shusha was standing there with an unconscious man draped over her shoulder.

“Jesus Shusha, you scared the hell out of us” Tom shouted.

“Bah. You are all just big baby’s. Here is your uniform.”

Shusha then promptly dropped the unconscious man on the floor of the van.

“Uhh… Shusha,” Jessica said, “You were supposed to steal the uniform, not the entire man.”

“What? He give me some trouble, so I punished him.”

“You didn’t hit him too hard did you?”

Shusha just shrugged and replied, “He was weak. He kept crying so I made him stop.”

The group just looked at each other and drug the poor man into a sitting position. Tom worked off the man’s uniform and made sure it wasn’t tarnished by Shusha before slipping it on. Jessica noticed the man had a spare ear piece and decided to use it for herself as she tuned it to their own frequency. As per request, Kaylee knelt in front of the man and commenced to taping the man’s legs together before reaching around his chest and began taping the arms. The man’s eyes then immediately jolted open and looked directly at Kaylee and began screaming. Kaylee responded in turn by screaming, and the two seemed as though they were in a screaming match by screaming at each other’s faces. The man’s face then turned and saw Shusha and his eyes grew wider than Kaylee ever thought possible and the man began to scream even louder. Then he was immediately silenced by Shusha’s fist.

“Make sure you tap his mouth as well,” Shusha informed Kaylee, “his cries are annoying and unmanly.”  

Kaylee made an audible gulp before continuing her taping of the man.

After it was all said and done, Jessica looked at her watch and saw that it was about time to begin their mission.

“Alright guys, we have about 15 minutes before we have to go in, it’s the weekend, and we have nothing to do but kick ass. So, before we start. Does anyone have to use the bathroom?”

The group just bursts out with laughter at the lightness of Jessica’s question. This was a secret OP after all. Not some road trip.

After relaxing Jessica responded, “But seriously though. Once we get started, I doubt there will be time for breaks.”

At that, Tom promptly stepped out of the van to do his business before returning and holding out his hand for Drake and Ricky.

“Uhh… Tom you might want to let me just place them on you since you can’t really wash your hands right now.”

“Oh. Right! Don’t worry fellas, when I get to the bathroom to wash this makeup off of my face I will make sure my hands are cleaned well in case I need to handle you guys further.”

“That would be appreciated,” Drake said.

Ricky however, just remained quiet. His immediate thought was, “Man, I was in a guy’s asshole at one point and this dude is thinking I’d be worried that he didn’t wash his hands?”

For obvious reasons, Ricky chose to not voice those thoughts to the group and remained quiet and thinking about how this night is going to play out.

“Alright ladies and gents. It’s show time,” Jessica stated as she stepped out of the van with her lab attire and began heading to the main entrance.